Broken Dreams
Zahir should have been tired. After all, he had spent all of yesterday in a flurry. First, Laila had burst into his room during his morning prayers with the news that his cousin had taken over his tribe, and he needed to rescue them. Then had come the ordeal of recounting the whole horrible story to the king, and then the crazed rush of their departure.
After that, there had been only the parched wind smacking against his face, and the rusty gold sand churned up beneath his mare's hooves as he, King Jonathan, Lord Raoul, and the squad from the Own rode across the stark landscape to rescue his people. Soon their shirts were soaked with sweat as the merciless sun seared into their backs, and their mounts were coated with sweat from exertion, but they stopped only once in mid-afternoon at an oasis to water the horses and refill their canteens. The pace was as swift as the progress to the desert itself had been slow.
The sun had set completely, and the constellations were starting to burn in the inky sky when they finally reached the outskirts of Zahir's tribe. Taking advantage of the darkness, they had unrolled their sleep mats and blankets as silently as they could. Not wanting to alert Nadir or the men Mahmud had provided him to their presence, they hadn't lit a fire, and instead had eaten hard bread mixed with dusty water from their canteens for supper before curling up under their blankets on their sleeping mats.
Gazing up at the stars and the moon, Zahir had found that he couldn't sleep. When he looked up at them, he realized just how insignificant a speck he was in the universe. The moon and the stars told him in a manner that was infinitely more cutting than mere words could ever be that he didn't matter, and nothing he did made any difference whatsoever.
All the people that he knew and loved didn't mean anything either, and neither did the beings he deplored. All of them were meaningless to the universe, which had existed long before any of them had been a gleam in their parents' eyes, would continue on indifferent to them as long as their brief lives endured, and would carry on centuries after their children had all perished.
Nothing any of them did could alter the course of history, and all of them were just traveling from blackness to blackness as they moved inexorably from the dark warmth of their mother's womb to the cold, endless black void of the night. Each of their lives was but a flicker in the darkness, and it was only a silly illusion that any of them could ever beat back the blackness.
After all, one of the dark's greatest gifts was the gift of illusion, the ease of gentle dreams in night's embrace, and the beauty that imagination brought to what would repel in the day's harsh light, and the dark's most powerful illusion was the hollow comfort that the dark itself was temporary, and that every night brought a new day, because it was the day that was truly fleeting. Day, not the night, was the illusion. As days were defined by the nights that divided them and as stars were defined by the eternal black though which they wheeled, the dark embraced the light and brought it forth from the center of itself. With each victory of the light, it was the dark that won.
The dark always won because it was everywhere. It was in the wood that burned in a roaring fire, and in the kettle that cooked food over the blazes. It was under his blanket with him, and it was inside him as well as outside of him. He could walk leagues in the desert in the midday sun, and the dark would still be with him, attached to the soles of his feet. He could burn as brightly as he wanted, but the dark would still be triumphant, because it was the strongest light that casted the darkest shadow.
Finally, he drifted into a fitful sleep, even though he wasn't even exhausted. He spent the night screaming soundlessly as first one nightmare than another nightmare jolted through him like lightning in an apocalyptic thunderstorm. First, he dreamed that he slew his cousin, and blood splattered from Nadir's chest onto his sword and the sand, staining everything burgundy and contaminating Zahir's hands forever.
Then, before he could sit bolt upright in horror, he had been dropped into the next nightmare. This time, it was his head that was severed from his neck with a neat slice of his kinsman's sword, and it was Nasira's face that was beaten until it resembled chopped venison, and it was Hassan who was wrapped in chains forever, and it was Laila whose cheeks glittered with salty ribbons of tears.
Feeling moisture pricking at his eyes, Zahir opened his eyelids, and shoved himself upright on his sleeping mat. A hundred howls bounced around inside his mouth, but he refused to move his lips and release them. He wasn't going to admit to being weak enough to be afflicted by nightmares, even if all the shouting in his brain that nobody would ever be permitted to hear was making him feel as though he were already dead. Reminding himself wryly of the ancient superstition that if you dreamed you were dead you would never awaken again in the Mortal Realms, he took in the camp around him.
Although it was before dawn, many of his companions were already rolling up their sleeping mats and sheets, munching on dried fruit and salted meat as they did so. Given the restless night he had, he should have been tired as he rose and dressed, but he wasn't.
He didn't so much as yawn as he rolled up his sleeping mat and blanket, and he supposed it was impossible to be exhausted on the verge of a battle. The adrenaline of an approaching fight had to be enough to make even the blood of a drowsy grandmother rage. Anyone who didn't feel alive when they were about do battle to protect their people had to be dead already.
Even though he really didn't require the energy boost, Zahir popped a few pieces of dried fruit into his mouth and took a bite of the salted meat. Rather, he corrected himself inwardly with a scowl, he took a bite of what purported to be salted meat, but what was more likely leather wrapped snugly in an ocean's worth of salt. Deciding that eating salt would just make him thirsty in the coming fray, Zahir shoved the salted meat in his pocket and hoped he would never be desperate enough to actually want to consume it.
