KeYnNamM 

The Man-with-No-Name,

the King of No-One’s-Land

By: Ruwen Rouhs
(© 2022 by the author)

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

RRouhs@tickiestories.us

Chapter 23
The Reckoning

Ikken could not sleep. KeYnNamM had let Tanan and him in on the plan before going to bed. "I have to take you guys with me." Ikken was on fire, but Tanan protested, "I want to stay with my mother! Please! I've had to live without her for so long! Why KeYnNamM?" The Amestan's heart ached, he understood Tanan. "But the prosecutor has seen you here with me. He knows that I hate the governor! And he knows that I also consider him to be the mass murderer! He will surely attribute the attack to me and since he is a just man, will look for me, even have to look. And where would he do it? At your mother’s place! Think it over?!"

"I would look here, in the Thirsty Camel! Where else?" interjected Ikken, and KeYnNamM added, "Whether the attack succeeds or not, we must get out of town immediately after I killed him, for the police will turn the whole town upside down looking for the perpetrators."

Now that half of the night had just passed, the two waited impatiently for KeYnNamM. As agreed, they took nothing with them but their knives and a short, thin, strong rope with an anchor claw on one end. The Amestan was better equipped. In addition to the long, ancient dagger with engravings in his belt, he carried a fire-pot in a bag and a second one with food.

Ikken led KeYnNamM and Tanan through small alleys to the plateau of the hill above the city and from there to the backside of the governor's mansion. Suddenly they were standing at the top of garden wall of the governor's mansion and they could look down to the house. Everything was quiet. No sound came from the house, no light indicated that anyone was still awake. Rappelling down into the garden from above did not make sense, since a safe escape route was necessary. They therefore crept along the wall, to the steep trail at the end of the garden.  There a tall tree stretched its branches over its wall. KeYnNamM threw the rope over the wall. When the anchor claw was firmly in place, first Ikken, then Tanan, and last KeYnNamM climbed over it and sneaked to the house. The door to the upper floor was unlocked and KeYnNamM pushed it open.

They listened into the darkness. An agonized snore could be heard from the lower floor, "Probably one of the old sisters! She's asleep!" hissed KeYnNamM and slinked through  the dark hallway. At the first door he stopped and listened. No sound penetrated through the wood. With his knife, he searched the gap between the door and the door frame for a latch to push back. When he could not feel one and pressed gently against it, it gave way with a creak.

KeYnNamM peered into the dim room. In the middle of it stood the huge bed. A pile of rumpled blankets and pillows covered it, and on it lay a thick, baggy body that moved slightly. The Amestan held his breath and listened. Suddenly, he heard a strangled "Ouch!" behind him. He was about to turn around when Ikken hissed, "It's nothing! Tanan just bumped his foot." KeYnNamM hissed back, "Stay behind me, I have to do this alone!"

A heavy breathing from the bed warned him, the bag moved and KeYnNamM tried to hold his breath. The governor tossed in his bed, groaned deeply, and suddenly sat up. In the twilight they stared at each other. The governor, still half asleep, cleared his throat, coughed softly, and asked in a hoarse voice into the dark, "Who is it? Lalla, is it you, you old witch? Are you hearing ghosts again? There are none today!" when he received no answer, he stretched out again "Go to sleep old hag! Everything is all right. I don't need your help today!" and the governor began to snore immediately.

KeYnNamM waited another moment, then with a leap was at the bed, jumped on it, pushed the governor's head back, put his sharp dagger to his throat. The governor woke up, tried to push KeYnNamM back with both arms, tried to sit up and push the stranger sitting on him off the bed. That's when KeYnNamM stabbed and cut his throat. But the governor was strong, he was struggling, his heart was beating wildly and blood was pulsing in jerks from the cut carotid artery. His body reared up and his arms and legs twitched convulsively. When Ikken and Tanan realized that KeYnNamM was struggling to hold the wildly twitching body down on the bed, they jumped in and helped him push the governor down.

