Chapter 1
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CHAPTER 2
"Go on. Move along."
The three guards pressed closely behind the condemned prisoner, herding him like a pack of dogs into a small clammy chamber. It was completely dark except for a band of light coming from beneath a door, the door that would lead outside into the Shah's private arena. The sentenced man could not help but feel a slight flutter of excitement; he had not been outside for months.
The prisoner, Ozhan, was a gaunt, scraggly criminal. Once stocky and powerful, he was now a thin shadow of what he had been, with black greasy hair that reached down to his shoulders and a white hollow face. His arms and legs were scarred from the occasional beatings, and his incredibly filthy clothes dangled and swayed on his frame like a torn bed sheet. Ozhan had been kept in the Shah's dungeons for about a year now, wasting away, counting the days on his walls until the moment he would be put to death.
He'd been sentenced for murdering two women. He did not deny committing the crime, nor did he feel any remorse for his acts. He had simply become angry, so angry that he couldn't control his acts. It had just happened.
"How long do I have to wait?" Ozhan asked his captors, shifting his bound hands uncomfortably.
"Not long," replied one of the huge guards gruffly, reaching to untie the prisoner's wrists. Ozhan stared at him.
"What are you doing?"
The guard did not answer and handed him a massive pike, along with a finely sharpened broadsword. Ozhan was perplexed. Why were they arming him if he was going out to supposedly meet his death?
The prisoner watched as his guards backed off and left the small chamber, shutting and locking the barred door behind him. Ozhan was left standing alone in the dark room, armed with these two deadly weapons and completely confused as to why they had been given to him. Surely he wasn't supposed to fight his executioner...
"Ah!" he cried out loud, his face brightening with a sudden realization. Fighting his executioner! This wasn't a death sentence; it was a challenge. If he could kill his executioner, he would be set free. This task would be ridiculously easy, considering the heavy weaponry he carried; just one well-aimed blow to the head, the neck, the chest, and he would walk out of the Shah’s palace without a scratch on him.
"Prepare to meet your death, my friend," Ozhan rasped, his yellow teeth gleaming in the dim light.
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"Magician."
Erik turned from the mirror on his bureau to see a guard craning his neck around the door to his room.
"Get out of here. I would suggest knocking next time," Erik snapped coldly, tugging his black cloak around his shoulders.
"I am just informing you that the prisoner is prepared and that my lord and the good lady are waiting for you."
"Tell them that patience is a virtue,” Erik instructed him, looking down at his hands as he slipped on a pair of black leather gauntlets. He flexed his fingers to hear the material squeak as it stretched and softened.
The guard was still there. Erik cast him an icy side glance. "Go."
When the man had finally left, Erik reached inside the top drawer of the bureau and pulled out a short, thin cord fashioned into a slender hangman's noose. He laid it out on his bed, examining the knot for possible fraying or tearing.
The Punjab lasso, as it was affectionately called, had been faithful to Erik for quite a long time now. He'd originally made the catgut noose when he had lived on the streets, to defend himself against those who might prey upon him. A disfigured young man seen wandering about town was taken as a bad omen, and occasionally a resident or two would come out and try to make trouble. If the encounter became violent and an aggressive hand was locked around his throat or an arm wrapped around his head, Erik would strike.
Killing was frighteningly easy for him. All it took was a deft flick of the wrist, a quick jerk and perhaps a foot placed firmly in the back of the victim, and that was that. Easy.
He exhaled slowly through his nose and stood up, shutting his eyes and stretching his long arms high towards the ceiling. Just another performance. That's all it was going to be. Not an execution...a performance.
Admittedly, it was not an easy task for Erik to take a human life. He had to mentally prepare himself for the event, either by standing on the balcony and drinking in the beauty of the gardens, lying face down on his bed and meditating, or, rarely, smoking hashish. He didn't smoke very often, as it was not good for his voice, but if Erik was suffering from a panic attack before a performance he would take it to calm his nerves.
