The Wanderer's Mark: Book Three of Imirillia (The Books of Imirillia 3) (7 page)

Why had he not seen it? Why had he not marveled before at his father’s age? But there it was, his father had grown tired and worn, his mouth curving downward, forming deep furrows that lined his face. Shaamil’s dark hair suddenly seemed grayer, and his eyes, though bright and sharp, clearly carried the weight of all his years. Shaamil had aged; he had aged since Aramesh.

“Father.” Basaal steeled himself with the courage of too much time already passed. “I have always considered you aware, conscious, respectful of the Seven Scrolls and of our Imirillian religion. Yet, I have never considered you devout, held by all the strictures of religious law.”

Shaamil looked towards him, taking a moment for the words to sink in past some memory he appeared to be recalling. Then he gave a quick nod but did not speak.

“Why, then,” Basaal continued, “did you honor the request of the Aemogen queen, that she had claim on my hand? That was a very strict observation of old law: that she be given to me, for the sake of the Safeeraah, rather than to Arsaalan for wife?”
Was it only to manipulate me
, he wanted to add.

Shaamil cleared his throat. Yet, instead of acting provoked, the corners of his mouth moved upward in a slight smile. “I saw how you looked at her.”

Basaal felt a flush rise up his neck. “What do you mean?”

“Do you know what I have always considered your greatest weakness?” Shaamil responded.

Basaal waited.

“For all your talk of honor,” Shaamil continued, “you have never known your own heart.” Basaal shifted his weight, feeling, for the first time, how warm the air was inside the tent.

“What is it you are saying to me?” Basaal asked.

“You looked at that girl the same way your mother used to look at me,” the emperor said simply. “But that is over, and you’ve clearly sustained no more damage than your lost pride. I had supposed your feelings for her to be less shallow than they are. She won’t live now, anyway.” He took another sip of his drink.

***

It was late in the day that Kale came for her. Pushing Sharin aside, Kale grabbed Eleanor behind the neck, forcing her close to him as he whispered threats. “If you make any sort of noise or called any attention to yourself,” he muttered, but then he unlocked her from the wall. He gave her a headscarf and told her to pull it over her face. Then, with her wrists and waist still shackled, he forced her from the cave.

She blinked in the purple light. Standing in a line were some of the women of their train, younger women, mostly, lined up and waiting, their heads bent. Kale approached a merchant who was standing with another man of means, speaking casually. The stranger’s hand held the reins of a horse.

She could not hear their words, but, from their gestures, Eleanor guessed he was here to purchase a young woman. Panic rose in her chest, and Eleanor, for the first time since her capture, cleared her mind to make a decision. If she did as Kale had ordered and stayed quiet, avoiding this man’s attention, she would soon be back in the cave and at Kale’s mercy. But, if she were taken away to an unknown fate, although she would be free of Kale, Sharin would be left here alone.

She knew that there would come a time when they would separate her from the child. But, for Sharin’s sake, Eleanor could not choose it to be sooner rather than later. She looked down, away from the buyer, who had begun looking at the women farther down the line, and she tried to make herself disappear.

He moved closer, occasionally asking a question about one of the thirteen girls and women standing there. Kale answered his questions in the voice of a man selling rugs or spices: eager to part with his wares for a good price.

Eleanor studied her feet as the man worked his way ever closer to where she stood. When he finally came to her, he paused, looked a moment, then moved on. Eleanor breathed a silent sigh and dared not shift. The man began to move past her neighbor to the last woman on the line, but then he took a step again towards Eleanor.

“I want to see her face,” he said casually in an accent she did not recognize.

The one-eyed slaver stepped forward and none too gently pushed Eleanor’s chin up. She swallowed and looked right into the man’s eyes—it was Zanntal, Basaal’s honor guard.

Eleanor gave a surprised noise that may have sounded like fear, but that she knew to be complete relief. His eyes searched hers for the briefest of seconds before he looked at the worn, blistered skin of her face, the whip mark on her lip and chin, and the shackles on her wrists. Then he moved on.

