Although he was particularly skilled at keeping himself hidden, the masked man discovered quite quickly that Saeed and his child had no similar skill set. Even when he instructed Saeed to hide beneath his bed when he was summoned before the Shah that day he seemed incapable of hiding himself. Or being quiet, for that matter. He was certain the guard had heard the man.
The Shah was in a particularly foul mood that day. He did not greet the man as he entered, nor did he even look at him.
"I've got a task for you," he said lazily. "There's a new resident waiting in the north tower. He was found guilty of setting another man's home on fire. Two slaves were killed in the blaze. Take him to the cell on the top floor. When you've got him locked up, dispose of the two men in on the floor below him. Your payment is waiting with the guard at the tower."
The man in the mask immediately knew something was off, but he chose not to react. Perhaps Saeed would be proven wrong. Perhaps the Shah could still be trusted. Perhaps…
The man walked swiftly to the tower, the punjab lasso and the very same knife the Shah had given him years ago hanging from his belt.
As the Shah's mercenary, he'd been charged with the responsibility of finding new and interesting ways to end the lives of his enemies. He'd taken this responsibility to an extreme and put the skills he'd learned from reading countless books in the Shah's library to work. The north tower was no longer something he feared— how could he, when he was the only one who knew how to navigate it without falling victim to one of the many traps he'd laid— but rather somewhere he had begun to enjoy spending time.
There was a lone guard at the base of the staircase, and he did not acknowledge the masked man as he entered. He'd come to expect to be treated as such; after he became the Shah's mercenary the only ones who would acknowledge his presence were the Shah and the palace's many slaves. Unless he sought someone out and asked them a direct question, those around him pretended he didn't exist.
In the north tower, this had worked to his advantage. One of his earliest traps, a very large hole in the stairs that he had widened so as to make completely impassable, had claimed the life of one of the Shah's police. After that, it had become common practice to have the mercenary also escort prisoners to their cells to await their eventual executions.
Such was the case with the man he found bound at the wrists just inside the tower.
"Up," he barked, nudging the prisoner with his foot. Instead of standing, the man stared up at him in horror.
"I never meant for anyone to die," the prisoner whimpered as the masked man yanked him to his feet by the arm.
"Your intentions do not matter," replied the mercenary. "Climb the stairs."
The man struggled against his restraints and the man's grip on his upper arm. That was when the mercenary calmly pulled his knife and pressed the tip of it to the prisoner's throat.
"You will walk to your cell without fighting or you will become just another stain on the floor," said the mercenary. The man became quite rigid when he felt the blade against his skin. "Which will it be?"
It was only then that the prisoner caught sight of the glowing yellow eyes that peered out from behind an ornate black scarf.
"What are you?" the prisoner whimpered. Those yellow eyes flashed with anger and the next thing he knew the prisoner found himself hitting the stairs with enough force to break one of his arms. He howled in pain as the mercenary pulled him back to his feet.
"I am death," the mercenary hissed into the prisoner's ear. "Now climb."
The pair climbed in relative silence, punctuated only by the occasional pained whimper from the prisoner as his broken arm was jostled about. Once they reached the top landing, the mercenary threw the prisoner into his cell and slammed the door with a flourish. He knew he wouldn't need to lock it. He'd made certain to leave a few parts of his less-than-lethal traps visible, and there was no way someone with legs shorter than the mercenary's would be able to cross the hole in the stairs that had already claimed one life.
As the mercenary descended the stairs, he removed the punjab lasso— a modified noose made from catgut that had been his weapon of choice over the course of his career— from his belt and loosened the knot on the scarf that covered his face. He wouldn't remove it, not until he was watching the life drain from the first doomed prisoner's eyes.
The last thing they would ever see would be his wretched visage. Somehow, it felt a fitting end to a criminal's life.
He found the first one napping and disposed of him easily. His struggling and terrified gurgling alerted the prisoner in the next cell over to the presence of the angel of death. When he entered the second cell, he was met with a swift punch to the gut.
It wasn't the first time that someone he was paid to kill had taken him by surprise. Though the pain did temporarily distract him he was able to easily slip the noose over the prisoner's head. As the prisoner scrambled to escape, the rope tightened around his neck. He let out a terrible squawk as the mercenary jerked the rope back. The prisoner slumped forward. There was a sickening crack when his head hit the floor.
