The Impossible Contract

by K A Doore

  “You’ll be pleased to know your work was meticulous,” interrupted Heru. He paused, then added with dripping reverence, “Your Imperial Highness.”

  Thana let out the breath she was holding as quietly as possible. Relief blew through her—he hadn’t given her away, thank G-d—followed by confusion. Heru was protecting her—why? He must have realized something was off about the Empress and her actions, but that didn’t seem like enough of a reason to stop him from betraying Thana. She could only think of the night they’d spent in Ghadid’s crypt, when Mo had pressed Heru hard enough to get an emotion aside from disdain out of him. Heru had shown real anger then, more than he’d shown even when Thana had failed to kill him. But was that anger enough to go against the wishes—and outright orders—of his Empress?

  “May I ask what she would have interfered with?”

  The Empress gave a tinkling laugh. “Oh, we are so glad we kept you around. You never fail to amuse us. We’re here to open the Aer Essifs and release the sajaami trapped within, of course.”

  “… of course,” echoed Heru. “And Djet?”

  “Djet has been dead for centuries. As powerful as he might have once been, no one survives being hacked into pieces and scattered around the kingdom. We’ve merely resumed where he left off with his research. We are the Empress of the Mehewret Empire, we are a god among our people, and soon we’ll be immortal and a god among all people. It’s only befitting us. If you join us, as Tamit has wisely done, then you may share in our glory and power. How do you answer, Sametket?”

  Heru hesitated, but only for a heartbeat. “I see no point in declining glory and power. But, I will aid you under one condition. Allow me to handle the assassin.”

  29

  That dust-cursed son of a—!

  “That’s an interesting request,” said the Empress. “But as you’ve already observed, she’s dead. What could you possibly want with her?”

  Thana’s fingers curled around the hilt of her knife. Not yet, but as soon as Heru touched her, she was going to make good on her contract. She was surprised at how much his betrayal hurt. She’d thought they’d come to an understanding in the corpse of her home. Obviously not.

  “It’s an interesting opportunity,” said Heru. “I doubt you know all the troubles this girl has caused me. She hasn’t stopped trying to kill me since we first met and, although those attempts were inevitably futile, the whole experience has left me less than favorably inclined toward her. Call it my due, if you will. I’ve been curious about how the anatomy of these sand fleas might differ from normal men for some time. But I can do the dissection later—just promise me you won’t harm the body through some token ritual or binding. That would compromise the integrity of any data I might collect.”

  “We were going to add her to the seal, but one less bound won’t affect its strength. Fine. You may have the body to use as you see fit. But not now—we must begin the ritual soon if we’re to complete it before sunrise.”

  “Sunrise? Why—?” Heru paused, cleared his throat. “Oh. Of course. Jaan are weakest at sunrise and sunset, the liminal phases of the day. You suspect sajaam will be, too, and you plan to release a sajaami when it’ll be easiest to control.”

  “Correct.”

  “And this seal—since the specific circumstances of what you’re attempting negate the efficacy of traditional reagents and writing used to bind jaan, and since the sajaami is already bound within inorganic stone, then you are forced to utilize the more general and less efficient method of a physical seal. But what do bound have to do with a seal?”

  “Everything,” said the Empress.

  “Have you instructed them to draw the seal?” asked Heru. Then he sucked in a sudden breath and snapped his fingers. When he spoke again, it was with barely contained excitement. “The bound are the seal! That’s—dare I say, that’s brilliant.” He began pacing, his footsteps drumming out his eagerness. “A seal is only as powerful as its components, of course, and while a seal of blood is traditional, it’s not alive. Because the bound contain jaan, this creates a sympathetic component to the seal which even a powerful sajaami shouldn’t be able to break. But how will you compel the sajaami once it’s trapped in the seal?”

  The Empress sighed. “Your questions grow tiresome. We don’t have the time to explain the details and intricacies of jaan binding, especially those you should have learned during your studies. Come, we must begin.”

  “After all this is done, though, if I may ask for an audience with you so we might discuss the writing system Djet invented and how you—”

  “Heru Sametket. We appreciate your interest. Now is not the time.”

