**********

 

9. Burn the Mask

 

**********

 

(Mid-Winter, 1179)

 

The governess asked them, Abana and Maliq, if they were ready to depart.

Both nodded yes.

After months in the making, preparations were complete. Abana of Hafiz opened the folds of his hooded sable cloak and unsheathed the kidney spike by an inch, just enough to display the freshly forged blade within – polished and poisoned. Lady Yahya nodded approvingly. Bitterblack poison was almost odourless, only seasoned herbalists had the nose for it. Whomsoever survived the wound would not survive its kiss. And then a stolid Maliq stepped forward and drew his scimitar. Much like Abana's dagger it was fashioned from watered steel and designed for swift death. It was called Lion's Claw and it was a gift of Yahya's own commission.

They were ready.

It was no easy road getting there. When Maliq woke from that first night of passion, Abana was forced to tell him the truth – that he had declared himself for Lady Yahya's campaign against Rahab of Mahmun and was determined to be the executioner – one way or another.

Maliq, who had already sacrificed two years of his life to that campaign, was not pleased with the news. The Kushwari boy did not blame him for that at all. The rural life of Iblyd was hard but peaceful and it suited him well. All he wanted was to put the past to rest and settle down to a comfortable life. Abana wanted those things too (as he explained) but he also knew that he would never be content with that life until he ended Rahab's.

But not just Rahab's.

There were others out there who hurt and betrayed Abana – were they owed any less of a debt? The dancer made it plain. The path to happiness could not precede the cause of vengeance. "I want you," Abana had said to Maliq that night, "but I cannot build a life with you until Rahab and his ilk have been made to pay... I cannot rest until they do."

He was disappointed. He was saddened. He was most certainly angry. But he understood. And eventually he kissed Abana beneath the moonlight to assure him of the fact. "If your heart is set on vengeance then you must take it," said the Jamaran. "But you must take me with you."

They made love again after that.

From that point on Abana devoted himself to his training. His mistress was an herbalist by nature and knew much of the arts of healing and poisoning, as well as the histories and courtly affairs of Tehraq. Abana absorbed everything she had to teach. By day he was the notary, drawing up important missives and carefully maintaining the Sanguine Vigil's records. By night he was the assassin, practicing the arts of poison and seduction and perfecting his dance until Hamami herself would have been jealous.

As he honed himself sharp as a knife for the grim tasks to come, Abana found support as well as solace in Maliq's arms. They grew closer to each other as the months passed by until Abana requested permission for Maliq to move into his quarters at the Sanguine Vigil, a request that Lady Yahya granted. Whether to eat or talk or sleep or dance, Abana and Maliq spent every spare moment with each other until love slowly overwhelmed them. It was not planned. Neither of them predicted it. Abana just caught himself staring at his lover one night and it struck him like an arrow... that he loved this man. He needed him. He would go to the ends of the earth for him.

Two opponents warred for dominance within Abana's soul – his budding love for Maliq and his bitter hatred of his abusers.

One was light and one was dark.

One was the future and one was the past.

And then one night, a hundred moons ago, Maliq admitted to Abana a similar pain – that for years his sole obsession was to see strip Tehraq to its very foundations, free Jamara from its grasp, and to toast that freedom by delivering Qattullah's severed head to the gravesite of Hamra lo'a Daiira.

`Seductive yet unobtainable' was how he described it. `The worst kind of dream.'

Abana asked him how he overcame it.

"I met you," he had said.

Abana disliked himself because he knew himself too well. He was not as strong as Maliq. His hatred would not be quelled by love. Only blood would sate his rage... but paradoxically, he knew that only by sating his rage could he put it behind him and have the life he deserved with the man he loved.

Thus, when he and Maliq went before Lady Yahya that day, once all the preparations had been made, he felt no sense of sadness or nascent trepidation... just a burning desire to bring it all to a close.

The governess of Jawwaz sat upon the cushioned stool of her audience chambers with an unsealed roll of parchment in her lap. "I have just received word that the annexation of Kushwar is complete. The army garrisons at Qasr Ghazna to await Qattullah's orders. As soon as the king returns to Tehraq for his victory banquet, he will declare his expedition to Yahvat Yahva. You must kill Rahab before that happens."

