The dreamshifter turned her face and peered directly at him through the thornbush tangle of her pale locked hair. She stared at him, golden eyes hot on his face even across the distance, weighing and measuring him as if he was a fish she might bring home from the market.
The mouthful of food he had just chewed stuck in his throat. He took a long swallow of beer, but sputtered and choked as it went down the wrong way.
Hafsa Azeina smiled slightly and turned to her odd young apprentice, Daru, who was tugging at her hem. Ismai stared down at his tunic in dismay, wondering which was more foolish—spitting beer down his front under the eyes of the sorceress, or falling in love with her daughter.
Sulema laughed. Ismai looked up just in time to see her kiss the flame-haired stranger on his cheek. They were holding hands. She had found her hayatani, then. She had chosen a man to be her first lover. Ismai stood to leave, swallowed the last bitter dregs of beer, tore off his best tunic—ruined now—and threw it on the ground, beside the remains of his meal.
Four Ja’Sajani stepped into the arena, brought the shofarot to their lips, and blew, signaling that the game was over.
A stinging slap of wind filled his eyes with sand and tears. Ismai turned and ran from the arena, too full of fish and noise and bright things he could not have for his own. His shoulder scraped against rock and he stumbled, then tripped over his stiff new sandals and fell headlong into the hard-packed sand. He slid a short way, leaving a considerable bit of face behind, and when he came to a stop he simply lay there, childish tears dripping down his skinned nose and turning the dirt to reddish mud. His knees hurt, the palms of his hands stung, and his face burned, but none of that could eclipse the agony of his heart.
Something in the tunnel growled, a low rumbling song that turned his innards to water and chased away all thought of pain. The scrape of claw on stone, the hush of hot air as a greater predator passed. He held his breath, straining to listen around the drumming of blood in his ears, every muscle strung tight as he tried to blend into the ground. The older tunnels were known to be haunted by all manner of kith and kin, and though the Ja’Sajani cleared them out as best they could before Hajra-Khai, they had been known to miss a beast or two.
There it was again—a low grunt, a heavy breath, a heavy mind pressing against his, hungry and sharp and bright as a new-forged sunblade. One of the greater predators, then, and a boy like him would be not much more than a snack before the midsun meal. Ismai supposed he would taste of fish and beer.
He wondered whether Sulema would notice his absence.
Hello.
He froze from the inside out. The sounds and smells of Hajra-Khai faded until there was nothing left but him, the gritty dirt of the tunnel floor, and an amused presence in his mind. He lifted his head, slowly, and watched open-mouthed as the shadows danced themselves into a recognizable shape. She was smoke and bronze mirrors, midnight moons and found gold. Her eyes were the bright blue-green of gemstones in the river, and her short tusks flashed ivory in an open-mouthed grin.
I said hello. He had not imagined it. She was laughing at him.
Ismai drew himself up into a crouch, and then sat heavily back on his haunches. His mind groped for hers, and it was every bit as awkward as the first kiss he had shared with Kalani, a month past when they had both drunk too much jiinberry wine.
Much as Kalani had, she reached out and showed him what to do.
Like this.
It was beautiful. She was beautiful. She was…
Ruh’ayya. The name came to him, though it was less a name than the idea of the end of a song in the hour just before midnight, when one moon hangs golden in the sky and the other is hidden in darkness. I am Ruh’ayya. You are mine. She sat half-in and half-out of the shadows, he could see her clearly now. She was nearly black, very young, and obviously pleased with herself.
“We are…” …too young to bond, he protested, and you are beautiful, and I am Ismai, though his name came across as laughter in the morning sunlight just before the spring rains. “I love you.”
“Rrrrrrr,” she disagreed, mocking his voice. She detached herself from the shadows and he could see how very young she was, and how lean. It had been a hard winter with nothing bigger than tarbok to eat and one plumed serpent washed up on the beach, rank and good to roll in, and she had smelled the fish he was eating and had wanted a share but decided she would have him instead, but not to eat. He was scrawnier than a tarbok but they would grow together and the pride would simply have to accept it and Khurra’an was her sire and she loved him, too.
