Dark Empress

by S. J. A. Turney

  Samir nodded.

  “We will, uncle.”

  Silence fell over the room once again and was finally broken when their mother addressed the children in a small and cracked voice.

  “Will you go to your room and leave me with Faraj for a time? I will call you when I have prepared the dinner.”

  Nodding unhappily, Asima and the two boys untangled themselves and plodded slowly up the stairs to their room. Once inside, they could hear the inevitable explosion of tears and wailing from below before the door shut. Samir turned and looked at the others.

  “You know what this means?”

  Asima nodded.

  “My father will move out in a matter of days and we will head to Calphoris. If we ever see each other again, it will be when this is all over and my father returns, if he even does that. I fear that we only ever stayed in M’Dahz because the place reminds him of my mother.”

  She dropped to her knees on one of the blankets.

  “I can’t leave M’Dahz. I don’t want to live anywhere else. I don’t want to move, and I don’t want to leave you.”

  She wasn’t entirely sure at whom that last was aimed, but the brothers both nodded sagely. Samir was the first to break the silence that followed, as he sat next to her and took her hand.

  “Whatever happens is uncertain. Only the Gods know what lays ahead, not us. But the three of us are bound by bonds stronger than any empire, and I tell you now that we will be together for many years to come.”

  Suddenly Ghassan was sat at the far side, holding her other hand.

  “Samir is right. We have braved injury and even death many times together, and we are here now, stronger than ever. If you go to Calphoris, then we will just have to come and find you when the time is right.”

  Asima snuffled gently. She had begun to cry and was trying desperately to hold back the tears. And despite everything that had just happened, a world shattered into chaos, a future cast to the winds and a loved one to be ripped away from them, something deep inside her, that she was not sure she liked, felt a solid satisfaction that both boys were clinging to her as though their life depended on her.

  In which the field is levelled

  The past two days had been chaos in M’Dahz. The military garrison had pulled out with no ceremony, merely collecting everything of value from their barracks in the palace compound, hauling it onto their backs, and setting off along the dusty road east to Calphoris. That was the day after the news broke like a wildfire across the town. That same day, the Imperial navy abandoned anything that did not belong on board their ships, hauled anchor and sailed north, accompanied by every merchant who had managed to liquidise his assets in time.

  The town was already beginning to collapse. The militia had been called to the palace, where the local governor was on the verge of panic. The man had been sent by the Imperial government many years ago and, though subordinate to the Provincial governor at Calphoris, had sole control and responsibility for M’Dahz, its port, military, all local settlements, trading stations and border patrol units. When he had arrived as an eager young politician, it had been a dream appointment for a pasty northern youth. Now, as a middle-aged and slightly portly gentleman, the position had suddenly become a disaster with vast responsibility for the lives of many innocents and no power or hope.

  The governor had given the militia their orders with a note of sadness. He had spent hours during the night trying to allocate the meagre resources he was left with to control the trade routes, the town and the Pelasian border and had been left with an inescapable truth: he barely had enough men to control M’Dahz itself. The militia were to abandon the border, the desert roads and any outlying settlements. Split into two groups, one unit would begin to restore the city defences, tearing down houses to clear the walls of obstructions and building makeshift barricades where the lines of defence had long gone. The other unit would commandeer the six vessels that belonged to absent foreign merchants and that remained in port and form a navy to protect those few who still had mercantile interests here. M’Dahz lived on trade and, if they could secure safe sea routes to the port, they could perhaps entice some of the other traders to return. Then, and only then, could they turn to protecting and building the desert trade links once more.

  It was an ambitious plan, and almost certainly doomed to failure.

  Faraj had been assigned to the navy and had embarked on a ship named the Pride of Serfium, heading out to his new career with a sad wave at the children standing at the port with their mother, jostled by the crowds of desperate folk seeking a safe way out of M’Dahz.

  Already the markets were empty and many doors and windows hung open, the buildings abandoned as the inhabitants fled the perilous border region for the relative safety of the provincial capital of Calphoris. In just two days the life had left M’Dahz.

  Asima hammered on the door of her father’s study. There had been a great deal of crashing and thumping half an hour ago and then the house had slid into an ominous silence.

  “Father?”

  It had taken some time for Asima to pluck up the courage to knock. Her father was a serious man, disapproving of his child when she spoke out of place, but now she was worried.

  “Father, are you alright?”

  Her heart beating fast, the young girl leaned close to the door and placed her ear by the lock. The key was in the door at the other side. She could perhaps push the key out, but there was no gap at the bottom of the door, so that would hardly achieve anything.

  She could hear no noise from within; just the background sounds of the town coming in through the room’s only window, sounds of despair and desperation. But gradually, as she listened, she could pick out other sounds; faint sounds from within.

