Stay Out Of Trouble
The capital city of Tel Kellah's market is the largest in the Golden Empire
Hashem bowed low, nose pointed toward the ground. He repeated the gesture more than once.
“Thank you for always looking after Sadie,” he said. “I apologize for any trouble she may have caused you.” Hashem glared down at Sadie, standing next to him.
He rested his hand on Sadie’s shoulder, squeezing firmly to keep her rooted in place. Sadie flushed. That wasn’t fair! Executioner had only had to bring her home, what, five or six times at most? And none of it had ever been really serious, nor life threatening. That had to count for something, didn’t it?
“A favor for you is never too much trouble,” Executioner said. “Even if it is just another instance of Sadie getting herself in trouble.” She stabbed an eye into Sadie’s direction, causing Sadie’s cheeks to burn even hotter.
Hashem smiled. “Thank you, Arash Shara.”
Executioner cocked her head to the side. “Difficult to adjust to you calling me that.”
Hashem chuckled. “You’d better get used to it. It’s already been five years since you were named Arash Shara, and more than ten since I was your commanding officer.”
Executioner offered a small smile, a rare display of emotion for the hulking woman. It didn’t look quite right on her, as if the Arash Shara wasn’t used to moving the muscles of her face in that way. A moment later her face regained its solemnity, an expression that Sadie felt looked far more natural for her.
It was odd seeing Executioner and her father together. Sadie’s father always seemed larger than life with his wide shoulders and massive, meaty hands, yet Executioner still somehow made Hashem look small. It wasn’t just that she was taller than he was. It was something intangible, as if her shadow loomed larger than his and her presence filled the very air around them.
“May we speak privately?” Executioner shifted her weight from foot to foot, almost as if she was nervous.
I’m not just imagining things, Sadie realized. She does seem off somehow.
Hashem seemed to pick up on it too. “Sadie, wait inside for me. I’ll only be a moment.” He stepped out to join the Arash Shara.
Executioner jabbed a finger in Sadie’s direction. “Stay out of trouble,” she warned.
Sadie’s cheeks grew hot. “I... I will!” she exclaimed, though she admittedly doubted that this was the last time the tall woman would be bringing her home.
Hashem closed the door behind him, leaving Sadie alone in their house’s cramped foyer. She waited there in silence, passing the time by examining the rack where the family kept their shoes to avoid tracking sand into the rest of the house. Finally, curiosity got the better of her. Sadie approached the door and pressed her ear to the painted wood. The voices were muffled, their words difficult to make out.
She managed to catch the tail end of something Executioner was saying. “-would never do something like this, Hashem.”
“She’s a teenager,” her father’s voice responded. “Of course she would.”
“You don’t know her like I do.”
There was a momentary pause. For a single heartbeat, Sadie feared they’d realized she was listening in.
“Alright. If you’re certain, then I’ll do it,” her father finally said.
“Thank you.”
“You should get going, I’m sure you have a lot to do.”
Sadie couldn’t make out the rest of what they said. Suddenly she felt the door begin to open. Sadie gasped, tripping as she backed away from the door. She landed on her bottom just as Hashem sauntered into the foyer. He raised an eyebrow at her. Sadie felt her face redden.
Hashem didn’t speak immediately. Instead he closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose. The lines on his face creased in an expression not unlike the perpetual scowl worn by Executioner.
He sighed. “Do you always have to get in trouble, Sadie?”
Her pulse quickened. “I-I don’t do it on purpose! It’s just.. well.. I don’t understand why what I’m doing is wrong!” She huffed, frustrated. “You always teach us that an injustice ignored is an injustice supported! So how can I stand by and let a whole sect of people be persecuted like that?”
Hashem stroked his graying beard thoughtfully as Sadie spoke, regarding her a pensive gaze, owl-like in its intensity. His pale, glass left eye made his gaze seem more piercing somehow.
The tension of the moment was broken by a sudden crashing sound. A clamorous cacophony descended from the stairs leading to the floor above. Two identical twin boys exploded into the cramped room, a kicking and punching entanglement of curses and flying limbs.
“ENOUGH!” Hashem snapped at the boys. “Abed, Beg, enough!”
The twins came to an abrupt stop, identical grins wide on their faces. They were a couple of years younger than Sadie, though recent growth spurts had left them both a head and a half taller than she was, nearly their father’s height.
“He started it,” the boy on the left said.
Sadie was pretty sure that one was Abed. Even after growing up with these two, it really was impossible to tell them apart sometimes.
