The Impossible Contract

by K A Doore

  Pain spiked through Thana’s skull, sharp as a razor. Her fingernails found skin, but she was only rewarded with another head slam. Her thoughts slipped away like sand, and a cold calm seeped through her body. Her mother’s words flitted through her mind like a stray butterfly: you will know you’ve lost when you can stare death in the face and only know calm.

  This was it. The Empress was going to bash her head in or Thana was going to bleed out from her wounds and then it’d be over. A not-so-small part of her accepted, even welcomed the end. She was so tired of fighting. She’d failed a hundred times. She’d lost everything: her friends, her home, her family. The Empress had won.

  She could only hope she’d given Mo plenty of time to heal Heru or get away. That would be enough.

  Thana closed her eyes. The calm helped her endure the pain that ran through her body in searing flashes. The world drifted away from her and she was floating. Cold. The heat was leaving her, pumped out of the gashes in her thigh and gut, sucked away by the air and the sand.

  It was okay. She’d see her mother again, her father, her other cousins. Her city was gone, her duty was done. What was an assassin without her city anyway?

  A cool sensation slid across her skin like silk. Thana opened her eyes. The Empress had paused mid-bash, but her fingers were still wrapped tight around Thana’s throat. A blue haze suffused the air, clinging thickest around the Empress and herself. Feeling fled Thana’s body, leaving her numb and rigid. The Empress, too, seized up. Only her eyes betrayed her panic.

  This was healer magic. Mo—Thana tried to form her name, but her lips refused to move. Her stomach and thigh itched, then pulsed with pain, which spread out from her wounds and across her skin and down into her bones. She could feel the skin knitting together even as it felt as if she were being ripped in two. The dagger fell from her stomach to the sand with a soft plop.

  The Empress gasped and shoved herself back, panting and wide-eyed. She clutched at her throat, then her chest. She tried to swat away the blue haze. But already the haze was dissipating on its own, the wind sweeping the rest away in small gusts and eddies.

  “No,” said the Empress. “No.” She locked eyes with something just over Thana’s shoulder. “What have you done?”

  “I healed you.”

  Thana turned. Mo stood only a few feet away, remnants of blue clinging to her hands. Thana tried to find a bowl of water, but there was only sand at Mo’s feet. Confusion filled the void of her emotions. Water was the very essence of healing, it was the life force that renewed and revitalized. Mo couldn’t have healed even the smallest wound without water. So where had she found enough to heal Thana and the Empress both?

  “You bitch.” The Empress shook, clutching at her arms, at her face. She fell to her knees, catching herself on her palms. “Our jaani—”

  “—is still there, just no longer bound. And the scars on your back have been healed.” Mo took a step toward Thana and some of her calm fractured. “Are you all right?”

  Thana’s fingers had curled into the skin of her chest. She dropped her hand and took Mo’s proffered palm. Mo’s face was smeared with dust and dirt and blood that Thana hoped wasn’t hers. Her braids were loose and wild and spilled around her face. Despite the disarray, her eyes and cheeks were vibrant, alive.

  Then Mo’s eyes widened. She gurgled a croak and staggered forward. Thana tightened her grip and twisted around. The Empress was still panting on her knees, but her eyebrows were furrowed, her lips were pressed into a thin line, and her hatred was knife-sharp and focused on Mo.

  Thana didn’t think. She threw her arms around Mo. The last charm let out a loud whine, burned hot. It shattered and broke just as Mo sucked in a deep breath and the Empress hissed. Thana let Mo go and cast around for a weapon. Her dagger was nowhere to be seen. The sand must have claimed it, as it had claimed her garrote earlier. That left her own hands, the wrap in tatters across her body, and the metal wire at her waist that had once held Salid’s charms.

  Thana undid the clasp and snapped the wire between her hands. It felt achingly familiar, and why shouldn’t it? Aside from missing the wooden dowels at the ends that would’ve made tightening it easier, the wire was a garrote.

  The Empress had clambered back to her feet. Murder smeared her features, twisting her beauty into something unrecognizable. She locked gazes with Thana and gave a vicious smile.

