Moontide 02 - The Scarlet Tides (30 page)

She spoke, questioning him in an unknown tongue. Then he realised he knew the words, though her accent and her dialect – the Jhafi version of Keshi – rendered it alien. Her barbarian mouth framed the words strangely and it took him a few seconds to interpret: ‘Step away from the door.’

Numbly he obeyed, wondering if he was about to be slain. He was healed, though; he could no longer feel the poison.

Did she heal me?

She unlocked the door as he bunched his muscles, wondering if he could knock her down and take her prisoner before her fellows came. But something flashed in her eyes and his limbs locked up. She stepped inside, wrinkling her nose at the smell from the piss-bucket. ‘Come,’ she said briskly, then backed out again. ‘Bring that,’ she added, pointing at the bucket. His limbs loosened again.

I’ll smash it over her head and kill her and run …

He picked it up and followed her out the door. She walked ahead of him, too fast to keep up, and he felt like a newborn kitten as he tottered after her. She walked with a predator’s grace, balanced at all times, her hand on her sword-hilt. She was wearing a dun-coloured tunic and short leggings that left her knees and calves bare. Her legs were as well-muscled as any man’s. The part of him that was devout Amteh was offended at her state of undress. Even Lakh women did not bare their legs. It was obscene.

‘Empty the bucket in there,’ she said, jabbing her thumb towards a door, and he did as bid, finding himself in a privy-chamber with a long shaft dropping into darkness. He tipped the piss down the hole, wondering where he was. He’d seen no natural light as yet, and the walls were hewn, not bricked, so they were underground.

He steadied himself, then walked out still holding the bucket, weighing it in his hand. It was heavy enough that he could crack a skull if he swung forcefully. He measured the distances. The Anborn woman was some ten feet away, watching him carefully.

Not yet.
He walked towards her, but she backed and half-turned, outpacing him with her masculine stride.

‘What is your name?’ she asked, her voice rattling, perhaps from her throat scar.

Let her think I’m cooperating
. ‘Kazim,’ he replied, his voice emerging sounding thick and odd from his throat, making him wonder how long he’d been out cold.

‘Do you know who I am?’

He sensed that lies would be swiftly detected. ‘Elena.’

‘El-en-ah. Not Al-ha-nah,’ she corrected. ‘Do you know where you are?’ Her Keshi was impressively fluent.

He shook his head, tried to get closer, but she turned and bounded up some stairs to a higher level. He followed, his eyes drawn to the blasphemy of her legs, the way her calves bunched and extended, the strong thighs and the taut shape of her bottom. He jerked his eyes away, annoyed at himself for staring, and clambered after her. The effort was costly. He found himself sweating as he reached the top.
Why am I so weak? Has she bewitched me?

The Rondian jadugara led him to a kitchen. ‘Eat,’ she said, pointing to a table so old the wood was grey – but it had been dusted clean, and there was food; a dry spiced lentil dish, rice and some flatbread, newly cooked, judging by the steam, and the smell of cooking in the air. A fire blazed gently in an open stove in the corner. There was a glass bottle half-filled with red wine. She looked at it with longing in her eyes, but she didn’t take any.

There were pokers and tongs of wrought iron, he noted as he put down the bucket and sat.
Better weapons
. He dropped some rice onto the bread, added the cooked lentils, rolled it all up and wolfed it down. His stomach felt utterly empty; his limbs were hollow. The food vanished in seconds and he looked around hungrily.

‘There is more,’ the woman offered, walking towards him with a pot containing more lentils. She stopped within touching distance, apparently unwary.

He rose in one movement, swept up a poker and swung it at the side of her head.

She gestured, and he flew backwards, slid along the dirty floor and bashed his hip against the wall. He grunted painfully and tried to rise, but it was as if his legs contained no bones. He lay there, looking up, expecting to see her bearing down on him with bared sword.

She looked down at him as if nothing had happened. ‘Is there enough chilli in it for you?’

He tried to stand, but couldn’t. His hip throbbed, but that wasn’t enough to cause this debilitation. It was
her
: something she’d done to him. With magic …

He tried to reach his own powers again, even though he hated them, but still he could feel nothing. His gnosis was there, he could feel it, but it felt like it was wrapped in a gauze that he couldn’t tear. It was beginning to frighten him. Even those vile energies would be preferable to this helplessness.

