Kitabı oku: «The Blue Eye»
THE BLUE EYE
Book Three of the Khorasan Archives
Ausma Zehanat Khan
Copyright
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Ausma Zehanat Khan 2019
Jacket design Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Jacket Illustration © Shutterstock.com
Ausma Zehanat Khan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008171674
Ebook Edition © September 2019 ISBN: 9780008171698
Version: 2019-09-11
Dedication
For my darling Nozzie,
who would hide with me in the Cave of Thawr, leave it all behind to follow me on hijra, who would journey with me through Israa e Miraj … and be waiting on the other side.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Acknowledgments
Cast of Characters
Glossary of the Khorasan Archives
About the Author
Also by Ausma Zehanat Khan
About the Publisher
Map
Prologue
THEY WOULDN’T KILL HIM AT THE COUNCIL. THE TALISMAN COMMANDERS were suspicious of Daniyar, but they held fast to the rules of the loya jirga, the consultation Daniyar had asked for with the leaders of the Talisman tribes. The Shin War, in particular, held themselves to a higher standard. Their commitment to their own honor was the reason Daniyar retained any hope of returning to the Black Khan’s city unharmed.
Once he returned to the safety of Ashfall, this temporary reprieve would end. Though Daniyar was one of the Shin War, as well as the Guardian of Candour—the city that was now the capital of the Talisman—he would be seen as an enemy. As such, he would be hunted with the same ferocity as the Black Khan himself, unless he could persuade the Talisman commanders that their war against the Khan was futile—that they should retreat for the sake of their own survival. For the sake of the boys who had known too much war, boys conscripted by force.
He’d passed many of those boys on his way to the Talisman’s central command. Their eyes were sunken in their haggard faces, their cheeks hollow with hunger. Though they hoisted Talisman standards and readied themselves for battle, their hopelessness haunted him.
He had walked in their midst without fear, meeting each one’s gaze, the Sacred Cloak flowing down his back as he passed, deliberately permitting it to brush their hands even though he knew the Talisman would consider his act a sacrilege. To take something holy that had been guarded for centuries and now allow the basest rabble to touch it was to dishonor the Cloak in their eyes. And as contemptible as that idea was to Daniyar—that some were more deserving of grace than others—he didn’t think of the Talisman’s legions as contemptible. As he met their eyes, eyes that were blue, green, amber-gold, or dark, midnight-flecked brown, he thought of them as his own. Shin War or not, these boys who fought the Talisman’s wars, and inflicted the Talisman’s cruelties, had once been his trust as Guardian of Candour.
He’d called for the loya jirga as much for them as for himself.
Somehow, they must have known it.
As he passed through their ranks unmolested, each boy bowed his head, unable to sustain the clarity of his brilliant silver gaze. Two Talisman pages leapt forward to raise the flaps of the tent as he entered. He memorized their faces and thanked them in a quiet voice.
Bewildered by this show of respect, they retreated without daring to speak. Daniyar sighed, the movement of his powerful shoulders shifting the Cloak to one side. They reminded him of Wafa, the Hazara boy under his care who distrusted any show of kindness.
Inside the tent, he was greeted by wary commanders, all of whom were armed. He searched out those who might recognize him as the defender of the First Oralist, sworn enemy to these men. The Talisman’s war was as much against the women mystics known as the Companions of Hira as it was against the Black Khan. Led by the One-Eyed Preacher, the Talisman sought to bring all of Khorasan under their ruthless law. None who defied that law were spared. Women faced a darker fate, sold in slave-chains to the north. Like the Black Khan, the Companions of Hira stood in the way of the Talisman advance. Daniyar had pledged himself to their cause, and to the cause of one woman in particular: Arian, the First Oralist.
The woman he loved.
He’d fought his kin for her; he’d killed for her without a second thought.
Now, as he searched the faces of the commanders, he wondered if any might recognize him not just as her defender, but also as the rider who had killed his own cousin at the frozen city of Firuzkoh. Or if any had witnessed his killing of the Talisman leader who had roused a mob against Arian in Candour, when Arian had taken the Sacred Cloak from its shrine. Or worse yet, if any might know him from the Sorrowsong, where he’d lied to his Shin War clan mates, to further Arian’s cause. The Lord of the Wandering Cloud Door had slaughtered the Shin War at the Sorrowsong, but there was always the possibility that one or more of the Shin War had escaped to sound the alarm.
But as he looked around the ring of hostile faces, no one accused him of being a traitor to the Shin War. Rather, he recognized two young men as boys he had taken into his care, now grown to manhood as soldiers capable of leadership. Though the others made no personal greeting, these two bowed their heads.
He stepped over the threshold, careful not to touch it with his boots, a sign of grave disrespect. The Talisman kept their hands on their swords. Daniyar lowered his to his sides, bowing his dark head in greeting.
The Talisman moved back, allowing him a view of the interior of the tent. Despite the exigency of the moment, the tent had been arranged for comfort, the walls lined with white felt, bright blue carpets scattered across the floor, and low cushions arranged around a steel stove for warmth, smoke from its long shaft escaping through a hole in the roof.
At the far side of the tent, a dozen women huddled together, their heads bowed, their soot-darkened faces streaked with tears. As Daniyar made his way closer to the stove, they glanced up at him quickly and just as quickly away. A closer look showed him that the women had been chained at the ankles, as were a pair of girls, although two of the women in the group had been left unrestrained to prepare food for the commanders. They performed the task ably despite their overriding fear. Rage flared behind his eyes, but Daniyar did nothing to betray it.
When tea was served in small metal cups, Daniyar was told to take a seat on the cushions. Judging from the Talisman’s grim expressions, he knew none of the men would move from their positions until he did so. The sound of the Black Khan’s army strengthening its defenses filled the night. Daniyar ignored it. Removing his sword and placing it away from his hand, he took his seat. The girl who served his tea glanced at him. He met her gaze frankly, not to convey disrespect, but on the chance that she might know who he was and take an instant’s comfort from his presence. Her hands trembled in response, spilling hot tea on his wrist. He jerked it away without a sound to betray her, but the Talisman commanders had seen. The man closest to her, an Immolan whose beard had been dyed dark red with henna, struck a blow to the girl’s back. She fell at Daniyar’s feet. The other women whimpered at the promise of violence to come. Daniyar placed his hands under the girl’s arms and gently raised her to her feet. This time when her eyes met his, they widened before she ducked her head. She had recognized him as the Silver Mage. The trembling of her body eased, but her dark eyes remained without hope.