  “Even unbound, we’re still an en-marabi with a sajaami, girl,” said Zara ha Khatet. “You can’t stop us.”

  “And I’m still an assassin,” said Thana.

  Zara ha Khatet laughed. “A failed assassin. You couldn’t even kill Sametket. You have no contract and no city. You’re nothing.”

  Thana gritted her teeth. “I’m so much more than nothing. I am Thana Basbowen.”

  The bodies of the fallen bound began to stir. Some jerked, but others climbed to their knees, then their feet. Zara extended a hand toward Thana, lips moving soundlessly. Thana rushed the Empress, expecting pain. She’d already crossed the distance between them, wire taut between her fists, before she realized that no pain was coming, none would come. The pain had been part of the charms’ resistance to Zara, and now the charms were gone. If she let Zara touch her, she’d rip Thana’s jaani right out of her.

  A familiar calm filled Thana. She might not have any protections left, but neither did Zara. Mo had erased the marks that bound Zara’s jaani. She was no longer immortal. Thana had one chance, and only one, to stop Zara. She could end this contract, once and for all.

  Years of training guided her movements. Too late, Zara realized that Thana wasn’t going to stop. She tried to step back, out of the way, but Thana’s fist met her stomach. Zara doubled over and as her head came down, Thana looped the wire around her neck.

  Zara’s hands flew up, grabbing at the wire. Thana wrapped the wire around each hand, replacing the missing dowels with her fists. Zara fell to her knees, eyes bulging. Thana fell with her. She twisted her wrists. The wire cut into Thana’s hands. Blood rolled down her arms to her elbows, dripped to the sand.

  Zara stopped trying to free the wire and grabbed Thana’s arm instead. Fresh pain tore through Thana, so sudden and hard that she jerked back and loosened her grip. She could taste blood in her mouth; she’d bit her tongue. She swallowed and steeled herself against the pain. The edges of her vision grew dark. She tightened her grip.

  The pain passed. The hand slipped from her arm. Zara was falling, her lithe body suddenly heavy and dense. Thana fell with her. She wound another loop of wire around one fist, tightening the garrote, but the mark no longer resisted. She was quiet and still. Thana didn’t let go.

  A hand touched her shoulder. Thana jerked and the Empress jerked with her. Another hand covered her own, warm and gentle.

  “Thana. Let go.” Mo’s voice was close to her ear. “It’s done. She’s dead.”

  32

  Mo untangled Thana’s hands from the wire. The metal had cut deep, scouring bone. Yet Thana could barely feel the pain. All of her senses were numbed by a dull roar, a thrumming that built inside her like an approaching storm. Mo wrapped cloth around Thana’s hands, stemming the flow of blood.

  When Thana finally took in her surroundings, she was startled by what she saw. The sun was fully in the sky, its light strong and pitiless. None of the bound moved. Thana wasn’t sure they could. Something had happened to them, changed them. They no longer resembled fresh corpses, let alone people. They were withered husks, as if they’d been left exposed to the sun and sand for years. Some lay on the ground as if they’d been struck down, but some were frozen mid-motion, a hand outstretched here, legs bent to leap there. Others stood like statues and nothing remained of their skin but leathery tatters across brown bones.

  The fire encircling the camp was little more than embers now. The pillar was gone, a mound of rocks the only remains of the mountain. Nearby, the rest of the Aer Essifs towered, untouched and intact. Tents had collapsed, blown apart by the sajaami�
�s storm. The scene was one of great destruction. Only she and Mo moved in the stillness.

  “—Heru?” asked Thana, the word barely more than a croak.

  As if in answer, Heru straightened up from where he’d been bending over one of the corpses. He glanced their way, shouldered something, and shuffled over.

  “He’s feeling much better now.” Mo’s hollow voice betrayed her exhaustion. “He’s gathering samples.”

  Thana waved weakly at the destruction. “What happened?”

  Mo didn’t meet Thana’s eyes. “A great deal of water is needed to heal an untethered jaani. Blood is more than nine-tenths water. I … used what was available.”

