The Wages of Magick Ch. 01

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the first part of an adult fantasy story set in an alternate history universe where Magick is on the decline and technology on the rise. Follow the turmoils of this New Age, beginning with this tale of a revolutionary leader in a land modelled on the Ottoman Empire who obtains his revenge on his former teacher and tormentor. The first few chapters are mostly scene-setting and background. Bear with me as I develop the story. Features graphic sex and violence, bondage, submission and non-consent. Read at your own discretion.

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The khamsin blows through the open doors, setting the silk curtains aflutter. I blink at the sudden grittiness in my eyes and step back off the balcony.

Sand. It gets everywhere.

Though the sun has set and the sky is now almost black, here, high up where the wind still rules, the heat of the dying day carries. It is, now, a gentle thing, stripped of its noontime fury. I rub my eyes and breathe it in.

In the city below, the cooking fires are lit. The wind carries its tinge to me. Smoke. Wood. Charring flesh. I hear the sounds of life, the clank of pots, the lowing of oxen, the calls of the water-bearers as they do their dusk round.

Below, beyond the walls and the gates of the citadel, the night market is beginning. Fires flare in great cauldrons. Merchants shout out, peddling their wares. There are dancers in the square, their silhouettes arching and bending against the firelight. The music is reedy and thin. The chatter is loud and boisterous, indistinct against the rat-tat-tat of the darbuka.

The city comes to life again as the day dies. It has always been thus.

And this should be a night just like any other. Except that tonight is the night I gain my revenge.

My gaze flicks back to the port. I am anxious, I realise. Afraid. Though I have risen so far and my dearest goal within reach, still the fear haunts me. Fear, that nameless, shapeless spirit that swells out of my chest without reason or warning.

The ship is still there, its single mast unremarkable amongst a hundred others bobbing gently in the water. Unremarkable except for the single pennant that flutters in the wind and catches the burnished light from the braziers on the docks.

I raise the spyglass to my one good eye. The flag quivers in my view. My hands are trembling. A rampant lion still ripples in the wind, its jaws agape, the sword upright in one raised claw, all rendered in shimmering silver. The Sabred Lion, symbol of the Thawrat Al Shaab, the People's Revolution. It is the ship I had been waiting for all these days, ever since I received that first message.

My hands had quivered then, too, as I took the scroll. The Guard Captain's face had been expressionless though I could read surprise in his eyes.

"Is all well, effendi?" he had asked, one hand on the hilt of his scimitar. "A goatherd gave it to the gate guard. The guard would have given him a cuffing except the guard took care to examine the seal first." He paused, uncertain. "The goatherd is held, effendi. Should he be beaten?"

I shook my head. I did not dare trust my voice to speak. I turned away from him to the lamplight and examined the seal again.

أَلِف*يَاء

Alif and Ya. The First and the Last. The symbol of our Order, signifying our hunt for our enemies from the First to the Last of all places.

"No," I said, over my shoulder. My voice did not betray me. "Release him. And reward him. Fifty dirhams. And three flagons of wine."

If the Captain felt anything at the generosity, he did not show it. "Effendi." was all the reply he made before clanking out. I waited till the door had shut before I tore the thing open. It was her hand, the writing steady and fine, her ink, her brush. I would have recognised the strokes anywhere.

"To the Most High, Most Esteemed, Most Powerful Mushir Suleyman Gormeyen, Commander of Those Who Seek From First To Last:

Greetings and Felicitations.

Your Servant begs to report that her task is complete. Though the trials were long and the road perilous, by the Grace of The One, the Winged Creature has been regained.

Your Servant begins her return to Your Side, that she may once again bask in Your Approval and hear the music of your Commands from Your very Lips."

It was unsigned but no signature was needed. There was only one I had entrusted with this. Safia, my very best. And she had fulfilled her mission. As I knew she would.

It was five days later that the second message came. This was nothing but a shell, a cowrie that one might pick up off any beach, unremarkable except for the two same characters etched into its hollow.

أَلِف*يَاء

The messenger was, again, rewarded and the Captain remained mystified.

A shell. By sea. She would come by sea.

Better had I never known. Then might I have been able to lend my powers to the thousand tasks at hand instead of scanning the horizon with spyglass at every sounding of the call to prayer. The dismantling of an empire is a thing rarely done and, when done, it must be done with care, rather like flaying a beast. Except this beast, though mortally wounded, still struggled against the knife. Which meant we, the butchers, needed steady hands and a disposition innured to the flow of blood.

