Chapter 364
“Tell them, nephew,” Shakar croaked.
He leaned back against his pillows. Surprisingly, Kharad sat back down as well. The former head scout said nothing. That was very unusual for him. Before, it had been hard for him to keep his mouth shut and not get involved in disputes at every opportunity. Shakh gestured for them to take a seat. Einen and Hadjar exchanged glances and accepted the invitation.
Once they were all seated around the fire, they were offered some very meagre food. Though times were hard for the caravaneers, the laws of hospitality were still respected.
“Ilmena...” Shakh whispered. “We found her body in one of the wagons. Sankesh’s daughter hadn’t even bothered to hide the body. She’d just kept it in her own coach, I mean, in Ilmena’s.”
“No wonder she never let anyone go in,” Hadjar said
One of the caravaneers rose and took a skin out of a bag. The guard shook it slightly and checked its contents, then passed it around. Each of them, after first spilling a little of the tart wine on the ground, took a sip. When the alcohol reached Shakar, they helped him complete the ritual of remembrance and tribute to the fallen.
“To be honest,” Shakh continued the story, “we didn’t understand what had happened. A strange black spirit fought in the sky against the dragon. The echoes of their battle killed not only the bandits and Sankesh’s men, but most of the caravan’s passengers as well.”
A shadow of fear could be seen in his eyes. The boy had changed in these past three months, but somewhere deep down, he still remembered the days when he could afford to be carefree. Now, apparently, he had to take care of the rest of Rahaim’s caravan.
Hadjar, after hearing that particular bit, got upset for a couple of seconds. After all, if he hadn’t used the fairy’s body and summoned the demon spirit who’d manifested in the form of the Black General, everyone would’ve died. It sounded cynical, but that was how the world worked. He couldn’t help everyone, only those who were ready to fight for their own lives.
“Old Zurkh,” Shakh sighed. “I’d had no idea he was hiding the power of a Spirit Knight.”
Einen and Hadjar looked at each other. They’d always suspected that Serra’s ‘father’ hadn’t been what he had tried to pretend he was. But it was still unbelievable that they’d travelled for six months alongside a Spirit Knight and hadn’t felt it… Although, now it was clear why he’d been keeping an eye on the ‘key’ to the library. Zurkh hadn’t been her father, but her bodyguard. Well, her key-keeper, to be more precise.
“After Rahaim died, he told us the true purpose of the journey…”
Then the long tale began. Hadjar had recently learned some parts of it from Ramukhan. For example, the fact that the inconspicuous, except for his strange Techniques, old caravaneer had once been the sultan of the Pearl of the Sands. Well, as far as it was possible to rule in this region. Serra had served as a sort of talisman for the Pearl of the Sands. She’d always stayed at court, from time immemorial. She kept the young princes company when they were children, then looked after their offspring, and so on, repeated endlessly for centuries, millenniums even.
Until she’d had to take care of Rahaim. He’d been unlucky enough to be born in an era of change. His whole family had been killed. First his father and mother, then his uncle and aunt, and then his grandparents. It was only thanks to his Teacher that he was able to unravel the web of conspiracies and find the group of nobles who’d staged the massacre. As a result, young Rahaim had been left all alone and his only ‘relative’ had been Serra. She’d been his mother, then his friend, then his daughter. She was always near him…
Zurkh was still young when Rahaim began to collect tablets, books, and scrolls from all over the Sea of Sand. He’d been looking for something in them. He opened the ‘Ways of Sand’ school. There, he taught all who came the secrets that the previous sultan had revealed to him, absolutely free of charge. The only condition he imposed was that, at the end of their training, the students would bring five books to the library that it didn’t have yet.
So, over the course of hundreds of years, his library grew from a small room to a separate palace. Sankesh razed it to the ground last year, when he captured the Pearl. Fortunately, by that time, Rahaim had abdicated his throne and assumed the role of a simple caravaneer. Zurkh, who’d remained faithful to his master, had accompanied him all this time. And Serra had as well…
For two centuries, they searched for the entrance to Mage City, because that was the only place where Rahaim could find a way to make Serra truly alive. Zurkh didn’t know why they were searching for the lost city. He simply followed his Teacher’s instructions and asked no questions. He served as a bodyguard, and in public, acted as her father. It was a cruel joke of fate that the ‘key’ looked like his daughter who’d been slain by Sankesh’s halberd.
“He’d wanted to pursue Sankesh’s daughter immediately, but...” Shakh poked the fire with a stick sadly, adjusting the logs. He was using wood for fuel so easily... A fortune was being burnt before him, and Shakh was as uncaring about it as any northerner. “The contract bound us. We continued on to the Empire, and a month later, we came upon one of Sankesh’s patrols. Within an hour, that monster arrived personally. He’d come for Zurkh. My uncle fought alongside him, but Sankesh…”
Shakh shook his head, broke a stick in half, and threw it into the fire.
“Do you remember that Knight, Hadjar, against whom we fought in the battle for Kurkhadan?”
Hadjar nodded. He would’ve been hard to forget. The bandit’s power had exceeded all reasonable limits.
“Compared to Sankesh, he seems insignificant.” Fear flashed in Shakh’s eyes. Demons and gods, he feared Sankesh even more than he feared the dragon! However, it was understandable. The dragon was like a natural disaster, but Sankesh… “We could do nothing. For just a moment, Zurkh was left alone with Sankesh. My uncle had been pushed aside, and that alone saved him from certain death. The Technique that monster used… I’ll never forget it. The terror... the sheer power... Even if that black spirit had been there, I’m not sure he could’ve defeated the King of the Desert.”
Hadjar had to admit he wasn’t wrong. Perhaps the spirit summoned by the fairy’s body could’ve delayed Sankesh for a while, but no more.
“How did you get here? To the Stone Trees oasis?” Einen asked, leaning his cheek against his staff-spear.
“Where else could we go?” Shakh snapped. “After the battle with Sankesh, the only survivors of the caravan were the people you see before you. Zurkh left us a map that has this place marked on it. And Rahaim’s letter…”
“A letter?” Hadjar looked away from the fire. “Who is it addressed to?”
There was utter silence again. It was obvious that Shakh wasn’t eager to answer that question.
“Show them...” Shakar gasped out.
“With all due respect, Shakar,” Kharad interjected, “We can’t be sure that these two aren’t traitors. Besides, they haven’t even told us where they went after the battle, or where they’ve been all this time.”