Ismai sucked in a final breath and used it up again in a defiant scream.
“Come at me, then, you miserable vomitous mass! You venomous sack of entrails! Show me yours!”
The thing paused in its swaying, and turned its head—if such a thing could be said to have a head—toward him. Its flesh pulled back from the tooth-studded hole of its mouth, and it gurgled and hissed, a long, low, drawn-out sound so like a laugh that all the hair on Ismai’s arms, his scalp, and down his spine stood on end. It reared higher, horrid bulk blocking out the last rays of sunset, dropped its jaw open with a sloppy, sucking noise…
…and stopped. It stopped swaying, and hissing, it stopped twitching, even its little beetle eyes held still.
Ehuani dropped to all fours and stood, sides heaving, roaring through her nostrils. Ruh’ayya breathed in soft little grunting snarls, and Ismai’s heart pounded in his ears like a war drum, tha-rump tha-rump tha-rumble, but the bonelord did not move.
Tha-rump, tha-rump, tha-rumble…
Then it sank down, down, down, sinking and shrinking and seeming to draw in upon itself. The mouth closed and the eyes pulled inward defensively. The thing’s sticky-looking gray hide crawled and shrank as it sank down into the sand, down down down till it was the faintest tumble of bone, and then it turned and swam away through the rippling desert sands just as the last red ray of light winked out and left them shrouded in darkness. Ismai shook so much that he had to hold his sword with both hands, lest he drop it and shame himself.
“What,” he said aloud, “just happened?”
“Venomous sack of entrails?”
He spun about so fast that he did drop the sword, and scrambled to pick it up again. “What! Who!”
A slight figure stood before him, a little wisp of a thing, one slender hand stroking his horse’s nose. She was dressed in robes of many colors, a patchwork of spidersilk and wormsilk, linen and cotton and cloth-of-gold, fine materials but tattered and mismatched and worn. She was swathed in veils so that only her eyes showed, enormous and dark in the fading light, and enough skin so that he could see the dreadful scarring, the bright pale patches of pink and bone-white against darker skin.
She ducked her head and looked away.
Do not look at her. Ruh’ayya warned. Her voice was very soft, as if her very thoughts might be overheard. Do not frighten her.
Do not frighten her? Ismai had to remind himself to close his mouth. He used both hands to sheathe his sword, slowly and gently as if he stood before not one, but two wild fillies. He stepped forward, careful not to step too close, and laid a hand upon Ehuani’s shoulder.
The horse snorted but did not try to pull away. She was soft, soft as silk, and he was still alive to touch her. His skin tingled—he was alive—his heart beat, breath still filled his lungs. He had not yet soiled himself. All in all, the day had turned out better than he had any right to expect.
“I am Ismai,” he told the horse. She swiveled an ear and rolled her eye. “Ismai,” he said again. He named himself to her three times, binding his fate to hers. “I am Ismai.”
“Ismai.” The girl whispered, eyes still averted as she stepped back from the horse. “His name is Ismai.” She turned half away from him, thin hands disappearing into the folds of her robe.
Ismai stroked his horse’s neck, her shoulder, under her jaw. He scratched the spot on her chest that horses so love, and smiled as she fought against making a funny face, still not entirely willing to trust him.
“Lovely girl. My lovely girl. Look at you, just look, you are a breath of morning, you are wind made flesh, just look at you, my lovely girl.” He loosed the halter that had become so tightly wound around his hand that it had turned his fingers white, and held it up so that she could see. The mare rolled her eyes at that, and tossed her head in a most haughty manner, obviously recognizing the halter for what it was and just as obviously wanting nothing to do with it.
“Shhhh, pretty girl,” he soothed. “I will not hurt you. I will never hurt you. My tent is yours, my water is yours—” He had to smile at his own words then. “—if I can find it.” He rubbed the soft rope against her softer hide.
