The Necromancer's Grimoire Read online

  She translated for Alisdair, “He said to drop your sword…”

  Alisdair lowered the point to the ground and turned to her, incredulous. “Are you gonna make me do it again?”

  She shook her head. “Not this time.” She spoke to the leader. “We will not surrender our weapons. We surrender nothing.”

  The fact that this defiance was delivered by a woman, and not the tall speckled man at first puzzled, then enraged the horsemen. Several kicked their mounts and surged forward, running at them, then pivoting away at the last second, swiping at them with their curved blades.

  “Wee tiny knives, those things,” Alisdair grumbled. “I haven’t seen a real man’s sword since Istanbul.”

  “There are none here large enough to carry a sword like yours, Alisdair,” William said.

  Nadira locked eyes with the leader. He was confused. This was not how encounters with strangers usually unfolded. She sent a tendril into his heart. Yes. He was unsettled that none of them showed the slightest fear of him and his men. Not normal. Most travelers cringed, then bowed on their bellies or fled. She let him know in no uncertain terms that it was in his best interest, and that of his people, to ignore these particular trespassing foreigners.

  He did not respond to her suggestion. His pride was injured by their lack of fear. He gave the signal to attack and his men kicked their horses into a gallop. The archers let fly.

  Nadira raised her arms and her skein of threads gathered themselves for the throw. She planned to catch all the arrows first, and then confound the horses. Before she could cast her defense, a bolt of lightning shot from the sky, and with a deafening boom that caused the horses to scream in panic, struck the nearest horseman who was about to swing his sword at Alisdair. The arrows fell to the ground and bounced.

  She put her arms down and covered her ears. The thunder rumbled away into the distance and echoed off the mountain peaks that surrounded the valley below them. The man who was struck lay on his back on the ground, eyes and mouth wide open. A great black streak ran down the side of his smoking body from his temple where the bolt had entered him, to his feet where it had entered his horse and felled the animal as well. The other horsemen had fled and were now regrouping some distance away.

  Alisdair turned slowly to face her. He dropped his sword.

  “My lady…” he whispered, amazed.

  “It wasn’t me,” she said quickly. “I didn’t do that.”

  William looked up. “The sky is clear,” his voice shook. “I think you did.”

  “I didn’t intend to kill anyone, and especially not an innocent animal.” She pointed at the dead horse.

  William frowned and rubbed his ears. “The alternative is more frightening.” He looked around for another magus.

  She shared his frown, deep in thought. “There is no other. I would feel him.”

  Garreth pointed at the horsemen. They were not running away. The leader was approaching alone at a slow trot. The rest of his men were still.

  “Let’s hear what he has to say,” William said warily.

  Alisdair picked up his sword. He looked at the long blade, then at Nadira, then deliberately slid it slowly behind his back into the scabbard. “I’ll not be needin’ it, then.”

  She shook her head, waiting for the tribal leader to arrive. William pushed her forward. “You can’t pretend Alisdair is your master anymore.”

  “He won’t negotiate with a woman,” Nadira argued.

  William shook his head. “I think not only will he speak to you, but he will get off his horse, salaam you, and bow all the way into the thin grass. He saw you raise your arms before the lightning struck.”

  William was right. The tribal leader approached, leaped from his horse ten paces away, and got down on his belly.

  “He didn’t salaam,” Alisdair pointed out.

  “They don’t do that here,” Nadira informed him. “Stay here.” She walked up to the prone man and stood just out of reach of his arms. In Arabic she said, “Peace, friend.”

  The man glanced up at her without raising his chin from the ground. “He has spoken.”

  “Who has spoken?”

  “God has spoken.”

  “Hmm.” She crouched down so she could see his frightened eyes. “What did he tell you?”

  “Ahura Mazda said to welcome you and to put you in our best tent. He said to warm you with a fire and soft blankets and to feed you.”

  Nadira smiled.

  The blankets were soft, made from various animal fibers woven in bright colors and geometric patterns. Thedra and Nadira sat together on a mound of blankets inside a round collapsible tent made of black felted wool.

  “I don’t like being separated like this,” Thedra said.

  “We are being polite.” Nadira reminded her. “We are not in Istanbul or Athens.”

  Thedra made a face.

  Nadira touched her knee. “Are you sorry you came?”

  “No.” The young woman let her veil fall to the ground and took out her comb from inside her sash. “I could not go home to my father. There is nothing for me but Kokkinos.” Alisdair had been lovingly renamed by Thedra soon after they met. She undid her braid and began to comb her hair.

  “Kokkinos is glad you are with him,” Nadira said. “He is wondering about you right now.”

  “Yes?” The comb paused for a moment before sinking again into her dark brown hair. “Will I see him tonight?”

  Nadira knew she did not mean the kind of ‘see’ one does with one’s eyes. “No,” she answered honestly. “You two will have a few nights alone while I find out where we are going next.”

