Chapter 32 #2
“Information and agreeability. Something we thought could be accomplished by putting a trusted body in your bed, but apparently you are aggressively suspicious of everyone in your orbit. A shame.” He licked his teeth in a suggestive violence that was entirely Raksh.
“We see you quaking, clutching your little knife and contemplating carnage. But we would prefer not to kill you. It would upset Dalila most terribly.”
Dalila. I took a deep breath. “I’m listening. So why don’t you start by telling me who ‘we’ is?”
He clucked his tongue. “Another question for the philosophers, one difficult to answer and mostly lost to time.”
“You evade like Raksh.”
“Fine, do you wish a truth? We suspect we are rooted in the same creative soil as your spouse, though the aspect that swirls at our core is not chaos. We care nothing for ambition and crafting stories of legends and dreams.” He stepped closer.
“Those stories, those threads, so artfully arranged, woven into masterpieces of great men and great women, cities that stretch from horizon to horizon—” He abruptly wrenched his towel, splitting the fabric with a screech.
“We exist to tear it apart, to ensure that those who sleep upon the bones of the dead will be swallowed by them.”
I backed away. “But if you are here, then Lab—”
“Resplendency,” he corrected icily. “You are not fit to say her name. She is our mother, our protector, and our shield. People do not die in Khatti Ugal, not truly. They . . . assimilate. Some even have children and when they die, she preserves their threads. She spins them with others and weaves a new story, a better one.” He tapped his head.
“And she is always here. But sadly, she—we—cannot use the spindle herself, we’ve not had the fingers, the hands, the form to use it in ages.
It is why she must choose a new host, a new partner every generation.
Someone who has been wronged, who burns with the same fire for vengeance that animates us. ”
My head whirled with the explanation, clashing with the Khatti Ugalans I’d seen begging for release, for death. The creature made it sound like a paradise; to me it called to mind some sort of hellish hive, a prison of trapped souls forced to perform an eternal play for their master.
And a host . . .
By the Most High, I had seen this too late. “Dalila,” I whispered.
“Dalila,” he confirmed. “The Mistress of Poisons, the Blight of Basrah; all invented names, bespoke titles. In many ways she is unique: truly brilliant, with potential so wasted that it’s abhorrent.
But then there are always lost geniuses among those enslaved, those cast out, those so crushed by their oppressors that they never glimpse a hint of the person they could have been.
The inventor, the doctor, the doting grandfather, the loving mother .
. .” Raksh backed me against the wall, heedless of the blade in my hand.
“Part of her hates you, you know. You have lived a life of glory, written your own story, and done it in the language she was forced to learn.”
The charge was as sharp as an arrow, and it pierced just as thoroughly. Those sentiments did not come from a foreign land in which few people knew Arabic, in which they had little clue of the balance of religion and power in my world.
They came from Dalila. And even if sly Dalila, my crafty, cunning friend, had shared them to convince Queen Lab—or whatever sorcerous entity I was talking to—that she could be trusted, they rang with a truth that could not be denied.
I took a deep breath. “Where is she?”
“Still trying to save you. Did she not say that she would fix things, and you need merely obey the queen? But you couldn’t do that, could you?
So now the time has come for you to share a truth of your own.
” He jerked his head toward the tunnel entrance.
“What have you been doing creeping about my palace? The havoc in the city, the madness infecting my people . . . I know you’re behind it. ”
The change in voice caught my ear; that was Queen Lab, imperious and territorial. But she wasn’t omniscient. It was why she had tried countless times to interrogate me, to set spies in my company, to force me to teach her people how to sail.
“And if I said I didn’t know?”
“Then unfortunately, I would have to tell my mistress that you’re useless, and I believe you know well what she does with such individuals.”
I tried not to flinch. “And here I thought I was the only sailor talented enough to free her.”
Raksh snorted. “Be careful, wife. You are a curiosity. It’s Dalila that she truly desires and if need be, Her Resplendency can survive here another thousand years rather than suffer your poor attempts at jest.”
