Shahrokh glowered. “Be thankful, son of fire, that we are so close to realizing our shared goal. You are far from Memnon, and my warriors are well practiced at snuffing out flames.”
The cinderlord chuckled, and sparks flew from his mouth. “The pride of the djinn. So vast. So easily injured.”
The djinni growled. “I have suffered your stink in my nostrils long enough. Your role here, since I have no need of your scouring flames, is only to witness the return. Once that is confirmed, you may return to Memnon to ensure the match, and when the moon has turned, we will meet again in the Teshyllal Wastes, each with his half of the manuscript.”
“That is my most fervent wish, son of air, as you well know. If the kenku has done as you say, I trust that you will take steps to ensure you do not lose your half yet again.”
Thunder sounded, but the wind that rose with it held no hint of rain. “There will be no further delays, son of fire,” Shahrokh said. “Corvus Nightfeather, you are released from my bonds. The path to your demi-planar cache is restored.”
Corvus’s shoulders sagged, and Cephas realized that the invisible bonds holding the kenku must have been much tighter than those that held him and the others.
“What is this, Corvus?” he asked. “Am I this missing half?”
Corvus said, “I am sorry,” though he did not seem to be speaking to anyone present.
The kenku walked a few steps away from the others and passed his ebony claws before his breast feathers. His hand darted in, and when it came out, it held an object Cephas recognized. Gripped in the kenku’s taloned hand was Azad the Free’s Book of Founding Stories.
“Lords of the Firestorm!” shouted Corvus, using his ringmaster’s voice for the first time since Argentor. “I bring you the artifact stolen by Azad adh Arhapan when he fled the city of Calimport. It is unsullied, protected, and disguised yet by the magic of the djinn. Behold, the Book of Calim! Penned by his holy hand, conceived of the covenant of fire, the sole and sacred source of the Ritual of the Rising Wind. Blessed Calim’s assurance of the restoration that is coming!”
The howls and cries of the efreet and the djinn were not so different from each other. They nearly drowned out the ragged whisper Corvus’s voice dropped to, but Cephas heard him.
“The book,” Corvus said, “that will return your terrible masters to this world.”
O Calimport! City of Glory!
I weep to know you fell!
O Calimport! City of Slaves!
I weep to know you ever stood.
—“The Southsong of Runted T’Emma”
(undated)
SHAHROKH BUILT A SHIP OUT OF SAND AND SUMMONED invisible servants to drag it across the endless dunes at terrifying speed. Their pace outstripped Trill’s greatest efforts, and if there were any features that distinguished one part of the Calim Desert from another, they passed so quickly that Cephas did not witness them.
Conversation was impossible, as the djinni made no accommodation for the terrific wind of their passage, and the effect it had on his mortal passengers. Cephas huddled on a gritty bench with Ariella, the couple doing their best to shield each other from the element they ordinarily embraced. Shan found a place in the bucking vessel’s prow that was something like a cave and tucked herself inside.
Corvus stood apart from the others, feathers ruffling wildly, with his taloned hands curled around the low wall that encircled the deck.
Finally, in the first communication any of them had exchanged since the djinni set them aboard the magic craft, Corvus extended his arm, pointing.
Cephas and Ariella looked up, able to fully open their eyes at last because the craft began to slow. Shan rolled from her place beneath the prow and stood as the ship gained altitude, leaving the sandy desert floor far below. They took in the extraordinary view ahead.
Shahrokh flew down from the cloud of djinni escorts who paced them, pausing a moment to speak. “Look on Calimport!” he said. “Faint echo of the lost First City of the Djinn, but still the mightiest city of the mortal world!”
The companions were silent for a moment. “It’s like flowers,” Ariella finally said, “growing from a broken vase.”
A kaleidoscope of color and motion, the palaces, temples, manors, and fountains visible in the distance shamed even the most exotic blossoms of the WeavePasha’s gardens. And the tumult of fallen and shattered structures that spread out beneath floating buildings for leagues in every direction was certainly broken. They even matched the terra-cotta color of pottery. The architectural flowers floated above this broken city with no towers or spires that could be said to be stems. Upper Calimport floated on invisible foundations of magic.
