The Prophet of Akhran

by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman

  Khardan’s gaze shifted from the man’s impassive face to the silverandgold hilt that could be seen protruding from his sash. “An assassin’s dagger?”

  “Yes. Benario, God of the Stealthy, has blessed it.”

  Grunting, Khardan shook his head. “You are a fool.”

  With this pronouncement, he settled himself more comfortably back against the camel and closed his eyes.

  Auda grinned. “Then I travel with a party of fools. How do you think I found you here? How do you think I came to be carrying water enough for three, or that I have brought three riding camels with me?”

  Khardan shrugged. “That is easy. You followed our tracks through the sand. As for bringing along the camels, perhaps you like their company!”

  Auda laughed—a sound like rocks splitting apart. From his smooth face and cruel, cold eyes, it seemed he did not laugh often. His mirth ended quickly—rocks tumbling down the side of a cliff and vanishing into a chasm of darkness. Leaning near, Auda grasped hold of the Calif ‘s arm, his strong fingers digging deeply into the flesh.

  “Zhakrin guided me!” he hissed, and Khardan felt hot breath upon his cheek. “Zhakrin sent me to follow you, and it was Zhakrin who drove off Quar’s ‘efreet! Once again I have saved your life, nomad. I have kept my vow to you.

  “Now you will keep yours to me!”

  Chapter 9

  They slept fitfully through the day, sheltered from the searing heat in a small tent carried by the djemel, Auda’s baggage camel. With the setting of the sun they woke, ate tasteless unleavened bread also provided by the Black Paladin, drank his water, then prepared to leave. Few words were spoken.

  Though intensely curious about Auda and his arrival that had saved their lives, Zohra could not ask Khardan about him, and the Calif—grim and sternfaced and silent—volunteered no information. It was unseemly for a woman to question her husband, and though Zohra normally cared little about proprieties, she felt a strange reluctance to flout them before the Black Paladin. She kept her eyes lowered, as was proper, when she went about the small duties involved in preparing and serving their meager meal, but glancing at him from beneath the fringe of her lashes, she never failed to notice ibn Jad watching her.

  Had there been lust or desire in the black eyes, or even exasperated fury as she was accustomed to seeing in Khardan’s, Zohra would have discounted and scorned it. But the Paladin’s flat gaze, expressive of no emotion whatsoever, unnerved her. She found herself stealing furtive glances at him more often than she intended, hoping to catch some glimmer of inner light in the eyes, gain some idea of his thoughts and intentions. Whenever she did, she was disconcerted to find her glances returned.

  She could have whispered her doubts and fears to Mathew, except that the young man was behaving most oddly. Slow to waken, he moved sluggishly and stared about him in a dazed manner that took in the presence of Auda ibn Jad without surprise or comment. He drank as much as they allowed him but refused food and lay down again while the rest of them ate. Only when ibn Jad shook his shoulder to rouse him when it was time to leave did Mathew react to the man as though he remembered him, flinching away from his touch and staring at him with wild, glistening eyes.

  But he meekly followed ibn Jad when bidden to rise and leave the tent. Obediently and without question, he mounted the camel and allowed the two men to position him comfortably in the saddle.

  Zohra watched Mathew’s strange behavior with concern and again, had they been alone, would have called it to Khardan’s attention. Once or twice she endeavored to catch the Calif ‘s attention. Khardan avoided her pointedly, and—with ibn Jad’s eyes always on her, even when he was looking at something else—Zohra kept silent.

  “We will reach Serinda before morning,” Auda announced as they rode out into the rapidly cooling air of the night. “It is well that I came along, brother. For had you made it across the Sun’s Anvil to Serinda alive, there—in the city of death—you would surely have died. There is no water in Serinda.”

  “How could that happen?” asked Khardan disbelievingly, the first words other than commands or instructions concerning their leaving he had uttered. “They must have dug their wells deep, to provide water for so many. How could Serinda’s wells ever run dry?”

