The Broken Winds: Divided Sultanate: Book 3

by Baloch, Fuad

“No!” Aboor snapped. He took a step forward and winced as his left foot landed on a rock that shifted underneath. You’re not in the capital anymore, you fool. Watch where you step! “We’ve already been seen. Both mercenary guards at the doors are ready for us. We try to surround them and they’ll summon numbers and wear us thin.”

  “We’re inquisitors of the Kalb,” declared the second inquisitor. Kadoon, a pale-skinned man who’d come highly recommended from Inquisitor Puhana, a declaration she’d made with a sly smile. The young inquisitor puffed his chest out, in effect pushing forward his pelvis, and raised his fingers to graze his cropped beard. “They won’t dare hinder us.”

  “Ha!” Aboor exclaimed. “There’s much you’ve got to learn, young man. A great deal! Tell the inquisitors to ready their weapons but keep them sheathed.”

  “Aye, Sahib Inquisitor,” Kadoon replied, sounding a little hurt. Casting a murderous glance at the three magi shuffling beside Aboor, he marched away.

  Aboor filled his lungs until they threatened to burst, looking at the distant dunes. Wetan, the desert province that had fallen to Zakhanan without a fight. Turned out it was immensely hard to guard shifting sands, even from those who’d lived all their lives in bogs. His knee began to throb again.

  “How many magi are in there?” Aboor demanded, hoping to distract his mind.

  “One,” Yasir replied, once more patting his long, damp hair. The movement annoyed Aboor. A man who wore his hair long like a woman wasn’t a man who could be trusted. But, the magi, all three of them, still wore the customary black turbans, lacking any of the pretentious embellishments he’d heard the rebel magi add to theirs.

  This was a momentous occasion. If he were to prevail here, he’d be killing a few birds with one stone. Riyan and the other inquisitors would see that his plan to sever Afrasiab himself had merit, and the bastard rogue magi would learn to fear their betters once more. If they thought themselves safe having learned the secrets of hiding from inquisitors, they’d start jumping at shadows soon enough.

  Kadoon rejoined him. “We’re set. I’ve also asked them to be ready to begin chanting the moment we find the magi.”

  “Magus,” he replied.

  “Just one magus?” Kadoon asked, his tone incredulous.

  Aboor ignored him.

  “Can we trust them, Sahib Inquisitor?” Kadoon asked again, pointing at Yasir with his chin. “After all, all magi are the same. Why would they support us against their kin?”

  “The end is coming, young Sahib,” replied Yasir, his dark eyes turning to Aboor now. The two magi beside him nodded. “The promised end. If we don’t trust each other now, fix the ties that bind us, there’d be no escaping the darkness that’s to come.”

  Aboor narrowed his eyes. “Enough with the defeatist talk, magus. I’ve heard enough of it over the last few days.” He patted his sides, seeking comfort from the sword buckled on his waist. “Once we’ve severed or bonded all rogue magi, I might finally have time to listen to this prattle.”

  “The blight—”

  “Shut up!” Aboor growled and the magi fell silent. He raised his hand, motioning the inquisitors to begin their march.

  Merchants and residents turned to look up from their chores as they approached the tavern. A hard group of people—most desert dwellers were in Aboor’s experience, their recent capitulation to Zakhanan armies notwithstanding—they might have challenged a group of armed men walking through their streets. But Kadoon was right. Their eyes widened seeing the gray turbans and they looked away.

  They were twenty paces from the tavern now. The two guards exchanged a glance, their gaze sweeping through the group of inquisitors, their eyes lingering on the turbans as well.

  Aboor was right about them being mercenaries. Proving themselves ever pragmatic, they stepped aside. Aboor smiled. There was still hope to put things right.

  Aboor stuttered to a stop and raised his hand. The other inquisitors rushed up to stand beside him. He swallowed, feeling his mouth grow parched. Severing a magus was an act Rabb might have sanctioned, but it was one he frowned upon the most. Yes, a magus could be severed, but it had to be an act of last recourse, one carried out only when all other possibilities had been exhausted.

  All men can butcher an animal. The wise know when to stay their hand.

