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transport to Feroz. There might be a merchant who would pay
well for an Inayan trained runner. How he would accomplish
all this, he had no idea, but Tah told himself it was possible.
Despair would defeat him before he passed through the
warren.
Please, have pity... The beggar reached out a hand as
Tah passed, and he heard the crunch of bone when a soldier's
cudgel smashed the old man's fingers. It hurt him to walk on,
pretending he had not seen the plea in the cloudy eyes. His
jaw hurt with the effort to hold his protest. I cannot save him.
I am only one. But he remembered the beggar's face, dark
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and seamed, a scarlet trickle running from his slack mouth.
White hair matted with clay and blood.
Fearing he might be followed from the gate, he dodged
and hid among the broken buildings and fallen walls. The
scent of jasmine made him feel ill, mingling with the smoke
from so many small fires. Children had been murdered here;
he stumbled onto their wasted bodies. He had hardly known
such children existed, living feral in the warren, starving and
filthy. They, too, had been beaten to death, broken, twisted
things with staring eyes and swollen faces.
Tah stared at the heap and then vomited, a hard rush that
left him unable to stand for a moment. Swallowing bile, he
wiped his mouth and stumbled on, his feet remembering
when he forgot the way. Here and there, he saw pockets of
resistance, knots of Inayan poor who had taken up sticks and
stones and were driving the guard away. He kept to alleys
and shadow until at last he reached the crumbling wall that
separated the maze from the rest of Inay.
He ran for the trade district.
Tah no longer cared if his speed attracted attention; he
hoped the guard was too preoccupied with what appeared to
be a small revolt to scrutinize him. Fear coalesced with dread
to form a greater whole. Inay as he had known it was no
more and perhap Z'ev had known what would happen, or at
least suspected. But Tah could not spare another moment to
wonder how the ksathra fared.
The fighting was less here, but many merchants had
closed their storm shutters or rolled up their awnings or
folded their tents. For the first time in his memory, there
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were no children playing, no women gossiping as they swept
the street before their doors. Such silence gave him pause,
and he studied the still street for a long moment. It reminded
him of the air just before the storm had stripped the skin
from Harb's back. Tah knew a flicker of guilt, thinking of the
mute he had not repaid him well by stealing most of their
coins and leaving them in the Enadi camp.
After careful observation, he decided it was safe and
stepped out of the shadows falling long around the corner.
Tah darted across the street and between two dun buildings
up to the familiar lines of his home. No lamps were lit within,
and his heart shuddered in his breast. Japhet was killing Inay
in his search for his father's murderer. It would be kinder to
let people grieve without making it impossible to buy food or
earn a few kels.
Strange. The courtyard gate was securely latched. Tah
thought it would certainly draw more attention if he scaled
the wall, so he circled the house quickly and entered by the
front door. But as soon as he stepped within, he feared he
was too late.
Shards of his mother's cherished collection, even the
expensive cobalt glass, crunched under foot. His home had a
faintly smoky air, as if censers had recently been
extinguished, and even with the skylight above, Tah could
scarcely see through the gloom. Familiar furnishings took on
monstrous lines in the dark. He knew he should leave at once,
but he could not force himself to do so. Tah had to see all the
damage; perhaps amid the wreckage, he might find a clue
where his family had gone.
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Deep inside, he knew they had not gone of their own
volition. His mother would never have permitted her treasures
to be left behind, let alone for them to be trod back into sand.
Further in, it was worse all the plates and bowls were
smashed, and the hangings from the gallery of tales were
rent with knives. That was when hope died.
Ksathra Japhet had taken them.
And Tah's grandfather had known what would happen;
Moukib Faruq had provided warning. If only I'd asked him
what I should do ... if only I had not been such a coward in
Ballendin ... But if only was a coward's lament and would
change nothing of his current circumstance. Grief would not
be contained as easily as guilt despite many miles traveled
and wonders seen, Tah felt tears rising in his eyes, a child
crying for his mother in the dark. If it had not been so sad, it
would have been funny, for it was true. As he touched a
broken piece of pottery, he remembered lying with his head
in her lap as she sang to him.
A small voice chided him. You must go. If they are held at
the palace, you can do nothing for them. If they have already
been executed, then you can still do nothing. Do what you do
best run! Tah could not quarrel with the sense of the advice,
however, so with tears slipping over his dirty cheeks, he crept
through the house. He wanted something of his mother's,
something that still bore her scent, to take with him. Along
with the sliver of blue glass, it would be all he had left of his
home.
His parents room was in shambles, their pallets slashed to
shreds. Such seething malice made him wince, and he felt
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glad it was too dark for him to see whether their blankets
were bloodstained. Tah could not allow himself to think of
Sagireh or Melek, else he would go mad. As their brother, he
should have protected them ... and it seemed he had brought
the blade down upon their necks.
Searching quickly in the dark, he found a scarf that
smelled faintly of the oil his mother used when she braided up
her hair, so he tucked that away as well. Turning to go, he
heard a soft sound, a rustle, as if mice had gotten in his
mother's good chest. Tah remembered without wanting to
how proud she had been of that chest crafted in khi wood
and bound in bronze, it was the most precious thing they
owned.
By then, he was not thinking clearly, but he could not bear
the idea of vermin chewing on his mother's things. So he
flipped the lid open, armed with the little scrap of glass, which
was probably just sharp enough to give the rats a nasty
scratch. Instead of rodents, though, he found Sagireh. She
was curled in a ball, and the fabric below her reeked of urine.
Hard to tell how long she had been hiding there, but her face
was filthy and she was thinner than he remembered.
Come out, pretty one. Tah is here.
At first he thought he had been too late but then she
stirred, peered up at him with eyes that shone in the dark,
and launched herself into his arms. She was nothing but hair
and bone in his hold, a dirty, stinking bundle, but he had
never held anything so dear in his life. His tears ran into her
greasy hair, damping her scalp.
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Bad men came, she whimpered. I'm so hungry, Tah.
Mama shoved me in there and told me to hide and not to
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