The Bird King(29)

Hassan began to laugh uncontrollably. The dog-man laughed too, then kicked Hassan’s feet out from under him and sat down on his chest.

“Don’t,” he said as Hassan struggled. “One little slit and you won’t feel a thing.”

The dog-man had his back to Fatima. She grabbed a handful of his inky hair and yanked as hard as she could. With a yelp, the creature tumbled over. But Fatima could not keep her grip: the tangled mane in her fist turned to shadow, a flattened image of what it had been. The dog-man loomed over her in a dark plume and seized her throat.

“I like you, little sister,” he said. “You’ve been kind to me and I haven’t forgotten it. But I only like you a little more than I would like to eat you. Remember that.”

“Enough,” snapped Lady Aisha. “Put her down, Vikram, and let poor Hassan go before he dies of fright. Good God! You’re getting theatrical as you age.”

Fatima felt the claws around her neck relax. She tore away, rubbing her throat and gasping for air.

“You’re disgusting,” she snarled at him. “You’re a monster.”

“Yes,” said the creature. Settling on the ground with a sigh, he lay on his back, stretching out the toes of one taloned foot, and began to hum again.

Hassan, meanwhile, was laughing in a way that Fatima found alarming.

“You’re Vikram the Vampire,” he crowed. “The master cartographer used to frighten us with stories about you after the fires were put out at night. You’re not real.”

“People keep saying that, yet it’s never been true,” said Vikram bitterly. “I’m as real as you are. More so, even, for I’ve certainly lived longer.”

“No,” Hassan insisted. He raised one hand as if to banish the dog-man like a conjurer’s illusion. “You’re a tale to scare children into behaving themselves. That’s not the same as something real.”

“Fear can make anything real,” said Vikram. “The black-cloaks are afraid you’re a sorcerer. If they condemn you as a sorcerer and burn you for it, then you are, for all practical purposes, a sorcerer, whether you began as one or not. Fear doesn’t need to make sense in order to have consequences.” He rolled over and eyed Hassan’s stricken face. “The difference between us is that I am Vikram whether you fear me or not.”

Fatima felt light-headed and wondered if she might faint again. She walked toward the mouth of the tunnel, taking deep, greedy breaths of the chill air. The light on the horizon had brightened in earnest. In the bluish dawn, she began to recognize where they were: the tunnel ended in a modest rock ledge downhill from the palace, whose outline abutted the sky above their heads. Below them, the shallow Genil River slid eastward, its banks lined with scrub and river rock. To the west, the medina was waking up: she could see rushlights winking in the windows of white plaster houses and shops. Milk cows were lowing quietly in their sheds, the sound carried up the hill by a wild little breeze. Before her, at the foot of the hill, was the Vega de Granada, flat and silent, stretching south toward the rim of the valley.

“I will go,” came Hassan’s voice gravely. Fatima turned to gape at him.

“You will not!” she declared. But Hassan held up his hand.

“It’s all right, Fa,” he said. “There was never much chance of me surviving this anyway. One of us might as well live.” His eyes were watery and reddened. Fatima wanted to go to him, to put her arms around his neck, but with Lady Aisha and the dog-man watching, she did not dare.

“Then it’s settled,” said Lady Aisha. “Hassan will go to the Castilians. In exchange, Fatima will not be punished for treason. Everything will fall back into its rightful place. We will have peace.”

Fatima studied her mistress. She looked calmly back through her bloodshot brown eyes, her face still except for a tiny tremor in her mouth, which told Fatima all she needed to know.

“No,” said Fatima.

“No?”

“No.”

Lady Aisha began to pace across the mouth of the tunnel.

“You are so eager to leave me,” she said in a caustic voice. “I can’t do without you, Fatima. I’m old. I am losing my home and my country. My son weeps like a woman for what he could not defend as a man. And now this little rebellion.” She gripped an outcropping of rock at the mouth of the cave and lowered herself to the ground. Fatima, unthinking, ran to help her, putting her shoulder beneath her mistress’s fragile arm. They sat on the cold earth, breathing the same air.

“You want me to love you,” said Fatima. Her mistress’s scent filled her senses, an admixture of myrrh and wool and the faint, unsettling smell of age. “But I’m a thing you own, and property can’t love. I want to love you. Let us go and I will. If this is peace, then I hate peace. Peace is unfair.”

Lady Aisha chuckled. Her gaze became unfocused and almost sad, as if she was in the grip of some profound memory.

“You’re very young, my dear,” she said. “Let me tell you something important. The real struggle on this earth is not between those who want peace and those who want war. It’s between those who want peace and those who want justice. If justice is what you want, then you may often be right, but you will rarely be happy.” She squinted at the brightening sunlight. “If anyone asks me what you’ve done, I’m going to tell the truth—I won’t risk what little I have left, not even for you. But if you leave now and walk very briskly, there is a chance you may outrun the Inquisition. A small chance.”