Witch of Ambition

Akeem thought the minister possessed a proper voice for speaking. He spoke the language without a “dune dialect”, the broken tongue that garbled their beautiful language until it sounded like, as an old healer had once described it, the barking of dogs masquerading as a civilized language. The minister had learned Sava properly, rolling the long vowels and brushing over consonants with a delicate touch that gave the language its musical flair, conjuring visions of golden sand flowing in an unstoppable river, giving an old tale new life.

“Generations ago, on the true Night of Falling Stars, a great turmoil sundered the heavens. Stars rained upon the mortal realm and devastated the land. Whole forests burned. Mountains crumbled. Coasts disappeared beneath towering waves. The world was brought to the brink of ruin. All except Savath, a land forged by the harsh love of Gunnez, the sun father.

“When the Star of Prosperity fell, a great dune swallowed it, the old sands containing its power. For years, it was carried by the waves of the Dune Sea. A myth. A curse. A well of potential, for good or ill.

“It was the first khan, the man who united our great country under one banner, Basil Al-Khazar, who discovered the star. A fierce warrior who was betrayed by his brothers who thought to deny him his birthright as the next chief of their band and exiled him, the fools too cowardly to strike him down themselves.

“But none can deny the will of the heavens. Basil could find no shelter in the homes of the lessers that feared him, so he forged a new home on the sands. It is said that Gunnez granted him the strength of a hundred men under the light of the sun and Aylen’s light healed his wounds when he rested upon cool sands. Wielding the power of destiny, he became a legend as he walked the Dune Sea, learning the language of the land. He uncovered her mysteries and found her greatest treasure, the fallen star.

“He could have taken the star for himself. The Heavenly Library has records of foreign legends that stole fragments of the divine to become more than men, gaining enough power to walk the world unchallenged. But Basil was a man as generous as he was strong. Rather than confine his glory to one life, he shared the Star of Prosperity with Savath, forming a covenant that would create the foundation of our great country.

“Water, usually more scarce than spilled blood, became abundant as oases sprang forth between the dunes, the greatest of them the Celestial Tear of our capital. All residents of Savath received her blessing, even the lowliest pests, but none received more than men, giving them all the strength to replicate Basil’s feat of facing the worst the desert had to offer with only their bare hands. Lastly, swaths of succulent spines grew throughout the desert, their sweet fruits and the water contained within their pods allowing men and beast alike to travel the Sea.

“These three blessings have made Savath the greatest in the land, nay, the world. No foreign country dares cross our borders, and their kings compete with one another for the khan’s favor. We are those blessed by the heavens. And so long as an Al-Khazar sits on the Celestial Throne, the people of the Dune Sea will continue to thrive.”

The minister paused and scanned the crowd, finding his audience captive and compliant. Akeem was the same and found no shame in his obedience.

In Savath, especially in the Celestial City, an official was no mere man. He was power, an extension of the divine authority wielded by the khan. After countless generations, the instinct to venerate that authority was in their blood, as much a part of them as the sands they walked on.

“The khan serves Savath and we, in turn, serve the khan. But, I ask of you who have survived the trials of life, is this right? Physical and mental labors can be trying but they are but a grain of sand to the labors of the soul. The khans of Savath wield great power, but none have sat on the Celestial Throne for more than two decades since the reign of Basil. We lavish them with the riches of the land but that land saps the richness of their spirits. Everything has a price.”

Akeem shivered. The minister’s words seemed to echo the will of the world, resonating with something deep within the old raider. It was a cruel truth but one as evident as the brilliant moon above.

“Tonight, I ask of you to take on some of that great burden. None may intrude upon the sacred covenant, but our prayers will bolster the khan, gladdening his spirit as we celebrate the first anniversary of his ascension.”

Movement throughout the crowd drew the old raider’s attention but there were so many bodies that it took a while for the event to make its way to him. The man of ahead of him passed back a glass bowl small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, half-filled with sand with a tooth resting atop the grains.

Before he could study the objects more, another was passed to him. When he received the third, Akeem realized that he was being given a task and began to pass the bowls backward.

It didn’t take long before the bowls stopped coming. Many at the back of the crowd complained that they had not received one. Their concerns were answered by warriors escorting them outside the rope circle, at spear point when necessary. Akeem wasn’t surprised. His many years in the slums had taught him that the abundance of the Celestial City was not shared with those outside her walls easily. Whatever point the minister meant to make, he wouldn’t throw infinite resources at it. It was the nature of the world that some would always go without.

