“Yala Hasem!”
Ashallah paused once more. There it was again. That one voice. So distinct as to pierce the discordance of the surrounding Shadya. As the guards shoved her forward, another sound drifted to her ears from the crowd, one that further awakened her sense of familiarity.
“Asha!”
Ashallah whipped around to find her mother to her right, at the forefront of the crowd. Although in her daytime hijab, Ashallah could still see her eyes, which at that moment appeared frightened. A soldier held her back with the shaft of his spear. She paid him no attention, though. Niyusha’s attention was split between her and the rest of the crowd, which she searched in vain.
Two guards pushed Ashallah over and again. Ashallah tripped forward, but her gaze remained on her ommah. She planted her feet into the dirt and leaned back, to buy more time to look upon her mother. Once more, Niyusha turned from Ashallah to scan the crowd. Ashallah, from the middle of the street, searched as well. Dark blue clothes fell against a backdrop of black, and vice versa. Women’s faces and eyes met hers, as more fists beat the air. All looked similar, but none was so different as to strike Ashallah as an acquaintance.
Then she saw her. Like an oasis in a stretch of sand. Orzala.
She was behind two other women, part of the second line of the crowd. Then she wedged herself forward, so that she stood chest to chest with a eunuch soldier. She shouted and screamed, “Yala Hasem!” along with the others. Her voice, rising above all the others, was somehow definitive and strong. When did my sister become such a powerful young woman? Ashallah asked herself, as she watched Orzala punch the air as she yelled.
The eunuch guards had lost her patience with Ashallah by then. Four now marched behind her. One was even brazen enough to jab at Ashallah’s back with the tip of his pike. That further inflamed the audience.
“Yala Hasem! Yala Hasem! Yala Hasem!”
The shadow of the arched entrance blocked the sun from Ashallah’s face. Knowing that the amphitheater would soon cut her off from the crowd, Ashallah craned her neck to look back at her mother. Their stares locked long enough for Ashallah to point at Orzala.
“Take her from here!” Ashallah screamed.
The butt of a pike shaft met her abdomen. Ashallah doubled-over, falling to her knees. Two eunuch guards picked her up by the shoulders as the audience erupted, spilling into the street. Her escort hurried her into the amphitheater. Ashallah, coughing for air, heard the heavy oak doors close behind her as the guards dropped her into the sand.
“Orzala...”
Ashallah turned to the amphitheater doors, her sense of rationale having left her. She reached for the nearest guard to knee him in the groin. She wrestled his pike from him as she shoved another guard away. She swung around, expecting to find the keymaster. Instead, a closed fist met her face, not one or twice but three times. She sunk to her knees, grasping her nose. With her eyes watery, Ashallah rose to one knee, aiming for the closed doors. Without warning, a solid strike to her left temple – by what or from whom she could not tell – sent her head to the sand.
Through her haze and writhing, she heard a man’s voice. It was booming, yet the man did not yell. He simply spoke as one who has authority.
“The crowd has broken the lines?”
“Yes,” replied the keymaster. As if to echo his affirmation, fists pounded from outside the arena doors.
“And this one,” a eunuch guard declared as he nudged Ashallah with his foot. “She is the cause of this uprising.”
“No,” replied the authoritative one. “She is simply a pawn. Another woman made an example by the Shadya. Their last example.”
Ashallah turned from her side to her back. The mid-afternoon sun blinded her. She raised her hand to block the sun, long enough to see the man of authority.
He was not a man common to Yasem. Unlike the commanders, captains and local magistrates, he wore no breastplate, carried no kilij sword or bladed weapon. A robe with violet and white stripes hung from his tall frame, while the white shora headwear that fell around his shoulders shimmered with gold thread. He bent down on his knees to inspect Ashallah, allowing her a glimpse of the ruby and emerald encrusted rings he wore. Each precious stone had seven sides, the sign of a vizier from the Court of the Grand Sultan.
The pounding on the outside of the amphitheater doors grew louder. The vizier glanced in its direction as one of his apprentices approached.
“Vizier Hyder, it is not safe for you here.”
