Of Sand and Malice Made (11 page)

“What are you doing?” Çeda said, her words sharp and brittle in this hard, confined space.

Kadir stared as if trying to weigh her, to know her mind as Rümayesh might have done, though whether he
had
some similar ability, and if so, had succeeded or not, Çeda couldn't tell. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Rümayesh sent me.”

Kadir shivered. “She what?”

“She sent me here.” She told him of the dreams she'd been having. She told him of the cold room, the strange ridge with the dead trees. She told him how Rümayesh had called out his name when Hidi had begun torturing her. “She
wanted
me to find you. The only question is why.”

Kadir looked around the room, calculating. When he met Çeda's eyes again, he seemed to have come to some decision. “She needs you to find her.”

Çeda shook her head. “She needs
you
. That's why she sent me to find you.”

Kadir waggled his head, granting her the point, but only grudgingly. “She needs us both.” Before Çeda could protest, he raised one hand, then pointed to the interior of the sarcophagus with the tip of the knife. “Come look.”

He took the lamp and lifted the woman's foot so that the light shone brightly against the exposed skin. A tattoo was imprinted upon the sole:
In the room of golden reflections, beneath a heart of stone.

“It's the location of her sigil stone,” Kadir said.

Her sigil stone. The place where her name, her true name, was imprinted. “It's what the boys are after,” Çeda whispered.

Kadir nodded.

“But how . . . Why is it here,” Çeda motioned to the tattoo, “on the sole of some woman's foot?”

Kadir held the lantern still, staring into Çeda's eyes, waiting for her to stitch the clues together.

“It's a message,” Emre said, stepping more fully into the light.

“She walked this form,” Çeda said, the pieces falling into place. “It's a message to you, if her form dies.”

Kadir nodded. “You'll recall Rümayesh left this place under . . . unusual circumstances. Because of your actions, the woman did not in fact die when Rümayesh left her form.”

“She's dead now,” Çeda said plainly.

Kadir slipped the knife into the sheath at his belt and seemed to choose his next words with care. “Her soul took a bit of convincing before it agreed to depart these shores.”

Gods, Kadir killed her, or at the very least
arranged
for her to be killed, all so that he could come here and find this secret: the location of Rümayesh's sigil stone. Could he not have simply drugged her? She looked to Kadir and considered the question, and came to the conclusion that he had been chosen as much for his ruthlessness as for his attentive care of his mistress. With Rümayesh taken, he likely wanted no additional complications.

Kadir set the lantern down and began heaving the sarcophagus's lid back into place. It set home with a boom. “Do you know how to ride a horse?”

“Poorly,” Çeda replied. “Why? Where are we going?”

“We can talk freely in the desert. I have a horse that is well trained. He'll offer you no trouble.”

It was clear he meant for Çeda to join him alone.

“I'm coming as well,” Emre said as Kadir took up the lantern and headed for the stairs. “I'm coming as well!” He repeated to Kadir's retreating form. He made to follow, but Çeda blocked his path.

“Let me ride with him, Emre.”

“I'll not leave you.”

Çeda knew the information she wanted from Kadir would be difficult for him to share, which meant she needed him as pliant as possible, so, while she hated to do it, she took Emre's hand and held it tenderly. “We're going to talk and he's going to help. That's all.”

“Then let him do it while I ride with you. I can ride farther back if he's worried about me hearing.”

“He doesn't trust you, but he knows I'm wrapped up in this as deeply as he is.” She leaned in and kissed his cheek. “You've done me a great service in bringing me this far. Now return home so I can finish what we've started. I'll return as soon as I'm able.”

Emre wasn't happy about it, but he finally agreed. He
squeezed her hand, and together they headed toward the stairwell, which dimmed like the sunset as Kadir treaded higher.

Leagues east of Sharakhai, Kadir rode on a horse with a golden coat, an akhala, a rare breed widely considered the finest in the desert. Çeda bounced along behind him on a silver mare with a mane of copper, one of the most beautiful horses she'd ever seen, which made it all the more galling that it refused to bow to her will. A horse this beautiful ought to have better manners, and despite Kadir's assurances that the horse was sweet-tempered, the beast was constantly pulling at the bridle, turning left when it pleased when it was clear to god and man alike that Çeda was asking it to follow alongside Kadir's horse.

As they rode deeper into the desert, Kadir told her of his flight from the estate after Rümayesh had been taken by Hidi and Makuo. He'd stolen into the tomb several days later, finding it both empty and clean—as if by doing so the matron could wipe away her memories of the bloodshed. He'd searched for Rümayesh across the city, hoping to find her in one of the places they'd called home these past many years.

“Were you young when you joined her?” Çeda asked.

Kadir reined his horse up and motioned for Çeda to
do the same. He urged his horse into a walk, guiding it along the trail behind them. Reaching into one of the saddle bags, he scooped a handful of salt and sprinkled it over the tracks of their horses, a thing he'd done twice already on their ride out from Sharakhai. When he returned to her side, his golden akhala shaking its reins momentarily, he said, “Yes, I was young. What of it?”

“It's only . . . I'm surprised she would place her life in your hands. In
anyone's
hands.”

Kadir merely shrugged. “We share a mutual trust in one another.”

Ahead, Çeda could see a swath of land that looked strangely shadowed, as if dark clouds hung over it. The sky, though, was blue as blue could be. As they rode closer, Çeda understood. The shadows were actually the trunks of long-dead trees, hundreds, thousands of them.

