by Zamil Akhtar
13
Cyra
Turned out a camel costs as much as a decent pair of gold-plated pearl earrings — we’d bargained hard to get what little we got. So I had to ride behind Eshe again, though thankfully not tied to him. Kevah’s absurdly small camel trailed ours — the seller claimed it to be a full-grown, but it was no larger than a donkey! And thus we began the three-day journey to Qandbajar.
Eshe, who wore a paper-thin caftan and tight headwrap that wasn’t quite a turban, turned to me and said, “I heard the magus can fly. It might, you know, shorten the travel time.”
I dabbed sweat off my cheeks with a checkered scarf I’d bought for a copper. “I’m not looking forward to this slow roast either, but hundreds of Archer of the Eye stations lie between here and Qandbajar, and I think they’d notice us flying overhead.”
Given how cloudless it had been, that was certain. No, we couldn’t risk being noticed. If the soulshifter was alerted to us, it could endanger everything. For now, only the three of us, the Disciples, and Khizr Khaz were aware, and given that I mistrusted the Disciples and didn’t know what to expect from the Order of Saint Jamshid, worries burdened worse than this scorch.
Because Kevah’s camel was so small, ours bore all our belongings. So behind me sat a bundle containing food and clothes. That meant I could lean on it, which gave rest to my back, though I still had to cling onto Eshe’s whip-scarred shoulders to stay steady. A camel’s gait was rhythmic once you let your body sway with it — not as smooth as a Kashanese horse, but those didn’t do well in the desert.
Ironic, because it wasn’t long until we came upon horse tracks. Thousands of tracks, as if a horde had crossed these sands. The three of us dismounted to inspect them: the hoofprints were small, typical of Kashanese horses. Aside the tracks, the bones of herd animals were being picked clean by squawking, red-winged vultures.
“Sheikh Khizr had mentioned the Jotrids,” I said, “but why cross the desert when they could more easily cross the scrub?”
Kevah bent down to examine the tracks, which remained fresh due to the still wind. “I’ve sent Kinn to scout ahead. Best we know what we’re riding into.”
Eshe guzzled from his waterskin. “I can’t think of any reason why they’d pass this way. Unless their horses eat sand.”
Kevah chuckled. “I heard about a horse that shits gold. How about one that eats sand and shits gold — wouldn’t that be perfect?” He and Eshe laughed. I didn’t think it was that funny. Probably because I was fixated on something. On one man: Khagan Pashang.
Back in Zelthuriya, when I’d explained to Kevah that Eshe would be joining us and retold the man’s exile story, he shrugged it off and said, “I was a janissary. We reaved our way through Yuna. Can’t say my hands are bloodless.” Also, when I mentioned Aschere, Kevah closed his eyes, looked away, and clenched his jaw, as if overcome by pain. But when I asked if that name meant something, he just shook his head.
I didn’t want to pry into someone’s pain, so left it at that. Perhaps one day, he’d tell me. We’d all tasted pain and also dished it to others, many deserving, but some undeserving, too. None of us were saints. But Khagan Pashang…the things he was known for...
He’d done the Seluqal’s dirty work for years. Tamaz had even imprisoned him, more than once, but just for show, because he often relied on the Jotrids to maintain control over Merva, the restive eastern province of the kingdom.
“Eshe, didn’t you say you’re from Merva?” I asked. “You ought to know what the Jotrids are capable of.”
“Indeed,” Eshe said, his grin going flat. “I remember when the Path of the Children were secretly forming a militia, claiming that the return of the Guided was at hand. Governor Mansur didn’t want to get his hands dirty, so he called in Khagan Pashang.” Eshe shuddered. “Well, he crushed the rebels, all right. First, he got the family books from the palace archive. Anyone who was even suspected of being a rebel, he wouldn’t touch. He’d take the family, then go one generation above, and take those families, too. He sent them all to an old mine, left food and water inside, then sealed the entrance.” Eshe gulped.
“Oh Lat,” I gulped too. I’d heard this story once, and didn’t want to hear it again, but listened to remind myself of the man who’d kidnapped me — and the boy who’d sat with my family for meals and raced horses with my brother and me.
