by Erik A Otto
Zahir didn’t like the idea. He suggested that they find a suitable place to land along the Thelonian coast then cut through the interior to reach Pomeria. But Krish said it would be better to land at a port so they could find local Fringe to shelter them. Maybe, but Zahir couldn’t see how that would outweigh the greater risk of getting wrapped up in some scandal at a big port city. In Thelos there might be people who knew Hella’s description as a Marked traitor. Better to land on some unpopulated patch of land and send Fringe into the city without Hella.
And Thelos was far away from their ultimate destination, in a completely foreign country. Zahir and Hella would have no support if the Fringe took advantage of them. Zahir suspected that the Fringe thought it more likely that their claim to the goods Hella offered would be legitimized in Thelos. The Fringe could be planning something more sinister as well, like ransoming the princess back to Jawhar from a safe place.
Hella would listen to Zahir’s concerns, but she didn’t give them any credence. She saw him as a man that was too mad or too biased to be impartial on the motives of the Fringe. His words bounced off her, useless and pointless. It was frustrating. He wished he had some of her craftiness to convince her.
So here they were, only a few days out from Thelos.
Zahir had to admit that his suspicions could be wrong. Maybe he had been tainted by being Jailor. These Fringe, despite being heathens, despite their curious mannerisms, shady past, and empty words, could be as upstanding as Hella thought, and that was why he was reluctant to do what he was about to do.
Just like on every morning in the prison, on this night he sat on his bed and prayed to Matteo, cutting his arm and letting the blood pool in a circle on the floor. He said the names of his family. Gharam, Shimah, and Fanan, three times each. Just like the horrific acts he had to commit as Jailor, he told himself he was doing this for them.
When he was finished with his prayer, Zahir quietly made his way up the ladder onto the main deck. It was a calm and moonlit night, good for his stomach, but not as good for stealth. Zahir walked over to the guardrail near one of the two men who were on the deck and leaned over. He started gagging toward the water.
“Sick again, Zahir? Some people just aren’t made for the sea,” the Fringe deckhand said.
Zahir looked past the man. The other crewman on the deck was out of their line of sight, tending to the rigging behind the captain’s cabin.
“You’re right,” Zahir said, “but I am a good fisherman. Do you see that one there?” Zahir pointed into the sea.
The man approached and looked over, squinting.
Zahir slid the blade neatly through the man’s neck as he angled over the edge, cutting across his windpipe. The Fringe tools had made Zahir’s sword sharper than it had ever been. The sound of the cut through the man’s throat would be indecipherable from a wave hitting the side of the ship.
When the man’s body was sufficiently lifeless, Zahir threw it over the side. It tumbled through the air and splashed into the waters below. Zahir gazed across the deck and noted that the other man didn’t register the noise. He was still intent on working on the rigging near the captain’s cabin.
Zahir sheathed his sword and walked with purpose toward the other side of the deck. The crewman glanced up momentarily from his kneeled position but otherwise paid him no mind. Zahir unsheathed again and plunged the sword deep into the back of the man’s neck. This time the man let out a gurgle but thankfully no scream. After waiting a minute to ensure he’d passed, Zahir threw his body into the water just as he had the first.
Next were the bunks, which would be more difficult. There were two rooms for the other Fringe crew, each with two bunks. Hella slept by herself in another, and Krish slept in the captain’s cabin.
He descended into the main hold and checked the doors to the cabins carefully. One of the rooms was locked, and the other wasn’t.
He was surprised one of them would be unlocked. Not only did Zahir lock his bunkroom, but he also put noisemakers on the door in case someone tried to enter.
He crept slowly into the unlocked bunkroom. One man was snoring, and the other was sleeping peacefully. The one that was facing Zahir would be first. Zahir cut a deep slash across the man’s throat, being careful again to make sure the windpipe was blocked. The man convulsed, though, and it threw Zahir’s sword out of the wound. The force of the convulsion also caused the man to fall off the bunk. Zahir took hold of his sword again and skewered the other sleepy looking man in the neck just as he turned over to see what had awakened him. The first one floundered a bit more on the floor while the second one died instantly.
