The City of Brass: Escape to a city of adventure, romance, and magic in this thrilling epic fantasy trilogy (The Daevabad Trilogy, Book 1)
It was as if they stepped through an invisible door in the air. One minute Nahri and Dara were scrambling over dark dunes, and the next, they emerged in an entirely new world, the dark river and dusty plains replaced by a small glen in a quiet mountain forest. It was dawn; the rosy sky glowed against silver tree trunks. The air was warm and moist, rich with the smell of sap and dead leaves.
Dara dropped Nahri gently to her feet, and she landed on a soft patch of moss. She took a deep breath of the cool, clean air before whirling on him.
“We need to go back,” she demanded, shoving at his shoulders. There was no trace of the river, though through the trees, something blue glistened in the distance. A sea, perhaps; it looked vast. She waved her hands through the air, searching for the way through. “How do I do it? We need to get him before—”
“He’s likely already dead,” Dara interrupted. “From the stories told about the peris …” She heard his throat catch. “Their punishments are swift.”
He saved our lives. Nahri felt sick. She angrily wiped away the tears rolling down her cheeks. “How could you leave him there? It was him you should have carried, not me!”
“I …” Dara turned away with a choked sob and abruptly dropped onto a large, moss-covered boulder. His head fell into his hands. The weeds surrounding him started to blacken and a hazy heat rose in waves above the rock. “I couldn’t, Nahri. Only those of our blood can cross the threshold.”
“We could have tried to help. To fight—”
“How?” Dara glanced up. His eyes were dim with sorrow, but his expression was resolute. “You saw what the marid did to the river, how Khayzur fought back.” He pressed his mouth in a grim line. “Compared to the marid and peri, we are insects. And Khayzur was right—I had to get you to safety.”
Nahri leaned against a crooked tree, feeling ready to collapse herself. “What do you think happened to the ifrit?” she finally asked.
“If there’s any justice in this world, they were dashed upon the rocks and drowned.” Dara spat. “That … woman,” he said scornfully. “It was she who enslaved me. I remember her face from the memory you triggered.”
Nahri wrapped her arms around herself; she was still wet, and the dawn air was cool. “The one I killed said they were working with my mother, Dara.” Her voice choked on the word. “That Manizheh they kept talking about.” She reeled; Khayzur’s death, the mention of her mother, an entire damned river rising up to smash them to pieces … it was all too much.
Dara was at her side in a moment. He took her by the shoulders, bending to meet her gaze. “They’re lying, Nahri,” he said firmly. “They’re demons. You can’t trust anything they say. All they do is deceive and manipulate. They do it to humans, they do it to daevas. They will say anything to trick you. To break you.”
She managed a nod, and he briefly cupped her cheek with one hand. “Let’s just get into the city,” he said softly. “We should be able to find sanctuary at the Grand Temple. We’ll figure out our next step there.”
“All right.” The press of his palm on her skin made her think back to what they’d been doing before the ifrit attack, and she flushed. She glanced away, looking around them for the city. But she saw nothing but silvery trees and flashes of the sun-dappled water in the distance. “Where is Daevabad?”
Dara pointed through the trees. The forest descended sharply before them. “There’s a lake at the bottom of the mountain. Daevabad is on an island at its center. There should be a ferry down by the beach.”
“The djinn use ferries?” It was so unexpected and so human, she almost broke into laughter.
He raised an eyebrow. “Can you think of a better way to cross a lake?”
Movement drew her eye. Nahri glanced up, catching sight of a gray hawk perched in the trees opposite her. It stared back, shifting on its feet as it settled into a more comfortable position.
She turned back to Dara. “I suppose not. Lead the way.”
Nahri followed him through the trees as the sun climbed higher and filled the forest with a lovely, pale yellow light. Her bare feet crunched through the underbrush, and as she passed a thick bush with spindly dark green leaves, she let her hands drift out to briefly cradle a spray of salmon-colored buds. They warmed to her touch and began to blossom ever so slightly.
She glanced at Dara from the corner of her eye, watching as he gazed at the forest. Despite Khayzur’s death, there was a new light in his eyes. He’s home, Nahri realized. And it wasn’t just his eyes that were shining; as he reached to clear away a low-hanging branch, she caught a glimpse of his ring, the emerald glowing bright. Nahri frowned, but as she moved closer to him, the glow vanished.
The forest finally began to flatten, the trees thinning out to give way to a pebbly shore. The lake was enormous, ringed by mountains of green hardwood forests on the southern side and sheer cliffs in the distant north. The blue-green water was completely still, an unbroken sheet of glass. She saw no island, nothing even hinting at a village, let alone a massive city.
But there was a large boat beached not far from where they stood, similar in shape to the feluccas that sailed the Nile. The sun flashed off the dizzying black and gold designs painted on the hull, and a triangular black sail flapped uselessly in the breeze, reaching for the lake. A man stood on the sharply curved bow with his arms crossed, chewing the end of a skinny pipe. His clothing reminded Nahri of the Yemeni traders she’d seen in Cairo, a patterned waist-wrap and simple tunic. His skin was as brown as hers, and his trimmed black beard the length of a fist. A tasseled gray turban was tied around his head.
