"She is not me! I can understand your loyalty to the Crown...to my father and subsequently to me. Many can't, considering your background. But I do. I don't comprehend why you'd give your life for one of my women, however."

"Perhaps because she carries your heir," Lazar said. Boaz noted that all incredulity had left his Spur's voice, and was replaced with a wintry tone that was filled with warning. But he refused to be daunted, not now that he had started on this path.

"People could be forgiven for reading far more into your apparent loyalty."

"Apparent loyalty? Zar Boaz, please explain what precisely you're not saying. We are facing immense danger and I would rather do so knowing I have your full support. If there is something you want to tell me, or ask me, I will listen or answer truthfully as required."

"Will you, Lazar?" Now the Spur looked at him, aghast. Boaz continued: "You see, I just don't know if you are being entirely honest with me where Ana is concerned. You've never made a secret of your attachment to her. Initially we all put it down to the fact that, having sourced her in the foothills, purchased her, and brought her away from her family at such a tender age, you felt responsible for her, as an uncle might a young niece. But the Protectorship you offered her and the risk you took on her behalf struck me as beyond avuncular. And then you dove into waters to rescue her from drowning, and cradled her in your lap and fought to breathe life back into her; but I heard from the Valide and the Grand Vizier that you were positively cold toward Ana throughout the journey to Romea. My mother assures me you all but ignored my wife. It doesn't add up."

He watched Lazar's jaw grind. "And your point, Your Majesty? What is it that you want me to explain?"

"I want your assurance that this tremendous risk you take with your own life is on my behalf and not on Ana's."

"I risk my life, Zar Boaz," Lazar growled, "for the heir to Percheron so that life in your realm might continue long after yours is dust. It is for Percheron that I have been loyal to Joreb, his son, and his son's son."

"But you are a king in your own right!"

"I am a prince, that is all, Highness. My father still sits his throne. And I renounced my right to the throne of Galinsea; I chose to be Percheron's Spur. I did this before you were chosen as Zar and long before Ana came to your harem. I am first and foremost a loyal subject to Percheron."

Boaz nodded. At any other time he would have felt ashamed of his behavior. He despised his own insecurity where Ana was concerned. But his own deep suspicions, mirrored by the taunting words of the Grand Vizier, haunted his thoughts. He had not imagined Tariq's hold over him earlier. There was magic at work, as both Lazar and Iridor had warned. And if that were true, perhaps there were other truths to be unearthed. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Salim get up to take a drink. And he knew what he must do next.

"Forgive me, Lazar. I think I am mistrusting of everything and everyone right now."

Lazar glowered, but he said nothing other than, "Get some sleep, Zar Boaz. Tomorrow is almost upon us." Boaz could hear the disappointment in the Spur's voice.

"I must relieve myself."

Lazar sighed and settled himself down on his sleeping rug. "Don't stray too far."

Boaz moved silently across the sand, ignoring Tariq, who seemed to be snoring lightly around the embers, and only glancing at Ganya, who was seemingly already asleep as well. He found Salim hidden behind the camels, chanting quietly to himself.

"Forgive me," Boaz said softly, realizing the man was praying.

Salim's eyes opened. "You speak Khalid?"

"Very little." Boaz shrugged, holding his thumb and index finger barely apart.

The man smiled. "A little is all you need."

"I can't sleep. Do you mind us talking?"

The man shrugged.

Boaz sat down and leaned against one of the camels. "Lazar told me you and he go tomorrow."

"It will be dangerous." The Khalid pointed behind him to where Ganya slept and back to Boaz. "You two must be safe."

Boaz nodded, then tipped his head toward Tariq. "Lazar doesn't care about him."

The man's grin widened. "Neither should you."

"I know that Lazar cares only for the girl, Ana. I haven't seen her. Is she that lovely?" He struggled to make himself understood whilst hating the deception he was employing.

But Salim grasped what he was saying. He nodded, smiled widely. "Ana, beautiful!"

"He must care for her a lot," Boaz replied, running sand through his fingers in the same distracted way he'd watched Lazar do. He wanted to give the impression that he was merely a youngster making conversation. It was also a way to hide his shame.

"Dara," Salim said, "plenty."

Boaz grinned, loading the expression with a playful wickedness and further despising the insincerity of his methods as he touched his heart and sighed, a question in his eyes.

