Chapter 10: Chapter 9: “And the Blades Slither in the Dark”

Chapter 9: “And the Blades Slither in the Dark”

Tossing in her bed, Tamu did not feel right about how she and Arash had left things. She could not stop thinking of the last words they had exchanged, and then that of his uncle Sahar’s, when they had walked.

Wide awake, she glanced up past the many pillows with golden floral designs to the intricately framed windows. The moonlight, bright and silver, shone into her bed.

She was wide awake.

And I am doing nothing about what happened…

She could sneak out of her apartments easily, make her way to the stables where Achujam would be waiting for her.

Would the prince see her coming to him in the middle of the night to speak as an intrusion?

She bit her lip.

I should not.

She tried to imagine Arash—his face, and his reaction upon seeing her in his apartments. What was she wearing?

She glanced down.

A shift.

Her heart was beating fast.

Gods—this is so stupid.

Swallowing, she lifted herself up in her bed with her hands behind her and glanced about the silent chamber.

Then she made a noise of annoyance and distress, the knot in her stomach and in her throat threatening to overwhelm her as she got up.

While the princess Tamu paced about in her chambers, both chiding and spurring herself, the gossamer curtains within Arash Al Hamiroon’s apartments billowed softly into his rooms as the breeze brushed in from the cool blue night. In his bed, the prince tossed and turned, fitfully as a nightmare churned within his mind, his body glistening with sweat.

As the curtains fell back down to the floor tiles something moved underneath from the outside balcony, black and slithering.

It penetrated the chambers with ease, it’s form no more than that of a coiled thing moving silently across the floors.

Meanwhile, outside of the prince’s chambers Bahar picked up his robes, his heart beating fast as two servants of the house accompanied him. Behind them two men of the Imperial Guard in blue pantaloons and open jackets, their heads turbaned and their faces grim, eyes watchful, kept pace at the flank.

Swallowing, Bahar reached the prince’s doors where his guards stood. They looked at Bahar and he told them to stand firm and be ready—and their backs stiffened as they glanced about.

“Guards,” said he, “secure this door while we wake the prince.” They nodded their ascent to his orders dutifully, their grim faces moving as they glanced between each other with silent communication.

At his back, Mahdi and Ramin followed him into the vast chambers. Moving through the rooms, he swallowed again, realizing a cold sweat had formed on the back of his neck.

As he passed through the lounge, his eyes went to the windows instinctually, though within his mind he knew not why, as the fear of the situation gripped him, he moved his feet and picked up his robes.

Through the lounge he passed and into the bedchambers where the prince lay, he arrived. The lights were doused and the windows open, letting in silvery light from above that formed distinct squares onto the floors.

While Bahar approached the prince’s bed while flanked by that of Mahdi and Ramin—all of them holding candelabras that lighted their way with soft yellow hues, they saw not the slithering thing avoid them as it moved behind the wall furniture upon their right.

“Prince!” Bahar said. “Prince, you must awaken.”

Though the head servant hissed the words with some note of fear and concern laced within, Prince Arash did not stir. Bahar called out his name, then moved to the other side of the bed.

“Prince!”

He touched Arash’s shoulder and shook him awake.

When the Prince Awake, he blinked at the sleep hanging upon him. “Bahar?”

“Prince, we must go.”

“What?” he asked, rubbing his face. “Bahar, what is this about?”

“I do not rightly know, Prince Arash,” he breathed, “but there had been a disturbance in the palace and I was bidden to take you from your rooms. It is not safe here.”

Arash laughed. “Is this some kind of jest, Bahar?” he glanced to the other two servants who glanced between each other with worried eyes. “Tell me he is jesting.” But when they said nothing, he persisted. “Ramin. Mahdi—speak.”

The one called Mahdi nodded. “It is true, Prince Arash.”

“Come, my prince,” said Bahar. “The guards await at the door. We must go.”

Realizing there was no jest among his servants, Arash’s heart suddenly started thundering inside his chest. He nodded. “All right. Yes—all right.” He got up without delay. “Take me from—“

Something thumped to his left, and he and Bahar both turned their heads. It was Ramin, he had fallen over.

“Ramin!” Mahdi said, bending over the other man. “What is wrong? Get up. My prince—he is… he is not moving!”

“We must go!” Bahar said. “We must go now.”

Arash, though young and impetuous and with a great love of his own life, was not one to simply run from the chambers. He circled the bed. “Wait,” he said. He went to the servant. “Pick him up.”

“My prince!” hissed Bahar. “We must get you from here.”

