“You seem unconvinced,” Laban peered at him.
“Can I be blamed?” Azhar shrugged. “What is the source of your information?”
Ussam sat up straight, a small grin curling about the corner of his lips. “The conquest of Ghuldad came with a precious bounty,” he replied, almost as though he had been waiting for that very moment. “Deep beneath the dungeons, my men uncovered texts and scrolls, remnants of the ancient Kingdom of Zarzara. Indeed, we have scrutinized every page we could set our eyes upon. I urge you to have faith in what we speak of.”
“Faith without knowledge is ignorance,” Azhar stated. “Enlighten me as to how these items will vanquish the Dark Prince Azazil.”
Ussam seemed mildly impressed. “Very few dare speak his name.”
“There can be no benefit from the fear of a name,” Azhar said, and he waited patiently for his query to be addressed.
“It is with sorcery that he is powerful,” Ussam explained, “and it is with sorcery that we will destroy him.”
“What you must understand,” Laban shifted on his cushion, “is that no man— no human has the power to perform magic. Believing a sorcerer to be powerful is, without doubt, believing in the very illusion he wishes you to see. The power of magic comes from the abilities of entities whose existence is known, but remains unseen.”
“What entities?” Azhar asked, unable to disguise the slight quiver in his voice.
“Jinn,” Laban replied, and a cold chill wafted into the tent as the candlelight flickered. “Created from a smokeless fire, with the abilities to do that which man cannot. It is with the aid of these beings that any magic is performed, but they must be convinced of your allegiance before they can give you theirs. Sorcerers are faced with horrendous tasks when a contract is forged. The Dark Prince is a dominant entity, and his powers are drawn from the sorcerers who worship his being—”
“And by killing his sorcerers, we weaken his forces and his powers,” Azhar narrowed his eyes and nodded.
“Alas, if only it were as transparent,” Laban said, unperturbed by Azhar’s interruption. “To kill those sorcerers, we must first destroy the Jinn who aid them. The Dark Prince’s most trusted ally, he who is known as the Hand of Azazil, an ancient demon, commands hosts of the mightiest of these Jinn. In truth, it is near impossible to kill a Jinn, for they are not bound by flesh and bone as we are. They coexist in a world quite unlike ours, disunited by a veil, not only impossible to pierce, but forbidden to attempt.”
Azhar was unable to contain his curiosity. “Then how—?”
“Thus the items you procured,” Laban said simply.
“Is that their significance then?” Azhar asked. “Weapons that can kill Jinn?”
“Where are they?” Ussam looked around the tent, as though hoping to see a display case in one of the corners.
Azhar faced the entrance of the tent. “Farid!” he called, and the armored guard entered the tent. “Bring the chest. And wake Harun. I demand his presence.”
ONE
THE BLACKSMITH
PRESENT DAY.
Much could be said of Harun Zafar’s youngest son. Not unlike his peers, he grew up whole and healthy, despite the constant hardships and enervating essences of life. Harun and Suha had been praised several times for raising their children well, but were the brothers always well-behaved, obedient, and good-mannered?
Atrocity befell them at a very young age when their father was imprisoned and astonishingly vanished from his prison cell shortly after. With an adamant disregard for rules and authority, Zaki rebelled and attempted pursuit, only to lose himself to the wilderness. He was later discovered to have joined the ranks of the celebrated Red-Guard of Aztalaan.
Like his elder brother, Mukhtar possessed no less a rebellious trait, but coerced by reality, he adapted an early maturity, and his cunningness and tenacity helped him persevere. Fatherless for the better part of his life, he grew up poor but healthy, destitute but happy, and life taught him what he needed to know. Mika’il Abaraina, married to Suha’s elder sister, had taken custody of Harun Zafar’s forge, and it was under his watchful eye that Mukhtar earned his livelihood as an apprentice blacksmith.
He was later than usual one morning. Weaving in and out of the crowded sweaty streets, he half-walked, half-ran, heading for his uncle’s forge located on the eastern side of the district, deeply dreading what surely awaited him. His uncle was a man intolerant of tardiness. He was intolerant of rather everything, in Mukhtar’s opinion.