The sudden noise had roused Lalla and her sister from their sleep. They suddenly stood in the doorway and began to shriek at the top of their voices. KeYnNamM let go of the governor's body and rushed to the door, knocking the two old women to the floor. "Quick, leave him lying there. He's done for!" he shouted over his shoulder to the boys, and the three fled for the exit into the garden. While the Ikken and Tanan ran for the tree, KeYnNamM stopped short, lit the firepot, and hurled it into the hallway. His momentum was so great, however, that the pot flew all the way to the stairs and rolled down the steps, breaking as it hit the floorboard. A sticky mass of stone oil and resin poured over the stone tiles of the hallway and flared up. As the three climbed over the wall and lowered themselves down the rope, they could watch the governor's servants fleeing the smoke from the house into the garden.

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Ikken knew a sneak path from the city hill down to the souk. As they crept through the confusing maze of its alleys, Tanan still couldn't spot the way of the "Thirsty Camel".  After a while, he became restless. "Aren't we going home? My mother will be looking for me!" Ikken whispered back, "No, Baba has explained to you why we cannot go to your mother Now we are right at my old sleeping place in the city wall. Through the loophole we can get out of the city unseen! Then they will look for us in vain in the city." "Ikken is right." added KeYnNamM, "For our safety and for your mother's safety, we must leave the city immediately, because the city gates will be double and triple guarded in a moment!"

Arriving at the stall of Ikken’s auntie ruined by fire, KeYnNamM and Tanan tore two boards from the barrier while Ikken stood guard. As soon the entrance of the two had crawled through the passageway and waited for Ikken in front of the city wall. He barricaded the passage into his former living cave as best he could from the inside and crawled to the others.

At the foot of the city wall, all three fell to the ground, exhausted. The excitement had affected them more than the effort itself. Tanan in particular was exhausted. Although he had watched his grandparents in the village when animals were slaughtered, he had never been there when a man's throat was cut. He hadn't seen the governor’s blood, but he had smelled it and felt the governor's strength suddenly leave him.

Ikken was different. The governor's shocked him, but besides the shock, a sense of triumph dominated. He had so often imagined how he would avenge his father that this feeling defeated the shock. In addition, he had only been able to save his life and that of Yufayyur on the campaign by killing his enemy. He therefore sat down besides Tanan, who was squatting on the ground in despair, and began to stroke him, "You mustn't be sad, Tanan. The governor has murdered Tadla, he has murdered many other girls and even more boys, much smaller boys than you and me. He murdered my father, he murdered my old auntie, and he would have murdered KeYnNamM, too, if Aylal and I had not helped him."

Meanwhile KeYnNamM walked along the wall to the city gate. It was still closed. Usually the guardhouse was manned by only two guards at night, but today the gate was secured and he heard the guards discussing loudly. Now he was sure that the death of the governor was already known and the guard at the gate had been reinforced. He was tempted to knock on the gate so that the guards could testify that he had spent the night outside the city.  After a second thought he discarded the idea and returned to Ikken and Tanan. "We have to leave! The guards at the gate are already reinforced.  If they don't find us in the city, they will search the surrounding area for us as well. Let’s go!" When Tanan shook his head, the Amestan took him in his arms. "We have to, Tanan, come on! They'll probably look in the Inn of Thirsty Camel first. It's better if they don't find you there and your mother can say she last saw you the evening before!" In the twilight they stole away as inconspicuously as they could. They took the small, seldom used  trail to the Border-Lands to the east of Tinghir,  because they had to avoid being seen by the merchants and farmers who were heading for the market in the city.

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Prosecutor Anir and the City Captain arrived at the governor's villa at the same time. The fire in the lower floor had already gone out, but the entire governor's villa was filled with thick, acrid smoke. For this reason, neither the policemen nor any of the fire guards had penetrated inside the house so far. Lalla, the older of the governor's two servants and his former wet nurse, and her sister Kella, wailed like a banshee. At the same time however they cursed the policemen, the fire guards, the entire town, while simultaneously begged them for help, "The governor, dear Gwasila, our dear Gwasily, help him! Help him! He's in there!"

