To be fair to the nomads, the average city dweller of Kich or Khandar or Idrith thought the world considerably smaller. Let the madrasahs teach differently. Let the Imam preach about bringing the kafir who lived in lands beyond to a knowledge of the True God. To the coppersmith, the weaver, the baker, the fabric dyer, the lamp seller—the world’s center was the four walls of his dwelling, its heart the souk where he sold his skill or his wares, its edge the wall surrounding the city.
Born and bred in the court of an enlightened Emperor, the Imam knew the truth about the world. So did the Amir, who— though not an educated man—had seen too much of it with his own eyes not to believe that there was always more over the next hill. The learned scholars in the Emperor’s court taught that the world was round, that the land of Sardish Jardan was just one of many lands floating atop the waters of several great oceans, and that people of many kinds and many different beliefs lived in these lands—people who were to be drawn inevitably into the arms of Quar. Thus, when the Imam heard from Meryem about a madman who claimed to have come from over the sea, Feisal considered this news worthy of being passed on to his God.
The Imam prepared for his Holy Audience by fasting two days and a night, his lips touching only water and that sparingly. Such a feat was no hardship for Feisal, who had fasted whole months at a time in order to prove that the body could be subdued and disciplined by the spirit. This short fast was undertaken to purge the unworthy house of the spirit of all outside influences. During this time, the Imam kept strictly to himself, refusing contact with anyone from the outside (particularly Yamina), who might draw his thoughts from heaven. He broke his selfimposed restriction only twice—once to talk at length with Meryem, another to question the nomad, Saiyad.
The night of the Audience came. Feisal bathed himself in water made frigid by the addition of snow hauled from the mountaintops; snow that was used in the palace to cool the wine, used by the Imam to mortify his flesh. This done, he anointed his unworthy body with scented oils, to make it more pleasing to the God. At the hour of midnight, when the weary minds and bodies of other mortals found solace from their sorrows in sleep, Feisal stripped himself of all his clothes except for a cloth wrapped about his thin loins. Trembling, in an ecstasy of holy fervor, he entered the Inner Temple. Carefully, reverently, he struck the copperandbrass gong on the altar three times. Then he prostrated himself flat on the floor before the golden ram’s head and waited, his skin shivering with excitement and the chill of the air.
“You have called, my priest, and I have come. What is it you want?”
The voice caressed him. The Imam caught his breath in rapture. He longed to lose himself in that voice, to be lifted from this body with its weak need for food and water, its unclean habits, its impure lusts, its unholy longings. It was with an effort that the Imam reminded himself of what Quar had told him when the priest was young—it was through this unworthy body that the Imam could best serve his Master. He must use it, though he must fight constantly never to let it use him.
Knowing this and knowing, too, that he had to wrench his soul from the peace it longed to attain in heaven back to the travails of the world, the Imam lifted a silver dagger and thrust the knife blade with practiced skill into his ribs. There were many such scars on the Imam’s body; scars he kept hidden from view, for knowledge of such selfinflicted torture would have shocked the High Priest himself. The pain, the knowledge of his mortality, the blood running down his oiled skin—all brought Feisal crashing down from heaven and enabled him to discuss the concerns of humans with his God.
Pressing his hand over his side, feeling the warm blood well between his fingers, Feisal slowly drew himself to a kneeling position before the altar.
“I have been in contact with the nomads and I have heard, O Most Holy Quar, a very strange thing. There is or was a man living among the followers of Akhran who claimed to have come from over the sea and—what’s more—who claimed to possess the magic of Sul.”
The very air around the priest quivered with tension. Feeling now no pain from his wound, Feisal reveled in the sensation of knowing that, as he had believed, this information was welcome to his God.
“Is your informant reliable?”
“Yes, Holy One, particularly because she considers this to be of little importance. The man is dismissed as mad.”
“Describe him.”