“The doors will hold as they are up until the call comes,” the vizier replied.
The call. Ashallah knew what that meant. The realization sent a chill through her body, a very real sense of dread that made her shiver with anticipation. For as a midnight warrior, she had witnessed the effects of the call before. That one command from the Court of the Grand Sultan, that one call, could vanquish Ashallah’s foes and enemies in an instant. Used only in certain instances, the call struck fear among the masses. Even among the most hardened of warriors.
How many decades, centuries, have passed since it was last used in Yasem? The Shadya are not that large of a threat. Certainly not to the Grand Sultan. Why them? Why Yasem? Why now? With so many other women among them... Like Orzala... Ommah...
All sense of dignity that Ashallah had as a fighter left her. Humility ensued, as did fear, and every other emotion she had been trained to ignore or suppress. She extended her hand toward the vizier, her palm outstretched and open in an act of submission. She parted her bloody lips and looked up, summoning the courage to speak through her fear.
“Please...” she begged, for the first time since she was a child.
Vizier Hyder stared down at her long and hard. His look held no sympathy, no compassion. Ashallah could only wonder how many before her had begged only to receive such a response in return.
The apprentice behind Hyder cleared his throat. “Vizier, shall we toss her outside to suffer the call with the others?”
Hyder considered. “No,” he finally said. He turned to the edge of the arena. “Throw her in one of those cages there, so that she may hear the call for herself. The memory will give her something to reflect on as we prepare for her public trial later.”
Ashallah rose to her knees, nearly ready to spring upon the vizier when a net of hempen rope fell on her. The butt of several shafts hit her on all sides. Under their force, she fell. Silhouettes, ringed by the sun above, descended. Her legs parted the sand as they dragged her by the net. The coarse grains beneath Ashallah turned to slabs of stone as they hauled her into the lower amphitheater corridor.
They passed cage after cage. Hyenas and lions snarled, flashing their jagged teeth. She caught glimpses of the stripes of Amalycian tigers and the spotted coats of Kalcahtic ice leopards. All yelped and roared at her and her captors. That is until they were out of sight. The last few cages housed not with animals but with men and women. Unlike their fellow caged, the human prisoners lacked the will to show fury. Their response to a new neighbor was one marked by numbness, as glazed eyes and muted lips met her presence. Finally, the guards turned into the open door of the last cage. They let loose their grip on the net, retreating behind the safety of the cage door just as Ashallah wrangled free from the cords. Ashallah reached through the cage bars in vain as the eunuchs made their way down the corridor and out of her life.
“You wretched half-men!” Ashallah screamed. She beat her fist against the cage bars, sending the echo of their vibrations down the hall. Eunuchs, she contemplated as she sat cross-legged by the door. So much for saviors of women.
Whether by chance or design, from her cage Ashallah had quite the vantage point. She was able to see most of the sandpit of the arena and the better half of the spectator area, from the lower seats to the uppermost gallery. Midway up the stands, a scarlet awning stretched over the marble gallery reserved for visiting dignitaries, generals, wealthy merchants and members of the Court of the Grand Sultan. That is where Ashallah spotted Vizier Hyder
, taking his seat in the chair of honor. With him stood his apprentice and soldiers dressed in an array of blue, green and red clothing. Janissaries, Ashallah realized. The most elite soldiers in Greater Dyli, charged with protecting the Royal Palace of Rilah, members of Court and the Grand Sultan himself. If ever there were soldiers who deserved Ashallah’s admiration, it was they. Their presence did more to worry Ashallah than impress her, however. For they served as yet another sign that the vizier’s presence was to carry out edicts deserving of royal attention. The kind of attention that results in capital punishment.
The janissaries flanked the vizier as his apprentice leaned in close to his ear to speak. The vizier listened, paused, and then flicked his fingers, a move that sent the apprentice scurrying. As the apprentice ran off, the clamor from outside the amphitheater seemed to grow louder. The cries overlapped each other, yet the distinct chant of Yala Hasem continued.
“Shut up, you fools!” Ashallah pleaded through her teeth. She knew she was only speaking her thoughts, that none outside would hear her and that all those in the corridor who did would not care. Nonetheless, out of desperation, she spoke again. “Leave this place. Please!”
