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The Servant of Helaman

By M.D. House

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Confidence coursed through Kishkumen’s veins as he thought about his disguise. With help from his sister, he had darkened his shoulder-length hair with a root-based pigment. He had used similar tinctures to apply exotic ceremonial markings on his face, hands, arms, and even feet. He had trimmed his beard short except at the very center, which was divided into two thin braids more than a handspan long. A small precious stone had been woven into the end of each braid. The stones were ostentatious, but necessary. Along with the tattoos, they drew eyes—eyes that wouldn’t remember much about the features of his face or the nature of his build.
The fine fabric of his clothes, expensively dyed and expertly tailored, soothed his tan skin. He had borrowed them from a trader of exotic garments—without consent, but the owner’s loyalties were uncertain. The attire represented a worthy offering to the cause, whether the trader agreed with the cause or not. The comfortable leather sandals were borrowed, too, and they fit him perfectly. He was picky about his footwear, but especially today, when his feet would need to serve him well.
Altogether, Kishkumen felt proud. It wasn’t his most elaborate disguise, but it might be his most effective.
He didn’t dwell further on his appearance as he sat in the small anteroom with several other merchants and petitioners awaiting their turn to see the chief judge and his advisers in the great Hall of Judgment situated near the center of the mighty city of Zarahemla. He didn’t review his plan of action or his several escape routes again, either. He knew it all perfectly, so he didn’t have to worry about adrenaline or fear confusing his judgment when the time came. He was experienced in his role, and while he took precautions, he wasn’t afraid of death.
Instead, he focused on his motivation, urging the bonfire in his soul to grow, the hungry flames fueled by his fierce desires. The man who should have been the chief judge—the noble Paanchi—had recently been executed for standing firmly and honorably against the coronation of his brother, Pahoran, while his weak-spined, sycophantic brother Pacumeni fawned over the new regime. The high-minded relics of Nephite society had unfairly influenced the election of Pahoran to the judgment seat; they washed out his flaws with endless streams of propaganda, claiming he would carry on the so-called ‘righteous’ traditions of his father.
There was nothing righteous about them.
Pahoran the Elder had revered and collaborated with the bloodthirsty Captain Moroni, whose arrogant, benighted son now commanded the fearsome but overconfident Nephite armies in his place. Together, Pahoran and Moroni had murdered thousands of innocent patriots who honestly strived to influence the government toward a more peaceful coexistence with the Lamanites and a more tolerant, less restrictive code of laws—untethered to the worship of irrationally vengeful gods. The savage and haughty Nephite leaders had hoisted the maddening and hypocritical ‘Standard of Liberty’ in every city and village in the land, while incessantly subjecting the people to fevered fancies buttressing their power. They had labeled their victims ‘king-men,’ executing them as traitors, both with and without sham trials. The Nephites would be far better off with a true and noble king than the rotten lot of judges and generals gorging themselves on their labors.
One of those martyrs was Kishkumen’s father, another his older brother. But he wasn’t as enraged by their deaths as he used to be. His father and brother had died heroes, setting a path for others, like him, to follow. What incensed him now was that the mealy-mouthed, self-righteous Pahoran the Younger occupied the judgment seat and continued to press the cause of the greedy, wealthy Christians on the good people who represented the long-suffering, fair-minded backbone of Nephite success.
Pahoran wouldn’t survive the afternoon.
Kishkumen almost let a smile slip. He doubted his expression would look suspicious, but he maintained his character as a shrewd, serious merchant, a stranger to Nephite and Lamanite lands. He had practiced speaking the Nephite language haltingly, as if he hailed from the mountains and coasts far to the northeast. He sometimes considered how those people suffered, too. The Nephites were aggressive traders, their influence oversized. Foreign merchants now used the Nephite language as the lingua franca in most parts of the known world—north, south, east, and west, all the way to either of the unlimited waters.
Someone called his false name, nudging him out of his smoldering reverie. Normally, he felt a brief spike of natural nervousness when the time to kill drew close, but a profound calm settled upon him. He rose, nodded respectfully at the man who held the door open to the audience chamber, and stepped across the threshold.
There he sat: the pompous chief judge of the Nephites, son of a butcher. No wonder so many Nephites had been emigrating the last few years, many of them traveling far to the north. They couldn’t abide being subject to such scions of heraldic corruption. Pahoran, looking bored and stupid, lifted a lazy hand to grant Kishkumen leave to approach. The distance to the front of the room measured only twenty paces, but the few moments it took to cross seemed to extend, as if Kishkumen labored under the waters of a swift-flowing river. At the halfway mark, he held out the small, ornate box designed to arouse the greed of the Nephite leaders, the inferno of his determination burning away the imagined current. The gold and gems decorating the top and sides of the box sparkled with reflections of the chandeliers and finely sculpted columns of the well-lit chamber of liars.
