"That is dangerous talk, Ioltoslav! A wealthy man was murdered some weeks ago. And it is, well, murder! I cannot consider it. No matter how much I hate him."
"But there are ways to make such a man go away without sudden violence."
"But not death. I do not want blood on my hands. May God forgive me for even thinking it."
"It was I who thought it," he cupped his chin in his hand. "Your god is strict."
"It is just that life is precious and the taking of one should never be done lightly. It is too easy to kill in this world. It is nothing. But it should not be that way." He bowed his head slightly.
"Very well, my lady. I bow to your wisdom in the matter. My long years in the employ of my master has made me cold. I do not wish to infect you with it."
"I did not say we should do nothing, Ioltoslav. You have given me an idea. I think if I am right, there are certain herbal concoctions that can make a man go into a death-like state. You spoke of something similar yesterday. The most powerful is a substance that comes from a fish. It is named Guynan's Sleep. Right?"
"The Gori fish. What will you do afterward? He will not remain in that state forever."
"That, I have not thought of yet," she sighed.
"How will we manage it?"
"I am thinking. . .thinking of writing a letter. And lacing it with the substance."
"Ah. You think like a master poisoner." She gave him a pained look.
"You are dealing with wicked men. You must be innocent as a dove but cautious as a serpent, is that not right?" He smiled.
"You seem to know something about our Holy book."
"A little. My master had a copy. He would tear pages out of it to use in spells in his work as if they gave some power." Kaisha looked deeply unhappy.
"The Holy Aishanna is not an amulet or a charm. The power lies in reading it and allowing the words to sound down in the heart. People do strange things for power."
"Yes they do and none so strange as the Black Guild, my lady. Sometimes I look at the world and think there is no longer a force to counter the power of evil. The dust of a man is worth more than his living flesh, his material possessions worth more than his own blood. Humanity is lost. I think," he said with deep resignation. She smiled warmly.
"I once felt that way back when I was married to a man whose family hated me. But there is a force to counter it. Otherwise I would not be rebelling against the throne or helping you." She suddenly had a thought. "I know what I will do. I will have my retinue of servants sent to Diwa, along with my most precious possessions. Then I shall take the rest of you myself into the mountains."
"There is the matter of Lady Makset."
"I shall deal with her presently." In keeping with that, she, with instructions from him as to whom to go to, went to the Night Market again, this time to purchase things for their daring plan. When nightfall came, covered in veils she arrived at the Night Market passing under the Queen of Night's feet and down into the bowels of the temple.
The Night Market. There were different levels, she had come to find out that could be revealed by studying the occasional glowing colored tiles in the floor. She did not dare to go anywhere but the first level. She was looking for Guynan's Sleep, that made men sleep and their minds soft or open, depending on whom one asked. He told her to look for a vendor closest to a black house - a particular brothel and he gave her a special phrase to speak once she reached the place. Winding her way through the tangle of people and cats she eventually found her way to the very place, making careful note of symbols and signs on shop fronts and vendor stalls. She had no idea what the glyphs meant. Ioltoslav said that only those who frequented the Night Market and adepts that studied Black Alchemy understood them. But she could at least recognize the one she was looking for. It was a large rambling wooden and mud brick structure with strong, black wooden beams and a great black wooden door. There was the symbol, or rather a tiny sculpted face in silver fastened right upon it. It was the face of a woman with a mysterious smile and three eyes. Looking around furtively, she knocked timidly. She stood there for a long time. She heard no one from inside the house and was ready to turn away when the peephole suddenly opened.
"Oh! Ah. . .I am looking to buy something. I came fishing for deep sleep. I was told to come here." The phrase sounded leaden and odd coming from her mouth. She felt ridiculous and wondered if anyone could hear her through her veils. The eyes peering out were white like clouds and unnerving with tiny light gray pupils. Her breathing grew faster and she could feel perspiration beading under her armpits and down her skin. The person, or creature, did not say anything and then resoundingly shut the peephole door. Then the door opened. It was a woman. With skeletal wings. They were decayed, frightening, bony looking things which made her nearly jump out of her skin but she was determined. She reassured herself silently that her own freedom and life and those under her care were at stake and braced herself. She was also glad for the veils to hide her naivete.
