[h1]Book 2[/h1]

[center][i]A freed slave is like a loosed viper ~ Arabyian Proverb[/i][/center]


“Yazmina!” Omar Nadeer Al’Nekarri croaked, through his blackening and swollen lips. Despite his white silken robes, golden jewelry and impeccable pedigree, The Emir of Keshram did not make an imposing sight as his ankle ankles drummed on the polished golden floor of his bed chamber and his face slowly turned purple.

“My … name… is…. Emmaline!” the woman sitting atop his chest, twisting a red silk shift around his neck with both hands. It was the first time she had spoken her name in over a year and it felt, really, really good. Naked from the waist up, her shift currently being put to more profitable use than concealing her considerable assets, she was a statuesque woman, with long blonde hair and pale skin that marked her as hailing from the distant and fog shrouded Empire. Arab corsairs, may Mannan rupture their bowels, had captured her ship of the coast of Estalia and sold her into slavery. She had been taken to the great port city of Lashiek, where among its stinking slave pens, she had been sold off to Emir Omar Nadeer. Blonde pale women were a rarity in these lands, and the Emir had crowed with delight to add such a beauty to his harem. Emmaline imagined he was regretting that choice right about now.

“Please!” the Emir gasped, his fingers clawing at the silken garrote she was tightening around his neck by means of turning a length of stout metal she had taken from an ornamental iron gateway. He had tried hitting her at first, and though she would have bruises to show for it tomorrow, he hadn’t been able to dislodge her before she began to close his airway. Greenish light streamed down from the twin moons as Mannslieb and Morrslieb blazed in the clear desert night, illuminating the balcony atop which the, very nearly, former slave girl asphyxiated her master. The south balcony was a favorite of the Emir’s, with large palms growing from white washed pots providing shade from all but the fiercest of the desert sun. In the distance the lights of the city glittered against the backdrop of the great ocean and a cool breeze carried the gentle sounds of distant waves against the shore. Against the wall of the palace stood pedestals and display cases holding curios and artefacts for the amusement of its master.

“Please?” she mocked, straining till her pulse throbbed in her temples to turn the iron bar another quarter turn. Omar Nadeer’s face was nearly black in the greenish moonlight though his fingers still scrabbled at the improvised garrote, cutting deep into his flabby neck.  She felt the bulge of his manhood beneath her, a biological reaction to the asphyxiation and nothing to do with desire, but she laughed none the less, the indignanty and humiliation of a year in the Emir harem filling her with hatred so pure she could taste it like copper on the tongue. Deliberately she writhed her hips back and forth grotesquely. The Emir had voided his bowels and the warm wetness of his trousers showed he had lost control of his bladder as well. There was a banging on the large wooden doors now, the strangled cries of the Emir having finally alarmed his deliberately incurious guards. They wouldn’t be in time.

“One... more.. for... old... times ...sake?” she mocked, turning the bar a quarter turn as she bit out each syllable. Then, with a scream of determination, she gave the bar a final twist. There was a sudden snapp of collapsing cartilage and the Emir coughed a spray of blood from his grotesquely swollen lips, spraying her naked chest and face with blood. He spasmed once more, and then was still. 

The heavy wooden door, locked from the inside by the late Emir, splinted as the two guards finally managed to split the ancient timbers. Emmaline stood up, spattered with gore and half naked above the body of their dead master. The stars blazed piteously behind her, their cold light almost washed out by the green radiance of the Chaos moon. The men paused for a moment in horror and then leveled their spears at the harem girl. Emmaline slipped the iron rod from her ruined shift and opened up her inner eye. Charmon whirled in a tempest around her. She wasn’t much of a wizard, hardly more than an apprentice, and the Emir’s palace, unbeknownst to him, was built on a foundation that had been laid with ancient wards in the time of Nagash, proof against all but the mightiest of enchantments. They had held her in bondage for almost a year now, but no longer, not now, not on Geheimnistag. In the Empire people would be inside, door bolted against the nameless terrors of the night, in Araby it seemed, people had forgotten that wisdom. 



Her green eyes flashed gold and, with a screamed incantation, the metal rod dissolved into a ball of white hot light and then lashed out like forked lightning burning through the hearts of both guardsman in less time than it took their ears to register the sound. Emmaline sagged with the effort, fighting through the wards was no trivial task, and it had been so long since she had used her powers she had been half afraid they would fail her. Moving as quickly as she could she stripped the Emir of his jewelry, and one of the guards of his tunic and heavy scimitar. There were other shouts now and it was time and past time she was away. Emmaline headed for the balcony, but paused, her eyes drawn to a piece of papyrus preserved beneath glass. It was a map of some kind, though of no land she could readily identify. The arcane symbols inked around its borders drew her attention, demonstrating that it was valuable, and no mere travellers curiosity. Drawing back the scimitar she smashed the case and seized the map, hastily rolling it and tucking it within her stolen tunic. Pausing for a final moment to spit on the corpse of the Most Honored Emir Omar Nadeer Al’Nekarri, she leaped over the balcony and vanished into the hot desert night.