The Wanderer's Mark: Book Three of Imirillia (The Books of Imirillia 3)

by Beth Brower

  The child, who could have been no older than five—maybe six—stared at her blankly. She was a thin, small little thing with wide eyes. Eleanor helped her eat what she would. Then the one-eyed slaver walked by and chained them together. He showed no remorse for Eleanor’s pain but was human enough to secure the child to Eleanor with a strong, rough rope rather than with a heavy shackle.

  “Stay close to me,” Eleanor said in Imirillian, hoping the girl could understand.

  The call of the slavers went up, and they moved on into another unrelenting day.

  ***

  Following her astonished surprise of finding herself yet alive, Eleanor made a decision. She was in captivity and had no control over her days, let alone over the wretched outcome of this filthy venture. What she did have, Eleanor repeated to herself, was her mind. She was a scholar. She was a thinker. For years, she had cultivated her ability to reason, to question, and to press and pull on thoughts. And so, Eleanor began to use her mind.

  She decided she would count steps, she would study any break in the blank, sand-filled landscape. When, in the heat, hunger was beat out only by her tremendous thirst, Eleanor would retrieve any thought or quote she could call to mind, repeating the words over and over and over. When the child faltered, Eleanor would carry her, for a quick reminder of Dantib’s fate was enough to keep Eleanor clinging to the girl so that they would not catch the ire of the one-eyed slaver or of Kale, the leader, who, since the day she’d been whipped, had marked her with his eyes as he rode alongside the column.

  One morning, to Eleanor’s surprise, the child wrote out a name in the sand in large, off-balanced characters.

  “Sharin?” Eleanor confirmed. The girl grinned and wrapped her hands around Eleanor’s fingers. “Can you write anything else?” Eleanor asked.

  Sharin shook her head. No, she could not.

  Her back did not feel like it was healing. Rather, she woke each morning in terrible pain as the filthy garment, torn in several places, ripped away from the infected skin that had seeped into it while she slept. At night, especially, she could feel the pulsing heat of fever. And so, in an effort to defeat the madness of the pain, Eleanor would begin again—counting, quoting, and mapping the stars.

  ***

  Finally, the caravan stopped in a dust-filled crack that the locals called Katerah, the Imirillian word for memory. This town wound through a narrow crack between the cliffs, a forgotten pit of the earth filled with the poor of the Shera Shee. Several buildings had been constructed in precarious layers going up the steep cliff faces. The dust covered locals looked at her and the other captive humans with mild disinterest. Children even ran through the caravan, calling out and laughing, while the slave traders tried to kick them out of the way.

  Stumbling over the hardened dirt of the road, Eleanor was relieved for the shade the gap provided, hoping that they would rest the night here. A dozen or so long days had come and gone since Eleanor had lost Dantib, but the infection from her whipping had stayed in her back. It still throbbed, but did not move into the rest of her body. She wondered if this was a grace from Basaal’s Illuminating God and had tried to think of him each night when darkness again claimed the day.

  Her wrists, still swollen and numb, bothered her no more than the whipping did, for having caught the eye of Kale, the head slaver, and the way that he watched her—laughing with the other men, passing his eyes over her with interest—distracted her from the physical pain.

  Pressing against her mind was the thought that he might want to use her for his own pleasures before they sold her to another master. The dye in Eleanor’s hair was now fading, and, in the sun, the copper of her natural hair had begun to shine through. The one-eyed slaver, who still watched her with suspicion, had called Kale over to see the copper hair near her scalp. She was certain the slavers now knew she was from the South.

  Eleanor pushed these thoughts from her mind and looked at the forsaken town around her. Hearing a whimper from Sharin, Eleanor offered a dim smile of encouragement before getting jerked ahead, nearly losing her balance.

  The caravan halted, and a man stepped into the narrow street. Well-dressed and hawk-eyed, he spoke to the slavers and pointed farther down the gap. After a brief argument, the few animals still in the train were ushered down the road, disappearing around the stark stone bend. Eleanor kept her head bent, trying to avoid any attention from the wealthy man who eyed the chain of slaves with discernment as he bickered with Kale. The line of slaves waited, downtrodden, and filthy, until, finally, a price to satisfy both men had been reached.