The mercenary was glad to be finished with the job. He was not looking forward to sneaking away from the palace that night with a possibly broken rib, however. You've got to be more careful, he scolded himself as he secured the punjab lasso to his belt once more and started down the stairs.
As he neared the bottom of the stairs, he slowed his pace and listened carefully. There was only ever one guard at the north tower. There had only been one when he'd gone up. Now he could hear at least six distinct voices. He stopped and hid in one of the many holes he'd carved out explicitly to use as hiding spaces as he heard the door to the tower open.
When he'd made his first kill in that tower so many years ago, you could enter the tower from multiple levels of the palace. Once he'd begun to fashion a death maze from the tower, the mercenary had ordered all entrances to the tower sealed save for the door that opened to the garden.
It was only now that he realized how foolish he had been. There was nowhere for him to go. He was trapped. With the Shah's police waiting for him at the base of the stairs, the man had to think fast. There would be no sneaking past them.
From where he stood, he had only two options. He could either try to scare them away or he could try to lure them up the stairs and into the maze of traps that awaited them there.
He cleared his throat and took a deep breath before throwing his voice and making it echo through the stairwell.
"Who dares to oppose the masked mercenary?" he demanded of them. The men at the bottom of the stairs fell deathly silent before one of them cried out.
"It's him!" There was the sound of flesh hitting flesh followed by a pained grunt, and then unnerved silence once more. The man in the mask waited and drank in their fear before finally speaking once more.
"I do not know who is more of a fool, the Shah or those who work for him. To think you stand a chance against a skilled killer is laughable. However, if you think you are my match, I invite you to come and find me."
Their hesitation made him laugh. The sound filled the stairwell, and the men at the bottom could've sworn it was coming from behind them. He heard the sound of the door opening and at least two of them fleeing as fast as their legs would take them, but he also heard the sound of a tentative set of footsteps approaching the stairs. Good, he thought. Let them see firsthand what it is to be killed by a monster.
"Come," he called. "Come to me, if you are not cowards. Come and meet death."
The one who had begun to ascend the stairs halted then, and the mercenary peered down at him from where he hid in the shadows. Come now, just climb up one step more and you shall serve as an example to all of your peers, he thought.
The officer did precisely as the mercenary wanted, and stepped directly on the trigger for one of his favorite traps. Quite suddenly, eighteen arrows launched at the man who'd triggered the trap from holes in the walls, ceiling, and even the steps on which he stood. He let out a tiny gurgle of surprise as his lungs filled with blood, and he collapsed backward down the stairs.
The other officers let out terrified shrieks as he landed in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs. The mercenary let out another dark laugh, expecting the officers to flee. It was then that he felt a terrible stabbing pain in his side, just below his ribs.
Two of the remaining officers had fled, but the third had remained and thrown a small knife into the darkness. It was then that the mercenary remembered the glow of his eyes and cursed his foolishness. He'd moved too far down the stairs. He was vulnerable.
He looked down at the knife that stuck in his flesh, and as his attention was pulled from the man at the base of the stairs, another knife flew past his head. It landed with a clatter on one of the steps behind him.
He turned and ran as the man began to climb the stairs, knowing that his traps should be able to take care of him. The officer managed to avoid the first few triggers he passed, but as he reached the third floor landing, he triggered two trip wires in fast succession. The mercenary had only a split second to turn and look before the officer was sliced to ribbons as five axes fell at him in fast succession. The mercenary was showered with the officer's blood as the axes hit their mark.
Pieces of the officer fell to the floor and tumbled down the stairs, and the mercenary kicked the rest of the body to the side, dodging the axes as they swung lazily back and forth. He was beginning to feel a bit lightheaded and he knew it was best to get himself out of immediate danger while he had the chance. He could barricade the door to his bedchamber and stitch himself up before deciding his next move.
But the sun was hot that day, and every step the man took jostled the knife and caused the wound to bleed more. He barely made it to the corridor outside of his bedchamber before he collapsed. The sound of his impact with the stone floor caught someone's attention, he was sure of it. He heard a door open and footsteps approaching him quickly.
