The Blue Eye

Khashayar scrambled to his feet. Najran did the same, removing the opal-edged dagger from his belt. A white line bisected his pupils. The little herder shrank back, hurrying to carry out his orders.

Rising, Arian looked to the Shaykh. “Enemy or not, you received my escort as a guest.”

Two men entered the tent and grabbed hold of Khashayar. The Shaykh waved his pipe. “Hold him. Do not harm him.” Then, to Najran: “Sit. I would hear the end of this debate.”

As Khashayar was led outside, Najran sheathed his dagger, the white line fading from his eyes. He had shed his robe. Under his uniform, his lean frame was honed to an edge.

“Your soft heart will not save him,” he said to Arian.

“Your dark arts do not matter. You have no power against me.”

He smiled suddenly, a stern slash across his face. “Shall we see, sayyidina?”

He waited for her to sit before taking his seat again, wearing his menace like a shroud.

Speaking to the Shaykh, Sinnia echoed Khashayar’s words. “I do not understand either. We know of no miracle of Nineteen in the lands of the Negus.”

The Shaykh set down his pipe. He pointed at Sinnia’s arms.

“The inscription on your circlets are the opening words of the Claim.”

Sinnia nodded, still puzzled.

“Nineteen letters. The opening verse occurs nineteen times throughout the Claim, the opening word—one hundred and fourteen times, a factor of nineteen. The opening word is absent in only a single chapter of the Claim. Nineteen chapters occur between the place where it is missing, and the place where it reappears twice. The number of the Claim’s verses are a factor of nineteen. The number of the Claim’s chapters, a factor of nineteen. The first revelation … nineteen words. The last revelation … nineteen words. Should I go on?”

The Shaykh’s fervor was that of a true believer, of a man who, though illiterate in the Claim, could inspire others with his passion.

Arian responded with a scrupulous observation.

“The total number of verses are only a factor of nineteen if you choose to disregard two verses of the Claim.”

“Irrelevant,” he snapped, no longer lounging on his cushions. “The verses you speak of are heretical. They stand apart from the Claim.”

“Do they?” Arian asked, certain in her knowledge as First Oralist. “Or have you declared them heretical in order to preserve your miracle? There is no metaphysical truth to ‘nineteen,’ aside from the meaning you assign it.”

“Sacrilege,” he whispered through dry lips. But even though the Shaykh wanted to deny her—to dismiss her without measuring her erudition—he couldn’t denounce the First Oralist’s claim to knowledge. He looked to his sayyid for confirmation of his beliefs, receiving a nod of reassurance in return. A sly smile curved Najran’s lips, as he took heed of Sinnia.

A prickle of awareness crept along Arian’s spine. Najran wasn’t an ideologue or an impassioned believer. He was a paid assassin. With all an assassin’s tricks.

Speaking to Sinnia, he said, “You claimed to have proof of Nineteen.”

Sinnia didn’t hesitate. Linking her hand with Arian’s, she began to recite, her low, throaty voice rich in its offering of beauty.

“Mention in the Book, the story of the Adhraa when she withdrew in seclusion from her family to a place in the east. She placed a screen to screen herself, then We sent her Our Ruh, and he appeared before her in the form of a man.”

The Shaykh paused, letting the words sink in. Then he motioned for Sinnia to continue.

“She said: ‘I seek refuge with the One from you, if you fear the One.’”

She looked to Arian, who added, “The spirit of the Ruh announced to the Adhraa the gift of a righteous son.”

Though her eyes were bright with tears, Sinnia finished the verse: “She said, ‘How can I have a son, when no man has touched me, nor am I unchaste?’”

Najran cut across the spell woven by Sinnia’s words, speaking solely to the Shaykh. “She comes from the land of the Negus. Small wonder she spins these fables that honor the Esayin. The Najashi are Esayin—they learn fables from birth that hold no meaning for us.”

Arian rose to her feet, bringing Sinnia and Wafa up with her.

“The Najashi may have their own scriptures, but they are also people of the Claim. Sinnia gave you the nineteenth chapter of the Claim, which is the story of the Adhraa.”