“The man is a youth of about eighteen years with hair the color of flame and a hairless face and chest. He goes about disguised in women’s clothes to hide his identity. My informant did not see him practice magic, but she sensed it within him—or thought she did.”
“And where is this man?”
“That is the strange part, Hazrat Quar. The man escaped capture by the soldiers when they raided the camp. He interfered with plans to bring that most dangerous of the nomads—Khardan—into our custody. Both the madman and Khardan have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Their bodies were not found, yet—according to those I have questioned—neither has been seen. What is stranger still is that my informant, a skilled sorceress, knows Khardan to be alive, yet, when using her magic to search for him, she finds her mystic vision obscured by a cloud of impenetrable darkness.”
The God’s silence hummed around the Imam, or perhaps it was a buzzing in his ears. Feisal was growing dizzy and lightheaded. Grimly, he clung to consciousness until his God should have no further need of him.
“You have done well, my servant, as usual,” spoke Quar finally. “Should you hear or discover anything further about this man from across the sea, bring it to my attention at once.”
“Yes, Holy One,” murmured Feisal ecstatically.
The darkness was suddenly empty and cold. The God’s presence in the Inner Temple was gone. The bliss drained from the Imam’s body. Shivering with pain, he rose unsteadily to his feet and crept over to where his pallet lay on the cold marble floor. Knees weak, he sank down onto it and groped with a shaking hand for a roll of soft cloth he had hidden beneath it. Pulling it out, Feisal—with his fading strength—bound the bandage tightly about his wound.
His consciousness slipped from him and he slumped down upon the bloodstained pallet. The ball of cloth fell from his hand and rolled, unwinding, across the black, chill floor.
Chapter 6
We do not beat the whipped dog. . . Are you going to lie down on your master’s grave and die?
Crouched in his dark cell, Achmed repeated the Amir’s words to himself. It was true. Everything the Amir said was true!
“How long have I been in prison? Two weeks? Two months?” Despairing, Achmed shook his head. “Is it morning or night?” He had no idea. “Have I been fed today, or was that yesterday’s meal I remember eating? I no longer hear the screams. I no longer smell the stench!”
Achmed clutched at his head, cowering in fear. He recalled hearing of a punishment that deprived a man of his five senses. First the hands were cut off, to take away the sense of touch. Then the eyes were gouged out, the tongue ripped from the mouth, the nose cut off, the ears torn from the head. This place was his executioner! The death he was dying was more ghastly than any torture. Misery screamed at him, but he had lost the ears to hear it. He had long ago ceased being bothered by the prison smell, and now he knew it was because the foul stench was his own. In horror, he realized he was growing to relish the guards’ beatings. The pain made him feel alive. . .
Panicstricken, Achmed leaped to his feet and hurled himself at the wooden door, beating it with his fists and pleading to be let out. The only response was a shouted curse from another cell, the debtor having been rudely awakened from a nap. No guards came. They were used to such disturbances. Sliding down the doorway, Achmed slumped to the floor. In his halfcrazed state, he fell into a stupor.
He saw himself lying on a shallow, unmarked grave, hastily dug in the sand. A terrible wind came up, blowing the sand away, threatening to expose the body. A wave of revulsion and fear swept over Achmed. He couldn’t bear
to see the corpse, decaying, rotting. Desperately, he shoveled the sand back over the body, scooping it up in handfuls and tossing it onto the grave. But every time he lifted a handful, the wind caught it and blew it back into his face, stinging his eyes, choking him. He kept working frantically, but the wind was relentless. Slowly, the face of the corpse emerged—a man’s face, the withered flesh covered by a woman’s silken veil. . .
The scraping sound of the wooden bar being lifted from the door jolted Achmed out of his dream. The shuffling footsteps of prisoners being herded outside and the distant cries of women and children told the young man that it was visiting time.
Slowly Achmed rose to his feet, his decision made.
