by Jeff Grubb
Hajar was silent for a moment, then said, “Why did you learn Fallaji?”
Mishra looked up at the younger man. “What?”
Hajar continued, “The Argivian woman knew our language, but she had to deal with Ahmahl and the other diggers. None of the outlander students seemed particularly interested in learning more than the curse words. Your brother never learned, as far as I know. But you did. Why?”
“My brother was interested in devices, in things,” said Mishra wearily. “I have always found people more interesting.”
“There were ‘people’ among the Argivian students,” said Hajar. “Why did you learn our language?”
Mishra shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose I wanted to hear the old legends of your people. The genie nations, the heroes, and the princesses. The dragons you call mak fawa and the warriors. When they were put in my language the stories always seemed dry, shriveled things, bloodless and lifeless. They meant more in their original tongue.”
“And don’t you outlanders have your own legends?” asked Hajar. “Old battles and legends.”
“Well, of course,” said Mishra. “There was the tale of the Gray Pirate who raided the Korlis coast, and of the warrior-queen of Argive who lived five hundred years ago. There are all manner of old god stories that they only believe in Yotia and other backward nations.”
Hajar smiled. “Perhaps your young charge would rather hear about those stories instead. And that might encourage him to learn the language as well.”
Mishra thought for a moment, then nodded.
“And put your calculations lessons in terms of things he understands,” continued Hajar. “Remember the question the qadir put to you? Probably that was how he learned his ciphers and fractions.”
Mishra did not say anything for a moment but stared into the cook fire. “You might be right,” he said at last. “It’s worth a try at least.”
“Worth a try for both our sakes,” said Hajar. He added, “Also, you can teach him how to curse in Argivian. I’m sure the boy would like that as well.”
* * *
—
Several months passed. Things seemed to go better for the Argivian scholar, and Hajar allowed himself to relax. If anything went wrong at this late date, it was unlikely that he would now be remembered and blamed for recommending the young man’s tutor.
Indeed, Mishra’s lessons, now couched in Argivian history and Yotian mythology, seemed to have more than their desired effect on the young qadir. He had gathered a basic feel for the outlanders’ language, and had professed even an interest in Argivian customs beyond the battlefield.
The youth’s temper toward his slave tutor had improved as well, and the beatings became less frequent, then disappeared entirely. Nor, according to Mishra, did the youth sleep in class anymore. Indeed, the young qadir seemed almost to warm to the Argivian scholar, and oft-times now Mishra was spared from his cleaning duties in order to finish a tale begun earlier in the afternoon.
One evening Mishra had asked Hajar to attend as the young qadir recited the tale of the Gray Pirate and the Last of the Sea Dragons. There were about a dozen attending, but only Hajar and Mishra understood what the boy was saying fully. He would tell part of the tale in Argivian, then speak again in Fallaji. The Fallaji versions were much more florid, obscene, and bloody in their descriptions, but Mishra did not correct the youth.
Soon afterward Mishra’s hobbles were removed, though he still was expected to tend the cooking fires when not in the young qadir’s company.
Hajar’s own life went well. Many of the local tribes swore fealty to the Suwwardi. The clan’s raids had become more effective and the tribes more prosperous. Merchant caravans were held for tolls and in some cases outright ransom. Several Argivian settlements on Fallaji land were removed by fire and sword. When the Argivians sent their slow, heavy-armored patrols into Suwwardi lands seeking retribution, the more nimble Fallaji had evaded them.
So it was with some surprise when Hajar, following one such raid, was summoned to the qadir’s tent. Save for the ceremonial guards, no one else was present. The qadir leaned back on his pillows, turning something large and green in his fingers. Hajar entered, knelt in respect, and waited.
“You know the rakiq tutor,” said the qadir presently. He did not look in Hajar’s direction,
“I do,” said Hajar, rising after being addressed. He suddenly wondered how much he should admit regarding Mishra.
