Throne of the Crescent Moon

by Saladin Ahmed

  Adoulla had nearly forgotten Baheem’s giving him that last bit of interesting and troubling news. But he only half-analyzed it now as he was overcome with thankfulness. Whatever else was wrong in the world, God had seen fit to keep this woman in Adoulla’s life, worrying over him. This funny, strong, bedchamber-skilled woman who loved him. Manjackals and ghuls could not change that fact.

  Still, this news increased Adoulla’s sense that Pharaad Az Hammaz might make a useful ally. “Can you put me in touch with him, Miri? It may help me put an end to these murders.”

  She squinted in thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Perhaps…perhaps I could. But I’m sorry, Doullie, I won’t. That would require my making more contact with his people, and after he killed this last headsman.…No, it’s just too dangerous. The man has lots of right-sounding ideas,” Miri continued, “and I must admit, he is remarkably handsome. I’d wager you didn’t know that I once saw those calves very close up. Did you know? Never you mind where or when.”

  She was trying to make Adoulla jealous. To upset him. It was working. He felt—not in a pleasant way—that he was a boy of five and ten again.

  “But despite these things,” she went on, “he is, beneath all his pretty words, talking about civil war. Wars are bad for business. And a war inside the gates of the city? Almighty God forbid it. Do you know what happens to whores in a war, Doullie? Of course you do. I’ve got arson and rape on the one hand and a clinking coin purse on the other, Doullie. For me and mine, it’s an easy choice. I’ve got a house full of innocent girls to protect here.”

  Adoulla smiled despite his frustration. “Innocent? A funny word, all things considered.”

  Miri did not smile back. “Yes, you damned-by-God oaf. Innocent. My new girl Khareese fled her father not three weeks ago. What does she know of war?”

  Adoulla sighed. “Well, Pretty Eyes, I know well enough that you won’t be budged when you won’t be budged. But at least tell me what your Ears have heard of these murders.”

  Miri shrugged. “Not much. The watchmen marked it up to street folk killing street folk. The family did their alms-seeking outside of Yehyeh’s teahouse, and they were found dead there, along with old Yehyeh himself. They—”

  “What? Yehyeh? When did…? Who…?” Words failed him and his stomach sank as he watched Miri’s eyes widen.

  She took his hands in hers. “Oh. Oh, Name of God, Doullie, I’m so sorry. I’d forgotten what friends the two of you were.”

  Adoulla felt a sob begin to rise within him. He smothered it, and something within him went cold. “Yehyeh…Minstering Angels…Yehyeh.” He spoke absently. “Oh, Miri, don’t you see? Things can’t stay safe forever, no matter who rules. You with your Hundred Ears know that better than most.”

  She sighed and nodded. “I know. But maybe they can be bearable for another few years. That’s all I dare ask of God.”

  He ran his hand through his beard. “And then what, my sweet?”

  “Then I’ll climb warm and sleepy into my grave, God willing.”

  She rose and kissed his forehead. Then she went in search of the scroll she had mentioned, leaving Adoulla alone with birdsong, the scent of pear trees, and thoughts of his dead friend.

  Dead. May God shelter your soul, you cross-eyed old rascal. He recalled Yehyeh’s words of a few days ago—before Faisal, before the giant ghul, before Zamia, before Mouw Awa. Before he was killed. “May All-Merciful God put old men like us quietly in our graves.”

  The teahouse owner had no family that Adoulla knew of. Likely the watchmen had already tossed his body in the charnel commons. Adoulla thought about going to his own grave alone. And then he thought, as he had not allowed himself to while Miri was before him, of the words Axeface had said just an hour ago. Her new man.

  When she returned a few minutes later, handing him a scroll-case, he found he couldn’t quite keep his thoughts to himself. “So what’s this I hear about Handsome Mahnsoor spending his time around here? Everyone on the street knows the fool is too cheap to be an honest customer to you.”

  She stared at him then, and her face took on the angriest look Adoulla had ever seen her wear. “May God damn you, Doullie,” she said in a near whisper. “May God damn you for daring to be jealous.” Something cruel grew in her eyes. “Do you want to know the truth? Do you? Well, I will tell you. Yes, Mahnsoor has been spending his time with me, Praise be to God. And, praise be to God, last night he asked me to marry him.”