She cocked her head, gazing at him like a bird. ‘You’re a mage, aren’t you?’

He shook his head sullenly.

She laughed. ‘I can tell, boy.’

He found enough strength to sit up. ‘I’m not a boy.’

She looked at him appraisingly. ‘I suppose not. How old are you?’

It was none of her business, but he didn’t want to be thought a child. ‘Twenty-one years old.’

‘Are you Ordo Costruo?’

He thought about lying, but answered truthfully, ‘No.’ He stuck his chin out. ‘I am Hadishah.’

She sighed, as if a suspicion had been confirmed. ‘I suppose it was inevitable some would take that path.’

‘We’re going to kill you all, Shaitan-whore.’

She grunted again, a graceless sound that deepened his dislike. She was all wrong to his eyes: not masculine, but certainly not feminine either: not in the way a good Keshi or Lakh woman was. Her body was too muscular, and she lacked the curves he felt a woman should have. Her bust was small, her waist too muscled to be narrow. Her shoulders were wider than a woman her build should have.
She wasn’t big, maybe five foot six, but she was strong and athletic-looking. There was no jewellery apart from one gem at her throat that pulsed faintly beneath the ugly scar that ran right across her jugular. That she’d survived such a wound was frightening in its way. She was the embodiment of all that the Godspeakers said of white women: graceless and godless.

Are they all like this?
Then he remembered Alyssa Dulayne, and guessed this Elena Anborn might be unusual even among her own kind.

‘Listen, Kazim,’ she said in her sandpaper voice, ‘you’re hundreds of miles from Brochena, and from your friends if they’re still alive. I’ve blocked your gnosis, and you’re still weak as a child from that poison. Stop being a fool and let me help you recover.’

‘Why should you help me?’ he asked truculently, though his fears mounted.
Where am I? Why does she want me alive?

She sighed wearily. ‘Kazim, I could have killed you at any time. I could have gone through your mind to learn all I need to know from you. I didn’t, because doing so would have left you a drooling imbecile. We don’t need to be enemies. I suspect we have the same goals.’

He dismissed this obvious lie. ‘You fought for Gyle,’ he growled. But he tentatively got to his feet and teetered back to the table. She put more lentils into his bowl and handed him another flatbread. He wolfed it down while she poured him water which he drained in one swallow.

‘Do you know the story of Inshil and the Afreet?’ she asked.

It was an old story from the Kalistham, about an afreet tempting a sainted Godspeaker. He was surprised she knew it. ‘Yes,’ he replied cautiously, wary of word-games with this she-demon.

‘Do you remember how the afreet entered the body of Inshil’s brother and tried to tempt him to do evil?’ Elena asked him. He nodded cautiously. ‘And do you remember that scarab you saw come out of my mouth?’ She gave an involuntary shudder that he found unexpectedly affecting. ‘That was the earthly form of an afreet who had possessed me.’

He looked at her, trying to work out if she was possible.
All magi are liars
, he remembered Haroun telling him once. ‘You were unconscious when it happened,’ he retorted.

‘No, I was aware. You saw it and ran.’

He bowed his head, ashamed. Afreet were real, he believed that firmly. Perhaps she was telling the truth. ‘Is the afreet still inside you?’

A look of loathing crossed her face. ‘No,’ she whispered, suddenly vulnerable. She covered the moment quickly. ‘It’s gone now. I’m
free
.’ She said the last word with such relish that his doubts lessened.

Can this be?
‘Are all Rondian magi possessed by devils?’ he asked her.

She surprised him by laughing, a shrill squawk that was undignified, though comfortingly human. ‘No, we’re not all possessed by afreet! But there are some among us who are evil all by themselves.’ She sipped her water, looking at him curiously. ‘How many magi serve the Hadishah?’

He shook his head: she was still an enemy. She didn’t question his response, or press further. But she did ask him of his parentage. The name of Razir Makani meant nothing to her. Sabele had told him that magi persecuted Souldrinkers, he remembered, so that was another secret he had to conceal from her.

‘How did you come to attack Gurvon Gyle?’ she wanted to know.

That felt like safe enough ground. ‘A spy alerted our leaders to his presence.’ He scowled, remembering the botched attack. ‘We did not think to encounter more than him and one or two others,’ he admitted.

