by The King
Along one wall slept two chained young beasts— a tiger and a lion—barely bigger than cubs, but not the pets of a commonplace man, not even a commonplace ruler. A huge, ornate golden throne, overseen by a shieldlike symbol, and bookended by ivory tusks pointing left and right, provided a looming perch fit for the king Memnon meant to be; along one side of the throne room, a spacious balcony looked out across the spires of the city ... the fabled city of sin that now belonged to Lord Memnon.
At a small round table near that balcony sat the sorceress, Cassandra, poring over a parchment map on which she arranged agates and jade and other smooth stones, in a manner, a pattern, flowing instinctively from an unearthly source within her. Clad in a diaphanous robe, her breasts and loins covered in glittering chain mail, regal in her golden headdress, she was attended by two similarly underclad beauties with feathered fans, soothing her from the warmth of the desert clime. But their presence, like the heat itself, did not penetrate her preoccupied, almost trancelike state.
With delicate gold-and-jewel-bedecked fingers she ran her searching touch across the face of the map, and the rune stones she had arranged there . . .
... summoning a vision: the warrior queen, Isis, on horseback, at full gallop, riding toward a forest, beyond which (Cassandra somehow knew) a settlement awaited. Then the queen drew up her steed, as smoke streamed into the sky from the decimated village. Around her, at her side, were her sister warriors, her tribal council; but coming toward her were more of the female fighters she ruled, and they showed the ragtag signs of battle, the blood, the soot, the despair. Slung across one saddle was a mortally wounded warrior; and on the queen's face anger and sadness fought for dominion.
Cassandra opened her eyes. She could feel the anguish of Queen Isis, but she kept that shared sorrow within her: no tears fell. Like so many seers, Cassandra had erected defensive walls—otherwise, she would be a slave to her visions.
A familiar voice boomed across the throne room: "And what news from my sorceress, today?"
She turned, nodding to her attendants, who slipped away, even as Lord Memnon—a warrior king in black leathers—strode across his throne room with his right-hand man, Thorak, and left-hand man, Takmet, at his appropriate sides.
Remaining seated, she swiveled toward Memnon, regarding him with half-lidded eyes. "The forces of Queen Isis are scattered to the four winds."
Memnon grinned, like a greedy child, exchanging satisfied nods with both his chief advisers.
"The people of Ur," she said, "are reeling from the death of their king."
At this mention of the father he'd murdered, Takmet smiled a little. The sorceress did not reveal her repulsion, merely continued.
"Pheron's tribes are evacuating their villages," she said. "They are without direction... . Leaderless."
Memnon's eyes tightened. "And what of the Nubian?"
Cassandra shook her head, and her dangling earrings made small music. "Balthazar ... and his people ... remain hidden from my sight."
The warlord's eyes flared. "Do the gods shield them?"
She offered him a tiny shrug. "My gift does not reveal this, my lord."
Memnon drew in a deep breath, then let it out, before throwing a smiling glance at, first, Takmet, then Thorak. "Give our generals the news of this disarray in Ur. Have them make ready my armies."
"Yes, my lord," Takmet said.
Thorak said the same.
As the advisers made their exit, Memnon approached Cassandra and touched her shoulder, his smile surprisingly gentle. "You think me cruel?"
"I rarely think of you at all," she said, though her tone lacked the apparent contempt of her words.
He strolled to a table of food and ripped a shank of venison from a platter. "You sorely test my good nature, Cassandra."
"I am here only to fulfill a purpose."
He turned to her, holding the shank of meat like a club. "Yes? Perhaps you've forgotten what life is like, outside these palace walls."
The warlord tossed the venison across the room, and his young lion and tiger began to scuffle over it, until finally they were snarling and snapping at the meat and each other.
"That is what it is like out there, my pet," he said to her. "Heartless ... ignornant... savage ..."
What an apt description of Memnon himself, the sorceress thought; but she did not share this view with her host.
With a wave, Memnon summoned guards from the periphery who separated the two beasts, yanking them back on their chains; one guard cleaved the remainder of the shank of meat with his sword, and gave each animal its share.
