The Will of the Wanderer

by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman

  Doors led from the chamber to various other parts of the palace, including the Amir’s private living quarters. The Amir’s bodyguards stood at these, two more flanked his throne. Khardan glanced at them without interest. Now that he had familiarized himself with the room, his attention turned upon the man—Abul Qasim Qannadi, the Amir of Kich.

  Two men stood near the rosewood throne that had been the Sultan’s. Khardan examined each closely, and had no trouble determining which was the Amir—the tall man with the straight, broad shoulders, who moved awkwardly in the richly embroidered silken caftan. Hearing Khardan approach, the Amir gathered the long sweeping folds of silk in his hand and stiffly climbed the stairs leading up to the rosewood throne. Qannadi grimaced as he sat down, he obviously found the throne uncomfortable. Khardan—noting the deeply tanned, weathered face—guessed that this was a man who would be much more at home seated in a saddle. The Calif felt his anger slip away from him; here was a man he could understand. Unfortunately it did not occur to Khardan that here was a man he should fear.

  The other man moved to stand beside the throne. Noting he was a priest by the plain white robes that hung straight from the shoulders, Khardan barely spared him a glance. The Calif wondered idly what interest a priest could have in the selling of horses, but supposed only that perhaps he and the Amir had been conferring and that the arrival of Khardan had interrupted their talk.

  Reaching the foot of the throne, the Calif made the formal salaam, bowing, his hand moving in the graceful gesture from forehead to breast as he had been accustomed to performing before the Sultan. Watching out of the corner of his eye in order to make certain Achmed was imitating him and doing nothing to disgrace them both, Khardan missed the shocked expression that crossed the Imam’s face and the man’s furious hand gesture. Straightening, the Calif was considerably surprised to find an armed guard stepping between him and the Amir.

  “What do you mean by this lack of respect, kafir?” the guard said. “On your knees to the representative of the Emperor— Quar’s Chosen, the Light of the World.”

  Khardan’s temper flared. “I am Calif of my people! I go on my knees to no one, not to the Emperor himself were he here!”

  “Worm!” The guard raised his sword threateningly. “You would be on your belly if the Emperor were here!”

  Khardan’s hand went for his weapon, only to close over empty air. Frustrated, his face flushing dark, he took a step toward the guard as if he might challenge him bare-handed, but a deep voice came from the throne.

  “Leave him be, Captain. He is, after all, a prince.” Khardan, his blood throbbing in his ears, did not hear the subtle mockery in the man’s voice. Achmed did, and his heart was in his throat. The strange, chill emptiness of this huge chamber made him uncomfortable; he distrusted the man on the throne with his cold, impassive expression. But it was the priest with his thin, wasted face that made the hair on the young man’s neck prickle and rise as does that of an animal who senses danger yet cannot find the source. Achmed wanted to look anywhere else in the chamber except into those burning eyes that seemed to see nothing of any consequence in this world, only in the next. But he couldn’t. The almond eyes caught him and held him fast, a prisoner of the Imam’s more surely than if the priest had bound the young man in chains. Frightened, ashamed of his fear, Achmed was helpless to speak it. He could do nothing except obey his brother’s instructions and pray that they escaped this terrible place alive.

  “Let me introduce myself,” the Amir was saying. “I am Abul Qasim Qannadi, General of the Imperial Army and now Amir of Kich. This”—he gestured to the priest—”is the Imam.”

  The priest did not move but remained staring at Khardan, the holy fire rising in him, burning hotter and hotter. Khardan, glancing at the priest, was touched by the flame. He found that, like his brother, he could not easily withdraw his gaze.

  “I . . . trust we can conclude our business swiftly, O King.” Khardan appeared somewhat disconcerted. “My men wait for me near the Temple.” Wrenching his gaze from the Imam’s hold with what seemed an almost physical effort, he glanced uncomfortably about the chamber. “I do not feel at ease within walls.”

