The Diviner

withstand a whole nation? Could any of the Za’aba Izim?”

“The Geysh Dushann are our enemies,” Abb Shagara said stubbornly.

“They are everyone’s enemies. Restrict your rejection to them. No one will question it. They are too much hated by all decent people. After word of this night is spread— without reference to Azzad al-Ma’aliq—all will call the decision righteous.”

Azzad breathed a sigh of relief. To attach his name to this would confirm his continued existence. Better to keep Nizzira guessing a little while longer.

If, after this, it was at all in doubt that he lived. It was clear to him now that the hunter’s corpse in The Steeps had not convinced them. Ayia, and he’d thought himself so clever, giving up the armband and the pearls and the key! It was the ring that had done it, he told himself with a sigh, the ring he could not bear to give up. And it would be a lesson to him, he vowed, a warning that he must be prepared to do anything, give anything, in seeking his just vengeance.

Nizzira would never sleep soundly until Azzad was proven dead—but neither would Azzad sleep in peace until he had his revenge upon Nizzira. And he didn’t know what form this could take that would not bring the armies of Rimmal Madar down onto this desert country. It must be something subtle, a mortal wound to the Sheyqa and yet containing a warning that retaliation was useless. He owed the Shagara his life. Nizzira could not be allowed to exterminate them as she had the al-Ma’aliq. By accepting Azzad’s enemies as their own, the Shagara were—as Meryem pointed out—receiving much the worst end of the bargain.

Abb Shagara regarded his mother narrowly for a time. Then: “Very well. The Geysh Dushann only. But I shall accept Azzad as our kin.”

“When did you hear me object? You do not listen, my son. Azzad alMa’aliq is indeed kin-worthy. He is civilized and honorable—for a barbarian.”

“And therefore,” Abb Shagara said, “he will be treated as Shagara. In all things.”

There was some significance to this that Azzad didn’t understand, but by now bruises and welts and exhaustion were making his head reel. It must have shown in his face or his eyes, for Leyliah was instantly at his side, helping him to lie down.

“No more drugged wine, I beg of you,” he muttered.

“You’ll sleep the day through without it,” she assured him with a smile in her voice, and added, “Aqq Azzad,” becoming the first of the Shagara to call him brother.

He opened his eyes. She was indeed lovely, with eyes like a fawn and skin like sage honey. “You are Oushta Leyliah now to me, yes?”

“Challa, one day soon.”

“I prefer ‘oushta.’ All my sisters were as beautiful as you—and all my aunts were a million years old.” His eyes squeezed shut, and weakness threatened tears.

“How did you escape death? Ah, I can guess—a woman warned you.”

“No. But it did have to do with a woman.”

“This much is obvious. Sleep now, Aqq Azzad. We will see to everything.”

It so happened that when representatives of the Ammarad came to Dayira Azreyq to admit failure, the enraged Sheyqa Nizzira was unable to ride out at the head of her own army to seek Azzad, for the fierce tribes of the mountainous north threatened Rimmal Madar. A century and more of peace, founded on honor pledges with the alMa’aliq, had shattered now that the al-Ma’aliq were no more. The Sheyqa needed all her warriors to defend the northern border, a task that would occupy her for many years. She knew victories and losses, and even a wound to her own exalted person when a stray arrow nicked her in the leg. But the injury that festered was the knowledge that there yet lived an al-Ma’aliq.

Her chief eunuch tried to console her by saying that whether or not Azzad lived was of no consequence. Alone in a barren land, surely the idle wastrel Azzad would soon be dead.

Nizzira was not consoled. But with war raging in the north, and not a man to spare from battle, she could only rely on her cousins the Ammarad to honor their promise to kill the last al-Ma’aliq.

—FERRHAN MUALEEF, Deeds of Il-Kadiri, 654

4

Azzad never found out just how Meryem killed the Geysh Dushann—but that it was Meryem who killed him he had no doubt. Neither did he doubt that her son watched while she did it. When next he saw the two of them, there was something different about the boy’s eyes; he was becoming a man who understood the burdens of responsibility. Za’avedra el-Ibrafidia would have thanked Acuyib on her knees to see such signs in her son Azzad.

A day later, he was invited to Abb Shagara’s tent for the evening meal. The first thing Meryem said was, “I have realized, Aqq Azzad, that it was by my fault that you were attacked. I ask you to forgive me. It was I who spoke your name that night.”

He shrugged away the apology. “You thought him sleeping from the potion given him. There can be no blame upon you, Challa Meryem.”

Fadhil bowed his head. “I must have mixed it wrong.” Then, after a slight hesitation, he added, “I have told them what you know.”

“What I guessed,” Azzad corrected politely.

Meryem shook her head. “No, I have grown careless. And you are not to blame for the potion, Fadhil. I have long worried about the strength of this drug, and lately I have been using less in the mixture for fear of its power. But from now on, it will be as strong as before.”

“I beg you, do not test it on me!” Azzad’s plea won a smile from her at last.

“I regret to say that is impossible,” she replied. “You must leave us tomorrow.”

Ayia, so soon? He had been so anxious to get moving, get on with his life and his vengeance—yet now he was reluctant to abandon these people who had become friends.

“We will give you water and food to last five days,” Abb Shagara said. “The provisions will take you to the first village northwest of here. Continue due north to the coast, and the way will be easy to any number of cities.”

“Which is precisely where the Sheyqa will be looking for me,” Azzad pointed out.

“Have no worries about this Sheyqa. We will give you many protections.”

The charms he’d seen the men making? He tried very hard not to look skeptical. They believed in the power of the tokens, and he could not insult his friends with open doubt. So he asked, “Is there no way to travel directly west? I have seen trade items from that country, brought by caravan and ship to Rimmal Madar.” Not terribly impressive items—blankets and a few spices—but it was trade he could understand and use to his advantage.

“Ayia, north, west, there’s not that much difference,” said Abb Shagara with a shrug. “They are all barbarians, but I thought to spare you the worst of them.”

“In the north,” Meryem explained, “people live in cities that are neither clean nor comfortable, but at least one may walk unhindered by towering walls.”

“In the west,” her son continued, “they live either in small villages perched on mountainsides—and, to my eye, likely to fall off at any minute!—or in huge fortifications with walls that go on forever.”

“The northern cities have walls, do they not?” Azzad had never heard of a city that didn’t. The invaders with their Mother and Son religion had made walls necessary.

Abb Shagara made a dismissive gesture. “Boundary markers, nothing more imposing. There is no need. They are the friends of the Shagara.”

As was Azzad—and they were still speaking of defending his life with a few weights of beaten brass and tin. Acuyib help him.

“But you must go where you wish, of course,” finished Abb Shagara. “Five days will take you to the western