The Staff of Sakatha
Tom Liberman
Prolog
The long staff appeared to be a white crocodile on the point of its tale in the hands of the gaunt child of the dragon who glanced back and forth between the precipice at his back and the approaching horsemen to his front. He wore what once were gaudy robes, but the silver and gold stitch-work was ripped away, leaving long rents in the fabric, and the collar was torn to reveal a heavy coat of chain mail underneath. At his feet two other children of the dragon were on their knees, their hands pressed together, eyes closed, and heads tilted up towards the sky.
The smaller of the two, who wore a heavy silver necklace with a brilliant green snake carved of jade, coiled and ready to strike, looked up to the standing dragonchild and gazed at him for a moment, “Lord Sakatha,” it hissed through front fangs as its long narrow tongue slithered out of its mouth, “the Emperor’s men are coming. We must pray for salvation.”
“There is no salvation,” said Sakatha and tapped the end of his staff on the ground. “The Black Horseman is at their head and he will not negotiate, he will not take prisoners, he will not be corrupted; he and his companions will slay us and take the staff for their own.”
“How can this be?” asked the other dragonchild. “You promised that the emperor would be defeated that you would rule the world, that the children of the dragons would rule at your side.”
Sakatha moved his eyes to take in the second of his companions and stared at him for a long moment, an instant that seemed to draw out immeasurably considering that the extent of their lifespan equaled the time it would take the horsemen to arrive at the cliff. “I was wrong,” he finally said. “Is it that difficult to fathom that I underestimated the power of the emperor?”
“I don’t understand,” wailed the creature at his feet that clutched wildly at the symbol around his chest. “You will save us, Great Sakatha, won’t you?”
Sakatha shook his head once again and planted the staff firmly in the ground to await the arrival of their pursuers. It was the matter of only a few more minutes before the six horsemen appeared at the plateau where the three dragonchildren awaited.
The obvious leader of the horsemen was a darkling with deep purple skin and silver eyes. He rode a massive black unicorn and even the animal’s horn was the color of night. Fire came from its nostrils as it breathed and the rider looked at Sakatha with a narrow smile and eyes squinted to a slit. “This is the end, Sakatha,” he said. “I come by order of the emperor himself from the throne of kings in mighty Das’von. You have been convicted in absentia of treason to the empire. Do you deny your guilt?”
Sakatha shook his head slowly and looked up at the sun that rose high in the sky. “You would be nothing more than a worm crawling under the ground had you not that black sphere around your neck,” said Sakatha as he pointed to the neck of the lead rider where the black sphere seemed to emanate darkness that spread over the man.
“I do wear it though,” said the Black Horseman. “And I carry the order of your execution under the seal of the emperor,” he went on and produced a large envelope sealed in wax with a symbol of a running cheetah. “Do you choose to fight or accept your punishment with dignity?”
“You wish me to fight,” said Sakatha. “You wish me to invoke the power of the staff I created. My token of rule is my own, crafted by my hand, not stolen from someone else,” he said and almost spat the words as he glared at the black ball around the neck of the leader.
“We nomads,” said the rider with a wave of his hand towards his companions, “are a desert people. We accept the sunrise as the herald of the day and the sunset as the harbinger of the night. You are who you are, Sakatha. You are as you have always been. You will do what is in your own best interest. I have traveled far to find you and am not adverse to stringing out the pleasure I will enjoy at killing you and the high priests of your blasphemous religion.”
“Death to you, Ming!” screamed one of the children of dragon on his knees and started to rise to his feet as he muttered strange words and reached into his robe for something.
Before he even managed to get both feet under him one of the riders spurred his horse with such rapidity that the beast was under way seemingly before the priest started to rise. A sword flashed out from under the heavy riding cloak of the nomad and pierced the eye of the priest in an instant. The rider made a flicking motion with his hand, the tip of the blade ripped the eyeball from its socket, which then flew over the edge of the small precipice, and disappeared into the depths of the chasm.
The priest screamed, clutched the hole where his eye once was, fell first to his knees, then face down on ground, and whimpered while he clutched at his face.
The second priest watched in silence for a moment and then stood, his arms raised high in surrender, “Mighty Left Hand,” he said and turned to the rider. “Might I beg for mercy?”
“Now you think to address me by my proper title,” said the horseman with a shake of his head. “After you and your kind betrayed the emperor’s daughter and tried to take her city. Now you think to plead for mercy after your minions murdered every human child in Stav’rol when they refused your kind offer of alliance, now you think that?”
“It wasn’t me,” said the priest, but then a gush of blood came from his throat as Sakatha the Great cut it with a single swipe of a curving knife that glowed with green energy. The man gurgled for a moment with a strange little sound, then fell to the ground, and slowly bled out his life as he twitched pitifully.
“I grew tired of his voice,” said Sakatha. “Do you mind that I took the liberty Ming? Or should I use your many honorifics, Black Horseman, Left Hand of the Emperor, Demon Rider, He of the Lonely Charge?”
“Titles are pleasant,” said the darkling, “but in the end are merely flatteries of bygone deeds. You wouldn’t want to tell me where that noxious steed of yours has flown off to, now would you?”
“Chusarausea the Toxic you mean,” said Sakatha and raised his eyebrows to look at the leader of the horsemen with a puzzled expression.
“The stench of that foul beast still haunts the wardrobe of the emperor’s daughter,” said Ming with a sad shake of his head. “What she saw in you I cannot fathom. It was clear to me from the beginning…”
Here a moan from the man on the ground interrupted his speech.
“Kill him already,” said the Demon Rider and his orders were carried out instantly. “Now, where were we?”
“Queen Doria, the delightful daughter of our august majesty,” replied Sakatha with a polite nod of his head. “Perhaps she admired my staff. It is rather lengthy,” he went on and caressed the long staff held in his right hand and smiled broadly.
“So I’ve heard,” said Ming with a sudden smile on his dark face and he laughed. “You face death as a nomad might, Sakatha, I admire that. Tell me where the dragon has gone and the secrets to the staff and I’ll make sure your death is quick.”
“That I will not do,” said the dragonchild with a shake of his head and he lifted the staff again and pounded it into the ground. This time the thing suddenly shook and a moment later instead of a living crocodile it took on the shape of a mummified beast of the same type. Where once brilliant green scales were carved up the length of the spine, now tapered and decayed wraps stood instead.
“An interesting trick,” said the Black Horseman, his five companions suddenly tense and spread out in a semi-circle around the child of the dragon.
“Have no fear,” said Sakatha but the voice was not strong anymore, it was suddenly wheezing and weak like that of an old man. “My last trick will be of no harm to you.”
“You will cheat me of killing you,” said Ming as he watched the dragonchild’s face suddenly grow old in a mask of wrinkles, then the skin crumbled away and left behind a skull as the robes drooped on the now skeletal frame. “You kill yourself?”
“No,” said the rickety voice that somehow came out of the living skull. Sakatha still stood but as some sort of
