Hakan Tarif crouched on the thick rug in his quarters, knees together and torso stretched forward until his chest touched the rich red fibers. His lips moved in silent prayer, repeating the words that he had known since childhood. A fat droplet of sweat trembled in the center of his neck; the silk draperies lay still in the midday heat.
CRASH!
A massive gong sounded far away, soon echoed by smaller, closer cymbals through the city.
Crash! Crash! Crash!
Hakan did not move. His lips finished the verse he was on, and he held his posture for one additional moment before relaxing his shoulders with a sigh. His hand swept the errant drop of sweat from his neck as he leaned back on his ankles.
“You Asfar are strange.”
Hakan jumped, stumbling to his feet and spinning around. “Who – oh!”
Alexis Temrin stood in the doorway to his room, munching absently on a wooden stick.
“Alexis, I – I didn't hear you come in. How did you get --”
“Every day, the same thing. Bang goes the gong, and everybody drops like pins. What an odd way to live.”
“You mean the verses?”
She wandered into his room. “Yeah. Mumbling nonsense to an invisible man who has magic powers. Seems like a waste of time to me.”
“A waste of –?”
“I mean, if there was a god looking out for us,” Alexis continued from the other room, ignoring Hakan, “why do so many bad things happen? Surely if he's all powerful, omnipotent, and kind, he could fix some stuff.”
“Jemahl's will is not always clear to us.” Hakan chased her into his bedroom, where she was digging through his closet.
“On my way here I saw a beggar lying in the gutter. When I went over to give him some food, I saw that he was dead. How does someone die of hunger when others with too much food to eat walk past them every day?” She was pulling his clothes out onto the floor.
“Stop – put that back –!” Hakan gathered up his clothes and shoved the bundle back inside, shutting the door.
“I don't think the beggar wanted to die. Either Rahm was powerless to help him, or he didn't care. Why bother praying to such a useless god?”
“You're speaking blasphemy.”
“I know.” Alexis smiled at herself in Hakan's mirror, and then turned to him. “You haven't been to see me lately. Why not?”
“I've been busy.”
“No you haven't.”
“How
do you know?”
“Mastiff's been watching your house.”
“What?!? You're having me watched?”
“Yup. And you haven't been busy.”
“Maybe I went out while he was sleeping.”
“Mastiff doesn't sleep.”
“At all?”
“He
doesn't sleep when I tell him not to.”
Hakan shuddered. Alexis poked him in the chest with her finger. “There it is again. I saw you do that at the Blue Parrot. You're . . . disgusted? Why?”
Hakan shook his head. “No, I'm not.”
Alexis laughed. “Yes, you are. Why?”
“You . . . own him. You own another person.”
“No, I don't. My father does.”
“Either way. You own another human being. That's just . . . wrong.”
“Jemahl owns you.”
“What? No he doesn't.”
Alexis smiled. “Then what were you doing on the floor just now?”
“That's different.”
“Is it? You do what Jemahl tells you to do, right? Mastiff does what father tells him to do.”
“You're
twisting the issue. Rahm's will is not your father's will.”
“Isn't it? Didn't Rahm create everything?”
“Yes.”
“Did he create my father?”
“Yes.”
“Which means he created my father's will, and my father's will is to have slaves.”
“You can't just . . . look, slavery against the teachings of the Pentarch. The book of Rahm outlaws it, and the book is Rahm's will here on earth.”
“And yet still Mastiff is a slave. Either Rahm has willed it to be so, or Rahm is an impotent fraud!”
Hakan's head was spinning. “You're impossible.”
“I know. So where are we going today?”
“What makes you think that I'm going anywhere with you?”
“Because if you don't, I might tell my father how unfriendly the son of Osman Tarif was to me. It would be a shame if that cast doubt on our fathers' friendship.”
Hakan sighed. “You figured that out pretty quickly, eh?”
“Yep!” Alexis smiled and took his hand. “I want to see the temple!”
“Let's go to the temple, then. I'm going to change, go wait outside.”
“What? Are you ashamed of the body Jemahl gave you?”
“Out. Out!”
Five minutes later they were on their way to the temple.
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