  “You drained them.” Thana stared at Mo. “Heru kept saying he knew about healers who used blood, but I thought it was just wishful thinking.”

  “They’re not healers.” Mo’s reply was sharp. “Even done to corpses, it’s desecration. What I did—what I’ve done—is blasphemy.”

  Thana tried to laugh, but only succeeded in coughing. “And I killed my employer. I’m pretty sure that’s not allowed in my family.”

  “You don’t understand—” began Mo, but she cut herself off with a shake of her head.

  Thana held out her bandaged hands. “I don’t. But maybe we can fix that.”

  Mo glanced at her, then took Thana’s hands gently between hers. “I had to stop her. I had to save you. I couldn’t lose you.” Mo sucked in a shaky breath. “I can’t pretend you never lied to me, but I also can’t pretend that almost losing you didn’t terrify me. The past—you’re right, it doesn’t matter anymore. Can we try again?”

  Thana pulled her close and wrapped her bandaged and bloody hands around Mo. They stayed pressed together, sharing hitched breaths, until the hiss of shifting sand betrayed Heru’s approach. They parted reluctantly, Mo furiously wiping at her eyes and Thana uncertain if she would ever be capable of crying again.

  “I’m fairly certain that with enough time and resources, I’ll be able to accurately replicate her efforts here, although I doubt ever to such a grand scale.” Heru stopped beside the Empress’s corpse and gazed down at it with a mixture of disdain and respect. “She made some grievous miscalculations that unfortunately brought her much further, much faster than she could handle.”

  Heru knelt next to the corpse and pressed his thumb against her twisted neck. He frowned, then fished a glass flask from the folds of his wrap. When Thana had last seen the flask, it’d been only loosely covered in a looping, floral script. Now dark brown writing completely covered the glass. Heru pulled the cork out with his teeth, breathed into the bottle, then covered the opening with his thumb and shook it. He drew Thana’s throwing knife from another fold and turned over his arm.

  “Oh no you don’t,” said Mo, moving to stop him. “No more blood.”

  Heru shook his head. “This is necessary. The sajaami is still in her and we cannot leave it there. It will linger, but not as long as a jaani. It will tear away within a few more hours and then our chances of recapturing it will be close to zero. I, for one, refuse to let a perfectly good sajaami go to waste. I’ve been working on the seal on this bottle since we left Na Tay Khet. I’m confident it’ll hold the sajaami. Besides, if it isn’t sealed, the sajaami will terrorize the Wastes, creating sandstorms and floods the likes of which haven’t been seen in epochs. I’d rather not see such.”

  “But the en-marab who originally sealed the sajaam needed many of their kind and a mountain. What makes you think a little glass bottle will hold one now?” asked Mo.

  Heru met her gaze with his remaining eye. “The en-marab have had centuries to learn, girl. We know far more in this modern age than those ancient husks ever dreamed of.”

  Without waiting for Mo’s permission, Heru flicked the blade across a recently healed cut, reopening the skin. He squeezed five drops of blood into the flask, then dragged a finger across the blood oozing from his wound and scribbled fresh letters on the outside of the glass. The blood faded from brilliant red to dull brown, matching the rest of the writing on the flask. Heru tightened the sleeve of his wrap around the fresh cut, knotting it with the expertise that came from frequent repetition, then pressed the open flask to the Empress’s blue lips.

  With his other hand, he closed her eyes and covered her nose. Then he began muttering words under his breath that sounded almost intelligible. The Empress jerked, eyelids flying open, but Heru had shut them again before either Thana or Mo could react. In another heartbeat, a dark, seething substance poured from her mouth and into the flask. As soon as the last trace of the darkness had left her lips and swirled within the glass, Heru shoved the stopper in place and gave it a firm shake.

  The darkness inside spun violently, then dissolved until the flask appeared empty. Heru slid it into his wrap. He took a moment to gather his breath.

  “That should suffice until I can commission a more permanent housing situation for our ancient and inimical guest.” Heru wiped his forehead with the back of one hand then closed his eye as if shutting out pain. “Now, do either of you have a plan for getting away from this mess and back to proper civilization? I am in dire need of a bath.”

