Firuzeh raced through the rough-hewn corridors carved under her city so urgently toward where she hoped to discover her family that she threatened to stumble into the torch-bearing dwarf who was leading her and Ji-Won. She had been startled to find Zidiki bint Tordain waiting at the foot of the stairs she and the Shieldbearer had descended from the temple, for if Tordain had involved his oldest daughter, then much must be at stake for the amir. Zidiki had been waiting in total darkness, in case it had been others coming through the tunnel stairs. But when she recognized Firuzeh, she struck up a torch, etching out her features. A rounded quaff of tightly curled black hair and her dark complexion reminded Firuzeh how much Zidiki, whom she had only met a few times, took after her mother Akeesha's ancient Sensa heritage.
Passageways cut off from their path so often that the part of Firuzeh's mind not focused on her family and Bhima and Sameer wondered just how widely and deeply they ran. Had Clan Kestrel riddled the ground under the entire city with secret tunnels? Had they carved these tunnels even as they were building the palaces and mosques and baths of the city above them? She would have questions for Tordain. Not immediately; she had other priorities. But she and the amir would need to have a long talk.
Only hours had passed since the eruption, or was it even an hour? Given the scope of the eruption and all that had happened and her desperation for the safety of her family, she no longer had a sense of time. Everything seemed to fly by swiftly and yet seemed to take far too long, and the crystalline catastrophe felt like a day ago. Zidiki's lit torch bobbed ahead of her, and Ji-Won's clawed feet clicked and scraped the stone behind her, and when would they get there?
Mihan and Shimaz, her cherished urdubegis, were dead. She had killed Ghalnan al-Rusheek with a falling stone, and ludicrously the thought that she'd need to appoint a new subahdar for Bijabad flitted through her mind instead of horror for causing his death. How many others had she killed? Ghalnan didn't matter; he had drawn a sword against. But her city…
Overcome by uncertainty, grieving for the hundreds or thousands of her people dead, possibly at her hand, Firuzeh stumbled to a stop and braced herself with a hand against the rough wall of the too-small tunnel. Had they been right to accuse her of causing the eruption? After what she had done in the diwan, after she had ripped the ground open to swallow the Tigers that had attacked her, there could be no question anymore of her Dao heritage. Her handprint on the stone banister, the ground shakes of the past week, those had just been signs of what she was capable of. What was she capable of? The crystal? Could she have done that subconsciously, a horrific outburst of an aspect of herself coming into being?
Zidiki, further ahead, turned back. "We must keep going, Empress" she prodded. "We're nearing the mahal."
Firuzeh barely heard Zidiki; the words didn't register. Her hand against the stone wall, she could feel the pain of the earth–aching, crushing, quivering at the wound that pierced it, as if a dagger had struck into her own chest. Her earth, her city, her people. It had been her hand on the dagger that caused this wound.
"I have to go away," she realized as she spoke the words breathlessly, turning back the way they had come. "Where I can't hurt anyone else."
Ji-Won stood behind her, her large shape blocking the small passageway. "This moment of rest has been helpful, Empress," she demurred. "I was a bit winded from our efforts. I think I can make it now, so we can continue on."
Firuzeh tried to slip past the Shieldbearer, but the way was too narrow, and no matter how Ji-Won might shift herself, there never seemed to be enough room.
"Let me by!"
"My apologies, empress, but these tunnels were not carved for us dragonborn. Maybe it's best if we go forward."
She wasn't fooled, she knew Ji-Won was feigning her efforts to let her by. But the humbleness of the Shieldbearer barely masked her resolve, and Firuzeh knew she couldn't move her. "I'm going to kill us all," she muttered as she turned back to follow Zidiki, shaking her head. "You've seen what I can do, you have to get me away from here before I do something worse."
The empty plains out west on the way to the unfinished Isenhar. Or the Maaph Desert. The grasslands in the deep south, no cities there, few people. Her feet stumbled as her mind raced about where she could go that would endanger the fewest people, and the stone walls and bobbing torch and clicking talons meant nothing to her.
But her family lay somewhere ahead, and she needed to see that they were safe before she fled to preserve them all. Eventually the tunnels widened, the walls became smooth, and torches in brackets made periodic havens of light in the darkness. Then there were three guards ahead by a doorway, the bronze door ajar, bright light spilling into the tunnel from beyond. If not guards, then watchers, for the dwarves had no armor and only large hammers in their hands. Long, open coats hung from their thick shoulders, the sleeveless garments leaving their powerful arms bare. Quarrymen, maybe, or masons. Not fighters, but daunting nonetheless.
Zidiki barked some words at the guards in passing as she led them through the door into a small chamber with several other doorways. Firuzeh was disappointed to find it empty, but of course, she reasoned, the tunnel wouldn't just lead directly to Tordain's reception hall. They were probably just at the outer–or under–edges of Kestrel Mahal itself.
