The Republic of Salt

Book 2: Mirror Realm Cycle

by Ariel Kaplan

Genres: Historical Fantasy; Jewish Fiction

Synopsis

In this riveting sequel to The Pomegranate Gate, Toba, Naftaly, and their allies must defend a city under siege—while the desperate deals they’ve made begin to unravel around them.

After a near-disastrous confrontation with La Caceria, Toba and Asmel are trapped on the human side of the gate, pursued by the Courser and a possessed Inquisitor. In the Mazik world, Naftaly’s visions are getting worse, predicting the prosperous gate city of Zayit in flames and overrun by La Caceria. Zayit is notorious for its trade in salt, a substance toxic to the near-immortal Maziks; if the Cacador can control the salt, he will be nearly unstoppable. But the stolen killstone, the key to the Cacador’s destruction, could eliminate the threat—if only Barsilay could find and use it.

Deadly allies and even more dangerous bargains might be the only path to resist La Caceria’s ruthless conquest of both the mortal world and the Maziks’, but the cost is steep and the threat is near. A twisty, clever entry in The Mirror Realm Cycle, The Republic of Salt asks what personal morals weigh in the face of widespread danger and how best to care for one another.
 

Release date: October 22, 2024

Publisher: Erewhon Books

Print pages: 560

Sample

Dramatis Personae

From the Mortal World

Toba Bet Peres: A half-Mazik from Rimon, daughter of Tarses and sister of the Courser. Toba Bet is the buchuk of the original Toba, who was killed by her sister while rescuing Barsilay from La Cacería. Her mother was also part Mazik, descended from Marah Ystehar, a Mazik who was forced to become mortal. Toba’s Mazik name is Tsifra N’Dar: literally, the Splendid Bird.

Naftaly Cresques: A young man from Rimon, the latest in a long line of tailors. He has enough Mazik heritage to enter the dream-world and cast illusions; he also has visions which he cannot control and which often leave him ill afterward. For untold generations, his family were the guardians of the book containing the gate of Luz.

Elena Peres/Elena bat Beladen: The original Toba’s grandmother. She speaks several languages and uses her own brand of mortal magic.

Alasar Peres: Toba’s grandfather, who relocated to Petgal after the exile. A former translator for the Emir of Rimon.

Penina Peres: Toba’s mother, who died in childbirth.

The Old Woman: A former beggar from Rimon. Her real name is unknown. Her stated goal is to protect Naftaly as long as she’s able.

Dawid ben Aron: A half-Mazik from Luz. He and the other mortals in Luz were convinced by Tarses to pull out their gate and hide it in a book, leading to the Fall. Dawid saved himself and the book by escaping on the back of the Ziz.

The Queen of Sefarad: The ruler—with her husband—of Sefarad, newly united after the conquest of Rimon. She is known to put a great deal of confidence in her confessor.

FROM THE MAZIK WORLD

Asmel b’Asmoda (known in the dream-world as Adon Sof’rim, the Lord of Books): An astronomer and minor Rimoni Adon. Formerly Marah’s husband. Asmel was forced to become mortal by pulling his magic into a safira.

Barsilay b’Droer: The heir of Luz. A former member of ha-Moh’to, and at one point a medical student. Has made an effort to develop a reputation as an indolent wastrel. He is also Asmel’s nephew and heir, through Asmel’s marriage to Marah.

Marah Ystehar: Former envoy to mortal Luz. Asmel’s wife, Barsilay’s aunt, and Toba’s ancestor. She was the founder of ha-Moh’to and the guardian of its killstone. She was forced to pull her magic into a safira after being trapped in the mortal realm by Tarses.

Rafeq of Katlav: An expert on demons and member of ha-Moh’to. He spent the greater part of the current age imprisoned under Mount Sebah. After escaping with Toba’s help, he stole Marah’s safira and the killstone of ha-Moh’to.

