War of the Sultans

by Fuad Baloch

  “No,” said Shoki. The mercenary hesitated, casting a worried glance at the inquisitor within earshot range. Shoki pulled on his reins, allowing the distance between them and the inquisitor to increase. “Go on.”

  Deraman wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. “Apologies again, we couldn't get word back from the magi.”

  Shoki nodded. He had been disappointed when they’d told him at the island that the magi had not responded to him, but in a way, that was an answer in itself. They were up to something. All he could hope was that it didn't make matters worse. “That’s alright. Maybe… they’re just too tired. Can’t be easy dragging these wells with them all along—those things must be heavy!”

  Deraman laughed, Shoki joining in.

  “Do me a favor, will you?”

  “Anything,” declared Deraman, thumping his chest.

  “Keep an eye out on the inquisitor for me.”

  The mercenary nodded after a moment’s hesitation, then peeled away, leaving Shoki to his dark thoughts. Damn it, he didn’t like brooding—Nuraya was welcome to it. But surely, there had to be something he could do apart from second-guessing everyone else around him.

  The various threads began intertwining, a vague picture emerging. In many ways, what they were being displayed was a glamor, masking the underlying reality—kind of like a princess being viewed from behind a dozen sheer veils.

  Think, Shoki, think! Consider this a murder you’re investigating in the Mercantile quarter with Salar Ihagra.

  Shoki inhaled, forcing a distance between himself and the facts he did know. Even when Nuraya had tried freeing Algaria from her brother, it had been her mother who’d been the real beneficiary of her actions. The queen, in turn, had been moved by the pari folk.

  Keep going.

  When he had been placed in command by the grand vizier, the djinn had taken him to Nainwa, throwing him into a problem that involved a broken pact and more magi.

  He tried recalling Jiza’s warnings. His world and Nainwa were mirror images, she’d said. He’d not really understood her warning, but after the djinn attack, he could see the two worlds connected, even if he couldn't see exactly how.

  The magi and the inquisitors were fighting each other.

  What was the one thread that bound all these matters together?

  Jadu.

  How did the rest fit in then? What was the Reratish prince doing in the west?

  Shoki shivered. Something terrible was coming—a beast hurtling toward them even as they kept their ears and eyes distracted by the noise all around.

  What do I do?

  Despair spread in his chest. If only he could reach his well again.

  “You should not have given up your claim so easily, boy,” said the inquisitor, jolting Shoki out of his thoughts. “Now, I’m forced to deal with the woman who murdered her own blood!”

  “Hmm.”

  “Had you not done so, you could have demanded Nuraya turn north-east to help the inquisitor castle!”

  Shoki narrowed his eye. “What’s at the castle anyway? The magi’s phials of blood?”

  The inquisitor barked a short laugh. “I told you that’s not something I’m willing to share. Even with you!”

  “Trust… is all we have in these grim times,” said Shoki, trying not to think of what he had asked Deraman to do.

  The inquisitor smirked. “Amusing words.”

  Shoki scratched his head. “If not the blood phials, what else—” He stopped, turned around to face the inquisitor. “Artifacts. That’s what you store there, isn't it?”

  The inquisitor harrumphed but didn't reply.

  “So, the magi intend to steal these artifacts?” Shoki reasoned. “Strengthened, they either hope to gain extra leverage in their talks with you… or use that power to overthrow you lot.”

  “There can be no compromise between us now,” spat the inquisitor. “Either they return to the fold. Or they get severed. All other offers are moot, after their brazen attacks against our castles.”

  Shoki bit his tongue. Was this what one inquisitor thought, or the opinion of his institution? “But…” he tapped his feet, struggling to see how this particular thread fit in the tapestry he had been sewing in his mind. “How will you counter the magi? Don’t you need a certain number of inquisitors to be able to sever a magus from jadu?”

  “Seventeen, if we don't have their phials,” said the inquisitor quietly. “Two, if we have their essence—enough to both trace and sever them.”