Then, as the men around him finished readying themselves, he tightened his jaw and tapped his fingers impatiently against his sword hilt. Mithros, he hated waiting. Waiting had to be worse than dying. With dying, at least there was certainty, after all. Unfortunately, he was a warrior, because he had been chosen as one before he was even born. That meant that his life would consist of waiting, fighting, killing if he was lucky, and dying if he wasn't. It was a grim destiny, but it had selected him, and there was nothing he could do about it. All he could do was face it with some level of courage.
"You needn't tense up like a mastiff that has scented a hare," remarked the soldier beside him, and Zahir didn't even have to turn to know it was Neal's annoying cousin Dom who had spoken. That merry, smug, matter-of-fact tone that could make even a diplomat want to strangle the speaker had to be genetic. "There probably won't be nearly as much of a fight as you think."
"Are you a pacifist?" Zahir demanded irascibly, hating that Dom sounded so satisfied by the prospect of there not being a battle when the blood was roaring loudly in his veins, straining like a tethered dog to be allowed to hunt, maim, and kill. Gods above, if there was anyone he detested more at the moment than the enemy, it was a blasted pacifist. As far as he was concerned, if pacifists really wanted peace, they should stop making people want to murder them because of their vexing insistence on finding a non-violent solution to every problem. Pacifists really shouldn't be surprised when the lethal fury they strove to curtail was unleashed upon them. Still, it was fortunate that Trevor wasn't here. Somehow, Zahir didn't wish for his friend to witness battle. Anyway, it would be a shame if he were tempted to kill Trevor. "I bet you are. I wager you believe that if we continue to feed steaks to an attacking lion, it will spontaneously transform itself into an herbivore and leave us alone. Well, I hate to break it to you, but the military is the wrong place for pacifists who can't stomach the sight of a little bloodshed."
"I'm not a pacifist, but rather a stereotypical naughty boy from the Own," responded Dom cheerily, chewing on a slice of dried fruit. "Unlike you, I just happen to be aware of what goes on in the real world around me, which means that I recognize that, because the king is here, our valiant adversaries will probably surrender when they discover that important piece of information. After all, any Bazhir who slays their Voice sentences themselves to eternal torture—or is convinced that they do, at any rate, which is equally valuable to us."
"One can always hope," Zahir grunted, not wanting to sound completely bloodthirsty by stating that after months of clandestine warfare with his treacherous cousin he longed for a grand, open final confrontation rather than an anticlimactic one.
"One can always hope for what?" pressed Dom, his brilliant eyes riveting on Zahir, who glowered. "A quick, relatively bloodless victory, or a protracted, bloody struggle?"
"One can always hope that you'll go away, or that failing shut up," snapped Zahir, not about to admit to anyone but himself that an appallingly high percentage of himself wished for the prolonged, bloody struggle Dom had mentioned instead of the swift, relatively bloodless victory.
Before Dom could retort, King Jonathan motioned for them to mount, and their argument was forgotten in the sudden haste to slide onto their horses and charge into the tent village behind the king and Lord Raoul. As Sufia's flying hooves raced him into battle, Zahir supposed that he should have felt nervous, but, as stupid as it might have been, he was no more frightened than he had been before any fight he had engaged in as a page.
In fact, as the wind whipped against his cheeks and his heart pounded, he felt as though he were back in the pages' wing. All fights were really the same, when it came down to it, and only the weapons altered. Every fight was about understanding that your allies and your foes alike demanded every ounce of heart, spirit, sweat, and blood that you could offer. Every fight was about ignoring the butterflies dancing around in your stomach, and learning to love terror and mayhem. Every fight was about knocking heads and talking trash. Every fight was about using all the weapons that you had, even if that meant that you were reduced to slinging nothing but mud and grass. Every fight was about helping your allies when their backs were against the wall and knowing that they would return the favor if necessary. Every fight was not about pretending anything, but about finding the element in yourself that relished violence. Every fight was about surviving and destroying the enemy. He understood that, and so he was well-equipped for any battle.
"You'll show Nadir that nobody challenges us and wins, won't you, girl?" Zahir leaned forward to whisper in his mare's ear. Looking down at her slender, agile body that concealed incredibly powerful muscles, he was happy to be riding into battle with her. She responded rapidly to both verbal and nonverbal commands, she didn't balk easily, and she could knock an enemy unconscious with a well-aimed kick. She was entirely devoted to him, and all he had needed to do to earn that loyalty was feed her, brush her, and murmur compliments into her ear. If only Nadir had been half as steadfast as Sufia…
He didn't have time to contemplate that any further, however, because the guards Nadir had posted had spotted them. An alarm sounded throughout the village, and, reflexively, remembering that squires were supposed to defend their knightmasters, Zahir nudged Sufia closer to King Jonathan. With Lord Raoul on the king's other side, he doubted that his knightmaster needed much more protection, but it was better safe than sorry. Nobody was going to kill the Voice on his watch.