Tarses b’Shemhazai: The Caçador of Rimon and Queen’s Consort. A former member of ha-Moh’to and at one time a close confidant of Marah. He is the father of both Toba and the Courser, and is famous for his prescience, though he is only able to see the distant future.

Tsidon b’Noem: The Lymer of Rimon, one of Tarses’s top lieutenants in La Cacería. He had planned to marry Toba in exchange for freeing Barsilay. He bears a particular grudge against both of them. As Lymer, he commands the Hounds and Alaunts; however, since his failure to secure the killstone and marry Toba, he is presumed to be out of favor.

Relam b’Gidon: The deceased King of Rimon, who died after riding his horse into the sea.

Queen Oneca: Relam’s cousin, the Queen of Rimon.

The Courser/Tsifra: Tarses’s half-Mazik daughter and personal aide-de-camp. Because she has no use-name, she thinks of herself with her true name, Tsifra N’Dar, which she shares with her half-sister, Toba.

The Peregrine: The Caçador’s most trusted lieutenant. She commands the Falcons—responsible for work abroad, consisting mainly of espionage and assassinations—and is widely considered the deadliest assassin in Mazikdom. Originally from Baobab.

Atalef: A demon with Mazik magic created by Rafeq of Katlav, currently enslaved to the Caçador. His mission is to possess the confessor of the Queen of mortal Rimon, but his greatest desire is to be united with the demons still imprisoned under Mount Sebah.

Saba b’Mazlia: A prominent doctor and teacher at Zayit’s university, and a regular attendant at the Colloquium of the Northwest Cities. Efra, the Savia della Mura, is his sister.

Efra b’Vashti: The Savia della Mura of Zayit, responsible for the defense of the city. She commands two forces: the First Division, which mans the city’s wall, and the Second Division, which defends outside the city’s perimeter. Saba is her brother.

The Prince of Zayit: The man elected to serve as Zayit’s leader; however, most of the city’s power is held by the Council of Ten. The position is not hereditary.

The Council of Ten: The most powerful Maziks in Zayit, who set laws and policy for the city in addition to electing the prince.

Omer of Te’ena: Asmel’s former mentor at the University of Te’ena and one of the greatest astronomers in history. Since Te’ena was cut off from the rest of Mazikdom in the Fall, no one has been able to reach him, and it is unknown if he is still alive. Before the Fall, he was a member of ha-Moh’to.

Rahel (known in the dream-world as Adona Maz’rotha): A former colleague of Asmel’s at the university in Rimon. After Asmel’s imprisonment and the destruction of the university, Rahel relocated to Zayit.

Mir b’Cohain: A prominent astronomer based in Zayit. Friend of Asmel’s, and a regular attendant of the Colloquium of the Northwestern Cities.

Yel: Commander at Zayit’s wall, and Efra’s most trusted officer.

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATIONS

In Sefarad

Rimon: City-state in southern Sefarad.

Mount Sebah: The highest peak in Rimon, very near the Rimon gate.

Barcino: Northern port city in Sefarad, on the Dimah Sea.

Savirra: The former residence of the old woman. Home to a massive pogrom some years prior to the events of the story.

Mansanar: The capital of the newly united Sefarad.

Vercia: A minor port on Sefarad’s eastern coast.

The Gal’in: The mountains between Sefarad and the land of the Franks.

Other Locations

Petgal: Country that shares the peninsula with Sefarad, and destination of many of the Jews who were expelled from Sefarad by the Queen. Elena’s husband Alasar is in Petgal, along with her brother.

The Dimah Sea (the Sea of Tears): The sea that rose after the Fall of Luz, between Sefarad in the west and P’ri Hadar in the east.

The Uliman Empire: A great multiethnic empire in the east. Its capital is the gate city of Habush.

The Gate Cities

Luz: Legendary lost city, known as the location in which Jacob saw angels climbing a ladder to and from heaven, as well as the mythical source of tekhelet dye. The former seat of the Mazik Empire. Barsilay b’Droer is the heir to the throne.

