Ghali's Story

He didn't make it far, and he hadn't really expected to. It was lucky, in a way - Ghali had set of well into the afternoon, and the sun would be setting soon. The desert could be treacherous at night.

He heard the jeep before he saw it - the rev of the engine carried clearly over the sand - and turned to run from it. Cresting the top of a dune, however, the jeep caught sight of him and Ghali sensed the driver hesitate before beginning pursuit.

Ghali ran, but not fast enough. The jeep bore down on him, swerving in erratic patterns over the sand, and a wave of noise began to reach him - shouting and arguing and the sound of music. It occurred to him exactly at that moment that perhaps this was not one of Azim's jeeps, and the shock of the unanticipated momentarily stunned him - he lost direction and stopped. The jeep's driver, seeing his hesitance, revved his engine and charged Ghali. The cries from inside the vehicle grew louder and more frantic, rising in pitch and frenzy and sounding more and more like war cries, and abruptly Ghali realized that he hadn't really considered the possibility that Azim's people had been in a corridor, passing between owned territories. But he was close to Wafra, wasn't he? Who lived to the east of Wafra? No one, supposedly, but in the desert, all things could change...

The jeep fishtailed and swung out, closer to him now, gaining footing, sand spinning out from beneath its wheels and peppering the dunes behind it. Ghali yelped and burst forward, adrenaline high and feet pounding futilely in the sand. Even then, he knew he wasn't going to make it - there was no way he could close the distance, even if the jeep had been a hundred yards away. The shouting was louder now, and there was laughter mixed in, and Ghali worried that these might not be an organized group at all - rather, one of the informal packs of men and abandoned youth that coalesced, briefly and violently, in the desert and disbanded just as quickly.

The jeep skidded to a stop and Ghali heard the doors snap open and he ran, ran, ran, but his chest was heaving and even the setting sun was hot in the summertime, and the sand was yielding too much, then not enough and he couldn't find his footing and he hadn't done this in so long, not since he had lived at Wafra, and there were footsteps running up behind him, and his robes were tripping him, and then there was a sort of dull thud that he didn't recognize at first, but then he was facedown in the sand and a man was lying on top of him, squealing in victory.

~:~

It can at least be said for Azim's patience that he did not beat Ghali the minute they were reunited. Given the circumstances, of course, it would have been socially impossible, but the thought did cross the sheikh's mind, and he admirably restrained himself.
"Cover him." Al-Aera snapped at the teenager who was ostensibly standing guard by Ghali. The youth scowled at Al-Aera, then hesitated before scampering off to retrieve Ghali's lost scarf and shawl.

Rahman, the man to whom Ghali had been brought, twisted his lips in some rendition of a smile and patted the carrier's leg. Ghali flinched away as far as his chains allowed him, and Azim tensed in his seat.
"Such a traditionalist," Rahman rasped, a hint of amusement creeping into his voice, "To cover such a pretty thing."
Al-Aera ignored this.
"I have come to negotiate." the sheikh began, his teeth clenching, jaw obviously resisting even allowing such words to escape. A negotiation was between two civil men; this was extortion from a madman. Rahman hmm'd as if thinking his options over, and Azim took in his surroundings. The room they had found to meet in was obviously part of some long-abandoned warehouse building, and had been set upon in full force by Rahman and his men. The room stank, and scattered intermittently were piles of dirty rags - for wearing or burning, Azim could not tell - shoddily constructed or broken furniture, miscellaneous piles of mechanical desert-scavenged parts, filthy jugs that could be guessed to hold equally water or oil, and a worrisomely large number of apparently-functional modern weapons.

Rahman coughed into one greasy hand and laughed. His pink skin was burnt off in places - on his hands, along his cheeks and, Azim had noticed, the back of his neck. A foreigner, then. A man unused to the sun. A madman exile who had risen to some miniscule amount of power here, in the land of feral youth and villages of ghosts. He had a scar running horizontally along the brow of his right eye, and no name to give Azim other than 'Rahman.' His accent was curious, but difficult to discern beneath the rasp of his worn voice.
"The way I see things," Rahman began, giving again a malformed semblence of a smile from between cracked lips, "You have come to beg."
It took all of Azim's effort not to command his men to attack at that moment.
"I have come to negotiate," Al-Aera repeated, "For the return of my carrier. With many thanks for the care you have taken with him."
Rahman reached out again with one hand to touch Ghali, and Azim did not miss the fear that passed across his bride's face.
"And just what," Rahman inquired condescendingly, "Do you think you have that I want?"
Al-Aera stopped himself short of actually answering that, and glanced away to think instead.

The youth returned with the rest of Ghali's clothes balled up in his hands, wrinkled and smudged with grease and some form of oily mud. He glared at Azim, then shoved the cloth roughly at Ghali. Al-Aera felt a wave of sympathy for his carrier that was immediately countered by annoyance. Ghali could damn well wear whatever he had decided to run away in, dirty or not. He glared at his bride until Ghali began, haltingly, to dress again.

