Ka’ao’s hand immediately flew to his mouth; just the stench of the corpse made him want to run back into the tunnel. Just how many days had it been hanging there, rotting away like that? And why had she left it like that; wasn’t Basta her treasured teacher?
“Why haven’t you taken the body down?” He asked.
“The Gheraman prince ordered me not to. And unfortunately, I'm not nearly as brave as Basta was.” She muttered, her eyes locked on the floor. “Even now, I can't bring myself to take it down.”
There was something weird about the way Basta had been murdered. Something weirdly familiar, and yet Ka’ao couldn’t put his finger on what exactly it was. All he knew was that his eyes kept drifting back to the wounds in the corpse’s back ; seven holes, one between the shoulder blades, three underneath her left shoulder blade, and three more underneath her right shoulder blade. Whoever had killed her was very calm. The bullet holes were perfectly aligned- this wasn’t a murder carried out by an enraged man.
It was an execution carried out by a cold blooded one.
“I see.” Ka’ao said, ripping his gaze away from the corpse. He had a storm of questions racing through his head that needed to be answered, but right now, there was something much more urgent that needed to be addressed.
With a flourish of his cloak, he retrieved his blade from its sheath and took a step towards Basta’s corpse. He knew next to nothing about the old woman, except for what his mother would occasionally tell him, but he knew that she hadn’t deserved this.
No one’s corpse deserved to be disrespected and mutilated like this. Nothing she did or said to offend the Gheraman prince warranted such a horrific outcome.
“Wait- what are you doing?” Moa asked, panic coloring her tone.
“Cutting her down.” Ka’ao replied. “Or do you think, as an embalmer, that leaving the corpse of your teacher to decay like this is acceptable?”
He grew closer to the corpse and glanced back at her; she’d hadn’t even moved to stop him. It was probably too painful for her to get any closer to her master’s corpse. But even if she had tried to follow him, she wouldn’t have been able to stop him.
With a flick of his wrist, he cut the corpse down, catching the decaying figure with one hand while holding his sword with the other, turning his sharpened gaze upon Moa.
“When you approached me, I thought you knew nothing of fear. Staring me in the eye like that, even when I held a sword to your throat.” He grimaced. “But it seems like I was wrong; she must have not meant much to you.”
“You don’t know anything!” Moa blurted out, her fists curling up at her side. “Do you think I wanted to leave her like that? I had no choice!”
“You did have a choice.” Ko’ao took a step forwards; just as he suspected, Moa took a step backwards, unable to lay her eyes on the rotting corpse in his arms. “You had two options. Youcould have protected the honor of your master and used what she’d taught you to properly embalm her corpse; or you could’ve left her corpse to rot under the instructions of a foreign prince. You chose the latter. Or am I wrong?”
“If I took her body down I would have been killed!” Moa snapped.
“So you chose life; but what use are you to anyone? You couldn’t even bring yourself to embalm the corpse of your master.” Ka’ao maintained. “So really, what use are you to anyone like this? “
Moa was trembling now, unable to find the words for a snappy retort like she usually did. It looked like his words had reached her, and cut her to her core. He almost felt bad for her; but in his eyes, he’d done her a favor. She’d failed as a student by not disobeying the Gheraman’s prince’s orders, and taking the corpse down anyways; and she failed as a human by not acknowledging her cowardice, and pushing her guilt deep down.
But pushing away guilt only led it to fester. Ka’ao knew that all too well.
“Relax. It’s not like it’s my business what you do with the corpse. I’m not an embalmer after all.” Ka’ao snorted. “I’m just making an observation. You, who are too cowardly to maintain the honor of your master, sought me out to do your dirty work. You want me to kill the prince who took her life.”
Moa said nothing, covering her face with her hands as she murmured something to herself; a song, perhaps, to calm herself down.
“Sire.” Pepi cut in. “You shouldn’t hold that corpse so close to you.”
“Right.” Ka’ao nearly forgot the corpse had been hanging from the ceiling for days; who knew what kind of diseases he might contract if he held it for too long. Setting it on the floor, he swept out of the room along with Pepi; he figured when she was ready, she’d speak.
-
He was right. Several minutes after he and Pepi had excused themselves, Moa left the storage room with hooded eyes, and sat them down on some stools behind the counter of the apothecary; it was a little smaller than the other one, but still rather sizable for an apocethary.
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
The one who had killed Basta was a prince by the name of Pahfar Pas Gheraman.
When Moa had told him that, he’d nearly fell off his stool. He knew that the way Basta had been killed was vaguely familiar; and now that he knew it was Pahfar that had killed her, it all made sense now.
When Queen Sayyida had made her debut in Kurigazu for negotiations between Gheraman and Kurigazu, three months before his father eventually made her his new queen, Prince Pahfar had come along with her. Despite his mother’s warnings, he ended up befriending Pahfar; they’d hit it off practically the moment they started talking. Pahfar was only four years older than Ka’ao, but talked as if he had decades of experience under his belt, and carried himself as if he were the King of Gheraman, and not a 24 year old prince.
It was awesome.
