The Unconquered City

by K A Doore

  First her cousins, her family through blood. Azulay, Ziri, Usaten, Tamella. Then her whole family by blood. Talal. Her mother. Garrem. Her father. Her aunt, her uncles. Her grandmother.

  The names filled the vellum, smothering it in ink. Illi passed on the pen, her fingers stained black. She held the vellum by one unmarked corner, her gaze fixed on the names, reading and rereading a list she had long since burned onto her soul. So many gone, so many lost. Only her grandmother had been spared that night, having died some months before. Illi had never run into her corpse, one small mercy among so many horrors.

  When the novice marabi and her assistant returned to the front, the marab began calling out the names of the deceased. One by one the names were echoed through the crowd. Individually and in clumps, people approached the pyre, their prayers and the names of their dead clutched tight to their chests. The marab guided them in wiping the vellum clean with a wet cloth, then squeezing that cloth into a large glass bowl. Ink-stained water slowly filled the bowl.

  “Azulay Saäfen,” called a marabi.

  Illi stayed, watching as Azulay’s family walked forward. Dihya stood with them, even though they were only distantly related. When Dihya turned back around, her face was as still as stone, but firelight picked out the wet trails on her cheeks.

  Illi remained still for each of her cousins’ names. She watched as her living cousins went up, one by one by one, to hand the marab their prayers. The names were in no particular order and kept coming, the reading itself a litany.

  “Tamella Basbowen.”

  Thana walked to the front, hand in hand with an older man, bending like a palm with age. Thana handed off her ink-blackened strip of vellum, and when she turned back, seemed to walk a little taller, as if the vellum had weighed hundreds of pounds.

  Illi didn’t hear the next few names, but “Talal Zirbemen” broke through her distraction, followed by “Garrem Zirbemen.”

  And then Illi was approaching the pyre and the waiting marab. More names blew around her as she walked, but Illi felt strangely detached, as if someone else were moving her feet, as if someone else were using her ears. She held the vellum out to the marab, but they gently pushed it back toward her. Oh yes, she remembered. This was her act.

  A hand guided her to the bowl of water, now as murky as smoke. Another hand held out the cloth, likewise stained with ink. Illi wiped the names clean from her vellum, watching the dribbles of black-stained water run down her hands, fall into the bowl. Names mingling with other names, prayers and hopes and love and grief. All of it become water, become smoke, become ash.

  As one day she would. As one day everyone here would.

  The marabi took the vellum and the cloth back. Illi resisted, but only for a moment. The names continued to roll, relentless and unending, and behind her more mourners were waiting their turn.

  Illi walked slowly back. She’d been hoping to feel lighter, as Thana had seemed to. She’d thought she could shed her grief as easily as the water washed the ink away. But instead, it clung to her just as heavy, just as tight. She headed for a space in the crowd where she could stand alone and watch.

  But someone stepped in front of her. Thana.

  “You’re back,” said Thana.

  And then she did the kindest thing: she didn’t ask why. Thana only opened her arms and Illi fell into them, tears cracking through the stony façade she’d built up over the long, grueling afternoon. Salt from her tears mingled with the salt from her dried sweat and she thought dimly about how bad she must smell.

  Thana didn’t seem to mind, or at least she didn’t try to get away. Illi breathed deep, letting Thana’s familiar, sharp scents center her. Thana didn’t move, didn’t say a word.

  They stood that way for hours, seconds. When Illi was ready, she pulled back and slipped her hand into Thana’s, as she had when she’d gone with her mother to the market a hundred times before. The memory brushed over her as fleeting as a shadow, but as vivid as a flower. The feel of her small hand in her mother’s larger, rougher one; the whirl of the market; the promise of one, just one, spiced almond cake; the cool weight of a baat in her other hand.

  Thana guided Illi through the crowd to a cluster of cousins. Dihya and Zarrat, Azhar and Menna, Yaluz and Hamma. Mo was there, too, along with Thana’s father, Barag. Even Drum Chief Amastan stood with them, his necklace, the sign of his office, tucked away and out of sight for now. Tonight, he was just Amastan.