Eshe continued, “Pashang brought the men accused of joining this militia to the mine entrance, just to hear the screams of their families trapped inside. Once the food and water ran out…well, you can imagine. The screams turned…inhuman. Every day, he’d make the rebel men hear the shrieks of their families as they ate and ripped each other apart. Until, one day, it went dead silent.” Eshe shut his eyes — hard. This next part always froze my blood. “And then, if the stories are to be believed, something broke that silence — laughter. Utterly maniacal and insane laughter. The laughter of Ahriyya himself. Khagan Pashang let the rebel militiamen go, but none had the heart to fight. Not anymore.”
“You tell it as if you were there,” I said, putting my hand on Eshe’s shoulder.
Eshe shook his sweaty head. “It’s not that — one of the families sealed in the mine used to work for my mother. Good people…though, yes, they were heretics. It broke my mother to learn what happened to them. How is it that in this kingdom, we let Ethosians and all manner of infidel worship what they wish, but fellow worshippers of Lat on a different path are so cruelly crushed?”
Even Kevah seemed rocked by that story, discomfort obvious in his gaze. “Because aside from coastal raiding, the Ethosians aren’t a threat to the Seluqals here, like they are to the Seluqals where I’m from. The Alanyan kingdom was built on that of the saint-kings, who built their kingdom upon the graves of Chisti’s descendants, the Children. They’ll always haunt this place.” Kevah sighed, long and weary. “Now, as a practical consideration, I suggest conserving water. A horde has been through here, so the oases’ wells are likely dry.”
“He wasn’t always like that,” I said, trying to wrap my head around how Pashang had become so depraved. “I think it started after his father took him on a ranging into the deepest part of the Waste — a place we call the Red for the color of its sky. Lat knows what he saw there, but he left a boy and returned a monster, his father’s flesh inside him.” That was what Cihan had told me, anyway.
Kevah said, “I think we know enough to conclude — let’s avoid Pashang and get to Qandbajar.”
We rode on, but Kevah’s camel lagged, so we often slowed so it could catch up. You’d think the Disciples would’ve given him more support, but according to Kevah, they were disappointed he was leaving without the allegiance of a single jinn tribe, which meant that he was a magus in name, not ability. Still, they couldn’t stop him because he’d “made the covenant with Lat herself” and so only she could punish him.
I wished I were riding with him. I mean, that camel had an oversized head on a small body with a tiny hump, but that only meant our bodies would be closer. Such thoughts were obviously wrong since I still pinned my hopes on Kyars accepting me, but I couldn’t help it.
All day, we rode. Eshe and I chatted about everything: his life growing up in Merva and mine growing up in the Waste and Qandbajar. At one point, his father owned fifty slaves, he claimed, and they served him in a house larger than Governor Mansur’s palace. But when the slaves in Merva revolted when Eshe was still a boy, they burned his house and almost killed his family, and so his father and mother decided to live more modestly. They joined a saintly order and devoted half their wealth to it, which also encouraged the city folk, who regarded them as foreign Himyarites, to be more accepting.
After a while, we stopped to make the sunset prayer. Kevah and Eshe argued about who ought to lead it.
“I’m a depraved hashish addict,” Kevah said, “no way I can lead.”
Eshe sniggered. “You know what bought my camel and these clothes?” He tugged on his shirt. “Money earned by disp
araging half the asses, breasts, and cocks in Qandbajar. You want the same tongue sending your prayers to Lat?”
“You’re a former Disciple and a scholar of high knowledge.”
“You’re a magus who claims to have been chosen by Lat herself.”
“What about her?” Kevah gestured his head toward me.
“Her it is.” They both lined up and glared in my direction.
I spat out a date pit and shook my head. “I once…killed a frog.”
They looked at each other, bewildered.
I grunted in frustration. “I once said…very disgusting things…about another woman in the harem…behind her back!”
“We’re wasting time,” Kevah said. “Please start.” He stared up at the reddening sky. “Where the hell is Kinn? He should have been here by now.”
