by Glen Cook
“Yahoud!”
“Answer me, brat!”
“Yes! Yahoud!”
Children crowded the alley mouth, shouting. The man shifted his grip to Zouki’s arm and dragged him deeper into the shadows. Zouki screamed and kicked and struck out with the skull he still clenched.
Yoseh fought the awe that threatened to overwhelm him whenever he left the Dartar compound. So many people. So many thousands of people, more than he could have conceived of as inhabiting the whole world a year ago. And the bay? Who cold conceive such a sprawl of water, vast as an arm of the Takes, but the blue of heavenstone? With far vaster expanses of sea beyond the Brothers, the headlands flanking the strait that led into the bay.
And the buildings! He did not believe he would get used to the buildings, ever. In his native mountains there were no builded things at all, except ancient fortresses that had begun their fall to ruin centuries ago.
There was an eddy and swirl in the mass of humanity ahead. An exuberant cry went up.
“Medjhah,” Yoseh said. “That’s the mudha-el-bal.” Though that battle cry was still heard in the canyons of the Khadatqa Mountains, here even Dartars were denied it.
“And we should go cut them down, Yoseh?” his brother asked. Medjhah was an old Qushmarrah hand after a year in service. “Eight of us meting out capital punishment to kids amongst a couple thousand of their relatives? If the ferrenghi want them punished, let them see to it themselves. Let them bear the hatred.”
Their elder brother Nogah, who was the captain of their little company, turned in his saddle, said, “Well spoken, Medjhah. Yoseh, we’re not here to die for the ferrenghi. We’re here to take their wages.”
Yoseh grunted. Ahead, one of the children had gone to the side of the street to talk to a crone seated on a mat. Old people lined the street on both sides, some on mats, some seated on steps, some trying to hawk, some just watching the parade of life. It was a miracle they did not get trampled.
The crone pointed. The boy looked, saw Yoseh and his companions. His eyes bugged. He yipped and dashed into the crowd.
“You see?” Medjhah said. “The streets of Qushmarrah are free of heresy and sedition.”
The others laughed. Yoseh did not. As the youngest he was always the brunt of their humor. He looked at the old woman. She looked back, her face as empty as a statue’s. But he could sense the angry hatred within, like the lakes of molten rock simmering deep within the holy mountain Khared Dun. Sometimes the god in the mountain became angry enough to spew fiery destruction upon anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby. The crone reminded him of the holy mountain.
That old woman had lost somebody at Dak-es-Souetta.
He felt the heat climb his cheeks. He tore his gaze from the old woman and called up all his Dartar contempt for city dwellers. But the embarrassment continued to mount. He had forgotten what he was. Now all these sessile goat flops would see a Dartar betraying his feelings.
Yoseh was very conscious of his youth, of his inexperience, of the unfaded newness of the manhood tattoos upon his face, and of the lance across his lap. Medjhah assured him that the self-consciousness would pass, that none of these city veydeen even noticed.
Yoseh knew that. But knowing with the head and knowing with the heart could be separated by the journey of the hundred nights.
Someone shouted. Yoseh saw the children rush to the side of the street. Adults followed after more shouts. The children seemed distressed.
Nogah yelled. He begun swinging the butt of his lance, urging his horse through the press. Yoseh did not understand. He had difficulties with the cants and dialects of Qushmarrah. But something was happening that Nogah considered to be within their venue. He kicked his mount. The camel promptly tried to take a bite out of the nearest citizen.
The crowd was thickest around the mouth of an alley about four feet wide. The children clustered and raised a repetitive wailing chant that sounded like, “Bedija ghal Bedija gha!”
Nogah shouted at Faruk. Faruk sounded the horn that would summon any Dartar or ferrenghi troops within hearing. The crowd began to thin immediately. Nogah said, “Yoseh, Medjhah, Kosuth, go in there after them. The rest of us will try to get around and cut them off. You. Boy. Hold these animals.”
The Dartars dismounted in a clatter. Still baffled, Yoseh followed his brother and cousin into the dark, dank, stinking alleyway. His lance was unwieldy in that narrow passage.