These two had made some noise, so after he was certain the first one was dead, he moved to the other bunkroom quickly. He listened for noise at the door. There was some rustling inside, but it quickly dissipated. They likely heard some commotion, thought nothing of it, and went back to sleep.
It was hard to be patient, but he waited, and waited. He waited at least ten minutes after the noise to be sure they’d gone back to sleep. Then he used some of the flint he’d taken from the Fringe a few days ago and started to play with the lock. It wasn’t working, and it wasn’t quiet enough, so he went to his second plan. He knocked on the door.
It opened. “What’s going on…it’s the middle of the—”
This man managed to swerve out of the way of Zahir’s thrust, so Zahir kicked him in the midriff, back into the room. The man doubled over, giving Zahir the opportunity to do a powerful upthrust into his chest. Zahir’s sword got lodged deep in the bone and cartilage of his ribs, and he didn’t have the leverage to extricate it.
The other man awakened and scrambled for a knife at the side of the bed. Zahir held the man’s wrist with one hand, preventing him from reaching the knife, while he grabbed the man’s throat with his other hand. A standoff ensued where the man tried to pull Zahir’s hand away from his throat with one arm while he continued to grab for the knife with the other.
Zahir was easily a match for the man’s strength, and that strength was waning without access to oxygen. When his opponent was sufficiently weakened, Zahir released his neck and grabbed the knife himself. As the man gasped for air Zahir took advantage of the opening to cut long and deep across his neck. He let out a gurgle but had no air to make any other noise. Zahir held his hand over his mouth as he convulsed, in case other sounds escaped.
When the man had expired, he wrenched his sword from out of the first man’s chest with both hands, and then made his way quietly across the ship to the captain’s cabin.
The cabin was locked, and Zahir didn’t expect to be able to pick it. Emboldened by his success thus far, he kicked at the door rather than knocking. The wetness on the ship over the years had rotted the wood. The lock broke away after only three hard kicks.
“What are you doing?” Krish said. He shot out of his bed in his underwear.
Zahir ignored the question and advanced on him carefully with his sword drawn, his eyes actively surveying the room.
Krish made to lunge for his sword, but Zahir stepped forward and intercepted him first, tilting his blade up to bite at Krish’s neck.
Krish raised his hands and stepped back. “I should have known better than to let a madman aboard. How did you figure it out?” he asked.
Zahir played along. “I have my ways. I am the Jailor.”
“Yes, you are, but what are you going to do now? Are you going to take me hostage against six of my crew? When will you sleep, Jailor?”
Zahir ignored the questions. His attention was fixed on to the odd statement that Krish had made when Zahir first entered the room. What did Krish think Zahir knew?
“Where is your meeting in Thelos?” Zahir asked.
“Listen, mea culpa, you win. Let’s sit down and hash this out with the princess. You can’t defeat six more men, so you need me on your side. We’ll negotiate a new agreement like civilized people.”
Zahir pushed his sword into Krish’s neck a bit more
, breaking the skin. “Where?” Zahir asked again.
“Okay, Okay. They don’t like meeting in public, so we were to meet them outside of Thelos, but we can still land in Thelos and go to the Pomerian embassy like we agreed. This ship is faster than a horse, so word will not have reached them by the time we land. They won’t be looking for us. I can annul the contract with the Cenarans and honor Hella’s instead. It’s much less lucrative, but I have to admit, you’ve outplayed me.”
The Cenarans? Zahir wasn’t good at keeping a straight face. It was one reason why Wahab had him enlisted as his military aide and not as a politician.
His confusion must have been evident because awareness dawned in Krish’s eyes. “Oh. You don’t know,” Krish said.
Zahir’s teeth clenched. He’d been made, but he may have enough to go on.
