E. Hoffmann Price's Fables of Ismeddin MEGAPACK®

by E. Hoffmann Price

  There was a snap of steel tested beyond its endurance. The sultan pitched forward a step, recovered, whirled, drew his pistol, and fired at the nude, oiled form of his assailant, who was just clearing the garden wall. But moonlight and the swiftly moving target proved too much for the sultan’s marksmanship. The would-be assassin made good his escape.

  The sultan shrugged his bruised shoulder.

  “Well, but that was real enough.”

  And then at his feet he saw the poniard which, meeting the tough shirt of mail, had snapped at the hilt. Picking up the pieces, the sultan sought the private apartments of his palace. From a great distance came the thump-thump of atabals, the pulsing of drums that spoke of revolt in the hills.

  “Treason within and revolt without! Bah!” He spat disgustedly. “And to think that I left the joys of Feringhistan to inherit this house of madness! Fool that I was to decline the offer of that infidel who would have bought my entire kingdom…an expensive coffin.”

  And thus and thus soliloquized the sultan as he picked his way through the dark corridors of his palace, and up the winding stairs to the roof. There, in the full light of the moon he scrutinized the shattered weapon the assassin had dropped in his flight.

  “Marvelous good taste,” he reflected, noting the adamantine splendor of the diamond-encrusted pommel, and the cool, unblinking blue of Burmese sapphires on the hilt. “A pity it had to break… Allah! Am I utterly mad?” he gasped.

  “Isfendiyar, the son of Mamoun,” he read in letters of gold inlay on the blade.

  The sultan’s features became drawn and haggard. His shoulders drooped. With head bowed, he paced back and forth, seeking to collect his scattered wits.

  “You, Isfendiyar, my good friend…accursed be friendship and all friends!…you, Isfendiyar, the son of Mamoun, you seek my life because that fierce old man my father saw fit to jest, and doomed your father to death!”

  And below, in the courtyard of the palace, from time to time the watch was changed; and now and then from the hills came the sinister drumming that spoke of revolt. But of all this the sultan was unaware; unaware of all save that Isfendiyar, his good friend, was indeed the son of that Mamoun of the great house of Idris, whom the old sultan had sent to his doom; and that for all these years Isfendiyar had plotted vengeance, failing only on account of an anonymous warning.

  On all this the sultan pondered, admitting the justice of Isfendiyar’s claim.

  Why should not one of the noble race of Idris seek just reprisal? And then came the memory of their friendship, and the bread they had broken, and the salt with which it had been seasoned.

  The false dawn glowed on the horizon. And still the sultan paced to and fro, torn by conflicting thoughts of vengeance, pardon, wrath, and regret. An hour passed, and the true dawn flared forth. Still the sultan was entangled in his indecision.

  The muezzin in the high minaret of the mosque intoned his call to prayer; and to its cadence the sultan chanted his oath of vengeance.

  “You, Isfendiyar, my friend who sought me with a dagger, holding me accountable for the evil deed of my father…”

  And then it dawned upon him that it was too late for reprisal; for surely the would-be assassin had ridden that very night back into the desert whence he came ten years ago. Inconsistently enough, the sultan rejoiced that the shock of the night’s encounter and subsequent discovery had so benumbed his usually active brain that he had let Isfendiyar make good his escape.

  “Bismillahi rrahhmani rrahheem—” he began, as he faced the east. “Praise be to God, lord of the worlds…”

  * * * *

  That morning in the hall of audience the wazir Ismail noted the sultan’s hard features and knew without asking that there had been a meeting in the garden.

  “My lord,” he announced, “Haaj Isfendiyar seeks audience with you.”

  “Impossible!” And then, to himself, “Fool! Why didn’t he ride last night?…and now—”

  “Then my lord will not see him?” Ismail willfully misinterpreted.

  “Bring him in.”

  And the sultan tapped a small gong with the mallet hanging on its pedestal. Four black mamelukes, fully armed, entered and took their posts at each side of the throne. Following them came Saoud the executioner with his great scimitar.

