Chapter CXLIII: Sickness Unto Death
15 April 1643
The following section is provided by guest writer Calipah
The Shahinshah was increasingly anxious. Something worried him immensely: the state of ‘incognita’ and unknowing - it was a dice still in mid air. He wasn’t a gambler to begin with, but then again, wasn’t this war a gamble in its own right? Its wager mounting with each passing day? Admiral Farazdaqi's fate lingered on his mind as the reports came flooding it. He tuned out, the lost sleep now haunting his eyelids with delicate skirmishes. Something about the capture of Zanzibar, the details pertaining to the fall of Al-Hind on the hands of the crafty crown prince Jahan, the rallying of the Malay princes and the sack of some major Isphani port city far far away. What were they on about?
Yes, the list went on, his head drowsy and spinning like a dervish -- complaints about the Auhausen signatories, the suppression of the Ingleezi rebellion – Allah! – something about the expedition in Russiyya facing some difficulties in the joint operation with the Tsar’s army in the north, and some barking about the need to get the Chinese or was it the Lithuanians in on the action?…There was more to it... something hazy at the corner of his thoughts like the ticking of a clock as the tongue inside his Vizier's mouth clicked “—that, Mein Shahinshah, must be our highest priority now,” the Vizier exclaimed, bringing to conclusion his long and winding monologue, a hardy look about his face.
“You speak of its importance, but what IS this
Qit’hat Alzavan exactly?” a wizened noble from the indistinguishable throng posed cautiously at the Vizier.
“Frankly, I –“ his eyes now at the Shahinshah stirring on the throne from his fevered fight with the dozing djinn, “—do not know honestly. What I can tell you is that it is an object of great importance for the Isphani, and from what little information we can squeeze from the spies festering in our dungeons, it appears to have something to do with the Isphani Secret Room’s long-term plans.”
“It may very well be a trap,” interjected another younger voice.
The Vizier, with an air of a lecturer now in his demeanor, turned to the young Minister and said “perhaps, but I highly doubt it. I interrogated some of those interlopers myself, and I have a feeling that the
Qit’hat Alzavan may be the key to ultimate victory over Isphania.” Some of the heads bobbed up and down in agreement, others merely stared on, ambivalent to the argument.
“What of Keyser So’zae?” asked another.
The Iraqi Vizier shrugged apathetically, “The man has simply disappeared at the onset of the hostilities. He has not yet dispatched a single communiqué from Madrid, so we can assume the worst. Forget about him – he is a nonperson, a troublemaker if anything. I do hope he has met a grizzly end.” Gasps and groans crowded the bodies of the gathered notables; it was surprising that the most famed So’zae had failed, that bane of the Akbaris and Mirzas.
The Shahinshah heaved a withdrawn cough, grunting out at its wake old spit hugging the upper grotto of his mouth. All eyes turned to him, awaiting the Imperial Self’s wisdom and commentary. “…Yes, I have trusted you many times before Ninvehi, and I shall do so again. What do you suggest?”
The Vizier grinned, the support displayed weighing heavily now in his cache of influence. “Mein Imperator, if I may dare, I ask you to consider the option of orchestrating an invasion of Isp—“ his words trailed off for a second, unsure as to what to make of the Shahinshah’s slumping body. “Mein Imperator?!” two of the posted Sardauker rushed to the Emperor’s side as the notables of the council broke down into jabbing turmoil, the Vizier still fixed on the floor like a marble column.
The Emperor slowly raised himself up with the help of the guards, a visible tremble now riveting his whole body. He coughed remorsefully as he adjusted himself on the throne once more “The Imperial Self is tired and weary, mein Vizier. Be brief by Allah.”
The Iraqi examined his master cagily for a bit, “Good health mein Khalifah. As I was saying, an invasion of the Isphani mainland is in order. A distraction if you will that would permit our operatives to get control of the
Qit’hat Alzavan which I believe is located somewhere in Valladolid.”
The Shahinshah huddled his head on the scarf of his diademed turban, his voice now as low as a whisper “So be it. Let the Qayd al-Askar Jafar be infor—“ he stopped mid sentence, a loud croak now escaping his throat. He dropped again, his frail carcass sprawling the marble floor, the purple turban unfurled. The Emperor lay there in his dying throes, the twitches of his limbs offering false hope to the shocked onlookers. The beginning of the Shiite occultation and prayers seeped through the tiny portholes of the chambers, the thud-thud sounds of the chest-beatings a mockery to the ears of a dying man. Yet one thing escaped from the Emperor’s mouth as his Vizier and other chosen approached him, ears huddled to hear the Imperial Self’s last dwindling orders “….get hold of the Qit’hat Alzavan…”
The Vizier looked up at the vacant throne, a boisterous determination still loitering in his eyes. “Send for the Emir Al-Akbar at once.” The King may have died, but not his unhappy kingdom. Besides, there was a
Qit'hat Alzavan... a 'Timepiece' as they called it... to get hold of.