P’ri Hadar: The great city of the east. Its queen is the oldest living Mazik.

Baobab: The most southern gate city, notable—like Tappuah—because of its great distance to the sea. On the mortal side, it is an important trade hub.

Katlav: On the southeast side of the Dimah Sea, an important center for education.

Erez: A city to the south of the Dimah Sea. Famous for its natural beauty and for being surrounded on three sides by a steep gorge, making it a natural fortress.

Tamar: A city to the south of the Dimah Sea. In close proximity to Rimon, however the two cities are separated by the strait, so travel between them is limited in the Mazik world. An important producer of lentils, the Mazik city is suffering from a blight on their crop.

Rimon: The great city of the west. After the Fall of Luz, it suffered a series of bloody coups d’état that led to the rise of King Relam and La Cacería. After the assassination of Relam and his sons, the throne was taken by Queen Oneca, who made Tarses her King Consort.

Te’ena: Made an island in the Fall. Located roughly midway between Rimon and Zayit. Once home to a university second in importance only to the school in Luz.

Zayit: An important port city north of the Dimah Sea. On the mortal side, it is known in particular for its prominence in the salt trade. The Mazik city is likewise famous for its monopoly on salt—which is poisonous to all Maziks—as well for importing luxurious mortal-made goods that Maziks cannot use magic to replicate, such as spices. After the Fall of Luz, Zayit became the wealthiest of all Mazik cities because of its continued trade with mortals, which was discouraged or forbidden elsewhere.

Tappuah: The city of the north. Because of its distance from the other gate cities, its Mazik residents are relatively isolated.

Anab: An important trade city in the Uliman Empire in the mortal world. The Mazik city is ruled by King Yefet, known for being a just king and the most widely respected of all the Mazik monarchs.

Habush: The capital of the Uliman Empire in the east. Several hundred years ago, both the mortal and Mazik cities were sacked by the Zayitis.



One

It was three nights until the New Year, and in the mountains north of Mazik Rimon, Naftaly Cresques was lying on the ground beside two old women and a Mazik who was mostly dead. The autumn air left the four of them chilled, but not too chilled to sleep, or dream.

Naftaly was there entirely by accident.

He was supposed to be in P’ri Hadar. They were all meant to be in P’ri Hadar, but Asmel, the Lord of Books, had made a mistake. Only days before, he’d been forced to remove his own magic, an act which had left him weakened and with a failing memory. So when he’d opened the gate of Luz, he’d accidentally sent Naftaly and his companions not to the great city of the east, but only a few miles away from his own alcalá in Rimon.

They’d been facing death in the alcalá. Here in the mountains, they were not much safer.

It was worse, even, than that. Naftaly’s near-dead Mazik, Barsilay b’Droer, lately Naftaly’s beloved and the heir of Luz, had lost an arm and nearly bled to death on the pine-littered ground.

This was why they’d stayed the past few nights in the mountains instead of fleeing north immediately. Elena, the younger of the old women—and, in Naftaly’s estimation, the cleverer—had stated rather emphatically that Barsilay, no matter his objections, could not be moved without killing him. They’d managed to gather a little food and enough water to keep them alive. They’d slept, and Naftaly had scouted the area a bit. They’d discussed moving Barsilay farther down the mountain, where there would be easier access to water, but Barsilay had grown feverish. It wasn’t until late that night that his fever had broken on its own, and at that point Elena convinced the two men and their elder woman companion to sleep a few hours, to marshal at least a little strength, so that they might discuss moving Barsilay in the morning.

Whether Elena herself slept or not Naftaly was not sure, but as he rested, his dreaming mind found itself called back into the city of Rimon, back to the garden of the King, in the shared dream-world of the Maziks.

Only it was no longer the King’s garden, Naftaly recalled, as he opened his eyes to the same courtyard he’d seen the night of the crown prince’s oath-getting many weeks before. The King was dead, and his oldest son was also dead, so Naftaly assumed this must be a ceremony for the King’s younger son, whose name he had never learned.

