like their father and their uncle. Likely their mother had spent the morning preparing to be utterly alone.
But miraculously, they had survived. Nadia wiped the tears from her face and blinked.
“Samir? Ghassan?”
As the boys ran across the room and threw themselves at her, their mother opened her arms and turned to them.
“Then there is no invasion? But I can hear fighting…”
Samir hugged his mother with rib-breaking force. Ghassan sat back a little. His face was not the mask of joy she had expected.
“Not entirely, mother. The governor has surrendered M’Dahz to Pelasia, but their army is laying waste to the town anyway. It is the Pelasian way when victorious to sack the conquered town. They will harm us and destroy our property throughout today and tonight. Tomorrow they will stop.”
Samir nodded.
“It is horrible, but it is true, so we must leave here. We are a way down the slope of the town from where the army entered, but they will reach here long before nightfall and when they do…”
His voice tailed off, but all of them knew what would happen when hungry Pelasian soldiers spotted the still- handsome Nadia. According to some stories that were told about the Pelasian men, it was possible even that Samir and Ghassan would also be in danger.
“We’ve been thinking as we came back” Ghassan said, grasping his mother’s wrist. “Nowhere in M’Dahz will be safe until at least dawn, so we must leave the town.”
Nadia shook her head. “You think fast, my boys, but their army surrounds the town. There is nowhere to go.”
Samir grinned.
“Yes there is, mother. There is only one place that is safe tonight.”
He shared a glance with Ghassan and they both nodded.
“The satrap led his entire force across the desert. This means he has no navy. We take two or three of the small fishing boats, some heavy blankets and food to last a day or more and we row out from the port and along the coast until we find somewhere safe to moor.”
Ghassan smiled at the relief on his mother’s face.
“We can return once the town has settled.
Nadia had to smile at her sons. They were often a source or worry or grief but then, when troubles seemed insurmountable, they were also a source of wonder and pride.
In which Asima denies the Gods
Asima crouched by the window, hugging her knees and gazing out between the filigree shutters. The past eight months had plodded by in a blur of misery; not only for her, but for every captive soul in this benighted place.
Governor Talus had visited the satrap in the wake of that disastrous first day and made his case for the safety of the people in his care. His presumption had cost him his left eye, burned out with a heated blade on the floor of the council chamber of M’Dahz, and yet the sacrifice of that eye had bought the safety of those in his house. The satrap had granted sanctuary to anyone in the governor’s mansion but had made it perfectly clear that this rule applied solely to the building itself.
The looting, burning and abuse had slowed through that first night and had stopped the next morning, leaving M’Dahz damaged, burned, and in a state of shock. One or two of the more daring refugees in the house had taken this as a sign of safety and had collected their belongings, despite the warnings of the guards, and left the complex, returning to the town. Severed heads both old and young decorated the main gate for weeks thereafter as a reminder that sanctuary stopped at the governor’s doorstep.
As the weeks rolled past and the captives mooched around their packed quarters, despair became the theme. Every morning was greeted with sobbing from somewhere in the building and every night ended with a tense and oppressive silence broken only by the Pelasian temple bells.
The first two months saw a thinning of the crowds in the house. A few brave adults had left at night, climbing down the outer wall and running through the maze of alleys in an effort to flee the cursed town and reach Calphoris. Perhaps they made it; certainly their heads never returned to the spears above the gate. Others, enterprising as they were, had brought great wealth with them to the palace and had visited the Pelasian overlord and bought their freedom with breathtaking sums.
Sadly, others had succumbed altogether to despair and had taken their own lives quietly in the night. The months had not been kind.
Asima sighed. She had no idea what was happening out there. Were her friends still alive, she wondered? What of her house? This whole situation set her teeth grinding. Her mother was Pelasian and had been a beautiful and kind woman. Merchants from across the border had traded at M’Dahz for centuries. The Pelasians she had known had always been a kind and exotic people, so why had the Gods seen fit to send the most heartless and twisted son of a whore in the whole world to crush the people of M’Dahz? Three satraps held lands at this border, so why him and not one of the others?
She knew why not, of course: because Gods did not exist and misery and cruelty were the baseline of the world. She had toyed with the idea that Gods were a fiction when her mother was taken from her years ago, and nothing she had seen since had given her cause to change her conclusion. As she sat staring across the roofs, something fell into place in Asima’s mind. She had always been fast and smart; perhaps not quite as fast or smart as Samir, but she would always come out on top, because Samir was soft. Asima was, and she recognised this in herself, quite capable of hardening her heart and combining an iron will with her other talents to achieve her goals.
And that was why she would survive all of this. Maybe the boys would, or maybe not. She could no longer afford to gaze longingly out of the window and hope for them. Whether they were alive and well or not, they were lost to Asima now and, unless she wanted to sit here and wither away in the shadows, she was going to have to do something to save her father and herself.
She turned to look at him, sitting dejected in the shade by the wall. She had not seen a hint of a smile in eight long months and the light had all but gone out in his eyes. A quick glance around told her that they were practically alone, the only other occupants of their living space currently standing out on the roof and breathing clear air.
“Father?”
“Mmm?” The man looked so much older now and had lost a great deal of weight.
“Father, I want you to listen to me.”
He turned to frown at her. A year ago he would have disciplined Asima for speaking to an adult in such a fashion. Now, even the thought seemed absurd. He merely frowned and shrugged.
“Father, I am going to do something and I want you to be prepared, as I am not sure how this will work out. You won’t like it, but we have no choice.”
A raised eyebrow only; she squared her shoulders and went on.
“There is no magical solution coming, father. No Gods or heroes are going to strike down the satrap and save us; he is not going to have a sudden change of heart. If we do not do something we will slowly wither away in this building until we crumble and die.”
For a moment it looked as though he might argue, but slowly, unhappily, and silently, he nodded.
“So, father, I intend to seek an audience with the satrap. I am the daughter of a Pelasian. I have Pelasian blood in my veins and I need to make him see that.”
“Asima…”
“No, father. I know what you are about to say, but this is the way. There is no luck and no fate, father. We make our own futures and I, for one, do not intend for mine to be as a prisoner.”
“Asima, you cannot…”
His voice tailed off as the girl stood, proud and defiant. She was eleven years old; still a girl. In two or three
