Chapter : 845
He leaned back in his ebony chair, a slow, predatory smile spreading across his face. It was the smile of a grandmaster who has just encountered a move so brilliant, so unexpected, and so utterly insane that it has reignited his love for the game.
“A saint,” he mused, his voice a low, appreciative purr. “A miracle-working, selfless saint, beloved by the common folk and sworn to the service of the downtrodden. And this same saint, this man of peace and poultices, now intends to walk into an inferno to face a creature of pure, elemental rage. It is a magnificent contradiction. A beautiful, perfect paradox.”
He looked at his spymaster, and his eyes were now gleaming with a sharp, analytical light. “This is no simple healer, Tariq. A simple healer does not win the absolute, unquestioning loyalty of a man like Timur Qadir in a single afternoon. A simple healer does not possess the knowledge, or the courage, to face the Dahaka Jungle. And a simple healer most certainly does not throw his life away in the arena for a prize he has no conceivable way of winning.”
He rose from his chair and walked to the large, teakwood-screened window, looking out over his magnificent, sprawling capital. “There is a game being played here,” he continued, more to himself than to his spymaster. “A new game, with a new and very interesting player. He builds a foundation of absolute, unimpeachable moral authority. He cultivates a reputation for selfless, almost suicidal, altruism. He places one of my most powerful vassals, the very keeper of my kingdom’s sword and shield, in his eternal debt. And now, he makes a grand, public gesture of martyrdom. Every move is perfect. Every action is designed to build a legend.”
He turned from the window, his expression now one of cold, hard, and deeply appreciative calculation. “The question is not what he is doing. The question is why. What is his true objective? The prize for the Challenge, the share in the mine… it is a king’s ransom, yes. But it is a prize he cannot possibly hope to claim. So, his entry into the Challenge is not about winning. It is about something else. It is a message. A performance. But for whom?”
He began to pace the length of the room, his bare feet silent on the silk rug. “He is a ghost. He appears from nowhere. He possesses a level of medical knowledge that surpasses that of my own Royal Physicians. He commands a loyalty that borders on religious fanaticism. And he operates with a strategic and political subtlety that would be the envy of my most seasoned courtiers. He is either the greatest fool in the history of the kingdom, or he is the single most brilliant and dangerous player to have emerged on this board in a generation.”
The Sultan, a man who had not felt the thrill of a true, intellectual challenge in years, was alive with a new, electric energy. He was a lion who had grown bored with hunting sheep and had just caught the scent of a strange, new, and infinitely more interesting prey.
“This is not a matter for simple observation anymore, Tariq,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, decisive command. He stopped his pacing and looked directly at his spymaster, and the full, crushing weight of his royal authority was in his gaze. “The whispers are no longer enough. I want the truth.”
He began to issue a series of crisp, clear orders, the words of a commander deploying his forces. “I want a full, deep-level investigation into this ‘Doctor Zayn.’ I want to know where he came from, who his parents were, where he received his training. I want to know every person he has spoken to, every coin he has spent since he arrived in this city. I want to know the true nature of his relationship with this attendant, Sumaiya. She is the key. She is his point of contact with the world of power. Find out who she truly is.”
He paused, a thin, predatory smile on his lips. “Do not let him know he is being watched. He is a fox, and he has already proven that he can sense the hounds. Your agents are to be shadows, echoes. They will watch him, they will listen to him, but they will not, under any circumstances, engage with him. I want to see his next move. I want to understand his game before I decide whether to remove him from the board, or to make him one of my own pieces.”
He then delivered his final, most critical order.
Chapter : 846
“And at the Challenge tomorrow… I want your best men in the crowd. I want every angle observed. I want every word he speaks, every move he makes, every flicker of his power, recorded and reported back to me in perfect detail.”
He walked back to his Go board and sat down, his demeanor once again calm, serene, the picture of a contemplative monarch. But the game he was now playing was no longer a solitary one.
“Go,” he said, his gaze fixed on the intricate patterns of the black and white stones. “I wish to know everything there is to know about the man who dares to hunt my monster.”
The Whisper bowed, a low, deep gesture of absolute, silent obedience. And then, he was simply gone, a shadow that had dissolved back into the deeper shadows of the palace, leaving the Sultan alone in his sunlit room.
The most powerful man in the kingdom looked down at his Go board. He picked up a single, white stone, a new piece, an unexpected variable. And with a slow, deliberate, and deeply satisfied smile, he placed it in the very center of the board, a move of audacious, beautiful, and world-altering chaos. The game had just become interesting again.
The Zakarian Royal Arena was not a place of subtle elegance; it was a monument to brutal, unapologetic power. It was a vast, sun-scorched coliseum, a perfect, yawning circle of pale, sand-colored stone that rose from the earth like the bleached skull of some colossal, long-dead god. For three centuries, it had been the kingdom’s primary stage for its most glorious and most gruesome spectacles: the place where wars were celebrated, where traitors were executed, and where once a year, the bravest or most foolish men in the kingdom came to test their mettle against a living, breathing piece of hell.
On the day of the Jahl Challenge, the arena was a living, breathing entity in its own right, a great stone beast whose lungs were the thousands of roaring, cheering, and jeering spectators who packed its tiered stands. The air was a thick, palpable soup of a hundred conflicting sensations: the greasy, savory smell of roasted meats from the countless food vendors, the sweet, cloying scent of cheap, spiced wine, the metallic tang of sweat and fear, and the hot, dry, dusty smell of the sun baking the very stones.
Lloyd arrived not as a lord in a grand procession, but as a ghost, a nameless, faceless figure moving through the chaotic, teeming crowds that swarmed around the arena’s outer gates. He wore his simple, practical black leather armor, its unadorned surface a stark contrast to the gleaming, ostentatious steel of the knights and the brightly colored silks of the merchants. His face, as always, was hidden behind the blank, emotionless, and increasingly infamous white mask.
He was a void in the riot of color and sound, a pocket of absolute, unnerving silence in the heart of the festival’s roar. People instinctively gave him a wide berth, their cheerful, drunken chatter dying in their throats as he passed. They saw not a challenger, but a specter, an executioner, an omen. And they were not entirely wrong.
He made his way to a side entrance, a less crowded gate designated for the challengers themselves. Here, the festive atmosphere was replaced by a more tense, more professional energy. This was the backstage of the great theater of death, and the air was thick with the nervous, almost frantic, energy of actors preparing for a role they knew they were not ready for.
A long, jostling queue of over fifty hopefuls snaked its way from a small, iron-barred registration window. It was a perfect, almost comical cross-section of the kingdom’s martial ambitions. There were a half-dozen young, impossibly handsome knights, their armor so polished it seemed to glow, their expressions a perfect, practiced mixture of noble arrogance and heroic determination. They stood in a small, exclusive clique, their squires fussing over their immaculate equipment, pointedly ignoring the lesser mortals around them.
There were a score of hardened, grizzled mercenaries, their faces a roadmap of a hundred brutal battles, their armor a practical, dented, and well-worn second skin. They leaned against the stone walls, their arms crossed, their eyes narrowed, their expressions a mixture of cynical appraisal and a desperate, gambler’s hope. They were here for the money, the one, final score that could buy them a life of peace and a quiet death in a warm bed.