“Fine, I shall be more sincere.” I met the creature’s gaze. “First, I’m not your wife. And Dalila isn’t going to be Lab’s next host. Because I’m going to kill her.”
Oh, not-Raksh didn’t like that. A mix of familiar incredulity and much less familiar hate flickered in the construct’s eyes—the different parts of his identity seeming to clash. The candles flickered madly in the corners of the room, making the steamy air even more opaque. “You cannot beat her.”
“I can try.” I slipped out of my ivory robe, adjusting my grip on the meteor blade.
Raksh laughed. “Are you planning to fight me?”
“Unless you’d rather let me go? It might be easier. Surely a handsome tapestry like yourself would rather go find a nice wall to decorate. Besides, my husband is no fighter. He wouldn’t know the top of an axe from the bottom.”
The construct smiled and I couldn’t help but recall again how I’d lain in his arms, entwined my limbs with his.
“Ah, but my love . . . we are not only your husband.” Faster than one could blink, Raksh slammed his fist into the wall where my head had just been.
However, I was no longer there. Two years ago, that blow would have sent the bones of my nose spearing into my brain and this fight would have been over before it began.
But not anymore. Lab had wanted me to set my speed, my strength against a family of griffins, to relish their blood on my hands for the sport of it?
Let’s see how she felt about it against one of her creations.
I lunged with the meteor blade, aiming for Raksh’s throat, but he ducked and threw himself at me like a springing cat with its claws outstretched—a terribly apt metaphor because he then shifted into his beastly form and claws did sprout from his fingers, a hairbreadth from my throat.
We hit the wet floor, scrambling and sliding as I tried to disembowel him with the knife, and he clawed for my eyes.
Unable to do that, he settled for grabbing my head and slamming the back of my skull into the marble.
Pain exploded from the still-healing bruise, stars spiraling across my vision.
“Surely you do not wish to do this?” Raksh said, exasperated. “Could you truly kill someone wearing the guise of your husband? Drive the blade that would extinguish the light from your beloved’s eyes?”
“He really did keep his memories of our marriage from you.” Then I seized Raksh by the hair and drove the meteor blade through his throat.
His eyes brightened with surprise, alarm—but they most certainly did not extinguish. He gasped, something like dye streaming from the wound rather than blood.
“Interesting,” he coughed. “We were wondering how that might work.”
Then he pulled the dagger from his throat and hurled it across the room.
It went sailing through the dark hole leading to the stairs.
But unfortunately Lab—or not-Raksh, or whatever demonic assortment of entities were weaved into the construct before me—was the type to gloat and he wasted a half second on a smirk during which I wrapped my legs around his hips, flipped us around, and then seized the belt at his waist. I tried to wrench it away, but it was as though the belt were woven of iron, not wool.
Frustrated, I reached for the coral pendant around his neck, twisting the cord around his throat like a garrote.
He seemed to instinctively bring his hands to his neck, perhaps a remembered gesture of some consumed human soul.
But then he laughed. “You cannot kill me,” he taunted. “Is that not obvious?”
Then I will destroy you. But as Raksh threw me off with enough strength to send me flying into the opposite wall, that seemed an increasingly unlikely prospect. I glanced at the door but before I could make a move, he grabbed my foot, jerking me back.
“Oh, no, wife. We are not yet done.” Raksh twisted his hands, sending fire ricocheting up my leg.
Hot points of pain burst in my bad knee, sparking tears in my eyes.
He dragged me closer, and I reached out, snagging a free-standing brazier by one of its slender iron legs and sending it hurtling in his direction.
He shied away from the burning embers like a spooked horse, even letting go of my foot to snatch back his long, unbound hair. I scrambled to my feet, trying not to slip on the lethally slippery floor, my right leg quivering and unreliable. But Raksh was already on me again.
