Storm of Chaos Page 6

  I can ask her later when she’s not so busy, he decided.

  He committed the nonsensical words to memory even if he didn’t understand their meaning. As he’d learned over the course of his life, even the most seemingly inconsequential thing could make the difference between life and death.

  Once he had the words fixed in his mind, he returned to studying the map itself. Kodyn had made a few notations to mark the outlines of the five tiers, as well as the three north-to-south-running avenues of Death Row, Trader’s Way, and the Path of Sepulture. The sketched outline was rough, difficult to understand, and lacked precision, but at least it gave Evren a general idea of where in Shalandra he’d find the passages.

  Yet, the real challenge came in memorizing each twist and turn of the passageways themselves. Too many led to dead ends and decoys—doubtless intended to confuse unwary intruders. Within half an hour, Evren’s head ached from trying to decipher the complex layout of the tunnels.

  Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to focus. I’m going to learn to navigate these passages, even if it takes me every spare hour.

  When the Vault of Ancients opened, he would be there, no matter what. There wasn’t an army of Gatherers, Ybrazhe, Indomitables, or Keeper’s Blades large enough to stop him.

  Chapter Seven

  The spark of Thimara’s life within the pendant flared bright as Aisha hurried away from the Temple of Whispers. Aisha could feel the woman’s desire to return to the temple and remain close to Uryan, the stern-faced Secret Keeper that had meant something—mother, sister, lover, friend—to Thimara before her death.

  Yet that wasn’t the only desire that burned bright. Somehow, the stone relic had changed the way Aisha sensed and communicated with the Kish’aa. The stone served as a storehouse for the power, at the same time sharpening her focus and giving her clarity of thought when speaking with Thimara.

  “Vengeance,” the woman whispered in her mind.

  Aisha’s heart sank. Not this again!

  Since the night Aisha absorbed Thimara’s spirit, the Secret Keeper had begged for vengeance. Yet Aisha couldn’t understand who she wanted vengeance against. Unlike Eldesse and Osirath, Briana’s faithful servants, Thimara hadn’t been murdered. The woman had died of the Azure Rot. There could be no vengeance against disease.

  Yet, a glimmer of hope shone within Aisha. There was still so much she didn’t understand about her Umoyahlebe gift, yet she knew where to find someone who could give her answers.

  A shaman. The word filled Aisha with exhilaration. A Spirit Whisperer, here in Shalandra!

  Her father had spoken of the City of the Dead with the same reverence that southerners spoke of the Serenii city of Enarium or the sunken continent of Aegeos. But there had also been a hint of familiarity in his voice, as if he had known what awaited her in Shalandra.

  To her knowledge, her father had never left their village during her lifetime. Yet perhaps he had journeyed to Shalandra before her birth, when he’d first discovered his Umoyahlebe powers. Or, perhaps he had simply heard of the City of the Dead from other Spirit Whisperers that traveled before him.

  There existed a chance that the man she went to see would be nothing more than a charlatan. Aisha had encountered enough hucksters during her years in Praamis to know that men and women would do and say anything to earn a living. Hunger, thirst, cold, and fear of death drove people to extreme measures. This man could be nothing more than a Ghandian who claimed to be a Spirit Whisperer.

  There’s only one way to find out.

  She found her steps quickening, an urgency humming within her as she hurried westward toward the Path of Sepulture. The broad avenue ran along the western edge of Shalandra, just outside of the Keeper’s Crypts. It would be the quickest way to reach the Foreign Quarter, located on the western side of the Cultivator’s Tier.

  But that meant approaching the tombs built into the side of the mountain. Aisha’s gut tightened as the blue-white light of the Kish’aa filled the late afternoon with a brilliant glow. Hundreds of spirits clustered around the entrance to the tombs, with thousands more within. All of them had died before their time—some murdered, some dead by their own hands, many laid low by disease or starvation—and the spark of their lives still burned bright. Now, their lifeless eyes turned toward her, pleading, begging, swirling like bright smoke carried on the afternoon breeze.

