Paul B. Thompson and Tonya R. Carter
Cover Art
Clyde Caldwell
TSR, Inc.
PART I:
THE CAPTIVES OF FAZIR
Jadira
The guard's heavy tread stopped outside the door. With a rustle and a clank, the wicket-gate slid back. A copper dipper rimmed with green scum appeared in the hole. It tilted, pouring water into the clay cup on the floor below. The dipper withdrew and a wheel-shaped loaf of bread dropped through. The wicket squeaked shut, and the footsteps moved on.
Jadira sed Ifrimiya crept slowly from the far corner of her cell to the door. She waited until the guard's movements could no longer be heard, then she gulped the scant cupful of water. The sickly metallic taste in no way diminished her enjoyment of it.
The bread she added to the small heap of loaves already stacked in the near corner. Jadira knew they were not enough to nourish her but would only tease her starved stomach and cause unremitting hunger pains. So she fasted. Her belly tightened, and after two days she no longer felt acutely hungry. There was no doubt in Jadira's mind that in time her strength would fail from lack of food. The loaves did serve a purpose. Her captor,
Sultan Julmet, by his grace, allowed his prisoners one serving of bread per day. By saving her rations, Jadira kept track of how long she had been imprisoned.
Five loaves lay in the corner.
Her people were desert dwellers, nomads, who obeyed no lord and asked for nothing more than a spring of sweet water and fertile flocks. Jadira was a malam, a married cousin in the elder clan of the Sudiin tribe. Thus, she was pure Sudiin, in both parents' lines.
In the days since the sultan's cavalry had taken her, along with most of her tribe, she had seen many of her kinsmen and friends end on the block—either the executioner's or the slavemaster's.
Faziri soldiers had first delivered her to Kemmet Serim, procurer of slaves for the sultan's household. Serim, his bloated face shining with olive oil and his breath sour with the smell of dates, took one look at Jadira and exclaimed, "By Dutu's beard, what have you brought me?"
The soldier who held Jadira's arms pinned replied, "A nomad wench from the Red Sands, Revered One. Newly caught by the Invincibles and offered for your consideration."
Serim closed one puffy eyelid and peered closely at Jadira. She was taller than him by two fingers. Sculpted by youth and molded by toil, she stood proudly before the slavemaster. The soldier had pulled down her headdress, exposing a sleek mass of long black hair. Jadira's eyes were twin signets of jet, set in a taut aquiline face. Serim, squinting at her, thought of falcons.
"Kitchen or seraglio; where, I wonder, would this one be better placed?" he said.
"She has arms like a wrestler," said the soldier.
"Yet her face is not uncomely," said Serim. "Remove
her robe, so that I may see the body beneath."
"I dare not release her, Revered One. She unhorsed two Invincibles during the attack on her camp, and this morning she blacked the eyes of Sergeant Zayin."
"Tshaw! She is cowed. Here, I will do it myself."
The sultan's procurer laid his unclean hands on Jadira scd Ifrimiya. Jadira promptly buried her unfettered foot in Kemmet Serim's soft and yielding belly.
The soldier knocked her down and planted an iron-nailed sandal on her neck. As her face was only a hand-span from the prostrate Serim's, Jadira spat at the revered one and said, "Do what you will with me, father of piglets! Put me in your kitchen, and I'll slay Faziris with cooking spits. Consign me to the harem, and I'll st rangle the sultan with my silken veil as he takes his ease among his gilded wantons!"
"Treason! Blasphemy—!" Serim stammered, trying to rise. "Take her away!" Jadira tried to throw herself once more at Serim, but the burly soldier dragged her away, screaming in frustrated rage.
Thus did Jadira end in the sultan's dungeon. Her sentence: perpetual solitary confinement. Death was to be Jadira's only companion. She awaited it in her dark, dirty cell.
Her mind had not been idle in the darkness. She had examined every portion of the cell, often with only her fingertips as guides. The four walls, the floor, and the ceiling were all stone. The cell door was hardest keshj wood, strapped with black bands of cold forged iron. Jadira had no tools, little light, and less hope. She prayed to Mitaali, god of nomads, for succor.