"Water." Azim offered, finally.
"I have water." Rahman answered.
"Gold."
"I don't need gold."
"Oil."
Rahman laughed loudly.
"Do you think we are barbarians, Mister Al-Aera?"
Behind him, the men gathered intermittently around the area laughed as well. Azim bristled and chose not to answer the question. Rahman reached forward for his cup and took long swallows of the dark tea in it. Azim had been offered none.
"I believe," Rahman began, "That you are able to acquire something of much more interest to me." he smiled to himself, then his features sharpened. "One for ten. Carriers."
The room fell quiet as Rahman's men listened intently for the sheikh's response. Revulsion made Azim nearly vomit, but he bit it back and kept his features unresponsive.
"Fine."
Shock showed on Rahman's face before he recovered, glancing nervously back at his men and casting Al-Aera a suspicious glare.
"And where will you get them?" he snapped, fidgeting his hands on the arms of his broken chair. Azim shook his head.
"You leave that to me. But if you want ten, you'll have ten. So long as you give me my carrier now."
Rahman again narrowed his eyes, feeling wrong-footed and sensing himself losing control of the situation.
"And when will I get them?" he demanded.
"Within the month."
"I want them breeding-ready."
Bile rose in Azim's throat. A buzz of conversation rose among the gathered men; somewhere in the back, a fight broke out.
"They will be."
The two men stared at each other for a moment. Rahman spoke.
"If you betray me, Al-Aera..."
Azim tilted his head in graceful recognition of the threat.
"Of course."

~:~

Ghali knew better than to speak at this juncture, unless he was spoken to. He kept his mouth shut and his eyes focused on the floor of the vehicle for the duration of the journey back to Al-Aera's camp. Anger was absolutely radiating off of the sheikh, and the feelings he got from the men who had accompanied him were none too forgiving either.

They arrived back at the camp, and Al-Aera personally escorted Ghali, who had not yet been unchained, into the main yard. Azim's people milled around, some occupied with a task, some not; but all stopped what they were doing and looked up in interest as the group arrived and the sheikh's carrier was marched through the center of camp and into the sheikh's tent. The second they were alone, Ghali decided to begin last-minute negotiations.
"Azim, I'm sorry, I didn't know - I didn't think that there was territory to the east, I thought we were farther south, I thought I could - "
"I don't care," Azim interrupted him smoothly, " - what you thought. I only care what you did."
Ghali fell quiet.
"You betrayed me. You ran from me. You crossed without treaty into someone else's territory. You disrupted everything. You cost us time, fuel, gold, manpower. You forced me," he snarled, leaning in closer, his jaw tensing, "To negotiate with a madman. You terrified my people." Azim's angry eyes focused on Ghali's face. "You pay for these crimes. Is that understood?"
Ghali kept his eyes on the ground and did not look up at Al-Aera.
"I'm not a criminal, I just - "
Azim backhanded him without hesitation, and when Ghali glanced back up, the sheikh was standing with his arms crossed across his chest.
"Is that understood?" he repeated.
Ghali set his jaw, but nodded.
"Understood."
Without warning, Azim struck Ghali again, and then again, and again, and again. When he stopped, his chest was heaving with emotion.
"Understand this, Ghali." he growled. "Never again. Never again."

The next blow put him on the ground, where Ghali found himself disoriented momentarily; he lost the horizon line, couldn't determine up. The room tilted and fell back into place. Al-Aera approached and stood above him, some kind of implement in his hand, and Ghali only then realized how badly he was going to be beaten.

Al-Aera stripped him down to his underclothes first and attached his chains to a post that had been set into the ground. Then he began.

It was his philosophy, he told Ghali as the whip cut into his naked skin for the fifteenth time, that one should never have to beat a carrier twice. The first beating, he philosophized as he kicked Ghali once, twice, four times in the ribs, should be severe enough that it remains in the carrier's mind forever. It should remind him always - this as the lash slapped down over already-wounded skin and made Ghali scream - that his husband is his leader, to whom he owes his obedience. He should never forget, Al-Aera said, as he beat the soles of Ghali's feet hard enough to make them bruise and bleed, that disobedience has its just rewards.

When he felt there had been enough of the whip and the lash and beating Ghali with his hands, Al-Aera brought the sobbing carrier a goatskin of water and held it for him to drink from while he lay collapsed. When it was emptied, he took it away and returned to stand over Ghali, a shadow against the firelit interior of the tent.
"This," he said, quietly. "Was the last time I will beat you. If you ever," he continued, and his voice was gravel and steel, "Ever try to run from me again," here, he dragged his hand over Ghali's painful feet, swollen where the soles had been worked over, "I will break both of these. Is that understood?"
Ghali swallowed and nodded. Azim's voice darkened.
"Speak."
"Yes. It's understood."
The sheikh paused, then straightened up.
"And if you ever betray me again..." his hand wandered up the length of Ghali's body, down his arms, to his bound hands. "I break both of these."
Ghali refused to flinch as Azim's touch moved on, brushing two calloused fingers across his chin, then his lips.
"Is that understood, habib?"
Ghali jerked his chin up, almost out of the touch of Azim and fire blazed in his eyes.
"Yes. It's understood."

~:~