“You had no reason to know heresy.”
The illustration contained within the next spokes of the wheel was drab, a spill of gray-black ink. But…
Arwa looked at it more closely. Between clouds of gray and black were figures of whittled bone. She felt suddenly quite cold.
“And this?” she asked. She touched her own fingers lightly to the darkness, then drew them back. “What place is this?”
“The realm of ash,” he said. “And the locus of our study.”
He traced the place upon the page where the dreamfire and desert merged with a fingertip once more, voice soft and liquid with reverence. “Just as the Gods dream in another realm, so do mortals. We enter it naturally, in sleep. It is a shadow place. It lives in our dreams. In the quiet of our minds. It is a place both of flesh and beyond flesh.”
“And what lies in this place, this realm of ash?” Arwa asked.
“The dead,” he said.
She thought of her sister. She thought of Darez Fort. She thought of Kamran, her husband, and the taste of iron rose in her mouth.
“Ah,” she whispered. She could not say anything else.
“I’m sorry,” he said, voice softer now, in a mimicry of her own. “I should be more precise. It is not the dead that lie in the realm, but echoes of their dreams, their memories, their knowledge. Their ash.” He tapped the spoke of the wheel where the mortal world met darkness. “Sleep is a bridge of a kind. Just as the dreams of the Gods touch the world in Irinah, molding it, in sleep the dreams of our ancestors shape us.
“There were ancient mystical orders—orders that existed long before mystics joined the service of the Maha—who carefully studied what could be found in the realm, and through their study, they discovered that if one can enter the realm conscious, in a waking dream… a mortal can access the knowledge of their ancestors, the accumulated knowledge of all their dead.” A beat. “You must see, my lady, the great value of that.”
In that moment she could not. Her thoughts were a hum like a hive of insects in her skull.
“How can you know this?” she asked faintly.
“I am a scholar,” he said. “I have many, many books.”
“Please,” said Arwa. “My lord, do not mock me.”
“I don’t,” he said with a frown. “I really do have many books. Few are so lucky. You cannot gain knowledge of a thing without sources of information to shape your study.”
For a man who had seen through her like paper on their first meeting and focused his occult studies upon the nature of reality and the soul, he was distressingly literal. There was an exactness to him that made his whole nature an indiscriminate blade that cut deep through the surface to the bone truth of things: be it to the truth of a widow’s furious heart seeking martyrdom, or the dull necessities of scholarship.
There was a pulse beating fiercely in her jaw. She ground down her teeth hard, then forced the tension to loosen so that she could pry her own words from her lips.
“Your books—they have truly led you to believe that we are no more than soil shaped by the dead? You have placed your faith in a great heresy, my lord. Our souls are in the keeping of the Maha and Emperor. Their nature is not our concern beyond that. We must have faith, and think no further on that matter.”
“I know,” he said. His voice low, soft. A liquid thing. “I know, Lady Arwa. I do not forget it. But I take comfort in knowing my faith remains with the Maha and my Emperor father still. It is not faith that guides me in this. Dozens—thousands—of mystics before me studied the realm and theorized upon it, and tested their theories, then tested them again for good measure, until they could say with some assurance that this is the truth: We are shaped in part by the dreams of the dead, molded by an echo of their griefs and joys and pain. Whatever I may believe, Lady Arwa, whatever the shape of my faith, I know this. As far as anyone may know a thing. And if my knowing is at odds with my faith—well. I accept that burden.”
His voice was lilting, compelling. Given enough time, he could perhaps convince her this knowledge was no evil thing, but a force entirely separate from the powerful strictures of faith.
Arwa wanted to be convinced. More fool her.
Instead she shook her head. Leaned back from the table, and clasped her hands before her.
“Even the smallest application of reason would shatter the distinction you have made, my lord, between faith and knowing. But it was kind of you to seek to assuage the fears of this humble widow. Although I abhor it, I will face heresy with you, my lord. For the Empire’s sake, as I told you when we first met.”
“Perhaps it is not your fears I seek to ease,” murmured Zahir. He smiled to himself—a small, curiously bitter curl of his lips. Then he said, “I am the Emperor’s blood and through him, the Maha’s also. His knowledge was fathomless, his power endless. His death was our ruin.”
Arwa nodded. She did not doubt it. The Maha had founded the Empire. The Maha lived for centuries and brought the Empire its glory, its fortune, its God-touched blessed status. Everything had been lost, upon his death.
“If I can walk the realm of ash,” Zahir continued. “If I can sift through countless generations of my blood and find the Maha’s ash, I can access the Maha’s centuries of memories. Perhaps I can find the knowledge to save us all. I can only hope, Lady Arwa.”
Arwa closed her eyes. The effigy of the Maha and the Emperor loomed beneath the closed lids of her eyes, a spill of faceless white against ink dark.
“When you walk upon the path of ash, child of my blood, you walk upon your ghosts / Do not look where you tread / My dreams will feed you grief as honey.”
Zahir looked startled.
“You read the book after all.”
“I may have little knowledge of heresy, my lord, but I am not uneducated. I often assisted my husband in his work; a good memory was a necessary tool for me to cultivate.”
“Tell me what you remember of my notes.”
“Do not eat the ash. Something of roots.”
“Do not let go of your roots,” he corrected.
There was so much she could not do, it seemed, and very little instruction as to what she could.
“You also wrote of blood carrying answers,” Arwa said. “I understand that now, I think.”
“I learned my first lessons of the realm from that book,” he said. “The poetry was intended to capture the feel, the sensation of the realm, by those who had walked it. My notes were intended as clarification.”
“I did not understand them, my lord.” She had intended her words to sound like an apology. Instead, they came out hard, as a kind of challenge. His gaze fixed upon her clasped hands, as if he could read something of her feelings in them; then, once more, he raised his head to her veiled face.
“You will when we enter the realm,” he promised. “But you must remember those lessons, when we proceed. And you must obey my instructions, as any apprentice would, for the safety of both of us.”
“Why do you need me at all, my lord? You have the knowledge of mystics. You have your own blood. What need have you of mine?”
“The bridge of sleep is a fragile one. With it, we can only travel so far into the realm of our dead. To reach the Maha’s ash I need a greater bridge. And your blood…” He hesitated. “I have a theory, concerning your blood, and its power. But I require your willing assistance within the realm to test it.”