Up and in they continued, taking tight staircases and winding ones, through storerooms and caverns that seemed surrounded by small communities of dwarves. She smelled food cooking and laundry soap, saw large tables in some halls that could seat dozens, passed shrines with offerings, and everywhere the whatnot of habitation and labor. There were whole neighborhoods down here or up here or wherever she was. The passages and stairs and halls stripped her of any sense of direction. Many of the people and neighborhoods they raced through seemed to have different characteristics. Square, perforated colorful pennants were strung across one large hall, and another was decorated with round paper lanterns. In one neighborhood, the dwarven residents sported beads in their clothing, in another, feathers. Many were ruddy like Tordain, but others had much darker skins, or eyes like Qiang Lu. Just how many people lived in Kestrel Mahal? Already she had seen signs of more inhabitants than all the dwarves she had ever seen in Qaragarh. Yes, she had some questions for Amir Tordain.
Abruplty they moved back into narrowing tunnels and started descending again. Firuzeh had been in Kestrel Mahal's great hall and into Tordain's working rooms, and they had all been at ground level. Inside the face of the plateau, yes, but not down any levels. They should be heading up and into that more carved and constructed area, but each turn took them further down and into rough, natural passageways.
"Zidiki," she called to the bobbing torch, "where are we…"
"Just ahead," the dwarf assured her without a backward look.
Firuzeh didn't need to look back to know that Ji-Won was close on her heels. The Yeonidan's talons clicked on stone, and she could hear her harsh breathing. A steady, bright light around a bend of the tunnel ahead signaled an open area, and she raced ahead of Zidiki to make the turn to join her family.
"Don't!" Zidiki grabbed the back of her sari and jerked her to a halt.
Firuzeh teetered on the edge of a precipice dropping a hundred feet to the scene below. If not for Zidiki's quick, strong grip, she would have fallen to her death. Windmilling her arms for balance, she fell back on the woman, and Ji-Won barely skidded to a stop before crashing into them.
Disentangling herself from the others, Firuzeh crawled to the edge of the drop to look down. A large cavern that began at the ground far below rose up high overhead into darkness. Below, braziers and torches cast light on the face of a building the likes of which she had never seen. Only the front portion, the facade, really, of a very tall palace projected from the back wall of earthen cavern, the rest of it still buried deep inside the foundations of the plateau itself. Pickaxes and shovels, carts and mounds of earth, and tall scaffolding told the story of the facade's ongoing excavation, but no work seemed to be happening at the moment. Only a ring of guards–clearly guards this time, fully armored and armed–formed a barrier in front of the facade's portal.
And what a facade! If the forest itself, if all the Pradani devas of ages past, if every Circle of the Lotus yaksha and every elven artisan who had five centuries' mastery of their craft had conspired to create a majestic and sublime palace designed to inspire trembling awe, this would be the result. It appeared as if the very edge of a densely-grown forest had suddenly turned into stone. And not just grey or reddish stone, but rocks and minerals of all varieties. Jutting out from tall marble, granite, and sandstone tree shapes serving as columns, leaves in high-relief seemed carved of jade and malachite, emerald and serpentine, in myriad shapes and sizes. Palm and oak, she recognized, neem and pine, and several trees she didn't know. A jungle of plants formed a jumbled undergrowth, peppered with climbing vines and flowers in profusion, carved from garnet and tanzanite, peridot and lapis, sard and sapphire, all twinkling from the brazier light below.
Awestruck at the sight of this strange elven palace buried in the plateau and what it meant, Firuzeh rose as Ji-Won helped Zidiki to her feet. As she marveled at the sight, a small figure–a human child–walked out through the portal, bored and curious, and traced her fingers around the stone flowers and vines. A long braid hung down her back.
"Tarasiya!" she called, her breath catching, and her daughter spun to follow her mother's voice and wave.
Zidiki caught her arm as she frantically searched for a way down and led her and Ji-Won along a ledge to a series of scaffolding and ladders leading to the cavern's bottom. By the time she reached the bottom, they were all there waiting, gathered around in a mob. A few of the children rushed to embrace her waist–Tarasiya and studious Ahbalek, and Lilavati. Her husbands stood just behind them, Sanjar holding little Nekuzam and Sumaira in Jagat's arms, her braid unravelling and unruly. Ahmad waited stoically, his hands clasped together at his waist, while Ghiyas stood with his arm protectively around Pashuben's shoulder. She kissed their heads, squeezed them close in a huddle, needing to simply touch them, to feel that they were real and there and alright. Only when she went to her first husband did it register that her oldest child had a bandage on the left side of his face.
"Ai, Pashuben!" she cried. She gripped his chin and turned his face for a closer look, causing him to hiss through his teeth.
"It's nothing, mother." He guided her hand away from his face. Dried blood speckled his once-white kurta.
