“There is a message for El-Kir embedded in the eyes of the dead man. Let the message arrive at the feet of the Risir without delay and let the whole land know that we will have our share soon enough. We will have our claim, as this world entire is ours.”

-Declaration of Zhiren on behalf of the Emperor

Hours Prior

When they brought him before the priest, Geshor couldn’t help but be caught off-guard by the man’s friendliness, his disarming kindness. With graciousness and manners Zhiren motioned for Geshor to come and sit with him. A simple table was set at the center of the plain room, with two chairs facing opposite each other. Behind it there was a desk and then the window, and on either side there were small bookshelves. Otherwise the room was nearly bare. There was a pot of tea and a pitcher of sweet-smelling Gaurl wine; a board set up for a game of Keunigg.

“Geshor,” Zhiren said with a smile as he reached out with his leg and pushed Geshor’s chair back. Allowing himself a slight smile – though he knew it was a foolish smile – Geshor sat down in the chair. “I’ve heard a lot about you. I’ve read your work. It’s truly wonderful to meet you in the flesh.”

“Is that why I’m here?” Geshor asked, giving a small chuckle in an attempt to show himself less than bothered by the situation he was in. “The great heir to the Invictan Empire wished to speak to an old writer? To pick my brain?”

“Well, it’s certainly why you’re in this specific room,” Zhiren said. “When I heard you’d been picked up by the patrols I simply had to speak to you. Would you like some wine?”

“Of course,” Geshor said, and that at least was not an act. He poured himself a generous glass of wine, and Zhiren did the same. Zhiren raised the glass and smiled.

“To your happiness,” Zhiren said, and they clinked glasses. Geshor took a deep breath as he raised the cup toward his lips, staring down into the inky purple fluid. “To your happiness.” He drank deep, draining the glass, and set it aside with a satisfied sigh. Some of the wine stained his beard, but he paid it only a little mind – wiping at his chin with a napkin.

“Do you care for a game of Keunigg?” Zhiren continued, setting his fingers on top of a piece on the board.

“I’m afraid I don’t play,” Geshor replied, “although I admire the game, to be sure.” He poured himself another glass of wine alongside a cup of tea, and took a sip from each.

“Ah. Well.” Zhiren sighed. “I suppose we’d best discuss other matters, then. A shame.” He stood up and walked to the nearby bookshelf, pulled a volume off the shelf, and walked over to the table again. “Do you know what book this is?” He held it up.

“Uh…” Geshor turned his head to look. “That’s my book.”

“Right. Your note book. And you’ve been taking notes as you traveled through the Invictan borderlands. Very, very detailed notes.” Zhiren opened the book and paged through. “Outskirts of Kontabliku. Passed twenty-seven Invictan patrols on my way. They are using armored vehicles with four wheels, of a make I do not recognize. Each patrol consists of at least two soldiers, usually more.” Zhiren shut the book. “You are gathering information for our enemies, then?”

Geshor chuckled. “Uh… Well, sir, I’m not gathering military information for anyone. It’s for my next travel book. You see, I’ve written more than one already. It’s what I’m known for – I travel the world, and I write about my experiences, and –“

“That is what you are known for now,” Zhiren said smoothly. “But you are Gaurl by birth, aren’t you? A Gaurl Abrist – a rare breed.”

Geshor narrowed his eyes and glanced down at the glass and the cup in front of him. He could already feel the alcohol starting to affect him, loosening his tongue a little bit and making him bolder. Bolder, and cleverer. “I am Gaurl by birth, yes.”

“Indeed, you were a resident of this very city at one time.”

“Yes,” Geshor said, “I did once call Kurikuneku my home.”

“One would think,” Zhiren said, “that after the – admittedly, miscalculated – decision by our Emperor to cast you out of the city, you would have little desire to come back. Why seek return to a place that rejected you so cruelly?”

“I’m travelling,” Geshor said. “I didn’t intend to return to Kurikuneku, because I know I’m not permitted here. Besides, others have already written plenty about the city in recent years, and it wasn’t along my path. I’m on my way to visit Carla El-Kir, my friend in the Crescent Land.”

Zhiren’s eyebrow raised at that, and internally Geshor screamed at himself, at his own foolishness. He raised the cup of tea to his lips and took a slow sip. Lowering his head so that Zhiren couldn’t see his eyes. “Well, we’ll be sure to send you on your way to her then.” Zhiren shrugged, sighed, shook his head. “I would like it if you would bring a message to her, though.”

“What message is that?”

“I’ll write it down soon and place it in your pocket,” Zhiren said. “Only, don’t open the paper on which I write. I won’t permit you to know what I have to say to El-Kir.” Zhiren smiled at Geshor’s expression. “Yes, there are some things even you do not know about her. That’s normal, to be expected. Can anyone truly say that we know our friends?” He returned to sit across from Geshor, still flipping through the book. “And so, in the course of writing your travelogue, you decided to sketch pictures of the walls of each Invictan city you passed, to make diagrams of those you entered, and to count the streets and the types of businesses, the approximate populations… I’ll grant that you are quite dedicated to your art, Geshor.”

“It’s a lost art since the Desert,” Geshor replied. “You know, in the old world – or, I’d say, in a world that the old world would have called old – books like the ones I write were as close as most people could get to traveling the world for themselves. It’s important to be very detailed, so that you can give those people the best experience possible.”

“Isn’t it also true,” Zhiren said, “that such books were used by old-world kingdoms to acquire information about their enemies?”

Geshor shrugged. “To acquire information about the world! Enemies, allies, everything in between. After all, how can we have any kind of relationship to our neighbors – good or bad – if we know nothing about them?”

