Throne of the Crescent Moon (20 page)

Study, the memorization of plants, the intricacies of the stars. For years, her father had tried to teach her that these were a part of being Protector of the Band. “Patience, little moon, is a warrior’s virtue,” he would say. “Your strength alone is not enough. You must have knowledge, too, little rose. And judgment. And, as I say, little emerald, patience.” Though she was always ‘Protector’ when there were others to overhear, in private her father had perhaps a dozen “little” nicknames for her. She loved the way he’d peppered his speech with them, even as he had raised her to be a warrior.

Her father’s greatest worry had been that Zamia was too lion-like. “You’d do well to spend more time learning the townsmen’s letters and less time stalking sandfoxes! There are many ways in which the Protector must defend the em"defend thband,” he’d said just a fortnight ago, looking so disappointed that it hurt Zamia inside. Just to make her father happy, she had tried to pay attention to the book full of meaningless marks as he tried to teach them to her. Had tried hard. But try as she might, she was not made for such things.

Her new allies all looked up as they heard her approach. Raseed stopped leaning on the wall and took a step toward her before he seemed to stop himself. The Doctor’s eyes were wide, perhaps surprised that she
was on her feet. Litaz looked at her with the same puzzled face that she’d worn when looking through that glass eye.

The old magus, though, was the first to speak. “Name of God, child, you should be resting! How is it that you’re on your feet? God’s balls, how is it that you’re
awake
? You should be heal-sleeping for another two or three days!”

Litaz bit her lip, looking as if she were still puzzling something out. “The touch of the Angels,” the alkhemist said. “Amazing. Clearly, the power God’s ministers granted you goes beyond your lion-shape. Even with our healing magics helping, you should not have been able to walk for a week.”

Zamia raised her chin just a bit. “Perhaps we ‘savages’ are more resilient than the soft townsmen you are used to treating, Auntie.”

The Doctor made a farting noise with his mouth and laughed. “Yes, yes, surely it is the innate bravery of the Badawi at work here, girl.”

Before Zamia could respond, Raseed was at her side. “‘God’s mercy is greater than any cruelty,’” he quoted from the Heavenly Chapters. “You were grievously wounded, Zamia. Praise God that you are recovering swiftly, but still you ought to be resting now, for—”

Litaz made an irked noise. “Please,” she said to Raseed, “don’t give advice when you know not of what you speak. The best thing for Zamia now is
not
to sleep. The crimson quicksilver is reawakening her blood, just as it is the blood on this knife. If she can walk, let her. And speaking of blood, she has a right to see whatever answers we may glean here.” The Soo woman turned to Zamia and gestured to the only other stool in the room. “Sit. I was just making the final adjustments to my scrying solution. I was asking the men, but you’d know better than they—when you wounded this Mouw Awa creature, did it bleed?”

Zamia forced herself to think of those few moments that had nearly killed her. Of her fangs digging into that monster’s foul flank. It had been both like and unlike tearing into flesh. There was shadow and pain but.…“No, Auntie. No, it did not bleed.”

“As I told you,” the Doctor said, stroking his beard in thought. “The girl also said that to her remarkable senses, the blood on this knife
smelled of neither man nor animal, whereas this Mouw Awa smelled of both. As I’d suspected, this must be the blood of the one who
made
those ghuls. The one whom that monster called ‘blessed friend.’”

“Well, whatever its source, it is the strangest blood I have ever seen. Full of life and lifeless. All of the eight elements are here, but they are…negated somehow. Sand and lightning, water and wind, wood and metal, orange fire and blue fire! How could thenot be there?” The little woman turned to her husband. “Stranger still, within the clots there are creeping things moving about. It is as if this blood came from some mix of man and ghul. It makes no sense. Still, my love, you should work your magics here. God willing, they may give us better answers.”

Using a tiny silver spoon, the alkhemist scooped a bit of white powder from a jar into a glass vial filled with red liquid. The liquid began to bubble and froth and turned bright green. Litaz then took this liquid and poured it over the bloodied knife that had been Zamia’s father’s.