Salim echoed the gesture, placing his own hand over his heart. "Dara, dara," Salim repeated, obviously believing it mattered little to share this with a lad who clearly idolized his Spur, wanted to emulate the ways of the senior soldier.

"He has given his heart to her?" Boaz queried in halting Khalid.

Salim put his finger to his lips and nodded.

It took every ounce of composure but Boaz forced down his rage, smiling with resigned fury at the poor Khalid.

He didn't have to shake Lazar awake. The Spur, he was sure, only ever dozed; in fact, his falcon, sitting on a stake in the sand, took more exception to being disturbed.

"Lazar?" Boaz whispered.

"Yes?"

"Tariq feels unwell."

"So what?"

"I said I'd go with him."

"Why?"

"Because I know you won't. I told him you insist none of us wander off alone. He needs to relieve himself and it may take some time. I'm awake and not tired; I'll go with him. You two can't be left alone for longer than a few moments anyway before you're at each other's throat."

"I'll come, it's all right," Lazar grumbled, rousing himself from his blanket.

"No. It is unnecessary. We're just behind that dune." Boaz pointed, lying. "I'll let Salim know as well. He's still awake."

"You have a few minutes before I'll arrive to make Tariq feel even more uncomfortable than he already is."

Boaz shrugged and began walking over to where Tariq slept. The five of them camped the same way each evening. Salim and Ganya always lay next to the camels; Tariq and he usually stuck fairly close, and Lazar always wrapped himself in his blanket in a lonely spot well away from the four of them.

"Grand Vizier," he hissed at the man's ear.

"What's wrong?"

"I've told Lazar you're not well, that you need to relieve your bowels and that I'd come with you because he won't let anyone move too far alone from here."

"Why?"

"I'm ready to talk."

The Grand Vizier clearly needed no further encouragement. He groaned softly as he slowly rolled over and pulled himself to his knees, clutching at Boaz for a helping hand. If Lazar was watching-as Boaz was sure he would be-he would see the Grand Vizier stagger slightly, leaning against his Zar as they disappeared toward the darkness of the dunes.

Boaz shivered in the cold of the night as his anger settled into something hard and unshakable. His friends had betrayed him. Two people he trusted implicitly: Lazar, whom he loved more than any other man, and Ana, whom he loved above any other. He wished he could talk to Iridor. It was eating away at him that the dwarf, with whom he shared his most intimate thoughts, would desert him at such a critical time, especially after years of being his most trusted confidant. He suddenly wasn't sure he could forgive Iridor the insult either. He asked nothing of these three people but their loyalty and now each had betrayed him. Perhaps the only person he could trust was the one who professed the greatest love; for all her deceits and cunning manipulations of those around her, Herezah was the only one who had been true to him.

"We need go no further," Tariq said, breaking gently into his bitter thoughts. "What has occurred?"

Boaz knew the Grand Vizier could not see the glare of his expression, but his hesitation was telling and the fury emanating from him was probably all too obvious.

"Ah, my Zar, you have tested the Spur, haven't you? What did you discover?"

"Lazar answered my questions plainly and I suspect truthfully. His loyalty is to Percheron."

"I see. So why are we skulking about in the darkness, avoiding the Spur's hearing?"

"Because I want to know what you meant earlier," Boaz demanded. "Don't play games with me, don't speak to me in a cryptic manner. If you've got something to say, say it plainly, or so help me, Tariq-or whatever your name is-I'll have Lazar run you through with a sword and I'll leave your body for the vultures we saw circling earlier."

"There is no need to threaten me," the Grand Vizier replied mildly but in that eerily deep voice he had adopted earlier.

"Why do you speak like this all of a sudden? What has happened to your voice?"

"I am being honest with you. I am revealing the true self that you demand to know. Now tell me, what have you discovered?"

Boaz paused. Nothing about this felt right, but then nothing about his life felt right all of a sudden. He had been treated with the ultimate disrespect by his wife and his most trusted friend. Both swore absolute loyalty to him, whilst behind his back had loyalty only for each other, it seemed. No matter what anyone else said, Boaz knew the deception was true, certainly on Ana's part. No one could ever know how he could be aware of it or why, but he was. And so he would do the only thing that he could do as Zar, take the only course his father would have demanded. He would kill Ana, cut her throat himself. He would watch the light die in those beautiful sea-green eyes and he would know in his soul that with her death and that of the baby she carried, went his heart. Although he would sire more heirs, beginning immediately, he would never love again, he would never open his hardened heart again, and he would never trust a woman again.

