Darkness in the Flames

© 2011, Andrew Warwick

1 – Their Fate is Sealed

Through the shadow-graced streets of Qaiqala, Queen of Cities, Qaiqala of the Thousand Dreams, small bands of men prowled the night with malice aforethought. Much feared, each was clad head to toe in whispering black silks, and while they were masters of stealth, on that night they moved overtly along the streets, caring not as to who saw them.

From windows tossed open wide and from the doors of establishments of dubious repute, fitful torchlight flickered across them, leaving shadows dancing in their wake. They padded silently, their feet encased in soft slippers, across uneven paving stones that lined the way, following the tread taken by armies and merchant caravans across many long generations. Wrapped about their heads were sinister veiled hoods, drawn tight so as to leave but scant slits through which only their eyes, hard and cruel, could be made out. Knives with blackened blades were sheathed about their bodies, some openly, others hidden, and each man as well bore a light crossbow.

The night was late, and long, and Qaiqala in part slumbered beneath the evening heat that clung to the city with its spires and towers and high places; slumbered in part only, for while honest folk, such as there were in the city, were long to bed, they left the streets to those of the night, the slinking thieves and light fingered cut purses that crept about in search of victims to prey upon, the boastful bravos, sell swords and adventurers who caroused in the taverns and the inns, and those that plied their wares upon them, be they barkeeps, minstrels or wanton women. Upon their revelry, watchmen kept an uneven eye, from a distance, or not at all. Qaiqala permitted much, and in the less salubrious locales, even more so.

In the course of their drunken revels, the carousers spilled out of their taverns and alehouses, onto the streets licked by torchlight, their voices loud, and their laughter raucous. More than once blades clashed in brief, heated dispute. Yet for all of that, their bravery evaporated at the sight of the men who wore the black silks, and they slunk back into the shadows with low murmurs and quavering hearts. Only after the dreaded killers had gone from sight did they step forward again with relieved laughs, and with their fears forgotten, drunken boasts were made of the results should the killers have started anything.

Well was it that the men in ebon silk were feared, for dread reputations preceded them, and rumours of deeds both dark and foul abounded. The trained killers and assassins of the Brotherhoods had well earned those reputations, and answered alone to the rules of Qaiqala; the sheikhs and emirs, the beys and the merchant princes, and above all to the Sultan who ruled with a tenuous grip over a city rent with divisions, from the heights of the Red Palace.

More than one party of assassins were out on the streets that night, each hastening to their appointed places, at the gates and bridges that led to the island at the heart of the inner city of Qaiqala.  Quick, and silent, they scaled buildings that overlooked each egress, and there they sunk down into the shadows that grew long and thick, clinging to them in utter stillness, waiting patiently without a murmur of a sound.  There they prepared themselves, awaiting until such time as their assigned prey should put in an appearance; none knew precise at which point those they awaited would arrive, and so it was that all gates and bridges had been covered.  Their prey would arrive, and their prey would die.

*****

The flames flared bright, bursting high from an elaborate worked brazier of beaten bronze that rested upon a stand shaped in the form of the paws of a mighty lion, flaring as aromatic seeds were scattered across the glowing coals housed within.  Curls of pungent smoke rose from the flames, twisting their way through the opulent chamber in which the brazier sat at the centre of.

Towering polished marble columns, of a deep and dark green, through which veins of white went their way and starbursts of red flecks showed, lifted a domed roof high above.  Upon its lofty and curved surface, gilt work stood out bright on a near black background, marking stars in seas of constellations, the heavens recreate upon it.  Surrounding them, upon the lip of the dome, were formulaic incantations in a tongue long forgotten by all but a rare few.  Light and gauzy curtains of pale green silks wavered between the columns.  The floor of the circular chamber was made of mosaics formed with golden stones and jade, mirroring much of what lay across the domed roof above, except that in the centre there were formed four interlocking rings of pure gold.

In the middle of the interlocking rings sat a throne, carved out of creamy marble with hints of gold within, lion paws at the base of it and lion heads upon the ends of the arm rests.  Upon it rested a number of soft crimson silk cushions.  Before the throne was the smoking brazier, and a man lounged upon the cushions on the throne, staring moodily at the brazier, and the flickering flames.  His thick silken robes, bright in colour and garish in combination, were draped across an all too ample form.  Rings of gold, encrusted with bright glittering gems, were heavy upon his pudgy fingers, while dark, beady eyes peered from within a bald, heavy faced head.  Those eyes were fixated unsteadily upon the flames and the smoke that rose from it.  He flicked another smattering of seeds upon the flames, breathing deeply of the smoke that was produced, seeking out the visions that they would bring.

