There was no time for deliberation. Nura dove through the dark opening, into an unswept room with low beams. A flickering lantern hung on a hook above her. She heard a snort and glanced about sharply.
At the back of the room a coal-black stallion and a dappled gray mare shifted in their stalls—the same pair of horses she had seen in the temple pulling the cart and the wooden crate. They nickered and pawed at her arrival, and Nura ducked under the wooden rail and stroked the mare’s arched neck.
“Hist!” she whispered. “Hush, girl.”
The mare quieted for a moment beneath her hand but suddenly shied again as the dreadful thump of a great bass drum echoed through the lair. Nura stood trembling, and the horses snorted restlessly. The drumbeat rolled again, and in a split second of unaccountable panic, Nura dropped to the ground and burrowed into the straw between the mare’s hooves.
No sooner had she buried herself away than the fida’i burst into the stable. Their torches swept the room, and the mare whinnied and stamped, her hooves thudding just beside Nura’s head.
The men made a slow circuit of the room, then turned and hurried on.
Nura lifted her head cautiously from the straw and peered between the mare’s forelegs. Outside the stable, preparations for the ceremony had already begun. Fire had been brought to the temple, and the doorway winked with amber light. The lair was alive now with the sounds of the Hashashin, and it was no longer safe for Nura to wander out into the open.
She rose and took a hurried inventory of the stable. A saddle and harness were slung beside her on the rail. She ran her hand over the smooth leather of the seat and cantle, measuring their curves with a practiced eye. A vague and desperate plan formed within her, and she set about saddling the mare.
“Grandpa, I thought you were retired,” said William. “How did you ever get mixed up in all this?”
Colonel Battersea breathed a long sigh.
“Our time together has taken a turn I did not expect,” he said at length, not answering the question directly. “I was convinced my adventuring days were behind me, I suppose. I had visions of a golden summer with my grandchildren, of reclaiming something, perhaps, that I had lost with my own children. But it seems now that my past has caught me up and would drag me in again, like quicksand.”
A ponderous silence fell over the dank cell.
“Nura told us you could stop the Old Man’s plans,” said Maxine, and there was disappointment in her voice. “She thought you would know what to do. She said you were the city’s only chance.”
“A rather heavy burden for one person, don’t you think?” said Grandpa. “The Rafiq’s grand scheme may well succeed tonight, and I may not live to see the morning. But that will not be the end of the story. The Hashashin do not stand unopposed—they are not the only secret order in the wide world. There are others who keep watch.”
“You mean to say there’s more than one bunch of cutthroats roaming around the city?” asked William.
“Cutthroats? Not exactly. I refer to an invisible fraternity of guardians, sworn to a single sacred purpose. An order known as the Cafara—the Sons of the Cipher.”
“And they’re here—in New York City?”
“Sadly, no. The rise of the Hashashin on these shores was entirely unexpected, and the Cafara were not prepared to meet the threat with numbers of any significance. In fact, there were only three here. One of them is no more—a carpet merchant across the Brooklyn Bridge, murdered by the fida’i. A dear friend, and a great loss to me. The second I suspect you’ve met already.”
“What?” said Maxine with surprise.
“Tell me,” said Grandpa. “The man who delivered the telegram to Battersea Manor—did he sport a long, ratty beard, like a Victorian poet?”
William nodded. “And he made a funny sign with his fingers. Like a circle over his heart.”
“The Cipher,” said Grandpa with a nod. “The cipher, or the zero, as you would call it, is the token of the order.”
A light dawned on Maxine’s face. “We saw zeroes all over Battersea Manor!” she said. “On the front bell and the mantelpiece, and on the door to the basement. Even on your letter opener.”
“Yes, my dear. I am the third member, you see, of the contingent of the Cafara on this coast.”
William squinted one eye. “Did you ever think of picking a different number than zero?” he asked. “Something a little more impressive?”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know, like maybe seven, or thirteen, or something.”