  Her cousins didn’t smile, but there was a welcoming warmth nonetheless. Illi held out her other hand and Mo took it, her own smaller, softer. In silence, they watched as the last of the mourners brought their prayers to the marab.

  A few more words were said, their cadence mattering more than their meaning. As the marab spoke, two more walked the length of the pyre, drenching the bodies and the cloth in oil. Then the marab took up their unlit torches and spread out around the pyre. As one, they dipped their torches into the waiting fires. As one, they turned and lit the pyre. It caught. It flickered. The wind caressed it, encouraged it. Fire flared and blossomed.

  The heat took its time growing. The flames crackled and spat, and within the conflagration oils and fat hissed and old bones cracked.

  Illi watched the fire and for once she didn’t think about the Siege and who had died. Instead she thought about her parents and how they had lived. Her mother’s hands, rough from glasshouse maintenance and fingernails perpetually blackened with soil. The times her mother had shown Illi how to secure all the vents before season, to avoid losing any moisture during the driest time of the year. How to roll out the shade cloth to keep the more delicate plants from being burned. How to feel the soil between her fingers, how to taste it, how to smell it, how to know what it needed, when it was ready. Her mother’s arms around her, steadying the knife as Illi pruned a vine.

  And her father, Drum Chief Basil’s cook. His voice, warm like the liquor he used to drizzle over fig cakes. His amused sigh as Illi failed again to remember the right ingredients or combine them in the proper order, and his inevitable exaggerated grimace when he tried whatever had resulted. His gentle corrections, always careful to tell her what she had done right along with what she could improve.

  She thought about both her parents’ glowing pride as Illi became stronger, faster, and more confident. They didn’t know about her secret lessons with Tamella, that she’d been chosen to continue the line of assassins, that someday she was expected to kill. But Tamella’s training had transferred to other, unexpected aspects of Illi’s life. Tamella had taught her patience, had taught her focus, had taught her that the details mattered. Illi could still see her father’s pure delight when he bit into her first perfectly cooked goat pie.

  Illi would never see that delight again, or feel that intense, burning pride. But it would always be there, that memory, as well as all those moments—a part of her. Her parents had shaped her and even the Siege couldn’t undo that.

  She knew they’d be proud of her, even now.

  When the fire was burning solid and bright, the marab took up the bowls of inky water and began pouring them out along the length of the pyre. White gouts of steam were coughed into the sky, roiling like clouds. So much water, all for this—an attempt to quiet the unquieted. They’d saved for a year to collect just these few bowls of water. Enough for a family for a couple of months. Enough to heal several terminal diseases.

  Hopefully enough to bring the jaan and lay them, finally, to rest.

  The steam curled into the sky, where it met the wind and was blown west, toward the Wastes. The marab finished pouring the water, and the last cloud of steam lifted away like a final exhalation. The fire continued to burn, lower but brighter. More efficiently.

  All around, the mourners settled in for a long night. The seven-year rite was only performed once a year, on the shortest day and through the longest night. While it wasn’t mandatory that the mourners hold vigil on the sands, and the weak and the old were encouraged to return above as s
oon as the steam had abated, it was tradition.

  Illi tightened her wrap against the cold. Her face was warm from the fire, but a shiver of goose bumps ran up her back. Her cousins clustered in close, rolling out bedrolls in their shared silence. Canthem slipped into that silence as easy as a knife, and this time Illi didn’t feel the need to push them away.

  As the night deepened and the stars shifted, the silence started to break. First with a few moans and rustles as other mourners celebrated life—and tried to stay warm—then with whispers and murmurs.

  It was traditional to mourn. But it was also traditional to celebrate. To exchange stories. To remember the lives lived and not just their deaths. So as Illi wound her arms tight around Canthem and drew in their warmth, she wasn’t surprised to hear her cousins start to speak.

  Dihya was the first. “Azulay would’ve been betting on just how long we could sit here quiet, freezing our butts.”

  “Remember that time he won two goats off an iluk?” asked Amastan.