Fifty feet in they heard a cry. It sounded like an echoing call for help.
Twenty feet onward the alley split at right angles. They paused, listened. Medjhah shrugged, said, “This way,” and turned to his right.
Ten steps. That cry again, from behind. The Dartars turned and ran the other direction, Yoseh now in the lead and more bewildered than ever. He kept his lancehead extended before him.
Fifty yards. A hundred. All upslope, tiring. “Slow down,” Medjhah said. “Let’s be careful. It could be a trap.” The veydeen were not all passive about the occupation.
A whisper of scuffling came from up ahead.
The alley bent to the right. Yoseh dashed around the angle and sensed a presence. It resolved into vague shapes struggling. A man trying to drag a boy. Panic swept the man’s face momentarily. Then he flung a hand toward Yoseh.
The alley filled with a blinding light and heat and a child’s cry of despair. Yoseh went down as Medjhah and Kosuth stumbled into him from behind. The fire burned like the furnaces of hell.
“Gorloch, thou art merciful,” Azel murmured as he watched the target take something from an older boy and hurry toward the alley whence he watched. He had anticipated a long and difficult stalk. They had become wary. But this bird was flying to the snare like it wanted to be caught.
What the hell was the kid lugging? A goddamned skull. Where the hell did he get that?
Azel fell back a few steps, hoping the kid’s eyes would be used to the glare off the bay and he would come into the alley blind.
No such luck. The kid was not seeing good, but he was seeing good enough. He stopped a dozen feet too soon.
“Bring it here, boy. Give it to me.” The kid moved some. Not enough. He wasn’t completely unwary. “Will you hurry it up?”
That got the brat close enough. Azel leaped, grabbed. The kid started yelling. Azel made him give his name. Taking the wrong brat would be worse than doing nothing.
The kid kicked and yelled and flailed around with the skull. Azel ignored that, backed up, watched the brats at the alley’s mouth, yelling themselves.
Then figures in black appeared, their weapons glittering.
Azel cursed. “Dartars. Where the hell did they come from?” Fear snapped at him. He spent a part of it by yanking the boy violently. He would lose those whoreson turncoats in the maze webbing the Shu quarter south of Char Street. No one alive knew that one better.
Only the brat wouldn’t let him get the head start he needed. He kept on fighting and kicking, yelling and tripping. Azel smacked him around as much as he dared, but not as much as he wanted. There would be no tolerance shown if he delivered damaged goods.
Then they were there in the labyrinth with him, the mercenary betrayers, with absolute terror coursing before them, and for the first time ever Azel found himself compelled to employ his penultimate recourse.
The ultimate recourse fluttered blackly behind his lids as he clung to the brat with one hand while flinging the contents of the envelope, his eyes sealed.
Heat drove him back.
The Dartars cursed and clattered into one another. The kid squealed and quit struggling. Azel opened his eyes. “That’s more like it, you little bastard.” He glared at the Dartars. If he didn’t have to keep the kid in hand he would stick them with their own spears.
He grabbed up the by now passive boy and draped him over his shoulder. The boy clung to the skull as though it was a protective talisman.
This time it was hard. This time it took all his knowledge of the labyrinth to lose the hunters. Dar
tars and Herodians and angry citizens were everywhere. Azel zigged and dodged and at times even crouched in hiding, the kid clamped helpless and silent in his arms. Of all the damnable luck, those black-clothed camel jockeys turning up when they did.
There was a warning in what had happened. The easy times were over. And they were barely past halfway down the list. With Gorloch knew how many more yet to be discovered.
There was going to be some serious talk after he made this delivery. No way was he going out again with nothing but a pack of flash to cover his ass.
He reached the outlet from the maze that lay nearest his destination. The brat started to struggle again, but that did not last. And he finally turned loose of the damned skull.
Azel scanned the square he had to cross. He saw no sign of excitement. He had distanced the hunt but probably not the news that a child had been snatched. Should he try it now, in the long shadows of afternoon, or await the friendly darkness?
