Splinter Of The Mind's Eye

by Glen Cook

  "Peace be with you, Mowaffak."

  "And with you, Lord." Hali departed. He walked taller than El Murid had seen in some time.

  After a time, the Disciple called softly, "Hadj."

  "Lord?"

  "Find the physician. I need him."

  "Lord?"

  "The mountain was too much for me. The pain... I need him."

  The physician appeared almost immediately. He had been sleeping, and had clothed himself hastily and sloppily. "My Lord?" He did not look happy.

  "Esmat, I'm in pain. Terrible pain. My ankle. My arm. My joints. Give me something."

  "My Lord, it's that curse. You need to have the curse removed. A philter wouldn't be wise. I've given you too many opiates lately. You're running a risk of addiction."

  "Don't argue with me, Esmat. I can't cope with my responsibilities if I'm continuously preoccupied with pain."

  Esmat relented. He was not a strong man.

  El Murid leaned back and let himself drift in the warm, womblike security of the narcotic.

  Someday he would have to find a physician who could outwit his injuries and the curse of the Wahlig's brat. The pain bouts came every day now, and Esmat's dosages had more and more difficulty banishing them.

  The desert was vast and lonely, just as it had been during the advance on Sebil el Selib so long ago, and as it had been during the desperate flight from Wadi el Kuf. It seemed to have lost its usual natural indifference, to have become actively hostile. But El Murid refused to be daunted. He enjoyed the passage, seeing whole new vistas, wild new beauties.

  It was a matter of years no more. Just days remained. Hours and days, and the Kingdom of Peace would become a reality. In hours and days he could turn his mind to his true mission, the resurrection of the Empire, the reunification of the lands of yore in the Faith.

  The days and hours of the infidel were numbered. Those sons of the Evil One were doomed. The Dark One's long ascendancy was about to end.

  Rising excitement made a new man of him. He became more outgoing. He bustled here and there, chattering, fussing, joking with the Invincibles. Meryem complained that he was destroying his sublime image.

  He began to recognize landmarks seen years ago.

  The bowl-shaped valley was nearby. And not a soul had challenged them. The angel had been right. And Nassef had been as competent as ever, slipping them past Royalist pickets as if they were an army of ghosts.

  He laughed delightedly when he glimpsed the spires of the Shrines from the lip of the valley, standing like towers of silver in the moonlight.

  The hour had come. The Kingdom was at hand. "Thank you, Yousif," he whispered. "You outfoxed yourself this time."

  Chapter Fourteen

  Stolen Dreams

  T o Haroun it seemed Al Rhemish hadn't changed at all. The dust, the filth, the vermin, the noise were all exactly as he recalled them. The heat was as savage as ever, reflecting in off the walls of the valley. Hawkers cried their wares through the press of tents. Women screeched at children and other women. Men made sullen by oppressive temperatures exploded violently when tempers collided. If there was any change at all, it was that there were fewer people than during his previous visit. That would change as Disharhun approached, he knew. And the tension would heighten as the capital became more crowded.

  There was a malaise in the air now, a continuous low grade aggravation which went beyond what one would expect. No one put it into words, but the appearance of the Wahlig of el Aswad, with his household and troops, had initiated a process yet to run its course: stirring guilt and shame amongst those who had done nothing to aid or support Yousif's long fight in the south. His presence reminded them, and they resented it. A pale shadow of fear, too, haunted the capital. The reality of the threat posed by El Murid could no longer be denied except by a willful closing of the eyes.

  "And that's what they're doing," Radetic told Haroun. "Blinding themselves. It's the nature of Man to hope something will go away if it's ignored."

  "Some of them act like it's our fault. We did everything we could. What more do they want?"

  "That, too, is human nature. Man is a born villain, narrow, shortsighted and ungrateful."

  Haroun cocked an eye at his teacher, smiled sarcastically. "I've never heard you so sour, Megelin."

  "I've learned some bitter lessons out here. And I fear they'll apply equally to the so-called civilized people back home."

  "What's going on over there?" There was a stir around his father's tent. He spied men bearing the shields of the Royal household.

  "Let's find out."

  They encountered Fuad near the tent. He looked puzzled.