As a contingent of sentinels rode forward to engage them, he found himself grateful that he had spent many of his mornings practicing swordsmanship with the king. Maybe they had never fought together in a battle like this, but they were still attuned to each other and were as familiar with one another's strengths and weaknesses as they were their own.
In fact, Zahir couldn't help wondering if his knightmaster, as Voice, was working some sort of spell upon him. After all, he didn't even feel like they were two separate people anymore. Instead, he felt like they were one entity, and he could understand the king's intentions as well as he could his own. He could merge his style seamlessly with King Jonathan's. He could be the flash, while his knightmaster was the strategist. The king could create openings, and he could exploit them. King Jonathan could maneuver, and he could strike. His knightmaster could be cleverness, and he could be energy.
His blade had chopped off the arm of one enemy and penetrated the intestines of a second when the sound of weapons clashing in a nearby tent announced that his imprisoned tribesmen were free and now confronting their captors.
Leering, Zahir glanced around, trying to discover his cousin, because he wanted to cut off Nadir's sly head. It was his right to kill the traitorous son just as he had slain the disloyal father. It was his duty to protect his tribe by doing away with another insidious threat.
Unfortunately, he couldn't spot his vermin of a kinsman in the fray. Grinding his teeth, he returned his attention to his own skirmish, telling himself that he would destroy Nadir soon and reminding himself that he should find solace in the number of adversaries that were already spread-eagled on the rough, searing sand.
Moans and cries of agony from the fallen pierced the air, ringing in his ears, and he knew that the lucky ones were making those anguished noises as they held in their guts with their fingers and desperately attempted to staunch bleeding from deep wounds. The unfortunate ones were already silent and motionless, never to speak or move again. Soon Nadir would be one of the silent ones, but before he became quiet, Zahir would ensure that he howled loudly enough to rattle the rising sun…
His sword was moving instinctively through a complex volley of assaults, feints, and counters, because thought was too slow on the battlefield and only reflexes honed by training could be trusted, when a mighty voice entered his head.
At first, he tried to block it from his mind, since he couldn't afford to be distracted. However, the voice would not be ignored. It echoed persistently in his eardrums, obstinately and unnaturally increasing in volume rather than fading away.
Somehow, without being told, he comprehended that it belonged to the Voice, and he knew that every Bazhir present could hear it reverberating in their brains. Just like he could, every Bazhir here would feel the presence of the Voice, and every one of them would be reminded of how impossible it was to resist the Voice, who was part of each one of them…
Zahir's fingers loosened around his sword hilt, as the expressions of his foes shifted from stony resolution to shock and finally to gape-jawed horror. The next instant, Mahmud's men had dropped their weapons and knelt defenselessly on the ground. With that, the battle ended as abruptly as it had begun, and the absence of clashing metal resounded in the cavern of Zahir's ears.
"Forgive us," said one of the enemies Zahir had been fighting a moment ago, reaching out tentative hands to touch the king's feet. Keeping his head bowed, the man added, "We didn't know you were here. We would never have fought against you if we had realized who you were."
"You were merely acting under your chief's orders, and so you have committed no crime that you need to be forgiven for," King Jonathan declared, dispensing justice as firmly as ever and lifting the prostrated man to his feet. "Arise all of you. It is Mahmud who is responsible for your presence here, and it is him I will speak to about this. You will heal those of you who cannot safely be moved, and then you will return to your tribe, taking your dead back to their families."
Observing inwardly that while the king might want to speak with Mahmud, he wished to confront his cousin, Zahir, his weapon still drawn, twisted through the soldiers who were now carrying their wounded comrades to the shaman's tent to be tended to, looking for Nadir. When he found his kinsman, at first he had trouble recognizing him, because he was sprawled on the sand in a pose Zahir had never seen him adopt before, his eyes blanker than they had ever been, and his skin paler than it had ever been in life.
His fingers numb, Zahir realized, one thought lumbering in the wake of another as he struggled to make sense of the sight of his dead cousin lying at his feet, that he wouldn't need his sword any longer and tucked it back into its sheath. Simultaneously wanting to stare at the gory body before him and wishing to avert his gaze from something he knew would haunt him for the rest of his existence, Zahir studied the gaping wound in his cousin's chest, and the ocean of blood that surrounded it.
Feeling vomit blaze a path up his throat, he swallowed hard. Mithros, he couldn't believe that he had wished to slay Nadir himself. He truly was a monster. Of course, he noted with a dazed bitterness, it might have been better if he had been the one who had killed Nadir. After all, at least if he had done the dreadful deed himself, he would have borne complete responsibility for it, instead of having permitted someone else to do his dirty work for him…Oh, he thought as tears welled in his eyes and implored for release, but when he had yearned for Nadir's death, he hadn't wished for this...
"Zahir." A hand clenched around his shoulder, and his knightmaster's quiet tone somehow managed to penetrate the clouds of remorse fogging his brain. "You'll have time to grieve later, but now you have to deal with Nasira."
"Deal with Nasira?" repeated Zahir through lips that had turned to stone. "You can deal with her just as you handled the others, sire."
