An Ill-Fated Sky Read online

  The half-div had never subscribed to the necessity of clothing, thinking it the product of an underhanded marketing scheme spread by tailors and merchants. Nevertheless, she was half viper. While not entirely ectothermic, her body temperature was less stable than that of a human. So she wore clothes, if begrudgingly. How she made it through the snow-capped ridge without so much as a winter cloak was anyone’s guess, though it could be reasonably chalked up to fright.

  She skirted the higher passes this time, which meant scaling many more ridges than she had during her flight. The first night would come and pass without the faintest whisper, but she maintained her inky refuge all the same. This led her to a slab of igneous rock that was waterlogged with a welcoming yellow. Eager to soak up the heat, Shkarag settled in to weather the cold.

  The next day brought a much-needed respite. Not feeling especially vigilant, she hadn’t bothered watching for signs of nests or birds to liven her mood. But she happened to drag her downtrodden stare from her increasingly vexing limp at the right time to spot a vulture nest. Disbelief plain, she canted her head and narrowed her eyes. Half-way up a sheer rock wall, the nest clung to an outcropping. She hadn’t bothered searching for it because bearded vulture territories ranged hundreds of farsangs. It would have been like searching for a beetle in a salt flat.

  A tempered grin coloured her cheeks. She had long ago learned that the world has a habit of throwing you a bone—or an egg—to keep you suffering another day. She had thereafter concluded suffering was the currency of the universe. Why else would the luminaries wage their eternal wars? Or mortals for that matter? Some would claim it is the work of the Lie, of Ahriman, and she surrendered that point. Be that as it may, the nature of the currency went unchanged. What she wanted to know was what was bought with all this suffering. Or did it all go to a nest egg?

  Setting that aside with a flex of her fingers, she approached the cliff, hefting her spear for a throw. A vulture with blood-stained feathers stood guard atop a large nest of sticks covered in animal parts. It was situated at a perilous enough height that her phylactery would have to mend her bones if she fell, so Shkarag meant to avoid a fight while dangling from the cliff face. To that end, she drew the spear back, put one arm forward, broke into a trot, then let it fly. And it flew true, skewering the vulture. A clean kill.

  Now to snatch the eggs before the mate returned. Shkarag immediately set to scaling the cliff, finding the nooks and crevices she needed to make a hasty climb to the nest. There, she withheld a whoop at her luck, and quickly set to her task. She reached around to pull free the documents she’d taken, then used them to roll up the pair of wheat-colored eggs. She hurriedly removed her spear from the vulture, and used a length of trousers to secure it and the eggs in one package, then stowed that beneath her girdle.

  The tangle of sticks, bones, and sun-dried viscera drew a frown. “You’re too much,” she figured. “Can’t dislodge you. Missing tools and time.”

  Shkarag gave the nest the same wistful caress she would have given a loved one. “Too much.” As she did, her chin puckered and her lip trembled. She missed them. Then she was gone, hurrying down the cliff face and breaking into a run the instant her boots hit the ground.

  Once she made it over the next crease in the range, she returned to her ambling gait—if marginally less so. The half-div unwrapped the larger of the two eggs with a touch that was trained but not all that delicate. She held it in one hand while the other studied its chalky texture. This one would have been her sister’s share. So rather than savour the taste, she bit into it, shell and all, such that the pieces stabbed at her gums and tongue while the contents slid down her throat. It hurt, but she hummed all the same. A brief yet painful treat was right. Shkarag popped the rest into her mouth, certain to chew the shell. Later, she could savour her share.

  Content in her small triumph, she pressed on.

  The following night wasn’t kind enough to afford her a warm slab to sleep on, so she walked through it rather than wallow in an uncomfortable chill. Besides that, she was doubly nocturnal as both div and viper. The bleeding purples and red-violets of ink wash suited her. And when she was feeling more confident, the glimmering of the stars and planets.

