The Black Khan Read online

  Arian hesitated. This was a new response. Though Lania fussed over Arian like a pet, she rarely provided answers. The question Arian’s words had brought to light might yet move Lania against her, a risk she had decided to accept. As it stood now, her future encompassed only two possibilities: her continued captivity or her public execution. To free herself from the misery of the Ark, she needed Lania to give herself away—to give her something she could use. To put an end to Daniyar’s suffering and the daily misery it evoked.

  Lania’s silky reproach interrupted the racing of her thoughts. “I have many gifts, Arian, but reading your mind isn’t one of them.”

  Arian forged ahead, sketching the outline of a plan. “You are queen because you are consort to the Authoritan. Do you not find your duties … onerous?”

  Repellent, she wanted to say. Grievously injurious to Lania’s spirit, and hardly bearable to one once destined to be a Companion of Hira.

  Lania understood her meaning without her judgment being voiced. Within the painted mask, her tilted eyes were cold. “The Authoritan does not importune me. He is beyond such desires.”

  What Arian had witnessed in her decade of liberating slave-chains told her this couldn’t be true. She had hunted every kind of man, from the pious to the sadistic, and they had all desired to inflict their lust upon women. And in some cases, on children. The thought reminded her of Sartor—and of Wafa, stolen by the Black Khan.

  Convinced of her conclusions, she asked, “If the Authoritan does not desire women, why does he barter with the Talisman for slaves? What of your dovecote? What of the Tilla Kari?”

  What she most wanted to ask was if Lania would stand with her against the Talisman’s enslavement of women, given her firsthand knowledge of their trade.

  Lania took her time choosing another pigment from the colored jars. This time she applied a searing crimson to her lips, in preparation for her nightly blood-feast. There was a purpose behind the bloodrites that Arian hadn’t fathomed, and she had very little time to work it out. She needed something to break her way, and it wouldn’t happen by chance.

  As if sensing her urgency, Lania spoke up. “You presume a perfect equality between the Authoritan and me, and that is your own illusion. You understand nothing of how he rules.”

  “Then teach me! Teach me what I do not know. Help me understand why you are here, when you could be at Hira, if you chose. You must have the power to free yourself.”

  Lania whipped around from her mirror to face Arian on her knees. “You dare to describe me as a captive when you know nothing of what transpires here at the Ark!” Her long eyes narrowed. “And do not speak to me of Hira. Where was Hira when I was taken? Where was the Citadel Guard when I was sampled by Talisman commanders before I was sold behind the Wall? He killed every man who touched me, did you know? It was slow and cruel and beautiful, and he encouraged me to watch.”

  A bitter smile lifted the corners of her crimson lips. “He has never touched me himself. If an Ahdath looks at me, he kills him on the spot. He taught me, he trained me—and he placed me above every member of his Ahdath, even the Crimson Watch. He saved me as Hira declined to do, when the High Companion abandoned me to my fate. Now I am his forever.”

  There were so many things Arian could have said in response, so many dreams that had materialized into loss at Lania’s words. She had guessed at the fate Lania described. But she wondered at the construction Lania had placed on the Authoritan’s actions. Surely her sister could not believe that the Authoritan was responsible for her deliverance.

  “I did not abandon you,” she said after some thought.

  “Yes, I know.” Lania came to her feet. She rang a bell on the table, and two of her doves came to do her bidding. They brought her heavy gold robe. She raised her arms, standing slim and straight so they could close it over her dress. Her hair was arranged in an imperiously high coiffure, a selection of pearls woven through it. The headdress came next, fastened to her chignon and supported by the weighty collar at her neck. One of her attendants attached a veil to the headdress; the other took up a brush to darken her mistress’s eyebrows.

  Lania held herself still throughout. A trace of affection underlined her words. “I know you defied the High Companion—you nearly broke with Hira because of your love for me. Each Talisman soldier you killed was a man you imagined had harmed me. Each woman you freed from a slave-chain was to atone for not having saved me. You blamed yourself for being rescued while I was taken by wolves.”

  Tears shimmered in Arian’s bright eyes, turning them to crystal.

