The Dancer of Hafiz Chapter 7
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7. Profferings of God
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(Early Winter, 1177)
`What in the world?' Thought Abana the Slave. `What in all the world is happening?' Fear and anger conflated into a noxious mix that left the boy a trembling mess. His spine felt cold and weak. His legs would have given out on him half-an-hour ago if not for Maliq, the captain of the guard, dragging him along down one of the many dark corridors etched out beneath the Elephant Palace's grounds. The dark-skinned man held aloft a torch lit by flint to light their way forward. The corridor was increasingly narrow and makeshift, its walls and ceilings still maintained by rotting planks of wood. Spools of rope and rusty abandoned tools littered the cold stone floor. This was not well-trodden ground but Maliq was sure-footed through it.
"What is going on?" Said Abana. "Where are we?"
"Beneath the Elephant Palace's old foundations," as the ground beneath their feet sloped down, Maliq helped Abana to the bottom. "These tunnels were built during the Abyyabids' reign. There is a mausoleum for dishonoured highborns at their nexus... that is where Rahab made his true lair. A workshop of horrors."
"What was that white shadow? Why did Master Rahab kill Qabus? Tell me!"
Maliq frowned as he pulled Abana down the dusty corridor. "The less you know, the safer you will be!"
`No,' thought Abana. `Not this time!'
The dancer stamped his sandaled feet and snatched his hand from the swordsman's grasp. "Do not do that! Do not sweep me aside! I want to know what is happening here! My friend is DEAD, and I want to know why! Tell me-"
A gloved hand clamped around Abana's mouth. Maliq, armour clattering against his chest and shoulders, bade him "hush!" and "listen..." as a distant whistle echoed behind them. It took a moment for Abana to hear it too but when he did it was unmistakable. It drew closer and closer until a floating ball of light appeared at the top of the sloped pathway. An alert Maliq pulled Abana with him behind an abandoned slab nestled against a nook in the corridor's walls and hunkered down with him as the that burning bright ball of light stalked them through the darkness.
The ignis fatuus stopped just a few paces from the slab where Maliq dropped the still burning torch. Abana's eyes widened with panic as its white-gold flames churned within themselves and `blinked' into an eye-like shape, ruby red and intensely focused, rotating around its own circumference before `blinking' shut and floating away into another corridor.
Maliq exhaled.
"That was a seeker spell... Rahab knows someone saw the sacrifice."
Abana tried to speak but uttered only a muffled groan with Maliq's fingers still locked around his mouth. The Jafari man caught himself and let go. Abana did the same (not realizing he had wrapped his arms around the taller man's back). They caught their breaths.
"Are we safe?" Asked the slave.
Maliq paused a moment then stood up. "...I believe we are now." He gave a gauntleted hand to the Kushwari boy. "Come with me."
Abana took Maliq's hand and let him pull him up. The older man did not let go. Instead he took a firmer grip of Abana's hand. "Stay as close to me as possible," he said as he snatched the torch back up and ran with the dancer in the opposite direction of the ignis fatuus. This took them into another narrow stretch of tunnel ground untouched by human feet for hundreds of years.
"For years, my mistress suspected that Rahab of Mahmun was in league with dark forces and sent me to the Elephant Palace to seek the proof," Maliq explained this as he ran with Abana. "The ignis fatuus you just saw and that white shadow from before? Both are conjurations of Kafnak."
"Kafnak?" The breath flew into and out of Abana's lungs as he struggled to keep up with Maliq's quick pace.
"Whether god or demon or jinn no one really knows what it is, but Rahab has made its power his own and that makes him one of the most dangerous men in the High East."
Abana and Maliq stopped when they reached the end of a forked corridor. It was littered with rubble broken off from the ceiling by old earthquakes and centuries of unchecked decay.
"Which way?" Asked Abana.
As Maliq explained it the western pathway led back to the mausoleum in the central nexus whilst the eastern pathway led to an abandoned wine cellar in the heart of the city. The shorter corridor directly ahead of them had a gnarled rope ladder climbing up a tight shaft eighty cubits high that reached into an empty larder beneath the slave quarters of the Elephant Palace. Abana went for the rope ladder. Alarmed at this, Maliq quickly pulled him back.
"What are you doing?"
The Kushwari boy blinked. "We have to save my friends...! Hamami, Zanza, Pasha, Li and Roswyn? Oh, Roswyn. How do I tell her that her brother is dead...?"
