Interlude 10
You are the Mistress of Poisons and you are furious.
Except you’re not the Mistress of Poisons, not really.
You cannot recall the last time a host has fought you this fiercely, this madly.
It is as though sharing a body and mind with a mad cat, one intent on destroying itself.
You had a process, one that worked; you very rarely had to possess someone in a hostile manner and never one who fought your control so viciously.
Until Dalila. A false name, of course, like everything about this criminal poisoner.
Granted, you had suspected her of lying.
There was too much about her story that didn’t add up, but you’d been content to dismiss it, waiting out the two women until one of them slipped.
And yet, despite the lies, you’d been enjoying the prickly doctor from Mosul.
You would have been happy to continue enjoying her as she was for at least another decade.
You could have been part of something greater than yourself. You could have been a respected scholar, a healer. Then enjoyed access to the memories of a thousand generations.
Instead, Dalila had betrayed you more violently than you would have imagined possible.
The sharp thrusts of the blade and a wave of blood.
There had been such cold knowing in your murder; the precise aim, the speed.
And what’s worse? Part of you knows her remorse was genuine.
Saw the grief in her eyes, felt her embrace.
The two of you could have been glorious if she had not thrown it away for Amina al-Sirafi and you are as disappointed as you are furious.
You had tried to peel her off, warned her that the pirate was no good, a horrid influence—to no avail.
Now Dalila has ruined herself, ruined what the two of you could have been.
I saw you, you hiss at the new presence in your fractured kaleidoscope of souls. I saw you like no one else ever had and you threw it away for a woman who would use you as a tool. Who speaks the tongue and prayers of those who slaughtered your family.
Dalila cannot respond in words, but what is left of her seizes another chance to smash her head—your head—into the ground and you rush to stop her, hurling a wave of memories at that rebellious corner of your mind.
Let her drown in the worst moments of your old hosts.
Perhaps that shall teach her some perspective.
Then, finally and fully in control of your new form, you take stock.
You lay in a pool of blood in the garden, staring up at the ruddy dawn sky.
The injuries Dalila managed to inflict on herself—on yourselves—hurt, but they are not mortal and so you sit up.
At your side is the ruined corpse of the last castaway you chose as a host a century ago.
She is now a withered husk of the woman you remember, with stringy gray hair and gnarled fingers.
You close her staring eyes and rise shakily to your feet.
The shrine has been destroyed, one side caved in and the other ablaze.
Your ancient cottage—the first place you built in Khatti Ugal, the home you shared with Pares—is now ruined.
Like parts of your city, like your subjects’ souls.
Fresh betrayal boils in your heart. This is your home.
You welcomed these foreigners, would have allowed the most useful of them to settle peacefully, and how have they returned the favor?
With destruction. So much of what you carefully crafted in Khatti Ugal is being ripped apart and you still don’t know why.
Another plundering of Dalila’s memories discovers little.
She knew nothing beyond what Amina told her, what she told you: the peris wanted the spindle before a human could spirit it away from the island.
So, either they lied, or the pirate did. But as to the mechanics of what is happening to Khatti Ugal . . . still nothing. There were arguments between them, but whatever Amina al-Sirafi has been doing, she kept to herself, revealing nothing to the woven twin of her husband or her supposed friend.
And you cannot stop what you do not understand.
A kernel of panic blooms in your breast; you also have little idea how much time passed while you struggled to gain control of Dalila but no doubt her menace of a captain has been wreaking further chaos.
You rise swiftly to your feet, brushing hands down a body both familiar and strange, and cross the garden to retrieve your spindle from the damp grass.
You slip it in your pocket and glance again at your ruined cottage, sorrow piercing your heart.
Then you notice something strange scattered across the broken thatch: hair.
Long strands of black hair. Not just one or two, but dozens, as though someone had cut a braid and tossed it on the section of wall you sent the pirate crashing through.
Indeed, the strands look as though they could have been hers, though you cannot be certain; the pirate was fussy and fastidious about covering her head, and you never saw her hair yourself.
But the prospect of her false husband ripping out a hank of it during their fight gives you a nasty thrill of satisfaction.
However a different memory comes to you.
The construct had been an experiment, an imperfect spy crafted from the first creature to truly frighten you—one mercifully too old and too arrogant to defend himself before you sprang.
Your woven creation’s recollections were erratic, his reports inconsistent.
But you recall through his eyes the sight of Amina al-Sirafi standing before a mirror, a look of contemplation on her face.
Did you cut your hair?
Dread snarls through you. It is such a mad idea that you are tempted to dismiss it outright.
Who would devise such a ridiculous plot?
And yet something has gone awry with your weavings, your great tapestry of fate and the patterns that keep Khatti Ugal harmonious.
But surely you would have noticed if the wool felt different as you spun it?
Perhaps not. A bit of heat fills your face. If you are very honest, you have been more focused on the doctor, your hands and mind preoccupied with teaching Dalila your craft. With your strolls about the garden and sighs beside the hearth fire.
Hoping you are wrong, you rush to the temple.
* * *
Your tapestry has been poisoned.
It flutters softly, stretching to the distant ceiling, its colors shining.
But here and there are bruises, stiff, dull patches that look like wounds—like infections.
Though the ruined parts predominate in newer bands of weaving, other venomous strands snake out across the core of the tapestry, corrupting it all.
You stare, heartsick and uncomprehending, as your gaze takes in the rest of the temple workshop.
The looms weaving new cloaks and new belts, new blankets and new shawls.
All rich with the patterns of harmony, of firm if benevolent control.
The skeins of spun thread and heaps of freshly dyed fiber.
You have no idea how long the pirate has been contaminating your wool.
You will have to burn your inventory, start anew with your livestock.
Fine, you think vengefully. For once you summon the Marawati’s crew, you will have two dozen more sheep for the shearing.
Let Amina al-Sirafi’s men provide the material to rebuild.
But still, the enormity of this sabotage nags at you.
This does not seem the work of one woman.
How could the pirate have ensured that her hair was so astonishingly well distributed across the tapestry?
And not just the tapestry; the corrupted thread seems to be everywhere, affecting everything from the throne room to town plazas, from your shield bearers to elderly advisors.
And why? Why has this woman’s hair proved so destructive? Is it her humanity? Her own strange magic? But in the end, it doesn’t matter.
The doors to the temple burst open, a worried Mitanni running inside. He hesitates only a moment when he sees you wearing Dalila’s face. Your first creation, your most loyal, he recognizes you for yourself almost immediately.
He knows something has gone terribly wrong.
Mitanni bows low. “I have soldiers searching for her and guarding the dungeons, but we may need to pull some of them away from the hunt.” He pauses, trembling, and you fear what is to come. “There are raiders approaching the harbor.”
You inhale sharply. “That is not possible. The boundaries—”
“They appear to have fallen, Resplendency.”
Reeling, you step back. This has all gone so wrong, so fast. Then you catch sight of one of the textile workers staring at you from across the workroom floor.
You recognize her, a native woman who tried to foment an uprising a century or so ago.
An ungrateful wretch, like so many of the servants born here.
For you learned long ago that sometimes the only way to keep peace is with a firm hand.
Occasionally your people need to be punished, they need to be reminded—the hard way—that they enjoy a blessed existence in Khatti Ugal.
And if they need to be tied into new shrouds, more restrictive patterns, so be it.
Sometimes they learn; they repent and are freed.
But more often they are reduced to dreamy ghosts, still a better fate than many you have witnessed.
But it is no dreamy ghost you see glaring at you.
Even if the former rebel continues to work, mechanically sorting fibers, her face expressionless—triumphant fire blazes in her dark eyes.