Whenever she returned with these things, he knew, somebody had died in their sleep.
She turned the bone over in her hands, and he saw the ball-end of a leg bone. Daru touched the little bird-skull flute tucked away in his sleeve, and ducked his head in shame. He was her apprentice, and he should be learning how to do the things she did, but he did not want to kill anything.
A movement caught at the corner of his vision and he looked up. Khurra’an was watching him, watching and twitching the end of his tail. The big cat let his mouth drop open and the light from the fireplace glinted off the gold bands of his tusks as his pink tongue lolled out and he slowly, deliberately, licked his chops. Daru imagined that he heard giggling among the shadows in the corner.
“Khurra’an,” Hafsa Azeina said aloud and without looking up, “stop.” The big cat grunted and closed his mouth, but the shadows still peered out from behind his eyes.
Daru scooted to sit closer to the fire, where the shadows were fewest. The rooms that had been given to Hafsa Azeina were huge, big enough to house a number of people, but there were only the two of them and Khurra’an. There was a sleeping room for the dreamshifter, and a washing room with tubs and basins, even a tiny room for doing… that. Daru wondered where the poop and the dirty water went, but had not yet worked up the nerve to ask the outland servants.
Daru had his own little room, all to himself, a soft mattress piled high with woolen blankets and a heavy dark brown fur with claws and tail still attached, and a wooden table and chair, and a little colored-glass oil lantern. He would have preferred to curl up in there and look at the map of the city Sulema’s brother had given him, but the vash’ai stretched out in front of the doorway and mocked him with his wicked eyes.
“Dreamshifter.” She looked up at him, gold eyes snapping, and he swallowed. “Are you hungry? I could bring you some food.”
“Maashukri. Do you know the way to the kitchens?”
He nodded.
“Mmmf. Meat, bread, water or wine. Nothing spiced, nothing sweet. Have them send up a leg of something for Khurra’an.” She caressed the bone in her hands. Daru tried so hard not to see it that his eyes hurt. “You need to eat, as well. You are getting too skinny again. The Mothers will not thank me if I let you fade away.” Her mouth curled up, and he knew that she meant for him to laugh, so he chuckled obediently.
She really did try to be kind, sometimes.
“Yes, Dreamshifter.” He stood, and tried not to flinch when Khurra’an stretched, extending sharp black claws as long as Daru’s hands. “Stop it,” he told the vash’ai, and burned with shame as his voice quavered.
“On second thoughts,” Hafsa Azeina said absently, tearing a tendon from the bone with her fingernails, “have the kitchens send up a whole pig instead of a leg. Send a servant up with my food instead of bringing it yourself. You should not return until Khurra’an has gorged.”
“Yes, Dreamshifter.” He bowed, and skirted around the edge of the room. When the cold wall at his back gave way to an arched doorway, Daru turned and fled.
There were fewer shadows in the hallways. The walls glowed gently, lit from within, a glow that brightened at his presence and faded as he passed. Hafsa Azeina had told him that this was one of the properties of the dragonglass palace, and that if Ka Atu were absent, or died without an heir, the palace would go dark and they would need to use torches. She also said that the lights had been much brighter in years past.
For his part, Daru was just happy for anything that might keep the shadows at bay. He flitted down the halls, counting the turns on his fingers—left at the unicorn tapestry, left and down at the big pot full of flowers, left again at the little square door with sheaves of wheat painted in gold all round the lintel, then right, then down a steep flight of stairs. That last bit was always full of shadows, and they pulled at his feet as he passed, so he held tight to the balustrade and fairly flew down them, and then—pop!—into the big, bright room crowded with tables and benches, and with the kitchens at its far end.
This room was Daru’s favorite so far. It was round, and boasted a high, arched ceiling set with beams of pale wood smudged from all the smoke and grease, hot and bright from the fires and the ovens and the cooks’ colorful patchwork aprons. A whole pig was roasting on one spit, and another spit was strung with ducks like beads on a necklace, and round loaves of rich dark bread were stacked higher than his head in an alcove next to the ovens.