"He drew first blood," Ghiyas said proudly, grasping the back of Pashuben's head firmly and kissing the top of it. "Our young prince!"
"What happened?" she demanded.
Everyone began to speak at once, and at first, the babble felt so familiar and reassuring that she didn't catch their words. Between Ahmad's unvarnished narration and through the children's exaggerations, she pieced together their story, alternately dismayed by the events and comforted by their presence as she continued to reach out and touch each one of them.
They had scarcely begun their climb up the Wyvern Road with the other refugees when they spotted below them on a turn of the road a large group of Sameer's Crescent Tigers racing upwards. "I spotted them," Tarasiya clarified possessively. Curious but unconcerned, they had continued up on their horses with carts and attendants and a handful of Urdubegis among the throng. Below them, the city groaned and cried and burned, smoke rising beside them up the plateau wall like a chimney, and the wretched crystalline mound scattered the rays of the sun.
When the Tigers got closer to their party, the soldiers shouted for them to stop, and so they did, because why would they have any reason to suspect Sameer and his Bazikwaheen forces? The lead Tiger told them that the empress had recalled them back to the city, and the Tigers would escort them safely, and again, why would they have any reason to distrust them? And so they turned back, surrounded by their Urdubegis and the vigilant Tigers, who shied the fleeing hordes away from them.
And then…
"And then the plateau wall magically disappeared…" Tarasiya jumped in dramatically.
"It was a hidden door." Ahbalek was not having any of his sister's fantastical embellishment.
"Can we eat now?" Lilavati tugged at her sari.
And then Clan Kestrel emerged from a hidden door and attacked the Crescent Tigers surrounding the imperial family. They were confused; why was Amir Tordain's men attacking Amir Sameer's? Had all order collapsed? Frantically, they had huddled together, for none of them had weapons. The mounted Urdubegis at first defended against the dwarves, until it became clear that their target was the Tigers, not the imperial family, and then chaos reigned.
"Blood flowed from gaping wounds like rubies spilling…"
Ghiyas slipped a hand over Tarasiya's mouth. "Later, beti. We'll put it to music," he whispered to her.
"The Tigers turned on us," Jagat picked up the thread to bring the story to a close. We didn't know why, but they tried to kill us. Thank Pradan that Pashuben never takes off his khanjar or…" He ended with a quick flick of his eyes to Lilavati. "We escaped through the door with Clan Kestrel and they led us here through the tunnels. There were…losses."
"We left the horses," Baba Sanjar added, and she knew what that had cost him.
Horses were not the losses that Jagat left unsaid, though, as Tordain made clear.
"Four of Clan Kestrel and six Urdubegis."
When the amir had arrived, she didn't know. But he stood now, hands on hips, next to his daughter Zidiki outside the huddle of her family. Others were there as well, Rugar, Tordain's son, ruddy and fiery like his father, blood stains and bandages a testament to his part in her family's rescue, and his wife Akeesha, dark as charcoal, helping Rugar out of his armor. The crowd lingering at the portal of the stone forest palace included others she knew from the Fort and some she only recognized. In front of them all stood Qiang Lu, Bulan Bahasalang, and Eladio Tenoch Quetl, whom Ji-Won had joined. She didn't see Deland Longully among them.
How could she thank Tordain? How could she tell her family she would have to leave? She stood with her eyes locked on Tordain's bright green ones, as Lilavati slipped her tiny hand into her own. Now that she stood safely in the quiet of the cavern, her children and husbands around her, the enormity of everything that had happened in…was it really only a few hours?...threatened to overwhelm her. Blood no longer pounded in her veins, and her feet no longer pounded in flight. And in the stillness, it all found her and piled into her and weighed upon her until she thought she might be crushed by it. It took all her will to remain erect.
And then Amir Tordain took a knee and bowed his head to her.
"Baba Jagat," she said, lifting Lilavati into his arms. "Take the children inside and get them something to eat. There's food inside this structure, I'm assuming."
"And pallets," he said, nodding. "For sleepy children."
Jagat led the children away to the palace entrance, but decisively, she called out, "Pashuben." He turned his head back to her. "The Tayyibzada's place is at his empress' side."
The young man's eyes widened in wonder then narrowed in resolve. "Prince of the Tayyib" was not a title conferred lightly, especially since the last Tayyibzada had been her brother, Musa, who had led the empire into a destructive necromantic civil war. It was time to reclaim the title's honor, and Pashuben had been blooded. And if she had to leave the empire behind for its own safety, it would be a Tayyib of her line, with sard-ringed eyes, who would govern it, not her traitorous Sathanam cousin Bhima.
Sard-ringed eyes. As the young prince squared his shoulders to join her, she wondered if he, too, carried the Dao blood within him, and Iwa help them all if it manifested as it had in her. Or in the others of her children with sard eyes–little tameless Lilavati and the infant Nekuzam.
