Sajaf felt the swelter of the heat even as day crept into dusk. She had woken late from her slumber, the innkeeper loud and the customers boisterously speaking over the walls. It was then as she looked through her window, that Sajaf still the smoke pooling in darkness over the mountains. Everyone at the market had seen in for a few days now. She still heard rumors all morning; Oldtown’s residents slowly deduced and reasoned into certainties what they thought they knew. An imperial unit rode towards Hafar Village last night some said, I heard it was an imperial pyromancer in these parts had said another. I saw Lieutenant Graves himself, mustered the last. If it indeed were Imperial soldiers, they might have returned to Oldtown. The city itself was a thriving outpost with imperial soldiers to call their own. Sometimes the bulk of the Imperial Legions of Alamee would station there, but since the Rebel uprisings began, the great military arm of the Empire seemed to always be on the move.
Sajaf wasn’t angry at this fact, for soldiers at times could be overly confident and direct with their intentions. She was a beautiful woman and drew the eyes of soldiers and Alamaens alike. The imperials fearless in these lands. There had been several instances where it was her guile that saved her from the grips of a zealous imperial soldier, and her persuasive knack that seemed to bend people to her favor. Grandmother had always said Sajaf had been blessed with the Gift of the Ancients, the Gods of so long ago. Their souls still existed in the flesh of men Grandma had said. However, faint…however distant, the light of the stars is in your eyes, child. Deep and round and lifeless and glimmering, she had always finished the phrase ominously and quietly, as if someone else were listening. Grandma was right, of course, Sajaf could espouse and evince a feeling in a person’s heart, and from there convince near everyone to do near anything she wanted. But she couldn’t convince Grandma; she died there that cold winter despite Sajaf’s tears and howls and curses that echoed alone in the secluded homestead that was home.
“Woman,” passed an Imperial soldier grabbing her wrist and turning her to him. He had intent in his eyes but was still loyal to his imperial lords. However, he was just a man, a man with worldly desires. Desires denied during his long treks through the desert lands and mountain ranges of the Southlands. His gaze was heavy for but a moment.
“Soldier,” she replied unflinchingly. She did not have time for games this evening nor was she in the mood for entertaining possibilities. He quickly released his grip, aghast in shame, and paused before pressing his lips to then turn and saunter off in the other direction. She turned around and continued her way towards the right, Oldtown’s High walls, that reached a near ninety feet in height. It had a different name once long ago, with legend renown and stories as near as ancient as the story of the Old Gods. But that had been lost with so many other things, Sajaf did not care to dwell on it. She reached the main road along towards the city gates, but made a sharp turn down the alley into the House of Laurus, the local stable tucked away into a mew.
“Sajaf,” huffed an ox of a man. His neck was round and stout, the soft of his beard smooth and lined with inkblots of grey. Blonde and greying yet tamed, his hair glistened in the light of his stable, as his wide smile found hers. His green eyes glistened almost as brightly as her own brown eyes, but the magic of the stars didn’t burn there. Laurus was an Imperial Sojourner, but he had owned the stables since before Sajaf could remember.
Her Grandmother always called him A good one, there was always people all over the world, visiting living, mingling and living with one another. A single man does not speak for the Imperial Crown, nor does the crown speak for a man. Laurus often allied his beliefs with the Rebel cause and advocated against the recent imperial violence against the locals. Soldiers were a rowdy bunch, who having lost brothers in arms to rebel outbursts, retributed their justice on civilians in the Imperial Outposts and across the town and villages of Alamee.
“Hello there old man,” she beamed, “I hope that Olena is fed, pampered and rested. Her Lady highness is ready for the journey home?”
“Her Lady highness?”
“The fairest lady of Alamee, good Lord,” she curtsied as she said it.
“Aye, Lady Sajaf,” he cowled, “Quite an imagination, as your grandmother use to say, may she rest in the After.”
“It is hard to imagine that you were a child once, so full of imagination and wonder, to have become so pitted an olive. It is as if you have been drained of your oil and left to wither in the sun.”
Laurus’s face reddened and puffed like a corn kernel left over the fire too long. His eyes watered and reduced to tears. The tears trickled down his crimson cheeks, through his mustache and down his dimpled chin. He burst out in rampant laughter, the boom and echo startling even the stable of horses. “Gods be good, you remind me so much of your father.” He wiped the tears from his eyes and put his paw of a hand, all palm, onto her shoulder. “He was a good man too but had a desert tongue, sandy and gritty and unforgiving.”