"When she married Nadir, she became a member of your tribe, and so I think it is best if you passed judgment on her," the king informed him gently.
Reluctantly, Zahir turned away from his dead cousin and headed over to where Nasira, garbed in a cobalt outfit with a matching veil which made her appear eerily out of place on a battlefield where the wounded were still being carried away, knelt on the bloody sand beside the dead, awaiting Zahir's judgment.
When he reached her, Zahir discovered that his mouth had gone dry and his tongue refused to move. Of course, his tongue wouldn't have helped him much even if it could function. After all, he didn't have a clue what he was supposed to say to the lovely young woman kneeling before him. Rather disconcerted by the fact that Nasira was prostrating herself before him as Mahmud's soldiers had before the Voice, Zahir swallowed and asked, "You do understand that when you married my cousin, you joined my tribe, and I was made your chief?"
"I do." Nasira's gaze locked on his, and he could see the ocher she had lined her eyes with in a futile attempt to conceal the bruises rimming them. "I turn to you for justice and for mercy."
"Some would accuse you of being an accomplice in Nadir's conspiracy against me." As if he were standing outside his own body, Zahir could hear the confidence rising in his own tone. "Yet, I am aware that if you ever were that, you were never that willingly. I know that you were but a pawn in the ambitious game of chess that your father and my cousin were playing, and I will not blame you for that."
"I did my best to warn you of what Nadir and my cousin were plotting against you," Nasira reminded him, looking at him in a manner that begged him not to forget the scene in the ballroom. "Truthfully, I did all in my power to champion your cause over that of Nadir's and my father's."
"And you suffered enough at your husband's fists for that," commented Zahir. Then, speaking more loudly, he pronounced, "Nobody is guilty of the crimes of others. Since you were only married to my cousin for a few days, you need not remain in my tribe as a widow, but may return to your people. The dowry your father paid Nadir to wed you will be given to you, not to your father, since you are under my authority, not his, now. Once your months of mourning are concluded, you may remarry if you wish, but your dowry should be enough to ensure that you live in comfort if you decide to remain single."
"Thank you for your generosity." Nasira bowed her head. "I am forever in your debt."
His heart breaking at seeing a girl as prideful Nasira reduced to pleading with him for clemency all because her father wanted to rule another tribe through Nadir, he told her in a clipped manner, "If you wish, you can repay some of that by bringing your father a message from me."
"What message?" inquired Nasira, cocking her head.
"Tell him that you are only alive today because I love you more than he does, and because I value your existence more than he does," Zahir spat, whirling away from her, since he couldn't bear to look at a young woman whose father would have been happy to sacrifice her for power. He was furious at her father, but, because her father wasn't around to seethe at, he had to direct his rage at her. "Also tell him that if he dares to send soldiers against me again, I will kill him, not just his men. Perhaps he'll stop throwing the lives of others away when it is his own fat neck on the line."
"I'll bring him your message," agreed Nasira in a whisper, and he could picture, even though he wasn't looking at her, her lower lip trembling beneath her headcovering.
"Good," Zahir tossed over his shoulder, as he walked away from her as quickly as he could without running and appearing a coward.
"You did well," the king murmured, resting a hand on Zahir's arm to stop him from fleeing the scene entirely.
"Thanks, Your Majesty," mumbled Zahir, as his face burned. He had forgotten that his knightmaster was witnessing his whole conversation with Nasira when he was speaking to her, although he supposed that was a positive, because he might not have been able to bully himself into allowing any articulate words to pass from his lips if he had been aware of King Jonathan watching him.
"Some would have ordered her stoned just for the crime of being married to a rebel," his knightmaster went on softly.
"Such people are as ruthless as her father, who risked her life for his own personal gain," scowled Zahir, affronted that the king would imagine that he was capable of such disgusting conduct. Yes, he had killed his uncle in cold blood and he had wished his own cousin dead, but he wasn't without a sense of compassion or justice. He would die before he let an innocent person be stoned on his command. "I don't kill innocent women to get vengeance on dead men. That's one level of depravity I haven't descended to yet, sire."
His eyes narrowing as a nasty idea occurred to him, he demanded, "What would you have done if I had decided that she should be stoned, anyway? Would you just have permitted an innocent woman to be executed?"
"Of course not," King Jonathan replied. "If you had chosen to execute her, I would have used my authority as Voice to overrule you. I may not be around at all times to ensure that my chiefs act fairly, but when I am present, I will do so."
"Then you weren't really going to allow me to determine her fate were you, Your Majesty?" Irritated by this sign that his knightmaster didn't trust him, Zahir deepened his glower.
"I permitted you to think you were, so that I could see you act as though her fate were in your hands," the king responded, his tone and gaze steady. "No matter what you believe on the contrary right now, Squire, I trust you, and I was merely giving you the opportunity to succeed, not to fail, although I made sure I had a safety net in place to catch you and Nasira if you lost your footing."
"In that case, I just met your expectations, sire, so there was no need for you to praise me earlier," pointed out Zahir.
