The Impossible Contract

by K A Doore

  “Mo.” It wasn’t just a summoning, but a warning. Mo stiffened, glanced at Thana, then hurried out. Thana followed at a slower pace. She needed to go home. She needed to rest. And then she needed to plan.

  But the scene unfolding in the other room caught her and kept her from leaving just yet. What was at first a flurry of motion and cloth and limbs soon slowed and condensed and became several men, some moving tables, others carrying burdens. The tables screeched as they were dragged together and then groaned as heavy burdens were laid out on them. Four unmoving lumps of flesh. Four bodies. The color of their wraps was unforgettable. And now, too, the smell.

  Thana crept closer despite the overwhelming stench of rotten flesh. She needed to know for certain. One man was missing several fingers, another his head, and a pair of wooden rods dangled from the neck of a third, the wire cut deep into his skin. Even as bile rose in her throat, Thana was relieved.

  It was them, all right. And they were now very much dead.

  But there had been five.

  Mo scanned the line of corpses. “What in G-d’s holy names—?”

  Thana lingered near a watchman, a golden sash and tagel marking his position. He didn’t answer Mo; his attention was fixed on the corpses. The other healer walked the line of bodies, checking pulses and pulling back wraps to reveal cool, graying flesh beneath.

  “They’re all dead,” she announced.

  “We know, ma,” said the watchman. “They’d been dumped in an alley in Aeser, left like a pile of trash.”

  The healer rounded on the watchman, who took a startled step back. “Why did you bring them to me, sa? I can’t return life to the dead.”

  Mo picked at the garrote wire in the neck. “Enass—they’ve been mutilated.”

  The watchman frowned. “Well, that’s how he was killed, wasn’t it? And that’s why I’m here, ma,” he added, addressing the other healer—Enass. “Something is off about this. If you can tell me how they died, ma, that could help us find their killer.”

  Mo tugged the garrote free and held it up, congealed chunks of gore dropping to the floor. “This was done posthumously.”

  “Why do you say that?” The watchman stepped closer to examine the wire. Even his tagel couldn’t hide his disgust.

  The other men shifted uneasily. One raised a hand. “We free to go, sa?”

  “Oh, yes.” The watchman waved them away. “But report to our scribe before you head home. I need your accounts of the evening in writing. The Circle will want to know every detail. Thank you for your assistance, sai. And your discretion.”

  The men murmured their assent and filed out, leaving Thana exposed. She stood at the end of one table while the watchman peered at the neck wound. Mo frowned at her, but turned back to the body instead of calling her out.

  “There’s not enough blood,” explained Mo. “If this wire had killed him, then he’d have bled out and his wrap should be drenched with blood. Look how deep the wound is. Not to mention a garrote is used to choke, not to cut. This was done after his heart had stopped, by someone strong or desperate.”

  Mo ran her hands along the man’s body with expert ease, unknotting and folding back his wrap to expose dark flesh beneath. She brushed her palms across his chest, arms, and thighs. Then she filled a nearby bowl with water and settled her hands on the man’s chest. She breathed in and closed her eyes. The room grew still with her.

  The moment stretched into a minute. The water level in the bowl gradually lowered, but this was no ordinary healing. Blue light scattered across the water’s surface and Mo’s skin, tendrils snaking across her body. Then the light snapped and Mo fell back as if she’d been pushed. She turned wide-eyed to the watchman.

  “What magic is this, sa?”

  Enass had just finished the same examination on another of the dead. Now she flipped the body, pulled the wrap past its waist, and motioned them over. Mo and the watchman hurried, but Thana moved more slowly. When they joined Enass at the table, the marks were clear to all. Dark lines had been cut into the man’s skin as if by a hot scalpel, their edges curled and burnt. A dozen and more slashes formed symbols that seemed to be letters from a language Thana didn’t recognize.

  Mo turned the next man over and ripped his wrap down. More lines covered his back, the symbols similar if not exactly the same. The other men proved no different. In a matter of moments, the living were surrounded by bodies crisscrossed with bizarre burnt cuts. They exchanged uneasy glances.

