It took Ruqaiya and Vikrim a day to reach a ford of the Undra River, trekking through rocky dry land that flattened as they descended to the river's course. Grasses spread around them, and trees began to appear, sparsely at first, but then growing in small copse close to the water. The wide, lazy river that flowed down from tributaries originating in the peaks of the Undra Ghatta tumbled over the stones of the ford, giving it a brief exuberance before returning it to its gentle course leading eventually to the Neela Sea.
As the sun lowered to the horizon behind her that first night, Ruqaiya's step faltered as she felt a pang of vileness nearby. There was a ghûl to the west. She must have been in a moment of pleasant reverie and it had collided with the evil. She would need to be more careful with her thoughts.
"Do you want to go after it?" Vikrim didn't need to ask to know she had sensed an undead creature. He had learned the signs of her distress.
She looked west, her hand flexing around the hilt of her katar in her sash. "No," she continued on. "Not until we've delivered this thing to Qaragarh. It'll pass."
The Risen Celebrant sulked as he plodded along, Ruqaiya prodding him from behind, his hands still bound in aardiz taqdis. Gagged, he couldn't speak even if he wanted to, but his effrontery and vexation were evident in his features and demeanor. When they camped for the night on the far side of the river, he glared at them across the fire, imagining, Ruqaiya supposed, all the ways he would kill them when he managed to somehow escape the cages on his hands. Righteous retribution seethed in his eyes, and Ruqaiya returned it with her own, certain that retribution would be hers.
Fields of millet and chana spread around them during the two days it took them to walk from the Undra River to Bijabad. Somewhere a half day's walk east of their path, the charred timbers and ash of Tamidabad continued their decay, a calamitous fertilizer composed of everything that she had once held dear. Nourish what it may in years to come, Ruqaiaya would never return there. She couldn't even glance in that direction, lest she see again a lazy, deadly column of smoke rising in the distance.
To her grim silence, Vikrim told stories, wisely realizing that she was in no mood to talk, but offering his companionship in a way that tempered her melancholy without requiring anything from her. He told tales mostly of devas of Gayakuta that involved long quests and fearsome creatures that lived in the high mountains at the east end of the Southern Plateau. They always ended in sweet caresses and kisses, with glittering jewels set in crowns and swords. And dancing. Lots of dancing. In their many months traveling together, those stories acted as a balm to her wounds. Not because she hoped to live such a life herself, but because she needed to believe that someone, somewhere could.
The farmers of the small communities they passed through rested on their tools as they watched the unlikely trio. The stern-faced but unquestioning folk gave them water and food. Those villagers recognized the bound man as a Celebrant by the purple sherwani and pagri of his unholy office, for they had suffered under the Risen in the years before the war. They spat at him as he passed, for a lost daughter, a slaughtered grandfather, a husband. The Celebrant returned their vitriol with disdain.
Among several of the fields, disastrous furrows had scarred the land, plants and red earth mounded on either side. Farmers cleaned the debris and hoed the dirt back into place, but crops withered around the trenches. Ruquaya shook her head bleakly, remembering the year that bulettes had infested her own family's fields. That had been a lean winter of cinched belts.
They approached Bijabad on a small road that led from the farmland into the town, instead of through the monumental gates of the caravan route that stretched from Qaragarh to Churapoor. Beyond outlying clusters of small mud-brick houses plastered and painted in fading but still-vibrant turquoise and saffron, the domes and towers of Bijabad rose above the surrounding fields that seemed to stretch endlessly and unbroken in all directions, like a stone island in a green-brown sea.
Much had changed since she had last come to Bijabad with the Sewangurak Company to hunt down the Reapers that had raided Tamidabad. New minars rose higher than the unfinished mosque dome that was under repair, the teal and yellow of their tiles competing with the blue sky for brilliance. Fresh canvas flapped over the market that filled the center of Bijabad, a circle of stalls and shops split in the middle by the caravan road. Most of the agricultural goods and foodstuffs enjoyed by the north passed through Bijabad, but the money they generated stayed there, as the city showed. What the haveli and madrasas and mosques lacked in the ornamentation and intricacy found in Jharoda or Zehni or Qaragarh (so Ruqaiya had heard), they made up for in sheer size.
