"My father has never been
a patient man," Nadiyya began, "a fact that anyone who knew him could
attest to."
The Former Baron nodded,
"Yes, I remember when we used to play together... he could never stand
losing, not even a little bit and any game which turned against him he would
cry off without even trying to win it back.
It was most unbecoming."
"He grew out of that,
Franck," added the Kahn, "after the disaster, after you had
left."
"Perhaps," Nadiyya
continued, "I never knew him as a boy, obviously, but, as an old man, as
ruler of a great district and father of twenty children, husband to four wives,
he was not a patient man.
"He would often go into
rages when I was little. I remember
that vividly. They were terrifying to
behold and they could be sparked by the smallest things: a courtier whose bow
was a fraction too shallow, a tapestry hung mere inches out of place, a child
merely passing through where father thought there should be no children. He was like the driest kindling on a hot
day. Anything could set him off.
“So, when a thief tried to
steal the palace jewels his rage was something that no man wanted to get in the
way of and his response was overblown, to say the least. He decided that he needed to keep the palace
safe at all times, as well as making sure that the populace of Shadedstreams
knew to stay away and were kept properly cowed. To this end he put out a call for a palace wizard, someone with
power over hypostatick energies that even the best Philosophers could only
dream of. In short, he was asking too
much, but he still got more than he bargained for.
“Three weeks to the day after
his call for help had first been sent out by the heralds, a man dressed in a
hooded robe of red rags turned up on the palace door. He was very nearly turned away by the guards, but it just so
happened that Father was passing nearby at the time, heard the commotion and
came to investigate. When the man told
him that he was a wizard and that he was answering his call, Father had the
guards thrown into his dungeon and the ‘wizard’ was brought into the palace and
asked to join him for lunch. From that
point on my father and the ‘Red Wizard’ as he came to be known have been
inseparable.”
“Wait,” Ellis interrupted,
“this is all about some wicked vizier?” he couldn’t help but laugh. It was like something out of a pantomime.
“Oh, this is much more than
that,” Nadiyya replied, making sure Ellis felt the heat of her gaze before she
continued, “First Father put him in charge of securing the palace, which the
wizard did with strange incanted equations and grotesque artefacts of carved
black, crystalline metal. Once the
wizard said that the palace was as safe as could be, Father set about making
sure that all the thieves and murderers of Shadedstreams knew their place. It quickly became a kind of witch hunt. There was blood on the streets and strange
creatures prowled the nights keeping everyone ‘safe’.
“As the weeks went by my father
and the Red Wizard spent more and more time away from prying eyes, in the
offices Father had set up for him in the palace dungeons. Rumours spread like wildfire, but no one knew
for sure what it was they did. It
wasn’t until another few weeks had passed and Father emerged in robes like the
Wizard’s, spouting some religious nonsense about some great god who would be
coming into the world and that they must all get ready for it.”
“Lakhma,” the Former Baron said
in a strained whisper.
“That was the name,” Nadiyya
agreed, “he wouldn’t stop going on about it and with the Red Wizard by his side
he stared trying to convert the entire district. Many joined quickly, seeing where things were headed, I suppose
and wanting to keep their hides intact, but many didn’t and the consequences
were worse for them than they had been for the thieves. The strange creatures began to prowl the
district during the day as well, vast, horrible, formless things they were,
with eyes that seemed to appear or disappear on the tar-like surface of their
fluid skin.” She shuddered, “They took
control of the district and that’s when I decided it would be a good idea to
leave. I took Scythe, slipped out in
the night and joined the first circus I could find.”
“How long ago was this,
Nadiyya?” the Kahn asked. His
expression was one of considerable concern.
“About two months ago. I moved from circus to circus until I found
Kerring’s and then Scythe died and… it has been a hard time.”
“Why didn’t you come to me
sooner? If I’d known what this cold war
my brother has started was all about I might have been able to do something
before now.”
“I wasn’t sure what to do. I wanted to put the whole thing behind me
and I thought… I thought you wouldn’t want to speak to me. Father very rarely said kind things about
you.”
The old Kahn harrumphed, then
turned towards the Former Baron, “What do you make of all of this, then,
Franck?”
“It sounds like someone is
intent on bringing Lakhma back and so, with all due respect, Irfan, there is
much more at stake than just the fate of two districts. Nadiyya is right. This could be about the end of the world as we know it.”
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