Flowers bloomed all around him, strange Mazik flowers that were silver and purple and orange the color of Barsilay’s eyes. The dream-world stars whirled overhead, and the white pergola in the courtyard seemed to glow in the pale light. The air smelled, Naftaly thought, faintly of pomegranates.

The place was full of anxious Maziks whispering to one another as they approached the courtyard, and Naftaly found himself very reluctantly carried along with the rest. He wanted badly to escape, but the Maziks were so tightly packed there was no easy way to slip out without causing a spectacle.

He assumed they had all been summoned as he had, and then he realized that Barsilay may have been summoned, too, which would have been disastrous. But before he could go to look for him, all the paths into the courtyard were blocked by blue-clad Mazik guards, who moved at once to trap all the assembled Maziks inside.

From within the main pergola came a woman, very tall and dark-haired, with rubies across her forehead. To her left was a man whose orange eyes marked him as Luzite. A woman dressed in blue came and stood on the dais beside them. She put a hand to her own throat, which seemed to magnify her voice enough to be heard without shouting, though every Mazik assembled fell silent as soon as she appeared.

“The reign of Relam is over,” she said. “You will give your oath to his blood and heir, the Queen of Rimon, long may she dream.”

A great murmur went up, but the woman, who Naftaly supposed must be some sort of herald, continued. “The oath-getting will not be dreaming. You will all swear your loyalty to our new Queen tomorrow at the royal alcázar. Tomorrow, you shall greet your Queen.”

The Queen herself smiled, but only slightly. The man to her left let his eyes scan the crowd, and Naftaly was glad for once to be shorter than the people around him.

Someone near him whispered, “She’s to wed the Caçador,” and someone else, “They say Relam rode into the sea.”

Naftaly’s eyes opened, and he was back in the mountains. Barsilay slept at his side; Naftaly thought of waking him, but decided the man was probably too weak to dream, and the immediate danger had passed anyway. Elena, still sitting in the same position she’d been in earlier, said, “You had a bad dream?”

Elena, of course, knew that Naftaly’s dreams were as real as most people’s waking moments. A bad dream was no passing figment to be forgotten after breakfast.

“Yes,” Naftaly said. “I think it was.”

It was three nights until the New Year, and in the mortal world Toba Bet had been a flock of birds so long she was beginning to forget what it meant to have hands.

She didn’t miss them. Wings, she’d concluded, were the better choice. While hands could manipulate, wings provided escape, and escape was not a thing smartly given up.

The horror of her own death was never out of her mind. In the Mazik books Toba Bet had perused in Asmel’s library, the question had been posed repeatedly: Was one conscious the moment she entered the void, or did consciousness cease at that precise instant? The scope of the suffering—whether the void of nonexistence was bad enough, or whether it was still worse, and you actually felt yourself inside it, however briefly—was something that had been opined on for as long as Maziks had been writing books, which was long indeed. But the opinions put forth, no matter how well reasoned, were merely philosophical. Or they had been, until Toba had died, and discovered the truth of the matter.

Toba Bet had felt her other self—her original self; some might say her truer self—go into the void. The time between her death and the blotting from existence of her mind or spirit or consciousness was little more than an instant. But that instant had existed. Toba Bet had felt it, and she wasn’t sure she would ever manage to stop thinking about it, like a whisper in her ear that would not quiet.

“You’d be more helpful as a person,” Asmel muttered, which Toba Bet supposed was true. He’d traded his coat and splendid shoes and the ring he wore on his forefinger for simpler clothing and enough money to get them as far north as Barcino. Or it would have, if Asmel had not been too much a Mazik to secure a spot in a cart.