Maliq frowned. "We cannot go back. If we do, we will die here. Rahab knows someone saw his sacrificial ritual and he will scourge the Elephant Palace until he discovers who."
"Can we not at least warn them that-"
"We cannot. Think. Ishfan told me that Rahab can speak his thoughts into the minds of his slaves, is that not so?"
The slave brand on Abana's nape itched. Having Rahab speak into his mind was one of the most unnerving things he had ever felt – like a cold needle sliding inside his ear.
Abana nodded.
"Then it is possible he can also read your thoughts," suggested Maliq. "Anything you say endangers them. Stopping Rahab is the only way to save the Silk Court... and my mistress might be the only one who can."
They were his only real friends. They sang and danced with him, saw to his wounds, kept his mind from breaking beneath the weight of lecherous men and their horrendous vices. Leaving the Silk Court behind disgusted Abana – the idea was chalk in his throat. But Maliq's point was sound. If the white shadow – Kafnak – truly was some sort of god then there was no telling what the upper limits of Rahab's powers were.
But then how could Maliq's mistress help?
"Who is your mistress?" asked Abana.
"Governess Yahya of Jawwaz," said Maliq. "Come. Let me take you to her."
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(Late Winter, 1179)
When Kafnak's magic encircled Abana of Hafiz he stood sombrely in the centre of the ancient mausoleum with his lover Maliq's smouldering body at his sandals. And then all he saw was light. It was both blinding to the eyes and soothing to the skin, an eerie embrace, fierce and warm. His eyes tightly shut Abana felt the sensation of movement even as he stood still within the spell's heart. The blurs of matter flickered beyond his eyelids as space sprinted in flow between his fingers and toes, rushing through his hair. It was a moment and an eternity. It was magic beyond human device and he was an errant leaf on its winds – until the magic stopped. The light dimmed and then his skin cooled.
"Open your eyes," said Kafnak.
Abana opened his eyes and saw familiar things. Bookcases overflowing with tomes. Wall mounted skulls. Animal foetuses floating in sallow jars of formaldehyde. Stone idols. Parchment. Ink and quills. Alembics. Abaci.
These were Rahab's quarters.
Abana had only ever seen them once but he would never forget them. No soul on this earth could. The dancer's heart thundered inside his chest.
"Where is Rahab?" Abana spat.
A grinning Kafnak floated in the air above him. His arms and legs were folded. "Look behind you."
He turned around and saw a huge sheet of tarp enshrouding a tall figure. In a different context it might have looked like a marble statue post due for an unveiling. Abana tore the sheet away and found his old master and torturer, the Governor of Yaghazu – Rahab of Mahmun.
And by the gods he was pathetic.
His ivory mask was gone, and his face was unremarkable. There were no boils or buboes, no gnarled expressions twisted by burn scars or leprosy; just another common Tehraqi face with wrinkles and crow's feet. His once wild black hair now lulled in knotted grey clumps. Although as tall as ever his cassock was gone and, in his nakedness, Abana saw the sunken frame that was hidden beneath it all along; haggard and gaunt. His tan skin was so tightly stretched against his bones that his ribs and veins bulged against it. His eyes were eyes – not a pair of black voids or eerie pools of ebon – just cloudy grey irises floating atop bloodshot sclera.
Ensorcelled rope bound up Rahab's hands and feet. His mouth was muzzled by a knot of cheesecloth jammed between his teeth. Sweat dripped down his beating chest toward a small brown penis waddling around in a curtain of grey pubic hair.
`Just a man,' thought Abana. `Without the mask and the magic... just as wretched and human as the rest of us.'
Abana almost pitied him.
Almost.
Kafnak produced another mouthless smile. "And now... vengeance is yours to take, Dancer of Hafiz."
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(Early Winter, 1177)
Abana the Slave did not know when he fell asleep. He did not know how long he slept. All he knew was that when they first set out it was light and when he woke it was dark. The boy opened his eyes but did not lift his cheek from the warm spot upon Maliq's back, and kept his arms tightly woven around the swordsman's waist. It was his first time riding a camel and he daren't let go – even in his sleep.
"Are you alright?" Asked Maliq. His hands kept a firm grip of the camel's reins as it calmly strolled along the desert sands. His riveted helm and armour were gone, all abandoned in a Tehraqi back alley after they escaped the ancient tunnels beneath the Elephant Palace.
