Naamah's Curse

SIXTY-TWO

On the morrow, our reduced company of twelve set out for the plateau. Hasan Dar and his men left their swords behind, carrying only small knives concealed within their sashed belts. It was assumed that the Falconer’s men would do the same, and worse.

I wished I had my bow, but it would have been impossible to hide.

Our path grew steeper as we climbed higher, and the air began to grow thinner. I felt dizzy at the lack, dizzy with the memory of mountain-sickness and fever, dizzy with the bright clamor of my diadh-anam, growing more and more insistent with each hour that passed.

Bao’s name echoed in my thoughts like a drumbeat, over and over.

My aching heart felt too big for my chest, like it might burst its confines and shatter my bones.

I breathed the Breath of Earth’s Pulse, grounding myself. Remembering Master Lo’s teaching, I let one thought rise from another, trying not to chase them and drive myself mad with worry. I concentrated on the path, on the bobbing ears of my saddle-horse Lady, well rested and restored from her ordeal in the Abode of the Gods.

By late morning, we spotted the peak known as Sleeping Calf Rock, a jutting outcropping of stone shaped for all the world like a yak calf lying in slumber, its head stretched out and its legs folded beneath its body.

An hour later, we gained the plateau that lay beneath it. To all appearances, it was empty, an expanse of grassy meadow with a thick copse of spruce trees on the southwestern verge. I couldn’t help but glance in that direction. Assuming our battalion of fifty archers was concealed within the dense copse, they were well hidden.

Gods, I hoped they were there.

Hasan Dar had a silver pipe that gave a shrill whistle on a chain around his neck. When he blew it, it would be the signal for our archers to emerge. He had argued in favor of doing so the instant the Falconer Tarik Khaga and his men were in range, ambushing them without bothering to parley with them.

The Rani Amrita had refused. “All this has come about because of Moirin and her young man,” she had said firmly in her musical voice. “I fear if we do not give her the chance to save him, we defy the will of the gods.”

Now, I shivered, praying that the gods did indeed intend for me to free my stubborn peasant-boy from this mess. I pushed away the memory of the boy-monk in Rasa bidding me to rescue the tulku Laysa. I could only bear so many burdens at once.

We took a position in the open meadow some hundred paces beyond the copse where our archers were hidden. Hasan Dar bowed to the Rani from his saddle, his palms pressed together, his eyes watchful and grave. “We are here, highness. All is in readiness. It awaits only to see if the Falconer takes our bait.”

Amrita gave me an inquiring glance.

“Oh, aye,” I whispered. “They are coming; or at least Bao is coming, and I doubt he is coming alone.”

“How long?” she asked me.

In my mind, I measured the dwindling distance between Bao’s diadh-anam and mine against the distance that had separated us before this journey. “Not long,” I said. “Less than two hours, I think.”

The sun crept across the sky; and we waited. The shadow cast by Sleeping Calf Rock shifted, obscuring the path toward the further mountains and Kurugiri.

It didn’t matter.

Bao was coming. I could feel it, step by step. The nearer he got, the easier it was to gauge. My diadh-anam sang inside me, while his did not sing at all. Still, I felt it. When I knew he was almost upon us, I flung out my arm and pointed. “Now!”

One man on horseback rounded the curve beneath the outcropping, emerging from the shadows. He paused, surveying the plateau, then turned back and beckoned. Others followed, riding into sunlight.

Even at a distance, I spotted Bao among them. I knew him by the way he sat his mount, by the lean, tight-knit grace of his figure, by the faint shimmer of darkness that hung around him ever since his rebirth. It was stronger in the twilight, but even in daylight, I could see it. I wished I could see his face. The men spread out, forming a line, and advanced at a measured pace.

“One, two, three…” Hasan Dar squinted, counting. “Huh. Twelve, I make it. One more than allowed by our terms.” He gestured to his second in command. “Pradeep, go!”

The guardsman Pradeep clapped heels to his mount, sprinting across the meadow. On the far side, the Falconer’s party halted to confer. In short order, one of their men rode forward to fulfill the exchange.

