Naamah's Curse (66 page)

The assassin howled, dropping his garrote and glancing around in terror.

Scrambling out of the stairwell, I expanded my cloak of twilight and swirled it around Amrita, and the assassin released her with an involuntary hiss.

“Moirin!” Bao shouted behind me. “Get them out of the way, get them safe!”

“Come, come, come!” I whispered urgently, tugging them both to the farthest corner of the small room. Ravindra was trembling with a mix of fear and fury, and Amrita with shock, touching her abraded throat. I wrapped my arms around them both, praying I could keep them safe in the twilight, praying Bao could protect us all. In the twilight, I could actually sense the presence of Kamadeva’s diamond in the distance as though it were another kind of
diadh-anam
, a god’s bright spirit turned to malevolent purpose.

Bao sidled warily into the room, his staff held in a defensive pose; and that alone told me his opponent was good.

“Traitor!” The fellow spat on the ground. He had regained his composure in remarkable time. “I should have killed you in Kurugiri.” His hands snatched at his belt, and in the blink of an eye, he had throwing knives fanned like playing cards in his left hand, and one poised to throw in his right. The blades twinkled like stars in the twilight. He bared his teeth in a smile. “I’ll enjoy doing it now.”

“You think so?” Bao feinted at him.

A flurry of glittering blades flew from the assassin’s hands, one after another, quicker than the eye could follow. Bao’s staff whirled, making the air whistle, and then he hurled himself sideways out of the knives’ path in a horizontal spinning move that didn’t seem humanly possible, landing with his battle-grin in place.

“Got more?” he asked insolently.

Unfortunately, the assassin did. He flicked a blade low, forcing Bao to parry it awkwardly, and then flicked another blade high at his unguarded face.

Amrita gave a low cry of dismay, and I tightened my arms around her and her son, fearing for all of us.

But Bao was already in motion, flinging himself backward onto the floor and rolling in a somersault. Instead of coming up into a fighting stance, he stayed in a low crouch, his staff sweeping along the floor to strike hard at the assassin’s ankles while another flurry of blades flew harmlessly over his head to clatter against the wall.

The blow didn’t knock the fellow off his feet, but it staggered him; and in a heartbeat, Bao was up. The fellow caught himself before Bao could strike, a lone throwing knife held up in warning.

“Heh.” Bao’s grin widened. “Last one, huh?”

“Maybe.” The assassin’s hand went to his belt again, scattering a handful of bright, sharp objects on the floor.

Bao glanced down and swore, then glanced up in time to jerk out of the way of the last blade as it flew through the air. For a moment, the men regarded each other. I didn’t know what history lay between them, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. “You’re done,” Bao said simply, shifting his staff into an offensive pose.

Without a word, the assassin turned and dashed for the balcony.

And the purpose of the objects he’d thrown came clear as Bao went after him. They were shaped like a child’s jack-toys, only larger, with long, wickedly sharp tines, forcing Bao to kick them out of the way or suffer a punctured foot. They didn’t delay him long, but it was enough time for the fellow to gain the balcony and vault over it. In the garden far below, monkeys shrieked and chattered. Bao peered over the railing.

“Is it safe?” I asked him, my voice shaking a little.

“Yes.” Bao sounded subdued. I released the twilight, the daylit world returning in a rush. “Best your highnesses do not look, though. It isn’t pleasant.”

“Is he dead?” Ravindra asked fiercely.

“Oh, yes.” Bao nodded. “This time, I am very certain, young highness.”

“Oh, gods!” My lady Amrita’s lovely voice was hoarse from her near-garroting, and there were tears in it. “We were supposed to be safe here! How did he find this room?” Tears spilled from her eyes, streaking her face. “I cannot believe any of my people would betray us willingly!”

“Mama-ji, don’t cry!” Ravindra whispered, stroking her arm.

“I don’t think they did, highness.” Bao’s tone was as gentle as I’d ever heard it. “Not willingly, anyway.”

She met his sympathetic gaze. “That’s worse, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “That one’s name was Zoka. If he has another, I never heard it. He was a bad man, highness, one of the worst. He liked to hurt people. I am afraid he may have hurt one of yours.”

“Ah, no!” The sorrow in Amrita’s voice made my heart ache.

To everyone’s sorrow, Bao was right.

Hasan Dar’s guards found Zoka’s victim in a linen storeroom in the servants’ quarters. She was one of the Rani’s trusted attendants, a sweet girl named Sameera who took pride in her hair-dressing skills and often sang as she worked. She couldn’t have been much more than sixteen years old.

She was dead, garroted, the flesh of her slender throat swollen around the ligature mark.

And young Sameera had been tortured before she died. On her left hand, only her thumb and forefinger remained. The other three were bloody stumps with ragged bits of bone protruding from the fresh wounds. Three delicate severed fingers lay scattered on the floor of the storeroom.

Although Hasan Dar begged Amrita not to look, she insisted on it. She looked for a long, long time.

“Poor child,” she murmured, stooping to touch the girl’s maimed hand. “You tried to protect me, didn’t you? You held out as long as you could.” Raising the girl’s hand to her lips, she kissed it. “Surely, you will be reborn a warrior, my little brave heart.”

I wiped tears from my eyes.

Everyone was silent.

In the silence, the Rani Amrita stood. Twice in recent days, she had been frightened, badly frightened. Twice, she had nearly been killed.

Now she was angry.

