Palace of Darkness

by Tracy L. Higley

  Fear washed over her like heat, then receded, leaving her cold and shaking. “They have taken my son. I am trying to get him back.”

  She tried to read his reaction, but he seemed not even to hear. He was all nerves, as though he was attuned to every sound and every movement outside their hiding place.

  Like a trained soldier.

  He smelled of sweat and leather and cook fires, as she imagined a soldier would, and she suddenly feared her escape with Alexander might be complicated by forces she had not considered. I have to know. “Will Petra be taken today?”

  His gaze roamed hers, as though he would read her and determine friend or enemy. “I do not wish to kill a woman.” He acted as if that were an answer. Perhaps it was.

  “I am no threat to you,” Cassia whispered. “And I have no loyalty to the royal house.”

  He seemed to consider her words, then in a rush released her as he shoved himself back from the wall, retreated a few steps, and scowled at her. “Tell no one.” He darted to the doorway, leaned out to scan the hall, and disappeared.

  Cassia exhaled, leaned back against the wall, and tried to slow her heart.

  But thoughts of Alexander soon overtook the aftereffects of the encounter. She left her water pot and pouch, slipped to the chamber doorway, checked the hall, then slid along the wall until she could bend her upper body around the corner and watch the hall that led into the center of the palace.

  She did not have long to wait. At the far end of the corridor where she imagined it branched into the central courtyard, a pair of figures, one small and one larger, hurried toward her.

  Cassia froze, willing the two shapes to become Marta and Alexander. Her heart seemed to beat in rhythm with their hurried steps, and then she dared to hope it was really him, and then she was certain.

  Marta’s head scarf had come loose and fluttered behind her. She held Alexander’s hand in her own and her mouth worked silently as though she spoke to him, but her gaze was focused ahead. Alexander ran to keep pace, tripped over his own feet, and nearly fell. She slowed and righted him, then pulled him on.

  Cassia felt a movement to her right and gripped the corner in fear. But it was Tabatha, speeding toward her and dragging a large woven basket. Her gaze connected with Cassia’s and her mouth dropped open but she kept moving.

  Cassia looked back to Alexander, tried to feel if he was afraid, tried to send him the messages of her heart. He looked so big. Had he dared to grow in spite of their separation? And yet he seemed vulnerable, too, and she longed to have him back in her arms.

  As though he felt her love streaming toward him, Alexander lifted his eyes to the end of the hall and saw her. Her heart lifted and joined his, and his smile, she knew, matched her own.

  And then there came more movement, behind the two, and Cassia’s glance went beyond Alexander and Marta to the figures behind them.

  It seemed to Cassia then that time had frozen like the ice she had seen one winter at the edge of a river in the mountains of Syria. It moved forward, one tiny drip at a time, with each moment suspended in a bead of clear water, magnified and distorted.

  She saw the palace guards lurch into the corridor. Saw Alexander’s hands reach toward her, unaware of the danger. Marta, too, with a joyous smile.

  Then heard the pounding feet.

  Marta turned, her eyes huge. The two guards lunged for them. Marta pushed Alexander behind her and raised her arms. The silence of the halls shattered with her shriek, and one of the muscled men swept her aside like an empty wheat sack. His forearm connected with her temple and she went down. The sound of her head as it smacked the marble floor was like a melon falling from a market table.

  Cassia started forward, but Tabatha was beside her somehow and gripped her arm with claw-like hands.

  Alexander screamed. The guard seized him, then turned and grunted something to the other guard, who picked up Marta’s limp body, flung it over his shoulder, and followed the first.

  Cassia strained at Tabatha’s hold on her. The girl was stronger than she looked.

  Two more guards rounded the corner ahead and took in the scene.

  In that moment, Alexander twisted enough in the arms of his captor to connect with Cassia one final time, to reach his arms toward her and scream her name.

  “Mama!”

  The word echoed and bounced down the corridor and she slipped from Tabatha’s grasp, tears streaming, and opened her arms as though she could capture the sound and have Alexander with it.