I practiced the prayer words in my mind so I wouldn’t mess them up. My head needed to sway left, then right, then right again, then left, then up. It had been so long since I’d paid attention to any of this.
But just as I was about to raise my hands and begin, something landed on my head. A white flower petal? But why was it cold? And then on my nose. And then it was falling all around.
Snow.
We stared up: a rosy sunset. And yet, it was snowing. What in Lat’s name?
“How is this possible?” Eshe said, hugging his body.
I shivered too as the air chilled. As if the warmth from seconds ago had been sucked out.
Kevah pushed his head back until he was looking directly above. “Oh Lat. If only you two could see this.”
“See what?” I asked.
“I was expecting to meet her,” Kevah said, “but not here. Not like this.”
“Expecting who?” Eshe rubbed his arms.
“Marada.” Kevah pointed at the setting sun, which now seemed to be turning blue. “Sultana of the Marid, one of the great tribes of jinn. Her wings are the span of clouds. Did the Disciples really expect me to gain her allegiance?”
The snow fell in clumps, now. The sand beneath chilled my feet as it froze. A howling wind screeched my ears, whipping up cold sand that mixed with snow, and the sky fogged.
“The Marid tribe live in the Waste,” Eshe said, “the hell are they doing here?”
“She’s looking right at me,” Kevah said. “Why? What does she want?”
In seconds, the landscape turned white. A blizzard raged. I couldn’t even see our camels.
“It’s…upset with me.” Kevah dropped to his knees. “You two, go, get out of here. As far as you can.”
Eshe grabbed my arm. “Come on!”
I resisted. “We can’t just leave him!” But I did want to run. The cold burrowed into my bones. Just like those frozen days in the Waste, when I’d starved and vomited nothing but my spit, which I’d swallowed so much of, just to taste something.
“He’s a magus,” Eshe said. “His power comes from submitting the jinn tribes to him. Perhaps this is the consequence of leaving Zelthuriya without doing that.”
“Consequence or not, he’s our friend!”
“Don’t worry,” Kevah said, hair covered in snow. “Marada’s not going to harm me. I’m wearing her mask, after all. But you two…you’re not but ants to her. So go! Get clear of the storm!”
I let Eshe pull me away. We shielded our faces from the blizzard and trudged through the snow. Everything froze, even the water in my eyes.
The wind shrieked like the dying. I could barely see Eshe in front of me but clung to his hand as icicles formed in my veins. My legs buckled as if my joints had frozen, and I fell upon a couch of snow.
Eshe pulled me up. Then he screamed. Something was pulling him, too. The air was too white to see. I clutched his hand, but the force sent him flying.
“Eshe!” I shouted. None answered but the wind’s shrill cry. Nothing but white every way I turned. I couldn’t even shout: the air was ice and so were my throat and lungs.
“Payment for your sins,” someone whispered hot in my ear.
No, my sins didn’t deserve this pain. The thousandth hell is a place of absolute cold, the Recitals say. I was falling into it, ten cold hells passing me each second.
“Remember what you did,” the whisper said. “Remember, so you can beg forgiveness.”
I didn’t do anything. I’m good. That’s why they wanted me to lead the prayer.
“Liar,” every disciple in the room said, their eyes black-in-black. “Liar!”
“Follow the straight path,” Khizr Khaz said, his eyes only whites. “Worship no other god aside Lat.”
“I am on the straight path,” I cried. “I’ve made mistakes, but I’ll be better.”
“You’re hiding something,” Ruhi said, her black veil covered in snow. “And you don’t even know it.”
I crashed into ice water and became ice. So brittle that a whisper could shatter me.
“Cyra,” Cihan whispered in my ear as we huddled beneath a torn blanket. “Wake up.”
Slap! It scathed my cheek like fire. I did wake up, with Eshe cradling my head.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Can you stand?” he said. “I’ve not the strength to carry you.” As he spoke, snow fell gently upon his headcloth. It seemed the blizzard had become a pattering of snowflakes, though my toes and fingers still numbed.
I sat up and stuck my hands in my shirt, near my core, for warmth.
“We need to keep going,” he said. “Get up.”