  Then Kale, along with the other slavers, herded their captives into what, at the onset, appeared to be a stable, but that revealed itself to be a deep cave. Metal rings were attached to the base of the walls, and the slavers set about unchaining every slave from the column and securing their shackles to the walls. Kale attended to Eleanor himself, placing her in a separate cove from the others. He locked her in and placed his fingers roughly around her chin, speaking words she did not understand.

  Sharin had remained with her to this point. But, when Kale began to lead the girl away, Eleanor cried out.

  “Please!” Eleanor did not know if calling attention to Sharin was best, but she could not bear the thought of her being chained among strangers. “Let me see to the child’s needs,” she pleaded. “I will care for her.”

  Kale thought for a moment but then shook his head and took Sharin away. Eleanor breathed out in frustration, tears that long since should have dried up coming to her eyes. Leaning her head back against the cold stone, she tried to steady her breathing and defeat the desire to cry.

  People were beasts. They were cruel and petty, self-serving. No wonder Basaal had been so incredulous when he’d first come to Aemogen. Eleanor lay down, wondering if Aemogen had ever been as good as she had truly believed it was. Far into the night, as Eleanor waited in fear for whatever Kale might do, she told herself Aemogen had been as she had remembered, and that people were what she had always believed them to be.

  ***

  He never came. Eleanor woke cold yet so grateful that she forced herself to her knees and uttered a prayer to Basaal’s god. The slavers, tired themselves from the desert trek, slept late and made no hurry to feed their captives. When they finally did, the meal was seasoned rice with a small portion of meat.

  Eleanor ate hungrily and almost laughed aloud. She had never, in all the feasts of Zarbadast, tasted anything so good. Her outlook improved when a woman entered, bearing a pitcher of water and some rags. They were to be cleaned, made presentable. Eleanor washed her calloused feet first then her face, and she laughed at the order of it. She asked the woman humbly if her hair could be braided. And, after saying no three times, the woman acquiesced.

  Later, Sharin began crying somewhere in the cave. Exacerbated, the one-eyed slaver brought her to Eleanor and instructed that the child should be kept quiet or else they would both be thrown into a snake pit. Wrapping her arms around Sharin, Eleanor vouched for her good behavior. She held the girl close, braiding her hair and singing Aemogen lullabies to her in a whisper.

  Chapter Four

  Basaal heard his father’s voice outside their tent. Then the large curtains were held open, and Emperor Shaamil, dismissing his generals with a wave, entered alone. Basaal stood, bowing his head in respect, then returned to his seat, studying a map while his father served himself from the refreshments table.

  “The terrain is pretty enough,” Shaamil said as he seated himself at the table.

  Basaal looked up then leaned back in his chair, bemused. “What, no lecture?” Basaal said, unable to stop himself. “No scathing comment? Just a pleasantry about the landscape?”

  Shaamil took a sip of his drink. “Save your sarcasm. I can be civil.” Basaal looked for the edge in his father’s eyes, but it had softened.

  “It is beautiful country,” Basaal replied, surprised he felt almost hungry for his father’s sincere conversation. “The farther s
outh, the more beautiful it becomes, especially Aemogen.”

  “Your mother certainly thought so.”

  “Did she?” It was the first time Shaamil had referred to his mother since her death. As a youth, Basaal had supposed this was because his father had been indifferent to her.

  “Yes—” Shaamil said. He looked as if he would say more, so Basaal waited, watching closely. The emperor’s hand carried a slight tremor—what any of his warriors would have called the death mark, a symbol of having lost complete control of your physical faculties. Basaal frowned and studied his father’s face.

  Why had he not seen it? Why had he not marveled before at his father’s age? But there it was, his father had grown tired and worn, his mouth curving downward, forming deep furrows that lined his face. Shaamil’s dark hair suddenly seemed grayer, and his eyes, though bright and sharp, clearly carried the weight of all his years. Shaamil had aged; he had aged since Aramesh.

  “Father.” Basaal steeled himself with the courage of too much time already passed. “I have always considered you aware, conscious, respectful of the Seven Scrolls and of our Imirillian religion. Yet, I have never considered you devout, held by all the strictures of religious law.”