“What is your name?” he asked her.
“Masoumeh,” she whispered, with a frightened glance over her shoulder. A pang of sorrow seized him. The girl’s name meant “innocence.” And from her accent and her finely formed features, he saw that she was a girl of West Khorasan, under the Black Khan’s protection, likely one of the refugees who had failed to find safe harbor at Ashfall.
The Immolan who’d struck her snarled at the girl to remove herself. Then he turned on Daniyar, the two men face-to-face, both powerful and dangerous, though Daniyar was seated with his sword set aside as an indication of his sincerity in seeking a truce. The Immolan’s gaze flicked to the Shin War crest that Daniyar wore at his throat.
His face marked by a thousand cruelties, the Immolan said, “As a member of the Shin War, a woman taken as a slave should be beneath your notice.” He jerked his head in the direction of Ashfall. “Or do you solicit the weak as your companions?”
The storm continued to gather in the depths of Daniyar’s eyes, though his voice was even when he answered, “In violence, I seek my equals.”
The insult was subtle yet unmistakable; the tension in the atmosphere deepened.
Then laughter rippled through the men.
The Immolan sliced a glare at the others, but the men fell silent only when a white-bearded elder raised his hand. He took a seat on one of the cushions. When he was settled, the other commanders copied him. The elder was in his eighth decade. He carried a staff instead of a sword, which he closed his hand around and kept near to him. His thin face was alert, eyes of charcoal gray betraying a steely intelligence as he made his assessment of Daniyar.
But it was to the Immolan he spoke.
“Have I not warned you against your misuse of the weak? The One entrusts them to our care, and this girl is nothing but a frightened child.” His disapproval was plain. “You bring dishonor to your name, Baseer.”
The insult was keen, Daniyar realized, for Baseer meant “one of great vision.”
Baseer was undaunted. He sat across from Daniyar, close enough to convey menace.
“She is one of the enemy. I give the enemy no quarter.”
To see what the Talisman elder would do, Daniyar ventured a response. “I thought you came here to test your strength against that of the Zhayedan army. Are your talents better suited to vanquishing an innocent girl?”
He laid a slight emphasis on the meaning of Masoumeh’s name. And he knew that by involving the girl in his scheme, he had no choice but to ensure her escape with his own. She had shrunk down beside the other women at the back, and though the women were frightened, they had come together to shield the girl from Baseer’s malevolent gaze.
Baseer spat at Daniyar’s feet. Close enough to insult him, but not enough to comprise a transgression of the loya jirga.
“Baseer!” The Talisman elder issued a rebuke that Baseer met with surly disrespect, when the elder went on to add, “We have a guest in our midst.”
“We have an enemy in our midst,” Baseer rejoined. “Remember it, Spinzhiray.”
The title referred to the elder’s white beard, yet also encompassed more: the elder’s courage, his wisdom, his skillful use of rhetoric. Though a loya jirga was a consultation of equals, the Spinzhiray held a position of seniority, one of status among the Talisman.
Daniyar observed the reaction of the men in the circle to Baseer’s disrespect. The two he knew kept their eyes on him, while several of the others were openly angry at Baseer. Now and again, a few of the commanders would let their gazes drift to the cloak on Daniyar’s shoulders, a touch of wonder in their eyes. Two other men shifted closer to the elder, who seemed to take Baseer’s arrogance in stride. His personal guard, perhaps, but others stood at Baseer’s back.
The Spinzhiray didn’t respond to Baseer, his focus on Daniyar. He advanced a small clay bowl into the center of their gathering. He took a ring that featured an eagle carved from a block of blue stone threaded with streaks of white from his finger.
“A gesture of trust.”
Daniyar understood. He removed the ring of the Silver Mage from his finger and placed it in the bowl. Its piercing light arrowed up through the hole in the tent’s roof.
Then, obeying the rites of consultation, he waited for the Spinzhiray to speak.
The older man captured his gaze with his own, his gray eyes shrewd and deep-set in his battle-scarred face.
“I’d hoped I would not pass from this earth without meeting the Silver Mage, the Guardian of Candour. Tell me—why do you stand with the Black Khan’s army?” He noted the torn crest at Daniyar’s throat, the stroke of black on a field of green.
Baseer interrupted before Daniyar could answer. “How do we know he is one of our own? Or that he holds to our code?”
Again Daniyar waited for the Spinzhiray to speak. But in this case, the elder tipped his staff at Daniyar, an indication for him to answer.
Looking from the Spinzhiray to Baseer, Daniyar offered, “The Shin War I know recognize melmastia, and I am a guest in your tent.” He acknowledged their hospitality by taking a sip of his tea. “Nanawatai—forgiveness. Turah—courage. Musaawat—equality. Wisa—trust. And ghayrat—self-honor.” He nodded at the elder. “I place the ring of the Silver Mage in your bowl, and the sword of the Silver Mage at my side, because I have no fear in your company. I rely upon your honor.”
Something in the men settled at those words. They sat back on their heels, their hands easing off their swords.
“You forgot badal. What is a member of the Shin War—of any of the Talisman tribes—without his commitment to revenge?”
Daniyar considered how best to answer Baseer. A tribal society that defended its lands from warfare found revenge necessary not only to uphold their honor, but for survival.
“What is meted out in self-defense, I see as a matter of justice, not of dishonor or revenge,” he said at last.
“You think to recalibrate the foundations on which the Shin War have stood?”
Daniyar shook his head, realizing that nothing he could say would win Baseer’s favor. Turning to the Spinzhiray, he said, “Honor is the foundation of everything we stand for.” Flicking a steely glance at Baseer, he added, “You point out my omissions, but what of yours? You chose not to mention naamus.”
Baseer made a show of grasping his sword.
