by Stephen Hunt
Salwa moved closer and punched him in the face. ‘You should not listen in to other people’s conversations.’
‘Our present forms are a necessary deception,’ shrugged the grand vizier. ‘The empire is not yet ready for a female grand vizier. And my male form should not disgust you, for in a very practical sense, it was you and your kind that made me, my Pasdaran friend. You are as much my begetter as you are the boy’s here.’
‘What do you talk of?’ spat Farris Uddin.
‘Do you remember when the satrapy of Hakaqibla rebelled all those years ago? When the Pasdaran came and executed everyone in the sultan’s family — all the males anyway. It’s not an easy thing to be a twelve-year-old girl, raised in luxury as a princess, innocent and artless, knowing nothing of the world, and then to have all that ripped away from you in a single night of savagery.’
‘You were there …’
‘As were you, I expect. You have no care for what you and your people did to me, do you? What you did to all of us. After such a gentle upbringing to find myself being whipped as a slave, watching most of my sisters and cousins die as we were dragged half-drugged behind sandpedes across half the empire. But I was lucky, if you can call being kept alive after what I experienced lucky. I was the prettiest of the survivors — the slavers made sure I got just enough food and water not to stumble and perish in the desert. Eventually, when I went on the block in Bladetenbul, I was purchased at no small expense by a very old and powerful womb mage who stood senior in the order’s ranks. I became his very special little slave, and somewhere in between abusing me, the sweaty old goat fell in love with what I still was in those days, as did his young fool of an apprentice. Between the two of them, I learnt every skill of the womb mage’s craft, until the pair didn’t even realize that their innovations were more my work than their own. I drove the old goat into a fit of jealousy by my dalliance with his apprentice, drove him into murderous fury, and made sure he pushed the young boy out of one of the towers of Mutantarjinn.
‘It was then that I replaced the apprentice, in every sense of the word, having developed a changeling virus to assume his assistant’s gender. How furious my owner was when he saw what his beautiful little slave had turned into. But he could say nothing without being executed by my side as the murderers we had become. And when the time was right, I slipped a draught into the old goat’s wine that burst his heart like an overripe fruit, leaving me to claim his legacy.’
Omar stared appalled at Immed Zahharl. More of an abomination than anyone had suspected. How similar and yet how different they were. Both Omar and the grand vizier had once been slaves, both risen beyond their station. He freed — indirectly — by her machinations, and she clawing her way back to privilege, becoming a chimera through the darkest murder and treason. How many lives had ended in the fall of the House of Barir, the Sect of Ackron declared heretic to make room for her followers’ rise in the Holy Cent; how many more would die in the war against the north? My father, my people, my home. She had slain Boulous, and worse yet, completely corrupted his beautiful Shadisa within and without. Filled the Sect of Razat with monstrosities made in her own image by sorcery — then filled them with the lust for power and the blood of men. How much better if that young princess had been left to her guileless pleasures in her distant province.
The grand vizier’s eyes narrowed. ‘I should plant you in the torture gardens, Farris Uddin, so I can thank you every morning for making me what I am today. Unfortunately, old man, you have too few years left for me to enjoy your company, so we shall have to put your body to a more practical use.’
The grand vizier was now near enough to Westwick’s chair for her to spit at his feet as she cursed him for a traitor.
Immed Zahharl just seemed amused by the woman’s little act of defiance. ‘I would free you if I could and convert you into one of us. But you are as much a product of the Pasdaran as the old man here. How clever of the secret police to send agents across the border masquerading as escaped slaves. And every girl born of her mother’s womb as much a slave to the Caliph Eternal as his troop of beyrogs. The changes in your body that imprint your loyalty to him run too deep and subtle for me to remove them without killing you. A pity. What an assassin’s blade you would have made for me. But don’t worry.’ The grand vizier tapped the vials of blood that had been extracted from the prisoners. ‘I have your design here. We can have a few more like you bred, I think, with the recipient of your devotion corrected to a more appropriate choice of candidate. The original, I fear, we must feed to the creatures in our stables. Some of them have quite a healthy appetite, you see.’