The harbor to the south brought the cawing of seagulls and a salty tinge, making the air heavy with humidity and noisier than ever. Under clear skies and a blazing late-morning sun, carts pulled by stubborn mules and oxen pushed aside people, people pushed other people, and the streets continued to bustle in a strangely harmonized way. Merchant stalls were set up within feet of each other, their owners making every effort to attract customers, while shoppers moved between stalls and stores, hunting for the best bargain.
With the congestion of small market squares and numerous industrious businesses, the air had a faint taste, tinged with stenches of smoke and rot. Piles of rubbish and puddles of sewage, riled by the tropical heat of Khalidah, made it somewhat difficult to breathe. Widely known as the Immortal City, Khalidah was spread out along the rocky shoreline of the Gulf of Shabb, a port of economics and commerce for merchant vessels across the seas, making it a center of all trade routes. Camel-driven caravans traveled from as far away as Aghara and beyond, bringing with them spices and incense, livestock and farmery, silk and cotton to trade for the skills that Khalidans had to offer in craft, artistry, and fishing.
A heavily guarded wall cleft the affluent from the indigent populous that spanned the remainder and greater part of the city well into the outskirts. Pressed for time, Mukhtar did not take his usual, less polluted and less crowded route to work. He ran past the wall, into a maze of twisted, narrow streets and alleys, lined with disorderly houses of mud and clay, and emerged onto Rayis Street, where he was forced to slow his pace. A much larger crowd was gathered around the middle of the street, restricting movement from either side. Cries of prices and offers filled the air, mingled with a frenzy of cheers and roars. His uncle’s forge lay further down the street to his right, but curiosity drew him toward the crowd, where he strained his ears to listen in.
‘I have twenty gold from this fine man here! Twenty gold! Do I hear twenty-one?’
‘Come now... Come now! Look how strong she is! How very young and bright!’
‘Do I hear twenty-one?’
At the very back of the crowd, a beady-eyed man was ardently chatting with his companion, spontaneously pointing at the spectacle. Mukhtar approached him and inquired.
Slightly irritated at the interruption, the man turned and frowned. “Slave traders,” he grunted. “With merchandise from as far away as Aghara. Or so they claim. Gives them a very good excuse to triple the usual prices.” He folded his arms. “I refuse to believe it though. They must have picked this rabble from the sewers of Din-Galad!”
On occasion, Rayis Street was known to attract slave trades when the demand was high, and many corrupt City-Guards greedily partook in the endeavors so long as their share of the profits was guaranteed. Sure enough, as Mukhtar looked about, he spotted a pair of them idling at the corner of the street, deliberately turning a blind eye.
He felt anger boil inside of him. “It is men like you who continue to encourage such poisonous trades!” he snarled at the beady-eyed man.
The man simply pointed to a blank wall further down from Kashif the Carpenter’s shop and his brother, Ufuk’s Store of Antiquities. Two bodies were sprawled, one on top of the other, their blood spilled and seeping into the sand and dirt.
Mukhtar’s throat became dry. “Dead?”
“Unless you wish the same fate, keep your piousness to yourself!” The man gave him a shrewd look, then simply turned away. Despite the warning, Mukhtar pushed his way through to the front for a b
etter view.
The opening before the crowd revealed two men, one short and well-built, with long braided hair and a small sack of coin tied to his waist. His accomplice was much taller and broader, with an ugly scar across his face and a large battle-axe mounted on his back.
While buoyantly addressing the crowd, they hungrily circled a young and helpless girl. She looked no older than Mukhtar. Her hands and legs were chained, filthy clothes torn to near shreds, and matted hair hid part of her dirty face with a bleeding lip and bruised cheek. She hung her head in evident shame, staring at her grimy and muddy feet. A large, iron, caged-cart was parked in the alley behind her. Three others sat, trapped behind rusty iron bars, watching the bidding of their companion with hopeless expressions.
The large slave trader nudged his partner and pointed to somewhere in the crowd. He had spotted a customer committing to his price, and he smirked with shameless glee and screamed, “Sold! For twenty-one gold coins!”
