I don't suppose one question can worsen my predicament.
He turned to his captor. 'Where are we going?'
The man's smile showed gapped teeth in the grey of his beard. 'My lord wishes to see you.' He spoke with all the courtesy of a respectful retainer greeting a privileged guest.
Kheda looked again at the man's swords. Braided with silken cord to ensure a solid grip, the end of the matched hilts were golden hawks' heads with emeralds for eyes; not talisman gems but still imbued with the same virtues of heroism and fidelity.
'I am mindful of the honour he does me,' Kheda replied with a deliberate suggestion of the authority he'd thought left dead behind him.
What do you say to that?
'Then let's do my lord the honour of not keeping him waiting.' His jailer's mouth quirked with a sardonic grin though there wasn't so much as a twitch in his shoulders to suggest the bow that any privileged guest would expect.
I don't think I have anything prudent to say to that.
Kheda obediently walked up the slow curve of the path leading towards the upper compound. He lifted his chin, ignoring the mildly curious glances of those Shek islanders already up and about their dawn chores. At first the path seemed endless; the ominous black gates staying as far away as ever with every step. Then all too soon, the forbidding grey wall of stone loomed over him, barely a shade darker than the cloud-filled sky above. Beneath the shadow of the fortress, the morning cool was enough to make him shiver.
'Open in the name of Shek Kul!' His captor looked up at the mighty watchtower, hands braced on his sword hilts.
Kheda clenched every muscle in his body to quell a bone-deep tremor that threatened to shake his resolve to pieces. A distant rumble of thunder did nothing to help.
A warning. For good or ill? What arc of the compass did that come from? What other omens might be rising in whatever quarter of the sky I should be looking at?
A thin-faced man with circumspect eyes opened the smaller door set into the implacable iron-bound wood. 'Be welcome in the house of Shek Kul.'
Kheda acknowledged him with a nod somewhere between a warlord's condescension and a suppliant's gratitude before stepping through the gate.
You're no common guard either, not wearing that finery. Whose body slave are you?
The swordsman standing watchful in the shadow of the tower wore finely wrought chainmail polished to a high sheen and belted with a wide leather strap all but invisible beneath its silver-mounted gems and the four daggers sheathed across his belly. Each had the serpentine blade that was so prevalent in these domains and a pommel of opaque green stone evidently carved by the same hand into a different animal's head: jungle cat, water ox, hook-toothed hog and loal. Swords of equal magnificence hung on either hip.
The man stood, waiting for Kheda to finish his candid examination, expression faintly bored. 'This way.'
Silent and any curiosity well hidden, the lesser guards around the gate and along the inner walk of the wall watched them go. Kheda followed the impressively weaponed body slave and his jailer fell into place behind, matching his every step. They passed the single-storeyed dwellings that lined the compound's walls, for Shek Kul's slaves and his household servants. Strange yet familiar scents and sounds all around him, a curious calm came over Kheda.
Quarters more extensive and more luxurious than anything Daish retainers can boast, though the bustle over breakfast and murmur over the day's prospects seem much the same. Are they wondering what Shek Kul wants with you; nondescript palm reader brought before such a mighty lord? Presumably he's not to hang you out of hand; he could have done that any time since you were seized. That good fortune will suffice for the moment. Though I wonder how far this courteous jailer's patience will stretch.
Kheda slowed slightly, taking his time to look around Shek Kul's extensive gardens, lavishly planted with carefully nurtured bushes and trees. Kheda recognised redlance, firefew and all three varieties of penala. None of the shrubs had so much as a twig out of place, not a leaf marring the smoothly raked perfection of the rich black earth beneath them. The paths between the beds were pale in contrast, lined with creamy pebbles brought from some distant beach. They reached a fork and the turn the well-armoured slave took led past an airy aviary of gilded lilla wood. Tiny brown vira finches scuffed and squabbled in the dust and Kheda slowed still more, watching for as long as he could though none of the birds were doing anything that might conceivably indicate an omen.
Ahead, the slave preceding him had slowed too, never looking back but plainly attuned to the pace of whoever was following him.
A very well-trained body slave.
The man behind him coughed meaningfully and Kheda's smile faded. They took another path past the wide white bowl of a fountain with a marble canthira tree glistening at its heart. The central keep of the compound lay ahead, each floor marked by serried rows of shuttered windows.
The heart of Shek Kul's power, the fortress where his might is supported by the guile and subtlety of his wives, where their children grow in understanding of their inheritance and all that comes with it.
Kheda braced himself and was promptly wrong-footed when the slave ahead took an abrupt turn to skirt the solid square. Beyond, the gardens stretched out in artless curves and delightful arbours refreshed by the kiss of the rain and blooming in a riot of grateful colours. The scene had been masterfully designed to soothe and enchant, though the slave seemed oblivious to its charms, heading for a long and lofty building set in a sea of white pebbles. Kheda's throat tightened, blood racing in his veins.
The well-armoured slave opened the door and stood aside to let Kheda precede him. With his erstwhile jailer at his heels, he went inside. The slave pulled the door closed and stood in front of it, hands thrust through his belt.
You won't be leaving unless that mans own lord gives him the word.
The older slave, his jailer, swept past Kheda without a backward glance. He strode down the central aisle of the great, empty hall, measured tread on the polished black marble echoing back from the walls. Swirls of green stone marked his path, ending in a complex, interlaced circle below a dais of three broad steps. The slave climbed the steps to stand beside a throne of black wood inlaid with silver and patterned with a criss-crossing lattice of green stones and diamonds.
Jade and malachite, neither very common in the southern isles. Jade can be pale as mother's milk or dark as a rainy-season sea but any shade is a talisman to link you to all the wisdom of past lives in your domain. Malachite is a stone for truth and self-knowledge and of course the silver will promote cool and balanced judgement.
Kheda's jumbled thoughts stilled to wariness as the man seated on the throne beckoned him forward with one slowly crooked gold-ringed finger. Shek Kul, warlord of this sizeable and strategically significant domain was a burly man dressed in a long tunic of black silk and green trousers tied at the ankle in the northern style. The loose cut of his clothes did nothing to disguise the powerful muscles of his arms and thighs, just as their informality did nothing to lessen the authority of his stern face. Dark eyes looked down a hooked nose, heavy brows just hinting at a frown. His skin was darker than many Kheda had seen so far in this domain though still appreciably lighter than his own. Shek Kul wore his coarse black hair long and swept back from his face with oil that glistened as well in his long, meticulously trimmed beard. Grey was spreading through both hair and beard, at his temples and beneath his full-lipped mouth.