This time when his fist came flying at my face, I wasn’t fast enough to duck.
I reeled, tasting blood, but recovered in time to return the favor, kicking him hard in the chest. And then it was a blur.
We grappled and bit and struck with hands and heads and various bathing implements.
He smashed a bottle of jasmine oil over my skull, and I threw him into a fresco, demolishing the mural in moments.
Khatti Ugalan’s fine bathhouse was not meant to host a brawl to the death between two supernaturally empowered creatures, and it shortly appeared as though it had been struck by an earthquake, the dust of shattered tiles combining with the haze of hot water to make a choking mist.
Not that I was in much shape to notice. Both Raksh and I had inflicted a great deal of damage on the other, but my injuries were bloody, possibly broken, and taking their toll, whereas Raksh had not slowed in the slightest. As I tried to catch my breath, he got a good grip on my hair and yanked me off my feet, dragging me toward the pool.
“I don’t like you anymore,” he spat. “Her Resplendency was right. But as enjoyable as beating you to death might be, perhaps a more poetic end is in store for a sea captain. You’ve sent countless other sailors to their drownings, no? Have at it.”
Raksh shoved my head beneath the hot water.
My body was pinned beneath his legs, his grip relentless. I writhed madly, bubbles swarming before my eyes, but there was no fighting him. No, this could not end here. I was not going to be drowned by some pissant twin of my worst husband.
So, I took a great and terrible gamble. Oh, I fought. Longer than I likely should have, each second, each heartbeat a risk. But then I slowed, in fits and spurts, before going still. It was easy, the inviting clouds of black waiting to envelope me.
Raksh held me in place for another agonizing moment, my lungs threatening to burst, my body dying to twitch. Finally, seemingly satisfied, he released my hair. Rose from my body. I waited just one second more.
Then I shoved myself out of the pool with my own dying breaths. Gasping, I lunged for the closest candle. Hot wax dripped and burned down my wrist, but I didn’t hesitate, hurling it at Raksh with the last of my strength.
The burning candle hit him square in the chest.
For a moment, the construct looked confused. Then the fire licked across his torso, racing down the bath oil that covered his skin, dripped from his hair, and soaked through his belt. He screamed and though it was perilous, I had to look away.
I could not bear to watch even a mirror of Marjana’s father burn.
Only when not-Raksh had fallen silent did I dare turn around. All that was left was a pile of smoldering fibers and ash. The belt had burned as well and the air smelled like scorched cloth.
“I suppose a construct of spinning magic burns faster than a pirate drowns.” I kicked at the pile, half afeared it would rise back up.
The ashes stayed dormant, but my sandal struck something solid, and I dragged it out with my toe.
It was Raksh’s coral pendant. Both it and its cord were entirely unblemished.
The heart of my enemy, he’d teased when I first met him; a ghastly revelation after our wedding night. I picked it up, the cord still warm, and looped it around my neck. Limping, I retrieved the meteor dagger from the steps.
A great and horrible scream rent the palace. The walls shivered, the few oil lamps we hadn’t turned over toppling to the wet floor. It lasted only a moment, but I suspected the cause.
Queen Lab had just sensed what happened to her construct.
I shed my new clothes, now quite bloody, as I crossed the fine dining room with its tables of never-ending delicacies.
If I was to die, it was selfishly nice to have lived like royalty for a few weeks.
But I was done with Khatti Ugal. I dressed in the garments I’d arrived in, wrapping my colorful turban around my head and gathering all the weapons that had so annoyed the queen.
I sacked Dalila’s room as well, finding a trio of abandoned throwing knives, and slipped them into my robe.
Dalila. I needed to find my companion. Did she realize the depths of what the queen had planned for her? Surely there was nothing for which she would give up her life, her freedom, her very soul?
Except . . . there might be.
I promised you I would fix things.
“Oh, Dalila . . .” I whispered. Then I flew to my feet, injuries be damned, and ran.