  The watchman was first to break the silence. “We’ll look into it, mai. I don’t know if this is the work of a cult or a madman, but I’ve got the feeling these won’t be the last bodies we see like this.”

  Mo clutched at her arms. “No, sa.”

  Enass wrapped an arm around Mo and drew her in close. The watchman gave the nearest body another once-over, then stepped back with a shake of his head.

  “We’ll find him, mai. Someone who can do this—he won’t be able to hide long in our city.” He glanced at Thana and frowned. “You’re not a healer.”

  “I—was just leaving, sa.” Thana moved toward the door.

  Mo waved her off. “She’s a patient, sa. Got attacked by dogs.”

  “Dogs again?” The watchman’s frown deepened. “There’ve been a handful of dog attacks lately since the caravans started arriving. Until those iluk learn to control their beasts, we should all be more careful.”

  Thana barely suppressed a laugh at Mo’s incredulity. Instead, she said, “Definitely, sa. No more dogs for me.”

  “Get going, then. And don’t talk about this to anyone. We don’t need to cause panic over a handful of unexplained deaths.” The watchman considered the corpses again. “Not yet, anyway.”

  7

  Amastan lay in the same bed she’d left him on, eyes closed and completely unresponsive. The wide room was quiet, emptied of its lingering patients in the aftermath of the storms. Thana had stolen a few hours of sleep at home, slipping in through her own window to avoid any questions from her mother. She pressed his hand between hers and watched his chest rise and fall, rise and fall. Not for the first time, she thought about speeding his recovery. But no matter how much she needed him, the stigma against wasteful healing held her back. His healer had already assured her he would live. That had to be enough.

  Besides, wasn’t it a little selfish to heal Amastan only to drag him back into danger? Mo’s words, however ill-informed they’d been, had left their mark. Whatever Thana did next, she needed to avoid healers, which meant avoiding any unnecessary risk. But that begged the question: what should she do next?

  Amastan would know. He’d have answers. He’d sit her down and they’d discuss their plan over tea and she’d stop being so afraid—of the mark, of the dead men, of breaking their contract, of disappointing her mother, of failing.

  Of losing him.

  “What do I do?”

  But Amastan didn’t answer. Thana sighed and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. What would Amastan do? He’d lay out the situation, piece by piece, like a master player preparing for a siddat tournament. Piece one: the mark knew. Piece two: Thana was on her own. Piece three: the dead men were now thoroughly dead. Four of them, anyway. What had happened to the fifth?

  Thana touched the empty cord at her neck, all of the charms shattered and gone. They hadn’t done her much good, had they? But then, they were supposed to protect her from jaan and basic wards, not from dead men and whatever the mark had done. And what had he done? He’d stopped the dead men, if only for a moment. He’d commanded the whore. He’d used magic Thana had never heard of, let alone understood.

  Her fingers tightened around the cord and she knew, then, what Amastan would do. You couldn’t fight what you didn’t understand, which went double for the charms. Salid had as great an understanding of jaan as the marab—if not better. He was no longer the best charm maker in Ghadid, but he was discreet, never asked questions, and was very good at what he did.

  To mak
e his charms, he had to know everything about curses, bad luck, and jaan. He might even know what in G-d’s names the mark had done, or even how dead flesh could walk. He could give her an edge against the mark.

  If nothing else, she needed new charms.

  Thana left her cousin with a kiss on the forehead, then headed for the Telem neighborhood. She adjusted her wrap as she walked, knotting it at a respectful height just below her neck. As she dodged merchants’ carts and felt the sun’s hot breath on her skin again, last night’s monsters were seasons away. She even paused for a minute to watch two street performers dancing with blades and silk, occasionally trading rehearsed blows to the appreciative gasps of their small audience. Thana couldn’t share that awe; the performers’ moves might be pretty, but they’d be useless in a real fight.

  A tinny bell announced Thana’s arrival in the shop. An old man hunched at his worktable, a pair of spectacles strapped across his eyes, his brown tagel barely covering his mouth. He held tweezers in one bony hand and a small glass orb in the other. As she waited and watched, breathing in tea-bittered air, he furrowed his bushy eyebrows and inserted a scrap of paper into the glass. Then he set both down, pulled back the spectacles, and peered at her.