Daru watched the greasy smoke rise up and disappear through a hole in the ceiling. He wondered where the smoke went, and if someone had rooms over the kitchens, and whether the smells made them hungry all the time or if they got tired of it after a while. He thought it might be nice to be a cook, though he felt sorry for the little pigs in their wheels, trotting and trotting and turning the meats round. He hoped they had not known the pig that was roasting.
Even at this late hour, there were people at the tables. A knot of Draiksguard in their red-and-white robes sat at one, their grand dragon-faced helms propped on the table or benches beside them. A bunch of pretty women sat at another table pretending not to notice the soldiers. Other outlanders were scattered all about, but there were none of the red-robed Baidun Daiel staring at him through their blank gold masks.
He heaved a sigh of relief and trotted toward a group of Zeeranim in a far corner. They stood out like hunting cats in a herd of goats.
The people looked grim-faced and sober, and Daru could see shadows clinging to the edge of the group even in this bright light. Someone had died, someone they knew.
I hope somebody died in an accident, and not in their sleep, he thought.
Someone knocked into him from behind and sent him sprawling across the wooden floor. He hit his chin and bit his tongue, and a flower of red pain blossomed in his mouth.
“Oh! Oh, I am so sorry!” Struggling to his feet, Daru turned his head to see a plump and pretty girl. She was not much older than himself, he guessed, though considerably taller and already round as a woman. Her aprons were a riot of color and her face was screwed up in embarrassment. Daru tasted blood in his mouth, but he did not want to spit in front of her, so he swallowed it instead. “Are you all right?” she asked.
He shrugged and brushed at his tunic, checked to make sure his whistle had not been crushed. His face felt as hot as the spitfires. “I am fine,” he muttered, “thank you.”
“You are one of the visitors, are you not?” She smiled wide, standing too close and fluttering her hands over his clothes and hair like one of the child-minders. He shrugged away from her, but she followed him with her big eyes and her dimples. “Are you sure you are all right? I am sorry if I hurt you. I did not see you there, you are so skinny! Did you really travel with the Heart of Atualon? They say your people are all warriors—is the Heart a warrior? You look hungry—are you hungry? Can I get you anything?”
“I am… I ah… ah…” Daru froze like a tarbok caught in a cat’s stare. “Hafsa Azeina sent me for some food. And a pig.”
“Some food and a pig?” Her grin widened, and Daru took a step back. “Is a pig not food, then? Do you want a live pig, or a dead one? Perhaps that one?” She jabbed her finger toward the pig roasting over the fire. “Surely you do not mean to eat the whole thing. You are so skinny! You speak Atualonian well. Are you a warrior, too?”
A heavy hand clamped over Daru’s shoulder. He squeaked and jumped half out of his skin. The girl’s eyes went huge and she grabbed her aprons and bent almost double. Daru looked up and into the half-masked face of an owl. The man’s eyes crinkled at him, though his mouth did not smile. Hafsa Azeina had warned him to stay away from this one.
“Is Marisa bothering you, young sir?”
The girl squeaked and bent lower.
Daru went tense all over, and sighed a small sigh when the man took his hand away. “No, ah… no.” He was not sure how he should address this man. Surely “Halfmask” was not his real name. “She was asking if I needed anything.”
“Do you? Need anything.” The eyes crinkled again.
Daru glanced at the girl. She was trembling, and he could not see her eyes. “Yes, please. Meat and bread and, um, food for Hafsa Azeina. Nothing spiced or sweet. And, ah, a pig for Khurra’an. Dead, and um, fresh. Not roasted.”
The man patted him on the shoulder again. “Your dreamshifter, yes?” He glanced at the girl. “Marisa, you are dismissed. Unless you wish to feed a pig to one of their giant cats? No?” His eyes were bright as he watched the girl dart away. “I will see to your mistress’s food myself, young sir, and send some men up with a pig. Marisa is right, though. You are too skinny. I assume you are to eat, as well?”
Daru ducked his head.
“Very good. Go on, then, fatten up on milk and honey.” The owl’s face turned aside. “I am sorry for your loss, by the way. She was a very beautiful woman.” And he walked away.
