Emissary

by Fiona McIntosh

“I agree. Perhaps that is the difference this time. Maybe Lyana is protected.”

  Lazar kept his patience. “Tell me. What occurs to him when Lyana comes into her power?”

  At this the dwarf faltered. He knew Lazar was going to trap him again. “That, too, is confusing, Lazar, I admit. Traditionally, as soon as Maliz comes into contact with Lyana, he is endowed fully with all of his powers.”

  “Magic, you mean,” Lazar qualified. He wanted none of Pez’s cryptic answers.

  “For want of a better word, yes.”

  “Are they noticeable?”

  Pez smirked. “Does he break out in sores, or suddenly grow in stature, do you mean? No, Lazar, he is just equipped for the battle that will inevitably ensue between himself and Lyana.”

  “And traditionally they fight—hand to hand?”

  Pez shrugged. “They use their powers against each other. She has always lost.” He pursed his lips before adding, “But not this time.”

  “I reckon he’s here for you. He’s keeping an eye on the person who can lead him to the real Lyana.”

  Pez shook his head, determined to shore up his belief that Ana was still somehow the one. “Perhaps he’s here for neither Ana nor myself. Why not you?”

  Lazar laughed grimly. “We’re going over stale ground, Pez.” The dwarf nodded sadly. “Why can’t I just go in there now and slit his throat?”

  “I’ve explained this. He cannot die by ordinary means.”

  “Why not?”

  “Lyana’s presence gives him his powers.”

  Before Lazar could argue again that Ana was not Lyana and surely that made Maliz vulnerable, Jumo arrived with the news that the purveyors of camels were ready to do business.

  “We have shared kerrosh. It is time,” Jumo said.

  Lazar nodded. “I have some animals to buy, Pez. Keep an eye on his tent. I don’t care that it’s guarded by Elim. Everyone’s tired and might get sloppy. See that he doesn’t make any attempt to enter the women’s accommodations.”

  “I’ll do one of my screams if he does.”

  Lazar gave him a sad smile before following Jumo down to where the nomads sat patiently, cross-legged, warming themselves around a small fire that the soldiers had built.

  “Are they speaking Percherese?” Lazar asked his friend.

  “No. Use Khalid.”

  Lazar switched instantly into the language of the nomads, touching his hand to his forehead and breast as he welcomed the men and thanked them for bringing the animals.

  They stood and responded in kind. This was purely formality. Their expressions were blank, their gazes guarded, as they watched the tall foreigner seat himself in similar cross-legged fashion.

  Lazar got straight down to business now that the formalities were done with. “How many?”

  “We were asked to bring twenty-five,” the leader said.

  Lazar nodded. “We’ll need all of them. Are they watered?”

  “Just a few hours ago. They will travel for many days without a need for drinking.”

  “Good.”

  “Where do you go, sir?”

  “Across the desert.”

  The senior man whistled through his teeth, talked to his companions in a pidgin version of the language that not even Lazar could understand. He grasped every fourth word, though, and from their body language could tell they were not pleased at the notion that their camels might not be returned. He chose to interrupt their worried conversation.

  “We will buy them outright.”

  “I cannot allow that. We have raised these camels from calves. They belong to the Khalid people.”

  Lazar knew better than to protest. As hostile as it was, the desert still supported several tribal families, wandering endlessly from well to well to soothe the parched throats of man and beast. And their camels, in truth, meant more to them than one another. Camels gave them meat, milk, skins, transport, comfort, income. He’d always known that asking one tribe to sell off more than two dozen of its prized family members was an optimistic notion.

  And he also knew by the man’s objection that he was dealing with the right animals. Sometimes the wily tribes tried to sell unsuspecting travelers beasts who were used to traversing the stony plains. The soles of these animals were hard and shiny, unsuitable for the soft give of the sands. Jumo, of course, even with limited time to make his arrangements, would not have erred on this point, he reminded himself.

  “I need these camels,” he said softly to the man whose name, he had found out by listening to the men converse, was Salim.