  “And to you, a thousand years, Haaj Isfendiyar,” returned the sultan to his friend’s greeting. “They tell me,” continued the prince, smilingly, “that you inherited much of your property from an emir.”

  “Even so, my lord,” replied Isfendiyar, wondering that at such an early hour there would be jests concerning inheritances.

  “And among those articles was a poniard which you had inscribed with your name?”

  “Even so.”

  “This, for example, which you dropped in the gardens last night, after failing to leave it between my ribs… Seeking to inherit a throne this time, Haaji?”

  The sultan in his extended hand displayed the fragments of the weapon.

  “My lord jests.”

  But Isfendiyar knew that doom lurked behind the fast-fading smile and in the smoldering eyes of the sultan.

  “Jest? I wish I did. Saoud! Isa! Ibrahim! Hussein! Said!”

  The sultan struck his hands sharply together as he snapped out the names of his mamelukes.

  The blacks advanced, seizing the astonished Isfendiyar.

  “This is what remains of your poniard, which broke against my shirt of mail. You did not foresee that, did you, friend Isfendiyar?”

  “Here in my belt is my poniard. Draw it and see,” Isfendiyar commanded the mamelukes.

  “Here is your poniard,” countered the sultan, again displaying the pieces, “and it bears your inscription. This blade which you now offer me is blank. You have overstepped yourself once too often in your trick of inheriting things; and you armed yourself with the wrong blade. Isfendiyar, I admire the nerve which made you stay here to try again, instead of riding back into the desert. For who would have suspected?… But your judgment was faulty, and your head will pay.”

  “Allah akbar!” murmured Isfendiyar, seeing the hopeless odds, seeing that even his voluntary presence at court that morning had been construed against him, seeing that neither wit nor reason could extricate him from the trap. The evidence was damning; Ismail had won.

  Saoud sought the sultan’s eye. His fingers closed on the hilt of his blade.

  “Isfendiyar, you were once my friend. Therefore shall I give you your choice of death in whatever form your fancy demands.”

  “Then let me die in single combat with Ismail, on horse or on foot, as he may elect.”

  “Crafty and plotting to the last! With your last move you would dispose of an enemy. But you know full well that you could not die in any combat with him. Therefore choose… Isfendiyar, why did you make that mad attempt? Why seek me with a knife—me, your friend? Was it my fault that my fierce old father sent your father to his death? Why, I did not even know that Mamoun had a son… No, Isfendiyar, I shall spare your life; but I shall banish you, and give your house to be plundered.”

  And at the sultan’s gesture of dismissal, the mamelukes escorted Isfendiyar to the eastern gate, stripped of his rank, once again a wanderer. His house was even then being pillaged by the rabble; and his horses were being led to the sultan’s stables. Of all his fortune there remained but a purse of dinars, and that rare scimitar which men called the Ladder to Heaven, on account of the transverse markings an ancient smith had forged into damascened steel.

  “The Ladder to Heaven and a bit of gold. And I have had less even than that as a start,” reflected Isfendiyar, thinking of a meeting with a Kurdish emir ten years ago.

  * * * *

  Well without the city walls, Isfendiyar sat down in the shade of a tree at the cross-roads,
pondering on his next move. Into the hills to lead the revolt against the sultan? And why not? Why not lift the Ladder to Heaven against that prince who had exiled him on suspicion, that prince whose father had sent the father of Isfendiyar to his doom for the sake of a Kashmiri bayadere?

  “But he spared my life, when he could have taken it…spared, in order to pillage, and send into exile a faithful friend and servant.” And thus, each thought contradicting its predecessor, Isfendiyar sought to resolve the riddle of the situation.

  Weary at last, and drowsy from the heat, Isfendiyar fell half asleep, and restlessly dreamed of seeking new fortunes, reprisal against the tyrant who had had so little faith in him, and vengeance for the sake of Mamoun, his father whom the sultan’s father had sent to his death.

  Isfendiyar awoke with a start. It was late in the afternoon.

  “Alms, in the name of Allah, alms!” whined a voice at his side.

  “Beggars begging from a beggar!”

