by Beth Brower
Once Basaal had decided he would do what was asked of him, he pleaded in prayer for direction—for understanding. Nothing. Nothing had come. And so, Basaal began to run through the options in his own mind. He could run, leave Marion, leave Imirillia, and disappear. If he did this, the emperor would commandeer Basaal’s troops and his assets, directing or dispersing them as he pleased. Also, Basaal could never return to Zarbadast, and there would be no way to ensure that his men would be taken care of. Not a promising option.
If he led a rebellion, ordering his troops to not fight, the emperor would have Basaal killed. Or, if Basaal’s army remained loyal to their prince, then the Imirillian forces would kill each other in a desperate civil war. Basaal would be executed or would have to seek exile far from the reach of the Imirillian Empire which was “impossible.”
The word was unintentionally spoken aloud by Basaal to the silence of the tent.
“What was that?” Ammar asked.
“Nothing,” Basaal said, returning his thoughts to his problem. Earlier, Basaal had called a meeting with his own officers, the emperor and his generals, and, to Basaal’s distaste, the Vestan. But Basaal had been left unsatisfied with the reports of their progress at the pass. They were to meet again that afternoon, but he wished he could go himself to see—
Basaal swung his leg down from across the armrest and stood, pulling at his fingers. Shaamil dismissed the Vestan, and his eyes followed Basaal.
“Father,” Basaal said. “I am going to postpone the meeting planned for this afternoon.”
“And why is that?” Shaamil asked.
Basaal walked to the refreshments table and poured himself a drink. “The reports are insufficient for my taste,” Basaal explained. “And I’m not the military leader to sit and wait, as it is. I wish to assess the progress for myself. I will ride out to the pass and view what progress has been made, which I will then report upon my return. You can see the mountain across the valley—it’s close enough. I’ll ride out this afternoon, inspect the operations, and spend a night or two in our encampment there, for moral, and all of that. When I return, in two days’ time, we will continue our war council.”
Shaamil’s eyes narrowed, as if he was guessing something Basaal could not get at.
“You do not approve?” Basaal drained his glass and faced his father.
“I do not disapprove.”
“It’s settled then,” Basaal stated. “I will come and say good-bye once I have gathered my things.”
Basaal left the tent in search of Annan to ask if his friend would ride out with him part of the way. In case Basaal decided the only way to obey the word of the Illuminating God was to run, to disappear entirely from this place, he wanted to feel prepared. And that meant saying good-bye.
***
Later, wearing his full assortment of weaponry, Basaal mounted his horse and set off across the valley with Annan at his side. For the first time in Basaal’s life, he saw no clear options before him, and his only recourse against the overwhelming impossibility was a wave after wave of adrenaline rushing through his veins. He almost felt giddy, the vaporous result of throwing himself into a plan he had no idea how to calculate getting into his head.
He pushed Refigh hard, challenging Annan to a race, playfully hurling insult after insult back on the wind toward his friend in challenge. When Basaal finally pulled Refigh up short, and Annan had caught up to him, Basaal was grinning at the freshness of the day, his cheeks red from the cold edge on the spring wind.
“It’s still a bit brisk out here,” Basaal said. “I can hardly imagine what a winter must be like.”
“Cold,” Annan said, then he changed the subject. “What, exactly, has made you so…exuberant today?”
Basaal laughed and decided to speak honestly with this friend. “I have never felt quite so desperate, so split and trapped. And, suddenly, everything strikes me as absurd or meaningless. But,” he added, “despite the futility of all this struggle, you’ll have to admit it is a beautiful day.”
Annan’s face creased, but he did not speak. They settled into a steady pace with Basaal occasionally remarking on the mountains, Marion, and the conquest. Annan did not answer often, but Basaal could see that his friend continued to worry.
“You can turn back here,” Basaal told Annan. “You’ve come just over halfway, and I will feel better knowing you are back at camp keeping an eye on things.”
“And, you are certain you do not need me to come to the pass?”