  “Then we will send some of our own men,” the man replied. Lazar began to shake his head. The last thing he wanted was more people in the caravan. “Otherwise you cannot have our animals, not for any price.”

  Salim sounded very final. And Lazar was running out of patience and time. He glanced toward Jumo, whose almost imperceptible nod urged the Spur to accept this deal. After all, what could it hurt to have some experienced desert travelers in their party?

  It was probably fatigue that made him capitulate. “I accept your terms. How many men?”

  “Four.”

  Lazar nodded. “All right. What price?”

  And with those two words he set off furious negotiations. Lazar understood the way of the desert. The first price was simply the starting point from which he would now barter down as earnestly as they would argue the price back up. He ordered kerrosh, knew there would be another hour or more in this debate. Lazar would have happily paid their first price—unheard of, of course, but his men were tired and he was exhausted. Money was not an issue. The Zar had opened up the royal coffers and no karel would be spared in this journey. Boaz would scoff if he knew his Spur was wasting precious rest time in petty bargaining.

  But this was the way of the desert folk. If you didn’t follow the protocol, they would take offense.

  As they finally agreed upon the hire price of men and camels, suddenly all the Khalid were standing, stretching, smiling, and nodding. Negotiations were over, and it was time for a final round of kerrosh.

  Lazar worked hard at stifling a long yawn but lost the fight. Salim strolled over.

  “I am Salim. You will appreciate my men. I can see from your tents that you escort important people.”

  “Bit hard to miss, isn’t it?”

  The Khalid smirked but not unkindly. “I would leave those tents behind if I were you, sir. Forgive my forwardness but the less attention you draw to yourselves in the Empty the better.”

  The Empty. It was the first time he’d heard the desert called that. Having crossed it once, he knew the title suited it. “Please call me Lazar. Should we expect trouble?”

  Salim looked thoughtful. “Possibly. I’m presuming you’re headed fully west?”

  Lazar didn’t want to tell Salim much more than he had to but the Khalid was obviously intelligent and had worked out much for himself. “Yes.”

  Again the man whistled softly. “With a royal? Has the sun boiled your brains?”

  Lazar bristled but knew he must keep his temper even. He wanted those camels and he wanted to be gone in a few hours on their backs. “What do you know?”

  Salim jutted his chin toward the tent. “The accommodations tell me plenty. The Elim guard tells me a lot more. You travel with precious cargo, Spur Lazar.”

  “And the fewer people who know, the better, Salim. What should I be fearing?”

  “Apart from the scorching heat and frost at night, the lack of wells across to the west, and the Samazen?”

  Lazar grit his teeth at the man’s sarcasm. “And?”

  “The western quarter of the Empty is not our region. Our people have no reason to travel those lands—I don’t know of any tribes who move across the Forgotten Sands, as the west is known. But we hear things. Rumors of a fortress.”

  “What? In the desert?”

  Salim shrugged. “All hearsay but I’m obliged to tell you if we lose our men and camels…” He trailed off, his tone sad
.

  “Why would you?”

  Again he shrugged and it was beginning to annoy Lazar.

  “What about this fortress? What rumors do you know?”

  “That a madman had it built and has assembled his own army.”

  Lazar barked a laugh. “And you believe this? An army living in the desert.”

  “No ordinary army,” Salim continued. “Men who care not for their lives on this plane.”

  Lazar was tiring of this conversation. “Salim, tell me what you know and be done. I appreciate your information and any guidance you can provide, but I wish no scaremongering of my men. We have an arduous journey ahead, fraught with all sorts of problems I don’t wish to think about yet, and you are now adding to those problems.”

  “I know very little. Everything I have heard is based on information passed across the desert between the tribes. I have no idea if it is based on truth, nor do I know how exaggerated the information has become in each telling.”

  “Go on.”

  “No one knows why they’re there—if they’re there. I have no name for this madman people whisper about. Rumor says he is on a personal crusade, that he has over the past decade been persuading vulnerable, impressionable young men into his personal army.”

