Risen

by Sharon Cramer

  Sylvie almost smiled just then, the edges of her lips curling up a bit. Her gaze was clear and solid on Risen as she asked, straight up, “Why do you love me so?”

  A sob nearly escaped the boy’s lips, and the tears that he fought so valiantly to hide welled up in his eyes. It embarrassed him that his weakness was so suddenly and easily apparent, and he wiped them roughly away.

  “Why do you ask that?” He was not angry, only remained so gentle with his words. “I think I have always loved you. I’ve only now had the strength to tell you so.”

  “You are stronger than you know you are,” she replied and reached up. With the back of her hand, Sylvie touched the cheek of the mysterious boy that professed his love for her. “Well then, I suppose I love you too.” Her face beamed with a brilliant smile.

  The words were almost more than Risen could bear, and he reached for her, pulling her into an embrace he believed he would never let go.

  William looked around, impatient. There was no one else in the quarters that he could see, but all the same, time was scarce. “Come now. Both of you, and realize I am your enemy in the eyes of others. Act accordingly—can you do that?”

  The two both agreed they could and hobbled behind him out of the hold and toward the first daylight they’d seen in a very long time.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  †

  The harbor was big and arcing, the beaches gleaming white on either side of the city. To the west the Tahtalidaglar Mountains rose up like stone monsters from the sea. The highest peak, Tasolyma, towered massive and white, its summit shining coppery red in the early morning sun. There was no other mountain this tall, this close to the sea, in all the world.

  Antalya was unusual, for people of many faiths crammed into the unusual town, occupying districts of sorts. An immense wall ran around the perimeter behind it, and mosques, churches, and palaces—in various stages of destruction and repair—dotted the landscape like a visual account of man’s preoccupation with divinity.

  The seaport flourished, despite the passing through of the plague at intervals. Antalya was uncommon, a seaport like nearly no other, serving countries to the south, east and west. Dealing in trade of almost every imaginable sort, it was a keyhole to wealth and depravity. Ships of nearly every shape and size slipped to and from their moorings, and had the circumstances been of a different sort, Risen might have found it a fantastic sight.

  He squinted into the bright afternoon sunlight and lifted his hand to peer first at the magnificent peaks and then to the bizarre landscape that moved as though one massive, living being. Antalya. His mouth fell open as he spied two creatures of mythical proportions not even twenty meters away from him.

  On the end of a dock next to them, a man struggled with an animal he’d never seen before but heard of in his lessons. The adolescent elephant trumpeted and lifted its trunk high in refusal to step onto the ramp as the man beat it with a hooked stick. Easily overpowering its handler, the animal spun, knocking over the camel—another creature Risen had never seen—that stood directly behind it. The elephant ran through the crowd, disappearing behind a ramshackle building, leaving a small horde of trampled people in its wake.

  Unable to remove his eyes from the unfolding event, Risen was caught totally by surprise when a blow landed sharp on his collarbone, knocking him to his knees on the deck. He spun as best he could—his legs yet unsure beneath him from the long voyage—and snarled at his attacker, his hand nearly going for his blade. Yeorathe lifted the baton as though he would strike Risen down again, but William intervened, hissing with contempt at his leader.

  “He is submissive. Damage him, and I will have your head!”

  Yeorathe held William’s glare long and hard before lowering the baton. Sylvie held onto Risen’s arm, cowering by his side asYeorathe pushed past them and stormed off the ship, leaving William to tend the captives.

  They made their way down the loading planks to the dock proper and were led through the myriad of creatures and people to the bartering booths, several blocks beyond the shoreline. In a nearby stable, Risen and Sylvie were tied and left under the watch of two men they’d not seen before.

  William knelt as though to check their bindings. “I will return soon with food and water. Rest if you can. We leave in the morning,” he said under his breath.

  “The other boys? The ones from my village?” Sylvie asked, her concern and compassion eternal.