The escape was well-prepared and two years in the making. Maliq had a chest of provisions hidden beneath a loose flagstone at their escape point (the abandoned wine cellar) containing a commoner's robes and cloak, a purse full of silverlings, a spare pair of sandals, a spool of rope, a concealable dagger and an empty waterskin. Once Maliq changed clothes (and gave the cloak to Abana to conceal himself and his distinctive slave brand) they climbed the sandy stone steps to a plywood door and emerged within the heart of Tehraq.
They disappeared into the throbbing crowds of its packed markets and busy thoroughfares. Ghassar and a small group of palace guardsmen took to the streets in pursuit of them, but Abana and Maliq hid themselves in a shadowed alley to outwait them.
Maliq had a contact on the other side of the city, a former camel herder and fellow acolyte of Lady Yahya's by the name of Baelik, who supplied them with a healthy steed and a traveller's pass out of the city. It was around noontide when they showed their documents to the Wahdi guardsmen and set off on a camel hump into the distant east... now the moon was high, and the stars were shining down upon him in all sorts of beautiful colours. Maliq felt warm and strong in his arms. It was a quietly wonderous moment.
And then it finally hit him.
"I'm free..." Abana's tears welled. "...I'm free..."
Maliq nodded. "We are not truly safe until we cross the border into Jawwaz, but I doubt that Rahab's men will pursue us this far from the city. You can rest easy."
Abana buried his teary smile in Maliq's back.
"How long were you a... a captive?"
"...One year... four months... three weeks... and six days..." said the Kushwari boy. "My grandfather was Fouzan ibn Mushegh, the old Governor of Nyssinia... but I was born into poverty after his exile to Kushwar. We were left as goatherds... barely surviving from year to year... and then... when our entire herd died overnight... my father sold me to slavers. My own father..."
The boy smothered a sob.
Maliq said he need not continue if it was too painful to speak of the past. Abana kept on. "...The slavers took us from the Pushan Mountains all the way to the slave markets of Qazyr... and there I was purchased at market by Master Rahab."
"That bastard is no longer your master. It is as you said... you are free."
Free. Such a simple word. Free. As basic a necessity as air or water or food... but it took a slave to understand just how precious a resource it was. At the inception of his enslavement Abana fantasised plots of escape and even, semi-jokingly, told Hamami and the others of these plots. They always chided him for it. "Do not trick yourself into hoping for things that will not manifest," said Hamami. "This is our life now. The sooner you adjust to it... the happier you will be." In her own way she was not wrong. Thoughts of freedom were dangerous for slaves. They fostered a wilfulness that masters punished with abject cruelty, and they created hopes that tormented you the longer they went unrealized. Freedom was worth more than gold and silver combined.
"And you?" Abana wondered. "You must have a story to tell... a fate to share?"
Maliq swayed in the camel's saddle. "Yes. I have a tale of sorts... but it is long and not untainted by slavery, I am ashamed to say."
Abana held him close. "...Tell me."
"I was born in Jamaraland... the place you High Easterners call `Jafara'... and like my father, grandfather and great-grandfather before me I was raised as a Bloodshield... a sworn guardian of the Jamaran Royal Family. I came of age in tandem with my future queen, Hamra lo'a Daiira. I watched her charm and outwit cynical uncles and advisors... to my very marrow I felt she was destined for greatness. And then, on the day of her coronation upon the Jasmine Throne, she declared her first edict."
"What was that?"
Abana watched Maliq smiled nostalgically. "In her own words... `the revocation of slavery as permissible by Jamaran custom and law... the acquisition, trafficking, trade or sale of slaves is hereby forbidden... and all slaves within the queendom shall be manumitted within a negotiated allotment of time no longer than one year'..."
"...She sounds like a kind queen."
"She was," said Maliq. "Slavery was as customary to Jamaraland as marriage... and the queendom had grown powerful by selling slaves to Tehraq. But Queen Hamra hated it with her very breath. She was born to a lesser `branch' of the royal tree... one descended from slaves. When plague ravaged our lands and wiped out the main branch, she was left as the sole heir. She swore before the gods that she would purge all such injustices from her queendom... and she kept her promise. It was a bold action from a bold ruler... but it gave her powerful enemies. Enemies like the Prince of Tehraq."