Shahrokh’s vessel of sand began to slow, angling toward a floating palace that was, if anything, more spectacular than all the others. But Cephas’s eyes were not drawn to its towering minarets and airy gardens open to the sky above. Instead, he looked down, to one of the few areas in the city below free of rubble.
The palace they were approaching floated above an arena.
He leaned over the side, anxious to see if there were gladiators at combat, hopeful that there were not. Ariella pulled him back, just as the sand ship floated between two marble pillars that framed an entryway to a veranda paved with invisible stones.
Dozens of windsouled genasi stood waiting for them, and as Shahrokh’s magical conveyance blew away on the wind, one taller than the rest approached with arms wide open. His voice, familiar to Cephas from his own speech but also from faded memory, boomed across the courtyard.
“Marod yn Marod! Oh, my son, my long-lost son!”
Cephas stood on an invisible balcony, staring down at the Djen Arena far below. There were no gladiators on its sands. Earlier, while he was drying from his bath, there had been a chariot race in the neighboring Sabam Arena. He had walked out onto the balcony and watched the crowds streaming away from the race, realizing the number of people he saw in that one instant was greater than all he had seen before in his life.
He thought about what he had been told so far. The balcony was outside the towering doors of his suite of rooms. The bath chamber was staffed by his servants—the djinni Shahrokh had been particular on that point; they were servants, not slaves. Whatever their status, he sent the dozen watersouled women away after they had shown him what use he was expected to make of the many soaps, brushes, and perfumes arrayed around the enormous copper cauldron overflowing with steaming water.
These gold-threaded silk trousers and this elaborately stitched brocade vest were his, as were the clothes that filled the cedar cabinets, teak armoires, and lavish closets of his rooms.
“You have many questions,” Marod el Arhapan had said, speaking to all of them, but looking at Cephas. “But you are also exhausted. I have ordered chambers prepared for our guests, Son, and your rooms are appointed with every luxury. I will not pretend we know each other yet, but please allow me to offer such refreshment as is in my power before we begin to correct that terrible lapse.”
The four companions were then separated, each rushed away in the company of at least one djinni and several windsouled attendants—all but Cephas. Only the vizar djinni, Shahrokh, accompanied him on the long walk through high-ceilinged passages and across many open-air courtyards.
“Allow me to anticipate you, Marod yn Marod,” said the djinni. “Both of your companions sent here by the firesouled Memnonar live, and neither your father nor I had any hand in that. The windsouled stablemaster who acted as their agent in the lower city was identified and killed by your father’s order, unfortunately before I was allowed to question him. You will find that your father is sometimes … impetuous. The man had already sold them, and they were turned into the pits below the Djen. My agents seek them there now, and I trust the search will not be long in bearing fruit. There are few goliaths in the pens, and though the halflings are there in numbers, the woman’s talents will no doubt leave an easily followed trail.”
Cephas had to think b
ack over what the djinni had said carefully after the fact, because all he heard at first was that name. Marod yn Marod. Marod, the son of Marod. Son of the master of games, the man who owned this tremendous floating castle, who wielded enormous influence in this ancient, magical city.
The man who owned stables of gladiatorial slaves.
The man who was his father.
While he poured scented water over himself, Cephas went over all he had learned in just the last two days. His mother had died at the hands of Azad the Free. His father directed the Games she died in—if he believed Corvus Nightfeather. Corvus, it seemed, acted as an agent for at least three different warring factions: the WeavePasha of Almraiven, the djinn of Calimport, and the efreet of Memnon. And learning all that came after he found a way to wear a new body, to express a new soul. After he had found Ariella.…
When he finished washing, he discovered that someone had removed the rags his clothing had become from where he’d tossed them in the corner. He walked into the bedchamber and found a light linen robe lying across the curtained bed.