Today, he contented himself with simply going out on the balcony, watching the sun as it smoothly changed from a pale pink to a fiery orange and sank into the east horizon. He knew that when the scent of the roses faded it was time to leave for the performance.
He cast a final glance at himself in the mirror on his bureau. He looked like Death in mortal form, with his hideous mask painted to look like a grinning skull and a necklace made of a dog's teeth looped around his neck. He intended to terrify his prey.
Erik inhaled once, straightened the collar of his cloak and walked silently out of his room.
His audience was waiting.
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“I must say, I might faint from all this excitement,” Sabah declared, waving her paper fan a little faster in the lingering afternoon heat. She slipped another plump grape into her mouth and squeezed it with her teeth, savoring the snapping sound.
“I hope not, my dear; you will miss a spectacle,” Nasser replied, chuckling and swirling his goblet of wine. “By the time the performance begins, you will have forgotten all about this heat.”
The two of them were resting on a raised platform on the east side of the small arena. Strong iron bars were erected around this platform to protect them from the prisoner’s wild rampage as he ran from his executioner. Nasser sat comfortably in his cushioned chair while Sabah, once again, reclined on a daybed that five servants had struggled to carry out of the palace.
The execution was to begin in a few short minutes. Several of the Shah’s man-servants were going about and lighting the torches around the arena, which was obviously well-worn from use; it was scattered with sparse patches of dead grass that were sprinkled with dry soil and pebbles. Sabah could see deep ruts and disturbed areas in the dirt, possibly made by prisoner and executioner as they grappled to gain the upper hand.
This small field was, like the platform, fenced. The bars were too high to climb and too strong to knock over. When Sabah had questioned Nasser about the fence, he’d explained that the executioner was to be locked in with the prisoner, which excited the princess greatly.
Two female slaves approached Sabah with soft blankets and voluptuous silk pillows so she could be more comfortable while she watched the performance. The princess snatched them from the slave’s hands possessively, wrapping her arms around the pillows and stroking the silk cases with her hands.
She was restless. The magician had been on her mind all day, and she was itching to get her hands on him and seduce him with her female prowess. After the execution, she planned to invite him to her room and have her way with him. It had been a long time since she had seen such a strange, mysterious man. She wanted to learn his tricks, his strengths and his weaknesses. She wanted to explore him.
“How will the magician kill the prisoner?” she asked Nasser, slipping another grape between her lips and rolling it about with her tongue.
“Ah…I don’t want to reveal too much of the surprise, but he uses a device called the Punjab lasso,” Nasser answered, stretching his arms and folding them behind his head.
“A lasso?” Sabah grinned, licking her lips. “How interesting.”
The Shah suddenly smiled broadly and pointed towards the opposite side of the arena. “Look, my dear…he’s here.”
Sabah sat up immediately, stretching her body like a cat to see the magician. She spotted a man in a long black robe entering the caged killing field, barefoot and wearing a frightening skull mask on his face. He carried no weapon in his hands. He walked into the center of the arena and stopped, coolly tugging at the gauntlets on his hands.
“The prisoner,” a soldier cried out, and he opened a heavy door in the north wall. Out crept a horrible creature of a man, Ozhan, blinking in the fading light and struggling to carry a huge sword and a long pike. He shuffled out into the dirt, warily casting glances at the soldiers that watched him from behind the bars. Sabah could hear him muttering quietly to himself.
“Bastards…bloody bastards.”
With a few strange jerks, Ozhan turned his head to see Erik standing there calmly, motionless, waiting for him to make the first move.
“Hallo…what do we have here?”
Ozhan approached the magician slowly, his pike and broadsword pointed towards his enemy’s gut. His wide gray eyes darted over the stranger’s tall form, lingering on the bizarre mask he wore. “Who the hell are you?”
Erik didn’t answer.