Then the Risen had been at its apex, though the Reeve had moved with Musa Tayyib to Sherpatta. Musa had brought the small cult from its origin north of Himilbad and established it in the capital of the region he governed. A whimsy, a fancy at first, the cult had been largely ignored by the Bijabadi, for shrines and temples to countless devas dotted the city. The Risen were not the only faith to preach of redemption, though their deva was a stranger to the land, their owl-winged Ereshkigal, and they preached a redemptive undeath instead of afterlife. Accustomed to the comings and goings of the Pradani celestials, of the Cavernmere dwarven temples to their gods, the shrines to significant sufis, the Bijabadi had been unruffled by the arrival of this new curiosity imported by their governor.
Until the Reapers began to spread their word, and people started to disappear and the ghûls appeared. It started here in Bijabad, and under Musa's guidance, it spread through the heartland, bringing death and undeath to thousands until even Tasneem Tayyib was unable to stop it. Musa moved his vile cult to Sherpatta after killing his father, but the Celebrants of Bijabad – backed by imperial might – continued their twisted, murderous rites in this city until it was liberated by Churapoor's Subahdar Bakkhari as she led her army to the bloody fields near Sherpatta.
Though reconstruction of the city was well underway, the ruins of the Risen Temple remained untouched. Their path through the wide streets of the city took them close to the jumble of white stones and columns that had once housed the vile cult. Ruqaiya strode onward, her eyes forward, her lips pressed firmly in a severe line, until she felt Vikrim's large hand on her shoulder. She couldn't look at him.
"You should go," he advised her gently. "We don't get here often."
She steeled herself. This was part of the reason they avoided Bijabad as much as possible. It's just flowers, she told herself. They're not here.
Ruqaiya held out the end of the rope they had tied to the Celebrant and felt Vikrim take it from her hands. "I won't be long."
"Tell them what we have done," he encouraged her.
The walk to the temple ruins was barely a dozen steps, but her feet felt leaden. Bright colors dotted the vast piles of stark white debris - orange, yellow, peach, purple, and pink. But no red. No intimations of blood here. Among the proliferation of others flourishing amid the rubble, she had planted her own rose bush, dug from the ashes of the cluster of buildings in Tamidabad that had been her home, and miraculously it had bloomed. Soft peach blossoms with petals velvety as a baby's cheek, the shrub had originally been planted by her nani. She knelt to snip a spent bloom with her katar and inhaled its over-sweet scent. When the first tear formed in her eyes, Ruqaiya pierced her thumb deeply against a sharp thorn.
She sucked at the blood on her thumb and rejoined Vikrim. "Grief is useless."
Ruqaiya and Vikrim led their captive through streets that still bore signs of the devastation of those days, though rebuilding was underway all around them. The Door was in the northwest quadrant of the bazaar circle, in the jewelry district, where gold and gems mined from the Undra Ghatta and crafted by gnome artisans in its foothills into elaborate bangles, necklaces, and rings – some purported to have uncanny qualities – glittered in closely guarded stalls.
As they passed through the crowded streets of the bazaar, heads turned at the sight, then shouts and jeers, and several enraged people pressed forward to wreak their wrath against the Celebrant.
"Do the thing," Ruqaiya muttered to Vikrim.
Vikrim sighed, but he grunted and growled fiercely at anyone who approached, flexing the muscles of his exposed chest and arms to keep them at bay with his large body and poised mace. "This is not good for my people," he muttered back to her.
"I'll buy you dinner in Qaragarh."
That was no small offer, she knew. It took a lot of food to satisfy the giant half-orc. But he managed to keep the vengeful crowd from pressing too close. The shouted curses ferried them through the bazaar, though the crowd parted before them as if split with a blade.
Ruqaiya would have gladly given the Celebrant to the angry mob. She shared their outrage, and she had taken the unlife of enough ghûls she had once known as living people to gut the Celebrant where he stood. Only the steady guidance of Vikrim kept her moving forward to the small iwan rising above the stone stalls of the jewelry district, its elaborately tiled pishtaq rising to a point before it.
The iwan itself was empty and shallow, built clandestinely out of rough blocks of stone some four hundred years before by agents of Gurkani Tayyib, to facilitate his surge of subjugation across Suristhanam. It might, originally, have been concealed in a larger building, she knew, but any signs of such were not visible. The carved and tessellated tiled pishtaq was added later, a commemoration of Gurkani's victory and rededication of the Door to peaceful transport.
