by Zamil Akhtar
While watching the clamor, a weakness seeped through my nerves. I leaned against the wall as everything around seemed to…slow. I looked up at the skylight — a drongo sat on the glass dome, gazing upon me. Red eyes of sadness. Red eyes of rage.
I clasped my forehead, dizzy. My limbs numbed, and throbbing nausea crawled through my chest and throat. What an awful time to get sick, to lose yourself. And then my vision cracked, black fog seeping in until it drowned me.
8
Zedra
I opened my eyes. The great hall surrounded me: a mess of concubines, entertainers, Sylgiz warriors, and viziers, their mouths flapping with confusion and furor. All made way for the Shah, who stood within a wall of golden gholam. My opportunity to act evaporated each second. Though they didn’t know who I was, that Disciple had exposed my bloodrunes, and so it was now or never.
“Cyra, you all right?” Cihan caressed my cheek. His Sylgiz costume — a dark blue, fur-accented vest — reminded me so much of our Vograsian outfits.
I pushed his hand off. “Yes, brother. Just a little faint. This is all so sudden.” I felt Cyra’s fear, which had poisoned the joy of her marriage. Poor girl believed this would be the greatest day of her life. A new chapter. Well, perhaps.
“I don’t want you staying here, either. Come with us to camp.”
I nodded and smiled. “Of course. Anything you say.”
The gholam began marching the Shah out of the hall, in a square formation. Two layers of armored, matchlock- and sword-wielding men surrounded him. How could I, a lanky girl, break through?
I approached a nearby low table and bent down. Looked around, making sure no one’s eyes were on me. These sheep were too busy watching Tamaz and the gholam — good. I eyed a cutting knife that had been stabbed into a lamb shank, which itself sat on a mound of rice. I hovered my sleeve over it, then scooped the knife inside.
The gholam and Tamaz marched out the great hall and into the antechamber. I followed with the Sylgiz. In haste, Tamaz and the gholam proceeded beyond the tunnel-like exit and beneath the open sky. I kept up, stepping ahead of viziers, courtiers, and concubines — their brocade brushing against me — so I was just behind. My target passed the ghastly stone simurgh, while the Sylgiz remained back. Good.
Nothing separated Tamaz and me but ten paces and a double layer of trained-to-kill-from-birth warriors. What could pierce that?
“Father!” I screamed, as if I were in pain. “Father!”
Tamaz, peeking through his gholam, looked back at me. But they pushed him forward, even grabbing his shoulders.
“Father, wait!” This time, I had to trap his attention. I slipped the knife out of my sleeve and into my hand, breathed deep, and jammed the blade into my right eye.
Waves of pain washed over my face and brain and bones as I fell to my knees, careful to hide the knife in my sleeve again. “Father! Help!”
Hard to see as blood flowed down my face and onto my lips. Conqueror’s blood usually tasted too spicy and metallic — but this time, I savored those notes.
Tamaz glanced back, horror plain in his gaze. He pushed his gholam aside and hobbled to me.
He took my bleeding head in his arms. “Cyra! What happened? Oh, my daughter! My sweet daughter!”
Running steps sounded behind me. Cihan appeared at my side. He put his hands on my shoulder as he and Tamaz bent down and gaped in shock.
“Father, brother, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Healer! Get a healer!” Tamaz screamed.
His gholam approached, and now they formed a wall in front of us, with the Sylgiz at our back. Kato pushed through to face us.
“Your Glory.” He bent his neck. “We’ll find a healer for her. But you must come with us. I know not what dangers lurk.”
Now or never. All eyes on me. I slipped the knife into my hand, held it firm, and slammed the blade into Tamaz’s heart. “Father.” I cut a swathe through his chest. Flesh tearing. Blood flying. Until his mouth foamed red, and he dropped dead.
Cihan gaped, his eyes already watered with horror. He grabbed the knife from my hand as the gholam grabbed Shah Tamaz’s corpse.
“She…she stabbed the Shah!” Kato shouted. He unsheathed a sword with one hand and grabbed a matchlock with the other.
