by Glen Cook
Clever death was snuffling along his back trail. It might be lying in wait up ahead, too.
The wizard Varthlokkur would be involved, somewhere. The aftershocks of his activity in Al Rhemish had led to this.
Emotion paled with the ages. Angry and unhappy though he was, the Star Rider set aside his inclination to exact revenge or deliver punishment.
He took to the air, searching for the murderer.
The man could become a useful tool himself, though never so useful as a king.
...
The ruins of el Aswad were so far from Fangdred that there was no communicating between the two directly. Scalza, guided by his mother, fearlessly carried his scrying bowl through a portal to an Imperial border post southwest of Throyes. There he paced the crude rampart, stared at an adobe compound manned by Invincibles. The desert warriors were a tripwire meant to warn of a renewed Throyen effort to occupy the coast of the Sea of Kotsüm.
Scalza’s mother was waiting on her lifeguards. The boy did not understand the complexity of her relationship with them. He did understand that she was making a special effort to keep them happy. He wondered why but did not ask.
He was near being a universe unto himself, open only to his sister and, marginally, his cousin. His mother had brought him along because she considered his emotional jeopardy to be greater than the physical risks of the operation.
Though Scalza pretended boredom he was excited. This was his first ever real adventure.
Mist’s lifeguards arrived. Soon afterward Scalza was hunched over his bowl, executing simple sorceries meant to inform his uncle-by-marriage that his immediate attention was needed.
Mist said, “I want him here instead of back at Fangdred. That will save him several days.”
Scalza nodded, then decided that a verbal response was needed. “I will do that, Mother.”
He liked her idea. He would get to stay here longer. The adventure would not end the day it began.
The wizard took longer to arrive than Mist anticipated. He did not look good and was not happy when he did. She asked, “I caught you at a bad time?”
“Any time seems to be a bad time to have Radeachar carry me over the Jebal.”
“Ah? So?”
“That’s the shortest way to get here unseen by El Murid’s friends.”
Mist did not understand and said so.
“We came north over the Jebal al Alf Dhulquarneni,” he reiterated.
“Oh.” Mist recalling that the name meant Mountains of the Thousand Sorcerers. “The thousand resented you trespassing.”
“Every last one, and all their children, too. Some of them are really nasty. And some have skills. I mean to reverse my route exactly going back. I’ll find out if they learned any manners.” He was vexed in the extreme.
“Let me not irritate you further by wasting your time. Scalza, explain. You caught it happening.”
That was a good move. Scalza liked not being treated like a kid. “It wasn’t all me. I was just the only one around when Lord Yuan showed up and said somebody was using that Horn thing. He told me where. I zeroed in. Then he showed me how to look backward to see why that man was there looking around.”
Scalza was clear and concise with his explanation. He did not need much questioning.
“This is not good,” the wizard opined. “Haroun will be… You know… I can’t guess how he’ll react. He’ll surprise us. And me going back by the same route won’t be just for fun now. Those people better not mess with me. I won’t be gentle and forgiving.”
Mist said, “Whatever, you need to rest before you go. You don’t want to be so tired that you make stupid mistakes.”
“I do believe that, this once, I’ll take some common sense advice.”
Which let Mist know that his passage up the spine of the Jebal had been more of a challenge than he admitted. He was in a mood to administer another set of spankings.
She stayed put while Varthlokkur did. She had a lifeguard take a patrol to scout the Invincible strongpoint, with Scalza going along. The boy would have something extra to brag about to his sister. His mother would get a read on his character under stress.
The lifeguard reported that he did well.
Scalza was reluctant to go back to Fangdred. He argued, but without spoiled child passion. He did go sullen on being reminded that when he had the bad luck to draw her for a mother he had lost his chance to enjoy a normal life. Some opportunist was sure to snatch him in hopes of gaining leverage on her the instant he tried
Varthlokkur agreed as he summoned the Unborn.
Scalza said, “I know that stuff in my head but I still hate it… Let’s go home. At least I can brag to Eka.”
...
The sorcerers of the Jebal had understood Varthlokkur’s warnings. He had only two encounters. Both times he overresponded dramatically.
He expected to have no problems ever after.
Bin Yousif had done little during his absence but scout toward Sebil el Selib. He had a young hare roasting, disdaining the dietary laws. “So what was it? And did you have as much trouble as I predicted?”
“I had all that trouble and a whole lot more. There are some testy recluses up there. Mist wanted me to pass on some bad news about your son.”
“What did he…? He was killed during the uprising.”
“No. He avoided that. He sneaked out with some of his advisers.”
...
It had been weeks since news of the troubles in Al Rhemish first reached Sebil el Selib. Yasmid’s captains had been excited, then. The people would turn the Royalist rascals out… But the rioters punished the Faithful with equal passion.
Yasmid found the distraction useful. If her people were trying to profit from the uprising they had no time to worry about how she might be changing.
Habibullah, too, seized the day. He isolated her, because of her ill health and grief for her son, in her father’s tent, where the foreign physicians could attend her. When word came that Megelin had survived after all, and was hiding somewhere in the desert, Habibullah insisted that she remain under Phogedatvitsu’s care.
