War of Men

by Rhett C. Bruno

  Mahi stopped before the Sea Door, and the moment she did, she could hear the feet of the guards shifting behind her, and the stifled gasps of everyone else. Tension was thick in the air. She stared down into the darkness, saw the dark stain where Yuri Darkings had landed.

  Did he know this would happen? she thought, but she knew he couldn't have.

  She listened to the wind howling like starving wolves and the crashing waves.

  “I’ll be gentle on her…” a sinister voice suddenly echoed. Then came a cackle that made every hair on her body raise. The very night seemed to reach through the Sea Door, grasping, ready to devour her. She fell to one knee and hid her face. There was a time when she thought that evil was just something men invented, but not anymore, not as she recalled that dark presence under the sea. The Buried Goddess named Nesilia. How the very water rippled in fear from her. How her voice made Mahi's heart turn to ice, then like it might wither and die. She recalled feeling hopeless…

  “Mahi… my Caleef. Are you all right?”

  A strong hand fell upon her shoulder. Mahi snapped to focus, grasped the man's wrist and thrust it away. For a long moment, she only saw that dark figure and heard that menacing laugh. Then, Bit’rudam’s features became clear again. She backed off, leaving him stunned and speechless.

  “I’m sorry…” she stammered. “I’m sorry.” She crawled along the floor, taking a wide arc around the Sea Door. She reached the dais leading to the Caleef’s throne—her throne. She patted the first step, then the next, climbing without even realizing it. Then, her hand fell up on the polished, black sandstone seat.

  “Let me help you, my Caleef.” One of the eunuchs grabbed for her.

  “No!” she snapped, then pulled herself up. She slid back into the seat only to find that even smoothed stone wasn’t comfortable. And it was cold. The fact that she was utterly naked had evaded her until then. Looking out across the room at dozens of servants, mostly male, ogling her, she felt shame.

  She crossed her legs and covered her chest.

  “My eternal forgiveness,” the same eunuch said. “You must be freezing.” Without waiting for a response, he stepped out of his heavy robe, revealing only a soft stomach and loincloth that covered far too little. He went to hand the robe over to her himself, but she quickly snatched it and covered her lap.

  “Everyone out,” she muttered.

  “My Caleef.” Bit’rudam coughed. “Mahraveh. Are you all right?”

  “Out!” she bellowed. The domed ceiling carried her voice like that of a Siren.

  The eunuchs and servants fled like a frightened flock of gallers, like a startled pit lizard, like a peasant at the command of the master. Only the Serpent Guards remained.

  “All of you, as well. Leave me.” She shooed them, and they filed into the center of the room, then marched out together.

  When the room was empty but for her and her thoughts, she heard a cough. Bit’rudam stood, hand pressed against his mouth. Where earlier there had been reverence in his expression, now there was only concern.

  “You don’t seem yourself,” he said. He took a step toward her, but her glower stopped him from getting any closer.

  “Do I look like myself?” she replied.

  “No… you… what happened down there?”

  “I lived.”

  “Mahi.”

  Her gaze shifted toward the Sea Door. Even looking at it, she could feel the sensation of falling again; of her body, limbs slapping against the water. The fear of knowing that she was going to die, thanks to a traitor. But she didn’t.

  “Please, leave me, Bit’rudam,” she said softly. “I need to think.”

  “Maybe I can—”

  “You no longer need stay by my side. I’m not your afhem.”

  He kept his head raised. “Maybe not. Even still, if you need me, I’ll stay close.” He stared at her for a few long seconds, and just before she finally gave in and looked back, he turned to obey her commands. She barely knew the young warrior, but she’d never met anyone so fiercely devoted. Even Jumaat split his heart with care for his family. For Bit’rudam, there was only his afhemate.

  Only his afhemate, Mahi thought. Not the rest of her people.

  “Bit’rudam,” she said.

  He whipped around to face her in a heartbeat.

  “Yes?”

  “Keep an eye on my father and Babrak. No more fighting in this city. Enough of us have died here over nothing. Enough of us have died everywhere.”