A bright green light began to shimmer off of the knife. The light grew brighter and brighter until it filled the room.

“You can begin,” the Soo woman said to her husband. “Stand back,” she said to the others, doing so herself as she spoke.

The magus stepped forward, placing his gnarled hands a hairsbreadth above the knife. An eerie green light began to glimmer about his fingers as they weaved back and forth around the blood-stained blade. The old Soo’s eyes rolled back, and he chanted a wordless chant in an oddly echoed voice.
Wicked magics
, Zamia thought. Instinctively, she started to take the shape…

And of course found that she couldn’t. Panic rose in her again—she could feel the shape just beyond her reach, and feel the pain of her wound keeping her from her lion-self.
Almighty God, I beg you, help me!

But then the magus was speaking, and she
had
to heed his words, for that was the path to vengeance for the Banu Laith Badawi. Tears burned in her eyes, but again she shoved thoughts of the shape aside and listened.

“This blood is like…like the cancellation of life,” Dawoud said as
his long dark fingers darted back and forth above her father’s knife. “More than that, the cancellation of existence. Like the essence of a ghul, whose false soul is made of creeping things. But with will. Cruel, powerful will.”

The Doctor spoke quietly to Litaz, as if Zamia and Raseed were not there. “This all makes a horrible sort of sense, when I think on it. There’s an old tale of a man called the ghul of ghuls—a man who was like a ghul raised by the Traitorous Angel himself. A man who’d cut out his own tongue to better let the Traitorous Angel speak through him. Who had his soul emptied, then filled with the will of the Traitorous Angel. He is supposed to wear a kaftan that can never be clean and—”

The Doctor fell silent as Dawoud’s head tilted back and the magus grimaced as if in great pain. The old Soo was touching the knife now with his fingertips, and he screamed.

It was a wordless screaming chant at first, but the pain-laced sounds resolved into words: “THE BLOOD OF ORSHADO! THE BLOOD OF ORSHADO!” The magus’s body jerked about strangely as he screamed, but he kept his hands on the knife. “THE BLOOD OF ORSHADO!”

Litaz leapt up and pried her husband’s fingers from the blade. Dawoud stumbled into the corner and collapsed onto a cushion with a pitiful moan. He held his head in his hands and sat there, shuddering.

The Doctor wore worry for his friend on his face. “Your magic takes its toll on yoell toll on ur body. For that, brother-of-mine, the world owes you.” He clasped a hand on the magus’s shoulder. “But magic can also take its toll on the mind. Praise be to God that the girl’s would-be assassin was unhinged enough to rattle on so. Clearly, this Orshado is the one who that monster called ‘blessed friend.’ I’ve long said that my order was misnamed. For in realty it is men, not ghuls, that I hunt. And now we have a quarry. With a tracking spell and a name we—”

The Doctor’s eyes flashed, almost as if he would cry, Zamia thought.

“I’ve forgotten,” he said softly. “I’ve no scripture-engraved needles. They were ruined in that fire, like everything else. Soiled beyond use if not destroyed.”

Zamia wanted to insist that there must be another way, but she found that gathering her thoughts and words was an effort. She was weaker than she had admitted to the others. Her heart swelled when Raseed seemed to speak her thoughts for her.

“Are there no other spells you might work, Doctor? Is there nowhere else you might buy such needles?”

The Doctor shook his head. “It’s more complicated than that, boy. Those needles take weeks to make. If we were in a remote location, or facing a novice magus, I might try a cruder invocation. But the city is full of life-energy that will confuse a tracking spell, and this Orshado no doubt commands powerful screening magics. Only flawless components and impeccable invocations would have even a chance of finding our foes.”

The Doctor looked around at each of them and seemed to force a smile. “But let’s not all look so hopeless, eh? We’ve a couple of names to aid us now, at least. Almighty God willing, even without a tracking spell, we will find this damned-by-God monster and its ‘blessed friend.’”

In the corner of the workshop, Raseed shifted uneasily. His sharp features drew down in a frown. “That phrase bothers me, Doctor. How could such a creature have friends?”