The swami saw no shame in her condition. He manufactured reports about her failing health, which he could reverse given several months. Habibullah carried messages to and from Elwas al-Souki, whom Yasmid appointed as surrogate for her and her father till she came back or El Murid was able to resume his role as first among the Faithful.
Yasmid had been in her father’s tent only a short while before she understood that her father would never take up the mantle of the Disciple again. The Matayangans had conquered his addiction but the man the poppy had left behind was almost useless, and had no connection with today’s reality. He thought Yasmid was her mother, Meryem. He recognized her condition—and was positive that he was the father. The fakirs could not free him from that delusion.
Which left Phogedatvitsu frightened. If that suggestion got out… He launched a vigorous program meant to keep everyone away from Yasmid and her father. How terrible would the wrath of the Believers be if they thought their demigod had sired a child on his own daughter?
That would be the end of her. That would be the end of him. That would be the end of the Faith.
Again and again Yasmid asked herself why had she been so stupid. Why she had gone so weak the instant that man no longer left her waiting by the door.
Was God testing her? How could this be part of the Divine Plan? How mad must that Plan be?
The essence of the Faith was submission to the Will of God. How to tell, anymore, though, what that Will might really be?
Personal terror became part of life in the Disciple’s tent and terror stimulated ever-deepening religious doubt.
Habibullah reported that Elwas al-Souki and his intimates insisted on a direct meeting, whatever her condition. They promised to be brief. They would not be denied.
Habibullah bundled Yasmid into a wheeled chair once used by her father. He brought the Disciple himself in, t
oo, sedated and under intimate supervision by Phogedatvitsu personally. The swami was no longer Elwas’s instrument. He understood that his own fate hinged on keeping her condition secret. He had El Murid primed to ramble incoherently about the Evil One.
The confrontation proved anticlimactic, the dark emotion beforehand wasted. al-Souki was in a blistering rush. He arrived thoroughly distracted, having discovered all the thousand grim little truths about being the man in charge. He strained to avoid being brusque. His impatience was fierce. His interest in Yasmid’s health never passed beyond courteous form.
He called her “Lady” only, not any of the creative honorifics of the past. “We have an unusual situation taking shape. Details are sketchy but suggestive. It involves the Empire Destroyer.”
Elwas went on to relate a confused story obtained from allies developed during punitive expeditions into the high Jebal. The Empire Destroyer had been seen up there. He had skirmished with the mountain people while traveling along the high range. “Because there is nothing we could actually do to keep him from going anywhere he wants, him using a remote route says what he wanted most was not to be noticed.”
Yasmid focused. This would be important. That ancient power had shown no interest in Hammad al Nakir before he turned up in Al Rhemish—at a time when Haroun must have been there. Now the old doom was sliding around Sebil el Selib by sneaking through the highest mountains.
She nodded to herself. “Was that Unborn thing involved?”
“It was. Carrying the sorcerer through the sky.”
“I see.” It seemed plain enough. “Why go that way, and court conflict, when a grand swing over the erg could be managed with less chance of being noticed?”
“Urgency? Swinging out over the erg would take hours longer. Too, the Unborn has made several mountain route journeys without the sorcerer, always carrying something when it was going south.”
Yasmid nodded again. She did not fully reflect, though, before saying, “They’re up to something at el Aswad.”
Elwas seemed fully pleased with his Lady. “Exactly. I have a company of Invincibles headed there, subject to your permission. You can recall them if you want.”
She could not back off even if her sifting of facts and speculation left her sure that Haroun was out there, too. “Elwas, as ever, your decision is perfection, and beyond reproach. Just don’t waste the Invincibles. We may yet need to cross the erg to Al Rhemish.”
That notion startled al-Souki.
Yasmid continued, “Varthlokkur isn’t called the Empire Destroyer because he kicked over an anthill when he was seven. With Magden Norath gone he is the most dangerous man in the world. Try to find out what he’s up to without starting a war. Just walk up and ask him if you have to.”
“I understand. Such was the course I’d hoped to pursue.”
“Excellent.” Yasmid did not believe him. Brilliant though Elwas might be, he was capable of misleading himself into thinking he was clever enough to outwit and arrest someone like Varthlokkur.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, so far Elwas had not run into any evidence to disabuse him of such a conceit.
...
Haroun bin Yousif was back doing what Haroun bin Yousif did best. He was a ghost drifting down the wadi that passed close by the Disciple’s tent. Luck crawled with him. The wadi was dry. Assured by Varthlokkur that the Faithful here clung tightly to El Murid’s ban against sorcery, he did not fail to use his own skills to conceal himself and to probe for trouble lying in wait.
Despite the ruckus Varthlokkur raised in the Jebal, which had a troop of Invincibles headed out to investigate, Sebil el Selib itself was under no special state of alert.
Haroun oozed up to his former point of entry. Repairs had been made. New spikes had been set. But no watcher had been posted. No tripwire spells or actual cords had been installed, nor had booby traps been placed.
