Jebel took no notice now of the beautiful colors and shapes of the rocks. Every time he looked up he was reminded of the battle and Hubaira’s bloody end, so he kept his eyes down, focusing on the ground.
Finally, shortly before sunset, they turned a bend and came upon the city that lay at the heart of Abu Siq. They were taken aback by its sudden appearance, and both stopped short and stared. The city was spread across a valley, surrounded on all sides by snowcapped mountains. Most of the houses were built from multicolored rocks, covered in layers of dust, but some were carved into the mountains.
Jebel and Tel Hesani stood gazing at the houses, studying the layout of the city. There seemed to be no center as such. The houses all looked much the same. Tel Hesani glanced at Jebel. “We either go in and request passage, or wait for night and try to sneak past.”
“We’ll go in,” Jebel said instantly. He would rather be beheaded by the Um Siq than ripped to pieces by a mamlah.
They started down the slope. They could see people moving on the streets, but they didn’t think that the Um Siq were aware of them. It was only when they came upon the first house and a band of warriors stepped out, blocking their path, that they realized they’d been watched all along. Jebel counted nineteen men and women, the standard regiment size in Abu Siq ever since the time of the nineteen survivors of the invasion that Hubaira had told them about.
One of the men stepped forward. His sword wasn’t drawn, but his hand was close by its hilt. “Strangers are not welcome here,” he said.
Tel Hesani returned the man’s cold stare but said nothing.
“Who are you?” the Um Siq snapped. “What do you want?”
In response, Tel Hesani unstrapped the bag containing Hubaira’s head and said, “I wish to speak to the family of Hubaira.”
The man blinked, then glanced at the bag. He considered the stranger’s request, then nodded at a man on the far left of the line. The man peeled away and hurried into the city. Nobody said anything while he was gone.
A short while later, a woman and three men appeared. The woman advanced, the men just behind her, and stopped a couple of strides short of Tel Hesani. “I am Qattar,” she said. “Hubaira’s mother.”
Tel Hesani opened the bag and pulled the sides down, revealing Hubaira’s face. Jebel expected startled gasps, but the dead girl’s mother stared evenly at the head as if it was nothing to get excited about.
Eventually Qattar’s gaze rose and she said, “How?”
“Against a mamlah,” said Tel Hesani. “She asked us to bring you her head.”
“How did you come to be traveling together?” one of the men asked.
“We met her at the mouth of the siq,” Tel Hesani explained. “We told her we were on a quest and had to pass through here. She said that she would present us to her elders, who could decide whether or not to let us advance.”
“Did she kill the mamlah?” Qattar asked.
“No. All three of us worked as a team to bring it down.”
“But of the three of you, only she died,” Qattar said. It was impossible to tell if her words were a challenge or a simple observation.
Tel Hesani shrugged. “Luck was with us and against her.”
There was a long, dangerous pause. Then Qattar took her daughter’s head. “You have my thanks for bringing us this.” Turning, she headed back to her home.
Qattar’s three husbands bowed to Jebel and Tel Hesani. One of them said, “You are welcome here now. Will you break bread with us?”
“It would be an honor,” Tel Hesani said, then he and Jebel followed the men into the city, ignoring the suspicious squints of the soldiers.
The man who had addressed them was Ramman, Hubaira’s father. He and Qattar ate with Jebel and Tel Hesani while the other husbands ate elsewhere. Although Um Siq women had more than one mate, they didn’t share a house with them. Each husband had separate living quarters, and the women divided their time between them.
The house was sparsely decorated. The walls were unpainted—there was no need for paint when you had all the colors of the siq to choose from—and there were no curtains or shutters on the windows. There was one rug and a small table. No chairs. Qattar and Ramman sat cross-legged on the floor, and their guests did likewise.