  Last night. When I was busy learning about a living-dead killer and his master.

  “And what did you say?” Adoulla heard some man somewhere ask with a weak voice like his.

  “That is none of your damned-by-God business. Unless you are prepared to compete for my hand?”

  Adoulla felt the familiar pain of having no good answers for the person on God’s great earth he cared most about. “Oh, Pretty Eyes. I know you don’t want to hear this, but there are…ways other than a formal marriage before God. We could live—”

  “Lake of Flame! Do you think, because of what I do for a living, that I am completely bereft of virtue?” Miri’s eyes tightened. “Well, I’m not. And what is a woman’s greatest chance at showing her virtue? In marriage.”

  “I know that you possess a thousand virtues, Miri.” Adoulla meant every word. But Miri just threw up her hennaed hands in exasperation.

  “Oh, no. No more of that damned-by-God sugar talk. It’s been many years since I could keep myself warm at night remembering your words while you were nowhere to be found. My niece is dead, Doullie. It is a reminder from Almighty God. I’ve got a good twenty years left in this world if God wills it. Thousands of days, thousands of nights. I’m not going to spend them all alone. I’m not.”

  She fell silent, gazing up into the tree branches. When he looked at the line of her broad neck, the sand-brown skin smooth despite her near fifty years, he felt like he would weep.

  Adoulla kneaded the flesh of his forehead with his knuckles, trying to somehow rouse the right words. He kept picturing Yehyeh, who had always said that marriage was a fool’s move. Dead. Yehyeh was dead. Perhaps Miri was right. Perhaps there was some message from God to be found in these murders. About priorities. About what was left of his own life.

  Adoulla stared at his hands. If he and his friends found this Orshado—this ghul of ghuls—and defeated him, then what? Would God’s great earth be purged of all danger? Would the Traitorous Angel’s servants all just go away? No. When would Adoulla’s work be done? He’d asked himself the question many times, but today he faced the honest answer for perhaps the first time in forty years. His work would end only when he was dead. Or when he ended it.

  He swallowed hard and looked up from his hands. “Miri.”

  “Yes?” she said, her voice flat.

  “This is it, my sweet. I…I cannot let a man who has murdered my friend—and your niece—stalk this city any longer. But if I live through this.…That’s it for me, then. I’m done. Men can find someone else to save them from the ghuls.”

  Miri rolled her eyes, the hardness he knew so well returning to her voice. “Do you want me to do a little dance? I mean, I’ve only heard that ten times before, Doullie! Don’t you think I know by now that such declarations are just words on the air? They’ll be blown away by the first strong breeze that comes along.”

  Adoulla swallowed again and took hold of Miri’s shoulders, giving her the most level look he could. “Not this time.” He found himself speaking formal words that he’d never said, not in thirty years of half-meant promises. “I swear this to you, O Miri Almoussa. In the name of God the All-Hearing, who Witnesses all Oaths. In the name of God the Most Honest, who loves truth and not lies. I swear to you that when this is done I will return here and, if my fate is so kind that you haven’t yet married this money-grubbing fop, I swear in the name of God the Great Father that I will touch my forehead to the ground before you and beg you to marry me.”

  He knew that she understood what su
ch an oath meant to him, but Adoulla also knew that Miri lived in a world of oath-shatterers. He expected more scornful skepticism. But Miri Almoussa just stood there, eyes shining, lip trembling, looking as lovely as the day Adoulla had met her.

  And she said not a word.

  Hours later, he found himself walking wearily back into Dawoud and Litaz’s greeting room. The Soo couple sat on a divan speaking quietly. Raseed sat cross-legged on the floor, engaging in one of his breathing exercises, but the pallet where Zamia had been recuperating was empty. A good sign.

  His friends looked up as he entered.

  “What news?” Dawoud asked. “Did the boy have anything new to tell?”

  “The boy?” Adoulla asked, confused for a moment. “Oh, him. Little Faisal. He was not there, as it happens. But,” he said, brandishing the scroll Miri had given him, “Miri Almoussa gave me this, which may hold some answers for us. What of you, brother of mine? How went your meeting with Roun Hedaad?”