  He bowed at the waist, deep and teeming with respect. “I’ll do my best, my af… my Caleef.” At that, he stepped out of the chamber. The Serpent Guards closed the doors with a resounding gong, and now, Mahi was indeed left alone with her thoughts.

  Slumping back, head pressed against her palm, she let her eyelids close, but the darkness behind them was met by Nesilia’s sinister cackle. Her eyes shot open, and she found herself short of breath.

  So, instead, she watched the floor and dug through her memories. What had happened down there wasn’t clear, but she recalled some of the things she’d heard, and then from the Siren beyond.

  “Time is running out to come together.”

  “Your union will be in life, or in death.”

  “It is in your hands now.”

  She wasn’t the only one terrified by Nesilia. Caliphar, the all-powerful God her people thought protected them was even more so. His sister, as he said, another goddess.

  Mahi wasn’t sure if this is what it meant to be Caleef—to hear the conversations caught in the Eternal Current between eternal beings. However, she knew what she'd heard. What had been asked of her.

  Only, she wasn’t sure where to start, or why she should listen to that same Siren who had so mercilessly stolen Jumaat from her—murdered him right before her eyes. Just as she wasn’t sure why her God would choose her, a woman foolish enough to be assassinated by a traitorous Glassmen.

  Why me?

  XXIX

  The Rebel

  Muskigo awoke to a splitting headache. He’d been trampled by stampeding zhulong—or at least, that's how it felt. He tried to move, but something on his wrist resisted. Realizing his eyes were still clenched shut, he opened them and blinked. Manacles.

  Imprisoned again?

  He pulled, only his arms were restrained in a way that kept him on his knees. His mind went to the worst-case scenario: the Glass had attacked while he was too busy chasing Babrak through the streets like he was nothing more than a common thug.

  Then Muskigo noticed the one window in the room, narrow, with a pointed arch. He was in a Shesaitju building, for certain. A guard stood at the door, one of Muskigo’s own people, a Serpent Guard, staring silently forward through the eye-slits of his intimidating, golden mask.

  Muskigo’s last memory before going under hit him like a tidal wave. His daughter, Mahraveh, emerging from the sea wearing the color of a Caleef.

  “Don’t worry, Muskigo,” a voice rattled. “She’s keeping us fresh.”

  He strained to look right. There, chained to the other corner of the room, he saw Afhem Babrak. Long strands of seaweed stretched across his belly. The stuff had healing properties and grew around the shores of Latiapur. That meant Babrak’s wounds weren’t enough to kill him.

  Too bad.

  “Pis'truda,” Muskigo growled. He pulled in the direction of the damnable afhem, stretching his chains until the metal threatened to tear his flesh. The pain in his side burned like fire. His own torso was coated with healing weeds, and he recalled Babrak’s hidden knife ramming into him again and again.

  “You should have killed me,” Muskigo said.

  “If it wasn't evident, I tried.”

  “When I get free—”

  “Don’t waste your breath,” Babrak said.

  “Whatever it takes to end you.”

  Babrak chortled, then groaned in pain. “The real question is: Why I am locked in here with you when only one of us went rampaging through the streets of this p
rotected city?”

  “You deserve far worse.”

  “Just because we don’t agree on the best path toward peace, doesn’t mean my way is wrong. That’s always been your problem, Muskigo. Too stubborn for your own good. You think every problem can be solved with a sword.”

  “And you’ve always been a jealous hog,” Muskigo spat. “All this… is it really because Pazradi decided to love me? Aren’t there enough women in the world?”

  “You really think it’s that? Fool. I barely remember her face. All I cared about was you thinking everyone should worship and love you because you stood before King Liam in Tal’du Dromesh and proved that—what—you’re entertaining? He laughed at you, right after he slaughtered our fathers and brothers in open battle.”

  “Exactly why we should be free of them!” Muskigo roared. That brought the sound of steel upon the dungeon door. A warning.

  “Why? So, we can go back to killing each other over women?” Babrak said, lower. “Maybe I should have let you have her.”

  Muskigo scoffed.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have cared,” Babrak continued, ignoring the interruption, “but then my afhemate would have seen me as weak. I’d be dead already, throat cut in my sleep. Those are our old ways you so revere.”

