The Wanderer's Mark: Book Three of Imirillia (The Books of Imirillia 3) (3 page)

Basaal waved his guard away with a flick of his wrist as he turned to face the assassin. He knew that there were three escape routes from his bedchamber. So, the question was which did they find?

“One door opens from a back room,” the Vestan said. “We are tracking it. A second was found under—”

Basaal felt a rush of anxiety and his mouth twitched.

“—found under a bureau in the small corridor. Are there any others?”

“Yes,” Basaal said. His mouth felt dry as he answered. “There is a third passage.”

The Vestan’s eyes gleamed, and he bowed. “Please,” he said, holding up his hand for Basaal to lead the way.

Wordlessly, Basaal stepped past the assassin. He had spread a map out on the table, scattered notes across its surface, and now walked past it with all the disinterest he could muster. “There is a third way to leave these chambers,” he said, “from the garden.”

Basaal stepped down into his garden and through the patterns of red blooms and grasses. “There,” he said as he pointed to the back wall. “You will find a wanderer’s mark carved into the stone, indicating an escape route directly over the wall,” he explained. “Though, I doubt that anybody could have used it.”

“Why not?” It was Ammar who asked the question.

“Because,” Basaal said as he turned to look at him. “Its existence is unknown to any but me, and it would be impossible to scale the wall by oneself, let alone be successful escaping on the other side. Ideally, one would use it during a rainstorm.”

“A rainstorm?” the assassin inquired. This was the first time in his life that Basaal had ever heard a Vestan ask a question in sincerity rather than for intimidation.

“There is a small opening thirty feet down that leads into the aqueducts,” Basaal replied. “You could make the jump if there was enough water to catch you. Without the rain,” he added, “you would need to have a very long rope and no one at your back.” He eyed the Vestan before continuing. “Since I’ve not discussed the existence of this with anybody, especially not with Eleanor, your time would be better spent searching the other gardens,” he suggested. “For you know better than anybody the endless secrets of Zarbadast.”

With that, he turned away, leaving the Vestan and Ammar to stare up at the high wall.

***

“Thank you,” Dantib said as he smiled at their benefactor before easing his stiff body down onto the road. Eleanor followed suit and came around to take his arm. It was dusk, and they were now far from the city. It lay in the distance, spread out across the waves of sand.

“We are grateful for these hours of rest,” Dantib told the woman.

“May you follow your stars,” the woman said, and she smiled, trying to catch a view of Eleanor’s face, seeming curious about the mute girl who had kept to herself all day. Then, with a sharp two-note whistle, she set the donkey in motion and continued down the nearly abandoned road.

Dantib did not hurry off the road, rather he scanned the sandy layers of the horizon as he slung off his water-filled pouch, and then they each took a drink. The wind had picked up, and, despite her headscarf, Eleanor could still feel it whip and whistle around her ears. Dantib fished a few pieces of dried fruit from his heavy satchel, and Eleanor accepted one gratefully, turning back towards the distant city, watching as the lights began to appear in the haze of the desert evening.

“She is a beautiful city,” Dantib said as Zarbadast began to illuminate herself.

“Yes,” Eleanor acknowledged. “Do you think he will be alright?”

Dantib frowned and waited a long moment before answering. “I have asked myself that question many times.” He shifted his packs, and Eleanor checked to see if her own bag was secure. Dantib turned and waved a gnarled hand across the graying landscape. “Now we are on the edge of the eastern rocklands. It is a forgotten terrain, full of cracks and crooks left behind by the ancient rivers long dried up.”

And as Dantib spoke, Eleanor thought how he too was made up of ancient things, all cracks and crooks and wisdom. She could see why Basaal had been drawn to him.

“And we will travel through the night?” she asked, tired, but ready to walk.

“Yes,” Dantib nodded. “We will not stop these four days yet if we have any hope of disappearing into the east.”

Nodding, Eleanor followed Dantib into the serpentine ravine.

***

The Vestan were none too gentle as they threw Basaal on the ground before Shaamil’s throne. Basaal’s arm, still tender from the challenge weeks before, rattled with pain. He breathed in fast, sounding like a scared snake, his face hovering inches above the floor. A bead of sweat dropped from his face, and Basaal thought it strange, for he felt as cold as the rivers of Aemogen.