The grand vizier moved down the line to where Commodore Black was tied up. ‘And here is a strange fellow to turn up as one of parliament’s agents. The blood of kings runs through your veins, old man. I was led to believe that all of the Jackelian royalist rebels had perished with the fall of the u-boat fleet-in-exile at Porto Principe.’
‘Not the ones who swam from the depth charges, lass,’ said the commodore.
‘Eminently sensible,’ smiled the grand vizier. ‘Half the people who serve my cause have switched sides. I rather count on it, or I would be ruling over a very depopulated empire. When the Kingdom of Jackals falls, I think I will crack open the cells of your people’s royal breeding house and see if I can find someone malleable enough to become the puppet sultan for my new satrapy. A little continuity goes a long way in such matters. You shall act as my broker.’
‘Parliament already has a blessed puppet queen locked up in the palace,’ said the commodore. ‘And I would sooner have her the prisoner of parliament’s crew of dirty Jackelian shopkeepers than of some wicked Cassarabian caliph.’
The grand vizier’s smile turned to ice on his thin lips. ‘You’ll change your mind in time, I believe.’
‘No lass. I might feel sorry for you, but I won’t be doing that. Because you’re right about one thing, you’re a creature of the Pasdaran alright. They created you in the cruelty of the life of a girl born to the empire and the crucible of slavery, they made you just as surely as a womb mage creates a drak. They didn’t need a scalpel and blood splicer to do it. Just whips and murder and a slave collar.’
‘They made me strong!’ the grand vizier hissed.
‘No, lass. They made you hard, and broke you into so many pieces you’ll never be able to tell the difference. As one noble-born to another, strength has no purpose unless it’s used to help the weak. Not this, not what you’re about here.’
‘We shall see what the true currency of strength is, you old fool. When there are crowds of Jackelians kneeling on the streets of Middlesteel as my armies march in procession down your lanes. We shall see which of us is right, then. I will give the empire a victory no man has ever been capable of achieving, and how they will love me for it.’ The chief minister finished behind Omar’s chair. ‘And here we have the last son of Barir, the smallest and least significant of my loose ends. Of no account at all. I am told you were a slave on a desalination line, guardsman. How cruel for fate to push you so far beyond your limits. I clawed myself up through society one death at a time to get back to where I belonged. Perhaps you should have crawled back down to your natural station?’
‘I’ll crawl over glass to see you die,’ spat Omar. He struggled madly against his bonds but they were too tight. Too tight to let him slip them for a second and break the neck of the beast who had turned Shadisa into a twisted shadow of the spiteful politician. All this death, fate, all this suffering. Why have you put me here in front of this monster if not to kill it?
‘Just a proud, vain little peacock, that’s all,’ said the grand vizier, wagging a knowing finger towards Salwa. ‘I told you, even in one who used to be a slave, his male pride would prove too strong for him to defect to our cause.’ The grand vizier moved back to the start of the line of prisoners. ‘So, the guardsmen among you came looking for the Caliph Eternal, and here he is for you now, conveniently trussed up. While my two curious Jackelian
friends came visiting to see how it is I now have celgas enough to float an armada capable of outgunning the Royal Aerostatical Navy. That too, I have to show you!’
The grand vizier went to a control panel in front of the mirrored wall, and as his fingers ran over it, the surface of the wall became transparent, revealing a spacious cavern on the other side. Pointing to a series of large glass tanks on the ground of the cavern carpeted with decomposed vegetation and filled with a green mist. Within them, herds of white, bone-like spheres, each with six human-shaped arms, progressed slowly across the tanks as though they were drugged cattle. They walked on their hands whilst scraping up vegetation into a round mouth where a double set of teeth was slowly, constantly chewing.
‘The creatures you see down there are called skoils. They have a voracious appetite for rotting foliage and the green gas you see is their sole output. Lighter than air, and you simpletons could barely understand the labours I went through to make it non-flammable.’
‘Save your womb mage’s tricks for someone who will appreciate them,’ said Farris Uddin.
