by K A Doore
Heru’s real eye slipped past her, unfocused. “You ask why I’m bringing you tea.”
Illi nodded, once.
“That should be clear enough,” said Heru. “You need to remain healthy and strong to survive the rite. I cannot risk anything less.”
“If that were the only reason, you’d bring tea to Menna, too. Or any of the others. They’re all important if we’re going to pull this off.”
“I don’t worry about them.” His eye flicked back to her and then he realized what he’d said and he looked away again. “They’ve proven on multiple occasions that they can take care of themselves. You, however, have an unfortunate tendency toward recklessness and self-martyrdom.”
Illi picked up the tea and sipped it; perfectly brewed as always. “There’s still more to it than that,” she pressed. “Back in Merrabel’s jail, when you first saw me—you’d thought I was dead, didn’t you?”
Heru tensed. “It was the most logical conclusion.”
“But you were relieved to see me.”
“Of course. It meant that Barca hadn’t acquired the sajaami, which would have been disastrous.”
Illi sighed. “Of course.” She closed her eyes. Why did she bother? But she tried a different tactic. “Merrabel said your other assistants never lasted long. Was she right?”
“Barca is full of lies and misunderstanding.” But Heru’s words were clipped, short.
“What happened to them? She mentioned some died—” Illi cut herself off before she could add, horribly.
Heru was silent for a long time. But Illi could clearly see the muscles around Heru’s eyes tense and relax as he struggled for words. So she waited. Finally he drew a deep breath and let out his answer.
“One.”
Illi continued to wait, but Heru didn’t offer up anything else. Yet he didn’t stir to leave, either. He stared at the western horizon, but his eye was unfocused, his gaze distant. Illi sipped her tea, its heat warming her throat and chest.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low as if he were talking only to himself. “It was an accident. The wrong reagent at the wrong time. That chemical shouldn’t have even been in my lab. And she shouldn’t have—” He stopped, shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I learned what I could from the incident and moved on. It’s not my fault if others believed me a monster for it. I’ve been more careful since with the assistants I take on, if I take on any.”
“You’re afraid it’ll happen again.”
Heru snorted. “I’m not afraid. No, I am … careful.”
“And yet, here we are.” Illi gestured, turning her bracelets so that they caught and reflected the sunlight.
“Here we are,” echoed Heru.
Illi let his words roll off into silence, seeing him as she never truly had before. She’d watched his actions closely, yes, but not him. She hadn’t dared. There’d been safety in not knowing him, but what had that safety ultimately brought her?
Here they were.
Seven years, and he’d never done anything with the sajaami. But almost as many, and she’d never bothered to learn who Heru Sametket really was.
“Why?” asked Illi, and when Heru looked at her, she added, “Why do you do it? Why do you study guul and jaan? Why did you stay in Ghadid? Why—”
“Did you want me to actually answer one of those questions or do you prefer to listen to the sound of your own voice?” interrupted Heru.
“It’s just—Merrabel knew a lot about you,” said Illi more carefully. “But I don’t know how much of what she said is true.”
Heru hmphed. “It’s difficult to refute accusations I haven’t heard.”
“They weren’t accusations. She said she’d studied with you. That you were an orphan and I was wondering—”
“—whether the state of my parentage had any bearing on my motivation to become an en-marabi?”
Illi blinked. “Well. Yes.”
Heru drew himself up, like a vulture craning its long neck. “Of course it did. There were frequent outbreaks of plague in the less wealthy crevices of Na Tay Khet and those of my blood succumbed one way or another. It was pointless, as death often is. Watching the marab attend so many bodies only to quiet their jaan, I knew there had to be another way. Everybody takes death for granted, but I alone recognized it could be treated and eventually overcome. Guul are a testament to that, in their own particular way. And sajaam the ultimate proof of all, for they have existed for ages beyond our own understanding.”
Illi couldn’t help herself. “And yet when you finally had a sajaami, you did nothing.”