"What do you want?"
"Guynan's Sleep." She whispered. The woman, small, of thin stature, cocked her head, giving Kaisha a quick sweep up and down with those strange eyes.
"Come inside. Follow me." It was dark and lit throughout with a few candles standing on iron poles. Besides that it was quiet. Kaisha slipped her veils off her head and wrapped them around her shoulders. The woman was nimble and seemed to know her way around like a bat in the dark. Kaisha could not stop staring in horrid fascination at her wings. She'd heard through gossip that this place used to be called Senetta's House but that Senetta, a famed courtesan, made her fortune and rose in power through one of her wealthy and powerful lovers. She moved to Yilphaeus and built her own brothel and became a powerful lady of the realm. But the place here still remained. It was still supported financially by her but a few things had changed. Patrons who visited the Black House, as it was now called, tread carefully. If they were known for abusing or torturing the women here they met a gruesome fate. She'd learned some of this from market gossip and a female runaway some months ago.
Kaisha was amazed and valued the knowledge these people had of what the underpinnings of Egi. Not being able to contain herself, she blurted out a question.
"Do those hurt?" There was no answer. The woman seemingly ignored her question and she immediately felt like an ignorant desert mouse. They went all the way to the back of the house, passing by the staircase. The woman knocked on the door. There was a voice, barely audible. She heard people stirring in other parts of the house. The place had many doors, many rooms, hidden and otherwise. The woman finally turned and faced her.
"They do. At times. I have a draught sent to me every now and then that eases the pain of them." She said quietly. "Someone in association with Lady Senetta sends it to me." She said simply. Demos? She'd heard that Demos was something of a healer. She wanted to ask more questions but decided not to. She had already asked one awkward question. The woman opened the door and motioned for her to go in. Then she smiled broadly. Because her eyes were white it was difficult to tell what lay behind the smile. It gave the woman a sinister look to Kaisha. She went in the room, feeling her heart pounding harder. The door clicked closed. Kaisha looked around the room. It had an odd, medicinal smell. Kaisha put her veils up to her nose to blot out the scent. There was a very long, stained wooden table in the middle and all around the room were large drawers built in the walls. Along the back of the room was a wall full of open faced cabinets. In those were myriads of glass bottles and clay urns. The bottles were filled with a fluid and with corpses of animals, babies and human heads. There was a small door at the end of the room. That door was open and a woman stepped out from it. She was attractive, with pale skin as if she had not seen the sun. She wore her coal black hair long pulled back with silver pins. Her eyes were dark but shined with an intense light and she wore a medallion of silver, the alchemist symbol and was dressed in a black wrap dress and black veils draped her shoulders. In her hand was a long, bronze da
gger.
"May I help you," she looked her up and down, "my lady?" Kaisha opened her mouth to speak and instead fell into a fit of coughing for the strong smells in the room. Finally:
"I am here to buy Guynan's Sleep."
"Of course." She slid the dagger into a fold in her clothes, took a tiny clay pot from the table and went to the east wall of the room.
"Guynan's Sleep is very expensive, but," she glanced back at Kaisha appreciatively, "you look like one who has no problem with price. Have you an enemy you wish to control? A wayward husband or lover that has displeased you? Caused you pain?" Kaisha heard sly amusement in the woman's voice. Her senses pricked dangerously. She wanted to flee from this place and then suddenly wondered if she was doing the wrong thing.
"I have a troublesome neighbor. I want him to leave me alone."
"Hmmm. There are other ways to silence an ardent would-be lover. Some patrons here, when their violent tastes are rejected, resort to brutality. A simple poison would suffice and be much less expensive."
"I have no wish to kill."