“Yes.” Basaal nodded. “A few days, and I will be back, ready to face the emperor with a clear head and, hopefully, a better idea of how to do what is asked of me.”
Annan looked at Basaal quizzically, but he turned his mount.
Basaal paused now, the wind ripping across his face, and reached his hand out, clasping Annan’s forearm. Annan wrapped his fingers around Basaal’s.
“Life unto death, as one soul, fealty forever,” Basaal said, repeating their oath. Then he leaned closer to his friend and, hands still clasped, reached his other arm around Annan, embracing him as much as he could. “Until we meet again.”
As they pulled away from each other, and Annan again looked at Basaal strangely. “Go with the Illuminating God.”
Basaal felt a smile of trepidation on his face. The giddiness had passed, and he could again feel the weight of what lay ahead. “I endeavor to do so,” Basaal assured him.
Then they parted: Annan, towards the camp on the plain, and Basaal, to the mountains.
Snow still hung along the higher peaks. And, as Basaal rode through the foothills, he encountered cold patches of ice and stiff snow. When he was close enough to see the pass, it was vastly different than what it had been. Yet, as he stared at the crumbled stones settled into its place, Basaal could not quite remember how it had looked the first time he had ridden through it.
A soldier at the entrance hailed the prince.
“Your Grace,”
Basaal nodded down at the men. “I’ve come to see for myself the progress made. Where will I find your officers?”
“Your Grace will come upon the Imirillian encampment around this bend. It is a safe distance from where we are working, and the Aemogen archers cannot reach it.”
Evening was setting early in the canyon, and Basaal pulled his cloak around himself as he urged Refigh up the road. A second guard hailed him, bowing before Basaal and pointing him on towards the camp.
“How many guards patrol this part of the mountain?” Basaal asked the second guard.
“A dozen guards maintain posts en route while a company rides through every hour,” the guard informed him. “Any curious Marions, including a company of King Staven’s guards, have been turned away directly,” he added. “Most have gone without a fight.”
“And, how many soldiers work on clearing a way through the rubble?” Basaal asked. “I believe that Annan reported a few hundred.”
“Just a small number,” the guard answered. “Three hundred, as there is very little space to work in.”
Basaal acknowledged the answer and then continued up the road. Camp lit up before him as he came around a slight bend to the right. Then a trumpet sounded and the men stood at attention. A cold evening blue colored the remaining light, and the mountains smelled fresh and crisp. Basaal rode to the center of camp, dismounted, and greeted the two senior officers, who had come out to meet him upon hearing the trumpet.
Basaal ate with the officers, asking them questions, taking hold of the important details, and exchanging stories. These were all his men, and he knew them well, for they had ridden with him for almost five years now. After eating, the talk turned towards speculation and conversation determined by mood and interest rather than strategic planning.
Basaal should have been more comfortable as he sat in the tent with his officers. But he wasn’t. His weaponry strangled his thoughts, his clothing felt uncomfortable, and Basaal could not settle himself in mind or body.
“Is our young p
rince restless?” the eldest officer asked with deference.
“Yes,” Basaal admitted. “Quite restless, I am afraid.”
“He’s missing the young wife,” another officer joked, something he would have never uttered save at a war camp around a fire, where those rules of decorum loosened with the flames.
Basaal raised his eyebrows and shrugged, muttering something comic as he played along with the joke. Annan had mentioned that rumors of Eleanor’s disappearance had spread among the men, but many seemed reluctant to believe it, and so Basaal would give no confirmation.
“I may go out for another ride,” Basaal said as he yawned and stretched. “My horse will not forgive me, but I cannot settle. No need to wait up,” he added, “as I can find my own way to a bed.”
This statement elicited another comment from one of the officers about Basaal’s marriage bed, and the officers gave a laugh as Basaal stood and called for Refigh to be saddled. All the men stood as well.
“Ride safe, young prince,” the older officer said as they saluted Basaal. “We will wait for your return.”
