Ch 23

"Follow the sound of my voice…"

The Sultana spoke in a breathy whisper. She laughed at him before she disappeared from sight, taking her infinite reflections with her into hiding. For a moment Erik stood stock-still and listened to the mirrored door slide shut behind him. He waited for the sound of footsteps and the appearance of guards coming to take him away, but nothing happened.

She had brought him here to die. Death was the price of his insolence.

"This way, Frenchman," she commanded, the sultry tone of her voice turning harsh.

Erik dragged himself forward. There were candles placed throughout the Little Sultana's apartment where normally there were only smooth marble floors and columns reflecting the flames in the hearth and the torches along the walls.

None of it was visible past the high walls displaying his distraught face. Erik glanced at the mirrors on either side of his path and overhead. It gave the illusion that he was walking in a sea of fire.

There was no choice but to walk forward. Another door behind him closed and disoriented his perception. He was being driven ahead like a steer being coaxed to the killing shed.

"The palace is almost complete," the Sultana purred. Erik made a sharp turn toward the right. "Your uses here dwindle."

Erik stepped to the left. He reached out to what he thought was a mirror, but ran his fingers through flame. His breath hissed past his teeth as he maneuvered further into the maze. He knew where he was going. He had designed the labyrinth months ago.

"I can extend your stay and make it very pleasurable for you," the Little Sultana tempted. "Or I can destroy your life." Her voice deepened and grewq more distant. "It is your choice, Frenchman."

The mirrors formed a tunnel at the doorway. Erik hesitated. He had arrived at the room where he had constructed a torture chamber beneath the floor.

She had brought him to her bed chamber.

Erik squeezed his hands into fists. He needed to buy his time. "Tell me my choices again."

There was no answer in the mirrored hall. The candles flickering around him hissed as the evening breeze entered through an unseen window. He felt cool, salty sea air against the left side of his face. One by one the flames to his left sputtered and died leaving tendrils of smoke like little white ghosts in the air.

Another door slid shut to his right. The maze was becoming smaller. She was closing the cage. Slowly his eyes scanned the panels. There should have been a spring somewhere that would open a straight path to the outside.

"Do you like it, Frenchman?" the Sultana asked. She laughed to herself, a harsh sound that made his legs stiffen. "I changed a few of your plans, but for the most part it is an exact replica. It's quite exceptional, don't you think?"

She watched him from behind a glass panel, examining her prey ensnared in its own trap. Erik took a step back. He had counted his steps and noted every turn within the maze. Even if the walls shifted he was fairly certain he could find his way out again. He knew the number of turns the walls made and the pattern they followed to an exit.

"There are guards at my door," the Sultana said. "What do you think would be the punishment for a man seen leaving my quarters?"

"The consequences would be shared," Erik replied. "Would you risk something so foolish?"

She laughed at the futility of his words. "Frenchman, do you honestly think I am an ignorant woman? You underestimate my power and prowess. Come to me. Make your choice."

Erik's hand brushed against his right hip as he entered the bedchamber, fingers grazing the ivory guard of his dagger. The Sultana stood before him.

"Welcome," she said.

Her hand slowly raised, fingers stretching out as she motioned him forward. "You failed to amuse me in the maze. Entertain me a while," she said. Her voice dripped like honey into his mind, luring him to her.

A muffled shout turned his feet to lead. Erik looked around the open room and saw the familiar brass candleholders and gossamer curtains drifting in the sea breeze. Small silver beads that had been threaded onto the satin tiebacks created a soft ballad as the wind blew. Once the breeze settled the noises under his feet became more pronounced.

It was the sound of drums. Pounding. Erik's breath caught in his throat. The Sultana held someone captive in the torture chamber.

"I said entertain me a while," the Sultana said forcefully. Her jade eyes narrowed and the dagger she always carried flashed into view, its broad side reflecting the golden flames at his back. "Do you wish to know who I have within my grasp?" She tapped the rug with her toes. "Roll this back."

Erik looked from her to the woven rug covering the two-way mirror set into the floor. He swallowed hard and crouched down fearing who he would discover inside the torture chamber below.

There was a man wandering through the Steel Jungle. Erik recognized him immediately as one of the workers from the rock quarry. The man's shirtless back was red and blistered.

"He's lasted three days without food or water, but I believe he will break soon," the Sultana said.

This man was one of Erik's best workers. He came six days a week and labored from dawn until well after dusk to feed his five children. He was a good man, a hard worker. He was a man who would soon die in an apparatus Erik had built.

