The Prophet of Akhran

by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman

  It seemed to Khardan, as he darted swift glances up and down the street, that if this was true, Hazrat Akhran might have handled matters more efficiently, improved on some things. But it occurred to the Calif that in certain areas the God might be as dependent upon his human followers as they were upon him.

  “Perhaps if I had acted more wisely from the beginning, my path would have been easier,” Khardan reflected, entering the dwelling place and making his way to Mathew’s room. “Much of what has happened may be Akhran’s attempts to mend the clay pot that I heedlessly smashed.”

  He and his companions had been taken to Castle Zhakrin for a reason—the freeing of the two Gods Quar was holding captive. That much was apparent to Khardan now. The Gods would presumably join Akhran in heaven’s war.

  And Akhran had need of his followers still, apparently. He had led them safely from the castle to the Kurdin Sea. There, however, things had begun to go wrong. The djinn had departed and not returned. Khardan remembered Pukah’s description of Akhran—weak, bleeding, wounded.

  The battle was not going well, then. Akhran had nearly lost his grasp on them. It was Zhakrin who picked them up, sending ibn Jad to find and save them. For some reason, the Gods had decided that the Paladin’s path lay with his.

  The Calif entered the boy’s room reluctantly, fearful of what he must find.

  Apparently the Gods had willed that Mathew should fall sick and die. . .

  No, not die.

  Khardan stared at the boy in amazement. Mathew lay upon the pallet, quiet now, having fallen into the unhealthful, dreamravaged sleep of high fever. But he was asleep, he was not dead. Khardan saw the body twitch, heard the labored breathing. Moving nearer, leaning down to look at the boy closely, the Calif saw that the rag lying on the hot head was cool and moist. It had recently been changed.

  But Zohra was not around.

  Puzzled by this mystery, Khardan glanced about the room in search of something that might provide him with answers. Perhaps weariness had overcome ibn Jad, and the Paladin had decided to rest before he killed the boy. This seemed unlikely to Khardan, who guessed that the Black Paladin would not let death itself prevent him from carrying out any intention, much less a human weakness such as a need for sleep. It also did not explain his wife and his dagger.

  But if so, where was she?

  Poking among the few objects in the room, more out of frustration than in real hope of finding anything worthwhile, Khardan noted that the magical pouch Mathew wore on his belt, the pouch the Calif had carefully and gingerly removed when they stripped the boy of his heavy robes, had been upended, its contents recklessly dumped in a corner.

  Khardan took a step near it, then stopped. He would have no idea what, if anything, was missing, and there was no sense in touching or handling items that sent shivers through him just to gaze upon them. And at that moment the thought occurred to him that Zohra was trying to work some of Mathew’s magic.

  Khardan was chilled to the bone. Mathew had been teaching her what he knew. The young man had tried to tell the Calif about it, but Khardan had refused to listen, not wanting to know. Women’s magic. Or worse still, magic of a kafir from a faraway land.

  He heard a voice. Zohra’s voice. It sounded peculiar. . . . She was singing!

  If a dozen scimitarwielding soldiers of the Amir had crashed through the door and attacked him where he stood, Khardan would have fought them with his bare hands and never known fear. This eerie singing unnerved him, left him weak and shaking allover like a horse sensing the coming of an earthquake.

  Her voice was quite near, rising from another part of the house. The center, Khardan judged, recalling having seen an openair courtyard, its floor made of tilted, broken stone. He could easily find her now, if he could force his feet to carry him past the doorstoop. At length came the dim idea that he might be able to stop her before she did anything rash and impetuous. Just what that might be, Khardan wasn’t certain, but he saw once again that horrible creature—a demon of some sort—Mathew had summoned forth from Sul.

  Moving swiftly, careless of the noise he made, Khardan hurried through the corridors and discovered, as he had guessed, that the singing sound came from the courtyard in the center of the dwelling.

  He halted beneath a stone arch. In the center of the courtyard was a large, round pool, full ten feet in circumference, with rock walls that stood about three feet off the ground. Long ago this hauz had held water for household use, water carried to the house, perhaps, by those canals of which ibn Jad had told them. That had been long ago. Now the pool was choked with sand blown into the courtyard in the desert’s effort to reclaim what man had stolen from it. A vast mound of sand spilled over the edge of the pool, forming a small dune that covered a portion of the courtyard.

