by J. A. Prentice
in Issue 81, October 2018
Faraj beheld Death and was unafraid.
She could feel its breath upon her neck. It was in the cloying curls of sweet assaji, the dream-flower, drifting through the tent in an intoxicating cloud. It was in the great fans rising and falling like the wings of hunting eagles, held by impassive servant girls, their thin white silks glowing in the firelight. It was in the Khan’s golden eyes, the scars that rippled over his bare, muscled arms and chest, the soft thunder of his voice.
Mostly it was in the swords. Glowing weapons closed in from all sides, guards in the shadows converging on her, sexless and raceless in the shadows of their robes. There was a thirst in the flash of the steel, a desire for her blood.
She was alone in an enemy camp. She was unarmed. There would be no escape.
Faraj closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and felt her hands begin to dance in the warm, drug-laced air. There was a weight on her shoulders, pinning her in place like a fly struck through with a pin: the momentum of the past, looming behind her, and the shadow of the future, cast upon her face.
Memories drifted like snowflakes in a storm, the last echoes of her life.
Death was in them too.
Faraj remembered: crouching upon a rock, watching her king.
He sat, impassive, in the expanse. Sands stirred across flat, dry earth. It brushed against his cheeks, catching in the short wisps of his beard. His young face was weathered and beaten, rough as old stone. Linen robes hung over his thin limbs and bony ribs.
He opened an eye and a smile flashed over his dry, cracked lips.
“It is rude to stare, Faraj.”
Faraj flushed a deep brown and brushed sand-filled hair from her brow. “How do you always remember my name?”
“You remember mine, do you not?”
Faraj flicked a small pebble, birthing a miniature dust storm. “That’s different. You’re important.”
He looked at her. “Who tells you that you aren’t important?”
“They don’t have to. I just know it.”
“And I know that you are very important indeed.” She looked away and he smiled. “So one of us must be wrong.” He patted the earth beside him. “Come. Sit.”
“I don’t know how to meditate,” she mumbled.
“Then I will teach you, daughter. Come and sit.”
And Faraj sat beside the Serpent King in the desert, the sand in her face, the sun on her neck, and thunder in her heart.
Faraj remembered: what it was to be young.
There was little food and less hope. Faraj’s ribs ached with famine, skin drawn so tight across her bones that she looked like a dusky-skinned skeleton. Her throat was dry as the sand. Most of her tribe were long dead, bones bleaching in the desert sun.
The rest sat in squalor, waiting to die.
Then the Serpent King came.
Riding in on camelback, white robes shimmering with the noon sun, silver amulet dangling around his neck, he was something out of an old story, a god or a champion. He and his tribe shared food and water. They gave and asked for nothing.
His words thundered in dry air. They were magic, a song in her soul. He promised paradise, a future greater than any we could imagine. She devoured every word as though it were bread from the heavens.
Faraj remembered: sitting with him on the mountainside, the cool wind on her skin.
“Can you really do magic?” she asked.
The Serpent King smiled. “You’ve seen me.”
“But it’s real magic? Not just tricks?”
“No tricks,” the Serpent King said. “Just what’s in here…” He tapped her forehead. “And in here.” He tapped her heart and she laughed.
“My grandmother said that magicians make deals with djinn,” Faraj said. “They sell their souls for power.”
A shadow crossed the Serpent King’s face. “Some do. There are some powers out there… Some people… I see their faces in my dreams. Cold and terrible.” He held out the palm of his hand and Faraj watched a flame dance to life, rising bright over scarred, leather-hard skin. “Magic is a matter of making the internal external. Taking your thoughts and making them real. Some are born with a gift for it, a natural control over the world around them. But it still takes practice.”
Faraj looked at him, then down at the dirt. The Serpent King smiled.
“You want me to teach you.”
Faraj nodded.
“Close your eyes. Clear your mind.”
Faraj squeezed her eyes shut, her face scrunched up like an old tunic.
“Now focus. Focus on the thought of fire. Focus on the heat of it. Focus on the shape. Focus on how it dances. Imagine every aspect of it. Imagine that it is part of you, as much a part of you as the air you breathe. In and out. Remember the fire.”
Faraj cracked one eye open and peered at her hand. There was nothing. Her face fell.
“I can’t do it,” she said.
The Serpent King laughed. “Did you think it would be that simple? This is the start of the journey, child, not the end. Keep focusing. Imagine the fire.”
Faraj sighed and closed her eyes again.
“Cleanse your mind of disbelief. Forget what you can and cannot do. Focus on the flame. Focus on making it real. Believe that it is real. Feel the flow of energy within you, blazing like the sun.” His voice was like a cool, smooth stone, strong but gentle. “There is enough power in your little finger to tear apart a fortress. There is enough power in your heart to set the earth ablaze. Imagine. Focus. Believe.”
For hours they sat there, the hot air growing cold, the wind growing bitter, the sands growing dark. Faraj felt the dance of insect feet on her skin.