  * * *

  The days after consisted of little more than sand and sun. The nights, however, were filled with terrors. Thana woke the others on more than one occasion with her screams. Mo insisted on using some of their dwindling water supply to help Thana sleep, but that only stopped Thana from waking up. She still saw the faces of the people she’d once known and loved withered and misshapen by death and desiccation. She still felt the Empress’s cold body beneath hers, the tear of metal wire through flesh, the pain as the Empress ripped into her jaani.

  Thana itched for a knife. Without one, she might as well be naked. In their rush to leave the camp, Thana had forgotten to look. They’d set out as soon as Heru had found their bound camels, still dead but intact—more or less. Nothing else had stirred in the camp. If anyone—or anything—had survived, they’d left before the sajaami was released. Thana hoped that included the healers she’d freed.

  They hadn’t found much water, either. Only a skin or two had survived the winds and the stones and the fires still intact and full. That was barely enough to see them out of the Wastes, and nowhere near enough to get them to Na Tay Khet. They’d have to stop in Ghadid.

  After surviving a seal made from the bound corpses of her people, stepping into the hollowed-out city again should have been easy. But Thana’s skin ran cold at the thought and her chest felt as if it’d been cast in metal. Only a few weeks ago, she would’ve given everything to return home. Now she wished for any way to avoid it.

  But wishing was as useful as dust and one evening, still far to the east, metal blinked back the light of the setting sun. Thana was a hundred times grateful when Mo suggested they make camp so that they could reach Ghadid in daylight. She needed time to prepare.

  That night, Thana had her worst nightmare yet. She woke with a start, panting for breath. Mo made a noise and turned over, fingers curling around Thana’s knee beneath their shared blanket. Thana held her breath and studied Mo’s face, the light from the small fire enough to watch the fragile flutter of eyes moving beneath closed lids. Mo still had both. It was just a dream, just a dream.

  Thana brushed a braid from Mo’s face. The braid was choked with dust and unadorned; Mo had removed all of her salas early in their journey. Thana hadn’t tried to stop her, but she hadn’t been able to look away either as Mo jerked the colorful ribbons and strings from her hair and let them drift to the sand, one by one by one. Thana rubbed her hand, remembering the pile so small and insignificant. Then she winced; her palms were well-bandaged, but the gashes made by the makeshift garrote had been deep. She wished again for a knife, even though it would have been useless in her hands.

  The nightmare’s unease clung to her like thick webs. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep. Thana rubbed the grit from her eyes and left their tent. The sky was awash in liquid
stars, no moon in sight. The Way of Silver Straw wound across the stars, a streak of brightness that was almost—almost—enough to see by.

  At first Thana assumed the flickers were more stars, their light distorted by their proximity to the horizon. But the longer she watched them, the more her unease thickened. These spots of light had a warmth to them that the other stars lacked, and their flickering was random and chaotic. Almost like—

  fire.

  “You see it, too.”

  Thana spun, bandaged hand going for the knife she didn’t have. She immediately regretted turning. The light from the fire, even though it was little more than embers, hurt her eyes. She shielded them, but the damage was done.

  “I’ve been watching those lights for the better part of an hour,” continued Heru. “I can state with a high degree of certainty that no, those aren’t stars and yes, it appears that something is on fire. However, none of the fires have spread and a handful appear to have shrunk—at least, in regards to the amount of light they’re giving off. This brings me to the conclusion that the fires are controlled and, by extension, someone is controlling them.”

  “You’re saying someone is alive up there.”

  “Or close enough.”

  “We need to go.”

  Thana turned away, already going over what she needed to repack and how best to wake Mo. Energy buzzed through Thana for the first time in days. Energy—and something else, something hard and sharp that she thought she’d left behind in the Wastes: hope.

  But Heru didn’t budge. He scratched at the corner of cloth hiding his empty eye socket. Although Semma had fully healed the wound, Heru had taken to wearing a slash of white fabric across his forehead. “Let’s not be hasty. We cannot know who has started those fires or for what purpose. For all we know, they could be bandits—”