“No I didn’t, he did,” the one on the right, probably Beg, said.
Hashem folded his arms. “I don’t care who started it. Get over to the kitchen and help your mother prepare supper.”
“Yes sir!” both boys said in unison, scuttling away. Sadie could hear their argument resume a couple of rooms over.
“I’m just better looking than you.”
“No you’re not! I would have had exactly the same result.”
Hashem sighed again, then turned back to Sadie. “Come with me.” He opened the front door again and sauntered outside. “Close the door behind you.” Sadie complied and followed her father. Despite Hashem’s athleticism he walked with a slight limp, the consequence of a wartime injury that had never fully healed.
Hashem met her eyes. “You can’t keep doing this, Sadie.”
“Doing what?!” she snapped. “Helping people?”
Hashem watched her intently, his eyes never leaving Sadie’s even as he led her through the streets of Tel Kellah. The sun was beginning to set, a ruddy orange glow illuminating dwindling crowds as people began to return home for the evening. “I’m proud of you for wanting to help people,” Hashem told her. “But there’s a smarter way to do it than spending all your time in slums.”
“What am I supposed to do, then?!” Sadie blurted out. “Try to convince the magi that the way we’ve run the caste system for the last five hundred years is wrong?”
“Well, you are eighteen now, old enough to vote,” Hashem replied patiently. “The satrap that gets elected to each octant matters. Some satraps give higher priority to aid programs for the poor, some satraps are also more compassionate to the truthless.”
“Satrap Dana just got re-elected! He won’t be up again for six years!”
“You can join advocacy groups, then. Lobby him to push for certain kinds of laws. Or you can appeal to the Shah.”
“Right,” she grumbled. “Because Satrap Dana and the Shah both care so much about people’s misfortunes.”
Hashem didn’t reply.
They arrived in the town square, where a narrow, half-finished pyramid stood taller than any of the surrounding shops or houses. The pyramid was strewn with men, laborers pulling great blocks of stone to be lifted into the next layer of the grand structure. Hashem paused. Sadie ground to a halt beside him.
“What do you see?” Hashem asked.
Sadie furrowed her brow. What did he want her to say? She could tell that her father was about to lecture her again, souring her mood. “I don’t know, building another pyramid...” she muttered.
“And why do you suppose they’re doing that?”
“To stroke the Shah’s ego, I guess.”
Hashem chuckled. “You remind me so much of your mother at your age.”
He laughed again at some distant memory that he did not share. It was an infuriating laugh so genuine it was infectious. It made it difficult for Sadie to stay angry. Finally, unable to resist, she smiled a little. Hashem put a tender arm around Sadie’s shoulder, surprisingly gentle and light considering his muscular frame.
“A few years ago many of these men were unemployed and destitute,” Hashem explained. “They grew up during the Long War, and took jobs that suited the times. Blacksmiths, animal breeders, and armorers all thrive during periods of conflict. But when the war finally ended and their services were no longer required, many of them found themselves unemployed. Some even lost their homes.”
“That’s terrible.” Sadie couldn’t help but glance at her father’s bad leg. It was a reminder of the horrors of war, of the many long nights Sadie’s mother had sat up crying while Hashem was away, forced to raise four children alone.
“It was a difficult time for a lot of folks,” her father agreed. “And in response, people from the commoner and merchant castes got together to lobby the Shah as a united coalition. Thousands of people from all across the Golden Empire”
Sadie nodded. She remembered seeing the enormous gatherings at the bridge leading to the Shah’s palace.
“They expressed their grievances and met the Shah with a list of demands,” Hashem continued. “And so Shah Bardiya commissioned a number of construction projects in every city in the empire. This pyramid is one of those. It requires gathering of materials as well as people who can carve and refine those materials, and laborers that can then build the pyramid itself. It also requires planners and architects, people who can gather and bring water, and many other kinds of services. Even we’re a part of it. Many of the gems we sell will end up embedded in the pyramid.”
Sadie’s eyes widened as understanding dawned on her. Hashem seemed to pick up on this.
He looked toward the pyramid and folded his arms. “In other words, this pyramid is being built because it creates thousands of jobs in the city. Now these men get paid good wages that allow them to feed their families. It took two years of demonstrations, but now they’re back on their feet. And when this pyramid is finished, it will be a thriving cultural center that provides even more jobs. It was their patience and hard work that achieved that.”
“It still took them years to make it happen.”
