The Mask of Loki
Page 31
Even that might not have been fatal.
Gurden put a foot on the back of Hasan's head and drove his face deep into the sand.
"Behold then the creation of Ahura Mazda," he intoned. "Behold it and weep!"
Hasan gasped and breathed in sand, smothering. His bodily tremblings, which were all the resistance his flesh could muster, took an age to subside. But when they did, the nexus—three dimensions of space and one of time—in the green valley by Galilee's shore faded into nothingness. And with it faded Tom Gurden.
* * *
The squall line, flying low to the hills around Hattin, seemed to tear open on the two jagged horns of rock. The first rain fell in big, splattering drops.
Gerard felt something strike his forehead. He thought it was a stone tossed from the Saracen ranks, but immediately he felt the cold wetness roll down across his brow. The air, so heavy and suffocating just a few moments ago, now seemed to contract and cool to its normal, invisible dimensions.
The Moslems looked around uncertainly and from their packed lines a moan went up.
"On them, men." Gerard did not know who said that. It was a soft voice, maybe even his. But it seemed right to hear it.
"On them!" he shouted. "Attack!"
The knights nearest to him glanced up at him, startled. Then they looked at one another.
"Strike them! Beat them back!"
To his left a long Norman sword, straight as a geometer's ruler, rose up and fell forward on the pressing Saracens. It split a head, and a weak cry of protest rose from the surrounding Moslems.
Another sword spun through a short arc and raised a head from its shoulders.
With a ragged yell, open months catching the rain, the Christian knights surged forward, laying about them with their weapons. The front line of the Saracen infantry, caught by surprise and confused, took one step backward—and collided with the circle of men behind them. Those in front went down, absorbing the cuts of the attacking French. Those in the second line, hampered by their dying comrades, helplessly took the thrusts with which the knights followed up their opening cuts. Wounded and floundering, the mass of Saracens swayed back. The knights were getting their rhythm now, hacking left and right, stepping forward, hewing right and left. As the French moved out, they spread apart, making more space at the sides for each man to shift his teardrop-shaped shield in countering the few, palsied counters that an opposing soldier might make. Cooled by the rain and encouraged by their first successful blows, the French knights advanced down the gentle slope. And the Saracens gave way.
"After them, men! Cut them down!" Gerard was screaming. And soon he was standing in a wide and empty place before the red tent. His soldiers were taking the battle away from him. Eagerly he drew his own sword and followed them.
* * *
In the piano lounge of the Gesu Rex Hotel, with his back to the glassed-in parapet that overlooked Jerusalem's New City, Tom Gurden played his beloved jazz.
The setting sun touched the skyline with pink and gold. From the spires of the Saladin Mosque, the amplified voice of the muzzein echoed out. Gurden could just pick up the rhythms of the call through the double-paned insulating glass. They did not intrude on his music.
Ahmed walked in, ordered a bulb of rye-n-ginger, and came over to the cozy table that tucked into the ell next to Gurden's piano bench. The young Arab pulled around a chair and sat down. He was soon nodding his head in time with the complicated stride beat. Every ten bars or so he put the tube between his lips and drew up a sip of the liquor.
Gurden rolled the song on home and wrapped the set. After a moment, as the music cooled and conversation picked up again around the lounge, he turned to Ahmed.
"Well, effendi? Did the deal go through?"
"Right on the money."
"Two bills for the lease? With a probable of forty million barrels?"
"Just as you predicted. I owe you, Tom."
Cohen & Safud, of which Ahmed was junior associate, brokered more oil in the Levant than Royal Dutch Shell. Tom Gurden hadn't been instrumental in the deal that had just closed, but he'd mentioned a few names, put in a few good words.
Gurden smiled and played a short riff to offer his congratulations.
"How do you want your share, Tom?"
"Put it in chips."
Ahmed looked surprised. "You mean, down in the casino?"
Tom Gurden chuckled. "Naw... Pierre Boutelle is opening a new section on his DRAM factory in Haifa. Word is he's looking to take on partners."
Ahmed whistled. "Everything he touches turns to silicon."
"The experience might make an honest capitalist out of me."