The Emperor was dead. His pickled head, preserved in brine, had been carried in a pot from coast to coast, displayed in every hamlet, no matter how small, held up under sunlight and moonlight by the Head Bearer, surrounded by two divisions of mounted cavalry. That should have been enough but common folk had never seen the Emperor. All they knew of him was the impression on his coin. The sour, wrinkled face, eyeless and noseless, looked nothing like that regal impression.

"That could be anyone," some fool had cried before the point of a lance impaled his throat. There had been no further acclamations but the silence was always sullen. It spoke of distrust.

The distribution of the Emperor's odious wealth made some difference. Mouths had widened into smiles, palms raised, eyes glittered as the coin spilled out into the sand.

"Take," the Emissary had cried. "Take. But know ye well that this coin has no value unless exchanged for the new currency of the New Nation. The only value of the old coin is the value of sin. Spend it on your retribution. Take and believe. Your oppressor is dead."

We sent his Captains and his Generals out to the towns, barefoot and in chains. We had them swear allegiance to The Thawrat on their knees. Then, we took payment in old coin for their parts: a dirham for a finger, two for a toe, five for a hand or foot, ten for an eye. The genitals were twenty a part and taken last. The cautery of bleeding points was free as was the final gutting. The knives were always blunted.

When we ran out of soldiers, it was the turn of the Emperor's one thousand concubines and one hundred wives. At noon, we chained them to posts in town squares and stripped them naked under the burning sun. We took payment in old coin for this too. The people lined up to despoil them, men and women, in their hundreds, young, old, rich, poor, washed and unwashed, toothless, hairless, all.

"There is no sin!" proclaimed the Muezzin, by way of encouragement. "This is the work of the One True! This is war against His enemies. Step forward. Take part. And don't push."

The men used their nature, the women their implements. Though the acts were concealed behind a single curtain, the anguished cries made it clear what was happening. It went on until dusk or the cries stopped. Whichever was first. Usually, it was the dusk.

His sons we blinded. His daughters we rendered mute. We drowned his brothers and sisters in barrels of fish guts and cast them onto the sand, spewing scales.

Still, it was not enough. Still, the people did not believe.

"What of his Witches?" they cried. "His Witches and his Djinns! All is well now you are here, you with your armour and swords and bullets, but when you leave, what then? They will emerge from the sands and kill us with fire! They will strike us with lightning! Go away and let us be!"

Though our arms had smashed the Empire, many of his Magickers had escaped our net. And the fear of their Power still hung over everything like putrescence.

The people knew fear. And who could blame them?

" Are we fools?" our Emissaries responded. "Cannon are powerless against a firestorm summoned by a Witch from a mountaintop. Rifles are no use against Djinn Legions materialising from the dunes. Would we have been victorious if Magick still had Power? No! Their Power is dead! The Witches have fled! As have the Djinns!"

We had known, of course, that their Power was waning. Something had turned in the fabric of Magick. Our intelligence had suggested this very thing before The Thawrat began. We would not have attempted this thing otherwise.

However, I understood the people's fear. It had gripped our very hearts as we marshalled against the Empire in that first battle. Then, we hoped but did not know. I saw fear in the eyes of our soldiers as the Witches appeared on their towers. I felt it in the skittering of our cavalry as the Witches raised their arms to the skies. We would have turned and run then had it not been for our leaders and our generals.

There had been no fire. There had been no lightning. Our cannons smashed their walls to fragments. And the Witches tumbled screaming into the gaps.

Then, only then, did we know their posturing to be just that.

At the second encounter, we shot at the Witches and watched a thousand crimson blossoms appear on their robes. At the third, we charged at the Magickers with bayonets afixed. They turned and fled. We spitted their backs on steel. We crushed their skulls under our boots.

Soon, they no longer appeared behind the Emperor's Legions and, without Magick on their side, the Empire was undone.

We knew all this. But the people did not. No amount of proclamation and mutilation made them believe, not even the news from foreign lands of revolutions everywhere. Of other despots despoiled. Of Magick on the wane.

We needed more. We needed a symbol of Magick dismembered. Which was why it was important that the Magickers be taken. And most important of all was the Grey Dove.

Hers was a name that none spoke. Tales of her wickedness were legend across the land. And hers was the likeness on the Emperor's coin, on the opposite face to his own. Not that of his Chief Queen but that of his Chief Witch.

Adalat Ul'Kan. My teacher. My mentor. She who raised me.

She who scooped out one of my eyes with an alchemy spoon. She who made me less than a man.

Tonight, I would have my revenge.