Excerpt: Abdinego

Jedar woke from a nightmare, clawing his way to freedom from beneath writhing, sweat-soaked sheets. His room felt like inside an oven even with the open window. Jedar hated summers in Miravur, where the broiling, cloudless days gave way to sticky, humid nights and never so much as even a sigh of cooling breeze.

Jedar groaned. The lamp had gone out, plunging his sleeping chambers into darkness deeper and blacker than the dream demon’s belly from which he had just fought free. He sat up in bed and reached for the bell pull to summon a kitchen slave to bring more oil with which to refill his lamp and a candle to relight it.

Wait. Jedar froze, his right hand still extended towards the bell pull. When a lamp runs dry so does the wick which the flame then consumes to produce a uniquely unpleasant odor; a lingering oily-sooty smell of unburnt naffatah oil in his room proved that the lamp had instead been blown out.

No wind from the open window.

Jedar’s left hand snaked behind his back, and dug through the mountain of pillows to close on the wire-bound hilt of a wicked dagger concealed in a compartment in the headboard. Jedar slowly slid it free, quieter than the sound a thought makes. He screwed his eyes shut and strained his ears to locate the sound that had awakened him, but all he could hear was his own pulse pounding as his heart raced.

There. A sound like that which woke him. First, cloth on cloth, and then a floorboard’s creaking smothered beneath thick rugs as it sagged under the weight of a stealthy footstep. He slipped his dagger from beneath his pillows.

“What is that little thing for, Jedar?”

A voice from the darkness punctuated by quick muffled steps and a whisper of cloth as the speaker moved swiftly in the darkness. Throwing the dagger would be a complete waste of time, as the speaker would not long be where he was and would likely move thrice more while silent himself. Besides, a miss meant he would be disarmed and even more defenseless than he was now.

“What is it that you seek? To rob my chambers? Nothing of any real importance is kept here. All of my silver is down the stairs, thief.” Jedar quietly felt for the bell pull and tugged it quickly three times and then three times more -- the signal for his guards.

“Of course, and three of your men sleep in the same room guarding the strongbox, and one another. And, trust me, they sleep. The wine delivered this evening was drugged, of course, so I don’t care if you sound the bell again or scream bloody murder. Nobody’s coming. I’m not a fool, Jedar.” The unseen burglar chuckled. “But nor am I a thief.”

The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once as the burglar moved constantly even as he spoke. Not quite a whisper. The man wasn’t even trying to play at being menacing like some common street thug. His voice was low, but conversational, and there was a slight sibilance that Jedar found familiar somehow. Try as he might, though, Jedar could not match a face to that voice.

“Who are you?”

“You wound me, Jedar. First, you mistake me for a common burglar. And then you try to pretend you don’t know me? Be careful or you just might hurt my feelings.”

“I’ve had enough of your games,” Jedar said. “Tell me who you are and what you want or get out.” Jedar heard a quiet laugh off to his right, moving away and then left and forward.

“How ironic. You even moved into your brother’s old room, Jedar. I haven’t decided whether you are not very bright or not very attentive. A fifth floor balcony window in a five-storey house may be a hard climb up five floors from the street, but it’s only a one-floor drop down from the roof.”

“So, what? So, you’re clever. Now, what is it that you want from me?”

“Come now, Jedar, don’t you know who I am? We met face-to-face not a year ago. Yes, over coffee, remember? When you hired me to murder your partner -- and shame on you, Jedar... your own brother -- just so you would inherit the other half of your father’s estate. I murdered him for you in this very room.”

“Abdinego,” Jedar whispered. “Please, no.” Where a moment before he wrestled to contain his rage until he could launch an attack on his tormentor, now he went cold clear to the bone and trembled with fear. He tugged the bell pull frantically, even though he knew nobody would be coming to save him.

“I paid you, Abdinego. Why do you do this now?”

“Tomorrow, Jedar, your nephew, Numair -- yes, your dearly departed brother’s son -- inherits the silver in your strongbox below. And, in another moment or so, half of that shall be mine.”

Abdinego’s voice seemed to be moving a little more towards Jedar now. He tightened his grip on his dagger and swept it in an arc before him, back and forth, ready to parry a strike that part of him knew full well was going to come from a direction he could neither sense nor prevent.

“Ah, for a man who dealt in human lives, Jedar, you were blithely ignorant of the value of one. No, I come for something far more precious to you than a few pieces of silver; I come to take your miserable life.”