In the Shadow of Swords Read online

  An Errant Press Release

  IN THE SHADOW OF SWORDS

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author and publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright (c) 2010 by Val Gunn

  Book Design by Joshua Vizzacco

  Cartography by Chris Gonzlez

  Cover Illustration by Samir Malik

  This book has been typeset in Gentium, a relative newcomer to the game and was chosen despite the fact that it is available free of charge. The serif typeface was designed by Victor Gaultney for a dual purpose—both to fulfill academic requirements and to meet a global need. The design is intended to be highly readable, reasonably compact, and visually attractive. Think of it as ‘lotion for the eyes’.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  The name “Errant Press” and the stylized “e” with design are registered trademarks belonging to Errant Press LLC.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.

  ISBN - 13: 978-0-615-23269-0

  ISBN - 10: 0-615-23269-8

  PRINTED IN ICELAND

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Errant Press hardcover / First Edition / February 2011

  www.errantpress.com

  Introduction

  IN THE SHADOW OF SWORDS is the first book in the tales of Ciris Sarn. This is not the Lord of the Rings. Growing up, our house was filled with many books from authors my dad liked to read; Eric Ambler, Graham Greene and Robert Ludlum—to name just a few. Of course I found my way into the realms of fantasy and fell in love with J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic prose. But I was also enamored with the sword and sorcery of Robert Howard and the English translations of One Thousand and One Nights. This book blends elements of fictional espionage, dark fantasy and historical thriller together and pours them into an exotic locale full of intrigue and danger. Mir’aj is a place steeped in the Arabian Nights tradition; a wonderfully fresh setting for me. I am just dipping my toes into the water of this world—hopefully much more of it is still left to come. I’m not an expert on the historical cultures this story takes creative license with, and the responsibility for any error is my own.

  Acknowldgements

  AT LAST. It has been a seemingly endless journey, and I hope your enduring patience will be rewarded. This book could not have been finished without the incredible support of my family and friends. My appreciation goes to all of you who looked at the manuscript at some point along the way and offered suggestions. I still have a long way to go, but hopefully I can get better at this craft. I am ever grateful to Sasha Miller for first mentoring me and never accepting less than my best. Also to James Car-mack for his insight and wonderful workshops—your guidance allowed me to take the story in another direction and make it something much more original. I would like to give credit to Jesus F.Gonzalez for his work in helping me to make the plot flow at a breakneck pace and literally jump off the pages; Don Peters–for stepping into the game late and providing a big assist; Eric Uhland who is a master wordsmith. Further, I am indebted to Alan K.Lipton, Josepha Sherman, and Judith Tarr for each of their contributions. I would be remiss in not mentioning Samir Malik for the wonderful cover art; Chris Gonzalez in creating an amazing map of the world; and Joshua Vizzacco who designed the book for Errant Press. A job well done. To my beta readers—Bob Nagga, Phil Telford, and Laura Haglund—your feedback was much appreciated. Thanks to my peers at Absolute Write and SFF World who read parts of my book and shared their knowledge and expertise. In addition, to everyone else who crossed my path and offered to help me in some way—I am beholden to your kind hearts. This dream would not have become a reality without the support of my wife. I save the last of my profound thanks for her, who has been with me through all the ups and downs. Sorry this one took so long.

  for my Dad

  PROLOGUE

  THERE WILL BE BLOOD

  24.3.791 SC

  1

  HE WAS almost there.

  Hiril Altaïr’s heart pounded furiously as he raced across the square. A drum hammered in his head, until he felt as if it would explode from the pressure. Every breath shot agonizing pain down his sides.

  Not now.

  Not yet.

  Sweat trickled into his eyes, blurring his vision. Still he ran. Each step thundered against the great expanse of stone, echoing, waking foreboding in his mind. Altaïr scanned the buildings for a familiar sign. Light flickered and caught his attention.

  At last.