  “Ah. Tamella’s daughter. What now?”

  Thana undid the leather cord around her neck and dropped it in front of Salid. He started to pull it to himself, saw it was empty, and shoved it back to her with no small amount of annoyance.

  “Is that a joke, ma?”

  “No, sa. That’s the same charm you sold me three nights ago.”

  Salid had so little of his face covered that Thana could watch the frown creep up his features before reaching his eyes. “I don’t see any charms.”

  “Because they broke, sa. All of them.”

  “What?” Salid leaned back, looking from the cord to Thana. “My charms don’t fail.” He held up a finger before she could refute him. “They don’t fail against jaan and curses. Only something powerful could have done this. What did you meet?”

  Thana took a seat across from the charm maker at his low table. “We were attacked by five dead men, sa.”

  Salid’s brow furrowed. “Dead men? Do you mean they were possessed? Even in a body, a jaani couldn’t break those charms. I’ve worked with Menna on that design and we’ve tested them—”

  “The marabi broke them,” admitted Thana. “But he was associated with the dead men. And no—they weren’t possessed, at least not as far as I could tell. Trust me—they were very much dead.”

  “A marabi broke my charms?” Salid sounded insulted. “That’s not possible. Marab don’t use that kind of magic, at least none that I’ve met.…” He trailed off, gaze sliding past Thana. When he focused on her again, his gaze was hard and cold. “You’re not speaking of the man from Na Tay Khet.”

  It was more plea than question. Thana swallowed, knowing she was on thin glass. She wasn’t supposed to talk about the contract with anyone except Amastan. In dire circumstances, exceptions could be made for other cousins. But Salid was an old friend of the family, and if Salid knew anything that could help …

  Thana picked her words with care. “The dead men attacked him. I stabbed one, but he didn’t even flinch. Didn’t bleed, either, not properly. And the healers found marks on their backs, cuts in their skin that looked like symbols or words. Do you have any idea what it means?”

  “Marks on the skin?” Salid drummed the tabletop with his fingers. “Are you certain they were dead? If so, that sounds like … well, I don’t want to think about the possibility that Ghadid could harbor something so foul.”

  Thana huffed her exasperation. “They were dead, sa. They didn’t breathe. They didn’t bleed. They jumped from a second-story window and got up like it was nothing. I shoved a knife through one’s eye and into his skull and he kept going. I know a corpse when I see one.”

  “That’s enough. What you’re describing isn’t the work of a marabi. It’s a form of magic that hasn’t been practiced for many generations. I’ve never seen it myself, though—only read about it. But the practice died out centuries ago along with the last of the sajaam. But … how well do you remember the markings? Could you draw them for me? I don’t want to jump to conclusions that will probably prove unfounded.”

  “No, sa. They were too complex.” It’d be easier if she could bring Salid to the bodies, but she should avoid being seen with the charm maker. She needed to contain this mess, as much as that was still possible. “But I could bring you a rubbing. Do you have any paper and kohl?”

  “Yes, yes—that’d do. I have some right here.” Salid pulled a metal crate out from under the table, full of odds and ends. He rubbed his temples, then shuffled through the jumble. “I really hope you’re wrong,” he muttered under his breath.

  “What do you think it is?” pressed Thana.

  Salid only rustled through the box louder. He produced a roll of parchment followed shortly by a small box of kohl, both of which he shoved across the table at her. “You’d laugh if I told you. To you, they’re nothing but stories.”

  “The Serpent is nothing but a story to most of Ghadid, but we know better. Tell me.”

  Salid considered her for a moment before sighing. “En-marab.”

  Thana did laugh, but it was a tired, dry sound. “If the dead can walk, why not the madmen used to scare children?”

  “I’m not joking.”

  “Neither am I.”

  “It fits the pattern,” said Salid. “What you described is a binding—a jaani bound to a corpse.”

  “So, a guuli.”