Chapter Eight
Basaal pulled Refigh to a quick stop, breathing hard, his heart pounding. The Safeeraah stuck to the sweat of his forearms as he pulled off his quiver and bow and then removed his cloak, wrapping it around itself and putting it in his saddlebag. He placed his weaponry again over his shoulders and drew another long, cold breath. Spring was well upon them, and yet, the mountain air still carried the crisp taste of frost. What a feeling. He almost wished he could spend a winter in this part of the world.
A myriad of stars surrounded the slivered moon, the depth of the night ennobling them in their brightness. Basaal patted Refigh’s neck, thanking the horse for his run and, now, for his patience. In the quiet serenity of the blue night, Basaal had finally achieved peace. He looked back at the moon, set among the stars, and thought of the night when Eleanor had found him during the Battle Run and he had told her of Seraagh.
Eleanor.
Basaal walked Refigh through the darkness of the plain and looked down the mountain range to his left, towards the tower he had come across last summer, where he had sworn to Aedon that Eleanor would return in safety. Was anybody there? he wondered. There was no light to be had, and Basaal tried to judge where on the mountain the forgotten fortress would be.
It wasn’t too far, surely. Enough distance that no Imirillian patrol would have found it, yet close enough that he could reach it in an hour’s time. It primed Basaal’s curiosity, his knowledge of this fortress and the fact that there was another way through the mountain into Aemogen.
Basaal cleared his throat and leaned forward in his saddle. Perhaps whatever Aemogen guard was stationed at the tower would have news of whether Eleanor had made it home to Aemogen. His heart played a sharp tattoo, and, against all good judgement Basaal began to entertain the idea of reconnoiter. He knew full well that the last time he had tried to investigate the tower, it had only served him to be captured, Basaal turned Refigh back towards the encampment in the pass, looking a bit wistfully at the dark mountain and towards the tower.
He could know tonight. Basaal could know if Eleanor had returned—tonight.
Basaal’s knowledge of the terrain and of the layout of the tower was speculative at best. What a fool’s errand, he thought as he smiled at himself. It was dark, though, and he could take his time. In a few hours, he could know. And then, if he decided to follow through with his half-mad thought, Basaal could get on with the business of disappearing from this place.
“Or die at my father’s hand when I refuse to mobilize my men,” he muttered at the darkness. “Which would be much more honorable.”
Basaal pulled his jaw to the side and looked from the pass to the heavily wooded mountains on his left. Then he pulled at Refigh’s reins and headed towards the hidden Aemogen tower.
***
Judging the distance as best he could after entering the woods, Basaal found a quiet, secluded thicket and tied Refigh in place.
“I won’t be long,” he whispered, securing his quiver and bow to Refigh’s saddlebag. His sword and knives he kept on his person.
The faint moonlight held no sway over the forest floor as Basaal picked his way along, careful, quiet, knowing that this fool’s errand could take half the night and still not offer up the results he desired. Soon enough, Basaal came across an old, half grown-over road, leading up the hillside. He stayed in the trees above the road, trusting it to lead him near the fortress tower.
Spent leaves from the previous year gathered in thickets and patches. Basaal took more care, frustrated. Sand made no such bother. Pausing often, he could hear nothing save for what he hoped was the odd woodland creature. Above these random scuttlings, the woods hung with silence. He began to feel cold.
After what felt like hours, a dark, silent shape rose up through the bramble of trees. The tower. Basaal paused mid-movement, all his efforts focusing on quieting his breathing. There appeared to be no life, no guard, and no evidence that anyone had set foot there for years. But Basaal knew this was not the case, so he waited.
An hour passed. Nothing.
Basaal’s feet burned from holding still for so long, and he finally shifted forward, feeling along the solid rocks and quiet avenues of ground with his boots. He had come up to the rear of the fortress, where an old stable lay, heaving under the weight of the many years it had been served neglect. Basaal dropped down and pressed himself against the stones of the stable.
Again he waited. Nothing.
