Chapter 28
A red and ivory domed sandstone ziggurat rises from the arid dirt, ivory columns reaching upwards over the west quarters of the city. Yabghu waves at it, as I limp alongside him.
‘White-Pillar is the administrative structure of Za’skar’s military affairs and postings,’ he explains. ‘Beware. It’s guarded by the ganj from curfew until sunrise, in imitation of the serpents guarding the royal treasuries. Only assigned warriors are permitted to be inside.’
As if to make this point, we shiver past a leathery serpent coiled around the copper gates.
One week has passed since the Duxzam. Fayez was demoted to Fourth-Slash, no longer captain.
Yabghu’s khanjar glistens with five marks – now a Fifth-Slash.
As we cross into White-Pillar, different warriors greet Yabghu, including Adam, Lukhman and Dil-e-Jannah.
Strangely, instead of skipping past me, they nod, clawed hand up, with sayings of death and peace. I halt.
‘What’s the matter?’ Yabghu turns.
‘Nothing,’ I mutter, but the shock of their greetings sweeps through me; it should not please me.
Yabghu drops me at a wide gold hall with a bone-stone vaulted plaque that reads:
BUREAU OF SPECIAL ASSIGNMENTS.
Inside the administrative chamber, my body throbs from the toll of the spiritual cleanse I had that morning at the hands of Qabl monks. The officer nods to me and I sit on my knees before her floor-desk. My eyes stray to the corner. The fabric of space ripples. A shadow writhes and eyes glow—
‘Usur-Khan.’
‘Yes?’
‘I was saying, you are going to bleed upon my parchments.’
‘Forgive me,’ I murmur, and lean back, touching the bandage around my temple.
The officer returns with a scroll. ‘Are you sure this assignment was your stake?’
‘Yes, my officer. I asked for Fayez’s highest-ranked military assignment.’ My ribs constrict. Had Fayez retracted his stake? Impossible, given the Heavenly Oath.
‘Your Duxzam was rather pointless. According to the scroll, you were chosen for this assignment months ago.’
‘What?’
She smooths the yellow parchment on the cedar table. There, in stark calligraphy, is the faded soot ink of my name, and a wax seal by a senior officer named Adel in a cuneiform of three ravens.
‘No,’ I say louder. ‘Why would they approve me for a high-ranked assignment? I am only a First-Slash.’
She shakes her head. ‘Missions are divided into several constituents. The superiors assigned Fayez for this, but that does not mean low-ranks cannot play a part. Every mission needs translators, pages, cryptographers – these smaller auxiliary roles are given to promising low-ranks as a test of their potential. A scholar must have written a favourable rank report and recommended you after the Marka. You were to be briefed end of this month, a standard practice. But regardless, you are here now.’ Still smiling, she drips wax, confirming my placement.
I am an Azadnian. They would never approve me so soon. With trembling hands, I grip the parchment. If I had known, I would not have—
Destroyed myself. I grow light-headed, nearly falling over. I am unable to stop staring at the parchment.
The officer bolts forward. ‘Usur-Khan?’
Then new footsteps. And a familiar voice repeats the question, stirring my anger. ‘First-Slash, are you well?’
How can this be?
‘First-Slash, your martial-vizier is asking, are you well?’
My gaze flickers up in slow realisation.
Above, the Sepāhbad cocks his head as if he is concerned, his hand outstretched like a false promise. But there is something gathered in that expression. What, I am not sure. The bone-pendant at his throat winks between us, catching the filtered light from the balcony.
‘Are you well,’ I repeat in a daze. His hand moves closer, and I force myself to take it, his skin calloused and warm. I bow my head. ‘I am well, my Sepāhbad.’
It must have been him. He gazes at the scroll between my fingers, lips turning up almost knowingly. ‘You look unwell.’
I can only stare, reducing my face to something cold. Anyone may mistake the Sepāhbad’s expression for one of genuine regard, but I do not. My liver roils at a new fear: the Sepāhbad did this. But why?
He drops my hand and I tap the parchment. ‘I earned an assignment. For that, I am pleased.’
He nods slowly and returns to the officer.
At his back, I bid farewell: ‘Blessings of death upon you,’ my words as clear and true as the promise of Paradise’s rivers to martyrs. For once I mean the salutation. My blessings are only disguised curses.
Ten soldiers in auxiliary roles are granted access to White-Pillar briefing chambers, across from the Sepāhbad’s intelligence complex. In the eve, senior officers direct our gazes to the goatskin map pasted against the walls.
