The twins knew their smile showed around the veil—in the creases of their eyes, in the outlined shape of the face it hid. They had seen such smiles on one another’s faces often enough in times gone by. Whether the prince could read it or not was an open question, but his expression did seem to ease.
The prince stepped forward, the twins following a few steps behind. “What is this?” he asked, gesturing. His tone was light, interested. Intrigued.
“An altar of ancient Erem, the City of Jackals,” the twins answered. Saadet felt the handle of Shahruz’s wheel lock smooth against their palm as the prince leaned forward slightly, toiling up the rise in the breathless air. “Carefully, your highness. Do not stare at it too long. It is said that the dead script can blind you, the inscriptions rot your animus within your form.”
“And do not touch it, I suppose?” He crouched though, hands on knees, by the head of the table.
“Be very careful not to touch it,” the twins said.
The pistol barely hissed on cloth as Shahruz drew it into the hand that did not hold the lamp. But the prince heard it, and turned, eyes widening—
The lead ball—carved with symbols of ancient Erem, just as the table was—took him through the temple. It exited behind his left ear, taking most of his brain out with it.
The prince fell across the table, shivered, and lay still. Saadet felt the trigger sharp against their finger.
“For the Nameless,” said Shahruz.
“For the world,” his sister answered, as her gorge heaved and rose and she kept their eyes focused on the lumpy red spray smoking softly where it had fallen across the black stone altar.
The hot earth cracked beneath their feet. The ground shook, hard, like a waking beast.
Clutching the pistol in their right hand, the twins turned without a word and ran.
8
Edene climbed.
Long had she paced through moist tunnels. First she followed Besha Ghul’s bent shadow with eyes that pierced the dark as easily as if it were a night lit by ten dozen moons. As she gained confidence and felt the ring grow warm, felt the pull of ancient knowledge filling her blood and heart like it had always been there, she led the way through the labyrinth. In the end, as Edene had known they must, she and Besha Ghul found a stair, each riser low and narrow and worn from the passage of more feet than Edene could imagine.
The stairs might not go on so long as had the corridors, but it seemed while they climbed that they climbed them forever. Still Edene felt no fatigue: no hiss of tired breath, no ache of exerted muscles afflicted her. She climbed, that was all, as in a dream—and Besha Ghul climbed just behind her, nails of dry dog paws clicking on stone. Compounding the sense of dream, sometimes a faint thread of perfume came to her—resin incense, soured by ammonia in a way that made her think of Ala-Din.
At last, Edene rounded the corner of a landing and was dazzled. At her heels, Besha too blinked and snorted, ducking its head in dismay. “Suns-set,” the ghul said. “We can outwait it safely here, but should climb no higher.”
“Suns?” Even as she asked, the ring gave her the knowledge. The daylight was dangerous. Edene craned back her head, watching shadows move on the walls above. They were overlaid as if the light from several lanterns—or several moons—fell through an aperture. The effect was both strange and strangely familiar. She had long moments to examine it as she paused beside the ghul, waiting for the sense that it was safe to continue.
Erem had four suns, the nightsun and the three that ruled the day. The nightsun was a white pinpoint, as bright as four small moons. One of the daysuns was similar, and often ranged far ahead of or behind its companions. The other two danced closely with each other, neither bigger in the sky than a grain of barley. The larger was squashed and sullen and orange, twisted in a coil of flame like a dancer in her veils. That wreath made a streamer connecting the orange sun to its blue-hot companion.
The light of the blue star killed. It blistered flesh at a touch like dragon flame and whitened eyes until they were as blind as boiled eggs.
People had lived here once. But Erem was not a place for human gods.
At last the light above dimmed to indigo and Besha Ghul shifted restlessly. Edene climbed again. But only a few steps this time, just the length of one flight.
They emerged into a night such as Edene had never seen. They stood in the sandy belly of a canyon, cliff walls breaking the horizon on either side. The sky between them was a narrow torrent of indigo-violet, a textured deepness punctured by so many stars it was hard to see the color between them. There were three moons only—but such moons! The smallest—still bigger than any of the moons of the steppe and casting the light of ten such—was mottled ivory, sliding across the heavens so fast that Edene could stand and watch its forward edge eat the stars. Its next largest companion was a rust-hued monster, a wheel Edene thought she could stand inside, spread her arms and turn with—turn within—as it rolled through the sky.