Peaceful transport it might be, but four armed Bijabadi shamsherbaz stood on the steps leading up to the iwan, assurance that it would not be used again as it once was. For this Door led only to the seat of the empire, Qaragarh, and back. A faint shimmer stretching across the arch of the pishtaq signaled the presence of the Door. A disorderly, thick queue of people crowded close to the Door, pushing for their turn to pass through it.
Ruqaiya had never been through a Door before. Watching as successive people in the queue vanished as they crossed the threshold tightened her gut. It seemed implausible that she could be instantly transported across a distance that it would take two weeks to walk. It's alright, she assured herself. They're not being obliterated, you're not going to be destroyed. "Iwa preserve me," she muttered nevertheless.
An auntie with rounded cheeks and generous eyes turned from her bustle to move forward to pat Ruqaiya's hand with her own rough one. "Don't be nervous, dearie, this is my seventh…oh!" Her eyes shot wide at the sight of the tusked mammoth behind Ruqaiya. She pulled a corner of her coarse, homespun hijab over the lower part of her face. "Iwa preserve me!" she hissed when she noticed the bound Celebrant tethered to Vikrim.
Ruqaiya patted the woman's hand with a forced smile. "Don't be nervous. They're with me."
The auntie's eyes narrowed as she took in the aardiz taqdis and gag on the Celebrant, and she looked as if she might kick him in the shins. Not that Ruqaiya would fault her. At Vikrim's low, warning woof, the auntie chose instead to nod her head. "Good. See that he gets what he deserves."
The travelers gave them wide berth, but still urged forward.
"Is it always this crowded?" Ruqaiya asked, standing on her toes to peer over the sea of heads.
"Well, you don't want to wait to go too close before," the auntie advised her sagely.
"To close before what?"
"Pehli Sabah. If you wait until the last minute, you'll never get through in time." Looking past Ruqaiya to Vikrim, she added hastily, "Or Chumakutsav."
Pehli Sabah. Ruqaiya had completely forgotten the holiday. She thought back to the full moon, realizing the festival would be but a month away. Her gut tightened at the thought of it, even more than it had at dread of passing through the Door.
"My sister is in Zehni, and it's our turn to go see them," the auntie went on. "My little ones haven't seen their cousins in a year!"
She realized that the man the auntie kept prodding with her hand on his back must be her husband, and she noticed for the first time the cluster of four children jostling around the pair. They all carried bags and boxes, probably holding Pehli Sabah gifts and trinkets for the family. A small girl peeking from behind the auntie's skirt was making weird faces, and Ruqaiya turned her head quickly enough to catch Vikrim making them back at the child. Feigning chagrin at her glare, he shrugged and contorted his face again, jutting out his tusks and crossing his eyes.
Yanking the rope tied to the Celebrant, she thrust forward through the mass, Vikrim following in her wake and apologizing to the disgruntled people Ruqaiya pushed out of her way until she reached the front of the throng. Rustling in her pouch, Ruqaiya fished out a gold coin stamped with the imperial griffon and sun and held it out to one of the soldiers on the steps. A heavy price to pay for such a swift journey.
The soldier took a long, measuring look at the caged and gagged Celebrant, then closed Ruqaiya's hand around her coin. "Keep it," he said, nodding his head for them to proceed. They passed through the shimmer into the iwan, and then they were gone.
The moment Ruqaiya emerged through the shimmer of the Door in Qaragarh with the Celebrant and Vikrim, a pain that pricked her skin and sickened her stomach seized. She dropped to her hands and knees as a wave of nausea, of wrongness, washed through her, leaving her heaving for breath. It was the wrongness of undeath and aberration, but she hadn't pushed her senses out to it and she certainly wasn't recalling happy memories. Yet she could feel its virulence and unnaturalness, no matter how hard she clenched her memories within herself. Spittle falling from her lips, Ruqaiya pushed out anger and despair and sorrow, but they had no effect. The evil was oblivious to her resistance. It wasn't an assault, it was simply a permeation of the surroundings that she couldn't block out.
She opened her eyes to see Vikrim had shoved the Celebrant into the hands of a startled Hall of Doors guardian.