"How long before Qattullah returns to Tehraq?"

"Twenty days," said Yahya to Abana. "You have a head start but do not become complacent. Once you leave Iblyd you must make your way to Qazyr to convene with the merchant Dhabr. He is delivering prize animals to Tehraq as gifts for the king – use his caravan as cover to sneak yourselves inside the city, where you must journey to the Old Plague Ward and convene with Magistrate Tayyab, a representative of the governors. He will get you into the Elephant Palace."

"What is his plan?" Asked Abana.

"These are plots of treason we are hatching, Abana. The less we put to parchment the better. You will know when you get there."

The dancer nodded.

"Remember – you are to kill Rahab, not fight him. He is a dangerous man with or without Kafnak. Dose him with the bitterblack as he sleeps. The poison will claim its victim within three days which should be enough time for you to escape. If you are caught, you will be tortured and killed. The governors and I will deny any involvement with you. Do you understand?"

Abana nodded yes.

Then Lady Yahya looked to the Jamaran man by his side. "You are rather quiet, Maliq. Have you nothing to say?"

The swordsman shut his eyes. "No. We complete this task and return to you at the earliest opportunity. I swear it." Maliq stood up and bowed to the governess. His riveted helm and armour rattled beneath his sable cloak as he left the chamber in silence.

Yahya demurred. "He is angry with me."

"With me also," said Abana. "But he understands."

Judging by her expression the governess did not agree. Regardless, she extended her hands to the Kushwari boy and asked her to take them.

He did.

"Abana. You are about to embark upon a mission that might re-shape the course of history. I know you have your own reasons for doing this... but never lose sight of that."

"I shall not," Abana kissed Lady Yahya's hands goodbye. "And we shall not fail you. We shall return."

 

*

 

Abana found Maliq outside the gates of the Sanguine Vigil adjusting his horse's saddle and attaching Lion's Claw to its harness. Steedmaster Yuza gave them a pair of dun-coloured mares; well-trained, sturdy, and inured to desert conditions. Their saddlebags bulged with provisions and waterskins.

"Maliq."

His hands stilled. "I do not like hiding things from her, Abana. She is a Tehraqi to her core, but I owe her my freedom."

"As do I," It almost hurt to think that Maliq did not think he felt the same. Abana bade the taller man face him. As soon as he did, he threw himself into Maliq's armoured embrace. "Are you still with me? I cannot do this without you, Maliq..."

The swordsman man lifted the dancer's chin and held his gaze until he saw (and understood) the conviction in his eyes. "Beloved, hear me plain. Whether heaven or hell... wherever you go, we go."

 

**********

 

(Late Winter, 1179)

 

`Beloved, hear me plain,' he'd once said. `Whether heaven or hell... wherever you go, we go.'

Khamali Maliq Moromaya had the heart of a poet beating inside his chest. Maliq. As the blood soiling his back began to cool and the stench of his own dried urine toxified his senses (Maliq) Abana of Hafiz left his mind to wander of those lost days in Iblyd, running from his parchment and quill at the Sanguine Vigil to that tiny little homestead at the edge of the mangrove forest (Maliq, I'm sorry...) where all the happiness in the world awaited him.

(...You were right, all along...)

Why was not it enough?

Those warring tribes of his heart, light and dark, had he merely... given in to one? The wrong one? Why was it now, in the frank pit of reality, that his mind gave him pause to re-consider? Was it the pain, the physical pain? No. He suffered worse as a slave... far worse. Then what was the source of the regret? Why now?

(...I never intended to live...)

A black sea filled his soul. An emptiness. And then a spark, a spark that blossomed into a raging fire, sprung up from those waters heedless of all improbabilities. The great inferno swelled the sea until its lashing tongues spread to all corners of its reach, warring with the depths below but never conquering them... but why? Why? Why was it not better to just... ebb away with the tide and be forgotten?

(...I did not deserve you...)

"...I... I... was a fool..."

(...You should have left me to rot here...)

"...Oh Maliq..."

(...I pray you build your happiness someday...)