Tordain's simple gesture of fealty had steadied her. She no longer feared for the safety of her family or of her own life. Those immediate dangers had passed, and it was time for her turn to the matters of the empire and the lives of her people. Her rescue, the rescue of her family, and the presence of the Radiant Citadel delegates and several of her administrators and advisors made clear that some kind of plan had been devised and acted upon without her even knowing. It was time to know.
Back straight, feet firm, she beckoned Tordain and the others who had knelt after him to rise. "Where can we talk? Since you gathered us here at this…" She turned her head to the palace facade. Closer now, she could see carved figures of creatures amidst the dense stone forest. Elves and humans, kobold, yuan-ti, lizardfolk and giants engaged in a range of actions, from the fierce and warlike to the mischievous or celebratory and even…were they?...yes, even the erotic. "...this marvel that you will someday explain, this must be a secure place for us to convene. Bring your accomplices," she nodded her head to Qiang Lu and the others.
Tordain issued orders all around and everyone began to move. Akeesha led the way to the portal as those who had gathered there retreated inside. Pashuben by her side, Ghiyas, Ahmad, and Sanjar close behind her, Empress Firuzeh bint Tasneem al Tayyibi crossed the threshold into a brazier- and torch-lit hall that resembled a clearing in a forest. As she passed through the refugees, her secretary al-Hajib bobbed his head at her from behind a dozen of her Urdubegis. She hooked a finger at him to follow. Alim Nurrudin of the kitabkhana she spotted by his bejeweled kufi, and others of the imperial household. She was astonished to see the metal mouth guard and shaved head of the Taarik al-Khamosh, whom she bid join her train. Like Tordain's warrens under the city and in the plateau, she wondered just how widely his confederacy reached.
The Radiant Citadel delegates fell in behind her as well, and curiously, it wasn't Qiang Lu who seemed to lead them, but Eladio. Of course, he and Tordain had spent much time together over the last delegations. She looked at the Trade Discal representative with new eyes. Wary eyes.
The small band moved through a series of clearings and pathways–it didn't seem right to call them halls or hallways, as the interior was just as elaborately forested as the facade. Lights hung in the delicate stone branches that formed arching domes over the clearings, like stars seen through the canopy. She silently thanked whatever Ulema Roshani among the conspirators had set those lights, for without them, the stone forest around and above her would have felt ominous. Even without the two-thousand feet of earthen plateau above their heads.
In a large, brightly-lit clearing whose only entrance was guarded by heavily-armoured Clan Kestrel dwarves, Akeesha halted and the train following Firuzeh spread out. She thankfully washed her hands and face in a basin of cold water that Zidiki and others of Clan Kestrel brought into the room, and took a cup of bracingly strong tea. The room was quiet, eerily so. They were waiting for her to speak, when all she had for them were questions. They also wouldn't sit until she did, so she handed her tea to Pashuben at her elbow and lowered herself onto one of the many rugs with cushions hastily arranged throughout the forest clearing.
"You're supposed to stay standing," she whispered to the Tayyibzada when he moved to sit beside her. No prince ever stood with so straight a back as her young prince of thirteen years then did.
She was weary in her bones, and heartsore and betrayed and thankful. She grieved and she raged and she worried and she quailed at what she had caused. But above all, she ruled, and her people, her empire, needed her.
"I do not know," she began to their expectant gazes, "what intrigue has delved its way into my administration and empire, or what machinations have brought together agents of the Radiant Citadel and my own trusted advisors in secret. Whatever designs the collaborators among you have trouble me for their covertness more than they might trouble me for their intent. Though I fear that knowing their intent might alter the bent of my concern."
Qiang Lu fixed steely eyes on Eladio, who was looking surreptitiously at Tordain, who was looking at his hands in his lap.
"But for saving the life of my family, and of myself," she continued, "I give you my deepest thanks." Tordain finally lifted her eyes to hers, and his tensed shoulders relaxed. Hers did not. "Now please explain to me what's going on."
"Señora Empress, we have…" Eladio began.
She cut him off with a raised hand. "Amir Tordain."
The amir pushed himself up to his feet, looking back briefly for support at Akeesha and Zidiki and the injured Rugar. With short, stout fingers, he righted his open coat and cleared his throat. "You're not going to like it, Empress, there's no denying, and I'm not gonna pretend we didn't work behind your back," he said with a gesture to the Citadel delegation.
Qiang Lu started to speak in what appeared to be her own defense, but Firuzeh raised a stopping hand to her as well. Time enough for the delegates to speak on their own behalf after she'd heard from her own people.
"There were some among us that…well, some as thought that maybe…" he floundered. "We weren't sure we could trust you," he finished boldly.
"About what?" she asked dangerously. Beside her, Pashuben had placed a hand on the hilt of his khanjar.