---
The calm sea lapped against the side of the Persian flagship as the slack wind inched the vessel closer and closer to the enemy fleet. The smaller vessels ahead, carrying the gunpowder and hope of the Persian navy, was burgeoning several leagues ahead as the Spanish vessels raced towards them at speed. Farazdaqi watched with anxiety in the dim fire-light of the Cadiz midnight with anticipation. All about him were preparations for battle, and the same anxiety ran through the Admiral's men that spurred their actions faster as if lightning itself was being pumped through their arteries.
“At the rate of this wind, it'll take another twenty minutes before the first ship makes contact,” one of the Qubtans reported out loud.
The Admiral adjusted his scope and strained desperately to see the shoddy lanterns hanging from the top of the ships. The Qubtan next to him stood awkwardly as he awaited acknowledgment of his report. Farazdaqi was swift to snap his spyglass shut. “Adjust the cannon then,” he said sternly before the Qubtan moved to his own subordinates and began to deliver the intricate orders along those manning a singular cannon near the front of the ship. Farazdaqi watched his soldiers make the preparations as he looked to his flanks at the other Persian capital ships signaling their preparations and adjustments. Ossel caught the corner of his vision.
“The charge is ready and set, and we've re-adjusted the angle and load,” one of the Qubtans returned to explain. Farazdaqi nodded him away before turning back to Ossel.
“One of the advantages of German refugees,” Farazdaqi explained to his curious guest. He motioned for the Sardaukar to allow Ossel to come closer to his person, though not unwatched. “The cannon you see before you,” he continued as he pointed his baton at the single battery at the front of the ship awkwardly sticking out from the starboard side of the bow, “was designed by several Germans who had sought refuge with the Shahinshah... though more like they were bought with gold while the Spaniards made their rebellious religion illegal in Germany. Years of being independent little principalities, these little engineers were used to creating fortress artillery that would be used to make up for their lack of fighting men.” He paused to look at Ossel whose eyes glimmered dully in the moonlight of the Spring night.
“What is it for?” Ossel asked quietly.
“It was designed to carry a light load. A ball not so much designed for penetration, but meant to land on the surface of vessels from a long range away. Mostly hollow, it contains incendiaries that are slow burning instead of explosive. This is meant to light our fireships ahead of us.” To this, Ossel clenched his jaw. Farazdaqi experienced his guest's surprise with a kind of regrettable amusement. He looked at Ossel with both pity and triumph: or perhaps his triumphant smile was merely to cover the sympathy he had for the old man. “Who is commanding your ships now?” Farazdaqi asked Ossel while his smile relented.
Ossel needed a moment to collect his thoughts before his eyes blinked half hazily towards his host. Somehow the words came awkwardly from his lips, but they were also precise as if he had been counting the signal flags of the Spanish ships all afternoon and had known the answer from the beginning. “Captain Marco,” Ossel nearly stuttered. “Only captain Marco is left...” he repeated although almost only to himself.
“What kind of man is this Marco of yours?” Farazdaqi asked respectfully while easing himself to his guest's side.
Ossel was pensive for a minute. He looked off at the distance ruefully. He knew not to speak: there was something about knowing your enemy that was common sense in tactics between commanders and he sensed that Farazdaqi was looking for an edge against the new Spanish fleet commander. Ossel, however, felt something growing in his throat that he needed to release like a lump of air had built up there. “He used to be a galley slave. A Portuguese revolutionary. He was also an apostate declaring that God had abandoned Portugal to be oppressed and enslaved.”
“And now he captains one of your vessels?” Farazdaqi smirked while taking in the subtle calculations of the kind of man his enemy was.
“He told me a story once,” Ossel began to say as he watched the horizon rise and fall with the slow march of the vessel. “When they had captured him, he had been raiding the sea lanes along the Canarias for years. They placed him on a prison ship to be sent back to Cadiz for trial. At the time the man that captained the cog was a veteran by the name of Zanipolo, a Ligurian who was under the pay of the Spaniards. Marco was held in a cell by himself: most of the other men having died on the raid that took his ship he was using for piracy. Zanipolo was due to return to Cadiz anyway since his commission was about to end and he wanted to collect his pay.
