Agent of Prophecy

by M. A. Rothman

  “What kind of tea do you like most? I have many to choose from, and each one has its own trick to extract the most flavor.”

  Arabelle looked at the bewildering assortment of plants. “Do you have any teas that help with bad dreams?”

  The rotund lady gave Arabelle the same look that Maggie had. “My dear, are you having nightmares?” She clucked. “Well of course you are. Not to worry, I have something just for that.”

  She plucked a branch with crispy leaves from one of the strings that crisscrossed the tent. “If you crush one of these leaves in steaming water—not boiling—and drink it quickly just before you close your eyes, you will have a dreamless sleep. It’s important the water is just hot enough to be steaming. Too hot or too cool, and the leaf’s effectiveness will be diminished.”

  Arabelle examined the leaf. She had to suppress a smile when she saw that it was anvil-shaped and green, with tiny red filaments streaking through it.

  Exactly the leaf Castien showed me.

  “Thank you, Madam Mizmer. I’m sure this will help. Can I have a supply of this?”

  “Of course, my dear. But use only one leaf for your mug. I wouldn’t want you to get sick.” She waved for Arabelle to follow. “Now, tea you can start on immediately, but stews and bread… we’ll have to work our way to that. I think the next step for you is vegetables. I’m sure Alexandra could use some help there.”

  Arabelle forced a smile. “Of course, chopping vegetables sounds… just wonderful.”

  Alexandra giggled. “When I woke up this morning, I never dreamed that I’d be sharing my chores with you, Princess.”

  Arabelle laughed as she chopped. “I can’t say that I saw this coming myself.”

  They weren’t the only ones. Before long, Alexandra’s younger sister came running into the tent, her eyes wide. “Princess! Mum came by and told Pa you were chopping vegetables with Alexandra! I didn’t believe it, but here you are!”

  Arabelle smiled at her former co-conspirator. “Hi, Zoe. Yes, your mother is helping me learn how to cook. How are things going with the sheep?”

  Zoe jumped up on a stool and kicked her bare feet. “One of the ewes gave birth to a pure white lamb with pink eyes today! My friend Henna says that’s a good omen. Pa says there’s no such thing as omens.”

  Alexandra smile deviously. “Hey, maybe Mum will bring the pink-eyed lamb for us to stew.”

  Zoe crinkled her nose. “Ew, gross. Maybe she’ll mistake Hassan for a sheep and he’ll be chopped up for the stew.”

  Alexandra’s cheeks reddened. “You leave Hassan out of this!”

  Zoe stuck out her tongue at her sister, then waved at Arabelle. “Bye, Princess. Pa needs my help with shearing. I just wanted to see if you were really here, chopping vegetables with my sister. That’s weird.” She shook her head, hopped up, and padded away as quickly as she’d arrived.

  Arabelle chuckled. The girl definitely spoke her mind.

  She turned to Alexandra. “So… Hassan? How are things going there?”

  Alexandra stuck out her lower lip in a pout. “Mum’s been keeping me so busy I can barely get away to even be seen. But he did look directly at me once when I passed him on the street. He was with the other soldiers and couldn’t really stop to talk, but I know he would have if he could.”

  Arabelle couldn’t imagine being so obsessed over a single look from a boy. Unless… well, she supposed if it were the right boy.

  Her thoughts wandered to the boy from her dream, the one with the sparkling blue eyes and brilliant smile. Her inner sight again tried to tell her that he was somewhere directly above her. She wished she could talk to Seder and ask why that was happening.

  “I heard a rumor that Hassan now wears a new fancy braided belt for his staff,” Alexandra said.

  “Oh?”

  The girl nodded as she continued to chop at her vegetables. “Yes. And they’re saying it was given to him by a girl.” She chopped harder, and Arabelle began to pity the vegetables. “Do you think that’s true? It can’t be true. I would know if Hassan had eyes for anyone but me.”

  Arabelle held back a smile. Maggie must have finished her project.

