Rostam nodded to his two companions, still standing over the guards with pommels positioned for a swift strike to knock unconscious either guard who stirred. He slid into the cell and nudged the bundle; at the same time he put his hand over the old man’s mouth. Diocles struggled awake, kicking weakly at the straw beneath his feet with a plaintive moan, but Rostam whispered into his ear, “Do not struggle. We are here to take you away.” Diocles subsided, but he was breathing hard and shaking with fright. Rostam hauled him to his feet and whispered again, “Do not make a sound. You are to come with us to the castle.”
At this Diocles breathed more easily and settled his clothing, trying hard to regain his dignity and composure. “You are from the castle?” he enquired.
“Yes. Questions later. Come.”
They walked silently past the snoring guards and were well on their way along the tunnels when Khuzaymah stopped and held his finger to his lips. They all heard the unwelcome sound of approaching steps and voices. Diocles and Siranos recognized one voice immediately. “It is Zenos!” Siranos hissed in terror, and Diocles said with absolute certainty, “He is come to murder me!”
Desperately looking around for an escape route, Rostam felt a tug on his sleeve. Siranos beckoned urgently. “This way! Hurry!” The group chased after him like silent ghosts; even Diocles managed as they followed Siranos along a short, dark tunnel, then up a narrow flight of steps. Diocles realized where this led and nodded to himself. This route would do nicely, if they were going to leave by the gardens and the main halls.
Without warning, the keen-eared Maymun snatched Siranos from behind by his tunic and dragged him backwards. Stifling an exclamation of surprise, Siranos stumbled back into a recess in the tunnel where the others, including Diocles, huddled. This recess opened into yet another corridor, which Diocles knew was where the Emperor’s treasury was hidden. There was a glow of light back where the guards were, but their immediate concern was what Khuzaymah had heard or seen. They all froze against the curve of the walls and waited.
The wraiths that glided past in the darkness were silent, except for the occasional, almost imperceptible scraping of a bare foot sliding on stone. In the darkness it was very hard to see them; all the crouching fugitives could see were four phantoms drift by towards the dim light at the end of the tunnel from where they had just come.
Khuzaymah whispered into Rostam’s ear, “They are the assassins, Lord. They have come back and we must leave as quickly as possible.”
Rostam was thankful that Khuzaymah had sensed danger. He had heard much about these ghostly people, for Reza had trained him thoroughly, but this was the first time he had actually seen the people his uncle talked about, and run the risk of a confrontation.
Then the shouting started, and they froze yet again.
*****
Far back down the tunnel, Zenos and his four mercenaries came upon the sleeping guards and kicked them awake, shouting at them. Zenos stalked to the door of the cell and pushed it open.
“Where is he?” Zenos roared at the two sleepy and utterly bewildered men, who shook their heads, aghast at what they were seeing—or rather, not seeing. The cell was empty. “Lord,” one guard cried, “we did not hear nor see anyth—” he didn’t finish. Zenos took two strides across the chamber and back-handed him across the face. “Of course you didn’t see anything, you stupid, stupid fools! You were asleep!” he yelled, and was about to repeat the blow when he became aware that his men were staring past him. Then they all took a step back, reaching for their weapons.
Zenos whirled about to see four youths of the kind he was now all too familiar with, crouched at the entrance to the chamber. Their dark clothes and half covered faces allowed them to blend with the shadows thrown up by the only candle in the room. One of them held a bow, drawn with an arrow on the string. Zenos was not a brave man, and he felt a trickle of real fear creep down his back as he stared at these sinister figures. For a moment Zenos and the guards stood frozen; the sense of menace emanating from the youths was palpable.
The bowstring twanged and an arrow thudded hard into the chest of the very man Zenos had been about to strike. He fell with a grunt of surprise, knocked backwards to crash against the wall and lie still.