“The honor of women?” He pretended to laugh. “Women have no honor.”
Unexpectedly, the Spinzhiray said, “They are garments for you, and you are garments for them.”
And having just had his involvement with the Black Khan questioned, Daniyar now wondered how a man who would recite this verse of the Claim could be in a position of leadership at this loya jirga. Encouraged, he nodded at the corner where the women in the tent had taken shelter.
“The Shin War code that I was taught defended the honor of women. Violence against those weaker than ourselves is outlawed by that code.”
A murmur in the tent. He sensed the tacit agreement of the orphans he had taken in.
“Are you the champion of the weak, then?” the Spinzhiray asked, with a look Daniyar couldn’t read.
His answer was straightforward. “Such was my trust as Guardian of Candour.”
“Yet you are not in Candour. And I think Baseer is right to ask why the Guardian of Candour makes his stand at the Black Khan’s walls.”
The mood in the tent tautened once more, the canvas like the lungs of a living being, inflating and deflating with each syllable. A curl of victory shaped Baseer’s lips. Yet when Daniyar made another slow sweep of the men gathered for the loya jirga, he observed a range of responses: admiration and respect from some, uncertainty and fear from others. If he was honest with them, if he spoke the truths of the Silver Mage, some might choose to ally with him. He could see from the way a few paid heed to the women at the back that the taking of slaves unsettled them. Perhaps they could still be persuaded to his point of view.
His voice rough, he said, “I am tired of war. I am tired of the desolation of our lands.” He motioned with a hand, something of his grief in the gesture. “What Candour was compared to what it has become—you must feel it as deeply as I do.” He turned his head to indicate the city of Ashfall. “It is not the way of Shin War, nor of any of our tribes, to wage war against those who do not act against us. The Black Khan seeks to hold his capital. His armies have not ventured into our lands; they haven’t sought to conquer.”
Baseer leaned forward so that his forearms were braced on his thighs, his face close to Daniyar’s. In its harsh lines and powerful certainty, Daniyar understood that this was a man who thrived on war. And to whom the Shin War code was a tool exploited for his own purposes or discarded when it failed to serve him.
“The Black Khan’s truce is a stratagem. You are a fool to believe otherwise.”
Daniyar’s gaze flicked to the Spinzhiray.
“Would you not hold your walls if there was an army at your gates? An army that takes your women captive?” Though it galled him to speak on the Black Khan’s behalf, he added, “The Khan has his own sense of naamus.”
He pointed to the young men he had tutored. They snapped to attention, their spines stiff with pride.
“Why waste their lives on this cause? Gather your men and take them home to engage in work with purpose. Allow them to build their future—restore the glory of Candour.”
He made no attempt to hide the depth of his longing for this outcome.
The men began to debate among themselves, but Daniyar watched the Spinzhiray. Despite the egalitarian structure of the council, its hierarchy would prevail.
“You think our war unjust?” he asked Daniyar, under the cover of the others’ voices.
Daniyar stared at the pulsing light that spiraled out from his ring. The silver light had wrapped itself around the lapis lazuli stone of the other man’s ring. The carved eagle appeared ready to take flight. He took a steadying breath: an honest answer would be seen as an insult, yet the Spinzhiray would see through a lie. With great care, he posed a question instead.
“How many of the Black Khan’s people have you killed or enslaved on your route to Ashfall?”
The Spinzhiray’s nobbled fingers stroked the soft wool of his beard. “To spread the message of the One across these lands is an act of justice.”
The Talisman commanders nodded one by one. In their renewed silence, Daniyar’s sharp ears picked up a sound that filled his thoughts with urgency. The actions of the Zhayedan were intensifying: they were preparing to attack.
He’d known better than to trust the Black Khan, but what other choice had there been? Arian was behind those walls. She was determined to take on the One-Eyed Preacher, even if she did so alone.
He sought a truce with the Talisman because he’d taken on her cause as his own. He had turned from her once, then promised himself he wouldn’t fail her again.
“The people of West Khorasan have long adhered to the message of the One. They named their western gate the Messenger Gate after the Messenger of the One.”
The Spinzhiray’s eyes sharpened … hardened … and Daniyar knew the battle was lost. There would be no truce with the Talisman this night. Or any of the nights that came after.
“Their court is corrupt, their practices a barbarity. The Black Khan’s scriptorium houses works of the profane.”
Daniyar fought not to show his outrage at this characterization of a place dedicated to the preservation of knowledge. “I have visited the scriptorium myself. Treatises on medicine and mathematics are anything but profane.” He debated the wisdom of mentioning the Bloodprint, then decided to keep his knowledge to himself. “The rest is for the One to judge.”
The elder’s grip tightened on his staff as Baseer rose to his feet.
“The One has judged. We have come to carry out the judgment.”
“Spinzhiray, I beg you to put the lives of your men before these notions of judgment.”
The elder shook his head in disapproval. “The dunya is of no value compared to the rewards of the Akhirah.”
A standard Talisman formula: the present world was only a means to gain the bounty of the afterlife. The Talisman used the formula to justify oppression. They would spend the lives of the boys in their army, boys he had once sheltered in Candour, without counting the cost.
“There will be no truce,” he continued. “No retreat.”
The Talisman commanders assisted the Spinzhiray to his feet. Daniyar collected his sword and sheathed it. Before he could bend to reclaim his ring, a roar shattered the night. The wind was in Daniyar’s eyes as a giant boulder tore through the roof of the tent, obliterating the stove, killing the commanders closest to it.
Screams filled the air. Orders were shouted across the tent, but what Daniyar’s keen hearing picked up was the cranking noise of the mechanism that raised the Zhayedan’s catapults. He called out a warning to the others to flee, his eyes on the women who crouched at the back of the tent. He wasn’t swift enough to act. A second boulder followed the first, its terrifying heft bringing the tent to utter silence. When the sound of the crash receded, Daniyar looked across to the back of the tent. The corner where the women had sheltered was ripped away. No one had survived, blood and bone strewn across the carpets.
He was seized from behind by two Talisman commanders who pushed him before the Spinzhiray. The elder’s white robes were flecked with blood and bits of flesh. But the Spinzhiray was used to death. His hands were steady on his staff, his charcoal eyes aflame with rage.
