A Tale of Two Sorcerers, Sinister Cutlass [the unexpected everything txt] 📗

the sultan's hall chuckled, while others began to suggest among themselves that the sorcerer was simply making up fancies.

 

In the mirror there appeared several shimmering bands of colored air in a far northern clime, and then the mirror saw only starry black firmament. As the men watched, a blue-and-white marble, streaked with green, rolled into view. It hung in the sparkling velvet black, and the men were transfixed… and at a loss. It was a sight they had neither seen, nor ever imagined. The sultan spoke up on behalf of all assembled: "What is this lovely bauble in the night sky, sorcerer?"

 

Destane was silent, and appeared not to know.

 

And then he did a curious thing.

 

He shut his eyes tight as if to withdraw something from his memory.

 

His eyeballs darted to and fro beneath the lids. When his eyes fluttered open, he replied in a sort of daze, as though even he struggled to believe what was coming out of his mouth: "It... is our home, great one. All of existence: land, water, animals, and people."

 

As the marble revolved within the scope of the mirror, he made a gesture at a particular brown patch, and said, "Here is where we are; we're so tiny you can't even see us."

 

He looked back at his silent audience, some of whom had by now begun to think Destane was losing his mind. No longer a humorous, charismatic entertainer, he was now either truly insane or playing at insanity in a twisted game. Several held burning questions.

 

"How?" asked the vizier.

 

"He's a charlatan," the mathematician snarled dismissively, thinking that settled everything.

 

"The most compelling explanation… is trickery," admitted the philosopher.

 

The Varvaran ambassador leant on his elbow, his cheek in his palm, his eyebrow cocked expectantly, as he gazed at Destane. The sorcerer felt familiar prickles of resentment, but he forced himself to remain calm. He gave a full-body shrug, and countered, "I don't invent these visions… they are simply... given to me."

 

"And who gives them to you?" continued the vizier.

 

Destane smiled. "The first rule is never to share secrets of the trade, especially not with non-initiates."

 

In the amused tone of a rich, powerful man who steadfastly won't be disturbed by anything these young upstarts may throw at him, the Varvaran ambassador sneered, "How convenient."

 

Destane sighed heavily, and hung his head.  These distinguished men in fine robes on couches might aspire to be pleasant and amicable with him, even playful and open-minded, but Destane saw that could extend their good will only so far.  In the end, as usual, he was the recipient of disbelief, confusion, and scorn.

 

"Gentlemen," he began.

 

The lightheartedness had left him.

 

"It has been… illuminating… to share secrets and wonders with you tonight. Such powerful men… yet you have seen so little. It's rather strange. Well, perhaps some day, each of you will have the opportunity to remedy this. Yes, I think you might all have the chance to travel the world… carried on the desert winds."

 

Destane's Entertainment (Part 3)

 Some men frowned at Destane's strange phrasing, but no one had any time to anticipate what came next.

 

The sorcerer tugged a small pouch from within his tunic, and pinched out a bit of gray sand. Clenching it within his gauntleted hand, he magically empowered it in an aquamarine glow, and blew it across his palm. Enchanted grains swirled about Talal for a moment, before he coughed, and promptly disintegrated in a fleshy mound of sand, rapidly turning gray.

 

The mathematician, humorist, and some of the younger, spryer men scattered, leaping for the loggia or for the doors.

 

Destane turned his wrist, allowing the concealment spell to fall from his co-conspirators, and they restrained those very surprised men who tried to escape through the loggia. The sorceror demolished them with ease.

 

Those who pounded against the locked double doors dissolved amid helpless cries as Destane picked them off, one by one.

 

The sorcerer made quick work of the older, less mobile men – the philosopher seemed to receive his demise with vague curiosity. The Varvaran ambassador, being old and rotund, sat in resolute disbelief before Destane transfigured him.

 

The vizier scrambled, eyes widening as several alarming thoughts collided in his head like a line of dominoes. Miraculous, fabulous Destane… was really just a common assassin. His unholy power that could take the vizier soaring could also reduce him a to a dead substance lower than all animals. How this evening he had risen so high and would sink so low, beyond redemption, if he didn't run fast enough. He lunged for the door, farther than his legs could carry him, and lost his balance, hitting the floor as a messy spray of gray grains.

 

The sorcerer stood amid deafening silence in a large, dusty hall, brushing grains off his clothes. Thirteen piles of sand lay strewn across the marble floor, gritting up the carpet and couch cushions. Sand grains mixed with bulgur on platters, and silted the cups of turquoise once-coffee and once-tea. It looked like a tropical archipelago in each teacup and goblet.

 

Destane panted with exertion, and his co-conspirators reeled from the wave of reptile stench. As his breathing slowed to normal, Destane waved his hand and conjured a huge brass hourglass, the size of a clerk's desk.  He carefully lowered it onto its side, the way a father would lay a small child to sleep. Then he unscrewed the brass top and magically incised the top bulb around its diameter, removing the hemispherical glass cap.