  Lania’s smile sharpened. “You are beautiful, indeed, little sister.” She didn’t offer her approval.

  “How do you know this?” Arian asked. “How could you know any of this?”

  Lania reached up a hand to adjust the feathered plumes of her headdress. “You forget what you have learned here, Arian. The Authoritan told you himself. He trained me as his Augur.”

  Arian took a breath. As much as she sought a weakness in Lania as a means of escape, she was entrapped by her memories of her sister. She needed to untangle the past. “If you knew—if you envisioned my search through your Augury, why did you never come for me? Why didn’t you let me know you were safe behind the Wall?”

  Lania turned back to her mirror. Satisfied with what she beheld, she dismissed her attendants with a wave. From the table, she picked up Arian’s collar and measured it between her hands. A ring-bedecked finger beckoned Arian closer. “You still don’t understand me, little sister.”

  She snapped the collar in place, choking off Arian’s gifts.

  “You searched for me because you loved me. But I have always hated you.”

  8

  RUKH REFASTENED HIS ARMOR, NODDING TO HIS CAPTAINS TO LEAD THE way. He glanced at the Assassin, who kept pace at his side. The man’s movements were stealthy, dangerous, his footsteps making no sound and leaving no trace behind him.

  “Will your men not accompany me to Ashfall?”

  “You do not require them at Ashfall, Excellency. What you require is a means to break through Talisman lines.”

  The Black Khan and the Assassin climbed to the top of the Eagle’s Nest for a vantage point over the Talisman army. Both men were cloaked in black, camouflaged against the night.

  “You give me only a dozen men. I asked for ten times that number.”

  “They are assassins,” Hasbah said, as if that were all the explanation needed.

  Rukh’s snort of exasperation communicated his dissent.

  “They will not be leading a charge through the enemy’s ranks, Excellency.”

  “No?” The sky held little light, the campfires of the Talisman flaring up like matchsticks in the distance. The air was cold, its bite cruel, with turbulent clouds massed in smoky clumps overhead. The Black Khan feared for his horses. “What is their task, then?”

  “I have dispatched them to their task. Twelve men for the twelve encampments spread across the plains. They will assassinate the commanders. It will throw the Talisman army into disarray. Your road ahead will be clear.” His gloved fingers stroked his bare chin.

  Rukh considered his words. “I know your men are skilled, but you set them a fatal task.”

  Hasbah bowed. “That is their mission. They will not fail.”

  “They will die!” Rukh snapped. “Your best-trained men, used as so much fodder.” He wished he could see the other man’s eyes, to read his mood or his certainty. He wished he could believe that he hadn’t consigned the safety of his city to a devil.

  “I have many others,” Hasbah answered him. “Trained with the same skills, loyal to the same end, loyal to me and this fortress.”

  Rukh reined in his anger. To expose his emotion was a weakness—better to think and plan with cold, determined purpose. He needed the Assassin, and perhaps there was some viability to his plan. He had never failed the Black Khan, and yet … “The dead have no loyalty, old friend. The dead cherish only themselves.” />
  “You need not fear,” Hasbah said. “There is a thirteenth man as well.”

  Rukh flashed the Assassin a sharp look. “What purpose does he serve?”

  “The thirteenth man is an archer. He will bring down their hawks before they call for reinforcements.”

  It was a good plan, he thought. It helped that he had witnessed firsthand the fanaticism of Hasbah’s followers. Whatever command he issued—even to the detriment of their own lives—they followed without hesitation. Perhaps Hasbah’s indifference to such recklessness should have troubled him more than it did, but he couldn’t afford to reconsider. The situation in Ashfall was perilous: the sooner he bore the Bloodprint back to the safety of his capital, the sooner he could begin his defense of the west. Hasbah’s hour with the manuscript had elapsed. The Assassin had done nothing more than study it, his gloved hands leafing through its pages, until he came to a verse that held him spellbound.

  Another puzzle. What knowledge did Hasbah possess of the Claim? Was he an assassin or a librarian? Or both—the needs of one weighed against the deadly skill of the other.