Daru stood frozen in place. Sorry for your loss. Surely Sulema had not died? Not now, when it seemed so certain she would recover? He imagined himself telling the dreamshifter that her only daughter was dead, and all he could think of was Khurra’an licking his chops.
No… that was ridiculous. He shook himself free and walked slowly toward the people. The dreamshifter would have known already. She was always the first to know of a death. And she had said nothing.
Whoever it was, then, had likely died in their sleep.
He held his mind’s eye firmly shut against the image of Hafsa Azeina turning the bone over and over in her hands. People died all the time. It meant nothing. The bone may have come from a tarbok, or from a slaver who threatened the people.
You know better, the shadows whispered. You know.
Saskia scooted her butt over to make room for him at the end of the bench, and Daru slid into place with a grateful nod. She nodded back as he reached dutifully for a trencher of flat bread piled high with duck and roasted onions. The smell made his mouth water, even though his stomach still felt like it was full of sand.
There was no talk at this table, no laughter. Saskia’s eyes were red and raw, and her face was splotchy. Daru tucked his chin and stared at the food in front of him. He needed to eat. He had been told to eat. He sighed and picked up a sliver of duck with his fingers.
He really did not want to know.
“Who?” he whispered.
“You do not know?” Saskia whispered back. Her voice was hoarse and broken. “You really do not know?”
“No.”
“Umm Nurati is dead. First Mother is dead.” She began to weep. Kabila put her arm about the younger Ja’Akari’s shoulder, and hugged her close.
Daru could feel the shadows watching him, waiting to see what he would do. He put the duck in his mouth, chewed, swallowed, and reached for another piece. It tasted like nothing.
“Why should he care? He is not of the people.” Duadl Ja’Sajani spat like one of his churrim. “He is hers. Has your dreamshifter killed recently, boy?”
“Khutlani, Duadl. Hold your tongue. Your mouth is too small to speak of such big things.” Kabila reached in front of Saskia to give his arm a squeeze. “It is not for us small ones to order the movements of the stars, eh, Daru?”
Daru managed a smile and tried to shrink in upon himself. The food was sand in his mouth, sand and dust and old leather. He ate every bite, even the bread trencher. It settled in his stomach like a fist to the gut, and he washed it down with water that tasted of copper and iron and sulfur. When he had finished, he sat at the table and stared at his hands. The people talked among themselves in low voices. Saskia wept quietly, and she was not alone. The only one who sat alone was Daru, the dreamshifter’s apprentice.
Umm Nurati was dead.
He would never see her again, never hear her soft voice or words of encouragement. She would never smile again, or laugh, or do anything at all.
His stomach clenched. He remembered a night not so long ago, when Paraja, eyes glowing, had stalked him down an alley between the Ja’Akari barracks and the armory. He could smell the wet feathers and fowls’ blood from the fletcher’s rooms, and hear the ting, ting, tap of a small hammer against metal, and once again saw her jewel-bright unblinking eyes emerge from the gloom. She moved in a half-crouch, shoulders working back and forth beneath her gold-and-black dappled fur, and she flashed her tusks at him, daring him to run.
He had pressed his back against the building, and she crouched low on her front claws, hips wriggling… and then the barracks door had opened, and the light spilled out, and a knot of half-drunk warriors had staggered laughing toward them. Paraja had lashed her tail and faded back into the night. Now that Nurati was gone, would Paraja linger about the city, perhaps take another as Zeeravashani? Or would she return to the wild vash’ai? Daru closed his eyes and wished to never see her again.
But Nurati…
Umm Nurati, First Mother, the mother of all the prides. She was beauty, she was grace, she was a soft song in the night when a little boy was wracked with bloodboil fever, the hand that lit a candle and chased the shadows away. Hers was the voice that laid down the law against exposing infants at birth, no matter the omens, no matter their deformities, no matter their weakness. She held every babe born to the pride, she kissed every wrinkled little face and counted every finger, every toe. Sulema had told him that Umm Nurati had cradled him in one arm and banged her staff down in anger when the old ones had insisted he be buried with his mother—a sickly child, so weak and ill-omened that even her own vash’ai had wished him dead.