"What's happening?" With his meaty hands, he helped her straighten.
"They're everywhere," she choked. "Everywhere…I can…I can't block them out…so many…"
Vikrim spun his head to take in the seemingly harmless but now-curious travelers drawn by her collapse. "I don't…"
"Hit me!" Ruqaiya pleaded, pawing at his arm in anguish. "Take me out! Do it!"
Vikrim's hairy fist came at her from the side of her face and knocked her into oblivion.
The baby had her eyes. A ring of sard-orange flecks flashed around the dark irises that stared up at Firuzeh with wonder and curiosity, his pursed lips opening and closing without sound. His wispy dark hair formed a static halo around his head from its fresh washing and toweling dry. She ran the fingers of one hand lightly through the hair, feeling it brush against her skin lightly and locking it in her mind one last time.
Firuzeh held the cotton-wrapped bundle close to her chest and peered deep into those eyes. They were her eyes—Tayyib eyes, eyes that had been passed down for half a millennium among only a few of the descendants. Musa had had sard eyes like hers, but not her brothers Khusrau or Nekuzam, or her sister Miram. But the rest of the child? Whose features were those she gazed so loving down upon?
That strong forehead might be Ahmad's, the thick eyebrows could denote Jagat. Ghiyas had lips thin like the babe's, but the nose suggested Sanjar. In truth, any one of her four husbands might have sired this child, but until he had grown and his features had matured, they would be unable to truly tell. Firuzeh liked to believe that they all were a part of this boy, that he had received Ghiyas' creative spirit and love of art and music, Jagat's proud bearing, Ahmad's certainty and determination, and Sanjar's simple honesty and compassion.
And for this reason, all their families would attend the aqiqah tonight, as they had for the naming ceremony of her first five children. Which would mean she would have a busy day, celebrating with all her vast family and the dignitaries who had come from throughout Suristhanam to pay their respects. But only after meeting with the Radiant Citadel delegates who had been cooling their heels during the few days of her laying in. The days of rest with her newborn had given her time to siphon off the heat of her initial reaction to the news of Sholeh's response and she was feeling more…diplomatic.
"But it is your day," she cooed to the infant in her arms, holding her name for him unspoken until tonight. He would receive many names today, from the imam of the Roshani Tariqa, from the hijra, from her, from his heritage. But this one would be from her alone.
She kissed the top of his head—one last touch of the hair with her lips—and passed him off to an attendant who would care for him until the ceremony that evening.
In the family hall, little Lilavati was braiding her younger sister Sumaira's hair with all the earnesty a four-year old could muster, making quite a mess of it. Ghiyas had Tarasiya, ten, on a couch next to him, already training her small hands to finger the chords on a tanpura as long as she was tall, her tongue poking out to the side of her mouth in concentration. Out on a balcony, Ahbalek, born seven years ago, sat with crossed legs on a thick rug in the morning sun with Ahmad. Already studious and serious, Ahbalek would likely follow Baba Ahmad into Shuddh. She hoped it wouldn't take him to Rangampor or Akran someday; she wanted all her babies close to home.
"Ami, can we go now?" her oldest pleaded with her, jumping from the cushioned divan he'd been sulking on.
Pashuben, who despite the gawkiness of his twelve years, stood with the imperiousness of a crown prince, in a precisely tailored white sherwani, cinched with a golden Roshani sash. Firuzeh worried that the boy had learned too young that he was to be emperor one day and had developed some troubling ideas about what that meant. From the seclusion of the family mahal and appearances at state functions, all he knew so far of imperial life was opulence and authority. She reminded herself again that she needed to arrange for Pashuben to spend some time with Baba Sanjar cleaning out the stables. Where was Sanjar?
"Not today, Pashuben," Baba Jagat answered for Firuzeh, joining them. "You have the most important duty of all today. You, my prince, will represent the empress as you welcome the nobles and dignitaries who have arrived for your brother's aqiqah."
Firuzeh was grateful Jagat had found a diversion for her son, but she wasn't sure putting Pashuben in a position of such honor would help his pomposity.
"Aunties and uncles, you mean," he scoffed. Apparently he didn't see it as such an honor. Good. Duty was also a part of authority, he must learn.