He had left his armor at the foot of that bed and found that it had been freshly oiled, the scale pieces arrayed on a rack along one whitewashed wall. Whoever cleaned the armor had even mended a strap worn near to parting.
The flail was there, too, also displayed on a stand, very much like the one Azad the Free used for the same purpose.
Azad adh Arhapan, he thought. Was he owned by the man everyone agrees is my father? Did he use this weapon to kill the woman who bore me?
Cephas unconsciously rested one hand on the blacksmelt boss of the flail’s distal end. When he noticed, he jerked his hand away as quickly as if he had seen a scorpion crawling up the chains.
The master of games, alone now, found Cephas on the balcony.
“My domain,” said his father, seeing Cephas study the arena below. “And yours. I was told you have great expertise in the Games, though I grieve to know how you gained it. Damn Azad for his disloyalty and his imagined revenge. I gave the man everything a human of the Emirates could ever dream of, and his repayment was to murder my wife and steal my son.”
Cephas saw that people were moving across the sands now, drawing great rakes behind them. He could not make out whether or not they wore collars from this great height. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Marod.
After a moment, he said, “I don’t know if I will ever touch my flail again. But I think if it were in my hands right now, I might try to kill you.”
The pasha’s only reaction was to sigh. “Yes, Shahrokh’s spy and his stories. I am sure it is too painful right now, but I might like to hear them one day. These people of the shadows we are forced to use for too much of the business of state, they have great talents for taking the truth and shaping it to their own ends. Did he tell you I killed my beloved Valandra? Did he tell you I did not know she was born earthsouled?”
Cephas did not look at the other silver-skinned man. “Not exactly, no. He did say it was Azad who killed her, but—”
“But it is more complicated than just that. Yes. I am afraid I lack the subtlety to guess how he warped the tale.” The pasha pointed down at the arena. “They’re sifting the sands for bits of armor or dropped weapons. Wouldn’t do for a champion to fall because he stepped on something sharp.”
“Where is … Shahrokh’s spy? And my other friends?”
“Ah, well. I cannot say. The kenku and the mute halfling woman insisted they be allowed to go and join the search for the pair the firesouled sent here in some efreeti gambit. The lovely Ariella, though, will join us for dinner.”
“I am surprised you bothered to learn her name.”
The pasha sighed, then smiled. “I must admit, I know it only because Shahrokh told me. As you will soon learn, there is an enormous amount of work involved in governing a city, much less managing the Games that the people of the lower city love so much. My vizar says that Ariella Kulmina is a member of the Akanûlan Airsteppers Guild, and that she’s the first of her nation in anyone’s memory to officially visit Calimport.” He cracked a wry grin. “That we can attest to, of course. In any case, she will be honored and treated as a visiting diplomat. As for these other people you’ve fallen in with, the kenku’s agents …”
“His troupe,” said Cephas. “They are performers in the circus troupe Corvus leads.”
The pasha moved to a gilded wood cabinet and opened its doors. He took a silver pitcher and a pair of simple clay mugs from its interior. “Pomegranate juice,” he said, pouring. “Corvus is the kenku? Of course, he had to have some cover story for moving about the realms unmolested; his sort always does. A circus, eh? That’s … whimsical.”
The pasha eased onto deep cushions held in a framework of glittering black wood. His expression was calculating as he openly studied Cephas. He took a long drink of the juice, then unexpectedly threw the mug over the low wall that marked the edge of the balcony. He leaned forward, gazing back and forth through the invisible floor, and then pointed. “There! See it?”
Cephas looked through the clear floor. Following the line the other man indicated, he saw a hint of motion. The mug, already far below, was soon lost to his view against the sands of the arena floor.
Hands on his knees, his father waited a long moment, watching the groundskeepers move across the sand. “Damn,” he said at last. “None of them even saw it. Oh well, it’s always a long shot. And an expensive diversion if I do happen to hit one. The cups are cheap, but the mewling Ilmatari priests charge outrageous fees for healing head wounds.”
Cephas said, “You thought to hit one of them? To drop that stoneware on one of those people down there? What are you trying to demonstrate?”