  “Father?”

  Snuffles and wheezes. Her father was crying; crying and scribbling desperately on paper at his table.

  “Father, please let me in. I’m frightened.”

  There was a long pause; true silence now. And finally the sound of a chair scraping back. Quiet, slow footsteps and then the turning of the key. Asima stood back expectantly, but the footsteps retreated once more and there was a further scraping of chair legs on the flagged floor. The girl stood for a moment at the top of the stairs, uncertain of what to do, and then finally took a deep breath, chewed on the inside of her cheek and reached out for the door, turning the handle slowly and swinging the door open as quietly as she could.

  The scene within was a chaos that echoed the state of the town outside the window. Had they not been on the third floor in a locked room, Asima would have assumed that a brawl had broken out in her father’s study. He sat at the table opposite, with his back to her, shaking slightly and occupying the only surviving chair; the other two were among the splintered and fragmented furniture scattered across the floor amid the general mess. Her father had clearly spent some time destroying his study.

  “Father?”

  Gingerly, she approached, stepping carefully between the debris. A bulky man, her father sat hunched over something on the table. He made no effort to acknowledge her presence and once more Asima’s heart skipped a beat. Slowly, but with a determined gait, she stepped to one side and, reaching the end of the table, stood quietly.

  The man looked up sharply and Asima’s heart threatened to break. Her father had never been a man given to open displays of emotion, and even less so since her mother had died, but the last time she had seen grief like this assail the quiet man was on that day when her mother had been bound in linen, placed in a casket and buried, feet-downwards in the Pelasian manner in the cemetery of M’Dahz.

  “Father, what is it? Please talk to me?”

  When the man spoke, he voice was hoarse and cracked, his shaky hands gripping the edge of the table hard enough to whiten the knuckles.

  “Asima… my dearest, darling girl. The light of my life and the song in my soul. You are your mother in all things and it breaks my heart to see it.”

  “Father
?”

  “Asima, I just don’t know how to tell you this; how to explain.”

  The young girl bit her lip nervously.

  “Whatever it is father, we can get by. You know that. We are strong.”

  “You are strong, my love.”

  He sighed and leaned back in his chair, his fingers detaching themselves from the table and sliding away the pen and the ledger over which he had been hunched.

  “Asima, I have nothing. We have nothing.”

  “I do not understand, father.”

  “My business, Asima. My business is as a factor for a Pelasian trader. But I have received word that, with the withdrawal of Imperial support, the market in M’Dahz has collapsed and my esteemed colleague will no longer trade across the border. He has no further use for me. I had other interests with Imperial traders, but they have now fled across the sea to the north, taking their business with them.”

  Asima shook her head.

  “But father, you have stores of goods still in M’Dahz. Your wares will keep us until you can find new sources.”

  The tired-looking man shook his head sadly.

  “I believed so, but the boat I have a part interest in has been commandeered by the militia with no recompense, the traders at the oasis that owe me small monies will not venture close enough to the town to see me, and my store of fruit and perishables that is still worth a small fortune has been looted and devoured by the mob of waifs and strays at the port. There are no guards there to protect such interests now. I have been through all of my logs for import and export. I have nothing, my dear; only what is in this house. We have no more than those people who stole my food. We cannot leave M’Dahz. I cannot pay passage anywhere and we have nowhere to go.”

  Asima stood stoically, her jaw set firm, and folded her arms.

  “You are seeing only disaster, father, but remember this: we are both alive and healthy. We have a good house and clothes. You have possessions that are beyond the means of many that we may be able to sell, given enough time and investigation. You still have a solid reputation, and the future is not set in stone. Who, apart from the Gods, knows what lies around the corner? In a few days, a new Emperor could appear and bring peace and prosperity once more to M’Dahz.”

  Her father stared at her. Such insolent words went against everything he had taught her. And yet it was sense; it was also precisely what her mother would have said to him had she still lived. Without a word, he reached across and wrapped Asima in a bear hug that almost crushed the wind from her.

  “You are brave, my little jewel.”

  Asima laughed.

  “I was not looking forward to Calphoris anyway, father. The boys there are said to be pigs.”

  He pulled his head back for a moment and stared at her in surprise. Then, suddenly, in a burst of unexpected and rare emotion, he burst into raucous laughter. As he laughed, he rocked back and forth, still gripping her tightly. Slowly the mirth subsided and he released her and sat back in his chair.

  “Very well, my dear. I can see that in recent months while I have been chasing gold coronas with open hands, my little girl has grown wise and strong. Where I have failed alone, we shall now succeed together. If we are to make a go and survive in M’Dahz, we will have to work hard and I shall need you.”

  Asima nodded thoughtfully.

  “Do you trust me, father?”