I am in love, he said.
Foolish cub. Love is a dream, she chided.
Yes. But it is a dream worth chasing.
She rumbled, a purr, a growl, and knocked him over with her huge head so that she could scrape the rest of his face off with her rough tongue. Ismai laughed, twined his hands in the sparse mane of his Ruh’ayya, and let go of everything he had imagined himself to be.
SIX
Hafsa Azeina’s young apprentice, Daru, hustled up to where she stood with the First Warrior and Istaza Ani enjoying a spectacularly messy game of aklashi. He stopped to catch his breath—born early, the child was regrettably weak and always panted as if he had run miles beneath the hot sun—and bowed so deeply he seemed to fold in half.
“Dreamshifter… Youthmistress.” He gasped. “I was sent to tell you… Ismai…”
Ani hoped that the child was not about to expire in front of them. “Ismai? He is one of Nurati’s youngest, is he not?”
“Third youngest, I think.” Sareta corrected. “Or fourth, perhaps. Dreamshifter?”
“Third, soon to be fourth.” Hafsa Azeina raised both eyebrows at Daru. “Is there trouble?”
Sareta snorted. “There is always trouble around that one. I caught him kissing Kalani behind the stallions’ pasture, not a moon hence. Although I do not doubt he was wishing it was… ah—” she glanced at Hafsa Azeina “—some other girl. Do you know, he asked to be trained as a warrior?”
Ani blinked. “That is… different. Perhaps he means to become a warden, like his brother?”
“Oh, no. He argued—argued, mind you—that a boy should be able to travel the world if that is what he wants. As if we need our males riding across the sands, spending so much time on horseback that they kill their seed.”
Ani grinned. “I can see how a young man might find the idea attractive. Spending his days surrounded by warriors, bareheaded and free from responsibility. I will go see what the problem is.”
“Ah, I will go.” Sareta laughed. “I wanted to speak to some of the new Ja’Akari before the dances, in any case.” She nodded to Hafsa Azeina, who did not seem to notice. “Dreamshifter. If I might borrow your apprentice…?”
Hafsa Azeina waved one hand, distracted.
Daru snapped to attention, and his face lit with delight at the honor. He really is a beautiful child, Ani thought. A pity he is so weak. As they left, she turned her attention back to the day, and the game, and anticipation of the night’s activities.
Of all the days in the turning of a year, Ani loved Hajra-Khai best. This was the time that the people shone brightest. The prides came together to play and hunt and compete and, of course, they came to eat. They came to race horses and show off babies and make a few more of each. Small things, ordinary things, but enough of these slim reeds gathered into a bundle might just be strong enough to ensure the people’s survival.
Ani would sing tonight. She always sang at Hajra-Khai, added her rough voice and her music to the noise and mayhem. This was the heartbeat of the pride, the drumming, thrumming, foot-stomping music was the blood that flowed through their dreams. The smoke and sweat and animal smell of so many drawn together rose up and into the sky as a prayer, a wish that life would continue as it had always been—birthing and loving, feuding and bleeding, all sewn together by the singing desert and the great deep dreams of the river Dibris.
In this, as in much else, she and Hafsa
Azeina were opposite sides of a sword. As much as Ani enjoyed the gaming and the noise, the smells and sounds of so many brought together under the sun, her old friend only barely tolerated such chaos. The same woman who would wade bareheaded into the steaming belly of a disemboweled lionsnake could hardly stand the sight of a dozen people seated together for a meal. Gather a few thousand of the people together for a springtime feast, throw in a few outlanders, and Hafsa Azeina would start getting restless.
Ani came to Hajra-Khai in hopes of getting drunk, watching the games, and wrestling with an old friend. The last thing she needed was a twitchy dreamshifter ruining her holiday with chaos and bloodshed.
So it was that as they stood together on the high dais, Ani took a handful of dried figs with honey and nuts from a tray borne by a smiling boy, but Hafsa Azeina made a face and waved him away. The dreamshifter had eaten earlier—dried strips of flesh of a peculiar dark color streaked with yellow fat—but there was a difference, Ani felt, between sustaining the body and feeding the spirit. She was tempted to press the sweets upon her friend, to point out the pleasing strains of a bard’s song and the well-shaped backside of her old friend Askander. First Warden or no, gray hairs or no, that man was as tasty a dish as any laid out at Hajra-Khai.
