Gunmetal Gods Read online

  The old man sighed and squatted by the lakeside. “The Shah retired me from training janissaries, and the Fount has disallowed women to serve in the corps, so Melodi can never take the vow. What to do with her, I wonder…”

  A family of ducks floated by, quacking at the boot I doused in the water. The mother duck pecked it; I pulled it away before she could do any damage. My shoes would not be harmed by such a tasty bird. My stomach grumbled. There wouldn’t be any decent grub in Tengis Keep, and I wasn’t going to eat bone broth with barley. I’d have to catch something sumptuous at the bazaar tomorrow.

  I smacked my boots together to dry them. The red leather was discolored at the base, but the green and gold embroidery glistened like new. They smelled funny though. Like the rest of Kostany — of fish and shit. A boiling bath could cure that. Another thing to do tomorrow.

  Tengis told me to take the guest room upstairs: the softest place in the house, with a feathered mattress and cotton sheets instead of a bit of straw and hide like the barrack chambers I used to sleep in.

  Melodi was sitting on the staircase in her yellow dress, still dirty from our bout. It was the most colorful thing in this dank keep. Her eyes said she wanted to talk, and I couldn’t ignore the daughter I hadn’t seen in ten years. We were all sons, fathers, or brothers to someone at Tengis Keep — blood didn’t matter to janissaries, and we bonded fiercely because of it.

  She sulked. “Can I…ask you a favor?”

  I craved a hookah pipe. Smoking cherry-flavored hashish before bed would’ve been the perfect release.

  “Get me the hookah and I’ll give you the world.”

  “Grandfather quit years ago. Threw them all out.”

  I sighed. “Well, another reason to be disappointed.”

  Melodi picked at the fake topaz in her bronze bracelet. “Are you sad to be here?”

  I sat a step below her and reclined against the wall. “I’m sorry I didn’t visit or write. Truth be told, I’ve not been myself for a long time.”

  “I know, Grandpa would always say it wasn’t your fault. That it hurt you too much to be here. I’m sorry I slapped you.” She took my hand. “I miss Lunara too.”

  Tengis hadn’t painted his walls since I’d left. What was once white was now gray. I supposed houses got old like the men within them.

  “Lunara loved to mother you,” I said to lighten my mood. “I’m surprised you even remember us. You were only five.”

  “She should be here. Then it could be like old times.” Melodi squeezed my hand. “Do you pray for her?”

  Grit roughened my voice. “I used to stand in vigil from dawn to the zenith hour and beg Lat to bring her back. All I got were swollen feet. Actually, they were already swollen from how long I’d been looking for her, through the forests and mountains in the countryside. When someone disappears in the night — not a clue, not a hint of where they went…there’s nowhere to look.”

  “And yet, there’s everywhere to look.”

  I pulled my hand away to scratch my beard. “So…what favor would you ask of me?”

  Melodi gulped and pulled on her thin, dark hair. Whatever it was, it made her hem and haw. “Teach me everything you know.”

  I laughed. “You’re better than me now.”

  “I’m younger, faster, maybe even stronger. But I’ll never be as clever or experienced. I grew up in peace, mostly. You used to sleep with a dagger under your pillow, remember?”

  Thinking back, it was a miracle I hadn’t cut myself turning in my sleep. It was easy to grab the dagger under my pillow and stab whoever was sneaking up on me. And during the conflict between Shah Murad and his brother, often fellow janissaries were trying to gut me as I slept, so divided were loyalties.

  “I hope I never have to again,” I said. “Peace is its own reward.”

  “Peace makes us weak.”

  “You’re just saying that because you’re bored.” I rubbed her head.

  “No, I’ve seen how people act in this city. Everyone just wants an easy time — without earning it.” She grimaced and swatted my hand. “Why’d you move so far from everything?”

  “Because I earned my easy time. And I like being bored. After what I’ve been through, boring is the best I can hope for. Boring means no war, no fighting. It means the ghosts of those my blade bloodied won’t come back to dance.”

  The glint faded from Melodi’s eyes. I hated seeing her sullen.

