Golden Age (The Shifting Tides Book 1)

by James Maxwell

  ‘What is it?’ Chloe asked Tomarys.

  He tilted his head. ‘I do not know. Do you wish me to find out?’

  ‘No. I’ll find out.’

  She set the bowl on the ground near her bed pallet – the sack of pods was hidden safely underneath – and rose to her feet. Since first speaking with Princess Yasmina, further conversation had been difficult, but Chloe was persistent, and the constant sound of marching provided her with an opening.

  But the princess was gone. The open chest beside her bed pallet was empty, not an item of clothing within. Her bed was made, crisp and fresh. The princess’s place in the room was now like just like any unoccupied corner. It was as if she’d never been there.

  Chloe wandered nonetheless, peering around every lattice screen and scanning the walls, empty except for the murals of painted flowers. She asked two or three slaves as she passed, but they only shook their heads.

  She tried with another slave girl sweeping the floor. ‘Do you know where I can find the Princess Yasmina?’ The girl shook her head, looking fearfully at Chloe, turning away as she resumed her work.

  Perplexed, Chloe left the expansive chamber and ventured out into the hall. She walked directly to the eunuch who had taken her clothes when she first arrived. He stood just inside the curtained main entrance to the women’s quarters, scowling as she approached.

  ‘I can’t find the Princess Yasmina,’ she said. ‘Do you know where she is?’

  ‘I know.’

  When he didn’t elaborate, Chloe frowned. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Her brother in Shadria is raising a revolt against Ilea. Though her father claims no part of it, the sun king considers the family to have broken their bond. Her head has been sent to her father in rebuke.’

  Chloe put her hand to her mouth. She remembered the imperious princess, barely into her teens, so certain of her superior station and so reluctant to discuss escape.

  ‘Did she . . . ?’ She swallowed. ‘Was it quick?’

  The eunuch spoke impassively. He took no pleasure in it, but nor did he soften his words for Chloe’s benefit. ‘The king of kings is angry. Her eyes were gouged out and ears and nose sliced off. Only then was she beheaded. Ilea sends a strong message to her family in Shadria.’

  The eunuch turned as a palace guard came to the entrance. He held the curtain aside as the soldier looked within.

  ‘The king of kings asks for the girl.’ The soldier nodded his head in Chloe’s direction. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Do not keep him waiting.’

  The guard escorted Chloe to Solon’s personal quarters. His color was good and he showed none of his prior weakness, as he stood tall, arms raised as a steward slipped a long shirt of glittering metal rings over his head.

  He dropped his arms as she entered and regarded her with his penetrating gaze.

  ‘Chloe of Phalesia,’ he said, speaking with precise syllables. ‘I have a rebellion in Shadria. The leader of this rebellion, the brother of the late Princess Yasmina, is trying to build an army in the great desert in the south. He has seized gold that was on its way back to Lamara. It was going to be sufficient to complete my pyramid.’ His voice lowered to a soft growl. ‘I need it back.’

  ‘You must go yourself, king of kings?’ Chloe asked.

  ‘This I must do. Until my last breath, my commanders will know that I lead.’

  ‘Then I wish you success.’

  He smiled without mirth. ‘I am sure you do. It is to your own best interests, and that of your homeland, that I am successful.’

  The rest of his threat hung in the air. If the sun king couldn’t regain his gold, he would need to find some elsewhere. The golden ark in Phalesia, melted, molded, and beaten thinner than the finest silk, would cover hundreds of the pyramid’s stones.

  ‘I need to know,’ Solon said. ‘Can you make enough of the tea for the journey?’

  She saw a chance to get some important information. ‘How long will you be away for, lord?’

  ‘Either the rebels will flee before we can catch them, or we will destroy them to a man. In either case, I hope to return in two weeks, perhaps three.’

  She nodded. ‘I can make you the tea. But you will need to sweeten it yourself with honey and lemon. It will use up most of my stock, and there are few of the tulips I need in the city.’

