The Bloodprint

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  “They’re coming.”

  Daniyar canvassed the arches again.

  “We were directed to this tower. The notations on the parchment appeared because we placed the parchment on this stand. Wherever we’re meant to seek the Bloodprint, it’s connected to this tower.”

  “What of the word written on the parchment? Hazarbaf? What does it mean?”

  Alisher answered Arian.

  “It’s a style of ornamentation, the style used to embellish the exterior of the Minar. The word translates as ‘a thousand interweavings.’”

  Daniyar thought of the letters interwoven on the cover of the Candour.

  “Look for another building in this style,” he said. “A tower, a dwelling, anything. It will be simple, brick-colored. Discount anything that’s still covered with faience. You and Alisher search. Wafa, stay with me.”

  A groan shuddered through the tower. Arian and the scribe ignored it, scanning the city, its buildings in sharp relief against the brilliance of the sun. If Arian had wondered why the Authoritan would choose this mud-brown city as his capital instead of the glory that was Marakand, the forty-foot escarpment was her answer.

  Behind the escarpment, a bulwark enclosed the Authoritan himself, the Ark, his unbreachable fortress, its ramparts crowned by bloodied skulls, its gates strewn with mangled bones. A strong stench rose from the direction of the Ark, a construction of bulging towers and pulverized brick, mortared with blood and flesh.

  Beyond it to the west, a forest of overgrown brambles choked off the thoroughfare between the Ark and the outer Wall. Alisher spotted it first. A modest square covered by trees, capped by a wickerwork dome. He pointed to it.

  Heavy boots pounded on the stairs.

  “They’re inside,” Daniyar said to Arian. “You’ll go down first.”

  While they’d been searching the city, he’d knotted the sturdy length of rope from his pack through the base of the marble stand. He peered down at the courtyard.

  “It’s empty, go quickly. You first, then Alisher. I’ll bring Wafa.”

  Arian gathered up the pack, slinging it over her shoulder. She tested the rope.

  “It will hold.” Daniyar raised her chin with his fingers and kissed her hard on the mouth. “I will hold it. Hurry.”

  The press of death was in the room. Arian felt it licking at her skin. Grabbing the rope, she swung herself from the window, rappelling down the side, dust rising where her boots skidded against the tower.

  Then she was down with her sword in hand, waiting for Alisher. She looked around the courtyard for a means of blocking the half-hewn door. She found it in the heavy stones littering the courtyard. With Alisher’s help, she piled the stones into place, waiting for Daniyar.

  The sound of clanging steel echoed from the tower. Low grunts, a thud. And then boots tramping down the stairs. At the sound, Alisher flinched. Stricken, he turned to Arian.

  “I cannot face this fate again. Forgive me, sahabiya, I must flee while I can.”

  “Alisher, I need your help!”

  Men’s voices sounded on the steps.

  The rope went taut. As soon as she looked up, Alisher vanished. She braced herself against the door. Daniyar had Wafa in his arms, one arm fastened about the boy’s neck. There was a cry as they were discovered. More men in the gallery, others on the stairs. A flash of crimson against brick. Arrows rained down the side of the tower. Arian sheltered against the door. An Ahdath grabbed hold of the rope from the top, his long sword in his hand.

  “Bring the axe,” he bellowed, beginning to saw.

  Daniyar’s body bounced against the tower, shielding Wafa from the force of the blow. The rope sagged. He bounced again, arrows flying through the courtyard. The man at the top slashed at the rope. Wafa reached over Daniyar’s back, scooping up the last of the silver knives. Coiling his strength, he launched the knife at the soldier with the sword. It caught him in the neck. As the rope went slack, Daniyar and Wafa slammed into the tower again.

  A soldier with an axe appeared at the top.

  “Jump!” Arian cried.

  Fifteen feet from the ground, they did.

  An arrow winged through Arian’s cloak, striking a circlet and falling away.

  “Use it,” Wafa said, motioning to his throat.