As they neared the border of the strange forest, the ground became dusty and dry. The air smelled acrid, like a smithy's forge. No boughs graced the petrified remains of the trees. No branches. Only the trunks remained, standing like the spears of long-dead soldiers, the men who once wielded them gripping the hafts from within their earthen graves. More than this, though, the place felt cursed, as if it once had been a place gifted with rain and rich soil, a respite from the harshness of the Great
Shangazi, but one day the desert had tired of it and come to reclaim it.

The two of them rode into the dead forest. Çeda's skin went immediately cold. “Where are we going?” she asked.

He scooped another handful of salt, rode behind, and sprinkled it along their path. “Not much farther now.”

He hadn't answered the question, but she was too tired to argue. She already knew this was the place from her dreams, the place Rümayesh was being kept, and for now that was enough.

Kadir led them a quarter-league farther, then reined his horse short. He slipped from the saddle with practiced ease and tied the reins around one of the thinner trunks. Çeda lumbered down from her saddle and did the same, after which Kadir led them east. As they walked, the only sound was that of the rocky soil crunching beneath their boots; nothing else, not even the sigh of the wind, broke the oppressive stillness, and it was making her feel as though everything in the desert for leagues around could hear them.

“Come,” Çeda said, if only to break the unnatural silence. “I don't enjoy games. Tell me why we've come.”

“You know already that the godlings are looking for Rümayesh's sigil stone, the piece of obsidian upon which Rümayesh's name was written.”

“Because they wish to control her.”

Kadir nodded, granting her the point. “I was worried they'd been sent to kill her, but after you told me she was alive, and that they were torturing her, I think it likely they plan to take her to their father, Onondu. With her true name they could make her a slave to the God of the Endless Hills, a thing he would no doubt enjoy immensely.”

Rümayesh, in a way, had tried to enslave Çeda. She'd been trying to take Çeda's memories from her and hand them out like bites of some rich dessert. It was an unforgivable thing, and yet Çeda had to admit there was a part of her that cringed at the thought of allowing Hidi and Makuo to do the same to Rümayesh. There might be slave blocks in Sharakhai—a concession to the trade that occurred there between the border kingdoms—but the desert itself had none; it was a thing too barbaric even for the cruel Kings of Sharakhai to allow. And, she had to admit, she owed the twins a strange sort of debt. She might have been a plaything in their schemes, but they'd also shown her the path to escaping that crypt with her mind and soul intact.

Through the dead columns of trees, Çeda could see they were coming to some sort of drop-off or cliff. Before they reached it, Kadir dropped salt on their trail one
more time and motioned Çeda to lay flat on the ground. She did, and together the two of them slithered over the rocky ground to the edge. A valley opened up below them. It was neither wide nor deep, and was largely filled with scrub trees and wiry stands of grass and stone the same red color as the ground upon which they lay. But in the valley's center was a keep with a tall tower.

“She is there,” Çeda said.

Kadir nodded. “Your dreams confirmed it for me. But that isn't all. The stone lies within that place.”

“The stone is
there
?”

“Along the south side of the keep lies a room with golden mirrors. It's what the tattoo meant. In the room of golden reflections, beneath a heart of stone. The stone is hidden there.”

“Then the boys must know.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Why else would they have come here, to this place of all places?”

“Rümayesh may have convinced them to come. She has a way of making others do things without them even realizing it.”

“That's madness. Why would she bring them anywhere near her sigil stone when it's the very thing they want?”

Without taking his eyes from the keep, Kadir smiled wickedly. “Because she knows I'm searching for her, and that if I'm able, I will see her reborn.”

“Don't take me for a fool, Kadir. The ehrekh are not reborn. Their names were given to them at the moment of their birth by Goezhen himself. If one finds such a name, the ehrekh will come to heel. I've read the stories. I've asked those who know.”

Some moments passed before Kadir responded. “Did you know that man is imbued with a trace of blood from the elder gods?”

Çeda shrugged, curious why he would mention it. “Everyone knows that.”

“Many know, yes. What most are blissfully unaware of is that it is the very presence of elder blood that makes the ehrekh hunger for us. Why many of them toy with us as they do.” He paused, eyeing the tower as the wind played at its foot, making the sand there twist and spin like a demon. “Most ehrekhs' names were engraved upon stones on the day Goezhen first gave them breath, and I suspect the same was true for Rümayesh the day
she
was made. Most have one name and one name only. It is all they will ever have. But Rümayesh found a way around this. And all it takes is someone, anyone, with the will to give of their blood.”

“Who would do that? It would make them beholden to her.”

“You're right in a way you will probably never comprehend, but it isn't merely Rümayesh who gains in this arrangement. The man or woman gains as well. They are given much through this pact.” As he spoke these words there was a hunger in his eyes, as if he'd long thought on this.

“Your blood marks her stone, doesn't it?” Çeda said.

“Mine?” Kadir laughed. “No. That is a power I do not wish for myself.”

“But you'll do it now? To free her?”

“No, I will not.” He stared at her intently, with meaning.

And Çeda suddenly understood. “You want
me
to do it?”

Kadir nodded.

“I won't.”

“There's little choice left. You and Rümayesh are already bonded, a thing you're well aware of. You are linked inextricably, your fates entwined until you untwine them. If she is taken to Kundhun, you must follow. You'll be enslaved as she will be. Or if you somehow manage to resist the call and remain in Sharakhai, you'll be driven mad with yearning.”

Çeda closed her eyes.
Gods, what have I gotten myself into?
She wanted to be anywhere but here. She resented what Rümayesh had done, resented the fact that she was
now beholden to an ehrekh. But she was where she was. There was no sense hiding from it.