“I’ve always heard,” she shrugged. And it cost him his life, she wanted to add. She kept her smile and rolled the cuffs of her long brown dress; its sleeves were long for the sake of the sandy winds. Her path lay to the south, near the bellowing smoke she had seen since the morning. The Southern Road would branch towards the mountain pass in the settlements of Dur Balhāh[1] where the Broken Lamp Inn resided. Dur Balhāh was a settlement of wheat fields and farmers. At the heart of it stood the Broken Lamp. An Inn ostensibly as old as the empire itself. Old Jamileh seemed just as ancient. Always she greeted guests, approaching them with the same wood spoon in her hair. She made the best bread and pastries in all the southlands, this was known. Hardly a traveler passed the mountain pass without trying Old Jamileh’s baklawa, her honey cakes, her semolina cakes, and often they returned. Even Imperial soldiers avowed to the singular greatness of her ovens, and though Dur Balhāh was an important strategic location of the Imperial Forces, the Broken Lamp seemed to always elude the trouble that was commonplace everywhere else that Imperial soldiers went. A single woman’s ability to mead dough, sugar it, and bake it proved to curb the indomitable rowdiness of soldiers. Sajaf always esteemed the old woman for that fact; however, Sajaf was less inclined to hear her insistence on marriage and settling down with a fine young merchant. They’re everywhere in the city, and you are such a beautiful girl, to be wasted on that homestead…
“You really should wait another day before you take the road,” Laurus’s insistence broke her thoughts. “There is fire and blood in the air, perhaps when it is safe.”
“I have my farmstead to care for and my animals, Laurus.”
“Still…”
“How much do I owe you?” Sajaf interrupted.
“Fifty Denarii,” he relented with glazed eyes that looked as polished as a leather shoe. “But only because I like ya, and that’s saying something, I like no one.”
“If only that were true,” replied Sajaf, “you say that to each and every person who comes through here and charge a good handful of them less, but I like you too. Here’s your coin, old man.”
He felt the weight of them in his hands. As if a perfect scale, his palms ostensibly felt the weight to be accurate. Laurus shoved the coins in his pouch and led Sajaf to the wooden fenced enclosure that opened into a clearing outside the city gates. The last siege of Old Towne happened a year before a young Laurus had arrived, he had told the story many times before. I came along, traveling than, my Alamaen as bad as my manners I must say, and they still had this giant gap in the wall where the Rampart once stood. And I told them, I sure did, let me make that into a stable. It will make a fine addition to the security of the fortress, and then three days later…blah blah…blah blah. Sajaf always remembered listening but not really listening. Either way, he had gained an imperial exemption, granted he had to pay for the stables commission. If ever war was to return however, the location of his stable would be a weakness in the city’s defense. Laurus never cared much for such notions, he always said the peace would outlive him, for the sake of his stable, she hoped so.
Olena was geared and latched to the carriage that had been loaded with supplies and provisions for the three-night’s journey. Olena was a Hackney, unlike so many of her fellow horses in these lands. An Alamaen Horse was fast and enduring and a creature so capable for war and the desert heat, but Grandma had bought Olena once upon a time from Lazarus himself. He had brought her and other exotic horses to Alamee. In Oldtown he bred them and gained renown for his fine beasts. Olena had been in Sajaf’s family since his arrival. The loyal steed was in the twilight of her life, but still she was strong enough to make the journey. The wagon was only two spoked, and Sajaf neither overpacked nor placed too much a strain on her Olena. The Road between Oldtown and home was bereft of the desert space that occupied other pockets of Alamee. A river was near enough the road that she would not want of thirst, and the town of Dur Balhāh proved a safety net along the way. Nightfall would seem inadvisable for some, but Sajaf preferred the light of stars and knew the roads well. The couple times a road ruffian thought to approach her, a few words were enough to convince him that his destination lay entirely the other way, and that haste was his dearest ally.
* * * *
The stars hid their face that night, for they were obscured by the lingering smoke from the blaze days past. She used the hills and the river as her guide, for the lust of smoke lingered in the thick of air. The sound of the danger eluded them at night, for only the soothing chirps of crickets overwhelmed even the sound of running waters. Night crept into day as the sun bleated and the haze of smoke still lingered. Gazelles emerged along the streams and made quick haste of eluding her. Animals were immune to her charm, the star in her eyes seemed only to work on people. However, she was good at earning their trust, her kindest and most nurturing self ever given to the beasts of the wild. They were simple minded and instinctual, and even at times terrifying, a pack of Hyenas had once trailed her for leagues, but they were entirely devoid of human malice. She even perhaps admired them for eluding her charm, for few she had encountered had possessed the ability to withstand her.
