“Who is he?” I asked.
“A glassblower.”
I shook my head, baffled.
“It is said the first glass was made by a great serpent that dwelt in the sun,” Atar said. “The glassblowers are rich, now, for the Sienese covet their work. But rulers come and go in An-Zabat.”
She gestured toward the tombs built into the walls of the canyon.
“Before you came we were ruled by interlopers from the frigid north. Before them, by merchant princes who paid tribute to the horse tribes of the western grasslands. Before them, there was someone else with spears and soldiers who had claimed the right to rule.”
I studied the tombs.
“That is why you meet here,” I said. “To remind yourself.”
She nodded, pleased that I had understood. “Rulers come and go, but the wind, the Goddess, and her people will remain.”
I knew little of An-Zabati history beyond what I had gleaned from Sienese texts, but I knew its economics well. So long as the Windcallers held their monopoly on transport across the desert, they had nothing to fear from new rulers.
The Empire wanted to break that monopoly. I had seen the ledgers. I knew the value of An-Zabat, and how much more wealth could be wrung from it without the Windcallers’ heavy fees.
My thoughts were interrupted by the man to my right, who finished his dance, returned to the circle, and clapped me on the shoulder with a wide, eager grin.
I froze.
“It is your turn,” Atar urged me. “Show us your dance, Nayeni!”
Despite my earlier jest, I hesitated. She gave me a gentle push. Every eye in the circle fixed on me as I stumbled out into the center of the circle.
Had any foreigner come to the dance before? No Sienese, I was sure. No matter. I had come. I would dance.
It had been years since I had practiced the Iron Dance, but movements trained deep into muscle and bone are not easily forgotten. I shut my eyes and thought back to the abandoned temple, my grandmother watching my steps, correcting the angle of my arms, the arch of my back and knee. My hands curled into fists. They ought to have gripped swords, or at least the rattan dowels I had used for practice.
The first steps came slowly. They were nothing like the whirling and leaping of the An-Zabati, for the Iron Dance had nothing of the wind. It was hard and martial, the remnant of a warrior culture all but snuffed out by Imperial steel, grenade, and sorcery. It was iron tempered by ancient fire. It was a dance in name, but a weapon in truth.
The An-Zabati danced with grace and beauty, and with sorcery. The only grace I understood was the grace of the Sienese: art and poetry, fine clothes and subtle wines. But there can be beauty without grace. And I understood sorcery.
Power rippled from the old scars of my right hand. Arcs of heat and light trailed from my fists as I moved through the Iron Dance. Gasps erupted from the crowd. The drums faltered, but my steps did not. I had never danced to drums.
Too soon I came to the last steps, the final downward blow. I splayed my fingers and threw the fire gathered there. It splashed outward, like burning oil spilled over the sand. The drums rumbled to a stop. The crowd stared in hushed silence as the conjured flames flickered and died. I came to a stop, panting heavily, my caftan soaked with sweat in the lingering desert heat.
“Firecaller …”
It began slowly, like the first pulses of high tide lapping at Nayen’s shores, and then became a wave crashing over me.
“Firecaller!”
They clapped their hands and cried out for me as I walked to my place in the circle, flushed and astonished at what I had done, and at their reaction.
“Firecaller!”
A final cry, and then a receding flurry of applause. Atar smiled and pressed my right hand, her eyes shining, her face as flushed as mine. She leaned to my ear. “You were marvelous. But now it is my turn.”
And Atar, who knew every dance of An-Zabat, gave a performance that outshone mine as the sun outshines the stars. No Sienese courtesan could rival her. No lines of poetry could capture her.
Others danced after, but I hardly saw them.
When all who had come had danced, the old Windcaller Katiz stepped into the center of the ring and held aloft a wide bowl decorated with whirlwinds of silver filigree.
“A cool wind promised water!” he cried.
The gathering answered, “All things flow to An-Zabat!”
He knelt and dug a basin. Within it he placed the bowl, so that only its lip could be seen above the sand.
Power rippled from him and into the bowl, and then radiated down into the earth. It was not the pattern of Windshaping, which I knew well by now, but it was similar. A trickle of water seeped into the bottom of the bowl. Soon it was filled.
“Do not look so surprised,” Atar said. “There is air in the water, and water in the air, is there not?”
In that moment I felt too ignorant to dispute her.
I turned toward the city. There, beneath it, I saw old magic woven and bound in stone, fixed in place to keep An-Zabat alive. The ripples of power were there when I looked for them, but the waters of An-Zabat were ancient. The pattern of the world had long since embraced them. The greenbelt, the clouds, the layout of the city, all these served to hide the magic that fed the Great Oasis.
This, I realized, was something Voice Rill should have told me. He had not. Either he kept this knowledge from me, or he did not know. If the former, there was no point in sharing what I had learned. If the latter …
I looked at Atar. I would not betray her trust more than I already had.
Each dancer dipped cupped hands and drank from the bowl, and then parted ways. Atar led me back through the catacombs. At the door to the city she paused and smiled.
I felt a powerful urge to kiss her, as well as terror that she might never speak to me again if I did.