"Sameer!" Tordain blurted. "Bloody Sameer bin-Nabeel! By gorge, forgive me, you've been blind to him since before the Sherpatta and we didn't know if you were working with him!" Stunned by his own outburst, he clapped his mouth shut.
Sameer? Conniving and ambitious yes, but… "Working with Sameer at what? Helping Bhima try to kill me to take the empire? That makes no sense."
"Bhima's a pawn, Firuzeh, a climber who thinks he deserves power," he continued in a tirade. "Sameer used him and Bhima let himself be used. He's already announced that you and your family died in the eruption and he's claimed the throne."
"Oh, I am very much not dead," she assured him coldly, "but I'll have his skin, cousin or no." How, if she had to leave? "But Sameer? He joined us to save Qaragarh. He fought alongside us at Sherpatta."
"We fought alongside you at Sherpatta," Rugar said, rising beside his father and pounding his bare chest. "Clan Kestrel. Many of our clan never returned to this mahal. And we did not do it for mines or power or influence."
There it was, the source of their suspicion. Yes, she had traded the Tayyib sard mines on the plateau to Bazikwahi for their support, but it had been necessary to sway the people far from the conflict to join her cause. Otherwise, they could have simply waited out the battle and submitted to the victor. That far north, it would have impacted them little.
"Alliances are not always ideal," she answered with a sharp glance at the Citadel delegation, "but they are sometimes beneficial and necessary in the pursuit of a higher goal. You know something, though," she returned to Tordain. "Something other than sard mines and ambition."
"Saab Deland knew. He was the one that put it together."
"Where is Deland Longully?" She still hadn't seen the Proclaimer among them.
Qiang Lu asserted herself at last, standing and straightening the fall of her green and gold silken tunic. "We do not know, Empress." She fingered the jade pendant at her neck. "He left hastily after the eruption. I assure you that I am as mystified by this collusion as you, and that the Speakers for the Ancestors will be mortified to hear what has transpired." Ever the diplomat, it seemed.
"Señora Qiang," Eladio winked up at her, "I do not think they will be pleased to hear what has happened under your leadership, no?"
Haughtily, she turned her head from him. "Do not threaten me, Eladio Quetl. I'll have you sent to the mines of San Citlán for your treachery. I've had nothing to do with this."
"Enough," Firuzeh silenced them all. It seemed even the delegates didn't trust each other. "Someone." She rubbed her gritty, raw eyes. "Some one."
It was Ji-Won who spoke, still seated on her rug as the others sat again. "Longully-nim began it," she explained. "At first, he told Quetl-nim and myself to simply ask certain questions of your people and report back to him at the Radiant Citadel. We would meet with him at the Court of Whispers for hours as we told him about you and your advisors, about tensions and factions in the empire, about unrest and your recovery from the war. There are some among your people who are…discontent, if you will pardon me," she bowed her scaled head briefly. "And those who fiercely support you. We made friends among them, loyal and discontented both..."
"Spies," Firuzeh punctuated the word.
"Informants, ye, and they talked to other people, and so we gathered information for Longully-nim. And he asked more questions, which became more specific and that led us to Sameer-nim. Sameer," she repeated, dropping the honorific with a small shake of her head. "He has been planning something for a few years."
"Against me," Firuzeh pressed.
"No, it did not seem directed at you personally," Ji-Won went on, seemingly confused on this point herself and scratching at her violet hair with a single talon. "Longully-nim said Sameer seemed almost sorry for the impact his plan would have on you and the Tayyib family. That's how we learned you weren't involved."
She recalled Sameer's almost regretful tone in her ambush at the diwan. "It is a relief to know I gained your absolution," Firuzeh gibed.
"Ye but aniyo…"
"Sí but no," Eladio spoke over her. "Señora, the ground shook around you, and we did not know what that meant. At our reception, at the aqiqah for your hijo. Why you?"
She wasn't ready to answer that question, so she replied with her own. "You said Sameer had a plan."
"Sí, but what exactly we did not know."
"And did not share with your colleagues," Bulan picked, her feathered crest ruffling.
"Lo siento, pajarito, but that was Señor Deland's decision. You will need to ask him when he returns. But we knew it involved Qaragarh specifically and that it would be swift, powerful, and dramatic. That," he pointed vaguely up and away, "we did not expect. That giant pillar of crystal. We still do not know what it means, unless Deland carries that secret himself. Only that there was something the amir had that was important to achieving it. A rod, no sé," he shrugged. "Ask Deland."
He needed other things as well, a voice said but no one else seemed to hear.
Firuzeh touched the ta'wiz bound in her hair, but it was cool against her neck. It wasn't the amulet.
Empress, the voice said, and her eyes sought out al-Khamosh.