  Shaamil looked towards him, taking a moment for the words to sink in past some memory he appeared to be recalling. Then he gave a quick nod but did not speak.

  “Why, then,” Basaal continued, “did you honor the request of the Aemogen queen, that she had claim on my hand? That was a very strict observation of old law: that she be given to me, for the sake of the Safeeraah, rather than to Arsaalan for wife?” Was it only to manipulate me, he wanted to add.

  Shaamil cleared his throat. Yet, instead of acting provoked, the corners of his mouth moved upward in a slight smile. “I saw how you looked at her.”

  Basaal felt a flush rise up his neck. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you know what I have always considered your greatest weakness?” Shaamil responded.

  Basaal waited.

  “For all your talk of honor,” Shaamil continued, “you have never known your own heart.” Basaal shifted his weight, feeling, for the first time, how warm the air was inside the tent.

  “What is it you are saying to me?” Basaal asked.

  “You looked at that girl the same way your mother used to look at me,” the emperor said simply. “But that is over, and you’ve clearly sustained no more damage than your lost pride. I had supposed your feelings for her to be less shallow than they are. She won’t live now, anyway.” He took another sip of his drink.

  ***

  It was late in the day that Kale came for her. Pushing Sharin aside, Kale grabbed Eleanor behind the neck, forcing her close to him as he whispered threats. “If you make any sort of noise or called any attention to yourself,” he muttered, but then he unlocked her from the wall. He gave her a headscarf and told her to pull it over her face. Then, with her wrists and waist still shackled, he forced her from the cave.

  She blinked in the purple light. Standing in a line were some of the women of their train, younger women, mostly, lined up and waiting, their heads bent. Kale approached a merchant who was standing with another man of means, speaking casually. The stranger’s hand held the reins of a horse.

  She could not hear their words, but, from their gestures, Eleanor guessed he was here to purchase a young woman. Panic rose in her chest, and Eleanor, for the first time since her capture, cleared her mind to make a decision. If she did as Kale had ordered and stayed quiet, avoiding this man’s attention, she would soon be back in the cave and at Kale’s mercy. But, if she were taken away to an unknown fate, although she would be free of Kale, Sharin would be left here alone.

  She knew that there would come a time when they would separate her from the child. But, for Sharin’s sake, Eleanor could not choose it to be sooner rather than later. She looked down, away from the buyer, who had begun looking at the women farther down the line, and she tried to make herself disappear.

  He moved closer, occasionally asking a question about one of the thirteen girls and women standing there. Kale answered his questions in the voice of a man selling rugs or spices: eager to part with his wares for a good price.

  Eleanor studied her feet as the man worked his way ever closer to where she stood. When he finally came to her, he paused, looked a moment, then moved on. Eleanor breathed a silent sigh and dared not shift. The man began to move past her neighbor to the last woman on the line, but then he took a step again towards Eleanor.

  “I want to see her face,” he said casually in an accent she did not recognize.

  The one-eyed slaver stepped forward and none too gently pushed Eleanor’s chin up. She swallowed and looked right into the man’s eyes—it was Zanntal, Basaal’s honor guard.

  Eleanor gave a surprised noise that may have sounded like fear, but that she knew to be complete relief. His eyes searched hers for the briefest of seconds before he looked at the worn, blistered skin of her face, the whip mark on her lip and chin, and the shackles on her wrists. Then he moved on.

  Eleanor panicked. Had he recognized her? Should she call out? She looked down again at her feet, waiting. She would wait. Eleanor told herself it was logical to wait.

  When Zanntal reached the end of the line, he spoke for some time with Kale and the merchant, asking questions, pointing to different women, and sounding disinterested and calm. Then a cry could be heard, a child’s cry. And Eleanor was rattled by the sound of Sharin’s voice, coming from the cave, for she sounded inconsolable.

  Like a stone hitting her stomach, Eleanor felt the cost of her freedom, which had become a possibility only moments before. If Zanntal were here to rescue her, then her choice was no longer between Sharin and being free of Kale. It was between Sharin and Aemogen.

