I.
Before a grand building in the old Damascene style, a group of men stood waiting. They wore the clothes of highwaymen — most of them masked, all of them watching for one person.
Their leader. The one they called the Chief.
Minutes passed. Then a gate on the building's second floor swung open, and out stepped a heavyset man with a thick beard and large moustaches, a band tied across his head, wearing a short red open-fronted blouse that wouldn't have looked out of place on a market conjurer. His chest and his soft, sagging belly pushed forward in a way that made several people in the crowd look briefly at the ground.
This was the Chief.
He stopped at the balcony and stared down at the gathering in a silence that had weight. Eyes rose toward him. But of everyone assembled, he looked at only one man — a figure set apart from the rest by something that was difficult to name precisely: a lock of hair falling across his forehead, arms folded, back resting against a column, the kind of stillness that gives a person the appearance of being carved rather than standing.
The Chief's voice came down like gravel:
"Yesterday, the group disappointed me. They managed to capture only five people with any control over the Sand Gift. Five — in the second period of this year. That is not acceptable. Do you know what that number means?"
No one answered.
So he answered for them.
"It means your wages drop. By more than half."
The crowd broke into noise — complaints, muttering, a low collective anger. The man with the falling lock of hair said nothing. He only raised his head and looked directly into the Chief's eyes.
The Chief held the look for a moment, then turned away from it.
He drove his fist against the balcony railing and roared:
"Silence."
The noise died. Even the murmuring faded and was gone.
"I know this is unwelcome. It's unwelcome to me as well. But this is the task. If you cannot gather the largest possible number of element-users, His Highness will not reward us generously."
Then his voice dropped, and he addressed the man with the falling lock directly:
"Sahir — I need you. Something important."
He waved the rest away and went back inside.
The crowd dispersed. Sahir alone entered the building.
II.
The interior was unpretentious — chairs and tables arranged with some order across the ground floor, filling it almost entirely. Sahir climbed the clay steps upward. A servant woman met him at the top, bowed quickly, and left. He returned the bow, then pushed through the door.
The Chief had distributed his considerable weight across a wool mattress, a small stick turning slowly between his teeth. He angled his eyes toward Sahir.
"What do you think?"
"Think of what?"
"Of her. The woman who just left."
A cool smile formed behind Sahir's covering.
"I'm not that kind of man." He took a seat. "Let's move to what matters. Why did you call me out of everyone?"
The Chief adjusted his position.
"The Prince. The Prince is very displeased. He says his father the King is unsatisfied with our performance over the last two years — and that his anger worsened after one of the senior element-users escaped. A man who led a distinguished tribe that was wiped out some time ago. He's now blaming us, and he has made it clear that if we don't deliver a satisfactory result this period, he won't leave us to our own affairs."
Sahir was quiet for a moment. Then:
"And why are you so worried? Wasn't this obvious to you from the beginning?"
The Chief's face shifted into genuine puzzlement.
Sahir stood and moved slowly toward the balcony.
"We are bandits, thieves, and criminals. We came together to do what the King could not do for himself. But somewhere along the way we forgot that — forgot what we are — and started playing the role of his private guard. And we forgot, in doing so, that a king can turn on us at any moment and dispose of us when it suits him."
The Chief was up immediately.
"Dispose of us? Why would he do that? We carry out everything he asks. The numbers are not in our hands — and yet we've tried."
Sahir's eyes stayed fixed on the view beyond the balcony.
"It seems you didn't quite follow what I was saying." A pause. "In any case — what is it you need from me?"
The Chief stared at the middle distance for a moment before speaking.
"I've heard you carry an unusual ability. I want you to use it — enter the royal palace without being seen and confirm something for me. I suspect the Prince is saying all this only to cut our wages. From everything that circulates among common people, he's a young man consumed by money and women — and that may well be enough to make him stop paying us."
Sahir considered this carefully.
"The Prince is certainly ruled by appetite. But I don't think he's lying about his father's anger. A senior leader escaping — someone who commanded powerful elements and other abilities — that's a genuine cause for concern." He paused. "As for infiltrating the palace — I don't work without compensation. My ability has limits. It requires time and complete stillness to function, which makes this kind of task difficult. So: no service without something in return."
The Chief worked a hand through his beard.
"And what kind of return?"
Sahir looked at him directly.
"There is someone I've been searching for over many years. I recently learned he's imprisoned — but I don't know the location of the prison."
The Chief's eyes narrowed slowly, and he gave a single nod.
"I understand. You want me to tell you where the prison is."
"Exactly."
The Chief's brow pulled together with evident discomfort.
"That is a very difficult request. I'm the only person outside the police apparatus who knows the location — and if I tell you and they find out you've been there, they will know with certainty that it came from me. Then—"
"Then the agreement is cancelled."
Sahir turned toward the exit. The Chief stopped him.
"Fine. I agree — but on one condition—"
Sahir half-turned, face in profile.
"Don't worry. No one will learn your secret."
He said it the way someone says something they've already decided is true, and left.
⁂
III.
Somewhere else entirely — inside an old room where the smell of ink mixed with the smell of binding glue, and shelves stood in rows along every wall like sentinels protecting the books and ancient manuscripts in their keeping.
At the far end of the room, a wooden door opened. Through it came the light of an oil lamp, carried by a figure whose features were obscured until the flame caught his face: old, lined, a beard gone partly white.