  Beckoning to a scribe, who came forward with a sheaf of papers, the Amir referred to them briefly, then looked back at Khardan. “You come here to offer your tribe’s horses for sale as you have done annually according to the records,” said the Amir, his dark eyes regarding the Calif coolly.

  “That is true, O King.”

  “Did you not know that much has changed since your last visit?”

  “Some things never change, O King. One of these is an army’s need for good horses. And ours”—Khardan lifted his head proudly—”are the best in the world.”

  “So it does not disturb you to sell your horses to enemies of the late Sultan?”

  “The Sultan was not my friend. He was not my enemy. His enemies, therefore, are neither my friends nor my enemies. We did business together, O King,” said Khardan succinctly. “That is all.”

  The Amir raised an eyebrow; whether he was startled at the answer or impressed with it was impossible to tell. The impassive face was unreadable. “What price do you ask?”

  “Forty silver tumans a head, O King.”

  The Amir referred again to the paper. The scribe, whispering something, pointed to a row of what looked to Khardan to be bird tracks on the sheet.

  “That is higher than last year,” the Amir said.

  “As you said,” remarked Khardan coolly with a glance toward the antechamber where he had been searched, “some things have changed.”

  The Amir actually smiled—a smile that drove one corner of his mouth deeper into his beard—and went back to studying the paper, his hand stroking his chin meditatively. Khardan remained standing before him, arms folded across his chest, looking anywhere but at the Imam. Achmed, unnoticed and forgotten, glanced continually at their exit that was an exit no longer and wished himself back in the desert.

  “May I ask you a question, Calif?” The Imam’s voice flicked like a flame. Khardan started, as though it had burned his skin. Glancing at the Amir and seeing him apparently absorbed in studying the figures on last year’s sale of the horses, Khardan— his eyes dark and shadowed—reluctantly faced the priest.

  “You are a kafir, an unbeliever, is that not true?”

  “No, it is not true, Holy One. My God and the God of my people is Akhran the Wanderer. Our belief in him is strong.”

  “Yet thankless, is it not, Calif? I mean”—the Imam spread his long-fingered hands—”what does he do for you, this Wandering God? You dwell in the cruelest of lands, where every drop of water is counted as precious as a jewel, where the sun’s heat can boil the blood, where blinding storms of sand flay the flesh from the bone. Your people are poor, forced to live in tents and to roam from place to place to find food and water. The meanest beggar in our streets has at least a roof over his head and food to eat. You are uneducated, neither you nor your children”—his gaze went to Achmed, who immediately looked somewhere else—”can read or write. Your lives are unproductive. You are born, you live, you die. This God of yours does nothing for you!”

  “We are free.”

  “Free?” The Imam appeared puzzled.

  Achmed noticed that the Amir, though seemingly involved in reading the document, was listening and watching intently out of the corner of his eye.

  “We are under the rule of no man. We follow no one’s laws but our own. We move freely as the sun, taking what we need from the land. We work for ourselves. Our sweat is not another’s profit. We cannot read”—he gestured toward the Amir’s document—”scratches drawn on paper. But why should we? What need is there?”

  “Surely there is need to read the sacred writings of your God!”

  Khardan shook his head. “The text of our God is written on the wind. We hear his voice singing in the dunes. We see his words in the stars that guide our way through the land. Our sacred credo soars on th
e wings of a hawk, it beats in the hooves of our horses. We look into the eyes of our wives and see it there. We hear it in the cry of every newborn child. To capture that and commit it to the bondage of paper would be an evil thing. Our God forbids it.”

  “So”—the Imam smiled—”your God does give you commands and you obey them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you are not truly free.”

  “We are free to disobey,” remarked Khardan, shrugging.

  “And what is the punishment for disobedience?”

  “Death.”

  “And what is the reward for leading a virtuous life?”

  “Death.”

  A noise came from the Amir, a sort of low chuckling sound that immediately became a clearing of the throat when the Imam cast him an irritated glance. Qannadi turned his gaze back on Khardan, who was becoming increasingly impatient at what he considered childish ramblings. Adults did not waste their time speaking or thinking of such obvious things. Achmed saw the flickering fire in the priest’s eyes and wished his brother were taking this more seriously.