But the dreamshifter insisted on drinking only from the bitter well, and never the sweet. Such things did not speak to her. Ani caught Askander’s bold eye, and they shared a grin before he turned away. Later, if he was fortunate, they might share more.
“I will not let her go.”
Ani followed her friend’s gaze, and watched as the new Ja’Akari filed out onto the red sands of the arena. Sulema glowed among the young women, an ember in the coals, shorn and oiled and braided as if she had been born under the sun. She brought her fingers to her mouth and whistled, and the red-haired youth in the stands stood and waved to her. After all these years of believing herself abandoned, unwanted, the girl finally had a family. A doting brother, a powerful father. As for her mother…
“Not let her go?” Ani swallowed a mouthful of sharp words. It was never a wise thing to anger a woman who ate the hearts of her enemies, old friend or no. “The sun is setting on her childhood, Zeina, and it will rise on her life. I fail to see how the choice is yours, now.”
Hafsa Azeina raised her eyebrows. “Zeina? You have not called me that in years. Do not soothe me with soft words, Youthmistress. Say what you would say… you are angry with me.”
“She thought herself unwanted, by you or anyone else. And now she finds that she has a brother. A father. How do you think you will prevent her from going to meet him?”
“The past is behind us. Nothing good ever comes from opening a tomb, once that tomb has been sealed.”
“Ka Atu is your past, my friend. Not hers. How do you think to stop her from going off on her own, now that she knows the truth? If you do stop her, what of us? The Zeeranim cannot stand against the wrath of Ka Atu.”
“You think I should take his offer of amnesty.”
“I do. I accepted years ago that you did not wish to raise your own child. I never understood, but I accepted it. But this I can neither understand nor accept. My father sold me like a goat. Hers has torn the world apart to find her. How can you think to deny her this? It is her birthright.”
She was all but shouting. Several of those surrounding Nurati glanced in their direction, and quickly diverted their attention elsewhere. The tempo of the drums increased—ra-dum ra-ra-dum—until they echoed the beating of her angry heart.
Down in the arena, the first of the young warriors leapt into dance.
Hafsa Azeina never moved, but her eyes clouded like the sky before a storm. “You speak of her birthright. You know nothing. You understand nothing. You imagine her father will sweep her up into his arms as if she were a lost child, and shower her with wealth and love, and every hurt I have ever caused her will be healed in the golden glow of his regard. You know nothing.
“You think I do not love Sulema?” the dreamshifter continued. “I died for her, Ani, I died for my child, and then I lived again for her sake. You think you have bled for her? I have killed a hundred men for my daughter, killed them and eaten their living hearts, all to keep her safe from the past. You would do what? Put her on a boat. Pat her on the head, kiss her cheek, and feed her to the dragon with your own hands. Tell me again how I do not love my daughter… old friend.”
Ani struggled to rein in her temper, but a steady head had never been her strength.
“I know nothing? Fine, then. Explain it to me. Use small words… I am only the woman who raised your daughter. You owe me this much.”
The dreamshifter’s eyes flashed. “I? I owe you? You have no idea what I have done for you. For the people. How every waking hour, I… no.” She bit the word short, as if biting off a piece of gut string. “Khutlani, Ani, your mouth is too small to speak of these things.”
Ani took a step back, fists clenched at her sides. She did not know this woman, this fell-eyed sorceress with the blood of enemies upon her lips.
“My mouth is too small to speak of such things? Mine? Well I remember the day, Hafsa Azeina. I was there when Theotara Ja’Akari dragged your sorry dead ass into camp. Do you have any idea what she was to me, what she gave up in order to save you and your child? She had… she was…” Ani choked on the words. “She gave you her death, Zeina, her death. Do not say the people have not earned your protection a thousand times over. Whose blood called you back from the Valley of Death, there in the Bones of Eth? Whose flesh sustained you? Whose child dances, even now, whole and healthy upon the sands of the Madraj? You tell me, Dreamshifter, tell me where the debt lies.”
