He continued: “Qulan, by all reports, is dead. When I say that Qarash fell, to answer your earlier question, I mean it was razed to the ground.”
Samarkar nodded. She knew her face was impassive; she could feel how it hung slack across her bones, a mask over thinking she had learned well as a child. Right now, it kept her brother from knowing how she feared him.
As they swept side by side through long galleries and echoing halls, she said, “So it remains to be seen if Qori Buqa can consolidate power into his own hands and resurrect the Khaganate from its ashes.”
“It is the drawback,” Songtsan said, with a dry little smile, “of a political system whose basis is essentially, ‘because I said so.’”
Samarkar laughed low, wondering why she had been dreading this meeting so. Because his charm conceals not goodwill but a knife. Because there had never been anything in Songtsan’s plans for me, except duty. Please. Please let me find my magic. Her laughter chilled quickly when she let herself consider consequences. “If we act now, we stand a chance of liberating Kashe. And you can bet the Song rulers are thinking the same thing with regard to their cities—or will be as soon as the news reaches them.”
“Qersnyk civil war is an advantage for us,” Songtsan agreed. “But we have to be ready to grab it. Empires are not built and maintained without the taking of the odd city.”
“And then there is the issue of the refugees.…”
“Yes,” Songtsan agreed. “No doubt the Qersnyk herders will head for their summer ranges early. And when winter threatens and they know there is no grain on the steppe to feed them and their herds until summer—”
“—They will come to Kashe. Or Qeshqer, as they call it. By which I mean, they will come to us.”
He nodded. “They will come to us. The steppe folk are falling. But as our father promised, we have outlasted them, and we will take back what they stole and more. Rasa is not finished as an empire yet.”
He extended his hand and made it into a fist. But Samarkar saw how he glanced back the way they had come. A chill settled over her as she contemplated what, exactly, would have to take place before Songtsan could put his plans in motion—and what it would cost to all concerned.
* * *
Saadet came to al-Sepehr while he stood in prayer before the altar of the Scholar-God, transcribing the God’s sacred words from an ancient tome onto crisp, bound sheets of vellum. It was a meditation and a practice as well as a prayer, for the work had to be done mindfully, patiently, as perfectly as possible.
A devotee might spend years on the transcribing of one book, a lifetime on seven or eight. And in turn, each devotee himself became a copy of that perfect book—an imperfect copy, as flawed as human memory, but as close as one could approach to the divine.
Al-Sepehr’s sect did not believe in the intermediation of prophets between the Scholar-God and the mortal world. Rather, they believed in study as the only sacrament.
So he finished the sentence he was scribing before he set his brush aside and—beckoning Saadet to follow—stepped out of the domed chapel into the light. There were five half stones in his pocket, each wrapped in its own silken pouch. The one he drew forth was still palled thickly in blood, only a few flakes missing despite all the use it had been put to a day or so before. Al-Sepehr still felt himself shaky and weak from the magic that had raised so many dead. It would be days before he found himself strong again.
The stone was cold, but Saadet nodded, making the sunlight flash in her striking eyes. “He does not need to speak with you directly now. I will speak for him.”
“I listen, Shahruz,” al-Sepehr said, returning the rock to his pocket.
Saadet straightened. Her posture changed, became that of a bold man, wide-stanced and cocky. “Your ghosts,” she said. “They failed to bring Qori Buqa the death he craved?”
Al-Sepehr shrugged. It was as he had anticipated. For thirteen years, his Rahazeen believers had been at work fomenting rebellion, muddling dynastic succession, and unsettling regimes. That led to weak kings, and weak kings led to war. “They failed also to capture Re Temur for our uses,” al-Sepehr said. “The surviving son of Otgonbayar is protected. He defeated them.”
In his sister’s form, Shahruz straightened. “Qori Buqa thinks he can bid you, and you will send your ghosts to do his murders.”
“For now, he is right,” al-Sepehr said, though he still swayed with exhaustion. He added wryly, “within the limits of my strength.”
Qori Buqa could think what he liked, but al-Sepehr had raised the ghosts, and al-Sepehr’s will alone dominated them. It was convenient to allow the would-be Khagan his illusions for a time, however.