Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 58. Powerful Helper.
Laien and Yin had frozen for a second due to Tashakir’s killing intent; both of them had roused the energies in their bodies in order to react immediately were Tashakir to attack them. However, the two of them would have never expected Arslan to jump forward and very much literally shield them from Tashakir. What was this kid thinking? They were grateful, but it was so stupid of him…! But if they were to look at their own actions, then perhaps they had no right to criticize Arslan’s action as overly reckless.
“Step away from my son,” Mustafa warned in an overbearing tone, sensing how Tashakir’s killing intent hadn’t fully subsided. It was one thing if Tashakir acted recklessly and hurt or killed those two boys; he would have been regretful and would have likely taken revenge for them, but that would be it. Yet, if his son was to die… no amount of bloodshed would do justice to the raging fury that would come with it.
Although there no murderous aura coming from Mustafa, Tashakir still quickly withdrew and took a few steps back. The difference between his fifth and Mustafa’s seventh realm of strength was enough to cause a distinct fear to linger in his heart. Although he felt confident that he would be able to flee if necessary thanks to his earth-element affinity, he had no confidence whatsoever in defeating a warrior as experienced and as strong as Mustafa in a direct confrontation; or, at the very least, he didn’t have this confidence just yet.
“I apologize for the misunderstanding, Grand Yimar,” Tashakir said and bowed with a forced courtesy, all the while eyeing the two slave youths with a cold and threatening gaze.
Mustafa snorted quietly and took two steps forward, then crouched beside his son and the two boys. “Arslan, take a seat and don’t do anything so rash anymore,” he said in a warm and concerned tone, one that was much unlike the words he had used to address Tashakir.
Arslan lowered his hands and turned around at his father’s words. He looked his father in the eye, then frowned in displeasure ever so slightly. “Fine,” he said stubbornly and did as his father told him; he sat down. However, instead of going back to his place he seated himself on one of Laien’s crossed legs and sent his father a challenging look which seemed to say ‘I did as you told me, so it’s fine, right?’.
Mustafa felt like rolling his eyes, but since he considered it a bad habit he held himself back. Instead, he sighed a little and glanced at Laien. Were the two of them really so similar? It was rare for Arslan to get attached to anyone; the boy was close to him and to Reian, but he wasn’t even all that close to his mother and the other relatives they had. It really was a mystery that he felt so strongly about this boy he had just met a dozen minutes ago.
Shaking his head somewhat resignedly, Mustafa stood up and stepped forward. “You said it was a misunderstanding,” he said to Tashakir. “I hope you can explain what kind of misunderstanding it was,” he added sternly, quietly hoping to find a solution to the problem at hand instead of making Tashakir his enemy.
“Of course,” Tashakir nodded slightly. He had no idea why Mustafa and his son were so apparently protecting those two boys, but he thought it was something akin to the two having agreed to serve Mustafa; perhaps as his son’s personal guards or something. That would explain what just happened. “As I said, my brother is gone. Those two are unnaturally strong, them being sent as a gift is overly suspicious. Were kids with their talent to disappear, their country would make quite a ruckus and would spare no resources to find them, especially if the one who had abducted them was someone as insignificant as Yimar Aeri,” he pointed out calmly. He might have spent most of his life training and fighting, but he was always close to the ruling class; he had learned their way of thinking just from interacting with them over the years.
“With that in mind…” he continued, this time more strongly. “I would like Grand Yimar Mustafa to help me find my brother. I want to interrogate those two and after I’m done, I want to do the same with the rest of the slaves in the main male harem. Meanwhile, I request of you to lend the help of the White Guard to the search of my elder brother,” he stated clearly, the tone of his words and the expression on his face suggesting that he wouldn’t easily back down on any of those demands, if at all.
Mustafa frowned. He knew it had been Laien and Yin who killed Tashakir’s elder brother and he also knew that they came to the Grand Palace to rescue some friends of theirs. He could still work around Tashakir questioning Laien and Yin, but all those slaves in that chamber… he couldn’t prevent Tashakir from interrogating them by any reasonable means. Moreover, he was sure that the moment Tashakir questioned those boys, be it those twos’ friends or others, he would learn everything. There would be no proof of Laien and Yin having killed his elder brother, but they will be deemed guilty of conspiracy nevertheless and would be killed on the spot or put to death later on.
