by Der Nogard
The chamber was well-appointed, with hangings of red gold and silk and low, cushioned couches on the floor, in the old style. Hovering about the the room were the scents of ambergris and musk, and a healthy breeze wafted in from a grated window that faced north, to the lake and the sea. Dost heard the caw of a sea bird outside the window, and he heard the sounds of the waves of the sea crashing against the sea walls. The sultan was led in.
Dost rose and gave the sultan a low bow. As he did so, he felt the scabbard tip of the kujala poke quickly against his ribcage. Dost remained bowed until the sultan told him to rise, which was the custom of foreigners coming to this land. For natives of Maler, they would get low upon the floor and bow their heads completely down until the sultan left the room or told them to rise.
“No, no, no,” said the sultan with a smile. “You may raise your head.”
“Yes, my lord sultan,” said Dost.
“I am told that you come from the Duchy of Hristo,” the sultan remarked. “It is a land favored by God and one that I am anxious to seek friendship with. It is good that you have come.”
“Yes, my lord,” said Dost. “My master bids me to bring good tidings to the sultan of Maler as he too is anxious for friendship with such a great personage as you.”
Unbeknownst to Dost, the sultan was making a note to himself that his visitor spoke in the purest form of the language of the Banu Yunus, and that the man had the very high-bridged nose that was characteristic of the sons of Yunus and not of people from foreign lands.
“What brings you here, specifically?” the sultan asked. “Out of your native land, I mean?”
Dost cleared his throat. He said: “As my master is not in a position to seek a formal treaty with the lord sultan, as he too is hemmed in by Emirs, Wazirs, and officials who ply him to go in this direction or that: because of this current political situation that he finds himself in, my master merely sends me to test the waters, to learn if the lord sultan may be interested in treating with him at some future time.”
“Well, I am interested and you may tell your master so.”
Just as the sultan said this, a man opened the door to the chamber and entered, begging the sultan to excuse himself. By his high turban, Dost figured that this must be an important wazir or chamberlain. The warlord gave a short bow. The official returned it with a curious look and then bent over the sultan’s ear and began to whisper.
As Dost was a fighter trained in the art of self-control, just as much as he was trained in the martial arts of warmongering, he did not allow his discomfort to show. The man spent several moments whispering to the sultan and taking occasional glances at Dost. Dost figured that he had been discovered. He was met with the stark reality that if he was going to assassinate the sultan, it would have to be in the next few moments.
“Help me, Father,” Dost whispered in his mind. “On this day I shall avenge you.”
“No joy,” a voice whispered back. “Only death.”
“Yes, yes,” said the sultan as his wazir stood up straight and walked out of the room. “Yes, thank you for that knowledge. I shall use it wisely. Now what were you saying, young man? You were saying that your master wants to know if I might want friendship one day and so he sent you, his spahbad, to gauge my sentiments?”
“Yes, my lord,” said Dost, not looking at the sultan. “Something of that nature.”
The sultan rose from his low couch as a favored breeze had suddenly blown in. Suddenly the ruler’s face became gentle. It was a strange thing for Dost, but it could be said that rulers, even the worst of them, are a mix of elements both elevated and base. The old man walked to the window to feel the sea breeze against his skin. “In a desert land, one is lucky if one can live by the sea,” he said. “The winds from the north are cold when they blow here, even in the day, but I feel gratitude in getting them. I will not ask what your sentiments are regarding this. All good men love the sea.”
The sultan turned his back to Dost. The eunuchs that guarded the doors were all chattering with other eunuchs. Dost took this opportunity to loosen the straps of his brigandine and free his kujala. Still turned away from his visitor, the sultan said: “Do you get a cool breeze like this in your land? No, I suppose not. Randalkand is located in the center of the continent, far from the sea.”
Dost could feel the smooth hilt of his kujala against his fingertips, and he steadied his mind for the terrible act that he was about to do. He neared the sultan until he was standing only a few paces behind him. He knew that once he murdered the sultan he would be caught by the sultan’s guards and hung. His body would swing in a public square for the residents of the city to throw stones at. And that was not the worst of it. The carrion birds would pick at in the sight of everyone. His name would live in infamy: Dost the Regicide. But there was Father. Whatever the outcome of his act would be, he must not think of it.
When Dost was only steps away from the sultan, there was suddenly a knock at the door. Dost’s heart thudded in his chest and the beautiful tiles of the room began to swirl. The door opened and a man walked in. Dost gasped so loudly that the sultan turned to look at him. As the man approached, wearing a high twisted crown, his raiment made a rumble as it swept across the floor of polished stone.
When the man reached the pair – Dost and the sultan – Dost said: “You are Alamgul.”
“No,” the man said with a smile. “I am Dir-en-Shad.”
“Yes, yes,” said the sultan. “We have much to discuss, sir. Eunuch, please take our guest out for a moment while I deal with this pressing matter. Spahbad, a moment.”