It wasn’t Bao. I wished it had been; I wished we could have grabbed him and fled, summoning the archers to ward our retreat. But no, it was some southern Bhodistani fellow with thick brows, a hard mouth, and a sword-belt with two empty scabbards. He scanned our company with a shrewd gaze, then gave a sharp nod, wheeled, and retreated, passing our returning guardsman Pradeep on the way.

“So?” Hasan Dar raised his brows.

“They have honored the terms, commander,” Pradeep said breathlessly, leaning on his pommel. “No visible weapons. And their twelfth person… it is not an extra guard. It is Jagrati the Spider Queen herself.”

A chill crawled over my skin. That had not been part of our plan; but Pradeep was right, it was not a violation of the terms, either. It had simply not occurred to any of us that the Spider Queen would leave the safehold of Kurugiri.

Hasan Dar gave the Rani an inquiring look. She frowned, then nodded in assent. Her commander raised one arm, beckoning the Falconer’s company forward.

Once again, they began to advance.

Slowly, slowly, the distance between us narrowed; and I felt my awareness narrowing, too. I tried to fight it, and couldn’t. I was at the mercy of my diadh-anam, and nothing else in the world existed for it save its missing half. My vision dwindled to a tunnel, and at the end of the tunnel was Bao.

Closer and closer he rode, until I could make out his face. His gaze was fixed on me as surely as mine was on him… and there was nothing, nothing at all glad or joyful in it. Instead, his expression was fixed with a mix of fury and anguish, his dark eyes glittering with something that looked very much like hatred.

It struck me like a blow, hard enough that I wrenched my gaze away, breathing slowly and shivering. My vision expanded again; now it was my heart that contracted painfully, thudding in my chest.

The company reached us and drew rein a few paces away. There were ten men including Bao, each looking more deadly than the next. Mountain-folk, southern Bhodistani… others I didn’t know, Akkadian, mayhap. There was even a fellow with reddish hair and grey eyes.

Tarik Khaga, the Falconer of Kurugiri, had deep-set eyes and a strong prow of a nose, black hair streaked with iron-grey. He looked to be somewhere in his fifties, a muscular fellow with the beginning of a slight paunch that didn’t make him look any less dangerous.

Jagrati.

I stole a glance at the Spider Queen. Her face was gaunt and striking, dark-skinned, high cheekbones with hollows beneath them, but not so terrible a beauty as I had expected. The rest of her was draped in a black cloak fastened high around her throat.

The Rani Amrita broke the silence. “Greetings, my lord Khaga,” she said, pressing her hands together, her voice clear and sincere. “I thank you for consenting to this meeting. Shall we unhorse ourselves and speak as civilized folk?”

His gaze flicked briefly to Jagrati, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. “As you wish, little Rani,” he said in a dismissive tone.

Both parties dismounted. It would give our mounted archers waiting in ambush a few more seconds of time to close the distance between us; still, I felt uneasy. I kept glancing at Bao, and away from the seething hatred in his gaze. He didn’t even look like himself. With the ban on weapons, his ever-present bamboo staff was missing. The unruly shock of his black hair had grown longer, caught and tamed by a clasp at the nape of his neck, and there were gold hoops in his earlobes.

“So, my lord-” the Rani began.

The Falconer cut her off with a gesture. “You shall have what you came for.” He beckoned. “Bao!”

Like his master, Bao looked to Jagrati for assurance; and she nodded at him, too, her expression softening briefly. For a second, he looked grateful; and then the mask of hatred returned to his face as he moved toward me.

“Bao, please…” My voice shook as I took a step forward. My diadh-anam roiled and blazed in anguish.

“No!” His voice cracked like a whip. “Whoever you are, whatever you are, I want no part of you or whatever sick game you play! Do you understand? Go, and leave me to the service of my lord and lady Khaga!”

“Bao, it’s me! Moirin!” I touched my chest, my heart aching. “How can you not know me?”

He leaned forward, nostrils flaring. I could feel the heat of his fury rolling off him, the hot-metal forge smell of his skin. His pupils were too wide, his eyes fever-bright and wild. “Because Moirin mac Fainche died almost a year ago!” he shouted at me, his hands clenching and unclenching. “Do you think I did not feel it? Whatever foul spirit has stolen her face, stolen the very spark of her soul, I want nothing to do with it!”