  “And we’d all be better off.” Muskigo offered his chains another futile tug, then gave up.

  Babrak started to laugh, but it turned into a pained groan. He seemed to be enjoying the struggle far too much for Muskigo to indulge him.

  “I came to you before I sailed west,” Muskigo said softly. “I stepped into your home and shared a meal, and I put it all aside, practically begging for your support.”

  “What did you expect? Our Caleef already refused to break the alliance he’d agreed to.”

  “Alliance,” Muskigo sneered. “You said you’d consider it. You said it was time to put our pasts behind us. When Liam died, and the time came to make our move, you never showed.”

  “After you left, I walked out into the sea to reflect.” Babrak shook his head. “The Current wasn’t with you, I felt it.”

  “Lies. Me… the others, we were just obstacles out of your way so you could flirt with the Glass Crown, and earn their favor. If you’d sailed with us, they’d already be on their knees.”

  “I am flattered, but you overestimate my power.”

  “More lies!” Muskigo barked.

  “I defend the lives of my afhemate. What can you say for yours?”

  “At least they died with honor.”

  Babrak sighed. “Dead, nonetheless.”

  “And that’s such a bad thing? To ride the Current? To be free of this… suffering?” Muskigo slouched back, and watched gulls soar by the window; listened to the din of the city, traders in the markets squawking louder than the birds. Here they were, the two most powerful and renowned afhems in the Black Sands, locked up, and the world seemed to go on fine without them.

  “How does this end, Babrak?” Muskigo asked, not taking his eyes off the gray-blue sky.

  “I think it already has for me. You saw what your daughter has become. Unlike you, I follow the will of our Caleef—the will of our God. It won’t matter that I violated no sacred oaths. It won’t matter that you murdered men in this city.” A fit of coughing overtook him before he finished. “Nothing matters in the end.”

  “The way we live our lives resounds upon the ocean’s tides.”

  “Beautiful words, perhaps, but we all wind up in the same sea. She won’t let me rob you of that, even if you deserve it.”

  “And you don’t?” Muskigo pushed his injured side enough to turn all the way and face him. “You did it, didn’t you?”

  Babrak blew out through his teeth. “And what am I accused of this time?”

  “You went behind my back to convince Yuri Darkings to murder my daughter. Take her army out of the equation. What did you offer him?”

  “You of all people must know the consequences of dealing with Glass Lords.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question!” Muskigo snapped.

  “And I never will. How dare you accuse me of that?”

  “How dare me? You lied about my daughter. You murdered Farhan right above us.”

  “Farhan tripped,” Babrak said with a little laugh.

  “You lie about everything! You are the worst kind of snake, Babrak Trisps’I.”

  “If I lie, it is because you are a plague to the Black Sands which needs removing. A relic of an old way that believed in nothing but blood and death when diplomacy is the way of the future. We fought them. We lost miserably, now again. How could it be any clearer?”

  Muskigo wanted to curse him. However, nothing came out. He could only sigh. “Perhaps we should have put an end to each other in the arena.”

  “And miss all this fun?”

  Footsteps sounded at the door. Orders came in Saitjuese, then Serpent Guards slithered in. Two for each of them. They unlocked Muskigo’s wrists, and his arms fell to his sides, unbelievably sore from being held up for gods-knew-how-long. Gripping him, one on each shoulder, they dragged him. He resisted at first, but his battered body made it too difficult.

  “What is this?” he asked, knowing full well the tongueless guards couldn’t answer. “I have to speak with my daughter. I have to speak with the… Caleef.” It was difficult to say out loud. Of all the futures he could ever have wanted for Mahraveh, this was never one of them. It wasn’t even a fate he could’ve dreamed up.

  “You’re being brought to her,” Bit’rudam said, waiting just outside. Now, Muskigo recognized where they were: far beneath the Caleef’s throne room, in the palace dungeons.

  “Tell me what’s going on, boy!” Muskigo demanded of Bit’rudam.

  Behind them, Babrak grunted with every step. It appeared that between the two of them, Muskigo had dealt the greater damage. At least he could take some semblance of delight in that.