Perhaps it was Mitaali who whispered in Jadira's ear: How are the walls different? How were they different?
The floor was smooth, but the walls were rough. The ceiling was one massive, seamless block. The rear and front walls were black-veined granite, set dry in sloping courses. The left and right walls were limestone and set with mortar.
Mortar?
"Thank you, Mitaali! The blessings of my family's name upon you!" Jadira said to the empty air.
She needed a tool. Her only implement, her water cup, was baked clay too soft for use in digging. Something harder was needed.
Above the door was a slit that admitted light from torches in the corridor. By this faint source, Jadira saw that the lintel over the door was smooth, yellow stone, quartzite. This was the hardest sort of stone used in building, yet the lintel was fractured in two places. The enormous weight of the upper floors of the palace was bearing down on it.
Jadira stood on her toes and strained to reach the lintel. Too high. She braced one foot on the door's middle strap and grasped the narrow light-slit with her left hand. The wall was so deep her arm did not reach all the way through. Still, Jadira stayed there, the strap rivet gouging her foot, as she picked at the broken lintel. After breaking four fingernails, she managed to pry loose a fragment of quartzite. It was as big as her palm and shaped like an arrowhead.
She decided to dig in the middle of the right wall. Her target was a roughly hewn cube of limestone, a block slightly wider than her shoulders. Jadira put the sharp end of the quartzite fragment in the finger-wide groove between blocks and began to scrape away the mortar.
It was tedious, painful work, and she quickly skinned the knuckles of both hands. By the time two more loaves had come through the door, she'd cut a socket as deep as her fingers could reach, all around the limestone block.
A new problem appeared. Jadira saw she would have to chip away the stone itself in order to get at the softer mortar deeper in the wall. She wrapped the quartzite in the trailing end of her headdress to deaden the sound of the chipping.
Peck, peck, peck. The block yielded in flakes and fragments. The hours passed. As Jadira's hands worked, her mind journeyed back in time to when she was free.
She had won the right to wear the black headband of the Sudiin when she roped and tamed a wild horse. What a fine animal he was—Khemay, "The Colors," was his name. He was black, so black he took on different colors at different times of day. In the chill desert morning, Khemay was dark blue, like the water in the deep wells of Julli Oasis. At sunset, he burned red like new copper.
Peck, peck, peck. Outside the walled city of Rehajid, Jadira knelt on a wool blanket and pounded rye and wheat into flour. Her brother, Mohar, and her husband, Ramil, argued over how much to demand per head for their yearling goats. Jadira tossed in her opinion as she dipped into the grain basket for more rye. Peck, peck, peck.
Clink.
The sound of metal on rock filtered through the thick wall and snatched Jadira from her reverie. She stopped chipping and held her breath. Had she been discovered? The cell door was silent and still.
There it was again. A bead of sweat rolled down the nomad woman's face. It was metal on stone all right. Jadira rapped her tool in reply. Her reward was a chorus
of taps.
She chewed her lip as she pondered what this could mea
n. If there was a prisoner on the other side of the wall, then they could halve the time it would take to release the block. Of course, they would still be in the cells, but they might accomplish far more together than separately.
Jadira put an ear to the wall. The taps seemed to be in some sequence, but she didn't understand it. Finally she knocked until the other fell silent, then she started scraping at the mortar again. It was the only way she knew to convey what she wanted.
The next loaf of bread added to her pile made nine. The bottom-most were fuzzy with faintly luminous mold. Jadira was elbow-deep in the wall by then, and nearly delirious with despair. The wall seemed ten leagues thick. The tapping she heard was the malicious demon-king Dutu himself, leading her on with false hopes of success. Her fast had weakened her and she could no longer dig for hours at a time. The hard stone chip was wearing down to a blunt nub.
There were thirteen loaves on the floor when the quartzite arrowhead shattered. Jadira sank down on her knees and let the ruined bits of stone slip through her fingers. Tears filled her eyes. She wept bitterly, clenching her battered hands into fists. She cursed Mitaali and all the gods for their injustice, and when the last curse had left her lips, she slumped against the cold limestone block.