As soon as they caught sight of Prosecutor Anir and the City Captain, the two rushed toward them, "He is up there, the governor! There our little Gwasily. He is laying in his blood and no one will get him out! Help! Failures! Dolts! Ingrates!" The policemen pushed the two away and the captain of the fire guards reported to Anir and the City Captain, "They told us, the governor is up in his bedroom! In his blood! He was slain, murdered! One his servants spoke of three giants who had entered the house and killed the governor, the other told of ghosts in wide clothes, of Jinns, of a giant Jinn and two dwarfs, dwarfs with swords and spears." Then he pointed to the garden, "We couldn't get to the upper floor through the stairwell, so we went there through the garden. The upper story is no longer on fire, but everything is full of smoke. I myself got as far as to the governor's bedroom. There is a dead body lying on the bed."  "Is it the governor?"  "It's hard to tell, but I think they're both right. In any case, it's the body of a massive, heavy man."

The Town Captain and Anir, the Prosecutor, found the governor in the bedroom, i.e., his bled-out corpse, his throat cut, his body cramped and bloodied like the bed. A murder which fire had failed to cover up.

As soon as it was light enough, the prosecutor and the town captain began to look for clues. They found neither the murderer’s tool, nor traces that pointed to three perpetrators. Three there were, according to the servants, though it was clear to both that they had not been Jinns. "Jinns cast a spell over somebody, Jinns kill with looks, but not with knives," concuded the Town Captain. “The governor has been killed by men, or one big man and two smaller ones.”

Immediately, Anir suspected KeYnNamM and his sons, that is, Ikken and Tanan to be the culprits. Then he remembered the liberation of the Amestan. Wasn't the taller of the boys who freed the Amestan called Ikken. As he had learned in the meantime, the boy had every reason to kill Governor Gwasila. Anir had been working in Tinghir for a few months only, but his housekeeper had told him about the governor's machinations, which led to the death of Ikken and Aylal's father! Anir therefore decided to keep his suspicions to himself for the time being. The Amestan and Ikken were sympathetic to him, as was Tanan, who he suspected was Tirizi's missing son. Anir fretted about his subjectivity, but then decided he could not voice his suspicions until he had proof that the three had killed the governor.

Walking through the upper floor, the Town Captain became suspicious. The governor's sleeping palace was shorter than the hallway, and when he estimated the length of the rooms on the other side of the hallway, he concluded that there must be a second, smaller room next to the sleeping room. A room with no access? That was unusual. He tapped on the part of the hallway wall behind which he suspected a secret room. It sounded hollow. He went into the bedroom, pushed back the wall hangings that covered the side wall and began tapping the wall. Again, it sounded hollow. He turned to Lalla, who was standing at the foot of the bed by the dead body, "Is there a room behind the wall? A secret room?"

She looked up for a moment, pretended not to understand, and began her lamentations again. The city captain, however, had noticed that she was not looking at him, but at one of the carpets hanging on the wall. When he pushed the carpet away, Kella immediately began to protest. "That was Gwasila's favorite tapestry! No one is allowed to touch it, no one is allowed to move it, just me and my sister." Now Anir also became aware of what was happening. "The Town Captain and I are investigating the case. We must investigate everything if the murder is to be solved!" Now both Lalla and Kella protested. They stood in front of the carpet, "No, no! There's nothing behind here." As two city guards pushed them away, they scratched and bit. A narrow door appeared behind the carpet. The city captain, wrenched it open and stood at the top of a spiral staircase, the end of which was lost in darkness.

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The spiral staircase led steeply down into the dark. Since they wanted to climb down, Anir and the Town Captain needed light. While the captain searched the bed room for candles or lanterns, Anir immediately spotted several lanterns on a shelf in the room the staircase went into the dark. With three policemen to secure them, they began to climb down the steep staircase.