"Do your mother proud, Prince Pashuben," she patted his cheek. "Ah!" she said, running her hand across his chin. "Is that hair I see?"
"He'll be at the mirror half the morning now, looking for an emerging beard," Jagat chuckled with her after Pashuben dashed off to do just that.
She draped a simple blue silk dupatta over her head. "See if you can arrange for him to get his hands dirty today," she suggested. "Is everything ready?"
Jagat had taken the lead of the Babas in governing matters of the imperial family. While Al-Hajib acted as administrative secretary of Firuzeh as empress, Jagat made all the arrangements and plans for the family. "Everything is set for the aqiqah," he assured her. "Don't worry about a thing. And," he forestalled her question, "I'll make sure Sumaira's hair is properly braided. The Concord meeting will start at high sun."
"So late, why was it delayed?"
Jagat handed her a folded note. "Karamsi needs to see you this morning. Someone in Ganraala captured a Celebrant and brought him here."
"A Celebrant!" She had started to open the note but stopped at Jagat's words. Captured! If they could get any information from the wretch, she might be able to make inroads against the accursed cult. Eagerly, she hastened for the door, but Jagat stopped her with a hand on her arm.
"But first," he said, holding out a pair of boots, "you'll need these."
"Why would I need boots?"
Standing deep within the Jabahzeb Stepwell in the north of the city, Firuzeh silently thanked Jagat for the boots. Larmina, Pujari of Jabahzeb and Keeper of the Waters, had led them along the perilous stairs several layers down into dark columned halls lit only by glowing globes cast by the well's attendants. The gruesome faces and tentacles of alboleths carved into the walls seemed to move and emerge in the shadows of the light. Moisture dripped all around them, making the stone stairs slick underfoot. The well was silent, but for the squish of their passing. Her feet would have been soaked if she'd come in her sandals.
She had asked Sameer and Amir Tordain to join her, along with several of her other viziers, when Jagat had explained the urgent request from the yakshis of the Well.
Stairs descended further down into the still pool of water that they finally reached, but the level was fairly high at this time of year. It would not be until the end of summer that the people would need to descend to the lowest levels of the ancient underground shrine to fill their jugs for the long journey to the surface.
Steward Larmina produced an earthen cup and dipped it into the dark water, the light from the globes reflecting the small waves she caused. Firuzeh sipped from the cup Larmina handed her, and spit it out at once.
"Salt," she announced, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "How can this be?"
Larmina bowed. "We do not know. Never before have the waters of Jabahzeb been polluted, for all the centuries we have cared for the spring."
Firuzeh handed the cup to Sameer, who sniffed it then poured its contents back into the pool. "We must close the well at once," he advised.
"We can't," Firuzeh protested. "Too many people rely on the well."
"They can't drink this." Sameer handed the cup back to Larmina. "They will have to go to the river."
"Too far for most. Can it be purged?" Firuzeh asked Larmina. "How can we propitiate Jabahzeb Deva?"
Imam Hamida cleared his throat importantly. "Empress, our prayers should go to Iwa, not to a Pradani deva."
"Jabahzeb Deva has withdrawn, Empress." Larmina wrung her hands together. "We have not sensed him for many weeks now, and our offerings spoil uneaten."
"How can that be?" Firuzeh looked for an answer from those around her. "What is happening?"
The silence of uncertainty reigned, unbroken but by the dripping of water.
"Then pray," Firuzeh urged them all, the sard in her eyes flashing. "We will need everyone's prayers to whomever they pray to to see us through this. Close the well," she ordered the Steward. "And send people to check the Jangalee Ghodon. If the river has become tainted with salt, the city is lost."
Midmorning found Firuzeh deep in the foundations of Darwapur Shukri, her now-sandaled feet chill in the cool of the prison chambers. Shimaz and Maham, both spear points pressing against the chest of the kneeling figure, flanked the empress, who dared to stand within reach of the bound Celebrant. The foul stench of the unwashed and soiled reeked from the man, and his once pristine sherwani was stained and filthy. And yet there was defiance still in the cold eyes that met her own.
"Ganraala, you said," she asked Alimah Karamsi slightly behind her.
"They raided Pagesh but were tracked by a Sewangurak ranger and a Guyakutan," her Auntie checked her notes. "Ruqaiya and Vikrim."