And then she felt a warm tickle on the palm of her hand. She opened her eyes.
A pale flame, a weak wisp of dull red, twisted over her skin. It lit up the lines of the Serpent King’s face as he looked down at her, his smile buried in shadows.
“What a beautiful spark.”
Faraj remembered: doubt like a mauling tiger, ripping at her soul, tearing at her beliefs with savage teeth and cruel claws.
She stood on a high hill, looking down at the dead. They blanketed the snow, piled in a thick layer. Amidst bodies and blood, there was no white to be seen.
Carrion birds circled, cawing at the sight of fresh meat.
Her gaze darted from corpse to corpse, struggling to differentiate one from another, trying to give number to the dead. Her eyes were wet with tears.
She sat there and tried to understand.
There was only one thought in her mind: he did this. He made this. This is his blood.
She felt his presence behind her, heard his feet crunching against the snow. She turned, wanting to shout at him, to yell at him, to curse him, to renounce him.
But then she saw his eyes. All her anger boiled away, leaving her with only one question.
“Why?”
He sat beside her in the snow, looking over the dead.
“Imagine,” he said, “that you were a healer and a rot had set into a man’s leg. You must cut it off or he will die. He doesn’t understand. He struggles. He begs you not to. But you cut because you have to. You have to save him.”
She nodded.
They sat together in the snow and counted the dead.
She was twelve years old.
Faraj remembered: sunlight spilling across the steppe, dancing on the black hair of the stallion and glinting off her scimitar.
The thundering of horse hoofs filled the air. The white wool of the yurts ahead stood out against the featureless beige grass that stretched for miles in every direction. The yurts were wound with patterns of interlocking curls and spirals, some bright as spring flowers, others black as midnight shadows.
The aroma of roasting mutton drifted on the wind, accompanied by joyful shouts of children and the roars of drinking warriors. A baleful horn sounded over the camp.
As the horn sounded its last, Faraj brought her black stallion to a halt just short of the tents. A cloud of dust settled around the beast’s hoofs.
She dismounted as four armoured men approached her. Their black leather armour was decorated with gold and the mark of a six-pointed star gleamed on their chests.
“We bid you greetings, ambassador,” their leader said, inclining his head in a stiff bow. “I am Neghis.”
As he spoke, the other three busied themselves about her. She felt the pinches of heavy, searching hands that showed no regard for privacy or comfort. The smallest dagger, the tiniest dart – all would be revealed to them. They found nothing but clothes and flesh.
“I am Faraj,” she said. “Is the Khan ready to receive me?”
Neghis nodded. “He is. But be warned that he does not approve of your…” He looked at Faraj. “Forgive me. I do not know if I should call you a religion, a tribe, or an order.”
Faraj smiled. “We are more.”
“You certainly dress like a priestess.” Neghis’s gaze swept over her green robes and the symbol of the coiling Serpent upon her back. “The Khan does not like priestesses.”
“I would imagine not,” Faraj said. “He strikes me as a practical man.”
“We honour our ancestors,” Neghis said. “But we are beholden to none other than ourselves. We know no gods. And no masters.”
The guards led Faraj between the yurts, into the heart of the camp. Children, mothers, warriors, and slaves watched as Faraj passed. She gave each a smile. It was never returned.
They halted before the great tent. A smell like heavy perfume and burning leaves wafted from behind white curtains.
Faraj breathed it in, feeling the shadows looming beyond, and knew.
This was where she would die.
Faraj remembered: her first mission.
She arrived in the court of Tsar Vulkaris with a fast horse and a small guard. She trembled as she stepped into his chambers, her guard flanking her on either side, dressed in hard leather. Each was from a different tribe: some from the bitter mountains, some from the flat steppes, some from the sandy stretches of the northern shores. They all wore the symbol of the Serpent upon their armour: the head swallowing the tail, the end becoming the beginning, the future becoming the past.
The soldiers of Vulkaris were different: dressed in long coats of linked rings, their faces hidden behind shifting metal, their peaked helms a deep, polished black wrapped round with a band of crimson.
The walls of the chamber were painted with murals of warriors and ships. Deep seas of red poured from the conquered, lying trampled beneath the boots of the invaders. This was how Vulkaris chose to imagine his ancestors.
Perched upon a gem-studded throne, Vulkaris was a thin, pale man dressed in shimmering silks. His dark, beady eyes fixed on Faraj. She flinched and looked at her boots.
“This is who your Serpent King sends?” he asked. “You’re little more than a child.”
She took a deep breath, fixed her feet firm upon the tiled floor, and raised her chin high.
“I am the speaker of the Serpent King,” she said. “I am his tongue. I am his hand. To insult me is to insult him. To anger me is to incur his wrath.”
“A child still.” Vulkaris’s long fingernails tapped against his throne. “A child servant of a mad prophet.”
“Of a king,” Faraj replied. “A king who will be remembered long after your line is dust and bones.”
“Do you have anything of interest to say?” Vulkaris asked. “Or are you merely here to prophesy my doom?”