"No, you actually exceeded my expectations, Zahir," his knightmaster corrected him, smiling slightly. "Giving the dowry back to Nasira rather than her father was quite a stroke of brilliance."
"Well, I just figured that Nasira deserved to be paid something for the fiasco of being wed to my cousin, and that if her father wasn't capable of caring for her properly, she ought to be independent. She's a pretty girl, Your Majesty, but it's not like they ran out of brains the day she was born and just provided her with a nice wood carving instead of a brain. At any rate, I reckon that she can't do a worse job looking after her affairs than her father did." Gruffly, Zahir shrugged. "Besides, I wasn't going to give any money to the man who helped cause today's mess, for he might misconstrue it as a reward."
Then, before King Jonathan could offer him any more compliments, which would abash him more than most lectures, he strode purposefully toward the shaman's tent, muttering, "If Your Majesty will excuse me, I should care for the injured." Even if he didn't have the Gift, he could still clean cuts, wrap bandages, and distribute healing potions. As chief, it was his obligation to do all he could to tend to his wounded people.
"If I were you, I would never have let such a lovely lady escape from me," shouted a soldier from the Own who was carrying one of Zahir's tribesmen to the shaman's tent for healing.
"That's precisely why you don't deserve someone like Nasira," Zahir fired back, not even bothering to glance over his shoulder to see who the speaker was. After all, the remark had been both perverted and ironic, which meant it had to come from a certain aggravating relation of Nealan of Queenscove.
"Be nice, Squire." The king rested a quelling hand on his shoulder.
"That was me being nice, Your Majesty," rumbled Zahir, who perceived himself as a model of restraint in this situation because he had not punched Dom in the face or cursed at him. "Next time he opens his big mouth, he should use his brain first. I think he'll find it in his pocket or somewhere else that begins with a 'p.'"
"Zahir, you can't be so easily offended." Sighing, King Jonathan shook his head.
"Nothing Dom says offends me," answered Zahir stubbornly more in the interest of rebelliousness than accuracy. "Sire, I'm only offended by things that make sense, and no words that leave his lips ever make sense."
"Come on now, don't exaggerate." The king's mouth had a wry twist to it, but his words were stern. "Even this time, his comment had an element of truth in it."
"A broken clock is right twice a day, Your Majesty." Wondering why his knightmaster was in the irritating habit of taking everyone's side against him, Zahir wrinkled his nose. "When it happens, it is always a coincidence, and so I'd be a fool to put my faith in the clock."
"Your broken clock analogy isn't important." King Jonathan halted, and Zahir had no choice but to do the same as the man continued, "What's important is that Nasira would make a good wife for you, since if you two were wed, peace could be established between your tribe and Mahmud's."
"I had thought of that, sire." Noncommittally, Zahir shrugged as the two of them resumed their journey toward the shaman's tent.
"And?" King Jonathan prodded, arching an eyebrow.
About to snarl that maybe he didn't want to sleep with anyone who had already been contaminated by his cousin's touch, Zahir thought better of that. Such words would insult Nasira, and, even if he wasn't attracted to her any more, he couldn't bear to do that. Finally, as they neared the shaman's tent, he responded, "Nasira's already done her duty by sacrificing herself to her father's ambition when she wed Nadir. Her next marriage should be for love. She deserves that much consideration at least."
Flushing with guilt as he recalled Nasira's remarks at the banquet before she had been compelled to flee Persopolis with Mahmud and Nadir, Zahir observed inwardly that Nasira quite possibly loved him. Aware that it was cowardly, disingenuous, and selfish to hide behind her feelings when it was his own that prevented a marriage between them, he yanked back the flaps of the shaman's tent.
When he slipped inside, the shade of the tent engulfed him, but it did nothing to cool his temper as he pressed on heatedly, "Anyway, what about me, sire? Did you ever think that maybe I didn't want to marry for duty? Did you ever imagine that perhaps I wished to wed for love? Isn't the fact that I don't love Nasira enough reason for me not to marry her?"
"I don't know." The king's bright eyes cut into him. "Do you think it is, Zahir? Do you feel that your personal happiness matters more than the welfare of your entire tribe?"
"I'll have to get back to you on that." His mind burning too hotly to devise an appropriate argument but not willing to concede the point, that was all he could think to say, adding mentally that he would know the answer when he laid eyes on Cait again and could discover if she was half as spectacular as he remembered.
Abruptly, the groans of the wounded penetrated his ears, and the nauseating amalgamation of vomit, blood, and other bodily fluids flooded his nostrils. "Right now, I should focus on tending to the injured, Your Majesty," he added.
Then, before his knightmaster could reply, he crossed over to a boy whose slices appeared to be shallow enough to only require bandaging.
"Aasim ibn Faisal," he said, his expression softening as he approached the lad. "You're only seven years old. Aren't you a little young for sustaining injuries in battle?"
"I turned eight last week," Aasim informed him proudly as he grabbed an herbal salve and bandages from a nearby nightstand.
"That still is terribly young for going into battle, Aasim." As he prepared to rub a cloth coated in salve along a giant gash on the boy's arm, Zahir warned, "Brace yourself. This will sting a little."
