War of Men

by Rhett C. Bruno

  Muskigo sat on the lowest tier, his injured leg stretched out. Mahi sat beside him. She knew the types of stares she’d earn from doing so, especially with the respected Afhem Tingur absent, but she didn’t care. Yuri went to join them, but the spear of a Serpent Guard lanced out and blocked him. The silent warrior pointed to the floor.

  “I think I’ll stand,” Yuri grumbled.

  Yuri likely had no idea how long he would be standing. Minutes turned into nearly an hour. Eventually, he started pacing, probably to keep the blood in his old legs. Nobody spoke above a whisper. They all merely watched the Caleef, waiting for him to make the first move. He’d taken his seat by then, but nothing else. His stare only turned from blankly aiming at his chair to blankly aiming at the Sea Door across the room.

  Mahi turned to her father after who-knows-how-long. His features remained stoic and unflinching. She opened her mouth to speak, then stopped herself. She knew he had his pride, that he refused to be the first to speak.

  Finally, Yuri Darkings could maintain the silence no longer. “I suppose I’ll start.” He cleared his throat. “You all know who I am. Not long ago, I stood here, promising that I would deliver the Caleef from his wrongful prison. I believe a bit of gratitude is owed. I was promised land, gold—”

  The throne room doors burst open while Yuri spoke.

  “Promises from a traitor,” Babrak said as he came stomping in. A bandage wrapped his waist, and in the short time since Mahi had seen him, he seemed to have lost weight due to the injuries.

  If only I’d hit his neck, she thought.

  “My Caleef.” Babrak fell to his knees, unable to hide his pained wince. His left hand groped at the tightly-stretched bandage. “I am so sorry I could not have been here for your arrival. I heard only as I just arrived.”

  In keeping with the journey, the Caleef said nothing, didn’t even look at Babrak. Mahi could see the heartbreak in the fat afhem’s eyes and relished it. He didn’t need to know that the Caleef hadn’t yet acknowledged anyone's existence.

  “Why don’t you tell him how you kept his throne warm?” Muskigo asked. “How you ensured that his servants wouldn't forget how to lavish and pamper him? Or, how none of his many chefs would lose a step in their art. Latiapur’s protector… as if it needed one.”

  Babrak stood. “And how would you know, Muskigo? You were busy leading… how many to their deaths?”

  “You tell me. You got plenty of them killed in Nahanab.”

  “Where I arranged for peace.”

  “You arranged for subservience!” Muskigo roared. The hairs on the back of Mahi’s neck all stood erect as his voice thundered throughout the domed space. Her father reached into his belt and removed a strand of braided hair—her hair. She hadn’t realized he’d found it in Nahanab before they left. He tossed it onto the floor. “You convinced me to surrender by telling me that my daughter died. By showing me that!”

  Gasps sounded around the room from the other afhems.

  Babrak, however, didn’t seem startled in the slightest. “Oh, please,” he said, looking around the room. “Don’t act like you are innocent in any of this.” Then he turned back to Muskigo. “Your daughter is gone, Muskigo. She is Afhem al’Tariq now. There was no lie.”

  “Always desperate to be clever, aren’t you?” Muskigo said.

  “Is any of it a surprise?” Babrak stepped in farther, spinning as he walked to address the other afhems. “How many lies must Muskigo have told to raise his rebellious army? Mahraveh learned from him after all, how to lie, how to fight in Tal’du Dromesh to steal her position.”

  Arguments broke out in a low rumble but were immediately squelched by Yuri Darkings laughing.

  “And what is so funny, pale-skinned rat?” Babrak asked. “Whatever you have done, you have no right to stand before his holiness!”

  “I just find it amusing how faithful you afhems pretend to be until it no longer benefits you,” Yuri said. “And here I thought you people were different from mine.”

  “We are nothing like your people!”

  “Then why did you side with them?” Mahi asked. She knew she spoke too softly to command respect, but it felt different addressing the crowd of afhems in this room now that her father and the Caleef were present. She glanced up at Muskigo, and he nodded for her to stand. She did, even though her legs felt a bit like nigh’jels. “Why?” she repeated.