 

*

 

He smelt the smoke first. Even in his state it slowly kindled his consciousness from the miasma of blood. Next came the heat. It was worse than the oppressive bludgeon they called the Tehraqi sun – it was a heat that prickled the skin like a naked flame against a cold traveller's fingertips. It was the sort of heat that burned until it consumed all in its way.

There was a fire out there.

`This is it,' thought Abana. `This is how I go...'

The cell door was built of a sturdy ironwood that had not rotted throughout the centuries. Only a key or fire could get through it, so it did not surprise him when he heard the door unlock. Had Rahab made good on his threat and sent his men and horses and hounds to rape him to death? No. Not with a fire raging. Perhaps he was back with that soiled whip of his get a few last sadistic lashes in before the fires came to burn the flesh from his bones.

No.

Not that.

In the end it was him... that man that the true gods made for him to love and cherish... the man he almost lost.

"M-Maliq...?"

The Jamaran man, clad in pilfered guardsman's armour, warned him not to speak to keep his strength up. He put Abana's arms around him and told the dancer to hold on tight as he unlocked the manacles around his ankles. He clung on desperately as his feet gave way, and slowly the fogging rush of blood passed. Once he was right side up, he slumped into Maliq's arms, too weak to stand on his own feet.

"Are you alright?" Maliq yelled. "Abana, speak to me! Are you alright?"

`...I knew you would come...' "...Yes, my love... I am alright... I will survive..." `You should not have... you should have left me... but I knew that you would...'

Maliq took a moment to inspect the wounds along Abana's back. The welts had congealed so they did not weep freely, but they risked infection the longer they went untreated. `Why do you love me like this?' The Kushwari boy was like a lifeless doll in the Jamaran's grasp as he took off his tattered doublet and undershirt, tore the shirt into strips with which to bind up and dress Abana's wounds, then slipped the doublet back onto his torso to lift him up to his feet. `How can you not see how worthless I am?'

Maliq took Abana's left arm and draped it over his two shoulders. "Lean all your weight on me. Just put your feet forward and I will do the rest."

Merely thinking was a struggle at that point, but somehow Abana heard the command and somehow, he managed to put a foot forward. He put down a second then a third and slowly he hobbled his way out of the gaol in Maliq's arms.

The Elephant Palace gaol was converted from vacant cellars beneath the blacksmith's forge. It boasted twenty cells (all empty now) along a u-shaped corridor 100 paces long on each stretch. Dead guardsmen littered its flagstones.

At the end of that corridor was a tall flight of stone steps that Maliq helped Abana climb. They led up to the palace grounds where the smoke rolled across the black marble floors and the thrashing of the flames roared in their ears. Embers wafted on the air. Distant load-bearing pillars crumbled within the raging flames and brought their ceilings down with them, crashing into thick black clouds of dust and ash. Abana heard screams over the chaos as well. Guardsmen, led by Ghassan perhaps, were yelling for his men to "hold their nerve" and fetch buckets of water from the wells to douse the flames. Some screams were those of the dying. Others were of escaped slaves and eunuchs breaking free from their confinement and absconding.

Abana's thoughts went to the Silk Court as Maliq hurried him down the corridor and away from the worst of the chaos. `Hamami... Pasha... Li... Zanza... Roswyn... wherever you are... take your chance... escape...!'

The rolling smoke was so thick it singed his bare shins as he strode through it. Maliq warned him to keep his head up and not inhale as they turned a corner to avoid a hallway shrouded in fallen timber. The long path ahead ended in a crush of rubble, broken cabinets, and statues, but beyond that was an exposed crevasse... one of the Elephant Palace's many clandestine pathways. From there it was the only way out.

Maliq went first, carefully climbing the mound then (once he found a solid footing) reached out his arm to his lover. Abana, still cripplingly weak, took Maliq's hand and held on as the older man dragged him up to the top of the pile with a single arm. From there they slid over to the other side and fled into the hidden corridor.

"We must keep going," said Maliq. "One of Yahya's men, Baelik – he awaits us outside the palace. Come."