This despite the fact that he had no magic. While his eyes were now a mortal’s eyes, he remained too tall, too handsome, and his manner of speech too formal. Everyone seemed to be aware that he was in disguise, though of course none could say how—though everyone seemed to note the combination of his youthful face and silver hair. The effect was enough to make the local farmers and tradesmen and merchants too nervous to allow him to travel with them, and Asmel had been forced to use most of the money they needed for provisions and inns on a sad old horse instead. So Asmel rode and walked alternately to save the horse’s strength, and Toba Bet flew, as they put as much distance as possible between themselves and the gate of Rimon before it opened at the next moon.

Asmel had stopped to rest well off the side of the road, because Toba Bet was fairly conspicuous, and made Asmel look even less mortal as she flew around him. “I am growing weary of this,” he went on, waving at Toba Bet’s many bird-selves. “We’re in a bad enough situation without your making it so I can’t even talk to you. You know a great deal of what’s happened and I am at a complete disadvantage. I don’t even know if Barsilay and the elder Toba made it to P’ri Hadar or if things went badly for them.” He sat down heavily and pulled his hair back from his face. “And I keep thinking that is why you won’t change back, because you don’t want me to know the truth.”

The truth was more complicated than he’d guessed, and not only because the original Toba had died. Barsilay lived, but he was most certainly not in P’ri Hadar. Instead, he was probably in approximately the same place as Asmel and Toba Bet, only in the Mazik realm, traveling north and trying to get himself away from Rimon. Asmel would blame himself for that, Toba Bet knew. It was a fair disaster that Barsilay was still in grasping distance of the Caçador of Rimon.

They’d also lost the book containing the gate of Luz. Toba’s half-sister, the Courser of Rimon, had taken it. Toba’s last act, before she’d been killed, was to tear out the last page and send it to Barsilay.

Toba Bet let the part of herself that was airborne bank in a circle around Asmel; others of her were on the ground and in the trees nearby, listening carefully without responding, as she’d been doing for days while she neither ate nor slept, watching over Asmel as he ate salty mortal food and slept on the hard ground.

His eyes had gone far away as he continued his monologue. “I cannot even dream. Do you not have enough pity to tell me if my only kin still lives?”

The bird nearest to him flitted down to land on Asmel’s shoulder, and he let out a sigh and turned to meet its eye. “If that’s meant to be a comfort, it isn’t.” He lifted the bird in his palm and held her gently in his lap. “Whatever happened frightened you terribly. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. I’m sorry I have no magic I can use to protect you now. But please come back to me, and I will do what I can.”

Toba Bet felt his warm hand holding her small body. He said, “Shall I make you a trade for your company? I have little left with which to bargain. What would you have of what remains?”

She felt wretched. He was manipulating her, of course, but he had a right to it; no matter how terrified Toba Bet was, she still had more than Asmel. She had her magic, and that meant that while she still had a chance to escape a second trip into the void, Asmel had no other possible destination. And even if he failed to grasp the precise shape of that horror, his imagination could bring him close.

Enough, Toba Bet told herself. She had mourned herself long enough. Toba bat Penina was dead. The person who remained was Toba bat Toba, her own creation, and she would live to protect herself and Asmel for as long as she could, even if what Asmel most needed protecting from was the isolation of his own mind. Gathering herself, she drew in her breath and let her selves come together until she was a woman again, feathers smoothing to a filmy shift—not quite mortal and not quite Mazik, the product of an accidental spell. Asmel’s eyes welled and he murmured, “Thank you,” and pulled Toba Bet against him. She put her own bare arms around him, trembling in the cold as he pressed his face to her neck, and she stroked his hair and decided that hands had a use after all.

It was three nights until the New Year, and three nights since the Courser of Rimon, Tsifra N’Dar, had failed to kill both the heir of Luz and her own sister, when she found herself dreaming of Atalef the Demon.