  “But how would you counter their attacks? If one with an attunement to earth was to cause quakes, how would you even approach him in the first place?”

  “We have our ways,” replied the inquisitor. He turned his hard eyes toward him. “Talking of trust, let’s try it one more time. Why was that djinn magus girl traveling with you? Especially one with a Jaman well as rare as hers!”

  Shoki coughed, turning his face away.

  “Fine. I did suspect there was something odd between the two of you. Anyway, don’t worry about me blabbing about whatever the two of you got up to behind Nuraya’s back. I’m better than that.” Shoki pursed his lips, refusing the inquisitor’s bait. Inquisitor Aboor smirked. “Very well. At least, tell me why the djinn attacked us? Was it you or the girl they were after?”

  “Who knows why the djinn do what they do?”

  “Has that got anything to do with the manner in which you escaped that dungeon you mentioned?”

  Shoki squeezed his eye shut. He couldn't trust the inquisitor. Telling him about Nainwa would force the Kalb to pursue the djinn. How much harm would that cause? Besides, no matter how civil the inquisitor sounded, the reality was that the two of them—an inquisitor and a magus, even a former magus—could never be allies: the prey and the predator, the lion and the goat.

  “You lost much when Algaria fell the first time?” asked the inquisitor.

  The first time. Shoki cleared his throat. “My parents. You?”

  The inquisitor scoffed. “Never really had any family. Left the wife when she cheated on me after I’d returned a cripple in the sultan’s name.”

  “Oh!”

  Shoki fell silent, and the inquisitor didn't pursue the awkward line of questioning either. Something that suited Shoki just fine.

  More worry settled in his chest. Algaria had fallen a second time. A city that had been the jewel of all cities, trampled under dirty Zakhanan boots. Shoki shook his head, startled by how little it hurt. Had his heart started to get numb?

  Almost all the Zakhanan he’d met in Algaria had been religious fanatics. How would the local Atishi populace fare under them?

  Focus!

  All these miseries were a prelude to something even worse. Again, Shoki shivered. He glanced at the inquisitor. Did he anticipate it too? Did he, too, sense that niggling feeling that they weren't seeing the forest for the trees?

  Shoki turned his gaze toward Nuraya.

  Did she share these same misgivings?

  Chapter 29

  Nuraya

  Crossing her arms, Nuraya schooled her face to calmness.

  “After your men desecrated the Atishi temples, they made off with the female worshipers!” said Karmanal, the bald Atishi priest, raising a quivering finger at her, then moving it toward the heavens. “Is that what Rabb, your Unseen God teaches? Murder? Rape?”

  “He does not,” said Camsh. “You know that just as well as anyone.”

  “These men claimed to be following His orders.” The priest turned toward Nuraya. “If not God, could it be they were listening to their salars in this world, those more concerned with preying on the weak, instead of protecting them?”

  “Enough!” growled Jinan, standing opposite Camsh. He had been surprisingly quiet up until now, letting the priest prattle on and on, but now it seemed he had finally broken out of his stupor. “Times like these, men do things they wouldn't normally. Neither the first time nor would it be the last!”

  “And so, that’s that,
huh?” challenged the priest. Shaking his head, he lowered his chin and began muttering, his pate shining under the bright sunlight. For a breath, Nuraya watched him and the members of her council. Just them in the middle of the Warnal’s vast plaza, its cobbled pathways baking under the harsh sun.

  She surveyed her surroundings. The city was of moderate size, in northern terms anyway, home to two hundred thousand or so if her estimation was correct. A vast number that had failed to repel the survivors from her army as the Atishi priest alleged. That wasn't right. Numbers, something she had been grappling with for some time, told her these men should have been devoured had the citizens decided to stop them. After all, banded together, a herd of buffaloes could outmatch a pride of lions.

  She turned toward the hundred or so corpses that had been laid to one side when she had swept into the city in the morning. Her eyes fell on the Atishi temple to her right, its marble staircase stained with dried blood. Though the city streets around them were quiet, she could almost hear the survivors whimpering in their houses behind shattered doors.