It had been twelve hours since Eleanor’s escape, and Basaal had been confined to his palace, unable to move from his private apartments, watched constantly by the Vestan. His father had not called for him and had not wished to see him—until now.

The emperor soon ordered the Vestan to get out. Even when they were left alone, Basaal did not move to look at his father. He breathed against the white marble, waiting for Shaamil to speak.

“You miserable wretch.” The words were clipped in the emperor’s mouth. “Get up.”

Basaal pulled himself to his feet, deliberately throwing his shoulders back as he looked into the eyes of his father.

“What have you to say to me?” Shaamil asked.

“As I have told your imperial guard and as I have told the Vestan, I have nothing to say that you do not already know.”

“Nothing?” the emperor said, his voice sounding as the wind scratching across the rock hills north of the city.

“I have nothing more to say,” Basaal repeated.

“The Vestan have no word of your wife, even after hours of searching.” Shaamil’s mouth twisted up. “It’s as if she were swept away like a single grain of sand in a windstorm. Gone. Scattered among ten million other pieces without a trace. I warn you now, if I find you had a hand in any of this, I will kill you outright.”

Basaal stiffened, the corners of his mouth turning down as he spoke. “I wouldn’t expect any less.”

“Let us then suppose,” Shaamil said, and his voice rang with accusation, “that you had
nothing
to do with the queen’s disappearance. Let us suppose that you stand wronged. What is your price?”

“My price?” Basaal glowered. By the stars, he was so tired.

“The price of your retribution,” Shaamil explained. “What price do you exact for such a valuable loss? Is it one life?”

“One life?” Basaal asked, confused.

“Is it one life?” Shaamil repeated. “Or is it two? The desperate impression you gave was that this woman—this girl, really—meant a great deal to you. And now she has been taken away. So her value must be beyond the cost of just one life. Is it three times as much? Is it four times?” Shaamil demanded. “What would satisfy the debt? The death of a dozen people? Of a caravan? Should a city be ransacked to pay the debt of her loss? A country, even? Answer me!”

Basaal stood petrified, terrified of what his father might do in his own name.

“What is she worth to you, Basaal?” Shaamil pressed. “How many thousands must die to atone for her loss? Answer me!”

“I—I can’t. I don’t deal in such terms,” Basaal said. “To reckon the value of any loss with the death of the innocent is madness.”

“But you must learn!” Shaamil yelled. “As a prince of Imirillia, every action you take reverberates endlessly into the lives around you. You cannot make a decision without having some act to balance it. You try—you have always tried—to tip the scales, not expecting repercussions or consequences. But that is not how this world works. That is not how this empire works, the Imirillian Empire, which you have sworn yourself to in the highest rituals of honor. So, yes, the disappearance of the Aemogen queen carries a price, and it very well may be of every man, woman, and child in her country.”

“Father!”

“What? Is it too much for you? The thought of every wretch in Aemogen dead. Would you rather I find someone closer to blame? The palace guards, perhaps? Do we take the head of every guard on duty at the hour of her disappearance? Or, do we take the heads of their wives and children?”

“You deal in unbalanced scales, Your Grace,” Basaal snapped.

“Do I?” Shaamil challenged.

“Yes!” Basaal cried. “As you did in Aramesh, you transfer the sins of one onto the heads of many, and that is not justice.”

Shaamil lifted an eyebrow and pressed his fingers together as if thinking. “You do not condone my scales?”

“No!”

“One for one, is it?” Shaamil asked.

Basaal bent his head, pursing his lips, waiting for his father to call for his life in payment.

“One for one,” Shaamil repeated. “But if that is the scale with which you wish to play, then this loss of great value demands another of equal value to you. Who should it be? One of your brothers?” Shaamil suggested. “Annan? The woman who serves your house? What is her name, Hannia? What about your sister, Laaeitha? She is of little value to Emir. Would her life compensate in payment, I wonder? What about one of the children?”

The coil of his father’s words seemed to squeeze his chest, and Basaal let his rage show clearly on his face. This was not the man who had shown approval, even love, earlier that same day. This was the beast that had swallowed his father whole, consuming him with its vile power. Now, in the shadows of the deep night, this man did not even look like his father.