"Sewangurak? The mujahideen who destroyed the Bijabad Risen Temple?"
"Yes, the same. Or what is left of them."
"And a Gayakutan?" Firuzeh mused. "That far north? Where are they?"
"The woman took ill upon arrival. They were taken to Aanadamay Gharana."
"Not to a healing house?"
Karamsi hesitated before answering. "It was an…eldritch ailment, it seems."
Probably the best choice, Firuzeh conceded. Still, she'd want to question the two when the woman recovered.
She examined the captive, taking in the gag and the aardiz taqdis binding his hands. "Clever, that," she pointed. "Although the Taariq will object to their devotional practice being used to disable the unwilling."
"I understand from the Guyakutan – Vikrim – that his companion is quite resourceful and ruthless," Karamsi remarked.
"And the knife? The…?"
"Necrodagger," Karamsi supplied. She waved forward a waiting attendant holding a small wooden box, which he opened for the empress to examine.
Illness emanated from the silver dagger inside, and especially from the sickly black, round onyx in its pommel. As she reached to take the box from the attendant, Karamsi warned her, "Do not touch the dagger!"
Firuzeh thrust the box under the nose of the Celebrant. "You will tell us where you got this. You will tell us who made this, and where they are. You will tell us where the others are so that we can eliminate them."
Still the man glared at her, as if he were in control. His contempt for her – for them all – pierced the calm she had maintained. She handed the box to Karamsi and squatted down so she could menace the man with her flashing sard eyes.
"Know this, Celebrant. I will take no joy in the pain that you undergo as the Taariq rip the information from your contrary mind. But neither will I weep. I have wept rivers of tears for those of my people whom your kind have slaughtered in your foul rites. I wept with a sword in my hand as I fought against my own brothers in a war caused by your mad endeavor. My tears have watered the fields that your butchery have bloodied. I am done with weeping. And I will be done with the Risen."
Firuzeh rose and straightened the fall of her sari. "And when you die – for we will take your life for the thousands you have taken – the Taariq will make certain that your mind is clear so that you can comprehend what is happening. It will be a final death. For we shall have your body eaten by a bulette. And the shit of that beast – all that is left of you – will be used to fertilize the corner of a field. Then we will slaughter the beast and burn its carcass to ash and scatter it to the wind, so that there is nothing of you remaining to reanimate."
She left Karamsi then, not looking back at the bound man screaming "No!" into the gag in his mouth.
By high sun, her morning mood had soured. Sitting on the cold Sard Throne in the diwan while her council wrangled with the Concordant delegates, she sniffed a fold of her sari, fearing that she still stank of the filthy captive, hoping no one noticed.
She had not asked her advisors and the delegates to sit opposite each other in the semi-circle of cushions and fine rugs on the floor, but they had done so nevertheless, as they had each time they had come together. At least Amir Tordain sat close to Eladio Quetl, the two dwarves seemingly having formed a friendship.
Al-Hajib sat closest to her, a wooden board stretched across his crossed legs to hold the ink pot and parchments he was taking notes upon. Yet even he could not write fast enough to capture the exchanges that seemed to be growing more heated across the large, low table separating the conclave. Eladio, speaking on behalf of the Trade Discal, was rattling off numbers as he offered a reduction in tariffs. The San Citlán delegate spread his short, thick arms wide as if to emphasize the obviousness of his point.
"The tariffs are not the issue," Vizier Nazaam of the Jang Tariqa said, banging on the table. "We are fresh from a civil war that has weakened our defenses. We need time to rebuild before we expose ourselves to potential threats," he finished, his last words directed to the empress, seeking her affirmation, which she diplomatically withheld.
"What threats do you imagine?" The short haired woman Bulan Bahasalang from Dayawlongon—representing the Palace of Exiles—scoffed. "From the other Concordants? You have had peoples from our lands here for centuries, trapped when your Concord was broken. Have they harmed you?"
"They have not," Firuzeh spoke up. "They are a part of us." Over the centuries, those who had been stuck in Suristhanam had become part of the empire, both contributing their cultures and adapting those they dwelt among.
"With the additional revenue," Eladio moved on, "you could rebuild…"
"The money is not the issue," Bayram inserted himself, to Firuzeh's chagrin. He was supposed to act as her agent to the Speaker, not offer his own opinions.