  “Listen, Melodi.” I patted her back; her shoulder blades stuck out. I’d have to take her to the bazaar for a feast of pheasant marinated in yogurt or fermented dough stuffed with beef. “That old man made sure that if you want something, you have the strength to take it. He’s taught you everything you need.” I got up to go to bed.

  “And what about you, Papa? What do you want?”

  “I want a soft mattress for the rest of my life.” I’d have one tonight, at least.

  My hope as I reclined on the mattress was that the Shah would see his error, make peace with the magus, and send me home. I prayed to Lat that I’d spend my days hammering trinkets and horseshoes and die with wrinkled skin and gray hair. And yet, as I stared at the guest room’s unfamiliar gray ceiling, I knew it was another prayer she would laugh and wave away, like a hornbill flying past her verandah in the heavens.

  I n the morning, I was devouring almond soup with buttered beef at the grand bazaar’s most overpriced establishment when some flashy courtier summoned me to the Sublime Seat. The warrior-poet Taqi called it the “Palace on the Shores of Time” because it outlasted a dozen dynasties and conquerors. I felt its green dome clashed with the white marble. Nevertheless, I trailed my slightly muddy boots through the Shah’s garden, where marigolds perfumed air cooled by a stone fountain. Black-feathered drongos chirped atop the trees that shaded me.

  Flanked by janissaries in their colorful cottons, a slim man sat on the wooden divan beneath the veranda in the center. A glittering turban patterned with the eight-pointed star of Lat adorned his head. His beard and mustache were more manicured than the garden and evoked fashion rather than ferocity. I almost coughed at the astringent scent of myrrh flowing from his gown. Ebra, the Grand Vizier, was a far shade from how I remembered him in youth.

  A yet more ostentatious man stood across from him, his head bowed, a pound of purple kohl around his eyes. His maroon silks were foreign, patterned with spades, and, dare I say, finer than the Grand Vizier’s.

  “We’ll do something about those ruffians, rest assured,” Grand Vizier Ebra said to the man. “The Shah will compensate you from his own purse for the loss of your…what did you call it?”

  “Palace of Dreams, Your Eminence. A place where no man could leave without a smile, his every yearning fulfilled. And now it’s just a husk. Boiled and blackened and burned. A dream in smoke. My fortune — ash.” Kohl streamed down his face with tears as a trembling overtook him. “We had twelve varieties of card games, wines from as far as Lemnos, beardless boys and pleasure girls versed in the techniques of Kashanese sutra. You would have loved—”

  “No-no.” The Grand Vizier flushed and shuffled on his divan. “I am a worshipper of Lat and follower of the Fount. While it sounds lovely for some, such a den would be forbidden to me.” He crossed his legs and swallowed. “No one was killed, so there’s no blood money to be paid, but restitution there will be. For you and all others who have lost such fine establishments to these rabid fanatics. The Shah does not let criminality go unpunished.” Ebra looked to me and raised his eyebrows, a false smile spreading across his face. “And here is the legend who will make it so. It is with the grace of Lat that we meet after so long, Kevah. You’re a man who has done so much, and I now expect much of.”

  “Your Eminence.” I bent my neck. “As I told His Glory, I’ll do as commanded.”

  Ebra gestured for the pleasure house owner to leave. Once the tearful man had sauntered away, he said, “After much cajoling on my part, the Shah has wisely rescinded that command. Instead, you are to
parley with Magus Vaya.”

  Somewhat of a relief. I hunched my shoulders. “Parley? I’m no diplomat.”

  “You are a respected and feared warrior. You are worthy to carry the Shah’s terms because you are one who can enforce them.”

  “I’m sure there are many respected warriors in this city.”

  “But only one who has killed a magus.”

  A boast always catches up with you. I sighed with regret. “Your Eminence, the man who killed the magus ten years ago is gone today. I am not the warrior I once was. Yesterday during training, I was defeated by my daughter, a girl I once carried on my shoulders. Parleys can get messy, and as my father put it, you are sending a ‘well-fed ninny’ against the most powerful sorcerer in the kingdom.”