“You dance well, Firecaller, for an untrained foreigner,” she said. “Meet me tomorrow night in the Valley. We will see if you can be taught.”
She patted my cheek and left me there, speechless. When she was out of sight, I set off toward the citadel, my mind reeling, my blood racing, my body electrified by the excitement of the night.
New love. New secrets. And, perhaps most importantly, a new name.
4
I brought rice gruel and ginseng tea.”
The sun shone bright through my window. A tray clattered on my bedside table. Khin never clattered dishes unless he meant to.
“I’m not hung over.”
“Oh?” Khin said as he poured my tea. “You were not back until well after nightfall, and you have slept half the morning away.”
I stared at him. He went on preparing my meal without meeting my gaze.
“I do not have to defend myself to you,” I said sharply.
He stiffened.
“Of course,” he said. He bowed and left the room, masking his offense and hurt with practiced grace.
Khin had been a trustworthy steward, if not a friend. I regretted the conflict between us, but I would not give up the Valley of Rulers.
The following months passed in a flurry. By day I tracked tariffs and tax records, adjusted rates of exchange, and monitored the flow of goods in and out of the city. By night I covered my tetragram with clay and slipped away from the citadel to meet Atar. The dance only gathered beneath the full moon, but almost every night she and I would visit the Valley of Rulers and trade stories of our childhoods. I told her everything, up to the day I became Hand of the Emperor.
My grandmother had taught me the myths and history of her people. She had meant for me to keep them alive, to pass them on to future generations of Nayeni. I told them to Atar, who was not Nayeni, but who understood.
She began to teach me dances. Soon I could dance like a scribe, or a merchant. On my second full moon i
n the Valley of Rulers, I performed the Soldier’s Dance to much applause. After, while we walked back to the catacombs under the light of the stars, I asked her to teach me to dance like a Windcaller.
“That secret is not mine to share.”
My heart sank.
“Do not despair, Firecaller,” she said with a gentle smile. “I will do what I can to help you earn it.”
My deepening understanding of the An-Zabati was not only a matter of personal interest. Their attitude of independence and their lack of concern for rulership informed my work as Minister of Trade. I drafted a new policy regarding the Windcallers and brought it to Voice Rill for ratification.
“These are high fees,” Voice Rill muttered, leafing through the documents.
“Not fees,” I said. “A percentage share. The Windcallers want respect. They see themselves, rightly, as the beating heart of trade in An-Zabat. If we treat them as equal partners, they will work with us.”
“And how, Hand Alder, have you become an expert on the wants of the Windcallers?”
“There is a reason I was given this task,” I said, avoiding the thrust of his question. I jabbed my finger at the page in his hand. “Look at the numbers, Voice Rill. Yes, the markets will need time to adjust, and some of the silver mines in An-Zabat may close, but we have more than enough silver in Sien. We want foreign goods, valuable goods, to move through this city, into and out of the Empire.”
“You are Minister of Trade,” Voice Rill said in resignation. “And yes, you were chosen for a reason. Very well.” He stamped the pages with the tetragram of his office. “You are very brave, Hand Alder. And very clever. But cleverness can be dangerous unless balanced by wisdom. I hope this does not ruin you.”
He had no cause to worry.
As Atar and I grew closer I felt the lies I had told her like a thorn in my heart. Always I had to speak around my deepest doubts and fears, as well as my greatest accomplishments—which, I worried, she would see as my most heinous crimes.
I could not tell her of the years I spent as Hand Usher’s apprentice, learning Sienese sorcery and fighting against the very same rebellion that my grandmother had abandoned me to join. Nor could I speak of my friend Oriole who was the son of the Voice of Nayen. Oriole, who had been like a brother to me, who taught me to ride a horse and lead men into battle. Oriole, whose life I could have saved if only I had been willing to cast aside my grandmother’s lessons and my Nayeni blood.
When Atar and I were together, I felt torn between the ease of our conversation and the anxiety that any wrong word might betray my lies. I had lived in similar tension most of my life. Secrets and half-truths were my armor, worn since childhood.
But, so armored, I could never fully embrace Atar.
Sitting in my office, staring at the tetragram on my hand, a piece of clay raised and ready, I resolved to hide nothing more from Atar. If she hated me, if she and the other dancers in the valley sought to kill me, so be it. I would be myself with her. I set down the clay.
“I have something to show you,” I said beneath the stars while Atar prepared to teach me the next dance. The tombs of An-Zabat’s ancient rulers were shrouded in shadow, like dark eyes staring out from beneath heavy brows.
She paused in her stretching, with all the power and beauty of a drawn bow. “What is it?”
What if she hated me? What if she could not accept the truth?
Better to be hated than never truly known.
“I have not been honest with you,” I said, and showed the silver lines of the Imperial tetragram on my palm.
She stared at my hand, then at my eyes, her face a hard mask. “You are not a servant.”
“No.” The world shifted beneath me. My stomach lurched. My heart stuttered, but I said the words. “I am Hand of the Emperor.”
She tensed, ready to fight or flee. “Is this some kind of trick?”
I shook my head. “If the Voice or the other Hands learned that I come here, they would have me killed.”
