Isa needed no further instruction. He hurried down the hall and pulled the door open. The room had no windows, and it was very dark, lit only by the light from the door. Isa could not see his family. 'Jina!' he called. 'Children?' No response. He entered and was immediately assaulted by a powerful odour of decay. Something was very wrong here. 'Jina?' he called again in rising panic. He took a few more steps into the room before he saw his family. His wife and two children were slumped motionless against the far wall. He rushed across the room and knelt beside his wife. Her throat had been slit, as had the throats of his daughter and son. Judging by the decayed state of their bodies, they had been dead for several days.
'Halil told me to thank you for your service,' the keeper said from the door. 'But you are too dangerous to leave alive. As Halil promised, you'll be joining your family now, forever.' Isa ran for the door, but before he was halfway there, it slammed shut. The room went black. Isa heard a deadbolt slide to, and then another.
He stumbled back across the dark room to the door and pounded on it with his fist, but there was no response. 'You will pay for this!' he shouted. 'You will pay!' Still, there was no reply. He yanked on the handle, and then kicked the door hard. It did not budge. The door was made of solid oak. It would take an axe to bring it down. He was trapped.
Isa slumped to the floor and sat still. Despite all that he had done, despite all his years of working for Halil, he had failed his family. His life meant nothing now. But if he could not save his family, he would at least avenge their deaths. 'Halil,' he mumbled to himself. He repeated the name over and over again, like a mantra. It gave him strength. There was purpose in his life yet. He would see to it that Halil suffered as he had suffered.
But first, he would kill his family's keeper. And before he did that, he would have to escape. Isa closed his eyes and cleared his mind, forcing himself to ignore the putrid smell of the corpses of his beloved wife and children. He had time to think. The keeper would most likely leave Isa there to starve, but if Isa was lucky, then the man would come back to kill him. Isa could deal with him then. Even if he had to face every guard in the house, Isa was determined that his life would be dearly sold. If no one came, then Isa would simply have to find another way out.
He closed his eyes and meditated, trying to focus his thoughts on the task at hand. He had been sitting for only a few minutes when sweat began to trickle down his shaved head and he noticed that the door at his back was growing hot. He touched the wall next to the door and then the floor. They were all warm. He put his nose to the crack at the bottom of the door and smelled smoke. With alarm, Isa realized that the house was on fire. The keeper intended to burn him alive.
Isa rose and moved around the room, feeling the walls for any cracks, any weakness that could be exploited. There were none. He moved around the floor, stomping and checking for loose planks, but gave up after only a few seconds. If he did manage to make it through the floor, then he would probably only find himself in the fire. Isa moved back to the walls, coughing as smoke began to fill the space. He had to find a way out soon. He began to circle the room again, this time knocking on the walls. He moved along the wall to the left of the door, then turned the corner and moved to the back of the room. Still nothing. The smoke was thick now, rising up between the floorboards to sting his eyes and burn his throat. He raised his shirt to cover his mouth, but still he gasped and choked as he started out along the wall where his family lay. Again, he heard only the dull knock of his hand on the hard plaster. He was beginning to lose hope when he heard something different. At waist height, directly over the body of his wife, the wall reverberated with a hollow thumping sound. He put his head to the wall and listened as he struck it again, harder. Thump. The wall was not solid. There must have once been a door or a window there that had later been plastered over.
Isa drew his knife and scraped at the wall, but to little effect. A few bits of plaster came away, but nothing more. Desperate, he stood back and then kicked the wall as hard as he could. It trembled slightly. He kicked it again, and the shaking was more pronounced. He was about to kick again, when he turned and saw that the door to the room was on fire and that the flames were spreading to the walls and ceiling around it. He had no more time. He moved to the middle of the room, and then turned and ran towards the wall. He lowered his shoulder and hit the wall moving full speed. He heard a crash, felt the wall give, and the next thing he knew he was flying through empty space. He fell only a few feet before he landed with a painful thud on the roof of a neighbouring, one-storey house. He rose unsteadily, coughing from the smoke he had inhaled. He had separated his shoulder when he hit the wall, and it was pulsing with pain. But he was alive…
Isa staggered across the flat roof, away from the burning building. He reached the edge of the roof and dropped into the alley below. Then he leaned his shoulder against the wall of the alley, and with a wrenching motion, popped his shoulder back into its socket, clenching his jaw to keep from crying out. When the wave of agony had passed, he left the alley and circled around until he reached the street that ran towards the burning house. People were hurrying past, carrying buckets of water from the well to throw on the fire. Somewhere, a bell was ringing. At the house itself, a crowd of spectators had gathered to watch the flames. His family's keeper was standing amongst the onlookers.
Isa took a vial filled with a dark, viscous liquid from inside his tunic and carefully poured three drops on to the blade of his knife. He worked his way through the crowd, approaching the keeper from behind. When he reached him, Isa sliced the knife quickly along the back of the man's neck, leaving a small cut. The man grabbed at his neck and turned to face Isa. The man's eyes went wide with surprise. He opened his mouth but could not speak. The poison was acting too fast. Isa grabbed the man and pulled him close. 'The poison you are experiencing is taken from crushed cherry laurel leaves,' he whispered as he wiped his knife on the man's shirt. 'You will be dead in a few seconds. A better fate than you deserve.'
The man began to shake all over as Isa released him and stepped away, slipping back into the crowd. He watched as the keeper collapsed, shaking violently. A veiled woman screamed. The rest of the crowd backed away, frightened. 'What's happening to him?' someone asked. The keeper's entire body was contorted now. Foam ran from his lips. 'He's possessed!' someone shouted. Then the keeper froze, his body rigid, his eyes protruding. He twitched a few final times and then lay still. He was dead.
Two men dragged his body off to the side, where his family, the authorities or the dogs – whichever reached him first – would deal with him. The rest of the crowd turned back to watch the fire. Isa watched with them. Men continued to rush forward with buckets of water. Within an hour it was clear that the fire would not spread, and the crowd began to thin. Isa waited until the crowd had all long gone and the last ember had ceased to burn. Then, he walked over the ashen ruins of the burned house. He scooped up a handful of ash and placed it in one of the pouches that hung from his belt. This was all that he had left of his family. Dawn was breaking as he left the smoking ruin behind him and strode away towards the Maritza river to catch a boat to Constantinople, where he would find Halil.