Splashes of sea spray painted the cave entrance with moisture. The consistent echoing drip of water from the seaside cave walls granted a reprieve from the otherwise thick silence. Sunlight shone down through a number of round openings in the cavern ceiling, allowing the sounds of the waves outside to be heard all around. Damp footsteps and drowned out words emerged from the silence and faltered as soon as they came. The voices huddled together in the cave’s dark corners, waiting for the low tide to come.

The sound of their conversations, however diminished they were, vibrated in Maxak’s mind as though they were pounding out from inside. He heaved a deep sigh and, with a groan of pain accompanied by the familiar jab of his ribs, turned over onto his side. Light from the open cave ceiling allowed his eyes to adjust to the figures all around. Their eyes averted each time his moved over them. He could feel their chills in his bones.

“Byr, come here,” he called out to one of the figures, coughing as he spoke.

The figure drooped his head and approached Maxak before dropping to his knees in prostration. “Yes, my lord?”

Maxak finished his coughing fit and struggled for a deep breath, his hand grasping at his side. He swallowed hard and breathed out before turning his gaze back to the figure. With the sea spray growing louder, he motioned for the figure to lean in closer.

“It is time. Take me to him,” Maxak spoke in a near whisper, his voice raw from coughing.

Byr nodded and stood. He looked back over to the other figures and singled one out, pointing to him. “Sekiz. Help me.”

The man he pointed to at once moved over to him, then prostrated before Maxak. Both men stood on either end of where Maxak lay and lifted him up and onto a cot with two long reeds attached on the sides. They lifted the cot by the reeds and carried him to the cave entrance. Outside, the sun was in its midday position and Maxak could hear the sea water seeping between the smooth stones at their feet. He positioned his elbow underneath his side and propped himself up, granting a better view of his surroundings.

He was carried along a narrow coastline to the entrance of a smaller cave set into the side of the one they had just left. The position of its opening granted little sunlight within its walls, and no opening could be found in its ceiling, leaving the smaller cave dimly lit with covered sconces set along the sides. At the center of the cave chamber, a man kneeled with a sack over his head and his hands and feet bound together behind him. Maxak nodded to Byr and the two men set him down on the cave floor a few paces from the bound man. Byr walked over behind the bound man and lifted the sack off his head.

The man looked beaten, wet, and exhausted. Maxak could hear the man’s rushed heartbeat and his strained breaths. His hair was matted, and his face bruised with drying blood caked on the sides.

Maxak repositioned his elbow and took a deep breath. “Speak.”

The man gasped for air and looked around the cave in a panic. He struggled against his binds and cried out in pain as his attempts proved futile. His eyes turned to Maxak, laying before him, and he shivered.

“Our lord has told you to speak,” Byr said to the man as he walked up behind him and smacked the back of his head. “Speak.”

The man began stammering, unable to complete a sentence or phrase. Maxak sighed and flared his nostrils before waving his hand to Byr who then severed the man’s binds, allowing him to fall to the ground. After a moment, the man pushed himself up and rubbed his hands over his arms. He took several deep breaths with his eyes closed. Maxak narrowed his eyes at the man, knowing that he must have been trying to wake himself from a dream.

“It will not work, boy,” he said to the man, his voice placid. “This is reality. Tell me what I wish to know and,” he paused, “I will allow you to leave with the remainder of your life.”

The man took another deep breath and opened his eyes. “What do you want? Why did you take me?”

“Do not attempt to make sense of it. There need be no reason we chose you above anyone else,” Maxak said without expression. “Where do you last remember being?”

“I…I was in my home,” the man started, straining his thoughts. “In Holunes.”

“Yes, you were.”

“Where am I now?” the man asked as he darted his eyes around the cave again.

“This does not matter,” Maxak told him. “Do not think about what you do not know. Tell me what you do know. Where is she?”

“Where is who?”

Maxak bared his teeth. “You know of whom I speak,” he shouted, descending into a fit of coughing.

Byr walked over to him and brought a waterskin to his lips, helping him to drink. After a moment, Maxak nodded and waved him away, regaining his breath. He swallowed and composed himself before looking back to the man.

“The old woman,” Maxak said with a calmer tone. “Where is the old woman?”

