The fine silver necklace lay in the dust, just off the path that led from the dungeons to the vizier’s tower—unworn and unnoticed. I was not the first time in the hundreds of years since its creation that the necklace’s constellation of seven-pointed stars had rested on the unforgiving ground, specks of grime working their way between the links. It would not be the last.
But it would not last long.
The clear, hot rays of the sun fell upon the necklace, shining out from behind the last wisps of the morning’s sudden rainstorm. Light glinted off the largest of the silver stars—sparkling rays filled with hope—bright and clean and true.
The rays of light drew the eye of a small raven prowling for dropped grain near the kitchens. The black bird alighted on the ground and cocked its curious head to study the glittering silver stars. In a flash, the bird seized the necklace in its beak and leapt into the sky. Up it soared, over the courtyard and onto one of the palace’s six tall towers. The raven stashed the bright necklace behind a cracked roof tile, along with a collection of bright pebbles and a stolen sparrow’s egg. The silver chain links rested amidst the bird’s bounty as the raven returned to its prowling for scraps.
In the tower above, a young woman with a stooped back was tasked with emptying the bath of the queen of Bahteel. The head chambermaid had told the woman—called Baya—not to empty the buckets of bathwater onto the roof because the king’s vizier did not like the way the water discolored part of the bright red tile that he could see from his balcony. Instead, she was supposed to lug the buckets down five flights of stairs so she could empty them in the sewer grate with the other filth. Emptying the queen’s bath was far from Baya’s only chore this morning. As she glanced out the queen’s window, she saw that the morning’s rain had been heavy enough to soak the entire roof, turning the faded red roof tiles to a dark, lustrous shine as far as the eye could see. Baya made quick work of dumping bucket after bucket of bathwater out the queen’s window onto the roof of the palace below, counting herself lucky for the saved steps.
The surge of unexpected bathwater rushed into the raven’s cache of treasure, scattering the pebbles, shattering the egg, and carrying the silver necklace off the edge of a roof. It washed onto a lower roof, then another, and another. Down and down it fell. Just before it landed in the dirt of the courtyard once more, the necklace snagged a twig of a bundle of firewood as it was hauled on brawny shoulders through the courtyard. Winding its way between the guards sparring with their bright bronze swords and the servants laying out leaves of pungent spice to dry in the hot sun, the bundle of sticks made its way to the kitchens where the seven courses of the king’s midday meal bubbled and seared. Not one eye noticed the thin tangle of silver chain hanging precariously from one bent twig.
Into the kitchen burst the king’s youngest son, Adebir, freshly escaped from his tutor’s dozing eye and begging for sweets from the cook. At the sight of the royal prince, every knee and forehead in the kitchen sought the floor. As the hastily-set-aside bundle of sticks hit the ground, the jarring motion loosened the necklace, which fell off the twig and tumbled into the cook’s slop chute.
Into the darkness it plunged, landing in a putrid pile of rotting turnip skins and ibex sinews. It was not long before tiny paws pulled the necklace from its filthy resting place, and a curious rat tongue began to clean the morsels of rotten sludge from the cold, sharp silver.
A hiss filled the darkness as another, larger rat seized the necklace from the first. Another hiss and a different set of paws and bloody strike of teeth found the necklace lodged in the paws of the initial scavenger, quickly charging off into the tunnels with its prize. The angry calls of its fellows closed in behind. Desperate to escape, the small rat squeezed into a crevice it knew the larger pursuers could not follow
The air was thick and hot and strange on the other side of the crevice. Thick curls of red smoke filled the chamber. Unlike the smoke of an untended hearth, this smoke did not smell like death—just defeat and despair. The rat coughed as it unsteadily tried to find its way out of the chamber. Its eyes watering, its four paws could not seem to find the floor all at the same time. It staggered onto its side, curling into a ball as the necklace of seven-pointed stars fell from its grip. The silver chain did not clatter on to the stone floor, but draped itself across the naked brown toes of the woman who stood, chained, in the midst of the red smoke—Sabit.
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Wayfarings of Sabit: Agony is copyright (c) 2018 by Michael S. Miller. All rights reserved. New chapters post every Thursday (and the occasional Monday). You can support this and other stories on Patreon: https://patreon.com/michaelsmiller Find more sword and sorcery fiction at http://ipressgames.com/fiction/.