Whirling with some amount of annoyance, Arash turned to the head servant. “We are not leaving Ramin behind—“

As he said the words a shadow behind Bahar grew and seemed to stand upright, whereupon a man garbed in black appeared. Arash’s heart leapt into his throat, and for a moment he could not move for fear.

With widening eyes his lips moved to call out to Bahar when the figure reached around his neck and then jerked something away, the sound wet and metallic, like a knife slicing through a scaling fish with ample meat. Bahar’s eyes suddenly widened and a thick gout of blood shot out of his neck.

Arash blinked, and Bahar blinked, raising his hands to his wound. And then the man in black moved around the bed, leaving the head servant to gurgle in his own blood as he fell over the bed.

Mahdi made a wordless sound as he and the prince both backed away in sudden fright. The word “guards” formed on Arash’s lips when suddenly the intruder reached out with his arm from across the bed, and something grabbed Arash by the shoulder, pricking him painfully like knives of fire.

“Prince!” shrieked Mahdi, and suddenly the intruder pulled his arm, and Arash’s feet came off the floor and with a force as though he had fallen off the balconies, he went past the man and fell across the tiles, grunting as his body slid like a sack of wheat across the floors.

His world spun when he rolled into the doorframe leading out onto the vast balconies, the pain in his neck a coursing, burning sensation that made him groan in agony as his palms and knee smarted from the blows he had taken.

Blinking, he glanced about, his blood thundering inside his ears. He thought he heard something—like the near silent shriek of a man who could not scream. Is that me?

Rolling onto his stomach, Arash put his hand onto the tiles and pushed himself up to his knees, his left knee thundering dully as if he had been bastinadoed there. He made a noise then that he knew was his own, a deep wet groan within his throat.

He got to his feet and the sound—much like the one that came when Bahar’s neck had been cut—could be heard, and then that of a body falling to the tiles.

Arash knew that Mahdi had been slain in that instant, and he lurched across the balcony, his feet pattering strongly across the tiles. Turning, a black shadow like that of a sland viper slithered fastly out onto the balcony and then stood upright again, forming into a man.

His feet caught and Arash fell heavily over the tiles and screamed in pure fear, and though normally he might of stayed upon the tiles for a time to nurse his wounds while the servants fussed about him—he did not do that now, and lurched back to his naked feet.

“GUARDS!”

He ran, screaming for help and for the guards, but what the prince did not know was that the four guards outside his chambers had already been dispatched, silently, and now lay in pools of their own blood.

“HELP!”

He ran, his vision shaky and blurring at the edges. His heart thundered within his chest, harder than at any time in his life—harden even than when he—it hurt. His heart was hurting!

What is happening to me?

Something caught his attention to his left, the sound of beating wings, loud and heavy on the wind, moving fast. He glanced that way as he came to a bend in his balconies that traveled to his right, encircling his apartments that jutted out of the towers.

The pegasus spread its wings and Arash’s eyes widened. He pulled his arms toward his chest and hunched in upon himself.

The wind all around him lifted up his hair and fluttered his pantaloons and as he fell to the tiles, he screamed, closing his eyes, the heavy sounds of horse hooves clopping across the tiles.

But he wasted no time.

Heart soaring, he grasped at his chest and croaked, glancing toward the figure in black.

“Prince!” Tamu called, reaching out as her pegasis bent its knees and lowered itself. She glanced toward the black-clad figure as he melted back into a slithering shadow that moved across the balcony tiles with such great speed as to make their own movements seem almost slow by comparison.

Arash looked at her.

“Quickly!”

He lurched, running for the hind quarters of the pegasus, his feet slapping the floors wildly, when that pain in his chest suddenly worsened, and he nearly bowled over.

“Come on!” Tamu called. “Hurry!”

Almost stopping before the pegasus, he used his strength, crying out both in pain and in forced effort as he jumped, spreading his legs where he came stop the pegasus, his thighs slapping against princess Tamu’s.

Unable to do anything else, he simply reached around her torso and grabbed her tightly as he coughed.

She shrieked something out and the pegasus moved as Arash held his head against Tamu’s back. He coughed hoarsly, his vision swirling blackly and underneath his eyelids a pain suddenly formed, thick and malicious.

He dried out, moaning weakly.

Normally Tamu did not like to kick Achujam very hard to spur her forth, but now she could not help it, and she called out in her mother tongue to her mount. She clopped quickly over the tiles, beating her wings as that black slithering thing that had been a man came at them.

Heart soaring with relief as they alighted, Tamu glanced back as the thing reformed into a man and lashed out with his arm.