After a short conversation, in which Tel Hesani told the Um Siq of their quest (not mentioning the fact that he was a slave due to be slaughtered if they made it to Tubaygat), Qattar prepared their meal. She came back with two plates piled high with raw meat. She set the food between the four of them, then picked a slice and bit into it. Ramman chose a piece, then nodded at Jebel and Tel Hesani. The slave took a thick slice and attacked it ravenously. Jebel was less enthusiastic. He chose the thinnest slice he could find and steeled himself to force it down. But when he bit in, he was surprised by the sweet taste. The meat had been seasoned with herbs and spices and was nowhere near as unappealing as it looked.
Qattar had placed the bag with Hubaira’s head close to the door, and there it stayed for the duration of the meal. Neither she nor Ramman seemed saddened by the death of their daughter. Jebel thought that curious, but he said nothing. Maybe she had disgraced them by dying before she’d passed her tests. Or perhaps they hadn’t liked her much in the first place.
It was dark when they finished. Large fires had been lit in the streets, and the light that shone through the windows was enough to see by. In the distance, somebody began to sing, and other voices took up the song, until the entire city thrummed. The song was in the language of the Um Siq, slow, heavy, moody. Qattar and Ramman didn’t sing but hummed softly. When the song stopped and silence fell, Tel Hesani asked if it was a song of prayer.
“No,” Qattar said. “It is the song of union. We sing it every morning and night, to remind ourselves that we are part of a whole.”
“There are no artists or writers in Abu Siq,” Ramman said. “We are not a creative people. The song is our one exception. We have kept it alive for hundreds of years, fine-tuning it, adapting, improving. It records our history, our losses and glories. It binds past to present to future, the dead to the living, the heavens to the earth.”
In a house nearby, the song started again and spread, until the entire city was once more singing in tune.
“It will go on like that for hours,” Qattar said. “It fades and flourishes unpredictably, people joining in and dropping out as the mood takes them.”
Tel Hesani smiled and leaned back, closing his eyes to focus on the somber song.
Jebel thought the song a dreary affair, but he smiled like Tel Hesani, closed his eyes, and pretended to be fascinated. Better to keep on the good side of these strange folk, or his head might end up in a bag, like Hubaira’s!
Jebel and Tel Hesani slept on stone beds. In the morning, after stretching stiffly and eating a breakfast of more raw meat, Ramman took them on a tour. “We don’t get many visitors,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve showed my city to anyone. You must let me know if I’m doing it wrong.”
Except for the amazing diversity of the rock, it was mostly a city of plain buildings. The houses were solidly built, rough around the edges. There were no roads or paths save those cut by the passage of human feet. No signs, paintings, or statues.
“Where do the traders live?” Jebel asked. “And where are the inns, the markets, the courts? All these houses look the same.”
“They are the same,” Ramman said. “All Um Siq are warriors. We’re other things too—tanners, smiths, architects—but warriors first. Abu Siq is one great barracks. There are no inns or markets.”
“And the stables and pens?” Jebel pressed. “Where do you keep your animals?”
“We have none,” Ramman said. “We hunt for food. Always have, always will.”
The houses carved into the mountains were more impressive. They were massive. Some were ten times the height of a normal house. Most were decorated with beautifully carved symbols, although the symbols had been hacked at and defaced
long ago. The giant, hollowed-out buildings looked as if they belonged somewhere else. They were completely different from the rest of Abu Siq.
They wandered through a huge circular room, home to three families. The windows were pentangles, with shards of stained glass in the corners. There were faded paintings on the walls—a scene of war in one section, people fishing in another, a game detailed elsewhere.
“Who created these?” Tel Hesani asked.
“Our ancestors.” Ramman snorted. “Many generations ago we drifted away from warfare. We were wealthy. Times were good. We welcomed travelers and learned from them. We wrote, painted, sculpted. Then we set about transforming Abu Siq. We turned it into one of the most beautiful cities in Makhras.
“But that proved our undoing. We grew soft, and our envious enemies moved against us. They killed everyone save for nineteen who fled to the mountains.”
“Hubaira told us about them,” said Tel Hesani. “They had many children, who in turn had more, and they eventually formed an army and took back the city.”
