“What is it?” Majid demanded.
“It is not this life you fear, but the next. Yet you have shown no actions that demonstrate true repentance. You still carry the wealth that you made from deeds such as the one that troubles you. And by seeking the protection of blood and steel, you are showing no faith in the Lord of Fire, who is the only one who can grant the peace you seek.”
“Yes, yes,” Majid said eagerly. “What must I do?”
“You must make a choice. If you seek forgiveness and are truly repentant, here is what you must do. You do not have to do it, which is what makes it your choice.”
“Tell me. I’ll do anything.”
“You must stand down your guards and take a single tent out into the desert. Take no weapons with you, for the Lord of Fire will know. You must spend one single night, out in the desert, not as a kalif but as a man.”
The Kalif’s face went white. “I can’t do it.”
“Why not?” the confessor said. “Hazarans have been spending nights in the desert since before your birth. Those you raided had no weapons. This is what the Lord of Fire asks of you. To show you are repentant, you must spend one night away from your blood-stained steel and your ill-gotten gains.”
~
Majid rode away from the Oasis of Touma a troubled man. He knew that the confessor spoke sense, yet the idea of spending a night alone in the desert filled him with terror. His guards were silent as they rode around him, and even the thought of them not being near caused his heart to race.
One of Majid’s guards looked at him and for a moment Majid saw the face of the boy from the camp, before the vision shifted and he realized he was simply looking at one of his men.
This couldn’t go on.
When he reached his luxurious encampment, so large it was a small city, Majid went straight to his tent to pray.
He prayed long and hard, seeking the Lord of Fire’s forgiveness for what he had done. The confessor’s words would not leave him. She was correct: he hadn’t shown true repentance, and it wasn’t this life that troubled him, it was the afterlife.
Majid sent one of his men to get him a small traveling tent.
He started to pack.
~
Majid had forgotten what it was like, out in the true desert, with no creature but his horse for company. Foreigners said the desert was quiet, silent even, but it wasn’t true. The wind howled past the rock formations that spotted the Hazara, and blew at the dunes so that the sands constantly spilled and shifted.
The gusts shook his tent, causing the buckles to jingle and the fabric to snap like the sound of a whip. Every moment Majid imagined someone was outside, fumbling with the knots, preparing to jump in and swing at him with a sharp scimitar, take his head from his shoulders, and leave it out in the desert for the sun to dry out.
Majid felt under his pillow, taking comfort from the hilt of the heavy dagger he’d brought with him. He wasn’t sure if the Lord of Fire bargained, but surely he could see that Majid genuinely sought forgiveness. He wouldn’t take offence at this slight change to what the confessor had said, would he?
When it came, his sleep was fitful.
~
Majid woke to the sound of heavy breathing. He had been having a nightmare, but this was different. Was he still dreaming? Majid looked up and screamed.
A man hovered over him.
In the darkness the man’s face was a void. As Majid’s eyes adjusted he saw that the man’s face was blank because his head was wrapped in black fabric. The cloth covered him from head to toe.
The man in black lowered himself so that he was looming directly over Majid, his chest rising and falling with passion and his breath loud in Majid’s ears.
“Who… who are you?” Majid asked.
“I am a messenger from the Lord of Fire,” the man in black said.
“You’re the devotee from the confessor’s tent. You’re him, aren’t you?” Majid said, his voice trembling. “The boy. I made a mistake. I left you alive.”
In one final act of desperation, Majid moved. “Tish-tassine,” he called, activating a nightlamp, bathing the tent in its bright glow and revealing the man in complete detail. At the same time he brought the dagger out from under his pillow.
Yet the man in black was faster. He grabbed Majid’s wrist and squeezed, until the dagger fell out of Majid’s grip. Majid felt the man’s speed and strength, and knew he was facing a warrior.
The man in black pulled the material away from his face.
“No,” Majid’s son said. “I am not him. But I was one of those who wielded the swords, and followed your orders.”
Majid saw that his son’s haunted eyes mirrored his own.
“You made no mistakes, Father” his son said. “You left none alive. The boy would never have made it out of the desert. But like you, I cannot find peace.”
Majid felt a blade slice across his throat, and as the warmth of his lifeblood gushed out, he wondered about the afterlife.
“You made me do those things,” his son said, “and one of us deserves to be free.”