  He spied a long standard of burgundy with gilded edges, swaying seductively in the wind. Blazoned in the center was a Qurnaj calligram of the word Eliës, rendered in the shape of a falcon.

  Sanctuary.

  But would they harbor him? Could anyone be trusted with the knowledge he held?

  Nearing exhaustion, he stumbled and nearly fell just three paces short of the entrance to the Eliës embassy. The twin doors that faced the square were closed. Altaïr paused, panting, and dashed sweat from his eyes. This deadly game was finally at its end. Just three steps. Once he was across the threshold, he would be safe.

  For how long, though?

  The Eliësans would give him sanctuary. They were fiercely independent from the Sultanate of Qatana and the Rassan Majalis of Miranes’. Altaïr carried with him the proof—and could show them even more. He would make them believers, and they would have to protect him.

  Altaïr was still half stunned by the revelations he had uncovered. Everything he’d been taught to believe was a lie. It had cost his friend’s life and the lives of four others.

  How many others had already been killed?

  He staggered up the remaining three steps. Just as he reached for the door handle, a faint whisper behind him broke the silence. Before he could react, something grabbed his shoulder with hideous strength and spun him around. Lifting him into the air as though he were a child’s toy, the unseen attacker slammed Altaïr into one of the embassy’s stone pillars, shattering bones, and then tossed him effortlessly back down the stairs. For a moment, Altaïr faced a wall of darkness as he landed on the ground, screaming in agony. The darkness receded briefly as he fought to stay conscious. Altaïr’s blurred vision found his attacker—a tall, menacing figure cloaked entirely in black, stretching a hand out toward him.

  Ciris Sarn. Kingslayer.

  A wave of dark scarabs flowed from Sarn’s fingertips, sweeping down on their prey. They flew to embrace Altaïr, shrouding him in a pulsing, inky mass. The creatures tightened around him and punctured his flesh, plunging Altaïr into unbearable pain.

  The doors to the embassy promised sanctuary, but for Altaïr it was too late. He gave one last great strain against the merciless onslaught, to no avail. The spellbound creatures stripped away his skin, ripping apart muscle and sinew as he flailed helplessly—and hopelessly—to escape.

  Altaïr looked up into the cold black eyes of the assassin. The hooded form of Sarn gazed back at him with no trace of mercy or remorse, his face lined in angles, sharp and unforgiving.

  The pain swelled as time slowed, seemingly endless, and Altaïr knew that the sight of the assassin would be his last.

  It ended with the sharp, swift movement of a thin blade whispering through the air. Cruel steel pierced Altaïr’s eye and drove deep into his skull. HIS head wrenched back in a sile
nt scream as a crimson curtain fell, then faded into eternal darkness.

  His last thought was of his wife.

  Marin.

  2

  THERE WAS only one thing left to do.

  The scarabs had done their work. Now that Hiril Altaïr lay dead before him, Sarn reached into the folds of his clothing and removed four thin, leather-bound books and laid them next to the body. Dassai wanted these books, but Sarn was not concerned with his avarice.

  For now, he had his own matters to attend to.

  He spoke the arcane words as he sprinkled a pinch of ebon dust from a small glass vial. The disk-shaped granules covered the body and sent out a clear message.

  An assassin’s mark.

  A bright flash lit Sarn’s eyes as he gazed at a shimmering mirror of blue-metallic liquid outlining dark blood and shards of bone—the last remains of Hiril Altaïr. It continued to expand before engulfing the ruined body in a pool of cobalt.

  Soon the alchemy began to subside. The mark was invisible to all others save for one man.

  Sarn rose. He had fulfilled his duty. He was jinn-bound to the Sultan and thereby his lackeys, men such as Dassai. He had been compelled to kill Altaïr, but he did not care about the books. Let Dassai retrieve them himself.

  Pealing across the city, the bells of many masjids tolled sonorously.

  Istanna had ended.

