When Jackals Storm the Walls

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  Willem shook his head violently.

  “Then tell me what’s happened.”

  But Willem couldn’t. He hardly understood the story himself.

  “Come on, Davud,” Esmeray said, tugging on his sleeve. “It’s time to go.”

  Please don’t go! Willem needed them to tell their tale. That’s the only way he could justify what he’d done. Fail in this and he’d . . . He wasn’t sure what. He didn’t want to consider it.

  He held his hands up, forestalling Davud and Esmeray, and sprinted into the stacks, searching for one particular book. He remembered where he’d left it but couldn’t find it. Nebahat must have taken it.

  He checked all the tables, searching frantically.

  “Davud, come on. He could return at any moment.”

  “Wait,” Davud said softly, and remained where he was, calmly watching Willem.

  A copy, Willem realized. A copy of the same tale. He ran up the spiral stairs to another shelf. And found it, a thick tome written a hundred years before. He brought it down, set it on the table closest to Davud and Esmeray, then opened it up to the story he needed.

  Davud came closer. He read. Esmeray, her curiosity overriding her fear, stepped beside him and did the same.

  It was the tale of a mariner who’d been imprisoned by an evil king in an oubliette for a hundred days and a hundred nights. He’d been freed, not by the king but by the king’s daughter, who’d spent those many days telling him tales of her homeland. Never once had the mariner responded in kind, though she’d asked him many times to do so. The princess thought the mariner would simply leave, but before he did, he told her of his voyage, how he’d been looking for a fabled flower that could heal his dying wife. Quickly, before the king returned from his journey to the hinterlands, the princess spirited him to his ship, but not before giving him one of the fabled flowers.

  Davud looked up from the tale. He stared at Willem, his eyes both gentle and kind. He understood what Willem needed from him. “I came here,” he began, “because a student named Altan went missing. He’s the cousin of a friend of mine, Tariq.”

  He went on, telling Willem more, how he’d gone to Tariq in the first place so that he could find Undosu, the man he hoped could negotiate a truce with the Enclave so that he and Esmeray and his friend, Anila, could find peace. He detailed his time at the collegia as he searched for Altan, finding the clues Willem had left him, finding Nebahat’s archives through the link between the two pendants.

  It was enough, Willem realized. It was enough that he could justify freeing them. But there was one last thing he needed to do.

  He rummaged through Nebahat’s things. He found it a moment later: a tiny brass compass. He took it and set it on the open pages of the book so that the needle pointed to the fabled flower the mariner had been searching for. He stepped back quickly as Davud stared down at the yellowed page, the faded ink.

  “Undosu?” he said, picking up the compass. “This will lead me to Undosu?”

  Willem averted his gaze, made himself as small as he could. It was simply too close to disobeying Nebahat to do anything else.

  But please, please, please let him understand.

  “Thank you,” Davud said with a contented nod.

  And then he and Esmeray were leaving. Their forms were soon swallowed by the darkness of the tunnel. Not their light, though. Willem saw that for a long while, twinkling, glimmering, until they were lost around a bend.

  Only then did Willem allow himself to smile.

  When Nebahat returned later that day, his anger was beyond measure. He’d been attacked not once, but twice. And he blamed Davud and Esmeray and especially the scarred man—the Tattered Prince, Nebahat called him.

  Willem didn’t disabuse him of any of these notions. It would only make him angry if he learned of Willem’s involvement, and what would be the good in that?

  Part of him wished he’d told Davud about the tablet, the verse he’d found, the plan of the gods. But the more time passed, the more fanciful it seemed. Surely the woman who’d written it in the clay had merely been voicing her fears, fears she’d stoked and stoked until they’d felt like a raging inferno. From the distance of time, Willem could see it for what it really was, a fragile tale that would shatter when the least amount of scrutiny was applied to it.

  Like an ancient clay tablet, Willem mused.

  No, better that he told no one.