  "What is it?" Haroun asked.

  "Ahmed. He's asked your father and Ali to be his guests tonight. With the King."

  Radetic chuckled. "Surprised?"

  "After the way they've ignored us since the first few nights, yes."

  A chill trickled down Haroun's spine. His gaze swept the surrounding hills. Nightfall was not far off. Shadows were gathering. He had a sense of foreboding.

  "Tell Yousif to keep his views to himself," Radetic suggested. "They're not socially acceptable right now. Aboud is old and slow and needs time to adjust to the loss of the southern desert."

  "He'd get used to it faster if that idiot Ahmed would get out of the way."

  "Maybe. Haroun, what's the matter?"

  "I don't know. Something strange. Like this isn't any ordinary night coming on."

  "Allegorical thought, no doubt. Beware your dreams tonight. Fuad, do tell the Wahlig not to get exercised. If he wants to make headway with Aboud he has to become acceptable company first."

  "I'll tell him." Fuad departed wearing one of his most fearsome scowls.

  "Come, Haroun. You can help with the papers."

  Haroun's shoulders tightened. Radetic had no end of papers and notes, all totally disorganized. He could spend years getting them sorted—by which time another mountain would have collected.

  He glanced at the hills again. They seemed unfriendly, almost cold.

  Lalla was the pearl of Aboud's harem. Though she was a scant eighteen, and without benefit of marriage, she was the most powerful woman in Al Rhemish. The capital was drenched in a flood of songs praising her grace and beauty. Aboud was mad for her, a slave to her whim. There were rumors that he would make her a wife.

  She had been a gift, years ago, from a minor Wahlig on the lost coast of the Sea of Kotsum. She had not caught Aboud's attention till recently.

  Aboud was an infatuated, silly and proud child. He wasted few opportunities to flaunt delights only he should have known in their entirety, taunting his court with his favorite toy. Night after night he summoned her from his seraglio and had her dance before the assembled nobles.

  Yousif gazed on her lithe form. He appreciated Lalla as much as did any man, but at that moment his thoughts were far away and fraught with guilt. His heart would not accept the conclusion of his reason. He could not shake despair over having abandoned his trust and ancestral home.

  He and his son Ali were guests of Crown Prince Ahmed. Ahmed was the only member of the court not yet disgusted with his attempts to initiate a major campaign against the Disciple.

  Yousif was restless. There was a wrongness afoot in Al Rhemish, though it was nothing he found concrete. The feeling had been growing all week, and tonight it was strong enough to make his skin crawl.

  There was a wrongness, too, about Ahmed. Especially when he looked at Lalla. His lust lay naked in his eyes, but there was more. He seemed agitated, and could not restrain a wicked, greedy smile. Yousif feared that smile foreshadowed grief.

  Lalla spun close, shaking her lithe, smooth young hips inches from his eyes. His malaise lessened. When Lalla danced, even his cares soon faded. Her beauty had a narcotic quality.

  How Ahmed stared! As though he had sampled those delights and become so addicted that he would kill to make them his own. Madness backlighted his gaze.

  N
ervousness had given Yousif a strange sensitivity to the undercurrents flowing around him. A paranoid sensitivity, he chided himself. Ahmed was not alone in staring. The faces of a dozen wild sons of the waste told him they would kill to possess the dancer.

  He began to grow uneasy again. Even Lalla's melodious zils could not still his troubled heart completely. It had been a bad day. News had come from the south, at last, and it was not good.

  El Murid had climbed the Horned Mountain. Something ominous had occurred there. A fire in the sky had been seen for a hundred miles. El Murid had come down decisive and determined. He had summoned the tribes to his banner, to help extirpate the Royalists' evil. And rumor said thousands were responding, inspired by the awesome display over the evil mountain.

  There was also word that the Scourge of God had left his forces in the littoral. He had gathered the Invincibles and was on the move. The fox was loose in the henyard, and no one in Al Rhemish apparently cared.

  A magical wall erected on foundations of willful blindness isolated the bowl valley containing Al Rhemish. Reality could not penetrate that rampart of wishful thinking. The Royalist overlords had retreated from the world and immersed themselves in their pleasures. Even the hardest, the most practical, the most pragmatic among them were becoming as dissolute as the Crown Prince.