  Arian grabbed his hand. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  They fled across the courtyard, followed by the sound of boots kicking against the door, the barricade giving way.

  “Where’s the scribe?” Daniyar asked, pushing Wafa and Arian through the square.

  Arian shook her head. “It was a question of survival for him.”

  “He would have been better off with us. This way.”

  They found a deserted alley off the square.

  It looked like a blind but as they raced down the lane, they saw openings into smaller, darker warrens. They couldn’t outrun the Ahdath pursuit, so Arian drew them into the shelter of a dwelling. They crouched beneath the window.

  Wafa motioned to his throat. “Will you use it?”

  Arian squeezed his hand. “I’ll try.”

  Ahdath moved past them and doubled back. They began a door-to-door search.

  Daniyar shook his head. “There’s no verse you can recite, when you cannot know the consequences.”

  She knew he was right. Perhaps he feared her power now, just as she distrusted the pleasure she had taken in the Ahdath’s fear before driving them to their death. Somehow her actions had tainted the Claim. It was more comforting to believe this rather than the reverse.

  That the Claim had tainted her.

  She had to purify her intentions.

  She was First Oralist of the Claim.

  She and the Claim were inseparable.

  She gave Daniyar an encouraging smile, taking a deep breath.

  “It is the One who makes the night a garment for you and your sleep a rest.”

  The footsteps in the warren went silent. They heard a series of thuds outside their door.

  Arian recited the verse again.

  Daniyar risked a glance from the window.

  One finger to his lips, he motioned the others from their hiding place. When they made their way to the alley, Ahdath were slumped all around them.

  “Dead?” Wafa asked.

  “Asleep,” Arian said. She could see the rise and fall of the Ahdath’s breastplates. And she thought of the men she had killed since breaching the Wall.

  The power of the Claim was dormant. The harshness she had felt before had softened.

  Had she imagined it?

  No, she hadn’t imagined the dead, the men in the Registan, the men at the Clay Minar, or Turan—lost to her forever.

  As her grief rose up, a ruthlessness stirred within.

  She felt the touch of darkness.

  The Ahdath slept.

  She hummed another verse.

  “Let each new day be a resurrection.”

  They crossed the square, the tower silent. It pulsed with an indefinable energy.

  Frightened, Wafa took Arian’s hand. He placed his other hand in Daniyar’s.

  “Where now?” Daniyar asked her.

  Arian considered her companions. They were battered, bloodied, and bruised. They had yet to take stock of their injuries. But there was no help for it.

  “We must make for the bramble wood.”

  52

  The mausoleum was small beneath a central dome. Brick beading framed its doorways, a dogtooth pattern worked in the spandrels above its porticos. It stood on a distended base, the columns at its corners narrowing at the top, each topped by a small domed finial. Beneath the cornice, rows of miniature arches formed a four-sided arcade. A honeycomb weaving, imprinted with circles, adorned the building’s façade.

  Hazarbaf.

  Brick that breathed in a play of gossamer light.

  There was a staleness in the air, a dim and watery quality to the light that recoiled from the bramble wood. Despite the sun, the day was cool.
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  Arian thought she understood the message on the parchment now. Apart from the Clay Minar, the modestly scaled mausoleum was the one building camouflaged with wickerwork.

  The structure itself was a geometric miracle. Four-sided, four-columned, with four arched doorways, an arcade of arches running along each side, forty in total. Under the architrave, a metal grill served as a door, the grill conspicuous with six-point stars, four across the top, ten down the side, forty in number.

  4:40.

  The mathematical quintessence of the crypt, the building a verse unto itself.

  As they pulled the brambles away, Arian found what she had expected to see.

  A keyhole was buried in the brick.

  “This is the place,” she said, taking the key they had found in the Sorrowsong from Daniyar.

  The key fit the lock, the lajward finding the grooves in the brick. Tumblers fell, scraping the stone. The iron grill swung neither forward nor back. It slid into an insert in the wall.

  A cool wind escaped from the chamber, freshening the deadness of the air.