  Litaz answered for her husband. “Dawoud managed not to get himself killed by the Defender of Virtue himself. And to give a vague warning, but that is about all. But tell us, how is Miri?”

  Adoulla frowned, sensing the subtle edge beneath the alkhemist’s words. “Please, my dear, none of your snobbish scorn for the whoremistress, eh? Of all days, not today.”

  Dawoud snorted. “You forget that my beloved wife is, even after decades in Dhamsawaat, a slightly prudish Blue River girl at heart.”

  Litaz’s eyes filled with half-serious lividity. “Prudish?! You of all people, husband, know that—”

  “He said slightly prudish,” Adoulla pointed out with a smile, feeling buoyed a bit by the presence of his bantering friends.

  Litaz rolled her eyes. “You know it has nothing to do with that, my friend. We just want better for you. It’s all we’ve ever wanted. I have no problem with…with what Miri is, but she won’t let you be what you are! So I’ve been squawking this tune for near twenty years, so what? It’s as true today as it was a dozen years ago: There are women—younger women, pretty women—who would be able to live realistically with the white kaftan you wear.”

  Adoulla plopped down onto a brocaded stool and let out a loud sigh. “Even if that were true, my dear, it wouldn’t matter.” For a long while the room was silent, save for the soft sounds of Raseed’s inhalations and exhalations. Then Adoulla heard himself say, “She is going to marry another. At least, another man has asked for her hand. A younger man.”

  Dawoud gave him a look of loving sympathy. Litaz stood, walked over, and took his big hands in her tiny ones. She squeezed, smiled sadly, said nothing.

  Raseed, finally looking up from his exercises, spoke confusedly. “Doctor, I don’t understand—”

  “You and your understanding can go down to the Lake of Flame, boy! Now shut up—we’ve more important things to discuss! Where is the tribeswoman, anyway? Off stalking the city for gazelles?”

  “I’m here, Doctor,” Zamia said, emerging from the back of the house where she’d no doubt been making water. Adoulla noted that she walked more or less steadily on her feet and that much of the weakness he’d seen in her only last night was gone. “Did you learn anything that will help me avenge my band?”

  To his surprise, Adoulla found that he could not speak of Yehyeh’s murder. It was foolish, he knew—these were his closest friends in the world, and allies who needed all of the information they could get. But Adoulla thought of Litaz trying to find drops of Yehyeh’s blood or some such, or trying to analyze the angle at which his heart had been ripped out. And he felt that his own soul would somehow snap if he did not keep this one bit of grimness to himself for now. So, as his friends and allies listened, Adoulla instead recounted what little else Miri had known, and told them about the thrice-ciphered, hidden script scroll that spoke of the Cobra Throne. “Though All-Merciful God alone knows how we’re going to unravel these cipher-spells. The costs and the expertise involved…” he trailed off, exhausted and daunted by just about everything in his life.

  Litaz shot a worried look in her husband’s direction. “Actually, I do know of one man who might have the skill and inclination to help us with this. And he would do it quickly if I asked.”

  Dawoud’s expression was perplexed, then bitter. “Him. Well, I have no doubt that that one will be all too ready to help. He will be falling all over himself to give you what you need. At a price.”

  Adoulla smiled. “Yaseer the spell-seller. Of course. It seems, then, that I am not the only one fated by God to get help from an old heart’s-flame.”

  Litaz sighed. “He will gouge us but will do so less severely than others would. And he’ll do honest and discreet work. If I send a messenger now, I should be able to see him by tomorrow.”

  “By all means, send a messenger. And you should take the boy with you tomorrow.”

  Both Litaz and Raseed started to speak, but Adoulla cut them both off. “I know, I know. You can take care of yourself,” he said, gesturing with one hand toward Litaz. “And your place is protecting me, or Zamia, or whomever you’ve decided duty dictates today,” he continued, gesturing with his other hand toward Raseed. “But between Dawoud and Zamia and myself we can, Almighty God willing, handle any threat that might strike here. You’ll be carrying a great deal of coin, Litaz—and even aside from that, the more I think on it, the less comfortable I am with any of us being alone out there. Indulge me, eh?”

