by Tia Reed
The whip cracked a red welt across one calf. Brailen jumped. The parchment fluttered to the floor at Kordahla’s feet. She did well to interpret Safra’s look and pick it up.
“My lord,” she said, betrayed by the tremor in her voice.
Ahkdul took the parchment, scrunched it up and threw it at Brailen. “The boy is in as much need of etiquette lessons as my betrothed.” He downed the rest of the roqki and handed her the goblet. The wedding was too close. He wanted to get drunk.
With a catch of breath, she rose to refill it, his good, little bride-to-be.
“This is no more than an apprentice of your years should have achieved under instruction,” Hudassan said.
Ahkdul sneered. His father would have no idea what a competent mage could perform. Verdaan was fated to struggle for mediocrity without their breed. The few peasants who had revealed an inkling of magical talent had succumbed to the ravages of the bliss.
“I have little use for tricks,” Hudassan finished.
“Bring the bottle,” Ahkdul said as Kordahla handed him the full goblet. His father’s respect depended on the imbecile’s accomplishments, and Hudassan had never been quick to admit his son was a capable heir.
Brailen grinned. “You have use for me. Watch. I will show you something no other mage has ever done before.” He tottered towards them. Ahkdul sat forward. The boy’s body was blurring. His flesh was turning pink. He grew in stature, his face becoming terrible even in its goofy youth.
“Ha.” Ahkdul was vindicated. The boy looked like a pink djinn with orange hair. But his form was already melting into a hooded and robed figure, a mahktashaan with a blue crystal on his chest.
The jug crashed onto the floor. Behind him, Kordahla was staring, curse the veil. He wanted to see every nuance of her expression. He wanted to know every detail of her traitorous thoughts. The mahktashaan. His unwelcome betrothed had reacted to the image of the mahktashaan, the lying wench. Not that he could punish her for it with her brother lavishing unmerited comforts on her. Ahkdul grabbed the whip from Hudassan and cracked it across Brailen’s ribs. The idiot boy lost his glamour, let out a cry, and collapsed onto hands and knees. The way he was looking up, grimacing and grinning all at once, he had to consider the attention a reward.
“Illusion,” Ahkdul said, flinging the whip. It slid across the tiles. Kordahla flinched as it stopped by her feet. Her soft, overprotective brother dropped a cushion on it. “Nothing more than illusion.”
“But I fooled you,” Brailen said.
Hudassan was standing. “What more can you do?”
Brailen got up on one knee. “I’ll work hard to find out. I only need a little porrin.” He cocked his head. “Just a little, my lord, now there is genie flesh in my blood.”
✽ ✽ ✽
The mahktashaan escorted Vinsant into Father’s study. Steam was rising from beneath the shah’s feet as he paced the sunny floor to the side of his carved desk. He stopped in its shadow long enough to throw Vinsant a disgusted look. As if that was not bad enough, it felt like Levi was shooting daggers from his black eyes. Vinsant cleared his throat and lowered his hood. He winced as his esteemed parent flinched. Not that he had the luxury of the upper hand for long. Father gripped the side of the desk like it might keep him from exploding through the roof. Two-handed, mind you. Right in front of the carving of an open-mouthed baz’waeel.
“Replace your hood, apprentice,” Levi ordered, like his wasn’t sitting all the way back at his hairline.
Vinsant felt himself shrink as he pulled the blue hood up. It didn’t look like Father was ready to forgive him. The shah raved under his breath as he paced four lengths of the room, spluttered something louder but still incomprehensible, and turned to face him.
“The majoria tells me you are responsible for the lake.”
“Um. . . My –”
“Silence!”
Vinsant jumped. Father inhaled so deep Vinsant wondered if he might suck all the air from the room. As his furious parent deigned to face him, he tugged his dislodged hood further over his face.
“Is this your twisted idea of a reprisal? Is this how you thought you would punish me for sending your sister to Verdaan?”
“Er, K–”
“How dare you! Do you even understand the full implications of what you have done?”
