I said again, wary, “The Ruler of Iyar is not my master.”
“He locked all this hope away in his coffers. And now I was free to weave from death.”
“And did you?” Uiziya asked, her voice trembling. “Did you bring the weaves together, bring the sibling gods to you?”
She shook her head. “I weave from death for the headmaster of the assassins’ school,” said Benesret. “It’s lesser work. Clothes. But never again from hope. My greatest work is gone, and so I cannot bring the weaves together, and I have no hope left to weave another. And now you know where my hope went.”
“I’ll go then,” I said, uneasy. “To look for it, then.”
“Look among your own,” Benesret said. “Your Khana people, the men, in their white inner quarter. That’s where you always wanted to be.”
Perhaps she was right. That I had to overcome my fear of my own people, and go. Perhaps I would find hope then, feel what Zurya had felt so strongly she chose to hoard it, feel what Benesret had sought so desperately only to give it away. For I felt no hope and I needed it, in this place, in all places.
Dawn was past us now, and the rays of the sun licked my face with the promise of oppressive brightness to come, bringing with it an intent that kindled inside me like dry reeds.
“Go with him, then,” said Benesret to Uiziya.
“But Aunt—I want to stay with you and learn—”
“Yes?” Diamondflies rose off Benesret’s body, and settled upon Uiziya. “Do you understand what awaits you here, child?”
“Yes,” Uiziya said. “Yes, I am ready.”
“You refused to learn from Lali’s death; is that why you brought him . . .” she nodded at me, “. . . as a price of your learning?”
I recoiled, understanding it all in a bright moment. Uiziya’s friendship, her desire to travel with me—all was a ruse, to lure me, to bring me where I could become the sacrifice, the significant death she would weave from. I inhaled sharply, but before I could do anything, Uiziya spoke.
“Not him,” she said. “Myself.”
My cheeks flooded with blood, and I swallowed my shame. I’d assumed the worst of Uiziya, the deepest betrayal, when at every step she’d asked if I wanted to continue, taken me to her aunt when I asked and she wasn’t yet sure she wanted to go.
“Yourself?” Benesret said.
“Yes, Aunt.”
“Do not tell me this, child,” Benesret said. The diamondflies moved down, wrapped Uiziya’s right leg with brightness. “For you know what I need is sustenance.”
“Uiziya, no!” But I was not fast enough, and still I did not fully understand.
“Take what you need from me,” Uiziya cried, and the diamondflies dug into her flesh, gorged themselves.
I took a step forward. I thought she’d betray me. Give me to be consumed like Lali in his tent. But she hadn’t. And I would not let her be taken.
I locked my gaze with Benesret. “Stop it. Stop.”
“Or else?” She stared right back at me, but her eyes were unfocused. Drawing in power, drinking in my friend’s life in all its brightness. “She came to me. She asked. She consented.”
I pulled on my powerful deepnames, forming of them a triangle. Benesret laughed, and I could have laughed with her if I wasn’t so angry and so terrified, for there was no way I’d defeat such a person. Behind Benesret, the razu beast reared, its eyes ruby red; and flanking her, I saw ghost assassins in their white, unsullied robes. Even the youth from before was there, the one her diamondflies had consumed; one of his eyes was a maze that led into the Orphan Star’s depths.
Still I stepped forward. Benesret was feeding. Not as powerful.
“You wish me to take you, too? Like she wished to be taken?”
It was useless to fight with Benesret. I had to use my trading skills, my promising skills, like I once used with the Collector, bargaining for my lover’s life.
“I’ll bring you back the carpet of song that you made in the dawn of our lives, the greatest carpet ever woven, the third of the Four Profound Weaves.”
What do I need it for?”
“It is hope.”
“Hope is with the Ruler of Iyar, the Collector,” she said. “Guarded, I assure you, by the finest of assassins all wearing the cloths I have woven. Hope has been locked away, child.”
But I saw that she was interested.
“I will find it and bring it back to you, and you’ll put it together with your other weaves. Call the sibling gods closer.”
“Ha! Forever you ferry that thing back and forth. It is dangerous to have so much hope. Even the Collector knows it, which is why he has locked it away.” But her stream of diamondlflies weakened.
“I will find it and bring it to you,” I snarled through my teeth. “I’ve done it before. I will do it again. Let her go. Let her go. Let her go.”
The diamondflies rose off Uiziya’s body. She toppled forward, face into the dirt, and I caught her. She was breathing. Unconscious.
Benesret reabsorbed the diamondflies into her body, looking, for a brief moment, content; yet still hungry. “Then take her and go.”
Quick. Quick. I had to heal her, but it was too dangerous here. I shifted Uiziya’s body onto her carpet of sand. Her leg bled and convulsed under the now-tattered dun dress. I stepped onto the carpet next to her, abandoning my sand-skis. I pulled on my deepnames, trying to make Uiziya’s carpet float. She had a different deepname configuration than mine, a weaker, subtler one, and the carpet was attuned to her. And it was thin. We were too heavy, together, on this carpet. I was not sure that I could make it work.
My eyes were still locked on Benesret’s. I should not have trusted her, should not have sought her, should not have been lulled by her tale. Yet she had stopped, for now. In the blossoming daylight, the bones of Benesret’s tent glowed pink and triumphant with Uiziya’s stolen blood.
Benesret spoke. “Yes, my carpet of song is missing from me to complete the great pattern. But I would never be content for my greatest work to be that of hope. I’ll feed on all I’ve ever loved and weave the desert’s greatest carpet out of bones. I have been studying death all my life, waiting for that. Yet I’m letting her go, as I let the carpet of song go with you forty years ago. Don’t betray me again. Bring it back. Bring her back.”
I could not make sense of her words, of the world. She could have killed us both easily, I knew now, killed us before we even saw her.
She said, “Take care of each other.”
I made the carpet float at last, and steered it west, toward Iyar.
nen-sasaïr
I left Iyar as if a lifetime ago, but it had only been months. I left on my sand-skis and veiled like a Khana man, in defiance of everyone—Iyari and Khana, strangers and family, and especially in defiance of Bashri, my Bashri-nai-Leylit, whose soul had been carried aloft by a dove. I had sped through the Desert Gate, tossing a scant bribe to the guards, trusting that I would never come back.
Well, I was back.
I remembered my journey west through the desert to the city. The flying carpet, and Uiziya motionless in my arms. The sun forever bearing down, for I did not stop in the heat. The blinding-bright weight of the sky, like the cocoon of sandbirds at my transformation, except that it burned without shielding me, except that there was no joy in it.