  Babrak looked flustered for once. He spun, again addressing the room. The traitor sure knew how to play a crowd. “I sought only to end this unsanctioned war, which has cost so many good lives. I made an arrangement with the Wearer of White that would spare the lives of any man or woman who followed Afhem Muskigo.”

  “A deal that would have banished my father’s soul for all eternity!” Mahi shouted, surprising herself by how loudly this time. The dome made her voice carry like she wasn’t used to. Muttering throughout the room buoyed her spirits. She didn’t care if anyone agreed with her, only that they were willing to listen.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Mahi went on. “He offered him a Dagger of Damikmagrin after agreeing to a deal with Sir Nikserof. Will you tell us what the arranged price was, Babrak? And I don’t mean the people it spared.”

  “Only a Caleef can sanction exile from the Eternal Current,” an afhem spoke up.

  Mahi quickly whipped around to face her father, whose lips betrayed the twitch of a smirk. He hadn’t told her that, and now she knew why. Her father had another play up his sleeve. Ever the strategist. A part of her was hurt by his secrecy, but the rest of her stood in admiration. She knew that her reaction, her expression, was all the proof other afhems would need to see.

  “His holy personage was not here,” Babrak said, looking to the listless Caleef for approval and earning none.

  “It happened nonetheless,” Muskigo said, now standing as well. “My brothers.” He looked to Mahi. “And sister. I accepted that banishment for the sake of our people. I saw my failure, and if it were not for Afhem Mahraveh al’Tariq arriving when she did, I would be forever stripped of the Current’s rest.”

  “And what—we should forgive everything because she saved a traitor, and nearly killed me in battle for trying to arrange peace?”

  “Whoring yourself out is not peace,” Yuri remarked.

  Babrak became a charging zhulong, fists clenched. The blades of every Serpent Guard slid halfway from their sheathes, releasing a deafening rasp of metal that stopped him in his tracks. Violence in the throne room when the Caleef wasn’t around didn’t seem to matter, but he was here now.

  “Is it not time for you to leave?” Babrak spat at Yuri’s feet.

  “Do you think I’m afraid of a man who got torn to pieces like that by a girl?” Yuri replied.

  Mahi’s jaw clenched at the insult, then she heard a few of the afhems behind her chuckle. Another strategist at work.

  “I refused to fight her,” Babrak replied dismissively. “I traveled to Nahanab for peace.”

  “That’s true, I don’t remember a good fight,” Mahraveh commented. Babrak’s lips twisted, and she earned another speckling of laughter.

  Muskigo stepped forward and faced the Caleef. “Babrak is many things, your Holiness, but in this case, he is right, I should have sought approval for my actions, but when King Liam passed, I saw a chance to change our lives forever. And I saw it in battle. The Glass Kingdom is not what it once was. If we band together, finally, all of us, we no longer have to beg for scraps.”

  “Have you seen Latiapur?” Babrak said. “Or Abo’Fasaniyah? Or even Nahanab before you ravaged it. We aren’t begging. Just because Saujibar is filled with piss and rabble doesn't mean all of the Black Sands is. We live better lives than we ever have before. Our cities are full of life. Full of trade.”

  “Because we have become like Glassmen. No... not like them. Suckling at their teat. Soon, our skin will be soft and pink as theirs. Our own temples will bear Iam’s symbols, as all those in Panping now do. We have lost what made us as s
trong as the sea.”

  “My father knows what he did was wrong,” Mahraveh said without looking to him for approval. She was starting to understand that this room wasn’t about permission, it was about influence. She too approached the Caleef. “And if his Holiness would punish him for it, I’m certain Afhem Muskigo would accept any fate. But I have also defeated the Glass army in battle once. Their general is my prisoner. We have a chance to finish what my father started.”

  “Winning an ambush is far different than victory in open war, girl,” Babrak said, allowing himself a hearty laugh as he approached. “You drove them back, but barely put a dent in their shield. And word has reached me that they’ve already retaken the White Bridge, dispelled the Drav Cra, and struck a new alliance with the dwarves of Balonhearth. What do you know about battling all of that after we have lost so much, thanks to your father?”

  Now, Mahi knew he was desperate. He’d already played the role of diminishing her because she was a woman, and then she killed every warrior in Tal’du Dromesh.

