Naamah's Curse

FORTY-NINE

The old man’s name was Unegen, which meant fox-and he was indeed an old fox. The boy’s name was Dash, which meant good luck.

It was appropriate.

It was a piece of luck that he had spotted me, a piece of luck that he recognized me from Bao’s oft-repeated description. A piece of luck that he had developed a boy’s hero-worshipping attachment to Bao and begged so strongly on my behalf.

The bargain we concluded wasn’t a perfect one. I didn’t have enough coin to purchase the sort of exclusive, swift escort Bao had bought with the aphrodisiac tonic of dried Camaeline snowdrop bulbs.

No, I would be travelling across the Tatar desert with a larger, slower caravan under Unegen’s supervision, a group of northern mountain-folk called the Tufani who had concluded a successful trade and were returning home laden with Ch’in silks.

Still, it would get me across the desert.

“After that, you’re on your own,” Unegen warned me. “Just like your young man. You’ll need to find someone else to get you across the Path of Heaven’s Spear.”

“Who did Bao find?” I asked.

Unegen shrugged. “Not my concern.”

So be it, I reckoned. I would deal with the next step when I came to it. For now I would cross the desert.

It was not a pleasant journey.

To spare the horses, we rode on tall camels, which also carried the bulk of the Tufani’s cargo. That part I didn’t mind once I grew accustomed to the strange, swaying gait of the camels. They weren’t the friendliest creatures I’d ever met, but I had a good rapport with animals, and mine carried me willingly enough.

But I was not a child of the desert, not by any means. I was a child of the woods and forest. So very, very little grew here, it made the grasslands of the steppe seem lush by comparison.

And it was dry, so dry.

During the day, a hot, dry wind blew endlessly, scouring the barren rock and coating everything with dust. If there is one memory that defines that harsh passage for me, it is the memory of dust. Dust in every fold of my clothing, dust in my hair, dust making my eyes gritty, the taste of dust on my tongue, gritting between my teeth.

Washing was seldom an option. There was no water to spare. The river we followed at the outset quickly vanished. From time to time, it would resurface, and when it did, it was cause for rejoicing. We would water our animals and replenish our stores, and wash the ever-present dust from our hands and faces, even though we’d be coated anew within half an hour’s time.

Mostly, though, when we came upon water, it was brackish little pools seeping to the surface. Sometimes it was fit for the camels to drink, for they were built to survive in the desert and had hardier systems than most creatures, but neither horses nor humans could stomach it. I tried washing in one once, and once only. The foul, brackish scent that clung to my skin wasn’t worth a few dust-free minutes.

It wasn’t entirely devoid of life. In places wild onion grew, and a kind of low scrub-grass. There were birds, little plovers that ran on long legs and hunted for insects on the desert floor.

My young companion, Dash, took great pleasure in telling me about a legendary worm that inhabited the desert, a bright red segmented creature that resembled a cow’s intestine. He cheerfully informed me that it could grow up to five feet in length, and spat acid that would eat one’s skin.

That had me in a state of trepidation for days. Even after Dash admitted that no one he knew had ever seen one of these fabled insects, I kept a wary eye out for the sight of anything creeping and scarlet.

As we travelled, I did my best to make use of the time and learn what I could about the Falconer, the Spider Queen, and the Lady of Rats.

The Tufani traders were my best source of information, and I found them a cheerful, friendly folk. During the day, it was too hot and dusty for conversation-only Dash managed to find the energy to chatter-but we spoke at night around campfires of dried camel-dung gathered along the way, gnawing on strips of dried meat and hard cheese, softening both with judicious sips of water.

“Oh, yes.” Dorje, one of the traders who spoke fluent Tatar, nodded when I first inquired. “The Falconer in his eyrie, he is real. Ten years ago, he stole a great jewel from Tufan.”

“What kind of jewel?”

Dorje smiled with sorrow. “The human kind. A young woman named Laysa who was born to a family of yak-herders. She was very beautiful, and so gentle that it seemed as though a light shone from her face. Everyone who saw her said she must be a reincarnation of a great saint, one of the Enlightened Ones come back to guide us.”

“Did you ever see her?” I asked him.

“I saw her,” he said quietly. “It was true. She had a grace that one cannot put into words. Surely, she was meant to accomplish much on the Path of Dharma. But the Falconer heard of her, and sent his messengers to fetch her. She refused to go, and her father and brothers said that they would fight anyone who tried to take her.”

One of the other traders, following the conversation, drew a hand across his throat in a slitting gesture.

I winced. “They were killed?”