Vinsant blinked. He had to be missing something. He had woken to a clear dawn feeling quite pleased with himself. He had the ring, after all. And after levitating to the banks, he had found the lake water he had deposited in the Mowan Ocean – he had been careful to use Dnea as a landmark – and brought it all back. Boats and all, just as it had been. It was such an awesome feat, he had permitted himself to bask in the stares of the sailors as he set sail in his rowboat. The ring – and his pride, but he was never going to admit that – was worth enduring any punishment Mahktos and Levi deemed appropriate. He had been thinking about what a wise and powerful majoria he would make when, about mid-morning, he had lost control of his boat and found himself dragged to shore by a group of solemn mahktashaan. A token guard, he had thought. Perhaps now he was home and versed in magic he would reacquire his status as prince. It made perfect sense if you considered they had escorted him straight here, no time to show off in front of Naikil and Gram. Not so much when he reflected they had given him no chance to soak off the grunge of his arduous journey.
Vinsant opened his mouth. Father cut him off. Again.
“This is an act of treason!”
Vinsant flinched. He looked at Levi, hoping for help. Or at least an explanation.
“T–” he started.
“You are no son of mine, you traitorous bastard. You might hang for this.”
Vinsant felt his knees turn weak. Father sounded very much like he meant it.
“G–”
Levi moved so close their feet touched. His crystal flashed black and Vinsant was forced to his knees. He would much have preferred a rough hand to magic, and to fall in the patch of sun and not at the edge of the shade, at the edge of the desk, where the carving of a deer-limbed schkaan was lifting its feathered throat in its fabled lament.
“Apprentice Vinsant, are you aware Terlaan is at war?” Levi asked.
“Um, yes. But –”
“Do you wish our enemy to prevail?”
“Er, no, but–”
“Then why did you destroy the lake?”
“I put it back. I –”
“YOU PUT IT BACK!” Somehow Father got his arm past Levi, grabbed him and rammed him into the wall. “The water is salt!” He pushed and Vinsant’s head banged against the wall. “Boats are missing.” Bang. His eyes watered. “Men.” Bang. His teeth clattered. “The fish are dying.” Bang. Bang. Everything had gone wrong. “The chancellor tells me the crops along the River Sheraz will perish from the extra salt washed down. We are at war and you have single-handedly destroyed our major sources of food.” Father tossed him to the floor. His rotten luck to fall on the point of his elbow. He yelped at the pain shooting through his arm, squeezed his eyes shut, and felt the side of his head. A lump was already forming. “The people are calling for justice.”
Vinsant opened an eye. Father had a punch ready. He threw his arms over his head. Thank Vae’oeldin Father bared his teeth and turned away with nothing more than a tense shake of his head. Even so, with his beard grown and his grooming slackened under what had to be major stress, he looked wild.
“I’m sorry.”
Father looked at the desk. “You are always sorry, but you never show signs of behaving like a man. This I cannot forgive.” He waved a hand a Levi. “See what punishment the people demand.
“They call for blood, Your Majesty. Mahktashaan blood.”
The room froze. Father blanched. He closed his eyes tight for far too long. When he opened them, the shah’s slow nod seemed resigned. “So be it,” Father said. Vinsant gulped. It couldn’t be good Father’s eyes were moist. “We are at war. I must have their loyalty. Take him to
the square. See if the blood of their prince will appease the citizens.” The words were quiet, tight. Vinsant felt like he was spinning on all the fluttery wings of the muid carved on the desk. He wobbled as he got up. In shadow.
“Father, I didn’t mean –”
“You never mean, Vinsant. You did not mean to kill a mahktashaan. You did not mean to steal the crystals. You did not mean to assist your sister dishonour us. We are at war because of what you did not mean. I do not mean to execute you but my people may demand your life in exchange for the hardship you have visited upon them. As shah, I can make no other choice.”
Vinsant sobbed. This was not the way he was supposed to come home.
The shah walked to the door. “Majoria.”
Levi stood over him. “Take off your robe.”
Vinsant’s head jerked up. His hood slipped off as he stared beneath Levi’s hood into the majoria’s uncompromising face. Hand on the door, Father waited.