Across the sandpit in the marble gallery, Ashallah saw the apprentice emerge from the stairwell carrying a small wooden box inlaid with lapis lazuli and abalone shell. He opened it before the vizier. Hyder removed a curved ivory horn ringed with gold. He stood and studied the writing engraved on its side.
Ashallah shook the bars of her cage. The door rattled just a bit but otherwise remained strong. “No! You bastard! In the name of Jaha, don’t do it!”
The vizier paused to look across the arena in Ashallah’s direction. Ashallah stopped shaking the bars. Perhaps her cries had carried past the noise outside the amphitheater to settle upon his ears. For a moment, she even thought that the vizier had reconsidered.
Ashallah narrowed her eyes. She focused in on the vizier’s face, with a sense of attention that eclipsed any she had experienced in battle. The details of all in the marble gallery became so clear. The yatagan swords at the janissaries’ belts. Their green kufi hats. The blue sash across the chest of the vizier’s apprentice, marking him as a member of the Court of the Grand Sultan. The candied dates and apricots, salted figs and crystal wine decanters. All of it was glaring in detail. Especially the calligraphy inscribed on the curved horn, in a language unknown to Ashallah in a script as deadly as it was beautiful.
Vizier Hyder locked eyes with Ashallah. Ashallah searched the man’s eyes and realized it was not a look of pity or sympathy. No, there was none of that. It was the look of an enemy. A foe. A man.
Hyder, his gaze never leaving Ashallah, raised the mouthpiece of the horn to his lips and blew.
The beats were jarring. The pitch a series of highs followed by lows. The music was hardly pleasing to the ears, yet somehow Ashallah found herself listening, wanting to know how the song ended. It carried a serious tone, one she thought reminiscent of a soldier’s elegy. A song of death.
“Dear Jaha,” Ashallah prayed, her voice so low only her god – the one she had abandoned long ago – could hear. “I know he plays the death song. Let his music summon no evil. May no spirits or creatures come. Have mercy on all those women. Along with my sister. My mother.”
Then like a comet streaking across the sky, it came. A projectile of fire, burning bright red and yellow, flying toward Yasem. Ashallah heard the cries and yelling outside the amphitheater quiet, and even the animals caged down the corridor silenced.
The glowing mass dove toward the city, like a meteor emblazoning the sky. As it neared the city, it slowed and curved in the direction of the amphitheater. The blazing ash and fire that marked its entrance into the sky fell away, revealing the dread beneath.
Gold script overlaid blood-red skin. Sinewy muscle coiled torso and limbs. Eyes as black as the finest ebony flared, as wild as the beast’s hair and as threatening as its nails. Wisps of black smoke curled around the legs of the creature, snaking around one appendage and past the other as if they were prowling serpents. The figure neared, allowing Ashallah to study it further before it came to a halt and hovered before the marble gallery.
The figure presented herself before the vizier. Ashallah closed her eyes. A male beast from a nightmare, she told herself. A demon from one of the Five Doors of Hell. A jinni.
She opened her eyes just as Hyder pointed to the doors of the amphitheater. The jinni turned to fly above the arena walls and descend on the crowd outside. From her cage, Ashallah could see nothing of what occurred. But she heard. The cries of the women. Not cries of protest like before. No, these were ones of pain and anguish. Of fear and sadness. Lamentations and pleas for mercy that Jaha did not answer.
Ashallah closed her eyes again, only this time she also covered her ears. Still, she heard. All of them.
She beat her fists against her head, a futile effort to stop her hearing. It was no use as the yelling continued. Along with the cries. Bounteous screams. Then less. Followed by fewer still.
Then finally, the silence.
Chapter 10
She had never seen snow before. She had only heard of it.