  A pause, then, stiffly, “Yes, your Imperial Highness. I apologize.” Another pause, then Heru cleared his throat. “But can I beg one final indulgence? I’m ablaze with curiosity as to the seal’s construction. Did you find the schematics in Djet’s notes or—?”

  The Empress snapped her fingers. “Tamit. Locate the pertinent section for Sametket so that he can hold his tongue for more than a minute.”

  “Your Imperial Highness.”

  The rustle of papers filled the silence. The touch was sudden and unexpected: a hand settled on her shoulder, warm and alive. Before Thana could free her knife, Heru’s words hissed in her ear, spiked with peppermint.

  “I repay my debts. Play along.”

  The hand lifted and he stepped away just as the shuffle of paper ceased. What debt? She wouldn’t trust Heru with a spool of thread, let alone her life.

  Then she remembered: the guul. She’d stopped one from sinking its talons into him. She’d saved him without even thinking. Was that enough?

  “Here,” said Tamit. Vellum crinkled, exchanging hands.

  Silence. Then, “Ah. I see. This is a most complex design. It would have to be enacted on a grand scale. But where would you find a sufficient number of bound this deep within the Wastes?”

  When the Empress answered, a smile carved through her words. “Why don’t we show you?”

  A jangle as the Empress stood. Then footsteps, moving away from Thana. The jangling tracked the Empress across the tent.

  “You will see for yourself on our way to the sajaami’s prison,” said the Empress. “Then, finally, you can be of some use.”

  Fabric rustled and the footsteps faded into the distance, soon smothered by sand. Thana didn’t dare move until she’d counted to a hundred and more in her head. When she dared crack open an eye, no one was waiting for her. She opened the other, then slowly, carefully, pushed herself up.

  Her head swam with the movement, but otherwise she felt fine. Then her breath caught: she wasn’t alone. Three slaves remained in the tent. Thana was on her feet, the knife in her hand, before they could move.

  But the slaves didn’t attack. They didn’t move at all. Even their gazes were fixed forward, unwavering. Thana shifted, but the slaves didn’t even look at her. She relaxed out of her fighting stance and approached one, but the woman never blinked. Thana knew they were bound—by the Empress, a little voice reminded her—but this stillness was new.

  Thana stepped around the slave, turning as she did so that she could keep an eye on all three and avoid exposing her back. She reached out a hand behind her and backed up until she felt the slippery smooth fabric of the tent. Only then did she turn. She pulled the fabric to one side, revealing the night beyond. Warm light spilled out from the tent, silhouetting her shape on the sand. Thana stepped out and let the tent flap fall behind her.

  She noticed the smell first: fetid and foul and a touch sickly sweet. Not quite what she’d have imagined an army would smell like, but she’d never been around one before. She waited while her eyes adjusted, listening for any indication that someone had seen her. It wasn’t as fully dark as she’d expected. A quarter moon gave some light. Campfires flickered all around, their light broken by the dark shapes of smaller tents and motionless figures.

  Thana’s heart jumped into her throat. She was surrounded by
the Empress’s soldiers. They couldn’t have missed her when she left the tent, yet none of them moved to stop her. None of them moved at all. She started breathing normally again after another minute of silence, broken only by the spit and crackle of the fires.

  Salid’s charms thrummed hot and uncomfortable against her blistered skin as they responded to the presence of so many bound. Because that’s what they were. Thana picked her way through the camp, cautiously at first and then with less care, because everyone she passed was just like the Empress’s slaves: motionless and dead. Unlike the bound in Ghadid and with the caravan, these didn’t bother to chase or attack or engage her in any way. They could’ve been asleep, if not for their staring eyes.

  At the camp’s center hulked one of the mountainous pillars. With nothing else to guide her, Thana threaded through the camp toward it. She didn’t know what she’d find when she reached the pillar, but she knew what she’d do: stop the Empress.

  The how eluded her, but she had her knives and her rings and her garrote. She was the Serpent’s daughter. She’d find a way.