“They had not talked much: the Captain and the prisoner although Zanipolo kept Marco well fed and attended to. He had the luxury to do so considering Marco was his only cargo—that and a shipment of ammunition that was to be ferryied back to Cadiz from the Canarias. It was that same load of ammunition that had exploded one night halfway across the journey. Lightning had struck the cog during a swift storm and St. Elmo's fire caught some of the more loosely stored barrels that were burdening the boat.
“An explosion tore the ship in half and most of the crew perished in the disaster, but those that did survive—including Marco—hung on to some of the pitch sealed provision barrels that floated in the water. With the help of the northern gale from the storm and their own resourcefulness, what was left of the crew made landfall along the Moroccan coast. At the time, the Berber insurgency was still fresh on the population's mind. Negotiating with the locals would have been dangerous, and Tangiers was too far away. There were about a dozen men left including Zanipolo and Marco. When they landed, they secured the prisoner with some rope left over from the wreckage. They also built themselves a shelter on a hill facing the ocean while Zanipolo sent out five of the men to search for food and the other five to make for the nearest town to send for help.
“That help would never come. The local chieftain that the men had managed to reach was willing to help the men... he was a kind and wise Berber who held no grudges and was passing through the area. There was a legend afterwards that said that the Berber proclaimed upon hearing the story of the sailors, 'God offers bounty to whom he wishes, and guides whom he wishes,' and that 'a thirsty man is a thirsty man, whether Muslim or Pagan,' and offered the men provisions and some horses. They would have returned if it weren't for the zealous jealousy of the chieftain's son in law who accused the men of eying his wife and killed them with the help of the other nomads.
“The five who were sent out to find food died of thirst along the desert after five days except for one who made it to a friendly town with a Spanish garrison in the north. Marco and the Captain who were left behind had built a shelter. They shared the provisions that the others did not take with them and rationed what was left. When they were down to their last barrel of water, however, it was found to have moulded on the inside and all they had left was a canteen. The captain decided to untie his prisoner and tell him of the situation. They set out together hoping to find water, but they never found it. What they did find was a milestone marking the way to a village further north. On their last portion of water, however, both of them weren't going to make it.” Ossel paused and furrowed his brow as if the next portion of his memory pained him to say. “For some reason Zanipolo let Marco have his water and told him to not to stop until he reached the town.” There was a heavy silence before Ossel continued. “He carried with him the Captain's effects including a family heirloom—some jewel I can't remember exactly what—that hopefully he could barter for food and water.”
“But he let a revolutionary go... this captain was a noble man,” Farazdaqi interjected as if he could not hold his breath much longer.
“Marco had told me that he did not care at the time. One more dead Spaniard and one more living Portuguese meant that he had won. He took the water and heirloom and left. The captain had told him something that he, at the time, dismissed although it continued to haunt him for those next few years. Zanipolo had told him that he had already made his peace with God and he was ready. Marco was the one who needed the time now.”
“And this man's witness converted him?” Farazdaqi asked solemnly.
Ossel gave an empty chuckle, “No, not at all. That did not happen until much later. The soldiers that the one other survivor contacted captured Marco and brought him to trial. His conversion did not happen until he had his experience in the galleys...”
“Well... then I hope he is prepared to meet his maker this day,” Farazdaqi muttered as if ashamed to have said it. Farazdaqi continued to observe Ossel's stance on the bow of the ship and his eyes narrowed slightly to match the painful expression on Ossel's face. He remembered what Ossel had said about those men out there on the waters. How Ossel had felt fatherhood with them. This was the sign of a sea-captain who was true in his heart even if his actions had been screened by mists of shame or jaded by years of building up scar tissue. Farazdaqi almost wished to say
I'm sorry that I must kill your boys to save mine.
Farazdaqi similarly looked out to the waves ahead of them where the fireships were burgeoning leagues ahead almost in range of the Spanish vessels. Most fireships, indeed, would be lit before they arrived against an enemy line. Thanks to his German engineers, the long range cannons would serve that purpose well before the Spanish could detect the trap. He respected Marco for the audacity to attack the ships head on and hope to capture the smaller vessels before the main ships arrived: that was indeed the proper tactic if they had been regular boats. However, his enemy could not know that it was meant to sink them all to the bottom of Cadiz's floor.
Farazdaqi almost wished he could warn them... to shoo them away from the field. Marco had been saved by mercy, so he was told, and by the grace of Allah he was saved from the desert. But now he must be killed... was this mercy so well founded? As he thought to himself, with his son perhaps to be executed despite his victory, and with Ossel's fleet about to be annihilated to a man: he asked himself if there really was justice in the world. Should he have mercy on these poor fools? How could he when mercy itself had proven so unfaithful...