Emerging into the bright sunlight, Achmed squinted painfully against the brilliance. When he could see, he scanned the crowd pressed against the bars. Badia was there, beckoning to him. Reluctantly, Achmed crossed the compound and came to stand near her.
The woman’s eyes, above the veil, were shadowed with concern.
“How is my mother?” Achmed asked.
“Sophia is well and sends her love. But she has been very worried.” Badia examined the young man intently. “We heard that the Amir sent for you. That he spoke to you. . . alone.”
“I am all right.” Achmed shrugged. “It was nothing.”
“Nothing? The Amir sends for you for nothing? Achmed”— Badia’s eyes narrowed—”there is talk that the Amir offered you a place in his army.”
“Talk! Talk!” Achmed said impatiently, turning from the woman’s intense gaze. “That is all.”
“Achmed, your mother—”
“—should not worry. She will make herself ill again. Badia”—Achmed changed the subject abruptly—”I heard about Khardan.”
Now it was the woman’s dark eyes that lowered, the long lashes brushed the goldtrimmed edge of the veil. Achmed saw Badia’s hand steal to her heart, and he knew now what sorrow she had hidden from him the last time she had visited.
“Badia,” the young man asked hesitantly, swallowing, “do you believe—”
“No!” Badia cried stubbornly. Raising her eyes, she looked directly at Achmed. “The rumor about him is a lie—a lie concocted by that swine Saiyad. Meryem says so. Meryem says Saiyad has hated Khardan ever since the incident with the madman and that he would do anything—”
“Meryem?” Achmed interrupted in amazement. “Wasn’t she captured? The Sultan’s daughter— Surely the Amir would have done away with her!”
“He was going to, but he fell in love with her and couldn’t bear to harm her. He begged her to marry him, but Meryem refused. Don’t you see, Achmed,” Badia said eagerly, “she refused because she knows Khardan is alive!”
“How?”
Achmed was skeptical. Meryem was certainly lovely. The young man could remember watching the lithe, graceful body gliding like the evening breeze through the camp, going about her chores, long lashes modestly downcast until you came close to her then, suddenly, the blue eyes were looking right into your heart. Khardan had fallen headlong into the pool of those blue eyes. Achmed tried to visualize the sternfaced, grayhaired, battlescarred Qannadi floundering in the same water. It seemed impossible. But, Achmed was forced to admit, what a man does in his tent in the night is best covered by the blanket of darkness.
“—she gave Khardan a charm,” Badia was relating.
Achmed scoffed. “Women’s magic! Abdullah’s wife gave him a charm, too. They buried it with what was left of him.”
Badia drew herself to her full height, which brought her about to Achmed’s chin, staring at him with the sharpedged gaze that had often cut the tall Majiid off at the knees. “When you have known a woman, then mock her magic and her love if you dare. But do not do so while you are still a boy!”
Wounded, Achmed lashed out. “Don’t you understand, Badia? If Khardan is alive, then what Saiyad said is true! He fled the battle—a coward! And now he hides in shame—”
Thrusting her arm through the prison gate, Badia slapped him. The woman’s blow, hampered as it was by the iron bars, was neither hard nor painful. Yet it brought bitter tears to the young man’s eyes.
“May Akhran forgive you for speaking of your brother so!” Badia hissed through her veil. Turning on her heel, she walked away.
Achmed sprang at the bars, shaking them with such violence that the guards inside the compound took a step toward him.
“Akhran!” Achmed laughed harshly. “Akhran is like my father—a broken old man, sitting in his tent, mourning a way of life that is as dead as his son! Can’t you understand, woman? Akhran is the past! My father is the past! Khardan is the past!” Tears streaming down his cheeks, Achmed clutched the bars, rattling them and shouting. “I—Achmed! I am the future! Yes, it is true! I am joining the army of the Amir! I—”
A hand caught hold of his shoulder, spun him around.
Achmed saw Sayah’s face, twisted with hatred.