  With that Adoulla walked off and made water before dragging himself to the makeshift bed his friends had set for him. He was exhausted, but he could not stop thinking about Yehyeh. And about Miri. The choice she had made. The oath Adoulla himself had made. Miri’s words, thousands of days, thousands of nights, echoed in his head, as did Yehyeh’s words about old men and graves.

  Sleep was a long time in coming.

  Chapter 14

  THERE WAS A CLEAN TANG to the late morning air, and Raseed bas Raseed breathed it in deeply as he made his way toward the North Inner Gate. Litaz Daughter-of-Likami walked a half step in front of him, dressed more richly than Raseed had ever seen. Her long dress was embroidered with amethyst gemthread. She wore rings of gold and coral in her twistlocks, and a jewel-pommeled dagger sheathed in dyed kidskin on her belt. Is she expecting a fight? Raseed resolved to be even more watchful than usual.

  The inn where they were meeting Litaz’s contact was in the Round City, the innermost part of Dhamsawaat. A sixty-foot wall of massive, sun-dried bricks surrounded the Round City, with great gates of iron in its northern and southern sections. The pair joined a line of people making their way through the North Inner Gate and, in a short time, reached the gate itself. As they walked through, Litaz smiled and nodded at one of the watchmen on duty. The man eyed Raseed’s habit and sword but said nothing.

  As soon as they passed through the gate they turned from the huge gray paving stones of the Mainway. Litaz led the way confidently and Raseed followed. They rounded a corner and stepped onto Goldsmith’s Row, a paved lane that was narrower than the Mainway but still quite broad. Leaving behind the press of pedestrians and shouting porters already building up, the pair joined a traffic flow that was decidedly quieter and less crowded.

  Litaz bit her lower lip and mumbled to herself, obviously deep in thought. So Raseed remained silent and took in his surroundings. He had been in Dhamsawaat for nearly two years now, but he’d never been down Goldsmith’s Row. He looked about with interest.

  Tidy storefronts and splendid houses lined the street here, the crude, open, stone windows of the Scholars’ Quarter replaced by fine sandalwood screens and, in the more opulent shops, leaded glass. Though one could walk here from the Scholars’ Quarter in less than an hour, the two neighborhoods were a world apart.

  Here were the homes and shops of Abassen’s wealthiest merchants and most distinguished craftsmen—elite importers and perfumers, gemcutters and jewelers, bookbinders and glassblowers. Here also, in decadently furnished mansions, lived the courtiers and viziers
and their families—those who did not live at the palace itself. Raseed marveled at how few people there were, and what little noise they made.

  No doubt many of them were home preparing meals for the Feast of Providence, which was this evening. But there was more to it than that, Raseed thought. This was the sort of place where one could be alone with one’s meditations. The streets of the Scholars’ Quarter were never this quiet, or this empty, or this clean. Raseed envied the residents the solemnity of their surroundings. No great stinking puddles. No loud donkey-whipping. No hashi smoke drifting in the window. No muttering madmen. Would that I had a place like this to meditate and train. He tried to smother this unacceptable covetousness. O Believer! Worship God wherever fate finds thee—whether prison, prairie, or Prayersday table, the Heavenly Chapters say.

  His service with the Doctor did not bring him into contact with the overfed inhabitants of the Round City. It was probably just as well. The denizens of the Doctor’s home quarter disgusted Raseed with their degeneracy and lewdness. But while the hashi-smokers and whores of the Scholars’ Quarter were foul, the men and women here were perhaps even more foul. Here was wealth, as much wealth as anywhere in the Crescent Moon Kingdoms. Here was every opportunity for virtue and learning, with none of the dire incitements to vice that poverty brought. But the Doctor claimed that the people of Goldsmith’s Row ignored such opportunity, using their incalculable riches only to devise new and more luxuriant vices.

  Partner, he had called Raseed the other night. But Raseed was unworthy. He’d said nothing to the Doctor or the others about his encounter with Pharaad Az Hammaz. About taking the stolen goods the thief had given him. He hadn’t gone so far as to utter a falsehood—when he’d returned to the Soo couple’s shop and Litaz had asked after his dusty silks and disheveled appearance, he’d put off her questions, and she hadn’t pressed him. The wrongness of it burned his soul, like a foretaste of the Lake of Flame.