It was narrow and pitch black. The further they ventured down its sloped path the thinner the smoke. The roars and tremors of the palace collapsing upon itself grew distant. Abana found it easier to breathe. They pressed on until the pathway returned them to the dank bowels of the Abyyabid mausoleum buried beneath the palace grounds. All its sconces were lit. Death masks and burial urns sat untouched upon stone shelves. Dust covered the floor like snow.

Then, as Maliq and Abana verged out into a huge dome-shaped chamber with its walls sculpted into ignoble frescos, they found a tall and solitary figure standing in the centre with a broad-bladed scimitar. He was gaunt and he was weak, struggling for his every breath, but he still had white hot magical energy burning around his free hand.

He was Rahab of Mahmun.

"As a babe I was abandoned in the desert..." he whispered to himself. "Cast out by parents I did not know for a deformity I did not choose... but then the desert monk found me. He taught me of the gods... of alchemy and magic... but he was too afraid to seek the deeper truths... too scared to seek the source. And so, I surpassed him. And I rose from a lowly scrivener to the Grand Vizier of Tehraq... all to return to Yahvat Yahva, the seat of the Abyyabids... to revive our ancient past and reclaim the lost knowledge... the power of the gods..."

Rahab raised his sword up and shuffled around on his bony feet to greet his guests. "Why are your minds so small? Why are your souls so primitive? So uninquisitive? How can you not wonder... of the realities of reality? If you are content... to roll ignorantly the filth of this tiny little planet then so be it. My future... is in THE STARS ABOVE US! AND I WILL DESTROY ANYONE AND ANYTHING THAT STANDS IN MY WAY! EVEN THE GODS THEMSELVES!"

"Stand down!" Maliq grabbed Jahanshah's hilt as a warning. "Howsoever you still live, your `god' and your men have abandoned you! Your palace is crumbling around your ears! It is over!"

"Not while I still BREATHE!"

Abana smiled darkly. "You will not be breathing for long. Bitterblack poison is crawling through your veins ...you will be dead before dawn. You will NEVER see Yahvat Yahva. You will die in this pit... just like Qabus... just as you deserve!"

Rahab sneered. "SILENCE, you ignorant-" and then the sorcerer suddenly stopped. He threw a hand around his mouth to stop a sudden glut bubbling through his throat and surging up to his lips. Blood and bile leaked through the gaps between his fingers.

"Damn you..." Rahab shook with rage as his raised up his sword. "DAMN YOU!"

Maliq pushed the weakened Abana aside, warning him to stand back as the mad sorcerer brought his burning hand to his backsword's blade and set it alight. His spell was swift, but it was not done... for as he swung his sword behind his back, he muttered an incantation in the ancient tongue as he thrust his flaming palm into the ground. The dust rippled from the impact like waves in the water as six sparkling streaks of white fire shot free from his hand and snaked off in six directions towards six slab caskets lodged into the walls. The caskets all flashed with the diffusion of magical energies and fell still. Then, as the destruction of the Elephant Palace roared on above their heads, those six caskets broke open into clouds of sepulchral dust, and the half-preserved ancient corpses interred within slowly rattled into un-life.

"By the blood of the Sun God..." Maliq raised his sword and kept Abana close behind him as six lumbering, skeletal cadavers crawled out of their caskets and ambled towards the pair like ravenous red-eyed dogs.

Rahab of Mahmun, sword and fist aflame, steered them to their quarry. "KILL THEM BOTH!"

 

**********

 

(Mid-Winter, 1179)

 

Abana of Hafiz and Khamali Maliq Moromaya came upon the Ziggurat of Mnenomon on their third day of flight from the oasis town of Iblyd and a day after crossing the impact crater boundary between the dominions of Jawwaz and Tehraq.

As they found the ziggurat it was merely partway through its construction, encircled by ironwood scaffolds over 200 cubits high. By Abana's guess they had nearly a thousand slaves constructing it: broad-shouldered men of largely Jamaran origin dressed in nothing but sweat and loincloths. A rotating series of carts and sledges (driven by oxen and mules) delivered massive sun-baked stones to base of the edifice where the slaves used ramps, pulleys, and rope riggings to ferry them up to the summit.