Achujam suddenly whinnied loudly as they banked to their left and Tamu screamed as the weight of her body, with that of Arash upon her back, nearly tore her from her mount’s back. It was all she could do not to fall from the pegasus as she grasped at Achujam’s main tightly in desperation, pulling with all her strength.

Tamu regained her balance, breathing a sigh of relief, but Achujam did not right her trajectory—and she knew then how bad that was as feathers fell from her bloodied wing. “No!”

Pulling on Achujam’s main, she forced the pegasus to bank right and to rebalance their path as the poor girl whinnied and shook her head and kicked her legs violently.

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“It’s okay, girl!” she cried. Then, turning her head, she called out, “Arash! Arash—we have to land right now!”

His response was little more than a moan.

“Arash!” she called as hot tears streamed down her face, her heart beating like a drum inside her chest.

Tamu thought she might retch as she banked Achujam to a lower plateau among the towers. “Just a little farther, girl.”

Achujam whinnied, snorted and shook her head and Tamu glanced at her wound. What is the matter with them?

Spreading her wings, Achujam slowed their descent, but those balcony tiles were coming toward them too fast. “Achu!” Tamu screamed, pulled up on her main to get the pegasus to ascend once again, but she didn’t obey Tamu’s command, and they landed in a furious tremble of hooves.

Achujam cried out and shook and Tamu’s position changed, the weight on her back suddenly increasing tenfold as she screamed and flailed her arms.

They landed together upon the tiles, rolling and sliding as Achujam squealed angrily. Everything shook and whirled and the sounds of limbs flopping and sliding across the hard surface filled her ears.

Tamu spun around once more and spread out her hand, her palm slapping against the tiles loudly as if she had swatted them as hard as she could with a sandal.

Her whole body smarted, and her hand stung as if she had placed it into a pot of boiling water. With a groan, she lifted her head, the taste of blood within her mouth. She turned her head, her vision shaking and blurring as the crumpled form of Achujam lay before her. The pegasus whinnied distressfully and Tamu’s heart shook. She glanced toward Prince Arash, but he didn’t move, his arms spread out, his face looking up into the stars. She pulled her harms and kicked her leg as she slid to him, her eyes filling hotly.

The prince’s own eyes were closed.

“Arash? Prince Arash?! Achujam!” Are they dead? Please—“Oh gods—HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME!”

Just then the heavy doors inset into the entablature embossed doorframe were opened and two women servants came out, both of them in their shifts. They glanced about, gasping in horror as they covered their mouths with their hands.

 

The high vizier’s eyes shot open and he gasped long and loudly as he listed his body from his mattress. In a sweat, he breathed quickly and deeply as he glanced about.

His night terrors…

A presage of dark tidings.

“And the blades slither in the dark,” he muttered quietly, and brought his fingers up to his lips, almost as if he were surprised the words had come out of his mouth of their own accord.

Sahar got up out of his bed and moved quickly, taking up his shimmering robes of red silk, and shunting the garment on, he then slipped his bare feet into his sandals. “Hoshyar!” He crossed the chambers as he made for the doors, waisting no time at all. “Hoshyar! Boy—where are you?”

The boy’s feet slapped across the tiles as he ran into the chamber. “Master Sahar?” He rubbed his eyes.

“Put on your robes—we are leaving.”

“Yes, master.” The boy bowed and ran back to his chambers.

Before Sahar reached the door to his chambers, the door swung open loudly, and a tall man, muscled and intimidating of stare stepped into the room.

“So,” Sahar said, “in comes the Royal Protector into my chambers in the middle of the night. I knew something was afoot.”

“There are hashashins in the palace.”

Sahar’s heart skipped a beat, but he showed no indication that the Royal Protectors words disturbed him, save for a subtle widening of his eyes.

He turned, “Hoshyar!”

The boy strode into the chamber and bowed quickly. “Here, master.”

“Stay close, boy. Danger is afoot.” The high vizier then turned back to the Royal Protector, flanked by dozens of servants and a host of his guards, their swords bare. “Did you bring me a sword?”

Usharad lifted his hand, and in his grip hung a curved scimitar. Sahar smiled, taking the blade. Then he turned to his slave. “Be careful—and stay close.”

The boy nodded.

“Now,” said Sahar to Usharad. “Where are they?”

The tall swordsman led them out into the halls where the servants held candles and glowing crystals aloft, giving them light to see by. In that dimness, he knew the Dar Shaq sorcerers and hashashins would make an easy target of any of them.

As they moved through the corridors, the Royal Protector spoke. “I have sent most of my men to the sultan’s quarters.”