"Thirty-five steps!" the city captain announced as they stood at their foot and advanced into the corridor turning left, "Many more steps than would be necessary to reach the first floor of the house. The stairs end lower, deeper in the underground!" A corridor barely the height of a man continued into the depths. It ended after about 150 steps at a wooden door. Since the passage made several bends, both the captain and Anir initially had no idea where it ended.

The soldiers broke down the boarded-up door. It opened up in a large oval room. The faint lantern light just reached its walls. In the center of the room stood a narrow, tall rack. Next to the frame, a kind of stretcher on wheels, were candles in holders. Anir and the City Captain crossed the room cautiously, always scanning the floor with one foot, fearing a trap. At the foot of the rack they stopped and realized in the dim light that it was really a stretcher on legs, on which a leather-covered mattress was laying. Only when they had lit the candles in the candelabras the room was illuminated enough for them to survey it.

While both were pondering about purpose of the stretcher, they were startled by a shout from the door, "Over there, look, there are people! There people leaning against the wall." Anir looked up. In the candlelight he could vaguely make out three figures that seemed to be alive in the flickering light. The fluttering silhouettes on the wall reinforced the creepy impression. "Ghosts? No, they're just dolls! Look, just dolls in colorful clothes!" Anir shouted to the policemen.

Up close, they saw that they were wooden dolls. Two were dressed like young girls, with wide, colorful blouses over the even wider skirt. The doll’s heads were covered by a headscarf, an aleshu, decorated with golden leaves. Around the neck of the dolls hung chains of shiny glass beads. Despite the jewelry, the dolls appeared dead, as they lacked eyes.

"I recognize the clothes!" exclaimed one of the soldiers who had come forward. "That's the kind of dress Tadla used to wear when she went to market!”   "Sure, it's her dress!" exclaimed another, "When my wife saw Tadla wearing it at the market, she immediately wanted the same one! I'm sure it's her dress! But..." he suddenly became silent and began to vomit. When he had composed himself to some extent, he continued, "If it is so, and I believe it is so, these are the clothes of the murdered Tadla and the .....!" he pointed to the other doll, "these are those of the young girl from the Border-Land who was found dead at the beginning of the year!" he turned to Anir, "I can swear to that! Just yesterday I was studying the reports of the past murders in detail.”

Anir turned to the third doll. She was smaller, lankier, and wore no colorful girl's clothes or jewelry, but a loose earth-brown shirt and knee-length pants. The latter hung loosely from under the shirt and seemed to be tied to the doll only by a rope. "A boy, by size, a little boy! Maybe 10 years old, or only 9." Anir stared questioningly at the town captain, "When was the last boy found murdered? This year, last year?"

"The last one, at the end of winter. He had accompanied his parents into town to the market and disappeared during the afternoon."

The older of the policemen spoke up, "I found the boy, his body, I wanted to say! He was horribly battered!" and closed his eyes. "His parents never knew how horrible the body looked. The murderer had stripped the poor boy naked, had strangled him, cut off his penis and rammed a pointed wood into his anus!"

"And the testicles? Were they cut off too?" wanted Anir to know, remembering that the governor's favorite food was little boys' testicles.  "They were not found, while the cut penis was put in the dead boy's mouth."

Anir observed that the brain of the city captain worked in high speed. Then the captain asked, "Prosecutor, do you also believe what I believe?" Anir only nodded!

Back at the stretcher, they examine the leather mattress more closely. The leather cover of it had been wiped clean, but they still found damp, sticky spots on its sides and in the seams. As the captain scraped off some of the dark mass with his fingernail and smelled it, he groaned, "Blood, clotted blood!" On her underside of the mattress he found more traces of bloo. Built into the bottom of the stretcher were drawers. They contained knives, long needles, rope, and an assortment of other instruments of torture. Wide straps hung down from the corners of the stretcher for tying the victims to it.

