A Tale of Two Sorcerers - Sinister Cutlass (good books to read for adults .txt) 📗

A Man Called Destane

A week before the sultan's salon, Malakeh Anvari - that woman of high, fine features - woke from her afternoon sleep. This was a summertime ritual for all those who lived in the Seven Deserts. Across her bedroom wall, the sunlight fell, deepening through orange into scarlet. She looked to her side, and found she was alone in her bed. Maziyar had gone, and Malakeh remembered why. Her stomach sickened.

 

He had gone out because of her, and because of what she had suggested he do. Malakeh feared he would not come back... though she had not shared this with her husband.

 

Even in the summer heat, as she drew on an elegant, violet caftan, Malakeh felt very cold.

 

She flowed to her children's bedroom, and shook her boys, Mehrzad and Hadi, awake. She left her infant daughter, Aleia, for the maidservant to feed later. Strange how waiting for calamity is so quiet and so ordinary, she thought, bitterly.

 

The young servant now sat in the internal courtyard, chewing her meal, a sheen of sweat on her face. She had thrown open the blue, wooden shutters of Maziyar's house, allowing the smell of cooking to waft in from other houses. She had set the Anvari's low, sandalwood table with a large bronze platter of saffron rice, grilled lamb, and vegetables.

 

Malakeh knelt wordlessly with her sons around the maid's handiwork. She looked at the boys: her eldest, clever Mehrzad, at six, and little Hadi, at four, so eager to please. Maziyar's sons; his heirs, meant to grow up in his image, with his guidance. Malakeh was putting it all on the line... everything she and her husband were working for. It was a risk they had to take... she just hoped it was worth it.

 

"Is Dad already working again?" Mehrzad inquired, his face falling. "I know two verses of the poem now. I wanted to do it for him..."

 

Malakeh looked at her son, and over her eyes, whose shape a jeweler could have cut, was cast a cloud of concern.

 

"Perhaps tomorrow, Mehrzad... if tomorrow comes. Just eat now."

 

The boy looked at her oddly, before starting into his meal.

 

Meanwhile, the marketplace was just starting to fill up again. The luxurious, post-sleep calm hung about like a blanket around the shoulders. There was only a trickle of merchant chatter in the usually hive-like marketplace. Three hooded figures secreted through twisting streets, past green displays of fruit, colorful folded fabrics, and profusions of bronze lanterns with jewel-red and -green glass panes.

 

Merchants ignored the figures – one heavy one in white, two slimmer ones in dark gray – once it was clear they weren't shopping. The figures passed the coffeehouse, with its large fir wood lattice window, and the inviting smell of a fresh brew drifting through the arched doorway. Shops became fewer and fewer as they walked, before they found their junction.

 

Just before the three turned into a little alley, where sand piled up in the cracks and corners, they passed a lean man relaxing in a carved chair in the shade of an awning. The man was in his 40's, with wiry, pepper-and-salt stubble. He watched the sun slide by, and listened to younger merchants laughing and talking and agonizing about things that didn't matter. In the dark of his shop behind him, stout clay pots full of plants and powders lined the walls, and clusters of roots and bulbs hung from the ceiling. Sometimes, male clients joined him in a back room, where the man took out a collection of smooth, brightly hued stones, and arranged them in inscrutable patterns over the client's bare chest, while cedar wood burned in a small bowl.

 

The man noted the mysterious threesome: how they slunk by, keeping their features vague, and how they turned the corner with clearly only one destination in mind.

 

The man sighed, and got out of his chair to see how his neighbor received the three men.

 

Before a pale, sand-blasted wooden door in a sagging structure of pocked plaster, the three appeared to debate among themselves – perhaps about the merit of their pursuit, the older man thought – before one of the men in gray stepped forward, raised a hand glinting with garnet rings, and rapped on the door. An insolent silence followed his entreaty. Irritated, the man in gray brought his knuckles to the wood once again and rapped harder. Still, no one answered him.

 

The shopkeeper chose to speak up, suggesting they try the public house. The three turned sharply, studying him with narrowed gaze, but he merely shrugged and said, "He often goes there," before returning to his chair, thinking he would let them get on with the inevitable. The three swept by without sparing him a glance, and the old man wondered, with rapidly waning interest, how his disreputable neighbor would toy with the foolish three.

 

There was a public house a short walk hence. The man with the rings led them down a narrow, dusty stone stairwell, the temperature dropping perceptibly as they went. He pulled aside a curtain, revealing a dim, womb-like haunt. A few brass lamps glowed above a man preparing concoctions. The odor offended the heavy man's abstinent sensibilities, ground into him by force of pious, manly father. From a sea of narrow, octagonal wood tables winked the light of candles, making silhouettes of their hunched, shady occupants.

 

With a little thrill, the heavy man marveled that this was what dissipation looked like. Lone men nursed drinks and scads of friends chatted, while one pair played chess with goblets placed nearby. The noise was all enveloping. The second man in gray whispered, from under a large brown moustache, to his companions: "This is suitably private."

 

They wound their way through the morass, scanning faces, until the man with rings suddenly drew their attention to a single figure in a cobwebbed corner, who brooded over his own cup, beyond the flicker of a single oil lamp.

 

"That's him?" Jabril scoffed under his breath.

 

"Oh, surely not," Adhemar murmured. "He's dreadfully young for his reputation."

 

Maziyar was already striding towards the man's table.