The Taarik alim nodded his shaven head. With his mouth willingly bound by a steel guard and his hands wired in taqdis, he had only his mind to communicate with, a trait of the Taarik that was both useful and unnerving.
What do you know? And then, because the others could not hear their thoughts, "What do you know?"
The Risen Celebrant you had brought to me, Umaden from Ganraala. He was terrified of Sameer, because he had failed to deliver something to the amir.
"What was the Celebrant supposed to bring to Sameer?" she said aloud. The others turned their heads to al-Khamosh, catching on to what was happening.
I don't know, he kept thinking of Ganraala, the region he had been captured in. Ganraala, Ganraala, it was all he could focus on. Sameer needed it, whatever it was. Ganraala and Sameer. Nothing was more clear than that Sameer had given orders to the Celebrant, and to others of the Risen.
"Sameer was collaborating with the Risen," she said for the benefit of the others, her stomach churning at what that meant. How long had that been going on? If before he joined her in destroying the Risen in Sherpatta and breaking its back, then…then he had played both sides in a dangerous and evil game.
Not collaborating, al-Khamosh clarified. Directing them. And Empress, the Celebrant kept thinking of the Saya.
"The Saya?"
"The Saya don't exist," Ahmad scoffed behind her. "They are a myth, a fictitious mockery of the faithful."
She knew of the Saya, and she too believed that the secret, dark tariqa was only a terrifying fantasy. Stories told of a cabal of dark practitioners of necromantic arts, twisted devotees who believed that their studies were guided by an aspect of Iwa himself, as valid as the Shuddh or Toofan or any other Muwahhid tariqa. Muwahhid satirically blamed the Saya for bad luck or strange twists of fate, or threatened their young ones with punishment by the Saya. To imagine the existence of such a group of Muwahhid was inane. To imagine that they would be involved with the heretical and blasphemous Risen was ridiculous. Even as myth, their central tenets relied on the approval of Iwa.
"I cannot disbelieve this," Firuzeh admitted, with an apologetic look at Ahmad. "I cannot disbelieve anything after what has happened over these past years, and especially today." After what she had learned about her Dao heritage. "Did you learn anything else from the Celebrant?"
He was not the only one who needed to bring something to Sameer, al-Khamosh sent to her. Much of what remains of the Risen throughout the land has similar orders. What he was gathering and why he needed it were never clear. Only that it is urgent. They could not repeat the failure at Sherpatta.
She shared that information with the room, but it raised only more questions. The ghazi and the Gayakutan that had captured the Celebrant might be able to provide more information, but no one in the clearing knew what had become of them. Thoughtful for a moment, her eyes found Rugar's. It had been about more than sard mines, as he and his people had thought. So much more. Sameer had plucked her like a single chord in a long song she had failed to hear.
"What did he mean about failure at Sherpatta? Losing the war?"
Al-Khamosh held up his caged, empty hands in resignation. He did not say. We cannot read the thoughts of others, only hear and see what they want to share. Celebrant Umaden was too terrified of the perpetual death you sentenced him to to be coherent. We can no longer ask him, for he has been eaten. As you ordered.
Firuzeh had never been destined to rule the empire. That was Musa, Tayyibzada, or, if anything happened to him, then Khusrau. But she had been determined to lead and govern, even if it had been over a tiny, distant subah. Her duty to her family's legacy and to the people of Suristhanam drove her to study and train, to sit at the knee of her father as he schooled his oldest children to succeed him. She learned many lessons from Tasneem Tayyib, taking words that were not directed at her and internalizing them, so that when he appointed her as subahdar of Qaragarh in what he thought was simply pageantry, she sank her hands and heart into the city. Musa had listened to their father's advice and resented its constraints. She had watched and listened and catalogued it all, and now she reached into her storehouse to apply one bit.
"Make it worse," she ordered those gathered around her. When they looked at one another confused, she clarified. "This is awful, every bit of it is awful, the eruption and Sameer and collusion with the Risen. Saya, and so much death and destruction up there, Bhima and whoever else has conspired against the empire," she shot a look at Eladio and the other delegates, "and we are still rebuilding and recovering from bloodied fields and ranks of ghûls and other undead slaughtering in towns and cities. Is that everything?" she challenged them. "Is it? Because we can't deal with it unless we know what it is. What else?" she roared. She rose to her feet and everyone bustled to stand as well, for no one sat when the empress stood. "Make it worse. Tell me," she ordered. "Tell each other. No more secrets."
She swallowed her hypocrisy, and it was bitter as bile. For the good of the empire, she told herself.
Tordain waved to a pair of humans behind him that she had noticed at the back of the clearing. A human man with robust features and one arm in a sling and a slim woman who seemed uncomfortable amid the dignitaries and stayed slightly behind the man.
"This is all that is left of Puruzam Company," he explained. "Purdil and Pinar. The others were ambushed at Hope's Gorge by hobgoblins of the Khaar Iheshat. They are using the pass to move into Himilbad."