“He has done well,” said the qadir. “The boy knows his additions and subtractions, his ciphers and fractions. And he speaks outlander passingly well, I am told.”
“Very well, indeed,” said Hajar. “I have heard him speak, and his words are well formed and proper.”
“The boy is doing well,” said the qadir. “Perhaps too well.”
The qadir let the statement fall into silence. Finally Hajar said cautiously, “How so, Most Eminent One?”
The qadir held up the green object to his eye, regarding it as a merchant inspects his stock. “Do you know what this is?”
Hajar had never seen it before, but he knew at once what it was: one of the power stones that Tocasia and the brothers had always made a fuss over. It still held its energy, for it glowed with a bright jade sheen. This one glowed even though it had been broken, sheared along one side.
Hajar thought of one of the stories around the diggers’ fires after the brothers returned from the Secret Heart. Of the pouch that Mishra had kept around his neck. Carefully he chose his words.
“It looks like an Eye of the Old Ones,” he said, using the Fallaji word for the power stone.
The qadir grumbled, making that low, camel-about-to-spit sound that so unsettled Hajar. “Indeed. There are Argivians, and Yotians as well, trespassing into the desert looking for trinkets such as this. What do you know about this particular one?”
Hajar was silent, attempting to gather his thoughts, but the qadir pressed on. “This one was taken from the rakiq tutor when he was captured. It was put among my treasures and forgotten. But my son asked about it the other day, and I had it brought out. Why does my son request it?”
Hajar was silent for a moment, hoping that this was another rhetorical question. It was not. At last he ventured, “Probably the tutor mentioned it to him, and he was curious.”
The qadir gave a low harrumph and said, “And perhaps he wants it back, eh? Now why would the rakiq want this particular stone?”
“Perhaps it has special meaning to him,” replied Hajar quickly. “Look at the way it is cut along one side.”
“Shattered, not cut,” returned the qadir shrewdly. “And shattered Eyes are often useless and dull. This one still holds whatever fire the Old Ones imbued it with. So this may be special. The question is, how special is it?”
Hajar thought of that last night in the Argivian camp, and the unearthly lights that had shown from the brothers’ cabin. The stones, Tocasia had said; she had said something about the stones. Then there had been the blast and the fire, and Mishra had disappeared into the desert until Hajar had found him digging a ditch in the qadir’s camp.
He had never asked what had really happened that night. He had assumed it was something that Mishra’s older brother, the lean, spooky one, had done.
Hajar gulped for a moment, then said, “I cannot say, Respected One.”
The qadir made that low gurgling noise again and said, “Neither can I. And for that reason I will deny it to my son, so he is not tempted to pass it into the hands of the rakiq. I will keep it myself and see if it carries any power of the Old Ones.”
He slipped the gem into a voluminous pocket of his vest and shifted position, facing Hajar fully, now. He laced his fingers before his face and said, “The question now is, why would the boy ask for something on behalf of a rakiq?”
Hajar stammered, then said, “It could be that your son heard of the stone from the rakiq and wanted it for his own.”
The qadir tilted his head for a moment, as if consideri
ng that option for the first time. “Perhaps,” he said, shaking his head. “Or perhaps he wanted to retrieve it for his friend and tutor.”
Hajar searched for the proper words. “A qadir’s son would never be friends with an outlander rakiq.”
“Agreed,” replied the qadir. “My fear, though, is that he listens to the outlander too much. He leans on him, as a man leans on a crutch. And if one leans too often, one forgets how to walk on one’s own.”
Hajar said softly, “I do not think you need to fear that occurring.”
“I fear nothing,” said the qadir quickly. “But now the boy will ride on our raids as well. He is young but not too young to learn a man’s craft of battle. He will be taught when he is in camp, but otherwise the rakiq will have only the cook fires to worry about. Tell me, if he spends his time on our raids, will the boy still know enough by the end of next year to be considered educated?”