"I see. Well, it is your business." The woman deftly measured out a creamy looking powder into the little pot and stoppered it. She then wrapped it in a small piece of cloth. She crossed the room and handed it to Kaisha. Her hands were smooth and looked well manicured. Her nails were long, sharp attenuated points.
"You do not want to get this on your skin, else you will become like one of the sleeping ones yourself. Be very careful. It is extremely potent. It must be kept in a dark, dry place. To use it you only need a tip of this powder upon a dagger point for it to be effective. One tip to arrest a full grown man or woman into the sleep. From there, they will be amenable to your commands. The last words they hear or see will be like commands to them from Above. Or Below." Her voice deepened and sounded harsh as she spoke about how to use it. "You can moisten that amount with water or ink and lace it upon anything."
"Like paper, for instance?" The woman's intense, measured gaze made Kaisha squirm.
"You know something of poisoning people?"
"No! Just was wondering." The woman smiled wickedly at her and Kaisha wondered if she should have just kept her mouth shut.
"The powder will last you a very long time. Trust me, it is worth it and if you do not do anything else to your enemy besides lace his clothing or other things, after seven days he will awaken again, unharmed. The last thing he remembers, whatever last command or demand you make of him before he drifts off to sleep, he will remember it and think it came from his own mind. A very subtle thing, Guynan's Sleep." The woman seemed to read her mind. And then she said: "Nothing leaves this house. What happens here, stays here." Kaisha took up the pot in a piece of cloth and stuck it in her purse.
"If I may ask, what lies in all those drawers. What sort of herbs and potions do you have in here?" The woman stopped smiling then. She had a hungry, malevolent look in her eyes.
"Are you sure you want to know?" She asked. Kaisha nodded.
"Sleeping men. And a few women. Those who would come here to mistreat the women are dealt with and then brought here for me. Some I put to the Guynan's Sleep and they do my bidding, whatever I need. Others are put to other uses. I keep the bones. Bone is an important substance in many kinds of treatments, ceremonies, disciplines, potions and so on." She said. Her voice had the slight tone of a taunt. Kaisha was aghast. The woman lifted a thin brow.
"Where before,I only suspected that you were not Egian, now I know you are foreign." She said with a tinge of scorn.
"But it sounds so cruel." Kaisha said.
"Cruelty to one is information to another. Or pleasure. Or vengeance. The dust of a man is worth more than his living flesh, his material possessions worth more than his soul and his own blood valued greatly, once it has been spilled, in this city. That is Egium, my lady."
"Someone else said something similar, madam - oh, what did you say your name was?"
"I did not say my name at all. I have no name to those I do not know. But my sister you may have heard of. She goes by the name of Lady Sawda."
"I see." Kaisha's gaze slipped over the old, dark stains upon the long wooden table and suddenly felt the wild need to escape again. She pulled out a silver ingot with a trembling hand.
"Thank you, my lady." The woman wrapped her cruelly elegant looking nails around the bar and tucked it within one of the folds in her dress.
"A small fortune." Kaisha said unhappily.
"Which buys the cost of your freedom and independence. Nothing compares to that. Especially for a woman."
. . .
Kaisha wrote the letter, reading it to Lili who approved it. She then, carefully with a thin brush, wet a knife tip of the powder with water, watched this tiny amount in the bowl of water become cloudy and then took a piece of paper and laced it, wetting it gingerly with the water and let it dry. Then very carefully not touching the actual paper she wrote with stylus and ink. In it she warned that he must never contact her or bother her again. Then she let it dry, lifted it with cloth when it was dry and folded it in another piece of paper sheathed for protection for the falcon that would carry it.
The next morning she sent it and then prayed for strength and direction for she perceived she would have to leave Egium sooner than she'd anticipated. Perhaps instead of leading them she would have to flee with the runaways to the mountains and hope that her household of servants could be safely ensconced with Diwa.