  The two new guards focused on her, but she barely took note. Her attention was on Alexander as he turned the corner and was lost to her.

  Arms extended and empty, she stared at the hollow place where her son had been.

  A thousand kisses, shekel. A thousand kisses.

  THIRTY-ONE

  IN THE THRONE ROOM, JULIAN TRIED TO WRENCH HIMSELF from the guards who held him, but he did not know what he would do if they let him go. By now the others were racing through the palace in search of Alexander. Had the women gotten him out? Did Hozai have him even now, under the tarp in the back of his wagon, rumbling over the rutted limestone street to where Cassia waited?

  Hagiru did not leave him to his thoughts. She stood on the throne platform above him, her eyes like two black bits of night spilling down on him.

  “You thought to overpower me? To take what is mine?”

  Julian expanded his chest. “He is not yours!”

  “Ah, but he is.” She smiled and rubbed her toe into the platform as though crushing an insect. “I do not know how you and your fellow Jew-lovers escaped from the amphitheatre. But the next time, I will not be so generous as to let you die gloriously as entertainment for the people.”

  Julian kept silent. His attention should be fixed elsewhere, not on the queen. Father, I need Your power now. Not for my sake, Lord. Protect Your people.

  He felt the oppression lift a bit and leaned into his prayer.

  But Hagiru must have felt the change, too, for a wave of darkness washed toward him from the throne. When he looked at the queen, her arms were raised toward him and her head thrown back. Her lips moved silently, and watching her pray to her god from the pit caused Julian to break into sweat and then grow chilled.

  Movement at the edge of the room drew his attention. Two guards pushed in. One had a bulky arm around the waist of a small, wriggling boy. The other had a woman flung over his shoulder, as though he were a trader from the East carrying a bolt of silk. Julian could only see the lower half of her body, as her head and shoulders were draped down the guard’s back. Even so, the muscles in his jaw bulged and his teeth clenched.

  Hagiru laughed, low in her throat. “So, Dushara favors us after all.” She turned on Julian. “Perhaps you should speak to your god, and tell him the god of Petra does not appreciate his presence.”

  Julian barely heard her. His eyes were focused on the second guard and what he carried. The man flung the limp body of the woman from his shoulder and dropped her to the floor.

  Marta.

  God, what have I done? Julian started toward Marta, though her bloodless lips and closed eyes gave him little hope. The guards who held him jerked him backward.

  “We found her secreting him toward the back of the palace,” the guard said to Hagiru.

  The other set Alexander on his feet. Julian drank in the sight of the boy, trying to memorize every detail he could pass to Cassia if he managed to escape the palace. He looked healthy and was dressed as a prince, in the fine white robes of royalty. But his face was tear streaked and his lower lip trembled. He looked to the queen, not noticing Julian.

  “I want to see my mother!” His voice was high and sweet, and it broke Julian’s heart.

  Cassia, I am so sorry.

  How had it come to this? He had been so certain of his plan, so sure they followed the will of God in saving Alexander from the terror the queen planned for him. Julian felt the heavy crush of his failure, and it pressed on him in sharp contrast with
the confidence he had felt when he entered. Some lessons were learned too late.

  Hagiru turned on him once more, her eyes and her words cold. “I sent for the old man this morning. But I imagine you already know this. And it is just as well that you are here in his stead, for I am given to know the old man fancies you as his replacement.” She licked thin lips, then sat on the throne and leaned back as though dealing with Julian was as trifling as giving direction on the morning meal.

  “So I have a message for the old man, and you shall hear it as well.” She paused, running her gaze over him as if to take his measure. “Dushara is the god-prince of Petra. And he will not be dethroned. I do not know why you and your band of rebels have aligned yourselves with the boy’s mother, but I can promise you this”—she leaned forward on the throne and her eyes burned—“not one of you will survive your defiance of me!”