The last of their merchandise was sold, and as the crowd thinned, Mukhtar was able to get a proper view of the slave-girl, and his heart became heavy with pity. He felt compelled to show her mercy as she was pulled by her hair and dragged like a sack of grain. She let out a small, drained squeal of pain as the slaver removed her chains and threw her ruthlessly into the cage, completing the task with a spit of disgust and a look of pure loathing. The others made room for her, and she curled up into a far corner of the cage, hiding her face behind her knees, tugging on her rags to keep as much of herself concealed as she could.
“Savor these final moments,” the slaver growled, his lips curling into a malevolent grin. “Tonight, your new master will devour your chastity—” he lowered his voice to a malicious whisper, “—and I will do the same before you are delivered to him!” He gave a sinister cackle and locked the cage.
Mukhtar, who was leaning against the wall close by, pretending to admire an elderly merchant’s display of clay pots, clenched his fists, angered at what he had just heard. The slaver sniffed repulsively at his captives, before entering the antiquities shop with his companion and their customer, Ufuk.
They left the cart unguarded, Mukhtar thought. Why?
He glanced at the dead bodies further along the street and the answer was obvious. Who would dare?
Cautiously, he approached the cage and stopped to consider his options— was it worth the risk? It was not his business, not his responsibility, but the manner in which the girl’s head was pitifully curled into her knees, silently sobbing, was too much for him to bear. He glanced about nervously. The alley was deserted. There was no one else about.
“You!” he whispered to her. “Slave-girl!”
She ignored him.
“You boy!” One of the other slaves croaked, an old man with long gray hair and beard. He crawled closer to the bars of the cage and Mukhtar’s nostrils were filled with a nauseating stench of rot and human waste. “I sense greatness in you. Will you show us mercy? Will you free us from this prison?”
“He is a Khalidan,” the third spoke. He was just as gaunt, unkempt, and filthy as his fellows. Mukhtar noted a gap in his beard. His right cheek appeared to have suffered a terrible burn. “Pompous and self-centered, Khalidans care for nothing but themselves! Go away! Your false nobility will not save you when those slavers catch you speaking to us!”
Mukhtar frowned. “I am willing to free you from the wickedness of these men!”
“Will you also gloat before you have even accomplished your deed?”
“I should leave you to rot in that cage!” Mukhtar retorted angrily.
“Do as you please, Khalidan!” The man said recklessly. “Our doom is sealed. Once we were free, now we will die enslaved to man.”
Mukhtar ignored him and gave the girl a long and hard stare, trying to resolve the conflict within him. How could he justify his own freedom, when so many others who deserved to be free, lived their lives under their master’s whips? No man or woman should have a worth in coin. The large slaver’s words continued to ring in his head. He could not stand for such brutality, and may not have the strengths to bring the slavers to justice, but he did possess the tact and the advantage to help the captives escape. What they did with that freedom was their choice.
The ox that pulled the cart gave an uninterested bellow and chewed on its cud innocuously. Mukhtar picked up a fairly large rock, and the slave-girl looked up disbelievingly. Her companions tensed. The scarred man eyed him curiously. The other slave did the same. The old man gave him an encouraging nod and he readied himself to break the lock, but froze before he could strike.
Voices were coming out the front of the shop. The slavers were returning.
“Hide!” The old man hissed, his sunken eyes wide in horror.
Gripped by fear, Mukhtar hastily dropped the rock and scampered away behind a large pile of logs in the otherwise deserted alley, retreating barely a moment before the men appeared.
“I have heard tales of you, Haim Tuma,” Ufuk was saying, eyeing the slaver cautiously. “Tales of the Butcher of Aghara.”
Haim gave an impish snort, noting the merchant’s apprehension. “It was not a title I earned for any misdeeds,” he explained. “I was indeed a butcher in Aghara, and carried the title with me when my brother and I were exiled from that cursed land of pompous aristocrats!” He spat on the ground, and Mukhtar raised a dubious eyebrow. Both his mother and aunt were from Aghara, and never had they spoken of it as a cursed land. “Although you cannot deny,” Haim continued, “it does strike fear!”
