Zurwott stepped up and intoned: “My dearest, friendly friends and proudly proud members of the dwarfish nations, the masterly masterful Xurgon, my brotherly brother, and I are happy in the most extreme degrees of happiness to stand before you as judging judges of the finest judgment. We shall forthwith consider, with the greatest considered consideration, all facets of the case that is before us, and render a judging judgment befitting of this supernal hall whose dimensional dimensions are pleasingly pleasant to any dwarf of noble descending descent.”
“We accept,” repeated Orwutt in the common tongue, to the chagrin of his brother.
Farveen then recounted the events of the last few weeks and made the case that Jin’s action placed the entire nation in jeopardy.
To help explain Farveen’s ire against Jin, Ahiram had, the day before, revealed to the young she-dwarf that after Ianor impersonated her, he brought Ahiram to Karak-Zuun. “Your mother is convinced you brought me here to spite her.”
Jin had shrugged her shoulders. “She never wanted me to live,” she told him. “I wish I had been still-born. Analeeze would be alive, and I would not have bothered anyone.”
Ahiram had not replied. He recognized the deep rage, that sense of abandonment, as his own and knew no words that could touch the darkest corners of the human soul. Only the shining love of someone like Noraldeen can.
Having heard the charges—the accused had no standing rights in a dwarfish court of law—the three dwarfs retired to an adjoining room to deliberate. Everyone waited in silence. Blasted that Zurwott and his dwarfish grammar, thought the Silent, does he have to use seven thousand complicated words to review the matter with Xurgon and Orwutt? How long does it take them to say “she’s innocent?”
An hour later, they returned. Master Xurgon raised his right hand, commanding everyone’s attention. Ahiram was partly mollified. He would have preferred for Orwutt to speak, but Master Xurgon knew how to be brief … by dwarfish measure.
“After deliberative deliberations avoiding mundane confabulations and twisting of factual facts, we, the judging judges of this court, have reached a binding verdict and a verdict most binding. We pronounce, declare, and affirm,” he said using the standard dwarfish formula for binding statements, “that young Jin is indeed guilty as charged.”
A hush fell on the large room and Jin darted a worried look at Ahiram. His face was impassible, betraying no emotions. Farveen, for her part, was pleasantly surprised. This was a judgment she did not expect.
Orwutt continued, “By bringing Ahiram inside Karak-Zuun, Jin endangered this most important dwarfish city. She jeopardized the hard toil of the harbor mistress and did not consider the welfare of her fellow dwarfs. Indeed, this serious matter cannot be ignored by any respectable dwarf. We are all aware of the three thousand victims that fell at the hand of the Kerta priest in Ezoi,” he added with a tinge of sadness and anger. “The danger here was indeed great, and had a tajèr or Kerta priest reached Karak-Zuun, countless dwarfs could have died, and many more taken as slaves to the Arayat.”
Farveen nodded gracefully. The judges made her case loud and clear, and their status as outsiders provided greater legitimacy to the verdict.
It was now Zurwott’s turn to speak. “Dangerous danger, however, must be appraised carefully and carefully appraised. Who did Jin bring inside the city?”
Wow, Ahiram thought, I’m impressed. That was a straightforward simple question. Zurwott is making progress.
“She brought the Prince of Tanniin, the Urkuun Slayer, a man who mightily handles a blazing blade made of pure meyroon. Behold,” he added pointing at Ahiram, “the wielder of Layaleen, the sword of El-Windiir, forged in the mining mines of Tanniin by dwarfish hands.”
Ahiram unsheathed his sword and placed it in Zurwott’s open hands. The dwarf walked around, showing the sword to his fellow dwarfs. A deep silence fell on the room, and the dwarfs jockeyed as they tried to inch forward to peek at the sword of meyroon and the young man who now seemed to have stepped straight out of the legend.
