NEXT day had come. Sanyhaḥmān and Tūmbṃār walked with sullen faces. Feyūnhaḥ gave the two no peace of mind the night before. Hirmān and the two of them had caused quite an uproar in the red-light district, and Sanyhaḥmān shouldered an even greater amount of the scolding for having brought Tūmbṃār there with him. Tūmbṃār was very much flustered and embarrassed. He prostrated to both Feyūnhaḥ and Aiṛth, pleading them to not mention this to Iḷēhaḥ or the others. He would get no peace of mind were they to know. And Feyūnhaḥ reluctantly agreed. Aiṛth likewise also agreed, but she was also still in pain and thought little on it.

The priestess was feeling better, the cramps from the night before having gone, but she still seemed very much tired. The three slowed down their pace as they walked beside her.

“You need not slow down for me,” she said with a tired voice.

Feyūnhaḥ put her hands on her shoulders and said, “Unfortunately, we can’t have you fainting on us. I know your cycles are not yet over, so don’t push yourself too hard. If you need rest, go back to the inn.”

Aiṛth nodded.

Now Sanyhaḥmān had not yet given up on his gambling excursion. Given he had little idea on when they should happen upon another city, he looked for an opportunity to escape. And a chance seemed to present itself as he and Feyūnhaḥ noticed that they were being followed. From a distance were heavily armored guards always in sight, though not all the same ones. When the group was not looking, members shifted in and out. They wore the same armor as the guards of King Rṭyāshphaḥ. For now, they only remained suspicious, but they would have to split to keep them off their trail.

“Feyūnhaḥ, you and Aiṛth head for the camels,” said Sanyhaḥmān in a whisper. “Me and Tūmbṃār shall head in another direction.”

She nodded, and they immediately split at the central junction of the city. She and Aiṛth made southeast while Sanyhaḥmān grabbing Tūmbṃār along with him made once again to the northwest.

“Wait, Sanyhaḥmān!” hissed the boy in protest. “You’re not going back to that place we went to yesterday, are you?”

He simply smiled and, still holding onto Tūmbṃār, he picked up pace, scurrying away from the guards who tried to catch up to them. They went quickly into the alleyways and the guards gave chase, but soon lost them.

Sanyhaḥmān and Tūmbṃār had made to an area close to the red-light district, much to his relief. But the boy could see courtesans and male and female escorts dressed with ornamented jewelry and thin clothes covering only their legs and their chest. They were going about trying to woo passersby into their service, and seeing this, he quickly turned his gaze away, closed his eyes, and hoped his master was nowhere near.

When they had crossed a good length of the area, passing by many tall structures with hanging gardens—which seemed to be all about the western side—they stood in front of a building that was much shorter than the rest and seemed almost run-down from the exterior. The door was opened and looked rather worn and at parts broken. Sanyhaḥmān without hesitation, went inside, while Tūmbṃār wearily followed behind. The wooden floor was stained, and the inside was dim, with no torches or an oculus above, though the latter seemed to be only found in places of well-off individuals. There were a few people sitting against the wall and stone pillars. Sanyhaḥmān paid no attention and continued on further.

There was an arch at the end of the room, and they followed it down. Two torches lit the bottoms, and a door stood a little off from the steps. A slit opened half-way up the door and a hand was on the other side. Sanyhaḥmān placed three gold coins in his hand, and the hand receded. Not long after, there was a commotion inside and the door was opened.

A massive underground area came into view, with clusters of twelve all about, playing various games, with stacks of coins of all grades piled in the center between each.

“How did you know there was a place like this?” asked Tūmbṃār very much confused.

The monkey-man smirked and said, “While your eyes were fixated on the women,” of which his face became flushed and he hushed over, “I was talking with our new friend when he wasn’t going around causing havoc. Usually, it would be very easy to find gambling areas in the big cities, but the location of this city being where it is, there were undoubtedly enough laws in check to deter gambling from being a public occurrence. At least that’s what I had figured on our way to the hotel yesterday, and Hirmān had confirmed my suspicions. But in any case, he said he would put in a good word for me—and somehow he did it rather quickly after his drunken stupor—leading us to where we are now.”

“You’re going to be playing dice, aren’t you?” said Tūmbṃār none the happier. Since he could not play, he would have to sit for how many ever hours Sanyhaḥmān would want, watching him waste their hard earned cash in such boring games. And he could not help but think of how angry Feyūnhaḥ would be with both of them.

“No,” said Sanyhaḥmān much to his surprise. “Making the money I want requires a much more risky game.”

This made Tūmbṃār feel all the worse for asking. It was not that Sanyhaḥmān was so much good at dice, but more so that he sucked at all the others.

They walked to the far end of the room where there were large circular carrom boards set about with twelve holes running around the rim. Within the center was a design of a thousand-petaled lotus that had twelve lines extend toward each of the holes. About three-fourths down the length of each of the lines, there were set two red circles, and the edges of these circles were connected by two thick black lines running about the whole frame of the board, creating the baseline.

Sanyhaḥmān sat down in an empty seat, and Tūmbṃār sat behind him, looking at the board that was being cleaned. Tūmbṃār found it unusual that this was a risky game of all sorts, for in Parāftaram he found most of the villagers playing with meager change. Even the little amount they lost, which seemed to be an all-or-nothing affair, seemed enough to make his mother berate his father, at which he would just scratch his head with a bit tongue saying he was sorry. He, of course, did not learn his lesson, but at certain times he would win and bring great joy to his mother, of which she would soon berate him when she found out how he had won it.

While it was meager change, they dealt with the number of people that would play at once—at least twenty to thirty—it became a rather sizable amount in the end. And now Sanyhaḥmān wanted to place bets in what seemed like a pool of hundreds of gold coins. Tūmbṃār looked at the growing pile being set next to the rim of the board.

“You sure you’re going to win?” asked Tūmbṃār.

“Nope!” said Sanyhaḥmān, laughing, much to Tūmbṃār’s dismay. They were indeed to be scolded to no end by Feyūnhaḥ. “But don’t think I’m going to throw away the game. While I play mostly for the thrill, I do so intending to win. And so I try to gamble as much as I possibly can in a round.”

He felt like he could understand Sanyhaḥmān a bit when he said that, but that line of reasoning just made him all the more worried. While he should have stopped him at that moment, he could not help but wonder how the game would go.