 

The man at the table was perhaps in his late twenties, was lean, and had a short bob of black hair slightly wild from years of running hands through it. He clasped a goblet, intensely studying its embossed patterns. His brown eyes were sharp and angular. His V-shaped jaw, and the pained, wry smirk cleaving it might have been cut from glass. Maziyar put his hands in front of him, pressing his fingertips into the tabletop. The young man slowly lifted his head, and any irritation he might have expressed, dissembled into livid shock as soon as he saw Maziyar's face.

 

The young man looked away quickly, gathering his thoughts. A smile curled the corners of his mouth.

 

Jabril was confused. Adhemar was disturbed. He took hold of his younger brother's arm, but Maziyar jerked it free. He wouldn't be derailed from his task. He began the way he had planned to: "You are the magician known as... 'Destane', correct?"

 

"Yes, yes, I am," the smug young man answered, in a daze of happiness. "And how may I help you?"

 

Maziyar paused. "I'm sorry," he said. "Do you know me? Because I don't know you."

 

"No, of course you wouldn't," replied Destane, laughing softly at some private joke. By way of explanation, he added, quickly, "But a sorceror must travel, and be acquainted with different cultures. I've read some of your writings on Ramadiya,... and, yes, yes, it was you who I believe I saw in the archive one day."

 

"Ah," commented Maziyar, still a bit confused, but unmistakably flattered.

 

Adhemar still watched Destane carefully, searching for conclusive evidence of dishonesty.

 

"I would like proof that you are who you say you are," Jabril interrupted.

 

"You would, would you?" Destane inquired, accepting the challenge. With a flourish, he reached for the oil lamp, his right hand suddenly gloved. He grinned manically at the three, and pressed his finger to the lamp's bumpy metal surface.

 

The small flame leaped monstrously into a large undulating blade of white light, edges glowing blue. Maziyar and his company shied away from the sudden wave of heat. Smirking, Destane removed his finger. The flame extinguished, then reignited once again at an ordinary size. Destane repossessed his goblet, the glove blinking out of existence as he did so. The three government men were speechless.

 

Adhemar noted a thin odor, reminiscent of a humid reptile house. He observed that this was not the smell of burning lamp oil. On his travels far from Agrabah in service as Talal's ambassador, he had heard stories told of magic and its practitioners, but no one had ever hinted that you could smell magic! Despite himself, Adhemar was fascinated. He wondered if all sorcerors were forced to work enveloped by such a fetid stench, or if this was only intrinsic to Destane's magic? Unfortunately, the sorceror cut short Adhemar's excited reverie.

 

"Now," said Destane, all business. He took a swig from his goblet. "Have a seat."

 

Admiration evident on his face, Jabril seated himself, and Maziyar followed, looking quite pleased. At last deciding to humor Destane, Adhemar elegantly folded himself into the third seat.

 

Destane began: "Why have you come to me, today?"

 

Maziyar half-turned, and murmured to Adhemar and Jabril, "He'd do nicely. Don't you think?"

 

"Yes, I probably would," Destane responded impatiently, before either Adhemar or Jabril could comment. "What is it you want?"

 

Jabril issued him a further challenge. "We serve the sultan, and we'd like to change that arrangement," he said, his crescent-moon eyebrows climbing high on his forehead.

 

Destane's face split in a cunning smile.

 

"You've come to the right place," he said. His voice crept smoothly, like a cat, rising to preen coyly. "Not only do I have the capabilities you seek, I also couldn't care less who has the throne of Agrabah. So I will gladly help you reorder things. With whom do you intend to replace Talal Sayegh?"

 

Maziyar dropped one beringed hand on Jabril's ample shoulder, while he placed the other over his heart (privately, Adhemar found this gesture a mite too theatrical, but sufficient). Maziyar inclined his head, and pronounced, "Our dear friend, Jabril ibn Saddaq Halabi, son of the great war hero who conquered the Land of the Black Sand."

 

Jabril smiled with pleasure, before Destane scoffed. The heavy man's round eyes bulged, before narrowing dangerously.

 

Destane laughed until he saw Jabril's expression, then began waving his hands like white flags. "Oh-, no-" he managed, gasping with laughter. "I meant no disrespect; I'm sure you're quite worthy."

 

Jabril was not comforted.

 

"What I find amusing," the sorcerer clarified, waving a trembling index finger, "is your characterization of the Land of the Black Sand as 'conquered'. Yes, Ahsa Asmara answers only to Agrabah, but one outpost on the edge of that region does not qualify as mastery over the strange, wonderful creatures and alien peoples that I'm sure must live there."

 

The sorcerer's index finger folded, and for a moment, he was transported. Then he shook his head in disappointment, spitting: "So like a bureaucrat to exaggerate for his master, and peddle lies unquestioningly."

 

A muscle twitched in Maziyar's cheek. He'd just been getting to like this young man... Adhemar rolled his eyes, and laid a hand on his brother's arm. Maziyar reluctantly stilled.

 

Adhemar smoothed over Destane's jab with, "Well, perhaps when your initial work for us is done, we will contract your services as an official ethnographer for the new regime…" He turned to Jabril and added, "…with the sultan's blessing, of course."

 

"Mmmm, yes… that reminds me," Destane began, drumming his fingers on the table. "What were you planning on offering me for making Jabril the sultan?"

 

Maziyar started, and again, Adhemar touched his arm. Maziyar's coffee-black eyes flashed resentfully at his older brother. Adhemar