"The Sun Will Rise in the West," it said. Bilal's promise to his followers. A promise of freedom and plenty.
One of the smaller ships flew Judea's six-pointed star. Hoping for sanctuary, Brian pulled the skiff up next to its hanging rope ladder. Very silently. Father Leary and Olaf scrambled up. There was a brief pause, and then they leaned back over and waved an all clear.
"Go," Brian whispered to Lamiya.
Kai protested. "I should—" Brian pressed a knife to his throat and made a "shhh" sound and grinned.
"No, Kai," Lamiya said. "I will go." And she climbed.
Aidan watched her disappear up the ladder. Somehow, the Empress's niece maintained dignity even in her nightclothes. After she had ascended, Brian made a mocking gesture with the knife. "Now, young sir. We just need ye for a little longer, to gain the cooperation of the captain and the crew. When we reach Azteca, ye'll be free."
"You promised Malik to release us last dawn," he said.
"I lied."
Kai glowered at him, but climbed. He gave a last, accusing look at Aidan, who met his eyes solidly. It did not matter that Kai could not understand, that he could not allow himself to understand, Aidan's actions. There were far greater issues at stake than friendship.
Sophia kissed Aidan swiftly, deeply, then gave Mahon to him and clambered up the ladder. After a moment's consideration, Aidan handed his son to Brian and followed Sophia. Brian was stronger and more sure: he trusted Brian to make a one-armed ascent more than he trusted himself.
But when Aidan finally reached the deck, he almost lost his grip and fell. Sophia, Olaf, and Tom Leary stood with their hands clasped behind their heads, trapped at pistol-point by four burly black constables. The biggest of them held a finger to his lips, cautioning silence, and motioned him on board with a wag of his pistol.
For a few seconds Aidan couldn't move. All strength drained away, arms and legs gone numb with shock and despair. Only when the constable pointed his pistol's muzzle at Sophia's head did Aidan find the will to finish the climb. What now? What now?
Lamiya stepped forward and lashed her palm across his face. Aidan grimaced, but did not move. With four guns on him, resistance was suicidal.
One of the constables touched a daub of fire paste to a fuse. It sizzled, sparked, and a signal flare whistled out of its tube and arced into the air.
Aidan turned, looking down on the boat as Brian's gaze followed the arcing rocket. He heard a distant "Shite!" as the scarred rebel saw the small boats of the harbor constabulary approaching from all directions.
The trap was sprung.
One black kept Aidan under rifle threat, while others crowded at the rail a few cubits away, rifles at the ready.
As if dazed, Sophia joined Aidan. At first he thought it odd that none of the blacks pulled them away. Then he realized it wasn't necessary. Where were they to go? It was over.
"Damn ye!" Brian cried, seized the oars, and pulled like a crazed animal, trying to escape.
The other boats surrounded him. Brian raised his rifle, but Aidan heard an explosive crack; and the rifle spun into the water. Mahon howled with terror.
Aidan screamed "No! My boy!" He gripped at the railing, watching the drama beneath him unfold with a nightmarish clarity.
Brian hauled himself up, tried to strike at them with an oar, and they threw a net over him. He heaved and screamed, and at first Aidan's heart was with him. Go, boyo! Get free! You and Mahon can still make it—
Then Aidan realized that Brian's efforts were rocking the skiff. And he had barely comprehended that ugly fact, hadn't even a moment to scream warning, before Brian went over the side, tipping the boat as he did.
With a cry of fear, Mahon, precious Mahon, spilled from Brian's arms, slipped from the net and into the filthy water.
Sophia howled in despair. Already reacting, Aidan never heard her. Distantly, he realized that the constables were training their rifles on his head. He had time only to look Kai squarely in the eyes and say: "My son!" then turned to vault the rail.
As he did, he glimpsed Kai striking down a rifle barrel, heard the Wakil's son yell "No!" to the officers. By then he was in the air, diving, struggling to straighten his body so that he wouldn't belly flop and lose precious breath.