“I suppose,” Zhiren murmured. “You may be right on that much. Yet we recruit scouts and rangers to tell us about the world outside our borders, and diplomats to tell us about the people and their worlds. What need do we have of some itinerant writer to do the same?”

“Not all societies have the same level of… organization, that Gaurlante does, sir.” Geshor smiled.

Zhiren smiled back, a vicious and dangerous smile. “You will address me as Priest Zhiren.”

“Very well, Priest Zhiren.”

“In any case. By this, do you mean to say that you are the closest thing that your society has to scouts, diplomats?”

“Well, I –“

“You travel the world gathering information and bringing it back to those who live outside the rule of law, those who have rejected our embrace. You are, by definition, a scout. One might even say… a spy.”

Geshor took a sip of his wine and forced himself to breathe slowly. “I’m only trying to reach my friend on the other side of Invictan lands. I have no interest in spying on you.”

“And yet here you are, drinking wine with the Emperor of the Invictans, casting furtive glances at the little book you wish you could be scribbling in. No doubt you’re imagining now exactly what you’ll write about this experience.” Zhiren smiled, and then laughed, while Geshor tried not to crush the glass in his hand.

“Candidly, Priest Zhiren – wait. Did you say ‘with the Emperor’? Is he here?”

“Slip of the tongue,” Zhiren muttered.

“Candidly, Priest Zhiren,” Geshor continued – “You misunderstand my purpose here. I was merely passing through and I have no intention of taking note of any classified information. If you wish to redact my book, that’s fine.”

“Oh, I appreciate that.” Zhiren smiled. “Really, though, nothing here is particularly sensitive information. It’s not the information you’ve recorded that is suspicious, only the pattern of behavior – but, I suppose, that’s what led the soldiers to bring you in. It was an oversight, I think. Oh well, nothing to be done about it now – we can’t change the past, we can only move forward and make a better future. Isn’t that right?”

Geshor smiled, lifted the glass to his lips again and took a sip. “I suppose it is,” he said.

“With that in mind…” Zhiren crossed the room, sat down on the chair, and handed the book to Geshor. Geshor took it with a trembling hand and placed it in his lap. “Would you like to learn to play Keunigg?”

The game was simpler than it looked – Geshor had observed players in the past on his journeys, noting Keunigg’s popularity everywhere from the southern parts of the Nie-Wypsa archipelago, to the reaches of the Old Saharan cities. Zhiren, with a friendly demeanor, guided Geshor through the game step by step, showed him how to play, showed him how to win. By the end of the evening Geshor had navigated his forward line to surround Zhiren’s ruler.

Zhiren smiled and stood up from the table then. “You have a very sharp mind, Geshor. It really is a shame we don’t have more time to talk. There’s somewhere I have to go soon.” Zhiren walked past the bookshelf and took another volume from it. On the spine Geshor read: ATLAS OF THE NORTH. “Time to go to Carakhte.” Zhiren turned, facing his guards – the guards who had stood aside and silent for hours of the evening. Zhiren smiled, and the smile chilled Geshor’s blood, and Zhiren stepped outside of the office and closed the door behind him.

The sound of the door’s lock engaging echoed in Geshor’s heart.

Immediately the guards began to move: one went to the wall and dimmed the room’s lights, flipped a series of switches. Geshor’s eyes darted between the guards. While the one was flipping the switches, the other shouldered his rifle. “It’s time,” he echoed, a growling gutter-thug’s voice. Geshor’s nostrils flared. He couldn’t keep his grip on the book in his lap. It fell to the ground next to him. The guard tilted his head and gave an apologetic smile.

Geshor’s eyes darted down to his feet and he opened his mouth, took in a breath.

“Got something to say?” the guard asked casually, his tone constant. Something about the man’s accent reminded Geshor of a trip through Gaurlante in the distant past. So far away now. This man wasn’t from the Core. He’d climbed so high in the ranks but he wasn’t from the Core. He was from the provinces. Kazarkh, most likely.

Quiet, rumbling, low under Geshor’s breath:

“And in the faint light of a – waning moon…”

“What’s that?” The guard squinted, took a step back. The other must have finished with the switches on the wall, but Geshor couldn’t hear them anymore.

“I think he’s… singing. I don’t know, man,” said the other. “This is…”

“from loosened fingers arrows fly…”

“Shut up!” the guard hissed, stepping forward.

“Just do it, idiot. What’s the hold up?”

Louder, Geshor sang, smiling mockingly up at his executioner: “Paint with the colors of the cooling heart-blood…”

“What the fuck? I know that song. I…”

“Oh, for – just let me.”

“Till it boils up and the young foals die…”

“This guy’s freaking me out. Are you sure he isn’t possessed?”

“P – possessed? Ridiculous!”

All sound but the voices faded from Geshor’s awareness, all sight but the inky black barrel of the gun.

“And underneath the watch of that pale God”

“Shut up shut up shut up! Get those words out of your mouth!”

“That jealous gibbous in the sky”

“Shut up shut up shut up shut up”

“Withering glare of the only one who loves you”

“Sit down, I’ll handle it.”

Click

“Silence the wicked –“

Outside in the hallway, Zhiren frowned when he noted with distaste how far he had gotten prior to hearing the gunshots. Additionally, there were too many shots. Not efficient work. He’d have to have those guards removed while he was away – no forgiveness for the inefficient, not so high up in the Tower. Zhiren stepped out onto the smoothly-falling elevator and looked down the tower’s shaft. Bloodstains marked the leaves of the bushes decorating outside the tower’s central shaft. He sighed and opened up the atlas in his hands. “What a pity.”