Dorje nodded. “One of the Falconer’s assassins came the next night, a dark-skinned southern Bhodistani warrior. He fought with a battle-axe in each hand. He killed all the men, and took Laysa away. No one has seen her since.”

“He takes real jewels, too,” the second trader offered. “Did you hear of the famous Phoenix Stone?”

I shook my head.

“A ruby the size of my fist.” He held out a clenched fist to illustrate. “Flawless, with a heart of fire. It belonged to the Maharaja of Chodur, who gave it to his bride on their wedding night. When the Falconer’s spider-wife heard of it, she wanted it. He sent his messengers to demand it. The Maharaja laughed, sent them away, and doubled his palace guard. The next morning…” He made another throat-slitting gesture. “The Maharaja and his bride were dead in their beds, and the Phoenix Stone was gone.”

“That may only be a traders’ tale,” Dorje said cautiously. “We do not know if it is true.”

The other shrugged. “We do not know it is not. And there are others like it, too many for all to be lies.”

I sighed. “Does he have a name, a real name, this Falconer? Where exactly does he live? What about his wife, the Spider Queen?”

“Oh yes, he has a name,” Dorje confirmed. “Tarik Khaga, the Raja of Kurugiri. That is the name of his eyrie, his stronghold in the mountains. It is south of Tufan, looming above the Path of Heaven’s Spear. His Spider Queen wife…” He shrugged, too. “She is called Jagrati. It is a Bhodistani name. But no one knows where she came from, not for certain.”

Hearing the name Jagrati spoken, one of the other Tufani traders ventured a comment in his own tongue. They conferred amongst themselves, and for the thousandth time in my life, I wished humankind didn’t have so many bedamned languages.

“Pemba says he heard that the Spider Queen Jagrati was born to the lowest of the low among her people,” Dorje said in a hushed whisper. “She is what the Bhodistani call an untouchable.”

I was confused. “I don’t understand.”

He studied me gravely. “You know nothing of Bhodistani society and religion?” I shook my head. “It is all very complicated. Everyone is born into a caste that determines their role in life, based on the life they lived before this one. The priests are the highest. Second are the rulers and warriors, and merchants are third. Fourth come the workers, who toil to serve the higher castes. The lowest of the low, the untouchables, they do not even have a caste. They perform tasks that are unclean.”

The word unclean stirred an uneasy memory of the Patriarch and his creamy smile within my memories. “Such as?”

“Such as handling corpses and gathering night-soil. Tasks so unclean that even the shadow of an untouchable can pollute one’s food, so it must be discarded.” Dorje stretched out his hands and regarded them. “That is not the belief of those of us who follow the Path of Dharma and Sakyamuni’s teaching. But it is the belief in Bhodistan, where they worship many different gods.”

It was enough to make my head spin.

Stone and sea, the folk of the world hold a great many peculiar beliefs! That night, I was glad when Unegen bade us in an irritable voice to cease our yammering, extinguish the coals, and take to our bedrolls.

And in the morning…

More desert.

More dust.

“What about the Lady of Rats?” I asked Dorje on the second night into our journey. “Can you put a name to her?”

“Rats?” he echoed in an inquiring tone.

I nodded. “I was told she is the Falconer’s enemy. Tarik Khaga’s enemy,” I said in clarification. “He sought to acquire her, and her husband refused. He was killed by Khaga’s assassins-and yet she remains to defy him.”

A heated discussion ensued among the Tufani.

“Yes,” Dorje said at length. “There is such a woman, a widow. The Rani of Bhaktipur, who rules in the valley kingdom below the Falconer’s eyrie. The Raja hid her away when the Falconer sent for her. The Falconer’s assassins slew him, but they did not succeed in taking his widow.” He shuddered a little. “Why, no one knows for sure, except that the men who guard her are also fiercely loyal. And there is a temple there, a very famous temple among the Bhodistani, where rats are worshipped as an aspect of one of their goddesses.”

“So it is true,” I mused. “Rats.”

He nodded. “Rats.”

It was a long journey. Over the course of weeks, I must have heard a hundred tales of the Falconer and the Spider Queen, of his acquisitive nature, of her unholy wiles. Of the myriad assassins they employed, and the myriad ways in which they dispatched their targets. Dash listened to them with a boy’s morbid delight, contributing details he had heard. Unegen shook his head in disapproval, but he held his tongue more often than not.

I tried to sort through it all and cling to what was real.

The Falconer was real; so be it. He had a name, Tarik Khaga. He lived in a place, a real place, called Kurugiri.

The Spider Queen…

Well, at least she had one name. Jagrati. Where she came from and what mysterious thrall she wielded were much in debate.

The fact that she did wield a mysterious thrall, wasn’t.