The water was warm, warmer than the night itself. He cleft it like a hunting bird, arcing up and stroking toward the last spot he had glimpsed Mahon. When he was within five cubits, he dove.
Blackness, and the stinging waters of Djibouti harbor. It was maddening to be denied sight when his other senses were all but useless. In time, he knew, his eyes would adjust. But there was no time.
Where was his boy? Unless weighted down with clothes or lungs filled with water, human bodies usually floated. There was little tide. Precious Mahon was here, somewhere.
Blackness. Nothing. He stroked for the surface. Just before breaking through he closed his eyes so that the lights and torches of the awakening harbor wouldn't destroy his night vision. Gulped air. Dove again.
Blackness and cold enshrouded him as he went deeper. His eyes were adjusting themselves, and he could look up, see the bottoms of the boats above him, the wavering flames of their torches. And forced himself calm. There is enough light. Use it. Find him.
Sophia's hands gripped at Kai's arm like claws, the cords in her throat standing out like taut ropes. Her mouth was half-open, mouthing words too soft to hear. Prayers, perhaps. Kai offered a swift one himself, and then returned his attention to the bay.
Another splashing sound. Kai searched the water, found the place where Aidan had breached for air and then submerged again.
A safely netted Brian had been hauled into one of the other boats. Now, all there was to do was wait.
And wait.
The water bubbled, but nothing appeared. At least forty seconds had passed. Sophia quivered as if in the grip of a seizure. Her hands knotted and she swayed against Kai. "No," she said. "No. You're alive. You have to be. No. Aidan. Please. Oh, God. No—"
Aidan is dead, Kai said to himself. Merciful Allah, will this madness never end? Kai put his arm around her and started to draw her away.
Then the bay's black surface burst and Aidan appeared, holding a pale, limp, swaddled body up out of the water.
Aidan did not try to resist the grasping slaver hands as they pulled him back into the boat, water streaming from his mouth and nose. The blackness of the depths still pulled at him, a promise of freedom that he had nearly embraced. Peace. An end to strife and striving . . .
Then his hands had touched Mahon, a pale, limp bundle floating motionless in the water, and all thought of surrender fled his mind and heart.
His son's cheeks were almost blue-white, like some drowned thing that had been days underwater. And yet it had been less than two minutes since Brian's boat had overturned. Fishermen had survived worse.
Gasping for breath himself, Aidan kissed the child's face, then fought to remember things that his father had taught him, half a lifetime ago. He turned his son onto his belly, then pumped at his back with a firm, pulsing stroke.
"It's dead," one of the sailors grunted.
No, not dead. Aidan wouldn't allow his mind to accept that. If Mahon died, then Aidan would die. There was nothing that could keep him in this world, nothing to keep him from simply diving back over the side of the boat and seeking the peace he had glimpsed in the blackness.
He turned Mahon on his back, pumped rhythmically at his stomach, watching the little rosebud mouth tremble with every stroke.
"Ain't that just like a pigbelly? Too damned stupid to know when to quit."
"Looks like your little ghost is a ghost," one wit offered, and the others howled in response.
Suddenly, blessedly, water gushed from Mahon's mouth and nose. The little bundle curled onto his side, spasmed in pain, and vomited up gouts of Djibouti harbor slime. Mahon spewed again and again, and in between gouts of filthy water and curdled milk, the child wailed like the last pure soul on the ro
ad to hell. Aidan crushed him to his chest, his own hair plastered over his eyes. Thank you, God, thank you.
And suddenly, incongruously: Praise Allah.
Whatever might happen to him next, his son was alive.
Alive.
Chapter Fifty-nine
Kai stood at the corner of his father's bed, trying to think of a way to say good-bye.
In his stateroom on the third floor of Dar Kush, the Wakil lay beneath the white Persian silk canopy of his bed, weak beyond the capacity for movement. The physician Jimuyu ministered to him with ointment, powder, and lance, his long face sour. Lamiya stood crying near the door, a bandaged Bitta holding her arm.
It is all so perfect, Kai thought. Like a picture. I have seen many pictures of families gathered at the side of a dying parent. How could I have forgotten how it felt to watch Mother die?