“What will he do?” Laien and Yin both wondered nervously. They had turned around on their pillows and were now looking at Tashakir from behind Mustafa’s back, but as they recalled Mustafa’s hesitation from when he mentioned how problematic it would be to deal with Tashakir… they couldn’t help but grow worried. It would be much more convenient for Mustafa to reveal the truth and have them killed here; they wouldn’t be able to resist at all. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that their lives were in Mustafa’s hands.
“Father,” Arslan said rather loudly, sharing Laien and Yin’s worries. He really, really thought he would be good friends with Laien and somehow… he could tell that it was really important for the two of them to grow closer. He couldn’t explain anything of it, but he just felt this way.
Mustafa groaned silently. It wasn’t just Arslan, he also would rather stand on those boys’ side instead of cooperating with Tashakir. Yet, was it really a good idea for him to pay the price of helping those two? Killing some average Yimars or experts without much potential was one thing, but Tashakir was on friendly terms with the other two Grand Yimars and with the Great Prophet. Was there some way to work around the trouble this time around that he wasn’t seeing?
“Grand Yimar,” Tashakir urged, clearly angered by the prolonging silence. What was Mustafa hesitating about? Wasn’t the choice obvious? They were both Ikarians and Malazans in faith, were two talented kids truly important enough for Mustafa to disregard all reason and refuse to cooperate?
“If you needed to choose…” Mustafa spoke up calmly. “If you needed to choose between your family and your duty, what would your choice be?” he asked Tashakir, wondering what the man’s reply would be.
Tashakir’s eyebrows furrowed at the strange question. He wanted to say that it wasn’t the time for such things, but it was Mustafa asking. He thought about it for a few seconds, finding it surprisingly hard to choose between one and the other. “My family,” he said in the end. He was alive only thanks to his elder brother; if he didn’t repay this debt of gratitude, he wouldn’t deserve to be alive.
“Is that so,” Mustafa said with a sigh. “I would say the same thing,” he added with a melancholic smile, then swept out with his hand.
Tashakir’s eyes widened when he realized that Mustafa attacked him. He could clearly sense the blade of air approaching his body at great speed; he had no time to dodge, but he had just barely enough time to enhance his skin, muscles and bones with the earth-element Qi. He would receive this attack and use it to accelerate backward, then flee and join up with his friends and with Sharu’s men. No matter what Mustafa was thinking, he wouldn’t be able to slaughter all of them. Well, he would be capable of it with the aid of his men, but his reputation would suffer too much from it.
Just as Tashakir was thinking so, the blade of wind reached his body… and went through without losing almost any of its power. It would have continued ahead for many dozens of meters, but it dispersed into a harmless gust of wind at Mustafa’s thought. A split-second later, Tashakir’s upper body split into two halves at an angle, his head coming apart as his corpse began falling down.
Mustafa took a step and reached out with his hand, collecting Tashakir’s corpse along with the spurting blood into his interspatial ring. He sighed a little, then turned around and looked at the three kids sitting down on the pillows. His son was smiling at him happily, whereas Laien and Yin were completely flabbergasted. “Get up, we are going to the chamber to receive your friends. We can’t waste time,” he said with a smile, pretty amused by Laien and Yin’s expressions. Did his choice to help them astonish them so much?
“You said it would be hard to deal with him…” Laien said helplessly. How what Mustafa did ‘hard’ by any means? He had killed Tashakir with one casual blow! It was only a split-second, but he had sensed multiple Aspects and what should be Profound Mysteries of Wind in Mustafa’s attack! Mustafa was overwhelmingly stronger than Tashakir, and as a wind-element practitioner, he was much stronger than Master Shire! He was a monster! What he showed them here was just the tip of the iceberg, but just due to that alone Laien couldn’t be sure if Rudford would be able to beat Mustafa.
Mustafa smirked a little and explained. “When I said it would be hard to deal with Tashakir, I meant the overall political picture. As long as it’s a one-on-one fight, there is no Ikarian stronger than me.”
Laien’s and Yin’s eyes went wide and Mustafa’s statement. Weren’t there nearly two billion Ikarians in the world after adding up their numbers on the main continent and in the far west? The strongest out of all of them? Thinking about how ridiculous it was, the two of them gulped down at the same time. They were seriously lucky to have Mustafa as an ally and not an enemy.
“Father is the best,” Arslan said proudly and hopped up to his feet. “Come on, let’s go,” he said with a bright smile, very happy that his father decided to help those two.