"I'm not scared. That's what Mother always says when she's going to put salve on a skinned knee, and it never hurts a bit." Despite his brave words, Aasim grimaced when Zahir rubbed the salve across his abrasion. Obviously trying to conceal the pain he was in, Aasim went on, "Speaking of Mother, I had to fight to defend her and my little siblings. The evil men threatened my family, and I wasn't going to let them get away with that. They tied Father up, but they didn't do that to me, because they didn't think I mattered. I proved them wrong, though, when I killed one of them, something I'm never going to be sorry about, because anyone who hurts my family deserves to die. Father told me not to get involved, but I was already involved the instant the evil men showed up here."
"Your father will thrash you for defying him and risking your life," commented Zahir, not oblivious to the quirk of fate that had him applying salve to the cut of a boy who was soon to be beaten.
"Only if I'm too stupid to convince him that I have learned my lesson from my injury, and I shall never disobey him like that again." Aasim shrugged, while Zahir started to wrap a bandage around the gash on his arm. "I'm clever enough to do that, though, and I'm not scared. Father's a great warrior, and I'm going to be just like him. He wants me to be just like him, you know."
"You are a valiant little warrior." Zahir couldn't stop himself from grinning at the vivacious boy. "When you were born, your parents were wise to name you 'protector.'"
"Names make us who we are." Somberly, the boy nodded.
"We have to live up to our names," murmured Zahir, thinking of his dead cousin. "Nadir means the lowest point or nothing."
"Only in Common," Aasim pointed out, while Zahir finished tying the bandage around his cut. "In our ancient language, it means 'rare and dear,' which fits since his mother died giving birth to him."
"Indeed," agreed Zahir absently. In a daze, he rose from Aasim's sleep mat and moved on to clean and bandage the wounds of a tribesman spread out on a sleeping mat to Aasim's left.
After that, he rubbed salve on the injuries of so many of his people and wrapped bandages around their wounds that their faces started to blur in his mind. Soon, he felt like he were trapped in some terrible broken dream where all he could do was go from one bloody abrasion to the next with all the possible ways that a human body could survive being mutilated merging into one gory abomination in his mind. It wasn't long before he was convinced that he had spent his whole life in this tent, tending to wounds, and that he would continue to do so until the day he died, not pausing to rest or eat. After all, the number of people he had to care for was endless…
As such, when he looked about him and realized that there was nobody else who had injuries mild enough for him to tend to, he was bewildered. After all, caring for these wounded people was supposed to be an endless task, and by definition, there could be no end to something that was eternal. Then, after glancing around him to ascertain that there really was nothing more he could do in the shaman's tent, he remembered with a jolt of shock the cousin's treachery that had resulted in him being in this tent….
Filled with a desire to lay eyes on the corpse of the kinsman that had brought him and so many others into the shaman's tent, Zahir ripped open the tent flaps. As he stepped outside, he saw that the sun was setting, treating the world to a final glorious display of pastel colors before it allowed its now weakly burning light to be devoured completely by the maw of night.
The proof of how many hours had passed since he entered the shaman's tent didn't cause his stomach to growl with hunger or his mouth to water with thirst. Instead, it heightened his compulsion to look at his cousin's body, and, his jaw clenching resolutely, he marched over to where he had last seen Nadir's corpse.
It didn't surprise him that, while the other bodies had been gathered up to return to their families for cremation, Nadir had been left to rot where he was. After all, both of Nadir's parents were dead, and he had no siblings to care what happened to him, either. Zahir's tribesmen were bitter about Nadir's attempt to rule them, and Mahmud's men were indifferent to him.
"At least you don't need a proper ritual cleaning, do you?" His lower lip quivering, Zahir reached out to clasp his cousin's cold, lifeless hand more tenderly than he ever had in the past. "You died in battle, which means that you've got to appear before the Black God with all the blood on you, because the blood you shed fighting is all the purification you need. It's good that you don't need a ritual cleaning, since I'd probably botch that, and I'd probably be the only one around to do it for you. I'll get you cremated, though. Don't you worry about that."
Gazing into Nadir's face, which was softer than it had been since childhood, as death robbed him of the hardness that he had been taught from birth to have, Zahir found that he couldn't feel foolish for talking to a dead person as though the corpse could hear and comprehend him.
"Good game, cousin," he continued, swallowing the mountain that had abruptly formed in his throat. "Nobody could say that you didn't put everything you had into it, and there were plenty of times when you almost outsmarted me. Truly, you were a wonderful match. Even if you lost in the end, the next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing. I was just the lucky one, and you were the loser. That's how destiny decided it would be, but it could have gone either way."
As he stared into Nadir's face, Zahir was struck by how similar the two of them really were. Both of them had the same confident dark eyes, the same strong nose, the same stubborn chin, and the same smooth black hair and matching skin. When they stood next to each other, they would have been not even an inch different in height, and they both were slight, having to rely on footwork rather than brute force in a fight. Numbly, he thought that both of them were what people described as handsome. Really, when it came down to it, there were so few physical differences between them that they could have been mistaken for brothers.
