The Silver Sparrow

A Leap of Faith

"Would you still try, given a choice?" The speaker, a young man, tall, lean and elegant, almost to the point of looking delicate, may have been standing there for some time listening to their conversation. An undeniable air of authority filled the tent the moment he allowed himself to be noticed, giving Hasheem a sudden need to relocate himself elsewhere.

He had come to know this man by experience, had been expecting him to appear at some point. There had been one like him everywhere in his life. In the dungeon, the brothel, the slave quarter, or one of Dee's hidden chambers. Every time, just when he had settled for death, Fate always sent someone to offer him a choice to live, only those choices never came for free.

"And you are the man who would give me that choice, I presume?" Hasheem asked in his most sardonic tone. It was about to begin again, the games, the punishment, the reward. The chains around his wrists and ankles. He'd known this dance for a long time. A price would be named soon.

The man crossed over in three smooth, flawless strides and stopped in front of him, looking down from his considerable height. He was wearing a zikh, the signature white robe given to the most elite class of Shakshi warriors, and had kept the hood on so that only a part of his face could be seen. The way Djari had fallen into complete silence told him that this man, whoever he was, outranked her in more ways than one.

There were only a handful of people who outranked a Bharavi in the White Desert, as far as he knew.

"That depends," the man said mildly, "on how willing you are to consider my proposal."

"A proposal." Hasheem sneered at the irony of things. He hated being right sometimes. "And what," he said, "would you have me do, may I ask? Clean your stable, kill your competition, or fuck your guests? I happen to be highly proficient in all three."

The arrow in his back was suddenly snapped in half, and Hasheem, nearly yelping at the pain, looked promptly over his shoulder.

"You are in the presence of the Khumar of Visarya," Djari said with murder in her eyes. "You will mind your manner or I will add your tongue to the list of things to remove tomorrow."

It would explain a lot of things, Hasheem realized, looking at the young man who was standing calmly over him. This was the Khumar, heir to the future Kha'a of the Kha'gan, the highest ruling figure of the tribe. He might not be the most powerful man on that strip of the desert, but he was the one next in line, bestowed, apparently, with enough authority to change and corrupt the most notoriously strict laws in the peninsula.

A proposal, the Khumar had said. Anything could be bought, even among the most disciplined, code-abiding people on earth. There are no monsters bigger than the worst of men, Dee had said. There really weren't. The world was the same, everywhere, whichever side of the desert you were on.

"Good," he said spitefully, ignoring the throbbing pain behind his shoulder. "I was beginning to wonder who I have to fuck to get out of here."

Behind him, Djari took hold of whatever had been left of the arrow shaft and twisted. It took everything he had to not growl at the pain. He didn't have to turn around to know those yellow eyes would be attempting to burn a hole through his skull right about then. And if her sense of duty toward her Khumar hadn't been enough to make her want to shoot him again for his blatant display of insubordination, the love and respect she seemed to harbor for this man would certainly do the job. That, for some reason, was pissing him off more than anything else.

"My sister has a temper. For that, I apologize," the Khumar said as he gestured something to Djari, who then obediently removed her hand from the arrow. "I will, however, advise against the use of such words and tone with the Kha'a. Many have lost their tongue for less."