Читать книгу The Black Khan - Ausma Khan Zehanat - Страница 9

IN THE DESERTED COURTYARD OF THE CLAY MINAR, THE BODIES OF BASMACHI fighters were gathered in a pile beneath a stunted tree in the shelter of a square stone base. White ribbons streamed down from the tree’s slender limbs, tied to its branches and twigs. The ribbons were bare of script: the people of Black Aura could not write. The ribbons were meant as a reminder of their sacred traditions; they were desperate, desolate prayers. The bodies piled beneath the tree formed the Authoritan’s answer to those prayers.

No wind stirred the ribbons or the dying branches. Sunlight blunted the edges of Arian’s vision, and she found her way around the tree more by instinct than anything else. She knew she was about to be taken inside the house of worship, just as she knew the Authoritan expected a demonstration of her power, a compulsion she had resisted with all the force and determination she was capable of as a Companion of Hira.

There were only three people in the courtyard: Arian, the Authoritan, and his consort, Lania, Arian’s older sister. Each night since she’d been captured in Black Aura attempting to retrieve the Bloodprint, Lania and the Authoritan had brought Arian to this place. They showed her the stunted tree and the bodies moldering beneath it, then coerced her into entering the blue-domed house of worship to test her abilities with the Claim.

Situated on the eastern side of the square, the dome was the pinnacle of a massive structure. Four arcades met at its doubled entrance, each lined with portals decorated with mosaics and glazed bronze brick. At the entrance to the main portal, a sand-colored octahedron with open arches could be reached by a set of stairs. Here great recitations of the Claim had once been addressed to the people of Black Aura, the Bloodless sharing the teachings of the Bloodprint, an ancient and powerful manuscript long believed to be lost. The manuscript that was the oldest, most venerable record of the Claim—the powerful, mysterious magic seeded throughout the history of all the lands of Khorasan, but lost to a people now condemned to a final Age of Ignorance.

Skirting the pulpit, Arian was taken through to the indoor galleries covered by dozens of smaller domes perched on a peristyle. Though well lit, the interior space was cold, and as quiet and deserted as the courtyard.

They stopped at a niche in the wall where multicolored mosaics were arranged in a magnificent declamation. Lania read the words first, verses commonly known to the Companions of Hira, though Lania’s inflection was different, the words gathered up in hubris and flung out, outlining the niche in a darkly radiant fire while the Authoritan nodded his approval.

Prodded by her sister, Arian repeated the same words, her strong voice giving them distinctions of grace that coaxed out their inner meaning.

The Authoritan looked down on Arian from the top of a flight of wooden stairs positioned beside the niche. He stood tall and thin, enclosed in his white robes, his ghastly crimson eyes flickering out from a bloodless white face, a nimbus of silver hair floating above the harshly etched bones of his skull. He seemed too frail to do her any damage, yet his hands and voice transmitted his inescapable power.

“Now the rest.”

His reedy voice was like a needle in Arian’s ear.

“That’s all there is,” she said.

“You know the conclusion of these verses from your training at the Citadel of Hira. Recite them for us now.”

The cold command in his voice whipped at Arian’s nerves. It was a compulsion to do as he asked or suffer intolerable pain. Yet she’d learned that though he could otherwise affect her, he could not compel the Claim to issue from her lips. It was a tiny point of victory that Arian held to herself, infusing her with a strength of self-reliance that was no reproof against the pain.

He raised a bony finger in the air and aimed it at the top of her skull. “Recite.”

The word stabbed at Arian’s temples, a sharp, probing injury. She reached for Lania’s hand, insisting that her sister acknowledge the injury being done to her. But Lania stepped back, her painted face impassive, the bonds of sisterhood sundered by the tortures she was forced to endure.

“Recite!”

Now the word thundered through Arian’s skull. The muscles of her throat seized up; Arian began to shiver. The Authoritan could visit pain upon her—this he had shown her night after night, cruel and imaginative in his punishments. Yet her training at Hira resisted him. Of greater significance, the Claim resisted him, refusing to issue from her throat, a pitiless battle of magic against magic that caused her palpable injury. It was no different this day: she was forced to her knees by the Authoritan’s power, pressure building in her skull. Teardrops of blood leaked from her eyes, a sickening residue on her skin. She choked on the scent of it, tainted and dark, and tasted it in her mouth.

She had exerted this power over men—the power of the Claim—but it had never been used against her—a battle of the occult against the uncorrupted. It was a setback, nothing more. She wouldn’t let the Authoritan twist the beauty and power of her magic. She fought to raise her head. She held on to her circlets, the two gold armbands that signified her status as a Companion of Hira, one of a group of women entrusted with the care of the sacred scriptorium at the Citadel. The Citadel was the stronghold of the Companions of Hira, a place where they sought to protect the written word from the devouring onslaught of the Talisman, men—and it was always men—who waged war upon all forms of knowledge, under the flag of the One-Eyed Preacher, a tyrant whose will Arian had spent a decade trying to subvert.

As a Companion, Arian had been charged with a mission to rescue the women of Khorasan from the Talisman’s efforts at enslavement. But then the leader of her order, the High Companion Ilea, had assigned her to seek out the Bloodprint as a means of unseating the Talisman. Arian had been chosen for this Audacy because of her exceptional gifts. She was Hira’s most accomplished linguist, fluent in the Claim and armed with the power of its magic. She was First Oralist of Hira.

And because of that—and despite the tortures the Authoritan inflicted—she should be able to resist.