“I wasn’t ready,” snapped Heru. “I couldn’t risk it. Ideally, I would have gone myself into the Wastes after decades of study and preparation and bound the sajaami to my will. But the Empress was impatient and now instead, I’ve been forced to use untested and incomplete measures in an attempt to simply keep the sajaami from wreaking greater havoc and destroying another one of my assistants. But I deal in reality, not the ideal, and I will see this experiment to its conclusion.”
“And you’ll give up the sajaami?” pressed Illi.
Heru’s smile was genuine, if alarming. “I know where to find the other sajaam in the Wastes when I’m ready. The knowledge we’ll gain from this rite will be integral to my work. You’ll survive this because I’ll need your assistance when I return to the Wastes and unravel the last remaining theories about immortality for good. Your recklessness may be less than ideal, but you’re the only one capable.” He paused for a heartbeat before adding, “But only if you are willing, of course.”
For the first time in a long while, Illi felt reassured. If Heru could believe in an after, so could she.
“Of course.”
29
It was midday when they began to climb.
Even with regular breaks, Illi’s breath soon burned in her chest and her legs ached with each step. The patches of snow had grown, meeting them even earlier this time. The air itself tasted like ice, despite the prickle of the sun on her shoulders. Their climb was slow and laborious, but it went over boulders and unwaveringly straight up where the main path had meandered. When dusk fell around them like a shroud, their tricky climb turned treacherous. Twice Illi slipped on rocks before Thana had the sense to light a torch.
But flickering torchlight stole Illi’s depth perception, flattening the rocks and forcing her to concentrate twice as hard on the climb. The others had similar difficulty, except for Heru, who had long since grown used to a lack of depth perception. Any lingering chatter soon fell away as they focused on the next step, and the next.
With the night came the cold, worse than any Illi had ever experienced. Despite the exertion and the extra layers of cloth, it crept through to her skin, to her blood and her bones. Her breath came out in thick clouds that drifted away, already frozen. Her nose ran, first clear, then streaked with blood. The cold bit at her exposed skin and even burned her throat. But they kept climbing and kept moving forward despite the darkness.
It was fully dark when they crested the mountain and fully dark when they started to descend. So perhaps they could be forgiven for not noticing the army sooner.
Azhar picked out the campfires first. At this distance, they shimmered and glinted like stars, a disorienting inversion of the sky above spread across the foothills below. Their small group came to a stop. Thana peered ahead as if she could cut the gloom with her glare. Menna pulled a seeing glass from her bag and panned it across the fires.
“They’re soldiers,” reported Menna. “Or at least, they’re dressed as such. But I doubt that many people would show up at the base of a mountain just to put on a show.”
Captain Yufit put down his own seeing glass. “It’s General Barca.”
“No,” said Menna. “I’m pretty sure that’s an army, not a single person.”
Yufit shot her a long-suffering look. “The general has assembled her forces below. I don’t know what she intends, but this doesn’t appear to be a warm welc
ome.”
“Why’s she even there?” pressed Menna. “You said she’d just have a soldier or two watching the main road. Well, sa, we didn’t take the main road and this ain’t exactly a soldier or two.”
“She must have anticipated we’d come this way instead.” Yufit’s jaw tightened. “She must have realized I’d be with you.”
“I wouldn’t give yourself so much credit,” said Heru. “Merrabel also knows that I’m in attendance and it’s not such a stretch that we’d return so soon. After all, to do anything remotely successful with the sajaami, we would need a large amount of water. Aside from the Great River, our sea is the nearest body of water that would suffice, and Hathage’s wall the easiest way to approach said sea. She would have realized that I’d advise you against going anywhere near Na Tay Khet, so that leaves us Hathage and its wall.”
Illi stared out across the prickles of campfires, her stomach plummeting. “How are we going to get past that?”
“It’s not too late to head for this great river you mentioned, is it?” asked Menna.
But it was Thana who answered. “It’d take us another week, if not longer. We don’t have the supplies.”