Oh, but they hadn't been brothers. Ever since he was born, Nadir had been raised to hate Zahir's father, just as Zahir had been brought up to hate his uncle Kamal. When he was little, Nadir had probably been told stories of the injustices that Zahir's father had committed against Kamal, just as Zahir had tales of Kamal's villainy pounded into his head when he was a child.
Resentment had been bred into both of their bones, and it had stunted both of their growths. The same poisonous feud that had killed Alhaz and Kamal had murdered Nadir, as well, because neither Nadir or Zahir had thought to really question what their fathers had taught them. Both of them had been convinced on their fathers' words that they deserved to be chief. Both of them had been so absorbed with following in their fathers' shoes that neither of them had considered that they might just be standing in their fathers' shadows. Both of them just didn't want to disappoint their fathers. Both of them were nothing more than prideful fools.
Zahir had only been lucky enough to be born the son of the chief, instead of the son of the challenger, but that was only an accident of birth, and, when he looked at it in that light, he couldn't begrudge his cousin for fighting against that.
After all, in Nadir's position, he would have done the same thing, because he and Nadir really were no different. They were just two fatherless boys who had dedicated their lives to avenging the murders of their fathers and to fulfilling their fathers' legacies. They were just two teenagers who wanted vengeance and to make their fathers proud of them at whatever cost to their souls. They were not evil so much as they were haunted by fathers that wouldn't die in their memories, and they might have been bent on one another's destruction, but that wasn't something they had chosen for themselves. Indeed, they would probably have been allies if their fathers hadn't taught them to be enemies, because that was how much power fathers had to ruin lives.
"There you are." A palm rested on Zahir's shoulder, breaking him out of his maudlin musings, and he looked up to see his knightmaster standing behind him. "I've been searching all over for you."
"Now you've found me, sire," Zahir ground out, swiping away the tears that had fallen unbidden down his cheeks when he had been studying his cousin's body, because he didn't want the king to spot his weakness. "Will you please leave me alone now? I've done my duty by passing judgment on Nasira and tending to the wounded. Can't I be allowed some privacy to mourn my cousin at last?"
"You know that you would have been forced to kill Nadir for treason if he hadn't been slain in battle," stated King Jonathan gently. "In a way, it was a mercy that you didn't have to do the deed yourself."
"Dead is dead, and I killed him indirectly even if I didn't so directly." Miserably, Zahir shrugged. "Maybe I would even feel less horrible if I had actually killed him myself. At any rate, I couldn't possibly feel any worse than I do now."
"People who would overthrow you cannot be permitted to live, Squire." The king's hand tightened on his shoulder.
Refusing to be comforted, Zahir demanded, "Why? What makes me so fit to be chief anyway? Is it the fact that my father was one, and his father before him, and his father before him back until even the village story teller doesn't remember a time when my family wasn't in charge of this tribe? That's ridiculous. Just because your father was a good ruler, that doesn't mean you'll make a skilled leader. Just as there are some people whose fathers were carpenters who couldn't hammer in a nail if their lives depended on it, history is filled with absolutely insane kings who got the throne just because it had belonged to their fathers. The present king of Maren is proof positive of that."
"Most people whose fathers are carpenters learn woodwork, and most people whose fathers are leaders learn how to rule," King Jonathan reminded him.
"If it's learned, it's not some divine right," argued Zahir. "If it's not some divine right, how can I blame my cousin for challenging it when I would have done the same in his position?"
"That's a dangerous line of questioning, Zahir. People have lost their heads over less seditious notions than that," his knightmaster educated him sharply. "Besides, when governments are overthrown, periods of dreadful violence follow, and those times of tumult generally end with a regime even more oppressive than the previous one. If you want to change government effectively, you have to change the law through legal means, and, if you want to grant more power to the masses, you have to educate them if you hope to avoid chaos. That's one of the reasons my wife have founded so many schools."
"Just because what I said is dangerous doesn't mean it's wrong," countered Zahir mutinously.
"Squire, you are fortunate that I will put your insolence down to grief," King Jonathan remarked curtly.
Zahir opened his mouth to assert that the king could put his insolence down to common sense instead when he suddenly forgot what he had intended to say, and, after a second of struggling to remember what he had intended to announce, he shut his mouth again. Tendrils of luminescence were weaving their way gingerly into his mind, stroking away the knots of rage and grief, and leaving behind soft waves of serenity.
For a moment, Zahir allowed his brain to be massaged. Then, it occurred to him to question what was happening. As soon as he did so, a dreadful suspicion filled him. Furious at this latest betrayal, he shoved the strands out of his mind with a prodigious effort. As he pushed the threads of magic out of his brain, he pulled free of his knightmaster's grip on his shoulder, snapping, "Don't touch me."
"Zahir—" The king began, but Zahir couldn't bear to hear him complete the sentence.