  “Dug?” Twisting in his saddle, Auda glanced at Khardan, riding beside him, with amusement. “They dug no wells, nomad. The people of Serinda used machines to suck the water out of the Kurdin Sea. The water flowed along great canals that stood high in the air and emptied into hauz for the city’s use. I have heard it said that these canals could sometimes be made to take the water directly into a man’s dwelling.”

  “It is too bad we have no children traveling with us,” Khardan remarked. “They would be fascinated by such lies. I suppose you will tell me next that these people of Serinda were fish people, who drank salt water. “

  Auda did not seem offended at this reaction to his tales. “The Kurdin Sea was not always salty, or so I have heard the wise men in the court of Khandar teach. Be that true or not, I repeat we will find no water at Serinda. There will be shelter from the sun there, however. We can spend tomorrow safely within its walls, then travel the next night. We have water enough to last that long, but no longer. The following day when we reach your camp around the Tel, we can lead your people to war against Quar. I presume” —Auda turned his flat, glittering eyes upon Khardan—”that your own wells have not run completely dry?”

  It was obvious he was not speaking of water.

  “The wells of my people run deep and pure!” Khardan retorted, resenting the insinuation but not daring to say more, since the Paladin’s remarks hit closely near the center of his target. Flicking the camel stick across the beast’s shoulder, he kicked at the camel’s flanks with his heels, driving the animal forward to take the lead.

  Riding behind the men, her attention divided between listening to the conversation and worriedly watching a swaying, groggy Mathew, Zohra knew by the hunch of the man’s shoulders that Auda was regarding Khardan speculatively.

  Her fingers curled over the reins, unconsciously twisting and pleating the leather. She had never—until now—heard true fear in her husband’s voice.

  Chapter 10

  It was in the dark shadows of the walls of Serinda, just as the eastern sky was beginning to brighten with the coming of day, that Mathew tumbled from his saddle and lay like one dead in the sand.

  More than once on the long journey, Zohra had seen the young man’s head nod listlessly, his shoulders slump, and his body begin to slant sideways. Ridjng up beside him, she lashed out with the camel stick, striking him a blow across his shoulders. The thin, flexible stick bit through cloth and into flesh like a whip—a painful but effective means of wakening a drifting rider. Mathew jerked upright. In the starlit darkness she could see him staring at her in puzzled hurt. Dropping back behind him, she put her hand to her veiled lips, enjoining him to silence. Khardan would have little patience with a man who could not sit a camel.

  Zohra saw Mathew start to sway when they reached Serinda, but she could not urge her camel forward fast enough to catch, him. She knelt beside him. One touch of her hand upon his hot, dry forehead told her what she had long begun to suspect. “The fever,” she said to Khardan.

  Lifting the young man in his arms—the youth’s frail body was as light as that of a woman’s—Khardan carried him through the gates of Serinda. Halfburied in the sand, the gates that had once kept out formidable enemies now stood open to the one enemy that could never be defeated—time.

  Pukah would not have recognized this city as the one in which he had performed his heroics. Quar’s spell had made it appear to the immortals as they wanted to see it—a rollicking city of teeming life and sudden death. Streets choked with sand were streets choked with brawling mobs. Doors falling from their rusted hinges were doors broken in fights. The wind that whispered desolately through empty, dust covered rooms was the whispering laughter of immortal lovers. The spell broke
n, Death once more walked the world, and Serinda was a city even She had abandoned long ago.

  Auda led them through the empty, windswept streets to a building that he said was once the home of a wealthy, powerful family. Zohra, interested only in finding shelter for Mathew, paid scant attention to private bathing pools of colorful inlaid tile or the remains of statuary; except perhaps to note in shock that the bodies of the humans portrayed were completely naked. Though broken and defiled by centuries of looters, it was easy to see that their sculptors had given careful consideration to every detail.

  Zohra was too concerned about Mathew to pay attention to carved rock. When Khardan had lifted him in his arms, Mathew had looked straight up at him and had not known him. The young man spoke in a language none of them understood and it was obvious from his rambling tone and occasional shouts and yells that what he was saying probably made little sense anyway.