I would not have thought my lovely, laughing lady Amrita could be terrible in her anger; but she was. There was a vein of dignity and quiet strength that ran deep beneath her kindness and charm, and this deed had tapped it.

“Enough!” Her voice rang, and her dark eyes flashed. “This is unacceptable. I will not remain a prisoner in my own palace, starting at shadows. I will not allow my people to be tortured and killed for their loyalty. No more fear, no more suffering.
Enough
. I do not care if we have not found the perfect plan. We are going to Kurugiri.
I
am going to Kurugiri. Once and for all, we will put an end to this!”

Ravindra swallowed hard, but he did not protest.

No one did.

I glanced at Bao, leaning on his staff. He nodded at me, promising whatever aid was required.

I glanced at Ravindra, thinking how I had flung the twilight around him.

I thought about Jagrati and Kamadeva’s diamond, and how I had been able to sense them in the twilight.

I thought about how Amrita had placed herself between me and Jagrati in the meadow, her hands raised in a warding
mudra
, holding the Spider Queen herself at bay.

“My lady Amrita,” I said softly. “I think I know how to take Kamadeva’s diamond out of play.”

Filled with fierce determination, Amrita turned her lustrous gaze on me. “Tell me.”

I did.

N
o one loved the plan, and our young chess-master Ravindra liked it least of all.

“It’s
very
dangerous, Mama-ji!” he said in an unwontedly frightened tone. “What if Moirin…” He made a helpless gesture. “Falls victim again?”

“I won’t,” I murmured. “Not this way.”

“She won’t,” Amrita said with conviction. “Not with Bao-ji at her side, not with
me
there. I will not allow it.”

Bao met my gaze. “If we’re to survive the maze, it will require your magic after all, Moirin—even before we reach Kurugiri. There’s no other way. We’ll have to kill in stealth, you and I.”

“I know,” I said steadily. “And there is no honor in it. But I do believe that the stakes are high enough that the Maghuin Dhonn Herself will forgive me.”

Ravindra’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure?”

“No, young highness,” I said honestly to him. “Very little in life is certain. But I am quite sure that if we navigate the maze, I can find Jagrati and encompass her in the twilight, rendering her and Kamadeva’s diamond invisible for a time.”

“A time,” he echoed.

“A time is long enough for us to secure the fortress,” Hasan Dar said in a pragmatic voice. “That is all we need. Once it is done, there will be too many of us for her to contend with.”

“Once we have gained entrance to the fortress,
she
will make her stand in a smaller place.” Bao pointed at the drawing of Kurugiri’s layout. “Here in the throne room is my guess. We will not be able to fit more than a score of men in there.”

“How many can she control at once?” Hasan Dar inquired. “Can she force them to turn on their fellows?”

“I don’t know,” Bao admitted. “Only that the compulsion to do her bidding is powerful, but it can be overridden.”

“How?”

“Love.” Bao glanced at me, eyes crinkling in a smile of rare sweetness. “It is a force strong enough that it allowed me to walk away from her. It allowed the Rani to protect Moirin. Kamadeva’s diamond commands a powerful desire, but there is no love in Jagrati, only rage and hatred. So. I suggest you meditate on those you love, commander, and advise your men to do the same, whether it be their wives and sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, priests and mentors, or their love for and loyalty to the Rani Amrita herself. Love, and love alone, is the force that will allow you to resist.”

It was not a speech anyone would have expected Bao to make, me included. Hasan Dar inclined his head in surprised respect. “I will do that, Bao-ji.”

“Good.” Bao returned his attention to the map. “If I may make one more suggestion, I would advise dividing your men into two companies. Jagrati will have Lord Khaga and every last man standing guarding her.” He tapped the map. “The harem will be unguarded.”

The commander followed his thoughts. “So if everything else goes wrong, we can still rescue those poor unfortunates.”

Bao nodded. “Jagrati allows Lord Khaga his harem as a sop to his pride, a place he can go to prove his manhood when she denies him to dally with his assassins. Whatever else happens, we should plan to free the harem.”

“How many are there?”

“Counting the children?” Bao frowned in thought. “Twenty-five or thirty, perhaps. I do not know for sure. I was only allowed there once to search for Moirin.”

“There are children in that place?” Amrita asked in horror.

“Yes, highness.” Bao was silent a moment. “I do not think they were treated cruelly, at least not as children. The Falconer finds them distasteful, and avoids them. Even a woman bearing a child is repulsive to him.” His mouth tightened. “I heard it said that in the harem, it was every woman’s goal to conceive a son.”

“Why?” I asked, perplexed.

He looked askance at me. “If a woman bears him a son, the Falconer would not return to her bed. And she would not have to worry about a daughter growing up and being forced to share his.”

My stomach churned. “And you said it wasn’t
terrible
there?”

“I was in a very dark place within myself, Moirin,” Bao said quietly. “The hatred that Jagrati carries within her, it is like a sickness. I am still learning to live in brightness again.”

“It is not your fault, Bao-ji!” Ravindra said with indignant loyalty, his narrow hands forming a
mudra
of reassurance. “The gods always test the strongest heroes, the ones they love best in the world. Surely you passed!”

Bao smiled at him with genuine affection. “You are quite the hero yourself, young highness, rushing to protect your mother as you did! It would have gone far worse for me if you hadn’t.”

“Truly?” Ravindra flushed with pleasure.

“Truly.”

Thus for better or worse, our plan was established. It would take some days to assemble a sufficient force and arrange for supplies and other necessities, such as a battering ram that would have to be carried through the winding maze on foot.