  “Wonder where Ashtadukht burrowed off to?” she asked the planets. The half-div canted her head, stroking the oblique scar that connected her jaw on one side to her clavicle on the other. “Should find her. Maybe.”

  For the remainder of her trip, which crested ridge after ridge as if they were waves passing beneath her, she pondered that thought.

  Shkarag was relieved to find the battlefield still. The soldiers, looters, and priests must have finished canvassing, because all that was left were the remains of divs. That was all well and good because she had some looting of her own to do, and what she had in mind would be of no interest to humans. She made her way down, the stench of death washing over her a morbid reminder of her childhood, and began her search.

  While there weren’t many Eshm sisters in the div host, it didn’t take her long to find one. Their blood-red armor stood out even amidst the carnage. Shkarag approached the corpse uncharacteristically solemn. She went to her knees and gazed at her half-sister’s face. The jaw had been pulverized, probably by a mace or hoof, but she recognized it. Hesitation moored her. So she just stared until the hesitation eased enough for her to lean in and caress the ridged scales above her half-sister’s ear.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Whole šo-wretched universe hates us. Like we’re some . . .” She trailed off before she could finish the thought. “I’m sorry.”

  In truth, her half-sisters had been good to her in their own way. They had accepted her and her sister despite their alloyed lineage. In seeking to extirpate her frail humanity, they had perhaps gone too far in brutalizing her. Had damaged her irreparably. But that’s the thing: they hadn’t done so out of malice. The Eshm sisters brutalized one another regularly, constantly pounding out any sign of weakness so that they could survive an existence without allies. It was them against the world.

  For the longest time, Shkarag had firmly believed that was why she despised them. With her sharpened memories she knew that wasn’t the case. All that loathing had sullied their image because every time she saw them she was reminded of how she’d betrayed her sister.

  “Sorry,” she repeated, countenance strained. “You broom sweepers were good to us. Tried to prepare us for the oncoming storm. I’m the bad egg. Such a . . .” She trailed off again, fighting the urge to ramble, and let out a sigh. Shkarag began stripping the corpse of its gear.

  Once that was taken care of, she disrobed—if it could still be called as much with what little remained of her rags. Labouring to keep her thoughts from taking a dive, she focused on the task at hand.

  “Trousers first,” she decided. The half-div held them out appraisingly. She avoided black for a simple enough reason: she thought it veered too closely to the windows of the night. Something about that didn’t sit well with her. As if the colour had designs beyond its station. “You’re lucky,” she said, extending her arms to get a better view. “The dirt debases you, I think. Like you kowtowed to the sky. It remonstrated you something fierce, but never let it be said the sky has no clemency.” With that, she nodded and slipped them on.

  Next came the caftan, which she plucked from the pile without fuss, then swung it by the collar, causing it to billow dramatically as her arms found the sleeves. She fastened one end over the other, then flexed her arms. The sleeves were tight, but not uncomfortable. Shkarag gave it a once over, cocking her head as she did. Caftans were by make form-fitting, but this one hugged her figure with refined sleekness, with a hem that rounded smoothly across the hips. Shkarag cocked her head further and patted the caftan as she had seen Tirdad do during his daily routine. She figured it drove the lice away. “That’ll do,” she said, bending to retrieve the hauberk. “Bloody caftan, bloody mail, bloody cuirass. What’ll they bloody next?”

  “Bet,”
she went on as she pulled the hauberk over her head, “bet they’ll want bloody undergarments next. Can’t blame em. Nothing beats a šo-good fuck.”

  She tugged at the cuffs of her caftan to adjust it under the short sleeves of the mail, then did the same with its sweeping hem. A bunched caftan was a maddening caftan.

  The cuirass was held at arm’s length for a moment of evaluation, but she had already made up her mind. An embossed viper constricted its sanguine gloss, fangs bared where its diamond-shaped head was sculpted into the left shoulder. She strapped it on without further consideration. The bottom rim hardly protected half her midriff, but in doing so it allowed her more maneuverability.

