Crescent Inquisition

by Fuad Baloch

  Palvar glared at the ambassador but he didn’t flinch. As much as hated what he was hearing, Palvar could almost see it from the ambassador’s perspective. Not that it made it right, of course. The Istani sultanate was a living, breathing, eternal beast that might change its direction every now and then, but it never lost its roar. “Rebellions… against the Istani sultanate!”

  “Oh, they’ll be put down mercilessly, no doubt. Like all the times in the past. Like what they did in Nikhtun three decades ago.”

  “Rebellion in…” Palvar trailed away, recalling the other bit of news the ambassador had talked of. “What’s this about the trouble at the Kalb Inquisition?”

  Ambassador Danfurd swallowed the lump in his throat. “The sultan of Istan claims the right to govern inquisitors throughout the world, in turn claiming mandate for governing the lives of magi too.” He shook his head. “No matter how much other kings disapprove, there is no denying that local inquisitors look up to the Kalb. What happens at the Kalb affects all inquisitors and magi.”

  “So… while you’re happy for the rebellions in our realm, the unease with the Kalb affects the Reratish just as well?”

  “Aye,” whispered Ambassador Danfurd. “I’m far from being the only one worried. The ambassadors of distant Kur’sh and the Xin empire feel the same way.”

  Palvar leaned back, a thousand thoughts going through his mind. Now that he considered it, there was no missing the fact that the world was changing, molding into a new shape. Back when he was young and hadn’t learned to skip history lessons, his teacher had mentioned how, when the world changed, it caught all those living through it unaware. Dimly, he wondered what Kunita would say about that.

  Again, the worrying thought that had kept him up at nights since the execution reared its head. Surely, there was no way that shadow master was behind this?

  As if able to read his thoughts, the ambassador cleared his throat. “A pragmatic man must only worry about that which he can control.”

  “Quite,” agreed Palvar. Then, he exhaled and leaned forward. “I spoke to the grand priest.”

  The ambassador dabbed at his forehead. “I see. And?”

  Palvar chuckled, feeling a bit of his own tension draining. “I’d have loved to draw this out long, I really would have. But by the blood and guts of the hundred thousand rats that died in the great plague, I don’t have the stomach for it.”

  Ambassador Agusti Danfurd’s tapped at his belly, blinking rapidly now. “You kill me by your way with words.”

  “You’re going to have to keep your mouth shut.” Palvar rose with a grunt and started for the door. “But yes, the grand priest has given you permission to marry that girl.”

  “By the gods!” the ambassador yelped. He extended his arms, his smile wide enough to touch both ears. “I would kiss you, sahib. I absolutely—”

  “No kissing!” Palvar declared. “Just… just treat her right, will you?”

  “Of course.” He waddled over and blocked Palvar’s path. “One western man to another, I owe you my life. Anything you ever need, you just have to say.”

  Palvar patted him on the shoulder, then walked out of the drawing room.

  As the guards shut the embassy doors behind him, Palvar smiled as he heard a faint, decidedly unmanly, squeal of delight.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Kunita shook her head. “Three hundred silver coins, and not one more for these earrings.”

  “You wound me,” whined the thin merchant, making a show of dabbing at his forehead with the back of his hand. “This cost me two times that.”

  Kunita chuckled and elbowed Palvar, but he remained lost in his thoughts. He’d been doing a great deal of that recently. “See what a show this man puts. I doubt he paid more than twenty coins for it.”

  The merchant gave out an exaggerated cry. “My dear sahiba, the tariffs are at their highest, goods harder than ever to move down from the north, even the slaves have begun demanding as if they’re the masters and not us, and sadly the honorable nobility of the city no longer offers its patronage to crafts like it used to.” He thumped his chest. “Oh, the times are tough, hard for poor folks like us.”

  Kunita narrowed her eyes, continuing to shake her head. The Banani Street was packed today, voices of commerce and trade rising all around her. Unlike the shops at the docks she often visited, the clientele here was decidedly more respectable, arguing just as the masses did, but in cultured tones in purer Gharsi and Nirdu accents.