She did not run.
She demanded an explanation, which was enough to give me hope.
I told her everything. Her face was like stone but she listened, and her breathing slowed the more she came to understand. When I finished, a long and silent moment passed before she spoke. “You chose the conquerors.”
Her voice was cold, her words a condemnation.
“Atar, I hardly feel that I have made a single choice in my life,” I said, and was surprised to hear the crack in my voice. I pressed on, the truth flowing freely like ink from a toppled bottle. “Since I was a boy, others have had designs for me, and I knew no better than to follow them. My grandmother meant for me to fight the Sienese. My father wanted me to advance our family’s station in the Empire. He set me on the path that led me to the Imperial examination and Hand Usher, who plucked me out of obscurity and made me Hand of the Emperor.”
“You could have refused.”
“Could I have?” I sounded angry. I felt angry. Not at Atar. I took a deep breath and spoke again, determined to keep my voice calm and measured despite whatever I felt. “By the time I was old enough to understand the danger of my grandmother’s lessons, I knew just as well that telling anyone about them would mean both of our deaths. She disappeared one night to join the rebellion without a word to me, let alone an offer to join her. What was I to do? There was a path laid for me by my father and the Empire, and I followed it.
“I have always been two men, Atar. My grandmother and my father. My right hand and my left. Nayeni and Sienese, though I look like neither. There was no room for me to decide what I wanted to be.”
Her eyes were bright. As I spoke, her posture had opened. She hesitated in the silence for a heartbeat, then stepped toward me. “Whatever else you are,” she said, haltingly at first, gaining confidence as she spoke, “you are a good man, Firecaller. But you are also very confused. What has brought you here, truly?”
“I saw you and your Windshaping,” I said. She was very close to me. The wind carried her lavender scent. “Whatever else I am, I have always been curious.”
She regarded me, our feet nearly touching. A gust caught her hair. It brushed my arm. She smiled. “And what drew you back, night after night? Curiosity?”
“Of a sort,” I managed to say.
“Just to learn Windcalling?” She leaned toward me, her voice a breath of a whisper.
I was feeling extraordinarily honest with her lips only a hand’s width from mine.
I answered truthfully, and she kissed me, and I resolved never to lie to her again.
On my fourth full moon in the Valley of Rulers, while Atar commanded the attention of the circle with yet another new dance I had never seen before, the Windcaller Katiz approached me. He had not spoken to me since Atar revealed my true position among the Sienese, but she had vouched for my presence at the dance, and that had been enough for Katiz to let me stay. He crossed his tattooed arms over his chest.
“Winddancing Atar tells me you want to learn my dance, Firecaller.”
“Not only the dance,” I said, meeting his gaze.
“The dance and the art are the same, Firecaller.” He turned toward Atar. Her fingers wove the air. Her scarves twirled over and against each other like serpents of the sea.
“She says you are curious. That this is your only reason. Tell me truthfully: will you steal our secret for your Empire?”
“I could not reveal yours without revealing my own.”
Katiz harrumphed.
“A good answer. Self-interest is a far surer guarantee than any promise you could make.”
“You will teach me, then?”
“Tomorrow night.” His hand closed on my shoulder. “You command fire. Let us see if you can master the wind.”
My feet wanted to flatten against the earth. The sweeping movements of my arms felt lo
ose and impotent. Training in the Iron Dance had taught me to plant my feet firmly, but Windcalling required fluid motion. I returned to the citadel disappointed after that first night of training with Windcaller Katiz.
Four weeks later, I earned my tattoos.
“Only thrice before have we given mastery of the wind to an outsider,” Katiz said while he ground the ink. “They, like you, came to us already powerful in magic. They, like you, had lost their own people. They, as we hope for you, stayed with us for many years.”
Katiz sharpened the radius of a desert hawk into a hollow-tipped needle.
“The first marks go here,” Atar said. She touched the underside of my forearm, just below the crook of my elbow. Her finger made three swirls, forming a triangle that pointed toward my hand. A pleasant shiver ran up my arm. She smiled. “One day, if you have your own ship, the whole of both arms will be covered.”
I doubted I would ever wear so many marks, and I felt grateful that the tattoos would be so small and high on my arm. The sleeve of a Sienese robe would cover them easily.
“Don’t be afraid to wince,” Katiz said. “Everyone winces on the first few strikes.”
“My grandmother carved my hand with a stone knife,” I said. “I doubt this will be much worse.”
“We will see, Firecaller,” Atar said, and kissed my cheek.
Katiz prodded me with the needle, then rubbed ink into the pinprick wounds. I did wince, and Atar teased me relentlessly for it. The stars were out in full and the moon already descending when Katiz finished.
“Try not to move the arm more than necessary for the next few days,” Katiz said. “And for Naphena’s sake, don’t wash it too vigorously, or the ink will smudge.”
I barely heard him. While he had prodded and inked my arm, trickles of new power had flowed into me. Now I seized them and sprang to my feet. It was not so different, after all, from conjuring fire. My arm rose in a slow arc, and a gust billowed up. I pushed forward and down, and it rushed away from me.