Memnon returned to the seated woman's side. "That ignorance . .. that barbarism ... I can change it all. Am I not called the Teacher of Men? I can transmute savagery into civilization, in our lifetimes. Just as the prophecy says ..."
As if not even listening, Cassandra rose and wandered to that table of food and drink; she poured herself a goblet of wine. But her words indicated she had indeed paid attention to her lord: "I know the prophecy."
"You should," he said, going to her. "The vision, after all, was yours, Cassandra. ... Say it."
"Don't you know it, my lord? Don't the words ring in your mind at every moment?"
"Say it!"
She sighed. " 'By tolling bell, and thunder's swell... a flaming star falls from the sky. By a full moon's glow, in House of Scorpio ... kneeling men bow, to the king ... on high.' "
"Such lovely words," he said, and with the back of his hand he stroked her cheek. "Such a lovely woman ... what a queen you'll make. For I am that king of legend, my love ... celebrated by the gods themselves."
She looked at him, her lovely face blank, her eyes unblinking, and said nothing.
"When that time comes, when the prophecy is fulfilled," he said, "you shall take your place beside me.... On a throne, of course .. . and in my bed."
She smiled—a tiny smile. "Only a virgin can be blessed with second sight. My lord, in your bed of delight, I would lose my gift .. . and you would lose your advantage on the field of battle."
He returned the smile and studied her perfect features. "Ah, my beautiful sorceress ... When I am king of the world, I will no longer need your visions ... all I will require is the vision of loveliness that you are."
And Memnon ran his hand up the expanse of her bare arm, fingers gentle on her flesh; but even as he savored the thought of the ecstasies that awaited him . . . them ... the sorceress flinched, feeling a chill, and a wave of revulsion.
She drew away from the warlord, brushing the hilt of a knife on his belt, unaware that this weapon was the confiscated throwing knife that had belonged to the Akkadian, Mathayus.
And contact with a belonging of the assassin's sparked a psychic contact, and a new vision seized her mind, her being, took her at once to the desert, where she saw . ..
... a scrawny, scruffily bearded man running alongside a strange, white camel on which rode the Akkadian—Mathayus!
So the assassin lived! Was her life still threatened, then? she wondered.
But she did not share the vision—threat or not— with Memnon, even when—noting the surprise in her eyes, sensing another vision had come—he asked, "What is it?"
Instead she merely informed her lord that she was tired from their journey.
Memnon searched the woman's face for deceit or trickery, but saw nothing, and suggested she rest.
"I will have need of you tomorrow," he told her, "when my generals come caning."
She bowed her head. "Thank you, my lord,"
When she turned and walked away from him, the warlord called to her. "Cassandra)"
She stopped, but she did not turn to him.
He said, quietly, "Your well-being is of the utmost importance to me. You know that, don't you?"
That was as close as this proud warlord could come to telling the woman that he loved her. Admitting his thirst for her—the lust in him—was far easier than acknowledging the tend
er emotions he felt, which shamed him.
"Yes, my lord," she said, hating him. "You are most generous."
And as she glided from the throne room, the mighty warlord watched her go, drinking in every supple curve of her body, relishing the bounce of her dark hair on her shoulders and the tinkle of her jewelry and the grace of her movements.
Like a drunk who has forsworn the bottle, this strong man wallowed in the weakness of loving her, and longed for the day her purity would no longer matter, when he could love and defile her.
At the crest of a rocky slope, Mathayus—leading his camel, tagged along after by the horse thief-— paused to survey the valley below ... and the fortified, walled city whose structures, humble and grand, were lorded over by a castellated palace.
"So," the Akkadian said with dry bitterness, "this is the house of the hollow king."
"Gomorrah," Arpid said, taking in the view with wide, appreciative eyes. "Grandest city in the world."
To Mathayus there was nothing grand about it— not even the palace, which to the assassin was nothing more than a box for him to crack open and shake that rogue warlord out.