  Good for her.

  Before she was forced to figure out how to answer Alexandra’s question, she was rescued by the return of Madam Mizner, leading a freshly shorn sheep toward the stall.

  “Looks like it’s time for the main part of the stew,” she said.

  The next day after dinner, Arabelle had some different training in mind. But first, it would involve ditching Tabor.

  She told him that she was interested in buying some new clothes, so he escorted her to the textile tents, which were filled with both pre-woven clothes and the raw materials to sew practically any clothing one might need.

  “You can wait out front,” Arabelle said to her escort. “It will probably take some time for me to try things on.”

  Tabor panned his gaze over the vast tent, as if looking for threats. There was no one there but vendors and buyers, haggling over clothes. Finally he nodded at Arabelle and stepped outside to wait.

  Arabelle went to a curtained changing area and stripped off her robes. Underneath she wore the dark-gray outfit Maggie had prepared for her. She pulled the matching headscarf from her bundle and wrapped it around her head, leaving only her eyes visible. The veil was common among her people, especially among the older women, and even the men would wear a tagelmust, which was nearly identical in style, when facing the dust of travel.

  Finally she removed her slippers, wrapped them in her robe, and set them neatly in the corner. She’d found that her slippers would make a sound that her bare feet would not, and for tonight, she wanted maximum stealth.

  When she walked out of the dressing area, nobody gave her a second look.

  Now came the real test. Tabor.

  She took a deep breath and walked purposely toward the exit, maintaining a steady gait. She dared not even glance at Tabor as she left the tent, for she was certain he would somehow recognize her. She just kept on walking, taking several turns through tents, wagons, and stalls, then stopped and turned.

  She had done it. No one was following her.

  Her goal for the evening was stealth and observation. She intended to spend the next half hour seeing how much she could observe without being noticed. She walked on the balls of her feet as Castien had instructed, and practiced walking in the twilight’s shadows.

  She followed some soldiers tasked with maintaining peace in the caravan. Men like this were trained to be alert, scanning the spaces between the tents, looking for anything out of the ordinary. But she applied the skills the elven warrior had taught her, using the shadows to her advantage. She found that keeping perfectly still was the most difficult part. Every time she did it, her leg muscles would quickly begin to ache.

  But it worked. Even when a soldier looked directly at her, in her dark clothing, in shadow, and remaining as still as a rock, his eyes would pass over her without stopping. Arabelle felt a thrill at the accomplishment. As a princess, she never went anywhere unnoticed. Being invisible was a freedom she’d never before felt.

  She was still following the soldiers around, seeing how close she could get, when a young red-haired soldier arrived with an announcement. “Kirag has arrived!”

  One of the other soldiers responded with a cautioning tone. “Stay far away from that one, Ephraim. You don’t want to gain the attention of Azazel’s right hand. He’s nearly as deadly as the wizard himself.”

  The young soldier replied in a whisper that Arabelle could barely hear. “He’s calling all of Azazel’s soldiers together for a meeting near the center square.”

  “May they all freeze in the coldest recesses of the Abyss,” spat the other.

  As the soldiers moved along, Arabelle decided to spy on another target: this Kirag. She’d heard of the man—he was said to be a giant, and meaner than a snake—but she’d never laid eyes on him.

  She crept into the shadows tha
t surrounded the town square in the evening. Not a merchant was to be seen; even those who were normally active at this hour had apparently chosen to close early. But the town square was far from empty. Two dozen of Azazel’s black-clad enforcers stood at its center, facing a man who was incredibly tall—a good two feet taller than any other man around him. Oversized canines protruded from his lower jaw, and the yellow of his eyes gave him the look of something… inhuman.

  This was Kirag.

  “Within the next week,” he was saying, “I will be sending Duos to various parts of Trimoria to continue the search.”

  “What about the slavers?” asked one of the soldiers.