When the ruckus outside the circle died down, reassuring Akeem that the rowdiness wouldn’t escalate into a riot, he turned his attention to the items he’d been given. There was nothing special about any of it. The glass bowl was smooth but cloudy, the work of a new apprentice or a charlatan. The sand it held could have been collected from anywhere and the tooth was the fang of a predator with no special characteristics.

It was disappointing. Akeem had hoped that he would wield proper magic but from the mundanity of the items, it seemed the ceremony would be nothing more than a performance.

The negative feeling was fleeting, quickly replaced by excitement when he noticed one of the warriors handing the minister a bowl identical to the ones held by the crowd. However pointless the ceremony was, it was clearly important to the official if the man was participating. It would bind them, give Akeem a foundation to build upon.

“Each grain of sand is connected to the spirit of Savath,” the minister continued. “Water carries the will of the world and blood is the most sacred water. Through our blood, we offer our will. Our spirits will become those blessings that sustain us and our children. Follow me, brothers and sisters.”

The minister held out his horn and it was taken by a discrete guard. Akeem couldn’t make out details from the distance, but he saw enough for his mind to supplement the scene with imagination. The minister reached inside the bowl and seemed to be holding something, which could only be the tooth. From the speed with which one hand impacted the other, Akeem assumed the tooth had pierced the man’s skin, as he could imagine no other use for a fang. Then the minister’s motions suggested he dropped the tooth back into the bowl.

“Blood magic.” Beside Akeem, a man spit at the ground, earning a curse from the man whose feet he’d dirtied.

“Come on,” another man said, leaning into the first. “Ain’t real magic, ey? Think fancy pants up there is gonna be doing something dangerous?”

“Nuh! The work of witches, this is.”

“The crones of the Celestial City ain’t no sand hags, shit for brains. Anybody slinging hexes will find their heads removed before a moon cycle can pass. Quit whimpering about the scary tooth like a git and get it done so we can eat. Can’t you smell the feast waiting for us?”

“Forget it!”

The second man tried to convince his friend for a while longer but soon grew tired of the wasted effort, turning his attention back to the stage as the first man stomped out of the circle. For the excited clamoring outside of the rope, he offered his place to those waiting on the sidelines and the guards waiting nearby made no move to quiet the chaos. Soon enough, a deal was struck and the fearful man was replaced by a younger man with greedy eyes and a sly smile.

Akeem didn’t fault either man for their views. As a raider, he knew very well the horrors a wild witch could inflict. A hexed blade that could curse a man to feel chills in the middle of the day, mixtures that dulled pain so men could fight through grievous wounds, conjured sandstorms to stop a charge, and worse. But of all the terrible magic waiting in the shadows of the dunes, blood magic was the worst.

Hexes made with blood extracted from a man’s heart could persist through his descendants for all of time, or so went one of the stories Akeem had been told by elders eager to frighten a little sense into young, brash raiders. If wild witches were capable of even a tenth of what they were rumored to do, the man had good reason for his caution.

Akeem might have followed his direction if he were not entirely convinced this was his last chance to make something of his life. What did a hex mean to him? He was an old man with no progeny and no prospects. Beyond that, he agreed with the second man. Whatever the ceremony entailed, the minister had joined them and he couldn’t imagine the man causing himself harm.

Reassured, Akeem grabbed the tooth lying atop the sand in his bowl. The bone was nearly as smooth as the glass and quite pleasant to feel. Someone had worked on it, crafting and cleaning it for its purpose. A detail that soothed the old raiders’ few lingering worries. The unneeded effort spoke of care, not the deranged attitude it would take to dabble in blood rituals.

Completing the ritual was made a little more complicated by his lack of hand. He balanced the bowl on his false limb, a poor substitute molded from clay, and placed the tooth in his teeth before smacking the back of his hand against the point of the fang. He didn’t utter a sound, the faint pain not even enough to furrow his brows. He dropped the tooth back into the bowl, licked at his wound, and transferred the bowl to his good hand, needing the security of fingers that could grip it properly.

“Children of the sand.” The minister gave the crowd plenty of time to complete the simple requirements of the ritual before continuing. “Offer your hearts to Savath. Kalp kalbe, ruh ruha, beni irae senin guan olum.”