  “So you are free to lead a harsh life and die a cruel death. These are the gifts of this God of yours?”

  “The life we live is our own. We do not ask you to live it or understand it. As for death, it comes to all, unless you have discovered some way for city walls to shut it out.”

  “Those who have been blind from birth, who walk in perpetual darkness, are said not to be able to comprehend light, having never seen it.” The Imam’s voice was gentle. “One day your eyes will be opened to the light. You will walk in Quar’s radiance and you will realize how blind you have been. You will leave off your aimless wandering and come here to the city to glory in the gifts of Quar to his people and to show your thankfulness to him by leading productive, useful lives.”

  Khardan cast a glance at his younger brother, rolling his eyes significantly. Among the nomads the insane are well treated, for all know that they have seen the face of the God. One did not listen to their ravings, however. The Calif pointedly turned his attention back to the Amir.

  Clearing his throat again, Qannadi handed the paper to the scribe, dismissing the man with a wave of his hand.

  “I am pleased to hear your people have such a philosophical outlook, Calif.” The Amir regarded Khardan with cold eyes. “For a harsh life is about to become harsher. We have no need for your horses.”

  “What?” Khardan stared at the Amir in amazement.

  “We have no need of your horses now, nor is it likely that we ever will in the future. You must return to your people emptyhanded. And much as you despise the city, it does supply you with certain necessities of life without which you may find it difficult to survive. That is,” he added with heavy irony, “unless your God has seen fit to rain down rice and wheat from the heavens.”

  “Do not take me for some rug merchant, O King,” Khardan said grimly. “Do not think you can make me run after you, offering you a lower price because you first turn away. You may go to a hundred rug merchants, but you will find only one man who sells the horses you need to carry you to victory. Animals bred to war who will not shy at the smell of blood. Animals who prick their ears to the call of the trumpet, who lunge forward into the heart of the battle. Animals descended from the horse of the God! Nowhere—nowhere on this world—will you find such horses!”

  “Ah, but you see, Calif, we are no longer limited to this world,” the Amir said. “Send for my wife,” he instructed a servant, who bowed and ran to do his bidding.

  “Perhaps this is the light of which you spoke, Imam,” continued the Amir conversationally in the tense silence that followed. “Perhaps hunger will open their eyes and lead them to the city walls they despise.”

  “Quar be praised if this is so,” the Imam said earnestly. “It will be the saving of their bodies, the salvation of their souls.”

  Khardan, scowling, said nothing but glowered at them both. He had taken an involuntary step backward on hearing the Amir send for his wife. Zeid’s words came back to him. The Amir’s head wife—reputedly a sorceress of great power. Khardan did not fear magic, considering it a woman’s province, suitable for healing the sick and calming horses during a storm. But—as something he could not control—he did not trust it. He had heard stories of the powers of the ancients, stories of the power to be found in the seraglios of the city dwellers. He had scoffed at these, despising men who let their women become too strong in this arcane art. Looking at the powerful Qannadi, however, it occurred to Khardan—rather late—that he may have misjudged the matter.

  A woman entered the divan. She was clothed in a chador of black silk, embroidered with threads of spun gold that had been stitched to form dots like small suns over the surface of the fabric. Though her figure was completely hidden, the woman moved with a grace that spoke of the beauty and symmetry of her form. A black veil rimmed in gold covered her face and head, leaving only one eye visible. Outlined in kohl, that one staring eye regarded Khardan boldly, penetrating him, as though the focus of her two eyes had been combined and were thus made stronger in just one.

  “Yamina, show this kafir the gift of Quar to his people,” ordered the Amir.

  Bowing before her husband, her hands pressed together to her forehead, Yamina turned to face Khardan, who stared at her coldly; the ever-shifting dunes revealed more expression than his face.