Abana (like every other High Eastern child raised upon tall tales of Tehraqi `bravery' and `heroism') knew how this part of the tale ended. (Then) Prince Qattullah assembles an army, builds a fleet, and sails it south to conquer Jafara. But still... Abana wanted to hear it from Maliq's lips.
"Go on," said the boy.
"Tehraq did not take kindly to this decree. King Gurkhan II sent his Grand Vizier and best diplomat, Governess Yahya of Jawwaz, to warn our queen against `recklessness', but in the end, it was Lady Yahya who was swayed by Queen Hamra. They became friends... and kindred spirits in mutual disgust for a terrible evil. When the governess sent letters to the king explaining to him that Hamra lo'a Daiira would not be manipulated... he sent his son in reply."
Abana felt Maliq tense.
"It was over the day Qattullah's ships landed on our beaches," whispered the swordsman. "No defences were prepared because Lady Yahya assured Queen Hamra that King Gurkhan could be won over without bloodshed. She was wrong. Qattullah besieged our coastal forts and burned our fishing villages. He captured our cities one by one. First Qal Qaffa, then Kananga, and then finally our capital and the seat of the Jasmine Throne – Gyasa. For six days and six nights Qattullah rained stone missiles and fire upon the city... bombarded the walls with catapults and ox bow arcuballistas... I begged Hamra to flee but she refused... I tried to protect her but no matter how many men I killed more came. An arrow stopped my sword... and then Hamra and I were captured."
Abana did not notice it but Maliq had driven the camel up to a sandy ridge high above and beyond the sweeping dunes of the Great Desert.
"A merciful victor would have taken her captive and sent her to Tehraq. But mercy is was never Qattullah's way. He built a stage at the centre of the city and gathered all of the populace to watch as he beheaded my queen with his own sword..."
"...Maliq, I am so sorry..."
The older man lowered his head. "...I failed her. As her Bloodshield it was my duty to protect her... and she was slain by her enemies regardless. I failed. And like you, my reward was slavery... or at least it would have been if not for Lady Yahya."
"She bought you?"
"And freed me, yes. When King Gurkhan recalled her to Tehraq she brought me with her. I resented her at first... I blamed her for misjudging her own people and dooming Jamaraland to subjugation... but eventually I realized that what happened to my country was forgone. And it is what will happen to every country beyond the High East so long as Rahab of Mahmun whispers in the ear of the Tehraqi Kings. So... I made that my purpose. I made Yahya's cause my own so that the tragedies of Jamaraland are never repeated... and that one day my homeland will be free of Tehraq's grip for good and all."
"You've suffered much," said Abana.
"As have you," replied Maliq. "Yet here we stand. Survivors. Look there."
He pointed out to a sight beyond the ridge. Across the sweeping dunes to the distant east lay a succession of gigantic geological depressions spotting the panorama for tens of parasangs across. Whole impact craters littered with chunks of white sandstone, black glass and half-full of loose sand.
Abana was stunned. "W-what is that?"
"They say in ancient times the gods punished the hubristic Abyyabids by raining great boulders down upon them from the heavens. Those fissures are the proof of it... and they represent the border between Tehraq and the governorate of Jawwaz. Beyond them lies the oasis town of Iblyd... where Lady Yahya awaits."
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(Late Winter, 1179)
`What would this scene look like to an unknowing eye?' thought Abana of Hafiz. Him with his unsheathed dagger dipped in poison, standing over a naked and emaciated old man lashed by his wrists and ankles, whilst a genderless god borne of starlight hovered over them with macabre curiosity. Who looked like the aggressor? Who looked like the victim?
Would the spectator see the slave brand at the back of Abana's neck? Would that spectator know the indignity of being purchased at market like a doe? Would they know of his torture and abuse? Would they know what it felt like to be tossed from man to man to man under threat of violence? Would they know what it felt like to watch helplessly as your persecutor sacrificed your friend to his cruel god like a slaughtered goat? Would ANY spectator understand the gravity of that old man's crimes? No.
And it mattered not.
Abana grabbed a fistful of Rahab's matted grey hair and watched the old sorcerer's eyes tick frantically in their sockets with fear. Fear. Abana trembled too, not with fear but anger; a righteous and bloodthirsty anger suppressed for nearly three years that came screaming out of him as he drove that poisoned kidney spike deep into the governor's chest. Abana's still face watched Rahab jerk up in pain and shock, eyes bulging, blood and bile soiling the cloth in his mouth. But it wasn't enough. The Dancer of Hafiz ripped the dagger out of his former master's chest and plunged it into his gut. He twisted the knife in Rahab's belly, drawing out a baleful groan, then withdrew it again and stabbed his sternum.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHH!"