  Chapter 34

  ÇEDA SAILED EAST on the Red Bride with Sümeya, Kameyl, Jenise, and their goddess, Nalamae reawakened. The four Kings and their crew had claimed the lone, sandworthy galleon after the battle with Goezhen, and were sailing in the Red Bride’s wake. At Çeda’s insistence, the galleon maintained a steady, half-league gap. She still didn’t entirely trust them, particularly Cahil, but she’d admitted to herself if no one else that she believed Ihsan had told her the truth: that he had found a way for them to survive the coming conflict with the gods. Part of her wished she didn’t believe him, but wants and wishes were like grains of sand, her mother used to say. Let them pile around you overlong and one day they’ll bury you. It was simply too dangerous to ignore Ihsan’s warnings.

  As the days passed, Çeda grew terrified of Goezhen’s return. Her every spare moment was spent scanning the horizon for signs of his approach, but eventually, when no sign of him appeared, she began to have hope that they’d escaped his wrath.

  “Why would he follow?” Kameyl had reasoned. “He tried to attack the goddess once and nearly paid for it with his life.”

  Çeda shrugged. “He might be licking his wounds.”

  “Perhaps, but he also knows Nalamae’s power has returned. He’ll think twice about coming for us now.”

  Çeda wasn’t so sure. He’d dared to attack them once; he might try again.

  On their fourth day of sailing, Sümeya was sweeping her spyglass across the horizon. She paused as she came across the Kings’ ship behind them. “Ihsan’s asking to speak again.”

  Squinting, Çeda put her hand to her forehead, shielding the sun. Barely visible on the galleon’s foremast was a white pennant flapping like the tail of a Mirean kite, a request for parley. It had been raised and lowered a half-dozen times, which made it clear just how keenly Ihsan wished to speak with them. Çeda had been too angry in days past to suffer the Kings’ presence beside their fire, but the closer they came to the valley, the more important it was that they talk—she had to find out what Ihsan knew.

  “Signal him back,” Çeda said. “Tell him to come after we’ve made camp. Alone.”

  They stopped shortly after sunset. Jenise and Kameyl tended to the ship while Çeda built a fire and Sümeya set carpets around it. Nalamae, meanwhile, prepared plates of spiced flatbread, pickled vegetables, a cool, lemon-yogurt sauce, and smoked meat slathered in a spicy red paste, then set them, along with small cups and an ewer of water, onto the four carpets that had been laid out around the fire.

  They were just getting ready to sit and eat when Ihsan appeared from the darkness holding a bottle of araq. He lifted it with an ingratiating smile. “I do not come empty-handed.”

  Kameyl, rolling her eyes, picked up her plate and walked away without saying a word.

  Jenise headed up to the deck, leaving her food where it lay. “I’ll take first watch.”

  Sümeya, being her usual, infuriatingly pragmatic self, sat down, motioned for Ihsan to join her, then did the same with Nalamae and Çeda.

  Çeda sat across the fire from Sümeya so that Ihsan wouldn’t be sitting near the goddess. Nalamae sat next, bearing her staff, which she set on the carpet beside her. Only then did Ihsan sit cross-legged on the patterned red carpet that had been laid out for him.

  “May we one day meet under fairer skies,” he said, and set the bottle of araq near Çeda.

  Çeda drank from her cup of water, ignoring the araq. “Say whatever
it is you wish to say.”

  Ihsan was content to take his time, however. He laid two strips of meat into the warm flatbread and dolloped the vegetables and yogurt on top. He took a large bite, savoring as he chewed. “It’s good,” he said to no one in particular.

  “It’s a family recipe,” Nalamae replied.

  Her words summoned a strange mood over the gathering. They were a reminder that a woman still lived within the body Nalamae now called her own, a woman with a family, a history in Sharakhai.

  “Well,” Ihsan said between bites, “I’ve never tasted finer.”

  He finished his water and lifted the bottle of araq. Pulling the stopper, he offered some to Sümeya. Sümeya glanced at Çeda, then downed her water and held out the cup. The bottle gurgled as Ihsan poured her a helping—in the firelight a stream of molten brass. Nalamae, shrugging, held her cup out as well. After filling it, Ihsan offered it to Çeda.