  “Not a guuli.” Salid held up an admonishing finger. “I said a jaani.”

  “But guul live in corpses—”

  Salid rolled his eyes. “Listen first, ma. And don’t interrupt again. If a jaani enters a living body, the mind will break under the strain of two jaan—its own and the wild one. If a guuli enters a living body, the body will break. They aren’t interchangeable creatures, even if they’re of the same substance. A guuli in a corpse is what you find in the Wastes, wild and vicious and predatory. A jaani bound to a corpse is controllable, a slave. It is created.” He held up a finger. “But not by a marabi. Such a creation is blasphemy of the highest kind. But look—that’s why I don’t want to jump to conclusions. The implications are disturbing. Now go. I want to see these marks while there’s yet light.”

  Thana took the parchment and the kohl and stood, leaving the empty cord behind on the table. “I’ll need more charms, sa.”

  “Here.” Salid grabbed a leather pouch off the wall. “I don’t know what good they’ll do you against this kind of magic. I’ll look for something stronger while you’re gone.”

  He dropped the pouch into Thana’s waiting hand. She rubbed the leather between her fingers, counting the beads inside. Five charms.

  “As long as you stay away from that foreign marabi and those bound, those charms will see you safely there and back.”

  Thana tucked the pouch inside the neck of her wrap, thanked Salid, and left. Even knowing the charms wouldn’t do anything against the dead men, she still felt safer.

  At the healer’s, Mo stood next to the same corpse, as if Thana had never left. The other bodies had disappeared and the tables were back where they’d been, the air a bit less rank than before. Thana hoped someone’d had the sense to burn them instead of putting them in the crypts. Beside Mo stood a man wearing a white wrap, his posture rigid. Thana was halfway across the room before Mo noticed her. The healer puffed her cheeks.

  “You’re back,” said Mo. “Your friend’s here, too.”

  “Friend?” echoed Thana.

  The man in white turned. Heru Sametket met her gaze, a clean blue tagel covering his face from the eyes down. The floor tilted beneath Thana. She froze and watched the same recognition flit across Heru’s eyes, then harden into something cold and deadly. The tension filled the room so thick that even Mo noticed and glanced between them.

  “Friend.�
� Heru’s voice carried no warmth.

  “This was the guy you were looking for last night, wasn’t it?” asked Mo.

  “How kind of you to check in on me,” said Heru. “I’m so sorry we didn’t run into each other sooner.”

  “Yes, that was unfortunate,” said Thana, recovering her wits even as her pulse thudded loud in her ears.

  She forced herself to approach them and the corpses. If the mark tried anything, at least Mo was right there to help. But likewise, she couldn’t just stab him and be done. They were at an impasse—she could only hope the mark realized it, too.

  Heru eyed her with no small amount of distrust as Thana joined them. Then he abruptly returned to the examination she’d interrupted. The wrap had been removed, leaving only a naked body facedown on the table. Its head was twisted unnaturally, arms askew, and half its scalp had been sheared off in a bloodless chunk. Like the others, marks had been cut into its skin. But, unlike the others, two large gashes ran long down its back.

  “This one’s new,” said Thana before she could stop herself.

  “Yes, my friend.” Heru all but hissed the word through his teeth. “He attacked me not even an hour ago. I’m starting to get the feeling that someone wants me dead.” He looked pointedly at Thana.

  “He’s the same as the others, though,” said Mo. “Posthumous wounds with minimal bleeding. Someone broke his neck after he was dead. See—no bruising. You need flowing blood for bruises.”

  Heru grunted, tracing the marks on the man’s back with his finger. “I don’t recognize this writing, although it’s familiar. I should know it. This is my—” He cut himself off and turned to Mo. “What scholars do you have in your town?”

  Thana swung her bag down. Heru stepped back, hands raised, but when Thana pulled out the kohl and parchment, he relaxed.

  “Jumpy, aren’t we?” said Thana.

  “Considering the circumstances…”

  Thana held up the parchment. “I need to make a rubbing.”

  Heru narrowed his eyes. “You’re no scholar. What could you want with those marks?”