  At the edge of the driedup hauz stood Zohra. Her back was toward Khardan. She did not see him and, from her unnaturally rigid posture, might not have noticed him had he stepped in front of her. The Calif moved softly near her, hoping to see what she was doing and gain an idea of how to bring it to an end.

  Coming around to where he could see her face, he noted that her attention was fixed upon a piece of parchment she held firmly in both hands. The glint of sunlight on a metal blade showed him his dagger. It lay on the edge of the hauz, and there was a pool of something dark—red—near it.

  Eyes widening, Khardan saw blood dripping from a deep cut in Zohra’s left arm. She paid no heed to it, however. Her gaze was fixed upon the parchment, and she was singing the song that wasn’t a song in a voice that raised the hair on Khardan’s head. Moving to get a look at the parchment, the Calif saw that it was covered with marks, marks drawn in blood!

  Awed, shaken, yet determined to stop her, Khardan crept forward and reached out a hand. At that moment Zohra’s voice ceased. Khardan stilled his movement, though it did not seem that she was aware of his presence. Her eyes and her entire being were focused upon the parchment to such an extent that he doubted if a thunderclap would rouse her.

  His hand stretched forth, shaking, and then fell limp at his side. The bloody marks upon the parchment had begun to move—wriggling and writhing as though in agony! Khardan caught his breath, nearly strangling. His teeth bit through his tongue as he watched the marks crawl off the paper and drop, one by one, into the pool.

  And suddenly the Calif was ankledeep in water.

  Water swirled around his feet, flooded the courtyard, flowed into the house. Water—trapped within the strong stone walls of the pool—glistened and sparkled in the noonday sun.

  Hesitantly, Zohra dipped her fingertips into the water, as though she could not believe it herself. Her hand came out wet, dripping, and she laughed exultantly.

  Hearing the sound of Khardan’s breath sucking between his teeth, Zohra knew he was there. Turning, she faced him, and he had never seen her look so beautiful. Her cheeks glowed with a radiance of pride and accomplishment, her eyes sparkled more brilliantly than the water.

  “Your miracle!” she said to him proudly. “And it is from my hands!” She held them out to him, and he saw the bloody gash on her arm. “Not Akhran’s!”

  Chapter 14

  “Your God has provided his miracle. It is obvious he wants this boy to live. Far be it from me to thwart his will. I do not kill for pleasure, Princess,” continued Auda ibn Jad gravely, “but out of necessity.”

  It seemed to Zohra that Akhran’s “miracle” might have been in vain. Water she had now, in plenty; but lacking the herbs and healing stones with which the nomad women usually treat illness, Zohra could do little except to bathe Mathew’s burning skin and trickle water into the parched, cracked lips. The fever raged unabated. Mathew ceased even his incoherent babbling and lay in a stupor, panting for breath. The only sound he made was low moanings of pain.

  Zohra fought her battle against Death alone, or assumed she did. Tending the sick was woman’s work, and she was not surprised when ibn Jad and Khardan left the room that smelled of sickness and of death
. Because she was not listening for it, she did not hear Khardan’s return, nor did she see him sink down onto the floor of a shadowed alcove outside the open door of Mathew’s room, where he could watch unobserved.

  The afternoon wore away slowly, time being measured by the panting breaths drawn into the feverridden body. Each breath was a victory, a sword thrust at the unseen foe who fought to claim Mathew as prize. Rarely sick himself, Khardan had never been around sickness, had never given much thought to the fight women waged against an enemy ancient and strong as Sul.

  It was an encounter grim and wearying as any he had ever fought with steel, and considerably more frustrating. The enemy could not be met with yells and clash of sword, grappled and wrestled to the ground. This dread foe must be combated with patience, with endless changing of dry cloths for wet ones, with refusal to allow heavy eyelids to shut and snatch even a few moments of blessed rest.