“Yes,” Ramman said. “The invaders had extended the city and added to its beauty. But we had no time for that once we were done killing. We razed all that we could to the ground, but we couldn’t destroy these houses carved into the mountains. We blocked up the entrances, but later we opened them again so that we could walk through the ruined palaces and be reminded of our weakness and our fall. Since that time we’ve just been warriors.”
They explored more of the old palaces. Um Siq inhabited some of them. Wild animals had made dens in others. Jebel asked if they killed and ate these animals. Ramman said yes, but only when their need was great, if they were snowed in by an especially harsh storm and couldn’t hunt.
Something was bothering Tel Hesani. When he spotted an old silver coin half-hidden in the dirt of a small cave, he decided to ask about it. “I do not mean to pry,” he said to Ramman, “but your people are the wealthiest in Makhras. You collect tolls from every ship that sails through the al-Attieg gorge. You take barrel-loads of swagah each day, along with animals, food, wine, ale, cloth, gems, and so on. Where do you store it all?”
Ramman laughed. “I wondered when you’d ask!” He eyed Jebel and Tel Hesani seriously. “I must ask for your oath. I am about to tell you a great secret. If you give me your word, I will trust you to honor it.”
“You have mine,” Tel Hesani said, placing his hand over his heart.
“And mine,” Jebel said, touching his left shoulder where the tattoo of the axe lay hidden beneath the tunic he was wearing.
Ramman grinned. “We get rid of everything that we take from the ships.”
Jebel and Tel Hesani blinked at the same time, and Ramman laughed.
“You’re joking,” Jebel gasped.
“I’m not,” Ramman said. “We keep certain metals to make weapons that are otherwise beyond our means. And we let the animals run wild; if they survive and flourish, we hunt them later. We also stash some swagah and jewelry away in secret hiding places, along with food, in case we’re ever attacked and forced to flee. The rest we dump in lakes or caves around the mountains.”
“Dump?” Jebel cried.
“Your goods mean nothing to us. In fact they’re a nuisance, waste that we have to dispose of.”
“Then why collect taxes in the first place?” Tel Hesani asked.
“Strength,” Ramman said. “Your people equate wealth with strength. They think that we’re sitting on a stock of weapons the likes of which nobody has ever seen, and that we could pay mercenaries to fight for us if we were outnumbered. If they knew the truth, they’d invade.
“That is why I asked for your oath. As things stand, the nations of Makhras consider us one of their own, living by the same rules, coveting as they covet, profiting as they profit. If they knew how we really live, of the riches we scorn, they’d attack, and we would be forced to fight bitterly to preserve what is ours.”
“It makes no sense,” Jebel muttered. “But I vowed not to say anything about it, so I won’t.”
“I’ll respect your secret too,” Tel Hesani said. “And it does make sense to me.”
Jebel snorted. Trust one fool to see no flaws in another! The Um Siq were crazy. The sooner he and Tel Hesani were on their way, the better.
“When are we leaving?” he asked as they stepped out of the cave.
Tel Hesani turned to Ramman. “We wish to move on before it snows. Will that be possible?”
“You can go whenever you like,” Ramman said. “But a regiment leaves for Abu Saga soon. You should wait and travel with them. You’ll be safer that way.”
“That is sound advice,” Tel Hesani said. “We will happily wait and accept your offer of an escort.”
Ramman smiled. “That means you’ll be here for the Khazneh ceremony.”
“What’s that?” Jebel asked.
The Um Siq sighed. “That’s when you’ll find out why Hubaira asked you to cut off her head.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The next morning, before the sun rose, Ramman woke Jebel and Tel Hesani. Qattar was standing by the door, holding the bag containing Hubaira’s head. “It’s time for the Khazneh ceremony,” Ramman said.
As soon as they left the house, the song of union began. One of Qattar and Ramman’s neighbors started it, but within a minute it had been taken up by what sounded like every person in Abu Siq.
Qattar and Ramman walked side by side, while Qattar’s other husbands trailed behind. More Um Siq joined the procession but kept to the edges of the paths, where Jebel and Tel Hesani also walked.
