Naamah's Curse

SIXTY-SEVEN

I was right.

The next gambit from Kurugiri came sooner than expected, and it drove any thought of laughter or levity far, far from anyone’s mind.

We were in another interminable counsel session in which no progress was made and everyone was miserable and frustrated. The problem of Kamadeva’s diamond remained. Our young strategist Ravindra pushed chess pieces fruitlessly around the board. Hasan Dar pored over the maps he had drawn based on Bao’s information-a fairly detailed map of the path and an outline of the fortress itself. Having exhausted his stores of knowledge, Bao had little left to offer. Amrita was quiet and worried, and I daresay I was much the same.

For a brief moment, it was almost a relief when one of the guardsmen interrupted the meeting.

“Hasan-ji,” he said tentatively to his commander. “You said to report anything strange?”

The commander’s handsome head came up. “Yes?”

“It is the night-soil collectors,” the guard said in an apologetic tone. “The bucket-men. I am quite sure six came at dawn, but it seems to me only five have departed.” He shrugged. “It has been some time now.”

Bao tensed. “That is not good,” he said quietly to Hasan Dar. “It is how Jagrati stole Kamadeva’s diamond from the temple in the first place. It is a ploy any man serving her might use. Usually you pay no attention to those you deem beneath notice. One is now loose in the palace.”

Hasan Dar swore and pounded the table with his fist, jarring Ravindra’s chess pieces out of place. “In broad light of day again! Damn them. Go.” He pointed at Bao. “Take the Rani and her son and your dakini to the hidden room.” His voice turned grim. “Guard them well while we search. You seem to have a knack for it.”

Bao inclined his head, no words of assent needed. We fled, Hasan Dar uttering curt orders behind us.

The concealed doorway to the hidden room was located on a landing between the first and second floors of the palace. At night, it was guarded discreetly from above and below. During the day, it was guarded not at all, the better to protect its secret. Since he had saved my lady Amrita from the poisoner, Bao had been entrusted with the secret of the hidden room. Other than Bao and me, only the guards and the Rani’s most trusted attendants knew of its existence.

Even so, I felt the space between my shoulder blades itch and tingle at the thought of an assassin loose in the palace.

Bao drew back the tapestry of the goddess Durga riding a tiger, throwing open the hidden doorway. “Go quick! Hurry, hurry!”

Amrita went first, towing a stumbling Ravindra behind her. I followed them into the steep, narrow stairway. Behind me, Bao closed the door and shot the bolt, following close on my heels. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Safe, I thought.

This time I was wrong.

In the forest, in the green, wild spaces I knew so well, I might have sensed the fellow awaiting us, sensed his presence, sensed his intention. Not here, where my senses were confounded by thick marble and man-made space. Trapped in the stairwell, I couldn’t even see.

All I heard was my lady Amrita’s gasp as the assassin fell on her. One gasp, quickly choked.

Ahead of me, Ravindra.

Acting on panicked instinct, I drew a deep breath into my lungs, summoning the twilight with it. I blew it out, wrapping it around the boy and myself.

I don’t think Ravindra even noticed. Without hesitation, the boy gave a piercing shout and flung himself against the man attempting to garrote his mother, a cord wrapped tight around her throat and throttling her. Ravindra sank his teeth into the assassin’s hand, biting him hard and deep.

Bao had said it felt like being touched by a ghost. I could not imagine what it felt like to be bitten by one.

The assassin howled, dropping his garrote and glancing around in terror.

Scrambling out of the stairwell, I expanded my cloak of twilight and swirled it around Amrita, and the assassin released her with an involuntary hiss.

“Moirin!” Bao shouted behind me. “Get them out of the way, get them safe!”

“Come, come, come!” I whispered urgently, tugging them both to the farthest corner of the small room. Ravindra was trembling with a mix of fear and fury, and Amrita with shock, touching her abraded throat. I wrapped my arms around them both, praying I could keep them safe in the twilight, praying Bao could protect us all. In the twilight, I could actually sense the presence of Kamadeva’s diamond in the distance as though it were another kind of diadh-anam, a god’s bright spirit turned to malevolent purpose.

Bao sidled warily into the room, his staff held in a defensive pose; and that alone told me his opponent was good.

“Traitor!” The fellow spat on the ground. He had regained his composure in remarkable time. “I should have killed you in Kurugiri.” His hands snatched at his belt, and in the blink of an eye, he had throwing knives fanned like playing cards in his left hand, and one poised to throw in his right. The blades twinkled like stars in the twilight. He bared his teeth in a smile. “I’ll enjoy doing it now.”

“You think so?” Bao feinted at him.

A flurry of glittering blades flew from the assassin’s hands, one after another, quicker than the eye could follow. Bao’s staff whirled, making the air whistle, and then he hurled himself sideways out of the knives’ path in a horizontal spinning move that didn’t seem humanly possible, landing with his battle-grin in place.

“Got more?” he asked insolently.