  Searching through the manyroomed dwelling, they finally found one chamber whose walls were still intact. Located in the interior of the large house, it seemed likely to offer relief from the midday heat.

  “This will do,” said Zohra, kicking aside some of the larger fragments of broken rock that littered the floor. “But he cannot lay on the hard stone.”

  “I will look for bedding,” offered Auda ibn Jad. Silently as a shadow, he slipped from the room.

  Sunlight streamed through a crack in the ceiling, its slanting rays visible in the haze of dust and fine sand that their arrival had raised up from the stone floor. The light glistened in Mathew’s flaming red hair, touched the pallid face, glinted in the feverglazed eyes that stared at sights only he could see. Khardan held him easily, securely. The young man’s head lolled against the nomad’s strong chest, a feebly twitching hand dangled over the Calif ‘s arm.

  Moving near to brush a lock of hair from Mathew’s burning forehead, Zohra asked in a low, tense tone, “Why has that man come?”

  “Thank Akhran he did,” Khardan replied without looking at her.

  “I was not afraid to die,” Zohra answered steadily, “not even when I felt the point of your dagger touch my skin.”

  Khardan’s gaze turned on her in astonishment. She had not been asleep! She had realized what he meant to do and why he had to do it, and she had chosen not to make it difficult for him. Lying completely still, shamming sleep, she would have met her death at his hand unflinchingly, unprotesting. Akhran himself knew what courage that must have taken!

  Awed, Khardan could only stare at her wordlessly. In his arms Mathew stirred and moaned. Zohra moved her hand to caress the boy’s cheek. Her dark eyes raised to look in Khardan’s.

  “That man?” she persisted softly. “He is evil! Why—”

  “An oath,” Khardan growled. “I swore an oath—”

  A scraping sound warned them of the Black Paladin’s return. He backed in through the chamber door, dragging a woolstuffed pallet with him.

  “It is filthy. Others have used it before us for a variety of purposes,” said Auda. “But it is all I could find. I shook it out in the street and dislodged several inhabitants who were none too pleased at finding themselves homeless once more. But at least Blossom will not add scorpion stings to his other troubles. Where do you want it?”

  Keeping her eyes lowered, Zohra pointed wordlessly to the coolest corner of the room. Auda threw the mattress down and kicked it into place with his foot. Zohra spread a felt camel blanket on top, then motioned for Khardan to put, Mathew down. With clumsy gentleness, the Calif eased the suffering young man onto the pallet. The young, man’s wide open eyes stared at them wildly; he spoke and tried weakly to sit up but could barely lift his head.

  “Will he be well by morning?” asked ibn Jad. Kneeling beside her patient, Zohra shook her head. “Then, more to the point,” continued the Black Paladin, “will he be dead by morning?”

  Zohra turned her head; the dark eyes looked directly at Auda ibn Jad for the first time since he had joined them. For long moments she gazed at him in silence; then her eyes shifted to Khardan. “Bring water,” she ordered—it was a woman’s right to command when fighting sickness—and turned back to Mathew.

  The two men left the building, walking through Serinda’s silent streets to fetch the camels that had been left hobbled just within the gates.

  Pulling down his facecloth, Auda smoothed his beard, ruefully shaking his head. “I swear by Zhakrin, nomad, I felt the fire in that look of hers scorch my flesh! I shall bear the scar the rest of my life.”

  Khardan walked without reply, the haik covering his own face, any glimmer of his thoughts lost in the cloth’s shadow. Raising an eyebrow, Auda smiled, a smile that was absorbed and hidden by the black beard. Growing graver, the pale face smooth and impassive once more, he laid a slender, longfingered hand upon Khardan’s arm and brought the man to a halt.

  “Draw her away, on some pretext or other. It need not be long.”

  “No.” Khardan resumed his walk, his face averted from ibn Jad’s, his eye staring straight ahead.

  “There are ways that leave no mark. The boy succumbed to the fever. She will never know. My friend”—Auda pitched his voice louder to reach Khardan, who continued to walk away from him—”either Blossom dies now or we all die in a few days when the water runs out.”

