Blackguards Read online

  Çeda’s kenshar was gone, fallen in the dusty street two paces away, though it might as well have been two leagues for all her leaden limbs would listen to her. She’d somehow managed to keep Ashwandi’s finger, though; its leather cord had surely prevented it from flying away like her knife. Her throat convulsed. Her tongue was numb, but she chanted while gripping the finger as tightly as her rapidly weakening muscles would allow. “Release me, Hidi…Release me, Makuo…release me, Onondu…”

  The only answer she received was the vision of the beautiful woman coming to stand over her, staring down with bright eyes and a wicked demon grin.

  #

  Çeda woke staring at the ceiling of a dimly lit room.

  She was lying on something cold and hard. She tried to sit up, tried to move but was unable to. Her legs felt as though the entire world were sitting atop them. Her arms were little better. Even her eyes moved with a strange listlessness, brought on, no doubt, by the powder that had erupted when the sling stone had struck.

  The light in the room flickered strangely.

  No.

  The ceiling itself…

  It was covered in some strange cloth, undulating like the fur-covered skin of some curious beast.

  No.

  Not cloth…

  Wings. By the gods who breathe, they were wings.

  She was lying in a room, and above her, covering the ceiling as far as the lamplight revealed, moths blanketed its surface, their wings folding slowly in and out, flashing their bright cresset flames over and over and over. They did so in concert such that waves appeared to roll across their surface, as if they were not thousands upon thousands of individuals at all, but a collective that together formed some larger, unknowable consciousness. She couldn’t take her eyes from them, so hypnotic were they, not even when she heard footsteps approaching, the sound of it strangely deadened.

  It was cool here. And humid. She was underground, then, in a cellar, perhaps, or one of the many caverns that could be found beneath the surface of Sharakhai.

  The footsteps came nearer. “Do you like them?”

  Rümayesh…

  Soon the tall woman was standing over Çeda, staring down with an expression not so different from what a caring mother might share with her sick daughter. The urge to reject the very notion that this woman held any similarities whatsoever to Çeda’s mother manifested in a lifting of Çeda’s arm in an attempt to slap the look away. Her right arm shifted, but no more than this, leaving Çeda to fume as Rümayesh reached down and brushed Çeda’s hair from her forehead.

  “They’re wondrous things,” she said, looking up to the ceiling, to the walls around them, every surface awash in a landscape of slowly beating wings. “Do you know what they do?”

  Çeda tried to respond, but her mouth and tongue felt thick and rigid, like hardening clay.

  Rümayesh went on, apparently unfazed by Çeda’s silence. “They are taken by the mouth, eaten, in a manner of speaking, but when one does, she is changed, drawn into the whole of the irindai, drawn into a dream of their, and your, making. Some think they’re connected, all of them, anywhere in the world, like threads in a grand weave, though I doubt it goes so far as that. These, though…My lovely brood…” She stopped near the wall and stretched out her forefinger until one of the moths crawled upon it, then walked slowly across the room until she was standing once more at Çeda’s side. “They are certainly aware of one another, as you will soon see.”

  “Wuh…” Çeda tried forming words. “Wuh…Wuh…”

  Rümayesh stared at the moth as if she hadn’t heard Çeda’s graceless attempts at speech. “The effects of the powder will wear off in time, certainly soon enough for you to select the irindai you wish to consume”—she flicked her hand and the moth took wing, fluttering in the air for a moment, circling her, then flying back and returning to the very same location it had roosted before crawling onto Rümayesh’s outstretched finger—“though if experience has taught me anything, it’s the irindai that choose you, not the other way around.

  “Relax, now. The ritual will start soon. I’d ask that you choose a memory for us to share. My patrons wait years to partake of someone as captivating as you, so choose well. Make the memory dear. I wouldn’t want them to leave disappointed.” She strode away, heading for the arched entrance to the room. “And I hope you’re not thinking of denying me this small request. If you refuse, I’ll simply find one on my own, but it’s less special for my patrons when I do. The memory is dimmed. More importantly to you, the experience will, I’m afraid, leave your mind ravaged, possibly beyond repair.”