  William could not meet her gaze. At last, he said, “Think of them no more. It will serve you poorly to waste your thoughts on them.”

  “If you died today, I would think dear thoughts about you,” she said in haste. “It would not be a waste at all, for it would lock you in my heart for always.”

  This seemed to greatly affect William. His jaw was immediately grimly set, his hands clenching softly, his head hung. Turning away, it appeared he had something he might say to her, but then he rose and he was gone.

  “Why are you so kind?” Risen wondered aloud, not in an accusing way, just unable to comprehend her altruism.

  He twisted himself around to try to gain a more comfortable angle from which to lean against the pillar and still see her face. As miserable as their circumstances remained, he rejoiced that he was again with her and allowed himself this opportunity to look her over, to gauge her wellness.

  “It’s not kindness, only the truth.” Sylvie didn’t struggle at all, only dropped her head against the pillar and closed her eyes as though she would sleep.

  In his excitement to be with her, Risen had nearly forgotten how ill she’d been on the boat and wondered if she was well enough to tolerate whatever lay ahead of them. He thought perhaps tonight would be the perfect time to orchestrate their escape, but then remembered his last efforts against the two soldiers in the livery. He believed the men who guarded him now would not be so forgiving of him.

  He could not know that the journey they faced would be nearly a week north and into the mainland to Isparta—Yeorathe’s home. The passage was treacherous, climbing between the perilous mountain ranges of southern Turkey. He could not know that it was there that Yeorathe wished to consign him to the Janissary.

  The day became blisteringly hot, and the children dozed. As they slept, in the town square of the Muslim section of the village, Yeorathe mounted the remaining stolen boys on the auction blocks. Before Sylvie scarcely would have time to remember them kindly, the three boys from the Ravan dynasty were sold into slavery and gone forever.

  * * *

  Four vessels down from Demetrios’ ship, no one noticed the unusual boat that eased into her slip as slick as though it was a second skin. A Spaniard supervised the mooring of the boat and was fast joined by a fierce mercenary and his following. A woman, skin so white that she appeared almost a phantom amongst them, joined the unlikely band of men.

  They’d been at sea so long that land was uncomfortable to Ravan. He felt as though the ground swayed beneath his feet, as if the ocean chose to swell up under the very earth he stood upon. “Will this pass? The pitch I feel even as I stand still?” he wondered aloud to Salvatore.

  “Unsettling, isn’t it?” The captain waved his hand. “It will wear off in a day or two…or get back onto the boat, and it will be gone straightaway.” He smiled as though that would be his first choice if he had it to make.

  Before long, it was midmorning, and they were scouring for information about the Virgin Wolf, the ship that had fled Toulon with Ravan’s son aboard. According to the harbormaster, it was marked as present in the marina, having moored earlier late the previous day. Remarkably, they were shortly directed to a vessel on the very same pier and approached the slave ship that had taken Sylvie and Risen from Toulon.

  They knew it was unlikely the children were still aboard the ship, but whether they were yet sent through the auction could not be determined unless records could be obtained. That could be a greater challenge than simply finding the ship.

  It made Ravan’s heart ache to l
ook at the awful vessel, with its black pitched keel and sunken oar windows, like so many awful eyes searching for another young victim that it might swallow whole and spit out to the unreachable ends of the earth.

  He felt Nicolette’s hand upon his arm, and almost immediately, the anger that threatened to rise in him subsided. Glancing over his shoulder, Ravan heard and saw the chaos of the town in midday. He knew that if Risen and Sylvie were somewhere here, they would not be for long, for Antalya was a way-station, and lost souls were scattered from this wretched town nearly as soon as they arrived.

  The deckhand who stood guard of the Virgin Wolf lounged against a pylon. Salvatore approached him but was motioned that he should halt. The guard lazily blocked the ramp to the foredeck with an unusual sword that bowed severely and was fatter toward the end than it was close to the handle. Ravan thought the weapon fairly ridiculous and stifled his impulse to simply gut the man where he stood.