"What has happened?" Saeed asked. He sounded positively horrified as he helped the mercenary up. "Oh no," he gasped when he saw the knife protruding from the man's gut coupled with the blood that thoroughly soaked the man's robes.
"We are not safe here," the mercenary said weakly. "We must get inside and block the door. I—" Pain tore through the whole of his body as Saeed pulled him to his feet. He cried out as the Persian practically dragged him into the bedchamber and dropped him unceremoniously on the bed.
He hadn't expected Saeed to do what he said, and certainly not as fast as he had. He was barking orders to Fautimeh as he pushed a heavy trunk across the floor to block off the door.
"We've got to get you stitched up," he said as he stacked books and a thin chair on top of the trunk. The mercenary wanted to ask Saeed exactly what he thought those small items would really do against the force of his former men when they came, but he couldn't catch his breath for long enough to form a coherent sentence. He merely nodded as Saeed approached him.
"Where do you keep your medical supplies?" The wounded man pointed to a chest of drawers near the balcony.
"Bottom drawer," he breathed, his face drawn up into a horrible grimace of pain. It was only as he heard Fautimah's gasp of terror that he realized he hadn't covered his face after killing the second man; the officers had distracted him.
He moved quickly to cover his face with one of the blankets from his bed, but Saeed tossed the blankets away as he worked to undo his robes and expose the wounds. He fought against the Persian's efforts, but the pain made it hard to focus.
"If you're going to live, you'll have to let me help you. It's not like I haven't seen you in such a state of undress before," Saeed said, rolling his eyes as he forced the man's hands away. He tore the fabric around the wound so he could peel it away without having to remove the knife. He knew he would have to work fast once the knife was out or the mercenary would bleed to death.
"I have to admit, I was certain that living in the palace would make you look less like a dead body, but you're as thin as you were when we found you on the roadside," Saeed commented as he readied his supplies.
"Get on with it," replied the wounded man. His vision was fading to an uncomfortable blackness that he didn't want to further explore.
"Once I've pulled the knife out, I'm going to sterilize the wound with alcohol. I want you to promise you're not going to kill me."
"Just do it already." There was an urgency and an animalistic anger to the man's voice that terrified Saeed. He took a deep breath to steady himself and wrapped his hand around the knife handle. With one swift motion, he pulled it out of the man's side. The howl that tore itself from the man's lungs would haunt him for the rest of his days, as would the choked cries that he gave as the alcohol made contact with his flesh.
"You're lucky," Saeed said as he picked up the needle and thread. "It's only a flesh wound."
Tears flowed freely from the deformed man's eyes as Saeed stitched him up. His breath came in short, pained gasps and his entire body trembled. He felt terribly cold, and Saeed noted that the man's skin felt colder than normal.
Once he was finished, Saeed helped the man out of the blood-soaked robes and covered him with blankets. Rather than leave him alone to rest, as was the man's only wish then, Saeed sat beside him.
"You can't fall asleep."
"My body betrays me."
"If you fall asleep, you may well die."
"Perhaps death would not be so bad." The pain was only then beginning to subside, and as he slowly numbed he felt himself drifting off to sleep. Saeed shook his shoulders and the wound throbbed painfully, bringing him back to consciousness if only for a few moments.
"You can't mean that."
"Ever since I was born, I have been treated like livestock. My mother sold me to that freak show when I was very small. I spent my childhood in a cage. I didn't learn how to speak properly until after you delivered me to the Shah so many years ago. No one had bothered to teach the monster." His breathing was labored, but he forced his voice to remain steady as he spoke. He watched the Persian as he recounted the miserable life that he had been cursed with, and he found that he could not identify the emotion he saw in his eyes.
"You are right, the circumstances of your life up until now have not been the best, but even a life filled with trials and pain is not worth giving up without a fight. I've seen how strong you are. To give up now—"
"Spare me your platitudes, Daroga," the deformed man hissed. Saeed stared at him in shock; he'd never used his former title with the man, nor had he heard him speak quite so harshly. He could tell that he was stabilizing, if only a little. "You can't truly believe there's a place out there where I'll be accepted. Where I can do something constructive that doesn't involve killing people for hire."