Realizing that there was to be no mercy from these people, and knowing exactly why they were here, Zenos grabbed one of his men by the sleeve and jerked him in front of himself, at the same time he screamed at his other men. “Kill them! Kill them!” Drawing his sword, he and two of his men turned to flee down the other corridor, which was just behind them. As they did, Zenos heard a choking sound and knew with terrifying certainty that the arrow intended for him had struck the man he had ducked behind.
He hurled himself into the gloom of the corridor, past the occasional torch in its sconce that flickered and barely lit the length of the corridors and but threw shadows. He took a left which he knew would lead him to the steps up to the main halls, rather than to the kitchens. He knew most of the tunnels and corridors of the labyrinth under the palace, but not all. There was a risk that he himself could get lost. His heart was pounding as he sought desperately to evade the assassins who he knew were after him. If he could make it to the upper level he could call upon his other mercenaries to protect him.
He and his escort were scurrying along when the flickering light of a distant torch on the wall ahead allowed him to make out that some other people were also in a hurry. In an instant Zenos recognized the smaller shape of Diocles being almost carried by two taller men, while a third, slighter man at the rear of the group turned and faced the oncoming men.
Forgetting his own plight he shouted. “Get them! That’s him! Get the old man if it is the last thing you do!” The young man turned like a whip to face them. “Get out of our way!” Zenos bawled.
Rostam called out to the men ahead of him, “Go! Take the old man out of here as fast as you can!”
“But…” Khuzaymah called back, uncertain. “It is an order, Khuzaymah! Do it!” Rostam shouted.
Khuzaymah and Maymun frog-marched Diocles away from the oncoming confrontation as fast as they could.
Rostam’s sword was out and waving menacingly at the fast approaching men. Before Zenos could do more than hesitate, his man wailed, “Behind us! Those ghosts are right behind us!” Shadows emerged from the darkness of the tunnel behind them. Zenos whirled to face their pursuers. He rightly deemed the four assassins behind them to be far more dangerous than a single boy head, who had been running away.
Rostam was uncertain whether to attack Zenos’s men, follow after his own companions, or simply watch what was about to transpire. The decision was made for him. Siranos must have doubled back, for he grabbed Rostam’s elbow and began dragging him along yet another dark corridor.
“Come, Lord, hurry! We must hurry! Your friends can take care of Diocles, but we must go!” he whispered urgently. Rostam allowed himself to be pulled away, and the two of them ran off. Rostam had the presence of mind to take one of the torches off its mount and stamp it out, they then disappeared, swallowed by darkness. Zenos flicked a glance back to where Rostam had been, and shivered. These people were like phantoms! Here one moment and gone the next. “Hold them off! I must catch the old man no matter what!” he ordered his thoroughly frightened accomplices, then muttering, “He knows far too much to live,” he fled, leaving his luckless guards to deal with the menace.
Rostam blindly followed the eunuch, who seemed to know his way through the maze below the palace, even in darkness. He shrugged mentally. At least the old man was out of immediate danger.
Siranos had, in fact, no idea as to where they should go. By now the palace was in an uproar. The shouting in the cellars had woken the kitchen staff, and then the guards, who were running down the kitchen steps, carrying torches and swords at the ready. They now outnumbered the assassins, who had dispatched the guards, but Zenos had vanished.
*****
Khuzaymah and Maymun obeyed Rostam’s orders, alb
eit reluctantly. “This old man had better be worth it!” Maymun muttered as they came to the gardens. As they hurried across the deserted grounds—all the guards seem to have been summoned elsewhere—he had an idea. Had Lord Talon not done this once before? And had he not created the necessary diversion that allowed him to escape? He himself had been with Talon at the time. “Take him, and hurry through the gateway,” he instructed Khuzaymah. “Be ready to shut the door when I come through!”
“Why? What are you going to do?” his companion huffed. Helping an old and weakened man to hurry along corridors and up stairs was harder work than he would have guessed.
“The leopards! I’m letting them out. You’d better hurry. They are quick once they realize they are free.”