‘Oh, but you should appreciate them,’ insisted the grand vizier, pointing to another series of tanks facing those that housed the strange, sorcery-born creatures. ‘It’s not easy to produce a skoil, only someone as brilliant as I could find a way around the hurdles that have defeated every womb mage labouring on the problem for half a millennia.’
Omar stared down to where the grand vizier was indicating. He had seen such tanks before, being dragged through the womb mages’ chambers beneath the caliph’s palace. The yellow nutrient fog inside almost concealed the poor slaves within, their bellies unnaturally distended to allow them to give birth to the products of the sorcerers’ art.
‘Of course,’ said the grand vizier. ‘The previous attempts to manufacture our airship gas were made by mere men, and my solution would not have been one they could easily countenance.’
As the grand vizier stopped speaking, the yellow fog of nutrients cleared and Omar saw the faces of the slaves, straining and sweating under the unnatural load their wombs were carrying. Bearded and coarse, they were the faces of men!
Farris Uddin turned his head from the sight in disgust. ‘Abomination, what have you done?’
‘When Ben Issman wrote of the two souls held in a body’s flesh, he was talking about something we womb mages refer to as a chromosome. And only the male chromosome can produce a skoil. Fortunately, the work I did on scouring away my gender can be modified for other uses … such as giving a male a fully functioning womb.’
‘You are cursed under heaven!’
‘Perhaps I am.’ The grand vizier shrugged. ‘Perhaps every one of us was. Not all of my sisters died on the long journey from the provinces to the heart of the empire. When I tried to locate my remaining two sisters, I found their death records here in the Citadel of Flowers — where they had spent their final years as producers. Do you know what they whisper to producers before their bellies are given a changeling virus to swell them to a useful size? This is your duty to the Caliph Eternal, do your duty, woman.’ The grand vizier beckoned to Salwa who removed a large syringe from the chest and passed it to him. The chief minister leant close to Farris Uddin’s head and whispered, ‘This is your duty to the Caliph Eternal, do your duty. Man.’
He plunged the syringe into Farris Uddin’s arm. ‘Of course, it’s not easy to give a man a producer’s womb, even now. It takes many days for the changes to complete, and fifty per cent of those we attempt to alter reject the virus and die within the first few seconds.’
Farris Uddin was shaking in his chair, his face turning purple. The grand vizier kicked the chair over angrily, enraged that there would be no chance to inflict the ultimate indignity on the last of his surviving secret police enemies. ‘Wasteful, I know. But there are always so many sons of the empire left.’
Omar looked on in horror as the chest of the man who had saved him from the sack of Haffa swelled up, choking Uddin, as the air could no longer enter his lungs. Omar’s kin, the last of his family, by how many generations removed? Their eyes met briefly as he twisted on the floor, the features of his face distending in automatic reflex, as if all the faces he had worn across the ages were surfacing in turn during his death throes.
‘Sorry — boy,’ the man mouthed, and then with a series of gentle tremors, his eyes rolled to white and the long life of Farris Uddin finally came to an end.
Omar howled in rage, rocking his chair until the claw-guards weighed into him, giving him a taste of their rock-hard fists with their talons retracted.
‘You really are the last son of Barir, now,’ sighed the grand vizier, almost sounding disappointed by the lack of challenges left to face. ‘And you shall honour your venerable ancestors by following in their footsteps.’ He indicated to Salwa that another syringe should be made ready.’
‘He is not one of them,’ protested Salwa.
‘Not raised as one, perhaps,’ said the grand vizier. ‘But he is a male and he wears a guardsman’s uniform. He picked his side when you had him tied to a pair of draks.’
‘I know Omar better than anyone — he is a joke, not a threat.’
‘The woman called Shadisa knew him. Salwa of the Sect of Razat has chosen more aptly — or do you wish to reconsider your answer to me?’ There was an edge of menace in the grand vizier’s words, and suitably subdued, the new grand marshal of the guardsmen delved back into the womb mage’s chest.
‘Better,’ said the grand vizier. ‘One dose for the last son of Barir, one for the Caliph Eternal.’
Gagged and bound to the chair, the real caliph began to struggle madly, and with an imperious flick of his fingers, the grand vizier sent one of his claw-guards to beat the ruler to a quiet stillness with its fists. ‘You have reached the end of your usefulness to me, Akil Jaber Issman. Let us see if it is to be death or a producer’s tank for you.’