  Across the great square, Sarn disappeared into a small passageway, a shade lost in deeper shadow. The silence lasted for only a brief moment, until a flock of sable-winged gulls gathered,

  squabbling greedily over their newfound feast.

  The doors to the embassy remained closed.

  3

  I AM a coward.

  This thought plagued the mind of Nabeel Khoury as he watched the man die.

  He did nothing.

  Said nothing.

  He watched it happen and wept.

  As the Rais of Havar, Khoury had known the man who would be killed. He also knew the assassin’s identity. Sarn had killed before in Havar, and Khoury had let it happen then, too. Still, he felt unclean, his conscience tainted by the evil done.

  Yet he did not stop it.

  Because I am a coward.

  Khoury was under orders from Emir Malek himself, delivered to him by Fajeer Dassai. You did not cross either man if you wanted to live. Havar was a valued sheikdom of Qatana, and the Sultan’s reach was long. Malek and Dassai played politics as they pleased, and there was very little the sheikh’s chief administrator could do about it.

  Hiril Altaïr was to die—and Nabeel Khoury had made sure it happened.

  Khoury felt shame as he witnessed the execution, watching from a safe perch high above as Sarn marked the mutilated form that had once been a man. He knew his life would be irrevocably changed after this—and it would not be for the better.

  You are a coward.

  Yes, he thought again. No one came to Altaïr‘s defense, and I made sure of it.

  Khoury had met days earlier with an envoy of Eliës. Therewould be a killing. It would take place in the square on the high holy day of Istanna. Leave your mind free of guilt, he’d told the envoy. It was of no concern. Just be sure that you do not open your doors to this man or hinder the assassin in any way, and there will be no trouble.

  Khoury said the words and left the bribe. Just as he had done with a dozen others.

  He had met Altaïr twice before. The first time was years earlier, the second just a few days ago. Altaïr’s reputation as a skilled siri preceded him—experienced, thorough, and loyal. A good man, thought Khoury—something he was not. Altaïr had come to Havar looking for answers. But Khoury was uncertain of the questions. He’d learned only a little, some from Altaïr, some from Dassai, who’d shown up two days later. And now Altaïr was dead.

  Khoury fixed his eyes on Sarn. The assassin knelt beside Altaïr and laid something next to him, just outside the pool of blood that surrounded the dead man. Khoury could not tell what the object was, but Sarn’s actions were strange and they’d caught his attention. Sarn stood and then was gone, leaving the square as quickly as he had entered it.

  Was it a trap?

  Did the assassin still lurk, just out of sight, looking to see if anyone would show? Dassai had mentioned nothing to him about Sarn leaving something.

  Khoury wanted to know. He needed to know.

  But caution and fear held him in place. Merely by interfering, he risked his own death. The royal family was never to be crossed, and apart from Sarn, Dassai might have been the most dangerous man Khoury had ever met. So Khoury waited, chewing his nails, and did nothing.

  He was a coward.

  He waited for several hours. Biding his time. The street remained deserted. It was late; there was no traffic. No one exited out of the building, either.

  The ruined flesh and bones of Altaïr remained on the steps to the embassy, along with the object Sarn had laid down. The more Khoury studied it, the more he began to realize it was a book of some kind.

  He looked up at the moons. Their positions told him it would be some time before the street below saw any life again.

  Khoury looked again at the object that lay beside Altaïr’s body. The urge to go outside and retrieve it was intense, but he resisted. The longer he stood at the window peering down, the stronger the urge became. Was he still a coward?

  Only time would tell.

  4

  SILENCE.

  Gone were the screams of unspeakable pain as wax-acid poured over feet and then legs, eating away tissue, muscle, and bone. Still, there were no pleas from Tariq Alyalah—nothing revealed out of desperation and terror.

  The torture of the sufi had lasted for more than two hours. Each drop of candle wax sizzled as it seared skin and mingled with blood—a sickening sound that could be heard quite plainly once the wailing had ceased and the old man had finally died.