“My fellow dwarfs,” boomed Orwutt. “Everything that Harbor-Mistress Farveen has been working for, everything she has been toiling for with your help, is coming to fruition. Know this; the time is upon us. My uncle Kwadil has discovered Andaxil’s true location!” If the dwarfs had been stunned upon hearing of Ahiram’s sword, they were now completely astounded. The greatest of caves, the cave of legends, had been found. “Yes, you have heard me correctly. Soon, Andaxil will be ours again. The dwarfish nation is about to rise,” he shouted, “and who do we have to thank for? This young man, Ahiram.”
A hallowed silence fell. Jin looked at Ahiram in disbelief.
Xurgon opened his mouth to speak, but Orwutt, seeing the scowl on Ahiram’s face, hastily continued. “Taking into consideration the importance of the figure standing in our midst, we concluded that the risk was well worth it, that the reward of helping, protecting, and working with the bearer of Layaleen would far outweigh the risk. If Ahiram was an ordinary individual, Jin’s action would have been rash, and worthy of the severest punishment, but in this circumstance, which our honorable harbor-mistress was unaware of, we conclude that Jin’s actions deserve our praise and our commendation, and declare her, therefore, not guilty.”
The dwarfs in the hall applauded profusely. Farveen smiled. In spite of her, her respect for Ahiram grew.
Zurwott raised a hand and the applause subsided. “Farveen, harbor-mistress of Karak-Zuun,” he said, bowing before her, “We are all aware, with the most acute awareness, of your unfailing efforts in favor of the she-dwarfs. I am a bearer of a great, newly minted news. The joint counseling council of the two northern and southern dwarfish nations appointed you, most pointedly, to lead the reinstatement of she-dwarfs as full-fledged members of our nation. When Andaxil reopens, we must be a unifying unity, a forceful force, and the inimical enemy must not be allowed to sow any dissenting dissension in our midst. Therefore, you are hereby summarily summoned, and summoned most summarily, to appear in flesh and not otherwise before the most august counseling council to immediately begin, and begin with the greatest immediate alacrity, this most critical integrative work.”
“Of course,” added Orwutt, “you are at liberty to refuse. Should you prefer to stay harbor-mistress, a position you have so skillfully satisfied, the council, aware of how important this task is to you, has unanimously elected your daughter Jin to be the heralding herald of all she-dwarfs at the new dawn of the great dwarfish nation.”
The hall erupted in loud cheer and applause. Farveen stood up, bowed, and nodded her head with grace. She gazed at Ahiram with a crooked smile plastered on her face and reasserted how much she had underestimated him. She thought he had called his friends to curry a favor. She had assumed he would be naive enough to think that a favorable judgment would protect Jin from an accidental fall to Karak-Zuun’s deepest level, or from a poisonous cup.
But he had negotiated with the rueful Kwadil and managed to have her sent away with honors and glory, but away from Karak-Zuun, nonetheless. Farveen was starting to appreciate the strength hidden behind the Silent’s impassible face. She stepped down and walked over toward Ahiram and Jin. “If I refuse this position,” she said with a crotchety smile, “I would lose all credibility with the people of Karak-Zuun, and I won’t be able to govern them. If I accept, you are forcing me to leave the city I love, and you’ll manage to appoint someone sympathetic to your cause. Not bad, not bad at all for a former slave.”
“Think what you will, Farveen,” Ahiram replied in a quiet voice, “but you will soon realize that this judgment is in the best interest of the dwarfs. Soon, under your leadership, she-dwarfs will be considered true members of your society and your name will go down in the Karangalatad as worthy of praise and honor. Is that such a bad fate for you to retain old grudges? The choice is yours, but whatever the choice,” he continued, his tone suddenly changing and becoming dangerous and wrathful, “if something happens to Jin, anyth
ing, I will find you, and he who destroyed Ebaan will destroy you.” Instinctively, Farveen knew Ahiram was telling the truth, and for the third time, she had to recognize that she had truly underestimated him.
The following day, Ahiram boarded a ship docked in the secret port of Karak-Zuun, bound for Gihan, the southeastern port of Teshub. From there, less than a hundred miles separated him from Byblos.
Time to find Hoda, he thought. Time to go home.