A tear splashed down onto the table between his hands. Daru could feel the bands tightening about his ribs. His next breath came labored, and the shadows pressed in. Pain lanced through his chest, and again, and he sat upright and threw his shoulders back to give his lungs some room. Almost, he could see her face among the shadows, cheeks hollow, eyes hungry. Had Tammas been there to sing her bones to sleep? He was her eldest child… and then another blow hit him, harder than the first.
Her child.
He tugged at Saskia’s sleeve, gasping weakly. She turned to him, and her eyes widened. She elbowed Kabila, who took one look at him and stood very quickly, frowning and wiping her hands on her tunic.
“Daru? Child, are you all right?”
“Weak…” muttered someone at the end of the table. Duadl grunted and turned away with a disgusted look.
Daru clung to Saskia’s arm. The pressure built in his ears, and he knew what would come next—a rush of noise like black wings in his ears, and dark fog closing in until he could scarce see his hand before his eyes. He pushed at the weakness like an infant wrapped in the coils of a serpent.
“The baby,” he whispered to her. “Baby…”
Saskia reached and supported him with her arms as he toppled from the bench. The shadows swept in, delighted at this chance, and he fought to remain upright.
“Hold him… here…” Strong arms lifted him, lifted him as if he were a swaddling infant. Tears curdled in his throat as his arms went limp and he began to shake. He heard Saskia’s voice, muffled and far away.
“He was asking about a baby.”
Kabila’s breath was warm against his cheek and she held him close. Her heartbeat was strong and beautiful as it sang to him. Live. Live. Live.
“Baby? Do you mean Umm Nurati’s baby?” She clutched him tighter still. “She lives, a fine strong girl. She will grow to be beautiful like her sisters, and you will grow to be wise, and powerful, and keep her from harm. You will be our dreamshifter, and watch over us as we sleep.”
“Yes,” he heard himself whisper. While you sleep. Then the wings rushed by, and he was flying.
* * *
First, he fell. He fell through the arms that held him, through the stone floor and the room beneath and the floor beneath that, faster and faster through chamber and stone and water and then stone again, as the earth grew warmer and thicker and then opened up beneath him, and then he remembered that he could fly.
He snapped his wings
open and felt the muscles in his back and chest wrench as he caught the air and pulled himself from a dive into a sharp upward swoop and then hovered, heart racing, and peered into the gloom. He was far, far beneath the surface of the earth. He could feel it pressing down upon him. Down here, the rocks shifted and stirred in their sleep, muttering in the long dreaming, and he could feel the molten veins of the dragon bursting with dormant life. He was in an ancient cavern full of dust and stagnant air, studded with stalactites no taller than a short child, stunted and twisted and coated in a pale slime that glowed and throbbed and stretched out tiny blind tentacles, searching endlessly and vainly for life, for sustenance, for light.
Men had been here before, men in the ancient long ago. Their hands had hewn the rock, had sliced into the living earth and carved out row upon row upon endless row of niches and shelves and shallow graves in the floor. And graves they were, each of them stuffed with a corpse shrouded in cloth gone to dust and mold and foul air. He felt the back of his neck prickle, and his heart squeezed shut as he looked upon the bodies.
Hundreds of them, thousands even, more than his mind could guess at, every one of them swaddled and draped in red, and with a golden mask upon the face. The silk on most of them had gone to rot and red dirt, but the bodies were whole, hands folded primly over their chests, gazing forever into the gloom, brooding over their dark thoughts. Whatever they were, whoever they had been, they were bad enough that not even the shadows came here. The place was as empty and still as a dead man’s mouth.
Daru made a sound in the back of his throat, a scared little whimpering breath, and one of the corpses turned its head and stared at him, blank dead eyes dry and flat behind the dusty mask. Daru opened his mouth to scream and fangs sank into the top of his skull, just above his eyes, a great mouth clamped shut on his head, squeezing, squeezing, and he was dragged from the chamber of horrors up, up, up into the light of day.
* * *
Thank you, my friend. Where was he?
Down. Deep in the slumbering earth. There is something there that should not be. Like an infection in the bone, a dark stain in the blood. Something foul.
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