“You dishonoured yourself when you compromised Terlaan,” Levi said.
Father’s breath shook as he opened the door. The odious Verdaani spy, Baiyeed, was skulking outside. Like anyone would believe he just happened to be passing by.
“A mahktashaan’s first duty is to Mahktos,” Vinsant blurted. Baiyeed could keep pretending to have a bootlace problem for all he cared. “I did it to honour Mahktos.”
Majoria and shah froze. “You DARE?” Levi demanded.
“I’m not daring!” although he was, to interrupt in that tone. He tried to burrow his way out with with a meek voice. “Mahktos wanted me to reach the lake bed.” Why else would the ring have called to his quartz?
“Explain yourself.”
Vinsant reached inside his kurta and pulled out the relic. “I think it’s Guntek’s,” he said, holding it out.
Levi snatched it, tugging the knot right out of the leather strap. Crystal and ring threw out a brief burst of light.
Father’s feet scuffed on the floor as he turned. He didn’t look so fraught in Levi’s light, but that could just have been its strange colour.
“He speaks truth. He has carried out the first duty of a mahktashaan. It negates any harm to the land.” Levi was cradling the ring. Judging by the coveting expression on his face, it was going to take some talking to get it back.
“My son is a traitor.”
That was glee on the scumsucking Baiyeed’s face.
The majoria tucked the ring into his robe, the thief. “He is loyal to Mahktos. The god bestowed those crystals you war over. His life is sacrosanct.”
“Then to you falls the task of quelling the people.” Father nodded towards Vinsant. “Take him. He is yours. I do not ever wish to see him again.”
Vinsant gaped as the shah strode from the room. He had to believe the hunch in Father’s shoulders was not defeat but relief.
Chapter 52
HAULED FROM THE well at dawn, bound one to the other hand and foot, the slaves shuffled towards the palisade. There was but a single attempt at escape. The slavers ran the reckless man down before he had scaled the sharpened sticks forming the barrier. Their relish at hacking him to pieces heightened with the screams of the women and children.
“Him,” Werril said, indicating a stooped youth who had not stopped coughing the entire night.
His brutish thugs pulled the thin lad from the line and drove a sword into his chest.
“For every one of you miserable slaves who tries to escape, I’ll kill another,” Werril said. Arun held his stare as one of his accomplices tossed the dead youth into the murky river and another flung jagged pieces of the escapee’s flesh to the lumbering crocs. This senseless waste of life served as a deterrent for him alone. The other captives were too weak, too cowed to resist.
Nobody spoke after the slavers marched them outside the barricade and loaded them into the hold of a leaky sailboat the size of a large jabberwei. For a day, they sat atop each other, poking one another every time they stretched a cramped muscle into stinking waste. They sobbed and shivered, forgotten until dusk, when they were thrown a few raw fish and a bucket of water. The monotony wore their nerves thin. To break it, Arun asked each of them to tell their story. They were pitiable in their likeness. Thoughts of home and loved ones kindled a determination to survive, a fierce if passive resistance to the slavers every time they opened the hold. The men demanded release, while the women wept with the shame of their captor’s despicable behaviour until Werril called for a volunteer in a way that silenced even the sickening infant.
The hours dragged on.
A heavy thud sent a shudder through the hull, startling every last person on board. A second hit tilted the boat. Gasps turned to screams. Arms and legs collided with noses and eyes as bodies slid to starboard. Three more thumps came in rapid succession. The hold creaked. A plank split.
“Give me a volunteer, or I’ll take three,” Werril said.
Slow, steady, Arun rose.
“Not you.”
A hit on the stern knocked him onto a young woman. She didn’t make a peep.
The splinters in the weakened plank cracked inward.
“Take me.” A flurry of hands helped an old man to his spindly legs. A woman wailed. He murmured an empty comfort.
Werril sneered. “You’ll do.”
Water trickled through the split. The oblivious slavers fished the old man from the hold. A splash shocked their captives into silence. Frightened faces peered at each other. The boat picked up speed. Arun picked his way between tangled bodies to the widening hole, tore a strip off his kurta, and stuffed it into the crack. The cloth dampened. Water dribbled a crooked path down the rotten planks.