  She was so focused on the pillar and what lay before her that she didn’t at first notice what else was wrong with the Empress’s army. Strong, healthy men stared at her, but so did old men as well as boys too young to wear the tagel. Women, too, were mixed in with the men, their ages just as varied. None wore a uniform. Some were missing limbs. They looked as if they’d been conscripted straight off the streets.

  Thana didn’t know when she’d stopped. She was breathing in shallow, staccato gasps, her chest too tight to draw enough air. Her vision had narrowed so that she could only see the man standing in front of her. He wore a dark green tagel, a light green wrap tied tight around a wiry torso. He stooped, back bent. His cane was missing.

  “Kaseem.”

  Dried blood matted the side of his head, adhering the tagel against his ear. More stained his wrap from the shoulder down. Kaseem’s gaze was as empty as the others’.

  The world tilted and Thana stumbled back. She made the mistake of looking around. The man next to Kaseem wore a stained yellow tagel and a belt dangling herbs: he sold soaps and scents on the next platform. A few steps away stood a woman with pockmarked skin and wild hair: a beggar from the alley near the inn. Next to her was the baker’s boy and beside him was the innkeeper himself, Idir.

  There were more and more of them, people she knew and people she recognized and people she’d passed more than once in the street. Her city. Her people.

  It was like losing Ghadid all over again. Thana swallowed bile and locked gazes with Kaseem. She stood there for some minutes, too afraid to look away, lest she see someone else she recognized. Kaseem had never been a cousin or a friend, but she’d known him, spoken with him. He hadn’t been nice, not exactly, but he’d never been cruel. He certainly hadn’t deserved this.

  Amastan.

  Salid had said Amastan had evacuated part of the city and fled, but that was no guarantee he’d survived, that he’d made it out. He could be here, standing with these corpses.

  She forced her hands down to her sides and took a deep breath, then another. She focused on the sand beneath her bare feet, the wind sapping warmth from her skin. She couldn’t fall to pieces now, not before she’d found and saved Mo from a similar fate. Not before she’d killed the woman responsible for this.

  Anger flared, chasing away the shadows in her mind. It hadn’t been some centuries-old en-marabi with no regard or understanding for what he’d done. It’d been the Empress, the woman who had sat on a golden throne and laughed with—at—Thana, who had smiled and sent them on their way, knowing what they would find when they reached Ghadid.

  To the Empress, they’d been nothing but playthings, pawns in a game between her and immortality. Thana had completed contracts on marks far better than her.

  Thana tore her gaze away from Kaseem and fixed it on the ground. She started walking, marking feet instead of faces. It felt cowardly, but she knew that if she saw her mother or her father, if she saw Amastan—she wouldn’t be able to continue. And she had to, for their sake.

  She slipped between the bound like a mouse through shadows. When she finally looked up, the first pillar of the Aer Essifs towered ahead, its dark shape blotting out the stars. The moon had sunk behind the western horizon. How long had it been since she’d left the Empress’s tent? And what day was it? Sunrise should have been many hours away, but from the faint sheen in the east, it was going to be much sooner.

  Firelight glowed around the base of the pillar, turning the dark stone orange and red. The pillar was as tall as a pylon and twice as wide. As Thana neared, she could make out a group of people circling its base. Most wore red, their heads uncovered: the Empress’s marab. They trembled, bound physically by heavy chains and ropes. Among them stood several healers, their blue wraps bright splashes of color in the dark. Where had the Empress found them? She must have plucked them from Ghadid when she’d plundered the city. Thana searched for Mo. She felt a pang of relief, then guilt, when she found her. After all, the Empress clearly had use for healers and Thana had delivered Mo to the Empress herself.

  Around the marab and healers stood another circle of men, these menacing in their stillness. They wore the gold uniform of the guards of Na Tay Khet and each held a long, sharp spear. As Thana approached, the light caught their staring eyes; the guards were as dead as the rest of the camp.

  Thana slowed, slipping her feet through the sand so the sound of each step was no more than a dry hiss. She didn’t worry about being seen: campfires circled the area, lighting it well but also blinding anyone within to the dark of the rest of the camp. As long as she didn’t get too close, she could watch the Empress’s ritual without being caught.