  When she reached the archway, she stopped and turned until she was staring sidelong at Çeda. “Perhaps the tale of the White Wolf’s first fight in the pits. Yes, I think that would please them a great deal. There will be plenty of time for the rest in the coming weeks.”

  Dear gods, it was true then. It was all true. Rümayesh was going to force her to take one of these moths and relive her past. Like a dream, except her patrons would dream them as well. How many? A dozen? Two dozen? They’d witness her trips out to the blooming fields to harvest adichara petals. They’d see how she dried them and used them in service of Osman’s shades or her own needs. Either was a high crime in Sharakhai, punishable by death.

  But that wasn’t the worst part.

  She didn’t wish to die, but she was horrified by the thought of someone forcibly taking her memories from her. By Tulathan’s bright eyes, would she still have them when they were done with her? Or would they rob her memories and leave her some useless husk like Djaga’s mentor, Meliz? Would she go to the farther fields not knowing her mother? She couldn’t bear it. She’d lost her mother eight years ago, but at least she still had her memories of her. At least she’d know her when they were reunited in the world beyond.

  As a door somewhere boomed shut, she commanded her muscles to move. She felt her legs shift, her arms twitch, but they would do no more than this. She tried over and over and over again, and soon it was bringing on a dull pain that grew with each attempt.

  She saw movement to her right and managed to loll her head in that direction. Gods, a mound of irindai were rising, pulling away from their brethren. It was vaguely man-shaped, she realized.

  Or boy-shaped.

  As the form came forth, the moths began fluttering away, returning to their previous positions, and a second form began to emerge. Whole flocks of moths peeled away, revealing two boys with dark skin and bright blue eyes, and one of them, Hidi, with his terrible scar running down his cheek.

  Hidi glanced to the archway where Rümayesh had recently went. Makuo came straight for Çeda, a gentle smile on his lips. “You are here,” he said in a Kundhunese accent so thick Çeda could barely understand him.

  “Yuh…” Çeda licked her lips and tried again. “You wuh-wanted me here…”

  Hidi came and stood next to Makuo. “Yes, and now you come.”

  “Buh…But I commanded you. Ashwandi…”

  “Yes,” said Makuo, “and we are bound. We listened.”

  “I s-said to release me.”

  Hidi tilted his head, as if speaking to a child. “And we will obey. We will give you the keys.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You must release yourself,” said Hidi in a sharp tone. “Rümayesh is not so easy to move as that.”

  “H-how?”

  Hidi ignored her, choosing to step around the perimeter of the cellar, while Makuo reached into Çeda’s black thawb and pulled out her mother’s locket.

  “Luh-leave that alone!”

  “Calm yourself, girl.” He pried it open, revealing the two petals Çeda had placed inside. She’d normally have nothing inside, or perhaps one if she was expecting trouble, but she’d started carrying two for the fear that was constantly running through her.

  Makuo took them, then whistled two sharp notes. A flurry of cressetwings descended from the ceiling, one of them alighting on Makuo’s outstretched fi
nger, the rest continuing to fly around and above his head. With care, Makuo set the two petals onto the wings of the moth. The petals remained there, as if they’d been a part of the moth from the moment it crawled from its chrysalis. Makuo whistled again, and the moth on his finger flew to join her sistren.

  Bit by bit, the swarm retook their positions, but in doing so Çeda completely lost the one with the petals. She searched frantically, but couldn’t find it. “Where is it?”

  At this they both smiled and spoke in unison, “And what fun would we have by giving you that?” They glanced to the archway, and Hidi began backing away. Moths flew toward him, landing on him, layering his form as if consuming him.

  Makuo touched his hand to Çeda’s cheek. “Look to the flames,” he said while backing away. “Look to the flames and you’ll find it.” Soon both of them had been consumed by the irindai.

  And all was still.

  She could hear her own heartbeat, so complete was the silence.

