Chapter 24
Dearest Brethren,
By God's might, we have discovered the location of the raw material the enemy is sourcing to produce Snow.
The next phase of our mission is to find all four of the magical talismans our informant from the bloodsucker clan told us about.
According to intel he received directly from the Sisterhood, these talismans can be used to either reawaken or to destroy all magic forever.
Any Naturalist who obtains one of these talismans will be accorded a position of highest rank and prestige in the New Dalwa.
A COMMON GOAL FOR A COMMON PEOPLE!
—an encrypted memo distributed to all known members of the CNM
Khawla stops at one of the doors and peers through the rectangular window.
As eager as Shay is to cross the room to Hind, something on Khawla's face convinces her she needs to have a look for herself.
All four of them end up taking turns peeking in on the first three rooms, the scene in each one stranger than the last.
The first has a padded floor and walls. Two women are inside. One picks the other up as though she weighs less than a loaf of bread and hurls her from one end of the room and into the opposite wall. She repeats this over and over, and the other woman bounces up as if unaffected every time.
The next room contains a large pool in which a handful of women swim.
Sharing the water with them are a couple of octopuses.
One crawls along the bottom floor, and the other shoots across the pool and back like an arrow sprung from its bow.
At least one woman, her bottom half submerged in the water and her top half reclined on the stone stairs, looks to be in mid-transformation between octopus and human form.
In the third room, a group of women stands gathered around a long table.
In the center, what looks like a three-dimensional map of Nezjar floats at eye level above the polished surface.
Using precision focus, the touched ones direct the glowing vapor from their hands toward raised areas of the map that seem to represent things such as crop fields and major businesses.
As puzzling and intriguing as these spectacles are, the risk of being discovered is too high for them to look in on every room.
Hind is already sitting up by the time they reach her.
The lantern, now held by Khawla, paints her groggy face in a spectral light.
Her eyes are so deeply hollowed, they might as well be holes.
She grunts—annoyed, but proving she's not yet the ghost she looks to be.
Relief unfurls in Shay's chest. She's not too late.
“Too bright,” Hind screeches slinging her arm across her eyes.
Khawla lowers the lantern. “Sorry.”
Hind rubs her cheeks before focusing on Shay. “Shuika? What are you doing here?” Her gaze swings from Shadi back to Shay with growing fright. “How were you captured?”
“It's not what you think.” Shay shakes her head. “We're helping you escape.”
Hind points a thin finger first at Shadi and then at Walid. “Aren't they Moulays?”
Shay wants to explain that Shadi and Khawla are her friends.
That they belong to a faction of the resistance movement.
But her words get stuck as she stares at the shape of Hind's body up close.
Knowing she was with child was one thing, but seeing the domed cup of her swollen belly makes it much more real.
“How is it possible?” she whispers.
Hind sighs, her hands instinctively cradling her womb. “It was foolish to come here. You should have stayed where you were safe.”
Safe? It's a small word. Like a pebble that starts an avalanche of remembered hurt and betrayal. The last time she felt truly safe was with Ghita. “In Al-Ghaba Mayita, you mean?”
“You had a better chance of surviving there than here, especially if your father finds you.”
“My what?” Shay retreats a step, and the backs of her legs bump the side of a body, another touched one sleeping on a low seddari. “You said you didn't know who my father is.”
The woman Shay has inadvertently disturbed moans. “What's going on?”
“Nothing, go back to sleep,” Hind mutters. “Just a pair of newcomers. I'll help them settle in.”
Hind attempts getting to her feet in a series of unsteady wobbles.
Khawla jumps in and helps her, allowing Shay a better look at her mother once she's upright.
Any questions about her paternity slip away.
Hind's arms have grown thinner, and they were not substantial to begin with.
Her legs look liable to snap under the weight of her protruding belly.
She tugs Shay close by the elbow, swaying with the effort. “You need to get out of here, quickly.”
“I'm not leaving without you,” Shay huffs.
“I'll only slow you down.” Hind's voice rises, high and tight, igniting a string of grumbles as more touched ones are jarred from their sleep. “Just go.”
“I have a safe place we can stay,” Shay insists, more gently. “If you don't care about saving yourself, do it for the child that grows inside you.”
Hind pouts, but doesn't argue, seemingly stymied by this.