  “I know enough to know that the people who slaughtered my village can’t be trusted,” Mahi said. “Sir Nikserof was there, I swear it.”

  The afhems began to chatter.

  “Your father did the same to their villages,” Babrak countered. “He brought this upon them. We should trade their Wearer of White and use him to ease negotiations as we mend this great wound Muskigo caused.”

  The afhems grew louder at such a valid argument. So much so that Mahi had to shout to hear herself over them. Her blood boiled. Her hands wanted to ram her spear through Babrak’s heart, and she might have if she hadn't put it down before entering. Now the custom made sense.

  Then Yuri Darkings said, “Or perhaps you resent her because she refused to become one of your wives.”

  His voice was low, but the man always spoke with such charisma that no din could cover it, and the words got a rise out of Mahi’s father. This time, she barred him with her arm, knowing full well what he might do. He and Babrak’s rivalry went back to a woman—her mother—someone Mahi barely knew before the Current took her. It wasn’t the first feud between afhems fought over a woman, but the children of afhems were off-limits unless offered openly.

  “How dare you speak such lies!” Babrak retorted, feigning shock. He hadn’t outright asked for Mahi’s submission to marriage, but the implication had been made. Mahi was sure of that.

  “You think there are any whispers that escape my ears? Glass or Sands, I hear everything,” Yuri said.

  “I will not suffer rumors from a pink-skin.” On that, a majority of the afhems in the room voiced agreement.

  “What about the one where you told Sir Nikserof exactly where to find the women and children of the Ayerabi Afhemate?” Yuri said. “Told him exactly when to attack your old rival.”

  “I would never!” Babrak protested.

  Babrak didn’t hold back this time. He grabbed Yuri by the throat and heaved him into the air, his feet dangling, kicking. Serpent Guards drew their weapons, but the Glassman wasn’t under their protection. Mahi and her father came to Yuri’s aid instead. All the afhems stood and hurried to the floor as well.

  Mahi couldn’t hear anything over all the shouting. Once again, the lack of weapons in the room proved to be the right move. Otherwise, many afhems might have died. Maybe all of them. They tried to tear Babrak away. One jabbed him in his wound, and he lost his grip, dropping Yuri to the floor in a breathless clump. Mahi would have joined the fray, but her father had placed himself in front of her, falling into the unbreakable stance of the black fist. Protecting her, like she was still a child.

  She went to squeeze by him, and then she saw. The Caleef stood.

  Her father saw next, then Babrak and one by one, all the afhems quieted down and backed away so they could look upon the Caleef.

  Sidar Rakun’s gaze lifted to regard his subjects. Mahi wasn’t sure what she saw in his expression. The black paint made it impossible to tell, but his eyes—the whites stood out like pit lizard eggs in the desert. They were glazed over. Whether it was exhaustion or sadness, she couldn’t tell.

  “So much fighting…” the Caleef whispered.

  “Your Holiness, I—” Babrak began before the Caleef continued on and rendered him silent for once in his life.

  “The God of Sand and Sea has forsaken us.” The lump in the Caleef’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. He climbed down the dais steps and crossed the room, slowly. No one spoke, no one moved except to make room for him. “Only She remains…”

  In those last words, Mahi could finally feel his pain as if it were her own.

  Then she saw the flex of the muscles in his shin. He stepped forward once, then again. The afhems might have noticed, but it was too late, and by the time Mahi made it past her father, she too, had missed her chance.

  Caleef Sidar Rakun stepped through the Sea Door.

  Mahi rushed, along with everyone else. She watched in abject horror as he plummeted down into the raging water and jagged rocks. He’d done it before, decades ago, and survived the fall as all Caleefs must, but that was in faith. This was something else altogether.

  The room became a desert night, silent and cold.

  “What was that?” an afhem finally spoke.

  “Why would he do that?” asked another.

  “Is this a test?”

  Mahi couldn’t match the voices, but it didn't matter, the silence the Caleef’s actions inspired made each voice like a thunderclap. She and the others stood around the portal, staring into the darkness where only the greenish glow of mobbing nigh’jels and white caps could be seen. Then, the glow faded, the creatures winking away one by one until total darkness prevailed.