“The Guardian of Candour engaged in rank deception—you called for the loya jirga knowing the Zhayedan would strike!”
“No!” Daniyar protested, struggling to free himself, but the two men who held him were strong. They pinned his arms behind his back. “I could not wear the Sacred Cloak and lie—you know this!”
The Spinzhiray moved close enough that Daniyar felt his breath on his face. He ripped the Shin War crest from Daniyar’s throat, leaving it vulnerable and exposed.
“I know only this: you are a member of the Shin War without honor. Kill him, Baseer.”
Baseer, too, was covered in the blood of others, but his eyes gleamed with unholy satisfaction. He nodded at Daniyar’s captors, who forced him to his knees. He heard the sharp, metallic scrape of a well-honed sword pulled from its sheath.
He raised his head, finding the young men who had known him in Candour.
“It isn’t true,” he said. It mattered to him to convince them, even if he were to die here. “I came to you in good faith for the sake of our people. To barter for their lives and yours.”
Baseer poised his sword at the nape of Daniyar’s neck. “You have no people now. You are a traitor expelled from his clan. But that won’t matter to you soon.”
He raised his sword for the killing blow just as flaming arrows whistled into the tent. Fire licked up the felt walls, collapsing what remained as the Talisman tore them down. Screams scraped against the vastness of the sky. Baseer was taken by an arrow. The two men who held Daniyar released him, fleeing outside into the night.
Daniyar came to his feet in a powerful lunge.
“Run,” he said to the young soldiers he knew. “Find your way to Candour.”
Smoke thickened the air, slicked over his skin, and coiled up into his lungs. Flames devoured the tent, and all around him were the sounds of the Talisman regrouping for war.
One of the young soldiers looked him in the eye and spit out, “Khaeen.” Daniyar flinched from the viciousness of the word. But unable to hold the gaze of the Silver Mage after naming him a traitor, the soldier turned on his heel and fled.
Daniyar knew that his own would turn against him now. They would, as the young man had, consider him khaeen; they would erase him from the history of his people. The loneliness of being severed from his clan was a wound that throbbed in his chest, achingly familiar and dull.
My course was honorable, he told himself. No matter what they say about me, I did not betray who I am meant to be.
He focused on the other soldier, the one he might be able to persuade.
His name was Toryal, Daniyar remembered. Toryal pulled the scarf around his neck up to his mouth, trying to lessen the impact of the smoke.
“You were the Guardian of Candour—we believed in you. We trusted you.” He said the words in a tone so hopeless that it arrowed deep inside Daniyar. “For you to raise your hand against us—you taught us to choose the course of honor—now your honor lies in shreds.”
Toryal pulled his scarf higher, so that his neck was exposed. A telltale map of scars spread down from his throat into his armor. He had long been a conscript of the Talisman, one of the lost boys of Candour.
While the young man deliberated, Daniyar took in the fire that blazed a trail through the encampment. The commanders who had escaped were preparing for a counterattack, while the Zhayedan’s catapults continued to pound down destruction.
The devastating noise of battle was unlike anything Daniyar had ever heard. It crashed into his temples, battered his senses. Choking on the smoke, he said, “I promise you—I was not privy to this attack. But you know it for yourself, Toryal. This siege is not a course of honor. There is another way. Come with me instead.”
The younger man blinked, reaching for his sword. Daniyar left his sheathed.
In that strange, suspended moment, both men struggled to breathe, conscious of the rush of others toward them. Whatever else he was forced to do this night, he would not harm Toryal.
“If I go with you, I’ll have nothing. No clan or kin, no honor to call my own.”
Daniyar held Toryal’s gaze. “You’ll have me. I won’t leave you to stand on your own.”
Toryal rubbed one hand over the marks at his throat. Awkwardly, he began to cry. Daniyar stepped closer. When the younger man didn’t back away, he moved to take hold of him, wrapping the folds of the Sacred Cloak around them both. Let Toryal feel the strength that would protect him, even on a Talisman field.
As arrows burned the ground at their feet, he held Toryal until his sobs began to ease. The scent of wild honey filled the air, rising over the smoke, offering a hint of sweetness.
Toryal drew back, his blue-green eyes wet with tears.
“I would have saved the girl,” he said, refusing to look over at the bodies.
Daniyar assessed him. Made a judgment. “I know you would have tried.”
“How?” There was a tremor in Toryal’s voice. “How can you know I speak the truth?”
Daniyar placed one hand on Toryal’s shoulder, stroked the surface of the Cloak.
“You wear the Sacred Cloak. You cannot utter falsehoods under its mantle.” But what he’d said wasn’t enough. The boy needed more, something that didn’t depend on mysteries he couldn’t unravel, something beyond the sacred. “I remember you, Toryal. You wouldn’t have taken this path if you’d been given a choice.”
For a moment, a dazed sense of wonder appeared in Toryal’s eyes. He brought his hand up to the Cloak, stroking its unfathomable texture. Silky, yet heavy as wool. Enfolding him in warmth, yet soft and cool to the touch.
Remembering himself, he dropped his hand. He stepped away from Daniyar, remorse darkening his eyes. Mourning the things he knew he would never be able to have.
“I can’t follow you,” he said. “There’s nothing for me save this. Every man in Candour has been conscripted to the Talisman cause. There’s no way out of it, though many of us have tried.” His fingers ran over his scars. “Those who agree to fight are guaranteed the safety of their women. Those who refuse …” He dragged his tunic open, yanking at his armor.
At first Daniyar thought the pattern across his ribs were lash marks left by a whip. But the raised flesh was red and blistered, the texture of the flesh thick and waxy. Toryal’s body had been burned.
A swirling torrent of rage and grief rose inside him.
“You could still come with me. You could bring those like you to the gates, and the Black Khan would give you shelter. It isn’t too late for you to choose another course.”
But Toryal was shaking his head, desperate and unsure.
“Don’t offer me a future I know I’ll never see. All I have left is my hope that my sisters will not be sold.”
And, with his sword gripped in his hand, Toryal disappeared.
