Chapter : 843
She slid from her bed to her knees on the cold stone floor. She closed her eyes, and in the silent, private darkness of her own soul, she began to pray. It was not a formal, eloquent prayer to any specific god. It was a raw, formless, and desperate cry from the heart, a single, silent scream sent out into the vast, indifferent cosmos.
Please, she thought, the word a sob in her mind. Anyone. Anything. If there is any justice, any mercy, any light left in this world… save him. Do not let this world lose a man like him. Please… do not let me lose him.
She remained there, a small, kneeling figure in the darkness, her entire being focused on this single, fragile, and impossible hope. Outside, the city of Zakaria was beginning to stir, its people preparing for a day of spectacle and death. But inside her small, quiet room, a woman was engaged in her own, private vigil, her prayer a single, solitary candle against a vast and encroaching darkness. All she could do now was wait for the dawn, and pray that it would not bring only ashes.
Sumaiya then stood up and called for someone. She told them that she wanted to meet her father.
The private solar of Sultan Asad Ullah was a world away from the grime and chaos of his sprawling, vibrant capital. It was a space designed not for the public performance of power, but for its quiet, introspective exercise. The room was a masterpiece of understated, almost severe, elegance. The walls were paneled in a dark, fragrant cedarwood, the floors covered by a single, priceless silk rug from the eastern deserts, its intricate patterns a deep, calming blue that seemed to absorb the sounds of the outside world. The air was cool and smelled faintly of old parchment, spiced tea, and the subtle, metallic tang of ozone that always lingered around a man of immense, contained power.
Sunlight, filtered through a screen of intricately carved teakwood, streamed into the room, illuminating a billion swirling motes of dust, the only sign of disorder in the otherwise perfect, serene space.
Sultan Asad Ullah sat not on a grand, imposing throne, but in a simple, high-backed chair of dark, polished ebony, a Go board of pristine white marble and black obsidian set on a low table before him. He was a man in his late fifties, his hair and neatly trimmed beard a distinguished silver-gray that contrasted sharply with his dark, olive skin and his piercing, intelligent black eyes. He wore a simple, unadorned robe of deep indigo silk, the only sign of his station a single, heavy gold ring on his finger, its face a roaring lion carved from a single, flawless diamond.
He was a man who had inherited a kingdom on the verge of bankruptcy and civil war, and through a combination of ruthless, brutal pragmatism and a brilliant, strategic mind, had forged it into a stable, prosperous, and formidable power. He was a master of the great game, a player who saw the entire continent as his board, and its kings and lords as his pieces. He was not a man who was easily surprised.
Across from him, kneeling on a silk cushion, was a figure who seemed to be his complete opposite. The man was small, thin, and utterly, completely unremarkable. He wore the simple, gray robes of a royal scribe, his face a bland, forgettable canvas, his eyes perpetually downcast. He was a man designed to be overlooked, to be forgotten the moment he left a room. This was Tariq al-Jamil, the Sultan’s spymaster, the man known in the shadows of the court only as ‘The Whisper.’ He was the Sultan’s eyes and ears, the silent, invisible nerve system of his kingdom.
“There is… one other matter, Your Majesty,” he began, his voice taking on a new, subtle note of intrigue. “A story. A rumor that has taken root in the city and is now growing at a… remarkable rate. It concerns a man.”
This finally captured the Sultan’s full attention. He looked up from his Go board, his piercing black eyes fixing on his spymaster. A story that was interesting enough for The Whisper to mention personally was a story worth hearing.
“I am listening,” the Sultan said.
And so, The Whisper began to tell the tale. His voice was a flat, dispassionate monotone, the voice of a man reporting crop yields or tax revenues. But the story he told was one of myth and magic.
He spoke of a small, forgotten district in the city’s most wretched slum. He spoke of a humble clinic, and of a mysterious doctor who had appeared from nowhere, a man who called himself Zayn. He recounted the small, quiet miracles, the whispers of the poor and the downtrodden who had been cured of ailments that had plagued them for a lifetime.
He then told the story of the weaver’s son, the boy who had been dying of a strange, wasting sickness, and the doctor who had gone on a suicidal quest into the Dahaka Jungle to retrieve a cure that was thought to be a legend.
And finally, he came to the heart of the matter. He described, in precise, clinical detail, the events at the Qadir estate. He told of the kingdom’s greatest healers, all of them baffled and defeated. He told of the slum doctor, summoned as a last, desperate resort. He described the impossible, on-the-spot diagnosis of an invisible, internal growth. And he recounted the story of the miraculous, and frankly unbelievable, surgery, a procedure that had snatched the Qadir heir from the very jaws of death.
As he spoke, the Sultan remained perfectly still, his face a mask of serene, unreadable calm. But his eyes… his eyes, which had been so calm and contemplative, now burned with a new, intense, and predatory light. The master of the great game had just been shown a new piece on the board, a piece whose moves he could not predict, whose power he could not yet gauge. And it fascinated him.
“And this… ‘Doctor Zayn’,” the Sultan said, after a long, thoughtful silence, “this miracle worker who has earned the undying loyalty of my Master of the Armories. What of him now? I assume he is enjoying the fruits of his newfound fame? A townhouse in the upper city, perhaps? A generous stipend from the Qadir family?”
“No, Your Majesty,” The Whisper replied, and for the first time, a faint, almost imperceptible note of wonder entered his dry, rustling voice. “That is the most curious part of the entire affair. He has refused all rewards except few low grades Lilith Stone, which was used in Young Qadir's treatment. He remains in his humble clinic in the Lower Coil. He continues to treat the poor for free. And yesterday, at dawn, he did something… unexpected.”
“Go on,” the Sultan prompted, his voice a low, dangerous hum.
“He registered for the Jahl Challenge.”
The final piece of information dropped into the serene, sunlit silence of the solar with the force of a perfectly placed obsidian stone on the Go board, altering the entire balance of the game. Sultan Asad Ullah, the man who had built an empire on his ability to predict the moves of his rivals, to understand the simple, brutal calculus of greed and ambition that drove all men, was genuinely, profoundly, and delightfully… intrigued.