She smiled grimly. ‘You still managed to surprise him, and that’s no mean feat. He trusted Sindon, of course. I always knew that bastard was two-faced.’ She leant forward, her eyes intent. ‘Was what Sindon said true: are the Ordo Costruo now controlled by Rashid Mubarak?’

He knew he shouldn’t talk to her, but he was angry at being her prisoner and wanted to upset her. ‘He more than controls them – there was a purge! We killed dozens of them. Only those loyal to Rashid are left.’

‘Rashid Mubarak,’ she exclaimed. ‘I presume it was he who murdered Meiros?’

His mouth went dry.
No
, he thought, keeping the thought well hidden,
I did that.
He managed to shrug.

She got up and started pacing while he finished his food. ‘Listen, Kazim, your people are probably dead. Gurvon and Mara are …
thorough
.’ She exhaled, putting her hands on her hips. ‘You’re still weak. I can help you recover, so you can go home.’

He considered that.
Home
. He had no home now, not really. In Baranasi his father was dead, and his adopted family were living on the wealth they’d won for selling Ramita to Meiros. In Hebusalim, Rashid and Sabele waited for his will to bend and break, delivering him into their clutches like a brand-new weapon.

And this jadugara is right: Jamil and the rest, they’re probably dead too.
He would miss Jamil and Molmar, perhaps even Haroun. But he hoped Gatoz was already in Shaitan’s fire-pit.

‘I must complete my mission,’ he replied, not out of duty or fervour, just playing for time.

‘I can respect that,’ she said slowly, ‘though you haven’t got a chance.’ She walked back to the table and sat again. ‘Not without me.’

He studied her face. Crow’s feet at the eyes, and a tan that didn’t disguise her Yuros-pallor. She had eyes like polished steel and a thin-lipped mouth set in grim determination. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

‘I mean that now that I have escaped the afreet, I have the same purpose as you: to kill Gurvon Gyle.’

He dropped his eyes. Staring at a woman was impolite, even if this one was barely female. ‘You are a Rondian. Why would you wish to kill your own?’

She looked away. ‘So many reasons I can barely count them,’ she whispered huskily.

Silence reigned for a few moments while somewhere above, winds whispered over stone.

‘You would not arm me,’ he said dismissively.

‘I would, if I could trust you not to turn on me,’ she replied.

He wiped his mouth with his left hand, then wiped the hand on his pants.
You can’t trust me, jadugara
.

‘Would you swear on the Kalistham?’ she asked levelly.

He stiffened.
If I swore on the Holy Book, then I would be bound
. Some oaths could not be broken. He got up, paced the room, trying to think. ‘Would you swear not to turn on me also?’ he asked, buying time.

Her eyes narrowed, then she rose. ‘I would. Come with me.’

She led him upstairs into a large room filled with broken furniture and wind-blown dirt, half-swept up. ‘I’ve not finished in here,’ she said, almost apologetically.

He wasn’t really listening; there was a window and he wanted to see outside. The view revealed that they were high on a hill, a mountain even, overlooking lower hills that fell away to the plains. Judging by the fall of shadows, it faced southeast. ‘Where are we?’

‘Hundreds of miles from Brochena; dozens from the nearest village.’ She tapped the table and he flinched as a book flew from a shelf and landed beside her hand. ‘This is a Kalistham,’ she told him.

He left the window, still blinking in the light. It must be late morning, maybe midday. He felt wobbly from being upright so long. He made it to the table and surreptitiously supported himself on it. The book was indeed the Amteh holy book. It offended him that she’d used her gnosis to move it. ‘What do you want me to say?’

‘Swear that I am blood-brother to you and that together we will slay Gurvon Gyle and his agents,’ she replied.

He wrinkled his nose.
Blood-brother? With a woman?
‘That cannot be. You will never be my brother.’

‘Then blood-sister,’ she rasped irritably.

Blood-sister? ‘The Amteh doesn’t allow—’

‘Yes it does,’ she interrupted, sounding like an exasperated parent. ‘The tale of the Third Caliph.’

He scowled, realising she was right: the Third Caliph had been a girl who pretended to be male and succeeded in slaying her father’s murderer where her brothers had failed. ‘It is so,’ he admitted.

She drew a knife and ran the blade across her palm, wincing.
Blood welled from the wound, and she offered it to him, and the knife.

If I stabbed quickly
… He met her eyes, saw them turn bleak.
If I even tried, she’d tear me apart
…