Tears blurred my eyes. “Bao, it’s me! I wasn’t killed, I was bound by magic! That’s why you couldn’t sense me!”

“No.” Bao shook his head. “No, that is the lie the Great Khan told me, and I will not believe it twice. In Kurugiri, I learned the truth.”

“No, you didn’t!” I cried in frustration. “The lord and lady of Kurugiri never had anything to do with it! It was Vralian priests who took me prisoner, using Yeshuite magic! Chains, like the one the Circle of Shalomon tried to use to bind the demon-spirit they summoned, the one you and Master Lo helped me banish. Remember?”

Bao hesitated, frowning.

“The Great Khan told you a lie to send you in the opposite direction,” I whispered. “But I am here now.”

His diadh-anam flickered.

“You feel it!” I said. “You do, don’t you?”

“Oh, no, no, I’m afraid that is not an acceptable outcome,” another voice said-a woman’s voice soft and sibilant, with a faint rasp like silk drawn over a whetstone. “This has gone on long enough, I think.”

Bao glanced at Jagrati, who smiled tenderly at him.

He smiled back at her, relieved and certain once more.

And then the Spider Queen smiled at me, her long-fingered hands reaching up to undo the clasp of her cloak. It fell away, revealing the collar of gold filigree that adorned her long, slender throat, an immense black diamond set in the middle of it, filled with glowing hues that shifted like embers.

I was wrong.

She was as terrible and beautiful as Kali dancing, terrifying and compelling. She was tall, taller than me, taller than most women, with long limbs that moved with angular grace. I stood frozen as Ja-grati drifted toward me, still smiling. Despite the stark beauty of her hollow-cheeked face, she had very full lips…

… and Kamadeva’s diamond.

It glowed, filled with dark fire, pulsing in time with the beating of her blood. It was made from the ashes of the Bhodistani god of desire, and it called to Naamah’s gift within me, setting it to rise in an endless spiral, filling my limbs with languor, sapping my will.

I opened my mouth to tell Hasan Dar to sound his whistle, to call the archers from their ambush. No words came.

Even if they had, Hasan Dar and his men were gaping, transfixed.

“So it’s true.” Jagrati’s fingertips stroked my face, and I leaned into her touch, helpless to resist the urge. She pitched her voice low, for my ears only, fond and amused. “I thought you might respond to it. Bao has told me so very, very much about you, Moirin. I think perhaps we are not so different.”

“No?” I asked mindlessly.

“No.” She drew a line from my temple to the corner of my lips. “Your goddess Naamah, when she journeyed in Bhodistan, she made no distinctions when she lay down with strangers. Any caste, or no-caste. No one was untouchable to her. It was only desire that mattered. Desire that made a thing sacred. You understand this, yes? Or else you would not have let yourself love a bastard peasant-boy without so much as a family name.”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Come with me, then.” Jagrati’s smile widened, showing perfect white teeth. “Perhaps in Kurugiri, you may convince Bao that you did not die. I did not mean to lie to him at first; it is only that I thought it must be so, that the Great Khan must have killed you. I did my best to help him through his grief, wrongly though I guessed. So, will you come?”

Unsure, I glanced sideways at the Falconer.

“Oh, do not trouble yourself with my husband.” Her fingers were firm on my chin, turning me back to face her. Kamadeva’s diamond and Naamah’s gifts pulsed between us. “He does as I will. I am content to allow him his pleasures while I take my own with others, but he will not trouble you if I do not wish it.” The Spider Queen leaned forward and kissed me, her tongue flickering against mine. “So, Moirin, will you come?”

Yes.

The word was on my lips.

“No!” Amrita’s musical voice called out behind me. She tugged me away with surprising strength, wedging herself deftly between Jagrati and me, her graceful hands raised and crossed before her in an unfamiliar mudra. Power and conviction radiated from her small figure. “I will not allow it!”