Now the Al Marra had proof of their knowledge of the Claim. And in all his veneration of the miracle of Nineteen, the Shaykh could not discount the honor bestowed upon a woman by the nineteenth chapter of the Claim. It stood not only for the Adhraa herself, but as a lesson as to how women were meant to be treated by the people of the Claim.

Her hand was bound to Sinnia’s, memory flaring of their journey to the Golden Finger, the minaret where two rivers met. The minaret had been inscribed with turquoise bands of calligraphy, and circling the tower, Arian and Sinnia had found verses that told the story of the Adhraa’s utmost esteem in the Claim.

Najran helped his Shaykh to his feet.

“As I said, the mother of the Esayin.” Those strange eyes flicked over her face. “The Claim grants women no such honor.”

Her time was running out. Najran’s influence over his shaykh was too powerful, his menace all-consuming. She would have to call upon the Claim as something other than recitation.

“Then why is it women who were chosen as its guardians?”

Najran’s fingers moved over the daggers at his waist. “Because we took the Council of Hira at its word.” He gripped one of his daggers and drew it from his belt, the hilt concealed in his hand. “But now our truths are ascendant: ‘Over this are Nineteen.’”

Arian had no answer. The verse was an obscure one. She had puzzled over it for months; she was still no closer to deciphering it.

The one thing she knew with certainty was that it could not have reduced the grandeur of the Claim to a numerological miracle. Not if it had to deny other verses of the Claim to do so.

If she could show them the Bloodprint, she could shred the Nineteen’s heresies with irrefutable proof. The fact that she couldn’t was a weakness Najran was prepared to exploit.

“The Bloodprint confirms it. Over this are Nineteen. What does the Council of Hira have to offer in response?”

His arrogance assailed her, confirming her suspicions. The Nineteen and the Preacher were inseparably linked if the Preacher had given them word of his theft of the Bloodprint. She shuddered at the thought of the manuscript left to the Preacher’s care. Of the use he would make of it in his overarching design. Was it possible Najran had seen it?

“The One-Eyed Preacher confirms it, you mean. Because if you had read the Bloodprint, you would know it says no such thing,” she told Najran.

“Do you offer a written proof?” An insult. A subtle repudiation of her word.

She turned it back on him. “Is the sayyid able to read?”

A rough laugh, the scrape of silk and sand. The hilt of his dagger flashed blue. He’d chosen the blade for her throat, which meant she had run out of time.

Releasing Sinnia’s hand, she called down the Verse of the Throne. This time she shaped it differently, spacing the words to give each one the power of a hammer pounding at quartz. But she did it almost soundlessly. A violation of their hospitality served in response to the murder they had been invited to, which was cause enough.

The words drove both men to their knees and held them there, frozen. Sinnia searched the tent, returning with a length of the rope they used for tethering their livestock. She bound their feet, and then she tied their arms to their torsos while Wafa kept an eye out for intruders.

The little herder who had served them stumbled into the tent, his eyes wide at the scene before him. He had an instant to decide—to sound the alarm, to slip past Wafa. Or to allow the Companions to pass from the tent in peace. Even as Najran’s daggered gaze threatened him, the boy sank to his knees before Arian. One small hand reached out to seize the hem of her cloak. He buried his face in its cloth. “Sayyidina. Please say a blessing for my soul.”

Najran would kill him, she thought. But she could save the boy from that fate by killing Najran herself.

She knelt and kissed his cheeks. “May the One keep you and all of your people safe.” She nudged him from the tent. “Disappear inside the encampment. Look for a place to hide.”

He didn’t listen, darting around her to stand before Najran, whose face was mottled with rage, his lips sealed shut by the Claim. The boy’s hands unlatched the belt with the daggers. With the same dexterity he’d shown serving up their meal, he wound the belt around his waist.

A word broke free of Najran’s throat.

“Traitor.”

Traces of blood leaked from the corners of his mouth. The colored flecks in his eyes mutated to crimson. She thought of the Authoritan. She thought of the Claim in his mouth, darkened and degraded.

Arian shivered. They had to move quickly to free Khashayar without alerting the soldiers gathered outside.

The little herder rolled up a flap of the tent at the rear. He cast a glance at the iron glaive, then wisely decided against it.

The sound of gravel in his throat, Najran forced out a threat. “When I find you, boy, I will take my daggers back, flay your skin from your bones, then cut out your heart with my glaive.”

