In the Shadow of Swords (2 page)

He spoke the arcane words as he sprinkled a pinch of ebon dust from a small glass vial. The disk-shaped granules covered the body and sent out a clear message.

An assassin’s mark.

A bright flash lit Sarn’s eyes as he gazed at a shimmering mirror of blue-metallic liquid outlining dark blood and shards of bone—the last remains of Hiril Altaïr. It continued to expand before engulfing the ruined body in a pool of cobalt.

Soon the alchemy began to subside. The mark was invisible to all others save for one man.

Sarn rose. He had fulfilled his duty. He was jinn-bound to the Sultan and thereby his lackeys, men such as Dassai. He had been compelled to kill Altaïr, but he did not care about the books. Let Dassai retrieve them himself.

Pealing across the city, the bells of many
masjids
tolled sonorously.

Istanna
had ended.

Across the great square, Sarn disappeared into a small passageway, a shade lost in deeper shadow. The silence lasted for only a brief moment, until a flock of sable-winged gulls gathered,

squabbling greedily over their newfound feast.

The doors to the embassy remained closed.

3

I AM a coward
.

This thought plagued the mind of Nabeel Khoury as he watched the man die.

He did nothing.

Said nothing.

He watched it happen and wept.

As the
Rais
of Havar, Khoury had known the man who would be killed. He also knew the assassin’s identity. Sarn had killed before in Havar, and Khoury had let it happen then, too. Still, he felt unclean, his conscience tainted by the evil done.

Yet he did not stop it.

Because I am a coward
.

Khoury was under orders from Emir Malek himself, delivered to him by Fajeer Dassai. You did not cross either man if you wanted to live. Havar was a valued sheikdom of Qatana, and the Sultan’s reach was long. Malek and Dassai played politics as they pleased, and there was very little the sheikh’s chief administrator could do about it.

Hiril Altaïr was to die—and Nabeel Khoury had made sure it happened.

Khoury felt shame as he witnessed the execution, watching from a safe perch high above as Sarn marked the mutilated form that had once been a man. He knew his life would be irrevocably changed after this—and it would not be for the better.

You are a coward
.

Yes
, he thought again.
No one came to Altaïr‘s defense, and I made sure of it
.

Khoury had met days earlier with an envoy of
Eliës
. There
would be a killing. It would take place in the square on the high holy day of
Istanna. Leave your mind free of guilt, he’d told the envoy. It was of no concern
.
Just be sure that you do not open your doors to this man or hinder the assassin in any way, and there will be no trouble
.

Khoury said the words and left the bribe. Just as he had done with a dozen others.

He had met Altaïr twice before. The first time was years earlier, the second just a few days ago. Altaïr’s reputation as a skilled
siri
preceded him—experienced, thorough, and loyal.
A good man
, thought Khoury—something he was not. Altaïr had come to Havar looking for answers. But Khoury was uncertain of the questions. He’d learned only a little, some from Altaïr, some from Dassai, who’d shown up two days later. And now Altaïr was dead.

Khoury fixed his eyes on Sarn. The assassin knelt beside Altaïr and laid something next to him, just outside the pool of blood that surrounded the dead man. Khoury could not tell what the object was, but Sarn’s actions were strange and they’d caught his attention. Sarn stood and then was gone, leaving the square as quickly as he had entered it.

Was it a trap?

Did the assassin still lurk, just out of sight, looking to see if anyone would show? Dassai had mentioned nothing to him about Sarn leaving something.

Khoury wanted to know. He
needed
to know.

But caution and fear held him in place. Merely by interfering, he risked his own death. The royal family was never to be crossed, and apart from Sarn, Dassai might have been the most dangerous man Khoury had ever met. So Khoury waited, chewing his nails, and did nothing.

He was a coward.

He waited for several hours. Biding his time. The street remained deserted. It was late; there was no traffic. No one exited out of the building, either.

The ruined flesh and bones of Altaïr remained on the steps to the embassy, along with the object Sarn had laid down. The more Khoury studied it, the more he began to realize it was a book of some kind.

He looked up at the moons. Their positions told him it would be some time before the street below saw any life again.

Khoury looked again at the object that lay beside Altaïr’s body. The urge to go outside and retrieve it was intense, but he resisted. The longer he stood at the window peering down, the stronger the urge became. Was he still a coward?

Only time would tell.

4

SILENCE
.

Gone were the screams of unspeakable pain as wax-acid poured over feet and then legs, eating away tissue, muscle, and bone. Still, there were no pleas from Tariq Alyalah—nothing revealed out of desperation and terror.

The torture of the
sufi
had lasted for more than two hours. Each drop of candle wax sizzled as it seared skin and mingled with blood—a sickening sound that could be heard quite plainly once the wailing had ceased and the old man had finally died.

Fajeer Dassai looked over the corpse that leaned against the curved side of the room. The white distemper paint on the wall around the body, now charred black, had peeled away, and a thin layer of ash dusted the stone floor. Lifeless eyes stared out of Alyalah’s emaciated face. Its mouth was agape. Shriveled, cracked lips receded to expose a scattering of brown and yellow tobacco-stained teeth. The
sufi’s
blood-soaked
suriah
robe was torn away at the navel as though he had been bitten in half by a shark; there was nothing left of him below the waist.

The stench of melted flesh invaded Dassai’s nose despite the clove-laced cotton stuffed into his nostrils. He blew out the last of the candles that had been used to torture the
sufi
, his face so close to the flame that it flared amid the gray, death-tinted shadows.

