The Princess Who Tamed Demons (15 page)

"So, this is the puzzle before us," I said.
"We have a Vizier who seems to be acting against his own interests,
confessing something he hasn't done…at least not by choice. Now we
have the Vizier's wife, also acting against her own interests,
putting her own children at risk."

"Summed up nicely, yes. That is the
conundrum."

"So…what's our next move?"

Linn stood up to refill our cups, and the
painted phoenixes seemed to flap their wings in the dappled
sunlight.

"Next we confront Fasima and find out why she
remained in Tajma after the Vizier's execution."

"You know where she is?"

"Not where she is, but where she
will
be
. She has finally left the city to return to Asmyra, her
village. We will leave for Asmyra tomorrow at first light." As he
finished speaking he pushed his teacup hastily aside, nearly
spilling its contents.

"What?" I could tell a new idea had taken
flight, the way his eyes sharpened.

"There is much to do before morning. If the
key to finding our would-be killer is somehow connected to the
al-Sham family, then it can only help if we probe more deeply into
the family's roots. I suggest we start by checking the genealogies
in the library. Would you care to help me in my
research?"

"And miss the joys of perusing musty, old
books under dim candlelight, not to mention forgoing a good night's
sleep?" I grinned. "You're lucky I love books more than sleep or
sustenance."

Linn's answering smile mirrored mine. "In
that, Najika of the Black Kingdom, I can assure you we may as well
be twins."

We spent the next several turns of the
hourglass poring through tomes. Many of them had probably not been
opened in my lifetime. I sat in the reception area, separating the
books by time period or title, forming a semi-organized line of
heaping volumes that soon bisected the entire room. Linn flew
throughout the Library, vanishing and reappearing from the stacks,
muttering to himself like a man gone senile. Some of the books were
in a dialect that looked unfamiliar. I could sort of make out
words, but it was like trying to see through smudged glass. The
spellings were so jumbled, some vowels replaced by others, that I
often had to squint and stare before I could decipher anything
useful. He also brought out a few historical works with the word
'Jafarri' in the title. When I asked about it, his glare told me to
be quiet and keep sorting.

At last, after my eyelids had grown heavier
than sacks of grain, I sat down with one of the tomes and began
flipping through it. I was just looking for curiosity's sake,
desperate for a break. This book was one of the newer among the
collection, its pages yellowed but still without the cracking or
the tears that I was now accustomed to seeing. The sturdy leather
binding had held up to the ravages of time. As my eyes scanned the
glossary of family names in the back I saw the inscribed name
'al-Shaem.'

"Linn, I might have something here." The
scholarly librarian hustled over to me, his eyes fastening to pages
like a falcon's talons snatching its next meal. His exclamation
told me I'd done
something
right.

"The spelling is different, but misspellings
and alternate spellings are regrettably common in genealogies. Hmm.
I remembering finding this book during one of my acquisition trips.
It is supposedly a copy of a much older work." His gaze flickered
back and forth along the section covering the al-Shaem / al-Sham
family history, the pages rustling in his hands. When he reached
the end, though, his face went rigid. "This can't be…if this is
true…." He was talking to himself again as if I existed only in
another world, so I gave him a solid whack to the shoulder
blade.

"You do realize I'm sitting right next to
you?"

He waved his hand with that dismissive gesture
he seemed so fond of. "Yes, yes, impatient girl. It is now more
important than ever that we find the Vizier's wife, Fasima
al-Sham."

"And that would be because…?" He leaned
forward, whispering the truth to my ears as if the books themselves
might be eavesdropping. Confused at first, slowly I began to see
exactly where our investigation might be heading. When he had
finished his explanation, he sat back with the genealogy on his
lap, looking at me expectantly.

"It sounds like we better catch what little
sleep we still can."

"You go on to bed. I must look through the
Vizier's letters and documents one more time to make sure that
there is nothing we might have missed. I can bring you up to speed
as we travel tomorrow."

That night I slept fitfully, tossing and
turning with moonlight spilling through the open windows. The cool,
dry breeze should have calmed me, but instead it only made me
restless. Realizing the futility of trying to fall back asleep, I
stood up and walked back and forth down the halls outside my suite,
pretending to be oblivious to two of Sir Brel's men standing like
statues, my overprotective night watch.

I missed Reshi and Daeshka, the ever-somber
but loyal servants the Great Amir had first assigned to me. Their
disappearance since the night of the reception still unsettled me,
and all my attempts to find out what had happened to them had been
met by Sir Pheru's bland reassurances that it was
normal
for
servant boys to run off when the strictures of palace etiquette
became too much of a burden. I didn't believe that for a second,
but I had held my tongue.

Now something related was eating at me like an
errant puzzle piece crawling just out of reach. I tried to think
back, reconstructing the figure in my head. I had seen him from
behind right before he'd obscured my view of Reshi at the
reception, but he
had
turned at the last moment, slipping
between two partitions on the night in question. I had seen him
again, but where? I wracked my brain as I walked through the halls,
faster and faster. It hit me, then. The clouds parted in my head,
and I realized who I had seen.

~*****~

Chapter 10

Day Twelve

Full battle armor. Scale-mail with flexible
eskren gauntlets. I marveled at the material of the gauntlets that
now hugged my wrists and fingers, as protective as plate-mail yet
more supple than leather.

"These are unbelievable. Thank
you."

"Do not thank me, Najika. They are only on
loan, from the Great Amir himself," Linn said. The preoccupied
librarian looked as unbelievable as my gauntlets felt. Instead of
his drab-looking brown robe, Linn wore a flowing dark crimson robe
with gold script threaded throughout its many folds. He looked like
a walking book, which was of course supremely fitting given who and
what he was.