  Kirag laughed heartily, then fixed the soldier with a cold stare. “If a slaver takes you, you aren’t worthy of the uniform you wear. There are more Grubs in training. They will gladly replace not only the Duos I am sending out, but any of you who choose to fail me.”

  The soldier who’d spoken seemed to shrink before these words.

  Kirag was about to say more, then stopped and sniffed the air. “I smell flowers. If I find that one of you has the scent of a woman on you, I have some special missions that will remove that stink quickly. You must be an idiot to think you can do your job while reeking of such scents.”

  Arabelle quickly crept back toward the clothing tent. She’d learned at least one valuable lesson tonight.

  I have to tell Maggie to stop putting scents in my bathwater.

  Hunting for Strangers

  Kirag sat at his desk in the tent that the Talons who were stationed with the caravan had set up for him.

  His mother’s visions had given him some directions in which to look, but he’d need as much manpower as he could get. He’d left Glendale with instructions to assemble Duos from the Grubs as soon as they were qualified. The training master had been supplied with as many of Azazel’s specially made amulets as he might need.

  Few people even knew that these amulets existed. And even if they did, there was no blacksmith in Trimoria who could create one without Azazel’s assistance. They were made of damantite, and only Azazel’s powers were sufficient to melt the metal so that it could be cast into amulet form. Damantite held a deep black color when forged, but when the light struck it at an angle, it shone with hints of red.

  That last feature made them unable to be duplicated. Not that many would try, but there were plenty of fools in the world, and occasionally someone would try to pass himself off as one of Azazel’s Talons. A fool might, with effort, re-create the Talon’s blackened armor with Azazel’s red hourglass insignia on the chest. But he couldn’t re-create the amulet.

  Kirag smiled as he remembered one such fool. He’d done his research—he had an exact replica of the armor, and he even knew about the existence of the amulets. But he didn’t realize that these amulets weren’t simple painted iron creations.

  After Kirag apprehended the false Talon, Azazel had the impersonator’s entire family brought before him—grandparents, cousins, infants, everyone. Forty-five people in total were assembled that morning in front of Azazel’s tower, with everyone in Cammoria gathered to watch. Azazel held a black sparkling ball of energy in his hands as he pronounced the penalty for impersonating one of his agents.

  Death.

  But it was worse than that, because the punishment was not given only to the perpetrator, but to his entire family.

  Azazel incinerated the whole lot of them. Not all at once. He started with the infants, children, then the elderly, then the women. He saved the impersonator for last.

  Kirag still occasionally found himself fondly recalling that morning.

  The guard at his tent announced a visitor, and Kirag waved him in. It was Isaac, the local regiment’s lead enforcer, wearing the customary black leathers of a Talon. No impersonator here. He was middle-aged and clean-shaven, with hard gray eyes. Two obsidian daggers were tucked into his belt.

  Good. This soldier has earned enough trust to have been sent on missions and has managed to return with success.

  Kirag nodded his greetings. “Tell me what you’ve done to earn those daggers.”

  The man touched the handle of one of the daggers and smiled with a gap-toothed grin. “I earned these nearly a decade ago, sir. Lord Azazel had gotten information that twin boys were born in a remote village. I was told these boys were to be destroyed by any means available. I was the second Talon sent to this village.”

  “Why the second? What happened to the first?”

  “The villagers saw him approach and ambushed him. He was returned to Cammorian headquarters with two broken legs and stripped of all clothes and weapons.”

  “What happened upon his return? What did your chief do?”

  The soldier sneered. “The disgrace was killed and left for the vultures. My chief sent me to finish the job. The villagers were expecting an assault and were prepared to fight. So I snuck into the village on a moonless night, threw oil-soaked rags onto the homes, crept back out, and shot flaming arrows onto the roofs.

  “Once all of the inhabitants were busy fighting the fires, nobody gave a thought to the two babes, except their mother, who held them both in her arms. My final arrow passed cleanly through both children.”

  Ruthless. Good.

  “Tell me about the ceremony where those were made. Who attended?”