Fear diminished. Anger flared.

"What did he…" Erik glanced up and saw that the Sultana was gone. He rose to his feet sensing a trap. When the knife's tip pricked his lower back he froze. She was going to stab him in the kidneys.

"When I desire something, it becomes mine," the Sultana hissed. "I am obeyed. I am never denied and my words are not questioned. Do you understand?"

He nodded. The blade ripped through his shirt and lightly traced against his flesh. If she asserted more pressure it would cut him. If she allowed it to graze slightly higher it would softly caress. She balanced it well, maintaining a dangerous stroke between pleasure and pain.

The Sultana pressed the tip in the middle of his back, directly on his spine. Erik knew she wasn't going to kill him quickly. She was going to leave him paralyzed. She was a cat holding a mouse by its tail.

"You know what I want. Now turn and face me."

For the first time in three years, Erik saw the smile usually hidden beneath her veil. It was just as appalling as he had always assumed. Her lips were thin, her mouth hardened. She looked like a porcelain doll with flawless titian skin. It reminded him of how beautiful his grandmother had looked when she was laid out to rest, alarming yet alluring, drawing him back yet inching him forward. Even though Erik knew it would haunt him for the rest of his life he wanted to see more.

The Sultana stepped forward. Erik quickly remembered himself and looked away. She belonged to the Sultan. Gazing upon her was punishable by death, being in her apartments guaranteed execution, touching her—

"My husband is allowed many wives," the Sultana said as she stepped around to Erik's side. "As his favored wife, I am allowed to do as I wish except find my own pleasures on the nights my bed is cold."

He watched her from the corner of his eye. "That is customary in your kingdom."

"Customs do not satisfy me."

The Sultana held the blade to the back of Erik's neck. He pulled his shoulders up as the tip of the blade penetrated his skin and turned clockwise. The place where the cold steel had entered quickly became warm and wet with his blood. Erik stood very still, barely breathing through the deepening pain.

"I have watched you for the past three years, Frenchman. Every day I see you in the rock quarries or in the new apartments. Breathing, sweating, working…you're tireless. I admire a man with drive, with desire. It pleases me to watch you. You display great stamina."

Erik stared at the ground. It was unnerving that she had scrutinized him for so long. Women were not permitted near the rock quarries. They were not allowed to watch the men chiseling rock and hauling stone to the new palace.

"You fascinate me, Frenchman. Did you know that?"

He merely shook his head to acknowledge her words.

"During the day you work for the shah-of-shahs," she continued. "But my husband has agreed that after hours you belong to me."

Erik's eyes shot up and met her gaze. She returned a thin-lipped smile. "He knows I enjoy a little shiver," she assured him. She took the dagger and scraped the edge against the back of his neck before showing him the crimson pool resting on the broad side. Her finger slid down the blade and she rubbed his blood onto the palm of her hand. "Tell me, Frenchman, what can you do for me?"

Erik took a breath. "I—I would like to speak with the shah."

"He's with Gianna. It is best not to disturb him while he is preoccupied with his newest wife. The shah is old, not as virile as he was in his youth…not as fertile."

"He has twenty-seven children."

The Sultana turned the blade inward toward her wrist and touched the side of his face with her blood-stained fingernails. "He desires more children, especially from the womb of his favored wife."

Her words gave him goose bumps. There were too many hidden places in the palace for voices to be heard and trysts to be witnessed.

"Then I hope you give him another son," Erik said, his back straightening. He wanted to touch where the blade had made its incision but he didn't want to take his hand from the guard at his right hip.

The Sultana sighed. She played with her waist-length dark hair, raking her fingers through the pin-straight locks cascading over her shoulder. "There are pens and papers on my desk. I want to see the plans for the Garden of Death. Draw it while I bathe," the Sultana whispered.

"I'll take it to my—"

"Follow me," The Sultana said with a flick of her wrist. She sauntered away from him and dropped her deep red robe before she rounded the corner.

As much as it sickened him, Erik couldn't take his eyes away from her bronzed skin, generous curves, and the dagger she held at her lower back, the curved silver resting between her kidneys. He had never noticed that the bronze guard was in the shape of a scorpion's tail.

The Sultana glanced back at him once and turned the crimson-stained blade over in her hand. She pointed it toward him, lowering the sharpened tip at his groin.

"The poison from the scorpion works quickly," she said. "Disrobe. The anti-venom is in my bath."