It was a churning hive of activity enforced by a joint contingent of Wahdi spearmen (on loan to the temple from the Royal Court) and paid Tehraqi slave tamers. Any slave who did not pull fast enough or chisel hard enough was beaten or whipped. Architects and stone masons gave directions to the slave tamers, many of whom were versed in the Jamaran tongue, who then passed those directions onto the slaves.

The Ziggurat of Mnenomon built up slowly at the base of a small and rocky valley just a few hundred paces off the main caravan lanes. Abana and Maliq entered the site by blending into the traffic of bawling cattle dragging heavy mud brick cargoes inbound, shielding their faces from the clouds of red dust and sand kicked up into the air like mist. There was a large encampment just a hundred paces east of the main site – hundreds of tents surrounded by trenches, waste pits, latrines, tanning racks, cookfires, workbenches and makeshift kilns bulwarked by a ringed wall of wooden stakes driven into the earth. Each thatched roof entrance (one for every compass point) was guarded by a small dispatch of six or seven Wahdis. Abana and Maliq pulled away from the cattle traffic ambling noisily towards the ziggurat and approached the eastern gate.

"Greetings!" Said Abana. "Glory to Mnenomon and his highness the King! I am Shahar Yajna, a novitiate of the Temple of Mnenomon in Jawwaz. Who is in charge here?"

Wahdi captains symbolized their station by bearing three peacock plumes from their helms rather than one.

"I am." The captain arose from his stool. He was grey-bearded and battle-scarred. "State your business."

"At the behest of Governess Yahya, I bring offerings of sage and frankincense to bless the creation of this great structure! And, for your master, I bring the finest date wine fresh from the oasis town of Iblyd! Would you be so kind as to deliver this wine whilst we bring the offerings to your head priest?"

The Wahdi captain frowned. "We have work to do, novitiate. Deliver your own gifts. Take the wine to the red tent but leave your slave here."

Maliq frowned but held his tongue.

Abana thanks the captain for his time and coaxed his horse past the guards into their camp, cantering by its busy cooks, blacksmiths and cupbearers. The headman's tent was nestled at the centre of the encampment, guarded by two more Wahdi spearmen. Abana dismounted and asked one of them to summon the camp commander, which they did (grudgingly) and out he emerged.

Hakkan the Slaver.

Abana grit his teeth with spite. Fifty moons ago he uncovered a missive sent to Lady Yahya from the Temple of Mnenomon. It requested a `small' donation of 600 silverlings to aid the construction of the ziggurat and in passing it mentioned that the grand overseer had commissioned a famed slave trader named Hakkan to supervise the slave staff.

And it was him. Abana recognized that bald head from half a parasang away, though these past two and some years had not been kind to him. Much of his muscle was lost and replaced with fat (distorting the shape of his tattoos) and his right arm was missing from the elbow down. In its place was a boiled leather prosthesis with a bloodstained bullwhip attached to the `wrist'. He was no longer the man he was... but he was still fearsome. Hakkan still had it in him to break any slave's spirit.

"Master Slave Tamer!" Greeted Abana, cheerfully. "A thousand blessings unto you for your aid in building this divine monument!"

Hakkan dug a finger into his ear and flicked out the wax. "Another preening pilgrim...? Spare me your damned sermons. What is it you want?"

"The Temple of Mnenomon in Jawwaz offers you a gift, good sir." Abana fetched the date wine and a small ceramic cup from his saddlebags. The cup was coated with bitterblack. He poured a sample of the wine into the cup and handed it to Hakkan. "Please, good sir! Avail yourself! You have earned it."

Hakkan snatched the cup out of his Abana's hand and sniffed it suspiciously... then handed it to one of the Wahdis. Fortunately, he was less sceptical than the slaver and swallowed it whole.

"It is good!"

Hakkan snatched the cup back, then tossed it to Abana and ordered him to pour another drink (which he was happy to do) and the bald pate took himself a swig.

"Not bad," he said. "I'll take the rest."

There were three more bottles of date wine inside his saddlebags. Abana asked the Wahdis to take them into Hakkan's tent, gave the opened bottle to Hakkan himself, then offered profuse blessings and thanks as he took his horse's reins and excused himself to `confer with the high priest'. He turned to leave.