It was well past midday when Olena pulled the carriage into Dur Balhāh. The oft boisterous town hung with a shroud of equanimity, it seemed all doors were shut and not a single villager was outside their home. A large imperial presence was stationed there. The hundreds of horses tied to the hitching posts that were spread across the settlement gave way to the fact. As she approached the Broken Lamp, she saw dozens of imperial soldiers hovelled around its path and lingering near its door. A look of restlessness coiled in their brows and hovered in their pressed lips. Many were bandaged and wrapped in what seemed to have been a recent scuffle. Whatever the reason for those fires, she suspected these men were involved with it.
She left Olena posted along one of the hitches, and indulged her gift upon an unsuspecting soldier. “You will watch my things until I am finished, I might hope, and make sure no one steals a thing. Promise me, Sweet Hadrian.” The words had fallen off her lips like waves crashing upon his hapless soul. Happily, the solider obliged her. This new duty was a breath of fresh air from an ocean storm, the prospect of failing her more terrifying than drowning itself. She left him with her charm and proceeded into the Broken Lamp.
Old Jamileh was nowhere to be found. Instead, the bakery inn was brim full with imperial soldiers. A hundred Hadrians filled the seats and stood in the open spaces now a cloister of the devotees of war. Sajaf recognized a handful of the workers, but Young Amir was the only one who recognized her. He stood a foot shorter than most, but his legs were pillars and his back a boulder. A sprout of black hair shot out of the middle of his head, and a wide brush of hair sat above his upper lip. He eagerly spotted her and approached as he crossed the hall with a serving platter stacked with dishes. “
Ehh, if it isn’t the Lady Sajaf herself,” said Amir.
“In the flesh,” curtsied Sajaf in light laughter, “but I arrive into the clutches of chaos.”
“For the third day,” he nodded. “There’s a seat over there in that corner near the window, I’ll find you there after I bring out a platter, table seven has been making fun of my bean sprout of a haircut, and they have mentioned once or twice my height.”
“You look quite handsome and robust,” she reassured him. “A warrior fierce and capable of defending even a Lady like myself.”
“With my dying breathe,” he chortled. “Gimme a minute or two,” he heaved as he disappeared behind a row of soldiers sipping on mugs full of ale. She found the seat near the window, a lone chair hugging a table that was merely a plank of wood extended from the wall. The inn seemed too busy to even have lodging for her this night, but she knew that Old Jamileh rented an overflow of rooms from some of Dur Balhāh’s villagers. There were many who had transformed their old barns into lodgings, and the Broken Lamp paid them nicely for their use. Sajaf waited for Young Amir, watching the soldiers as their nerves loosened as did their tongues.
“Hot damn Alamaen rats,” heaved one of the soldiers at a table in front of her. He was ushering his mug into the mugs of five others. “We won the battle, that’s all that matters.”
“And to the ones we lost,” said one of the others.
“Aye,” they all smashed their pints together and sipped their ale. The battle had not been an easy one; Sajaf could see it in their cuts, in the heaviness of their solemn eyes, in the uneasiness of their uncertain voices.
“A single shadow overcame many,” she heard another man say in a group to her left, “A whisper of dusk, his swords slipped through Domitian and Lancel in an instant. He made his way through three others before I even took a step.”
“You are battle wary and your memory fails you, brother,” said his cohort, “No shame in it. Don’t be making stories up though.”
“I know what I saw,” the man retorted. “A man touched by stars as well as any of the Marcomanni.”
“The Marcomanni are the Empire’s finest,” opined a third. “Only the empire’s strongest may take a seat among that century. An even then there are but a handful in Alamee.”
“He was no ordinary man,” pressed the first, “Death became him. Star-born and brightly so. The rebels are known for having many among their ranks.”
“Thankfully he’s dead,” the third man interjected, “Graves made an example out of him so that any like him will know. The Lieutenant made an example out of everyone in fact…” he paused as his gaze wandered in solemn pause.
“To the Imperium,” pressed the second, broken from the reverie of yesterday.
“To Imperium,” they shouted.
Amir stumbled forward not a few seconds later, but with the eagerness in which he came, in cahoots with the many heavy feet of imperial soldiers, he slid faceward up into the ground and skid straight to the toes of her boots. “If you wanted to look up my skirt Young Amir, you might as well have asked,” Sajaf crackled, “I might have said yes.”