Tsifra had concluded that her sister had made a buchuk—a twin—and it was one of these versions of Toba Peres that she’d killed. What Tsifra hadn’t yet determined was whether she’d killed the original or the buchuk herself. She wondered if it mattered, and had decided to table the question for later pondering; one of them, at least, was still alive and in the mortal realm, and it would be her mission to hunt her down and return her to their father, the Caçador.

If she succeeded, this would be her last act as Courser. The Caçador would replace one sister with another he hoped was cleverer and would better suit his purposes, another half-Mazik who could carry out his will in the mortal world and help him harness the power of the Mirror. Tsifra’s entire life had been spent in the pursuit of not being killed by her father or one of his agents, so much so that her awareness of her impending end left her more weary than fearful. Or so she told herself.

Tsifra did not much enjoy Atalef’s company while awake, let alone dreaming, and had hoped not to see him again for a very long time after having left him in Mansanar to possess the Queen’s confessor. In this dream, he’d taken the shadowy shape of a cat. He paced a circle around her, growing larger until he was the size of a lion made of black shadow.

“Did your master send you?” Tsifra asked, because she could not imagine what Atalef wanted with her.

Atalef said, “No. Our master is content with our work and leaves us alone.” Tsifra was glad not to be there to witness the work in question; the real confessor was bad enough even unpossessed. She wondered if anyone at court had noticed the difference.

“Whispering in the Queen’s ear?” Tsifra asked. “What does the Caçador want her to do?”

“Nothing, yet,” Atalef replied. “Only we aren’t whispering now. We are hunting. Hunting birdlings.”

“Birdlings,” Tsifra repeated, because this was what Atalef called her, too. “What do you mean? Are you not in Mansanar?”

“You know what we mean,” Atalef murmured. He had condensed down to the size of a house cat again, and peeked at her through several dozen smoke-colored eyes. “You know precisely what we mean, birdling.”

He meant he was hunting her sister, the other Tsifra. The presently considered Tsifra did not know why they shared a name—it was not a typical thing among Maziks—but she suspected that her sister knew. If she found her again, she would have to ask. A problem for another day. To Atalef, she said, “I thought the Caçador was sending me on that mission.”

“He changed his mind, decided not to wait,” Atalef said. “The Queen can whisper to herself for a bit while we scent the air.”

Tsifra did not much like the sound of that, because it meant she was redundant, and being redundant in the service of La Cacería was deadly. It was for this reason she’d killed her sister in the first place—though it turned out she’d only killed half of her. “If you’re busy scenting the air, then why are you here with me?” she snapped.

“We wanted to smell you again,” Atalef said. “Smell your magic. Birdlings smell different than Maziks.”

“Do they?” Tsifra said, and put out her hand, because the quicker he got a whiff, the quicker he would leave; he was bad enough without insisting on calling her “birdling,” a moniker she presumed referred to her name, Tsifra N’Dar—the Splendid Bird. She did not like to think that this demon had somehow intuited it. “Well?”

“Hm,” he said. “Troublesome, indeed. There is no scent like this in Rimon. Not in the city, not in the mountains.”

“Perhaps you’re not smelling hard enough.”

“No,” he said. “She cannot be there.”

“She cannot be anywhere else,” Tsifra said. “She went through the gate. Fifty Maziks saw her, including the Lymer.” The fifty Maziks were all either dead or mad, but the Lymer had been far enough removed not to have suffered from that encounter. “The Lymer said she’d become an entire flock of birds. Can that be why?”

Atalef sat back on his haunches and changed into a shape that was decidedly not a cat. He unfurled his arms and waved his clawed shadow-hands. “It could be. It could be. If she is ten or thirty, then she is too small and too many, like us now.”

“Like us? You mean, like a demon?”

“Yes.”

Tsifra had never experienced being a flock of birds, and wondered what it might feel like. Did Toba look out of all their eyes at once, or one at a time? She asked, “Her magic is too spread out, you mean?”

“Yes. Just so,” Atalef said. “We had not considered that.”

“But she can’t remain like that for long, can she? Won’t she forget how to change back?”