  She looked among the irindai, one to the next to the next, trying to find the one to which Makuo had fixed the petals, but it was so bloody dim she couldn’t tell if one merely had a bright mark of flame or if it was indeed the one she needed.

  While she searched, she worked her muscles—her legs, her arms, her neck, her torso. It was slow in the coming, but she managed to bend her limbs, to regain some sense of normal movement, even if it was slow, even if it felt as though her muscles were made of bright, molten metal.

  Just when she was ready to sit up, she heard the door opening, and this time many sets of footsteps approached. Kadir came first, but others followed, men and women dressed in white thawbs or full-length kaftans, and with them came the reek of the sort of tabbaq that would make one high. Some wore niqabs or veiled turbans to hide their faces, but most were unadorned, and came holding flutes of golden wine in their hands or stubby glasses filled with araq. Others still held nothing at all, preferring to cross their arms or hold them behind their backs as they stared at the irindai or Rümayesh or Çeda.

  In her desperation, Çeda tried to lift herself from the cold slab upon which she lay, but before she could do more than curl her head and shoulders off the slab, Kadir came rushing to her side and pressed her back down. Those gathered watched with jackal eyes, hyena grins, as Kadir leaned in. “Stay where you are until spoken to,” he whispered, “and perhaps you’ll leave this place whole.” Unlike Rümayesh, who was soft velvet, a knife in the dark, Kadir was a cold, bloody hammer, every bit as blunt and every bit as deadly.

  She grit her jaw and stared up, not wanting to give Kadir the satisfaction of seeing the fear in her eyes, and that was when she noticed it. Makuo’s irindai, slowly fanning its wings almost directly overhead. How could she have missed it earlier? Now that she had seen it, though, it was like a bloody great beacon. A fire on the horizon.

  With care, praying Kadir wouldn’t notice, she averted her gaze and lay still. Kadir did glance up, but then retreated to one corner of the room. From a pedestal he picked up a heavy bronze cymbal and a leather-wrapped rod of the same metal. He ran the rod around the edge of the cymbal, creating a strangely hypnotic sound. The irindai responded immediately, their wings moving at a slower pace in time to the rhythm of the cymbal.

  “The festivities are over,” Rümayesh said. “I trust you’ll enjoy what I’ve found for you, a rare little bird indeed. A Sharakhani through and through, with mystery upon mystery we can unravel together. Please”—she motioned around her to the walls, to the low ceiling—“choose, and our young maid will follow.”

  Those gathered began walking about the room, looking up to the ceiling, plucking a single moth from the writhing mass. Çeda tried as well as she could not to stare at the moth with the adichara petals, but she was so worried that someone would take it that she found her eyes flicking there every so often. One of the women noticed. Eyes glazed, she stared up at the ceiling where Çeda’s gaze had wandered. Her hand wavered near Çeda’s cressetwing, but the gods must have been watching over Çeda, for the woman chose another less than a hand’s-breadth away.

  One by one, those gathered opened their mouths and placed the moth within, taking great care to prevent harm to the delicate wings. Without exception, their eyes flickered closed as soon as the irindai was taken within them. Their lids opened and closed like the wings of the irindai, then they stood still, watching Çeda or Rümayesh or one another in a half-lidded daze.

  Rümayesh strode to Çeda’s side.

  “Choose,” was all she said.

  Çeda stared defiantly, as if she were conflicted, as if she might very well do something desperate at any moment. She would take the cressetwing the boys meant for her but, when she did so, she wanted Rümayesh’s eyes on her and nowhere else. With care, Çeda stood. She felt strangely alone with Rümayesh, even with so many of those gathered staring dazedly at the two of them. With as much speed as she could manage, she grabbed the cressetwing with the petals and stuffed it into her mouth.

  She had planned to chew it immediately, to devour it, but the moment the moth’s delicate wings touched her tongue, a rush of euphoria welled up from somewhere deep inside. It brought with it a rush of thoughts and memories, all flickering like the surface of a sun-dappled river.

  Her mother raising her wooden shinai in the air, waiting for Çeda to do the same.