  “Inquisitors, remember your training,” Aboor said, his hand still raised. “We warn the magus inside.” Sounds of general merriment and lute strings floated out from within. “Only if he resists do we carry out our sacred duty.”

  “Aye, Sahib Inquisitor,” the inquisitors replied as one.

  “May the fires of Atishi protect you,” Yasir said.

  “Stay out of the way,” Kadoon warned gruffly. “Or I am going to sever you first.”

  Aboor grimaced. He’d have to have a chat with the young man once they were finished. There was no honor in threatening one’s allies. Even if they were magi, who looked a little crazier each passing day.

  Exhaling, Aboor sauntered forward and crossed the threshold into the tavern, the other inquisitors a step behind.

  Murmurs and laughter fell away as heads turned toward them. The lute player was the last one to see them enter and when he stopped plucking his instrument, the silence was absolute except for hard breathing and coughs of the tavern’s punters.

  Forcing his back up straight, ignoring the pain that inevitably followed, Aboor swept the room. Thirty or forty patrons. Men dressed in the usual garb of loincloths and rough-spun shirts, women in humble tunics. Locals, who had come in to drink away the woes of a hard day at the sugarcane fields. And a few merchants by the east-facing windows, engaged in some game of luck involving cards.

  “There!” came the wheezing voice of Yasir.

  Aboor didn't turn to inquire where the magus was pointing. He, too, had found their target.

  A young woman in her mid-twenties, dressed in a bright red peshwaz under a drab leather vest, wearing a black turban with a red lace. Aboor gritted his teeth. Why did it have to be a woman?

  “Magus,” he bellowed, raising his hand toward the girl. “Approach us. We must reunite you with your inquisitor.”

  The girl—the magus, Aboor reminded himself—stood. A lock of long, black hair had come undone from the turban. She was wafer-thin, a wee little thing under the thick vest. But when she bared her teeth, ants crawled under his skin.

  “Stand down—”

  The ground rolled under their feet. Shouts went up as the patrons scrambled to get out of the hall, furniture and platters of food and pitchers flying everywhere. Someone shouldered Aboor in the chest. Aboor flailed about, his hand finding the wooden counter to his left just before he lost his balance.

  “Ready yourselves!” he shouted at the inquisitors.

  He’d heard stories of what the magus Naila had done at the inquisitor castle of Jalna. Armed with an Akbar artifact the inquisitors hadn’t been able to catalog, the magus had attacked the inquisitors directly, withstanding even the Divine Chant. His best bet now was that this girl was neither Naila, nor carried an artifact like that, nor had Afrasiab’s power.

  The ground rolled again. Aboor whipped his head around. All sixteen of his inquisitors were standing upright, the effects of the magus’s magic not impacting them. The three magi were nowhere in sight.

  “Start the Divine Chant!” he bellowed, walking to take his place in their center. Even as the pandemonium intensified all around him, the walls cracking, the glass windows shattering, he stood unharmed—just as the prophet Binyom had promised all inquisitors who resolved to keep the world free of the sins of magi.

  The earth stopped shaking. Before Aboor had a chance to really register it, wooden chairs and tables started rising in the air, snapping, twisting, bending into sharpened stakes.

  Aboor blinked, hearing the inquisitors around him gasp in shock.

  The girl’s well was the earth, something obvious by the manner in which she had controlled the ground under them. But their magi pets
had confirmed she was the only magus they were facing. If that was true, how in the seven hells had she managed to command wood as well?

  The stakes rushed toward them. Kadoon screamed, scrambling to get away from the dozen that aimed for him and Aboor. Aboor stayed still even as his breath caught. A few decades ago, when his limbs functioned as expected, he, too, might have joined the younger inquisitor. But for now, he stood numb, frozen in shock.

  A foot from his face, the first stake thudded against an unseen barrier, followed by another. More stakes struck the barrier, each bending out of shape as the inquisitors huddled around him.

  “Stay strong!” Aboor shouted. The hall was full of shouting and cries for help. Already, the magus had harmed innocents. Casting a disapproving glance at the female magus standing tall opposite them, Aboor closed his eyes and began chanting.