  The man looked nervous. “I was told that the only people to whom I can speak of the dagger ceremony are the chief enforcer or Lord Azazel himself. But as you are now the chief enforcer, I suppose it’s all right.

  “Lord Azazel asked me for my Talon’s daggers. He dropped them to the floor and turned them into slag with but a moment’s application of his immense power. The chief enforcer retrieved a form for a dagger and placed within it a sparkling metal I didn’t recognize. Lord Azazel poured a powder over the form and applied his prodigious mystical power. Even with my eyes closed, the brightness was blinding. The daggers that I now carry were the result.”

  Kirag nodded. The daggers were true, as he assumed they would be. He had, once, encountered a Talon who had lifted his daggers from another. That man’s fate was even more enjoyable than the one that had befallen the impersonator.

  “Isaac,” he said, “I have a task for one who can be trusted to not fail.”

  The soldier straightened. “I will succeed or die trying. What is the task?”

  Kirag grinned at the man’s earnestness. “You are to find some strangers who don’t belong in Trimoria. I can’t tell you what they look like, where they are, or how many they might be. But this caravan provides a good base of operations for a search. Azazel has ensured that the Imazighen travel throughout most of the wasteland and the surrounding towns. As you travel with them, I need you to send out scouting missions and keep an eye out for anyone who seems out of place. When you find them, question them as to their origins. Extract information by whatever means is necessary, and log whatever you learn so I can go over it at a later date. But do not cause strife within the caravan. We don’t need an uprising. Keep your work quiet.”

  Isaac nodded. “I’ll do what I can.”

  Kirag leaned over his desk and growled. “Yes, you will.”

  It was two weeks later when Kirag paid his first visit to Isaac’s new interrogation tent. It was secluded, a mile from the caravan, so as not to be widely known. That was good, as the coppery tang of torture was evident even from outside, and the inside… the inside was far worse.

  He found Isaac going through the pockets of some blood-soaked clothing.

  “Have you learned anything?”

  The soldier tossed a ruined shirt into the fire and wiped his sweaty hair from his eyes with a blood-encrusted hand. “As a matter of fact, we have a name.” The soldier pointed to a dead naked man on the ground before him. “I had to torture him for nearly thirty minutes, but he talked. There’s a stranger in the caravan, recently arrived, but already employed as one of the Sheikh’s soldiers. Nobody knows his history. They call him Hassan, although
they say he is one of the Nameless.”

  “Find him, and extract all information he can provide. He may be of interest, or he may be no one. These caravaners call everyone a Nameless if there’s no one who can vouch for them.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As he turned to leave, two Talons dragged an unconscious caravaner into the tent. Isaac rubbed his hands together, smiled menacingly, and set to work on his latest subject.

  A Greater Evil in the Tunnels

  Day after day, and then week after week, Grisham worked in the rock mines. That’s what he thought of them as: rock mines. Because all they were mining for was rock. He survived by keeping his mind focused on the job, banging with single-minded purpose, the sounds, the smells, and the pain fading from his consciousness.

  When it was time to drink, he drank. When it was time to eat, he ate. Sometimes Nicholas would sit with him. Other times he would catch Grappa staring at him surreptitiously. But for the most part, he was alone—as he had been ever since his father’s death.

  Apart from a few hours each “night”—he couldn’t be sure of the days in here, but his stomach told him they were being fed once a day—the brutal ogre taskmaster watched them almost constantly. Occasionally, however, he would disappear briefly for some errand or another. Or perhaps to relieve himself.

  It was during one of these moments that Grappa finally acted out against Grisham, as the Ta’ah had long known he would. The ill-tempered teen paused in his work, walked over to Grisham, and took a swing at the Ta’ah with his pickaxe.

  Grisham just barely jumped out of the way, and the pick sparked against the spot where he’d been standing only seconds before.

  “Grappa!” yelled Nicholas, scrambling between them. “What in the seven levels of the Abyss do you think you’re doing?”