It shifted.
Oh you gods, torment me not! Jadira cried in her heart. She leaned her shoulder into the block. It moved a bit more.
From weeping, Jadira burst into laughter. She slid away and turned around. Lying on her back, she planted both feet on the block and pushed. The stone crept forward, slipping grittily through powdered mortar. When Jadira's legs were nearly straight, she wriggled in closer and pushed anew.
It was all over in a rush. The block seemed to fly away from her feet, opening up a gaping hole. Jadira withdrew her legs and crouched by the opening. "Hello?" she called softly.
"Who is it?" answered a voice. The accent was not Faziri.
"A prisoner. Who are you?" she asked.
"I am a captive, also. I thought we would never get that stone out."
"Then you were helping me?"
"I've been digging at it for days and days."
Jadira smiled into the hole. "May I come through?" she said.
"Certainly! Come ahead!"
She had to lie prone in order to pass through the narrow tunnel. Just as she pulled her feet into the hole, a pair of hands grasped hers and drew her out. She stood up in her neighbor's cell.
An oil lamp burned in the gloom. By its light Jadira regarded her fellow prisoner. He was a young man from a northern clime, clad in close-fitting garments of heavy green cloth. White lace bloomed at his neck and wrists. He picked up the lamp, and she saw that his short hair was light, like river sand, and his eyes were sky-colored.
His mouth hung open. "By Tuus! A woman!" he exclaimed.
"You have not been in the sultan's keeping so long that you have forgotten women, I see," said Jadira.
"Your pardon, lady. I did not imagine my tireless companion beyond the wall to be a woman." He bowed at the waist. "I am Marix, third son of Count Fernald of Dosen."
"Jadira sed Ifrimiya, of the tribe Sudiin."
"You are Faziri?"
"Pah!" She spat at his feet. "The Sudiin are not slavish house-dwellers!"
Marix of Dosen was taken aback by her vehemence. " Y>ur pardon," he said again. "You have the look—that is, the coloring—of such as we of the Eight Provinces call Faziri."
Jadira looked beyond the foreigner to the table where the lamp had been. The remains of a meal lay scattered about, together with an earthen jug. A bronze spoon, its handle worn to a stub, completed the scene. She licked her lips and stared.
Marix noticed her wide-eyed gaze and said, "It is poor fare, but you are welcome to it."
Jadira fell upon the table and devoured what was left of the meal. She stripped the squab's bones of every scrap of meat, then cracked the bones and sucked out the marrow. The old peach she ate, skin and all, down to the pit. The wine was very nearly vinegar, but to her barren throat it was nectar such as Mitaali never tasted.
"Is there more?" she asked after licking the plate shamelessly.
"Ah, no. I'm given only one meal a day. The scoundrels believe they can bend me to their will by starving me.
Jadira thought of the moldy bread in her own bare cell and laughed out loud. Marix said, "You find my plight amusing?"
"Not at all. I laugh for the joy of your company," she said. He bowed again and in a courtly fashion offered her his only chair.
"Why is one such as you languishing down here?" Jadira asked. "I should think a foreign noble's son would be an honored guest of His Magnificence."
"Alas, I am a pawn, not a guest."
"How so?"
"It is a long tale," said Marix.
"My ears hear only you," Jadira answered.
"It began when my father bade me go in the company of Sir Kannal Dustan from Dosen to the city of Tantuffa—"
"The seaport?"
"—yes, and there learn the trade of arms. I was to enter the service of Lord Hurgold of Tantuffa, but our party was ambushed by the sultan's men in the province of Maridanta. Sir Kannal died in the fight, and I was brought to Omerabad," said Marix.
"I see," said Jadira. "So now the sultan seeks to embarrass Lord Hurgold, and keeps you hostage until your noble father pays a ransom?"
Marix rubbed his hand on the top of the crudely made table. "There will be no ransom," he said.
"Why not? Surely a count can spare some gold, even for his third son."
Marix gave the nomad woman an intense look. Swiftly he knelt on one knee by her side and lowered his voice to a whisper.