They marched to a hill in the east, scaled it, then descended into a valley where the strangest contraption Jebel had ever seen stood waiting. It was a giant ball with dozens of windmill-like vanes protruding from it in all directions. It was set in a large pit, so only the upper half of the vane-dotted ball was visible. There were weights hanging from the vanes, and the ball was turning very slowly.
The Um Siq spread out to form a circle around the edge of the pit. They hadn’t stopped singing. Jebel got the impression that everyone in the city was gathered here, gazing at the vanes, singing the song of union.
Jebel and Tel Hesani were at the easternmost point of the pit, where Qattar had taken up position. She was standing in front of the others, singing the loudest, softly swinging the bag in her hands.
Ramman took a half-step back so that Jebel and Tel Hesani could hear him. “This machine is the Khazneh,” he said. “It’s a giant sundial. It—”
The singing shot up a notch in pitch and speed. Ramman darted forward and took the bag from Qattar. While he held it, his wife untied the knots, reached in, and lifted out Hubaira’s severed head. The girl appeared prettier in death than in life. Jebel was seized by an impulse to lean forward and kiss her, but he resisted. He was so focused on Hubaira that he failed to notice the change in the vanes. The first he knew of it was when Tel Hesani nudged his ribs and murmured, “Look.”
Jebel thought that his eyes were tricking him, that the heads on the vanes were after-images of Hubaira’s face. But when he rubbed his eyes and looked again, the heads were still there, rolling gradually out of the pit. There were loads of them, skulls with scraps of skin and hair, strapped to the vanes, all facing the sun, which was rising over the mountains farther east.
As the Khazneh revolved and more heads came into view, Jebel noticed that they weren’t all as bleached and deteriorated as the first few he’d seen. Some had more flesh and hair, an eye, an ear or a bit of tongue.
Qattar and Ramman moved around the edge of the pit, studying the heads. After several minutes they stopped, and Ramman reached out and took hold of a skull. It had been stripped bare and was white from exposure to the sun. It was tied to the vane with string, which Ramman easily cut through. When the skull came free, he tossed it to the people behind him. They let it drop, then stamped on it, crushing it to dust, singing joyously.
While the Um Siq crushed the skull, Qattar placed
Hubaira’s head on the vane. Ramman produced a fresh length of string, and they tied on their daughter’s head. Once the head had been fastened, they stepped back, joined hands, and led the singing, even louder and faster than before. The Um Siq stamped in rhythm with the song, then started clapping their hands.
All of a sudden they stopped. There was a pause, one last burst of song, one huge stamp, and one final clap. Then the Um Siq returned to the city until only four were left at the edge of the pit, caught between the new day’s sun and the slowly revolving heads of the dead.
Jebel stared from the skulls to Qattar and Ramman, then back at the heads.
“Do you understand?” Ramman asked.
“No,” muttered Tel Hesani.
“The Khazneh holds three hundred sixty-one heads,” Ramman said.
“Nineteen times nineteen,” Qattar added.
“It was our last technical work of genius when we took Abu Siq back from the invaders,” Ramman said. “Until then we mourned our dead like any other race. But having lost so many, we decided to put mourning behind us.”
Qattar sighed. “It was easier said than done. Loss was hard to cope with, and the dead were impossible to forget. But we found a way, through the Khazneh.”
“We attach the heads of our dead to the vanes,” Ramman explained. “The Khazneh revolves without pause, following the path of the sun, so the heads face it every minute of the day and sink into the darkness of the earth as the sun sets.”
Jebel frowned. “How does that help you not to mourn?”
“While the dead are part of the Khazneh, they’re not truly dead,” Ramman said. “Their spirit is still part of our city, and they’re sung of as if alive. We believe they walk in the siq, separated from us by the veil of death but not truly gone.”
“An Um Siq’s spirit only departs Makhras when their head is removed from the Khazneh,” said Qattar. “Since there are three hundred sixty-one heads on the vanes, and they’re replaced in order—the oldest first—a person is usually part of the Khazneh for a generation, sometimes two or three. In most cases, when a head is removed, all who knew the person have died too, so there is nobody to mourn when their spirit finally leaves.”