“I don’t know an old woman,” the man pleaded, tears forming in his eyes. “Please release me from this place.”

Maxak motioned to Byr who lifted a khanjar from his side and walked over to the man. He crouched down next to him and looked back to Maxak. Maxak breathed out slowly and leaned a bit closer to the man.

“Speak sooth to me.” His voice was dry and cold.

“I don’t know, I swear.”

Maxak nodded and rubbed his eyes. Byr rebound the man’s hands and legs before tearing open the man’s shirt and sliding the khanjar down his chest. The man grimaced and whimpered from the pain, and blood seeped out of the wound, dripping onto the cave floor. Sekiz stepped forward with a chalice and held it beneath the flow of blood, allowing it to pool inside. Once it was near filled, he moved closer to Maxak and dropped to his knees, offering the chalice to him.

Maxak lifted it to his lips and drank. He tasted metal and sand. He felt the wear of a life of stasis and the ache of joints after years of toil. He heard sands moving in the winds off the River Kami. He breathed in the cool air from the shadows of the Kavoos Mountains and heard his voice speaking praises of the gods within the temple, before turning to praise another from far away. He smelled the spice of garden peppers in the breeze, and the scent of incense burning in his home. He closed his eyes and saw the faces of his family: men, women, and children all around him. And he saw the face of an elderly woman, frail in build with a stern face. She whispered to him a name he could not hear and told him of a place he could not see. Maxak opened his eyes and returned to the cave.

“You lie.”

The man shivered and whimpered again. “Please,” he said with a trembling voice. “Please don’t make me tell you.”

“You will tell us,” Maxak said, handing the chalice back to Sekiz. “Or your family will be brought to this place. Your children. And then you will see.”

“The gods will curse you for this. All of them,” the man spat at him, renewed in his defiance.

Byr smacked him back into submission and pulled his head up by the hair, placing the khanjar blade at the man’s throat. Maxak smirked and exhaled sharply through his nose.

“Will they?” he scoffed. “I curse the gods. Will they strike me down? No. They only work through weak men like you. The gods will have their turn, weeping and groveling, but for now it is yours.”

The man let out a ragged breath and closed his eyes, gulping. “Her name is Nanai.”

“I know her name,” Maxak shouted, his voice reverberating off the cave walls. Even Byr and the others surrounding them flinched at his voice. “Where is she?”

“She…she appears in Holunes,” the man stuttered, “every couple of weeks to receive a letter.”

Maxak looked over to Byr who nodded in agreement.

“I do not know where she lives,” the man continued, tears forming again in his eyes.

“The letters,” Maxak started, his eyes narrowing in thought. “Are they from a foreign man? A pale man? Have you seen him?”

“I don’t know. They are always brought by couriers.”

Maxak scooted himself forward and leaned closer to the man. “Where do they come from?”

“They come from all over,” the man said, his eyes darting everywhere, searching for his thoughts. “But…most have come from Ganeti.”

Maxak’s eyes shot up to Byr and he breathed out in triumph. “Bring Eki and Dokuz to me. I have a task for them.”

 Byr nodded and stepped out of the cave. The man began weeping, his tears and snot dripping alongside his blood to the cave floor.

“Please forgive me,” he muttered under his breath, repeating it like a chant.

“Your god cannot forgive you. He has no power here. Go now to Maknah where your god will soon join you.” Maxak nodded to Sekiz who then stepped behind the man, held a khanjar to his throat and began whispering with his eyes closed.

Byr returned with two other men who stepped around to face Maxak and fell to their knees in prostration before returning to their feet.

“You are to travel to Ganeti,” Maxak told them, his voice almost quivering with excitement. “Ask where the pale man lives, and you will find him. If he is not there, take his family. If no one is there, bring me something of his. We will be moving soon, and when you return we will be at the farm.”

The two men fell to their knees and prostrated once more speaking in unison. “Yes, my lord.”

Behind them, Sekiz finished his whisperings and dragged the blade over the man’s throat and released him, allowing his body to fall to the floor and bleed into the cave’s hidden crevices.

“Save it,” Maxak said, motioning toward the body. “We do not waste blood.”