Throne of the Crescent Moon
Read Throne of the Crescent Moon Online
Authors: Saladin Ahmed
of the
Crescent Moon
S
ALADIN
A
HMED
of the
Crescent Moon
Book One of
The Crescent Moon Kingdoms
DAW BOOKS, INC.
DONALD A. WOLLHEIM, FOUNDER
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
ELIZABETH R. WOLLHEIM
SHEILA E. GILBERT
PUBLISHERS
Copyright © 2012 by Saladin Ahmed.
All Rights Reserved.
EISBN: 9781101572405
Jacket art by Jason Chan.
DAW Book Collectors No. 1575.
DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Book designed by the Barbarienne’s Den.
Map by Priscilla Spencer.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
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First Printing, February 2012
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
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PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
To my parents, Ismael Ahmed, and the late Mary O’Leary,
who introduced me to the fantas U.tic world of books;
to my wife, Hayley Thompson,
who supported me in countless ways as I wrote this one;
and to my children, Malcolm and Naima, who make this broken
world beautiful enough to keep living and writing in,
this is for you.
A number of people have helped me usher
Throne
from the “neat idea” stage to the book you now hold in your hands. In particular I’d like to thank:
• All of the readers who’ve helped me hone my writing over the past few years: My fellow students in the 2007 Taos Toolbox workshop (especially Christopher Cevasco, Scott Andrews, and Dorothy A. Windsor); the members of the 2009 Rio Hondo workshop; and the past and present members of the Tabula Rasa and Altered Fluid writers groups (in particular E.C. Myers, Rajan Khanna, Richard Bowes, and Justin Howe)
• Walter Jon Williams, the best teacher in the genre-writing business
• Kevin J. Anderson, for the precious gift of his free time
• The members of the SFNovelists listserv, for their generous mentorship
• Jennifer Jackson, super-agent extraodinaire
• Betsy Wollheim, the best editor/publisher a writer could ask for
This book wouldn’t exist without your help, folks. Thank you!
N
INE DAYS. Beneficent God, I beg you, let this be the day I die!
The guardsman’s spine and neck were warped and bent but still he lived. He’d been locked in the red lacquered box for nine days. He’d seen the days’ light come and go through the lid-crack.
Nine days.
He held them close as a handful of dinars. Counted them over and over.
Nine days. Nine days. Nine days.
If he could remember this until he died he could keep his soul whole for God’s sheltering embrace.
He had given up on remembering his name.
The guardsman heard soft footsteps approach, and he began to cry. Every day for nine days the gaunt, black-bearded man in the dirty white kaftan had appeared. Every day he cut the guardsman, or burned him. But worst was when the guardsman was made to taste the others’ pain.
The gaunt man had flayed a young marsh girl, pinning the guardsman’s eyes open so he had to see the girl’s skin curl out under the knife. He’d burned a Badawi boy alive and held back the guardsman’s head so the choking smoke would enter his nostrils. The guardsman had been forced to watch the broken and burned bodies being ripped apart as the gaunt man’s ghuls fed on heart-flesh. He’d watched as the gaunt man’s servant-creature, that thing made of shadows and jackal skin, had sucked something shimmering from those freshly dead corpses, leaving them with their hearts torn out and their empty eyes glowing red.