He stopped two paces from Pahoran and his advisers, then bowed, his torso nearly parallel to the finely-tiled floor decorated with flamboyant specks of gold, silver, and ziff.
“Oh, mighty ones, I bring spices exotic and medicines new. I present to you as example of benefitting more trade between us.” He straightened, pleased at his perfect tone, accent and faulty grammar.
Pahoran nodded with rapacious interest, like a slavering animal, his watery eyes focused on the box. “You may open it.”
As Kishkumen lifted the delicate lid, he finally allowed himself a small smile. Then, in the space of two heartbeats, he withdrew the slender dagger hidden in the spices, tossed the box to the side, and lunged for the chief judge. He knew Pahoran’s arms would come up, that his body would turn slightly, that a look of shock would paint his face. Kishkumen’s knife entered under the ribcage before the first shout, and he waited an extra heartbeat to make sure the thrust moved up to pierce the villain’s heart.
He left the knife embedded in the dying body. Spinning away from the judgment seat to his right, he removed his cloak and flung it at the guard who rushed toward him. The guard used his spear to cast the cloak out of the way, as expected, and Kishkumen was under the weapon and past the man before he could bring the sharp edge to bear against him. Instead of heading for the door at the back of the hall, Kishkumen angled for a window, diving headlong through and tucking into a roll as he hit the ground of an inner garden.
He was back on his feet in an instant, letting the sounds around him guide his instincts in choosing the right escape path across the garden, through another part of the building, and out into the streets of the city. As he turned left, he heard running footsteps behind him. Servants and guards had exited the Hall of Judgment using the same entrance he had used earlier, and they had spotted him.
But he was fast. He hadn’t met anyone faster. He was still in his prime, and he took his physical training seriously, so he had great endurance to complement his speed. He also had a solid plan. He snaked through the streets, aiming in the general direction of the eastern gates and the river beyond. He knew what his pursuers would think—that he had accomplices with a swift boat, awaiting him along the bank of the great watercourse.
Large irrigation canals traversed the city, though, and when he turned up a familiar narrow alley to race along the back side of a warehouse, he took stock of his first escape option. No people cluttered his vision, and the canal he sought lay just ahead, running perpendicular to his line of travel. The deep water flowed north for a significant distance before curving east to eventually disappear under the unconquered stone walls of the storied Nephite capital—the site of his most recent dispensation of glorious justice. His pursuers already lagged well behind, though he knew they had spread out to find his trail. It wouldn’t take them long if he dallied.
He reached the canal and slipped into the water with little sound. Then he took a deep breath and began swimming underwater with the gentle current. He wasn’t tired yet. His body felt strong. He knew he could reach a certain secluded garden a short distance beyond the canal’s bend to the east with only three or four brief stops for air underneath bridges or amid patches of thick overgrowth along the banks. People rarely swam in the canals this early in the day, and those who did were mostly children, so the risk was low that anyone would see him swimming fully clothed and question him. Once at the garden, he would be out of view of any uncovered windows or streets, and he could leave the canal after recovering the weighted waterproof bag he had secured at its bottom several days earlier. He had placed three other such bags around the city: one in a different canal, one on the roof of a warehouse, and another buried in a different garden.
He reached the secluded garden easily, though by the time he broke the surface of the water for the last time the adrenaline had abated. He quickly changed out of his expensive clothes and sandals and into the common attire stored in the bag, which also contained a plain but well-made and finely sharpened dagger in a simple sheath, along with a small, rough towel to dry his hair and rub the markings off his skin. He wrung out the wet clothes and stuffed them with the towel into the bag, which he tossed back into the water, where it sank quickly. If he didn’t retrieve the bag by late summer, when the canals were running low, perhaps someone would find it. But that was an inconsequential worry.
The dye in his hair had completely washed out. With the dagger, he trimmed the ridiculous braids growing out of his chin, shaving the hair close. He kept the two precious stones, placing them in a small pouch he attached to his belt. Then he waited several minutes, listening to the noises of the city. Zarahemla was a huge place, but he was still less than a mile from the Hall of Judgment, which sat like a pregnant and angry sow just a few blocks southeast of the crossroads in the city’s center. Sounds of anger and panic occasionally pierced the air loudly enough for him to hear.
Kishkumen smiled for the second time that day, as broadly as the muscles in his face would allow.

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