“And again,” piped up Heru, “I would, in fact, advise against it. The sajaami’s containment will not last long enough for us to find another access point to sufficient water.”
“Then the only way out is through,” said Dihya. She scanned the valley below, lips pressed tight. “There’s nine of us. Several hundred of them. But perhaps we can use that to our advantage.”
“Each of the general’s soldiers is hand-selected and highly trained,” cautioned Captain Yufit. “She works under the philosophy that it’s better to have a hundred completely loyal and deadly efficient soldiers than thrice that. They’ll have orders to look out for a girl from the Wastes. An honor guard will only draw attention to Illi.”
Glances were exchanged. Her cousins shifted uncomfortably, weighing the implications, but Illi knew what Yufit meant. She knew what she’d have to do, what she’d always had to do. It could never have been as easy as Thana claimed it would be. Illi wouldn’t be able to keep them safe any longer. At least, not by staying with them.
“Wait,” said Menna, turning to Yufit. “How do we know you didn’t lead us into this ambush on purpose? You still answer to your general, don’t you?”
“For one, it’s not exactly an ambush.” Yufit gestured broadly at the campfires. “For another, it would’ve been much easier to lead you straight up the caravan route instead of climbing all these rocks with you. The other route would have also led you into this army.”
Menna narrowed her eyes. “She’s still your general, though.”
“How can we be certain you won’t turn us in?” asked Dihya, one hand on the hilt of her machete. She nodded at Canthem. “Or this one, too, for that matter.”
“I pledged my sword to the general to protect civilians from the guul,” said Yufit. “Nothing I’ve done and nothing I plan to do has been counter to that pledge.”
Dihya narrowed her eyes. “That’s real rich, coming from you. If you’d turn on your leader, how can we believe you won’t turn on us?”
The captain huffed a breath that fluttered his tagel. “The general made her intentions for the sajaami quite clear. She’d rather risk her city and her people by harnessing its power for herself than by safely being rid of it. She may truly believe that what she’s doing will benefit Hathage, but I don’t. She’s going too far and I don’t want to see her undo all the good she’s done. Hathage is my home as much as Ghadid, and I worked alongside the general to make it a safe one. The sajaami needs to go. So no, I won’t betray you. You have my word.”
“Amastan trusts you,” said Menna, as if that decided it.
But Dihya was still looking at Canthem, fingering her hilt. Canthem blindly reached out a hand to Illi, who grabbed it and squeezed.
“The captain is right, ma,” said Canthem. “General Barca has performed miracles for Hathage. She steered us away from ruin when that seemed our only choice, kept our caravans safe, and trained us to fight guul. Normally, I would go to the ends of the world for her. But this isn’t about the guul or even Hathage anymore. She crossed a line when she sent an assassin after Illi—”
“Wait what?” interrupted Menna. She turned to glare at Illi. “You didn’t mention that.”
“It isn’t relevant,” said Illi.
“That is highly relevant,” said Thana. “It tells us what sort of woman this general is. What she’s capable of.”
“She’s highly capable of being reckless,” said Heru. “But then, that isn’t novel information.” He glanced over Illi, his glass eye boring into her as if he could see past her skin and through her bones. “However, the information is relevant in another way: if you’d been injured in any way, the consequences would’ve been dire.”
Illi swallowed; she hadn’t mentioned the incident at all. In fact, between the rite and the guul in the foothills and the journey to Ghadid and back again, Usaf had completely slipped from her mind. The first time she’d killed a person, and she’d almost forgotten about it.
“Canthem saved me,” said Illi, tightening her fingers around theirs. “I trust them completely.”
Canthem took a deep breath. “That alone would have been enough, but the general tried again with some guul later. I know what General Barca would do to Illi if she catches her, what she’s already done to Illi. No—you have my word as well. I’ll protect Illi with my life.”
Dihya considered Canthem for a long moment, then her hand dropped from her weapon and she nodded. The group eased, the tension going out of them all as if a cord had been cut.