Before he could get a grip on the situation, Dost was being lead out of the room by a pair of burly eunuchs in short jeweled caps. It was not long before the heavy bronze doors of the chamber were being closed. Dost knew suddenly that he had lost his opportunity. His heart began to well up in anger, and the laughter of the women in the throne hall only made him more filled with rage. He could see himself crawling down his father’s fingers onto the sand. He saw his father galloping away on his horse, never to return. Dost hunched over, gripping his knees in his hands as the anxiety and emotion became too much to bear. A woman guffawed loudly and Dost wanted to cry out.
But suddenly a door opened and a man stumbled out. It was the sultan and he clutched his chest. Blood spurted out from between his be-ringed fingers. The sultan stumbled right past Dost. He went down the hall, greeted with confusion by his eunuchs. He went right past these servants and guards into the throne hall, all who met him along the way too stunned to act. Dost ran into the sultan’s chamber where he saw the bodies of the slaughtered eunuchs lying on the ground. Black-robed Dir-en-Shad was in the room one minute and, like a shadow, he was gone without a word, as if he had never been there at all. But his garments left their black marks on the ground like the scratch of a kujala. A woman in the throne hall screamed and soon there were hundreds of others added to this first. These screams paled in comparison to the terrible wail that Dost heard moments later. The walls of the palace shook to their very stones. Dost ran to the window where he saw a dragon racing towards the city.
Chapter Four
“Who would dare charge me?” the emir asked of the Wazirs, Chamberlains, and other assembled people of the court of the Sultan of Marchande. “I have long served my lord and I would give my life for him. Who can the sultan trust if he cannot trust me?”
But the Grand Wazir of the Sultan of Marchande would hear none of it.
“You are accused of the grave crime of lese majeste. I would feed you to the wyms if I could, but as our city lay far from the sea, I shall have to dispatch your punishment by other means.” The Grand Wazir glanced at the sultan and received the confirmation that he was looking far. The official ordered the guards to arm their crossbows and to assassinate the unfortunate emir on the spot, in the sight of the sultan and his assembled courtiers. The women of the sultan’s court watched this all from the grated windows of the zenanah, above the throne hall, but X
enia, who had come to this land as a guest with Ghazan, was settled among the courtiers. She was the only woman in the court.
Xenia leaned toward Prince Ghazan and whispered in his ear. “We must leave this land,” she said. “It seems to be more barbaric even than your father’s.”
“You believe my father’s land to be one of barbarism?” the prince asked. “You never said the like before.”
“I do,” said the lady. “Come let us leave. We shall venture to other lands.”
Ghazan received an audience with the ruler later that evening to take his leave of him.
“I am sorry to see you go,” said the sultan.
They were serenaded to the sound of the flute and the desert guitar, and they were entertained by the sultry dances of the sultan’s slave girls. Xenia was waiting in a private chamber in the zenanah that had been set aside for her.
“I am sorry to go, but I am afraid that my life’s journey bids me elsewhere,” said the prince.
“You have the cunning of the desert fox,” said the sultan, but his eyes were fixed on the women who blessed his company. “The news of your battles with the dragon has reached our ears though we can scarcely believe it. A dragon has not been seen in these parts in a very long time. Oh, we see flying things in the sky that people take to be dragons, but who knows what they are. I shall not ask you whether this dragon business is true or not. I know it is important for men to have a reputation and this is an important part of yours.”
“Thank you, sire.”
“I do hope too that you can broker a reconciliation with your father even though he is an enemy of mine.” The sultan’s wazir, who joined them, gave the prince a look the young man did not understand.
“Only time will tell,” said Ghazan. “I am not hopeful. But I again thank you, sire.”
“And the woman, your wife?” asked the sultan. “I hope that you may one day sire one hundred sons with her.”
Ghazan laughed and said. “Oh, she is not my wife, not yet. She is a woman I have undertaken to protect. I suppose I am her guardian. Who knows where our travels will lead us or whether they may steer us back home again.”
Ghazan took his leave of the sultan and went with Xenia to an inn outside of town, shunning the comforts of the sultan’s court for the humble ones of a place where any man might find repose for the night. Sitting by a window of an upper story, Xenia could hear a man playing the desert guitar down below. She was drawn by the music and asked Ghazan if they mightn’t venture down below. She took him by the hand and led him below.
Sitting in this happy spot, Ghazan met the first traveler who was fleeing from the sultanate of Maler. Ghazan learned, to his alarm, that the sultan had been slain and the city had become inhabited by a dragon. Ghazan could not believe what he heard. Xenia took a few steps away from him and sat by the pond that sent a cool wind up to the inn. She dipped her hand into the waters to cool them. She knew that the story that she had heard was true as she had felt the dragon’s approach.
Soon traveler after traveler confirmed the story of the first.
“My father is dead,” said Ghazan.
Much to his dismay, the prince felt nothing. Perhaps the bond that he had long felt for the old man had been something false, a changeling in the palace. Perhaps the true tie between father and son could not exist between the twain as they were not father and son after all. The germ that Aisin had placed in his mind became a wym that slithered about until it occupied every corner of his soul. Ghazan knew that wherever he went he would never find peace. He knew that the life he had possessed before had been taken from him never to return. It seemed that there was little left for him, that everything was in the past.