Silently calling down every Imirillian blessing he knew, Basaal touched the Safeeraah on his arm and then, ghostlike, crossed the deserted courtyard. Pausing by the open mouth of the tower’s back entrance, he hesitated only a moment before disappearing inside.
***
Eleanor woke with a start. She breathed out in the darkness and waited for her eyes to adjust before shifting in her bed. The moonlight shone very little through her windows, and almost all was black. She had thought she had seen a figure, a black figure, moving throughout the palace. Eleanor turned on her side and stared at the arched windows, a frown on her tired face wrinkled with sleep. No, he had not been in the palace, she realized, though the corridor had been familiar. It was a strange dream, and Eleanor closed her eyes to will herself back to sleep.
And then she remembered. The man had been walking through the halls of Colun Tir. Eleanor froze with fear. Their entire plan rested on the secrecy of that tower. A bolt surged through her. Throwing her blankets off, she sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, breathing heavily.
“It was a dream,” Eleanor whispered as she wiped the cold sweat from her forehead. “It was a dream.”
***
Empty. Basaal moved through each narrow hallway and searched every room, finding no trace of habitation. Several storerooms where filled with barrels, old or new he could not tell. But Basaal found no passage. Breathing out, he drummed his fingers against a cold stone. Somehow the Aemogens could get through the mountain. If the tunnel did not connect to the tower, then where was it? The stables? Somewhere out in the woods?
Walking soundlessly back through the corridors and down the stairs, Basaal snaked his way through the courtyard towards the stable. Then a branch snapped in the darkness.
Basaal froze and crouched down, moving the remaining distance in two low strides. He slumped against the wall beside a worn, misshapen woodpile. All was quiet. His eyes traveled through the darkness but could see no one. Cursing himself silently, Basaal knew it was time to find his way back down the mountain. He would have to leave, Eleanor’s unknown fate a stinging burden.
As he was about to move, another sound came from the woods nearby. Pausing, Basaal watched the trees. Then it happened: a light appeared, a brief flicker of flame. Then it was gone. Basaal felt his pulse racing up his neck. He should go. All common sense told him that he should return to the camp in the pass. But he was compelled—by something utterly irr
ational—to follow.
The light flickered again in the distance. And Basaal pursued it in silence through a small glade and over a stream, bubbling up from the ground, the only part of the dark wood able to catch and toss back the moonlight. He pressed the toes of his boots into the soft earth, careful to avoid the detritus of leaves and twigs left after winter. His eyes grabbed at every visual anchor available, until they settled on a crag beyond the trees.
After waiting for a good while, hearing nothing and seeing no flicker of light, Basaal moved stealthily towards the rough outcropping, looking for any passage or trail. There was none. Cold to the touch, the stone of the crag felt solid beneath his fingers, unyielding, with no hint of a passage.
He moved himself along the rock face until, so subtle and set back that he almost passed it by, he saw a crevice large enough for a man, perhaps even large enough for a horse. He slipped through it and paused, his ears straining for any hint he was not alone. Nothing came. Basaal went farther in.
And there, to the left of the crevice, out of sight to any curious eye unwilling to explore, appeared the shape of a large door, set back into the rock. Ignoring the shivers now settling in his spine like a cool frost, Basaal reached his hand out. Solid wood, hidden hinges, strong—and the door, Basaal discovered, was open.
A two-inch slash of deep black revealed that it had not been closed properly. Was it an accident? Had the person sneaking through the woods hurried in, forgetting he had not secured it? Or was it a trap? Basaal pulled his fingers away from the opening as if they’d been burned.
Impossible, Basaal thought, no one could have heard him, or seen him. He waited, torn between his instinct to run and his desire to see what he might find out. No noise came from the other side of the door. It was as silent as any tomb Basaal had known. Minutes passed, each second ticking in time with the pulse in his throat. He pressed his fingers against the door, applying just enough pressure to feel an almost unnoticeable shift. There was no sound. The hinges, Basaal guessed, had been oiled.