  Once, Aisha might have been afraid of them. She might have chosen the long way around—east along the Artificer’s Courseway, south along Trader’s Way, then returning west on Commoner’s Row—just to avoid the cries of the dead. Their pleas and demands would have overwhelmed her, filling her head with a buzzing so forceful it threatened to shatter her skull.

  No longer.

  The previous night, she had made a startling discovery: she could control the Kish’aa. Not just their power, channeled like lightning through her body. But her Umoyahlebe gift allowed her to speak to the dead, to sway them to her will. It was a battle—one she had fought and nearly lost more than once—and her willpower had to be strong to corral the spirits and marshal them to her desires. The Whispering Lily had given her that control, had strengthened her grip on the Kish’aa. Because of the plant, she had wielded the power of the dead to save Briana, Kodyn, Hailen, and all the others.

  Yet use of the Whispering Lily came at a high cost. The plant had shattered her father’s mind, pulling him deeper into the world of the spirits with each use. Eventually, it had claimed him—leaving his body an empty husk.

  The effects had taken a year to progress, but Aisha could already feel the change within her. Not an outward change like the blue-white light that danced in her eyes or the sparks sizzling between her fingers. It was an inward change, subtle, barely noticeable unless she concentrated.

  She could hear Thimara more clearly, as if she’d had a ball of wax removed from her ears and now heard fully for the first time. The energy within her was sharper, burned hotter, and filled her muscles with more energy than ever before.

  The world of the Kish’aa had opened to her mind and body. If she continued to use the Whispering Lily, eventually she would reach the point of no return. She would be a husk like her father.

  The gift came with a curse—a curse Briana was determined to cure. Aisha trusted the Shalandran would do her best, but she had to find her own answers. That meant finding the shaman on the Cultivator’s Tier and learning everything she could about her powers.

  The sun slowly set as she descended the Path of Sepulture and turned onto Commoner’s Row, the avenue that ran west to east along the Cultivator’s Tier. The western edge of the Tier was the Foreign Quarter, reserved for those that had come to Shalandra for trade or business.

  The Foreign Quarter truly was a foreign place to the rest of Shalandra. While the Earaqi on the Cultivator’s Tier kept their homes neat and organized, the Voramians, Malandrians, Praamians, Fehlans, Nyslians, Drashi, and people of the Twelve Kingdoms decorated their abodes with lavish hands. Bright Al Hani rugs, ornate Voramian tapestries, Malandrian hanging bead curtains, Fehlan furs, and Drashi woodcarvings marked the origin of each home’s owner plainly for all to see. It appeared as if they wore their heritage with pride in a city that looked down on them for being interlopers.

  The setting sun splashed across the bright colors of the well-decorated homes, painting the Foreign Quarter with broad brush strokes of gold, red, orange, and purple. Oil lamps, lanterns, and bonfires sprang to life. Unlike the quiet Shalandrans, the people of the Foreign Quarter seemed to occupy their evening with music, dancing, and laughter. A dozen instruments—Praamian psalters, Voramian tambors and flutes, Fehlan drums, and many more Aisha didn’t recognize—filled the air with melodies that at once mingled with each other and warred for dominance.

  As Aisha hurried westward along Commoner’s Row, she caught sight of a crowd just outside of the Foreign Quarter. They gathered around a tall, handsome man standing atop a wooden platform. The man wore simple, crude robes like
those of the Kabili or Mahjuri, and his head was bare, no headband to mark his caste. Yet the people seemed spellbound by his words—the more than two hundred Earaqi remained silent as he spoke.

  Aisha couldn’t overhear the words, but she had no time for speeches. The sun had already dipped below Alshuruq’s western cliff face and she had to hurry to reach the shaman before he closed shop for the night.

  She went over the instructions Briana had given her. “Down the easternmost side street in the Foreign Quarter, there’s a little one-story building in the shadow of the southern wall. Look for the sign with the eight-pointed star.”

  The sky was nearly dark by the time she spotted the sign: a hanging wooden board with a crudely carved eight-tipped star. There was no name, no indication of what the place had to offer, simply that star.

  Aisha would recognize it anywhere. Her father had shown her that symbol inked into his arm. To the people of Ghandia, it marked those who wielded the power of the Kish’aa.