“You see, Basaal,” the emperor continued, “you cannot insulate yourself from consequences any more than you can insulate everything you love…from me.”

Basaal shook off the hiss of his father’s words. “I will do my duty,” Basaal said, “but do not—I beg you—do not bring any other into your quarrel with me, Father.”

“Every life you love is entirely in your own hands, Basaal. If you step straight, they will be well. Now, go,” Shaamil said as he waved his hand. “You have five days to prepare your company for the journey south, and then we leave.”

“We?” Basaal asked.

“Oh, yes,” Shaamil articulated with force. “I am accompanying you south with six thousand of my own men in case you need
help
in subjugating Aemogen.”

Chapter Two

The gold and silver patterns of the afta dar began to disappear beneath the rough cloth as Eleanor rubbed it over her already tender skin. It had been more difficult than she’d anticipated to wash the afta dar away despite Hannia’s promise it would be an easy affair. But she knew they did not have much time, exposed as they were beside the silt-filled desert pond.

Dantib stood, leaning against his staff, appearing to be a patiently waiting herdsman, but Eleanor could read the tension in his face. She scrubbed harder. They had now traveled through the rocky passageways of the eastern desert for three consecutive nights, settling into rock-covered crevices for a few hours during the day before setting out again in the hot sun.

“In two more days’ time,” Dantib said as he watched behind them, scanning the sand and stones in their rocky upheaval along the horizon line, “we will come to a small village where I have our horses. We will dye your hair there as well, for I dare not stop longer. The Vestan move quickly, and I have no way of knowing what they know.”

Eleanor pulled off her uncomfortable boots—her heels were covered in blisters—and began to scrub the afta dar from her feet and ankles. It came off easier than it had from her hands.

“What are the chances,” Eleanor asked as she worked, “that they could have found our trail among so many? As we left Zarbadast, there were streams of travelers, coming and going in every direction.”

“Yes,” Dantib said, but he did not speak further.

Eleanor wished she could leave her feet sitting in the mud puddle, but, as soon as the last remnants of the bridal paint had been washed away, she pulled her boots back on and stood, adjusting her rough garments and ensuring her headscarf was in place.

She rolled her sleeves down until they covered most of her hands, but not before Eleanor looked again at Basaal’s mark on her arm, a reminder that her time in Zarbadast had not been a dream. Eleanor did not quite believe it. These three days in the desert had taken her mind back to crossing the Zeaad and the Aronee. Eleanor’s many days resting in the luxury of the seven palaces seemed too soft for the grittiness of the world to which she had returned.

“Come,” Dantib said, and they set out again.

Step after difficult step, they traveled farther east.

***

Neither the quietude of the space nor the firmness of the answer could allay the intense trepidation Basaal felt in his bones. He could not believe what he had just heard.

He had prayed, seeking guidance, counsel of the Illuminating God. But he had not expected it to come so fast. Nor had he expected it to be so clear—and so confusing. Basaal prayed again for a different answer, but none came. He begged, offering a plea as desperate as any he’d ever uttered, but he petitioned in vain.

After a long hour of silence, he finally took himself away from the garden and tried to forget the resounding answer he had received from the Illuminating God. Too upset for anything else, Basaal called his personal guard to his training yard and spent the remainder of the morning fighting, aggressive and angry. Once he had exhausted himself, he fled to his rooms, falling into a chair beside the window of his sitting room, trying to quiet the turmoil inside.

Without really thinking about it—more from a habit born of the last three days—Basaal took the thin gold bracelet of Eleanor’s from his pocket. He moved his fingers across the three pendants now attached to it: the ruby from their wedding day, the wanderer’s mark he gave her after their wedding, and the golden circle with the rising bird he had given her in Aemogen. After the interrogation by his father, Basaal had strung these three pieces of jewelry onto her bracelet. It felt like a talisman of sorts, a token.

“Apparently, Father may actually be convinced you had nothing to do with all this.”

Basaal looked up to see Ammar standing in the doorway.

“And what of it?” Basaal growled.

“I am not so easily, shall we say,
convinced.
As you know.”