Gasping at the effort, she tried to draw power from the inscriptions on her circlets. Her fledgling attempt failed, just as it had before. She was brought to a posture of submission once more, her arms stretched out before her, her forehead pressed to the floor in a perversion of the prayers of their people.

“Lania—” Her sister’s name came out as a croak, weakly demanding an apology.

“It’s a pity to watch you suffer.” Yet there was no trace of pity in Lania’s voice; a cool impassivity ruled her as she ignored Arian’s entreaty. Lania took her place at the Authoritan’s side, gliding gracefully up the stairs, her long robe trailing behind her.

The Authoritan brought her hand to his bloodless lips and kissed it. “She tires me,” he said. “If she will not share what she knows of the Claim, perhaps the Silver Mage can be put to better use than his trials with the whip.”

“No!” Arian’s courage flared to life again.

Lania ignored her. The crimson tips of her fingers ran along the surface of the niche, tracing the outer layer of white script in a gesture that was a caress. “My sister is less powerful than I imagined. The opposite may be true of the Silver Mage.”

“Why would you think that, Khanum?” Diverted, the Authoritan relaxed his grip on Arian, his blood-tinged eyes caressing her face, inflamed by her helpless submission. She crawled into the hollowed-out space of the niche, resting her hot face against the glazed tiles, grateful for the respite.

“You’ve seen his eyes. He is strongly marked by the birthright of the Mages. Who knows how his magic burns? Or what tricks he might attempt to secure my sister’s freedom.”

The Authoritan dismissed this with a contemptuous wave, the gesture as languid as a heron’s extension of its wings into flight. His movements suggested a weightlessness, as if he were a creature animated more by sorcery than by his physical form. His power resided in his voice.

“The Silver Mage can do very little on his own. I burned the Candour with a word; he did nothing to defend it.”

“He loves her,” Lania objected. “It may awaken depths within him.”

The Authoritan curled his fingers, the gesture enough to pull Arian from the cover of the hollow. She opened her mouth to venture the Claim in her defense. A viselike grip closed about her throat, swallowing the sound. She choked for breath on her hands and knees, struggling to protect herself against the Authoritan’s aggression.

The Authoritan and Lania stood breast to breast on the narrow landing. The rubies in Lania’s headdress glittered against the Authoritan’s white robes, striking sparks off the scepter in his hand. He decorously kissed the mask at her cheek, careful not to disturb it.

“For the Silver Mage to develop his skills, he would need to attend the Conference of the Mages. The Mages strengthen one another, not unlike your sisters at Hira. Without their congress, he remains unschooled. His is a rudimentary magic, perhaps because of his tenure in Candour.”

“It was his choice,” Arian gritted through her teeth. “He chose to serve his city.”

“So?”

“So do not belittle him for it.”

The Authoritan clenched his hand in a fist and brought it down. Pain seared through Arian’s skull. She couldn’t withstand it. Lania witnessed her pain without protest.

“Then we have nothing to fear from either of them,” she observed finally. “Perhaps these little experiments serve no purpose after all.”

“Not quite.” The Authoritan helped Lania down the stairs, seeming to glide within the careful arrangement of his robes. He paused beside Arian, extending a hand to touch her sweat-slicked skin. Her face was pale, her body drenched in perspiration. She recoiled from the skeletal finger he dipped in a teardrop of her blood. He brought it to his lips and tasted it, his tongue flicking his skin.

“Invigorating.” His red eyes rested on her face and drifted down her body, an assessment that stripped her to the bone. Arian shuddered in response.

“Lovelier than you,” he said to Lania, missing her grimace. “What a pretty prize she would make for Nevus, as he cannot have you.”

A smile played on Lania’s lips. “There’s no hurry, Khagan. I’ve yet to plumb the depths of my sister’s talents. I would know the secret to her fame. Why was she selected as First Oralist? Thus far, the showing is not as impressive as I’d hoped.”

“No,” the Authoritan agreed. “Keep your pet until you tire of her. But make certain she expands your knowledge of the Claim. You are useless to me without your gifts.”

“It shall be my first concern, Khagan, I assure you.”

The painted mask of her face echoed the Authoritan’s contempt for Arian’s abilities. “There is nothing to be gained by bringing her to this mihrab. I will find another way to unlock her voice.”

“You fail to understand, Khanum. I bring her to this place for reasons of my own.”

Lania shot him a glance, her pale green eyes long and narrow. “And they are?”

He raised both hands above Arian’s head, his fingers poised to strike. “Do you mark how close we are to the underground cells?” He turned his gaze to Arian, his rictus smile stretching the corners of his lips. “Sing for your beloved, First Oralist. He is eager to hear your voice.”

It took her a moment to understand. Daniyar was here—near to her, yet kept from her—and the Authoritan wanted him to experience the agonies of her torture, to suffer them with her … She closed her eyes in helpless protest. She could bear his cruelties herself, but she couldn’t access the magic that would shield Daniyar from this. And though she longed for him with a fervent desire, she wished him away from her now. She knew what her pain would cost him—what his love for her had already demanded of his strength. She had served him nothing but anguish, and now he would be broken again.

Heart of my heart, he had called her. When he shouldn’t have loved her at all.

“Please, no,” she whispered to Lania. “Do anything you wish to me, but I beg you—do not do this to him.”

The Authoritan laughed, his voice high and wild with triumph. Then the savage power of his magic blasted her from all sides.

Her screams went on and on, rising to the skies … penetrating the depths of the cells. The grace of Hira was ripped from her spirit and her thoughts. She couldn’t stand aloof and apart when she was writhing in blood at the Authoritan’s whim. The answer came to her too late.

She needed to summon new weapons against an enemy like this.