There were two other men on the beach below the boat, both dressed in voluminous robes of dark teal and matching head wraps. As Nahri watched, one gestured angrily at the man on the boat, shouting something she couldn’t hear and pointing behind him. From the trees on the other side of the forest, a few more men appeared, leading camels laden with bound white tablets.
“Are they daevas?” she asked in an eager hush, noting the way their robes shimmered and smoked and their black skin gleamed.
Dara didn’t look as excited. “Probably not their preferred term.”
She ignored his hostility. “Djinn then?” When he nodded, she returned to watching them. Even after the months she had spent with Dara, the sight before her still seemed unimaginable. Djinn, nearly a dozen of them. The stuff of legends and campfire tales in the flesh, haggling like old women.
“The men in the robes are Ayaanle,” Dara offered. “Probably salt traders, judging from their cargo. That other man is Geziri,” Dara said, looking at the ferryman with narrowed eyes. “Probably one of the king’s agents, although he certainly doesn’t look very official,” he added snobbishly. He glanced back at Nahri. “Pull your scarf—what remains of it anyway—across your face when we get closer.”
“Why?”
“Because no Daeva would travel with a shafit companion,” he said plainly. “At least not in my time. I don’t want to draw attention.” He plucked a bit of muck from his left sleeve and rubbed it carefully on his cheek to hide his tattoo. “Let me have my robe back. I need to cover the marks on my arms.”
Nahri pulled it off and handed it over. “Do you think you’ll be recognized?”
“Eventually. But apparently my choices are being arrested in Daevabad or returning to the Gozan to be murdered by marids and peris for some unknown offense.” He wrapped the tail end of his turban close around his jaw. “I’ll take my chance with the djinn.”
She pulled her scarf across her face. The men were still fighting when they reached the boat. Their language was raucous, sounding like a mismatch of every language Nahri had ever heard in the bazaars.
“The king will hear of this, he will!” one of the Ayaanle traders declared. He angrily shook a piece of parchment at the boatman’s feet. “We were given a fixed contract by the palace for transport!”
Nahri watched the men in awe. All the Ayaanle were at least two heads taller than she was, their brilliant teal robes flapping like birds. Their eyes were gold, but without the yellow harshness of the ifrit. She was utterly transfixed; she didn’t even have to touch them to feel the life and energy sparking just beneath their skin. She could hear their breathing, could sense enormous lungs filling and puffing like bellows. The beat of their hearts was like wedding drums.
The Geziri boatman was far less impressive, though his slouch and stained tunic might have been to blame. He exhaled a long stream of black smoke and orange sparks, dangling the pipe from his long fingers.
“A pretty piece of paper,” he drawled, gesturing at the traders’ contract. “Perhaps it shall serve as a raft if you don’t want to pay my price.”
Nahri appreciated the man’s logic, but Dara seemed less impressed. He stepped up, the others finally noticing them. “And what price is that?”
The boatman gave him a surprised look. “Daeva pilgrims don’t pay, you fool.” He grinned wickedly at the Ayaanle. “Crocodiles, however …”
The other djinn abruptly raised his hand, and sparks twisted around his fingers. “You dare insult us, you thin-blooded, wave-addled …”
Dara gently led Nahri to the other side of the boat. “They might be a while,” he said as they headed up the narrow painted ramp.
“They sound like they’re going to kill each other.” She glanced back as one of the Ayaanle traders started to bang a long wooden staff against the boat’s hull. The Geziri captain cackled.
“They’ll agree on a fare eventually. Believe it or not, their tribes are actually allies. Though of course under Daeva rule, all passage was free.”
She detected a hint of smugness in his voice and sighed. Something told her the squabbles between the various djinn tribes would make the war between the Turks and Franks look positively friendly.
But however nasty their argument, the captain and the merchants must have finally agreed on a price, because before she knew it, the camels were being led into the belly of the ship. The boat lurched and swayed with each step, the sewn wooden planks protesting. Nahri watched the merchants settle on the opposite end of the boat, gracefully crossing their long legs underneath their sweeping robes.
The captain jumped aboard and pulled the ramp up with a loud bang. Nahri felt her stomach flutter with nerves. She watched as he plucked a short rod from his waist-wrap. As he turned it over in his hands, it became longer and longer.
She frowned, peering over the boat’s side. They were still beached on the shore. “Shouldn’t we be in the water?”
Dara shook his head. “Oh, no. Passengers only embark from land. It’s too risky otherwise.”
“Risky?”
“Oh, the marid cursed this lake centuries ago. If you put so much as a toe in the water, it’ll grab you, rip you to shreds, and send your remains to all the locations your mind has ever contemplated.”
