The Diviner

every one of them at the reminder that this charming young man who lived in their fortress and studied their ways and was a gifted Shagara male was, in fact, a sheyqir of Tza’ab Rih.

Climbing the stone stairs three at a time to his second-floor room, he slammed the door shut behind him and fell across his bed without bothering to light the candle. What was he doing here, anyway? He could be at home, lolling on silk pillows, nibbling wine-soaked pears, and his most worrisome thought would be deciding which woman to invite to his bed that night. He did not belong here. This country was not his.

He lit the bedside candle, then the three-armed branch on the desk by the window. The light would glow down into the alley. He picked up a sheaf of notes on the uses of flowering plants found above a certain altitude in the mountains, read five words, and threw it aside.

She wasn’t coming, not to apologize or to continue the argument or even to rebuke him for being rude.

He opened the folder of notes from Zario Shagara’s class and began sorting through to find the first page so he could begin copying his one- or two-word prompts into sentences that actually made sense. For a moment he thought he’d lost the sheets and cursed aloud.

She wasn’t coming.

Not that he had any reason to expect her. Still, their discussions often continued as they walked through the fortress passageways, until he took the turning that led to the eastern zoqallo. He still didn’t know exactly where she lived. And how she could possibly go home tonight and sleep after insulting him so appallingly, he really didn’t know—

Qamar’s eye and his whole mind were suddenly fixed on the single word written in very large letters on his page of notes from this morning.

WILL.

Zario had said something different when it came time for his usual cautions about blood being insufficient— and indeed completely inadequate—if the work had not been properly prepared.

“It is not the paper, nor the talishann written on it, nor the ink in which they are written, that secure the achievement of your goals. It is not even the addition of your own blood. None of these things can do what your own mind can do. You must will your work into being. You must believe that all these things so meticulously chosen shall combine at your bidding to do your will. You are the most powerful ingredient of any magic. Not just your blood, not just your knowledge, but your will.”

Qamar heard the words echo in his head. This was not something a Shagara of Tza’ab Rih would have said. They were the conduits of magic. They crafted the hazziri or concocted the medicines and took justifiable pride in their work. But they were not part of the magic. They contributed nothing of themselves except their blood. They would not agree that one man’s force of will could play even the smallest part in his creations.

Yet Zario Shagara, only two generations removed from the desert, had spoken of that very thing. Of willing one’s work into being.

Qamar happened to agree. And for the first time, he began to think that he might truly belong here. So intent was he on this thought, and others that followed after it, that he did not hear the soft, tentative tapping at his door.

Nor the less gentle knocking that followed.

He did hear a woman’s voice call out his name. He turned in his chair, wondering bemusedly why she was coming to visit him at this hour.

“Qamar—I’m sorry, all right?”

Frowning, he tried to think what she might be apologizing for.

“I shouldn’t have said that about—about the Empress.”

He remembered now. He stood, about to walk the ten paces to the door—it was a much larger room than the one he’d lived in before—when she spoke again.

“It’s just—I forget sometimes that you weren’t born here. That you’re one of them.”

He unlatched and hauled open the door. “Say that again.”

“What?”

“What you just said. Repeat it.”

“I’m sorry for what I—”

“No, not that, who cares about that? Say what you said just now.”

“That you’re one of them?”

“Exactly. I wasn’t born here. I don’t belong here. I’m one of them.” He grinned at her befuddlement. “Don’t you see? So were the Shagara when they first got here. Yet you wouldn’t call them foreigners now, would you? Different from the rest of the populace, to be sure, but not outsiders, not anymore. You originally came here to get them to work with you against the Tza’ab. That’s not something you do with people you don’t trust.”

“Thanks to your grandfather’s example!” she retorted.

“Exactly!” he said again. Then he paused, and frowned down at her. “You admit that it happened the way I said it happened?”

“I said the invasion was unprovoked and dishonorable. I said nothing about the reasons why it happened.”

Qamar laughed again. He could see things, too: long, contentious talks with this girl, arguing out the finest details and most obscure implications.

“I find nothing amusing about any of this.”

“Of course you don’t. I haven’t explained it yet.” Then he had to admit, “I’m not sure I understand much of it myself—yet.”

Solanna regarded him as if suspecting that despite all the healing Zario had done and the precautionary talishann around his room, he’d deliberately plunged head-first into a wine vat and drunk his way out, with predictable effects on his reason.

Grinning at her, he went on, “Would it help if I told you that you were right? What you said about the Tza’ab not belonging here.”

“You’re admitting to that?”

“Of course. You were right. But what came next—you were wrong, and the Shagara here are the proof. They were strangers here once. Generations ago. In the time since, they’ve married and had children with local women and men, haven’t they? Of course they have—names like ‘Zario’ and ‘Evetta’ confirm it.”

“Just because their blood is mixed with—”

“You’re not seeing it.”

She stiffened with insult, aware that he had used that word deliberately. When he laughed again, she turned for the door.

“No, wait—you haven’t heard—”

“I have heard more than enough. And I have seen more than enough as well!”

“Have you? More than me, wallowing in wine?”

And then something else occurred to him. She had seen him old. She had seen him with—what, lines on his face? White hair? She had said scars, but couldn’t they just have been wrinkles? It didn’t matter. She had seen him old.

Old!

It meant he would succeed. It had to mean that. It must meant he would grow old the way other men grew old, and if he didn’t actually conquer death, then at least he and his kind would no longer have to die too young.

“Wallowing with your whores, you mean,” she snapped. “You were disgusting, and I don’t know why I bothered to bring you back here. Filthy from your hair to your toenails, and the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”

With difficulty he dragged his attention away from his glorious new realization. What he saw in her eyes was just as glorious. He knew that the damage of that autumn and winter was long gone. Bloodshot eyes, puffy face, thickened body—ayia, he had been ugly. But he wasn’t ugly now, and he knew it.

“Why did you bring me back here?” he asked softly. “And why do you stay?”