The old man moved through the room at an unhurried pace, turning it over in his mind that it was a small library. He set the lamp against a specific shelf, then began working through the books with the careful, knowing fingers of someone who remembers exactly what each one weighs. After a while, his hand settled on a volume bound in deep blue. He pulled it from the shelf, blew the dust from its cover, opened it, and passed his eyes across the words inside.
Then he closed it and returned it to its place.
He searched again. This time he paused before a shelf crowded with large volumes — and between them, pressed nearly invisible, a small book bound with a thin cord. He took it out, opened it, and read.
Then he tucked it inside the white embroidered sash he wore, took his lamp, and left.
The old man sealed the wooden door firmly behind him, then climbed a set of wooden stairs that led to an exit with an iron gate — the kind of ironwork that, from its ornamentation alone, announced itself as belonging to a vault inside a grand palace. He stopped just before stepping through, as though something in him had suddenly registered a presence. Then he settled, smiled faintly, and closed the iron door behind him.
"Welcome, little Prince. Is there something you need?"
The boy — nine years old, with the wide, unhurried curiosity of that age — looked up at him.
"No, Minister. But I've been wondering what lies behind that door. I've noticed that it's a place no one enters without direct permission from His Majesty."
A faintly unreadable smile formed on the old man's face.
"And does my appearance suggest I am among those who have permission — or among those who are forbidden?"
The boy thought, looking briefly at the floor.
"Not at all."
The Minister stepped toward him, placed a hand on his shoulder, and walked with him down the corridor, guiding the conversation toward other matters, other things, filling the space until the boy's mind had moved away from the room entirely. At the end of the passage they parted — the boy toward his wing, the Minister staying where he was, watching him go, eyes tracking the small figure until it disappeared.
Then the smile left his face all at once. What replaced it was something else: a tightening, a controlled alarm. His hand closed around the sash and the small book inside it, and he walked on toward wherever he needed to be.
Behind him, on the other side of the corridor, a shadow was pressed against one of the columns. It watched the Minister until he was gone.
Then it disappeared.
⁂
IV.
Outside the palace, a wooden carriage drawn by two horses sat waiting. The young man holding the reins looked tired. Dust had settled into the lines of his face.
Then the palace's great outer gate opened — slowly, with the groan of something enormous — and a figure came through wearing a black robe pulled up over his head, moving in the way of someone who would prefer not to be seen. He climbed into the carriage and ordered the driver to go.
The whip came down. The horses understood and broke into a run.
Inside the carriage, the man held the small book in his hands and stared at it — the look of a person who has been carrying a question for a very long time and suspects this might be where the answer is, but can't yet be certain. He tucked it into his sleeve. Then he watched the world passing outside the window.
The night was moonless. The sky above was filled with more stars than could be counted.
After a long time travelling, the carriage stopped.
Before it stood an old building that resembled a military fortress. Several large men in white clothing and plated metal armour stood at the entrance.
One of the guards approached the carriage and fixed the driver with a formal, assessing look. Then he moved to the carriage door and pulled it open —
"I — I apologise, sir."
He bent his head immediately.
The passenger stepped down from the carriage, placed a hand on the guard's shoulder, and spoke in the rough, slightly hoarse voice of an old man:
"Never mind. Just take me inside."
The guard obeyed without a word and led him to the gate. The other guards opened it — and the sound it made as it moved was enormous, a low grinding that seemed to come from somewhere deep in the walls.
V.
The man entered with the guard at his side. They passed through many corridors and floors. In the background, voices came from multiple directions — some cursing, some crying out — and rooms multiplied along the walls until counting them became impossible.
None of it seemed to register with the man. He followed the guard in silence — and the guard moved with the certainty of someone who knew exactly what was being asked of him before being told. At one of the inner passages, he stopped and gestured with respectful precision:
"This way, sir. His cell is there — he was transferred here a few days ago."
The man thanked him and moved forward with slow, deliberate steps. He stopped in front of the iron bars.
Behind them, a man lay stretched on the floor — arms and legs extended as though he had simply fallen there and decided to stay.
"Oh — you again." His voice was exhausted but unimpressed.
The visitor lifted the covering from his head.
"Mind your manners. You're speaking to a minister of the state."
The man on the floor laughed — genuinely, loudly — then got to his feet in one quick motion.
"My apologies — Your Excellency the Minister."
He raised his head, and the smile that met the Minister's eyes was the kind of smile that carries something underneath it — something that made the old man feel, briefly, a cold thread of fear. He hid it.
"I've brought you the book. Do what you agreed to do, and I'll do what I agreed to do."
Another laugh.
"Your Excellency, Your Excellency — that is not what we agreed. We agreed that you would get me out of here first. Then I help you with whatever you need."
The Minister's expression hardened.
"Do what you're meant to do. If you succeed, I'll release you. Your success is your guarantee of freedom."
The man moved to the bars slowly, wrapped both hands around them, and brought his face close — then opened his mouth and exhaled directly at the Minister, the smell of it rank and deliberate, before saying in a low voice:
"Don't try to deceive me, Your Excellency. The people in here are watching you."
He followed the last word with a long, wild laugh.
The Minister stumbled backward, several steps, face pale. Behind the bars, the man held the iron and laughed — the sound of it rising and filling every corner of the space, uncontrolled, completely unconcerned with what it frightened.