“Mahktos preserve us,” he murmured.
A few of the others heard him and mumbled to the Vae. A louder voice joined them, and another.
“Shut up!” Werril yelled from above.
They did.
Water kept trickling in.
“The boat is going to sink,” Arun called.
A slaver called Rashaan opened the hatch and threw down a couple of planks, a hammer and some nails. “Fix it.”
The patch was crude. Muddy water dripped from beneath the wood but it would keep the stinking, infested river from dragging them under. Arun passed the hammer up. It would be the weakest who suffered if he claimed that weapon.
He had another, one more powerful than metal. When he resumed his supplication, the others found the courage to pray alongside.
They went without food or water that night.
Three mornings later, seven days after they had first squashed together below deck, the boat docked. Shivering on a raised wooden dock, under a fleecy sky, they suffered a callous sorting. They were three victims lighter, two thrown to the jabberweis, the infant dead of starvation.
“Leave that one, and her. And him. Lord Ahkdul might take a shine to him,” Werril said, pulling a stunned child from his wailing mother’s embrace. Two crocodiles were visible through the gaps in the planks, swishing their tails through the mud. The sight of them made Liya baulk as Rashaan pulled her off the boat and shoved her into the larger line. The girl had not been in the hold. From the way she avoided his eyes he could guess to what dishonourable use the men had put her.
“Have hope,” Arun murmured, breathing deep of the open air. After the fumes in the hold, the taint of the scum was mild.
Liya stared at a basking crocodile.
“What about him?” Rashaan asked, pointing at Arun.
“He’s for Pengari,” Werril said. “And he’d better learn to keep his mouth shut.”
Arun let out a selfish sigh of relief. Pengari brought him close to his Terlaani princess. It took him away from the captives shuffling west behind three calloused, unshaven men who had brought horses to meet the boat. They remained silent, heads bowed, a few of them wielding brittle sticks against the trailing crocs. Rasheed brought up the rear with loud threats of what would befall any misbehavers. Their enslavement was a cruelty which went against ever
ything the mahktashaan stood for. The order’s values were entrenched in Arun’s soul, but he was powerless as a man, and sworn to protect his Terlaani princess besides. She needed him as much as these wretched Myklaani. It was inconceivable Shah Ordosteen did not know of the misfortune befalling so many of his citizens. Their fate made him angry, but hers. . . it twisted his heart. Escape would be easier now only three other captives remained: the boy; a young woman whose beauty was not masked by the grime caked on her body; a brusque man who had refused to share his tale. They had to be of some worth to be singled out from the group. If he could be sure his escape would bear the others no consequences. . .
“Leave them tied,” Werril ordered. “Get them inside.” He jumped onto the boat and opened a chest tied to the mast.
Arun dawdled his way on board, pretending to stumble as Rashaan forced the woman and boy below the water-ridden deck. It afforded him a glimpse inside a chest. A small bundle wrapped in dirty cloth held most of the slaver’s attention. Arun caught a glimpse of cerulean blue as he flicked the corners aside. He hesitated. Dishonoured as he was, wielding the crystal would be a risk. Mahktos might choose to strike him down. He could carry it as a deterrent until the time he was prepared to die in exchange for one last feat of magic. The trick lay in escaping these men without using it. Yet if they guessed what he was, they would be reluctant to confront him.
“You’re going to get us killed,” Rashaan snarled at Werril, knocking Arun’s feet from under him.
Werril sprang up and around, slamming the lid of the chest as Arun jumped onto his feet and rammed a shoulder into Rashaan. The slaver grabbed him as he fell. Arun pulled down, lifting knee and elbow to push his opponent away. His bonds prevented an effective defence, and the pair of them slammed down across the opening to the hold. Arun pressed his bound wrists across Rashaan’s neck. The slaver’s neck vein throbbed, his face reddened.
The cold tip of a sword pricked Arun’s neck. He slid his wrists off Rasheed, lying still as the man got up and kicked him.