But then, he thought, men were not intended to remember pain like this. Life could not go on if grief such as that swelling within him did not abate. When he touched his father's rough and ashy skin, it already seemed bereft of life. He could already see how his father would look in the shroud. Kai's heart already stuttered, as if unwilling to beat on when one so dear had crossed the river.
Feebly, Abu Ali gestured to the Imperial Niece. "Child," he rasped. "Come."
Lamiya approached his bedside slowly. The white robe she had thrown over her nightclothes seemed eerily prophetic: mourning would come all too soon. Abu Ali kissed her hand. He reached out his hand for Ali, who gave it. He placed their hands together. "Stand together, as one. Love each other, and this land I have spent my life defending."
"I will, Father," Ali said.
His hand fell away. Abu Ali stared at the ceiling, blinking slowly. "I wish to speak to my sons," he said. "Alone."
Jimuyu, Lamiya, and Bitta bowed and left the room. Elenya's eyes brimmed with tears. "Father?" she asked.
"I will send for you, my flower," he said. "But there are words that no one else must hear."
Elenya bit at her lip but nodded, and left.
Ali knelt at their father's bedside, Kai joining him a moment later. He felt adrift, as weak as a child, but knew that now was the time to show strength and resolution. Their father needed to know that his sons would endure.
For Father, then, he thought, and steeled himself.
Abu Ali labored heroically for each breath, and Kai and his brother waited, giving him whatever time he needed to marshal the strength to speak.
Ali broke the silence. "Father," he said at last. "What is it you would have us do?"
"First, it is time for Elenya to travel to the Imperial Court, to school. I should not have postponed it for so long. Selfishness, I suppose. I knew I would miss her. But there will be troubling days ahead, and you will need the friends she will make. All of the plans are drawn up: you will find them in my office."
"Yes, Father."
"You have done all that would make a father proud," Abu Ali said. "And now there is one last thing you must do."
"Anything," said Kai.
"In time, you punish the slaves for their uprising."
"Tenfold, Father," said Ali. "I swear that I will drench their village in—"
"No!" his father said, wounded voice peaking. He coughed, bringing a bloody sheen to his chafed lips. "No."
"But, Father. Why?"
"Because it is not your mind that speaks those words. Nor even your heart, although I know your love for me is strong."
"What, then?"
"Nassab Asad," he said.
"The knife?" Kai asked in confusion.
"Not the knife. The blood in your veins. All the men of our family have it. The fever, the lust that comes upon us in battle. You will feel it one day." He looked searchingly at Kai, as if already detecting signs of contagion. "I know you fear that when the day of your testing comes, you will not fulfill your destiny."
Had his father's gaze penetrated to Kai's most secret heart? How else could a mortal man, even a father, know such a thing?
"I tell you that not only do you need not doubt your courage, but that the only thing you need fear is the beast within you."
"Father?" Kai began.
"Let me finish. I found it myself, in the Battle of Khartum. Your uncle met it there as well. The lion in his blood. I came home and sought greater union with Allah. Your uncle walked his own path, a path he shared with men like Shaka. Malik was consumed by the sword. He thought that if he was the greatest swordsman, the greatest warrior, that it would keep the beast at bay."
"I don't understand," Ali said.
"I know," the Wakil said. "And I am sorry. You may have to feel it to understand. And so now all I can give you is words. Know this: there is a place in your heart that loves the killing. Feeds upon it. It is a part of the greater void that comes for us all, that yawns for me now. To yield to it gives great power, but that surrender is like yielding to opium, or the green tobacco. It protects a man from cowardice, but has a hunger of its own. And the more you feed it, the greater it grows. It seeks death. The death of enemies."
All the moisture seemed to have been sucked from Kai's mouth. He swallowed twice before speaking. "But is that not a good thing, Father?"
"With each enemy slain, we kill part of our own soul. It grows back, like a lizard's tail. For a time. But Allah has engraved a number on each man's soul, and when we have passed that number, every man we kill kills us just a little bit."