  “Lord of the worlds and realms unseen, give us, your promised ones, the power to set right, all that afflicts your creation.” Over and over Aboor chanted, letting the ancient Gharsi words wash over him, saturate his being with the power of God Himself. Men and women were still shouting, but peace was beginning to fall on him—the bubble of calm that descended on believers in the middle of a storm.

  All he heard were the voices of his brothers.

  And the sound of a woman shrieking in rage. The woman they sought to help.

  The ground rolled once more. If it was a massive tide for others, all he felt in his cocoon was a gentle rustling.

  On and on, he and the inquisitors chanted, recalling the glory of Rabb, seeking his help and power. The joy of the ancient words seeped through his bones, began spreading outward, seeking the errant child of God whose time had come. A part of him mourned the loss that was to happen. A string, forever snapped, from the tapestry of history. A journey that was about to be cut short.

  Pity was a virtuous thing, but justice was more important.

  His head swam with memories. Within the safety of the bubble, he saw the carnage at Buzdar once more that had been plaguing his nights. The mill of humanity grinding against each other, into each other. The awful spectacle of magi taking to the air, revolving around Afrasiab, the Ajeeb magus. The body of the Istani princess floating up toward the magi.

  He shivered, seeing now the djinn. Kin of Mara and Jiza. Terrifying beings in their fear-inspiring forms.

  And then, the terrible punishment. Magi and djinn tearing apart scores with a single hit. Istani and Reratish, all reduced to mincemeat. An indiscriminate, awful display of power the likes of which hadn’t been seen in living history. Fires breaking out of nowhere, burning to cinder any they touched. The earth parting, taking hundreds into its bowels.

  All sympathy for the female magus dissipated, leaving only cold resolve. The woman was dangerous. A rogue magus. An abomination that needed to be put down for the sake of those around her, and for her own sake.

  A magus who has two wells!

  Shaking all thoughts away, he let his voice rise, reciting the holy chant the seventeenth and final time.

  He opened his eyes.

  The girl magus lay on the ground, her eyes wide open, white dots spreading in her irises.

  Kadoon stepped up beside him, panting as if he’d run ten miles. “Is it done?” he asked, his voice full of wonder and anticipation.

  “Aye.”

  The girl rose from her prone position, the black turban with red trimming slipping from her head and falling to the ground. Her eyes were white as milk now, her long hair cascading down her shoulders. Without looking at either them or her fallen turban, the girl shuffled toward the door.

  Kadoon yelped. Grabbing him by the arm, Aboor pulled him back, allowing the girl to pass through the gaggle of inquisitors unchallenged.

  The magus—the former magus—stepped out of the tavern, continued walking straight, her figure shrinking by the second.

  Aboor chewed his lower lip. “Get me the magi.”

  Kadoon blinked, then rushed outside to fetch the three magi. Aboor walked over to where the girl had fallen, examining the turban. An embellished piece of cloth that acted more as a flag than a head covering.

  He heard feet approach him.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Aboor demanded, not turning back, pointing at the turban.

  “She was a magus of the Jabbar school,” came Yasir’s reply after a short hesitation. “Those who dabble in blood magic.”

  Blood froze in Aboor’s veins. Not only were the magi forming formal bodies to resist the inquisitors, were they now openly dabbling in blood magic as well? If this girl had succeeded in acquiring two wells, how many more had achieved the same?

  That didn't bode well.

  Aboor stood still for a long moment. All this while the inquisitors had been frozen into inaction, the wheel of time had continued moving. For all his talk of the scales getting harder to balance, even he hadn’t expected the job to have gotten this difficult.

  He liked doing the right thing. The honorable thing. Even if that meant ignoring all other instincts. Including the urge to obey his superiors if it meant heading the right direction.

  “Can you sense Afrasiab?” he asked Yasir, his heart still racing. He licked his lips. “Can you take me to him?”

  “I sense a powerful magus to the east. Before the blighted lands.”

  “The blighted lands?” Aboor repeated, recalling tales of strange goings-on in Kippur and beyond.