  The most dangerous time came at aseur, sunset. For it is this time between day and night when the body’s spirits are at their lowest ebb and the most vulnerable. The sinking of the sun cast the dwelling in shadows long before twilight had faded outside. There was no lamp to light, and Zohra fought her battle in a dim, dusty darkness.

  Mathew had ceased even to moan. He made no sound at all, and Khardan thought several times the boy had quit breathing. But then the Calif would hear a dry, rasping gasp or see through the gloom a white hand twitch feebly, and he knew Mathew lived still.

  “His spirit is strong, if his body isn’t. But it’s gone on too long,” Khardan said to himself. “He can’t take this. It cannot last much longer.”

  And it seemed as if Zohra realized the same truth, for he saw her head bow, her hands cover her face in a sob that was all the more heartrending in that it was silent, unheard. Khardan rose to go to her, to lend her his strength, if need be, to face the final moments that he had no doubt would be difficult to watch. But the Calif ‘s movement was arrested. Halting, halfrisen on one knee, he stared in awe.

  A figure had entered the room, a woman with long hair that shimmered with a pale glow in the fading light. Her skin was white, she was clothed in white, and Khardan had the impression—though he could not see her face—that she was very beautiful. The face was turned toward Mathew, and the Calif wondered if this was the immortal guardian, the “angel” of which Pukah had spoken. If so, then why the chill running through his body, congealing his blood, freezing his breath? Why the fear that shook him until he was near whimpering like a child?

  The woman stretched out white, delicate hands to the boy, and Khardan knew suddenly that she mustn’t touch him. He wanted to call to Zohra, whose eyes were covered, who wasn’t looking, but his tongue could not form the words. He made a sound, a kind of croak, and the woman—distracted—turned toward him.

  She had no eyes. The sockets were hollow and dark and deep as eternal night.

  This was no guardian! The boy’s guardian was gone and he was alone and it was Death who leaned over him! The woman stared at Khardan until certain he would make no trouble, then turned back to claim her victory. The white hands touched the boy, and Mathew screamed, his body convulsed. Zohra raised her head. Crying out defiantly, she flung her body across Mathew’s.

  Startled, Death drew back. The hollow eyes darkened in thwarted anger. The hands reached out again and this time would have clutched at both, for Zohra held Mathew in her arms. His head on her breast, she rocked and soothed him. Her back was to her foe; she did not see her enemy approach.

  Khardan moved. Drawing his dagger, he interposed himself between the two and Death. The woman’s blond hair flicked across his skin, and he felt a searing pain. The hollow eyes stared at him malevolently, the white hand reached for him, and then, suddenly, she was gone.

  Blinking, dagger in hand. Khardan stared around in fearful astonishment.

  “Whatever are you doing?” came Zohra’s voice.

  Khardan turned. Zohra had laid Mathew back down upon the pallet and was staring at her husband with a narroweyed, suspicious gaze.

  “The woman! Did you see her?” Khardan gasped. “Woman?” Zohra’s eyes opened wide. “What woman?”

  It was Death! Khardan started to shout in exasperation.

  Death was here! She wanted the boy, and you wouldn’t let her, and then she was going to take you both. Didn’t you see her? . . . No, he realized suddenly. Zohra hadn’t seen her. He put his hand to his head, wondering if the heat had touched him. Yet she had been so real, so horrifyingly real!

  Zohra was still staring at him suspiciously.

  “It. . . must have been a dream,” Khardan said lamely, thrusting the dagger back in his belt.

  “A dream you chase with a dagger?” Zohra scoffed. Giving Khardan a puzzled look, she shrugged, shook her head, and turned back to her patient.

  “How is the boy?” Kbardan asked gruffly.

  “He will live,” Zohra said with quiet pride. “Only a few moments ago I nearly lost him. But then the fever broke. Listen! His breathing is regular. He sleeps peacefully.”

  Khardan could barely see the boy in the gloom, but he could hear the soft, even breathing.

  A dream?

  He wondered, and would probably keep on wondering the rest of his life.

  Zohra started to rise to her feet, stumbled wearily, and would have fallen had not Khardan caught hold of her arm. Gently he assisted her to stand. Her face was a glimmer of white in the darkness. The only light in the room seemed to come from the flame in her eyes. Exhausted as she was, that inner fire burned brightly.