  “What do you think, champion of Istan?” She elbowed Palvar once more. The merchant’s eyes shone.

  Palvar shrugged, adjusting his Nikhtuni hat. “I don’t understand these womanly matters. Do as you will.”

  “You heard that?” she asked the merchant. “He doesn’t care one bit about the price he has to pay. Isn’t that sad?”

  “He has to pay?” Palvar asked, his features pinching.

  “For the champion of Istan,” said the merchant, bowing his head to them both, “this humble merchant would make sacrifices. Two hundred silver coins and my eternal gratitude.”

  “Just the gratitude would have been better,” muttered Palvar.

  Kunita clapped him gently on the chest. “Pay the man, would you, dear sahib?”

  “Of course, my dear sahiba!”

  Grumbling, Palvar took out his purse, then picked up two stacks of silver coins, and grudgingly passed them to the merchant.

  “I’m afraid these earrings would not make you look pretty,” the merchant declared, handing them to her. “Instead, your beauty shall make them the most desired objects in the world.”

  Kunita tittered merrily. It was something the men expected, and just as she expected, she extracted smiles from both men.

  Placing a hand on Palvar’s arm, she began leading them deeper into the market.

  “I don’t like this place,” Palvar complained for the hundredth time.

  “You don’t mind the women dressed head to toe in wares bought from here.”

  “I fail to see the relevance,” he grumbled.

  Kunita smiled, letting the hubbub of the street rise over her own worries. Thankfully, Palvar hadn’t mentioned Roha once since that fateful day at her apartment. He was still sulking—a real puppy, in truth, despite his hard exterior—but he didn’t complain out loud. And if that business about the execution still bothered him, he hadn’t brought it up either. Probably for the best, really. Ignar was dead, and with him all paths ahead had been blocked.

  In a way, she mused, this was nice, just the two of them, shopping like normal people did, without carrying worries of the world along with them.

  She’d never been lucky. Her thoughts drifted to her life and its petty worries. Even if she was technically a teacher of the harem girls, the world regarded her a woman of the harem as well. Something she’d known from the moment she had started this life. What she hadn’t realized back then, though, when she’d taken on this job to pay off her father’s debts and ensure she’d earned enough to throw both her parents fitting funerals, were the chains she’d never be able to free herself from.

  Wanting to distract her thoughts, and having run out of any other topic of discussion, she turned to Palvar with a sigh. “Have you been thinking about it still?”

  Palvar grunted. “Can’t think of much else, to be honest.” Kunita braced, but Palvar continued, thankfully not bringing up that wretched girl, “He’s out there, planning something. I just don’t know who he is.”

  Spotting a group of harem girls outside a shop selling glass bangles, she grabbed Palvar by the arm, guiding them towards the silk shops. “You said who. You’ve an idea, then, of what they’re trying to achieve?”

  Palvar stopped. A young couple behind them, the man wearing a ceremonial black sash across his spotless white robes and the girl decked out in a sheer green peshwaz, let out a polite complaint by throwing up both hands. But the young man had one good look at Palvar’s face, and offering a terse nod to them, walked away
.

  “I think so,” Palvar said, his voice so low she had trouble hearing him.

  “Over here.” Her heartbeat picking up, she headed towards an awning near a stall that displayed wares from distant Kur’sh: intricately woven carpets, shawls dyed in a riot of colors, silver bangles with swirling patterns crisscrossing their surface. “Go on,” she said, turning around to face Palvar.

  He scratched his chin, an act she had come to recognize spelled uncertainty for him. Then, he nodded. “Smoke and mirrors.” Palvar waved his arm around. “The merchant we spoke with? All the time he was talking, he was misdirecting you, drawing your attention away from the quality of the product and instead targeting your feelings.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “He was?”

  “I’ve been to this stall before. With another girl, you see,” he said softly, no shame in his words. “The same earrings then had been a hundred and fifty coins.” He smiled. “Despite what he said, these earrings should cost no more than what they did five months ago.”