"...Wait," said Hakkan.

Abana froze.

"...Turn around..."

Abana turned around and found Hakkan towering over him, blotting out the sun with his thick shoulders. He was not the man he was... but he was still fearsome. And he cracked his bullwhip.

"You look familiar..." he said. "...Why do I feel I've seen you before somewhere...? What is your name...?"

"Me? I am Shahar Yajna, sir... a novitiate of the Temple of Mnenomon in Jawwaz. Perhaps you attended a feast day at our shrine?"

"Jawwaz, you say?" Hakkan's eyes thinned. "I've never even been to-"

He was cut off by a resounding crash so loud and destructive it sent a flurry of dust throughout the camp. All eyes turned to the Ziggurat of Mnenomon as one of the ropes connected to a pulley snapped and its gigantic stone fell crashed into the base of the structure. The shockwave knocked the slaves screaming from their feet and shot up a plume of dust and rubble that rocked the scaffolds from their walls. Slaves and slave tamers alike ran for their lives as one by one they toppled over and crushed to death anyone unlucky enough to be caught in their shadows. A nearby Wahdi dropped his spear and sounded the alarm bell as dust clouds swallowed up the camp.

"Damn!" Yelled Hakkan. "Secure the livestock!"

With a man like him there was no telling if he meant the oxen or the slaves. As Hakkan's slave tamers and the Wahdis scrambled to contain the chaos, a hooded Abana returned to his horse discreetly slipped away.

 

**********

 

(Late Winter, 1179)

 

Abana of Hafiz knew fear.

Fear of the future. Fear of lust. Fear of violence. Fear of wrath. But this was a fear he could not comprehend. He only felt it – choking and intrusive like a stone in his chafed throat, foreboding like the distant crackle of thunderheads on an open plain. This was a primal fear from a forgotten time predating the creation of the wheel and the conquest of fire. Abana felt it from the pit of his stomach to the marrow of his spine as he watched those creatures crawl out of their own caskets to kill him and the man he loved. For all the horrors this miserable life had shown and rendered unto him... none compared to absolute horror of this necromancy.

Ghouls.

Beneath the ancient finery time had ravaged into tattered rags, their marbled skins yet clung to their bones like the sloughing flesh of a leper. They moved in shuffles and jerks and twitches like puppets dancing on strings, eyes flaming blood in the dark before they came screaming for him.

But Maliq's battle roar shattered through their screeching din. The first of Rahab's ghouls pounced off the ground and threw itself at the swordsman just as Jahanshah slipped free of its sheath and sailed through its spinal bones. The ghoul split into two halves and shattered against the floor into a puddle of itself, its fractured arms, legs and skull wriggling and twitching in the dust until they fell still again. By that time two more ghouls were upon the Jamaran, one scuttling across the floor to gnash at his feet with its teeth as the second ran at Maliq from his left. Growling, Maliq stomped his sandaled foot through the crawling ghoul's skull and stomped it into an ashen pulp, but even headless, the magics empowering that ghoul remained strong enough for it to snatch its arms around Maliq's leg and hold him fast. The other ghoul hurled itself at him before he could raise his sword and the three fell backwards into the dirt, wrestling for supremacy.

"Maliq!"

His kidney spike was gone. The closest object to hand was a fallen candelabra. Instinct alone made Abana grab and bash open the skull of the creature writhing on top of his lover's sword. The blow cracked its cranium like an egg and splattered its effluvium over his face; sodden grey matter pickled with marrow. Maliq shoved the corpse off his breastplate. Its red eyes went dark again.

"Abana! Stay behind me!"

Maliq shouted this as two more ghouls shambled towards them from left and right. This time he did not wait for them to attack – he threw himself at them. Abana stared in awe as the former Bloodshield cut through the creatures of the underworld with his grandfather's glittering blade. The severed remnants of a dishonoured nobility; rib bones and skull fragments and broken thoraxes; floated through the rank air like threshed wheat.

Bony fingers slapped around Abana's mouth.

It was Rahab – not his ghouls.