Red as pomegranate juices oozing from the seed, Amir jumped up to his feet blushingly. He stuttered his lips and rolled his fingers in his clasped hands as if he had been caught doing something mischievous. No one else paid him any mind, but perhaps that was worse for him. The world around them did not exist, and the depth of the moment made more salient by the depth of Sajaf’s eyes that stared at him in quiet equanimity. Sajaf mused for a whole minute on whether to say something or let him sulk in his quiet embarrassment, but he finally broke.
“Apologies Sajaf,” he fumbled, “Sajaf, of course, I didn’t mean to—it wasn’t intentional. I wouldn’t.”
“Of course, you wouldn’t,” she smiled, “but would you, if you could, find me some lodgings for the night?”
“Already done…Sajaf, Miss.”
“Thank the goddess,” Sajaf replied.
“Just outside the Inn at Haddad Farms,” the color was finally returning to his face. “They even have lodgings for Olena.”
“Really, you are just a darling hero,” she smiled at him, “Though I now suspect you have a filthy mind, Young Amir.”
“Not a shred,” he replied.
“Maybe just a scintilla,” she laughed all the louder. “Still, that is the least of my worries right now, a bed after a long day’s travel is all I need Hero. Will you lead me on my merry way?”
“Right away,” he obliged.
She followed him through the inn and towards the front door. Sajaf was able to glean from her guide that there had been a massacre at the Village of Hafar, a small settlement she had known well. It was on her way home some six leagues north of her hilltop. She would often watch the village from her hilltop, the quiet place a settlement of farmers, few and scattered, except when there was an occasion. As the Festival of the Blue moon arrived every year in the winter, and the Red Moon in the summer, the Village of Hafar would come to life. Old Jamileh had family that called the Village home. That was why she had remained confined to her room and inconsolable! She left the keeping of the Inn to the Amirs of Dur Balhāh.
Sajaf’s stomach turned at the thought, thinking of the blaze that was said to have burned them all alive. To think those innocent people had all been snuffed out for the sake of imperial power. Power unchecked, the Imperial Stronghold on Alamee had grown with each wave of resistance. It would always be folly not to give in to it, bend and adapt and survive. Her own father had been proof of such folly; what a fool she would be not to learn from the mistakes of those that came before.
When they reached her horse, the same imperial soldier that Sajaf had instructed to watch her things, lay on the floor bloodied. The threads that sewn the edges of his armor to the garments were torn, as his lips gushed the scarlet of blood. A handful of Imperial Soldiers hovered around him, and at their center a brooding man in golden armor. Black and dead, the man’s eyes carried a conviction that personified the Imperial Gravitas, a modicum of behavior exuding discipline, ruthlessness, and unwavering obedience. His golden helmet gave away his rank, a Lieutenant of an Imperial Legion.
“So, you are the one,” grinned the man. “Made my man a blabbering fool, incapable of following instruction.”
“I am no one,” said Sajaf, her eyes fixed on his, searching, digging, and scratching. Burrow as she might, the outward veneer was as cold as the man’s eyes. If she had power to breach the fortress of a person’s mind, it faded then entirely.
“Your puissance is impressive,” said the man. “We call it Puissance, an essence of power, inherited through time from the old lines of our ancestors. This strength comes from a time when the Gods walked the Earth. There is a strong trace in you. Did you read my soldier’s thoughts?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about?” Sajaf feigned. The Lieutenant was not convinced.
“Alas, I see,” his smile was wide. “What a young woman can do to bend a man’s heart, manifesting the outcome of another person’s fate because she could so control his desire. This man killed a dozen men, some women and children but three days ago, his obedience that of an Imperial Legionnaire trained to follow orders. Yet he disobeyed me, repeatedly might I add!” his brow turned red for but a moment. “And you know who I am?”
Sajaf had nearly forgot that Amir was behind her, but she heard not even his breaths under the scrutiny of this imperial. Still too, she was wordless, unable to digest her powerlessness now as this stranger’s eyes seemed to unravel her defenses.
“I am Graves,” said the Imperial, as if a drumroll was preceding its announcement. “I had to have my men beat that man senseless before it broke his reverie. You are good but I am far better. You may be able to sway the hearts of men, but I know their hearts, their desires, their deepest secrets and memories. Their fears and woes and even strengths, I see it all. I see you entirely now.”
Sajaf felt a shrill line of fingers caress the spine of her back. She saw in her mind his deep black eyes like two suns in the sky, intensifying fire, smoldering her thoughts. He was inside her head and all the while standing in front of her. The brim of his smile spoke to her without a single utterance leaving his lips.
I see it all, Sajaf.
She felt a rush of memories loosen in her mind as she fell to the floor. The slight sharp touch of earth brushed her knees as the world dissipated around her and she lingered somewhere between the waking world and the dreaming one.