  The Spaniard entreated the guard pleasantly, enquiring simply of the captain’s whereabouts. All had gone ashore, for they’d been nearly two weeks at sea, was all the man was inclined to offer. Deciding it would be a waste of might and resource to engage him further, Ravan and Salvatore asked, instead, for directions to the auction.

  The guard was noncommittal, as though not sure that he should share this common knowledge with them. With Salvatore pressing him, he indicated farther into the village, to the center of the chaos.

  “Go to the loudest district. You will find it there,” the man grumbled.

  Nearly a half hour later, they located the auction, specifically the slave portion of it, and came upon it in full swing. It was evidently a destination point, for it would appear many came simply to gawk and watch, obviously fascinated by the inhumanity of human trade.

  The farther in they went, the thicker the crowds became until their group was physically shoving their way through. Ravan was stunned by the organized anarchy of it all. People pushed and pulled, calling out in languages he’d never before heard. There were vendors bustling with baskets balanced as though by magic, rows of animals held together with mere twine, people of all colors and sizes.

  In every direction Ravan was bombarded with the smells of incense, fruit, rot and flesh, all intermingling in a mad circus of methodical confusion. Amongst all of it there was an underlying order as trades happened, words were promised and broken, and currency changed hands. All the while, Ravan kept a firm hold on Nicolette’s wrist.

  Finally, they were at the very center of the square and stopped to look up at a platform with stairs up and down either side of it. In the middle was a pole, and on the pole was attached a large, metal ring. The late afternoon auction was yet to start, but people—mostly men, and of substantial means—pushed to claim their spot around the stage. They pointed and spoke in tongues harshly unfamiliar to Ravan. He and Salvatore left Nicolette, Velecent, and his men on the periphery of the bulk of the masses, and the two of them shoved their way closer to the stage.

  The slaves were being previewed, walked in long rows up one flight of stairs, across the small stage, and down the other side. There were dozens of them, and Ravan was stunned to see the extent of this business of human trade. He’d never known such a thing existed.

  Looking over the heads of the crowd, for he was nearly taller than any other there, he could see Nicolette standing next to Velecent in the shadows of a vendor’s canopy. She seemed oddly unattached as she peered mildly at the odd train of human flesh that paraded past them.

  Bodies of all sizes and colors walked on and off the auction block—white, black, yellow, brown, all of them broken, all of them manacled or with nooses about their necks. Some had rings inserted in their nose or cheek and were tethered by them. The handlers had long staffs with which they used to direct the slaves, sometimes randomly beating on them.

  Most of the captives went silently and obediently, almost as though they’d walked this path before. Some of them, however, fought against their bonds, largely the younger males, but all eventually succumbed to their fate. In all of their eyes shown vacancy and despair. Ravan seethed, that man could be so cruel to another, that Risen would be one of these.

  The next phase of the auction began, the latest wave of human flesh for sale, and Ravan heard Salvatore speaking to someone next to him. He listened intently but didn’t understand the conversation.

  Salvatore broke from the dialogue and turned to Ravan. “The sale goes on all day, whenever a shipment comes through. We are either too early or too late, but we can’t know without records.” He shrugged.

  “Who keeps the sales records? I must speak with them straightaway.”

  On the far opposite side of the auction stage was a large, elevated stand. Salvatore indicated one end of the canopied booth where the archivist penned the record of each sale. Beside him sat a portly man, beard white as snow, eyebrows nearly as white and immensely bushy and braced, lending little support to the poorly wrapped turban that perched on the fellow’s head.

  To his flank stood soldiers, at least ten, sabers at the ready. In front of him rested scales, and next to the scales were heaps of coinage of several sorts, metered and divided in tall stacks to satisfy whatever the current transaction might be. This man seemed in charge as he waved a short, fat hand, and from somewhere a loud trumpet announced the auction was to begin.