After this initial frantic examination, the five men were in shock. The youngest of the policemen squatted on the floor and cried uncontrollably. "I liked Tadla so much! She was so beautiful. I wanted to ask her to marry me every time I met her, but didn't dare! It's my fault that she was murdered!" Anir crouched down and tried to comfort him, but in vain. The others stared wordlessly at the ground.

Later they remembered that the bodies were always found at the foot of the city wall. They suspected that the murderer, and everything pointed to the governor as the culprit, had not taken the dead back up the stairs to the villa and then carried them across the street to the square in front of the courthouse and to the wall. Therefore, this room had to have another exit. They carefully searched the walls of the room of horrors. When they were about to give up, the youngest policeman, full of anger and despair, kicked the wall in front of which the doll with the boys' clothes was standing. A camouflaged door swung back and gave access to a low corridor that led upwards. It ended outside at a stone wall in a passageway between the governor's official residence in the town house and the City wall. “That is the passage by which the dead children were brought out of the torture chamber and then thrown over the wall a little further towards the town," the captain stated in a hoarse voice.

Back in the torture chamber, the five men only now smelled how disgusting it reeked in there. It reeked not only of stale air, but like in a slaughterhouse, of blood and excrements.

The town captain ordered the youngest policemen to go upstairs and have the two servants brought down. He was also asked to get more lanterns and candles. "You stay upstairs comrade and rest. You have had enough today. Let others bring them down, by force if necessary. Let the scrivener come too, I want to interrogate the two women down here!"

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They could hear Lalla and Kella already scolding and arguing on the stairs. When Lalla called the city captain an ungrateful idiot and an enemy of the emperor, Kella her sister tried to calm her. Kella, in turn, berated the prosecutor with a torrent of curses and Lalla tried to hush her. But she was not to be calmed, "The inexperienced snoot, the insane shyster, one whom the devil should get in a hurry." she smacked.

As soon as the two entered the torture chamber, the sisters were once again one heart and soul. "What are you doing in Gwasila’s sanctuary? Who gave you permission to enter here? He, the Emperor's most loyal servant is murdered and you are spying on him instead of looking for his murderers?" shouted Lalla.  "Yes, Gwasily has done justice here in the name of the Emperor! Here he has cleansed the land of evil spirits! Do you not hear the Jinns howling?" Kella wanted to know. "Kel Essuf will come and tear your hearts out of your chests! Be cursed you! Three times cursed!"

"Down on your knees!" the City Captain shouted at them. When they refused, he shouted to the policemen who had brought them down, "Knock their legs off!" When they finally knelt, he roared at Lalla, "What was the governor doing down here? When was the last time he was here in this room? Where did he mutilate and murder Tadla? Here?" "This spawn of hell, this dance girl who turns men's heads, doesn't pray to God, doesn't pay homage to our Emperor? Yes, we captured f this dance girl or him!"  "Yes, this spawn of the devil, Gwasily chose her, and we brought her to him!" cried Kella full of conviction. "Our Gwasila, the faithful servant of our Emperor had to cast the evil spirit out of her!" "Yes, she confessed everything! In the end she confessed everything! How she enchanted the men, how she turned the men into women, useless for the fight against the desert sons and the king of No-One's-Land!" "It was she, this ally of the devil!"

Now Anir could not keep still, "And the boys? Did the small boys also seduce the men, did they also help the desert sons in the name of the devil."  "Not the desert sons! But the Amestan, the accursed Amestan, who protected the people of the Draa. The boys helped him to deprive the emperor of his tribute!"

"That's enough! Scrivener did you write down the statements exactly, word for word?" Now the city captain turned to his policemen, who stood there stunned and horrified, "Did you hear that, did you hear the two servants Governor Gwasila? Did you get what they revealed? Now it is clear without a doubt that the governor is the mass murderer and those two are his helpers." He waited until the policemen woke up from their stupor and looked the prosecutor in the distraught face, "Now it is up to you Prosecutor Anir to put those two on trial and I will immediately inform the Emperor of the misdeeds of his governor."

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To be continued...

Posted 10/07/2022