Eleanor panicked. Had he recognized her? Should she call out? She looked down again at her feet, waiting. She would wait. Eleanor told herself it was logical to wait.

When Zanntal reached the end of the line, he spoke for some time with Kale and the merchant, asking questions, pointing to different women, and sounding disinterested and calm. Then a cry could be heard, a child’s cry. And Eleanor was rattled by the sound of Sharin’s voice, coming from the cave, for she sounded inconsolable.

Like a stone hitting her stomach, Eleanor felt the cost of her freedom, which had become a possibility only moments before. If Zanntal were here to rescue her, then her choice was no longer between Sharin and being free of Kale. It was between Sharin and Aemogen.

“I’ll take that one,” Zanntal said, his voice cutting across her thoughts. Eleanor looked up. He was pointing at her.

Kale’s eyes narrowed. “She does not come at such an easy price.”

“We’ve already settled,” Zanntal insisted. “The price was pre-determined, and that is the girl I choose.”

“And I am telling you now that she is triple the price you offered—with acceptable coin in hand tonight,” Kale insisted.

Zanntal looked angry. His pride had been challenged in this bargain, and he would not lose to a slaver.

“Triple the price?” he demanded, his cheeks lifting in impatience and scorn. “Give me an additional slave,” he said, “and then I’ll pay your price.”

Kale laughed, but the wealthy cave owner said something sharp to Kale and then spoke to Zanntal himself.

“Man or woman?” the merchant asked.

Eleanor shook her head ever so slightly, but Zanntal seemed not to notice.

“What men do you have?” he asked curiously.

“A dozen or more of all ages,” the merchant said. “We could bring them out. Or, you could come in.”

Zanntal looked towards Eleanor, and she shook her head again.

“Let me take the girl through with me,” Zanntal said. “and I’ll see what you have in your cave.”

The merchant ordered Kale to unlock Eleanor. The slaver was not happy, and he jerked impatiently at the manacles around Eleanor’s wrists as he released her. After unlocking the ring about her waist and drawing out the chain, he grabbed her by the arm and led her, looking regretful, to Zanntal.

Zanntal guided Eleanor gently by her elbow as Kale led the way with a torch, shining it at the slaves chained against the walls. Eleanor looked desperately for Sharin.

“The child,” she whispered. “The child!”

“Quiet!” Kale could not have understood Eleanor’s words. He gave Zanntal an apologetic look as they passed from slave to slave.

“I do not see anything of interest among the men or the older women here,” Zanntal said, sounding bored. “So, unless you have a child,” he added, “I feel the original price for this girl must stand.”

“There is one child,” Kale replied impatiently. The one-eyed slaver had followed them in and motioned towards the back, his eyes glinting at Kale.

Zanntal sniffed the air in disgust. “Bring the child out to me,” he insisted. “I am tired of this wretched hole.” He led Eleanor back out of the cave and approached the waiting slave merchant. Eleanor stood quiet, staring at the dust, hearing the beat of her heart loudly in her head.

It seemed the slavers were forever in the cave. And Zanntal was beginning to show signs of impatience. When they finally emerged, Sharin’s cheeks were tearstained. Although she was bound, she tried to run to Eleanor. Zanntal stepped forward and looked at the girl. He opened her mouth, disregarding what he saw there, and studied her face before nodding.

“I will take the woman and the child for triple the price we agreed on,” Zanntal said. He withdrew a bag of coins from his tunic and counted the money out into the merchant slaver’s eager hand. “If there were any other decent slavers near here,” he added, “I would have turned on you the moment you changed your price.”

Zanntal handed Sharin’s rope to Eleanor and nodded to the merchant, Kale, and the one-eyed slaver. Then he pulled his cloak evenly over his shoulders and motioned Eleanor towards his horse.

“Up with you,” he said crisply, lifting her onto the horse. “And nothing untoward or back you’ll go.” He lifted Sharin up into Eleanor’s arms then mounted behind Eleanor. A click from his mouth sent the horse flying from the gap that was Katerah.

