Chapter Four—The Grand Vizier of Kalush

“It’s quieter than I thought it would be,” Jessamine said as she strolled with Shiro down the red carpeted walkways. “I don’t see any guards.”

“Most of them are outside protecting the gate,” Shiro said. “We need to get the satrap’s vizier out before they bring powerful soldiers to bear down on us.”

From outside the muffled sounds of battle pressed upon the palace like the claws of a roc’s enemy, scratching at its great armored eggs.

They came to the throne chamber where the doors were ajar slightly, evidentially to allow soldiers to pass in and out. Outside, somewhere in the city, something crashed, the sound of which echoed like thunder.

Siege weaponry.

Shiro felt it under his feet, a subtle shaking.

“Oh,” Jessamine said, her eyes widening. “Whatever could that be?”

“It does not matter,” Shiro said determinedly. And then he slipped through the doors. The throne chamber had an arched ceiling, with the edges quite close to the floor. Inside the chamber were hundreds of thin white pillars that tapered in their middles like hour glasses.

He walked across the rugs to the throne where he saw a bloody mess, an Abassir man kneeling over the sultan’s body.

Clearly hearing Shiro stride closer, the man who cradled the satrap’s body turned his head. Shiro recognized him. “Grand vizier Jadu?”

He nodded without saying a word. Then he looked at the satrap again and blinked, as if he had just noticed for the first time he held a corpse. A sadness came over him, and finally, and without glancing at Shiro, he said, “We barely got him to the palace. They know they will lose this fight, so they killed him.” He paused. “Assassins.”

Shiro sighed. “What of his family?”

Jadu was a handsome Abassir with a short beard and dark skin. He shook his head. “They do not care about the satrap’s family. They don’t control the satrapy.”

Shiro nodded.

Jessamine sighed. “I expected as much.”

“And you said nothing?” Shiro asked.

“Why would I? It would not have changed this outcome.”

“I am sorry, Jadu,” Shiro said. He put out a hand. “Come with us. We must get you out.”

“No,” the grand vizier said, shaking his head. “I will stay where I belong.”

“You belong in this war, not dead with your satrap. There are still many enemy soldiers about. They could come back.”

“Let them,” he said, glancing down at his leader.

“You are an official of the satrapy of Kalush,” Shiro said. “You must come.”

But Jadu said nothing.

Finally Jessamine sighed impatiently. “Get up, you fool!”

He looked at her, his eyes widening. He was probably surprised that such a beautiful woman—and a jinni no less—would be so aggressive.

With a dancer’s grace, Jessamine dematerialized and then reappeared on the other side of the grand vizier in a plume. His eyes widened and he flinched. “Y—you! You are the jinni!”

She smiled.

“Jadu,” Shiro said. “Come with us.”

The man hesitated.

“I would not be surprised if the sultanah made you the next satrap of Kalush.” The way Jessamine said the words, they dripped like honey set out for a fly.

“I do not care about power,” he said, his tone indignant.

Realizing her mistake, her tone changed slightly, though not enough for anyone but Shiro to recognize, he was certain.

“I’m not baiting your avarice,” she said. “You are a high official of Kalush. The sultanah will need a new satrap. Good men are difficult to come by—especially now.”

“I…” Jadu trailed off, his eyes flicking up to the doors Shiro and Jessamine had come from and his countenance hardened.

Shiro turned and saw a group of five men approaching, the one at the fore holding out a long sword with a thin blade. His clothes were altogether different than that of the Abassir fashions of war.

Jessamine sighed, a mixture of boredom and annoyance.

The newcomers came forward and smiled. The lead man said, “You do not belong here.”

Shiro was stunned. “You speak the Abassir imperial language?”

His grin deepened. “We’ve been at war with your empire for nigh on ten years,” he said. “Of course we speak your tongue. To be unable to at this point would simply be foolishness. But you… you do not look like an Abassir man. You look… like… Yes.”

“Like what?” Shiro asked, his curiosity suddenly piqued. Did this cape-wearing invader know where other people like Shiro were from? “Tell me.”

But instead of responding to Shiro, he spoke to a completely unrelated topic. “Now you will die.”

“This is over,” Shiro said. “Surrender, and your lives will be spared.”

“And who are you to make such a claim, foreigner? It’s clear you’re not an Abassir man.”

“No, they will not be spared,” Jadu said darkly as he rose from the satrap’s body. “You will have your heads chopped off—and mounted on the city gates!”

“Jadu,” Shiro said as he put out a hand to ward him away. He did not possess the necessary strength to handle these men.

Do you sense it? Jessamine conveyed. These men are not your ordinary soldiers.

I do.

“Let’s kill them, Shiro,” she said aloud.

The man in the front grinned again. “Perhaps, you would like to tell us who you are, yes? So that we might take you prisoner if we find you have a usefulness.”

Jessamine giggled.

“Very well,” the man said, and his posture changed, his men fanning out before him. What was different about these men from that of the typical man of the land was their white skin, the leather boots that folded outward at the top. They worse lace at their cuffs and necks and tight fitting leather trousers and vests.

Like white devils, Shiro thought.

Mmm, Jessamine conveyed with amusement. Indeed.

Shiro bared his scimitar with a sharp hiss of metal on leather.

The lead man stepped forward and thrust out his sword hand, the blade of which was angled perpendicular to Shiro in a fashion that did not speak to threat, but rather decorum. Then he bowed with nothing more than his head, his golden locks swaying. “Hulio Baracci of Florencia!”

Shiro looked at him, confused.

The men at the man’s side chuckled. Hulio Bracci of Florencia, as he had called himself, sighed, and then his lip curled in contemptuous disgust. “Barbarians. Now ready your blade!”

Straightening, Shiro did just that, angling his left knee forward, his right leg stretched out as he held out the hilt of his scimitar, the tip of the blade facing outward toward his enemy.

“I am Shiro Takeda. Samurai of the Mikuma Empire.”

Hulio Baracci’s eyes flicked as some kind of recognition came to him. And then he grinned, a malicious, toothy smile that bespoke of amusement and glee for what was to come.

“Oh please,” Jessamine said, her tone bored and insolent.

These men are not to be trifled with, Shiro conveyed.

Amusement was the only thing his jinni companion conveyed back.