  The sign hung over a building as squat and shambling as Aisha had seen on the Cultivator’s Tier. The whitewashing on the walls had peeled and faded, and holes appeared in the thatching. Yet the door seemed solid enough, with wooden shutters that stopped her from seeing inside.

  Aisha drew in a deep breath and reached for the door, but hesitated. A strange reticence froze her muscles in place.

  She was afraid.

  The realization felt so odd. She’d faced armed assassins and bloodthirsty death cultists without hesitation, even challenged a tomb full of the Kish’aa. Yet she felt hesitant now. As much as she wanted to find answers, a part of her dreaded the answers she’d find.

  What if there’s no hope for me? The questions assailed her from all sides. What if I’m doomed to the madness like my father? What if I have no choice but to run away from my gift, or worse, face it knowing what it’s going to do to me?

  Icy dread seeped into her veins, but she gritted her teeth and forced her hand to move toward the door. She might be afraid of what lay ahead, of what terrible truths she’d find, yet she was no coward to run from a fight.

  Her hand rested on the wooden door and she tensed her muscles. I will face this, no matter what.

  Jaw clenched, she pushed.

  The door refused to budge.

  Confused, Aisha pushed again. Nothing.

  She tried a third time, hard enough to set the wooden door rattling. A metallic click echoed from within. The sound of a deadbolt shot home.

  Icy dread, hopelessness, and anxiety threatened to crash down on her. She almost turned away—call it an omen or a sign from the Kish’aa that this is a mistake—but forced her feet to remain in place. She had come all this way to face her fears. No turning back now. Something as ridiculous as a lock wouldn’t stop her.

  She hammered on the door so hard the wood nearly cracked beneath her fist. Each blow drove a little spike of nervousness home in her gut but she kept pounding anyway. Perhaps if she struck hard enough, she could drown out her fear.

  The door flew open so quickly she nearly hammered her clenched fist into the wizened face that appeared in the crack. Aisha caught her hand a finger’s breadth from the man’s bulbous nose.

  He was short—barely up to Aisha’s shoulder—with a hunch to his shoulders and a perfectly round, bald head set atop a short neck. Instead of Shalandran clothing, he wore the bright orange, blue, and black shuka robes of a Ghandian. His face had more wrinkles than dried-up ginger root, and age had gnarled once-strong hands. When he squinted, he reminded Aisha of the meerkats she’d chased around the Ghandian plains beside her sister.

  “What?” The man fixed his one good eye on her, his lips curled into an angry snarl that revealed only a handful of teeth. “What do you want?”

  Aisha swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry, and the words seemed to fly from her mind. She knew why she had come but couldn’t begin to put it into words.

  “Oh.” The man seemed to see her for the first time, recognizing her as a fellow Ghandian. His anger softened from a deep scowl to a frustrated frown. “Come back tomorrow, little sister,” he said in Ghandian. “I will be happy to provide you with whatever you—”

  “Please!” The Ghandian word burst from Aisha’s lips. Suddenly, the burden she had been carrying for the last few weeks felt impossibly heavy. She couldn’t wait until tomorrow—she was so tired of trying to be strong.

  “All right, all right.” The wizened, wrinkled man threw up a hand and pulled open the door. “If it’s so important, little sister, come in.”

  Relief surged within Aisha, and her legs seemed suddenly weak as she stumbled into the shaman’s abode. The interior was a chaotic mess of shamanic instruments, bundles of dried herbs, shriveled roots, mixing bowls, spirit pipes, and a hundred more tools that Aisha had seen scattered around her own father’s home. Umoyahlebe tended to be too preoccupied with the spirit world to pay much heed to their mortal world—a fact Aisha’s mother had belabored many times while trying to tidy up her father’s space in their simple home.

  “What brings you to me at this late hour?” The Ghandian man fixed her with a half-blind stare. “Did someone steal your kupiga, little sister?”

  The question took long seconds to register in Aisha’s mind. The shaman spoke the dialect of the Mhambi, a tribe two days’ travel north of Aisha’s own Ukuza. The Mhambi addressed their young men and women as “little brother” and “little sister”, while the Ukuza called them “lion” and “lioness”. The word kupiga was a Mhambi word for the silver eyebrow, nose, and lip piercings worn by the nassor, the Ghandian warrior chieftainesses.