By now candles flickered in windows, sentries shouted to one another and lit torches, while sleepy women and eunuchs peered curiously out of the upper stories. Maymun turned and ran towards the cage where the animals were kept and peered inside.
A low growl reverberated from the back of the enclosure as he tested the padlock. It was a good solid one, and took some time to open with the point of his blade. All the while the leopard ’s interest in him increased. The fearsome animal began to saunter towards him. Maymun finally opened the door, then backed away, his sword at the ready. Then he turned and fled. One beast came out of the cage with a bound and a growl, paused, and swerved its head to track the running shadow that was Maymun. Instinctively it registered a fleeing creature, and its eyes narrowed. It crouched, gathering its legs, then leapt after its prey.
Maymun didn’t dare to look back; he just ran for his life towards the door, which Khuzaymah had unbolted and held open. Maymun threw himself through the opening to the garden beyond, rolling as he landed. He heard the door crash against its frame, and Khuzaymah thrust the metal bolt into place. Almost simultaneously, there was a tremendous thump and a chilling snarl of anger and frustration as the animal struck the unyielding wood, which shook with the force of the impact. They heard the leopard clawing at the wood on the other side.
“Dear God, but I hope that door holds,” Khuzaymah gasped. “Come quickly, we are not out of danger yet.” He seized the breathless Diocles by the arm and dragged him forward.
“We must get over the walls before anyone finds a way around those cats,” Maymun gasped, picking himself up off the grass.
They reached the walls without encountering any guards and slipped up the wooden steps onto the parapet, roughly at the point where they had arrived. Khuzaymah gave a soft owl hoot and stood back. An arrow with a rope attached flew overhead and landed on the grass behind them.
“We are going to lower you to the ground, old man. You will be met by others who will take you to safety,” he informed Diocles, who nodded mutely. He was exhausted and frightened, but he trusted these men. “God protect you and bless you,” he whispered. “Are you going back for the boy?”
“Yes,” came the short answer. With the rope biting into his chest, Diocles was lowered carefully from the parapet into the darkness below. As soon as the rope was jerked the two men tossed the end back over the wall, ran lightly down the steps inside of the walls, and vanished into the shadows of some bushes.
“We cannot go back the way we came,” Maymun whispered. “I do not wish to slake the hunger of a great cat, and I have no idea where to look for an unguarded entrance, but we must find the young Master.”
“He is resourceful, my friend. I would not be too worried, except for all those Batinis from Lebanon,” Khuzaymah whispered back. They were silent as a group of soldiers hurried by and raced up the stone steps to the parapet.
“No one here, Sir!” someone called out.
“What about on the other side?” someone else shouted back.
Men peered out over the battlements. “All quiet here,” they called.
*****
The assassins were desperate to find Zenos. He was their target; the Master had demanded that he should die, but he was now protected by a formidable number of his men, many of whom had descended below, alerted by cries and shouts, to deal with the intruders. A sinister and deadly game of hide and seek began in the tunnels and corridors underneath the palace. While the assassins did not know their way around and were badly out-numbered, they were very good indeed at hiding in dark shadows and ambushing anyone who came by, and this they began to accomplish with terrifying efficiency.
Before long there were dead mercenaries lying in several places. However frightening this might have been, the mercenaries themselves were hard bitten warriors, and they began to wise up to this tactic. Their leaders enjoined them to move about in larger groups instead of twos and threes, holding torches on high and calling to each other repeatedly.
The tunnels echoed to the clash of steel and the screams of fighting and dying men, and the nervous shouts of the groups of mercenaries as they began the hunt in earnest. Zenos, once he felt safe enough to get out of the tunnels without encountering any of the phantoms, raced up the steps and out onto the terraces leading to the back gardens, calling for men who came rushing towards him.
“Escort me to the house of the Ambassador!” he barked at them, and headed for the doors opening out onto the gardens. He didn’t want to be seen leaving via the palace main entrance, but leave he must.
