‘Our present forms are a necessary deception,’ shrugged the grand vizier. ‘The empire is not yet ready for a female grand vizier. And my male form should not disgust you, for in a very practical sense, it was you and your kind that made me, my Pasdaran friend. You are as much my begetter as you are the boy’s here.’
‘What do you talk of?’ spat Farris Uddin.
‘Do you remember when the satrapy of Hakaqibla rebelled all those years ago? When the Pasdaran came and executed everyone in the sultan’s family — all the males anyway. It’s not an easy thing to be a twelve-year-old girl, raised in luxury as a princess, innocent and artless, knowing nothing of the world, and then to have all that ripped away from you in a single night of savagery.’
‘You were there …’
‘As were you, I expect. You have no care for what you and your people did to me, do you? What you did to all of us. After such a gentle upbringing to find myself being whipped as a slave, watching most of my sisters and cousins die as we were dragged half-drugged behind sandpedes across half the empire. But I was lucky, if you can call being kept alive after what I experienced lucky. I was the prettiest of the survivors — the slavers made sure I got just enough food and water not to stumble and perish in the desert. Eventually, when I went on the block in Bladetenbul, I was purchased at no small expense by a very old and powerful womb mage who stood senior in the order’s ranks. I became his very special little slave, and somewhere in between abusing me, the sweaty old goat fell in love with what I still was in those days, as did his young fool of an apprentice. Between the two of them, I learnt every skill of the womb mage’s craft, until the pair didn’t even realize that their innovations were more my work than their own. I drove the old goat into a fit of jealousy by my dalliance with his apprentice, drove him into murderous fury, and made sure he pushed the young boy out of one of the towers of Mutantarjinn.
‘It was then that I replaced the apprentice, in every sense of the word, having developed a changeling virus to assume his assistant’s gender. How furious my owner was when he saw what his beautiful little slave had turned into. But he could say nothing without being executed by my side as the murderers we had become. And when the time was right, I slipped a draught into the old goat’s wine that burst his heart like an overripe fruit, leaving me to claim his legacy.’
Omar stared appalled at Immed Zahharl. More of an abomination than anyone had suspected. How similar and yet how different they were. Both Omar and the grand vizier had once been slaves, both risen beyond their station. He freed — indirectly — by her machinations, and she clawing her way back to privilege, becoming a chimera through the darkest murder and treason. How many lives had ended in the fall of the House of Barir, the Sect of Ackron declared heretic to make room for her followers’ rise in the Holy Cent; how many more would die in the war against the north?
The grand vizier’s eyes narrowed. ‘I should plant you in the torture gardens, Farris Uddin, so I can thank you every morning for making me what I am today. Unfortunately, old man, you have too few years left for me to enjoy your company, so we shall have to put your body to a more practical use.’
The grand vizier was now near enough to Westwick’s chair for her to spit at his feet as she cursed him for a traitor.
Immed Zahharl just seemed amused by the woman’s little act of defiance. ‘I would free you if I could and convert you into one of us. But you are as much a product of the Pasdaran as the old man here. How clever of the secret police to send agents across the border masquerading as escaped slaves. And every girl born of her mother’s womb as much a slave to the Caliph Eternal as his troop of beyrogs. The changes in your body that imprint your loyalty to him run too deep and subtle for me to remove them without killing you. A pity. What an assassin’s blade you would have made for me. But don’t worry.’ The grand vizier tapped the vials of blood that had been extracted from the prisoners. ‘I have your design here. We can have a few more like you bred, I think, with the recipient of your devotion corrected to a more appropriate choice of candidate. The original, I fear, we must feed to the creatures in our stables. Some of them have quite a healthy appetite, you see.’
The grand vizier moved down the line to where Commodore Black was tied up. ‘And here is a strange fellow to turn up as one of parliament’s agents. The blood of kings runs through your veins, old man. I was led to believe that all of the Jackelian royalist rebels had perished with the fall of the u-boat fleet-in-exile at Porto Principe.’
‘Not the ones who swam from the depth charges, lass,’ said the commodore.
‘Eminently sensible,’ smiled the grand vizier. ‘Half the people who serve my cause have switched sides. I rather count on it, or I would be ruling over a very depopulated empire. When the Kingdom of Jackals falls, I think I will crack open the cells of your people’s royal breeding house and see if I can find someone malleable enough to become the puppet sultan for my new satrapy. A little continuity goes a long way in such matters. You shall act as my broker.’
‘Parliament already has a blessed puppet queen locked up in the palace,’ said the commodore. ‘And I would sooner have her the prisoner of parliament’s crew of dirty Jackelian shopkeepers than of some wicked Cassarabian caliph.’
The grand vizier’s smile turned to ice on his thin lips. ‘You’ll change your mind in time, I believe.’
‘No lass. I might feel sorry for you, but I won’t be doing that. Because you’re right about one thing, you’re a creature of the Pasdaran alright. They created you in the cruelty of the life of a girl born to the empire and the crucible of slavery, they made you just as surely as a womb mage creates a drak. They didn’t need a scalpel and blood splicer to do it. Just whips and murder and a slave collar.’
‘They made me strong!’ the grand vizier hissed.
‘No, lass. They made you hard, and broke you into so many pieces you’ll never be able to tell the difference. As one noble-born to another, strength has no purpose unless it’s used to help the weak. Not this, not what you’re about here.’
‘We shall see what the true currency of strength is, you old fool. When there are crowds of Jackelians kneeling on the streets of Middlesteel as my armies march in procession down your lanes. We shall see which of us is right, then. I will give the empire a victory no man has ever been capable of achieving, and how they will love me for it.’ The chief minister finished behind Omar’s chair. ‘And here we have the last son of Barir, the smallest and least significant of my loose ends. Of no account at all. I am told you were a slave on a desalination line, guardsman. How cruel for fate to push you so far beyond your limits. I clawed myself up through society one death at a time to get back to where I belonged. Perhaps you should have crawled back down to your natural station?’
‘I’ll crawl over glass to see you die,’ spat Omar. He struggled madly against his bonds but they were too tight. Too tight to let him slip them for a second and break the neck of the beast who had turned Shadisa into a twisted shadow of the spiteful politician.
‘Just a proud, vain little peacock, that’s all,’ said the grand vizier, wagging a knowing finger towards Salwa. ‘I told you, even in one who used to be a slave, his male pride would prove too strong for him to defect to our cause.’ The grand vizier moved back to the start of the line of prisoners. ‘So, the guardsmen among you came looking for the Caliph Eternal, and here he is for you now, conveniently trussed up. While my two curious Jackelian friends came visiting to see how it is I now have celgas enough to float an armada capable of outgunning the Royal Aerostatical Navy. That too, I have to show you!’
The grand vizier went to a control panel in front of the mirrored wall, and as his fingers ran over it, the surface of the wall became transparent, revealing a spacious cavern on the other side. Pointing to a series of large glass tanks on the ground of the cavern carpeted with decomposed vegetation and filled with a green mist. Within them, herds of white, bone-like spheres, each with six human-shaped arms, progressed slowly across the tanks as though they were drugged cattle. They walked on their hands whilst scraping up vegetation into a round mouth where a double set of teeth was slowly, constantly chewing.
‘The creatures you see down there are called
‘Save your womb mage’s tricks for someone who will appreciate them,’ said Farris Uddin.
‘Oh, but you should appreciate them,’ insisted the grand vizier, pointing to another series of tanks facing those that housed the strange, sorcery-born creatures. ‘It’s not easy to produce a skoil, only someone as brilliant as