“Sir!” a Qubtan announced quickly.
“What is it now?” Farazdaqi growled as he extended his spyglass.
“Mein Admiral! One of their ships is pulling forward! One of our galleases that we thought captured! It is raising our banner to the top of its mast!”
---
The lieutenant describing the situation was stuttering so much in excitement and dread at what was going on through his spyglass that he was barely understandable to Marco. “Lieutenant Torres has been taken prisoner it seems... the mob in the center have torches and are tying them up as well as that Armenian you left to help him. There are some injured... but most have been captured.”
The lieutenant quickly turned to Marco whose jaw muscles pulsated angrily. “Can the flank pursue?” he asked quickly, but he already knew the answer. Those on the far flank could not outrun the galley when the wind was this unreliable. His lieutenant gave him the answer he expected. His crew looked at him bewildered by the double cross, but had expected it nonetheless. Marco, however, kept his eyes straight forward and did not resist any urge to turn to his right to face the ship slipping ahead. Marco could already hear the other captains muttering on their respective vessels:
we had told him this would happen.
How could he have trusted those slaves and heathens others would say.
“Shall we fire on them, Captain?” the Lieutenant asked after the pause. Marco did not move.
“No,” the Captain said plainly. “It would mean turning the ships and right now we cannot lose any time between us and reaching those forward vessels. If we realign to allow us to shoot, we'll lose precious minutes...”
“But we can't just...”
“Let them go.” Marco completed the sentence but with the stern solidity that silenced his lieutenant. “It will take time for them to reach the main ships and turn around. If they engage us now, we'll take them for sure. They want to limp back to their main line—we will rescue Lieutenant Torres during the battle... For now. Forward into those ships! The decisive confrontation is about to begin: keep all of your eyes open!”
When Trey came to, all he could hear was the dripping of water somewhere off in the distance. The pain throbbing at the back of his head assaulted him as soon as his consciousness returned. He nearly fell forward but he held himself up as best as he could. He was leaning against a wall... and his fingers could only feel the chalky characteristics of the concrete underneath him. The ground was cold and lacking any insulation... and it was a mixture of grey and darkness that only reminded him of the confrontation earlier... that eye... that open eye... A shudder ran down his spine and all the way through his legs which suddenly gained some sense of energy. His whole body wished to get up.
He could feel water soaking his socks and the cold sensation stung against his warm ankles. He groaned and looked upward and around. There was a bitter breeze coming from a bare window directly in front of him although it was more like a square outline on the bare unpainted concrete wall. He realized then that he was in the abandoned building across the police station. A trail of water was streaked from the edge of the window all the way to where his legs were resting against the floor. Only the pale moonlight provided any light and that globe hovered outside like the iris of a terrible eye looked down at him with silent fury.
To his left was the length of a hallway that terminated only in the darkness of an unknown midnight emptiness: the length of the building must be impressive. To his right he saw a faint light and a corner. The hallway turned to the right, but what caught his attention was a shoulder and an arm and a leg and shoes that stretched out past the corner. He could see a glimmer of the golden hair of Randall fluttering alongside the edge between his field of vision and the blind spot around the corner.
“Randall?” Trey tried to say out loud but only his echo returned to him. He could sense a dim light coming from around the corner as well and it cast Randall's shadow against the wall to the left. Trey attempted to move, but the pounding on the back of his head suddenly jolted him to sit once more against the wall. He reached out as if to call out Randall's name again but Randall's arm and leg were too far off... maybe twenty feet away at least. “Ra--” he tried to say but his voice choked.
With a sudden crack, Randall's body snapped away from the corner. The light hue of his hair disappeared and the arm and leg slid sickly past the corner and away down the corridor. Trey could barely breathe as he could only watched the shadow grow on the light larger and larger until there was a slice as if the sound of a butcher's knife descending on meat occurred three times in succession before the light switched off. Trey was terrified, he was frozen, and all he could feel was copper on his tongue and his stomach contracting.
Then there was a slithering noise followed by a sharp squeak, like a snake constricting a violin. It was coming from the window. A hand, as pale and horrible as a corpse's appeared rising towards the moon from the window and opening its fingers like a spider uncurling its legs. Trey ran, Trey shot up and ran towards where he last saw Randall. Trey would not stop: he could not stop. He stepped into the darkness as if he was falling off a cliff. He was breathing so hard and running so fast that he could barely hear those words that were flowing down around him like a web: “You've finally come... now it's time... now it's time to make that decisive choice...”
Chapter CXLIV: Decisive Confrontation (coming soon)