Abana shrieked with fury as he stabbed Rahab again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again until intestinal matter slopped out of his bisected belly and blood streamed from his ribs and mouth and nose.
Rahab's corpse slumped onto Abana's shoulder. He shoved it off. The lumbering, bony and bloodied frame slumped lifelessly into a mangled heap.
Abana dropped the knife. He caught his breath. He spat Rahab's blood out of his mouth but the salty iron taste remained. His face was splattered. His robes soaked.
An amused Kafnak sat next to him. "Well then. Did the acquisition of vengeance live up to the fantasy? Has your sated fury finally brought you peace?"
"What is owed... is owed," Abana said it between breaths. "...and peace... whatever that... might look like... that was only ever... a conceivable windfall..."
"Do you know what I am?"
"...No."
"Would you like to know?"
"No."
Kafnak smirked. "...Liar."
Abana said nothing.
"Humans are fond of lies. That is why truth is the language of the gods. Reality is what we speak."
Abana wiped the blood off his face. "More riddles."
"More lies."
"What do you want from me?" Abana said.
Kafnak turned to him. "Humans are so interesting. You are so short-lived. So pathetic. So why is it... we gods are so obsessed with you? Why do we constantly interfere in the affairs of men? Why should I care one whit what a former slave does to his former master? Is that what you are thinking?"
"Why did you let me kill him?" If there was one question Abana really had it was that. "Is this a trick? Was he another one of your illusions?"
"That was no illusion," said Kafnak. "That old man you just butchered truly was Rahab of Mahmun. And I let you kill him because he was already dying. He was of little use. You see... I was born from the heart of a meteor that broke open upon the face of this desolate planet. And as I manifested into this world its people called me a god. And they worshipped me. They killed their own children in my name... hoping I might grant them a boon. And I accepted my role, as did my siblings... until we began to weaken..."
Abana eyed the creature.
"I did not understand at first," said Kafnak. "Not until Emperor Jaggarant II of the Abyyabids summoned me to his chambers. He was promised the hand of a beautiful Kushwari heiress, but she refused him... and do you know what he said? He said, "I care not if it costs me my empire, I will have the woman I love. Lend me your aid." The Emperor was my first host... and when I joined with him his passion for the Kushwari girl rejuvenated me. And it was then that I learned the truth of my own existence..."
"...You feed on obsession," said Abana.
"Exactly!" said Kafnak. "We gods feed upon human emotions and virtues. Love. Anger. Wisdom. Evil. Good. Justice. Mercy. Lust. Kindness. Cruelty. Sloth. Mine was obsession. And once we gods forge pacts with humans who embody our intrinsic hungers... our powers heighten tenfold. But as this knowledge began to spread the Abyyabids warred amongst themselves over our power... pitted us against each other like slaves in the arena... until the Last Emperor sealed us all away. I was imprisoned in a void for centuries... starved of sustenance and yet unable to die... until Rahab of Mahmun found the Tome of the Ancients... and summoned me to this plane of existence once more."
Abana concluded the rest on his own. A reckless sorcerer obsessed with his own research forging a pact with a god of obsession to acquire even more power. They deserved each other.
"You humans me nothing to me," said a leering Kafnak. "I care not for you or your pain. I do not even care that my siblings are still imprisoned by human magic. All I seek is to feast... obsession dripping into my essence like wine... do you understand?"
"I do," Abana stood up. "And the answer is no."
Kafnak smiled again. "Think carefully, Dancer of Hafiz. The rage you felt when you dipped your dagger into Rahab's heart... do you think that ends with him? Consider your friends in the Silk Court ... when a new lord comes to take Rahab's place, what becomes of them? Will you leave them to their shackles after all they did for you? No. Slavery has dulled your heart... but you still have one. I think you share the beliefs of Lady Yahya and Hamra lo'a Daiira. I think you know that killing a Rahab or a Dhabr or a Ganu is not enough to prevent others from falling into the clutches of like-minded men. I think you know the truth. To end slavery... the entire system must fall. Tehraq must be destroyed. And you know that I am the only one who can help you do it. So? What do you say? Will you join me and use my power to save your fellow slaves? Or will you refuse me and abandon them to their terrible fate?"
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