“We have to go back,” he said.
“No,” said Xenia. She wore a simple dress of cotton blanched in the bright sun of the desert. They were travelers now, and the halls of kings and princes were things that they must put behind him. And yet he had never seen her so beautiful, attired in this simple dress, her full bosom pulling at the fabric. Her veil of gauze did not seem to conceal her features but to suggest them. It was for the poet to sit and admire the lady, imagining how she appeared though never quite approaching the startling reality of the truth.
“No,” said Xenia. “If you return to your land you will die, surely. You must seek allies in foreign lands.”
“But I have no allies,” said the prince. “Look at how we fared in Marchande. The sultan treated us like cousins who one tolerates in the house but who one prays every night shall leave. If we had remained their longer, the man would have thought of cause to cast us out. I have no allies, milady. There is no one.”
“It is not true,” said Xenia. “There must be allies somewhere.”
And the lady smiled for she was free of the cares of Ghazan who was still young enough that every day seemed to bring some fresh calamity. Xenia saw things differently. She knew that when one day ended, another day was sure to begin. The world did not operate on the formula that the sun went down and that was it. If they must, they would travel to a port and take ship to wherever that ship was going. Wherever they ended up would be where they were meant to be. She did not fear the world of the traveler as much as he did, though it had been him that had slain the dragon. He was fearless, but fearless in his own way. The lady, well, she was altogether different. Even in Maler there had not been anyone quite like her. “We shall take ship,” she said to the prince and that was all she would hear of the matter.
Dost was ushered into the great hall of the sultan’s palace. The courtiers that had not been slaughtered cowered in fear, standing in the shadow of the tall columns of the place and cast into the shade by the craven forms of the acolytes of the dark church. Those that were allowed to survive were mostly the beautiful maidens, the slave girls, and the nobles of Maler and foreign lands that had had the misfortune to pay a visit to this city on such an ill-starred day.
The court was filled with black-robed men. They held kujalas, azags, and long swords, but these were not their most fearsome weapons. These figures were girded in the malign incantations that ushered from their lips. Though no one but they could understand the import of the words, they cast all in the hall that was not of their ranks into a state of frenzied fear.
Dost saw as soon as he entered the hall that Dir-en-Shad, or so the man called himself, had taken his seat upon the sultan’s throne. He had thrown the sultan’s saljak-lined coat over his shoulder, though the twisted helm of human bones still sat atop his head rather than the sultan’s turban with its jewel the size of a man’s fist.
Yet, this was not the most fearsome sight to be had in the court. There was the lifeless form of the sultan himself, which rested in a heap in the corner where he had fallen dead. Even that was the not the most dire sight to behold. The most terrible thing was the dragon that rested at the feet of Dir-en-Shad, with its body half upon throne dais and half off of it. As Dost neared the throne, supported by a pair of eunuchs that had chosen Dir-en-Shad’s side, or perhaps had always been among his ranks: as Dost neared the throne, this dragon seemed to grow in size until it seemed that it occupied the entire space. The warlord had not seen enough of dragons to know if this specimen should be regarded as great or small, but it had terrible wide nostrils, like abysses into which a man might fall: great, black gaping holes. The dragon had whiskers, each the length of two men standing end to end. Its body had scales that seemed to change pattern with the light like dragonwood, that sturdy, beautiful wood that took its name from this massive, majestic creature. Every half a minute, the dragon let out an exhale that rattled the walls of the palace to its foundations, sending a tile falling from the roof and men and women scurrying for safety.
“You,” began Dir-en-Shad, taking a good hard look at the tall warrior that had been brought before him. This warrior’s hair had been cut short, which made him look like a barbarian of the steppe, but Dir-en-Shad knew different. “You are the one they call Azag-al-Walaq, Dagger of the State.
”
“No,” Dost lied.
“And which state would that be?” Dir-en-Shad asked, more to entertain his guests than for knowledge.
“I have already told you that I am not he.”
“It is said that you serve some duke or another, that you are a soldier for hire, but you are no mercenary. You serve that blighted Shaibani, who haunts the steps like a specter, followed by his thirteen wives and fifteen daughters.”
“Sixteen,” said Dost. “And I do not serve Shaibani.”
Dir-en-Shad laughed. “Well, I have my answer. I am sure that he was sad to lose you. Did you come to this land to assassinate the sultan?” The man paused to allow the warrior to answer, but when he said nothing, the man sitting atop the throne continued: “Unfortunately, it seems I beat you to it. You wanted revenge for what the man did to your father, I presume. Your father’s head was paraded outside the window I am told, resting atop a spear like a rotting persimmon.”
Dost stepped forward in instinct, but he could not break free of the hold of the mighty eunuchs.
“You would challenge me,” Dir-en-Shad remarked. “Perhaps not know, but one day. Time flows like a river and moments that your mind, simple thing that is, perceive as the past have already occurred in my mind’s eye. You will challenge me and perhaps you will win.”
“Do you know the answer?” Dost asked. “You know what shall come to pass?”