  Feeling heat rise in her cheeks, she glared at him. “Where are you going with this?”

  Palvar met her eyes evenly. “I’ve thought of little else after Ignar’s death. What troubled me the most was this: why were the magi asked as ransom in the first place? As audacious as the demand was, no matter who they had captured, surely there was never really any chance of them getting the magi.”

  “You think the Kalb inquisitors wouldn’t have obeyed when commanded?”

  “The sultan would never have freed rogue magi,” Palvar said matter-of-factly. “Given the choice between the deaths of a score of his family members and millions, he had no other option but to turn it down.”

  “Then… what was the point?”

  Palvar rubbed his hands. “What if that was all a show?” He paused as if gathering his thoughts. “What if this was a sleight of hand, misdirecting our attention.”

  “What does that shadow want?”

  He spread his hands wide. “To destroy the sultanate by hollowing it out from within. Carry out a coup without ever showing his face.”

  Kunita fell silent, her mind processing his words. “So… he did what he did, willing to sacrifice his minions, even a prince of the realm, just so he can show the inherent weakness of the realm?”

  “Authority is half perception, half precedent, right? Consider the position he put the sultan in. Even his victory came at the cost of his own son carrying out a rebellion against him. Our conspirator, in one failed operation, did more harm to the sultanate than Reratish could inflict over fifty years and two wars.”

  “Ah.”

  “But then, there’s the business with the inquisition.” Palvar hesitated, then cleared his throat, dabbing at his forehead. “The cat is among the pigeons now. Not content with harming the sultan’s perception in the masses, the inquisitors have started questioning the status quo now.” Palvar threw up his hands. “Frankly, this is one bit that makes the least sense to me. No one would win by weakening the inquisitors’ hold over magi. No one. Who would set a sandstorm free when they can’t control it?”

  “Work of a madman?”

  Palvar shook his head slowly. “This enemy… He’s unlike any I’ve ever seen. A shadow behind the shadows, as Ignar used to say.”

  “How do we find him, then?”

  “I don’t know,” Palvar replied. “Any time I try bringing this up with Tamat, he shuts me down. The man doesn’t wish to listen to anything.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Kunita said. “He’s won acclaim out of this as well, and there’s little incentive there for him to risk it all unless there is overwhelming evidence.”

  “A weakling,” Palvar barked.

  “A realist.”

  Palvar straightened his robes, his face hard as stone. “Or he’s that someone with a vested interest in ensuring we never make progress.”

  “You really don’t think he’s behind it all?”

  “I don’t know.” Palvar whistled. “I can’t rule him out. There are other contenders, of course.”

  Kunita glanced around, then leaned in. “Don’t take his name.”

  Palvar shrugged. “Inquisitor Fan has known all our plans from the beginning. He was even involved in the original attack against the sultan at the Grand Celebration. Besides, he’s an inquisitor. Who knows what internal politics is going on within his institute? I suspect that’s what’s really been keeping the grand vizier occupied. I wouldn’t be surprised if his sons get assigned to put down the rebellions while he concentrates on keeping the Kalb Inquisition in check.”

  Kunita licked her lower lip, her stomach queasy. “You’ve definitely put me off my shopping now.”

  Palvar grunted, lost in his thoughts once more.

  She folded her arms across her chest. As her eyes scanned the crowds milling about, she tried to imagine what the world would look like if Palvar was true and this shadowy enemy did get what he wanted. Could Algaria truly rise up against its sultan? If that happened, how many buyers would be left in Banani Street? How much would the merchant charge for his earrings then?

  “Come, gaze at the spotless whites from the Xin empire,” an assistant called outside a cloth shop. He caught her looking at him. “Finest silks from Kur’sh and beyond. Perfect for turbans, sashes, and robes. Come, get them now before they’re all gone!”

  Kunita pointed at the shop. “That’s one more thing those ghastly boxes have put me off. I’m hardly the only one, judging by the reactions of the other girls in the court that day.” Her eyes fell on the silver bangle vendor to her left. “Ditto for these bangles with the pretty patterns.”

