The Diviner

worse than spiders, those al-Ammarizzad. They not only eat their own young, they devour anything they can find.”

“I thought the name was al-Ma’aliq these days, not al-Ammarizzad?”

“Only part of it.” He rose and went to the cupboard where fruit juice was kept cool by their daily summer ration of hoarded winter ice. “Considering the woman Nizhria’s name recalls, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she gets rid of it. And, to be honest, it’s been a very long time since any al-Ma’aliq set foot in Rimmal Madar. The people will have forgotten us, I think. If Kerrima, who was a good friend to my grandfather and my Aunt Ra’abi, did not die a natural death, then I suspect it was done by the faction at the palace more loyal to the al-Ammarizzad than to the al-Ma’aliq.”

Solanna had finished repinning her hair, and now shook her head in amazement—an action that threatened to loosen the hairpins again. “How do you keep track of them all?” she asked, accepting the clay cup of juice he gave her. “No, never mind, it makes my head ache even to think about it. And it doesn’t matter anyway. Nizhria has decided that our land was so easy for the Tza’ab to conquer, surely her armies will do even better. From what Miqelo heard of the talk in Joharra, they fear she may have it in mind to use us as a base for conquering Tza’ab Rih itself. Or it may be simply that she hates the idea of the Empress owning more land than she does.”

Qamar hid a smile behind his cup. Solanna would never accept the notion that the Empress of Tza’ab Rih was her mother-in-law. “Has Nizhria taken into account that she could be fighting both the locals and the Tza’ab here?”

It turned out that she had. Qamar couldn’t decide if the new Sheyqa was worthy or unworthy of the woman for whom she was named. Nizhria certainly had the acquisitive instincts, but she was also about as subtle as an avalanche.

She sent emissaries to absolutely everyone who had any stake at all in a prospective war. To Empress Mairid, she wrote that whatever troublesome resistance was still to be encountered in the conquered lands, her armies would help the Tza’ab make short work of it. To the nobles, in power or not, of these same conquered lands, she wrote that only her assistance could free them of their hated Tza’ab masters. To everyone she promised that the price of her support was nothing more than a trading outpost here and there for her merchants.

Nobody believed any of it.

“Not that she expects anyone to believe it,” said Qamar as he poured qawah for Miqelo that evening. “But she’ll have everyone eyeing everyone else, wondering who will join with her and who will not.”

“And too suspicious of each other even to bring up the subject of an alliance,” Solanna added, then shook her head in disgust. “Trading outposts!”

“You will excuse me, Qamar, I’m sure,” Miqelo replied with a grimace, “when I say that we learned with the Tza’ab that once an army is here, it stays.”

Qamar shrugged. “Yet it seems there are those in Taqlis and Ibrayanza, and even in Cazdeyya, who are willing to take a chance.”

“Taqlis,” Solanna mused, “is quite a long way from everyone else. They may think the Sheyqa won’t bother coming that far.”

“I think the Cazdeyyan nobles have this in mind as well,” Miqelo agreed. “This lamb is excellent, Solanna, I’ve never tasted it dressed with mint before.”

“An experiment,” Qamar said, smiling. “When you or my other roving friends bring me samples, once I’ve done with them we use them for cooking—after testing them for poison, Miqelo, I promise! This isn’t our mountain mint but another kind—Ibrayanzan. It’s odd, you know, that in the desert there are at most two or three varieties of any one plant—as if they learned early on what they must do in order to survive and just kept doing it. But here—ayia, my friends bring back for me four types of daisy, or six different grasses, and all from the same hillside! I’ve cataloged seven different sorts of mint, for instance, and of those acorns you brought me last time, three were entirely new to me. It’s—” He broke off suddenly as Solanna clapped her napkin to her mouth, her dark eyes sparkling merrily. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?” he sighed. “Your pardon, Miqelo, I’m afraid I become worse than boring sometimes. Please go on with your news.”

Grinning, the merchant ladled more mint sauce over his plate of lamb. “It’s good to see a young man with a real purpose in life, Qamar. My son—eiha, if he ever had a thought, it would die of shock at finding itself in his of all brains!”

Qamar laughed and did not look at his wife. His real purpose in life . . . after twelve years of marriage, after watching him do his research and helping him with it, she still had no idea what his real purpose was. That was how he preferred it.

“So our people—some of them, anyway—want to ally with Rimmal Madar to throw out the Tza’ab,” Miqelo continued. “I think it’s possible that Sheyqir Allil would unbend his stiff neck and accept the Sheyqa’s help to subdue the outlying regions of Joharra. They do keep him busy, you know.”

“I never much liked him,” said Qamar. “I can imagine what would happen if he even hinted at such a plan to the Empress.”

“It’s a pity he won’t dare,” Solanna said. “She’d be so outraged she’d throw him out. If that happened, at least the Joharrans wouldn’t have to suffer any more.”

“Ayia, but what would happen then?” Qamar grinned at her. “Joharra might get to like their new ruler, and then what would happen to the spirit of rebellion?”

She scowled her opinion of his teasing. “And what if Sheyqa Nizhria simply attacks and succeeds in gaining a foothold? Do we join with her against the Tza’ab, or join with the Tza’ab to throw out this new enemy? And where, finally, stand the Shagara?”

“Aloof, as always,” Miqelo said firmly.

Qamar exchanged a glance with his wife. “More wine?” he asked their guest, and poured from the chilled flagon. He would have liked a taste of it himself, but since that last tavern night in the seaport—so long ago now! —he had not touched a drop. He had promised Solanna.

So much to learn. So much to codify. So much to organize into useful, useless, and possibilities to be investigated further.

Berries, for example. Mulberry for peace and protection, raspberry for protection and love, strawberry for love and luck. Blackberry brambles prevented the dead from rising as ghosts, but in combination with rowan and ivy warded off all other sorts of evil.

The plants and trees that grew here gave fascinating promise. So many of them were unknown in Tza’ab Rih. Qamar wished that the Shagara in his homeland had thought to study them before now. If nothing else—and there was a great deal else—there was help here for the pains of the bone-fever that afflicted Haddiyat, help in the form of the humble walnut. Yet the tree had another tantalizing association: it expanded things. Wealth, horizons, the mind, the emotions, the perceptions, the soul...and magic. Its use in inks was long established, but Qamar had from the first seen other ways of using the tree. Specifically, the wood. More specifically, to write on the wood. And finally, and most specifically, to draw on the wood of the walnut tree that expanded magic.

A few months after their marriage, when they were still telling each other things about their families and childhood homes, the sort of idle reminiscences sparked by a word or a scent, Qamar was describing the palace where he had grown up. Gardens, gravel paths through them, intricate mazes of shrubs or walls that led to cooling fountains—all the serene beauties he had so taken for granted.

“But the most beautiful garden and fountain were inside the palace itself. It was all made of tile—the grass underfoot, the trellises of climbing roses, the sky above them, darker and still darker blue until they reached the domed ceiling, sparkling with millions of stars. In the middle of the room was a fountain . . .”

“Made of water, I hope?” An instant later she exclaimed, “Qamar! Stop that, you’ll burn your hand!”

Startled from his thoughts, he snatched his hand back from lighting a candlebranch with a twig and blew out the flame that had indeed come almost near enough to scorch his fingers. And as he felt the heat that had not quite burned him, two separate memories swirled together like different inks combining to make a new and different essence.

“Qamar?”

“Yes,” he said mindlessly. “The fountain. It stopped working. There was a book of drawings, and he drew the fountain from memory, and it worked again—but then it didn’t, and he was dead with burned paper in the hearth