  Slipping jeweled fingers into the filmy folds of the chador, Yamina withdrew an object. Placing it in the palm of her hand, she held it out before Khardan.

  It was a horse, wonderfully carved, made of ebony. Perfect in every detail, standing about six inches tall, the animal’s nostrils were two fiery red rubies, and topaz gleamed in the eyes. Its saddle was of fine ivory with gold and turquoise trappings. Its hooves were shod with silver. Truly it was an exquisite work of art, and Achmed, looking at it, sighed in longing. But Khardan remained unimpressed.

  “So this is Quar’s gift to his people,” the Calif said scornfully, glancing swiftly at the Amir to see if he were being made sport of. “A child’s toy.”

  “Show him, Yamina,” the Amir ordered gently, by way of answer.

  The sorceress placed the horse upon the floor. Touching a ring she wore upon her hand, she caused the setting of the jewel to spring open. From inside the ring Yamina withdrew a tiny paper scroll. Prying open the horse’s mouth, she tucked the scroll inside, clamping the statue’s teeth over it so that it held it firmly. As she knelt beside the toy horse, the single, visible eye of the sorceress closed; she began to whisper arcane words.

  A puff of smoke came from the horse’s mouth. Catching hold of Achmed’s hand, Khardan drew back away from the animal, his face dark with suspicion. The Imam murmured to himself in a low voice—prayers to Quar undoubtedly. The Amir watched with amused interest.

  Khardan drew a shivering breath. The horse was growing! As the sorceress spoke, repeating the same words over and over, the animal gained in height and width; now it was a foot tall, now it came to Khardan’s waist, now it was as tall as a man, now as tall as the Califs own warhorse. The sorceress’s voice hushed. Slowly she rose to her feet, and as she did so, the ebony horse turned its head to look at her and it was ebony no more!

  The horse was flesh and blood, as real and alive as any steed that ran free in the desert. Khardan stared at it, unable to speak. Never had he seen magic such as this, never believed it possible.

  “Praise be to Quar!” breathed the Imam reverently. “A trick!” Khardan muttered through clenched teeth.

  The Amir shrugged. “If you like. It is, however, a ‘trick’ that Yamina and the rest of my wives and the wives of the grandees and nobles of this city can all perform.” Rising to his feet, the Amir descended from the rosewood throne, coming to stroke the horse’s neck. It was, Khardan could plainly see, a magnificent animal—restive, with a spirit to match the fiery ruby red of its nostrils. The horse’s eyes rolled round to view its strange situation, its hooves dancing nervously on
the tiled floor.

  “This fine animal is, as I said, a gift from the God,” the Amir remarked, stroking the velvety black nose. “But the spell will work on any object made into a likeness of a horse. It may be carved of wood, shaped of clay. One of my own sons, a lad of six, fashioned one this morning.”

  “Do you take me for a fool, O King?” Khardan demanded angrily. “Asking me to believe women can perform such magic as this!”

  But even as he spoke, Khardan’s eyes went to Yamina. The single, staring eye of the sorceress was on him, its gaze unblinking, unwavering.

  “It doesn’t matter to me what you believe, Calif,” the Amir said imperturbably. “The fact remains that I do not need your horses, which places you and your people in a desperate situation. But Quar is merciful.” The Amir raised a hand to prevent Khardan from interrupting. “We have room in the city to house you and your tribesmen. Bring your people to Kich. Work will be found for you. The men of your tribe can join the ranks of my own armies. Your reputation as warriors is well-known. I would be honored” —his voice changed subtly, his sincerity on this point was obvious—”to have you ride among us. Your women can weave rugs and make pottery to sell in the bazaar. Your children will go to school in the Temple, learn to read and to write—”

  “—And the ways of Quar, O King?” Khardan concluded coldly.

  “Of course. No one may live within these walls who is not a devout follower of the one, true God.”

  “Thank you, O King, for your generosity,” said Khardan, bowing. “But my people and I would sooner starve. It seems we have wasted our time here. We will be leaving—”