  A wave of self-loathing washed over Julian, disgust at his failure and his foolishness, despair over the future. He swayed on his feet, believing the queen’s words and half hoping she would immediately make good on her promise. At least if she did, he would not have to face Cassia.

  “Julian?”

  Alexander’s small voice dragged his attention away from the queen. He tried to smile at the boy, to reassure him that all would be well, but the smile did not reach his lips.

  Alexander cupped hands to his mouth and whispered, “Don’t listen to her, Julian. She is very mean!”

  The guard grabbed Alexander by the neck. Bethea started forward as though she would intervene, then stopped.

  But Alexander’s simple words took hold, and Julian faced the queen once more. A calmness swept into his soul, and he spoke words he knew were not of himself. “A time is coming, Queen Hagiru, when the One True God will make Himself known to you. And on that day”—Julian’s voice rose to fill the throne room—“on that day, you will bow your knee to Him.”

  Her face contorted into a death mask of rage and she shot to her feet. “Out!” She pointed to the chamber entrance. “You will leave at once, and tell your people if they wish to wage a war, we shall see whose god is the stronger!”

  Julian took one last look at Alexander, then nodded to Nahor and Niv and backed out of the throne room, through the front hall and onto the palace portico.

  Malik still waited in the street, his face upturned to the palace steps, and as Julian studied the old man below, he knew it was only the prayers of Malik that had kept them safe. Certainly it was nothing Julian had done.

  And now that they were out and all their plans had come to naught, he must seek out one small woman and tell her that her son was not yet coming home.

  THIRTY-TWO

  CASSI A SNAPPED, AS THOUGH SHE HAD AWAKENED FROM a frightful dream, and ran toward the end of the hall where Alexander had disappeared.

  She knew the guards were there ahead, but somehow all else faded from view, and she ran through a dark tunnel. She heard herself yell something, she knew not what, as though the empty place inside had a voice of its own.

  Somewhere in the middle of the hall she met up with the two guards. One of them, bigger and uglier, bent his head and drove it toward her belly. She fixed on his greasy hair and felt revulsion as his head burrowed into her stomach.

  Air exploded from her chest and sparks ignited behind her eyes. She felt herself lift up, up, and over the guard, watched the frescoed ceiling pass under her, and wondered at such beauty and such ugliness in the same place. She hit the marble hall, dragged in one ragged breath, then remembered her training, leaped to her feet, and whirled to face them.

  Her hand went instinctively to the dagger under her robe, and she said a quick prayer of thanks it had not punctured anything in the fall. It was slick and cold in her hand but felt like a caress. It was for this moment she had trained with Yehosef, all those long, sweaty nights in the theatre.

  That surge of anger she had accessed so often with Yehosef came back to her, a welcome friend, to strengthen her arm and her mind to the fight.

  She half crouched, dagger extended, and reveled in the flicker of concern that crossed the face of the guard who had flipped her onto the floor. They were brutes kept for their muscle, not their minds, and they had no weapons but their strength.

  She circled, keeping them both in front of her, waiting.

  The bigger one had a jagged scar that ran from his cheekbone to his hairline, and his eye drooped over the mutilated skin. He lunged first, as she knew he would, and she was prepared.

  She lashed out with the dagger, a thrust and parry as Yehosef had taught her. The dagger found purchase on the guard’s arm and drew blood. He howled, covered his arm with his hand, and backed off.

  Cassia let the anger well up, a hot fountain of hate. She wished it had been the other eye instead of his arm. She flicked a glance to the second guard, daring him to be next.

  Instead of fear, though, she saw amusement. A bubble of terror forced itself into her chest.

  And then they were both on her at once. She felt the blows, heard the dagger clink somewhere on the marble floor, and realized in a flash that no amount of training would allow one small woman to take down two muscle-bound guards.

  The big, greasy one wrapped his bloody arm around her waist like the arm of a lover and pulled her body to his, her back to his chest. The palace servant’s robe she had stolen soaked up his blood at her waist like a red sash tied around her, and she tasted her own blood in her mouth and felt her lip swell.