  “From where does he source these men?”

  “People disappear all the time in the desert. The tribes know they will lose one or two men a year to its harshness. I think, if he exists, he is using this fact to prey on those people. He steals one or two from the tribes each year, watches them go through the motions of searching for their lost and then giving up, knowing the desert will claim lives.” Salim put his hands up in a gesture of helplessness. “Who knows, he may even steal the people from the western cities, for all I know.”

  “Do you have any proof—anything real you can give me?”

  At this, Salim’s eyes narrowed and his lips tightened to a thin line. He nodded. “My youngest son, Ashar. He disappeared two years ago, when he was just fifteen summers. He was accompanying a party of two other Khalid. They were mapping out some new watering holes, as we have begun to open up some trading routes toward the west and—”

  Lazar suddenly understood. “This is about your son! It has nothing to do with our safety. Denying selling me the camels outright had nothing to do with tribal ways. You wanted to plant your men in my caravan. And all that talk about the royals—you don’t care, you’re using the royal party as cover.” Lazar was past tired, past cranky, and was moving straight into fury.

  Salim had the grace to look slightly sheepish. Again he gave the gesture of helplessness. “Have you a son of your own, Spur Lazar?”

  “I have no children,” Lazar growled, mindful of the small crowd, turning from their kerrosh and conversation to watch the two men arguing.

  “Then you cannot begin to understand the lengths a father will go to in order to protect his child. Ashar is now seventeen—”

  “If he’s alive,” Lazar said heartlessly.

  The man nodded sadly. “Yes, if he’s alive. I believe he is.”

  “And you want to use my caravan to find him.”

  “I don’t believe this enclave is run by a madman. If it exists—and I believe it does—I think he is far from mad. Very sane in fact; very calculating, too. He would have the good sense to let a royal party pass unharmed through the lands he considers his. Stealing or killing royals would bring nothing but damnation onto him—and the might of the entire Percherese army.”

  “You can bet all your camels and children on that, Salim!”

  The man did not rise to the bait. “As I say, I think he will let your caravan pass unharmed, but it will give me and my men the opportunity to get close enough not only to see whether the fortress exists but to get into it if necessary.”

  “You know you’re the madman.”

  “Perhaps. But I love my son, Lazar, and no man steals him from me.”

  “You don’t know that he’s alive and you risk men and your own life on the chance that he is.”

  Salim studied him through dark, wise eyes. “One day I hope Zarab blesses you with a son. And then you will know the pain of parental love and the knowledge that, yes, you would die for that son on the off chance that your life might buy his.”

  Lazar shook his head in exasperation. “I want the camels.”

  “They are yours, but we come with them.”

  Lazar knew he was beaten. He raised a finger in the air in threatening fashion. “You and your men are under my command. Is that understood?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “You go where I say. You do what I order.”

  “To a point. We shall break away from your caravan should we discover the fortress.”

  “Agreed.”

  They locked grim stares. Salim broke it by bowing his head to the Spur, hand on heart. “Thank you, sir. I will ready my men.”

  Lazar sighed. He was not going to get any sleep this night.

  28

  At Jumo’s insistence, Lazar tried to get some sleep, but it eluded him despite the fact that his body was bone-shakingly tired. He dozed restlessly on a skin beneath a few goat-hair blankets. He knew he had only two hours before they would have to rise and get the caravan moving before the heat of the day set in. This was summer and it could kill within an hour if it so chose and if the unprepared decided to gamble with it.

  He rolled away from the fire, and the men talking quietly around it. Feeling the frost near his face, Lazar acknowledged that a desert night could be just as deadly as the searing day.

  Forcing his eyes closed, he found some fitful rest. Amongst his frequent stirrings, his dreams punished him. Voices called to him. They urged him to set them free but he had no idea where their prison was.

  Unleash us on the land, Lazar. You will need us for the battle ahead.

  Who are you?

  Friends.

  Where are you?