“Yes, well, the cipher is not exactly a number, is it? And it is rather impressive in its own way. It is naught—nothing. A thing of no apparent value. It is unseen and uncountable, a placeholder and a substitute. It is that which stands in the gap. And so it is with the Sons of the Cipher. The Cafara are an ancient order, comprising the descendants of the oldest Arab tribes—a chosen few who have taken a vow to protect the weak and the innocent and to stand throughout the ages against violence and oppression and a darkness that would spread across all the world.”
“But you’re not—” Maxine began.
“Not of Arab descent? No, my dear. I was made an honorary member of the Cafara many years back, during my years of service to the British Crown. I was adopted, you might say.”
“Well, that explains it, I guess,” said William.
“Explains what, my boy?”
“Explains why Nura thought you might be able to save the day. Her parents are prisoners of the Hashashin. She wanted to give you the mirror so that you could ransom them from the Old Man of the Mountain.”
“Yes, well, that may be wishful thinking. The Old Man is not a generous negotiator.”
“She seemed to think you’d be eager to help,” said Maxine. “I thought maybe you knew them.”
“The girl’s parents?” Grandpa replied thickly. “Do I know them? Now, there’s a proper question. I may have known them once. Once upon a time. I think I would very much like to meet this young friend of yours and ask her a few questions of my own.”
Colonel Battersea leaned back against the wall, and his chains clanked faintly in the gloom. He scraped a knuckle across his whiskered chin and offered nothing more.
The drumbeat rolled on like the heartbeat of the lair. The cousins slumped against Grandpa and braced for what would come. For a long while no one spoke, and as the minutes passed, a disconsolate shadow settled over them and their spirits sank down, down, like stones tossed in a murky pool. Even Colonel Battersea seemed to succumb at last to the drum’s relentless throb and the oppressive confinement of the bleak cell.
In the darkness he bowed his head and sighed. “What a fool I’ve been,” he whispered to himself. “How did it ever come to this?”
Maxine laid her hand gently on his leg.
“I’m sorry, my dear,” he said. “I thought you were asleep.”
“Is there still hope, Grandpa?” she asked.
“Hope?” said Grandpa. “Yes, of course.” He did his best to give her a reassuring smile, though he accomplished little in the dark.
“A popular poem comes to mind,” he said, “about a sportsman named Casey—a cricket player, I believe. But it might well be applied to our current situation.”
He rested his head against the wall, reciting slowly:
“The lane is long, someone has said, that never turns again,/And Fate, though fickle, often gives a second chance to men.”
“A second chance, huh?” said William, who had not been sleeping either, apparently. “Well, it better get here quick, or we’re all in big trouble.”
“There’s something else, Grandpa,” said Maxine. “They’ve got your jinni.”
The colonel raised his eyebrows with mild interest. “Do they indeed?”
“Can they bring it to life, do you think?”
“I doubt that very highly, my dear.” He chuckled. “The Rafiq has heard the old legends, I’m sure. He would be exceedingly pleased to have a fiery jinni a
t his beck and call, but I suspect he has erected the al-kaljin more as a sort of trophy—a symbol of the Hashashin’s dominion and power.”
Maxine leaned her head on Grandpa’s chest. “Maybe we could wake it up,” she said dreamily. “Maybe it could help us get out of this horrid place.”
Grandpa laid his chin on her head, indulging her fantasy. But in the darkness William tugged thoughtfully at his ear, repeating Maxine’s words under his breath.
His thoughts were interrupted. Footsteps sounded in the hall outside. The fida’i were coming for them.
A key turned in the padlock, and the fida’i entered. They dragged Grandpa and the cousins from the cell and pushed them into the corridor with Binny Benedetti, who staggered as he walked. The wrists of the two men were bound, and their captors herded them all into the temple, where the drumbeat thundered out across the open floor.
Blazing torches surrounded the empty hall, and the walls were draped with long black banners emblazoned with the symbol of the Hashashin. A fire had been kindled in the enormous furnace, and the inferno leapt hungrily inside, framing the dark shape of the jinni high above the center of the dais. Its long shadow stretched across the temple, and the statue flickered glossy black in the orange glow of the flames.