The Doctor raised a bushy eyebrow. “You know, boy, I’ve heard people ask the same about Raseed bas Raseed! ‘His face is so sour,’ they say!”

He is always making mock, even of matters of life and death,
Zamia thought, noting the Doctor’s oafish smile as he poked the dervish in the ribs.

As if he were thinking her thoughts, Raseed frowned. “Apologies, Doctor,” the dervish said, “but
there is little cause for jesting here.”

The ghul hunter smiled a frustrated smile. “Wherever on God’s great earth a man tries to make light of his troubles, trust a damned-by-God holy man to open his mouth and put a stop to it! And here I thought this one—” he jabbed a fat finger again at Raseed “—had been learning to loosen up a bit.”

Though Zamia could not say why, Raseed reacted as if struck.
“Loosen up? May God forbid it. If anything, this is a time for redoubling virtue and vigilance. The Traitorous Angel’s foulest servants stalk the city,” the dervish said forcefully. “May it please All-Merciful God to protect us all!”

“May it please God,” all present echoesteesent echd ritually. When Zamia looked back at the Doctor, he was no longer smiling.

“M
AY IT PLEASE GOD,” Dawoud Son-of-Wajeed said, and heard his words spoken simultaneously by the others. “So now we know some of what we face,” he said. “What do we do about it?”

For a long few moments there was nothing but silence. His words hung in the air, and the group’s grim expressions reflected the enormity of the situation. Dawoud scanned the faces that filled his sitting room. His wife’s eyes carried the impression of having seen too much, and Adoulla’s features displayed a weariness that Dawoud knew was reflected in his own. The young warriors’ expressions were different, though, Dawoud thought. The emerald-eyed girl and clean-shaven boy were more determined than resigned. The older trio’s stances were set by weary habit, but Raseed and Zamia’s were set by will.

Adoulla’s assistant was the first to speak, and he did so heatedly. “We
must
warn the watchmen, Doctor. Or perhaps the Khalif himself. Someone in authority needs—”

The ghul hunter snorted in disbelief. “You still think this is where our energies should go, boy? After two years in this city even a slave-to-titles such as yourself must recognize that the Khalif isn’t going to believe such as us. And even if he
did
believe there was a threat to Dhamsawaat, his greatest concern would be how it affects his coin purse. It is a waste of time trying to convince a selfish man to care about what lies beyond his nose. No. The Khalif will be as helpful as a hole to a pail. But I have learned that the Falcon Prince may share some of our troubles. He could—”

He cannot be serious!
Dawoud cut his friend off, putting a hand on Adoulla’s big shoulder and wagging a finger in his face. “How can one man be so wide-eyed and so damned-by-God cynical at the same time, brother of mine? Even if we could find Pharaad Az Hammaz, linking our fates to his would bring more trouble than aid. Half this city is hunting him! And besides, there
are
a few good guardsmen out there, you know. Most notably their captain.”

He turned to Raseed, who looked desperate to kill something. “Your idea is sound, Raseed. And the Captain of the Guard, Roun Hedaad, is known to me. Indeed, Litaz and I once saved his life. Tomorrow morning I will go to the Crescent Moon Palace and try to speak to him about what we’ve turned up. It is a vague warning I’ll be bringing him, but he will be thankful for it nonetheless. It cannot hurt to have the guard aware that this threat is out there. And it just might help.”

Adoulla stroked his beard. “Hm. Roun Hedaad is a good man as guardsmen go. A
very
good man. But everyone knows he is a holdover from another era and wields little power these days. The Captain of the Watch holds the real power. Still, it’s not a bad idea, I suppose. If anyone in the palace is going to look past his self-interest long enough to wonder about the slaughter of poor people, it will be Captain Hedaad. So perhaps someone
should
speak to him.” Adoulla turned to Raseed. “Are you satisfied, boy?”

The dervish inclined his turbaned head in acknowledgement, then turned to Dawou trese Dd. “And thank you, Uncle.”