Eshe pulled me up by the arms. I fell again, onto my knees, and then toppled to my side. My caftan was soaked and my knees numb.
Eshe unsheathed a dagger, clutched my numb hand, and pricked my finger. My blood flowed onto the blade’s flat, though I didn’t feel it.
I glared at him in horror. “What’re you doing?”
He drew a pattern on the flat, then mumbled some words. The pattern glowed, and the blade enflamed.
Life-giving heat emanated from the flame. Eshe pulled off his headcloth and wrapped it around the burning blade; the cloth caught fire, providing more heat.
“You have useful blood,” he said, brandishing the flame. “Fire and ice, both, run through your veins. A conversation for another time. Warm up and let’s go.”
After a few minutes of huddling near it, the heat helped me feel again. Helped me stand. Eshe and I held hands and trudged through the textureless surrounding. White the sky, white the ground, white the air. Where were we going? Any direction was better than staying still, I supposed. And was Kevah all right?
As we went, the ground hardened. Sand intruded on the snow, grain by grain, as if we entered another world. The desert world from before this madness began. And then, as the storm died to a whisper, dunes appeared in the distance. The cold eased with every step as the red, setting sun crept out of the haze that had been choking it.
A hooded man stood just ahead, his back turned to us.
“Kevah?” I shouted. I broke out of Eshe’s handhold and ran forward.
“Wait!” Eshe huffed as he followed.
But as I approached the man, I noticed he towered compared to Kevah. Freakish. Almost double my height. And then I stared at his feet: they faced backward.
“Turn back,” he said in a whisper that boomed. Had it come from the man or the sky?
I stood still. Eshe caught up and grabbed my hand. Beyond the man was the sand and sun we craved. Behind us, the snow and cold. He was the line between two wastelands.
“You are about to enter the Palace of Bones,” the tall man whispered across the sky. “A fate worse than death.”
I looked behind me. Nothing but snow. Please, no more cold. Cold was starvation. Cold was death.
“This place has swallowed armies whole,” the tall man said. “What are two strays?”
“This isn’t good,” Eshe said. “The Palace of Bones is a cursed place. It’s said to travel between the deserts of the world, snatching up the lost, sending them to the realm of the Dreamer. Scholars say it even ca
used the blood plague that destroyed my homeland. We should turn back.”
“A palace that…travels? But if we turn back, we’ll freeze.”
Eshe said with a tremor, “Lat help us, but I think I’d rather freeze.”
“Lat has no power here,” the tall man said. “Turn back.”
No. I wouldn’t go into the cold. Never again. Not after all that had happened.
But when I stepped forward, Eshe yanked my arm. “You crazy?”
Snap. The hooded man’s arm bent at an odd angle and…grew. Snap-snap. His whole body grew, like a tree sprouting, with each bony snap of his neck and limbs.
“You’re right,” I said to Eshe, whose eyes were bulging grapes as the thing continued to snap-snap-snap. “I’m not thinking clearly. L-Let’s go back.”
We turned from the creature and hurried into the snow, trudging into the cold that I hated, ice making a home inside me. The heat of Eshe’s flaming dagger kept us going. Until, once again, we saw sand, dunes, and sun in the distance. Eshe and I hurried onward, hope thudding in my heart.
But as we neared the sand, there it was again: the bizarre, bent-limbed creature, its many arms and legs sprawled in the air and across the sand. What resembled octopus tentacles bored into the ground off its stone-like torso. Its head towered several feet into the sky, mouth open and hundreds of eyes bubbling on its face.
I bit my trembling lip, then said to Eshe, “But we turned back.”
“Whatever it is, it’s having fun with us,” Eshe said with a quaver. “We’re ants, remember?”
Its laugh sounded like a broken flute being blown into by a man gasping before death. “Did you really think there was a choice?” it said from everywhere. “Perhaps there was, long ago, before you did what you did. But now…there’s no way back.”
The thing swiped a tentacle in our direction, flinging sand waves in the air. The burning grains scathed my eye. I yanked out of Eshe’s handhold and pressed against my tear duct. Eshe screamed, his voice getting fainter, as if he were flying away.