“You called Arushdemma a ‘venomous sack of entrails.’” The soft voice was a bit closer now, though the girl still stood some distance away and poised on her toes as if prepared to flee his presence. He reminded himself that this delicate child had just faced down—and frightened away—a beast so monstrous his bowels still ached to think of it. Still, she seemed younger than and far more timid than his next sister, Dennet, who had just seen her thirteenth winter. “You called him a ‘miserable vomitous mass.’” Then she did an astounding thing. She laughed. Her laughter was the lightest, prettiest, and altogether most delightful sound Ismai had ever heard.
“Arushdemma? That thing has a name?” He brought the halter closer to Ehuani’s face, and she stretched her neck high to avoid him.
“Of course he has a name. All things have a name. Even you.” She shrank away from him again, gliding backward over the sand as if a breath would carry her away. “Even I have a name.”
He moved the rope back down to Ehuani’s withers and rubbed her with it, on the itchiest of itchy spots, and finally the mare twisted her lip upward, baring her teeth in a comical grin.
“You know my name.”
“Ismai,” she agreed, and relaxed a little when he did not ask for hers in return.
“I dropped my food and water out there on the sand,” he told the horse, and not the girl. “I might find it, if I had a torch.”
Or you might ask the vash’ai, who has excellent night vision, Ruh’ayya reminded him, amused.
The girl hesitated. “You will not follow me?”
“Never,” he assured her.
She was gone with the next breath, dissolved into the deepening twilight like a drop of ink into a river of dark water. Ismai stayed where he was, letting his horse get to know him, enjoying the sound of his own heart beating and the feel of air in his lungs and wind in his hair. It had been an excellent day to die, but it was far, far better to have survived.
Just as he slipped his arm about Ehuani’s neck, and the halter over her head, just as she shook her head and blew softly through her nostrils and allowed him to tie it, the girl reappeared in front of him, carrying a torch that spluttered and spit and cast an odd reddish glow. Ruh’ayya spat and slunk away into the darkness, but Ismai was glad for the light. He kept his eyes averted as the girl drifted close, closer, close enough almost for him to touch, and when he reached to take it he was careful not to brush her fingers with his own. Ehuani did not care for the flame, but neither did she pull away.
Ismai held the torch in one hand, and Ehuani’s lead rope in the other, and he bowed as if he was facing every Mother in Aish Kalumm, and all the wardens besides. The girl laughed again, and again the sound pierced and lifted his heart.
“Will you come with me?” She was small, and all alone. He had to ask.
The girl drifted close again, and laid her hand upon Ehuani’s soft muzzle.
“Go with him,” she whispered. “Be good to him. He has a kind heart.” Ehuani snorted and nodded her head, and the girl’s eyes crinkled with what might have been a smile. Ismai wished she would laugh again. Those eyes met his, briefly.
He was falling, falling through the dark. He opened his mouth to cry out…
…and she looked away. “Arushdemma will not come near, as long as you carry my torch. But he has your scent now, and you have insulted him. That was not a wise thing to do.” Her eyes crinkled again. “But it was funny.”
“Can I come back and see you again?” Ismai bit his lip as soon as the words were out, but he could not take them back. Nor, he realized, did he wish to.
Her eyes met his again, the briefest glance. This time he stayed put. “If you do, bring the torch.”
Ismai bowed again, and turned to follow his own footprints back the way he had come. He could feel Ruh’ayya’s brooding presence, a
nd the dark closing in all round, and the moons as they prepared to rise full and brilliant, and the stars so far away, so cold and indifferent to the yearnings of a young boy’s heart.
“Char.”
“Hm?” He half turned back to face her. Dark eyes flashed in the light of his torch.
“Char,” she told him, and then a third time, binding their fates together. “My name is Char.”
TWENTY - SIX
Hafsa Azeina rode through the massive bronze-and-gold Sunset Gate of Atualon with one hand on the golden shofar and a snarl on her face that should have sent the cheering crowds before her running for the protection of the cold stone walls.
It had been half a lifetime since she had endured the presence of so many people at once, and their wants and dreams pressed upon her like a dead weight. Keila, her dapple-gray mare, snapped at any who drew near, be they horse or man or even vash’ai. The Imperators who had been thrust upon her as an honor guard had learned to keep their distance from the ill-tempered beast.