Krish looked curiously at Zahir. “It’s amazing. Despite being at the highest levels of Jawhari government, you’re clueless. The Cleansing is coming, and you have no idea.”
Then Krish sat on the bed, pushing Zahir’s blade away from his neck with his hand nonchalantly. “No matter, your only option is to negotiate. I grant that we underestimated you, Jailor. Your move was well played. I suppose you must have gumption to do what you do. Heck, maybe some of the stories are actually true.”
“They are all true,” Zahir said.
“Sure…” Krish said skeptically. He paused, looking Zahir up and down, as if for the first time. His eyes strayed to Zahir’s blade and clothing, no doubt noticing the degree to which Zahir’s sword and body were saturated with blood.
The light of confidence extinguished in Krish’s eyes. His look changed to the one Zahir had seen too many times. Krish was no longer a proud and devious Fringe trader then, no longer the captain of a vessel. Instead he was the same man, woman, and child Zahir had seen so often. His eyes held a hint of desperation and loss all at once—the look that so many had when their fate had become apparent.
Zahir first did a backhand slice across Krish’s right arm to maim him. Krish held his arm and growled in pain, then Zahir finished him with a hard cut into his neck, just like all the others.
Zahir sat on the bed and wiped his sword on the bedsheets. There, as he took in several long controlled breaths, a feeling of weakness came over him, so he paused.
It was the same feeling as when they had nearly run down the feral girl in Managash. His senses would reach some limit of depravity and just shut down. It was annoying, but he knew if he fought the feeling it would only last longer.
He closed his eyes and said the names of his wife and daughters three times. This would sometimes help.
It could have been worse. Many would lose their minds after being Jailor. Others would have debilitating nightmares, and some would have committed suicide. His affliction was just a minor inconvenience, relatively speaking. So he sat on the bed and waited.
Eventually the feeling was gone.
When he opened his eyes he began searching the cabin. Krish had mentioned a contract, so he knew to at least look for that. He found it. It was locked in the bottom of the desk. The document was in two languages: Belidoran and what looked to be Cenaran. Reading through it, Zahir saw that the contract bestowed significant riches on Krish and his men and a “waiver from the Internecion” for bringing Hella and Zahir to the Cenarans.
It looked legitimate, but it raised many questions. The only place it could have been prepared was in Belidor, during their stop in Esienne. Was there a Cenaran underground in Esienne that Krish had met with? And what would the Cenarans want with Hella and Zahir? Put together, Krish’s words and this contract spoke to a significant conspiracy, one that spanned not only Cenara, Belidor and Thelonia but also the Fringe in Managash. How was this possible? The Cenarans were industrious, but in military matters they were unsophisticated and weak. It had been that way for hundreds of years.
This might give credence to the princess’s story about Battia being an agent in the cleric’s death, however. If this Battia girl was an agent of the Cenarans, she might have been sent to sow the seeds of war between Jawhar and Belidor so that the two sides could destroy each other. Then the Cenarans could come and clean up the mess.
But how could a Belidoran be made to act in this way, to defy her own people so boldly?
Zahir was too tired to mull these questions, and he needed to tend to the unmanned ship. Whatever the genesis of this contract, its existence would be enough to convince Hella to maintain her confidence in him. Zahir knew he was lucky in that respect. He had to kill these heathens, but they might not have been that bad.
He walked through the ship to Hella’s bunkroom and knocked on the door. “It’s Zahir,” he said. It took some time, but eventually she answered.
“Isn’t it the middle of the night? I thought I heard a noise.” She looked bleary-eyed.
“I killed the Fringe, and now I need your help with the sails.” He handed the bloodstained Cenaran contract to her, turned about, and went above deck to work on the rigging.
Chapter 17
The Good Son
Henly’s squad was often assigned the longest and most distant forays. Baldric sometimes wondered if they’d been quarantined from the main army by the “infectious insanity” they’d contracted from the scout.