 

With a directive gauntleted finger, he indicated for all of the sand to slide along the floor and over couches and carpet into the open glass bulb, like sending so many naughty dogs to the kennel.

 

When it was done, he replaced the glass cap, mending the incision under the aquamarine glow of his gauntlet, and screwed the brass cap back on.

 

Finally, he shrank the hourglass and fitted it with a leather cord, proffering it to Jabril to wear as a pendant. Jabril took the hourglass and studied it. He looked pleased.

 

"Have you made your choice, my sultan?" Destane inquired.

 

Jabril smiled at the address. He replied, "Get rid of them."

 

The sorcerer arched his brow, as if he did not expect this from the stout man shyly testing his newfound powers. A few men exchanged significant, shocked looks, as if they hadn't expected to co-sign on such a harsh punishment (though some appeared unsurprised). Maziyar looked thrilled by this new, strong Jabril, while Adhemar was paralyzed with shock.

 

"But… my liege… why?" he finally managed.

 

Maziyar rolled his eyes. Jabril's round brown eyes deadened as he looked at Adhemar.

 

"Every powerful sultanate begins with a strong first act, sweeping away the vestiges of the past," Jabril explained. "To legitimize myself and our regime, I'm convinced we must eliminate Talal and choice members of his court in a straight-forward, aggressive, honest manner… not in this vindictive, snake-hearted way that you obviously advocate. After all, we are men on the battlefield with axes in hand, not women in the kitchen with poison vials. Our legitimacy in the eyes of our people, our allies, and our enemies, depends on our willingness to plunge in the knife."

 

"But Destane could probably enchant innumerable people… as many as we need!" Adhemar protested, forgetting his well-practiced deference to his new sultan.

 

Jabril, still in the process of coalescing an arrogance and sense of entitlement befitting his new station, responded coolly, without anger: "My regime won't be built upon a messy, unsustainable lie."

 

Adhemar exhaled in defeat and hung his head. Maziyar watched him from beneath his lashes, waiting to see how his brother would retort. Adhemar swallowed, and when he looked up, his eyes had cooled.

 

He was ready to let his officially sanctioned subordination to Jabril carry the weight of moral responsibility for what happened next.

 

"Well, then, must we do away with Kouri and Bishara?" he said, referring to the mathematician and philosopher. "Their loss would be a shameful waste to the empire."

 

Jabril waved his hand dismissively. "There will be other intellectuals to tickle you with their treatises, Adhemar," he condescended, and some other men chuckled amongst themselves. Adhemar held a stiff upper lip.

 

Destane extended a gauntleted hand for the hourglass, and grinned. "If that is your choice, then I will deal with this, and send Talal's regime sailing off on a world tour."

 

"Commensurate with my new post, I believe I should be present when you do that," Jabril stated, not appearing quite as commanding as his phrasing when he met the sorcerer's eyes.

 

"You do, do you?" Destane joked.

 

Jabril's eyes flashed angrily, but he said nothing, and Destane decided to capitulate, since that reaction had been sufficiently boring.

 

Adhemar laid a hand on his brother's arm and whispered harshly, "Even you must realize we have to do something about the families."

 

Maziyar regarded him thoughtfully, without scorn, and Adhemar indicated Jabril and Destane. He hissed, "Tell them…" between his teeth.

 

Maziyar stepped forward, hands folded behind his back. He was a long, dutiful pillar of black. "Perhaps we should deal with the immediate kin of the deceased before you commit them to the ether?"

 

Jabril looked at his new grand vizier and was thoughtful. "Their sons might pose a threat…" he mused.

 

"Not all of their sons remain in Agrabah," one man noted.

 

"But most do," put in another.

 

"We'll deal with them all in due time," Jabril decided. "Tonight, Maziyar, you and I will direct Destane through the families. The rest of you have my gratitude and are dismissed to cloister your own families tonight. You are free to relieve yourselves of this oppressive stench."

 

"At last," muttered one man.

 

"Miraculousness notwithstanding," another commented. "I would never willingly exercise such power it if this rankness is the price."

 

"Gentlemen," Destane cried in mock innocence. "Surely you have all had that experience of forgetting your own body odor?"

 

Several men turned in disgust and vacated the hall through the double doors. A few rallied around one who cleverly countered, "But it wasn't there when you performed for Talal and his men?"

 

With his nose in the air, Destane responded, "I'm a professional. I can mask it when it seems appropriate."

 

The inquisitor gave him a funny look before leaving the hall with the rest of his company. Smirking, Destane exited via the loggia in a sweep of blood red cape, Jabril following in his wake.

 

Left alone, Maziyar faced his brother. He gave Adhemar a severe look for effectively shunting the dirty work onto him, but Adhemar only waved his brother away. "Go," he told Maziyar, and noted bitterly, "First act as Grand Vizier!"

 

Sourly, Maziyar went off in the direction Destane and Jabril had gone.

 

Adhemar, clutching the bisht tightly around him so his hands wouldn't shake, swept off in a dark frenzy.

 

Destane's Entertainment (Part 4)