I looked back at Del, who had just lost a child. The other one, the living one, was now at risk. What could I tell my bascha? That both children were dead?
Wahzir sobbed on his knees.
“You’re a mage-healer,” I said. “This book is nothing to you.”
He lifted his head jerkily, meeting my eyes “This book is everything to me!”
I felt numb. Sluggish. That my thoughts were too dull, too jumbled, to put anything together. The puzzle pieces.
But slowly, they came.
“You want the book for you. Not for Umir. You knew he had it. You allowed yourself to be taken, to become part of his collection so you could reach the book. But you couldn’t open it. So now—there’s me. Umir wants me to open it. You need me to open it.”
He stared at me, then put out a shaking hand and pointed behind me toward the alcove. “If you tell Umir, I will kill her. All I must do is nothing. Nothing, and she’ll die.”
Another puzzle piece. “You’re not worth anything, are you? Not to Umir, if he knew. You’ve lost your magic.”
Rage suffused his features. “And you gave yours away!”
Umir wanted the book opened, but mostly just to have it so. A locked book in a collection, when what lay beneath the lock was the greatest knowledge a mage could ever have, was not valuable. Particularly when it was such a plain thing to look at. So he wanted what was on the inside. And he threatened my daughter to get it. He was not called Umir the Ruthless for nothing.
“I can’t live this way,” Wahzir said. “I’m empty. Empty. Nothing is in me. I can’t live as an empty man!”
And all I wanted was to be an empty man.
Wahzir trembled. “Umir will kill your daughter when he knows you have no magic. Just to punish you.”
So he would.
“And I’ll kill her mother, just to punish you!”
He and I both heard a rattling in the larger room. A door boomed open. Men came to the alcove: Hamzah. Tariq. Others.
Umir, too, came to the alcove. “Has he opened it?”
Wahzir shook his head.
“Did you tell him of his daughter?”
Wahzir nodded.
“And he still refuses?”
“He can’t open it!” Wahzir cried. “He gave it all away. He gave his power away. He’s an empty man, like me. And the book stays closed!”
Umir looked at me. “Is this true?”
I didn’t bother to look at Wahzir. “He’s lying. The book can be opened.”
“Are you quite certain?” Umir asked. “Wahzir has been of help to me. I have never known him to lie.”
“Three things,” I said, “and I’ll open the book for you.”
Umir remained, as always, icily calm. “Three things?”
“You will harm neither my daughter nor her mother. You’ll let me see Sula. And you must let me go free.”
And Umir smiled. “Do they mean so little to you after all? You’ll use them so you can be free?”
I raised a delaying hand. “Wahzir is correct about one thing. I am what he calls an ‘empty man.’ I have no magic.”
“You see?” Wahzir shouted.
I looked only at Umir. “But I can get it back.”
Even Wahzir fell silent. The only sound in the alcove, in the room, was the chiming of my chains.
“Give me the stud,” I said.
Umir forbore to point out that made four things. “Either you’re lying, and won’t return—”
“In which case you’re no worse off.
“—or you will use the magic against me.”
I shook my head. “Not while you hold Del and my daughter. I’ll open your book. On their lives, I promise. And then we leave here. All three of us. Alive.”
Umir smiled very slowly. “But if you have your magic back, I might wish to keep you. For my collection.”
“But I won’t have any magic if I put it into the book.”
One brow rose. “You can do that?”
“I put it into a sword. I can put it into a book.”
Wahzir’s eyes lighted. I knew what he was thinking. The magic in the book was powerful enough, but augmented by the magic I’d brought home from ioSkandi? He knew what that power was. He knew of the mages atop the spires. He knew I’d had that power.
“Trust me,” I said, “I don’t want the magic. I’ll be happy to let you have it. Why do you think I stuck it in the sword to begin with? The cost is too great. I have too much to live for.” I indicated Del. “Her. My daughter. Me. We leave here alive and unharmed.”
“You will leave now,” Umir said with quiet emphasis. “Waste no time. You have two days.”
I was stunned. “Two days! Are you sandsick? I need more—”
“If you don’t return within two days, I will assume you have no intention to.”
I shook my head vehemently. “I can’t do it in two days. Not across so much of the Punja!”
“Hamzah,” Umir said, “have his horse readied.”
Hamzah inclined his head in acknowledgement and departed the room.
Umir took two steps to me, another past me, and stopped at Del’s bedside. He looked upon her, then turned to face Wahzir. “See that she survives. On your head be it.”
He moved past me. Wahzir followed. I knelt down at the cot and kissed the side of Del’s head just above her ear. “I promise, bascha. Nothing will harm her.”
Hoolies. Two days. I’d counted on more.
“Stand up,” Tariq ordered.
I stood. Turned. Held out my hands. The shackles were removed.
“My daughter,” I said pointedly.
Umir said, “Tariq.”
Tariq indicated the door. I walked out of it.
The stud was waiting as I was led through the front door into the colorful courtyard. Umir did have a taste for beautiful things, beautiful surroundings. And of course he very quietly underscored his wealth by making a fountain the centerpiece. In a desert, water was worth more coin than most could claim. Even other tanzeers.
A stranger held the stud. He was saddled, bridled, ready to go; had full botas on the pommel. He stomped on paving stones noisily, employed a conversational tone in nickers and squeals. Mostly he was swearing.
I turned away from him and looked at Umir’s steward waiting on the entry steps. “Where’s my daughter?”
He indicated a second floor window. And there my daughter was, held in a stranger’s arms. She slept. She did not know I was here.
I have never done a thing so hard as to ride away from Umir’s.
And to my death.
Chapter 40
IT WAS ONLY AN HOUR OR SO before the sun set and the moon rose. In sand and soil, the stud and I need not worry about rocks and snake holes lying in wait to trip him, as they would do once we left the Punja. So we ran, the stud and I, racing as far as we could before the light changed, before the footing did too.
We’d left the North behind. Here it was hot. I stopped reluctantly because I so badly wanted to go on, but the stud needed water. I had no bucket. I peeled an upper lip back and shoved the bota’s spout up into his cheek. I squeezed. The stud, completely startled, jerked his head away and backed up, ears rigidly forward.
“Water.” I shook the bota. “You need it. Drink.”
He was not at all pleased to have the bota anywhere near his mouth, after what I’d done with it. I was not at all pleased to argue with him. The law of the desert is to drink before you’re thirsty. If you wait until you are, it might be too late. People die of too much sun, not enough water. So can horses.