  Rukh thought of the trove of manuscripts in the limestone chamber. He hadn’t asked to see them, and Hasbah hadn’t offered him the choice. He wondered now if his lack of curiosity had been a mistake. Had he missed something that could be turned to his own advantage? His men were gathered at the base of the mountain, provisioned and impatient to be off. He had little time to wait on the answers he needed to find, but he ventured a question. “What did you seek in the Bloodprint?”

  The Assassin clasped his gloved hands at his waist. “I sought a key, Shahenshah.”

  The Black Khan frowned. Perhaps Hasbah meant to divert him with the title King of Kings. He enjoyed flattery as a commonplace due to a prince, but he kept at the forefront of his mind the favors the flatterer sought. “A key to what, precisely?”

  Again that fleeting smile touched the Assassin’s lips. “Your enemies are my enemies, Shahenshah. Thus I sought a key to the Rising Nineteen.”

  Rukh subdued a sense of panic. “The Rising Nineteen—why?” He knew well enough that the Nineteen were a force who’d overrun the Empty Quarter: another variant of the Talisman, influenced by the One-Eyed Preacher’s teachings, invested in an arcane numerology.

  Above all these are nineteen.

  An esoteric riddle of the Claim that the Nineteen worshiped like a cult.

  A small sigh escaped the Assassin. Resignation? Or deceit? Rukh could have used the gifts of an Authenticate, but he suspected the Assassin would not be easy to read even had he possessed the ability. And he refused to consider his gifts inferior to those of the Silver Mage, who had made himself over into a guardian of rabble. He thought of his princely city with a fierce, possessive pride. What could compare to its grandeur? Certainly not the ruins of Candour.

  Hasbah indicated the army on the plains—the threat he must now contend with. “You think of your eastern border, Shahenshah, and the threat your eyes are able to perceive. My scouts have returned from the west.”

  “And?” Now Rukh could not conceal his apprehension. His army of Zhayedan had been ordered to defend the eastern front.

  “You will confirm it for yourself upon your return to Ashfall. The Rising Nineteen have launched a force from the west. They will arrive at Ashfall almost on the eve of the Talisman.”

  Rukh had left his family undefended in the capital, tarrying too long on the road. The Khorasan Guard would not suffice to protect them. A lack of foresight on his part, swayed by the judgment of the High Companion, who had urged him to seek out the Bloodprint. His jaw tightened with anger: if she had deceived him with Ashfall trapped between two armies, she would pay the price for her betrayal.

  His journey suddenly urgent, the Black Khan strode to the carved stone steps that descended from the keep, Hasbah chasing at his heels. “You must send more men to Ashfall, men who follow after, for I cannot delay.” His voice firmed. “And you must come yourself. I cannot do without your assistance now.”

  In the limestone chamber at the heart of the Eagle’s Nest, he ordered two of his men to gather up the Bloodprint and the boy. This time Wafa was left untrammeled.

  “We are going through Talisman lines,” he warned the boy. “Any sound of betrayal will send you straight into their arms.”

  Wide-eyed with fear, Wafa nodded his understanding.

  Rukh grasped the Assassin’s arm. “Will you come?” he demanded. “Can I rely upon you?”

  Hasbah quoted the Claim. “‘Whoever rallies to a good cause shall have a share in its blessings. Whoever rallies to an evil cause shall be answerable for his part in it.’” He nodded at the Bloodprint, wrapped in its gossamer fibers. “Do not discard the protection I have sealed it in. It will have its uses upon my arrival at Ashfall.”

  The tightness in Rukh’s throat eased; the Assassin was a man he could depend on, a man who would not leave him to fight the battle for his city alone. And with so much else to worry over, the Assassin’s support was critical. For though Rukh publicly scorned the Talisman’s brute strength, in truth he was gripped by fear by the unknowable nature of the One-Eyed Preacher, too formidable to defeat on his own. What bolstered him was the aid of men like the Assassin—and the belief it served no purpose to doubt himself. Not when he was armed with the weapons he’d risked so much to secure.

  “I will count on every friend I have,” he said. “And when I have sent my enemies to ruin, you may ask me for whatever you wish—it shall be granted at once.”

  The Black Khan had played many games with allies and enemies alike, acts that had kept him in power, his promises as elusive as the wind. This time he meant every word.