The false caliph moved to stand between the grand vizier and his twin, clearly troubled by the implications of what the grand vizier had just announced. ‘We still need my flesh brother’s blood, mother, we still need to milk him for the enzyme that controls the beyrogs and the other creatures of the Jahan.’
‘Oh, my beautiful son,’ said the grand vizier, hugging him close and speaking softly. ‘We don’t.’ The grand vizier indicated the ranks of claw-guards. ‘We have a new imperial bodyguard, more appropriately sized to travel on an airship’s decks. And as for the Jahan, I believe the Citadel of Flowers will make a far more appropriate centre of power for the new, enlarged empire I shall create.’
‘But you saved me from execution,’ whined the enculi. ‘You said I was the son you could never have, that your love for me was too strong to allow one of my flesh brothers to supplant me as the rightful Caliph Eternal.’
‘My darling,’ said the grand vizier, plunging a dagger deep into his pet’s heart. ‘You are quite correct, the one thing I can no longer have is a son.’ The false caliph staggered back, looking in stupefaction at the blade buried in his chest, before collapsing slowly to the floor. ‘By heaven’s right, my future enculi shall be daughters.’ The grand vizier knelt by the dying boy’s side, taking his hand, kindly. ‘Close your eyes, my son. You will be asleep soon. Sleep knowing your mother is claiming your throne. A calipha to rule the empire in the name of Ben Issman’s blood line.’
As the dying boy’s tremors ended, the grand vizier stood up and took one of the pair of syringes being proffered by Salwa. ‘I suppose I shall have to have the beyrog barracks in the citadel flooded with poison gas, now that I can’t control the stupid, lumbering things. Almost as stupid as my little enculi here. He always was the weakest of the last caliph’s flesh children, whereas I have high hopes that you-’ the grand vizier angled the needle towards the empire’s real ruler, ‘-young ruler, will be able to survive the process of becoming a producer.’ Walking up to the true caliph, the grand vizier plunged the syringe into his arm and stood back to watch his shaking palpita
tions. The grand vizier nodded in satisfaction as the fit passed after a couple of minutes. ‘There, that is the vigour of youth for you. Now, Salwa, you shall prove your loyalty to me. Put the last son of Barir to the service of our sect as a producer, and let us see if his constitution proves as stout as the caliph’s.’
‘Pray,’ said Salwa. ‘Can you not do it? Or one of my claw-guards?’
‘And would that be a true test?’
‘Please,’ Omar begged, as the new master of the guardsmen advanced on him, a strange, conflicted look in the creature’s eyes. ‘Shadisa, do not do this thing.’
‘Shadisa shall not,’ said the thing Omar had once loved as a woman. ‘But I am Salwa.’
The needle plunged into Omar’s arm, drawing blood as its terrible contents found their way into his body. His eyes went out of focus as his chest heaved, the skin around his arm burning, throbbing. The commodore was shouting something to Omar, but he couldn’t hear the old man’s words. Please don’t let me die here, fate. What would be the point of letting it end here for me? Who would you have to torment then? The room seemed to judder with rough chemical violence, his body changing, twisting with the sickness of the sorcerer’s foul art. Then, as quickly as it had taken Omar, perhaps a minute or two later — although if felt like mere seconds to him — the fit was lifted, his body left washed with cold sweat.
‘Thank Lord Tridentscale’s beard, lad,’ said the commodore. ‘You made it.’
‘Welcome into our sect’s service, last son of Barir,’ smirked the grand vizier. ‘We will require litters of ten skoils a time from you, a new brood every four months. Toss the boy in a cell with the Caliph Eternal and the two Jackelians. Make sure you remove the caliph and the boy when their bellies start showing.’
The claw-guards cut Omar’s bonds and dragged him away. He shouted and struggled in panic as he caught a last glimpse of the long line of producers’ tanks below, filled with slaves doing their hideous duty for the empire. Omar hardly needed the stomach cramps and fever to remind him of his fate. I will be joining their ranks soon enough.