Only one Ghoul remained to battle Maliq as the sorcerer dragged his former slave off into a secluded corridor of the mausoleum. Abana tried to scream but his throat was too weak, he tried to wriggle free but even half-dead Rahab was so much larger and stronger than he was. The sorcerer shoved him against a wall so hard it knocked the breath from his lungs – then opened his palm and summoned more of his magical flame. Abana's body flushed with pale light as Rahab's magic lifted him into the air and held him fast.

"I will drain every drop of energy from your body," spat Rahab. "Your life essence will keep me alive until I find an antidote for your damned poison..."

"RAHAB!"

Two sudden and powerful slashes cut open the governor's cassock and sliced deep into the muscles of his back. The old man screamed. Blood hit the walls and the floor in streaks. The white light in his hand disappeared, as did the white light surrounding Abana's body. The Kushwari boy felt himself fall out of the air and crash into a burial urn that exploded into fragments and ash. He hacked and wheezed, unable to move at all, as the man he loved most in the world faced the one he hated most.

Rahab climbed back onto his feet. Blood streamed down his back from open wounds. "How... dare you...! How DARE you defy me! I am your MASTER!"

"We are our own masters now!" Yelled Maliq. "It ends here, Rahab! Once and for all!"

The sorcerer raised up his sword as that burning white fire enveloped its broad blade. "...Perhaps for you and your little whore, you loathsome Jafari mongrel... but this is not my end... now DIE!"

Even with his back carved open and glutting with blood. Even with the bitterblack poison creeping through his organs. Even with the corpuscular degeneration that caused Kafnak to break faith with their pact – Rahab of Mahmun still had enough strength in his haggard body to leap forward with that burning sword and rain blow after blow at Maliq's defences. He fought with a rage of a man denied. He shrieked with fury with every slash and thrust as the Jamaran fended off his blows. Sparks danced off their clashing blades and lit up the blackened corridor as Rahab forced Maliq backwards into the mausoleum.

Maliq. When Abana opened his burning eyes all he saw was black ash. Maliq. They streamed with tears when he scrubbed them clean, but he could see... and he saw his love being pushed back by his hated former master. Maliq. Abana rolled off his back onto his belly. The broken shards of painted pottery gouged his skin, but he was barely aware of it even as he bled from them. Maliq. Abana fought his way onto his feet even as his whip wounds scorched with agony beneath the binds Maliq tied. It did not matter. His body did not matter – he just needed to get up. Abana dug his nails into the wall and hauled himself upright. Sweat dripped down his nose and brow as he then padded along and followed the claps of clashing metal echoing in the distance.

All around them the walls of the mausoleum were shaking. Numerous cracks broke into the domed ceiling and spat streams of sand. Smoke from the burning fires above seeped into the mausoleum and its chambers. The Elephant Palace would be a mound of rubble before sunrise. Yet Rahab fought on and on like a man possessed, battering away at Jahanshah. With each strike Maliq's stance lost more of its form, his arms and legs shaking at each impact, his reserves of strength whittling away...

...and then Rahab stopped.

The governor fell to his knees. Breathless. His shoulders heaved. His bony breast punched in and out with his every racing breath. And then his mouth gaped open as his guts vomited up a sickly gout of blood, bile and undigested fish.

"...P-Poison..." muttered Rahab.

Maliq caught his breath as Rahab slowly lost his. Abana fought through the mist of blood loss to keep his eyes open. That was how he was still able to see it when Maliq weakly lifted his sword and thrust forward. One last charge whilst the sorcerer was down.

Jahanshah flew through the dust and smoke. Half-cataracted eyes rolled up in their sockets. They caught it, the sight of it, that flash of steel warping through the air, and Rahab thrust out his longer arm in response. Maliq's whole body jerked back as Rahab plunged his flaming sword into the warrior's chest.

Abana's heart sank.

"NOOOOOO!"

The paladin's blade Jahanshah fell out a limp hand. A pair of kind eyes, the colour of almonds, rolled into the back of a skull. Noble blood flowed down a thick blade embedded in a fragile iron breastplate... and Abana of Hafiz watched helplessly as his lover, Khamali Maliq Moromaya, slumped dead upon the mausoleum floor.

 

**********