The strange lethargy, the almost-hope that had seized Daniyar and held the battle at bay now evaporated in a rush. He moved through the tent, stepping over bodies, searching for the bowl that held his ring. But its piercing light failed to penetrate the smoke.
Then there was no more time to search. The stench of death in his nostrils, the heat of fire at his back, he swung around to face the group of Talisman who advanced.
He drove forward into the fray, his sword flashing out into the night, the Cloak streaming from his back singed by trails of fire. The sight of the Cloak gave one of the Talisman pause; the rest rushed to meet his sword. Daniyar was heavy with muscle, but he moved with the grace of a predator, his skill in combat honed by the years he had stood against the Talisman. Bodies fell as others surged to take their place. The Talisman had no strategy beyond an inarticulate fury they intended to assuage. Daniyar took a slash to his arm, another to the opposite shoulder. It slowed him but didn’t bring him down.
The fury of the Zhayedan’s mangonels brought him a moment or two of rest, and then he was thrust upon his mettle again: more of the soldiers recognized him as the man who had promised a truce during the loya jirga.
Under the rage, he read their contempt for a man who could betray his own. He shrugged it aside, blocking a bold attempt at his throat, another under his armor. But in the end, he couldn’t stand against them all. His arms were tiring; there was nowhere to escape to. Sweat dampened his hair, seeped under his armor. Clouds of smoke stung his eyes. There was no sign of his ring, no other powers to call upon, when he needed his every breath to fight.
But then the Talisman fell back, bodies collapsing to the ground, arrows through their necks or rising from their backs. These weren’t fletched like Teerandaz arrows; they were black-tipped, lethal in their accuracy. He blinked to clear his bleary eyes. Two men were fighting at his side, raising their swords when his movements were too slow. They were sheathed in skintight leather, expressionless behind their masks.
They fought back the press of the attack, and when the Talisman’s attention turned elsewhere, one of them grabbed Daniyar’s arm.
“The field is lost,” he warned. “The only way out is with us.”
1
A NARROW CHAMBER LED OFF TO THE RIGHT OF THE QAYSARIEH PORTAL. A faint scent of dampness emanated from within, overlaid with traces of jasmine. When Arian peered inside, the sight she encountered brought her to a halt. A moment later, her escort became aware that she’d fallen behind. Khashayar, a captain of the Zhayedan army, signaled his men to wait. He strode back to join Arian at the entrance to the chamber.
“Does something delay you, First Oralist?”
He spoke to her with the respect her status as First Oralist demanded. More, his manner set an example for his men, who had balked at abandoning Ashfall while the capital was under attack. Yet the order to accompany the First Oralist on her mission had come directly from the Black Khan. The Zhayedan might find little merit in chasing a holy relic while their comrades fought a battle for survival, but they would obey their Khan, and through him Khashayar. The city would have to hold until they returned from their quest.
Arian raised her eyes to Khashayar’s face. He was black-haired, with dramatic dark eyes under an aristocratic brow. Though he was no relation, in appearance he resembled Rukh, the Black Khan. He was young to be charged with escorting her to Time-back, but his youth was a matter of years, not experience. He carried his command with poise: disciplined, experienced, yet adaptable enough to recognize why Arian’s mission mattered to the fate of his city.
“What is this chamber?” she asked him.
“A cistern. We use it to collect rainwater.”
“There’s a prayer nook in the wall.”
Khashayar nodded, but his head was inclined toward the sounds of combat beyond the city walls. When she still didn’t move, he said, “It was built at the request of the Begum Niyousha—the Black Khan’s mother. She observed her worship here. The Princess Darya followed her example.”
A shadow crossed Khashayar’s face. The Princess of Ashfall had been killed during a skirmish on the walls. She should have been safe in the Al Qasr with the rest of the Khan’s household, yet she’d raced to the western gate to prevent her half-brother, Darius, from striking against the Black Khan, her death as chaotic and impetuous as the way she’d lived her life.
“May I take a moment for prayer before we leave?”
Khashayar’s black gaze skipped over the First Oralist’s confederates—Sinnia, the Companion from the lands of the Negus, and Wafa, the blue-eyed Hazara boy under the Companions’ care.
When he hesitated, Arian tried to reassure him. “The blessing is important, otherwise I wouldn’t delay.” A graceful hand swept out from under her cloak, the gold circlet on her upper arm agleam in the muted light. She gestured back at the square they had passed through where the impact of the battle was felt. “I will pray for the deliverance of Ashfall, as much as for our journey ahead.”
Khashayar gave the order to his men to proceed. He settled himself at the entrance to the cistern, his arms crossed over his chest. “I’ll stand guard.”
“Don’t wait,” Arian said to Sinnia. “Go with the Zhayedan; I won’t be far behind.”
She waited until Sinnia had departed, tugging Wafa along with her. Hesitant now, she nodded at Khashayar. “I will require privacy.”
She flushed a little under the keenness of his gaze.
“I won’t intrude, sahabiya.”
Something in his expression told her she could trust him, though all had come to chaos in both her city and his. His integrity shone from his eyes, his dedication a bond that pulsed between them in the room.
Bowing her head, she slipped past him to make her way to the prayer nook. The vaulted ceiling of the cistern sloped down to a sandstone colonnade. Lanterns in rich blue turquoise were hung between columns of gold above an elongated pool. Between two of these columns, a single pillar, almost like a plinth, had been placed in the center of the pool. The glow of torchlight shone on amber walls, whose high periphery was lined with geometries of tiny blue tiles. At the northeastern corner, a mihrab was fashioned against cold stone like the plume of a peacock’s tail, feathered in emerald green, the exquisite tessellation sheened with light. Beneath it, the golden threads of a well-worn prayer rug reflected echoes of that light.
Arian knelt on the rug. She held words of prayer in her mouth until they bloomed into blessings. Benedictions sought, tumultuous griefs confided. Her fears confessed to the One.
What were they coming to?
What hope did she have of turning the tide of this war?
For years she had battled the tyranny of the Talisman and the greatest cruelty of their reign: their enslavement of the women of the east.