Ufuk coughed nervously. “It does indeed. Forgive my boldness but I must ask, where does most of your merchandise come from?” He gestured at the slaves in the cart.
“From Aghara,” Haim’s brother replied, “as we had announced to all!”
“Do you take me for a fool, Gussar?” Ufuk eyed the tall slaver. “The girl might pass for an Aghari, but the others...”
“Ah, Ufuk, is it not bad fortune to disclose one’s trade secrets?” Haim responded, and then lowered his voice. “I admit, we may have exaggerated to double our profits, but our merchandise has always been unique. Take that old man, for instance,” Haim gestured, “a sorcerer. A sorcerer! We found him lurking outside the palace walls at a midnight hour, crouched by the stream, murmuring his demented spells and casting seashells into the waters flowing through the gap beneath the wall. He vowed to curse us if we chained him. My superstitious goat of a brother—” he chuckled at the large slaver, who gave him a disgruntled look, “—did not want to. Afraid of sorcerers, he is. Alas, the old man has brought nothing but good fortune since. Fetched us a decent forty gold coins himself, and ten for each his accomplices!”
Ufuk almost yelped with excitement, and Mukhtar knew what he was thinking. If this was true, then it certainly seemed as though these slavers were in a lucrative business.
“Come now, Haim, have we not already become friends?” Ufuk appealed, unable to disguise the greedy look on his face. “It is truly unjust to steal your secrets, and I am not an unjust man, but perhaps we can aid each other in future endeavors? She may not seem much now,” he gestured at the slave-girl, “although I am certain that after a good scrub and a few square meals, she will be a delight around the house. If she proves her worth, I may yet recommend your name to some of my own clients. Shall we return to my shop and discuss some more? Perhaps we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement, your merchandise and my clients? I even know a ranking city guard, Ghadan Lahib. He is a close acquaintance and has highly influential friends who can turn the other way and keep the authorities blind to our trades.”
Haim seemed to be giving it some thought. “Very well then, why not? I believe we can spare some time. Is that cage locked?” he asked his brother.
Gussar glanced at the lock, seemed satisfied with its integrity, and the three returned to Ufuk’s shop to discuss their ventures.
Mukhtar allowed a moment to pass before stepping out. Heart hammering against his chest, he picke
d up the heavy rock again and swung. The rusty old lock was no match for the blacksmith’s powerful arms, and it gave in immediately. The slaves realized their opportunity, and as soon as the cage was open, they jumped out and made their escape. The girl gave a small yelp as her shoulder caught on a jagged edge and tore off a piece of her filthy clothes. Mukhtar glanced around nervously, but no one seemed to have heard her.
The old man was last to step out, and he gazed at his savior for a long moment before saying, “Bless you, child!”
Mukhtar stared into his sunken eyes. “I only freed you from wicked men.”
The old man gave him a curious look. “We will never be free,” he said. “The devil himself has sworn to haunt us with wickedness!” And he joined the others, disappearing into the crowd, leaving Mukhtar alone in the alley with the cage, staring at the ragged piece of cloth caught on its jagged edge. The ox continued to chew its cud.
A half-hour later, Mukhtar arrived at the forge, still recovering from the rush of adrenaline. He had vanished long before the slavers came out to find an empty cart, but as the adrenaline wore off, anxiety crept in and gripped his innards with piercing claws.
He continuously glanced over his shoulder, half expecting the slavers to be in pursuit. What if they had recognized him? Or followed him? He shook his head, took deep breaths to calm his beating heart, and tried to focus. If the slavers truly suspected him, they would already be on his tail. He threw another frightful glance over his shoulder. Not much but a dusty, overcrowded, winding and twisting street of disheveled and mismatched merchant stalls trailed behind. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to cause needless unease. He had to focus on what lay ahead. His uncle was expecting him early. He had already received several prior warnings of poor punctuality and he was arriving nearly four hours later than ever. At this point, the slavers became the least of his concern. He opened the door to the rear entrance and stepped, as quietly as he could, into the stifling hot atmosphere of the forge, breathing in the familiar smell of metal, wood, and leather mingled with dust.
The Amulets of Sihr Page 2