Cihan was not armed. All he had was the cutting knife. Still, he jumped in front of me and faced the gholam, ready to defend his sister with his life.
“The sorcerer,” he said. “The sorcerer did this!”
“I saw her stab the Shah!” Kato screamed, pointing at me.
As several gholam took the Shah’s body and rushed somewhere, the rest formed up and blocked the way out. Kato pushed against Cihan to grab me, but Cihan pushed back.
The raging pain in my bleeding socket numbed, but sour lightheadedness threatened to end this cycle. I had to finish Cyra, somehow, but Cihan had seized my knife.
Sylgiz warriors surrounded me. A burly one picked me up and put me on his shoulder. A bright, bone-handle hunting knife was tucked into a sheath at his side. Perfect. As he moved forward with the other Sylgiz, toward the line of gholam, I reached for it. When Sambal had killed the rat, I didn’t die, so I was certain I’d survive this — though it would hardly be pleasant.
Gunfire! Shouts and screams filled the air. Sylgiz in front of me fell to gholam matchlocks. Cihan staggered to his knees, clutching a burn in his belly. The Sylgiz still standing pulled out their hunting knives and charged the gholam.
As the warrior holding me ran forward, I put the blade to my neck, pressed it in, and slid it across my skin.
9
Cyra
A familiar ceiling spread before me: the open sky. Cold, unfamiliar hands touched me all over. A scythe cut me, bloodying my soul. Then I was thrown. I flowed down a river and up a river. Crashed down a waterfall and got scooped up a waterfall.
I was a drop, and then I was a clot, and then I was flesh. My soul lived in the sheets beneath and the cloth walls around. Blood rain washed over the world and brought with it pain. So much pain — as if swords were hacking me to bits. As if a jinn were being birthed between my ribs.
A familiar face appeared; his name was Eshe. A vulgar poet and former Disciple of Chisti. I turned to look at him and blinked. I could see only half, the other half in darkness.
“I had the strangest dream,” I said.
He took my hand and put it to his forehead, then recited something.
A hammer pounded my skull. A jinn covered in red tulips was nailing my head to the city gate. Each tulip had an eye for a bud, and they kept blinking. The nails split bone and brain. It was as painful as it sounds.
The first nail said: We can’t stay here. The Endless calls. But what to do with her?
The second nail replied: Throw her to the Alanyans. Let their dogs pick her to the bone.
The third: Gokberk, have you no honor? We must cherish what Cihan would’ve wanted. Take her with us, to be with her mother.
Cihan died because of her. As did six others. Let the Alanyans punish her. It’s the right thing to do.
She’s a Sylgiz. You’d just forsake her?
Look at her. She’s no Sylgiz. She was the whisperer in Cihan’s ear. She convinced him to forsake the beloved Children, and this is Lat’s punishment. Besides, we didn’t kill the Shah — she did.
I was a camel going thump-thump-thump over a dune. I was a man full of sadness, thirsty and baked. And then I was a girl, broken and cold despite the high sun, with barely any blood in her. I was sitting behind the man, roped to him so I wouldn’t fall off the camel going thump-thump-thump through the desert.
We reached an oasis, and the man sat me against a stone well. I was the well as the man pulled up the pail. I’d been here a thousand years and — with mercy — quenched the thirst of too many to count.
“Are you there?” the man named Eshe said.
I could see my own eyes — open and lifeless.
But I blinked. Again and again.
Each time, I was sucked inward, until I was the girl again. Until I bathed in her pain.
“I had such a horrible dream.”
The crescent moon brought a bitter, dry desert wind. It was silent, save for the rustling of palms. My soul slipped into the sand, but it was colder than my body, so I went up again. The man removed the pit from a water-soaked date, then squeezed the flesh and juice into my mouth. Syrupy and happy.
“Where are we?” I stared at the starry sky.
Breathing hurt, each inhale like swallowing nails. My eye hurt, whether open or closed. I wanted to be sand again. Or the well. This body was nothing but pain.