William and Maxine were separated and lashed to the pair of boilers at the very back of the temple—the thick ropes cinched tight around them until they could scarcely breathe—but Binny and Grandpa were brought to the center of the floor and made to kneel atop the great seal of the twelve-pointed star.
The Rafiq sat at the foot of the jinni, watching over all, his knuckled fingers gripping the armrests of the black throne like grasping talons. Behind him stood a man in a sleeveless bloodred cassock that brushed the floor. His scalp was smooth-shaven, the sockets of his eyes were smeared black with kohl, and he bore a great scimitar, which he shifted from one shoulder to the other as the prisoners were led into the temple.
All around Colonel Battersea and Binny, the floor of the factory began to fill with the phantom shapes of the pale-cloaked fida’i, and with gray-haired attendants, and with male and female servants, until the hall was awash with bodies and the room began to seethe in cadence with the drum. Then came other strains, strident and ecstatic, to join the steady throb. A group of pipers seated before the dais blew a droning dirge on flutes of bone, brass finger cymbals rang on unseen hands, and a high-pitched human wail rose above it all—a plaintive, frantic yodel that made the cousins’ hearts beat hectically.
The tattoo of the drum quickened, and the music swelled, and the press of the faithful on the floor parted. A procession of twelve men approached the dais. They were dressed in hooded white robes girdled with crimson sashes, and their faces were grim as they ascended the steps and took their seats on either side of the black throne.
Twelve women carrying silver pitchers mounted the steps and stood before the twelve chairs, unwinding their headscarves and laying them across the knees of the seated men. They poured steaming water into the bowls at the feet of the fida’i, and, taking up straight razors and silver shears, they shaved the men’s beards and trimmed their hair and mustaches neat, until the twelve sat freshly combed and clean-shaven and hardly recognizable from their former selves.
Gray-capped valets came forward next and undid the scarlet sashes of the twelve and removed their white robes, and the fida’i stood upon the stage, stripped of all but their linen undergarments. Finally the brown paper bundles under each chair were undone, and the contents were revealed.
Inside each was a different livery—disguises of various form and function. The fida’i donned these strange vestments, and Maxine and William looked no longer upon desert assassins but on inhabitants of the West.
Post carriers and milkmen; police officers and whitewashers; bespectacled salesmen and collared priests—all standing in a solemn row.
The transformation was chilling and complete.
When all was accomplished, the Rafiq rose from his throne and walked the length of the dais, stopping behind each chair to mutter instructions of bloodshed and treachery, and then he held up his hand. The music fell silent, and he cried out in a loud voice for all to hear.
The meaning of the utterance was lost on William and Maxine, but in the frenzy of his rant and the wildness of his eyes, they felt his lust for destruction and power. The sound of the words drummed deliriously in their ears, rising in a feverish torrent, until at last he stopped and pointed a finger across the room, toward the iron gate and the city without.
“The hour has come,” he called, and his voice rang like tempered steel. “The Old Man of the Mountain bids you rise and kill.”
“We are living daggers,” intoned the twelve fida’i as one, “thrust by the hand of the Old Man.”
A great bellows was worked, and the flames in the furnace crackled ravenously and leapt within, so that even across the temple William and Maxine winced as they felt the heat on their faces. The drum began again, more urgent yet, and in the corner of the hall the windlass creaked, and the spiked portcullis began to rise. The faithful on the floor yammered and shook, their voices rising in an overwhelming clamor.
“Go!” shrieked the Rafiq above the din. “Go forth and destroy!”
The fida’i stirred and staggered, trancelike, from the dais, and William and Maxine watched in horror as they pushed through the grasping throng toward the open portal. At that moment, to the cousins’ astonishment, the ropes that bound them fell slack. They shed the cords and turned to see Nura standing behind the boilers, her black dagger bare and flashing in her hand.
“Nura!” gasped Maxine. “Where have you been?”