The prayer was spoken in the Old Tongue, the dialect before Sava was polluted by the influence of too many chiefs wanting to leave their mark, even on something as insubstantial as words, and foreign traders with no respect for tradition. There was no use for the ancient way of speaking besides being a merit of the learned. It was a rare thing to even recognize it, Akeem only doing so because the orators of the Scorched still used the old names for the spirits in their stories.

His fleeting familiarity with the dialect didn’t grant him enough knowledge to know the meaning of the chant. Nor did it aid him in pronouncing it. Faint embarrassment heated his leathery cheeks as he stumbled over the words just as badly as the crowd.

He’d never had a talent for scholarly matters, but it was too simple a task to fail for long. With every utterance, his pronunciation became clearer and he gained confidence, soon shouting it with gusto.

But the minister continued to chant, moments stretching into minutes. Akeem began to tire but he forced himself to continue. As the minister said, everything had a price. The price of a good meal, and if he was lucky, a moment of the man’s time, was their dedication to the ceremony. He resolved to continue the chanting all night if he had to.

Unfortunately, his will could only supersede the needs of his body for so long. Strain became pain, ghostly pinpricks of a bone needle across his body. Akeem tried to ignore it, but it refused, growing more intense with each attempt to keep it at bay.

He cursed himself for working earlier. Hard labor beneath the unforgiving sun always sapped his strength but sometimes, he was struck with an agony that felt as if his body meant to tear itself apart to avoid one more moment of labor. He should have saved his strength but didn’t dare take a day off, lest he be replaced by one of the endless poor souls eager to take his place. There were plenty of younger and stronger men. Akeem held on to what meagre work he could find through determination alone.

His decision was taking its toll. As weakness pressed against his shoulders and the pain mounted, Akeem grudgingly admitted that his resolve wouldn’t be enough to see him through the ceremony. His soured hopes turned his stomach as he stopped chanting. Disgust, for himself, his fate, and the crowd continuing without him, welled up, twisting his stern mien into a storm.

A part of him knew his plan with all the substantiality of a heat mirage wouldn’t hold against the weight of reality. He couldn’t imagine how he would approach the minister without offending him. His best hope was throwing himself at the man’s mercy, but no one would be impressed by an old cripple, especially one that couldn’t properly venerate their khan.

He was nothing but waste. Trash that would never be allowed to dirty the gleaming streets of the Celestial City.

All Akeem wanted was to return home and wallow in his misery, perhaps for the rest of his life, but it wasn’t to be. When he made to push through the crowd, a wave of intense weakness overcame him. The old raider dropped to his knees as he grit his teeth against the following wave of pain. It wasn’t as bad as losing his hand, but it was accompanied by an abominable sensation. Something was reaching into him…and pulling.

Another wave of pain sent him to the ground, Akeem instinctively curling up and shielding his head. For a moment. The next wave of pain brought with it muscle spasms, forcing his limbs to flap around uselessly. His stomach threw up what little was in it and he rolled in a puddle of his own filth as the convulsions stripped him of his control.

Akeem had never been so afraid. Not even the morning he came out of his fever and realized his missing hand wasn’t a nightmare could compare. Then, he still had a hint of his youthful arrogance and believed he could overcome anything.

The years had beaten into him how mundane he was. How weak. Death was very real and, in those moments that he lost control of his body, closer than ever. He couldn’t explain how he knew but with each tug on his being, Akeem became surer.

He was dying.

His first instinct was to fight, but there was no way to fend off the ghostly claws assaulting the inside of his body. He tried to scream for help, beg for it, but no sound could escape his tight throat. He was helpless.

And so were those he hoped would come to his aid. He couldn’t see much while thrashing around but he noticed that the crowd was collapsing around him, the men and women reduced to the same pitiful state. It spread like a vile sickness, claiming the whole crowd moments after Akeem fell.

Beneath the deceivingly serene glow of Aylen, over three thousand souls were claimed by malevolent forces. Their lifeless forms were contorted in grotesque agony, each a testament to unspeakable horrors. Yet, amidst the macabre scene, a chilling uniformity prevailed: every cadaver bore an arm thrust skyward, fingers tightly holding glass bowls half-filled with crimson sand, sinister offerings to a dark presence that haunted the shadows.