The northern territories, where the air was cooler, saw snow once in a red moon. Ashallah had been on assignment to its cities a handful of times. Her favorite by far was Khirat, a trading outpost at the base of the Azarii Mountains. Built on the edge of a dry riverbed that would turn to rapids with the spring rains, Khirat was comprised of a series of wood and clay building that resembled the same mountains that surrounded them. Awash in white and glacial blue, the four and five-story structures housed spice traders, furs and pelts from the mountain tribes, along with herbs and spices from the high desert that would rarely make their way down to Yasem. With their many offerings, the street vendors of Khirat would share tales of snowy days and nights, when the town was blessed enough to receive the icy dust from above, the white leaves of winter.
The memory of such stories came flooding back to Ashallah as she sat in her cage. Her eyes stung with salt, as her tears had dried. Her body ached as though her joints and muscles had absorbed all the sadness of her mourning. She sat against the wall of her cell when the first flake came floating in to rest on her thigh. Only it was not white, like the snow from the tales of Khirat. Rather, the flake was gray. The tone of ash. Of charred flesh and bone.
More feathers of death entered her cage. They came one at a time at first. Then in waves. Past sunset and into the night they floated. As the sun rose and the servants readied the arena for the trial, Ashallah watched the flakes catch the early light to reflect hues of gold and amber. They continued their journey long after the doors of the amphitheater had opened to allow the first spectators inside. By the time the bulk of the attendees had taken their seats, a thin coat of ash had covered the corridor floor.
“Wake!”
Ashallah moved her head to the side as she sat limply on the floor. Seven guards, ones who still possessed their genitals, stood outside as the arena keymaster unlocked her cage.
“Your trial has come,” added the husky guard.
“What’s the point?” Ashallah asked. “Execute me in here and be done with it!”
The guard seemed less than tempted by the idea. “Up!” he yelled as he hit the shaft of his javelin against the cage bar.
When Ashallah failed to respond, he entered along with his cohorts. They jabbed at her with the blunt ends of their weapons, but Ashallah remained unmoved. Then they turned the points of their javelins and spears at her, piercing her leathery skin with little concern for the pain they caused. When their patience finally tired, two guards lifted Ashallah to drag her from her cage. She offered no resistance.
Ashallah squinted as the guards took her from the shadows of the corridor into the late morning sunlight. Although not yet noon, the grains of the sandpit burned with desert heat. Ashallah looked around to find that the theater’s attendees were faring no better, as nearly all fanned themselve
s or sought shelter under the awnings of the surrounding vendors. They are wilting like cut wildflowers, Ashallah thought. The heat should prompt a speedy trial.
Those in the marble gallery showed similar signs of distress, save the janissaries, whose training conditioned them to hide any sign of discomfort. The reserved section was full of Yasem’s elite. To the right sat the local magistrates in their flowing robes of silk and spun cotton, while to the left were the highest-ranking officers, dressed in gilded breastplates and other regalia. Not surprisingly, the only women in the gallery were those serving the men, whether with food and drink or as spectacles for their viewing amusement.
In the center of this display of male hedonism was Vizier Hyder. He wore a judicial robe of silver and scarlet, the colors of blades and blood respectively, as well as a necklace of polished jade, which bore the royal gemstones. His apprentice, seated on his right, wore a similar ensemble, though displayed less dignity and more discomfort with the weather. Between the two, on a cedar pedestal, sat the ivory horn the vizier had used the previous day.
The guards dropped Ashallah in the center of the arena. Two others proceeded to chain her to iron rings bolted to heavy stakes in the ground. Ashallah found the chains restrictive, yet she could raise her arms for a short time if needed. Not that it mattered. For there were no weapons within her reach, nor other items she could use to block advances or strike opponents. Only more iron rings and chains laid nearby, which would soon confine other accused enemies of the state, whose fates were already sealed.
Within minutes, five other prisoners shared the sandpit with Ashallah, four women, and one man. Although the male amongst them could hardly be considered a man. A thin tuft of hair clung to his head, which he hung low as he sobbed uncontrollably. His thin arms cradled his face, which appeared tired and worn, even absent the tears. The other women appeared distressed too, as none wore the standard niqab veils encouraged for day use, for their guilt had exposed them. In the tradition of Yasem, their faces and hair had no coverings, so that all experienced the same level of shame and disgrace. At least they bear their humiliation with more dignity than the man does, Ashallah thought.
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