  For a moment the man’s brow furrowed as though he failed to understand the question. Finally, he nodded and smiled.

  “I have always trusted you, Asima. Enough to allow you to make your own entertainment around the town without my supervision. But now? For certain, I trust you more than ever, my girl. What have you in mind?”

  Asima gave an enigmatic smile.

  “It is time to work out what we have; an inventory of everything.”

  Her father nodded.

  “I shall do so…” he raised an eyebrow at his daughter.

  “I, too, have my sources” she replied.

  Still with that enigmatic smile, she turned and left her father in his study while she ran down the stairs and out into the street. Padding through empty alleyways and down numerous flights of steps, she made her way to the house of Nadia and her boys.

  As was her custom, she approached the house from a rear street, climbed a ramp to a second tier of buildings and sidled along a ledge formed by ill-planned housing until she finally reached the window of Samir and Ghassan’s room. The boys were sitting on one of the beds, throwing small darts carved from cedar wood into a cork board. They looked up at the noise from the window and smiled.

  “Asima? We thought you would be packing. We were going to come and see you after dark.”

  The girl grinned.

  “You were worried that I would sneak away to Calphoris without saying goodbye to the boys I love?”

  She ignore both the looks the boys gave her at those words and the small wicked feeling of satisfaction they elicited from deep within her. Smiling, she took a deep breath.

  “I shall not be leaving M’Dahz. Father and I are to stay here.”

  Ghassan blinked.

  “But your father’s business…”

  Samir grasped his wrist.

  “… has failed, hasn’t it Asima?”

  She nodded. Of course clever Samir would be a step ahead as always.

  The smaller brother nodded thoughtfully.

  “Looters or the military?”

  She shrugged.

  “A mix of them both, unfortunately, along with some bad luck.”

  She straightened and folded her arms.

  “However, I look at this as not so much an end as a beginning. Where there is chaos and desperation, there is always an opportunity. Father still has some resources and inventory. What we need to do is build on that; to find a market for the things we have left. But father only knows of finance and trade, whereas you and I know M’Dahz; the real M’Dahz, not the one that rich traders know. I know that between the three of us we can turn a small store into a large profit.”

  Ghassan smiled.

  “So you need our help? You’ll have it, of course.”

  Samir nodded emphatically, but Asima shook her head, smiling.

  “My father will not understand such a thing, but employees he understands. I am here on his behalf to offer you a job. The three of us will work for father.”

  She sighed.

  “Of course, at the moment, he cannot afford to pay you. You would have to wait until we are successful for a wage, but I truly believe we can do this.”

  Samir shook his head.

  “I have no need of your father’s money. You both need it more than us.”

  Their friend gave a short, light laugh.

  “That’s not exactly true, is it Samir? Since your uncle left, most of the money has gone once again from this house. Come now, accept the deal.”

  Ghassan nodded and proffered his hand, Samir following suit.

  “You speak a lot of sense, Asima. What is the first step then?”

  “We need to go and visit father. He is drawing up a full inventory of what we have. Once that is complete, we will go out into M’Dahz and find buyers for everything.”

  Samir grinned.

  “We shall crack M’Dahz like an oyster and collect the pearl from inside.”

  In which tidings are brought

  The town of M’Dahz languished hopelessly for the next few months, eking out an existence from the few desert traders desperate enough to sell their wares that they would brave coming this close to the troubled border, and from the occasional Calphorian merchant willing to face the possibility of pirates and Pelasian patrols for the high prices they could charge in the region.

  It was far from a comfortable life, but it was a life, when all was said and done. After an initially hopeful start, when the seaborne section of the militia impounded two vessels and brought the navy’s strength up to eight ships, they soon encountered violent resistance from both pirates and a f
ew Pelasian vessels that felt confident there would be no reprisals. Now, after four months of campaigning, the militia had achieved a few small victories, but were back down to a strength of four vessels and were beginning to lose heart.

  The defences of the town had been bolstered by the land militia. The new walls were poor and badly-constructed when compared to the heavy fortifications from the height of Imperial power, but they enclosed the nervous population and were well-patrolled by armed militia. M’Dahz endures, the people said. It was the only positive thing anyone could really find to say, these days, and so the people said it often.

  Asima and her two partners stood on the jetty waiting for the fleet of small two-man fishing boats to return. The flotilla speckled the water near the horizon and would reach the dock in ten or fifteen minutes, at which point the three children would fill the baskets in their cart with fish and take them back to the secure warehouse.

  The past four months had seen an almost spectacular revival of her father’s trading interests. After a slow start, business had picked up rapidly for them and Asima had even talked of employing others, though had finally decided that the business should be kept between them. The girl was shrewd and, with the addition of Samir and Ghassan’s quick minds, her father was astounded at how rapidly his stores replenished and his coffers refilled.