  Khardan made a swift, angry, negating gesture with his hand, slicing it knifelike through the heatshimmering air.

  “My God will not allow the staying of my quest’“ called ibn Jad.

  Khardan reached the gates where the camels waited with the grumbling patience of their kind.

  Auda remained standing, his arms folded across his chest.

  “Unless you want to find that two have died by morning, nomad, you will take your woman out of that room and keep her out.”

  Khardan stopped, his hand resting on the splintered wood of the sandmired gate. The fingers clenched. He did not turn around. “How long,” he asked abruptly, “do you need?”

  “The count of a thousand heartbeats,” answered Auda ibn Jad.

  Chapter 11

  Softfooted, Khardan entered the house they had taken over in Serinda, moving silently in the shadows that slanted across the corridors of the longabandoned dwelling. Always uncomfortable within walls, the nomad felt doubly ill at ease walking the halls of another man’s home without his permission or knowledge. No matter whether it was a Sultan’s palace or the most tattered tent of the lowest tribe member, a home was a sacred place, inviolate—entered with ceremony, left with ceremony. And though this dwelling had been looted and stripped of its valuable possessions hundreds of years before, the mundane, everyday objects of those unknown people had been preserved in the dry air of the desert so that it seemed to Khardan as though the owners must return any moment—the women bewailing the destruction, the men angered and demanding revenge.

  The nomad has little sense of time. Change means nothing to him, since his life changes daily. The nomad is the center of his own universe; he is his own universe. He must be, in order to survive his harsh world. The deaths of thousands in a nearby city will mean nothing to him. The stealing of a sheep from his fold will send him to war. Standing within these walls, Khardan had a sudden glimpse of time, the universe, and his own part in it. No longer was he the center, the man the sun rose for daily, the man for whom the stars shone, the man the winds buffeted and challenged to battle in personal contest. He was a grain of sand like millions of others. The stars never knew him. The sun would rise without him some day, the winds toss him heedlessly aside to pick up some other speck.

  The man who walked this colored tile long ago once thought himself the center of the universe. The people who built this city knew themselves to be the apex of civilization. They had known their God to be the One, True God.

  And now that God was nameless, unremembered, as were the men who worshipped him.

  All that remained was of the earth, Sul, the elements. The stones on which Khardan trod were in the world before man came. Used b
y man, tooled by man, set in place by man, they would be here when man was gone.

  The thought was humbling, frightening. The Calif ‘s fingers moved over the smooth surface of the hewn rock, feeling the texture, the coolness within the stone despite the rapidly growing heat of the day outside, the slight depressions here and there where a hand wielding a chisel had slipped.

  Sighing, his face grave, he moved on through the house, where the shadows seemed more welcome than he was, and quietly entered the room where Mathew lay.

  Kneeling beside the pallet, her back to the door, Zohra glanced at Khardan as he entered, and glanced away. Intent on her patient, she wiped the boy’s feverish face with a damp cloth.

  “You should not be wasting the water,” Khardan said in a harsher tone than he had meant to use. Let her offer what comfort she can. After all, what does it matter? He rebuked himself, but it was too late.

  He knew by the set of her shoulders, the sudden twist of her hands, the wrenching of the cloth as she squeezed the liquid back into a cracked bowl, that he had made her angry. “You are tired, Zohra. Why don’t you go to sleep?” he said evenly. “I will tend to the young man.”

  He saw her flinch, the shoulders jerk, then straighten. She turned to confront him, and he braced himself to meet with impassive expression the black eyes that looked straight into his soul. Patiently, he waited for the storm of her rage to break over him. But her head drooped, her shoulders slumped, her hands dropped the cloth listlessly into the water. Sitting back upon her heels, Zohra raised her face to look into the heavens, not to pray, but to force the tears back down her throat.

  “He means to kill him, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes.” Khardan could say no more.

  “And you will let him!” It was an accusation, a curse.

  “Yes,” Khardan answered steadily. “Would you leave him alone with this sickness on him, to let the fever burn him up, or let him do himself an injury in his ravings or be preyed upon by some animal—”