Losing the little of his color that remained, the boy ducked out of the tent.

“Kill him,” Sinnia said to Arian. “He’ll hunt us to the ends of the earth.”

Arian had reached the same conclusion. “Take Wafa. Assess our chances of escape.”

When they slipped out of the tent, she turned to the men on their knees.

She couldn’t murder the leader of the tribes of the Rub Al Khali—he may have been misguided in his aims, but he wasn’t an evil man. So, without occulting it, she used a word she had learned from Lania to stun the Shaykh into unconsciousness. He slumped to his side, his body held by the ropes.

Najran struggled against the ropes that bound him, an unforgiving predator, his eyes crimson and amber, the color of dancing flames with a white-hot tinge of blue at the center. She could have used her knives against him, but she kept up the thrum of the Claim.

He faced her with savage defiance, gritting out a response. “Over this are Nineteen.”

Taken by surprise, she stumbled back a step.

He shouldn’t have been able to speak.

She used the verse she had used against the High Companion, giving it a sharper edge.

He answered her again, his voice a thing of blood and ice.

“Over this are Nineteen.”

Stunned by the power that flared from his words, the crimson thrust bold and bright against her face, she fell to her knees before him. She tried to grasp one of her weapons, but her hands were frozen at her sides.

His answering smile was lethal; he knew that she feared him now.

She couldn’t risk a merciful response. She slashed at him with the Claim, cold, clean fire, spun from an inner conviction; his eyes rolled back in his head. Just as his breath escaped from his body in a long, stuttering exhale that signified his death, Khashayar threw back a flap of the tent. He made a soldier’s instant assessment.

“You killed them? Good.”

She didn’t correct his mistake about the Shaykh for fear that he might finish him off.

“Come, sahabiya, we have to move quickly now.”

She gestured at the glaive, a question in her eyes.

“Leave it.” The firm line of his lips pursed in distaste. “I have no use for the enemy’s dishonorable weapon.”

He reached for Arian’s hand and pulled her from the tent.

6

DANIYAR ENTERED THE ANTECHAMBER THROUGH A PAIR OF DOORS carved with maghrebi stars, the Black Khan leading the way down a short flight of marble stairs. The room was twice the size of the war room, one wall lined with wooden shutters that opened to the eastern plains. These were carved with star-centered lattices in patterns that throbbed with distant light.

The room itself was thick with the musk of scattered petals. Candelabra gleamed on the floor, their light picked up by the crystal loops of a glittering chandelier. But with the doors and windows closed, the chamber was dim—preserving an aura of mystery. Pages hurried to do the Black Khan’s bidding: arranging small tables at intervals, setting a tall mirror edged in gold against one wall. A towering torchiere, dripping with crystal loops, was placed beside it, throwing light upon an alcove in the room, screened by panels of amethyst silk. Several more mirrors and candles were placed around the room to foster an aura of intimacy.

In the center of the room, a space enclosed by four towering columns, two of the stronger pages set a heavy copper pan upon a black-lacquered table. The curled lip of the pan was engraved with Khorasani script, crimson petals strewn across the water in its depths, the fragrance subtle and rose-edged.

Watching these preparations, Daniyar said, “The Conference of the Mages requires nothing other than our presence.”

The Black Khan ignored him, motioning to his pages. They placed four stools cushioned in silk around the table.

When their preparations were complete, he answered, “Perhaps you are used to simplicity, but grandeur is Ashfall’s great art.” A subtle glance at the Silver Mage’s tattered uniform, at the absence of a crest at his throat, turned his claim into an insult.

Daniyar examined Rukh in turn. He was dressed in Zhayedan armor, embellished with silver epaulettes that stretched over broad shoulders, still perfectly groomed, his hair pomaded and sleek. At his neck was his imperial symbol, though its jeweled ropes had been replaced by brooches that betokened martial honors. On his right hand he wore his onyx ring. On his left, an assortment of sapphires and pearls. The attention he paid to his appearance should have made him seem as much a pleasure-seeking dilettante as any of his lesser courtiers. Instead, furious, concentrated power burned in his midnight eyes.

Easy enough for the Khan to dismiss Daniyar’s appearance when he hadn’t been trapped in the midst of Talisman fighters with boulders crashing from the sky.