Ka’ao didn’t really want to admit this to himself, but he’d honestly looked up to Pahfar. Pahfar had tutored him in economics, history, and Gheraman sciences during his stay, and Ka’ao had taught him the art of the sword; at the time, he wanted nothing more than to continue talking with the Gheraman prince. He was someone that Ka’ao could both look up to and relate to, which was rare, and it seemed as if every time he talked to Pahfar, he became a little more competent as a prince.
But in his naivety, he had no idea what Pahfar’s true intentions were for coming to Kurigazu.
Negotiations between Kurigazu and Gheraman were becoming more and more tense. Ka’ao’s father still had somewhat of a back bone at the time, and maintained that Kurigazu would not allow its resources to be leached on by Gheraman.
The Gheraman ambassadors were failing at their jobs; and that was where Pahfar came in.
It was shortly after Pahfar’s departure that Ka’ao learned of his true nature. The day before Pahfar had left, in order to speed along negotiations between Kurigazu and Gheraman, he’d demonstrated one of the more recent inventions of the Gheraman army for the King.
A Gheraman repeating rifle.
Pahfar had asked the King to borrow a prisoner who’d been scheduled for execution, and in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Gheraman firearm, executed the man in cold blood in front of the King and his court.
He fired seven times; the man was dead by the third shot.
To the people of Kurigazu, who were still catching up to the emergence and use of firearms, it was an incredible yet terrifying tool, changing the course of future negotiations to come. But it was also a chilling demonstration of the might of Gheraman; Pakhar had struck fear into the heart of Ka’ao’s father, that had witnessed the execution that night, and then left in the morning, leaving the King carefully considering how he should go about his negotiations with Gheraman. With a single prisoner, he’d made it painfully clear how powerful Gheraman was. While Queen Sayyida represented a bright future alliance between Kurigazu and Gheraman, Pakhar was a grim reminder of what would happen if they angered their ally.
He was a terrifying man; and Ka’ao had no intentions of facing him so soon, with no army, no power, and no throne.
So it pretty much felt like a kick to the crotch when Moa had finally announced that her condition for helping him form a Geass was for him to kill Pakhar.
“That’s impossible.” Pepi immediately but in, stepping in between Moa and Ka’ao. “Trying to assassinate a prince of Gheraman would only lead to the gallows.”
“If you won’t do it, then I won’t help you.” Moa said firmly. “All I care about is avenging my master. You either kill him, or you get lost. Those are my terms.”
“You’re unbelievable.” Ka’ao stroked his forehead; he knew that her request was going to be ridiculous. That was only the reason why she’d prolonged telling him outright for so long, he knew that, and yet he had no idea it would be this outright insane. Asking some to assassinate your average prince was one thing; it would be hard, but not impossible. But Pakhar?
Pakhar’s reputation as a ruthless and efficient leader preceded him globally.
Trying to assassinate him was out of the question.
But maybe he could get Moa to teach him the secret of Geass another way. Torture was a possibility; she wasn’t as untouchable and over it as she presented herself. If they applied just the right amount of pressure, she would spill, just like any other person.
“If you’re considering torture, I wouldn’t try it.” Moa suddenly announced with a sly smile. “I could always give you false information to waste your time.”
Damn it.
The way things were looking, asking for help from the Gods was a dead end. If he couldn’t form a Geass, he wouldn’t be able to get to the underworld and come back with his life; not if she’d been telling the truth. And if he couldn’t get to the underworld, pleading to the Gods would be outright impossible.
So really, what choice did he even have in the matter?
“Ka’ao, don’t do anything hasty. We can always wait until another opportunity-“
“If we wait too long, Kurigazu will become a slave to Gheraman. Our temples will be desecrated, our beliefs spat on, and our old ways forgotten.” Ka’ao interrupted Pepi harshly. “The longer I wait, the harder my goal becomes. Gheraman will sink its fangs further and further into Kurigazu, and intoxicate my people with their weapons and technologies.”
“Don’t forget that they’ll eventually start killing off cultist sorcerers like me.” Moa added with a playful wag of her finger. “Who knows, I could be dragged out to the gallows by a swarm of soldiers any day!”
“Damn!” Ka’ao slammed his fist into the countertop; he hated it, but she was right. He needed to act now, he needed to take his country back before it was fully transformed by Gheraman. He couldn’t afford to wait and hide like he’d done for the past month. He needed to move.
“You know, according to the streets, Pakhar’s been staying in Nihiveh.” Moa murmured. “They say he’s seeing to the transformation of a huge temple there; apparently he’s turning it into a factory of sorts.”
“So what?” Pepi barked. “Even if he’s in Kurigazu, that doesn’t mean he’ll be any easier to kill.”
“Down, dog, that’s not what I’m saying.” Moa teased. “I’m saying that he’ll be out of his element. In a foreign land surrounded by foreign people; vulnerable. This is the best chance you’ll ever get.”
Nihiveh was to the west; only a day’s journey on camel away. Maybe he had a shot. Or maybe he was horribly outclassed and would die a horrible death if they tried this. But either way, he couldn’t let this chance go to waste.
As dangerous as this was and as stupid as this was.
“So what’ll it be?” Moa asked.
He couldn’t let this chance go to waste.
“I’ll check it out.”