“We don’t know,” Atalef said, which was probably true. Becoming birds was not a thing that Maziks did, as a rule, making it a clever move indeed. “But if she is with the Lord of Books she will change back soon, I think. She would not want to be his pet.”

Tsifra wondered about that. Was Toba not Asmel’s pet already? It seemed to her that Asmel must be using Toba the way Tarses was using Tsifra herself, as a tool. What other use did a Mazik have for a half-mortal?

But for all that, he’d given up his own magic before he’d given up Toba to their father.

The Courser did not like plans she could not untangle. It was too much like dealing with a second Tarses.

“But once she changes back, you’ll have her.”

“Oh, yes,” Atalef said. “Very quickly.”

And the killstone, she thought, because that was no small part of why Tarses wanted Toba. He believed she possessed the killstone of ha-Moh’to, the stone that contained Tarses’s own name, and could be used against him. Atalef would give it to Tarses, because it was what he’d been ordered to do. And for all Atalef made her skin crawl, they were very much the same sort of creature: They were both Tarses’s unwilling servants.

Ha-Moh’to, Tsifra had learned through much digging, had been the ancient order sworn to fight the Queen of Luz, their watchword Monarchy is Abomination. Their killstone contained the names of every member, and the ability to kill them instantly if only one knew the command-word. Barsilay had given her the command word, under torture. It was only later, when she’d asked the Peregrine about the word he’d said, that she’d learned it had been a mortal word for idiot. Whether he knew the real word or not, she could not say.

“It’s a pity,” Atalef said, “we don’t have the second safira.”

Tsifra’s mind caught on we, as if Atalef considered her an ally. The second safira was the one that belonged to Asmel. “What for? It’s a pretty bauble. There’s nothing in that one.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps it could be useful, too. The Lord of Books was very wise. Our old master always told us tales of him, before he was put under the mountain. Do you know why our former master was imprisoned?”

“No, I don’t.”

“He was passing too much time with us. He was doing things with us, to us, for us. So the Maziks came and locked him away, but some of us the Caçador kept for himself.” Atalef faded in and out. “He had many ideas about us. What we were, what we could be for. Add a bit of Mazik magic to us and we change. Teach us and we sing, we dance, we learn. The man under the mountain thought, if we can hold a bit of magic, why not more? Why not enough for a whole Mazik?”

This was a lot of information to be freely given; it could not be freely given. She was dangerously close to conspiring with him now, only she did not know how just yet.

She could wake and end this conversation. Nothing he’d told her so far would get her into trouble.

Or she could stay and hear him out, and risk learning things she should not know. She weighed the options in her mind, and decided things could not be much worse for hearing Atalef’s suggestion. If either of them managed to catch Toba, she was going to be killed anyway. She said, “How could a demon get a Mazik’s full magic?”

Atalef said, “He thought we could be made into receptacles. For safiras.”

Tsifra regarded Atalef closely. He was unhappy—even without a face she could tell. “For safiras?”

“Forcing a Mazik to make a safira, it is an old punishment. He forgets himself and goes to the void. The man under the mountain believed there was a way to put the magic into someone, somehow, as long as you were not putting it into a Mazik.”

“Why not a Mazik?”

“Too much magic,” Atalef said. “It would kill him. But he believed you could put it in a demon. Or a mortal. Or the person it had come out of, if they still lived. And then whatever creature had taken the safira would have all that magic, and all those memories.”

“Are you saying,” Tsifra said, “that whoever gets Marah’s magic put into them will have all her memories? Including the command-word of the killstone?”

“Yes,” Atalef said. “We are saying so.”

Here, then, was Atalef’s plan. And now that she knew, she could either inform Tarses or become Atalef’s ally in truth. Tsifra found herself asking, “And did the man under the mountain discover how to put the magic into a demon, or a mortal?”

Atalef said, “If the safira were made into small enough pieces, it could be absorbed, he thought. Only he was never able