The square was almost empty. The kid was out of fight again. Gorloch knew what might creep out of the labyrinth behind him if he sat on his hands.
He grabbed the brat’s paw and headed out, fast, like an angry parent. The kid stumbled and whimpered, and that fed the illusion.
As he tramped across the square Azel lifted his gaze and rehearsed and nurtured the rage he was going to vent.
And that fed the illusion, too.
Aaron pressed up the hill, the black fear gnawing his heart. He was a man kept strong and trim by his labors, but emotion had driven him to a violent storm up the long climb from the waterfront. His legs were billets of lead, as they were in his nightmares.
It was over now. Long over. But some of the spectators remained, still telling one another what had happened. Beyond them were a handful of Herodian soldiers and several Dartar horsemen. Ranking Dartar, Aaron realized after a second look. Startled, he found himself exchanging momentary glances with a fierce-eyed old man who had the face of a raptor and a savage grey beard.
Fa’tad al-Akla himself! Fa’tad the Eagle, commander of all the Dartar mercenaries, bloodthirsty as a vampire, merciless as a hungry snake. What was he doing? Making himself a target for the Living?
Of course not. Was he not supposed to know as little of fear as the desert windstorms that brewed over the Takes and raged north over the Khadatqa Mountains and beyond, to inundate Qush-marrah with dust and torment it with a ferocious dry heat? Fa’tad al-Akla held the Living in contempt.
Aaron thought them quixotic at best. But he also believed they were going to kill Fa’tad, and he did not think it would be long before the dark angel brushed the Eagle with the shadow of his wing.
Ahead, in front of the house, he saw Laella and her mother. They were not bereaved. His heart spread white wings. Then it soared as he spied Arif.
His son was all right! The nightmare had not come true!
Arif saw him coming and ran to meet him. He snatched the boy up and surrounded him in a hug almost brutal in its intensity. Arif squealed, surprised. People stared. It was not a culture that encouraged emotional display.
Arif wanted to tell him all the news but he had squeezed the breath out of the boy.
Aaron joined Laella and her mother. His wife had Stafa, their younger son, seated upon her left hip. Stafa was midway between his second and third birthdays, and on his better days he was happy mischief incarnate. Arif was, by contrast, a quiet child, often seeming sad.
The younger boy reached out. “I want some Daddy hugs.”
Aaron reached and let him monkey over to sit on the hip opposite Arif, grinning. Aaron told Laella, “I heard. I was afraid it was Arif.”
There was pain and relief and guilt in Laella’s eyes as she said, “No. It was Zouki. Reyha’s Zouki.”
“Oh.”
Laella’s mother watched Fa’tad with the fixity and dispassionate intensity of a vulture waiting for. a corpse to cool out. “They went after him.”
Aaron turned. “What?”
“The Dartar patrol. They were right here when Zouki was taken. Not much more than boys themselves. The children screamed ‘Bedija gha!’ and the Dartars went after the taker.”
She sounded amazed. As if so human a thing was beyond comprehension if done by the villains of Dak-es-Souetta.
“And?”
Laella said, “Three went in Tosh Alley. And they caught him.” She did not sound joyful.
“Something bad happened?”
“They were all burned when they brought them out. Not dead. Not really bad hurt. But one of them’s clothes was smoldering.”
Aaron grunted.
“Aaron, something has to be done.”
He grunted again. He agreed. But he did not know what could be done. There had been talk among the men, but it never went beyond that. One could do nothing when one did not know which way to strike.
The old woman muttered something.
“Mother?” Aaron asked.
“The Dartars think the Living did it.”
So. No wonder she was in shock. For her the Dartars had become the wellspring of all evil. And here they had tried to rescue a child, and thought the last ragtag remnants of Qush-marrahan partisans had done the grabbing.
“The children yelled ‘Bedija gha!’ Could that be it? Are the old gods stirring?”
Bedija gha sprang from an older form of the language. Today it meant “child-stealer.” In Qushmarrah, as in all cities in all times and lands, there were people who wanted to buy children. For whatever reason. So there were others willing to harvest and sell. But before “child-stealer” or “kidnapper,” in the old days bedija gha had had a more sinister and specific meaning, “collector of sacrifices.”