Laien and Yin exchanged a glance. They felt as if they had been swept by the flow of a great river and no longer had any control over what was going to happen. It was a pretty scary feeling, but for the time being, they thought it would be for the best if they didn’t resist and went along with the unfolding events. The two of them thus stood up and followed Mustafa with Arslan, arriving at the main chamber a few minutes later.
The door guards appeared to have been replaced already, likely by the chamberlain’s order. The door to the chamber was closed though, the sight of which Mustafa welcomed with relief. It would have been annoying if he needed to openly get rid of more people today; he was planning to do so anyway, but he preferred to do it in a less controversial way.
“Both of you, go and tell the vice-general of my White Guard that I need him at this place. Tell him to bring ten water-element practitioners of ours and tell him that it’s my order for everyone to be on guard,” Mustafa ordered the two door guards, who in turn bowed deeply and left to deliver the information without asking any questions. They knew the Grand Yimar was the top authority in the city; his words were the law, it wasn’t up to them to look for the reasons behind Mustafa’s orders.
“Mhm, let us get this done with.” Mustafa nodded to himself and pushed the door open. Inside was the same group of youths from before, without any changes; the inner guards weren’t present. By the looks of it preparing eunuchs was harder than getting door guards ready, what only made sense. “Find your friends, we will be taking them with us,” he told Laien and Yin, meanwhile wondering what should he do with the rest of the youths from this place. He could see that three-fourths of them were from Eulene, but it didn’t mean it would be a plausible option to simply let them go. He didn’t want any information to be leaked… but he couldn’t really kill them. He would have done it if it was absolutely necessary, but otherwise he would seek other options.
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Laien and Yin looked at each other, exchanging their intentions wordlessly. They both nodded slightly and released their auras, transforming them into strands and stretching throughout the whole large chamber.
Yin quickly discovered where Louis and Nathan were sitting; they were next to each other and the latter one of them had already regained his consciousness. However, they weren’t looking up and were hiding, so they probably failed to realize what was going on. He approached them, intent on calming them down and explaining the situation very briefly.
As for Laien, he made a quick judgment. Six of the kids used by Tashakir and his friends were already dead; he couldn’t help them. However, three were on the brink of death, likely to let out their last breaths at any time. Knowing there was little time left, he hurriedly ran to the middle of the chamber and aiding himself with water magic, put the three boys in one place and began healing their wounds all at once.
“It’s up to their will to live,” Laien thought quietly while controlling the mixture of his Qi and spiritual energy and regenerating the internal wounds of the three. He could aid in healing their injuries, but healing would always put a degree of burned on one’s body. Trying to save someone from the brink of death was doable if the person struggled to keep himself alive… but if there was no longer such desire, then the flames of life would burn out and the soul would leave the body. By that point even if the body was healed completely, it would be nothing but a lifeless corpse.
“This boy…” Mustafa murmured, the surprised look on his face slowly turning into one of recognition and approval. Laien and Yin releasing that strange form of aura startled him, but he no longer thought to inquire about that. To think that Laien would immediately jump to helping those boys that were hurt; it seemed that Arslan’s eyes weren’t mistaken, it was indeed a good choice to help those two. “Just to make sure…” he thought quietly and spread his aura. When it filled the room, the expression on his face stiffened and he withdrew it quickly. Laien wasn’t lying, many of those youths were in a terrible state. Seeing that was making him want to simply slaughter all the men under Yimar Sharu, but at the same time, his reason was reminding him not to act so recklessly.
As the time went on Mustafa and Arslan watched how Laien was healing the three boys, while Yin finished his explanation after around one minute.
Louis and Nathan, however, were too dismayed by the news to simply nod and accept them as reality. A Grand Yimar, one of the top leaders of the evil Ikarians who destroyed their country and did those horrifying things to them was now an ally and was helping them? It was far beyond their scope of comprehension. They would sooner believe that the prayers to the Kyrios were heard and that the God sent their Riders of Apocalypse to destroy the Ikarians; it was a thing they and many others had often prayed for, but so far Kyrios remained deaf to their pleas. He probably didn’t exist at all.