"How long ago?" she choked, but she had asked for worse. "When?"
The man, Purdil, hand tapping his heart, answered. "Seven days ago. We only returned today. They will have reached the top of the plateau by now."
Himilbad, a small town near the great necropolis. And from there, less than a day to Menebad. "We have to warn…" She could do nothing, she had escaped ambush and now another sat on the throne while she hid deep in the earth. They had had little trouble from the Khaar for ages, and they far outnumbered Nabgrev's forces. It would be lunacy for him to attack the north, unless he knew she'd be unable to mount a defense. And she surmised how they might have known. Biting back a curse, she gritted her teeth.
"The company leader was killed, Empress," Tordain added carefully. "Fazil. Bin Thariton."
Then she did curse, spitting words that turned even Tordain's ears red in a blush and caused Baba Ahmad to mutter a heated, swift prayer. She cursed like a drunken cameleer at a rowdy caravanserai, like an angry kobold cheated by a merchant, she shamed her mother and her other mothers and all of her aunties, and Akeesha covered Zidiki's ears even though she was 136 years old, and Qiang Lu blenched and froze like a statue.
"Well, I suppose it's fortunate that I died in the eruption," she ended sardonically, "because if I hadn't, Thariton Sudhadvan would march right up here with the entire Ribhus army and kill me."
"You said to make it worse," Tordain shrugged in his defense. "Anyone else?"
If there were any other secrets or pieces of vital information, they remained unspoken by the crowd of people watching either her or their feet. Apart from the Radiant Citadel delegation, these were people she had relied upon, had been close to, and supposed that she could trust, even if they had conspired on what was ultimately her behalf. Or at least the empire's behalf. They were waiting for her, she understood. They had bared secrets and now looked to their empress for direction. That was why they had gathered here, why they had escaped the city above. Because they had chosen to support her as their leader, which meant that she must lead them. When every instinct told her that leaving them would be in their best interest.
"I need to see Qaragarh," she said to Tordain.
High in the plateau, Firuzeh stood in a wide alcove pierced by a stone jali fronting an empty kestrel nest. The bird had winged away when she approached. Tordain had led her and her husbands up and up and up a spiraling, branching stair to reach this landing, everyone else released from her presence to whatever duties or comforts called to them.
From this height through the pierced stone, she looked down on Qaragarh as the sun set in the west. The crystalline mass rose as high as the dome of the masjid, and wide as several neighborhoods, and like the flesh of a raw and ragged wound, the ground around it was shredded and bloodstained. The few small fires that had not yet been extinguished flickered like diya flames at this distance. Radiating out from the crystal, the ruins of buildings–of lives–spread in lessening degrees, leaving much of the outer ring of the city unscathed. The wail of the dying and the grieving and the injured reached her even at this distance, a cry without pause for breath like the wind of a storm that never waned. Darkness would come soon, more death and undeath, and despair.
This was not me, she declared to herself. No part of me could do this to my city.
She felt it deep in her heart, as deep as her love for her children. She might be capable of shaping earth and stone, the blood of an ancient genie indeed might have awoken in her veins, but she was utterly, undeniably incapable of this level of harm against something she loved so fiercely. It would have ripped her to pieces.
"There seem to be many parts of Kestrel Mahal that I was unaware of," she said to the waiting Tordain without taking her eyes from the city. She heard him harrumph and clear his throat. "Someday we will talk about that and about that mysterious elven palace buried under the plateau," she warned cooly, "but all I need to know now is how much of the city and fort you can access with your tunnels."
"Where do you want to go?" he deflected.
"Everywhere."
"Fine, but, by gorge, don't blame me," he blustered. "I didn't build the bloody city, my grandsires did. I'll get you a bloody map."
As he stomped down the steps, she heard him mutter "Mohtarma," and she turned to see the woman who must be ascending. The mounded buns and tinkling delicate pins of Qiang Lu black hair crested the stairs before the rest of her rose up to the alcove landing. Even disheveled by her flight to safety in the tunnels, she projected calm order and dignity. She might be out of her element, far from typical diplomatic environs, but she carried the air of protocol within herself.
"May I speak with you, Empress?" Her arms hung loose at her side. Not clasped to herself, or her hands together. No bent elbow, no gesture. Those would be inefficient, unnecessary. It was a little unnerving.
Firuzeh bid her husbands descend. Before he turned to leave, Ahmad casually touched the side of his neck for her to see, the same place on her neck where the ta'wiz he had entwined in her hair hung. She caught herself before mirroring his action and returned an almost imperceptible nod. Qiang Lu joined her at the jali and peered at the city.