The man was lying in the sand and snoring. When had he fallen asleep? An hour seemed to pass each minute. I touched my neck — thick cloth covered it, wrapped tightly. Was this why it hurt to breathe? I felt my face — more cloth, wrapped around my right eye. Was this why I could only see half the world?
I began…remembering. Remembering a nightmare where I’d cut my eye, stabbed Shah Tamaz, and sliced my throat. I trembled. I didn’t want this. I wanted to be sand lifted by breezes to faraway places. Or the breeze itself, blowing to the ends of the earth. Anything. Anything but this.
Daylight brought life-giving heat. Still, I swallowed nails. Eshe was washing his camel while it happily chewed on grass. I was sitting against the well, wearing bandages and a harsh caftan.
“I want to go home,” I said.
Eshe dropped his washcloth, then kneeled over me. He put my hand to his forehead and prayed.
“What are you doing?”
“The only thing I know to do.”
When I blinked, only one eyelid moved, and what felt like spikes flared in my face and neck.
“What did you do to me?” I asked.
He quenched my thirst from his waterskin, then popped a date into my mouth.
“Why are we in the desert? Where is the Shah? What the hell happened?” Despite trying to shout, I could barely whisper.
Eshe scrunched his eyes and shook his head. “Cyra…”
“You should call me sultana,” I said. “I’m a sultana now.”
But if that were true, why was I here and not in the palace? Why did the tears streaming down my cheeks taste like blood?
“Where is my brother? Where is Cihan?”
Eshe dumped the remaining water over his head and looked away. “Your brother is dead. The Shah is dead. You’re…you’re alive.”
“What are you saying? Eshe! Look at me!”
But he wouldn’t. “I couldn’t stop it. Once again, I couldn’t stop it.”
“Eshe, please don’t say these things. You’re scaring me.”
With a heave that pained everything, I pushed up against the well. The water’s reflection showed my face: blood-soaked cotton covered my right eye. A bloody sheet was draped around my neck.
“No, this can’t be real,” I said with a tremor. “Where is Shah Tamaz? Where is Cihan?”
Neither Eshe nor his camel nor the surrounding palms would answer. So perhaps I ought to crawl back to Qandbajar.
But when I started to, Eshe put his hand on my shoulder.
“We have to get going,” he said. “They might be looking for me.”
“What? Who?”
“The gholam. They took Hadrith and Ozar captive, and I suspect my name will be on their tongues. The eunuch escaped — I believe he said he was going to Kashan. As for you…I think they believe you’re dead. Both your brother and Tamaz died trying to save you, Cyra. You can’t let that be in vain.”
“But I want to go home.”
“You don’t have a home! Even your tribe want nothing to do with you.”
How could that be? How could this be real? And yet, I’d seen myself. I was floating above my body when it stabbed its own eye, cut into the Shah’s chest, and finally…
Was it all true? Had the sorcerer…possessed me?
“If that’s true,” I said, “then let me die. Bury me here. This place is pleasant enough.”
Eshe shook his head. “The other day, when we met at Hadrith’s house, you said you loved this country.”
“And you said you were just doing this to learn about the bloodrunes. So why are you helping me?”
“Perhaps we both lied, then.”
I curled up on the grass. “I didn’t lie. I love Alanya. But I can’t live like this. I wish I’d died. Stop giving me water, stop giving me food. I won’t go wherever you’re taking me. I won’t! Let it end!”
Instead, he stuck something in my mouth, then forced me to chew. Tasted like poppy seeds.
I woke upon the camel, a rope tying me to Eshe. I’d drooled blood on his back. As we rode, he’d hit the camel’s side with a reed. The sun’s rays tinted the sky red, a wavy desert in all directions.
“Have mercy,” I whispered. “Kill me.”
“We’ll arrive shortly,” he said. “Once we do, you’ll be safe, at least.”
“You don’t owe me anything. Why are you doing this?”
“I am…I was a Disciple of Chisti. We don’t ignore injustice, like the rest of you. ‘Succor for the weak’ — those are our words.”
“The best succor is a quick death.”
“Ever try praying, lady?”
I had — during that starving winter in the Waste.