The small girl didn’t answer. Her eyes were focused on the dais, where the Rafiq motioned to the bare-armed swordsman behind him. Raising his finger, he turned and pointed toward Binny and Grandpa at the center of the floor.
Nura stiffened and took a trembling step backward, as if she might turn and flee, but she mastered herself and faced the cousins once more.
“There is something I must tell you,” she said, her words tumbling out in a frantic rush. She gave them both an earnest look. “You are my family,” she said.
“Sure, Nura,” replied William distractedly as he watched the scarlet-draped swordsman cross the dais. “You’re like family to us, too.”
“No,” said Nura, shaking her head fiercely. “We are family. Flesh and blood.” She pointed toward the kneeling form of Colonel Battersea. “Your grandfather is my grandfather, too,” she said. “I was afraid to tell you. Afraid of what you might think. I imagined that you would look at the color of my skin and not believe the truth—that we are sharing the same blood, the same name.”
She raised her hand, palm outward, fingers outstretched. Maxine stared at it in bewilderment, and then she raised her hand as well and nodded. For one moment, their palms met and their fingers locked.
A single tear slid down Nura’s cheek.
“Remember,” she said. “We belong to each other. Always.” And with that she turned and darted away.
“Nura, wait!” cried William, but it was too late. He started after her, but what he saw next made his knees go weak beneath him.
The swordsman descended the steps. He drew his scimitar as he crossed the floor, and when he had reached the prostrate forms of Grandpa and Binny, he spread his feet and raised the prodigious blade.
William and Maxine couldn’t bear to watch. They clenched their eyes shut and abandoned every hope.
But in that hideous instant a great clatter filled the temple.
A pale horse thundered past the boilers, straight into the assembly of the fida’i, with Nura on its back. Its tail was high, its ears were pinned back flat, and its eyes rolled white as it slammed into the crush with a crunch of bone and sinew. Nura kicked the mare in the flanks, urging it deeper into the center of the crowd, and every soul in the temple turned to gaze at the unexpected entrance of the small girl and the ashen horse.
; She never reached Colonel Battersea. Her hopeless charge fell short. In the midst of a hundred clawing hands, the mare reared and made an unearthly sound, and Nura tumbled from its back beside the twelve-pointed star.
Maxine screamed in horror as she watched the girl fall. At the center of the temple Nura floundered and tried to stand, but the fida’i swarmed over her in fury.
Nura’s arrival had thrown the Hashashin into howling disarray. Seizing his opportunity, Grandpa lunged to his feet, driving his shoulder into the midsection of the executioner. He swung his bound hands like a mallet, clubbing the man to his knees, and the curved sword clattered on the steps. In a single motion Grandpa scooped up the fallen blade and freed Binny’s wrists and then his own. He pushed the gangster toward the open gate, and then, catching the terrified horse by the mane, he swung up on her back.
The mare bucked and launched her rear hooves, sending one of the fida’i sliding across the floor in a sodden pulp. Colonel Battersea posted in the saddle, settling the mare beneath him, and plunged her forward into the masses. His sword swept down along the horse’s gray flanks, and the Hashashin fell away before him like spindrift breaking on a rocky shore. Cleaving a path to the bottom of the steps and sawing hard on the reins, he wheeled the horse to face the center of the dais.
The Rafiq’s eyes burned with a smoldering rage, and he extended a long finger, pointing at Grandpa as if he meant to hold him frozen with the gesture. He spoke a word of contempt, and the faithful rallied to his call, swarming around Colonel Battersea like flies to a fresh carcass.
The pale horse shouldered through the throng of cloaked figures, her withers streaked with blood and sweat, and Grandpa slanted in the saddle and smote down the closing ranks behind. A single fida’i broke from the boiling mob and bounded to the end of the dais, taking a great flying leap off the top step and bowling Grandpa from the saddle onto the floor, but the old colonel rose and shrugged the enemy aside. All around him the Hashashin fell back before the sweeping scimitar.
The Eye of Midnight Page 14