  The Empress and her small entourage had only just arrived. The guards turned and gave her a stiff salute. The Empress passed them and her chained prisoners without acknowledgment. She reached the base of the pillar and laid her palm on its rock. Then she leaned in and pressed her cheek against it. She gave the rock a gentle caress, fingers trailing across stone as they might a thigh. Then she pushed back, her features hardening with resolve.

  Heru stayed with Tamit beyond the circle of guards and surveyed the scene. Mo didn’t look around. Her head hung loose, braids obscuring her face. Thana longed to go to her, to strike off those chains and flee, but she wouldn’t make it far with the Empress and her guards right there.

  For now, Thana only had one advantage: the Empress thought she was dead. Heru had given her that much and she couldn’t risk wasting it. She had to stay back and keep quiet until she had a chance to strike.

  The Empress spread her arms and turned to her captive audience. “Sunrise comes. Our time draws close. We have awaited this moment since we first drew breath and the world knew us as Empress. Now we claim what is rightfully ours. We will be known as a god. Thus, we begin the ritual.” She snapped her fingers. “Bo Tamit—the dagger.”

  Tamit held up a bundle of white fabric, which he unfolded to reveal a small, rust-stained dagger. He went down on one knee and presented the dagger to his Empress, hilt-first. She took the weapon and held it up, turning the dagger this way and that as she examined it.

  “This was a great undertaking in and of itself,” said the Empress. She glanced at Heru and beckoned to him with the dagger. “Don’t be shy, Sametket. Attend your Empress.”

  Heru set his shoulders and—with a half second of hesitation that only Thana noticed—walked through the guards to join Tamit. He kept his gaze fixed forward, hands like stones at his sides. Thana had spent enough time with him to realize that he was, of all things, nervous.

  “The ritual of release contains three distinct elements,” continued the Empress. “These elements mirror those that the marab of old used to originally imprison the sajaam. This dagger represents part of the second element: fire. As an experienced researcher, you already know that rust is a simpler, slower fire. It eats up iron in the same way flame eats wood.” />
  The Empress slid the dagger’s blade across her palm, splitting the skin. Blood beaded in the wound, then dripped from her hand. The Empress held her fist over the sand, letting the blood fall into the shallow trench circling the base of the pillar.

  The healer Semma stepped through the circle of marab, a bowl pressed to his chest with one gnarled and twisted hand. With the other, he took and held the Empress’s bleeding hand. A blue haze coursed from the bowl down his arms and spread across the Empress, startling Thana. But of course the Empress would have found and kept her own personal healer; she’d probably plucked him from an Azal caravan. After a heartbeat, Semma let go and stepped back, head bowed. But the blue haze lingered, clinging to him like a late winter fog. The Empress examined her hand, the cut gone and her skin whole once more.

  Vain—and a waste of water. The cut would have healed quickly on its own. Thana could all but hear Mo chastising the Empress. But when Thana looked, Mo wasn’t even paying attention. In fact, Mo had hardly moved.

  With her other hand, the Empress removed her belt and undid the knot of cloth at her shoulder. Her golden wrap fell away in a cascade of shimmering light to pool at her feet, revealing her sand-pale body. The Empress had perfectly carved curves, her stomach smooth and free of the marks of childbirth, her breasts no larger than teacups. She kicked away the wrap and stepped out of her gold sandals, fully naked but for her white headdress.

  Tamit stepped forward, a sky blue wrap in his outstretched arms. He held it up for the Empress to put on. She turned, holding out her thin arms, and revealed the mess that was her back. Where the front of her body was smooth, almost flawless, the Empress’s back was a knot of scar tissue from her shoulder blades down past her tailbone. The scars formed a script similar to what had been on the backs of the bound.

  But Thana didn’t have to ask Heru to know these were more than experiments, as those had been. These scars were the results. The Empress had already bound her own jaani.

  Tamit covered the Empress with the blue wrap and helped her tie and knot the fabric in place. The fabric swirled like liquid as she turned and held the dagger out to Heru.