  Çeda, closing her eyes and breathing out slowly, followed suit. “Just hurry up about it, will you?”

  Ihsan poured, and the four of them lifted their glasses. Çeda took a swig. She didn’t want it to be good, but gods, it was. Plum and tangerine with a hint of burning leaves. In fact, it was so good she downed the lot just so she wouldn’t have to appreciate something Ihsan had brought as a gift.

  “Tell us about the journals,” Sümeya said.

  “Yes, the journals.” He swung his gaze across the fire to Nalamae. “If you’ll permit me one small diversion first. I wonder, can you still call upon your power as you did with Goezhen?”

  Nalamae seemed suddenly wary. “Why do you ask?”

  “I’ll take that as a no. And your prior lives. Have your memories of them returned?”

  Nalamae glanced at Çeda and Sümeya before speaking, as if she didn’t wish to disappoint them. “No.”

  “Do you currently feel any pull, a desire to go in a certain direction? Or have you felt such over the past few days?”

  “No.”

  “Ihsan—” Çeda began.

  But Ihsan cut her off with a raised hand. “Does the desert feel any different to you?”

  At this Nalamae lifted her head and looked beyond the fire, which cast a strange, flickering light across her face. “Yes.”

  “Describe it.”

  “I feel . . .” She paused, searching for the right words. “I feel like I’m standing at the edge of a sea. That it will consume me the moment I step into it.”

  Ihsan nodded as if he’d expected it. “Some of the visions spoke of a goddess reluctant to take up her mantle. I would urge you, as difficult as it may be, to take that step. To let the sea swallow you.”

  “Why?” Nalamae asked, fearful. “What do you know?”

  “I suspect that what happened at the harbor was but the first step of many. You must find your way, and you can only do that by embracing it and forgetting your former life. Do that, and I think you’ll be able to hide yourself from Goezhen and the others.” He meant that Nalamae should forget ever being the woman named Varal. “As for the visions,” he went on, oblivious to the tears forming in her eyes, “I urge caution. Yusam saw many futures, and we don’t yet know which will come to pass, but let me describe—”

  He paused as Nalamae’s emotions finally registered, then he fumbled like a child at a dinner party. “Forgive me. I know this must be hard.”

  Çeda squeezed Nalamae’s hand.

  Nalamae squeezed back while blinking away her tears. “Go on,” she said to Ihsan.

  Ihsan nodded. “Let me describe the visions I think are surest. We know the gods planned for Beht Ihman. We know they manipulated many in Sharakhai and the desert to ensure that the Kings felt hopeless in the face of the desert tribes who stood against us. We know they wanted something when they agreed to save us and sacrificed the thirteenth tribe.”

  “You sacrificed us,” Çeda said.

  The fire snapped as Ihsan chose his next words. “I don’t deny it. The question now is: what did the creation of the asirim accomplish? Why did the gods insist that tributes be fed to the adichara? Why have their roots in turn been feeding a crystal beneath Sharakhai for the past four hundred years? A number of futures show Sharakhai destroyed, laid to waste. In some, the gods are present. In others, the city is nothing but a barren wasteland. In still more, Sharakhai is intact, but empty. A city of ghosts.”

  “If the gods wanted Sharakhai destroyed,” Sümeya said, “why wouldn’t they just destroy it?”

  “Why indeed?” Ihsan replied. “There are two events that Yusam’s visions foretell. Both will have great impact on the future.” He turned to Nalamae. “In one, you again battle Goezhen. Whether or not you kill him will have a direct bearing on Sharakhai’s fate.”

  “Tell me what Yusam saw,” Nalamae said.

  “I urge caution,” Ihsan replied. “Often, the visions cannot be taken literally.”

  “I know.” She said it with ease, as if intimately familiar with such visions.

  Ihsan nodded. “You fight Goezhen. Some of Yusam’s visions show it happening on the slopes of Tauriyat. Others in the tunnels beneath the city. Others still in the blooming fields. The question isn’t whether you fight him, it’s why. What might that battle lead to? What happens if you win, and conversely, what happens if you fail?”

  “You’ve no thoughts on this?” Nalamae asked.