The council of elders in Karak-Zuun had unanimously elected Jinodus as their next harbor-master. The speed with which Jinodus managed to contact the dwarfs in Tanniin and arrange their transport to Karak-Zuun had earned him the trust of Orwutt and Zurwott. For his part, Ahiram took note of the extensive network Kwadil had been building, and he knew that eventually, his path would cross that of the crafty dwarf’s, the one who had sold him into slavery to Commander Tanios seven years ago.
Jin chose to stay in Karak-Zuun. “I can help here,” she told him. “I can at least be useful to someone.”
He had smiled. “Give my regards to Lilith and Domnina, and please, do tell them I don’t bear them any grudge.”
She flashed him a bright smile, the first he had seen on her face. “What do you think I should do with him?”
“Who?”
“My … father.”
“I cannot tell you what to do, Jin,” he answered, not knowing what her father’s crime was, “but part of the answer lies in what Analeeze would want you to do. Besides, Jinodus—despite his crazy hair— has a solid head on his shoulders. You might want to ask him. I don’t have all the answers, but I think if you ask those with experience, take the time to think it over, and not act out of revenge or hate, you can’t do too badly.”
If only I could follow my own advice, he thought as the boat left the narrow hidden channel and reached the high sea. Leaning against the side of the boat, he watched an albatross fly overhead, and it reminded him of home.
“Soon I will be home,” he said. “Soon I will see Hoda.”
“Nebo of Lurca was obsequious, vain, ill-tempered, and ruthless. Why the Temple of Baal chose to employ him remains a mystery. Perhaps the Temple overlooked the Lurcanian’s weakness, knowing how much he loved to spill blood—blood that would water Baal's fields of the damned, in the Arayat.”
–Chronicles of Yardam, 3rd steward of the House of Hiram.
Gihan, the southernmost port of Teshub, was a stratified city where the well-to-do lived in large mansions up on the brow of verdant hills. All the houses faced west and the rays of the setting sun lit their ornate bronze gates with a deep red halo and caused the terracotta facades to glow like ember in the waning night. A high wall, face-plated with blue marble slabs, separated this well-kept neighborhood from the lower quarters. As his ship approached the docks after a ten-day voyage, Ahiram glimpsed a second wall that sliced through the belly of the hill. Shorter than the marble-covered one, its dark gray face looked like a dirty shadow in the subdued light of the cloudless dusk. Behind the wall, sturdy homes of white stones and acacia sidings afforded merchants with steady incomes a safe place to live and raise their families. Below this neighborhood, set in neat rows that reached to the foothills, stood the modest dwellings of the working class, but even this poorer section was segregated from the city proper by a third and final wall. This enclosure was the most striking part of the city, for it was wrought out of beaten iron and glass so thick it deformed and amplified the buildings of Gihan into an eerie monstrosity. Six bronze gates opened on wide avenues that ran along straight lines to a central plaza and divided Gihan-Inside-the-Wall, as the city proper was called, into six quarters. Originally, a different league of artisans occupied each of the six quarters, but as the clout of the Temple of Baal grew, its hunger for orbs grew as well. Since the glass manufactured at Gihan was the best gold could buy, the city became the Temple’s principal supplier of orbs. One by one, the quarters of Gihan were converted to glass manufacturing until the entire city became a giant glass production machine working solely for the Temple.
Since the production of glass required high and steady heat, innumerable chimneys sprouted all over the city like bad weeds and burned coal all day long. When dusk came, the air trapped by the surrounding hills hung over Gihan like a damp, dirty cloak. Thus, living higher up on the hills of Gihan was not a mere question of status; it gave the families respite from the poisonous fog. Every inch that drew a merchant and his family closer to the hilltop drew them closer to fresh air.
By day, the city was busier than Hardin during the festival of Jaguar-Night, but by dusk, it was as empty as a deserted tomb. The High Riders would lock its six gates and man its walls to protect its precious cargo from plundering thieves.
Once a year, on the Adonis’ Festival of Light, priests from the Temple of Baal would conjure a mighty spell that would clear the poisonous fog and bring in a fresh maritime breeze. On that night and that night only, Gihan would sparkle with a thousand lights. People would dance and sing until the early hours of the following day and rejoice in that small interlude, hoping that one day, the fog would go away for good and the fresh air would stay.