Ani felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise as Hafsa Azeina stared at her. Through her. Surely those eyes looked again upon the hot yellow sands, and the Bones of Eth, and the day a good woman gave up her death in order to save two lives.
Ah, well, it may be a very good day to die, but it was an even better day to live. As it was not in her nature to wound a friend, Ani softened her voice. “The past is past, Zeina, that lonely wind is long gone to dust. Surely the girl’s wish to meet her father is not as dangerous as all that. Ka Atu may be a powerful man, but he is only a man, Zeina, and he is her father.”
“Truly, you do not know.” Hafsa Azeina’s voice had shrunk to a whisper.
“There are many things I do not know. If you tell me, there will be one less.”
The drums faded, and a flute picked up the song—a breeze, the cry of a lonely spirit, a shepherd-girl lost in the hills. Young Hannei whirled about, limbs akimbo, and executed a spinning kick so high and so perfect that the crowd gasped in delight.
“I can do things…” The dreamshifter’s smile was strange. Sad and strange. “Monstrous things. I can reach through worlds, Ani, right through the curtains that separate us, I can reach out my hand like this, and pluck a man’s heart from his chest as he sleeps. I can eat dreams, Ani. Man, woman, beast, child. No one is safe from me.”
“Zeina…”
“I am powerful, Ani, more powerful than you know. No one should have this much, to be able to sneak into a person’s soul while they are sleeping, and change things. End things. Easy as lighting a candle… it is not right. It does bad things to you, inside. If it were not for Khurra’an…” Her voice trailed off.
“You could stop.”
“You are not listening to me. Listen to me. I can do these things, and if I am a child lighting a candle… he is a flame, Ani, a great roaring flame, and I am all that stands between him and my daughter. He will not have her. If I have to die again, he will not have her.”
“Why would Sulema’s father wish to harm her? Is she not precious to him?”
“She is precious to him, and not just because she is his daughter. Sulema is echovete. She will be able to hear atulfah, the magic of Atualon. She will be able to wield the reins of sa and ka, and control the direction of the world.”
“Sulema, control the world?
” Ani chuckled, her earlier anger melting away. “I cannot imagine. She can scarcely muck the churra pens without getting into trouble. How can you be certain she is one of these… echovete?”
The dreamshifter’s eyes were far away. “You can hear it, if you know what to listen for. Atulfah is a song, Ani, the Song of Dragons. A song greater than our little minds can hold, a song mightier than our little mouths can sing. The song of being. Before this song, there was nothing. Nothing.” She opened her arms wide, and a smile such as Ani had never seen spread across her features. “Then the dragons were singing, and it was.”
“You can change this song with your music?”
“Khutlani.” The rough voice was so soft. “A dreamshifter, change the song… no. If atulfah is an ocean, I am a child skipping along the beach, collecting broken sea-shells to make a pretty necklace. But Ka Atu has waded far out to sea. He is in the song, he is of the song, and it listens to him.”
“You say Sulema could do this thing?”
“Oh, yes. She is strong. Stronger than her father. If she goes to Atualon…
“I have seen it,” she went on. “If Sulema goes to Atualon, Wyvernus will make her his heir. He will fill her eyes with wonder and her heart with music, and she will shine so brightly that Akari Sun Dragon himself will fall under her spell. She will be Sa Atu, the Heart of the Dragon. Mountains will bow to kiss her feet. An emperor will die of love for her. Her song will be the most beautiful thing this world has ever known…
“…and then it will kill her, just as it is killing her father.”
Before Ani could so much as open her mouth, they were interrupted by her long-time friend and sometime lover, Askander. The least excitable man she knew was nearly running, and his eyes showed white at the edges like a spooked stallion’s.
“Dreamshifter,” he huffed. “Youthmistress. There has been some trouble…”
Ani laughed. “The year is new, and blood runs hot, First Warden. When is there not trouble at Hajra-Khai? It is what I like best about—”
The Dragon's Legacy Page 9