  Daniyar stepped in front of Arian, shielding her as they entered.

  An ethereal light trickled through the arcade. It illuminated four men in the corners of the chamber. White-haired, white-skinned, their eyes without pigment, each man carried in his hand a white staff inscribed in the High Tongue. On one staff, a word was painted green. It entwined upon itself as an echo.

  Submission or peace.

  The word meant both.

  Or at a more transcendent level, submission as peace.

  The doctrine of the Bloodless, the silent men dressed in white robes, the apocryphal custodians of the Bloodprint.

  In their midst was a tomb sheathed in white marble, the same marble as the stand in the Clay Minar, the Tower of the Claim. Small holes perforated the ends of the tomb, the holes crammed with pieces of parchment.

  Arian offered the key to the man who carried the engraved staff.

  “Peace be with you, Bloodless,” she said. “I have come for the Bloodprint.”

  The four men took up stations around the tomb, barring further transgression.

  The man with the engraved staff mimed a series of gestures. He pointed to himself and held up the stub of a finger. Then he opened his mouth to show her the ragged absence of a tongue. Wafa let out a scream. The Bloodless turned as one, their colorless eyes calm on the boy’s face. He shrank from them, diving behind Daniyar.

  “First Blood.” Arian nodded, though whether it was a name or a title she couldn’t tell. “Will you show me the Bloodprint?”

  He held up his staff in answer.

  Light glanced off the staff, setting its inscription aflame.

  The writing danced on its surface, infinitely reflected, like ripples in a green mirror.

  She heard Daniyar’s swift intake of breath as he came to the same realization.

  How cleverly the Bloodless had laid this trail. The clues to the location of the Bloodprint were reflections of each other. The tomb in Marakand, a mirror of the Dome above it. The Verse of the Throne, a perfect chiastic reflection of itself. The Clay Minar and this small mausoleum, mirrorworks of hazarbaf. The writing on the staff, etched in green.

  Submission. Peace.

  Mirrors of each other.

  Submission to gain peace.

  Peace to achieve submission.

  The clues arranged with astonishing symmetry, astonishing eloquence.

  As if they were meant to come here.

  If she hadn’t been twisted by the Claim in the Registan, or wrenched by its darkness in the courtyard, she would have doubted the simplicity of this moment.

  Was this a thing foreordained?

  Was this the pressure she felt inside her skull? And now, at her throat?

  Daniyar whispered into her ear.

  “Finish it,” he said. “We’ve come this far.”

  And she saw in his face the same misgivings that had seized her thoughts.

  Only the righteous could serve the good.

  Was she still among the righteous?

  Arian shook off her cloak. For a moment, there was silence in the tomb. No one moved. The air was still. Arian’s circlets blazed in the light from the portal.

  The Bloodless gaped at each other. A signal passed between them. It seemed to combine wonder and despair. The First Blood touched a hand to Arian’s circlet.

  Daniyar moved in front of her, gripping the other man’s wrist. His eyes flashed silver in the gloom, his face hard with warning.

  “Look. Don’t touch.”

  The First Blood stepped back.

  He studied the silver eyes, glanced at his companions. Another signal passed between them.

  He pointed to Arian’s tahweez, then to his lips.

  She didn’t understand.

  Was this a rite of some kind? An exchange? Could she only win the Bloodprint if she was willing to relinquish her status as a Companion of Hira?

  The First Blood touched his lips again.

  “No!” Wafa cried. “Don’t do it!”

  Arian stared at the boy. He couldn’t mean—did the First Blood expect her to maim herself, as he was maimed? Was she meant to cut out her tongue?

  Was the Bloodprint so dangerous that those who sought to study it were silenced as a consequence?

  Was this the price demanded for knowledge of the Claim?

  She was an Oralist of the Claim, First Oralist of Hira. She couldn’t possibly—she wouldn’t—

  “Daniyar,” she said, her voice low. “The Bloodprint is won at a cost.”

  And she thought this was something the Black Khan must have known, something he had kept back by design. Perhaps it explained the disappearance of his spy.