  Running through the dusty streets of Sharakhai with Emre, each with a mound of stolen pistachios cradled in their arms, shells dripping like rain as they sprint along.

  Peeking through the parted blankets of a stall in the spice market late at night as Havasham, the handsome son of Athel the carpetmonger, thrusts himself over and over between the legs of Lina, a girl three years Çeda’s elder who is not beautiful but has a way of talking with the boys with that sharp tongue of hers that makes them want her.

  Çeda felt her consciousness attempt to expand to encompass all of who she was, all she’d experienced. She wondered, even while her mind raged, whether everyone experienced this same thing or if it was to do with the petals she’d also consumed. She could feel it now—the verve the petals granted her, the strength, the awareness.

  Through the irindai she could feel others’ minds as well: those closest, their eagerness to feel more from Çeda; those beyond, who had done this many times before but hungered for more; and Rümayesh, who was someone different altogether.

  Where Rümayesh stood, there were two, not one.

  Two minds, sharing the same body. One, a lady of Sharakhai, highborn, a woman who’d lived in her estate in Goldenhill her entire life.

  And the other…

  A chill rushed down Çeda’s frame even as more of the memories jumbled past.

  The other was something else. Something Çeda had never seen or experienced before. How could she have? This mind was deep, foreign, and by the gods old—not in the way Ibrahim the storyteller was old, nor even in the way the Kings of Sharakhai, who’d seen the passage of centuries four, were old, but in the way the city was old. In the way the desert was old.

  This was no human, but some creature of the desert, some vestige of the desert’s making, or one of the ehrekh that haunted the forgotten corners of the Great Shangazi.

  Çeda knew immediately that few others had ever felt this being’s presence, for it now awoke in a way it hadn’t been moments ago. It grew fearful, if only for the span of a heartbeat, and in the wake of that realization, Rümayesh—or the woman Çeda had thought was Rümayesh—strode forward and placed her hand around Çeda’s neck, gripping it tightly enough to limit Çeda’s breath. She leaned down and stared into Çeda’s eyes, imposing her will, sifting through Çeda’s memories.

  Çeda couldn’t allow this.

  She couldn’t allow Rümayesh to have her way. Çeda would be lost if she did.

  This was the gift of the adichara petals that Hidi and Makuo had granted her—the ability to remain above the effects of the irindai, at least to some small degree.

  But what to do
about Rümayesh?

  As more memories were examined, then tossed aside like uncut jewels, Çeda thought desperately for something that might divide these two, something that might give the highborn woman a reason to throw off the chains Rümayesh had placed on her.

  She found it moments later. A memory flashed past—of stepping into the blooming fields to cut one of the adichara flowers. It was discarded immediately by Rümayesh, but the woman huddling beneath that greater consciousness, a highborn woman of Sharakhai, flared in anger and indignation. Rümayesh tried to settle on Çeda’s first fight in the pits, but Çeda drew her mind back to the twisted trees that grew in a vast ring outside the city’s limits. Had Çeda not had the effects of the adichara running through her, she would surely have succumbed to the onslaught Rümayesh was throwing against her defenses, but with the petals she was able to focus on that memory, to share it with all those gathered within the cellar.

  She pads along the sand as the twin moons shine brightly above. The adichara’s thorned branches sway, limned in moonlight. They click and clack and creak, a symphony of movement in the otherwise still air. Çeda looks among the blooms, which glow softly in the moonlight, a river of stars over an endless sea. She chooses not the widest, nor the brightest, but the bloom that seems to be facing the moons unshrinkingly, then cuts it with a swift stroke of her kenshar, tucking it away in a pouch at her belt.

  Çeda had expected anger from the woman Rümayesh controlled. What she hadn’t expected was anger from all the others as well. She should have, though. Nearly everyone gathered here would have the blood of Kings running through their veins; they would know every bit as well as Çeda the sort of crime they were witnessing. A woman stealing into the blooming fields to take of the adichara insulted not only the Kings, but all who revered the twisted trees.