The Companions of Hira were all that stood between the Talisman and total devastation, fighting to preserve Khorasan’s plural heritage, a battle they waged without recourse to force of arms. Instead, they relied upon the scripture of the Claim, the sacred magic passed through oral transmission; its written counterpart had vanished over time, destroyed by the Talisman’s purges.
For a decade, Arian had used her gifts as First Oralist of Hira—First Oralist of the Claim—to disrupt the Talisman’s slave-chains. Then Ilea, the High Companion of her order, had assigned her a new task: to procure the Bloodprint, the sole surviving record of the Claim. Anchored by it, the Companions would have worked to overthrow the Talisman. Months ago, Arian had set out on the trail of the sacred text, but the Black Khan’s machinations had brought the Bloodprint to Ashfall instead.
Now the Talisman’s war had come to the west, to the empire of the Black Khan, and battle raged at his capital. Arian could hear their cries beyond the chamber where she prayed.
Her forehead touched the carpet in prostration. Tears welled up in her eyes, drifting up into her hairline. Her questions sounded like complaints, as if she’d had a crisis of faith. She believed devoutly in the Claim, but she needed to know why she’d struggled so long to lose the Bloodprint in the end. A devastating loss, mitigated only by a new mission: to find the Sana Codex, an ancient record of the Claim hidden away in Timeback, a city of the maghreb.
As a last desperate hope, she had set out with her escort to retrieve it.
I was learning the Bloodprint, she prayed in protest. Why let the One-Eyed Preacher take it? Though I seek the Codex as an answer to its power, is my quest likely to succeed? Do I possess the wisdom to unravel the secrets of the Claim? Will I be able to wield it against one who seems as invincible as the Preacher?
If I fail, who will count the cost?
The prayer rug was wet with her tears now. She had already measured some part of that cost. Her family lost to her in childhood. Her sister’s renunciation when they had chanced to reunite. The Black Khan’s theft of the Bloodprint at the Ark. The manuscript had been in her grasp—then gone. Now two further blows had been struck: she’d been severed from the Council of Hira and divided from the man she loved.
I have Sinnia, she reassured herself. I have Sinnia and Wafa. And this noble soldier of the Zhayedan to guide me, Khashayar, so proud and brave.
She thought about those instances when the Claim had swept over her like a cyclone, overwhelming her conscious will. She whispered a prayer to the One.
Make me a servant of the Word. I have seen the darkness of the Claim. If I must use it to destroy, don’t let it twist who I am. I seek no arcane powers; I disavow the rites of blood.
“Sahabiya.” The soft reminder from Khashayar brought her to the end of her prayers.
Bless these lands, bless this city, bless the people of Khorasan. May the manifest blessings of the One descend upon those who journey at my side, those who wait for me at Hira, and those I leave behind in Ashfall.
Then she made a futile bargain, struck over the ashes of oaths she had already taken.
Keep Daniyar safe, and I’ll give myself to this cause.
She kissed the spot on the carpet that she’d touched with her forehead. When she rose to her feet again, she glimpsed her reflection in the pool. The turquoise waters of the cistern seemed to collect the light—it throbbed at the base of the pool, undulating in a wave that tumbled back into itself. Arian peered into the basin. What caused the light to reflect off the bottomless depths of the pool? Was the basin tiled in silver? She couldn’t tell, the sparks of light kept refracting until the mosaics split apart, an illusion that made the turquoise depths seem infinite.
A mystery she would willingly explore, but the pallor of her skin disturbed the surface of the pool, and her mind was distracted. Her face was lined with weariness, her eyes dull, her hair hanging in limp, damp trails. She’d been a queen at the Black Khan’s banquet—ornamented, perfumed, beguiling, young, and alluringly feminine, a woman who belonged at a court as graceful and dignified as Ashfall’s. How long ago that tranquility seemed now, how deceptive her brief transformation.
She firmed the line of her jaw to make herself appear steadfast, a trick that failed to suffice, her body and spirit bruised in too many ways to count. Now, the dullness was a thing within, the spark of her purpose extinguished. She’d exchanged one guise for another, one quest for another, her course meant to be unerring, but she couldn’t deceive herself. She didn’t want to leave Daniyar. She didn’t trust that she would find her way to Timeback or that she would find what she was searching for in the city. The journey would take time.
What would she return to?
The green eyes that gazed back at her from the pool were bleak with worry and fear. “We must go,” Khashayar said.
Must we? she asked herself.
2
“WE’VE FACED WORSE ODDS.”
Sinnia’s spyglass was trained on the open grasslands, a brief stretch between the hidden exit of Qaysarieh’s tunnels and the rearguard of the camped-out forces of the Rising Nineteen. She grinned, a white flash against glossy dark skin. “It’s usually just the two of us against our enemies, me with my whip, you with your sword and the Claim.” She stretched out the muscles of her shoulders, a luxurious movement in the cramped confines of the tunnel. “This time we have a boy”—she ran an affectionate hand over Wafa’s unruly curls—“and a ferocious host to accompany us.” Wafa didn’t smile at Sinnia, daunted by the sounds of the battle that raged behind them in the city, but he leaned into her touch.
The host consisted of ten well-armed members of the Khorasan Guard. The men looked harried by the sounds of the battle they had left, impatient to return to the defense of their city, though they knew the journey ahead was a long one. Their route would take them across the Empty Quarter to Axum, the capital of the Negus. A reasonable place to break the journey, as it would allow Sinnia to return to the home she hadn’t visited in a year. But Arian had her own reasons for stopping at Axum. If they were able to get through the Rising Nineteen and come out on the other side unharmed, Axum would be a place of refuge. Hunted by the One-Eyed Preacher, they would need that refuge.
Pausing their journey at Axum would also give her the chance to study its celebrated manuscripts. With its long history of exchange with the maghreb, there might be a clue to the whereabouts of the Sana Codex somewhere in Axum’s lore, or at least some reference to the Mage of the Blue Eye, who was reputed to be its keeper. Perhaps the Negus or his queen would be able to tell her more.
Another uncertainty she faced.