Faraj’s eyes flickered across the murals, seeing blood-bright swords and drawn bows. She smiled.
“I come here to make you an offer,” she said. “For glory.”
“I already have glory,” Vulkaris replied, “and I have not had to chain myself to any other man in exchange for it.”
“You have a shadow of what your ancestors had,” Faraj said. “Once you were masters of this land. Now you scrabble to hold onto your dominions. We can offer you more. Conquer in the Serpent King’s name. Have our forces at your back.”
“And where would we strike?” Vulkaris asked.
“Back across the waters,” Faraj replied, “across the desert. We will secure the east. And then… Then we will ride upon the west like a host of angels. They will cry out before us. They will fear our names.” She smiled. “They will fear your name. Vulkaris the Raider. Son of an ancient line. The fist of the Serpent King.”
Vulkaris nodded. “The fist. Perhaps.” He bowed his head, beady eyes already gleaming with battle-lust. “Perhaps.”
“You will come before the Serpent King?” Faraj asked.
“I will see him.” His fingers tapped. “I make no promises, no obligations, of course…”
“Of course.”
“But I will see him.”
Faraj smiled. He was theirs.
Faraj remembered: the last time she had spoken to her king.
They sat on the steppe, the long grasses stirring around them, a sea stretching in all directions. It had been so long since it had been just the two of them. The Serpent King’s army was vast and he had so much to see to. His shoulders drooped under the weight and his beard was streaked grey, tangled and wild. The twine that hung around his neck turned between his fingers, the amulet glimmering like a small moon.
“I have a task for you,” he said. His voice was heavy and worn, like old stone.
Faraj looked at him. “Anything.”
“The Khan of the White Horde,” the Serpent King said. “His armies gather on the steppe, like a swarm of bees. Their purpose is war. Within the week, they will come at us with spear and horse and fire.”
“They’ll fall.”
“They will.” The Serpent King nodded. “But how many of our people will fall with them?” He toyed with his amulet. “What a wasteful thing war is. Only worms profit from it.”
“You wish me to turn his mind,” Faraj said. “As I turned the others.”
“If you can.” The Serpent King sighed. “If you can.”
“And if I cannot?”
The Serpent King said nothing.
“I kill him.”
“Yes.”
“I will die.”
He answered in a cracked whisper, low and broken. “Yes.”
Faraj held out the palm of her hand. A flame blazed to life, bright and pure and strong. It danced like breath, like wind, like hope.
She looked at the Serpent King, at the man who she loved more than a father, more than a god, more than the world, and saw the tears welling in the shadows of his eyes, slipping down his crinkled, lined face. With trembling hands, she reached over and brushed them away.
“I will do it,” she said, pressing her forehead against his.
“You know I would not ask if–”
“I know.”
There was nothing more to be said.
He was her master.
She would kill for him. She would die for him.
She had always known that.
Faraj beheld Death and was unafraid.
She took a deep breath and raised her hand. Her fingers danced: subtle, intricate, full of life and power.
Wind stirred in the tent, blowing the assaji away.
The fire flickered, growing larger and larger. The Khan watched the rising flame, his eyes wide with terror.
“What…” he stammered. “What are you?”
“I am Faraj,” she replied. “I am the poison arrow. I am the messenger of the Serpent King. And the message is death.”
She focused on the thought of fire, on the heat of it, on the shape, on how it danced. She imagined every aspect of it, imagined that it was part of her, as much a part of her as the air she breathed. In and out.
One last breath. One last thought.
Faraj made a flame.
The tent blazed in an inferno of green. The fire didn’t distinguish between cloth, flesh, and leather. All burnt alike. The green-blue shapes twisted, writhed, and darted, alive and dangerous, like a nest of vipers.
She died without a sound. The flames rushed over her, stripped flesh from bone, turned bone to ash. They took everything from her and she let them.
In a single moment of fiery slaughter, the tent burned. The flames shone brighter than the sun. Then it died, consumed in an instant. Nothing remained but ash and embers.
Wind swept up the ashes, bearing them across the expanse of the steppe like a flock of ravens, over white tents and beige grass until at last they fell in a dry, black rain. There was nothing to separate Faraj’s from the rest. The flame had made them one.
Ashes stirred around the Serpent King as he walked across a bleak, black landscape. Grey clung to his tattered robe and smoke pressed against his eyes. Deep footprints marked his trail.
He knelt by the smoldering embers at the heart of the camp. His legs sank in the cooling debris as he looked at Faraj’s final resting place.
There, amidst mountains of black and grey, a tiny flame burnt, pale and weak, fluttering in the breeze like a hummingbird’s wings.
“What a beautiful spark,” he whispered, reaching out with worn fingers.
Then it was gone, just smoke on the wind, a wisp of memory.
©October 2018, J. A. Prentice
J. A. Prentice has had stories published in Pulp Modern, Crooked Teeth, and 365 Tomorrows. This is his first appearance in Swords & Sorcery.