Unfortunately, the assassin did. He flicked a blade low, forcing Bao to parry it awkwardly, and then flicked another blade high at his unguarded face.

Amrita gave a low cry of dismay, and I tightened my arms around her and her son, fearing for all of us.

But Bao was already in motion, flinging himself backward onto the floor and rolling in a somersault. Instead of coming up into a fighting stance, he stayed in a low crouch, his staff sweeping along the floor to strike hard at the assassin’s ankles while another flurry of blades flew harmlessly over his head to clatter against the wall.

The blow didn’t knock the fellow off his feet, but it staggered him; and in a heartbeat, Bao was up. The fellow caught himself before Bao could strike, a lone throwing knife held up in warning.

“Heh.” Bao’s grin widened. “Last one, huh?”

“Maybe.” The assassin’s hand went to his belt again, scattering a handful of bright, sharp objects on the floor.

Bao glanced down and swore, then glanced up in time to jerk out of the way of the last blade as it flew through the air. For a moment, the men regarded each other. I didn’t know what history lay between them, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. “You’re done,” Bao said simply, shifting his staff into an offensive pose.

Without a word, the assassin turned and dashed for the balcony.

And the purpose of the objects he’d thrown came clear as Bao went after him. They were shaped like a child’s jack-toys, only larger, with long, wickedly sharp tines, forcing Bao to kick them out of the way or suffer a punctured foot. They didn’t delay him long, but it was enough time for the fellow to gain the balcony and vault over it. In the garden far below, monkeys shrieked and chattered. Bao peered over the railing.

“Is it safe?” I asked him, my voice shaking a little.

“Yes.” Bao sounded subdued. I released the twilight, the daylit world returning in a rush. “Best your highnesses do not look, though. It isn’t pleasant.”

“Is he dead?” Ravindra asked fiercely.

“Oh, yes.” Bao nodded. “This time, I am very certain, young highness.”

“Oh, gods!” My lady Amrita’s lovely voice was hoarse from her near-garroting, and there were tears in it. “We were supposed to be safe here! How did he find this room?” Tears spilled from her eyes, streaking her face. “I cannot believe any of my people would betray us willingly!”

“Mama-ji, don’t cry!” Ravindra whispered, stroking her arm.

“I don’t think they did, highness.” Bao’s tone was as gentle as I’d ever heard it. “Not willingly, anyway.”

She met his sympathetic gaze. “That’s worse, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “That one’s name was Zoka. If he has another, I never heard it. He was a bad man, highness, one of the worst. He liked to hurt people. I am afraid he may have hurt one of yours.”

“Ah, no!” The sorrow in Amrita’s voice made my heart ache.

To everyone’s sorrow, Bao was right.

Hasan Dar’s guards found Zoka’s victim in a linen storeroom in the servants’ quarters. She was one of the Rani’s trusted attendants, a sweet girl named Sameera who took pride in her hair-dressing skills and often sang as she worked. She couldn’t have been much more than sixteen years old.

She was dead, garroted, the flesh of her slender throat swollen around the ligature mark.

And young Sameera had been tortured before she died. On her left hand, only her thumb and forefinger remained. The other three were bloody stumps with ragged bits of bone protruding from the fresh wounds. Three delicate severed fingers lay scattered on the floor of the storeroom.

Although Hasan Dar begged Amrita not to look, she insisted on it. She looked for a long, long time.

“Poor child,” she murmured, stooping to touch the girl’s maimed hand. “You tried to protect me, didn’t you? You held out as long as you could.” Raising the girl’s hand to her lips, she kissed it. “Surely, you will be reborn a warrior, my little brave heart.”

I wiped tears from my eyes.

Everyone was silent.

In the silence, the Rani Amrita stood. Twice in recent days, she had been frightened, badly frightened. Twice, she had nearly been killed.

Now she was angry.

I would not have thought my lovely, laughing lady Amrita could be terrible in her anger; but she was. There was a vein of dignity and quiet strength that ran deep beneath her kindness and charm, and this deed had tapped it.

“Enough!” Her voice rang, and her dark eyes flashed. “This is unacceptable. I will not remain a prisoner in my own palace, starting at shadows. I will not allow my people to be tortured and killed for their loyalty. No more fear, no more suffering. Enough. I do not care if we have not found the perfect plan. We are going to Kurugiri. I am going to Kurugiri. Once and for all, we will put an end to this!”

Ravindra swallowed hard, but he did not protest.

No one did.

I glanced at Bao, leaning on his staff. He nodded at me, promising whatever aid was required.

I glanced at Ravindra, thinking how I had flung the twilight around him.

I thought about Jagrati and Kamadeva’s diamond, and how I had been able to sense them in the twilight.

I thought about how Amrita had placed herself between me and Jagrati in the meadow, her hands raised in a warding mudra, holding the Spider Queen herself at bay.

“My lady Amrita,” I said softly. “I think I know how to take Kamadeva’s diamond out of play.”

Filled with fierce determination, Amrita turned her lustrous gaze on me. “Tell me.”

I did.