Jagrati recoiled with a fierce expression of distaste that turned her striking face ugly. “Who will stop me, little Rani?” she asked with a sneer. “Your men?” She gestured at them, every last one transfixed by Kamadeva’s diamond. “I do not think so. Your pet dakini?” She shook her head slowly, a sensual smile returning to her lips. “She is eager to say yes to me. It may prove quite interesting.”

Desire pounded in my veins, merging confusingly with the insistent call of my diadh-anam. I forced myself to stare at the back of Amrita’s head, clenching my teeth to keep the word “yes” from escaping.

“Nonetheless, I forbid it,” Amrita said firmly. “That is a sacred object you profane, Jagrati.” Her hands shifted into the soothing mudra that stilled conflict. “It is not too late for you to obey your kharma,” she said in a softer tone. “Give Kamadeva’s diamond to me, and I will see it restored to the temple.”

The Spider Queen laughed, a sound like silk tearing; and there was dark humor in it, and hatred and loathing, too. It made my skin prickle, and the blood run cold in my veins.

“Oh, I do not think so, little Rani,” she said in that low silken rasp. “I know your kind, daughter of privilege! You are so very, very concerned with the kharma of the less fortunate, so long as it means we will always be there to tan your leather, bury your dead, and haul away your night-soil.”

“I did not choose the way the world is ordered,” my lady Amrita murmured.

“No, but you are content to live in it,” Jagrati observed. “You command us to carry away the shit squeezed stinking from your bowels, and then claim we are unclean because of it, as though it were never a part of you.”

“The priests-”

“I spit on the priests!” Jagrati spat on the ground. “I spit on the gods, too! I have chosen my own destiny.”

“You are only dooming yourself, Jagrati,” Amrita said in a sorrowful voice.

“Ah, no.” Her predatory smile returned. “I am taking quite a few others with me. Now, I shall take your oh so pretty dakini, and perhaps a few of your men, too. Your captain’s a handsome fellow.” She beckoned to Hasan Dar. “Come here.”

He stepped forward obediently, the silver pipe around his neck glinting in the afternoon sunlight.

The pipe that would summon our ambush…

I couldn’t move. The best I could manage was a faint, broken whisper. “The pipe! My lady Amrita… blow the pipe.”

She moved without hesitation to intercept Hasan Dar, raising one hand in a gesture that halted him in his tracks. He blinked in perplexity, but he didn’t protest when Amrita reached for the pipe and blew a long, shrill blast on it.

Shouts came from the copse behind us. I prayed silently that Kamadeva’s diamond wasn’t powerful enough to transfix fifty men charging on horseback all at once.

It seemed it wasn’t, for Jagrati hissed with fury, her stark face transformed into ugliness once more.

The Falconer stirred like a man waking from a dream. “Ambush!” he shouted. “Ride!” He cast a scathing glance at Amrita as he scrambled into the saddle, jerking his mount’s head around. “You will pay for this, little Rani.”

She smiled grimly. “You had better ride fast, Falcon King.”

“Bao!” I called his name in a choked voice. “Don’t go, please!”

He looked briefly at me, and I felt his diadh-anam flicker again; but then Jagrati leaned over in the saddle and spoke to him, and he turned away from me.

They fled before the onslaught of our archers, who came thundering out of hiding, sweeping across the meadow, parting to pass us by. I held my breath, fearful for Bao, unsure whether to pray for success or failure.

Beneath the shadow of Sleeping Calf Rock, at the base of the path that led higher into the mountains, two of the Falconer’s men turned back, sowing confusion in the ranks of their pursuers. The air was filled with the twang of bowstrings and the hum of arrows in flight, and sparkling with the glint of throwing daggers and other hidden weapons.

Hasan Dar shook himself, dropping to one knee before the Rani and lowering his head. “My lady, forgive me,” he said in a hoarse voice. “I failed you.”

Amrita laid one hand on his head. “Not yet, my friend. Go after them, I beg you, and see this finished. Your men will look after me. And…” She glanced at me. “Try not to kill the young man from Ch’in, please.”

He nodded and sprang to his feet, striding toward his mount.

I shivered. “Thank you, my lady.”

She caught my hand and squeezed it, her dark, lustrous gaze searching my face. “Are you all right, Moirin?”

“No,” I said honestly. “Not even close.”