  ‘The taste will not concern me.’ He waved a hand, then was pensive for a moment. ‘I am pleased with you, girl. And you have proven yourself trustworthy. While I am gone you may continue to go to the bazaar to find the things you need. I will make sure your bodyguard has silver.’

  Chloe bowed.

  The sun king dismissed her with a nod and the guard escorted her back to the women’s quarters. As Chloe reflected on Princess Yasmina’s fate she sat on her bed and asked Tomarys to fetch the materials she needed: hot water, silk, and several jugs.

  With the sound of marching soldiers filling the city outside the palace, Chloe thought about Tomarys and wondered if she could somehow immobilize her bodyguard and escape. She even considered somehow making him drink some of the tea, but discarded the idea. Not only would he be a difficult man to incapacitate, but she didn’t like the thought of hurting him. He had saved her life, twice over if she added the fact that he’d helped her obtain more soma flowers to appease the sun king. He was her only friend in this terrible place.

  Continuing to grind, Chloe considered making the tea too strong, but she knew that if Solon fell into a deathly slumber after drinking the liquid her head would roll.

  She needed Solon to live. And she hoped he regained his gold.

  Hours passed, and the heat of the day slipped into warm evening and then the cool stillness of night.

  Chloe had delivered her medicine. The sun king was gone and his soldiers with him. The ensuing silence was almost eerie in comparison.

  Sleeping on his side on his mat near her pallet, Tomarys’s eyes slowly opened. ‘It is late. You should sleep.’

  Chloe sat cross-legged, staring at the murals on the wall; she hadn’t even tried to sleep. Dark images swept through her mind: the knife pressed to her throat and the bloody fight . . . Princess Yasmina’s horrific fate. The girl had done nothing wrong, but she had been given one of the worst deaths imaginable just to send her family a message. One moment she had been a young girl living in a strange version of captivity, the next moment men were holding her down and cutting out her eyes, slicing off her ears and nose. Chloe felt ill just imagining it.

  Again her thoughts mingled and shifted like a flurry of leaves under a tree. She touched her fingers to her throat and imagined the knife going in, cutting into her windpipe and jugular vein. She wondered what it must feel like to know that with the agonizing pain would come certain death. Loss of breath. Inability to speak. Lifeblood gushing out onto the dust. Darkness closing in.

  ‘Lady?’ Tomarys said. He sat up. ‘What is wrong?’

  ‘Tomarys,’ Chloe said, speaking softly, turning to gaze at him intently. ‘Solon is gone for a time. Will you help me escape?’

  He shook his head sadly. ‘Regretfully, I cannot. I have family who would be made to suffer.’

  ‘What if we could escape with them too?’

  ‘My mother is sick.’ He hung his head. ‘She would never survive a difficult journey.’

  ‘I understand,’ Chloe said. She knew she couldn’t ask so much of him. ‘But . . .’ She took a breath, releasing it in a long sigh. ‘Would you help me in another way?’

  ‘What is it?’

  She clenched her fists as she thought about her helplessness, looking at each of her hands in turn. ‘We haven’t spoken about it since, but back in the alley I was almost killed.’

  Chloe once more looked directly into his dark eyes.

  ‘I grew up with soldiers. I used to watch them at practice, and the captain of my father’s guard is a friend. When I saw you the other day . . . I have never seen another move like you.’ She swallowed. ‘Tomarys, I want you to teach me to fight.’
>
  He frowned, his expression more puzzled than anything. ‘But you are a woman.’

  Chloe set her jaw with determination. ‘Then they won’t expect me to fight back.’

  34

  A week passed with no further sightings of Chloe, while Dion spent his days building ships with Roxana at the harbor. Anoush came to him at the end of every day and gave him a report. Meanwhile Algar demanded more money. Dion’s supply of coin dwindled until he had just a handful of coppers left.

  Despite the boy’s promise, Dion knew Anoush couldn’t watch the palace all the time. Dion contributed where he could, watching the streets near the palace until late into the evening. He knew that Chloe was inside, and that Solon had taken his army to Shadria and would be gone for weeks. There would never be a better time to free her.