Ahiram, now clean-shaven, disembarked from the dwarfish vessel and said his goodbyes to the captain and crew. Now that he was in Gihan, he had to decide how best to reach Byblos: four days by walking along the coast or two days by horseback if he followed the winding road and kept the same horse. He could cut that time down to one day if he was willing to pay the right price for a fresh horse every four hours.
Or, I could fly over the sea and get there in four hours if I don’t use the tile and most likely in less than two if I do.
Walking was the least conspicuous route. The Silent made up his mind quickly. I’ll leave in a few hours and I’ll walk, but first, I’ll get a room at an inn. If someone is trailing me, they’ll think I’ll be staying the night.
Leisurely, he walked along the docks, went up a long flight of stairs and took lodging at one of the inns that had sprung up inside the port to accommodate travelers who reached Gihan after the closing of the gates.
“What’s the name of your inn?” he asked the keeper.
“Don’t have one,” replied the tall mustached man. “It’s the second inn and that’s that.”
The tiny room held a straw mattress, an earthen pot of water, and a narrow window. The cover on the bed had holes and smelled of sweat and something else he could not quite place. Repulsed by the odor, he was about to leave when he stopped, retrieved Dariöm’s cloak from his bag, clipped it around his neck, and covered his bag with it. He then strapped his sword over the cloak, carefully opened the door, and went downstairs. Good thing I wasn’t planning on spending the night here, he thought.
The dining area at the inn fared no better than the room. The chairs were rickety and the tables had their fair share of dents and smudges. People must fight a lot here, he thought. Still, he was hungry, and seeing that it was relatively busy, he decided to take his chances with the food. An elderly waitress was serving three cloaked figures. Ahiram strolled in slowly and sat at a table in a corner from where he could see all the patrons. He sat at the edge of the chair to make room for his bag. The painted walls were a dirty white and the dark wooden floor glistened with grease. A painting of Baal crossing the heavens on his chariot covered the right wall, while decorative swords and shields hung on the left one. Two dozen small lanterns lit the hall with a sickly yellowish light that cast deep creases below every customer’s eyes, turning them into would-be assassins or inmates on death row.
After a short while, the elderly waitress shuffled over. Puffs of white frizzy hair escaped the strict confines of a black veil that turned her tired, wrinkled face into a white mask a scarecrow might have been proud to wear. Her dress was black, her shoes were black, and when she flashed him a quick tired smile, he saw that her teeth, the few she had left, were also black. Without speaking a word, she placed a steaming bowl before him, a thick slice of bread, a small pot o
f cream, and a jug of wine.
“I don’t need the cream,” he said. “You can take it back.”
The woman smirked and shrugged her shoulders. “Might need it too. Careful, hot,” she said, leaving the pot of cream on the table.
Ahiram sniffed the contents of the bowl. He could not tell what it was. He hovered the small lantern over the plate but still could not tell what he was about to eat.
“Hey,” he hollered, “what’s in that stew?”
“Squid, seaweed, and turnip,” she replied sullenly. “Enjoy.”
Ahiram sighed, grabbed a wooden spoon, and took a bite. He chewed once, twice, thrice … and felt that someone had filled his mouth with lava. He could no longer feel his tongue, his cheeks, or his jaw. His eyes blurred as tears streamed freely. Calmly, he placed the spoon back down and stepped outside the inn. He went down the flight of stairs to the docks. There, he paced for the better part of an hour until the burning sensation receded from his throat, nose, and mouth. I needed an excuse to leave the inn as soon as I walked into the dining area, but this food was so hot, another bite and it would have killed me. He paced some more, thinking about the three cloaked figures sitting a few tables away from him. Sowasian assassins, no doubt.
Thanks to Ebaan’s description, he had recognized them when the cloak dropped from one of the three figures sitting at that table, revealing an arm covered with intricate tattoos: screaming faces, dark shadows instead of eyes, snakes and horned creatures, and daggers.
The Wretched Race (Epic of Ahiram Book 3) Page 33