  Camsh was silent, his lips pursed. He was an Atishi; she knew. Whether he practiced his faith, what he had seen done to members of his community had to have shaken him. Would only be natural.

  “Camsh…” she said, struggling to put what she thought into words. “Are you—” She shook her head, giving up on the attempt at empathy. She’d never been good at showing her emotions anyway. Besides, for one like her, their actions spoke far louder than words. “I am going to put it all right. I will.”

  He nodded, then grimaced. “The men… they know about the djinn...” He trailed away as if uncertain of what to make of the fact, and unable to hide his misgivings about it.

  Nuraya licked her lips, shrugged. “First things first. How many men have you rounded up?”

  “Five hundred, my sultana.”

  Five hundred? Was that all that had destroyed the lives of these citizens? Nuraya pressed her index finger. What would it have been like to see soldiers of Istan meander through one’s town, and then discover they were no better than the Reratish hordes or the Zakhanan fanatics?

  If it was this bad here, what would it be like in other regions of Istan?

  She couldn't be everywhere to protect her citizens. There had to be something she could do to stop events like these from happening again.

  From the corner of her left eye, she registered the men stationed there snap into attention. She exhaled, knowing without looking.

  Shoki had decided to turn up here as well.

  What would he have done, had this been his command?

  Nuraya shook her head, banishing the thought from her mind. These were her men. This was her realm. And it was up to her to administer justice how she saw fit.

  “Time’s wasting,” growled Jinan. “We need to round up the troops, re-provision ourselves, and head out north at double speed. Every breath we waste here helps the enemies.”

  He wasn't wrong. But he also wasn't seeing that she couldn't ignore what had happened here. Her fingers twitched. “Summon the salar of these five hundred!”

  “Sultana—”

  “I gave you a command, Jinan,” she said softly.

  Grumbling, Jinan stepped away. As if he’d heard them, the priest raised his head, his rheumy eyes settling on him. “Justice… Do the right thing.”

  Nuraya ignored him. The right thing for one person or party wasn't always the right thing when examined from other perspectives. She turned her head left. Shoki was standing silently, listening intently to the inquisitor who had made his way over as well. What did they have to talk about in the first place, anyway? The inquisitor had taken Shoki’s eye, would have hunted him down like a dog had he still possessed his well. What was it that they kept talking about all the time?

  Was it about the djinn?

  Her eyes traveled back to Shoki, stayed there.

  Something had been developing between them not too long ago. A tenderness that had softened her heart, filling it with a fluttering wonder. Again, a memory flashed of the night he had returned, of the way he had approached her. A swaggering man instead of the meek boy, one who’d known exactly what he wanted.

  Her.

  Not the princess or sultana, but her, something he hadn't been ashamed to admit.

  And she had liked that. No matter what she’d told herself afterward, there was no denying the thrill she’d felt when his hands had caressed her face, the current that had coursed through her, feeling his stiffness against her. How she had swooned when his lips had met hers.

  Could she seek his help? Would he be willing to assist her? Had she been wrong in rebuffing his approach out of wounded pride?

  Shoki was a magus, one who had somehow been involved with the djinn, something he hadn't yet come clean about. He had tried taking her birthright, had a heritage that filled her with dread. No, she couldn't trust him.

  Not yet.

  Not ever, perhaps.

  Despite the thoughts plaguing her, she realized she was still staring at him.

  Find your center!

  Nuraya forced herself to look away. There was so much more that warranted her attention. She had to deal with the men who had wreaked destruction in this city. Ahasan needed to be reasoned with. The Reratish prince would soon be advancing north, the Zakhanan hordes not too far behind. Then, there was the matter of the magi planning an assault on the inquisitor castles.

  “We can’t fight against the djinn,” said Camsh, his voice low, defeated. “Can we?”

  “They are not our enemy,” she replied, forcing a certainty she didn't really feel. “The more we get involved in the matters of the magi, the more we risk getting sucked into their affairs. We have to refocus ourselves, put Istan in order before worrying about anything else.”