  Nadira cast out into the camp, touching her companions. William was bored and impatient. Garreth was asleep and Alisdair was thinking thoughts she quickly ignored. She leaned forward and moved the heavy cloth that served as a door to the tent. She peeked into the camp. Two fierce-looking men sat side by side cross-legged in front of her doorway. She could feel that they were uncertain whether they were her guards or her protectors. Nadira had grown accustomed to being both guarded and protected. She scanned the camp for the leader. He was nowhere to be seen.

  “I am patient. We have frightened them. They need some time to understand what has happened.” Nadira let the blanket fall closed. “Their leader has gone to consult with the elders.” She closed her eyes, searching for him. “He will return with men who have a higher status. That is when we will talk.”

  Thedra began to re-braid her long hair. “They speak a Turkic dialect, but I cannot understand them.”

  Nadira lay down on the blankets, thinking. “There may be some who speak Turkish. You may have to translate for me.”

  “Why can’t you just…you know…do that thing you do.” Thedra wrapped the end of her braid with red felt.

  Nadira shrugged. “That will not help the men I am speaking to. I may be able to know what it is they are thinking, but how will they know my thoughts? They will hear me inside them but not understand where the ideas are coming from. It can be unsettling for them.” She rolled over and rested her head on her folded arms. “It is best to speak to their ears.”

  Two days later a man stood outside the tent and called to the women inside. In Turkish.

  Thedra raised an eyebrow. “He asks with extreme politeness that we come out.”

  “Then we will.”

  The two women emerged and were taken to the center of the camp by one of the tribesmen. The other horsemen circled the camp some distance away. Nadira was pleased to see Alisdair and Garreth already sitting together with the men. She looked about for William.

  “Where is Will?” she asked Alisdair.

  “He is coming.”

  Thedra pointed to the ground where thick wool blankets were placed side by side. “They ask that we be seated here,” Thedra sat and Nadira followed. William joined them and sat silently beside Nadira. They exchanged glances, but nothing needed to be said.

  It was not long before she recognized the
leader approaching on foot with a small group of old men in long hair with gray beards dressed very differently from the horsemen. Nadira sat up straighter and so did her companions. The visitors wore ragged brown robes and carried twisted walking sticks. The horsemen lowered their eyes as they approached the meeting place, so Nadira did as well, prompting her companions to follow her lead.

  The leader seemed at a loss for words. He said something and moved his hand in Nadira’s direction, but was not so rude as to point at her. The ragged men moved forward to position themselves on bright rugs that had been set on the ground for them. They sat facing her and adjusted their robes, tucking their feet under them. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before the oldest of the graybeards spoke to her in Arabic, “Sultana. Your arrival has been foretold.” He nodded toward the man to his right who withdrew a long scroll from his wide sleeve.

  The scroll was passed to her. William asked, “What is it?”

  She shook her head as she untied the red ribbon that held it secured. She unrolled the stiff vellum and looked first at the signature at the bottom. Sultan Bayezid II, Padishah of all the Osman territories. His massive swirling signature dominated the bottom third of the document. Three seals were affixed next to his name with bright ribbons of blue and red and white with shining wax stamps of the vizier and the agha…and another’s.

  She glanced up at the men but was careful not to show anything in her face. “This was delivered to you?”

  They nodded silently, giving her time to read the document. She lowered her eyes and started at the beginning, at the date. It had been written before they had left Greece. It had been written and sent east toward Persia before she had gotten on the ship that sailed from Eleusis through the Bosphorus and across the Black Sea to the Caucasus Mountains.

  She felt William’s eyes on her, then she felt his hand on her knee. She turned her head and raised the document so the strangers could not see her face.

  William whispered, “What is it? What does it say?”

  She took a breath, unsure of how to tell him.

  He squeezed her knee. “It looks very important and very much out of place in this wilderness.”

  She nodded and rolled it up again before adjusting her blue veil to cover her as completely as possible. William was growing alarmed, but she needed time before she could speak.

  He pressed her. “Tell me Nadira. You can hide nothing from me.”

  She answered him slowly, “It is a document that insures our safe passage and hospitality anywhere in the Empire.” That much was absolutely true.

  He breathed a great sigh of relief and leaned back. “From the look on your face I thought it was a death warrant.” He crossed himself. The men across from them shifted uncomfortably.

  She did not tell him the rest. She could not tell him that it had been carefully written in Arabic in exquisite calligraphy by Kemaleddin Reis. She could not tell William what was implied in the swirling curls and sweeping ink flourishes. Printed documents were soulless compared to the emotion and meaning that was conveyed in the elaborate strokes of the captain’s brush. And he had put them there, knowing she would see them.

  She rubbed at the center of her chest between her breasts. Kemal had known Montrose was dead. He had heard the story from Alisdair and Garreth when he rescued them from Alexandria. His sympathy for her grief was evident in the ink and in the sensitive words he chose to use when he wrote the message. He must have written this and taken it to the Topkapi Palace immediately after saving her companions and arriving in Istanbul.

  Careful choice of words could not mask the truth, however. William was watching her now. She tried to smile reassuringly at him, then glanced across the circle of men to see Alisdair and Garreth. Two pairs of blue eyes were fixed on her, trying to read her face.

  “Nadira? Is there more? You look terrible.”