  “N-No.” Aisha shook her head. She’d been captured by slavers before her mother could pass on her piercings. Though Ria, a fellow Ghandian, had taken to wearing hers, Aisha hadn’t adopted the habit. Deep down, she hadn’t believed herself worthy of the nassor’s piercings—she had been too weak to stop the slavers from capturing her. Even after she joined the Night Guild and learned to fight, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to wear the jewelry.

  “Not the kupiga, then.” The wizened man pursed his lips, which made him look even more like a meerkat. “A bit of choclat for your master?” His dark eye darted to Aisha’s red-and-gold headband.

  Aisha hesitated, uncertain of what to say to this man. She had just revealed her secret to Hailen and Briana—by accident, not fully by choice—and she hadn’t yet told Kodyn. Yet here she was, about to share it with a total stranger.

  She searched the man’s eye, hoping for a glimpse of recognition, a glimmer of compassion, anything that would tell her she was making the right choice. Her breath caught in her lungs. His eye had the same spark of blue-white light that she’d seen in the mirror. He wasn’t just Ghandian—he was a Spirit Whisperer like her.

  Aisha nearly collapsed. Tears of relief streamed down her face, and it felt as if a weight had been lifted from her chest.

  “Please help me,” she said. “Help me understand how to be Umoyahlebe.”

  Chapter Eight

  As Issa reached the Artificer’s Courseway, she couldn’t help shooting a glance westward, in the direction of the Temple of Whispers. She hadn’t had a chance to see Briana, Kodyn, or the others after Angrak’s assassination. Now, with Lady Callista’s latest orders, she didn’t know when she would have a free moment to visit.

  When this mess with the murder and the Keeper’s Council is over, I’ll make time, she told herself. The words rang hollow—she didn’t know how everything would play out, or where she would end up in the aftermath. But that was the best she could do.

  At least I know Briana’s safe. The young woman had lost enough for a lifetime; if Issa and her fellow Blades couldn’t be there to protect her, at least she had a horde of Secret Keepers to watch her back. It had to suffice for now.

  Her own mission beckoned.

  Issa kept an eye on the crowds as she and her company of Indomitable trainees—Nysin, Enyera, Rilith, and Viddan among them—marched down Death Row in th
e direction of the Slave’s Tier. The sun had set hours ago, but Issa had missed it. On Lady Callista’s insistence, she’d tried to rest. But after an hour of fitful sleep, she’d gotten up and set off on her march.

  Every time she closed her eyes, the image of Kellas’ crucified body still haunted her.

  She’d seen death up close and personal, had more than a score of kills to her name, yet this was different, somehow. More gruesome, perhaps, because she’d known Kellas. Or maybe the manner of death—a coward’s poison, the crucifixion of a traitor—drove a dagger of horror home in her gut.

  Lady Callista’s words echoed in her mind. “Do not stop until every Gatherer in Shalandra is dead!”

  The command hardened something within Issa. She would find the Gatherers responsible for Kellas’ death and make them pay. She’d clap them in chains to face execution in Murder Square, or cut them down without hesitation. After everything they’ve done to Shalandra, they deserve no less.

  That task would certainly prove easier said than done. As she gathered her patrol from the Fortress, she’d tried in vain to formulate a strategic, meticulous plan of attack. All she knew was that Kellas had been assigned to patrol the Slave’s Tier—the largest and most heavily populated of Shalandra’s levels. He could have gone missing anywhere along the Way of Chains or any of the side streets or back alleys on the tier. To find the site where Kellas and his patrol had been captured or assailed by the Gatherers would prove nearly impossible.

  The only thing we can do is ask all of the patrols we meet, she’d determined. Someone has to have seen him.

  The majority of the Indomitables assigned to patrol the Slave’s Tier were typically Mahjuri or Kabili accepted into the army. The high-ranking Executors had decided that they would be the ones least likely to rouse the hostility of the tier’s occupants. Many of the patrols on duty tonight would have also been walking the streets last night.