  “As you say.”

  Nuraya chewed her lip. Was she right in ignoring the djinn attack? She had grown tired of dealing with uncertainties. She raised her head. “Shoki, a moment?”

  He blinked then, nodding, made his way over to her. Camsh stepped away at a discreet distance.

  Her heart thudding, Nuraya decided to plow right ahead. “Are you the reason the djinn attacked my army?”

  Shoki scratched his chin. “I… I don’t know. Perhaps.”

  “Are they going to keep throwing obstacles in my way?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, spreading his arms. “I wish I did but—”

  “Oh, just shut up!” she snapped. “You’ve been nothing but a nuisance ever since I saw you and—”

  Hurt flashed in his lone, good eye. Nuraya regretted the choice of her words almost immediately, knew she had gone too far. She was frustrated, feeling like a leaf being blown about. Far from the artist with the wrong brushes, it felt like she wasn't even on the right canvas. She waved him away. “Go, let me think.”

  Wordlessly, Shoki turned around and stomped off. Nuraya considered the paths that lay ahead. She had a part to play. That much was a certainty. She just had to find it. For now, there was nothing she could do about the djinn except hoping it had been an aberration—a dangerous assumption but one she had to make for her own sanity.

  She still had two paths ahead. Move straight to Ahasan’s stronghold. Or stop over at the inquisitor castle and see if they would listen to mediation. Would they have answers regarding the djinn? Her eyes settled on the inquisitor. He had dealt with the djinn before as well. What was he not telling her?

  Had Abba ever had to deal with this many fronts all at once?

  She shook her head. What did it matter? He wasn't here anymore. She was.

  “Camsh,” she said, motioning him forward. The priest was coughing to her right, acolytes whispering beside him. “Any news about your father?”

  Her councilor jerked his head up. “I… I spoke with the nizam of this town, but no more imperial messengers have come here since the capital fell.”

  “He’ll be fine, your father,” said Nuraya, the words ringing hollow even in
her ears. “As you said, one doesn't get to remain a grand vizier all these decades without picking up useful survival tactics.” Like abandoning me the moment he thought Shoki as the more pliant candidate for the Peacock Throne.

  Camsh nodded, dabbed at his eyes. “Thank you, my sultana.”

  Hearing a gaggle of voices, Nuraya turned to her right. Jinan was approaching them, flanked by two stout men to either side. Soldiers she didn't recognize. Men that had followed her when all others had turned away. Men who had placed their lives in her palm to do with as she willed.

  Men who had abused her trust. One thing she could do something about.

  “These two led the five hundred,” announced Jinan, pushing the two men forward when they were a dozen paces from her.

  “Approach!” said Nuraya, aware of the way the priest flinched from their sight.

  “I recognize them!” croaked Karmanal. “This one on the left was the first one to defile the temple.”

  The man the priest had pointed at scoffed, then strutted forward, sticking his chest out. “My sultana, it gives me and Qerad,” he pointed at his companion, “great joy to see you alive. When the fires came, we had feared the worst.”

  Nuraya narrowed her eyes, watching both men. As if unnerved by her gaze, Qerad looked away. “As Iopan says, Rabb is indeed kind to bless us with your visage once more. We had thought all was lost. But now, our spirits soar once more.”

  “We’re wasting time!” snarled Jinan, shaking his head. “Every moment that we—”

  “Shut up, Jinan,” growled Nuraya and the siphsalar fell silent. She had made a mistake not punishing Jinan after what he had done at Buzdar. Was that kismet’s way of showing her what happened if she let evil go unchecked?

  “My sultana,” whispered Camsh, leaning toward her. “I hate what they have done, as much as anyone else. But these men are less agents of free will, and more victims forged into monsters by impossible circumstances.”

  Nuraya snorted.

  “I urge mercy,” continued Camsh. “I’m an Atishi and want to see justice done. But unlike the priest, I can see how tough times can trigger anyone’s baser instincts.”