But the scruffy little horse thief was still rhapsodizing, sighing like a man remembering his kiss. kiss. "Let me tell you, partner—after a hard day of looting and pillaging, there's no better place to unwind than Gomorrah..." He frowned in thought. ".. . except for maybe Sodom."
Massive bow already over his shoulder, Mathayus turned to Hanna and began arming himself from the camel's backpacks—knives, arrows, kama, and more. The sight of this seemed to take some of the steam out of the thief.
"Yes, Gomorrah's something, all right," Arpid said, stepping away from the assassin. "And I really do wish I could join you ..."
The Akkadian was paying the man no heed; right now the assassin was withdrawing his long, hooded cloak. As Mathayus slipped into it, his companion plucked a knife from one of the packs and executed a few slashes at invisible adversaries.
"Believe me," Arpid was saying, "I'd like to even up the score with those red guards, myself. .. but with the price on my head, I'd never make it through the gates."
Mathayus turned and finally acknowledged the thief. "Oh, but I have faith in you ... partner."
"I'm afraid my notoriety would only bring you unwanted attention. You should sneak in the back way."
"We're going to Gomorrah, not Sodom."
"Really, Mathayus—I would not want to impede you...."
The Akkadian rested a massive hand on the little man's bony shoulder. "You'll get us in, thief. The front way."
Before long they were approaching the Gomorrah gate, the hooded cloak obscuring Mathayus's face as he walked the camel, the thief following along, hiding behind the Akkadian's bulk.
From beneath the hood, the assassin's eyes took it all in: the detachment of red-turbaned guards checking the people as they entered, searching carts, scrutinizing individuals and their baggage alike; and a line of archers on the ledge overlooking the gated entryway—with a nod from the guards below, these bowmen could turn any troublemaker into an instant pincushion.
"You see, Mathayus?" the horse thief whispered, from behind him. "Memnon has the city locked up tight as a blood-gorged tick. . . . We need to turn back."
"But I'm depending on you."
"I know, and I wish there was something I could do."
Mathayus turned to the thief and his smile was broad and terrible. "Oh, but there is."
And the Akkadian drew his arm back and punched Arpid in the face, knocking him instantly out.
Moments later, with the unconscious thief slung over Hanna's saddle, the cloaked Akkadian walked the camel by its reins up to the guards at their gate station. They viewed him with suspicion—but then they viewed everyone with suspicion, so that was to be expected.
"What business have you in Gomorrah?" the burlier of the guards demanded.
"I have come for a bounty," Mathayus said. He nodded toward the figure draped over the camel's saddle. "Arpid—the horse thief. He is a wanted man, I understand."
Another of the guards stepped forward and lifted up the thief's head by its hair, for inspection—Arpid didn't seem to mind, slumbering as he was.
"I know this dog," the guard said. He let out a single nasty laugh. "They'll behead the bastard for sure, this time!"
Mathayus patted the unconscious man's skull with mock affection. "And how much prettier he'll be, for the alteration."
The guards all laughed at that—the Akkadian had judged their sense of humor well—and they waved him on through the gate.
Soon the Akkadian found himself in a buzzing, bustling bazaar, leading his camel and his still-slumbering companion through an exotic array of belly dancers, flame blowers, snake charmers, fire walkers and sword swallowers, an open-air market where vendors sold fruit and vegetables and woven baskets and fine carpets and every other commodity known to man, and perhaps a few previously unknown as well. Dens of iniquity offered sustenance, if one could survive the clientele, and outside one of these rough bars, Mathayus stopped at a horse trough.
The Akkadian dragged the dazed thief down off the camel and dunked his head into the water, bringing the man suddenly around.
"What... what," Arpid sputtered, "what happened?"
"Thanks to your wiles," Mathayus said, "we got past the guards. You got us in."
"Ah ... yes." Water trailed down his face from his sodden hair. "A man who lives by his wits is hard to defeat!"
"Such true words," Mathayus said, lifting the little thief by the scuff of the neck and hauling him over to a crude wooden stool outside the bar, depositing him there.