“Whether you believe it or not is up to you,” Yin shrugged his shoulders, not planning to argue with the two boys who repeatedly expressed their disbelief and distrust. “We would all be finished if not for his help, that much is a fact. If you don’t want to trust him, you can as well stay here. We are leaving with Mustafa,” he said straightforwardly and unknowingly caused Mustafa to chuckle a little; to call him by his name like that, this kid truly was daring.
When Yin started walking away from them, Louis and Nathan suddenly grew frightened. Staying in this hellish place? They would rather die! Neither of them thought about uttering a word of complaint anymore; they got up and followed after Yin, though they still were glad that Yin headed to Laien and not to Mustafa. They were still very scared of that man.
“How are they?” Yin asked, glancing at the bodies of the three youths that were being healed by Laien. Their complexion was beginning to look better and better by the second, but contrary to that the aura their bodies were giving off was growing weaker and weaker… no. The aura of two of them was growing weaker, while the aura of the third one was stabilizing.
“The one to the left will surely live, don’t know about the other two,” Laien replied despite being quite sure Yin had also come to the same conclusion. “I will finish with them in about four more minutes. I should still have enough strength to patch up a few others,” he added calmly. Now that they were under Mustafa’s protection, he no longer hesitated to use up his strength to save the guys here. He might not be able to heal everyone who needed it, but he could still make those in the worst condition a bit better.
“Father, were those three heavily wounded?’ Arslan asked while he and Mustafa approached the middle of the chamber.
“They were wounded really bad,” Mustafa confirmed with a nod, happy that Arslan had enough presence of mind to notice and inquire about that. It wasn’t normal for a spiritual practitioner to be able to heal wounds of this kind so easily; healing one person would have been the most a spiritual practitioner at the eighth mortal realm would be able to do. However, Laien was helping three of them at once; it was most definitely abnormal.
“So it means Laien is amazing,” Arslan said with a straightforward smile, having come to the same conclusion his father did. All this studying he had done wasn’t for nothing; his knowledge about the world likely rivaled that of an average adult despite him being merely five years old.
As much as hearing the exchanged between Mustafa and Arslan caused Laien to smile a little, Louis and Nathan got out of their way, acting like scared puppies. Mustafa gave the two of them a look, then sighed and smiled meaningfully. Arslan was too young to tell, but he easily realized that those two weren’t all that close to Laien and Yin. In other words, Laien and Yin were her on the request of someone else; he doubted they had been forced to come here with how they acted so far, but he was curious about their circumstances. Was there someone who they owed a big favor? Or were they just foolish youths who would jump into a lion’s den if someone asked them to?
The six of them didn’t talk about anything as Laien continued to heal the three most wounded kids. Minutes passed and soon he was done with them, only to proceed to heal the most urgent injuries of the remaining youths and as he did, the originally deathly atmosphere in the chamber began changing just a little. Some of the boys began looking up and breaking out of their lethargic states, wondering what was going on and who was helping them. None of them spoke… but a few of them regained the clarity in their eyes and started hoping for a rescue.
About two minutes later, when Laien had only about one-fifth of his Qi and spiritual energy remaining and as Mustafa and Arslan, and even Nathan who knew quite a lot about magic were all growing astonished by Laien’s capacity, Reian arrived with ten spiritual masters as requested by Mustafa.
“Highest time, start healing the wounded ones,” Mustafa ordered calmly. He would have been a bit frustrated with his men knowing that they hadn’t run here at full speed, but Laien did what was necessary, so there was no issue. “And I didn’t tell them to come as fast as possible, so I’m also to blame,” he reminded himself, recalling what kind of message he had sent the guards with.
“My lord, what is going on here?” Reian asked in confusion. He had spotted the absence of the inner guards immediately, but the sight of a child using water-element magic to heal the other children in here confused him quite a lot. Where did such an exceptional youth come from? He could still guess why Mustafa ended up here as his lord was often very soft-hearted, especially when the situation allowed it, but he wanted to know the details.
“It’s a bit hard to explain,” Mustafa said and laughed weakly, then proceeded to summarize the events of the past twenty minutes to Reian, aiding himself with his Qi as to make sure only Reian heard his words.
When Mustafa finished telling the story, Reian could only smile at him helplessly. As expected of the man who didn’t hesitate to appoint a former slave as a future Sword of Rala of his, or so Reian would have wanted to say were there no matter more pressing than casual chat. “So, what do we do about the rest of the slaves here? We can’t allow them to be recaptured and interrogated,” he pointed out, quietly thinking about the means of silencing those kids. He wouldn’t like to kill them just after they were healed by their men, but if there was no other choice then he would do it.