“What would I pray for? Which saint can cure my ills? I’m disfigured. I’ve lost my place in the world. The only two people who love me are dead — because of what my own hands did!”
“It wasn’t your fault!”
My tears mixed with my blood on Eshe’s thin shirt. I brushed my cheek against the mess I’d made; how rough the skin of his back seemed, as if covered with long, mountainous streaks.
I wriggled my body, hoping to fall off, but the rope stayed taut. Eshe turned his head, looked upon me with pity, and tried to stuff seeds into my mouth. But I wouldn’t open up.
“Don’t make this hard! We’ll both be killed if the gholam find us.”
“You’re the one making this hard! I don’t want to go wherever you’re going. Just drop me here. Right here. This patch of sand will do. It’s like all the others, but it will do.”
“Don’t you want justice, lady? Aren’t you incensed at the one who did this to you?”
Whoever had was evil, surely. But no amount of anger would help me challenge a sorcerer, bloodwriter, soulshifter — words that sounded like childhood nightmares. I was base, dull, incapable, and now disfigured. All I’d gotten in life had been through luck, and it had turned.
“I just want peace. I can’t bear this burden. What will happen to me? Will I have to beg on the streets for the rest of my life? Even the pleasure houses wouldn’t take a one-eyed wh—”
The bastard stuffed seeds in my mouth, then squeezed my jaw until I was forced to swallow.
Two men guarded the mountain pass. They wore green turbans and simple black vests over sand-speckled caftans. Eshe carried me like a baby and approached. He was stronger than he looked, but because I was his height, my head dangled off his shoulder.
“This girl needs urgent help,” he said. “Please, let us through to the hospital.”
I turned my head to see one of the men, who had small eyes on a round face, whispering to the other. The other nodded; his pointed nose could hook a fish.
“Never heard of this trick,” the pointy-nosed one said. “I’m actually impressed. She does look very…wait…that’s real blood.”
The other one unsheathed his scimitar. “Did you hurt this girl, exile?”
Eshe shook his head. “No. I don’t want a fight. Please help us.”
The two men picked me off Eshe. The round-faced one held me as if I were a dress he’d pulled from the closet.
“Get out of here,” the pointy-nosed one said to Eshe. “I remember the day they whipped you and threw you off the mountain. A clever trick won’t get you back in the city.”
“Cyra,” Eshe called.
I gazed at him with my one eye. How f
rail he seemed, huffing and sweaty, and how dismal and tired were his eyes.
“Cyra, listen. We have one hope, and one hope only, to defeat a soulshifter. They won’t let me in the city, nor will they listen to anything I have to say, so it all rests on you. You must find him, Cyra, and you must convince him to help us.”
“Find…who?” I muttered.
“He is a magus. And his name is Kevah.”
Zelthuriya seemed incredible, even out of one eye, even while a strange man was carrying me on his chest, my head cradled on his shoulder. The first speck of happiness I’d felt: to be somewhere holy. And, hopefully, to die somewhere holy.
Enormous stone doors had been chiseled out of the mountains, supposedly by a race of jinn called the Efreet — if the stories I’d grown up with were to be believed. The doors had been painted gold and red and green — the brightest hues. Seeing it cheered me up. I’d had a chance to come here a few years ago but turned it down. A pilgrimage of praying and fasting didn’t sound interesting to my young mind, unless they sold dresses and shoes in those shrines. Perhaps if I’d gone, my life would’ve been different. Perhaps I was being punished for all my awful choices.
Crowded streets — men and women wearing white went from shrine to shrine, in orderly lines, all while chanting to the saints and Lat herself.
“So, what happened to you?” the man carrying me said.
“Soulshifter,” I mumbled.
“Oh, I remember hearing about them. The last one died at the time of Seluq, six hundred years ago.”
“Rafa,” the pointy-nosed man said, “aren’t you fasting today?”
“Yah, so?”
“Talking to a girl not of your household breaks your fast, don’t you know this?”
“Alir, nearly every part of her body is touching mine. I think my fast is already broken.”