“And the Royal Prince?” asked Sahair.

“I send two of my best best to his chambers with orders to bring them to the central lounge, vizier.”

“Very good,” he said, though in his heart, he worried for the boy. Surely he worried for that of the sultan his brother as well.

Then suddenly he stopped. Usharad turned to him. “What is wrong.”

He could feel them—as surely as the night cometh and as the sands revealed the markings of their scales, he knew they were among them.

“I sense their auras,” he said quietly, and raised his sword. “Be careful!”

The men bristled.

All was quiet, save for the subtle sounds of harsh breathing, quickly stopped in between swallows.

Something whistled through the air. Sahar saw it, and had he been in reach, would have lurched to flick it out of the air with his sword. In any event, it went past him and a man suddenly convulsed, his eyes wide and his back straight.

The men gasped in fear, backing away from him as he twitched—and suddenly he went rigid and fell face-first upon the tiled floor. The men shouted, and several more objects came at them.

Sahar deflected two of them, but another went past and the men cried in fear while others growled furiously.

“Their poison fangs are deadly,” said Sahar. “Keep your eyes open!”

And he moved forward, charging in his sandals and his billowing robes with the Royal Protector Usharad close behind.

The shadows moved and the hashashin disappeared into the dark. When he came into the chamber, Usharad held up his crystal to give them light to see by. Servants came forward, putting on their robes and looking about wildly in confusion and terror.

“My lord!” one of them called, “what is happening? Whatever is the matter?”

“Get back in your rooms!” commanded Sahar, “for assassins are afoot in the palace!”

They screamed and fled in all directions.

The chamber was quiet.

Too quiet.

“Usharad,” said Sahar.

“Vizier?”

“We must rouse the guard and flood the palace with—“

Suddenly he felt the aura of a maligned presence appear behind him and he whirled, his blade before him defensively as the assassin struck out with his sword. The metal-on-metal skirl between them began and ended, as the attacker jumped away when Usharad joined against him.

Garbed all in black, with leather bands around his calves and forearms, the assassin’s skin was even blacked with kohl, the only part of his face visible through his turban and face covering being that of his eyes, of which they appeared like that of a viper’s.

Sahar might have gasped for his surprise, but he contained himself. These hashashins have gone through with the most vile of rites. “How many of you fiends have come to the palace tonight?” asked he of the assassin, for even now he felt a kinship to them, even one so divorced of everything he intentioned and believed upon.

The assassin backed away, his head tilting toward the swordsmen rushing into the chamber in a bristling wall of scimitars and spears. With a final narrowing of his eyes, the assassin hissed, lashing out with is arm, his magic, unseen but deadly, thrust forward to pierce Sahar’s neck.

Usharad made to deflect that invisible magic with his blade, and in so doing would contribute to his own demise—his ignorance unsurprising in the face of these dark arts. Sahar intercepted by striking out with his own fangs, his hand outstretched, entangling the assassins strike within his own. His opponent’s eyes widened, and when the guards lashed out at him with their swords, he flew back as if pulled on strings and then melted into the shadows.

“Where is he?” one of the guards demanded. “Where has he gone?!”

They rushed to the shadows, their candles and torches and crystals held high as they spread out in search of the assassin.

“He is gone,” said Sahar, “slithered—into the shadows…”

“Captain Tamaz!” barked Usharad.

“My lord?” he asked, appearing from out of the rabble of men. He was tall, though shorter than Usharad who stood a head taller than even he did. The captain was very handsome and had a well kempt beard of bristle. “What would you have of me?”

“Take five of your best men,” said Usharad as he glanced to Sahar. “Leave these chambers and raise the palace alarms—now go.”

The captain nodded, then with a final glance to the high vizier, he called out the names of the men he wanted and they trotted away.

Sahar swallowed, realizing the assassin had struck at him—had stayed in the face of danger, and had tried a repeatedly to strike him down.

Their designs are against the House of Al Hamiroon.

“High vizier?” asked Usharad.

Sahar shook himself from his thought, realized his heart was beating fast. He had not been this afraid since… Since that one time.

Then he said, “I fear for the young prince.”

“Why have the alarms bells not been rung?” asked Usharad.

“Because,” said Sahar, “the men there are either unaware of this threat or… or they are killed. We can only hope Captain Tamaz and his men manage reach the tower, for a fear for the continued longevity of the House of Al Hamiroon.”

 

For they move like the ripples in the desert sands. Cometh, they, and the blades slither in the dark as deadly and poisonous as though they be fangs of the viper, poison drawn—the hashashin strikes.—The Book of Dar Shaq

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