  “Ah, us janissaries are so fond of calling those we love daughters and fathers and brothers.” The Grand Vizier laughed from high in his throat. “Perhaps one day I’ll call you ‘brother.’”

  Ebra had trained under Tengis. I’d known him in those days, but he was shy and we didn’t speak much. Afterward, he was sent to a palace school for elite janissaries to be trained not in warfare, but statecraft.

  “Did you not love the man who trained you and taught you everything you know?”

  “Unlike most janissaries, I remember my real mother and father,” Ebra said with venom. “I remember the day they sold me for a pouch of silver. So…I find it difficult to call anyone else by those words.”

  “And I find it difficult not to. What is a man without family?”

  Ebra sipped the red liquid in his bejeweled goblet, then wagged his finger at me. “You’re blunt and persuasive, perfect traits to deal with a man like Magus Vaya. You leave within the hour.”

  Before the guards could usher me out, I said, “You don’t need me to make war, and I doubt you need me to make peace. It was a long carriage journey from Tombore to Kostany. Tell me truly, why was I summoned all this way?”

  Ebra seemed so comfortable on his divan; it surprised me that he got off it and came close to my ear.

  “The Shah has his eccentricities,” he said in a hushed tone, as if we were court gossips. “One day he wants this, the next day that. I don’t claim to understand it. Play your role, and you’ll be a passing fancy that he’ll toss aside and forget.”

  Ebra sat upon his divan with a straight posture and high chin. He dismissed me with a backhand wave.

  M agus Vaya preached at the shrine-town of Balah, ten miles east of Kostany. I traveled by carriage through the Valley of Saints, which was surrounded by the Zari Zar Mountains. It was also where I’d survived a hailstorm and killed a magus. I shut my eyes so I wouldn’t be reminded and to get a bit more sleep. The Fount insisted the hardships of the saint’s road be preserved, so rocks and broken patches jolted the carriage the whole way. I’m sure the horses hated it as much as I did.

  After an hour, the hovels of Balah began to wrap around the mountainside. The path to the shrine of Saint Nizam, the only impressive sight in this pile of rocks, ascended the mountains. Too steep for carriages, so my janissary escorts and I continued on foot. We passed the cave where Saint Nizam had hidden, which some obscure scholar named the Bath of Stones. By the time we stood before the Shrine of Nizam, I realized I knew too much about this topic. It was thanks to Tengis, who made sure we had a thorough education and that our wits were as sharp as our skills.

  At the shrine, the wailing of supplicants never ceased. While holy men chanted prayers, beggars cried for Saint Nizam’s intercession. All who entered the shrine wore white, except for me and the colorful janissaries.

  The incense pots couldn’t cover the human smell of the place; skin-stench and sweat shot up my nose and burrowed in my brain. The janissaries clutched their matchlocks as we waded through the sea of worshippers. I’d neglected to even bring a sword.

  We passed the mausoleum of Saint Nizam, where his shroud rested within a metal cage. Supplicants clung to that cage and pushed their arms through it, seeking closeness to the saint. I whispered a quick prayer, asking only for Melodi’s good health.

  Stout men brandishing maces guarded a room behind the mausoleum. So these were the ruffians bringing disorder to Kostany — burning taverns and pleasure houses — supposedly on the orders of a magus. I displayed the Seluqal peacock seal and they let me pass.

  A young man sat on the floor of the empty, tiled room, his face fresh and fair. Prayer beads in his right hand clack-clacked , and he whispered praises to Lat under his breath. In his cross-legged posture, he looked as unshakable as an anchor at the bottom of the sea. His hypnotic breathing seemed to inhale time, slow it down, and exhale serenity.

  The young man gestured for me to sit. He snapped his fingers, and an elderly servant brought small, stone cups of tea.

  “So you’re Magus Vaya.” I sipped the tea. It was so diluted, it might as well have been hot water. The faint taste of cumin did nothing to perk me up. And yet…the room seemed to tilt when I sipped. “Tell me, are you a man of peace?”

  The young man locked eyes with me. I couldn’t read whatever lay behind his blank expression. How easily would he see the trepidation that hid behind mine?