  When she’d called the items bloody, she’d meant something more than the river of red that parted around the caftan’s diamond motif, or the sheen of the cuirass. For the armor to be crafted, every Eshm sister was charged with providing the blood of both a human and a div with which it would be imbued. That’s what gave them their signature colour. And that’s why they hadn’t been looted.

  Shkarag finished with laminated thigh and forearm armor, then tied the ensemble together with her weapon belt and prized lapis lazuli girdle.

  She had decided against taking her half-sister’s weapons in the event that somewhere out there a lackadaisical phylactery had just remembered its charge. So she did her best to work a sword into each of the cold, scaled hands of the corpse.

  Rather than leaving, Shkarag hovered there, head canted and trained on the ruined face.

  “Is this all you were after they slaughtered you?” she asked the memory of her sister. “An overripe lime, fallen and forgotten and—”

  She clenched her eyes shut to stave off the tears and groped for her vulture egg, rushing to pierce it with one fang. The anxiety that had drawn her muscles taut sloughed away at that first crisp crack. The scraping of the shell along her fang soothed her. It retracted toward her mouth, puncturing a second hole from within. Then she threw her head back and let it hang there, savouring the sliver of yolk that oozed over her tongue.

  Once the egg had run dry, she tossed it aside, bade her half-sister farewell with a dismal wave, and set off in search of Ashtadukht.

  Thing is, she hadn’t the faintest idea where to look.

  • • • • •

  Tirdad took a generous draught of wine. Heady and bittersweet, it went down with a warmth that dulled the ache in his bones.

  “Almost there,” said Chobin, palm out expectantly.

  “Almost,” agreed Tirdad, taking another draw before relinquishing the wine. He raised his eyebrows and wiped his face. The haze of intoxication had floated in without him realizing it. “I’ve decided,” he said. “I promised I’d discuss it when we returned, and here we are.” He spread his arms wide, indicating the sea to his left and mountains to his right, all but invisible on a moonless evening were it not for the profiles that demarcated the sky.

  The estate wasn’t far off. That struck him as . . . well, he couldn’t quite figure how it struck him, only that it did. Had history not veered so sharply in the direction of tragedy, someone else might have called it home. But it had. Ashtadukht’s estate belonged to him now. He had no way of knowing how much she’d loathed the place, how often she’d considered torching it.

  “And what have you decided?” Chobin asked with a hint of a slur. “Fucking arms out like you are putting on a grand speech. I sure as fuck don’t hear it.”

  Tirdad grinned and tapped his head. “You should’ve heard it in here. I thought it was mighty convincing, and I’m a tough crowd.”

  “Now listen here,” Chobin said, raising his fist in mock anger. “Been waiting the whole ride back. So help me if you put it off one more minute you will wish . . . you . . .” He squinted long enough for exasperation to kick in. “Fuck it,” he said, tossing his hands. “Lost my train of thought.”

  “A world deprived of the wisdom of the great Chobin, tall as a cypress, strong as a lion, virile as a bull, wise as a—”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  “—shoot of fig.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve decided,” Tirdad began as he drew his long sword and lay it across his lap, “that I’m a planet-reckoner.”

  Chobin blew air out his nose. “You decided that?”

  “Well, no.” Tirdad allowed his fingers to drift over the blade, caressing its heartbeat. “You’re right. It was decided for me. But it needn’t be a curse. It’s what you do with the power that defines it.”

  An affirmative grunt to his side.

  “I’ll use this sword to carve out some good in the world. That’s what she did before things went . . .” He gestured vaguely. “Before.”

  “And the planet-reckoning?”

  “I’ll figure it out.”

  “How?”

  “It’ll come to me.”

  The look that Chobin threw Tirdad’s way spoke for how full of shit he sounded.

  “It will,” Tirdad said, not all that convinced and sounding it. He watched his blade as it devoured the light thrown by Chobin’s torch, tearing it into the pearlescent waves that livened its surface. “If it doesn’t, I’ll do without. The sword will suffice.”