  “Hmm,” said Palvar, waving his hand to shoo a fly away. Then, his hand froze in the air, terror creeping into his eyes. “The boxes clad in silk. Swirling patterns. Body parts within.”

  Kunita narrowed her eyes. “You were lucky you never saw that head in the box. Many of my girls vomited for days after.”

  “Tell me about the pattern.”

  Kunita licked her lips. “It had a beautiful cursive pattern, a most repulsive thing in hindsight, really, to place the ugliness of death beside the intricately carved symbol of infinity.”

  Palvar grunted, his chin tucked back, his unblinking eyes staring at the clear skies.

  “By all that’s holy, what’re you thinking?”

  “I think,” he said slowly, “I might know who’s Ignar’s true master.”

  “Who?”

  Palvar didn’t answer. Instead, he dropped his chin and began pacing about, not caring for the complaints of others who had to get out of his way to not bump into him. “It’s not enough. I need stronger evidence if I’m to convince anyone. It has to be more—” He stopped still, his hands clasped, the thumbs of both hands hammering each other furiously. “I owe you, Kunita, for that flash of insight.”

  She placed both hands on her hips. “Palvar, out with it!”

  He looked up, wonder and fear floating in his eyes. “The actor.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “What?”

  “Yes, it makes sense. This will work.”

  “Palvar—”

  Muttering to himself, the tall Nikhtuni man turned and headed north.

  Cursing, Kunita followed.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “Tamat, you need to learn to trust me,” said Palvar, the grin still plastered on his face, even though the forced act was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. “I’m the champion of Istan, aren’t I? Everyone trusts champions!”

  Captain Tamat stood tall behind his desk, glaring at him with open hostility. Beside him, Kunita didn’t look much pleased either, but then she’d never ceased talking even when all he needed was some quiet to think. “Whatever you think you know, unless you share it with me, I don’t see how I can pull two hundred men off their duties and place them at your disposal.”

  “You don’t want them not to be there, because they most definitely will be needed,” said Palvar.

 
“What does that mean?”

  Palvar exhaled, then, exchanging an exhausted glance with Kunita, walked across the desk to stand beside the captain. The captain’s office had been tidied since the last time Palvar had been here, the parchments rolled neatly in cases to his left. “I know you don’t believe my view on the case having been finally closed. That’s alright.” He thumped the captain on the shoulder. “What matters is that you lend those men to me for just a night. If they are not required, they’ll have had the time of their lives, feasting both their bellies and eyes. And if they are required, we’ll all be thankful for their presence.”

  Captain Tamat brushed Palvar’s hand away. “You’re up to something.”

  “Of course I am.”

  Kunita sighed, extended her hands. “Why don’t you just tell him what you’re planning?”

  “Don’t you see how the man refuses to indulge the simplest of my requests?” cried Palvar. “How could I possibly burden him any more?”

  “You know who the real master of Ignar is,” she continued, drawing a startled look from the captain. Palvar gritted his teeth. Maybe he should have taken her in confidence so she didn’t grow this reckless. “Tell him.”

  “You do?” asked Captain Tamat.

  “I think so,” he replied, puffing up his chest, deciding the time had come to stop worrying, come what may.

  Captain Tamat looked at him for a long breath, then sat down on his chair, shaking his head. “I know what you did at the Grand Celebration, man from Nikhtun. My colleague trusted you and paid for it with his life. I don’t wish to be a part of your misbegotten plans.”

  “See?” said Palvar, glaring at Kunita. “He doesn’t trust me one bit.”

  “Palvar, if you wouldn’t mind,” said Captain Tamat, pointing at the dozen parchments set on his table. “I’ve got quite a lot of work to get through.”

  Palvar didn’t budge even as Kunita turned around. “I am not asking you to trust me. Not really. Not until I’ve got proof, for that’s what everyone will be asking for as well.” He shook his head ruefully. “No one trusts mere words anymore! A sign of how far our society has fallen, if you ask me.”