Charismatic and clever, he could enjoy his presumed superiority for the moment. This did not move Daniyar to trust him, nor would he underestimate the Black Khan’s duplicity again. It was time the Khan learned as much.

“What I am used to is integrity. When I give my word, I keep it.”

“You would have done the same in my shoes.”

“Violate a promised truce by disrupting the loya jirga? Would I have?” He glanced at the pages scurrying to set the stage for what the Black Khan imagined a Conference of the Mages entailed. The pages were young and inexperienced, their fear of battle evident. They reminded Daniyar strongly of the boys in the Talisman camp at the moment when the truce had been broken. Their blood may not have been on his own hands, but the stain on his honor was unlikely to wash away. “I agreed to act as your emissary because of those on both sides of your walls.”

A page knocked over a brass lamp on the floor. Rukh banished him with a scowl, then said to Daniyar, “There are only enemies on the other side of the wall.”

Daniyar moved closer to Rukh, a swirling storm in his eyes, his pain transformed into anger at what the Black Khan had cost him. “They are not my enemies. I took you at your word. You repaid me by calling my honor into question.”

Rukh snorted. “Your claim to honor was forfeit the day you made your stand with Arian.”

The use of Arian’s name was a provocation too far. Daniyar’s hand shot out, gripped the Black Khan’s throat, and pressed the weight of the onyx rook back into it. Rage flared along his nerve endings, the furious temptation of violence, the satisfaction of finally having the means to avenge Arian’s suffering at the Ark. And his own deep sense of loss, dishonored in the eyes of his tribe. The Black Khan may have been a Mage of Khorasan, but he wasn’t an ally or friend. Daniyar squeezed harder, feeling the rook cut deep into his palm.

The pages leapt back in alarm. Two of the Khorasan Guard raced from their post at the door. The sibilant slash of steel brought their swords to Daniyar’s throat.

Rukh watched Daniyar, saw the brutal warning in his face. He waved his guards aside, making no defensive moves.

“She renounced you.” Though Rukh’s breath was faint, satisfaction glistened in his eyes. “Do you still claim her as your own? When you returned from the battle, you were holding the High Companion’s hand.” A hint of curiosity, a soft insinuation of disloyalty.

Daniyar’s grip tightened. Hard enough to bruise. Not hard enough to crush, as he wanted. For the injuries Rukh had inflicted, a price would have to be paid.

“When this is over, you and I will have things to settle.”

He released his grip on Rukh’s throat. The Black Khan sank down on a stool unperturbed, a small smile playing on his lips.

“The badal of your forebears? Your primitive instincts amuse me.”

The Black Khan considered the graces of his court and the richness of its traditions superior to those of the rest of the lands of Khorasan. His scriptorium surpassed the Library of Candour, even at the pinnacle of its accomplishments. But one thing Daniyar knew with certainty: the tribes that answered the Talisman call held fast to their code of honor. When their word was given, they kept it.

“What you call revenge, they see as a matter of justice.” He moved away from the table to lean against a column. He flexed the hand he had used to grip Rukh’s throat, the gesture a promise to himself. “As do I.”

Cold rage echoed off the walls in the Black Khan’s response. “Where is the justice in their war against my capital or in their murder of my sister?”

Daniyar straightened. Concern sharpened his voice. “Has something happened to Darya?”

“The Princess of Ashfall is dead. She was murdered by the One-Eyed Preacher, whose teachings inform your kin.”

Daniyar murmured a prayer, his anger swiftly curbed.

“This city needs more than your prayers.” A contemptuous dismissal from Rukh.

“Then let’s begin. Where is the Golden Mage?”

“I do not know.”

Daniyar shifted out of the path of a page who set a candelabra at his feet. In the spaces between gold ornaments, pages scattered armfuls of petals across the floor.

“This is theater,” Daniyar warned Rukh. “It serves no purpose in the Conference.”

The Black Khan slammed his hand down on the table. Water spilled from the copper bowl, from the table onto the floor.

“Go!” he said, dismissing the pages who were listening to every word. Then, to Daniyar: “It serves this purpose: those who prepared it, those who observed it, will spread the word to others. Whispers will soon become fact. Magic will be unleashed by this Conference. Because of it, Ashfall will survive. You and I may know otherwise”—a savage smile—“but my people need to believe that their city will not fall. Theater merely entertains. This is politics, so do not presume to instruct me in what would serve my people best.”