Hajar thought for a moment. The qadir’s son was now more knowledgeable than most of the other Suwwardi in camp. But somehow he felt that was the wrong answer. Instead he spoke most of the truth. “By the end of next year. Yes, he would.”
The qadir leaned back on his pillows. “Excellent. When the boy comes of his majority, he will no longer need the crutch. And when that time comes, that crutch will be broken and cast aside. Do I make myself clear?”
Hajar looked into the qadir’s porcine eyes. It was very clear indeed. The qadir worried about his son’s loyalties. When the time came, Mishra would be taken out into the desert and killed quietly. Hajar would oversee that slaying on the qadir’s command.
Hajar heard himself say, “As you wish, Respected One. Your words are as law.” The qadir waved him off, and Hajar knelt briefly, then fled the tent.
Hajar’s mouth felt as if it had been filled with dust. He had heard the qadir’s death warrant, and he knew if he disobeyed he would be signing his own. And for what? A pack of fatherly fears and half a stone.
Hajar walked past the prince’s tent and saw, through the opening, Mishra and the young qadir talking. Their voices were low, but they frequently broke apart and laughed, sharing private jokes. The qadir’s son motioned, and Mishra poured drinks. He lifted his cup and joined the young qadir in a toast of nabiz.
Hajar frowned. Perhaps the old qadir was not wrong in his worries about his son. Perhaps as a youth the qadir himself had had a friend upon whom he depended, and who mysteriously disappeared one day. Perhaps, thought Hajar, that was the nature of being a leader: one relies on others, but one does not depend utterly on them.
Hajar decided to walk back to his own quarters the long way around. He would not tell Mishra and could not tell the qadir’s son. He would hope that once the lad had more battle experience he would be less interested in the scholar’s teachings. With that diminished interest, the qadir’s fears and the death sentence would vanish. Unlikely, thought Hajar, but possible.
After all, a lot could happen before the end of the next year.
* * *
—
Mishra dreamed.
As his body healed from its beatings and his spirit recovered from its daily exhaustion, Mishra’s dreams grew stronger. Sometimes he dreamed of Tocasia, sometimes of his brother. But most often he dreamed of the stone, as it sang to him out of the darkness.
He had told the qadir’s son of the stone, and the boy had discovered that, yes, his father still had it in his possession. Mishra knew this already, for the stone held him to the camp as no hobbles ever could.
So he dreamed of the stone, imagined it spinning in space, singing its plaintive dirge, crying out to him. He wanted it back. He wanted to go to it.
And in his dreams he went.
In the dream he awoke and realized he was somewhere else, far from the Suwwardi encampment, far from the desert itself. Far from the world.
The sky above him was not filled with the familiar Fallaji stars, the thick light-dotted soup of the night sky. Instead it was overcast and dark, flickering with diffused pulses of lightning. He could see in the darkness, and he realized he was atop a low, bare tor, surrounded by thick vegetation.
He heard the singing of his gem in the distance, and he moved toward it.
The vegetation around the bare hillock was thick and tangled, but he moved through it as if he were a wraith. It was a riot of bright yellows and oranges against darker leaves. He paused and saw the leaves themselves had a strange sheen, as if they had been stamped from steel plates. The flowers as well were metallic and dripped foulsmelling ether instead of nectar.
He touched one of the leaves, and it reverberated to his touch. Its keening matched that of the stone, and he ignored the leaf, following the heart-tugging wail of his gem.
He made a detour around a great pool with an oily film dancing across the surface. He looked away for moment, and something large and black surfaced in the pond, then dived again. When he looked back he saw only slowly spreading rings rippling out toward the borders. The water moved oddly, as if it were made of something thicker and more syrupy than ordinary water.
He found a clear-shelled egg and for a moment thought it was his missing gem. On closer inspection, he saw that the hand-sized egg had a translucent shell, and within that shell a small, gold-colored creature was growing. No, not growing, he realized; being assembled. Smaller golden creatures were moving spans and joints around within the shell, assembling it like one of Urza’s devices. As he watched, the thin form of a lizard’s skin and skull appeared in the murky darkness of the egg.
