Saladin Ahmed - Throne of the Crescent Moon

So this is how it ends . His befuddled old mind fumbled for thoughts. Tea and poetry. His friends and his city.

Miri, whom he wished to Almighty God he had wed.

No. No, it cannot end here. I will not let it .

Skin ghuls could not be slain, but they could be hindered. He could buy the Prince time to take the throne, or kill Orshado, or get the Heir to safety, or… something.

He dashed forward. His satchel had held little when he’d saved it from his burning townhouse. But it held what he needed now. He withdrew a small tortoise shell and shook it above his head, the three sapphires sealed inside making a rattling sound.

“Beneficent God is the Last Breath in our Lungs!” he shouted. It was an old invocation, one that would raise a wall that no ghul could cross. But it would do little against the even older magics of the Dead Gods. He would be at the jackal-thing’s mercy.

A sheet of iridescent light rose up before him just as the ghuls neared him. Their blows did not touch him, though with each of their strikes the wall-of-light shimmered. Behind him, he heard the Prince finally snap out of his fear trance and trot forward.

Again Adoulla heard Mouw Awa’s words in his mind. The flippant one hath told thee soothing stories of medicant magics? Ha! His quest is doomed! The Cobra God doth not love life and kindness!

Then the creature was upon him, and Adoulla felt his soul being slowly torn from his body.

All was chaos. Everywhere Litaz heard the thunder of boots and the clanging of weapons. Horns and bells blasted alarms, and from somewhere, the cry of “To arms, to arms!” rang out. Guardsmen hacked at one another with swords as those loyal to the Prince revealed themselves. Many gurgled from slit throats and died before they even realized what their turncoat fellows were doing.

Adoulla, Pharaad Az Hammaz, and the Khalif had been separated from them by extraordinary false walls that no amount of bashing could break. The walls had even blocked her scrying solutions. They were wandering rooms at random now, looking for their friend, but that was their only choice.

“We’ve got to find Adoulla!” she shouted to her husband as they followed Raseed down a hallway, blessedly empty.

Dawoud gave only a curt nod in response. His teeth were gritted in that way that told her he was holding some unbearable energy at bay within himself, a spell that would rot him from within until he released it upon some unfortunate enemy.

They dashed into a roofless room of blue marble. The sun stood high in the sky above them, a great golden ball of light. Raseed led the way, his sword out and his blue silks blending with the walls in a way that made him nearly invisible.

They were in the middle of the blue room when two groups of a dozen men—half wearing the falcon livery and half apparently loyal guardsmen—charged in from opposite doorways. They shouted, brandished weapons, and flew at one another.

And Litaz and her companions stood between them.

She lifted her spraying-dagger, letting her thumb float over the several buttons concealed in its handle. Raseed took a step toward the tribeswoman and assumed a defensive stance.

Then there was a strange shift in the energy of the air, a dazzling golden light, and both groups of men stopped charging. A loud growl rent the air beside her.

And suddenly Zamia Banu Laith Badawi stood beside her in the lion-shape, her golden coat glowing. A more-than-animal fury lit those emerald eyes, and her tail switched in the air. And the girl had been so worried that she’d be unable to take the shape!

The Prince’s men whispered sharply among themselves, then the whole knot of them turned about and ran. Half of the Khalif’s men did the same, but six idiots with spears and swords stepped forward.

The lioness—Zamia—slashed at two of them with lightning quick claws, and they fell bleeding. A spearman tried to stab her but found that his weapon couldn’t pierce that golden hide. Zamia crushed the man’s arms in her fanged maw and whipped him away like a doll.

His companions fled just as Raseed reached them, ready to offer the lioness aid she didn’t need.

“I Praise Almighty God and give thanks to his Ministering Angels!” Zamia said when their group was alone again. Litaz didn’t know if she’d ever heard more sincere thanks. “All of your distillations and diagrams will not find the Doctor, Auntie. But I have scented the Doctor already. He’s this way.”

Despite her training and experience, Litaz found it a bit disconcerting to watch a lion face speak these words and lope off. And where have her clothes gone? the scholar in her wondered. But there was little to do but follow the lion-girl, who took the lead, following some scent that no human could find and padding swiftly past Raseed. The dervish’s gaze followed Zamia for a long moment before he, too, followed. The holy man who loved a lioness—it would make a good shadow-puppet show if—

A man lunged at her from a wall-niche.

One of the Khalif’s loyalists, but he’d apparently lost his weapon. Clearly, he saw her as an easy target. Before she could get her dagger up, the man punched her in the face. Stars of red light and burning tears filled her eyes, and blood flowed from her nose. She was a woman. God had not made her body for this.

But she had been making herself do this for years. She backed up a few steps and caught the man in the face with a spray of burning pepper-powder. He rubbed at his eyes, screaming. It was an easy enough thing to stab him in the gut after that.

Beside her, Raseed used his forked blade to wrest another guardsman’s sword away. The dervish’s sword slashed again and cut the man down. A third guardsman screamed and ran, ablaze in magical flames conjured by her husband. Then they were once again alone. Three lay at Raseed’s feet, Khalif’s men and Falcon Prince’s alike. The dervish would kill anyone armed and foolish enough to look threatening, she knew. And she was ashamed to be pleased by it. Around a corner up ahead she heard Zamia growl at them to hurry.

They came to another open room—a vast courtyard lush with small steaming pools and potted plants and trees that would have been more at home in the jungles of the Republic. There was mighty water magic at work here, of that there could be no doubt. And the place was alive with animal sounds.

“The Green of Beasts,” her husband’s wheezing voice declared. “The Khalif’s private garden menagerie—I’ve heard tell of this place.”

“SQUAAWK! Even the Angels sing the praises of the Defender of Virtue! SQUAAWK!” A gray and green talking-bird, its voice magically altered into the most human Litaz had ever heard, flew to a higher tree branch in alarm as yet more men burst through the foliage, overturning palms and pink poisonflower bushes.

A squat, square-shaped man in an embellished livery stood amidst six well-armed guardsmen. “Dawoud Son-of-Wajeed!” the man yelled, brandishing his steel mace, which was already black with blood. Roun Hedaad. It had been years since she had helped save his life, but his was not a face to forget.

The compact man’s furrowed brow made the deep grooves in his face seem even deeper. “And I see Lady Litaz, Daughter-of-Likami. So you two are with this lot of traitors? I owe you both my life, but it would seem you have arranged things so that I must kill you and pay for my ungratefulness in the Lake of Flame—for I cannot allow you to pass here.”

Two monkeys scrambled past, chattering angrily. Dawoud stepped past the dervish and the tribeswoman, showing his empty hands and eyeing the guardsmen’s crossbows warily. He spoke in a strained voice, an indication that he was still holding magical energies at readiness within him.