  Dihya laughed and the silence shattered. “Shards and dust—he was so proud of himself. And so panicked because he didn’t know the first thing about goats.”

  A murmur of amusement wove through them, bringing them closer, tying them together. They shared memories and talked and talked and talked until the tears had come and gone and the fire was no longer the only source of warmth.

  26

  Illi hadn’t realized she was dozing until she opened her eyes and stared at the moon, hardly a sliver in the sky. Dawn was near but the camp of mourners was now truly silent. Beside her, Canthem shifted and turned, their arm falling away. The pyre was hardly more than a bed of embers, the occasional crack within the only sound.

  No—not the only sound. Something else had caught Illi’s attention, brought her back to wakefulness. The glass charms were singing and the air was stirring, but not with a breeze. It was too warm to be the wind and it came from the west, not the east.

  Warm. But the air wasn’t warm, not really. Illi was shivering despite multiple thick blankets and the press of bodies. She sat up. Her bracelets shifted, fell down her wrists. They were warm, too.

  Illi reached. She swallowed a gasp. The air was full of warmth, smeared with it all around. She squinted, tried to see, but nothing moved. At least, not to her eyes. So she closed her eyes.

  Then she could see. The sky seethed with streaks of warmth. Not bright spots like the jaan and the guul she’d encountered previously. These were much weaker, spread thin: wild jaan. Jaan that hadn’t been quieted, hadn’t been kept tethered to their bodies. Jaan that had roamed the Wastes and the sands and lost their form and strength until there was little of anything left.

  Even as weak as they were now, they were still dangerous. In a way, wild jaan were even more dangerous than the guul, which could at least be seen and fought. A wild jaani was unseen, unfelt, unheard. It could easily slip inside the mind of a traveler and drive them mad. Unless the traveler wore a charm.

  Illi’s charm now warmed, but not unpleasantly. She touched the pouch, snug between her collarbones beneath her wrap, as she watched the jaan dance.

  They swirled and spun on invisible eddies. More and more joined them, streaming in from the Wastes. Yet the number above never seemed to increase. Illi teased one out, followed its movements as it danced in the sky. And then it was gone, slipping through her grasp as easily as water.

  Illi stood and carefully stepped her way through the tangle of sleeping bodies. She needed the space and the cold, and she couldn’t risk drawing any jaan to her cousins. When she was a good distance away—not quite out of sight—she tried again. Found one, followed it as it whirled in and among the others. Then, just as suddenly, it, too, was gone. This time she focused on where it had disappeared. Steadied her breathing. Reached.

  The cold was like a slap. She reeled back, gasping, nerves tingling with pain. Her skin felt as if a razor had been dragged across it, rough and stinging. She didn’t dare try again. She knew—or at least she suspected—what that was.

  “You can feel them, too.”

  Illi started, turned. A shadow shifted in the nearby darkness, their wrap colorless, an inky black. Illi couldn’t see their face, but she knew Mo’s voice. The healer’s head was tilted back, taking in the full breadth of the sky.

  “How—?” asked Illi.

  “Part of training to be a healer includes learning to feel jaan,” said Mo. “It’s an important skill. We heal the body, not the jaani, but if the connection between jaani and body is too frayed, we can do little. Plus, it’s always helpful to know when you’ve got a madman along with the broken leg on your hands.”

  She turned toward Illi, the dim firelight glinting off her eyes as they moved. “But we hadn’t gotten that far in your training.”

  Illi swallowed. “I learned from someone else.”

  “While you were gone?” asked Mo, her voice carefully neutral. “Thana said you’d be all right, but you left without even saying good-bye. Where did you go? Didn’t you think we’d be worried about you? Didn’t you think about anyone you might hurt?” Her tone sharpened with each question until her last words tore into Illi like a knife. “The sands don’t just cover you.”

  “If I’d told you, you would’ve tried to stop me,” said Illi. “Then you would’ve been hurt.”

  Mo snorted. “Or maybe I could have helped you.”

  “You don’t even know what I was doing.”