  Yousif was bewildered. He had known most of these men for decades. There were dark forces at work here—how else to explain what was happening? They seemed to have resigned themselves, were seizing what pleasure they could before the end.

  But all was not lost. Any fool could see that. Here in the north there were enough loyal warriors to crush El Murid twice over.

  Yousif cast a covert glance at his host. The Crown Prince was a sour note, a distinct off-pitch element in the festivities. Why had Ahmed insisted his remote southern cousins be his guests tonight? Why was he so nakedly excited and lustful?

  Aboud could be pardoned his dissipations. He hadn't many years left, and was terrified of the Dark Lady. He was trying to recapture the ghost of his youth. But Ahmed, Ahmed had no excuse.

  Yousif had polled the more hardheaded Royalist nobility.

  His brother wahligs agreed that Ahmed was a disaster in the making. He had assumed a dangerous influence over his father since Farid's death. His suggestions had resulted in several minor defeats by guerrillas operating near Al Rhemish. But those same hardheads would do nothing when Yousif suggested they take the initiative...

  Kingdom and Crown were decomposing while yet alive. The stench of corruption filled the land. And no one would lift a hand to halt the process. The pity of it all was that Aboud was so much stronger than El Murid. A determined, decisive leader could destroy the Disciple easily.

  His anger stirred his adrenaline. He swore. "He can be put down!"

  His neighbors looked at him askance. They did that a lot. He'd earned a reputation as a singleminded boor of a country cousin already.

  "Really, Yousif," Aboud admonished softly. "Not while Lalla is dancing."

  Yousif's glance flicked from the King to his heir. Ahmed wore a wicked smile. A moment later he slipped quietly away.

  Yousif wondered no more than a moment. Ringing zils and shimmering veils and flashes of satiny skin at last captured his undivided attention. Lalla was dancing just for him.

  "Would you quit that?" Reskird snapped. "You're driving me crazy."

  "Quit what?" Bragi asked, halting.

  "Pacing. Back and forth, back and forth. Think you were ready to have a kid."

  Haaken grunted agreement. "What's the matter?"

  Bragi hadn't been conscious of his pacing. "I don't know. Nervous energy. This place gives me the creeps."

  The mercenaries had pitched camp on the western wall of the bowl, separate from the rest of Al Rhemish, but not separate enough to suit the men. There were strong tensions between native and outsider. The Guildsmen mainly stayed to themselves and radiated contempt for the barbarism of Al Rhemish and its people.

  Reskird said, "I heard we won't be here much longer. That they're going to pay us off and let us go."

  "Can't be too soon for me," Haaken said.

  Bragi sat down, but didn't stay seated long. In moments he was circling the fire again.

  "There you go again," Reskird snarled.

  "You're making me nervous," Haaken said. "Go for a walk or something."

  Bragi paused. "Yeah. Maybe I will. Maybe I can find Haroun, see how he's doing. Haven't seen him since we got here."

  "Good idea. Look out you don't have to save his ass again." Reskird and Haaken laughed.

  Bragi scanned the star-limned hills, uncertain what he was seeking. The air had an odd feel, as though a storm were in the offing. "Yeah. That's what I'll do."

  "Don't take too long," Haaken admonished. "We've got midnight guard."

  Bragi hitched his pants and walked away, his pace brisk. He was out of camp in minutes, passing among the tents of pilgrims here for Disharhun. By the time he reached the permanent part of town his nervousness had dwindled. He became preoccupied with the problem of locating Haroun among people whose language he did not speak. He had no idea where the Wahlig had pitched camp.

  His wanderings took him to the wall enclosing the Most Holy Mrazkim Shrines. He forgot his quest and became a simple sightseer. He hadn't been into town before. Even by night the alien architecture was bemusing.

  Haroun could not sleep. Nor was he alone. All Al Rhemish was restless. Fuad had been sharpening his sword since sundown. Megelin paced constantly. Haroun was tired of the old man's nattering. Radetic's customary verbal precision was absent. He rambled through vast, unrelated territories. Nervous energy was building up, and could not discharge itself in any special direction.