A guard who opened the doors for him stopped abruptly and recoiled. “Lord! Not that way!”
There was a leopard on the lawn, and it was staring at them, its tail lashing from side to side. The other leopard had just turned away from the garden doorway, which was shut. There was no way they could get past the animals without having to kill them, and Zenos didn’t relish the prospect of explaining this to the Emperor. He knew with a chilling certainty that the old man had been taken that way. Someone had deliberately opened their cage and used the deadly cats to delay their pursuers. He cursed and swore, then signaled his nervous men back into the building, where they slammed the doors shut before the animals could gain entry. They had heard unnerving tales of the time, a year past, when the leopards had somehow found entry and run rampant all through the palace.
*****
Rostam and Siranos scurried along several corridors, then raced up yet another flight of steps to what Rostam judged to be the second floor of the palace. Even though his eyes were used to the darkness, he could not make out where he was in relation to the landmarks outside. He began to be nervous, but just as he was about to stop and demand some answers, Siranos halted in front of a recessed doorway and knocked gently. The door opened, and without any ceremony Siranos hauled Rostam into a chamber, where he halted in some confusion. This was a distinctly feminine place, with a distinct aroma of perfume; he was no expert, but his startled senses told him it was a very pleasant scent.
The girl who had opened the door squeaked with alarm and drew back hurriedly, while Siranos closed the door quietly but firmly behind them. Then he spun around and held a finger to his lips. “Don’t make a sound, Martina!” he begged. “He is not dangerous.”
“He certainly looks dangerous!” A female voice came from a large bed that stood against the right-hand wall. Rostam turned slowly and stared. The young woman sitting up in the bed continued. “Martina, light another few candles so that we can take a good look at this intruder before I call the guards.”
Siranos hastened to the bedside. “Mistress Tamura! He is one of the people from the castle who have come to save Diocles. We rescued the minister, but all sorts of guards and mercenaries showed up in the dungeon and we fled. We sent the minister to safety, but this man was trapped behind, and that is why he is here,” he babbled, plucking at the bed covers in his agitation.
By this time Martina had lit another candle, and she proceeded with a shaking hand to light two more. Rostam remained riveted to the floor and stared around, a trifle less warily. As the candles were lit he could make out Tamura’s features more clearly, and he was impressed. He was used to beautiful women; his mother was to his mind the most beautiful w
oman in the world, and Auntie Jannat came a close second; but this woman was very beautiful. Her wide-eyed inspection of him began to make him feel slightly uncomfortable.
Tamura didn’t look in the least bit frightened, merely interested, and she raised her hand to calm Siranos. “The last time something like this happened it was a leopard. Do you bite?” she asked the stranger, pleasantly enough. “Siranos, I think you had better take a deep breath and start at the beginning. Before that, though, tell me, who are you?” She addressed this question directly to Rostam, who gulped.
“Well, do you have a tongue?” she demanded.
Rostam shook his head. “N…no, er, yes, my Lady. I am called Rostam, and I am the son of Lord Talon!” he blurted out.
A small sigh escaped Tamura’s lips. “The son of Lord Talon of the castle!” she murmured. “So you came. The minister safe now?” she asked.
“He is with my men, my Lady, and I must join them as soon as possible,” he replied.
“Siranos!” she said sharply. “Why did you bring him here?”
He darted a look at Rostam. “We became separated. My lady, the palace is crawling with Zenos’s guards hunting for the Chief Minister, and soldiers hunting down the... er, the assassins who came to kill Zenos. At least, I think they came to do that,” he stuttered.
“Small loss to anyone if they are here for that purpose,” she commented. “I know there is something going on; the uproar woke me and Martina. Assassins? What are you talking about, Siri?”
“It is a long story, my Lady, and I am truly sorry about this intrusion. I did not know of any other place that might be safe at this time!” He wailed and wrung his hands.
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