Hashem nodded. “I understand that can seem like a long time. But imagine if it had been rushed. The planning wouldn’t have been completed and the process would have become chaos. The project might even have been abandoned.” Sadie didn’t reply. She couldn’t fault his logic, but still. “Change is incremental, Sadie,” Hashem said. “Sometimes it’s very slow.”
“Then what good does it do anyone?!” Sadie exclaimed. “What about all the people who suffer and die in the meantime? Am I just supposed to accept that as okay?!”
“I understand your frustration. I was your age once. But even in war, there are unavoidable casualties. The same is true for politics and society. When I served in the warrior caste, there were times I disagreed with the Shah’s orders. But if I had acted rashly, long term plans I wasn’t privy to could have been undone, and people could have lost their lives. I wasn’t just responsible for my own life, but those of the men and women around me. In many ways, you share this responsibility as a citizen of the Golden Empire.”
He wasn’t wrong, but it still made her angry. Hashem was always talking this way anytime they had conversations like this. Don’t be too radical, her father said. Don’t push the boundaries too far. Try your best to see other people’s point of view. But was there really a middle ground between feeding people and intentionally forcing thousands of them to starve?
“Dahhak!” Sadie exclaimed bitterly, spitting the word out with biting venom in her voice.
Hashem’s eyes widened. “Language!” he snapped at her, the first time throughout the conversation that he had raised his voice. He narrowed his eyes, lowering his voice again until it was just above a whisper. “We do not use that name ever,” Hashem warned. ”Either as a curse or even in passing. Do you understand me?” Sadie hesitated. Hashem seized her shoulders, eyes manic, and shook her. “Do you understand me?!” he repeated.
Her father’s fingers dug painfully into her shoulders, causing her to wince and try to pull away. “I... Ouch! Yes...! Let go!”
Hashem’s eyes widened as he realized what he was doing. He released Sadie, taking a step back from her. “I-I’m sorry, baby girl,” her father stammered. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Just... don’t ever say that name, okay? It’s dangerous.”
Sadie nodded vigorously, though she shrank back another step. “I understand.”
Azhi Dahhak, the laughing snake, was more than superstition or something to curse by. The magi said that he was a devil, the physical incarnation of all evil. It was said that he was a three-headed snake disguised as a man, and that he had been alive for more than five hundred years.
In the faraway city of Camduren they called him the Master of Promises. In the Isles of Ibrahim, where magi were trained, they called him the greatest sorcerer in the world, rivaled only by Solomon, in the far East, or Fernandes, in the North. So vile was his reputation that his very name had become a curse in the mouths of some, a taboo of conversation to others, for fear that Azhi Dahhak could hear and see any that spoke his name.
Hashem regarded Sadie for a long moment. Then he reached to the back of his neck and undid his necklace, a thin gold chain beneath which dangled an azure, metal pedant, a long-winged falcon: the symbol of Ahura Mazda, the creator of the world and god of light and darkness. “This was my father’s,” Hashem said, gesturing Sadie forward. “It has been a part of our family since the days of my grandfather, your great grandfather. It kept me safe during the Long War. Now I would give it to you.”
“I... I don’t...” Sadie stammered. “You aren’t going to give this to Abed or Beg?”
“They are my sons,” Hashem acknowledged. “And for a man that is always significant. It is one of my great pleasures in life to bestow upon them my knowledge of the spear.” He smiled. “But you’re my oldest, Sadie, and you are my daughter. I love you, baby girl, and I will always support you. There is no one I would rather give this to.”
Sadie’s eyes misted over, forcing her to turn away and cough to hide that she was rubbing them dry. Hashem seized the moment as an opportunity to step closer to her again, wrapping his arms around her in a gentle hug from behind. She tensed for a moment, then let herself relax, melting into her father’s arms. His broad chest was warm against her back. She could feel the rhythm of his heart, slow and steady. Hashem wrapped the necklace around her neck, closing the loop behind. He stepped away from her.
“I’m sorry,” Sadie said, not turning around because her eyes still watered. “I know I’m always causing you trouble, and I don’t mean to. I just...”
“Even if your methods could use work, your heart is in the right place,” Hashem replied. “I want you to know that I am proud of who you are, Sadie. I always have been.”
Sadie blinked tears down her face. She sniffed, then dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. Hashem, ever graceful, said nothing about her tears.
“Come on,” he instead told her. “Let’s get back before your mother yells at us both for being late to dinner.”
Sadie laughed, though it came out partially as a hiccup. “Okay.”
Together, they began to walk back.
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