"You can't truly believe that there isn't such a place," Saeed replied, exasperated. "You've seen so little of the world, so little kindness… You can't judge life based on the terrible people you have been exposed to. And you can't give up on it because of a little pain."
"A little pain?" The mercenary glared up at the Persian. "I'm dying."
"You're not dying," Saeed assured him, patting his shoulder lightly. The mercenary cringed away from his touch. Saeed looked down at him curiously and was surprised to find fear in the man's eyes. He allowed his hand to linger on the man's shoulder a moment before pulling away.
"In all this time, you really haven't given yourself a name?" he asked, trying to calm the man down once more. The fear remained in the man's eyes, but his muscles relaxed at the question.
"What name does one so hideous as me deserve?"
"A strong name. One that will command respect."
"You are delusional, Daroga."
"You may call me Saeed."
"And you may call me Mawt."
"I am not calling you 'death'. You need a proper name."
The man sighed and pulled the blanket over his head, wishing desperately for the conversation to end. His head had begun to throb almost as painfully as the wound at his side. The darkness was soothing, even if he could feel himself beginning to suffocate after only a few moments. Saeed pulled the blanket away only moments later, and the deformed man inhaled sharply before hissing a string of curse words at the sudden, blinding pain of his skin stretching at the stitches.
"There must be another name you like," Saeed said. "What about Hassan?" The deformed man's eyes narrowed.
"I will not be called Hassan." Saeed couldn't understand the man's reaction, but he wasn't about to press the matter. "I will be called Wahs."
"You are not a monster and I will not call you as such."
"I am a hired killer. I make money off of death. What more is required to qualify as a monster?"
"Pick a different name," Saeed hissed. They both fell silent for a long, awkward minute.
"You told me not to allow anybody to force a name on me," the man said defiantly, breaking the silence. Saeed looked at him, stunned.
"How do you remember that?"
"It was one of the only kind acts that anyone as ever done for me. You told me then that I was not trash. I was worth enough to choose my own name."
"Well, yes, but you shouldn't choose to call yourself something demeaning."
"What would you propose I call myself, then?" the man asked, before quickly adding, "aside from Hassan?" Saeed thought for a moment before taking a deep breath.
"I have one name," he said quietly. "It is the name I was going to give to my son before he died at birth. You are under no obligation to use it, but I believe that Hesham would suit you."
He had no idea what to say. His own mother had been so repulsed by him that she had never been able to give him a name, yet this man who had seen him and seen what he was capable of was willing to give him a name he'd planned to give his own son.
His emotions must have shown through on his face, because Saeed's expression changed. It was almost sad.
"You honestly don't believe that you're worthy of a proper name?" he asked. The deformed man didn't reply. "Well you are wrong, my friend."
The deformed man stared up at Saeed, eyes wide. Nobody had ever called him that, not even Azadeh. He shook his head.
"No," he said, "We're not— I'm not— I can't be—" Saeed pressed his finger to the man's mouth to quiet him.
"You spared my daughter's life and you never looked upon me with fear, even when you believed you were to be sold into slavery."
"I am no one's friend," the deformed man replied, shying away from the Persian's touch. He turned his head away, closing his eyes. He wished that Saeed would just leave him alone. He needed rest if they were to escape that night. He was certain that the Shah knew what had happened by then. Their safe passage out of the palace was impossible to guarantee now.
How he'd convinced the Shah he was dangerous enough to warrant an attempt on his life, he couldn't understand, but now that he'd killed 'innocent' men, he was surely marked for death. With his injuries, he wasn't sure he could fight off an attack, and though Saeed had been involved in the Shah's police years ago, he wasn't sure that this aged man would stand a chance either.
He was torn from his thoughts by the warm, slightly rough touch of Saeed's hand against his cheek. He stiffened, inhaling sharply at the sensation. Saeed pulled his hand away for a split second before pressing his hand to the man's cheek once more and slowly pulling at him until their eyes met once more.
"Hesham," Saeed whispered. The deformed man began to cry once more at the sound of the name. His name. Gently, so incredibly gently that Hesham could not believe it was happening, Saeed pulled him up into a warm, soft hug.
He broke down into a blubbering mess at that moment, and sobbed himself into a stupor.