An Ember in the Ashes

Page 75

“I have to. ” I wait for her to launch into another of her rants against the Resistance. But instead, she nods, unsurprised. “I have a story for you, then,” she says. “It has no hero or heroine. It has no happy ending. But it’s a story you need to hear. ”

Izzi raises an eyebrow and takes up her polishing cloth. Cook shuts one spice jar and opens another. Then she begins.

“Long ago,” she says, “when man knew not greed, malice, tribe, nor clan, jinn walked the earth. ”

Cook’s voice is nothing like a Tribal Kehanni’s: It is stern where a talespinner’s would be gentle, all edges where a talespinner’s would be mellow and curved. But the old woman’s cadence reminds me of the Tribespeople anyway, and I’m pulled into the tale.

“Immortal the jinn were. ” Cook’s eyes are quiet, as if she’s lost in an inner musing. “Created of sinless, smokeless fire. They rode the winds and read the stars, and their beauty was the beauty of the wild places.

“Though the jinn could manipulate the minds of lesser creatures, they were honorable and occupied themselves with the raising of their young and the protection of their mysteries. Some were fascinated by the untempered race of man. But the leader of the jinn, the King-of-No-Name, who was oldest and wisest of them, counseled his people to avoid men. So they did.

“As centuries passed, men grew strong. They befriended the race of wild elementals, the efrits. In their innocence, the efrits showed men the paths to greatness, granting them powers of healing and fighting, of swiftness and fortune-telling. Villages became cities. Cities rose into kingdoms. Kingdoms fell and were melded into empires.

“From this ever-changing world arose the Empire of the Scholars, strongest among men, dedicated to their creed: Through knowledge, transcendence. And who had more knowledge than the jinn, the oldest creatures of the earth?

“In an attempt to learn the secrets of the jinn, the Scholars sent delegations to negotiate with the King-of-No-Name. They received a gentle but firm response.

“We are jinn. We are apart.

“But the Scholars hadn’t created an empire by giving up at the first rejection. They sent cunning messengers, raised to oration the way Masks are raised to war. When that failed, they sent wise men and artists, spellcasters and politicians, teachers and healers, royalty and commoners.

“The response was the same. We are jinn. We are apart.

“Soon, hard times struck the Scholar Empire. Famine and plague took whole cities. Scholar ambition turned to bitterness. The Scholar Emperor grew angry, believing that if only his people had the knowledge of the jinn, they could rise again. He gathered the finest Scholar minds into a Coven and set them to one task: mastery of the jinn.

“The Coven found dark allies among the fey—cave efrits, ghuls, wraiths.

From these twisted creatures, the Scholars learned to trap the jinn with salt and steel and summer rain still warm from the heavens. They tormented the old creatures, seeking the source of their power. But the jinn kept their secrets.

“Enraged at the evasion of the jinn, the Coven no longer cared for fey secrets. They sought now only to destroy the jinn. Efrits, ghuls, and wraiths abandoned the Scholars, understanding the full extent of man’s thirst for power. Too late. The fey had given their knowledge freely and in trust, and the Coven used that knowledge to create a weapon that would conquer the jinn forever. They called it the Star.

“The fey watched in horror, desperate to stop the doom they helped unleash. But the Star gave the humans unnatural power, and so the lesser creatures fled, disappearing into the deep places to wait out the war. The jinn stood fast, but they were too few. The Coven cornered them and used the Star to lock them forever in a grove of trees, a living, growing prison, the only place powerful enough to bind such creatures.

“The power unleashed by the jailing destroyed the Star—and the Coven. But the Scholars rejoiced, for the jinn were defeated. All but the greatest of them. ”

“The king,” Izzi says.

“Yes. The King-of-No-Name escaped imprisonment. But he had failed to save his people, and his failure drove him mad. It was a madness he carried with him like a cloud of ruin. Wherever he went, darkness fell, deeper than a midnight ocean. The king was at long last given a name: the Nightbringer. ”

My head snaps up.

My Lord Nightbringer. . .

“For hundreds of years,” Cook says, “the Nightbringer plagued mankind however he could. But it was never enough. Like rats, men scurried into their hiding places when he came. And like rats, they emerged as soon as he was gone. So he began to plan. He allied himself with the Scholars’ ancient enemy, the Martials, a cruel people exiled to the northern reaches of the continent. He whispered to them the secrets of steelcraft and statecraft. He taught them to rise above their brutish roots. Then he waited. Within a few generations, the Martials were ready. They unleashed the invasion.

“The Scholar Empire fell quickly, its people enslaved, broken. But still alive. And so the Nightbringer’s thirst for revenge remains unquenched. He lives now in the shadows, where he lures and enslaves the lesser of his brethren—the ghuls, the wraiths, the cave efrits—to punish them for their betrayal so long ago. He watches, he waits, until the time is right, until he can exact his full revenge. ”

As Cook’s words die away, I realize I’m holding the press midair. Izzi gapes, her polishing forgotten. Lightning flashes outside, and a gust of wind rattles the windows and doors.

“Why do I need to know this story?” I ask.

“You tell me, girl. ”

I take a deep breath. “Because it’s true, isn’t it?”

Cook smiles her twisted smile. “You’ve seen the Commandant’s nighttime visitor, I take it. ”

Izzi looks between us. “What visitor?”

“He—he called himself the Nightbringer,” I say. “But it can’t be—”

“He’s exactly what he says he is,” Cook says. “Scholars want to close their eyes to the truth. Ghuls, wraiths, wights, jinn—they’re just stories. Tribal myths. Campfire tales. Such arrogance. ” She sneers. “Such pride. Don’t you make that mistake, girl. Open your eyes to it, or you’ll end up like your mother. Nightbringer was right in front of her, and she never even knew it. ”

I set the press down. “What do you mean?”

Cook speaks quietly, as if she’s afraid of her own words. “He infiltrated the Resistance,” she says. “Took human form and p-posed as—as a fighter. ” She clenches her jaw and huffs before going on. “Got close to your mother. Manipulated and used her. ” Cook pauses again, her face growing pinched and pale. “Y-your fath-father caught on. N-Nightbringer—had—help. A tr-trai-traitor. Out-outwitted Jahan and—and sold your parents to Keris—no—I—”

“Cook?” Izzi jumps up as the old woman grabs her head with one hand and staggers back into the wall with a moan. “Cook!”

“Away—” The older woman shoves Izzi in the chest, nearly knocking her to the floor. “Get away!”

Izzi raises her hands, her voice pitched low as if she’s speaking to a frightened animal. “Cook, it’s all right—”

“Get to work!” Cook pulls herself upright, the brief quiet in her eyes shattered, replaced with something close to madness. “Leave me be!”