Daniyar snorted, his eyes narrowing, but said nothing.

The maghrebi doors pushed open. The Golden Mage had arrived.

She had changed from her battle armor into a gown that echoed the colors of the room: an outer robe of amethyst studded with dozens of tiny crystals, an inner gown in crimson that clung to her delicate frame. The outer robe was layered in tiers that ended in an amethyst train, its high neck embroidered, its sleeves flaring out at the wrists. Her thick gold hair was bound in a series of intricate coils, on which rested the diadem with the single sapphire at its center.

Another role enacted in the Black Khan’s theater, Daniyar thought, beginning to understand the nature of it. She looked imposing, her spine a steel-forged line. Rukh rose from the table to guide her to her seat. She flicked a glance at Daniyar, one golden brow aloft.

He came to the table and took his seat. He had things to say to the Golden Mage when time and circumstance permitted. He could no more count her as an ally than he could trust to the word of the Khan. Yet he would not turn away from the Conference.

When they were seated around the table, the three Mages linked hands. Rukh’s sleek palm against Daniyar’s much rougher one, both men gripping hard in a show of strength until Ilea said, “This posturing is tiresome. Need you bolster your egos at the expense of this war?”

Rukh gave her a lazy smile. “Perhaps we do it in your honor.”

“Spare me your tribute then. Call the Conference to order.”

The Black Khan hesitated. When he didn’t speak, it became clear that he didn’t know how to proceed. Daniyar stepped in, raising their linked hands.

“In the name of the One, the Beneficent, the Merciful, guide us in our efforts. Infuse the spirit of the One in the risen Mage …” He nodded at Rukh to fulfill his portion of the rite.

“Rukh, the Dark Mage and the Black Khan, Prince of West Khorasan.”

Daniyar looked next at Ilea.

“Ilea, the Golden Mage and High Companion of Hira.” The honeyed voice of the Golden Mage wound around the senses of both men.

“Daniyar, the Silver Mage and Guardian of Candour.”

With the ritual complete, Daniyar closed his eyes. The others followed his lead. There was an interval of silence. Then he began to feel the flicker of his power. A line of silver fire arrowed up his spine. It spiraled down his arms, a tingling in his fingers that made the hands of the others jerk, although they didn’t let go. Then the ring of the Silver Mage—recovered by the Assassin from the ruins of the loya jirga—became a band of white fire around his finger. Lightning flooded his veins, an incendiary flare that pulsed in an echo of the light from his ring. It spread outward from his jugular vein, thrusting up through his skull, sparking a web inside his mind. His power raged incandescent, until he forced it under control.

His thoughts shone with new clarity. The warmth that pulsed from his hands to the hands of the other Mages was answered by the Golden Mage. He knew her signature, recognized the golden surge underlined with steely power. It twined with the tendrils of light from his ring, reflecting his power twofold, as lethally honed as a blade, as boundless as the warmth of the sun. But from the Black Khan there was no pulse of energy beyond the strength of his grip. The magic that leapt from Daniyar’s hand to Ilea’s couldn’t complete its circuit. Their power was mutually reinforced, but there was nothing else beyond it.

He opened his eyes to study the Black Khan, to find Ilea frowning at Rukh.

The Black Khan’s eyes were fixed on the petals floating in the copper bowl. His hands were tightly clenched on theirs, his jaw a harsh line, his brows lowered in furious concentration, as if by simply willing it, the power of the Dark Mage would rise.

A litany fell from his lips.

“In the name of the One, the Beneficent, the Merciful.”

His gaze moved from the copper bowl to the light that pulsed from Daniyar’s ring. Then to Ilea’s diadem now ablaze in sheets of gold. He pulled his hand from Daniyar’s, studying the ring on his own finger—an onyx-carved rook on silver to mirror the emblem at his throat.

“Perhaps this is the wrong token. There is no such thing as dark light.”

The others dropped their hands. A hush fell over the room painted in flickers of candlelight.

Ilea’s response was unsparing. “Those who attempt the dark rites should expect their powers to be tainted.”