  The Assassin’s head dipped in the direction of the Bloodprint. It was a gesture he checked, but not before Rukh had seen it. He glared at the man behind the hood.

  Hasbah hurried into speech. “And what of the other task you assigned me, Shahenshah? You wished me to return to Black Aura, to deliver the First Oralist from ruin.”

  Arian, so proud and delicate and sweet … with a spine of steel forged in flame. He had wanted to tame that fire, to taste her willing surrender. But he wanted the Bloodprint more, and there was no woman in all of Khorasan who would stand between him and his empire. She was a prize, not a means. And no prize—regardless how sweet—was worth more than his own ambition.

  “Forget her for now,” he said. “Her fate is out of our hands.”

  9

  DANIYAR DIDN’T HAVE TO PRETEND HE WAS WEAKENED AND IN PAIN. As Nevus chained his hands to lead him from the Pit to the great hall, his steps faltered down the corridors of the palace. Nevus pushed him along with a callous hand, propelling him before the Authoritan’s dais, half-naked, bloodied, and weakened.

  A murmur of interest sounded from the Authoritan’s collection of courtiers and courtesans, a gathering of Ahdath commanders and beautiful girls. He thought of what a single strike at the heart of the Ark could accomplish. Tension tightened his broad shoulders.

  His eyes scanned the throne room, their silver brightness dimmed.

  There was still no sign of Arian. What had Lania done with her? The sight of the painted face in the mask of white lead, so similar to Arian’s yet so utterly unlike, pierced him with a savage sense of helplessness. He was bereft—bereft of Arian, bereft of the Candour, bereft of his honor as a member of the Shin War.

  But if Arian was alive, as Uktam had promised, there were worse fates. He thought of Turan, blooded at the Gallows, and Wafa stolen away to be used as bait. And of Sinnia, taken to Jaslyk, a prison Larisa had described with bleak and terrifying candor.

  Sinnia, Wafa, Turan, and Arian. He’d failed them all as Silver Mage.

  He raised his head, his thick dark hair matted with sweat and blood. He faced the Authoritan with hatred in his eyes.

  Seeing it, the Authoritan raised one finger with a weightless gesture of his hand.

  An unbearable pressure was brought to bear against the i
nsides of Daniyar’s skull. His eyes and ears began to leak blood, settling in the hollows of his bones, causing his skin to itch.

  Lania quickly raised a hand of her own. If he’d thought she would aid him, he was mistaken. She was making her own preparations for the bloodrites that passed in the throne room. Each night he’d observed that a vial of his blood was presented to the Authoritan to drink—not only to strike fear in his enemies’ hearts, but as the means to a fiendish end. The Authoritan used the blood to replenish his dark magic—and the blood of one so gifted as the Silver Mage was said to be an elixir that would hasten him to victory. Many of the Ahdath abased themselves before their master in hopes of earning a taste of Daniyar’s blood. But captains of the Ahdath were fed on the blood of the Basmachi, while the lower ranks were permitted only the taste of the blood of swine. An act meant to darken and degrade, yet even this, the Ahdath welcomed as a means of notice from their lord. These strict boundaries of rank were insisted upon by the Khanum, and it was Lania herself who jealously guarded the administration of his blood to her consort.

  Now at the Khanum’s summons, a beautiful young girl with honey-colored hair perched on her tiptoes before him, one hand braced on his chest. She looked abashed for a moment, transfixed by the physical presence of the man she held at her mercy, her gaze slipping to the hard curves of his mouth. Then her free hand raised a vial to his chin, capturing his blood as it trailed down his face. He shook her off with a roar. The vial shattered on the throne room’s marble floor. The girl scooped up the shards, throwing a look of terror over her shoulder at the Khanum.

  “No matter,” the Authoritan said in his high, thin voice. He lowered his finger and the pressure inside Daniyar’s skull subsided. He had a moment to think before the pain struck again. The Authoritan’s magic brought an association to his mind he wished he could ignore.

  Was this how the Claim served Arian? With these manifest and multiplying tortures?

  “Leave him, girl. We’ll have blood enough for the bloodbasin before the night is out. The Silver Mage begins to weary me.”