If they did find the elusive Blue Mage, she hoped to persuade him to trust her with the Codex—to convince him that her need for it was urgent. It was the only answer to the Preacher’s mastery of the Bloodprint, and she couldn’t stand against him without it, no matter her proficiency with the Claim. She needed knowledge to match his knowledge, or she would have stayed in Ashfall to fight. The necessity of her return was ever-present on her mind.
Khashayar felt it too. He lowered his spyglass to speak.
“There’s no cover, no means to take them by surprise. We’ll have to engage them, First Oralist.” His nod acknowledged Sinnia. “And despite the Companion’s optimism, this is not a battle we can win. The numbers are against us.”
Sinnia passed her spyglass to Arian so she could see for herself, aware that there was something different about Arian but unable to pinpoint what it was. Arian studied the open grasslands, noting the distance they’d have to clear. Passing the spyglass back to Sinnia, she turned to scan the men behind her, her gaze lighting on each for a moment, until each one lowered his gaze. All except Khashayar, who raised his chin and waited.
Arian pressed one hand against the gold circlet on her upper arm, the insignia worn by the Companions of Hira.
“They haven’t moved. They’re waiting for a signal from the One-Eyed Preacher.”
Khashayar unscrewed a silver flask and took a sip of water. The flask was nothing like the plain leather waterskins Arian and Sinnia carried. It was engraved with ornate calligraphy in the pattern of a lush floral wreath. When he saw that the calligraphy had captured Arian’s attention, he offered the flask to her. Arian read the list of blessings and offered them aloud. She returned Khashayar’s flask to him without drinking from it, though his offer had been generous. She knew Khashayar would understand that as a matter of etiquette, she would not place her lips against the opening his lips had touched. He tucked away his flask without comment.
“What is your counsel, First Oralist?”
“I will provide cover.” She showed him a small hillock of grass-threaded sand in the near distance. “We need to reach that hill without giving ourselves away.”
Khashayar checked the spot with a frown. “Even if you could provide cover, it leaves us too close to their soldiers. Our circle around them should be wider.” He showed her what he meant with a sweep of his hand, inadvertently brushing her arm. Her golden circlet pulsed. He was taken aback by the energy that leapt from her body to his. She shifted to allow it to pass.
“Forgive me, I meant no offense.”
“You gave none.” Her soft words stroked over him, and for a moment he had the sense he was being gentled as one would coax a stallion to the touch of a warrior’s hand. Her answer echoed his thoughts. “We must risk it, Khashayar.” She turned back to the opening again, squeezed against Sinnia and Wafa. “They have horses I intend to take.”
Khashayar rubbed his jaw. He widened his stance, planting his feet.
“Horses will not survive the crossing of the Rub Al Khali. The risk is a foolish one, First Oralist.”
His men murmured behind him. The noise of catapults crashing into Ashfall’s courtyard sounded at their backs. The time for ambivalence was over. Either he convinced the Companions to return, or he accepted their direction.
He’d already learned that the First Oralist shared little of her thoughts or her plans. She was used to traveling without a company of soldiers at her back, unwilling to justify her actions, but something about her certainty spoke to Khashayar. Convinced him to heed her counsel.
“We must go,” she said now. “The Claim will cover us all. The risk is worth it.”
With no further argument, he signaled to the men behind him. They moved into position. He squeezed past Wafa, gestured at the Companions.
“I’ll go first with two of my men. Follow us once we are clear.”
The sound of the Claim filled the tunnel, washing the dankness from it, wrapping around their senses, its notes as close and familiar as if the men were voicing it themselves. When Khashayar and his soldiers had eased out of the tunnel, Arian and Sinnia followed with Wafa, the rest of their escort at their back. The Claim rose around them, strong and sweet, yet oddly hollow, a breeze blowing over plains of fertile scrubland. Their party moved across the grass, cocooned inside the Claim, the soft words blowing across the group of soldiers who kept watch at the rear of the Nineteen’s army. Military men, professional and well-trained, alert to sounds and movement around them, their camp orderly and silent.
Khashayar tallied numbers, noted the count and caliber of weaponry, made sharp-eyed assessments of the men waiting to attack Ashfall from the west. The rearguard consisted of two hundred men. In each small group was a runner, positioned to receive messages from the soldiers yet to arrive. The entire vanguard consisted of no more than a thousand men. When spread out in a line against the plains, they had seemed ten times that number. Or perhaps the One-Eyed Preacher had used his sorcery to demoralize the defenders of Ashfall.
He counted the brushfires along their encampment. They lit the faces of small groups, though most of the men had covered the lower half of their faces with their neck scarves, in the custom of their people. He noted the looseness of their robes as a weakness—not what he would have chosen to wear as armor into battle. His own men wore leather armor that closely conformed to their bodies, their weapons at their waists, shields slung over their backs. The Nineteen may have been well-fortified, but Khashayar perceived disadvantages the Zhayedan could exploit.
As they crept ahead with utmost stealth, he considered sending a message by hawk to convey his discoveries to Arsalan, the commander of the Black Khan’s army. But too many of the tribal herders who made up the Rising Nineteen had cast their glances at the sky, waiting for such a signal to give away the enemy’s position. As he scanned the perimeter for a possible ambush, he noticed when two soldiers in each group raised their torches, the signal he had been waiting for.
He held up his hand to silence all movement. The Companions came to a halt, the First Oralist at his side, the Claim a near-silent murmur from her mouth. They were no more than fifty feet from the rearguard of the Nineteen. Two of the soldiers glanced in their direction.
The breeze that brushed the grasslands whipped against their faces, forcing them to turn away.
Khashayar’s smile was grim. He knew his duty was to escort the Companions to Timeback, but his mind was racing with other possibilities. With the First Oralist’s use of the Claim, perhaps they could strike against the rearguard and strike hard—hard enough to gain Ashfall another night’s reprieve.
Before the First Oralist could answer the question in his eyes—or before he could act on his own—a chant began in the Nineteen’s camp. The soldiers beat against the ground with their torches in an accompanying rhythm. The chant was meant to terrorize the citizens of Ashfall, but Khashayar was mystified by the meaning of the words they spoke. They offered it in the High Tongue. As an elite commander, he was literate enough to understand.
“Over this are Nineteen.”