"I did not ask to be sent here," she said, her eyes not moving from the scene outside the window. "The Speakers named me Ambassador of Reunion after my work with Umizu, but I tell you I feared in my heart that Umizu's reunion would be atypical. Daimyo Hogoshi Takemi and his people were eager to rejoin the Radiant Citadel, though I fear for reasons that may trouble us later. Nevertheless, the Pearl Carp had awoken and beckoned to them, and they came."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"I tell you this," Lu faced her at last, her face like stone, "so that you will understand me when I tell you that I have no secret agenda. I did not know Longully xiansheng was a Whisperer, or that Eladio and Ji-Won were in his confidence. Solace Bulan appears to have no knowledge of this either, you should know. My intentions in our negotiations have been sincere and honest, despite my uncertainty that we would achieve Concord."
Firuzeh bristled. "Do you think us too barbaric to rejoin the Citadel? Are we not worthy of your ideals?"
"No," Lu hastened to correct her perceived offense. "I was uncertain that I was equal to the task. I was afraid…I am afraid that if I fail, I will bring shame to myself and my family, and damage the Citadel's efforts at Reunion. There are other Dawn Incarnates still sleeping and other lands yet to be found and returned. More than this reunion is at stake for us all."
She respected Lu for her honesty, as she had throughout their negotiations. Likely, Deland and the others had kept Lu out of their machinations for the very real possibility that Lu would have taken wind of it directly to her because of her frankness. "I am sorry that you were swept up in this. Is there any way you and the others can get back to the Citadel?"
"No," she echoed with a shake of her head, a rare, extravagant movement on her part. "While the Concord Jewel remains in your chowk," she directed Firuzeh's eyes to it through the jali, "I understand our Clavigers have been taken captive. And unless you have found a way to bend the Weave, I believe the Citadel portal your team is constructing at your Hall of Doors is a few months away from completion."
That was true, the teleportation circle required almost four more months of daily reinforcement before it would become permanent and functional. Even if it had been completed, getting to it across the ravaged city while being hunted by Sameer and his Crescent Tigers would be dangerous and challenging, to say the least. Shifting her gaze to the river and beyond, she caught the flashes of the setting sun on the countless gold kalashas and sard dome of the Hall of Doors. From this distance, at least, it seemed the Hall had been unaffected by the eruption.
"It seems I am stuck with you," Firuzeh quipped.
"And I am stuck with you, it seems," Lu returned with a wry smile. "As for my colleagues, I must apologize for their meddling in your local affairs."
"I am alive because of their meddling, as is my family."
"Yes," Lu demurred, "but it is not our protocol to do so. The independence of each Concordant Land must be preserved, free from manipulation by the representatives of the Radiant Citadel."
Firuzeh guffawed, to Lu's surprise. "Tell that to Eladio Quetl. He talks with grand purpose and idealism about the Trade Discal, but do not think for one moment that I don't know his father sits on the Trecena and his family owns ironworks in San Citlán. He sees my metal-poor empire as a market opportunity. The Shieldbearers are supposed to be neutral, but Ji-Won rushed to rescue me in the fort. Neutrality would have meant letting me die and continuing your negotiations with Bhima, but she and the others wanted me to retain the empire, not someone else. And the Solaces of the Palace of Exiles…"
"Solace Bulan had no part…"
"Not yet, at least. But their mission is to assist refugees. Would that have included Sameer and his Crescent Tigers if they had been stopped? Would it include the Risen? Would the Citadel provide comfort to the Khaar Iheshat who are probably even now attacking my people on the plateau? You choose a side, Qiang Lu," she asserted. "You just believe you always choose the right side."
Lu drew herself up in indignation, the dangling pins in her hair quivering with her tautness. "Do not presume to know what I believe, Empress. And do not presume that we are unaware of our imperfections. Do you think that I would come to you for Reunion and cast our struggles before you like flawed pearls?" She scoffed at her own words. "The Radiant Citadel does not speak with one voice, it speaks with many, and I am but one. But there are certain principles that we share in common that bind us together. Our goals differ. Our methods differ. But we have all committed to an underlying vision. Despite our differences and imperfections, we all believe that a better world for everyone is preferable to a better world for some but not others. What that world looks like, we sometimes struggle to define. And how we can achieve it, we must devise as we go. There is no map, no instructions. Every new land adds a new variable to the mix. Every child born brings fluctuation. Every change in society and nature, every interaction of cultures alters the equation, and so we must make adjustments. There are many paths across the mountain, as your people say. But we never abandon our aspiration to achieve it. My heart tells me that you share that sentiment."
Firuzeh turned her eyes away from Lu's passionate oration back to the city, now nearly blanketed by dusk. The carrion eaters would be stirring, and she hoped everyone in the city had found shelter for the night. "You should have begun with that in our first meeting. We'd be further along than we are." With her finger and thumb, she squeezed a piece of the stone jali like it was clay. "After I have killed Bhima and Sameer and taken back my empire, we'll continue our negotiations."