"I trusted you," he hissed in a strangled voice. "You took advantage of that to just slip into my brain and manipulate my feelings. My head is the only place that's truly my own, but I guess one of the problems with you being the king and the Voice is that you don't think the privacy of the people beneath you matters very much. You think you have a right to know exactly what your subjects are thinking and feeling when you don't, and you certainly don't have the right to control what goes on in people's heads, but I suppose if you can't use your charisma to manipulate people, you'll employ magic to do it."
"You said that you trusted me," answered King Jonathan, reaching out to rest his hands on Zahir's shoulders, but seeming to realize that his squire would just twist away, and lowering his arms to his sides again. "Then you should accept that I had your best interests at heart when I tried to lessen your grief. The last time your emotions got the better of you like this, you almost killed yourself, and I'd rather that didn't happen again."
"You didn't have the right to just decide what was in my best interests." Still outraged, Zahir emitted a derisive snort. "I'd rather not pretend that my cousin's death didn't occur, and I'd rather be depressed than happy because of some sick magic you worked on my mind, thanks for asking. Oh, wait, you didn't ask, and that's the problem. Working magic on someone without their consent is a crime, after all."
"The law allows parents to have healing magic—a rather broad category of spells—to be worked on their children without the children's permission, and, in this instance, the law permits knightmasters to stand in the place of parents." The king dismissed his objection brusquely, and Zahir could have kicked himself for bringing up legalities to someone who spent his life worrying about the intricacies of government. "Whether you want to accept it or not, Squire, I have legitimate authority over you. Just because you do not approve of how I wield that authority doesn't mean that I have abused it."
"Of course, it's all about authority." Zahir nearly choked on his bitterness. "It's all about control, isn't it? It's all about convincing yourself that you know what's best for somebody else, and so it's perfectly fine to deny that individual the opportunity to choose for himself. Well, I've seen that sort of authority used by fathers all my life. I know it's that kind of control that's going to leave Aasim with a massive scar down his arm, because he's never been allowed by his father to even think about becoming anything other than a brave little warrior, and now, even though he just turned eight, that's all he wants to be. I know that's the sort of authority that made Nadir sacrifice everything in a failed attempt to be chief, because the only dreams he was permitted to have were those of his father. I know it's that kind of authority that pushed Nasira into an abusive marriage. I know that's the sort of control that still binds me to my father in more ways than I can bear to think about. That's the kind of authority that both nourishes and destroys everything it touches, and I'll never let myself fall victim to it again."
"Authority properly used only nourishes and doesn't destroy. Zahir, my goal is to teach you, not to control you." For a minute, his knightmaster hesitated. "You seem to need and want to be left alone right now, so I'll leave you be."
After that, Zahir heard King Jonathan's shoes crunching in the sand as he departed. Then, he was alone with his guilt and his grief. At least, it was dark enough that he could no longer see Nadir's corpse, for that would probably be too much for him to bear at the moment.
Of course, he didn't want to think too much about the fact that the night had swallowed Nadir's body entirely. After all, that would remind him too much of how the dark always won every battle because the dark was both powerful and patient, seeding cruelty into justice, contempt into compassion, and possessiveness into love.
The dark, he recognized, could afford to be patient, because it was eternal, and it could wait for the slightest drop of rain that would cause those seeds to sprout, for the dark understood that inevitably the rain would come, and the seeds would grow. After all, the dark was the soil in which the seeds were planted, it was the clouds that hovered above them, and it lurked behind the sun that provided the seeds with the light they needed to survive. The dark's patience was everlasting, because, eventually, even stars flickered out.
"You should join Hassan and me for supper, brother," said Laila's quiet voice from beside him, and he started, surprised that he wasn't as alone as he had believed himself to be. Aisha would have teased him for this, but his older sister only went on, "It's cold out here."
"I'm watching the stars," Zahir told her. "I'll come in later."
"You aren't looking at the stars," demurred Laila, laying a comforting hand on his sleeve. "You're staring at the black spaces between the stars, Zahir, and that scares me. It's the stars that are uplifting, and the spaces in between which are depressing."
"It's difficult not to look at the dark spaces in between when the spaces are so much larger," Zahir grunted.
"Oh, but the stars are so shiny that they steal the show for themselves. Beauty trumps size in the eyes of most mortals." Gingerly, Laila's fingers squeezed his. "In the heart of the dark's strength, you see, is its greatest weakness: one lone pinprick of light is enough to hold it at bay, for if there is any light at all, the darkness isn't complete, and so has lost to the light. That's why if you find the world too dark you have to be a candle, brother."
Considering this, Zahir chewed on his lip. Taking advantage of his silence, Laila commented, " We can cremate Nadir together tomorrow. Now, to celebrate our reunion, Zahir, I have made your favorite meal. You don't want it to get cold while we stand out here, do you?"
"Absolutely not," Zahir admitted, as his stomach made its opinion plain with a loud grumble. As he walked hand in hand with his sister back to Hassan's tent, he thought that love was far more than a candle. Love could ignite the stars, and it wouldn't just endure as long as life did; it would renew life. The power of darkness was nothing next to the strength of love.