  “The dark night is coming. One that will envelop the whole world, leave no life behind.”

  Aboor should have argued. He would have. But something stayed the objections on his tongue. Exhaustion, he reasoned. It had to be that.

  “Riyan expects me to prove that inquisitors and magi can work together. Man and dog hunting the wolves.” He forced a smile as he turned about to face the magus. “It’s time to go hunt the biggest, baddest wolf of them all.”

  Chapter 12

  Shoki

  Darkness all around.

  Blacker than the darkest black he’d ever seen. So utter that shape, form, and all other markers of objects disappeared.

  Yet, he could see.

  No, perhaps, that wasn’t the right word for the sensation of perceiving that didn't rely on sight. Within the darkness, objects just as dark moved, the manner of their movement apparent to him, somehow. Shoki didn't know what they looked like, but like the heartbeat one didn't see yet acknowledged, he sensed them all.

  Panic set in. Even as he tried raising his arm, the simple act of moving his limbs failed. He looked down at his body—an act that lacked the appropriate bodily sensations and responses—and saw nothing. Not even a dark silhouette.

  Shoki opened his mouth and screamed.

  Like the darkness, the world was silent. A vacuum that sucked his voice, even the whoosh of breath expelled.

  What had happened to him?

  Memories floated up. Slowly, accompanied by delirium.

  He’d been stabbed by Jiza!

  Shoki tried moving his hands toward the wound in his chest. No part of his body followed his command, no pain sought his attention.

  Nothing but a still, dark world, with even darker objects within.

  Gods’ guts, what was happening to him? Where was he? What manner of… existence was this?

  Shoki tried clearing his thoughts. An impossible task given the panic flooding through him. The madness that had been building within him all this time… had it finally grown ascendant and taken over other senses? Had the mortal injury that Jiza inflicted on him finally broken down restraints keeping the madness at bay? Or was he dying, and this place was the in-between land?

  Something was wrong. Something he wasn’t seeing through the mayhem in his mind.

  When fits of madness had visited him in the past, he’d lost control of his thoughts, finding increasingly larger gaps of time of which he had no recollection afterward. This was different in that he was aware of being in this strange form of existence—even if its exact nature eluded hi
m. Not just that, here, he remembered his past, even as worries of the future continued to plague him.

  Was it really true he’d sought to fix the whole world once, ridding it of the dark forces conspiring against it? The sheer audacity of it appeared ludicrous, his naiveté foolish. No one could afford to fall prey to such delusions. He was right in having a much simpler goal. Finding Nuraya. She was the one with the grand ideas and the vision required for fulfilling them. Even if she’d made mistakes, the realm needed someone like her to start patching it back together.

  He had to get out of this strange world first. The hows of how he’d gotten here didn’t matter for the moment.

  The Rising Sun!

  Scion of the great family!

  Shoki Malik!

  He shook his head to clear it. Who were these mistaken people uttering these… deadly words? Did they not know the dangers of such talk? Did Istan really need more division when it was being torn apart by a dozen different armies?

  Could he, Shoki of Algaria, formerly an apprentice city guard, one of humble birth, really be a Malik as the letter had alleged?

  Impossible. Unthinkable. An outrageous idea.

  He had to get out of this dark world first before he could laugh at the ludicrousness of it.

  Shoki surveyed his surroundings. The darkness was absolute, a strange fact but one that his mind grudgingly made its peace with. What confounded him though was the sensation of seeing darker objects within. How could that be?

  Awareness grew within him. Here, he wasn’t perceiving the world with the mediation of his sensory organs used to concepts such as color, shape, and smell. Instead, it was his essence discerning the externalities for him, using terms he’d never used before. Purpose. History. The state of being. Meaning.

  Like a tunic worn inside out, his internal state interacted with an untold number of objects around it, all similarly shorn of the external facades. The sheer numbers called out to his essence, each demanding to be witnessed, to be perceived, to be acknowledged.

  Shoki swallowed, unable to corral all the confusing impressions. Had he been standing, his knees would have buckled. Dimly, he wondered if his mind would collapse under the deluge.