Nahri’s mouth dropped open in horror. “What?” she gasped. “And we’re going to cross it? In this rickety piece of—”
“There is no god but God!” the captain cried and slammed the rod—which was now a pole nearly as long as the boat—into the sandy shore.
The boat shoved off so fast it was briefly propelled in the air. It slammed into the lake with a great crash that sent a wave of water flying over its sides. Nahri shrieked and covered her head, but the captain quickly swept between her and the rising wave. He clucked his tongue at the water and threatened it with his pole like one would shoo away a dog. The water flattened out.
“Relax,” Dara urged, looking embarrassed. “The lake knows to behave. We’re perfectly safe here.”
“It knows … Do me a favor,” Nahri seethed, glaring at the daeva. “Next time we’re about to do something like cross a maridcursed lake that shreds people, stop and explain every step. By the Most High …”
No one else seemed bothered. The Ayaanle were chatting among themselves, sharing a basket of oranges. The captain balanced precariously on the edge of the hull and adjusted the sail. As Nahri watched, he tucked the pipe into his tunic and began to sing.
The words swept over her, sounding oddly familiar yet completely incomprehensible. It was such a strange sensation that it took her a moment to fully realize what was happening. “Dara?” She tugged on his sleeve, drawing his attention from the sparkling water. “Dara, I can’t understand him.” That had never happened to her before.
He glanced up at the djinn. “No, he’s singing in Geziriyya. Their language can’t be understood, can’t even be learned by foreign tribesmen.” His lips curled. “A fitting ability for such a duplicitous people.”
“Don’t start.”
“I’m not. I didn’t say it to his face.”
Nahri sighed. “What was that they were speaking to each other then?” she asked, gesturing between the captain and the traders.
He rolled his eyes. “Djinnistani. An ugly and unrefined merchant tongue consisting of the most unpleasant sounds of all their languages.”
Well, that was enough of Dara’s opinions for now. Nahri turned away, lifting her face to the bright sun. It was warm on her skin, and she fought to keep her eyes open, the rhythmic motion of the boat lulling her toward sleep. She lazily watched a gray hawk circle and dip close, perhaps hoping for orange scraps, before it veered off toward the distant cliffs.
“I still don’t see anything that looks like a city,” she said idly.
“You will very shortly,” he answered, peering at the green mountains. “There’s one last illusion to pass.”
As he spoke, something shrill rang in her ears. Before she could cry out, her entire body suddenly constricted, as if it had been compressed in a tight sheath. Her skin burned, and her lungs felt full of smoke. Her vision briefly blurred as the ringing grew louder …
And then it was gone. Nahri lay flat on her back on the deck, trying to catch her breath. Dara leaned over her, his face full of worry. “What happened? Are you all right?”
She pushed herself upright and rubbed her head, dislodging her shawl and wiping away the sweat that sheened her face. “I’m fine,” she mumbled.
One of the Ayaanle merchants rose as well. Upon seeing her uncovered face, he averted his golden eyes. “Is your lady ill, brother? We have some food and water …”
“She’s not your concern,” Dara snapped.
The trader flinched like he’d been slapped and abruptly sat back down with his fellows.
Nahri was shocked by Dara’s rudeness. “What’s wrong with you? He was just trying to help.” She let her voice rise, half-hoping the Ayaanle could hear her embarrassment. She pushed away Dara’s hand as he tried to help her to her feet, and then nearly fell over again as an enormous walled city loomed before them, so large it blotted out most of the sky and entirely covered the rocky island upon which it sat.
The walls alone would have dwarfed the Pyramids, and the only buildings she could see in the distance were tall enough to peek over them: a dizzying variety of slender minarets, egg-shaped temples with sloping green roofs, and squat brick buildings draped in intricate white stonework resembling lace. The wall itself shone brilliantly in the bright sun, the light glistening off the golden surface like …
“Brass,” she whispered. The massive wall was entirely built of brass, polished to perfection.
She wordlessly walked to the edge of the boat. Dara followed. “Yes,” he said. “The brass better holds the enchantments used to build the city.”
Nahri’s eyes roamed the wall. They were approaching a port of stone piers and docks that looked large enough to hold both the Frankish and Ottoman fleets. A large, perfectly cut stone roof sheltered much of the area, held up by enormous columns.
As the boat pushed closer, she noticed figures skillfully carved into the wall’s brass surface, dozens of men and women dressed in an ancient style she couldn’t identify, with flat caps covering their curly hair. Some were standing and pointing, holding unfurled scrolls and weighted scales. Others simply sat with open palms, their veiled faces serene.
“My God,” she whispered. Her eyes widened as they grew closer; brass statues of the same figures towered over the boat.
A grin like Nahri had never before seen lit Dara’s face as he gazed upon the city. His cheeks flushed with excitement, and when he glanced down at her, his eyes were so bright she could barely meet his gaze.
“Your ancestors, Banu Nahida,” he said, gesturing to the statues. He pressed his hands together and bowed. “Welcome to Daevabad.”