Over what? What did their name signify? He lowered his arm in a signal and began to move again, letting the words sweep over the night. The First Oralist’s continuous murmur of the Claim dimmed any fear he might have felt at the chant.
Over this are Nineteen.
He glanced back at his men to ensure that their course was steady. They moved with precision, a line of warriors determined to protect the Companions and the boy, weapons in hand, eyes focused on the soldiers who should have seen their movements in the open but whose heads remained turned away.
Though the temptation to strike was great, Khashayar bided his time. He would get the Companions to safety, and then he would persuade the First Oralist of the merits of his plan.
They stole across the grass, their movements sleek and their footing sure. None looked away from the Nineteen, waiting for the silence to break, prepared at any moment for discovery.
But under the steady flow of the First Oralist’s words, they made their way to the hillock and dipped down the other side. Now they were positioned on a twenty-foot dune that loomed above the Nineteen. Khashayar made a rapid calculation and was convinced: if the First Oralist used the Claim to shield them, he and his men could eliminate the rearguard.
She would caution him, he knew. Ten against two hundred. But he’d seen the power of the Claim.
Still, he had to consider the step that would come after a surprise attack. News of the First Oralist’s routing of the One-Eyed Preacher at the Messenger Gate had spread rapidly through the ranks of the Zhayedan. She was a weapon they could wield. If she remained on their side. Angering her for a limited victory could mean losing her assistance entirely.
Too, the First Oralist had made calculations of her own. She wanted the horses the soldiers closest to them had grouped at the rear of their camp—horses whose finely shaped heads were the mark of the region’s thoroughbreds. The horses could take them some distance farther west, though they lacked the stamina for the journey through the heart of the Rub Al Khali desert. At some point, the Companions would need to trade the thoroughbreds for camels.
But surely he could use that to his advantage. He would give the First Oralist her horses, if she agreed to his strike. If she helped him destroy the Nineteen’s entire vanguard. He glanced over at her, expecting to find her attention focused on the horses. Instead, her gaze had followed his, and now she watched him closely, as if she could read his thoughts. Could she? He frowned at the thought.
“First Oralist—”
She spoke to him kindly, her cloak thrown back, the breeze taking the long strands of her hair, so that it whipped at his skin, soft as Marakand silk. “I don’t have the power you seek.”
“You defeated the One-Eyed Preacher at the walls.”
“A momentary respite.”
Something in the air shifted. The chanting slowed. Deepened. Soldiers in the camp began to move. Spyglasses scanned the dunes.
Arian and Khashayar ducked down. The murmur of the Claim began again, this time augmented by Sinnia, while the boy, Wafa, crouched at their sides, his blue eyes wide with fear.
Arian shifted closer to the horses. His courtesy set aside, Khashayar’s hand shot out to clamp down on her wrist.
She turned back to him, pinned him with eyes that seemed to see everything, things he didn’t want her to know.
But it was the boy who wrenched Khashayar’s grip from her wrist. A hard smile touched Khashayar’s lips. The Hazara boy freed by the Companions had a blind devotion to them now. Nothing could rout him from their sides, or from their self-appointed Audacy.
He watched as the First Oralist took the boy’s hand and pressed a kiss to his curls.
The Talisman’s prejudice spilled over into his thoughts. How could the First Oralist of Hira kiss a child of the Hazara, a people too weak to defend themselves, instead of aligning herself with much worthier allies?
She answered his unspoken question. “We are all equals. We all belong to the One.” Then, moving out of his reach, she skirted closer, lower down the ridge to where the horses were pastured. “If I could help you, I would, Khashayar. You’ll have to learn to trust me.” She nodded at the city in the distance, a glimmer of lights beyond the army’s encampment. The sounds of battle were fainter far from the walls, yet still audible. The clash of steel, the destruction sowed by catapults that creaked under the weight of their projectiles, the clean whistle of arrows slicing through bursts of noise. Brilliant dots of fire flickered along the walls.
“I would understand if you and your men chose to return to make your stand at Ashfall. Just as Sinnia and I must fulfill our purpose.”
She held his gaze, her own astonishingly clear.
Go with her, the Black Khan had said. Do not leave her side. Whoever stands against you, whoever you must destroy, your foremost duty is to bring the Sana Codex to Ashfall. No matter what the First Oralist may tell you. No matter where she tries to take it. Do otherwise, and you will be party to the destruction of this empire.
Khashayar’s fingers curled into his palm. He moved to give the First Oralist cover, signaling to his men. Crawling crabwise across the hill in their descent, he felt the verses of the Claim attain an urgency. A harshness to stand against words that had no meaning for him, despite their pounding pulse.
Over this are Nineteen.
His armor was brushed by spiky tufts of grass that pricked at the skin of his throat. The breeze summoned by the Claim blew the smoke from the Nineteen’s fires away from their small party back into the camp, where soldiers could be heard coughing. He gripped his sword, sliding sideways. His men remained in position at the crest. Two of his monitored their progress. The First Oralist had also motioned to the boy to wait for her return.
Now Khashayar and the Companions inched their way closer to the camp with the horses, each increment of movement scrutinized in advance.
Thirty feet. Twenty. Ten. So close now that the horses’ ears pricked forward, hearing their subtle movements beneath the Claim. Sinnia’s use of the Claim broke off.
“If the Silver Mage was with us, he could calm the horses for us.”
She picked up her use of the Claim before Arian could answer, though Arian’s shoulders tightened at the words. She changed her intonation. The Claim became more secret. When Khashayar looked up to measure their progress, his head was within kicking distance of the enemy’s boots.
He rolled away. The soldier didn’t stir, his gaze fixed on the stars.
Then, like a wraith trailing clouds of mist, the First Oralist flowed to her feet, her graceful movements matched by Sinnia’s. She stroked the mane of one of the sequestered mares, murmuring the Claim in its ear. The horse shifted to nuzzle her shoulder, and Khashayar saw that the mares were linked together, held by a single lead. He motioned to the Companions to retreat, wrapping the lead around his wrist. His powerful body nudged the lead mare up the slope, his sharp eyes trained on the soldiers guarding the horses.
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