“What do you want, Ammar?”

“A conversation,” he said. “An admission. An honest answer.”

“I can honestly tell you that I did not see Eleanor out of Zarbadast.”

“Semantics,” Ammar said as he offered himself a seat near Basaal.

“What?” Basaal asked, looking over at his brother’s face.

“The words you chose to use,” Ammar explained. “Semantics. They don’t mean you did not help orchestrate the escape.”

“Go to the devil,” Basaal snapped, closing his fist around the pendants and tucking them back into his jacket.

“So, you will not say more than that?”

“My own honor,” Basaal said as he folded his arms and gave Ammar a hard smile, “requires that I neither confirm nor deny it.”

“If you confirm, it is to your death,” Ammar said, providing the reason. “If you deny having anything to do with it, you will look a fool who could not control even one wife. Stupid indeed,” Ammar observed. “No one should expect you to utter a word.”

Basaal did not respond.

“Well played,” Ammar said. “Every idiot in Zarbadast understands that point of pride.” The physician stood. “I must be going, for I have my own preparations to make. Yes,” Ammar nodded as he saw Basaal’s face. “I too have been ordered to accompany you to Aemogen. If I weren’t so curious to see the place,” he added, “I would blame you for the massive inconvenience of it all.”

As Ammar turned to go, Basaal sighed ruefully.

“I just didn’t expect it, that’s all,” Basaal said to himself as much as to his brother.

Ammar only partially turned, not looking at Basaal’s face. “Expect what?” he asked.

“To feel so miserable.”

***

Eleanor’s legs were shaking as they descended a ravine trail towards a small desert town. It was as insignificant a place as Eleanor had ever seen. She pressed her dry hands against the stone to support herself, forcing the leather pouch Basaal had given her to rest against her back so that it would not swing in front of her as they descended.

“Soldiers,” Dantib had been saying. “Soldiers would have been sent out if the Vestan failed,  companies in all directions. If the emperor was so inclined, there would be a reward on your head, and so we must trust no one we meet. If he does not make your disappearance publically known, we will have a better chance of surviving our journey to the coast.”

“Why would he not make it known?” Eleanor asked despite being short of breath. “I would think Shaamil would want me punished at any cost.”

“Were it to become common knowledge that you had run away, Basaal’s great shame would also become public,” Dantib explained. “He would be ridiculed, becoming
a laugh of the street
, as we would say.”

“His great shame?” Eleanor stopped, and Dantib looked back at her.

“Oh, yes.” He ran the back of his wrist across his brow. “For a wife to run from her husband is a grave insult on a master’s reputation. It could ruin the reputation of a man even in Basaal’s station. This was a severe choice he has made to spare your life.”

Eleanor wanted to curse Basaal. So absorbed in his own ways, yet so utterly selfless. Each night since they had left Zarbadast, before Eleanor was asleep, she had thought of him, wanting to see him again. But even in her dreams he did not appear.

They decended into the town and Dantib led Eleanor through the few dusty streets to a small house on the far edge of a tired road, near a stable. Dantib looked around the street and then knocked on the crooked door before pushing it open.

“Father!” a middle-aged man said as he rushed towards them, a child at his heels. Dantib embraced the man, and Eleanor closed the door behind them. His much taller son swallowed the stable master up in his embrace, and Eleanor ventured a timid smile at this reunion. Basaal had never mentioned Dantib had family.

“This is Eleanor, Queen of Aemogen,” Dantib said, sounding proud of his charge. Eleanor nodded her head to the man. “Eleanor, this is my son.” The man nodded in return, but his eyes were hard.

“And your name?” Eleanor asked politely despite the grime of the journey.

“No, no names,” Dantib said and shook his head gently as he smiled at the young boy now wrapping himself about Dantib’s legs. Eleanor assumed he was a grandson.

“Oh,” Eleanor verbalized her surprise.

“You see, no one in Zarbadast knows I’ve a son.”

“Not even Basaal?” Eleanor asked. The son snorted, but Dantib ignored him.

“Especially not Basaal, I’m afraid,” Dantib said, “while he serves his father, I cannot trust even him with this information. It is better this way.”