That had been in the time of Gorloch, cast down and banished by Aram long since. The god’s followers had been dispersed, his temples demolished, and his priests forbidden human sacrifice.
He had not gone quickly or quietly, though. Superseded gods never do.
Aram the Flame had brought light to Qushmarrah but Gorloch had clung to the shadows and it was not till the coming of the Herodians, with their strange, nameless, omnipotent god, that Gorloch’s last High Priest’s time had ended.
Aaron shivered and glanced uphill. Nakar the Abomination. How he had deserved that name, that dark sorcerer-priest-king unassailable in his citadel. Bless Ala-eh-din Beyh and the Herodians for having laid that terror to rest.
Laella said, “No, it couldn’t be Gorloch. They say Nakar was the last priest who knew the rites.” Her mother nodded agreement without taking her eyes off the Eagle. “And the Witch never was a believer.”
“There must be manuscripts that tell about the rituals.”
“You’re trying to talk yourself into something again, Aaron.” Laella smiled to take the sting out of the admonition.
She was right. He wanted conspiracies to explain away his fear of something he did not understand. Chances were there was no more child-stealing going on now than there had been at any other time. He was just more aware of it because he and his contemporaries were of an age to have children of an age to be at risk. That and the fact that there had been a rash of kidnappings in the area, some as broad-daylight-brazen as this latest. A thing like that caused a lot of talk that led to more talk that maybe magnified the problem out of all proportion.
If it were not for the nightmares...
He realized his arms were aching with the weight of the children. “All right, Stafa. Back to Mom. Arif, down you go. Daddy’s arms are tired.”
Stafa flashed his little white teeth and shook his head “Can’t,” he said.
“Yes, you can,” Laella told him. “Come here. Your father’s been working hard all day.”
“Can’t. My dad.”
Aaron bent and let Arif down. Arifs feelings were hurt, of course, but he hid that as he always did. He was convinced everyone loved his brother more than him, and no logical argument could reach his heart and convince it that a smaller child always needed more attention.
He leaned toward Laella, who tried to pry Stafa off him. Stafa laughed and declared, “Can’t! Daddy’s Stafa!” He grabbed two fistfuls of Aaron’s hair. Aaron suppressed the usual flash of anger and impatience and played the game out.
Laella finally peeled the boy off. The battle shifted ground. She wanted to put him down and he did not want to be put. Laella won. Stafa went into a pout, declared, “I hate you, Mom!” He ran and clung to Nana’s leg. But the old woman had no attention to spare.
Aaron grabbed Arif up and set him on his left hip, ignoring the ache in his arm and shoulders. “Come on, big guy. Let’s see what’s going on.” His relief at finding Arif safe persisted. It left him feeling select and immune and more daring than was his nature. He even managed to meet the Eagle’s eye without flinching.
Bel-Sidek dragged his log of a bad leg up the slope of Char Street. It got worse every day. His pride was under ever more severe strain. How long before it broke, he surrendered, and he became just another crippled veteran begging at street side?
As it did every time, the thought sparked white-hot rage. He would not surrender! He would not become a vegetable patch beside the thoroughfare, watered by the charity of Herodian conquerors whose generosity consisted of tossing back fragments of the ghosts of plunder ripped from the heart of Qushmarrah.
Bel-Sidek sometimes tended toward a dramatic turn of mind.
The leg did not hurt as badly, nor drag nearly so much, when the thought of a commander of a thousand begging at street side drove him into a fury. Dartar and Herodian had humiliated him and reduced him by strength of arms and right of conquest. But he would not finish what they had begun. He would not degrade himself.
“They have not won,” he muttered. “They have not beaten me. I am one of the living.”
For the true believer the formula was as potent as a magical cantrip.
There was something wrong with his surroundings. He stopped instantly, coming out of himself to look around suspiciously. Yes! Dartars and Herodians everywhere. How had they...?