He had already worked his way through every room, from the top of the
misal’ayn
down the three hundred sixty-five steps to the crypt and
anbar
buried deep beneath the surface. This was the last room left. Soon enough he would locate Alyalah’s private records. Somewhere within the walls or floor of this
mirsd
—this sacred chamber—rested a hidden cache of books that contained secrets so powerful they would change the beliefs of nearly everyone alive in Mir’aj.

Tariq Alyalah would have had Hiril Altaïr smuggle them out of Qatana, possibly turning them over to the Eliësans. Dassai had outwitted him, though, by sending Sarn out to murder Altaïr. The assassin would kill the
siri
before he could take possession.

It was imperative that Dassai possess these relics. This tower would not keep them secret from him much longer. Once found, these books would endow him with wealth and power to rival the mightiest of sultans.

The room was small and barren, with no windows or furnishings. Embedded in the floor was a mosaic of brown and tan square tiles laid out in an intricate circular pattern, progressing from large to small until it formed a ring, one foot in diameter, in the center of the
mirsd
. Within this ring was set a copper seal engraved with a burning sun. Light filtered down from a gap in the high domed ceiling, illuminating the pattern set in the floor.

It was here
.

Dassai picked up a brushed brass candleholder, twenty-six inches long, fashioned like a spear. He rapped it hard against the floor, sending the stick of wax skidding across the tiles. Wedging the pointed end beneath the copper seal’s edge, he worked it clockwise around the perimeter until it stopped against a hiddenclasp. He pried until he had exposed the clasp, applied a quick, hard snap, and broke the barrier. Removing the disc revealed a shallow recess with just enough room to house several small books.

The cache, however, was empty.

Impossible!

Dassai screamed in rage, slamming his fists on the floor. He stared down at the empty hole, noticing that stone had been crudely chipped away from the bottom and filled with fresh dirt. Dassai dug his hand into the loose soil, searching until his fingers found the slender neck of a wine bottle. He pulled it out and wiped the grime from the green glass. Empty. He examined the smudged lettering.

It was his own fucking label.

Dassai seethed with rage. He should never have counted on Sarn. Hiril Altaïr was dead; there was no question about that. He’d received word himself only an hour before setting off to deal with Alyalah. But what he hadn’t realized, until this very moment, was the possibility that the assassin had come here first. Dassai had wasted precious time waiting for Alyalah to return to the tower, obviously unaware that his abettor in the plot had been here only hours previous.

Did the assassin take them for himself?

The more he thought about it, the more enraged he became.

Sarn
, he thought.
I will cut your head off and shit down your throat
.

Somewhere in Havar he
knew
the assassin was laughing.

1

“TOMORROW THEY’RE going to cut off your head, old man.”

Sarn looked out into the night through the high narrow window of the old man’s cell. Three moons hung in the dark sky;
Cilíín
, a milky crescent, shone brightest, illuminating a feeble, sickly figure draped in threadbare rags. The old man leaned against the wall, seated on a crude stool, the lone piece of furniture in the cramped cell. The intruder jarred him awake.

“It is all I have left to give,” the old man said. “They have already taken my hands and feet.”

He held out the stumps of his arms, sliding his leg stumps across a floor of sand and pebbles. He moved closer to the bars that separated them.

Sarn felt little remorse. The man was a criminal. Just after dawn, in the cold morning air, he would be taken out to the square and executed. That was the law.

“Did you bring the wine?” the old man asked.

“Yes,” Sarn said. “Two bottles.”

“Good. Very good.”

Sarn retrieved a bottle from the folds of his black
juma
and uncorked it with the same lock-pick he had used to break in.

“Sorry, no glasses tonight,” Sarn said, a barely perceptible smile lingering on his lips.

“Do not worry, my friend. I’m sure you will think of something.”

Crouching down, Sarn passed the bottle between the bars and pressed it to the old man’s lips.

Sarn let him get a small taste before pulling it back.

“Do you have it?” Sarn asked.

The old man nodded.

“Show me.”

“Please. I promise. Give me another drink.”

Sarn relented, allowing himself to play the game; he tipped the bottle again.

The old man sighed. “A strong red.”

“Enough of the mirage. Now tell me,” Sarn snapped, grasping the bars.

“You, too, are a fool, then. Did you not look into my eyes and take notice when you first saw me?”

Angered, Sarn nearly let the wine bottle slip from his fingers. “I did not have to come tonight,” he said. “Remember that.”

Lurching toward the iron bars, the old man rasped, “Look, damn you!”

Sarn had no choice but to continue the morbid charade. Steeling himself, he looked past the old man’s haggard, bearded face, filthy hair, disheveled clothes, and sickly pallor. He tried to ignore the stench of piss and shit, putrid breath and brown, rotted teeth.

Sarn focused on the old man’s eyes. One of them was false.

As recognition dawned in Sarn’s eyes, the old man nodded and cackled. “I knew you would see the truth! Jehal did it for me! Burned it right out, he did!” He paused. Sarn waited. “There wasn’t much pain. I’d endured so much already. He did a fine job with the marble, I’d say. They never even guessed it.”

“HOW
proud you must have felt,” Sarn sneered, but his curiosity was piqued.

The old man squeezed his face between the bars. “Take it out! I’d do it myself, but you know I can’t…” He raised the scarred stump of his right arm.

“What the fuck for?”

“You know why,” the old man replied. He looked hard at Sarn. “Don’t feign ignorance with me; and don’t insult me. Jehal hollowed out this glass orb. And that is where you will find it.”