  “I’ll take that one,” Zanntal said, his voice cutting across her thoughts. Eleanor looked up. He was pointing at her.

  Kale’s eyes narrowed. “She does not come at such an easy price.”

  “We’ve already settled,” Zanntal insisted. “The price was pre-determined, and that is the girl I choose.”

  “And I am telling you now that she is triple the price you offered—with acceptable coin in hand tonight,” Kale insisted.

  Zanntal looked angry. His pride had been challenged in this bargain, and he would not lose to a slaver.

  “Triple the price?” he demanded, his cheeks lifting in impatience and scorn. “Give me an additional slave,” he said, “and then I’ll pay your price.”

  Kale laughed, but the wealthy cave owner said something sharp to Kale and then spoke to Zanntal himself.

  “Man or woman?” the merchant asked.

  Eleanor shook her head ever so slightly, but Zanntal seemed not to notice.

  “What men do you have?” he asked curiously.

  “A dozen or more of all ages,” the merchant said. “We could bring them out. Or, you could come in.”

  Zanntal looked towards Eleanor, and she shook her head again.

  “Let me take the girl through with me,” Zanntal said. “and I’ll see what you have in your cave.”

  The merchant ordered Kale to unlock Eleanor. The slaver was not happy, and he jerked impatiently at the manacles around Eleanor’s wrists as he released her. After unlocking the ring about her waist and drawing out the chain, he grabbed her by the arm and led her, looking regretful, to Zanntal.

  Zanntal guided Eleanor gently by her elbow as Kale led the way with a torch, shining it at the slaves chained against the walls. Eleanor looked desperately for Sharin.

  “The child,” she whispered. “The child!”

  “Quiet!” Kale could not have understood Eleanor’s words. He gave Zanntal an apologetic look as they passed from slave to slave.

  “I do not see anything of interest among the men or the older women here,” Zanntal said, sounding bored. “So, unless you have a child,” he added, “I feel the original price for this girl must stand.”

  “There i
s one child,” Kale replied impatiently. The one-eyed slaver had followed them in and motioned towards the back, his eyes glinting at Kale.

  Zanntal sniffed the air in disgust. “Bring the child out to me,” he insisted. “I am tired of this wretched hole.” He led Eleanor back out of the cave and approached the waiting slave merchant. Eleanor stood quiet, staring at the dust, hearing the beat of her heart loudly in her head.

  It seemed the slavers were forever in the cave. And Zanntal was beginning to show signs of impatience. When they finally emerged, Sharin’s cheeks were tearstained. Although she was bound, she tried to run to Eleanor. Zanntal stepped forward and looked at the girl. He opened her mouth, disregarding what he saw there, and studied her face before nodding.

  “I will take the woman and the child for triple the price we agreed on,” Zanntal said. He withdrew a bag of coins from his tunic and counted the money out into the merchant slaver’s eager hand. “If there were any other decent slavers near here,” he added, “I would have turned on you the moment you changed your price.”

  Zanntal handed Sharin’s rope to Eleanor and nodded to the merchant, Kale, and the one-eyed slaver. Then he pulled his cloak evenly over his shoulders and motioned Eleanor towards his horse.

  “Up with you,” he said crisply, lifting her onto the horse. “And nothing untoward or back you’ll go.” He lifted Sharin up into Eleanor’s arms then mounted behind Eleanor. A click from his mouth sent the horse flying from the gap that was Katerah.

  ***

  Outside of Katerah, Zanntal had taken a gamble. He had promised a hermit farmer, who lived in a dismal stretch of the desert, that if he would watch Hegleh and Dantib’s gray mare while Zanntal rode into Katerah, he would be paid enough gold to leave his desperate existence for a life of luxury. This was explained to Eleanor, and they retrieved the horses with haste.

  Eleanor, exhausted from relief, could barely keep herself astride her horse, let alone hold Sharin. So Zanntal tied the horses into a line and brought both Eleanor and Sharin back onto his own mount, cradling Eleanor in his arms as she, in turn, clung to Sharin. After an hour, he stopped and readied camp, setting a tent and building a small fire in the bottom of a gorge.