  Fajeer Dassai looked over the corpse that leaned against the curved side of the room. The white distemper paint on the wall around the body, now charred black, had peeled away, and a thin layer of ash dusted the stone floor. Lifeless eyes stared out of Alyalah’s emaciated face. Its mouth was agape. Shriveled, cracked lips receded to expose a scattering of brown and yellow tobacco-stained teeth. The sufi’s blood-soaked suriah robe was torn away at the navel as though he had been bitten in half by a shark; there was nothing left of him below the waist.

  The stench of melted flesh invaded Dassai’s nose despite the clove-laced cotton stuffed into his nostrils. He blew out the last of the candles that had been used to torture the sufi, his face so close to the flame that it flared amid the gray, death-tinted shadows.

  He had already worked his way through every room, from the top of the misal’ayn down the three hundred sixty-five steps to the crypt and anbar buried deep beneath the surface. This was the last room left. Soon enough he would locate Alyalah’s private records. Somewhere within the walls or floor of this mirsd—this sacred chamber—rested a hidden cache of books that contained secrets so powerful they would change the beliefs of nearly everyone alive in Mir’aj.

  Tariq Alyalah would have had Hiril Altaïr smuggle them out of Qatana, possibly turning them over to the Eliësans. Dassai had outwitted him, though, by sending Sarn out to murder Altaïr. The assassin would kill the siri before he could take possession.

  It was imperative that Dassai possess these relics. This tower would not keep them secret from him much longer. Once found, these books would endow him with wealth and power to rival the mightiest of sultans.

  The room was small and barren, with no windows or furnishings. Embedded in the floor was a mosaic of brown and tan square tiles laid out in an intricate circular pattern, progressing from large to small until it formed a ring, one foot in diameter, in the center of the mirsd. Within this ring was set a copper seal engraved with a burning sun. Light filtered down from a gap in the high domed ceiling, illuminating the pattern set in the floor.

  It was here.


  Dassai picked up a brushed brass candleholder, twenty-six inches long, fashioned like a spear. He rapped it hard against the floor, sending the stick of wax skidding across the tiles. Wedging the pointed end beneath the copper seal’s edge, he worked it clockwise around the perimeter until it stopped against a hiddenclasp. He pried until he had exposed the clasp, applied a quick, hard snap, and broke the barrier. Removing the disc revealed a shallow recess with just enough room to house several small books.

  The cache, however, was empty.

  Impossible!

  Dassai screamed in rage, slamming his fists on the floor. He stared down at the empty hole, noticing that stone had been crudely chipped away from the bottom and filled with fresh dirt. Dassai dug his hand into the loose soil, searching until his fingers found the slender neck of a wine bottle. He pulled it out and wiped the grime from the green glass. Empty. He examined the smudged lettering.

  It was his own fucking label.

  Dassai seethed with rage. He should never have counted on Sarn. Hiril Altaïr was dead; there was no question about that. He’d received word himself only an hour before setting off to deal with Alyalah. But what he hadn’t realized, until this very moment, was the possibility that the assassin had come here first. Dassai had wasted precious time waiting for Alyalah to return to the tower, obviously unaware that his abettor in the plot had been here only hours previous.

  Did the assassin take them for himself?

  The more he thought about it, the more enraged he became.

  Sarn, he thought. I will cut your head off and shit down your throat.

  Somewhere in Havar he knew the assassin was laughing.

  Part One

  NO WAY OUT

  10.3.791 SC

  1

  “TOMORROW THEY’RE going to cut off your head, old man.”

  Sarn looked out into the night through the high narrow window of the old man’s cell. Three moons hung in the dark sky; Cilíín, a milky crescent, shone brightest, illuminating a feeble, sickly figure draped in threadbare rags. The old man leaned against the wall, seated on a crude stool, the lone piece of furniture in the cramped cell. The intruder jarred him awake.