  But there was the issue of the huge warrior by her side. Dion knew he would have to kill the intimidating guard who was her escort. Once the man was dead and Chloe freed, he would take her to the Calypso – he had checked: the boat was still safely hidden outside the walls – and flee.

  But then duty called. Reports came in that a wildran, a giant this time, had emerged from the mountains high above the village of Nara on the island of Amphi. It had killed a goatherd and his family, devouring its victims one by one.

  Captain Roxana summoned the crew of the Anoraxis.

  Dion knew it would be at least another week before he returned to Lamara.

  Tomarys led Chloe to a dilapidated structure in the shape of a wheel, on the outskirts of the city’s poorest quarter. As she found herself at one of several entrances tall and wide enough for a giant to pass through, Chloe tried to fathom what it had once been.

  She followed the tall warrior into the shadowed interior, walking along dusty passages long disused, staying silent for fear of disturbing old ghosts. Dust particles filled the air in Tomarys’s wake, swirling over each other, reflecting the few rays of light that made their way into the passage. She smelled wet stone as she heard faint dripping echoing through the corridor.

  A cavernous opening beckoned ahead and she emerged into bright light. She shielded her eyes as she climbed steps to her left and joined Tomarys, where he waited for her approach.

  She realized she was in the interior of the wheel, standing on one of many seats that also doubled as steps. All around her, to the left and right, ahead and behind, as well as on the wheel’s other side, were tiers of the steps, stretching from the high circular perimeter all the way to the bottom.

  The floor was a circular space guarded by a partly fallen rail. Tomarys began to walk down to the floor, having no difficulty despite the steps’ uncommonly large size, and she hurried to follow. He reached the rail and pushed some loose timbers aside to enter the sandy floor. Chloe followed him to the middle, joining him in the epicenter.

  ‘What is this place?’ she asked. Her voice was instantly swallowed by the void.

  ‘The Arena. Not so long ago, in the time of Solon’s predecessor, men fought here to entertain the people of Lamara. It is now abandoned, but one day it may come to be used again.’

  ‘Fought? In battles?’

  ‘A better word is bouts, but yes, you could call them battles.’

  ‘To the death?’

  ‘To the death,’ he said grimly.

  Chloe examined the sandy floor, almost afraid to find old crimson patches but unable to prevent herself looking. As far as she could see it was just sand.

  ‘Why here?’ she finally asked.

  He raised his arms and gestured to the open space. ‘It is a good place to fight. No one will hear us or see us.’ He smiled, but then the smile faded away. ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’

  Chloe nodded. ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Then for now, watch, listen, and learn.’

  She clasped her hands behind her back and waited in the center of the floor, Tomarys standing opposite her.

  ‘The first lesson’—Tomarys held up a single finger—‘and the most important of all, is thus. The seeds of victory are sown before the fight begins.’

  ‘So it’s best to prepare,’ Chloe said, nodding. ‘Better armor, better weapons, more training, more practice, good leadership—’

  ‘Girl,’ Tomarys interrupted, scowling. ‘I told you to listen, not to talk. Today I am the master and you the student. Understood?’

  She reddened. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Yes, all of those things are important, but any fool’—he glared at Chloe—‘knows that it pays to be prepared. We can take the lesson further. The seeds of victory are sown before the fight begins . . .’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Think about this. Two men face each other. One has a sword. The other is unarmed. Both are prepared. Who will win?’

  ‘The man with the sword.’

  ‘Ah,’ Tomarys said, holding up a hand. ‘But . . . The man with the sword has prepared himself to face an unarmed opponent. He attacks . . .’

  He glanced around and then his eyes settled on the rail. Walking over he broke off a piece of wooden rail as thick as three of Chloe’s fingers, hardly showing any effort at all, and returned.

  ‘He attacks.’ Tomarys lunged with the three-foot-long piece of wood, skewering an imaginary enemy. ‘Confident of victory against his unarmed foe. But . . .’ He dropped the makeshift sword and faced the other direction. ‘His opponent pulls out a concealed knife.’ He reached into the hidden pocket within his vest and pulled out one of the short triangular throwing knives. ‘And slashes the hand holding the sword.’ Tomarys swept his arm down. He then straightened and looked at Chloe. ‘We all know who wins the fight. But what is our second lesson, which is really an extension of the first?’

