Sandstorm

the gods didn’t believe in eternity.

Above, according to the priests, the gods donned new masks or traded old ones, reshuffling their pecking order like understudies in a mummers troupe on a night when the star takes ill. Below, according to the historians, the common folk of the Realms did the only thing they could, the only thing they ever did. They dealt with the consequences as best as they were able.

One consequence came in the deep desert of Calimshan, in a place called the Teshyllal Wastes: the breaking of a crystal. Whether the Spellplague was the means of that shattering or it simply presented the opportunity for some unknown force, Calim and Memnon made the only use of their newfound freedom their alien minds could imagine. As they had seven thousand years before-and as some believed they always had-they made war.

Corvus read once that in the final years of the last human caliphate of Calimport, the city’s population approached two million people. The historian could only estimate, of course, because the Calimien kept slaves, but they did not count them.

Corvus had never visited Calimport, but neither was he the only spy in the South. The governments of the Sword Coast generally agreed that the current population of the windsouled-held city was around sixty thousand.

In the scant decades of the renewed conflict, of the Second Era of Skyfire, or Calim’s Second Rule, or Memnon’s Blessed Return, or whatever name was used, well over twenty-five times that number perished in one city alone. Calimport had been the largest city the natural world had ever seen. Now, it must be the most haunted.

Corvus considered all this as he made his way back to the WeavePasha’s palace. Allies of the Memnonar, the faction that counted that unimaginable loss of life as a victory, were now spying on behalf of Calimport’s rulers?

The kenku clicked his tongue. Well, that was it, wasn’t it? These northern genasi from Akanul considered their cousins in the Emirates to be barbarians. The Akanulans kept no slaves and divided the rulership of the nation, even though their people, like the genasi of Calimport, were mostly windsouled. Indeed, many Akanulans were mutable, shifting from manifestation to manifestation, something considered abhorrent by the bloodline-obsessed followers of Calim and Memnon.

Thinking of T’Emma’s last words, he could only guess that the motivations of these cabalists must be as tangled as his own.

The blue light fell on Corvus when he was forty paces from the WeavePasha’s palace. Its walls loomed above the surrounding rooftops, blocking the stars in the eastern sky.

The stars in the western sky were blocked by the blue glow of a djinni’s endless whirlwind.

Corvus drew his short sword, even knowing it was useless against the floating giant who descended upon him.

“Shahrokh,” Corvus said, “the WeavePasha’s wards will already have sounded. Best flee before he boils you down to nothing.” Corvus backed against the alley wall and wondered if he dare draw his shield from the portal concealed in his breast feathers.

The djinni vizar, managing an expression combining imperiousness and boredom, rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. Pain blossomed in Corvus’s head, as if an ice pick had been driven through one eye. He wretched and fell to his knees.

“The human’s … competence … is known. As are his motivations. To face me out here in his beloved city would be to bring it down around him, even if he managed to destroy me in the process. But do not worry, spy. If alarms are ringing within el Jhotos’s cursed palace, they warn him of nothing more than a sending. Only my semblance is polluted by this human-fouled air. My essence soars above Calimport.”

“What do you want?” gasped Corvus.

The djinni lord laughed. “As I have told you before, you are incapable of understanding the answer to that question. What you wish to know is why I am here, why I suffer your presence, even remotely.”

The invisible spike withdrew from Corvus’s eye, but an all-too-visible threat replaced it. Corvus had not realized he had dropped his sword until it floated up from the ground.

“It amuses me to offer a warning. You and your companions present an unexpected level of … martial efficacy. The standing membership of El Pajabbar has been completely wiped out just once before in its history, and Memnon the Hunter himself took the field that day. The remaining yikaria in Calimport are on the edge of open rebellion, and may have to be put down.

“Circumstances have changed. Should the WeavePasha enspell the pasha of games’s heir and send him as an assassin, the heir will be put down. Return Marod yn Marod to us untampered with.”

Corvus found that he could not move. The sword’s point traced the fine lines of the guild symbol carved into his beak, its presence invisible to most and its meaning unknowable to even the few who might detect it. How is he doing this? the kenku wondered.

“I will try,” said Corvus, “but that is all I can do. I have no influence over the WeavePasha.”

With a gesture, the djinni sent the short sword plunging deep into the flesh of Corvus’s thigh. Still held immobile, the kenku could not even fall.

“You risk your life to speak, and then choose an obvious lie? Your influence on el Jhotos is known.”

The weakness he felt spreading throughout his lower body could not be attributed to any special quality of the blade beyond its sharpness. Corvus coated his weapons only with poisons he was immune to. The djinni must have opened a vein.

“I will try,” said Corvus again. “This is all I can promise.”

“Corvus Nightfeather works best when he is offered unusual incentives,” said Shahrokh. “This is known. Return the heir. Meet your other, more pressing obligation to me. Do this and earn a favor you will count a blessing. When the pasha of games sends the goliath and the halfling woman into the arena, I will ensure they do not face each other.”

Shahrokh’s disappearance was instantaneous and absolute. Without the blue glow, the alley was pitch dark.

But I can see in the dark, thought Corvus, not realizing it was an interior blackness washing over him. Why can’t I see in the dark?

Chapter Eleven

The pasha who would be numbered among the elect demands the loyalty of the strong, and holds it only for himself. Likewise, it is only to himself that the pasha tenders loyalty.

— Erlo Elraedan, The Blood-Drenched Throne, Printed and Bound at Calimport

The Year of Ocean’s Wrath (1212 DR)

Cephas sat, legs crossed, at the center of a glade of towering trees. The closely trimmed lawn he rested on was on the opposite side of the great circular garden from the cluster of tents.

Ariella faced him, her legs also crossed. Their knees had to touch because, she said, they must be close enough to join hands. Before they found this secluded spot, she returned to her tent and changed into the same loose-fitting clothes Cephas wore, though she still had her sword. The weapon lay to one side, its tooled scabbard and belt draped over the satchels holding Cephas’s piecemeal armor and double flail.

She told him to sit quietly and seek a place of peace within himself that matched the peace without. He looked around, and said, “I have not seen trees like these before, though there were only a few different kinds on the highland plains in Tethyr. There were none at all in the canyon, or on the Spires of Mir.”

Ariella angled her head up at the rugged bark and silver-backed brown leaves in the canopy high overhead. “They’re weirwoods, I think, though I’ve never seen one, either. Said to be rare. But perhaps one of the spires we