  Now on the sale blocks were two men, dark, also with turbans, and nearly naked. They wore, wrapped around their loins, filthy cloths, and were barefoot, shackled together at the ankle. One of them was wounded and held his injured arm as though it were broken. They were tethered to the ring on the pole and left so all could peruse them.

  The auctioneer selling the slaves stood on the edge of the raised deck, indicating the shackled men with a sweep of his arm and calling to the crowd, pointing at bartering individuals at any given moment. The auction went very fast and continued until the auctioneer seemed all at once satisfied. Then the slaves were hurried off the block and disappeared into the crowd. Without delay, the next ones were brought up.

  Pointing to the fat man beneath the auction booth canopy, Ravan asked, “Him? He will know if the child slaves from the Virgin Wolf have been sold and to whom?”

  “He will,” Salvatore began, “but—”

  He didn’t have a chance to finish his thought for Ravan was gone, already weaving his way through the last few rows of the packed crowd before Salvatore could catch him by the arm and call, “Ravan! We must wait! We cannot disturb the auction. It is a capital offense!”

  This had no effect on the mercenary as he charged past the auction platform and right up the ramp toward the elevated stand. Velecent and his other men jumped from Nicolette’s side and quickly followed. There was an immediate stir as oglers leapt from the ramp like water from a hot pan, allowing the fiercely determined mercenary and his group their berth.

  Ravan was met at the top by a horde of the sabered guards. The gold that passed through this auction was significant, and the army that ensured its proper payoff was more than the small band of men who followed their dark leader up the incline.

  “I must speak to someone about the ledgers. I must know about a sale!” Ravan commanded but was met with a saber to his chest.

  He stared briefly at the blade, eyes narrowed, and followed the sword’s curved edge to meet the man’s gaze. The soldier said nothing but sneered, pushing the steel harder against the mercenary’s armor as though to push him back down the ramp.

  Ravan didn’t budge. “You’re not going to want to do that,” he commented.

  Velecent was just drawing his sword when Salvatore appeared at their sides, blathering on in that foreign language. It was fast, and the vowels seemed to roll on and on. The crowd quieted, though trying to hear what all the commotion was about as the man with the saber motioned with his free fist at Ravan, his voice rising over the surrounding din. He then motioned to the ongoing auction.

  Minimally, it was evident the soldier believed the
foreign intruder should not be allowed to interrupt the sales. More likely, Ravan and his men were kicking a hornet’s nest.

  Salvatore continued to argue in the man’s tongue, gesturing toward the group of Ravan’s men who looked conspicuously out of place, but the man would have none of it and was yelling at Salvatore while his eyes remained fixed mostly on Ravan.

  The argument was clearly to the point of pushing Salvatore from reasonable composure, and when the guard stabbed at Ravan—the blade clinking against his armor—the French mercenary stepped away, pushed the blade aside, and swiftly captured the guard’s arm in a lock. He turned, pivoted his shoulders, and bent over, easily dislocating the man’s shoulder before pushing him neatly from the ramp. The soldier fell some fifteen feet onto a throng of people below.

  All swords were immediately drawn and mayhem ensued. A horde of guards funneled out of the grandstand, down the ramp, and toward Ravan, Velecent, Salvatore, and their men. The Turkish soldiers were not nearly as experienced as Ravan’s troop, and so a handful fell straightaway. But the Turks had the advantage of numbers, so Ravan and his men were pushed backward, even as valiantly as they fought. It appeared they would be run over, for Ravan battled two men at once, stepping backward into a fleeing crowd as he did.

  The fat man at the ledgers sounded the horn repeatedly and yelled, but no one seemed to care what he had to say. Instead, the crowd dispersed to a large semicircle, allowing the fight between Ravan’s men and the Turks to ensue front and center, right next to the massive stage.

  Struggling with his two foes, Ravan called to Salvatore, while the fat ringmaster in the booth repeated what he was yelling and sounded the ridiculous horn again. “What does he say?”