  Chloe’s brow furrowed. ‘Being prepared means having hidden surprises?’

  ‘Close,’ Tomarys said. ‘To sow the seeds of victory before the fight begins, we must play with expectations.’

  He returned his knife to the sheath in his vest.

  ‘I appear to be unarmed. My vest is open at my chest, which further enhances this image, but both my knives and my vest were carefully chosen to fit together. I want people to think I do not have a weapon.’

  He took off his vest, laying it on the sand, revealing a giant, hairy torso, and white whip scars across his back and shoulders.

  ‘But, in addition to this deception, I am also skilled without a weapon, using my hands and elbows, head and feet.’ He made swift striking motions with the parts of his body he’d named. ‘A potential attacker sees a big man, but big men are often slow. He sees an unarmed man. This gives me an advantage over a man with a sword. I play with his expectations. I cause him to be overconfident. I shape his tactics, before the fight begins.’

  ‘But wouldn’t you just rather have the sword? Many men carry swords in the streets of Lamara.’

  Tomarys’s eyes lit up. ‘Another lesson. With two swords in play there is twice the danger you will be killed. Reality is not like the stories. Many fights end with both men taking blows.’

  Chloe hadn’t thought about it, but it made sense. A sword or knife was designed to slice. Wounds would often be deep. Even a victor might suffer a bleeding artery, or leave the battlefield with a deep cut that could become infected. Even if he suffered only minor wounds, his strength would be sapped, making him less able to achieve victory against a second opponent.

  Tomarys picked up his wooden stick, holding it out to demonstrate, his left side toward Chloe. ‘A man comes at me with a sword.’ He made a thrust. ‘There is one sword in play.’ He turned around. ‘I take that sword off him.’ He reached out and pretended to be seizing a man’s wrist, rolling his body until he had taken the sword from the first man. ‘There is still one sword in play. Mine.’

  Chloe finally understood. She nodded in appreciation.

  ‘If I spend my time learning how to take a sword off a man, while my enemy spends his time training to be the perfect swordsman, I will win every time, for I will be the one with the sword. Understood?’

>   ‘I understand. So why the knives?’

  ‘Throwing knives.’ He bent to retrieve his two knives from their hidden sheaths inside the vest and handed one to her. It was almost entirely blade, with a rounded hilt displaying a hole in the middle. ‘Be careful. It is sharp enough to shave with.’

  Chloe touched her finger to the edge, almost cutting herself.

  ‘I can get them out quickly. They are silent. I can strike from a distance. And still I appear unarmed.’

  He looked around and rested his eyes on a thick vertical supporting stump holding the rail.

  ‘Perhaps we will start here. Come.’

  They moved until they were facing the stump, about ten paces away.

  ‘Hold it like this,’ he instructed, holding his knife between thumb and forefinger. ‘The hilt is thin and rounded so that it glides out of your hand. Try to strike that post.’

  Chloe took a deep breath and, holding the knife in her right hand, brought it over her shoulder, then swept her arm down. She released as her arm was extended in front of her. The knife shot through the air but went wide, missing the post.

  She climbed over the rail to fetch it and returned a moment later.

  ‘Not bad,’ Tomarys said. ‘Next time stand like this, facing front, with your left foot in front, and about an arm’s length between your left and right.’ Chloe moved to copy him. ‘Your heels should be lined up, but your feet are angled.’ She shifted. ‘Both knees are bent, especially your front. Aim at the height of your chest, so that you are making a clean throw in line with the release. Move like you are holding an axe, and you want to chop off a branch between you and the target. As you swing, release when the point of the knife is exactly on the target. Snap your fingers together. After releasing, do not stop your swing – go on with the movement. Follow-through is important. Now try again.’

  Copying Tomarys’s stance, following his instructions, Chloe drew her arm back and down.

  The knife plunged into the stump, quivering with the impact. She turned a surprised gaze at Tomarys.