  “Then tell me.”

  Illi looked at her hands, at the silver scars. At the glowing embers. At the sky. She couldn’t. No one could know. This was her task and hers alone. And it was time to work on it again. The period for mourning was past; she had a future to protect.

  As Mo waited for her response, Illi looked again at the pyre, seeing it with fresh eyes. She picked it apart piece by piece: the pyre itself, made from stones; the bodies; the prayers; the ink; the fire; and the water. All pieces of marabi magic, but she could see the en-marabi, too. The only difference, really, was in the blood.

  “Do you think the rite drew any guul?” asked Illi.

  Mo’s eyes glittered as she blinked. “Guul? No … but…” She tilted her head, considering the pyre along with Illi. “If they were weak enough, it could be possible.”

  “But you think a similar rite could do the same to guul?”

  Mo took in a breath, let it out slowly. “I’m not a marabi, Illi.”

  “No,” agreed Illi. “But neither was Essif.”

  Now Illi could hear the smile in Mo’s voice as she responded, “I’m no Essif.”

  “Did she actually exist?”

  Mo turned and considered her. “Of course.”

  “I heard another version of the story while I was gone,” said Illi carefully. “The storyteller had never even heard of Essif; this story claimed that the marab acted alone, without any healers. But the rest of the details were the same.”

  Mo snorted. “I’m not surprised. The marab have never liked the idea that a healer outdid them.”

  “But they used blood,” said Illi slowly. “Were they really marab?”

  “There was a time when the distinction between en-marab and marab hadn’t been made yet,” said Mo. “Besides, the blood they used was provided by G-d.”

  “It ran in the wadi, like water,” said Illi distantly, the familiar cadence of the story underlying her words. “But they also used their own blood.” She rubbed her forehead; all the pieces felt as if they had something drawing them together, but she couldn’t yet see the whole. “So marab can use blood. Can healers?”

  Mo didn’t answer for some time. When she finally did, her voice was almost a whisper. “In theory.”

  “You sound like Heru.”

  Mo winced. “He only ever thinks about what he can do, never about whether he should. Blood is personal, it creates a link which can be manipulated and abused by the wrong person. A healer doesn’t want or need that kind of control. But yes—blood is mostly water. If there’
s no other water around, it can be used to heal.”

  “If you don’t want control, though…” Illi felt as if she almost had something, an understanding, an idea, but it was as thin and precarious as a cobweb. She closed her eyes and let the sensation of the swirling jaan wash over her as she felt along that web, trying not to break it.

  Fire and thorns and blood for binding. Fire and ink and water for quieting. The thorns Essif had torn free had stained her hands blue. The first ink the marab had ever used had been concentrated from the broken branches of a bush. If the thorns and the ink were the same, then the only difference between binding and quieting was in the blood—in the control. She didn’t need to control the sajaami.

  And there was her answer, clear as glass. Above, the weakest of jaan swirled and disappeared, crossing over to whatever lay next. The marab had scavenged and saved water for years just for this rite. It was the largest rite the city had ever known, but these jaan had been spread thin by the wind and the years. Nejm was much stronger, and much more powerful. Unless she found a way to weaken it, she’d need a lot of ink, a lot of fire, and a lot of water.

  She knew how she could make the former two, but where would she find enough water? She’d need barrels of it, an entire aquifer, an incredible amount, enough to sustain the entire city for a year.

  Incredible.

  Illi had seen that much water before.

  “The sea,” she breathed.

  “What?” asked Mo.

  But Illi only shook her head. All that water, just on the other side of the wall. And she’d just been there, staring at it. Like it was a wonder, an impossibility—but nothing more. She was so stupid. How hadn’t she seen it sooner?

  She didn’t need to go to the Wastes. She needed to return to Hathage.

  Illi breathed in the cold air, laced with sand and sweat and cinnamon, and resisted the urge to gather her supplies and camel and leave right then. Instead she smiled at Mo in the dark, a real smile lightened by relief. She couldn’t leave just yet; if she didn’t time it right, her cousins would try to stop her.