  He bent his thick lips to her ear and laughed. “Now we are having fun, are we not?”

  His partner crossed the floor, scooped her dagger into his palm, and turned, a wicked smile playing on his face. Cassia’s stomach churned and the anger drained from her, leaving her a brittle shell. Perhaps if the guard would squeeze harder, she would simply break into pieces and this nightmare would end.

  The second guard sauntered toward them. He swung the dagger from a thumb and forefinger, still smiling.

  “Cut for a cut, Lazar?” he said to her captor.

  “Hmm,” he murmured into her ear, as though the other fiend had offered him a ripe piece of fruit. “But it would be a shame to mar this beauty.” His face was still buried in her neck.

  His friend laughed. “Perhaps somewhere none but her husband would see, then!”

  Cassia closed her eyes and fought the nausea that rose in her chest.

  A shout from the end of the hall snapped her eyes open. Another palace guard hailed them, then waved a hand. “Bring the girl! The queen wants her—now!”

  The bloody guard growled his disappointment, then kicked at her heels. “Walk.” He loosened his grip on her waist only enough to step beside her.

  The halls passed in a blur, and Cassia felt as though her feet slid over the marble floors, more carried to the throne room than arriving in her own strength. But she heard the slap of her own sandals on the white floor, heard it echo in the silent, lifeless room. After the violent struggle in the halls, the room seemed like the eye of a storm.

  Cassia turned her heavy head in all directions, searching for a face she knew. Had Julian left her already? Where were Nahor and Niv? Malik? She scanned the doorways, hoping for Marta’s face.

  She knew without looking that Alexander was not there. She would have sensed him. The room was hollow and empty, save Hagiru’s seething presence on the throne.

  Cassia smelled incense and wondered absently if the queen had been offering sacrifices before Cassia had arrived. The thought brought a vision of Alexander on the High Place altar. It fell over her eyes like a hazy veil and produced a wave of dizziness that left her so sick, she expected to retch. She bared her teeth, stared at the queen, and strained in the grip of the guards.

  “So, Aretas’s plaything has not had enough?” Hagiru’s chin tipped down and her eyes peered over her long nose.

  Cassia’s stomach settled and she drew herself upright to face the queen. “You will not kill my son.”

  Hagiru laughed. Her
arms rested casually on the carved sides of the throne, and she lifted one hand at the wrist and gave the guard a small flick of her hand to indicate he should release Cassia. He did so with a shove, and she stumbled forward several steps before gaining her balance and facing the queen.

  “And you will stop me?” Hagiru drew out each word as though the thought amused her.

  Cassia knew the futility of it. She had nothing. No plan, no weapons, no army. She was only a mother. She had begged for the life of her son once before, but now her begging would accomplish nothing. No, it was a time for power.

  And she had none.

  She stood there, wishing the force of her hatred could melt the queen like a flame touched to candle wax. Hagiru met her look of hatred with a searing heat of her own, and Cassia felt the scorch of it build in her chest. It stole her breath and still it burned.

  Black spots dotted her vision, and she imagined she saw a blackness hover over the queen like a cloud of malevolence. She felt the fumes of it choke her, and she swayed on her feet, fighting and knowing it was useless to fight.

  Somewhere to her right there was a flutter of white, barely noticeable in her distorted sight, but then the white form was at the side of the queen and the noxious cloud dissipated, and Cassia was able to draw in a pained breath. She leaned forward, hands on her knees, and tried to regain the strength the queen had somehow stolen.

  “It is the king.” The messenger’s whisper was loud enough for Cassia to hear. “He has taken a turn. You must come.”

  Hagiru’s look of disgust flowed down over Cassia. “Throw her in a cell,” she said to the guards at the edge of the room. “I will deal with her later.”

  Cassia sagged backward, exhausted beyond measure, and was nearly grateful for the guards when they caught her from behind.

  Hagiru disappeared in a swoosh of purple, then Cassia felt herself dragged backward.

  She would await the queen’s good pleasure on the floor of a cell.