  “Your tales never involved many spells. Seems to me she got by on her knowledge,” Chobin figured.

  Tirdad gave a slight nod, and a nostalgic smile crept ever so faintly up his cheeks. “Oh, there was a great deal of luck involved. Bad and good. Bumbling, too. But she knew her craft and took pride in that. Hard-earned pride as far as I can tell.”

  The quiet that ensued did so in the pursuit of a question that had hung unspoken between the pair since Castle Dahag. Chobin, generally a man as frank as they came, harboured no small amount of sympathy and love for his friend. He wanted to broach the topic without accusation. “And how well is that?” he asked.

  “Well.”

  “Hmm,” grunted the marzban.

  Tirdad pulled in a breath, inviting the brackish air to do its part in stirring long-dormant memories. He recalled giggling blithely as his brother gave chase, scrambling under branches and through brush, splashing across silver streams. With his illness weighing on him like a wet wool blanket, it didn’t take long for his brother to catch up.

  “Ashta,” Gushnasp said, his tone both amused and admonishing.

  “I—” He tried to say, but a wheezing fit doubled him over. “I won’t—” The wheezing refused to relent. He felt as if he’d been beaten half to death, but at the same time as if it were routine. Gushnasp eased him to the forest floor, dry leaves complaining but bringing him closer to the earthy scent so at home in his life. “Won’t sit around when we’ll be separated soon,” he finally managed to get out between wheezes. He followed with a weak half-chuckle, half-wheeze. “I’m dizzy.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “I like this,” he said, digging his fingers into the earth.

  “Of course you do.”

  He raised tired eyes to meet Gushnasp’s, which were framed with the furrows of concern. A lump rose in his throat, unease in his chest.

  His brother took a seat beside him, and began rubbing his back in the placating way he had since before he could walk. The hand that massaged him had grown powerful since. It pressed calmness into his soul.

  “You will be fine,” Gushnasp offered, reading him perfectly. “You are strong, and we will find time to see one another until you have finished your training.”

  “Strong,” he said, dripping with sarcasm.

  “You are,” Gushnasp replied, his tone brooking no argument. His brother made a mess of his hair then, saying, “Here.” Then he placed his other hand on his chest, warm and steady. “And here.”

  His heart leapt in his throat. He blushed furiously, and an utterly sincere smile claimed his cheeks so thoroughly they grew sore.

  Tirdad forced the memory out, knowing full well what had next transpired on those noisy leaves. He glanced over at Chobin, who had a contemplative look turned
his way. “Her memories are mine now,” he explained. “Not to be referenced at will, but dredged up through necessity or outside forces. Just now, the scent of the sea showed me something I couldn’t have known. Something intimate.”

  “Forgive me if I am skeptical,” the marzban said, doing his utmost to convey sympathy in his criticism, “but this could all be your imagination fucking with you.”

  “It could. It isn’t.”

  “Or the wine.”

  “Where’d you get this exactly?”

  Chobin’s only reply was to wink while wearing a sly smirk.

  “The star-reckoner confirmed as much,” Tirdad added with a shake of his head.

  “Right before you killed it.”

  “Yeah,” said the planet-reckoner. “I killed it. That’s why you’re having trouble coming to terms with this. That’s the real issue here. And I don’t fault you for it, not in the slightest.” He eased his sword back into its sheath, guiding it with his thumb in what amounted to a good night, and his palm came to rest on its ram’s head pommel. “It must’ve seemed like I’d gone mad at the time, but I killed it because it was right about her memories.”

  “So what the everliving fuck did it do?”

  “Terrible things,” Tirdad said, searching the darkness ahead. He spoke softly, but with an edge that’d been stropped to the point of hatred. “Things no one should have to endure.”

  He knew that wouldn’t be enough, so he related in that deadly-soft tone all he’d seen and felt before putting an end to the star-reckoner. The conversation ended there. They navigated the plain in pensive silence, Chobin patently unable to put together a response because he was both ashamed and disgusted.