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Daroga awakened Erik from his fitful sleep, his words hurried and sharp, “Tonight, you must leave. I know where you can go as you make your way to the sea.”
Erik had fallen from the Shah’s favor. He knew too much: the secret passageways, the trap doors, the mazes of mirrors, the torture chambers. Erik had dispensed with the Shah and the little Sultana’s enemies until he had made himself one. It was dangerous to be the keeper of secrets.
And now he fled so as to not meet the fate of so many others who had been at the end of his rope.
In the shadowed alleys of the old quarter, he would be another masked figure, moving unseen amongst wine-soaked revelry.
He clung to the shadows in the mahalla shimmering in the festival’s glow. Throughout this part of Barforush, in the most northern part of Mazandaran near the sea, lanterns swayed like stars caught in the web of night, their flickering light casting gilded shadows upon the walls of the Jewish quarter. The scent of halva and spiced wine hung heavy in the air, a reminder that tonight was meant for joy. It was Purim. A celebration of survival, a night of reversals, when sorrow was meant to turn to laughter, when the fearful found victory.
There was no better night for a man without a face, a man who wore a mask, to make his escape. The veil that covered his face beneath his eyes billowed as he panted in flight. His damp palms gripped the outer wall of a house. Somewhere deeper in the quarter, voices lifted in song. Children shrieked in delight as they beat Haman’s effigy with wooden sticks, sending feathers and sawdust into the air. It should have been a night of celebration.
Instead, it was the night he fled for his life. He knew those who celebrated tonight would soon fall beneath the Shah’s wrath. They were already dhimmis in this land. Did they not know?
Erik had overstayed his welcome in Mazandaran, the rosy hours extinguished. The Shah’s court no longer needed his illusions, his secrets, his traps . What use was an architect of hidden horrors once the palace was built? Erik knew the pattern well: men like him were not given time to say goodbye. He was fortunate that Daroga had warned him, a quick farewell as Erik slipped over the balcony into the night.
Tonight, he would vanish. But before he did, there was one thing he needed to secure his passage.
Inside the modest home of David Akavan, the air was warm with spice and candlelight. David was a petty tradesman by day, but by night a brilliant musician who was occasionally invited to play inside the palace by night. It was there that he had shown Erik kindness, musician to musician as the two different sorts of outsiders entertained the Shah.
Erik peered inside at David’s family gathered around the low wooden table, listening intently as David’s voice wove the tale of Esther, the Jewish heroine who married the king.
David exhaled, running his fingers over the scroll. “Long ago, a man named Haman sought to destroy us.”
The name Haman was followed by a chorus of boos and rattling noise-makers.
“He was a man of the court, an advisor to King Ahasuerus. He wished to erase the Jews from Persia.”
“A killer like the rest,” Erik murmured as he stepped inside.
The air shifted. It was as if Erik truly were the living corpse, the air around him dying as he entered. David looked at him as if seeing beyond the mask, beyond the golden eyes that gleamed too brightly in the dim room. If his height, his thin frame did not give him away, it would always be his eyes.
“Yes,” David said carefully. “There are always such men. But this time, they failed. Our queen, Esther, was Jewish, though she had hidden it. She revealed herself to the king, risked everything, and saved us.”
Erik watched how the firelight made the ink glisten on the scroll. “And for this, you celebrate?”
“We celebrate survival.” David smiled faintly. “And we mock the ones who sought to destroy us. We wear masks, drink wine, make noise when wicked Haman’s name is spoken. We turn the story upside down.”
Erik’s fingers traced the edge of his mask, his voice almost amused. “Masks, you say?”
David chuckled. “Not like yours, I think.”
The room was warm, filled with the scent of cinnamon and dates, the sound of children’s laughter. It was a strange thing, this joy, this defiance. Erik had spent his life among men who built palaces of cruelty, who drowned their sins in silence and secrets. Yet here was a people who had faced death and chose to answer it with laughter and feasting. They might soon face death once again.
“You should not be here,” David murmured, setting aside his scroll. But there was no fear in his voice. Only knowing.
“I need a way out.” Erik’s voice was silk over steel. “The Shah’s men will come by morning.”
David exhaled, his gaze unreadable. “Then you must leave as our guest. And soon.”
A disguise. A new face, but not of his own making.
Purim was a night of disguises. A night where Jews could move between cities under the guise of festivity and charity. A traveler would not be questioned.
If Erik was to leave, he would leave as one of them.
By midnight, Erik stood outside, dressed in the robes of a Jewish traveler. A turban was wrapped loosely around his masked face. Beside him, David’s grandson, Avram, barely sixteen, shifted nervously as he clutched a small pouch of coins. Avram’s presence was part of the disguise, a fellow performer.
Together, they stepped into the night.
Beyond the gates of the mahalla, the city sprawled before them, labyrinthine and watchful. The festival’s echoes followed them—laughter, drunken songs, the distant crackle of a fire.
And then—the sound of hooves.
A patrol.
Avram sucked in a sharp breath.
Erik did not move. He had worn many masks in his life. Tonight, he would wear that of a pious traveler.
The riders slowed. The lead soldier studied them lazily. “Traveling late?”
Avram bowed his head in careful deference. “We go to Tehran, sir. For the holiday.”
The soldier smirked. “Ah, the night your people mock Haman.”
Avram swallowed. “We… we remember deliverance.”
The man’s eyes flicked to Erik. Too tall. Too thin. Too still. Too foreign.
A slow, quiet moment stretched between them—
And then, from deeper in the city, a scream.
The Purim fires had spread. Somewhere, wood and cloth ignited, and panic surged through the streets. A moment later, shouts rang out—the alarm of men realizing the blaze could consume more than just Haman’s effigy.
The guards turned their heads.
Erik moved.
I could have had the blade in his palm before the guard noticed its absence. And yet the boy’s swift hand was on his wrist. Stop .
The guards rode off, more interested in the fire.
Avram pulled him, and they moved swiftly, through alleys, through corridors of smoke and revelry, through the streets that would have been swarming with the Shah’s men had Erik chosen to run.
Only when the city walls were behind them did Erik finally stop. Avram, breathless, stared at him.
“They will come after you eventually,” the boy whispered.
Erik looked into the dark expanse ahead toward the unknown. But it was not the endless night of the Caspian Sea, where they would look for him. No, it was the dark road ahead towards Tehran. Perhaps his beloved France lay somewhere far over the horizon, on a path he could not yet see.
“They will.” Erik’s breath came steady, his mind already turning. “But we will be long gone.”
“We? This is my home.”
A choice that Erik would have taken from the boy had he made him a fugitive with him by running from the guards.
Somewhere behind them, the flames consumed Haman’s straw effigy. The city laughed as it burned.
Erik pressed a hand to his pocket, a letter in David’s writing that said he was a guest of the Jews and would assist with his safe passage west. Purim was one of the rare times the Jews could travel between cities without scrutiny. He might find his way to Tehran, or Ottoman lands, or even… home.
He turned to the boy, his golden eyes glinting in the darkness. “Tonight, your people celebrate survival.” A pause. “So will I.”
Avram turned back, towards the fire. Like a ghost, Erik turned into the night.