  The first startled cries gave purpose, provided relief at last. They burst from their tents into the moonlight. The compound was a-crawl with white-robed Invincibles.

  "Where the hell did they come from?" Fuad demanded. "Altaf! Beloul! To me!"

  "Megelin, what's happening?"

  "El Murid is here, Haroun. Back for Disharhun, it would seem."

  In minutes the fighting was general, and chaotic. Royalists and Invincibles fought where they found one another, the majority on both sides acting with no goal greater than surviving the attack of the foe. "The King is dead!"

  Ten thousand throats took up that demoralizing cry. Some Royalist partisans shed their arms and fled. The rot Yousif had sensed now betrayed how deeply it had gnawed the fiber of Royalist courage.

  "Ahmed betrayed his father!"

  That declaration of filial treachery was more demoralizing than news of the King's demise. How could a man fight when the heir of his sovereign was one of the enemy?

  "Father is it, then," Haroun told Radetic.

  "Absolutely." Megelin seemed bemused. "But he's... "

  "I'll find him," Fuad growled. "He'll need me. He's got nobody but Ali to guard his back." He hit the nearest Invincibles like a windmill of razor steel.

  "Fuad!" Radetic shouted. "Come back here! You can't do anything."

  Fuad could hear nothing.

  Haroun started after him. Radetic seized his arm. "Don't you be a fool too."

  "Megelin—"

  "No. That's stupid. Think. You're just heartbeats from the throne. After your father and Ali, who else? Nobody. Not Ahmed. Never Ahmed. Ahmed is a dead man no matter who wins. Nassef will want him living less than we do."

  Haroun tried to break away. Radetic's grip held. "Guards," he called. "Stay with us." Several of the Wahlig's men obeyed. They had overheard Radetic. "There has to be a pretender, Haroun. Otherwise the Royalist cause is dead. After you, Nassef has next claim."

  White robes kept pouring into Al Rhemish. Confusion and panic ran before them. Twice Megelin and the guards beat off attacks. Radetic kept gathering Royalists.

  A company of Invincibles appeared, hunting Yousif's family. They were determined. Radetic fought like a demon, revealing tricks of the sword seldom
seen outside Rebsamen practice halls. His stubbornness inspired the men he had assembled. Haroun fought beside him, trying to win a minute's respite so he could employ his shaghûn's skills. The Invincibles gave him no chance. His companions began to falter.

  Haroun tried to dig into his kit anyway. A swordtip buzzed past his ear. He fumbled the kit, lost it.

  The Invincibles couldn't be stopped. He was going to die...

  An unholy bellow slammed the belly of the night. Swinging his sword with both hands, Bragi Ragnarson hit the Invincibles from behind. In seconds half a dozen went down. Some scrambled away from his insanity. The northerner attacked those who remained, pounding through their sabers with his heavy sword.

  They broke too. Haroun laughed hysterically. "Three times," he gasped to Megelin. "Three times!" He staggered toward Bragi. The northerner waved his sword and called the Invincibles cowards, daring them to come back. Haroun threw his arms around the big man. "I don't believe it," he gasped. "Not again."

  Bragi stood there panting, watching the white robes. "I found you, eh? I've been hunting since sundown."

  "Just in time. Just in time."

  Bragi shuddered. "I didn't think that could happen to me. My father could go crazy when he wanted, but... what's going on? How did they get here? I better get back to camp." He was confused. His voice was plaintive.

  Radetic said, "You can't get there from here, lad." There was heavy fighting on the slope below the mercenary encampment. "Stay here. Gamel. Find a Royal standard. Let's give our people a rallying point."

  Radetic did his utmost, parlaying the Royal name, but the collapse continued. Al Rhemish was doomed. Even with the mercenaries making vigorous sallies from their encampment, the inertia of the rout could not be turned.

  Haroun almost whined as he asked, "Megelin, how could Al Rhemish be overrun so easily? There are too many loyal men here."

  "Most of whom ran for it right away," Radetic replied.

  A group of youngsters came in led by a wounded officer.

  "Nobles' sons, sire," he said. "Take care... " And he collapsed.

  Haroun stared down, bewildered. "Sire?" he whispered. "He called me sire."