  She thought of Rukh’s seductive voice, laced with its undertones of irony.

  Had he sent her to pay the price instead?

  Was this what the Bloodless meant by submission?

  She wasn’t given the chance to find out.

  Daniyar touched his sword to the lips of the First Blood, his eyes black with anger.

  “She’s given too much already. The First Oralist owes you nothing else.”

  The Silver Mage was slow to anger, dispassionate in his judgments, unhurried in his undertakings—but now he’d witnessed enough.

  “We are not thieves,” he said with contempt. “Nor is the First Oralist a beggar. If you cannot recognize the Companion for who she is, you have failed as the Bloodprint’s custodians. When will you ever meet her like?”

  He took Arian by the arm, nodding at Wafa to retreat.

  Arian’s eyes flashed to his. She needed more time with the Bloodless. But Daniyar’s expression persuaded her to follow.

  When they were at the portal, they heard a new sound.

  The Bloodless were striking their staffs against the tomb.

  Daniyar turned.

  A faint tide of pink stained the First Blood’s face. He lowered his gaze. Humbly, he pointed to Arian’s tahweez, then to his lips again.

  He couldn’t speak. And he didn’t move to touch her.

  Daniyar waited.

  The First Blood gestured at the tahweez. He made a tracing movement with the stubs of his fingers. Then he opened his mouth.

  Daniyar shook his head, impatient.

  “They waste our time, time we do not have.”

  The First Blood’s eyes burned into Arian’s.

  His lips mouthed a word.

  Once, twice, three times, beseeching Arian to understand.

  The pressure inside her skull blazed white-hot.

  Could he have said—

  Had he said—

  “Iqra?”

  She spoke the word aloud.

  As soon as she said it, the tension inside her skull vanished.

  Iqra bismi rabbi kalladhi khalaq.

  “Read.”

  Read in the name of the One who created all there is in existence.

  Arian felt her knees give way.
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br />   Daniyar caught her and held her fast.

  This was a thing foreordained.

  “What is it?” he asked her. “What does he want you to read?”

  Arian pressed one of her circlets.

  “The tahweez,” she said. “They are the key to the tomb.”

  The First Blood nodded, something akin to relief on his face. He bowed at Arian this time, his fingers slipping on his staff.

  Their eyes met and held.

  First Oralist.

  First Blood.

  An unparalleled communication.

  Arian recited the words engraved on the circlets, her voice pitched low and sweet.

  The Claim split open inside her mind.

  And in the mausoleum, a hollow sound rose within the tomb.

  The Bloodless waited at the foot of the tomb.

  A light came into the First Blood’s eyes. He responded to Arian’s words with a sigh, lowering his staff as if relinquishing a burden. He gestured at the tomb. He waved to her, sniffing at the air. Arian mimicked him. The air above the tomb was cool and odorless, signifying the absence of a crypt. But if this was the hiding place of the Bloodprint, the tomb was sealed, and she didn’t see a way to open it.

  “Help me,” she said to the First Blood.

  He waited without moving, his bleached eyes imploring her.

  Again, she felt that stroke of warning.

  The pressure inside her skull returned.

  “Arian.” Daniyar pointed to the holes that stippled the tomb. He extracted a scroll from one of the notches. “It’s a prayer,” he told her. He read several of the others. They were all the same. Prayers for deliverance from the Authoritan.

  She sensed the First Blood was suddenly alert.

  Prayer, she thought. The green mirror. The clue within the clue.

  She withdrew the Verse of the Throne from Daniyar’s pack. There was an empty notch at the head of the tomb. With careful precision, she rolled up the parchment and inserted it into the groove.

  The Bloodless joined hands, interlocking the stumps of their fingers. The sight of their hands jolted Arian.

  These men could recite the Bloodprint from memory; it was why the Authoritan had severed their tongues. He’d taken their fingers to thwart a secondary record, just as he’d burned the kaghez market, hanging scribes and calligraphers in the Registan.