"Robots of the world unite—"
"Or something like that."
He turned back to the keyboard, flipped the waveform presets to Bassoon, played it sotto voce, something loose and wandering. "One day I'll give up doing this full-time, you know."
"Hey, don't do that, Tom!" Ahmed protested. "You get the best gab in town sitting here. If you retired, how would I make money?"
"You could farm. Old Samuel has a manager's slot coming open on the kibbutz, doesn't he?"
"Drip farming's for intellectuals. I'd rather trade oil."
"Then learn to play your own piano."
"Haven't got the hands for it. Not like yours, Tom."
Gurden laughed and half-turned to look out over his city. He might talk about giving up the piano, but he knew he would probably keep on playing here for another 900 years or so. This city was good for it.
* * *
"Don't take it away!"
"But the pan is full!"
"Don't—ahhh-gghh!"
Alexandra tipped the basin out on the stone floor, where its contents splattered and ran.
She tried to be quick with the emptying, but if she poured too fast, the wave of fluid slopped over her fingers. If she waited too long to empty the pan, it overflowed into her lap. The venom ate through skin, as she knew from her own experience.
Hasan bellowed and twisted against his bindings until she could get the shallow basin up in front of his face again.
Only then did the snake seem to run out of juice. It closed its hinged jaws, folding the terrible fangs back into their grooves. One huge amber eye rolled toward her and seemed to share a private joke. If the leathery skin around its mouth could flex, she would have said it was smiling. Or perhaps smirking.
Alexandra dared not lower the pan for an unnecessary instant, no matter how heavy it got nor how tired her arms might be. The snake was that quick.
Just when her arms seemed to fall of their own weight and the pan slipped down, exposing Hasan's ravaged face, the snake's mouth flew open and the venom sprayed out as if from a fire hose.
Hasan screamed, as he had always screamed, and she thrust the pan back up into position, shielding him. "Sorry!" she gasped. Tiny droplets of poison splashed back off its surface, stinging her face and arms.
Now that Hasan's eyes were out of the direct spray, Alexandra would have taken the hem of her skirt to wipe the venom out of them. But she needed both hands to hold the pan.
It was filling up again.
"Don't take it away!" he pleaded.
"But it's getting full!"
"Don't—ahhh-gghh-aahh!"
* * *
"Ha-ha! Ha-Ha-HAAHH!!"
Loki rose among the stars, free at last from the curse of Odin One-Eye. The mirth that welled up in him boiled over as pure laughter...
And that surprised him!
Loki the Cunning. Loki the Deceiver. Loki the Prince of Many Purposes... Nothing pure and bland and untroubling had ever come out of him. Except now, after pulling off the greatest deception of his life, there came pure joy.
No, he decided, not pure after all.
As he passed upward toward cold vacuums, he was leaving much unfinished business on that planet, Earth. He had been put out of action for longer than any immortal int
elligence could reckon. Still, if he left the game now, he would be leaving it at midpoint, with no clear winner.
And the manner of his escape, that had an "unfinished" feel about it, too. So many blind stabs at life. So many dead ends. So many still-born, useless failures. Such a sloppy pass at willful action was hardly worthy of a mortal, let alone of a god.
Loki sulked for only a millisecond, then turned his spinning rise and headed homeward. As he plunged toward the binding curve of terrestrial gravitation, giddiness overtook him for one last time.
"Ah-hah!"
* * *
About the Author
Roger Zelazny
* * *
After receiving his B.A. from Case Western Reserve University and his M.A. from Columbia University, Zelazny began publishing science fiction stories in 1962. His reputation has gone through ups and downs, but he was given a Nebula award in 1966 for And Call Me Coward (1965), in a tie with Dune by Frank Herbert. A prolific writer, Zelazny's works focus on the relationship between illusion and reality. He always pays close attention to his craft, and his stories are intelligent, occasionally sentimental, often romantic and, to his many fans, very satisfying.
Copyright
* * *
ISBN: 978-0-671-72021-6
Copyright © 1999 by Baen Books
ePub version by Argonaut v3.0_r2 (09-2016)