***

Outside of Katerah, Zanntal had taken a gamble. He had promised a hermit farmer, who lived in a dismal stretch of the desert, that if he would watch Hegleh and Dantib’s gray mare while Zanntal rode into Katerah, he would be paid enough gold to leave his desperate existence for a life of luxury. This was explained to Eleanor, and they retrieved the horses with haste.

Eleanor, exhausted from relief, could barely keep herself astride her horse, let alone hold Sharin. So Zanntal tied the horses into a line and brought both Eleanor and Sharin back onto his own mount, cradling Eleanor in his arms as she, in turn, clung to Sharin. After an hour, he stopped and readied camp, setting a tent and building a small fire in the bottom of a gorge.

When Sharin had fallen asleep, Eleanor wrapped Zanntal’s cloak around the small girl. Then she left the tent, joining Zanntal near the fire. He sat crouched, mixing several spices and powders together that he had retrieved earlier from his knapsack. He looked up briefly at Eleanor before returning his attention to the fire. His scimitar hung about his waist, and Zanntal was ever watching, and listening to the noises around them.

Eleanor sat down, pulling her knee up under her chin, feeling the stiff pull of the scars forming on her back. “Will you tell me now how you came to find us?” she asked.

Zanntal did not answer immediately. He pulled a small kettle, filled with steaming water, away from the fire. Moving his hands in deliberate motions, Zanntal put his spice and powder mixture into the water, stirring it with a small spoon. He tasted it and appeared satisfied, for he poured a cup for himself and one for Eleanor. She took his offering gratefully, testing the tea against her lips before deciding to let it cool.

“The slavers who took your horses,” he answered, “made the mistake of trying to sell Hegleh to the emperor’s column.”

“The emperor’s column?” Eleanor frowned. “Does Emperor Shaamil ride with Basaal?”

“Yes,” Zanntal said candidly. “After your disappearance, the emperor mobilized six thousand of his own men to join with Basaal’s seven thousand waiting in Marion. After I intercepted the slavers,” Zanntal explained, returning to his narrative of Eleanor’s discovery, “the prince—” Zanntal paused. “He pressed them for information about where you were being taken, then sent me to find you straightaway.”

“Is he well?” Eleanor stared into the small cup in her hands before looking up at the man.

“He was very angry when I last saw him. I do not now know how he fares now, but I believe they must have passed through the Aronee and into Marion by this time.”

“And you were sent to what end?” Eleanor ran her tongue over the forming scar on her bottom lip.

“To see you to Aemogen,” Zanntal replied.

She swallowed, her eyes heavy, and looked down at the sores on her wrist. “Did the prince have anything else to say, aside from charging you see me to Aemogen?” she asked after several silent moments.

With a slight sound, Zanntal cleared his throat and nodded. “He wanted me to ascertain if you had been harmed in any way.”

Eleanor set her cup near the fire and stretched her fingers towards her sore back, pulling her arms closer. It could have been worse, much worse. She heard Sharin stir inside the tent and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Nothing that cannot heal,” Eleanor said, trying not to falter.

They spoke no more that evening. Eventually, Zanntal put the fire out and stood watch, his scimitar drawn. Eleanor retired to the tent, placing her arms around Sharin, and slept soundly. She dreamed that she was almost home, and hope was no longer an impossible shadow.

***

When Basaal slept that night he saw the fall of the Imirillian Empire. The tall turrets of Zarbadast began to crumble into themselves, as if smoke had come from stone. The ornate craft of centuries past, adorning the tall towers and arches, disappeared into the white cloud of the seven palaces’ destruction. He heard thunder, born of marble and brass slowly crashing, turning weightless as it tumbled upon all that lay below, turning the city to chalk and ash. A purple haze loomed ominously over Zarbadast, and the dying yellow sun, low and tired, still touched the walls of the remaining buildings, the sanctuaries, the monuments, until they were overcome in the spreading cloud that came down from the fallen palaces.

The city responded with the deep, penetrating rumble as sand-colored facades descended into dust. There were no people, Zarbadast was empty. Yet, the memory of every soul who had ever graced the desert streets now cried in a pitiful wail as all was covered in the dust of the decimated relics that were once Imirillia.