  The magus closed his eyes. “Anyone who claims to serve Merciful Lat must strive for peace.”

  “Then let us guarantee the peace.”

  “Without justice, how can there be peace?”

  “And what injustice has been wrought?”

  The magus sat up and straightened his back. “Below the Sublime Seat, in the place they call Labyrinthos, our sheikha is kept prisoner. Every Thursday, I used to visit her to record her sermon. And then on Friday during the prayer, I would recite that sermon, as if from her mouth. Tomorrow will be the third moon since we have not heard from our sheikha.”

  I perked up in surprise. No one had briefed me on any of this. Was I sent here just to show that the Shah possessed a magus killer? Did my life matter so little that I’d been summoned across the country for such a paltry display? I hoped the magus didn’t notice the surprise and indignation in my eyes. I pushed those feelings down deep. “Why not seek recourse the proper way? Why agitate?”

  “Have you been to Labyrinthos?”

  I shrugged. “Can’t say I have.”

  “When they put you there, they give you a torch and tell you to find your way out. The historians say that a Crucian imperator built Labyrinthos to confuse the demons coming out of the gate to hell. The tunnels go on forever, deeper, deeper, and twist in such ways that men go mad trying to get back to where they started. In the darkness, you hear the whispers of jinn as they prick your forehead with nails as sharp as knives. No one survives Labyrinthos…and yet our sheikha endured it for ten years.”

  When I was a child, Tengis would scare us with tales of Labyrinthos. Hearing the magus describe it, a childhood fear jittered through me. “How did she survive in a place like that?”

  The expressionless magus pointed to his face, then covered it with his hands and opened his fingers so his eyes would show. “The wonders of our invisible masks and training allow us to survive without food, without water, without sleep — forever unaging.” He brought his hands back to his lap and clasped them. “But what kills in Labyrinthos is not the absence of those things. It is a madness that creeps like an assassin. Sheikha Agneya resisted it. She stayed by the entrance and never explored more of the cave.”

  “Agneya…I met her once.” I recalled the pale girl, her hair wrapped in a bright scarf and body covered by a rough wool robe, standing before the throne in the great hall. “Twenty-five years ago, about. She looked younger than you. She refused to help Murad’s father campaign across the Yunan Sea and also to war against the Alanyans. Shah Jalal smashed a goblet or two but had the good sense not to throw one at a magus.” I could never forget her kind eyes as she walked toward me with the grace of a cloud. “I was fasting that day and sundown was far…she came up to me while I was guarding the palace, reached into her cloak, and took out the softest and white
st piece of bread that, till this day, I’ve ever eaten. Sometimes I wonder if I’d just dreamt it.”

  “Our sheikha loved to feed the destitute. She was succor for the weak, wherever she went, in the spirit of Saint Kali.”

  I grunted in dismissal of his platitudes. “And in whose spirit do you act? Name the saint that liked to burn things down. Tell me, magus, what is it you want out of this?”

  There was elegance in the way the magus cleared his throat. “In the darkness of Labyrinthos, our sheikha heard the voice of Lat, like a breeze from paradise. And without her sermon, we are deprived of that heavenly breeze. Restore our right to see and speak with Grand Magus Agneya — that is all we ask.”

  Reasonable enough, but I’d only heard one side of the story and was eager to hear the other. “I will convey your request to His Glory.” I got back on my feet. “Show good faith in the meantime. Have your followers take a break from assailing the card dens, taverns, and — yes — even the pleasure houses in Kostany.”

  “Everything has a reason.” The magus gazed through me. Staring back, I was almost entranced. “Even a piece of bread given in kindness to a palace guard.”

  I shuddered and returned to the janissaries waiting at the doorway.

  A n hour into our journey back to Kostany, the Balah stench finally left my nose. I could breathe air that didn’t stink of poorly washed, sweaty men. We rolled through the eastern gate toward the Sublime Seat. The smooth roads of Kostany let me doze off. It didn’t last — my carriage driver shook me awake.

  “This isn’t the palace,” I said as I looked at the narrow street outside my window.