“Traitor!” A fist slammed into Achmed’s jaw, knocking him backward against the bars. The faces of other tribesmen loomed close. Glittering eyes floated on waves of hot breath and pain. A foot drove into his gut. He doubled over in agony, slumping to the ground. Hands grabbed him roughly by the collar of his robes and dragged him to his feet. Another blow across the mouth. A flaring of fire in his groin, burning through his body, forcing a scream from his lips. He was on the ground again, covering his head with his arms, trying to shield himself from the eyes, the hands, the feet, the hatred, the word. . .
“Traitor!”
Chapter 7
Qannadi sat late in his private chambers. He was alone, his wives and concubines doomed to disappointment, for none would be chosen this night. Dispatches had arrived by courier from the south, and the Amir had informed his staff that he was not to be disturbed.
By the light of an oil lamp burning brightly on his desk, Qannadi read the reports of his spies and double agents—men he had planted in the governments of the cities of Bas who were working for their overthrow from the inside. Studying these, he compared them to the reports of his field commanders, occasionally nodding to himself in satisfaction.
The ripples created by the rock thrown at the nomads were still spreading across the pond. Qannadi had made certain his agents proclaimed publicly that the Amir had done as a tremendous favor by ridding them of the spear that had long been pointed at their throats. Never mind that centuries had passed since the nomads had attacked Bas and that the attack had come at a time when the newly arising cities were seen as a distinct threat to the nomads and their way of life. So devastating had been the battles fought then that they lived in legend and song, and it took only the mention of the fearsome spahis—the cruel desert riders in their black robes and black masks—to drain the blood from the plump cheeks many a Senator.
Governed by democratic rule that permitted all men of property (excluding women, slaves, laborers, soldiers, and foreigners) to have an equal vote, the people of Bas had lived in relative peace for many years. Once they had established their citystates, they devoted themselves to their favorite occupation—politics. Their God, Uevin—whose three precepts were Law, Patience, and Reality—delighted in all that was new and modern, despising anything that was old or outdated. His was a materialistic outlook on life. What counted was the here and now—that which could be seen and that which could be touched. The people of Bas insisted on having every moment of their lives controlled, and there existed so many ordnances and laws in their cities that walking on the wrong side of the road on an oddnumbered calendar day could land one in prison for a month. The great joy in their lives was to crowd the Senate chambers and listen by the hour to endless harangues over trivial points in their numerous constitutions.
Uevin’s followers’ second greatest joy was to create marvels of modern technology to enable them to better the quality of their lives in this world. Huge aqueducts crisscrossed their cities, either bringing water into the homes or carrying waste away from them. Their buildi
ngs were massive, and of modern design with no frivolous adornments, filled with mechanical devices of every conceivable shape and description. They had developed new methods of farmingterracing the land, using irrigation, rotating crops to rest the soil. They invented new ways to mine gold and silver and, so it was rumored, had even discovered a black rock that burned.
Though the majority of people in Bas believed in Uevin, they considered themselves enlightened, and encouraged believers in other Gods to settle in their cities (mostly, it was believed, for the sake of the debates it stirred up). Followers of both Kharmani and Benario were numerous in Bas, and an occasional temple could be found to Zhakrin and Mimrim and Quar. Life was good in Bas. The people exported their crops, their technological devices, their ores and metals, and were generally well off. Their faith in Uevin had never wavered.
Until now.
In determining how his immortals should best serve both himself and his followers, Uevin rejected the notion of djinn and angels that were used by other Gods and Goddesses. He designed a more modern system, one that could be completely controlled and was not subject to the whim of changeable humans. Delineating his immortals as “minor dieties,” he put each in charge of one specific area of human life. There was a God of War, a Goddess of Love, a God of Justice, a Goddess of Home and Family, a Goddess of Crops and Farming, a God of Finance, and so forth. Small temples were built wherein each of these minor dieties and their human priests and priestesses dwelt. Whenever a human had a problem, he or she knew exactly what deity to consult.
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