Saladin Ahmed - Throne of the Crescent Moon

“Then there’s a rap at our door, and the Prince is there with a handful of silver—not copper, mind you, silver , and one of the palace physicians! And the Khalif’s man is stumbling over himself to take care of our girl! I’ll never forget the look on that man’s face. He wanted to help us so badly. Almost—” here Ramzi smiled wickedly “—almost as if his life depended on it. He wouldn’t have bothered to brush flies from Shahnta’s dead face before the Prince spoke to him, though. Now my clan is the Prince’s clan.”

Dawoud realized the man was a villager originally, by his accent. Villagers took such ties more seriously than city folk.

The Prince reemerged from the tunnel and headed back over to them. Dawoud cleared his throat loudly. “Kidnapping men and forcing them to do your work at swordpoint. Wringing one man’s gain from another’s terror. And what if one of the palace boys had died while this physician was away? He would have deserved it for being the child of a rich man? You are truly a hero, O Falcon Prince!”

Ramzi put his hand on his heavy club. “I told you to watch your tone, outlander!”

The Prince flashed the man a disappointed look. “No, Ramzi. I thank you for your loyalty, but this is not our way. We are not fighting for the strongest or for he with the most armed men on his side. We are fighting for the man with right reason on his side. I have never asked that you follow me because of who I am, but because of what I stand for.”

“Aye, sire, you’ve told me. Principles. I’m a man of principles, myself. But him…” The man flashed a threatening smile and pointed to his club. “He’s an old-fashioned son-of-a-whore. He only cares about his clan.”

The Prince smiled and clapped the man on the back. “You’re a hopeless one, Ramzi. In any case, stand ready—you too, Headknocker—our people say it’s nearly time for us to move.”

Beside Dawoud, Litaz sniffed. “Headknocker! Camelback! Such names you Quarter boys give yourselves!”

Dawoud squeezed her arm. This is not the time for your Niece-of-a-Pasha snoot, my love! he said with his eyes. But she ignored him.

“Really! Are these the names your mothers gave you?” She clucked her tongue.

The thugs took it in stride. Headknocker bowed half-jestingly. “If you really want to know, Auntie, my mother named me Fayyaz.”

“What do you know? Your mother named me ‘The Bedchamber Stallion!’,” one of Headknocker’s fellows broke in, snorting a laugh.

In spite of her snoot Litaz laughed, too. “O believer! When you meet a man on the road, know that God, who makes broken things whole, has cobbled your kindest fates together,” she recited, turning to the Prince. “I needed that laugh. May it please God to make us friends rather than enemies, Pharaad Az Hammaz.”

She’s still a spoiled Blue River girl at heart, Dawoud thought. Charmed by cold-blooded killers whom she thinks are loveable rogues. Not for the first time in his life, Dawoud felt a burning hatred of men with able bodies and too-quick smiles.

The Falcon Prince inclined his head in agreement with Litaz. “May it indeed be so, Auntie, but I will not bother to ask it of God, who has left man to fight and scramble over bits of food and land. Who lets flesh-burning diseases kill children!”

Raseed snarled, and it was as bestial as any growl from the tribeswoman.

“Be as angry as you like, dervish,” the Prince said. “God hasn’t given three shits for His children in six thousand years! Do you really believe that He sits in the sky, smiling upon us? Look around you! Look at this mad, bloody, muddy world of ours. He made the world, He made us, and then he left us to fend for ourselves. And so far, my friends, we’ve made it a pile of monkeyshit.” The bandit’s eyes lit again. “But even shit has its uses. Fertilizer. Fuel. Oh, yes. But to serve these purposes it must be ground to bits. Or burned.”

“Madman! Blasphemer!” Raseed took a long, threatening stride toward Az.

The bandit held up a hand to restrain his men and leveled a steely gaze at the dervish. “Watch yourself, young man. This is the real world, not a dueling circle. As you know, I fight dirty.”

The dervish’s hand darted to his swordhilt before he seemed to recall that he had no weapon.

Then Litaz jumped between them. My wife, the peacemaker, Dawoud thought. She drew herself up to her full height, which made her nearly as tall as Raseed but still left the top of her head well below the Prince’s shoulders.

“Are you two mad? Are you thoroughly mad? There are God alone knows how many lives at stake right now and you buffoons are thumping your chests at each other? We don’t have time for this! Idiots!”

Well, maybe not “peacemaker,” exactly.

The Prince smiled. “You remind me of my mother, Auntie. And my mother was not a kind woman. But I will stand down if your yapping little holy man will.”

“I will not allow blasphemy to pass unanswered,” the dervish said coldly.

Litaz wagged a finger in Raseed’s face, though her voice softened. “Answer me this, dear: Is this truly what you think God would have of us? Fighting one another over careless words while the world is carved into bloody pieces by the Traitorous Angel? We have precious little time. Are you serving the All-Merciful by wasting it here, shouting about how devout you are?”

Suddenly there was a series of frantic footfalls from the far tunnel. A man in the Falcon livery came trotting out, and the Prince went to confer with him. Then the master thief spoke to all assembled in the cave chamber. “The Soo woman is right, my friends—time is precious, and all is finally in readiness! Our time is at hand! We could have started a second civil war in this city years ago. But the Falcon knows when to strike and when not to. Have we screeched at the people about the injustice they face? No! We have stabbed fat jewelers in their asses and stolen their rubies for the poor! And now we stab the fattest jeweler of them all and toss the world’s greatest ruby to the crowd! Many of our friends have paid great costs to make this day possible. Will we let their sacrifices be wasted?”

“NO!” the master thief’s men shouted in unison.

“Our timing must be exact!” the Prince boomed. “We’ve but one chance to suddenly appear in the midst of the palace, weapons whirling, bold plans flying into glorious motion as—” The man was lost in his own storytelling, and the rest of his words were lost as he led the way out the far tunnel.

When they’d marched for a few minutes through another twisting tunnel, the Prince trotted back again to Dawoud and his friends. He spoke in low tones quite unlike his bombastic bluster of moments before.

“I can see the words ‘Where are we?’ etched on your faces,” he said. “I’ll tell you. We are in an underground passage to the palace. There are several such tunnels, some even the Khalifs never learned of. Older than the Khalifate itself, dating back to the days of the Kemeti Underground City. Known only to one who’s spent half a lifetime learning this lore. One tunnel in particular leads directly to the ruined Kem temple that the heart of the Palace was built upon. Unfortunately, the tunnel follows a rather circuitous route, snaking back and forth until ten minutes’ walk becomes an hour’s. Sound carries in here, so from here forward silence is required of us. And I don’t like to threaten newfound friends, but I must warn you that silence will be enforced if necessary. Oh, and I’d nearly forgotten—you may have your weapons back.” The master thief gestured to one of his men, who handed back Raseed’s sword and Litaz’s dagger, then he scampered back to the front of the line.