The Akkadian called out to the proprietor. "A jug of your finest wine for my road weary friend, here!"
Arpid just sat there, dripping wet, bleary-eyed, getting bis bearings, as Mathayus tied up the albino camel at a nearby hitching post. Carefully the assassin removed the pouch of rubies from the hiding place beneath his saddle, and tied the precious bag securely to his belt.
"Watch Hanna for me," Mathayus told his groggy companion, who remained seated on that rough-wood stool.
"You can .. . can count on me," Arpid said, tenderly testing his jaw, which seemed to be sore, for some reason.
"Always," the Akkadian said with a smile, and slipped into the chaos of the crowd.
The little thief stayed at his stool, blinking his way back to a more or less alert state. "Wait a minute!" he said, calling to Mathayus, though the assassin had already disappeared into the flurry of activity that was the marketplace. "The last thing I remember was this enormous fist..."
From the bar, carrying a jug of wine, came a generously shapely, serviceably attractive serving girl overflowing her harem-like attire. She filled a glass for Arpid, who stared up at her appealing if slatternly countenance, already forgetting about the indignity of that Akkadian fist in his face.
"Please, sir," she said, with a sublimely false smile of little-girl innocence, "let me know if there's anything else you'd like."
The horse thief sighed and returned the smile; he seemed dazed again, but it was no longer the effects of Mathayus's fist.
"It is so good," he mused to her, "to be back in the big city again."
Elsewhere, the Akkadian was winding through the whirlpool of commerce, sin and decadence that was the bazaar, making his way toward the palace gates.
"Here they are," a seller of swords was saying, "the finest steel in the land . .. You can't get respect in Gomorrah without a quality blade on your hip!"
But Mathayus was already armed to the teeth, and ignored all such come-ons in the main square, where one could buy anything from damask to damsels; he strode single-mindedly toward the citadel that was Memnon's palace. Finally he stood, hands on his hips, looking up at the heavily armed red turbaned guards walking the ramparts, guarding the gates of this imposing structure, half castle, half fortress.
And just as he was studying the lay of the la
nd, a brood of street urchins manifested itself out of nowhere—the youngest ragamuffin might have been six, the oldest no more than ten, a blur of dirty faces and nimble feet, swirling around him, stirring dust.
"Guide, sir?" one said.
"You need a guide, sir," said another.
'To find your way in Gomorrah, sir," yet another bleated.
Mathayus knelt and summoned the leader of the smudged-faced flock with a curl of a finger. "You, lad—are you a smart enough guide to show me a way into the palace?"
Dark eyes glittered in the dirty, dark face. "A smart guide wouldn't, sir—or he'd get a tour ... of Lord Memnon's dungeon!"
The little gaggle of urchins laughed like magpies, and Mathayus was smiling at them when one alongside him sneaked in and, in a flash of steel, cut the pouch of rubies from the Akkadian's belt!
The culprit sprinted off, and Mathayus raced right after him; but those urchins tagged along, laughing, running, catching up with the boy who'd snagged the pouch and—in a dazzling display of misdirection—began to hand the booty off between themselves, until it was impossible for the Akkadian to tell which boy had wound up with the rubies.
Half guessing, he pursued one of the little brigands, winding through stalls, upending carts and tables of fruit and vegetables, finally catching up with the lad. Taking him by the ankles, Mathayus hauled him in the air and held him upside down—was this how Arpid had started?—and shook the boy; a few coins spilled from the child's pockets, but no pouch.
Frightened, the dangling boy pointed to another, older urchin; this one looked about twelve, and was darting through the stalls with impressive dexterity. The Akkadian dropped his prisoner rudely to the ground, and took off after the older boy ... only to have another of the urchins dash by going in the opposite direction.
The Akkadian, twisted this way and that by the acrobatic street gang, stopped running and leaned against a cart, trying to focus. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted a flicker of movement, and his hand snapped out and caught a boy just darting from behind the stand. Latching onto the gamin's shirt, Mathayus yanked him off the ground and lifted him to his face and looked right into the boy's dark, jumping eyes.