How could these people be so arrogantly overconfident? So lacking in justifiable paranoia? Did they really think that they had nothing to fear? Were they that sure of the countenance of God?
Must be. But no sane man ever should be.
God had proven, time and again, that His favor was fickle.
Haroun bin Yousif was not made to trust anything outside himself.
He dithered half an hour trying to find hidden pitfalls. Rational people would have created some in case the invader returned.
Could it be that they never figured it out?
He could imagine Yasmid softening any effort to snare him—but did not believe that she would.
His innards knotted as he finally forced himself forward—not where he penetrated the tent before. This had to be done before there was light enough to show that something strange was happening.
Varthlokkur had convinced him—almost—that his part, successfully executed, would end the torments his kingdom had suffered for two generations. This would reshape everything. It would compel the birth of a new order because there would be no old order left. What shape that new order took would be in his hands, too, insofar as he cared to sculpt it.
Varthlokkur would build on what they did here, toward a new order for the rest of the world.
Haroun moved forward. He wanted to believe but could not. Not really. They were still trying to throw a bridle on the wind. Even so, he hoped. He had a goal again—though he did not quite understand it.
Once inside he produced a wane witch light. By its glow he proceeded to the area where once the foxes had denned. Ha! Here were sure signs that all was not as it had been. That whole wide space had been cleansed down to the bare earth. He would not have to climb over trash once he went to work.
He had brought equipment with him. He hoped the clatter he raised using it would not give him away.
He set out a triangle of witch lanterns for light, then assembled a pole fifteen feet long. He attached a spearhead so sharp that one ought not to look at it directly. He used that to make an eight-foot cut in the canvas overhead, made another cut at right angles to that, then a third parallel to the second, leaving a flap hanging down. Then he cut parallel cut to those to create a six-inch wide strip that might be climbable, making a last resort escape. Only…
Only that canvas was almost as old as he was. His weight ripped a longer strip out when he tested it.
Damn!
He was wasting time. He was behind schedule and falling further back. If he did not get a signal out soon Varthlokkur would abandon him to his fate.
He blew air into a sheep’s bladder, attached a mechanical device provided by the wizard, invested the bladder with a levitation spell, child’s-play simple but the possibility had not occurred to him till Varthlokkur showed it to him.
His time with the Empire Destroyer had been deflating. He now understood how limited his own talents and imagination were.
Once the sheep’s bladder rose a few hundred feet something tripped a mechanical device that sparked a flame. That lasted just seconds and was not showy. No one should notice at that hour. Anyone who did ought to think that it was some strange shooting star.
Too much to hope for, in Haroun’s estimation. Much too much.
He grew impatient. The risks were rising now. Others would be involved. He could not keep them from screwing up. Worse, his role now consisted entirely of waiting.
Varthlokkur and the Unborn dropped in so quietly that Haroun would have missed them if he had not been watching. The wizard had draped the Unborn in black gauze, rendering it invisible from outside while only slightly impairing the monster’s ability to perceive the world around it.
The Unborn deposited the sorcerer, rose against the stars. “There!” Haroun said. “I see a pink glow when I look straight up.”
“Aren’t you a bit long in the tooth and in the wrong religious tradition to be looking up someone’s skirt?”
Varthlokkur could not have stunned him more by whacking him with a hammer. “We’re late. We’ll have to push it if we’re still going to get this done qu
ietly.”
Quietly was the ultimate hope. Full execution without ever being noticed. Come and gone undetected, leaving behind nothing but delayed confusion.
The hope.
Haroun considered it forlorn, insane, impossible.
Something would go wrong, if only because he was part of a team. Long experience left him confident that others never achieved his level of competence. They could not maintain the focus.
The wizard asked, “Is something wrong? Is there some reason you’re freezing up instead of trying to make up time?”
“No good reason,” Haroun admitted. “We can make up time fast if you expand your sleep spells. You were right. No one will notice and no alarms will be tripped. There is no magic here.” He used “magic” as a convenience, lacking something more precise.
Varthlokkur understood. “I’ll take advantage of that, then. I’ll deploy the spells as we go.”
Haroun appreciated the fact that Varthlokkur wasted no time on “I told you so.” He had argued for a more aggressive use of sorcery. He was less concerned about leaving evidence behind.
Haroun headed into the inhabited part of the tent. Changes were legion. The biggest was the reduction in clutter. Tons of trash had been carried off to be buried, burned, or laid out for anyone who wanted to pick over it.
Someone had done a masterful job. That someone was not yet finished. They passed through an untouched area where clutter was piled as high as a man could reach. Most seemed to be old records, moldy, water-stained, likely useless.
The Disciple’s quarters had to be accessed through a cloth-walled room featuring a Matayangan in a loincloth asleep on a pad on the earthen floor. This Matayangan did not like the dark. A tiny lamp wasted oil so the night could be held at bay.
The Matayangans all shared that failing. Lamps burned in the areas adjoining the four cloth walls of El Murid’s space. Night had been an evil time while Matayanga was at war with Shinsan.
Phogedatvitsu and his men slept surrounding the Disciple, which made sense because the man had that penchant for wandering off.
