Elizabeth Bear: Book of Iron

“That type is at ten-a-penny in my homeland,” he said.

Bijou noticed that it wasn’t actually an answer.

“If she’s immortal…” Kaulas settled a veil over his wrap, binding it in place with a red cotton band. Now faceless except for the squint of his pale eyes and the tanned skin of the bridge of his nose, he turned to regard her in the mirror.

The hostility in Bijou’s expression must have warned him to drop it. She’d known for years that Kaulas was terrified of death: an ironic fear, she thought, for a necromancer. Or maybe one more justified for him than for most people. She didn’t want to hear his conspiracy theories and self-pity about why Maledysaunte had managed to live forever, and he hadn’t.

“We won’t be in the sun,” she said, replacing the stopper in her vial of oil. Ambrosias wound scratchily around her ankle, anxious not to be left behind.

“There’s the morning to think of. We were lucky last time. You should prepare for daylight, in case we get trapped there over the day.”

“As long as you’re bringing plenty of water,” she said. “I’ll take some trinkets with me, I suppose.”

She’d crossed the burning sands of the Mother Desert in sandaled feet once, but she’d been following the river then, down from its headwaters in the mountains where she was born. She’d been utterly unprepared and yet she’d survived. Erem, however…

Kaulas was right: it was stupid to let past luck make her careless now. She tucked some useful things into her pockets just in case—filters, a head-wrap, a veil.

She stood. She had changed her clothes to another man’s suit, this one more rugged in its construction and of a lighter fabric: something suited for hours in the saddle and scrambling over rocks. Now she let Kaulas help her into a pale kaftan that would shield her somewhat from heat, wind, and sun. She tugged the sleeves down so only her fingertips protruded, then clucked Ambrosias into her arms. It swarmed up her like vines up a pillar in the rainy season.

“Pass me my sun hat,” she said. “Just in case we’re late coming back.”

When he did, their fingers brushed with familiar electricity…and familiar loathing. She pulled her hand back, knowing all too well that if he was good for her, she wouldn’t want him.

Prince Salih awaited them in the courtyard, behind the wheel of a roadster no one else was permitted to drive. Maledysaunte already sat in the front passenger seat, the Wizard Salamander between her and the prince. In the second row, the red-haired bard had claimed the middle seat. He must have been wearing a sword at his belt, because now he held it—scabbarded and unslung—between his knees.

Kaulas split from Bijou, walking around the car to take the rear driver’s side seat. Bijou settled into silky, squeaking glove-soft leather behind the Hag of Wolf Wood, pleased that Riordan had left her enough room for her hips without having to crowd in beside him. Long-legged Kaulas would be having a more awkward time on the opposite side. Bijou heaved the heavy door into place—it swung smoothly once she overcame its inertia—and made sure it latched. Even as it clicked, the roadster began rolling smoothly forward.

Normally, Prince Salih would not have gone out into the city unaccompanied by body guards—but he had long ago fought the metaphorical war with his father as to whether he’d be taking kapikulu adventuring. He had only won, Bijou thought, because he wasn’t the heir.

The Bey’s sons both loved automobiles. It was in their service that the roads of Messaline had come to be paved, and now Prince Salih’s roadster purred velvety over cobbles laid flat and flush by master masons. They were carved of the same golden stone as so many of the old city’s buildings, but the blue twilight washed away all color, rendering the walls and streets pale and ghosty. Messaline was coming to life with the sunset, the afternoon’s high heat giving way to the relief of evening as a long, dusty, golden thread faded away against the western horizon. The top of the roadster was down: warm, arid wind made the coiled springs of Bijou’s hair sway and brushed her cheeks like dry cloth.

The city stood on the banks of the river Dijlè, just above its confluence with the Idiqlè. Their reliable water in the vast desert was the reason trade cities had flourished and fallen and been rebuilt along their lengths for millennia. They crossed the river on one of Messaline’s four bridges, an arched stone structure so narrow the roadster’s wheels brushed the low walls at its edges. You could turn your head and look down directly into the silty, milky water.

It was fortunate, Bijou thought, that she’d ridden with Prince Salih in enough…varied…situations that she trusted his wheelmanship implicitly. If he’d been going to get her killed with his driving, it would have happened a long time since.

Bijou held her hat in her lap and tugged the caftan’s collar up to cover her mouth and nose. She was paying for her vanity, while Kaulas looked at ease beneath his veils. The streets might be paved, but that didn’t stop the dust from blowing over Messaline’s walls.

The main road south, toward the deep desert, led them along the avenue of temples. Here the thoroughfare was divided, lined on both sides and along the median with date palms and pomegranates, shaded by argan, olive, sugar ash, and lime. Temples rose above the treetops, four large edifices dedicated to the principal gods of Messaline—Kaalha, Vajhir, Rakasha, Iashti—rivaled only by the palaces built to honor the nameless Scholar-God of the Uthmans, who was worshiped here in two or three denominations. Smaller cloisters, chapels, and shrines huddled between those of the major religions like chicks among hens.

These were not the only churches in Messaline. Nobody wanted to walk the width of a great city merely to worship. But it was the highest concentration of monks and nuns in the known world, and Messaline’s tourist industry was notably proud of the architecture.

As the roadster purred past the temple of mirror-masked Kaalha, Bijou realized that a sliver of crescent moon was following the setting sun into the west. Dawn and moonset were Kaalha’s hours, and though Bijou had been raised to different gods in her youth in the two-sunned lands south of Aezin and the desert, she had adopted Kaalha as her patron here in Messaline. Under her breath, behind closed lips, she muttered a brief benediction. Kaulas noticed; she saw him leaning around Riordan to grin at her, only the crinkling of his eyes visible above his dust mask.

She looked away, lips twitching with amusement. Kaulas too had converted to the religion of his adopted city—there was something to be said for honoring the gods who were observing the land where you happened to be—but he preferred the tiger-god of summer and high noon, red Rakasha. And after the traditions of his people, he kept his devotions private.

They motored towards the city gates, which stood open even at night in these times of peace. To reach them, the prince wended through mobs of pedestrians heading out for the night markets—some leading pack animals or pushing barrows—and the inevitable bicycles, dogs, camels, and occasional man on horseback. Here and there, somebody cheered the prince and his entourage. Bijou had never been certain if that was just good politics, or if the people of Messaline really did love the Bey’s adventuresome second son. They’d be even more impressed, she thought, if they knew half of what he’d been up to.

Beyond the walls of Messaline lay hectares of rich farmland, hugging the riverbanks of the Dijlè and the Idiqlè. More date palms, vineyards, and the fallow fields of winter barley stretched to the horizon, shadowy and mysterious in the blue twilight—and then, as time passed, crisp and silver in the glow of the stars.