Officer Samira says to us, ‘Your posting will be north of Ghaznia province in the mining borderlands.’
I reel back at the circle of fate – to return to the place that brought me here.
She points to the map. ‘Ghaznia province is located south of Arsduq prefecture in Azadniabad. The Black Mountains are a natural border, leading to the alpine pastures of the Camel Road. All of you will pose as labourers in these borderlands under the ortoq-caravan Dhab-e, to trace the disappearances of our villagers from the five settlements here, and the three there,’ she says, guiding on the map.
‘The bulk of vanished workers were either semi-pastoralists or miners under Dhab-e.’
The ortoq trade once consisted of aristocrats selling goods to peripheral governorships along caravan routes between Sajamistan and Azadniabad.
‘In the past six months, villagers have disappeared from schools and monasteries in Ghaznia province and the western Camel Road, along with many labourers in the onyx mines. At first, there were excuses about collapsed mines or illnesses, but the pattern correlates with raids along the settlements, near Arsduq, connecting up to the north-east Izur prefecture in Azadniabad. Our troops’ presence grows.
If this continues, an invasion is the only option.
We’ve sent spies to two mines on our north-western border.
For this assignment, we are sending ten informants to infiltrate Dhab-e’s recruitment of miners from northern Sajamistan into Azadniabad.
Each of you will be assigned to a high-rank—’
Arsduq is the prefecture where Yun, my half-sister Bavsag and other Zahr clansmen reside. If the disappearances continue, Sajamistan would invade through Arsduq, into Izur. In fact, an invasion is the likely outcome.
My thoughts flatten. I have no choice. I must learn every name of Za’skar’s informants in the mines to pass to my clansmen; even the positioning of their border troops.
The officer continues to tap at the map. On it, three bases are outlined with embossed circles, and troop routes are indicated in red streaks. The officer distributes scrolls containing the command signals, the defensive plans in the event of a raid and our covers as infiltrates.
I lean my back against the wall, legs trembling. If I do not warn the Zahrs about this infiltration, then an invasion into our eastern and northern prefectures would finish any stronghold we have left. I must warn them – the only leverage for my clan.
But I’d have no choice except to defect from Za’skar as soon as I am on this assignment.
To home. But resisting that comfort is a cruel truth.
My mind darts to my trifecta, and then to the pazktab students, wondering what they will think when they learn of my true nature – that I used and discarded them.
My chest clenches before cold hands grip my shoulder, No-Name frowning. ‘You cannot have doubts now, not after your sacrifices.’
I clutch my conviction closely. You owe this city nothing.
The officer finishes by holding up a thumb-sized pouch. ‘Powdered azhdahak poison. One lick and you die in the event of capture.’ I cannot mention that I am immune to it.
As the assigned warriors depart, I catch sight of Scholar Mufasa outside the chambers, holding a stack of scrolls near a leathery map decorating the sandstone corridor.
It’s of the Camel Road, heavily marked with cuneiforms of traded goods. Silver and glasswork, pistachio and sesame, silk, and steppe-camels, in pictorial drawings along the inked thoroughfare.
My thumb rubs against the dark lines of Sajamistan’s borders, stark, unyielding. If any calligrapher attempted to blot it from existence, they would find the task impossible.
Scholar Mufasa scrunches his forehead. ‘Usur-Khan.’
‘Peace of death,’ I greet.
The scholar follows my gaze to the map. ‘You embark on your first military assignment, so study this map well. It reveals Azadniabad’s constant weakness: its peripheries. Holding on to the Camel Road is the adhesive binding their economy together.’
I stare at Yalon, but on the leather, it’s a province of Sajamistan. Once, it was the Zahr winter capital. ‘It could also be lies. Maps seem to be very different interpretations of a story.’
He chuckles. ‘Maps show that an empire-state’s true borders represent an end to expansion. Azadniabad dares call itself sovereign, with no provinces and hardly any unified governors. But a true state has no need to war within itself. Isn’t that how Akashun came to power, from infighting warlords?’
Conflicts that Sajamistan stoked, I almost hiss.
But a small begrudging part of me acknowledges the sense.
Sajamistan inks arbitrary lines upon a map, allocates their sovereignty and names it for themselves.
Borders are spaces, they are barriers on maps.
People do not know they live in cages, yet each day, by pen and paper, they choose them willingly.
The entire notion confuses me, but if it’s so wrong, why is Sajamistan superior in every way to Azadniabad? Perhaps Azadniabad should do this too.
‘What is the point of this, scholar?’