  “If you’re up there, or down there, let her be the one,” Yuri Darkings said quietly, just a step behind Mahi.

  Mahi turned briefly toward him, lifting a finger to her lips to shush him.

  “I suppose,” he said, staring directly into her eyes, “it’s time to give faith a try.”

  Yuri’s hand fell upon her shoulder, and he pushed. He was stronger than he appeared. Her sandals slipped on the polished marble floor, and then she followed the Caleef. Wind cradled her as she plummeted. She saw the green and gold glow of the chamber above and all the shocked faces framed in the opening. Yuri fell just behind her. Muskigo grabbed him by his robes in a vain attempt to slow his descent, but the old man slipped away easily.

  Mahi twisted through the air, her cheeks sprayed by sand and salt. The last thing she saw clearly was Yuri smash against a cluster of sharp rocks. Then she hit the water, and from so high it fell like she too had slammed onto stone.

  XXIV

  The Thief

  With all the ruckus in Yaolin, passing through the channel on the northern end of Lake Yaolin had been no trouble at all. The city guard seemed eager to get people out of the place, even. Gold Grin’s ship—which he’d so thoughtfully left for them to borrow—was fully outfitted for the journey through the icy Covenstan Depths, too.

  When they’d left, Whitney only cared for a moment how Gold Grin and the other pirates would get back to land after Whitney took their rowboats, too. But his concern quickly vanished. They could face Aihara Na’s wrath for all Whitney cared.

  Presently, Whitney and Tum Tum crossed the Reba’s innards. Aquira lumbered along ahead of them, not bothering to fly. She’d spent the day, like every day since they hit the bitter north, soaring ahead and using her fire to clear a path through the ice to allow for a faster journey.

  It had been weeks since the incident at the Red Tower, but the implications of what Whitney and Kazimir had seen inside the Well had permeated his dreams and his waking thoughts.

  Nesilia had spoken to him again. She’d said, in no uncertain terms, that doom was coming, and it had arrived in the form of Gold Grin. Luckily for him, Kazimir and Sigrid had been there to save the day, but Whitney couldn’t count on that kind of luck forever. Nesilia was clearly threatened by his bond with So
ra and as good as he felt knowing that his friend was still in there, it was equally terrifying. He had to take a stand. Against a goddess. A real one this time, and without Torsten.

  “Crazy day when you wish Torsten Unger were around, huh, girl?” Whitney said to Aquira.

  “Huh?” Tum Tum asked.

  “Nothing.”

  Lucindur, Gentry, Talwyn, and half of what remained of their Glintish troupe awaited them in the garish galley still covered in Gold Grin’s trinkets. Whitney put on a smile to try and mask his fear.

  Lucindur had her salfio across her lap and fiddled with the new strings, tuning, then tuning again. The rest of the troupe were on the top deck, watching over the ship after dealing with an exasperating Tum Tum teaching them what little he knew about sailing. The dwarf deserved the break. The Reba was a fine vessel, but impossible to handle alone, and Kazimir and Sigrid were of no help since it was daytime.

  They were headed for a dock just west of Glinthaven, with a path through the mountains. When Lucindur reluctantly agreed to help, again. Those were her terms. They’d take a short detour and bring the troupe safely to their homeland. She feared using the city docks in case Gold Grin's ship was recognized.

  Gentry stood without making eye contact as soon as Whitney came around the corner. He held out his arm for Aquira to climb up and headed toward one of the crews’ quarters. He’d hardly spoken to Whitney since the incident with Gold Grin. Whitney laid into him pretty good about how he could have died, could have gotten everyone killed, could have wrecked the whole plan. Whitney wasn’t sure if the boy was embarrassed or angry.

  “Hi,” Talwyn said as Whitney approached. She patted the bench and scooted to give him room to sit, but only a bit.

  “Hey,” Whitney answered, not taking his eyes off Gentry as he closed the door and locked himself in.

  “Just give him time,” Lucindur said, frowning.

  “What he did was foolish.”

  “Aye, and ye never done nothin stupid for someone else, have ye, Fierstown?” Tum Tum quipped, slapping Whitney on the knee. He plopped down into a seat, somehow having found a bottle of fine brandy, and took a swig.