"You approve?" Linn said, checking the straps
on our pack mules while Sir Brel readied the camels.

"It's gorgeous. Where did you—"

"Someone very special made it for me. Let's
leave it at that."

"Is it only for special occasions
then?"

"You could say that." His eyes turned wistful.
"I wear it only for events of great importance or dangerous
journeys—and let us be honest, no journey is without its perils. A
librarian is seldom called away, but when we are, it is often on a
mission to collect a rare book or valuable record, ephemeral
treasures where each grain of sand through the hourglass is
precious time lost. This is a different kind of mission, but I
convinced the Great Amir of its importance. We have his
blessing."

"No small thing," I said. "But I'd rather have
his support in actual manpower, say, fifty knights or so. Ever
heard the saying 'Words are cheap?'"

"I have, presumptuous woman. Have you ever
heard the saying, 'Don't tick off a reigning monarch by asking for
too much when he is already beset by other problems?'"

"Um, I'm pretty sure that's not a
saying."

Sir Brel's five knights were getting their
gear in order, strapping on weapons and armor and checking their
supplies. The sun's halo brightened the horizon, yet it had not
graced us with its blazingly bright good morning, not quite. I gave
Linn a curious look as he jerked his chin to the side and ushered
me away from the courtyard.

"The armor may only be on loan, but I have two
real gifts for you. Come." I followed the richly attired librarian
all the way back to his musty library. For the first time, instead
of having me wait in the reception area, he beckoned me to follow.
I wasn't sure if this was a good sign or not; much as I loved
libraries, Linn never had enough time to properly maintain this
library, and that meant that three things were never in short
supply—dust, bugs, and cobwebs. The thought of getting my head
caught on a stray gossamer web and getting a spider in my hair was
enough to send me into emergency survival mode. One would think,
with a history that included fighting a gigantic man-eating plant
and an ogre-queen, that I could at the very
least
fend off
the more mundane fears. Of course that assumed that my brain was
logical.

I walked behind Linn, keeping close until I
regained my sense of mental balance. Soon we were hemmed in by
shelves with uncountable ranks of tomes and multi-volume sets,
their bookish smell wrapping me up like a comforting cocoon.
Memories of my father's library returned, and my unease scattered
like fall leaves. Linn continued to lead me back until we finally
passed through the rear exit, away from the stacks, and wound down
a short staircase which led to a vault. Linn blocked my view and
deftly cycled through a series of images until a pattern of three
were aligned. I heard a heavy sound of metal scraping against
metal, a lock disengaging? Then the vault door swung open, and he
turned to me.

"Wait here."

Curiosity gnawed at me like a scavenger with a
fresh corpse, but I held still.

When at last he came out, he handed me a
staff, and my eyes bugged out.

The staff glowed, its diffuse white light
throwing an almost angelic sheen across my skin. I hefted it,
feeling its flawless balance, perfection in my hands.

"What
is
this?" I examined it closely
as I held it, seeing fissures of ebony running down its pale
length. The staff seemed to be forged out of petrified wood, and
its midnight streaks reminded me of patterns I'd once seen along
onyx stonework.

"This Library is about more than just books.
It is an archive of historical records and objects. Once every year
I travel to the far-flung reaches of the Gold Kingdom, looking for
unusual artifacts, seeing if any match descriptions written about
in the legendary stories kept within our many tomes. Some legends
are just stories, and nothing more, but I have found that others
carry grains of truth."

"What exactly are you saying?" I clutched the
staff in my hands, whirled and struck at some imaginary
foe.

"Magic is rare, so rare that most in Tajma
disbelieve in its existence. But you and I know better."

The hair on the nape of my neck stood up.
Goose bumps skittered down my arms. "Are you saying what I think
you're saying?"

Linn the librarian looked at me, his sober
expression compelling me to silence. "For once I will tell you a
story, and you will not interrupt me. Am I clear?"

"As a boring, blue sky," I said, nodding.
Anticipation held me by the throat while curiosity slipped its hand
over my mouth.

"In the early days, when the Gold Kingdom's
borders had just been formed, there was a vast forest which covered
its lower half. The tall trees of the forest surrounded and almost
swallowed up a small village. In that village there lived a woman,
her husband and three daughters.

"Now as time passed, the woman's ancestors had
cut down many of the trees, and the village had kept growing and
growing until it was a rapidly spreading town lapping at the edge
of the desert. But most of the trees had been cut for building
materials or for firewood, and the trees' pace of growth could not
keep up with the demand. So one day the woman urged the village's
elders to put a stop to the tree-cutting, to let the trees
replenish.

"The village elders listened to her for a
time, but they rejected her plea. The following year more of the
trees fell, and the desert heat seemed to crawl in and make a home
in the village itself. So again the woman came to the village
elders, and again she pleaded, beating her chest with desperate
tears in her eyes, saying 'Will you look beyond tomorrow? How will
we prosper if all the trees are dead?' And the elders responded,
'New couples have children, and those children are growing up to
start their own families. Shall we give them no place to live?
Shall we make them go without? Shall we cut no firewood and have
our people freeze to death on the cold nights?' And the elders
again rejected the woman's pleas, and she returned to her husband
and daughters heartbroken.

"Soon afterward the heat from the desert
became truly oppressive, and the trees dwindled to one patch on a
hill overlooking the town. The slope up to the top of the hill was
so rocky and treacherous that no one had yet bothered to cut them
down. Seeing that her neighbors were finally becoming desperate
enough to scale the cliffs and hack away at the wide trunks, the
woman again resolved to go to the town's elders, but
not
in
the same way as in times past. Discreetly she went to each of the
three most powerful elders, all of whom had an unmarried eldest
son. She approached each of those elders and proposed, 'I will
marry one of my daughters to your eldest son, if you will just help
me.'