“They must die,” the lounging man proclaimed, his voice slurring from the effects of the smoke and the seeds, a voice that was too soft for a body of his size.  “All auguries and oracles and visions point to it.  These two are a grave detriment to our plans.  Too long have we laboured in the shadows for our endeavours to be undone by these two foreign devils, too much have we spent to spread seditious words among rebellious ears.  By the Slumbering Flame and the Thousand Darknesses, this can not be tolerated.  It can not be allowed.”  A shuddering chill rippled through the seated man’s ample frame, provoked by fears of what would transpire should their plans come to naught, or be revealed prematurely.  Treasonous actions were dealt with in exquisite agony by the Sultan.

Wrapped in shadows cast by the marble pillars, standing so still so that to the curious glance he appeared as but a statue until he moved, there stood a gaunt man.  Swarthy of skin he was, with a sardonic countenance, while his thin, pointed black beard was oiled carefully in place, and there gleamed deep in his eyes a cruel malevolence.  Such emotions as pity, kindness and mercy had long been burned from his soul, if they had ever existed to start with.  Unlike the vivid outfit of the lounging man, he was clad all in black silks, devoid of any ornamentation or device.

He was a Son of the Deserts, a Hashalite, of the vast and arid southern grasslands, deserts and hills, from whom, in ages past, the Brotherhoods of the Assassins had first emerged.  Their reputation for cruelty and cunning, their skill with knife and spell and poison, was legendary, so that few would dare cross them, and fewer still this man, Black Iridh, of whom it was said, in hushed, whispered tones, that he had been fathered by a devil, such was the callousness he displayed, and the lack of what any would call humanity.

“It shall be as you say, most noble sheikh,” Black Iridh replied, and his voice was as dead as any of his numerous victims, too numerous to recall the numbers of.  “I have seen to it that at each entrance to the Inner City, there awaits a team of my Brotherhood.  Your foes shall not escape their appointed doom.”

The sheikh looked up, his beady little eyes focusing unsteadily upon Black Iridh.  “These two, they can not be underestimated. The Fates have long conspired to guard them well from all weal and woe.”

“The Fates can not protect them from my Brotherhood,” Black Iridh assured the sheikh calmly.  “Have my men yet to fail upon one of their appointed endeavours that they have undertaken for you?  Have not all of your victims been assigned to the endless graves whereupon their souls have been left to wander all eternity in the darkness?”

The sheikh’s face twitched at the thought of all the horrors that Black Iridh’s Brotherhood could inflict, and he turned back to face the brazier once more.  Not long could even he match the dead, sardonic gaze of the master of assassins.

Peregrine and Blade.  Black Iridh could not countenance what drove the corpulent sheikh to consider such a pair as them as a threat to their plans.  They were but two, hardly a match for the might of those that he commanded with an utter, unshakeable loyalty, men who would gladly die to accomplish the tasks that he set for them.  The pair were ignorant of the plans that had been set in motion, and even so, if they had been, then here was little they could do to impair them.

Not long now remained until the might of the Brotherhood would be unleashed, in a night of terror and blood long since last experienced.  Few remembered the true horrors that the Brotherhoods could let loose, should they so desire.  Soon they would learn what true fear was once more.  The old and weak Sultan would be expunged, as would all that supported such a weakling as he, and in his place, or so he imagined, would rise Sheikh Fidir ad-Rassa to become Sultan of Qaiqala.  Iridh permitted himself a cruel smile, out of the sight of his erstwhile, oblivious master.  If the man had but an inkling of what lay in store, his very blood would freeze and his heart burst asunder.

Peregrine and Blade.  The pair were foreign devils, of a type that were commonplace to the haunts of the many markets and souks that dotted the great city, being sell-swords and adventurers.  All that existed to differentiate them from the myriad of other lowlifes of their kind was the peculiarity of their pairing.

The one that was called Peregrine, which was the meaning of her real name, Fianna, in the primitive tongue of her barbaric people, was a sword-maiden of the Aedring, the wild hill clans of the east, an uncommon people to behold in Qaiqala, even if it was a melting pot of a hundred peoples and a thousand tongues.  And then there was Carse of the Red Blade, by all accounts a dandy, yet despite his appearance, as ruthless and skilled as any assassin of the Brotherhoods, and a man who had dabbled in the darker paths of the Mysteries.

Dangerous in their own way, to be certain, though they could do no harm to his plans.  Yet even so the sheikh desired them dead, and so die they would

On to Chapter Two – The Trap is Sprung

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