Lord Damut,
You have bothered me for the last time. I do not want anything to do with you and in fact neither do you want to have anything to do with me. We have nothing in common and nothing could make me want or desire you at all, not in this world nor any other. When you have finished reading this letter please destroy it. Leave me be. And in fact, you do not know me at all.
You do not know me at all.
Lady Kaisha Hazad, widow of Hasor Hazad
Chapter Twenty-Three
Month of Pin, 1701 A. T. V.
Rhajit and his men went through the land proclaiming the Red King. People came out to listen, shepherds, farmers, tribal men, merchants; those living within the villages and towns. They had not reached the major cities yet. The first city they would reach, a small mountainous city near the outskirts, was Susamon. Some towns they passed through had been destroyed, dwindling into haunts for nocturnal beasts and dust winds or had dwindled to little more than small, dying villages because of the mining projects of the king and the previous queen. The people displaced or slaughtered, these places lay in ruins as great slag heaps, the star rock and other gems mined out of them. Many men had died working in these mines. The people on the outskirts indeed were fearful, powerless and ready for deliverance.
When Rhajit and Luz and some of the other men spoke with villagers and townspeople they felt crushed in spirit after hearing their stories. One evening Rhajit was sitting alone watching the sun go down. The warm weather of spring was coming again. His thoughts inexorably led back to his past. A past he had been trying to erase from his mind. It kept rising up to assail him again and again. He had told Rapheth to look to the future and not worry over the past. Why could he not do the same? The great fire. The great fire that had ruined the southern quarter of Jhis years earlier. He could run from it no longer. He sat, waiting for the sun to sink down on the horizon and finally the first twinkle of stars began peeking through. The erdu horn glowed softly beside him. A shimmering black beetle skittered across its surface. He had never lived for anyone but himself before, not since he lived under the rule of his father and grandfather as a boy raised as a tribesman of the Karig. He bowed his head into his hands, his mind a confused web of guilt and sorrow. Rhajit did not know what to say, having never prayed seriously in his life. How could someone like him approach the First Pillar now? When Saujiah approached him two years ago and bid him go with Rapheth, had he only dreamed it?
"Why are you distressed?" Said a voice. Rhajit looked up. A man was standing there dressed in a loi
n cloth and a white robe. He was tall with thick dark brown hair loose at his back, a long beard and glowing eyes like embers. Rhajit gave a start. The man raised his hand serenely.
"I am not here to harm you. Only you can see me because I am here only to speak to you."
"Who are you? What is your name?"
"And why do you inquire of my name when it is a wonderful one? I shall not remain within the mortal world long so I shall not give my name. Let it suffice to say I am of the same kind and rank as Saujiah the desert father."
"Saujiah." Rhajit said with awe. "I remember."
"Do you remember his charge to you?" Rhajit nodded slowly.
"That I must keep the future king and serve him and be his shield and his arm until he becomes strong enough. This from the First Pillar Himself. The holy oath."
"This you have done. But why are you anxious?"
"I am anxious because of two things. I made a vow long ago to avenge myself upon a wicked man, a priest of the temple, and I did not fulfill my vow. I was staying with a good family. A humble potter in Jhis, working for the man of the house in his shop to make a bit of ladre when one night the King's Guard came for us. They came for all who could not pay the temple tax and I was caught up in their net and brought to the arena to fight or die. I found out about the men behind the wicked scheme and I killed one of them. They were priests. The other escaped my fingers. Twice." Rhajit was shaking now. The messenger gazed at him serenely.
"And the second?"
"I have done something wicked long ago. I killed many people. Though I did not intend to. My intent was to pay back the two priests of the Golden Temple for their evil and in my revenge and intention to cover up my deeds many people died." Rhajit looked up at him slowly. His heart pounded. He was finally laid bare in this, his most grievous act. Panic rose within him. Would he be struck down dead, punished? He could not run away now. He would face his fate, whatever it would be. Instead, the man knelt down in front of him, facing him squarely.
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