24.

Maliz didn't need to see Boaz's face to know that the young Zar was struggling with his emotions and that something had happened to force his hand. His suggestion to the Zar had been nothing but a ruse-a stab in the dark to see what such wickedness could yield. He had no idea whether the Spur and the Zaradine had sneaked any time alone; he suspected not, given the close scrutiny under which they all lived during that time in the desert. But he had no doubt at all that the pair of them harbored unspoken desires for each other, perhaps even a forbidden love pact. Maliz believed the Zar would not find any possible forgiveness for a cuckolding. "You've brought me here, ready to talk. So tell me."

"The Khalid man unwittingly betrayed Lazar to the stupid youngster Fayid, who dreams of following in his hero's footsteps and being a soldier in the Protectorate."

"Really?" Maliz could barely keep it from his voice. "What have you discovered?"

"I shall tell you nothing until you tell me what it is that you are offering and what it is that you were alluding to earlier about your powers. I want to know who you are."

"I told you, who I am is irrelevant."

"Not to me."

"I matter not, trust me. What is relevant is what I can do for you."

"Which is?"

"I hear anger and bitterness in your voice. I presume you want someone to pay for whatever is prompting it. You would not be a Zar if you didn't believe you have right on your side to take revenge against any offense to the Crown or to you personally."

"Go on."

Maliz shrugged. "I offer you the ability to take whatever revenge you seek."

"How?"

"I can make you more powerful than you ever dreamed possible."

"What makes you think I dream of power?"

"Surely all rulers enjoy power."

"In all likelihood, yes, but not necessarily do they dream of wanting more power than they already have. And I am already the most powerful person in Percheron. I have no design on empire."

"Oh, nicely said, Zar Boaz, but either you are not worthy of your title or you're simply too insular and immature to understand your role."

The silence that met his cutting sarcasm was frigid and Maliz half expected Boaz to start howling for Lazar and his trusted blade. But he had to risk it. Had to take the chance that he could blind Boaz with so much anger that he could no longer think in that straight, rational way of his.

"It seems you wish yourself an early death, Tariq," Boaz said, and Maliz could hear the control being exerted to keep his voice steady.

"Not at all. But the time is here for honesty-bluntness even-and you must understand that your very throne is at stake if you continue to allow people to treat you like a child. Your mother probably wishes you were still a baby so that she could run the realm without you; the harem girls probably continue to hope that you are not ready to take much interest in them yet; Ana thinks of you as a boy but lusts for the touch of a real man-a foribidden one; whilst Lazar has clearly always carried a torch for the young woman you have made your wife, marking her with his own scent at the first opportunity. Pez has spent years keeping you young and giggling at his silly antics-you're the only one who finds him even vaguely amusing. And now the Galinseans are here to overthrow the boy Zar. Think about it. It's time for you to show that you are a man, that you alone will make decisions for Percheron. What you're doing here in the desert is part of that. Don't be fooled, this will be the making of your reign, but you need to cut yourself away from those who do not serve you as honestly or loyally as I do."

"And what do you want? Please don't insult me by saying you just wish to serve, I no longer believe that."

"I serve Zarab."

"Zarab? What has our god to do with this?"

"Everything!" Maliz laughed softly. It was the most honest word he'd spoken to the Zar since he'd taken over Tariq's body.

"I don't understand. You are my Grand Vizier but you talk as though you wish to be a priest."

"You don't have to understand. You just have to know that what motivates me is embedded in the notion of serving my god."

He watched Boaz step away, hands on hips under the moonlight. "I'm lost, totally lost."

"Do you recall the name Maliz?"

"The warlock-turned-demon from myth who supposedly turned Beloch and Ezram to stone?"

"The very one. Well, I support his notion to keep Percheron's faith clean, untainted by those who work to see the Goddess Lyana returned to her pedestal."

"You jest!"

"No. I speak only the truth. I am not interested in riches or the sort of power that other men crave, although I do enjoy them. But my life is committed to preserving the faith of our region. I am a mystic; I can tap into powers that are way beyond anything you can imagine."