“There should be a way,” Laien brought up, joining the conversation between the two men. “If you released all of them, then there are people who can hide… or relocate them within a few days. If you are the one who gave them freedom there shouldn’t be anyone thinking about capturing them, at least not immediately,” he suggested, mainly having one person in mind; Shahash. He didn’t think Flora and the other women would be capable of that, but Shahash should be easily capable of using Flora’s and his networks of information to collect the youths and send them somewhere else.
“And who do you have in mind?” Reian asked, remaining rather wary of Laien. He knew that Mustafa and Arslan trusted this kid for some reason, but he would need more than a few words and an indescribable feeling of Arslan’s to trust them with any important matters.
“Reian, there’s no need.” Mustafa shook his head with a smile. He didn’t want to coerce Laien and Yin into revealing their backing; those people were likely the Eulean rebels in hiding anyway, with a bit of work he could find out their identities on his own if he put some resources into this task.
Laien looked at the blue-eyed, golden-haired man who was apparently called ‘Reian’, then turned his gaze to Mustafa. He closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath, then opened them and said. “I will tell what I know, but only to Mustafa,” he stated, just like Yin using Mustafa’s name.
As a natural consequence, Reian and the ten spiritual masters who were just about done healing everyone frowned discontentedly. He would only tell their lord? And he dared to call him without any honorifics? It looked like this boy failed to realize what kind of circumstance he was in, he was in no position to be making demands of any kind… and he should be respectful to the Grand Yimar
“Fine.” Despite his subordinates’ thoughts, Mustafa agreed easily. He crouched and gave Laien a meaningful look, telling him to approach closer and tell him quietly.
Laien laughed inwardly, aware of the speechless looks directed in his way from all around. He walked up to Mustafa and whispered the names he knew to his ear, covering his mouth with his hand to prevent anyone from reading his lips.
When Laien said the last name, the only one that wasn’t Euleanian, Mustafa raised his eyebrows in surprise. Shahash was helping the rebels? The most loyal to the Great Prophet Lord of the House of Coin was actually a traitor? He would have never guessed that on his own, nor had he ever learned anything that suggested Shahash harbored some kind of grudge against his own people. “Did someone else claim to be him while cooperating with those kids in order to shift blame in case anything got out?” he asked himself immediately, guessing that he would need to investigate this matter carefully.
“Thanks for telling me,” Mustafa smiled and habitually reached out with his hand and tousled Laien’s hair. However, he froze for a little bit when he realized what he was doing and when he saw the genuine look of surprise on Laien’s face. He laughed a bit awkwardly and removed his hand from Laien’s head, then stood up and glanced at Reian. “Would you mind rounding those children up? It would be nice if they walked on their own and if we didn’t need to carry them out,” he said with a smile, trying and failing to hide that he was a bit embarrassed by what he just did. He couldn’t help but wonder, was it not only Arslan but also him who took some unexplainable liking to Laien?
“Easily done,” Reian said and refrained from making any comments; on the other hand, the little smirk on his face was telling more than a thousand words ever could. He laughed quietly and swept the ten spiritual masters with his gaze, prompting the men to execute the order without the need for it to be repeated.
With most of the youths acting half-alive half-dead, they obeyed simple commands and didn’t resist, so it proved to be a matter of a few words to have them all stand up and form a group. The only problem was with the ten still unconscious kids which they needed to try and wake up. Of course, though, they wouldn’t forcefully wake up the two who were fighting for their lives after being healed by Laien; as water-element spiritual masters, they had more sense than to do something so stupid.
“Are you going to take those two with you, my lord?” Reian asked Mustafa, for the time being giving up on his little game of calling his master by various titles of his.
“We are, right, father?” Arslan was about to confirm but changed his words into a question midway through. At the very least for a few weeks or months when they would be sightseeing those lands they could take Laien and Yin along, right?
“I fear not,” Mustafa said with a sigh but still smiled at Arslan when the boy’s expression turned into one of disappointment. “With what has been done, I will have a lot more work to do than I thought. I would like to provide those two with some security while they are on our lands though… so I’ve been thinking to have Reian take you guys and travel north, at least to the border of the Guode Yimarate,” he revealed casually, only to receive a collective ‘Eh?!’ from the four people involved.