Tanielo came forward when his father beckoned. Tall and gangly, with golden Shagara skin, though his golden-brown hair proclaimed at least one local man or woman in his ancestry, he cleared his throat nervously. “She—the Sheyqa—her ships did not land near Shagarra alone. More of them sailed on to the shores of Ibrayanza and began the march northward. The others marched west, and they met at Granidiya and destroyed it. But before this, they laid waste to every town in their path. Those with walls, they attacked with the ballisdas. Those without, they simply attacked and burned. But here is the terrible thing. This army has now split in two again, with one section heading for the palace at Praca, where the Queen of Ibrayanza lives. It may be there now. But the other part is marching north, due north.”
“For Joharra!” someone called out.
“No!” Tanielo cried. “No, not Joharra at all! They won’t touch Joharra, not a handful of its soil! Sheyqir Allil is her ally, he gave them maps of the easiest routes, and—”
“Why would he do such a thing? Doesn’t he understand?”
“He’s not one of us—he was never one of us—”
“And what of our own people?” another man yelled. “I thought that soldiers were coming from Taqlis and even Elleon, and everyplace in between, to fight the Sheyqa’s army!”
Miqelo waited until the cheers and shouts had faded a bit, then told them, “I’m sure that was their intent—until they saw what happened to Granidiya! There is no army to oppose her, there is no one who—”
The uproar and the outrage shivered the stones of the Khoubri. Qamar didn’t hear most of it; he was staring at the wall opposite him, and in his imagination its blankness was overlaid with a map. Tza’ab Rih to the south; Ibrayanza just beyond the narrowing; Shagarra to the east. Joharra just north of Ibrayanza . . . but not in the path of an army marching due north. Toward Cazdeyya.
He pushed away from the wall and waded into the eddies of seated men, trying to be careful not to step on anyone but intent on joining Miqelo and Tanielo at the stairs. When he was halfway there, someone called out his name.
“Qamar! Why don’t you tell us all about Sheyqa Nizhria al-Ammarizzad al-Ma’aliq!”
He stopped, and turned. “That, I am unable to do. But I believe I can tell you what she wants.”
“Our lands! All of us dead!”
“No.” He glanced around the Khoubri. “The last thing in the world that she wants is the death of a single Shagara.”
He was, of course, correct.
They did not believe him for quite some time, not until reports began to trickle in about the route being taken by the Sheyqa’s armies. The troops that subdued Ibrayanza stayed there. Joharra was never threatened, never even touched, and this was understood to be Sheyqir Allil’s doing—that same Allil who had been Qamar’s commander years and years earlier, and who had decided to buy off the armies of Rimmal Madar with maps and advice. That portion of the army marching north kept marching, with only occasional forays into total destruction along the way, just to educate the populace. They had a goal, and they wished to reach it by midsummer.
And when they did, all the arguments anyone in the fortress could muster could not persuade Qamar to abandon them to their inevitable fate. It took his wife’s cooperation—though some have termed it “treachery”—and a sleeping potion to remove him from the fortress. Any recounting of his life that asserts otherwise is a lie.
23
It was maddening, the question of how Sheyqa Nizhria had learned that there were Shagara within her grasp.
Qamar could only postulate that someone, or several someones, had been extremely curious and extremely clever. After Ra’abi’s marriage to Zaquir al-Ammarizzad, his cousins and his friends had visited, and of course he had brought servants with him, any one of whom could have been gathering information. And of course there were the Geysh Dushann. They would not hesitate to share knowledge of the Shagara with those in Rimmal Madar who considered themselves more al-Ammarizzad than al-Ma’aliq.
But few had ever tried to learn why the Shagara were such renowned healers. Rare plants in the desert, ancient lore, talents given by Acuyib the Merciful—there were explanations enough. No one had ever connected the trinkets and jewelry, the wind chimes and charms, with the healing arts of the Shagara.
Qamar was certain that now someone had.
And when he learned that Sheyqir Reihan, the poetic son of Nizzira, had been the power behind Nizhria’s seizure of the Moonrise Throne, he had a fairly good idea of whose curiosity and cleverness had made the right connections. Reihan’s poetry had indeed changed after Azzad al-Ma’aliq had exacted his vengeance. For one thing, he became obsessed with the ring that had been placed onto his finger, which he had worn to the end of his life. Scholars had many pretty things to say about this “symbolism” within his poems. None of them guessed that when he wrote that he was unable to remove the ring from his hand, he wrote the literal truth.
It mattered nothing that Reihan could not possibly know the exact methods of the magic. Qamar guessed that he had guessed. And if not him, then someone else. All that mattered was that Sheyqa Nizhria, positioned by Reihan and now in possession of the Moonrise Throne, unable to lay hands on the Shagara of Tza’ab Rih, had targeted the Shagara within her reach. The Shagara of Cazdeyya.
“This is for you.”
Qamar followed the mouallimo’s gesture to a book lying on the table. A beautiful book, folio size, bound in plain dark green, it was so new that the scents of paper and leather and glue clung to it still. There was no tooling, there were no symbols stamped into the covers or the spine. The most remarkable thing about it was the lock: made of gold, so much more precious here than in Tza’ab Rih, delicately wrought and fitted with a small key.
“The paper is all of your making, of course,” said the crafter, Miqelo’s brother. “Solanna gave it to me when I asked. Eight different kinds, fifty pages each. I hope that will be enough.”
“Enough? Enough for what?” He reached a reverent finger to stroke the cover. “Yberrio, what is this for?”
“The book, of course. The one you will write that preserves everything we are.” He sat wearily in a cushioned chair, rubbing absently at his swollen fingers. “All that we have learned since we came here about the plants, flowers, herbs, trees—how to make ink and paper—eiha, the talishann, those are safe with our kinsmen in the desert. But you must finish the work you began years ago. And this is the book in which you will do it.”
Qamar nodded slowly. “It has been decided, then.”
“Yes. Perhaps tomorrow, certainly within the next few days. As soon as everyone is ready.” He paused for a grim smile. “And even if they are not.”
Qamar weighed the book in his hands, looking at it so he would not have to look at his friend. Yberrio was one of the unlucky ones; he was a year Qamar’s junior and looked twenty years his senior. “You haven’t asked if I’m certain that they will come for us,” he said abruptly. “Everyone else has asked if I’m certain.”