"Are you a woman of honor?" he said quickly. "I must know. If you are a Faziri spy, leave now and trouble me no more!"
Jadira frowned. "If you think me a spy, then you can believe no answer I give you," she said. "But I am no
spy." She pulled open her collar to reveal gaunt hollows in her neck, deeply shadowed in the lamplight. She held out her thin, scarred hands.
"I spent four days digging through that wall. I ate nothing, and the demon-king plagued me with dreams and deceptions, but I outlasted him. I am Sudiin of Sudiin; that is enough honor for anyone!" Her black eyes glittered in the half-light. "And as for being a Faziri tool, if we were not in this cursed hole, I would demonstrate my anger for such an insult!"
Marix pressed a hand over his heart. "Lady, forgive me. One hears that in the land of Fazir there is all manner of treachery, and what I know must not come to the attention of any minion of the sultan."
Jadira held her head high. "I've no way to convince you that I speak the truth. Speak or remain silent. I do not betray secrets."
"Do you know the Five Cities of the Indigo coast? No? Besides Tantuffa, they are Akker, Sivon, Maridanta, and Herza. These are the only sovereign cities on the east shore of the Inland Sea as yet free of Faziri control. But all is not well amongst them. Matters of trade and religion have brought them more than once to the brink of war.
"The sultan delights in their troubles. His emissaries do what they can to stir up the five against each other. Lord Hurgold, seeing the danger in division, proposed that a foreign prince resolve the cities' differences in an impartial hearing."
"What prince?" asked Jadira, somewhat adrift.
"In this case, my father's liege lord, Prince Lydon of Narsia. His Majesty sent one of his state seals with Sir Kannal, in token of his trust. The lords of the Five Cities are to meet in a conclave at Tantuffa on High Summer's
Day. If Prince Lydon's seal is not there, they will assume the prince declined to intervene. No treaty can be made."
"There follows war, and the only victor will be the sultan," said Jadira, seeing the truth at last. "What became of the prince's seal?"
Marix folded his hands and touched them to his lips. "Seeing our party outnumbered, Sir Kannal ordered me to save the seal. Drawing his great two-handed sword, he led the last of our brave men-at-arms into the
very teeth of the Faziri lancers, where they perished to a man. With their cries ringing in my ears, I buried the box in a nearby olive grove."
"Could you find this grove again? The exact spot?"
"I am certain I could." The fellow sank back on his haunches. "Oh, this is idle talk! We are in the deepest prison in Omerabad. We shall die here!"
She ignored his despairing remarks. "Do the Faziri know of Prince Lydon's seal?" she asked.
"No. Only Sir Kannal knew, and he's dead."
"Good. They must have another use for you. Nothing good, I am sure." Jadira looked around the cell. Apart from its sparse furnishings, it was identical to hers. "I think I know how we may get out of here," she said.
Marix lifted his head. "How?"
"To get this much food in, the guard must enter your cell, yes?"
"He enters, once he sees I have retreated to the rear wall. You're not thinking of overcoming him, are you?"
"Why not?"
"He is uncommonly large, with some orcish blood, I think. He carries a cudgel of no mean weight," said Marix.
"Great trees will fall to a small axe," Jadira said thoughtfully. "Especially if they don't see the axe coming." So saying, she slipped to the floor beside him and told him of her plan.
Keys and Cages
The Menagerie
The Word of Agma
Julli
SHAMMAT
Sacred Chimneys
Hard Duty
Keys and Cages
Nungwun the guard halted at the cell door. He leaned his knotty club against the wall and shoved the wicket-gate back with one meaty hand. Bending down, he put an eye to the peephole and saw the pale foreigner by the far wall. Marix's hands were folded reverently and his eyes were closed.
"I bring food," said Nungwun. Marix remained in his prayerful pose. "Y>u stay back or no eat," added the guard. Marix didn't move.
"Hmph. Crazy outlander." Nungwun closed the trap and released the latch. The heavy door swung inward. The guard hefted his cudgel in his right hand while trying to balance a trencher of food in his left.
"Is time to eat!" he bellowed. The fellow might have been a statue for all the response he gave.
D & D - Red Sands Page 1