"What is the number?"
"No man knows. Every man is different. Know this: I came very near that number at Khartum. And your uncle Malik passed it."
They were silent in that room, that room where death walked so close to the men of Dar Kush.
"Uncle Malik . . .?" Kai said finally, wondering if his father would even have the strength to finish. He wanted to emblazon his father's every precious word upon his heart. Soon, he knew, there would be no more.
"Yes. And he did not take refuge in Allah's light. And the hole within him yawned so wide that Fatima's love barely closed it. When she died, I think he felt that he lost what little light remained to him. He looked to me. To us. And borrowed our light. And I was so happy to give it." The Wakil paused, wheezing for air. "But now I go, and Malik will want revenge. Not out of anger, but from fear that he cannot admit, and the blood that boils within him. He will try to take you both with him to hell. Do not let him. Help him. Love him. He is a great man, and as with all great men, has paid a mighty price so to be."
"As you wish, Father," said Ali. "How would you have me punish those who rose against us?"
"You are . . . the Wakil now!" Ali seemed to rock back slightly, almost as if his father had struck him. Kai's own breath seemed to cease its flow. I am looking at a dead man, he thought, struggling to keep his eyes dry. My father is gone already—only his spirit remains.
"It . . . is your decision," the Wakil said, more softly now, as if that last outburst had drained him. "The way you handle . . . this situation . . . will set the stage for the next fifty years of your life." His chest labored. "Be stern. But be wise. I ask you to trust your heart, not your blood. Can you do this thing?"
Ali nodded. "I can, Father."
"Good. Good," he said, and closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, it took him a moment to focus. "Now," said the Wakil sharply, as if sensing the need for haste. "Please send in Elenya."
Chapter Sixty
Two hours past midnight on the second day following the rebellion, the Wakil's sons and brother left the great house, and in their eyes Aidan saw death. His arms were no longer sore. They were numb now, numb where the ropes had cut into his circulation, numb where they had been drawn behind his back, bound at wrists and elbows, more rope around his knees.
The runaways—Aidan, Brian, Olaf, and Leary—were all bound hand and foot. They lay on their sides, staring up at the possible instruments of their punishment: a row of four wooden crosses erected at Ghost Town's gates.
A row of black guards held t
he other slaves at bay as they awaited their fate. Ali and Malik had disappeared into the village, returning minutes later with a carved wooden crucifix belonging to Tom Leary.
The guards pushed several of the rebels forward, drove them to their knees, bound their hands. Twelve of them were already bound and tied to stocks awaiting judgment.
"There are two issues here," said Ali coldly, almost as if discussing the price of hay. "One is the rebellion itself, which will be punished." For a moment the passion raging within him burned nearer the surface. He looked directly at Brian, teeth bared. "Have no doubt of that." Brian blinked hard, and broke eye contact. "The other is that some of you pretended conversion to gain freedom of motion. That is a crime against Allah, and for that, you shall be swiftly delivered unto His judgment. Make no mistake: all of the ringleaders will die this day. We know who you are: Brian, Leary, Moira—"
Aidan groaned to see the old woman pushed out into the circle. Her wrinkled face was bruised. She seemed naught but a sack of brittle bones. She fell to her knees, gray hair flagging around her face, but she looked up at them defiantly. "Devil take ye," she spat at them. "I did what I did. I won't beg for what's left of my life. Ye took all the good years. With what's left, I'll speak my mind."
Ali nodded. "You have courage, and even wisdom. You and your people would be better had you used more of the latter and less of the former."
Ali held the crucifix down to Brian. Wiggling to get leverage, Brian sat up and kissed the image of Jesus, glaring at them with his one good eye.
"It is right," Malik said coldly. "Embrace your Messiah. You will have the honor of sharing his fate. I wonder if Allah will rescue you as he did Isu?"
Aidan's hands and feet suddenly itched horribly, the sensation verging on pain, as if he could already feel the spikes driven through his flesh. But Ali had not mentioned him as a ringleader. Did that mean his life was spared? Or merely that he would not be crucified?
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