On one of these forays they were far afield on a large rolling plain, following a barely discernible pathway along the ground. Occasionally they would pass through a small copse of alpine trees where the ground was covered with pinecones.
Darian said he knew these pathways from the map he’d seen. They offered some of the most direct routes through the countryside.
Halfway through the day, Darian said, “There’s something ahead, but I don’t know what it is.”
Henly had learned something of Darian’s disorder and was mostly tolerant because of his navigational abilities, but he would still become frustrated with his nebulous statements. “What do you mean? This is Darian speaking, yes?” He looked to Baldric for confirmation.
Darian answered before Baldric could confirm. “On the map I saw, there’s a dot coming up along the path. I don’t know what it’s supposed to be.”
Henly decided to have the regiment deviate from the path and approach this “dot” carefully. Darian often spoke in riddles, but when it came to the map he’d never been wrong, so Henly knew to heed every warning.
The dot turned out to be a circular dip in the ground. Based on the relatively untarnished foundations that remained, it looked like buildings had been there not too long ago. Also, the earth had been turned recently. It was soft to walk on, and there was a hole in the center that went down about ten feet, as if the dirt was gradually settling toward the middle.
Henly said, “This earth on the top has been moved recently. Perhaps there was a greater hole here, now filled in.” He seemed uncertain. “Anyone have any ideas?” he asked.
Baldric was clueless. With all the horrors they’d seen, he feared that it could be a mass grave, but he didn’t say so.
No one answered Henly.
They stopped to inspect, but only briefly, then moved on. The path went up a rise, and when they reached the top of a bluff, they saw a squarish structure on the northern horizon. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be made of silverstone, but it was tarnished with soot, as if it had been set aflame. Henly directed the squad to investigate, but some men were hesitant to go near it on account of all the silverstone. Henly grudgingly accepted the mens’ reservations and picked a few of the more obedient men to go.
These men found nothing but ash inside. Again, no one could discern the purpose of the structure.
Henly didn’t like two mysteries in one day. He appeared to be on edge. “Darian, let’s get to the nearest water by nightfall, preferably under tree cover.”
Darian guided them due east along the path. The void plains became populated with bushes, then more frequent bunches of trees. Soon they found the stream that Henly had asked for, and they mad
e camp.
Shortly after they settled into camp, the sentry’s horn blew. There was stark yelling across the campsite. “Solo Sambayan coming in. Brontés, he’s coming your way!”
Baldric drew his sword and cast nervous glances into the surrounding woodlands. Then he saw the man. He was unkempt, wearing a dirty, torn and raggedy cloak, and sporting a long scraggly beard. His face was gaunt and desperate, and he walked like a zombie, weaponless, with arms spread, limping into the camp directly toward Baldric and his brothers.
“Darian,” the man said in accented Belidoran. “Matteo be praised, I’m saved.” His voice sounded familiar, like he’d heard it somewhere before.
“Sebastian?” Darian responded, a stupefied look on his face.
Chapter 18
The Naustic
Nala didn’t know the Purveyor that well. Maybe as soon as he found the ruin he would leave her. Worse, maybe he would kill her or bring her back to Round Top and imprison her. But she’d seen the Purveyor at work in Niknak. He was gruff and pragmatic but never cruel. He was always looking for answers, trying to help. When he gave his word, he was good for it.
Nevertheless, she was relieved when the Purveyor lived up to his end of the bargain. He was overjoyed with the extent of silverstone in the ruin, and it looked untouched since the harrowing incident with the gargoyle. The Purveyor set the wheels in motion with his Fringe delegates to secretly extract the silverstone in scores of caravans heading to and from Niknak via little-used pathways through Albondo.
After mining was properly underway, they set out. The Purveyor brought an old and detailed map from the Fringe Arcana that helped them make good time. To supplement the map, they also consulted with other Fringe on the roads, as well as common merchants, listening to the latest tidings about what lay ahead of them.