The pasha sat back in his chair and parted his hands. “Honesty—something I know you have had little experience with. What is the name the slaves called you?”
“You mean Cephas? It is the only name I have known.”
“It is not. You remain Marod yn Marod el Arhapan, as you were when your blessed mother birthed you. ‘Cephas’ is a word in the language Shahrokh and the other djinn use. It means ‘son of stone,’ and it is a terrible insult among their people. Did the kenku tell you that?”
“No,” said Cephas, “but …”
“If you had a sister, which Valandra and I dreamed of, she would have been Khanisa yr Valandra el Shelsper, to honor your mother’s family. They were the first earthsouled elevated to the nobility, and my marriage caused great controversy. We planned to cement their place by using a matrilineal name. They told you this story in that village of escaped slaves in the Spires of Mir? When they explained all the other secrets of your szuldar?”
Cephas looked at his father. “They explained nothing to me there about my ancestry. That came later. From Corvus.”
“You broke fast with Acham el Jhotos in Almraiven. A rare honor, to visit those famous gardens. They are watered with the blood of our people—did you know that? Did he tell you that he ordered my father—your grandfather, Marod—beheaded on the walls of that garden in the Year of the Emerald Sun? Did he point out the spot?”
Cephas did not answer.
“Kin of the WeavePasha have died in this city, make no mistake. I work every day to ensure that more will follow them to the Nine Hells. When your grandfather was sent to his death, his hands were bound behind him. But when the WeavePasha’s grandson died a month later, his hands were free, and he held a sword, and a shield. He even bested a half-dozen gladiators before one of the yikaria took him down. He had a chance.”
Cephas said, “I am no friend of the WeavePasha. We fled his city, pursued by wizards throwing fire.”
“Yes, some of his innumerable descendants, no doubt. Tell me, Son, what did you do to offend him? He is known the world over as one of the most powerful mortals alive, so I hope you did not give him insult. Did you attack him?”
Cephas shook his head. “No, nothing like that. He was kind to me, if you must know. He and Corvus quarreled.�
��
“He and Corvus quarreled,” his father repeated, as if to himself. “The kenku has many masters. A disagreement over the fee, perhaps.”
“No!” said Cephas, tired of being led about as if he yet wore a collar. “El Jhotos meant to—to do something to me. Some magic that would work me into a weapon to be turned against you.”
The pasha considered this. “So Shahrokh told me. I had hoped it was not true. I suppose I cannot blame you—you have spent your life hearing my name cursed, I am sure—but Marod … I must admit, it still tears my heart. How could you agree to it? How could you agree to kill your own father?”
Cephas felt the tug again but could not pull against it. “You know I didn’t know,” he said.
The pasha stood and approached Cephas. He put his hands on Cephas’s shoulders. Cephas had seen few mirrors but had a general idea of what he looked like, even windsouled. The man before him was a mirror sent back in time from twenty years in his own future.
The pasha nodded. “Yes, Son, I did know. And I am sorry that I played a courtier’s game of rhetoric in drawing out the truth. I will not tell you how to judge the actions of the people you have traveled with. I don’t know the full truth of their actions myself. But I do know some truths, and I tell you these plainly.
“I am Marod el Arhapan, Pasha of Pashas of the Holy City of Calimport, Governor of all Calimshan and Holder of the Keys against the Day of Blessed Calim’s Return. I am the Pasha of Games and of Ships and of Trade, and Ambassador to the Djinn of the Plane Below. And I am your father.
“I am an owner of slaves and a killer of men. My wealth is earned by the work of ten thousand people whom I will never see and rarely spare a thought for. And I am your father.
“And I have never, ever lied to you.”
Corvus expected to be separated from the others. He expected the change in demeanor that came of the djinn who floated beside him, and if he had not expected that the handful of windsouled courtiers would disappear as soon as they left the courtyard, it was only because he hadn’t anticipated they would be along for the brief time they were. It was of little consequence. Their only role was to attach the chains.
Sandstorm: A Forgotten Realms Novel Page 21
