Saladin Ahmed - Throne of the Crescent Moon

Litaz’s expression was one of pure horror, and Raseed had no doubt that his own face wore the same look. “Madness,” she said at last. “Madness! Even if—God forbid it—even if he murdered all of Dhamsawaat, every other realm would rise against him. The Soo would send our mercenary legions, the Heavenly Army of Rughal-ba would—”

The Doctor’s eyes were cold as stone now. The water pipe’s flaming coal fizzled and died. “If he seizes the throne, he will not have to worry about these things. He will become the Traitorous Angel’s Regent-in-the-World. Armies will not be able to stop him.”

“But why ?” Zamia asked. “Why would any man—even a cruel man—do these things? What could he possibly gain?”

“Power,” the Doctor answered without hesitation. “The same thing that a man gains when he murders one of his fellow men. The same thing that a ruler gains when he sends his armies to kill and die. Power and the promise of a name that will live forever. What the Traitorous Angel offers his servants is no different. Though this man’s ambition is as a sea next to the puddles and ponds of earthly killers.”

Raseed spoke quietly “Praise be to God that the Khalifs of Abassen have been secure enough in their majesty that they have never used these foul powers.”

The Doctor farted loudly. “Oh! Pardon me! But perhaps my body responded of its own accord to your foolish suggestion.” He wagged a finger at Raseed. “Do you really believe, boy, that the Khalifs have never used this power because they have righteously chosen not to? No. Men do not pass up power, least of all Khalifs. No doubt the powers of the throne were never known to them. The Court magi have always been puffed-up thugs, confident in the simple brute force of their own magery. They have never been great readers or researchers. The coronation likely lives on as an ignorant inheritance, a reason for royal pomp and ostentation in which power is nominally passed from one generation to the next. But my guess is—and for this I do praise All-Merciful God—my guess is that this scroll hasn’t been read in hundreds of years.”

Litaz kneaded her forehead with a knuckle. “Until now,” she said. “Until now, when it has been read not only by a half-cracked would-be usurper but by a powerful servant of the Traitorous Angel—more than that, a man who carries a true shard of the Traitorous Angel within his soul.”

Zamia took a sip of tea. “But if this scroll’s knowledge has been so secret, how is it this Orshado knows of it?”

Raseed was impressed to see a look of calm enemy-assessment rather than fear on her face.

“That one has ways of learning things,” the Doctor said, and his expression was as close to fear as Raseed had ever seen. “Ways that no man who values his soul can even fathom. The Traitorous Angel grants powers that God will not. He demands the sort of thing he has always demanded. Fear. The entrails of innocent old women. Pain. The eyelids of children. No books or clumsy rumors for the servants of the Traitorous Angel.”

Dawoud spoke with a hollow voice. “Orshado. When I touched that blood… I swear that none of you know the depths of the cruelty we face. With this one in command of such magics, the whole world will drown in blood within a week.”

“ Six days thine to make man’s world, six days mine to unmake it ,” Raseed recited. “The Traitorous Angel’s taunt to God upon his expulsion.” He had always hoped to be part of a battle that mattered this much. But he found now, to his shame, that he wished otherwise.

“We must stop him, then,” Litaz said matter of factly. “For reasons heavenly and earthly both. The new Khalif is a fool and a murderer, but his son… it was the boy’s idea to build those new poorhouses last year on the other side of Archer’s Yard. To put a hospice house there for the street people. Small gestures but more than his father makes. It is said he is a sweet-tempered boy, full of love for the common folk.”

The Doctor snorted “Give him another decade of life in the palace, and that will change! I can’t claim to be pleased with the notion of rushing to rescue the Khalif or his little shit of a son.”

Litaz rolled her eyes. “We don’t do this for their sakes, Adoulla. You know that. But we have little choice here.”

Dawoud lifted his teacup and drained its dregs. “So we go to the palace,” the magus said, “though we’ll not have an easy time getting an audience, no matter how many wild-eyed warnings we bring. Especially after my last visit. We’ll be lucky not to be taken for assassins ourselves. Roun Hedaad is a good man, but his guardsmen will be happy enough to fill us with crossbow bolts with little provocation. And even if we get past them, the Khalif will not see us.”

Adoulla wore a dark scowl as he spoke. “And what if the Khalif does listen? What if we somehow stop this Orshado? Then this foul power will be the Khalif’s to seize. Do any here truly doubt that he would slay his own son in order to do so?”

Raseed started to say that such a thing was not possible, but he knew the Doctor would mock him. And, as he thought on it, he was not sure that he could speak such words without uttering a falsehood.

For a long moment, none of the others answered the Doctor either. Then Dawoud stood. “It matters not. We can only do what we know we must do and leave the rest to the merciful hand of Almighty God.”

“Yes, it is all cut-and-dried,” the Doctor said sarcastically. “We need only defeat the most powerful ghul-maker we’ve ever faced. And somehow slay his unkillable creature while we’re at it.”

“The monster Mouw Awa is not unkillable, Doctor,” Zamia said, her voice half growl. “God willing, I will be the one to prove this.” Raseed’s heart beat faster, hearing such brave words.

The Doctor stroked his beard. “Aye, Zamia Banu Laith Badawi, may it please God to make it so. It has been only few days since the creature left you lying on a litter, all but dead. Your healing, praise God, goes miraculously well. Do you think—” the Doctor’s voice grew as gentle as Raseed had ever heard “—do you think you can take the lion-shape again?”

Tears filled Zamia’s emerald eyes, but they did not fall. Raseed felt sick with knowing that he wanted—wickedly!—to go to her and to hold her as he had sometimes seen men hold women on Dhamsawaat’s streets.

A rueful scowl spread across Zamia’s face. “I don’t know, Doctor. Each month for several days, when I am—when women’s business is upon me—I am unable to take the shape. Yesterday was the last of those days. Even were I unwounded I would not be able to take the shape until the sun is at its highest point today. Come noon, though, I will try. If, may Almighty God forbid it, I fail, I will at least die trying.”

Raseed was incredulous—to make the tribeswoman speak of such shameful things, and then to ask this sacrifice of her! “Doctor, she was nearly killed the last time we faced this creature! We cannot ask her to—”

The girl’s growl was louder than any she’d made before. “No one is asking anything of me, Raseed bas Raseed. Things are as they are. I know the murderer of my band. Through my own carelessness he… it… escaped once. It will not happen again.”

The Doctor nodded. “Sometimes even a blind man can see the hand of God working. This thing Mouw Awa must be destroyed. Of that there can be no doubt. And God’s Angels have very clearly given us the proper weapon to do so. ‘ To break down a wall when God grants a door is the work of fools .’ ”

Dawoud broke in, his words sounding hard and dry. “It is as it is, then. Zamia, you shall travel with us to the palace, and if we cross paths with this Mouw Awa, it falls to you to kill it.”