Rahivamistra, raj and subahdar of Ahadi, leaned over the table to address his colleague. "Speak for yourself, Nazaam. It will take those of us in the heartland years to recover from the destruction to our farmland from the war. We'll have to buy grains and beans from Gayakuta and transport it up the rivers."
"You could exchange for them at the Trade Discal," Eladio countered. He gestured to his colleagues, "Many of our lands produce a surplus of agricultural goods."
"That is what it is about," Alimah Karamsi of the Ulema chimed in. Firuzeh was surprised that she had joined the conclave. Karamsi must have wasted little time before turning the Celebrant over to the Taariq interrogator. "Exchange, intellectual, commercial, cultural. We have as much to offer the Concordant Realms as they do to us."
"Perhaps," Bhima mused, considering Karamsi's words. "But such exchange does not require permanent residence, does it? There are whole villages just north of Jharoda whose residents were killed during the terror and the war. What if two hundred people from Sensa were to travel here and claim the village for their own?"
"What if?" Bulan prodded Bhima with a raised eyebrow. Firuzeh awaited his response with growing dread.
"Well, it seems…" Bhima struggled to dissemble. "Rather, it might…there are traditions in the region that stretch back ages, and I'm not sure they would be comfortable," he ended awkwardly.
"Who do you mean by 'they'? The Sensans or the Jharodans?"
"I suppose both," he tried to deflect, to Firuzeh's embarrassment. Unfortunately, he turned to her for support. "Our people need consistency at this time. Familiarity. We have been through so much. To interject new unknowns could threaten our recovery. We are still too out of joint to try to integrate new ideas into our lands."
"You mean 'new people,'" Bulan corrected him.
Bhima straightened up indignantly. "Look here, good madam, don't make…"
"When a clear stream merges with a muddy stream, the result is dirty water," Sameer finally spoke, lifting to face the delegates.
Seong Ji-Won from Yeonida jumped to her feet, the silver scales of her face flashing angrily. "You go too far, vizier! This insult shall not stand!"
Sameer, unusually silent during the proceedings, seemed unruffled by the dragonborn's affront. "It is we who were insulted," he explained plainly, leaning over the table. "It is we who were exiled from the Radiant Citadel seven hundred years ago. You cut us off without a word, even abandoning those of your own people that were in our land at the time. And now you return, pretending to welcome us back with open arms, as if we had not suffered in the interim. We learned to live without the Aural Diamond and the Trade Discal, and we are better for it. We are stronger for it."
The Dragonborn flexed her sharp claws. "Show me how strong you have become then!"
Several people rose or scurried backwards from the sudden tension, jumbling among cushions and scrolls. Bhima quickly jumped away from the circle, and Rahivamistra all but rolled on his belly away from danger. No weapons had been allowed in the conclave, but several fists balled and the sizzle of imminent spells sparked the air.
"Enough!" Firuzeh shouted, rising from her stone seat. "That is enough! Tayyabi, these people are our guests! You shame me with this display." But her eyes were on Qiang Lu while she spoke those words to her own people.
Fortunately, the Yongjing delegate understood. "This is not Concord," she admonished her delegates. "This is discord. Our humble apologies, Empress." The look Lu gave to Ji-Won made even Firuzeh mortified, but the Dragonborn sheathed her claws and returned to her cushion. Iwa, Lu was a remarkable diplomat! Firuzeh wasn't sure if she should feel grateful or feel beholden to the delegate, which is probably what Lu wanted.
Sameer, however, pressed on as the others resettle themselves and righted cushions. "What is to keep you from doing it again? From acting so egregiously against us for no fault of our own?" He gestured toward the delegates. "Does what happened to us not concern you? Do you not fear the whim of the Speakers? What is to stop them from casting each of you out as they did with us?"
"A whim," Deland Longully said, bemused. "A whim? Do you no longer sing the song of those days?" The gray-haired man from Godsbreath lifted the gold-tipped staff that rested across his knees and set its heel to the ground. "It was no whim."
"You feared our growing dominance, our economic success at the Trade Discal," Sameer clarified to the gentle man.
