Road to Justice

▲

As the sun rose into his afternoon parlour, he spotted Zubaidah moving south towards Tisifun, lounging atop Sirrush. She had been around Reim for the last few weeks, training up her wounded leg and bettering her body as a whole with the Yambhala gladiators at the Coliseum, but she could not leave her hometown for long. After all, what would the Ash Company do without their head executive? Even if the Hashashin had told her - in no uncertain terms - that she should be resting from work, and healing up after her fight against the Vestige, Zubaidah could not be kept away. Especially not now that rumours of the Silver Scales being punished had reached ears. She wondered if Kunla had heard as well, and found peace in this justice. After all, it had been her failures with him that had resulted in her pursuit of mastering Marax with the Yambhala.

And so, Zubaidah entered her hometown for the first time in weeks, taking in the salmon-coloured tapestries which now hung over the old Parthevian walls, and stopping off for tea with a friendly merchant. Over the last two years, Tisifun had been raised into a bastion of Parthevian culture and all-around safehaven for its people, housing a newly-surging population. It seemed that the citizens who had fled or been cast-out into the wilderness after the revolution two decades ago were returning in droves, bringing life back to the once-empty streets. As she passed by the Nazairi markets, Zubaidah could see new faces working alongside the usual culprits, her old friend Kizi tossing over a bag of figs with nothing more than a toothy grin. She had offered to pay Kizi back so many times - and been refused just as many - that the Nazairi workers were accustomed to shut their registers when she walked past as a joke, in case she tried to slip them a coin or two.

Sighing as they did exactly that, shutting all their registers with muffled laughter, Zubaidah glared intently at Kizi and declared that she would have to increase the Nazairi’s bonuses if they kept refusing her coin. Giggles and half-confused murmurs followed, wondering how she could afford to raise them any higher. After all, with the amount of trade which Tisifun and the northern Parthevian towns got nowadays, the Nazairi workers made enough money from their weekly sales that their bonuses from the Ash Company seemed unnecessary.

As she left the Nazairi markets, however, Zubaidah would notice a newly-refurbished building outside the colourful bazaar, red marble shining in the afternoon sunlight. Rushing over, she would notice that Batuttah was outside the entrance, draping tapestries over the wall’s railings, ‘If it isn’t uncle Batuttah!’ As they hugged one another, Zubaidah began to catch him up on the past month, until Batuttah raised the topic of this new building, calling it the Sariten courthouse, ‘I’d heard that the Silver Scales had been punished.' ‘It was our first trial! We managed to connect them with bribes from Parsif.’ ‘So I guess that this new courthouse had the starring role to play there?’ ‘Well, it was mostly the newly-drafted legal code!’ ‘All in the span of four weeks?’ ‘It has been in the works for much longer, but was only possible with the resources of the Hashashin. Talking about them, I believe that you might want to discuss the matter with me, Kihya and head-mentor Salleh! Why not come in? We have much to show you!’