  Isfendiyar tossed the ragged old mendicant a coin, recklessly flung him a dinar of gold.

  “My lord is generous, and I am grateful. I will repair my lord’s fortunes.”

  “And what do you know of my fortunes?”

  “Who does not know what befell Haaj Isfendiyar? But I am old and wise, and you can profit by my wisdom.”

  “And regain my position by following the counsel of a beggar?”

  “Beggar? Look!”

  The old man flipped the alms of Isfendiyar into the dusty highway.

  The whine had vanished from his voice; his keen, hard eyes regarded Haaj Isfendiyar intently, commandingly. Though ragged, disreputable, with grimy talons and matted beard, this old man who tossed a gold piece aside as so much dirt was surely no beggar.

  “What then, old man?” queried Isfendiyar, amazed at such a reckless gesture. “And who are you to know so much about sultans and those who seek them with daggers? Perhaps you could even tell me who found my poniard and used it so clumsily. But who are you?”

  “I am Ismeddin the darvish, whom Allah has favored with wisdom beyond that of other men; and I know strange devices wherewith to recoup one’s fortune. And I know that your thoughts are of vengeance; that you regret you did not make the attempt whereof you are accused, knowing full well that you would not have bungled.”

  “Well then, Ismeddin, since gold does not interest you, I shall save it for one who will need it. But what do you want?” he continued, as he retrieved the coin and thrust it into his purse. “My influence at court? For men do not offer favors without seeking something in return.”

  “What have I to do with courts? Or with gold? I am a simple darvish who for the sake of doing a good deed would help you gain revenge and repair your fortunes.”

  “By finding the lost gardens of Irem, or going to El Moghreb to raise a force to reconquer Spain?” scoffed Isfendiyar, half out of patience, yet interested in the old man’s fancies.

  “No, Haaji. Follow me,” commanded the darvish.

  And Isfendiyar, once captain of a thousand horse, followed, and wondered that he did so. True, he had no place to go, no plans in mind save to go to El Moghreb, or perhaps to seek a friend in Azerbaijan; and one is never in a hurry about beginning such long trips. But to follow this ragged old man… unheard of! Yet he followed.

  * * * *

  Somewhat over an hour’s walk brought them to the edge of a sparse jungle, lost in whose depths were the ruins of an ancient city. A most unsavory locality, one whereof strange tales had been told. Against men he could use the Ladder to Heaven; but against afreet and djinni…well, that was another matter entirely. And that old man’s eyes glittered strangely. Isfendiyar halted.

  “Haaji, do you know who I am?” questioned the darvish, likewise halting.

  “Ismeddin the darvish, if you spoke the truth.”

  “Who is the Lord of the world?” queried the darvish quite irrelevantly.

  “There is no god but Allah, and Mahmet is his prophet,” intoned Isfendiyar, as he placed his fingertips first on his temples, then on his lips, then, crossing his arms on his breast, made his salaam.

  “Wrong, Haaji! Were that the truth, would you, an innocent man, be accused of attempting to assassinate your master, and be punished for the crime of another?”

  “Iblis fly away with him!”

  “A detail to be arranged in due course. But as I have said, you have been wronged, and you shall have ample recompense and great vengeance. This very evening you shall stand before the Lord of the World.”

  “The Lord of the World? If not Allah, then—” Isfendiyar shuddered, retreated a pace, and whispered, “Malik Taûs?”

  “No. Not the Lord Peacock, but rather him whose idle fancy created not only Allah, but all the gods before whom men have bowed. And you shall not leave me until you have heard me to a finish,” commanded the darvish.

  Isfendiyar approached a step, drawn by a compulsion that overcame his fear. Sweat glistened on his forehead. His fingers trembled as they curled around the hilt of the Ladder to Heaven.

  “There is no god but—”

  “Enough! And you need not finger your sword. I am your friend, the darvish Ismeddin; more your friend than you can possibly know. You will see strange things tonight, Haaji. And you shall have all the vengeance that you desire. If you are a man of courage, follow me.”