Ozhan snorted, blowing gray dust from his nostrils, and he gave a wide yellow grin. “Ah. A quiet one, eh? A shy executioner? Come on, friend. Are you afraid to cut off my head? Afraid of blood?”
Without warning, he thrust his powerful broadsword forward, hoping to bury the blade in the magician’s innards, but the magician stepped aside with a grace so soft and elegant it was almost beautiful. Ozhan stared at him.
“A dancer, eh? You want to dance with the sword?” He laughed and stepped closer to Erik, who had dropped into a low crouch and was watching the prisoner’s eyes closely. Looking for a sign of attack. Looking for a sign of weakness.
Ozhan stabbed the air with his pike, the tip of the blade inches from Erik’s stomach, but he could not seem to touch his enemy. Each time he thrust at him, the magician danced away from him on nimble legs, his face hard and calm. Ozhan’s frustration began to mount.
“Damn you!” he shouted out in a rattling voice, swinging the heavy sword like a madman. Surely he would strike him at any moment…any minute he’d feel the blade meet flesh and bone, hear the man’s anguished cry of pain and watch him die in the dirt…and he’d be a free man!
In a sly maneuver, Ozhan suddenly swiped at the magician’s bare feet with his sword while thrusting forwards with his pike. Erik leapt up to dodge the weapon, but somehow the sword blade managed to catch his calf and he landed heavily on his side. He immediately slapped his hand on the cut, clamping his jaws tightly against the sharp pain, and felt warm blood beneath his palm.
“Ha!” cried Ozhan.
Sabah’s heart was beating wildly in her breast as she stared at her magician lying there in the dirt. He was injured. Her blood burned with the thrill of the game; who was going to die now?
As Ozhan lifted his sword to deliver a fatal blow to Erik’s head, a thin, black cord hissed from the magician’s hand and wrapped itself around the prisoner’s neck. The Ozhan’s eyes widened.
Erik pulled it taut.
Ozhan was jerked to the ground, lying face first in the dirt, and Erik made his final move. He struggled to stand up, placed his left foot on the man’s head, and yanked back as hard as he could. The prisoner’s throat was crushed, and he was dead.
“Go assist him,” the Shah muttered to the soldier standing by his side. He folded his hands in his lap as he watched his magician examine his cut leg. Long tears of dark blood trickled down his white calf and made powered puddles in the dirt by his foot.
“He’s injured,” Sabah said.
“I know that,” Nasser replied shortly. “He will be helped back to his room.”
“Will I be able to speak with him?” Sabah asked innocently.
“I’m certain you will.”
The magician was helped back inside the palace by two soldiers, the corpse was taken away, and the torches put out.
The performance was over.
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Erik watched the royal doctor wrap strip after strip of white fabric around his long gash, and with each layer, the bloodstains beneath started to fade. Erik’s blue eyes shifted smoothly from his injury to the doctor’s face, watching him work. He was a little wary of a stranger touching him anywhere on his body.
“The Shah is giving you a servant to perform duties for you temporarily,” the doctor informed him, raising dark eyes to look into the magician’s ashen face. Erik nodded, suffering from a mild headache and too exhausted to reply. He leaned his head back against the headboard of his bed.
The doctor packed up his supplies, snapped his bag shut and stood up from his chair. “I’ll leave new dressings for you so you can clean the wound,” he told him, smoothing his black hair tipped with silver. “It’s somewhat deep, so take care if you walk about. No strenuous activity until it has completely scabbed.”
Erik nodded again, eager to be left alone so he could rest. The doctor set a neatly folded stack of fresh bandages on his dresser, and then exited the room.
Carefully shifting his body, Erik stretched himself out on his bed, turning his head into the pillow and breathing deeply. He always had to rest his fevered mind after carrying out an execution. He had to force the guilt from his mind, make himself realize that it was only routine; otherwise, he feared he would go mad.
Only a performance, he told himself as his tired eyes fluttered closed.
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