  “What’s going on is that you should never be allowed in this palace again,” Bit’rudam said. “I don’t care who you are. I’m ashamed that as a boy, all I wanted was to grow up to be like the great Muskigo Ayerabi. The Scythe.”

  “Some dream,” Babrak laughed.

  Muskigo ignored him. “You will come to find the world is not so simple. What’s done, is done. I only want to know if my daughter is all right.”

  “She’s been locked in the throne room, alone for two days,” Bit’rudam said as the guards led them up a switchback stairwell. “Hasn’t said a word to anybody since the doors closed, but I hear her muttering. I’ve spent much of the time anchored offshore, watching just to make sure she didn’t throw herself into the Boiling Waters.”

  “Why would she do that?” Muskigo asked.

  “Why did Sidar Rakun?” Bit’rudam retorted.

  “Bit’rudam, she seems to trust you. I know she must be angry over what I've done, but I did it for her.”

  “For her?” Babrak laughed again.

  “It’s the truth,” Muskigo said. “Ask her to speak with me. I… I have to talk with her.”

  “You will,” Bit’rudam said. “She’s summoned every afhem.”

  “All of them?” Babrak asked.

  “No one knows why,” Bit’rudam continued, “but she says she’s come to her first decision as Caleef.”

  “I need to talk with her alone.” Muskigo fought the clutch of the Serpent Guards to take the young warrior by the shoulders. They promptly tore him away. “Please, I have no idea what she’s going through, but I’m her father. I need to talk to her.”

  “A Caleef has no family,” Bit’rudam quoted from the texts. “Has no afhemate.”

  Muskigo could hear the bitter disappointment in Bit’rudam’s tone, but the young warrior was right. The blood of the nigh’jels erased all former affiliations—made the Caleef exist only in the image of the God of Sand and Sea. All former loyalties were meant to be forgotten.

  “She still knows who I am,” Muskigo said, more trying to convince himself than
anything. He’d never spent much time around Sidar Rakun, but every time he had, he’d always gotten the sense of the man’s detachment.

  “She’s different,” Bit’rudam said. “I don’t know how, but she is.”

  “She needs her father,” Muskigo said.

  “Nobody needs you anymore. The blood you spilled here, that’s all they’ll remember.”

  “I like this one,” Babrak said.

  “Harsh words from an afhem-less child,” Muskigo responded. “I see how you look at her. How you lust. It’ll never happen now, you know that, don’t you? You can win her old afhemate, become the greatest warrior we’ve ever known, and still, she’ll never be yours.”

  Bit’rudam stopped in front of him at the landing. He turned, eyes rife with fury. He set his jaw and whispered, “All because the pink-skin you brought here pushed her off a ledge.” With that, he turned, robe flourishing, and left.

  Muskigo’s heart sank. He wasn’t sure why he’d treated the boy that way. The only man who deserved such spite stood behind him. He was just so angry at everything and everyone. Babrak, Yuri Darkings, The God of Sand and Sea, Himself, who stole his daughter’s chance for a normal life. However, more than anything, he was angry at himself.

  The Serpent Guards gave his arms a yank, drawing him toward the throne room's open doors. More afhems entered around them, regarding Muskigo and Babrak as if they carried the blight. The closer they got to the coral throne, the more Muskigo realized that the last person on Pantego he wanted to see was Mahraveh.

  She’d stood by him through everything, saved him when all hope was lost. Now, he brought shame to their ancestral family—a family that would die with him in disgrace.

  Afhems backed away as Muskigo entered the room, glowering, the sages, too. They did the same to Babrak, who cursed them, claiming he had nothing to do with what happened. It seemed that Muskigo’s wounds made Babrak appear guilty enough. Or, maybe, perhaps everyone now saw him for the gold-monger he was.

  At least I accomplished some good…

  Muskigo’s thoughts were stolen when his gaze fell upon his daughter seated high above on the Caleef’s throne. She looked so small in the seat, it was almost like she was a child again. A dress of golden lace was draped over her thin body. More skin showed than any father would approve of, and every inch of her was black as the midnight sky. A flat crown sat atop her half-shaved head, beads hanging down over her face.