“Khalti, we must hurry.” Khawla beckons them back toward the transportation box.
Shay breathes a little easier when Hind allows herself to be shuffled along into the vestibule, where Shadi again turns the wheel that closes the sliding door.
At the last moment, when only a slit remains, Shay thinks she glimpses a woman who rises to her feet and stares at them, a woman so pale that she radiates a faint shade of blue.
The opening seals, and with a noisy shudder, the box begins its upward return. Upon arriving back at their starting point below the prayer room, Shadi discovers that the handle of the wheel, when in a locked position, can be used as a lift to assist with climbing out of the vestibule.
All seems calm as the group emerges and makes their way downstairs, but back in the courtyard, it becomes evident an alarm has been raised. Moulays scramble in all directions, orders and replies shouted back and forth across the distance. The unconscious Moulays must have awoken or been discovered.
“Come, you should leave by the back gate, where deliveries are made,” Walid says, gesturing for them to follow. “There are no incoming shipments on the schedule at this hour.”
“Good thinking,” Khawla says, “But maybe we should create a distraction, try to get everyone heading in the other direction.”
“The ammunition building is nearby.” Walid nods. “I know just the thing.”
They use the abundant plants and trees throughout the courtyard gardens as positions of cover and make their way to the ammunition room, the small building Shadi noted when surveying the complex. Small being a subjective term.
“I'll be quick,” Walid promises.
No sooner does he unlock the door and slip inside than two guards approach.
“Where are you taking these women?” the taller one barks.
“Mukhtar Jawad has requested us to be transferred,” Hind says.
The second guard chuffs, narrowing eyes that look almost as cold and dead as a bloodsucker's at Shadi. “Do you need a touched one to speak for you?”
Big brass buttons wink in the dusty starlight, a vertical line down the front of the Moulay's pressed coat. Seeing his weapon pointed at Shadi the way it is, Shay wonders for the first time if that's why their uniforms are red. To camouflage the blood.
Shadi rolls his shoulders and widens his stance. “I was given instructions from the Snow Queen. The pregnant touched one needs to be evaluated by a midwife.”
“Mezyan.” The guard nods. “And what about the other two?”
“Can't you tell? Have a closer look, khoya,” Khawla says, putting a hand to her very unpregnant belly. She steps forward, and faster than Shay can believe, Khawla rips the weapon straight from the hands of one Moulay and bashes the other in his face with the butt of it. Blood gushes from his nose.
Shay gasps, a sound she feels rather than hears, like her soul is shivering out of her body. Had she been exposed to Khawla's apparent combat skills sooner, she might have asked for a few lessons.
Khawla cocks the snagged weapon and points it at the unarmed Moulay.
Shadi turns his weapon on the bleeding Moulay, who gathers himself enough to lift his own weapon in a standoff.
Hind backs away, waving at Shay to do the same.
Someone whistles loudly, and two new Moulays appear from around the corner of the nearest residence.
One steps toward Shay, the other toward Hind.
“Stay back!” The blast seems to come from everywhere when Khawla pulls the trigger. A warning shot, aimed at the ground near the guard's feet, sends him into a body swerve that defies gravity. Shock, hot and metal, reverberates in Shay's teeth.
Walid bursts from the building and hurls a small gray canister away from the courtyard. A smoke bomb. It hisses as it sails over their heads and lands out of sight, where it releases a loud whoosh. The air crackles and fizzes as it fills with reams of dark smoke.
“Fire!” Walid yells, his voice surer and more commanding than Shay imagined possible. “Fire in the rear quadrant. Remain calm and proceed to the front gate!”
While the guards are distracted, Khawla and Shadi lay down their weapons, allowing them to all join hands. Walid, who's on the end of the chain and has a free hand, keeps his. Ducking, they dive into the thick of the smoke and make toward the back gate.
The smoke stings Shay's eyes and lungs, burns sharp through the pores of her skin.
Mucus runs backward from her nose down her throat, clogging her airway.
She hears Hind coughing beside her and squeezes her frail hand.
Blearily, they power through, emerging with ragged gasps and sputters on the other side of the billowing cloud.
Shay catches sight of the gate first and then, with a sinking sense of disbelief, sees the large camel-drawn cart piled high with bags of salt that effectively blocks it.