  The sun had set. Into the jungle the darvish led Haaj Isfendiyar, somewhat reassured, yet withal uneasy and consumed with apprehension. That glittering uncanny eye, that compelling voice, those sinister words…

  The jungle became denser; progress slower. Darkness, swift on the trail of sunset, fell and enveloped them. Ismeddin picked his way, following a path he must have known by instinct, so sure was his advance. Isfendiyar was guided but by the dirty white blotch of the old man’s djellab. At last they halted at a breach in a wall that towered high above them.

  “The ancient citadel of Atlânaat,” announced the darvish with the lordly gesture of one who puts on exhibition some prized bit of personal property.

  Isfendiyar trembled violently, despite his efforts to compose himself. That fiend-haunted ruin could bring him no good. He recollected tales of those who had sought the treasure said to be buried in its depths. Some few had returned; but those few had been stark mad and raving, and babbled of monstrous things they had heard and seen. And this old man spoke with such a proprietary air concerning the place!

  The moon had risen, revealing a vast extent of shattered columns, broad avenues, and ruined buildings of colossal proportions. Grotesque figures leered at him from the strangely carven capitals of gigantic pillars; unhallowed sculptures writhed and twisted on the walls.

  The darvish busied himself with gathering dead wood from just outside the walls, leaving Isfendiyar to make what he could out of the sinister surroundings. Then with a flint and steel he struck light, kindling a small fire at the entrance of the shrine before which they had halted.

  “The hour is not at hand. Let us rest.”

  From his pouch he drew dates and cakes of millet which he offered Isfendiyar.

  “Eat.”

  “I am not hungry,” protested Isfendiyar, recollecting the strange sayings of the darvish.

  “Nonsense!” snorted the darvish. “You have not eaten since this morning. Eat, and fear nothing. I am your friend.”

  When Isfendiyar had disposed of the last of the food, the darvish drew from his voluminous pouch several dried plums, dark, shriveled, and scarcely larger than olives.

  “These, Haaji, were plucked from a tree that grows on the slopes of Mount Kaf. Eat three of them, for they will give you the courage you will need to face that which is before you.”

  Isfendiyar eyed the plums, but made no move to accept.

  “See, I myself will eat one, whichev
er one you leave.”

  But Isfendiyar did not note that the darvish palmed the remaining plum instead of eating it.

  Strangely flavored were those small plums: bitter-sweet, and pungent, and aromatic of spices, a mêlée of conflicting flavors curiously blended. Isfendiyar could not say just what they did resemble; certainly nothing the like of which he had ever before tasted. He nibbled a second plum. Why not? What if they were poison? What odds? The ten best years of his life had been swept away by the unjust suspicions of a capricious prince. And all the while the old man regarded him with that fixed, intent, glittering eye.

  “While we wait, Haaji, we shall have music.”

  So saying, the darvish drew from that same pouch a tiny darabukeh, a small drum whose body of dark wood was laid off in seventeen oddly carved sectors. Its head was made of skin the like of which Isfendiyar had never seen.

  “It is the tanned hide of an unjust prince,” replied the old man to lsfendiyar’s question. “Flayed by his outraged subjects, ages ago. Abaddon has played on this drum in the depths of his black pit. And now listen to the tunes that I shall sound on it.”

  Squatting directly in front of Isfendiyar, the darvish began to play, tapping with his fingers on that tiny drum; with fingertips and knuckles and with the heel of his hand coaxing from it a reverberation of amazing volume. And as he played, in shifting, varying rhythms, he chanted in a language that Isfendiyar had not heard for ten years.

  The old man paused in his playing for an instant and tossed into the embers of the fire a handful of powder which fumed heavily, so that through its mist Isfendiyar could see but the glittering, intent eye of the darvish. He ate the third plum, sucking from its seed the very last bit of spicy flavor. He nodded drowsily to the marching pulse of that tiny darabukeh, and to the strange words of the darvish, words that sang of vengeance, and flickering blades, and swiftly looping silken bowstrings, and of the Lord of the World who dreamed, and whose every dream was tangible fact. The dense, acrid, pungent-sweetness of the incense half strangled Isfendiyar; and the flavor of the last plum tingled on his tongue.