“I see your fear,” and as he said it in her mind, the memories came more intensely. “You know the power of the Empire, understand it. Power is power, and those who contend with it, you already understand the consequence. Your father’s failure to understand this cost you a Papa; if only he didn’t decide to speak up out of pride. He had to be proud that day didn’t he, had to say something even though he had promised Grandma he’d keep his mouth shut. Nyla had told him too. Oh poor, Nyla! She had been such a kind neighbor, but that was before her son caught the Rotter’s Plague that killed so many others.”
Sajaf saw Nyla and Grandma and her father so defiant to them both, and Graves all the while in her head. His words conjured images and memories, and in them she relieved the dread.
“Oh there it is!” he continued in laughter. “They beat your father senseless for speaking up for the revolution. Why would he speak, eh? He was no soldier! What training did he have? Only Ego! They made work of him they did, beat him to a meal in fact, swine’s dinner. His eyeballs are just gushing out his god damn skull aren’t they, all bloody and messy, and all the city folk –they are just watching. Oh yes, run! Run away, child, smart girl. Not even a tear or whimper or yelp, but you run, run across Oldtown all the way to the city gates. There Laurus finds you, your good friend Laurus, and he returns you home. Grandma cries all night, and never do you think there is a sound more frightening in all your young life. She is always bitter after than isn’t she? Though she lights up at the sight of you. You remind her so much of her beloved Malak, and the light of Stars in your Eyes.
Sajaf felt fresh air fill her lungs as she felt Graves leave her mind. A cascade of tears rolled down her cheeks as she gasped with each inhalation, as if reemerging from a stream after holding her breath below for a moment too long. She saw Graves smiling at her still, the men around him in quiet watch of their leader. This routine was all too familiar to them. Sajaf stayed on her knees at the mercy of the Lieutenant, this was the man who had massacred the villagers of Hafar. His eyes said as much and they told no tall tales.
“I am but a match compared to the flames of the Empire’s most gifted subjects,” Graves approached her, hunching low, elbows over his knees and putting his face to hers. “Do not toy with my men again, or I will show you a cruelty that will break your spirit and your will to life.”
Sajaf nodded but otherwise remained nonplussed on the ground.
“The Empire has use for a gifted citizen such as yourself,” he said standing to his feet, almost dignified and oblivious to the torment he had just inflicted. “There is more to life than a simple homestead where you remain confined to mediocrity and the customs of this backwards place.”
Graves and his men left her and Amir with Olena and the wagon. It must have been another half an hour before she could even muster the courage to move. Amir hunched behind her all the while, a hero inefficient and indefensible against a power such as the Imperial Lieutenant. She felt as if Graves had ripped something from her. If her gifts had been a parlor trick that gave her an advantage over others, his gift was the blaze that burned away the masquerade. Alamee had no chance against such power, rebels and fools alike, that is why Hafar had burned down. It was folly, for even Empire’s weakest link was a power unlike any other she had seen. There was no recourse but to survive, and she at last exhaled in relief that she had survived another day in these wretched lands. She hoped to never cross paths with Graves again.
* * * *
It was nightfall when Sajaf had settled in her room. The thought of sleep eluded her, her mind replaying the evening and thinking only of leaving the settlement of Dur Balhāh. Graves sat there in her thoughts, his words like ghostly whispers breaching the sanctity of night. Amir did not even say a word when he escorted her to the Haddad estate. He had been equally terrified by Graves power as she was. She had entered the barn without saying another word, the fall of raindrops drowning out the noise of all else. Olena was stowed away in one of the bays of the barn. Sajaf dared not blow out the lanterns, the day had brought enough darkness. It was only after she had made sure Olena was fed and comfortable, that Sajaf changed into dry clothes, brushed her long hair, and threw herself into bed. The softness of the bed seemed a most welcome embrace.
Sajaf could only think of her animals that lay in her shed waiting for her. She thought of Wool, her sheep, Horns her goat, and Spots, her cow. There were even the half dozen chickens that roamed in their pen, Beak, Feathers, Red, Eggs, Talons, and Olives. She missed most of all her beloved friend, Houri, a sheep dog who hated her departures the most. Upon her return, he wouldn’t leave her side for days, as if it were his lack of companionship that drove her away. Those animals were her joy, her safety, her refuge from the hideous world of men. It was the thought of them and her home that finally allowed her to slip into repose. Far and far away from the ugliness of that evening, she dreamed quietly about her home.
Updated 07/15/25
Writings by Samson Mousa 
Leave a comment