They kept a wary eye on her horse, as well.
She remembered coming here as a young girl, how pretty and bright the little houses seemed with their neat white walls and colored-glass windows, brass roofs gleaming in the morning light, and how the people cheered for her as she was led up the wide avenue. The houses were as charming in the dying of the day, little oil lamps hung in the windows so that Atualon looked like a well-lit jeweler’s shop.
The flowering trees were as fragrant as she remembered, the black mountains wreathed in smoke and magic were as breathtaking, but she knew Atualon now for what it was—a trap. She clenched her jaw and followed the winding road ever upward toward Atukos, the great black fortress of Ka Atu and the mountain for which it was named. At either side the people of Atualon pressed close, too close, too noisy and needy, spooking the horses and causing Khurra’an to lash his tail in aggravation. They gaped at the vash’ai, at her, at the people, like children watching a troupe of fools.
“Look at those teeth!” cried a man in a merchant’s smock, pointing at Khurra’an.
The better to eat you with, thought the cat. You owe me a fat pig for this, Dreamshifter.
“Ai yeh,” one of the Ja’Akari whispered close behind her, “these outlanders have no manners at all.”
As they had ridden past the outlying farms and villages, now they rode through the city proper without stopping, winding round and round through the foothills of Atukos. Eventually the Merchant’s Circle and the slaves’ quarters and the lesser houses fell behind and beneath them, and the sky-sweeping Dragonglass Gate of the Greater Quarters opened to enfold them into a lover’s embrace.
A false lover, she thought, and at her dark look the guards closest to her shied away. She was still astride her mare, and still scowling, when Imperator General Davidian, flanked by a double fist of Baidun Daiel and as many Draiksguards, materialized out of the gloom and informed her that Ka Atu commanded her presence and that of his daughter.
Ka Atu commanded her. Hafsa Azeina could feel her jaw set.
“My daughter has been injured,” she replied. “She needs food, and rest, and a bath. Tomorrow is soon enough for Wyvernus to go poking at her.” If he cannot be bothered to meet us himself, he can just sit on his blasted chair and wait.
“Meissati…”
“Meissati? You forget yourself, Imperator. I am Queen Consort. Have you forgotten?” She shifted the staff in her lap. “Or do you deny me?”
Aasah swayed in his saddle, and his little apprentice stepped up beside him. They had been dancing their shadow-magic every night, every single night since Sulema had been injured, trying to hold back the Araid venom that still threatened to consume her. Hafsa Azeina heard the Ja’Akari muttering among themselves, heard the clop-clop of hooves on cobblestones as the Ja’Akari drew up behind her, as the Baidun Daiel began to chant under their breaths and sway.
“I have forgotten nothing, Issa. I was there to greet you the day you first arrived in Atualon, as I am here to greet you now. And I am very much your servant.” He swept a low bow. “No one here will deny you a thing, but your presence is most urgently… requested… by Ka Atu.”
Let me eat him, Khurra’an laughed. He is caught between a dreamshifter and the Dragon King… it would be a mercy killing.
Let me have him, suggested Belzaleel. Just a taste.
Hafsa Azeina was startled enough at that to jerk upright in her saddle. If Belzaleel could speak to her here and now, she was more tired than she had thought. And if the daemon blade wanted this man dead, she would be well advised to guard his life.
Hafsa Azeina dismounted and handed her reins over to Daru. “Watch over Sulema,” she told Leviathus. “Keep her safe.”
Leviathus bowed. “Of course, Issa. I will take her to your rooms in the Queen’s Tower.”
Davidian did not hide his distress. “Queen Consort, my orders—”
“Insist all you will, Imperator, I am her mother, I am dreamshifter of the Shahadrim, and I say she will rest now. Or do you claim a higher authority than mine?”
Imperator General Davidian bowed again, a defeated look on his lined face. She should have felt some sympathy for the man, would have, in years gone by—Davidian had always been kind to her, and she respected the old soldier—but if he had wanted kindness from her, he should have led her to the baths and given her a cup of coffee before ordering her around like a kitchen slave. Perhaps Atualon had forgotten what it meant to have a queen consort in residence.