Then the singing began again. He set the egg down and followed the siren call.
It began to rain, and the rain tasted like tears, leaving oil-streaked patches on his clothing.
He followed the song.
Finally he reached a building, a pyramid among the jungle of metal plants. The building’s architecture seemed familiar. It was made of ropy roots and metallic cables. There were markings along the side of the building, but in his dream he could not decipher them.
The plants had pulled their trailing roots away from the base of the pyramid, and Mishra saw a set of stairs leading upward to a small alcove. Within that cave shown the greenish light of the power stone.
Yes, he had seen this type of building before. He had been inside one, once, in a hallway lined with mirrors when he had first gained the stone—the stone that now waited for him.
There was a loud metallic crash to his right among the thick, serrated leaves. A huge brass head erupted from the surrounding vegetation. At first Mishra thought it was a giant serpent, for it had a huge triangular head mounted at the end of a looping metallic neck. Then the beast emerged fully, and Mishra saw the neck was moored to a huge, elephantine body, with leonine paws ending in sharp, steel claws.
It was a dragon, but a mechanical one, crafted by unknown hands and granted inhuman life. Its eyes were dull, flickering blue gems; steam vented from its nostrils and leaked from its joints. It was an engine built in the shape of a great wyrm.
The dragon engine saw Mishra and let out a low, challenging bellow. Then it began to move forward, half-loping, half-slithering from its jungle hiding place.
Mishra froze for a moment, but only for a moment. Then he fled up the stairs, toward his lost gem. His dream logic told him that if he reached the gem, everything would be fine.
The stairs seemed to elongate endlessly, and his feet were suddenly mired in tar. Still he pressed upward, feeling the hot breath of the dragon engine behind him. Finally he reached the top of the steps, and his fingers closed around the green gem.
At the first touch of the gem a wave of peace washed over Mishra, and he forgot the steam-dripping engine behind him. When he did turn, the creature was no longer trying to scale the stairs to reach him. Instead it lay along the length of the steps. Its ears were laid back along its head, and its eyes flickered not with rage but with obedience. Steam dribbled weakly from its nostrils.
It was waiting for him to tell it what to do.
Mi
shra held up the gem, and its light bathed the creature fully. It was truly a mechanical engine in dragon form. Its forelegs were like that of a dragon, but instead of rear limbs it possessed a set of linked plates curled over a collection of smaller wheels. Treads, thought Mishra. The device carried with it a continual road that could be laid down before it and picked up afterward. It made perfect sense.
“Interesting.”
Someone said the word, and Mishra wheeled around. No one spoke again, but Mishra heard the word echoing in his mind. There above the alcove was perched the mirror figure from his earlier vision, a creature of bones, armor, horns, and tendrils. Somehow Mishra knew this was more than just another construct, with its exposed muscles of ropelike cables and its backward-pointing horns. It was a living thing, a powerful one, and unlike the engine it would not be cowed by the power of the stone.
The creature perched over the alcove regarded Mishra for a long moment. The young man was dimly aware that the long tresses along the creature’s horns were more like draped tentacles and moved of their own volition.
Then the creature laughed at Mishra, a dry, hollow laugh, the laugh of a skeleton. “Give me the stone!” shouted the creature and leapt down on top of him.
Mishra screamed. He tried to wake himself up, tried to force himself to run, tried to force the dragon engine to defend him. But the horned creature laughed, and Mishra felt its clawlike grip close around his own hand, the one holding the gem. There was a wrenching pain along his arm as the creature pulled the gem away, taking Mishra’s arm with it.
Mishra screamed again and woke. He was in his tent, the open-sided tarp pitched near the cooking fire. One of the guards was by the fire, looking at him but not moving either to help or to punish.
Mishra looked at his left arm. It was still there, though there were streaks of red along its length, as if a briar had worn its way along its length. Or as if claws had grabbed it.