  “Let me go.” She tried to withdraw her arm from his grip. “I must fetch more water—”

  “You must sleep,” said Khardan firmly. “I will bring water. “

  “No!” Brushing back a straggling lock of black hair from her face, she attempted once more to slip out of Khardan’s hold, but the Calif ‘s hand tightened. “Mathew is better, but I should not leave—”

  “I will watch him.”

  Khardan steered her toward the room next door.

  “But you know nothing of nursing!” she protested. “I—”

  “—will tell me all I must do,” Kbardan interrupted.

  Weary, Zohra let herself be persuaded. Kbardan led her to a small chamber. Stepping inside, he spread his own outer robe out on the floor and turned to find her pressed back against a wall, staring around the room with fearful eyes. Zohra—seeing him watching her in amazement—suddenly behaved as if nothing were amiss, though she rubbed her arms as with a chill.

  “Mathew will need you in the morning when he wakens,” Khardan continued, mystified by her strange reaction. But then, it had been a day of mystery. Gently but firmly he eased his wife to the crude bed he had prepared for her.

  Feeling exhaustion overcome her, Zohra lay down with a thankful sigh upon the stones. “If he wakes, give him water,” she murmured sleepily. “Not too much at first. . .”

  That, Khardan knew. Assuring her he could manage, he was almost out the door when she started up, crying out, “Where is ibn Jad?”

  Khardan paused and turned. “I don’t know. He mentioned something about hunting, trying to find meat—”

  “Don’t let him come in here!” Zohra said, and he was surprised at the harshness in her voice.

  “I won’t. But he wouldn’t anyway.” Where a woman rests is harem. forbidden to men.

  “Swear, by Hazrat Akhran!” Zohra urged.

  “Have you so little faith in me?” Khardan demanded impatiently. “Go to sleep, woman. I told you I would keep watch!”

  Stalking into the sickroom, which was now almost completely dark, Khardan threw himself down beside the pallet. Fuming, he propped an elbow on a corner of the straw mattress. That she should require of him an oath! When he had protected her from the most feared of all beings! Reaching out, he felt Mathew’s forehead. The skin was moist and damp. The young man’s breathing was shallow and fast, but the terrible raspy, rattling sound was gone. He would be well and hungr
y by morning.

  “In all of this, the only thing that doesn’t surprise me is that Death is a female!” muttered Khardan angrily into his beard.

  Chapter 15

  Escaping from the feverworld, where dreams are more real than reality, Mathew woke to darkness and terror. Khardan’s reassuring voice and strong hands, a sip of cool water, and the knowledge, dimly realized, that he was being watched over and protected led the young man to close his eyes and slip back into a healing sleep.

  When he awoke the following morning, about midday, and saw the walls around him, he thought he was back in Castle Zhakrin, where it seemed he had wandered most in his delirious ramblings.

  “Khardan!” he gasped, struggling to sit.

  Zohra knelt swiftly by his side. Placing her hands on his shoulders, she forced him to lie back down; not a difficult task— his body seemed a limp, wet rag that had been twisted and wrung dry.

  “You don’t understand,” he whispered hoarsely, “Khardan is . . . near death. They’re. . . torture! I must—”

  “Khardan sleeps soundly,” said Zohra, smoothing back the hair from his forehead. “The only torture he suffers is a stiff neck from having slept on a paved street yesterday. Where do you think you are? Back in the castle?”

  Mathew looked at his surroundings, his expression puzzled. “I thought. . . But no, we escaped. There was the desert and we walked and then Serinda was still far away and there was the storm.” He stopped, frowning in an effort to carry his memories further.

  “You don’t remember what happened next?”

  He shook his head. Sliding her arm beneath his shoulders, Zohra lifted his head and held a bowl of water to his lips. “The man called ibn Jad found us,” she said. Mathew’s wasted body flinched at the mention of the Paladin. He would have turned wondering eyes to Zohra, for there was a tenseness in her voice when she spoke the name, but she kept the water to his lips, and he dared not move his head for fear of spilling it. “He brought camels, and we rode through the night to Serinda. It was then the fever took you.”