"We did nothing," Deland asserted. "We had not yet been born. We have done nothing to you, except reach out to resume our Concord. The resentment you bear is for events that happened before the Sundering of the Radiant Citadel that separated all our peoples for centuries. It is not so long that we have begun to return to one another, and much has been lost that must be regained. Much," he continued, rising to his feet with the aid of his staff, "should be left in the before times, where it belongs."
Deland's deep voice and slow cadence seemed to calm those around him. It resonated like a soothing hand, touching the spirits within.
"I had thought that those days were merely a part of the song that you chose not to sing," Deland pronounced. "I see now that you have forgotten the words and remember only the rhythm, a pattern of strong emotions and bitterness. Though it has been seven hundred years, the story of Tariq al-Mir bin Zubair al-Bazikwahi is a part of our Awakening Song, as it brought great sorrow to Godsbreath."
Deland's voice dropped into a low cadence, and a faint glow emanated from him as he sang mournfully:
Sweet Abelane, our Speaker
We gathered at your call
And sent a seven to you
With hope and peace withall.
For covenant was threatened,
The Citadel attacked,
The stitches of the quilt undone
By those who broke the pact.
Too late to right the Concord,
We went to right the wrong.
Against the would be tyrant
We sent three hundred strong.
Free people fought the traitor
Tariq Bazikwahi
To glorify the promise that
The Citadel is free.
Soul Shaker, best be wary
Of Speaker Abelane,
For costly was the battle
Our warriors were slain.
The Speaker is at rest now,
They're home where they belong.
Oh, keep each other company
And live on in the Song.
And keep all of us company
Remembered in the Song.
"That is but a small piece of the song that we still sing," the glow fading as he returned to his speaking voice, so little different from his singing voice. "We are only five here, not seven" he gestured to his Radiant Citadel colleagues. "Perhaps we are enough to find a covenant again between our peoples."
Firuzeh watched Sameer measuring his own colleagues, and saw that they had been swayed by the Proclaimer's words, if not his voice. He, curiously, had not.
"They slew our Speaker," he reminded Firuzeh and her advisors. "They slaughtered his staff."
Qiang Lu waited for Deland to be seated. "The Proclaimers of Godsbreath are not the only ones who recorded the events. Tariq al-Mir slaughtered four of the Speakers in his attempt to seize control of the Radiant Citadel, including the Speaker from my own land."
"Then why do you want us to return?" Firuzeh said, seated again on her throne. "Sameer makes an intriguing point: If the Tayyib Speaker's actions led to our exile, why would you risk our return to the Aural Diamond?"
"Your land was among the founders of the Radiant Citadel," Bulan reminded the empress. "It exists because all of our lands came together in a time of need to create a place of support and Concord. Though twelve of our lands have returned since the Sundering, we are diminished until we are all reunited. That includes the Tayyib, and the Uzumu, who do not hesitate to regain Concord." The Dayawlongon representative looked to each of her colleagues, then directly at Firuzeh. "You are a part of our family of lands. And like family, we may quarrel at times. But we need you, as a sister needs her brother."
Her final words could not have been more ill-spoken, for they brought to mind at once her own brothers, whom she had fought in battle. She had stood with bitter relief over Musa's badly battered body on the battlefield, though it was not her hand that had killed him. Khusrau's bloodied corpse had been carried to her camp near the ruins of Sherpatta the next day from the south, where he had been slain by Nekuzam. Nekuzam's own body was lost among the remains of the four armies that gruesomely littered the heartland. Firuzeh had buried the two bodies she had in the Himilbad Necropolis in unmarked dirt graves. Thoughts of her own brothers and sisters brought Firuzeh nothing but bile in her throat for what had happened and what she had had to do.
"Like the crops need the rain," Bulan corrected hastily, realizing her own mistake too late. "Like…"
"You have given me much to consider," she said formally to the delegates collectively, careful to emphasize the "me." "We will reconvene in the morning to continue our discussion."
She needed to get out of the diwan before her distress overcame her. "Al-Hajib," she said, rising from the cold throne and turning to the man who was taking notes for the meeting, "if you need Deland Longully to repeat the Song, please…."
The ground rose under her feet, tossing her back into the throne. The rumble and ripple of the quake rolled under the seated delegates, tipping a few over on the soft rugs and overturning cups of tea. Bulan gave a frightened shriek and Bayram's feathered turban tumbled off his rattling head.