  “I have some, but let me touch on Çeda’s vision next. In Yusam’s account, the lives of two who are close to you are threatened. You can choose one and only one to save.”

  A chill crawled down Çeda’s back. She knew immediately Ihsan was referring to Emre and Macide—she’d seen both of them in Yusam’s mere. Even so, she still asked, “Who?”

  “Yusam wrote that one was a man with the bearing of a shaikh. The other had a scarab on his chest. The first vision originally came to him over a century ago, but a recent note identified one of the men as Macide. Likely seeing him in the flesh reminded him of the vision. The scarab, as described in the entry, matches Emre’s description, which adds weight to Yusam’s memories regarding the first.”

  The chill on Çeda’s skin sunk deeper, to the point that she hugged herself and rubbed her arms. “And what threatens them?”

  “It’s unclear. You’re standing at a fork in a road. Along one path, Macide lies dead with a bloody sigil on his chest while Emre kneels beside him holding the bloom of an adichara. Sharakhai looms in the distance, and a strange light is moving outward from Tauriyat, slowly consuming the city. The entry mentions words being spoken.”

  “What words?” Çeda asked. “Who’s speaking them?”

  “Yusam never said, but it was clear the words were powerful. They may have been a eulogy. Maybe Emre’s. Maybe yours.”

  Çeda’s dread deepened. “And along the other path?”

  “Along the other, Emre is dead, strangled by the arms of a desiccated adichara. Macide is hacking at the branches. While he does, the healthy trees around Emre shrivel and the vision goes dark.”

  Çeda recalled her own visions, one of Macide hanging from a gibbet, a sigil drawn on his chest, the other of Emre staring into a bright light. They were not the same as the visions Ihsan had described, but that wasn’t the important thing. The very fact that she’d seen anything remotely similar only added to the weight of their underlying message: that the two men were in grave danger.

  “The acacia in the valley,” Nalamae said softly, “may shed light on the two forks.” Staring into the fire, all worry and doubt, she seemed more mortal than goddess.

  “It might,” Ihsan said, “and I agree that we should go, but we shouldn’t tarry there. Remain in the valley too long and we may miss the crucial events that are sure to pass in Sharakhai. Malasan and Mirea are readying another assault on the city. What’s worse, the crystal sits beneath the House of Kings, slowly growing in power.”


  Sümeya frowned. “With the asirim gone and Sukru dead, there will be no more tributes. The trees are no longer being fed.”

  The firelight intensified the sad, worrisome look on Ishan’s face. “While we were in Sharakhai, Zeheb listened to the whispers. He picked up on a thread that spoke of people going missing. One of the whispers came from Tauriyat, and it spoke of how tributes were still being sent, arranged for by the Enclave.”

  “The Enclave . . .” Sümeya said. “Queen Meryam’s had contact with them for years.”

  “Just so. No doubt Meryam is involved. The bigger question is why she would be, but I think we all know the answer to that. She is being manipulated, as the Kings were for centuries, by the desert gods.”

  Somewhere in the distance came a hissing sound, likely a sand drake emerging from its burrow to hunt for insects in the night. Further out, a song rose up from the crew of the royal galleon.

  Nalamae had grown introspective. She was staring at the gemstones worked into the head of her staff while twisting it gently. “How jealous Goezhen felt,” she said absently.

  “Jealous?” Çeda asked.

  “Of us.” She grew suddenly self conscious. “Of you. Of mortals.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know, but there was a fear in him as well, a desperate desire to see his plans succeed.” Suddenly Nalamae’s back went straight.

  Sümeya, Çeda, and Ihsan all shared a look.

  “What is it?” Çeda asked.

  “There was a yearning in him.” Her voice was practically a whisper. “I felt his memories of touching the elder gods. That’s what he and the others want.” She looked at them all in turn. “They wish to pass beyond the veil. They want to reach the farther fields.”

  “But how?”

  “Using the crystal, the power its built up for centuries using the blood of man.”

  “That makes no sense,” Sümeya said. “Why couldn’t they have built the crystal themselves?”