Dantib’s son muttered something that Eleanor could not hear. She did not feel particularly welcome but was too tired to care.

“I will call you Ali,” Eleanor said, determined to be polite. “It is a common enough name.”

“We best get the two of you away,” Ali answered as he looked towards the door. “Although, helping the prince is against my principles.”

“Do not tell me he is boring you with his principles!” a middle-aged woman said as she swept into the room, smiling. “Papa!” She kissed Dantib on the cheek and gave her husband a look, demanding his cooperation, before she turned towards Eleanor with her arms open. “You must be the Aemogen queen,” she said as she embraced Eleanor and then put a hand on Eleanor’s face. “This prince is a good man to have let you go back to your people,” she added.

Ali snorted. His wife ignored him.

“Papa enlisted our help only after the strictest confidence was secured,” she explained. “We will keep your secret.”

“If it doesn’t kill us all first,” Ali grumbled as the young boy pulled at his fingers.

“You may call me Kaaie, as we are not using our real names,” she said and winked at the game. “Follow me.” Kaaie led Eleanor into a small back room, where she had prepared a rag and a basin of water. “You can wash, and we will take care of that hair.”

Kaaie did not leave the room, but rather stayed to help Eleanor, speaking about nothing in particular as she prattled away pleasantly. As she listened, Eleanor washed her face and arms, around her neck, and then her feet, wondering how long they would stay with Dantib’s family. Wondering if it was safe. When she removed her headscarf, Kaaie gasped.

“Your hair!” she exclaimed. “They said it was the color of flame, but I did not believe them, no.” She stood and ran her fingers through Eleanor’s tangled locks. “And I am supposed to help you turn it brown.” She clucked in a way that reminded Eleanor of Hannia. “What a shame.”

Kaaie helped Eleanor lift her rough, brown dress over her head, speaking casually about the dust, the heat, and the desert as she settled Eleanor into a chair before a rough-hewn table that held another shallow basin. “Just lean your head back,” she said. “Yes, just so.” Then Kaaie lifted a jug and poured its contents over Eleanor’s hair. “You must be still awhile before I can wash the hair dye out again.”

“How do you know how this is done, chaging the color of my hair?” Eleanor asked, careful not to move in case it would interfere with Kaaie’s work.

“My husband, Na—” she began to say but stopped herself. “I mean,
Ali
is well known for his work with horses. He takes after his father,” she said, smiling as she moved the dye through Eleanor’s hair thoroughly. “In Imirillia, color can be everything, and so, if a man owns a horse that he wishes to be black or red, well, my husband will see it done.”

“And Basaal knows nothing of this? Knows nothing of you?”

“Papa decided years ago it would be best,” was all Kaaie would say.

Hours later, after Kaaie had run water over Eleanor’s hair and braided it down Eleanor’s back, and after they had rested and eaten a simple meal, Ali took Eleanor and Dantib out to the stables under the blanket of night.

“Your horses are prepared and ready for the journey,” he said as he held a light up in the stall. Dantib joyfully greeted a simple, gray horse that Eleanor guessed was his own.

Ali looked at Eleanor briefly then shook his head towards the neighboring stall. “Your mount is here,” he said as he tilted his head and held the lantern up. Inside, a dark brown horse moved towards them, nickering and seeking Eleanor’s attention.

Eleanor narrowed her eyes and stared before blurting out, “Hegleh?”

The horse tilted her head and whinnied.

“You’re all brown!” Eleanor said as she moved her hands down the horse’s cheek and kissed Hegleh between the eyes.

“So are you,” Ali said with little patience.

“Hush!” Dantib quietly chided his son. “Now we must go. The ride east will require great speed, and we dare not endanger you anymore.”

“You must promise me you will be careful, Father.”

Dantib rested one of his knotted hands on his son’s shoulder. “I go with the Illuminating God.”

“But,” Ali argued, “you go for the devil.” Ali’s face collapsed on itself, and he embraced his father. “I am afraid for you.”

Kaaie had come into the stable and she put her arm around Eleanor. “It is right you should go back to your people,” she whispered into Eleanor’s ear. “My husband is hurt and angry; do not let him plague your mind. Papa loves his prince and goes with you willingly.”