When Davidian turned as if he would lead her, Hafsa Azeina dismissed him and the Draiksguard with an impatient wave. She pushed past them and past the Baidun Daiel as well, not bothering to brush the hair back from her face or the dust from her robes. Wyvernus wanted to see her? Fine, then, let him see her.
Let him smell me, too. He should have let me take a bath first.
“Do not bother,” she told them all. “I know my way to the bedchambers of Ka Atu.”
Indeed she did. The black glass walls streaked with gold, smooth floors warm underfoot, even the smell of fresh bread lingering in the halls that led to the kitchens still haunted her dreams. Did she close her eyes, her feet would know the way. Did she lose her feet, her heart would know the way. She ignored the guards who flanked her and the serving folk who fled from her, scowled her way past any who looked to hail her, and startled one midnight-haired young beauty so badly that the girl dumped wine down the front of her sheer rose gown.
I know her, she thought, startled. Matteira has grown into the promise of her beauty. But what is the sister of Mattu Halfmask doing in these halls, in the dying of the day?
A fist of young guardsmen hurried to offer assistance to the girl, and Hafsa Azeina fought the urge to smile. There was no reason she should feel amused, or safe, no reason to feel she had come home after too long away.
No reason at all? The thought seemed to come from the very walls of Atukos. You are home.
That stopped her in her tracks. You stay out of my head! She shoved Wyvernus out of her mind and slammed the doors shut. She could hear him fluttering just beyond her ward like a bird outside the shutters, laughing at her. Damn that man. She drew herself up, eyes blazing so that the pretty girl and her admirers all remembered that they had important business elsewhere…
…and stopped so abruptly that Khurra’an bumped into her leg. She had not checked for traps since riding into Atualon, and that was arrogance enough to get her killed. She had enemies in this city, many of whom were probably close enough at this very moment to hear her if she screamed. One of these enemies was the shade of her former self, whispering of laughter and love and long, slow caresses in the dark.
The Wyvernus she had loved would never have wished her harm, but the handsome young man with fire in his heart was as dead and gone to dust as his golden-eyed princess with moonslight hair. So Hafsa Azeina opened her intikallah, and studied the palace with her dreaming eyes.
There it was, the web of magic that held this
city together and bound the world to its will. At every meeting between two strands hung a gleaming droplet of atulfah, shimmering and trembling like a little globe of magesilver, endlessly reflecting this world and every other, bridging the strands of might-be and will-be and are. Her trained gaze skimmed over those tempting jewels. They were a byproduct of the dream, a naturally occurring trap, and posed little threat to one such as her.
What she searched for, and what she found—here, and here, and here—were places where a dreamshifter or mage or shadowmancer had altered the path of the web by adding new strands, or burning away the old.
What is this? She drew closer to the web, to a place where the strands had been torn asunder. Hidden in the shadows, someone had—
“Are you going to stand here all night with your eyes closed? Or will you go to him at last?”
Her eyes snapped open, and she glared at Khurra’an. Why did you not tell me he was there?
Khurra’an showed a bit of fang. Why did you not sense him yourself?
“I do hope you have not lost your way… Queen Consort.” Mattu Halfmask was wearing the face of a crocodile. “If you like, I would be your guide.”
Hafsa Azeina reached up as if she would touch his mask. He tensed, but did not flinch away as he once might have. “Thank you, Halfmask, I believe I can find my own way. Your sister, however, may be grateful for some assistance.”
He went still all over. “My sister?”
“She spilled a bit of wine on herself, back there.” She pointed. “Fortunately, her distress was witnessed by a handful of young men. Unfortunately, it was witnessed by a handful of young men. By now, I am sure she would appreciate it if you would rescue her from all the help.”
“The day my sister needs rescuing, I will eat my mask. You did not answer my question.”
The lights in the walls flared suddenly, flickered and went out.
The sire of this rock grows impatient, Khurra’an noted.
The sire of this rock can stuff a sandal in it, Hafsa Azeina retorted. I will get there when I get there.
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