  But there was no response and he realized he had jolted himself awake; he could hear Jumo’s voice speaking quietly with Salim and his men. He drifted off again and this time if the voices talked, he didn’t remember hearing them. This time his thoughts were with Ana, imagining how close she was and yet how very far from him. The words of Boaz returned to haunt him, that Ana’s womb might already be quickening with his heir.

  He squirmed, opened his eyes, and deliberately roused himself by turning back toward the fire. His gaze met Jumo’s, which was full of reproach.

  “You have another hour,” his friend said.

  “I can’t sleep,” Lazar replied honestly. “Let’s start.”

  Jumo nodded, and the men began moving as one, quietly dispersing to see to their various tasks.

  Salim approached as Lazar was disentangling his long legs from the blankets.

  “The water you carry in those barrels will have to go into skins.”

  “They won’t like it,” Lazar said, his chin jutting toward the royal tent. But it was obvious he didn’t disagree. “Go ahead. You have what you need?”

  “Yes. That’s the beauty of the goatskins; we can simply roll them up and carry them easily.”

  Lazar nodded. “Pick out three gentle beasts for our royal party.”

  Salim nodded. “And you?”

  “Oh, the nastier the better for me,” Lazar quipped. They shared a smile of the desert, for most camels were cantankerous even in their most peaceful moments. The hobbled animals were already spitting and grumbling as their handlers began to get them up for the day.

  “We’ll give you Maharitz, then. She’ll soon sort you out,” Salim said, his normally blank face creased into a mischievous grin.

  LAZAR STAYED WELL AWAY from the royal tent but he could hear its complaints. Herezah did not appreciate being woken whilst it was still dark, and she was berating the unfortunate Elim given the task. Not a word of complaint from Ana, of course, and Maliz was already dressed for the desert in simple light robes and a fashez, the turban that men favored when travelin
g in the sands. Lazar was impressed as he watched the man stretching outside his humble enough tent. He felt a stab of something akin to sorrow. It seemed a pity; the demon was a far better Vizier—a far better man, in fact—than his host had ever been. Despite his fear of what lurked beneath the shell of Tariq, Lazar rather admired the no-nonsense, direct, and charismatic way in which the Grand Vizier carried himself these days. In a different situation perhaps the two of them might have found common ground…friendship even.

  He shook his head free of such fanciful thoughts and reminded himself that Maliz was a demon, not a man, and that he would destroy Percheron and any number of its people, if necessary, to achieve his own aims.

  A smaller figure emerged beside the Grand Vizier from the royal tent and Lazar immediately looked away. He was not quite fast enough, however; he felt his breath sucked from him with a fresh gust of pain. Ana had sensibly chosen the light-colored, unadorned robes of the desert for their journey. She was still veiled, however, and that helped to keep her distant, even though she was standing only fifty paces from him. He stole a glance and grimaced at the easy conversation that had instantly been struck up between the Zaradine and Grand Vizier. Ana was even laughing gently as she, too, stretched in the heavy atmosphere of the dewy night.

  A soft lightening to the east nudged at Lazar’s thoughts—he must get the caravan moving. This cool was a false prelude to what the desert sun would bring once she was allowed to banish the moon and claim the skies.

  Salim ambled over. “We are ready, Spur.”

  “Good. I will need to speak with the royals and they will need help mounting their beasts when the time comes,” he reminded him.

  The man nodded and without needing to say a word seemed to be able to give orders to his men with gestures or expressions. They were all well rehearsed in journeys such as these and obviously required no verbal reminders of what they should do.

  Lazar steadied himself and strode across to where Herezah was still ranting behind the drapes of the tent. “Good morning, Zaradine Ana,” he said as cheerily as he could, his heart hammering as she turned her gaze fully on him. He could not see her eyes as clearly as he would have liked in the low light but it was not necessary, their color was etched brightly in his mind. “I won’t ask if you slept well,” he continued with an effort at levity, including Maliz now with a nod. “Grand Vizier.”