  She nodded and answered in Latin to keep her words from Thedra and very softly to keep the words from Alisdair and Garreth. “The sultan…” she took a long breath, “the sultan, as is his right as my kinsman, has given me away in marriage. This is his order.” Her hand trembled as she lifted the document for emphasis.

  William was speechless. His face had gone white with shock, and then a florid glow started in his cheeks and spread across his brow.

  She touched his knee to keep him quiet. “Do not speak.”

  He disobeyed. “Who?” he asked with narrowed eyes.

  She could not answer, for the word would be understood in any language. His face became hard. Alisdair and Garreth saw his face and got to their feet.

  She crumbled. “It is Kemal Reis,” she whispered.

  He took the scroll from her as if he could read it.“No. The Reis cannot do this to you.”

  “He can and he has.” She pointed to his wax seal.

  Alisdair asked. “What is it, my lady?” The tribesmen looked up at the tall Scot and the blond Englishman who towered over them.

  William opened his mouth to answer, but Nadira stopped him. “Do not torment them with this information. They will not understand. ”

  “I do not understand either.”

  Nadira signaled for the men to sit down before they alarmed the tribesmen any further. She tried to explain to William. “Until now, Alisdair’s sword and Garreth’s ax have been enough. Until now we have been on established trade routes with the caravans, but when we set foot on this mountain our journey changed. This document protects me and my party from any sort of interference from the local authorities. This document is more powerful than Alisdair’s sword. It is a shield. That is all. I am under the sultan’s protection, and the protection of his captain. With this document, none dare touch me. Or you. Or them.”

  “How did it get here before we did, and how did The Porte know where we were going? How could the sultan’s ministers send it here? Did you tell them?” William looked at her suspiciously, then at the beautiful manuscript. She saw him staring hard at the graceful calligraphy to force an answer. He glanced at her for permission, then extended his fingers to rub the vellum and answer his own question. His face slowly unmolded from anger to a softer realization as he held the document in his hands. He caressed the curling ink swathes. “Oh God,” he whispered.

  The Necromancer’s Grimoire had given William abilities different from her own. He could touch a thing that had been touched by another and know. He was knowing now. She considered snatching the scroll back, for she was not sure what he was feeling. Her fingers twitched with the desire to stop the wordless messages he was getting through the manuscript, not sure how much of himself Kemal had put into the ink. She put her hands on her lap instead. She bowed her head and permitted Kemal speak to William through the document. Some answers were necessary. The less she would have to say to him with words the better.

  He looked at her. “There is a terrible longing here…”

  She nodded.

  “He has something that is yours…and you have something that is his.” His face twisted in confusion, trying to decipher the information he was getting from the ink and vellum. “He wants it back.” Kemal’s pain was coming through, but not the reason for it.He turned to her. “Explain how this document is here in the hands of…” he glanced at the gray bearded men in their ragged robes. “…Sufi dervishes in the mountains in this vast wilderness.”

  She touched her heart with her finger, reluctant to tell him. “When I broke the Reis in Istanbul he created a…” She glanced at him, knowing he would fill in the details himself. “…a link with me. Here.”

  “He placed a cord in you, then. I understand better. Can you speak to him? Have you told him we were coming here?”

  “I have not told him.”

  “He can track us?”

  She winced. She did not know what Kemal could do with this link. He had placed it, not she. Apparently he did know where she was going. She had closed off contact with him when she left Istanbul. How did he know?

  “How do you feel abo
ut this document?” He set the roll down and leaned forward. He lifted his arms so the wide sleeves of his cassock fell back. He always did that before he placed his hands on the things he probed. He did it now like he would put his hands on her and get the answer for himself. She recoiled quickly and put up the flash of a shield between them. He did not need to know everything. He knew she had injured Kemal in Istanbul, but not how badly. Now he knew about the link. That was enough. She would not let him know her shame.

  William immediately shrank back. “I see.” His honey brown eyes were accusatory. She had never refused his touch before. He said, “Does the Reis know why you have come to Persia? Does he know what you plan to do? Does he claim you as wife to stop you from raising the dead?”

  She blinked at him. That may be.

  “I will say it again, Nadira. My lord, the baron, is dead, Nadira, let him rest in peace.” He crossed himself.

  She touched her heart, trying to feel for Kemal and his reasons. “The Reis knows I am seeking the Necromancer’s master,” she answered slowly. “He does not know why.” But maybe he does. Marrying her would not stop her determination. “It hurts me,” she said honestly. “It hurts me that he does this to me without asking.” She sent that message along the cord. Kemal would know she had read his words.

  “It is hurting me, too,” he sighed. “Another man has taken you from me. Again.”

  “He does not have me,” she lied. “These are just words.”

  “A moment ago they were a shield,” he said, knowing she lied. He took a deep breath. “If you bring the baron back from the dead, I do not want to be there when you tell him you are now another man’s wife. Make sure I am in another country before you do.” He shook his head. “God help me.”

  She wiped her eyes with her palms. “They are just words,” she repeated. The Sufis were looking at her expectantly.She turned to the old men. “I have come to meet Ahura Mazda,” she said in a shaking voice. “Please take me to him.”