“Well,” said Menna brightly. “We’ve come this far with two potential spies and traitors. What’s to stop us from going a little farther? Right, guys?”
Nods were exchanged like so many handshakes, but Illi set her back to the army’s campfires and steeled herself. “We have to change our plan.”
Thana narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean? There’s only one plan, and that’s getting us all through an army and to this wall of yours.”
“We can’t all go,” said Illi. “It’s gotta be just me and Heru.”
Canthem let go of her hand. Stared. Thana started to protest, but Illi pressed on. “You heard the captain—if you all come with us, you’ll guarantee we’re caught. We need a distraction, not an honor guard. If you stay up here and draw their attention, I might be able to slip past.” Illi swallowed. “But it means putting yourselves in a lot of danger.”
Thana cracked her knuckles. “We can handle danger.”
“Everyone who was at that farmstead will know what you look like,” said Yufit. “And the general will have briefed the rest of her soldiers. A girl with dust in her hair and a wrap like that will draw them immediately. As it did me.”
Illi met Yufit’s gaze. “Which is why I’ll need your clothes.”
Yufit snorted, but when Illi crossed her arms and didn’t look away, he shook his head. “You think you can pass as a captain?”
“If you show me a few things, yes,” said Illi. “We’re the same height, close to the same build. I can carry and wield a sword just as well as you. And in the chaos we’re hoping for, they won’t look twice.”
“They will at a captain going the opposite way.” Yufit frowned. “Why not take Canthem’s clothes?”
“They’re just a guard,” said Illi. “Someone might actually question why they’re headed for the city. But you—you’re high enough rank that nobody should question you. I saw the way the other soldiers treated you, sa.”
Heru crossed his arms. “I refuse to wear another’s clothes.”
“You won’t have to,” said Illi. “You’ll be my prisoner.”
“Barca will be expecting me,” said Heru cautiously.
“Perhaps,” said Illi. “But you’re not he Fet anymore, Heru. Whatever you started from, you’re Sametket now. And she’s afraid of you.�
�
Heru puffed up a little. “Is she now.”
Illi wasn’t even sure if Merrabel had thought about Heru once since leaving him imprisoned on the edge of Hathage, but she wasn’t going to tell Heru that. If nothing else, Merrabel had no reason to suspect that Heru had slipped her binding and was free to work against her.
“We’ll draw them up and out of the hills,” said Thana, addressing the others. “We’ll split into pairs and scatter among these rocks and boulders. Our strengths lie in speed and surprise, and this landscape will give us both. Dihya and—”
As her cousins planned, Canthem put a hand on Illi’s arm. “You’ve already thought this through.” Their tone was only mildly accusatory.
Illi swallowed, but nodded. “I thought we might need a distraction to get past Merrabel and up the wall. I just didn’t think it’d be so soon.”
“You’re not going alone,” said Canthem. “A captain on their own would be suspicious. But if you have a guard at your side, they won’t question you.”
Illi met Canthem’s warm gaze. She’d steeled herself to the possibility of having to do this on her own, but now that she was offered a way out, she found her resolve evaporating like water spilled on hot stone. She was tired of being alone.
You’re not alone, said Nejm, for the first time in almost a week.
Illi hid her startle by grabbing Canthem’s hand, but even as she did so, she could see Amilcem’s eyes burning, her jaw widening with cracks of light and heat. Illi’s stomach churned and bile rose in her throat.
It doesn’t have to happen that way, continued Nejm. I can protect everything you love. But if you try to go through with this, I will destroy it instead.
“Are you okay?” asked Canthem, voice and body close.
Illi took a deep, shuddering breath and pushed away the images that Nejm was putting in her mind. “The sajaami—”
That was all Illi needed to say. Canthem squeezed her hand, their eyes intent. “It’s trying to scare you, isn’t it? It’s only doing that because we’re so close. It must be afraid.”
