E. Hoffmann Price's Fables of Ismeddin MEGAPACK®

by E. Hoffmann Price

  “Not entirely,” protested Sayyid Absál. “The kaffir is a great swordsman, even as the prophecy said. And one of these men is a liar, for one of the leaden seals must be false.”

  “My lord,” interposed Zantut, “is it not more likely that a true believer should have the seal of Suleiman Baalshem than an unbeliever?”

  “That goes without saying,” agreed the Shareef.

  “But,” protested Sayyid Absál, “who are we to know what is acceptable to Allah, and to whom he would entrust the seal of Suleiman? Is this fellow Humayd a fighting man? Let him meet my six best retainers in a side street,” challenged Sayyid Absál, “and if he can prove himself in that way, I will agree.”

  “Son,” reproved the Shareef, “it seems to me that you have no more to agree than to disagree.”

  “Well,” retorted Sayyid Absál, “and has this pious Zantut by any chance dazzled you with his tale of great treasure? The tradition speaks of the promise of Suleiman, and the health of our cousin, Azizah, and not of chests of treasure.”

  “My lord,” interrupted Zantut, “is it not also possible that this infidel impostor said nothing about the treasure so that he could keep it all for himself?”

  “Even so,” assented the Shareef.

  “Now by Allah and by my beard!” thundered Sayyid Absál. “The issue is evaded! What of the stout swordsman of the tradition?”

  “Humayd,” replied Zantut, “is a great swordsman, even if he has not distinguished himself in street brawling in Tekrit.”

  “Then if he is such a swordsman, let him meet this kaffir in single combat, and may Allah judge between them!” demanded Sayyid Absál.

  “That,” conceded the Shareef, “would be fair.”

  Humayd’s confusion did not escape Sayyid Absál. But the triumph was fleeting.

  “My lord,” protested Zantut, “need we put a revelation from Allah to the trial of combat? Would that be an auspicious beginning, making the favored of Allah prove himself against an infidel?”

  “Assuredly not,” agreed the Shareef.

  “Allah, and again, by Allah!” stormed Sayyid Absál. “My uncle’s daughter identified this unbeliever as the stout swordsman of her visions. Let her at least identify this holy darvish.”

  “That also would be well,” admitted Zantut. “But my lord knows as well as I do what value to set on the fancy of a woman. She saw him sitting in the souk, smoking, and he pleased her. Is that to be taken against the revelations of an angel to a devout and holy man?”

  Zantut paused, stroked his beard, and continued: “Cousin of the Prophet, I am a peacemaker. I would not for the very treasure of Suleiman cause contention between you and your son. My disciple may have been deceived; or what he saw might have been a snare of Iblis. And lest injustice be done, let this kaffir accompany us; and if Humayd fails in the ritual, then let the kaffir prove himself. Thus we will have twice the chance of dissolving the curse that clouds the life of your brother’s daughter.”

  “Done, by Allah and by my beard!” exclaimed the Shareef. “Wise and holy man, none but Suleiman himself has equal wisdom.”

  The Shareef twice clapped his hands.

  “Fresh camels for Zantut and his followers,” he commanded. “A litter for the lady Azizah. Then get the infidel swordsman, well bound, and put him in a litter.”

  With a lordly gesture, the Shareef dismissed Zantut and his companions.

  * * * *

  An hour after sunset, ten swift meharis filed past the sentries at the Isfayan Gate. Two of them bore between them a richly adorned takht rawan; and a third carried a litter of ordinary design. The other seven camels were ridden by the darvishes who but a short while before had been dismissed by the Shareef.

  A one-eyed hunch-backed beggar squatted at the gate, whining to Allah and all passers-by for alms.

  “The Lord will provide,” growled Zantut from the height of his mehari.

  “Son of a flat-nosed mother,” muttered the beggar as he adjusted the patch over his right eye, “you would be amazed if you knew what the Lord will provide for you!”

  He stroked his long beard, and grinned evilly.

  “Alms, in the name of Allah, alms!” he whined, the stout savagery of his expression changing swiftly to one more in keeping with his position as he noted the approach of a tall slave in a striped kaftán.

  The slave tossed him a coin, glanced quickly about him, then stooped and muttered in the mendicant’s ear.

  “What’s this?” demanded the beggar. “Released? How, and by whom?”

  “My lord the Shareef ordered it. Both the infidel and the lady Azizah left just a short while ago.”

  “Left?”

  “Yes. With the darvish Zantut and his pious companions.”

  “Father of seven hundred pigs!” stormed the beggar. “Son of calamity! Where is the Shareef?”

  “In his reception hall, saidi,” replied the slave respectfully.

  “Alms, for the love of Allah!” whined the beggar for the benefit of a passer-by. And then to the slave, in an undertone: “Very well, Musa. I shall remember this.”

  And with a surprisingly jaunty gait, the hunchback strode down the main street of Tekrit, and then, turning down a side alley, bore directly toward the great house of the Shareef. But instead of waiting to be announced, the beggar thrust the porter aside, stalked down the hall, across the courtyard, and into the Shareef’s presence.

  “Old man,” demanded the Shareef, “who admitted you?”

  “I admitted myself, saidi,” replied the beggar. “And as soon as your men withdraw,” he continued, indicating the porter and two slaves who were advancing to seize him, “I will say more.”

  The Shareef gasped, turned the color of an old saddle; then, meeting for a moment the grimy wanderer’s fierce eye, relented. The man was obviously mad, reflected the Shareef; some saint or holy man whose wits were in Allah’s keeping.

  “I will see him, Kasim,” he said, dismissing with a gesture the astonished porter and his companions.

  “Now, old man, what is it?”

  “Prayer, and the Peace, Cousin of the Prophet!” began the hunchback, “I have come to make a wager.”

  “And what would you wager, holy man?”

  The Shareef was now quite convinced, from the intruder’s wild manner, unkempt beard, and one glittering eye, that this was indeed a wandering saint.

  “My head against your two best horses, saidi. Have them saddled, saidi, and when we are well beyond the city walls, I will propose the wager.”

  “By Allah,” muttered the Shareef, “but he is mad!”

  “My lord,” resumed the beggar, “I am unarmed, and an old man. I repeat my wager: my head against two good horses.”

  “So be it,” agreed the Shareef, as he clapped his hands. “Horses and arms at once, Kasim!”

  “Allah upon you, my lord, but you wish to win this very good head of mine?”

  “Holy stranger,” replied the Shareef, “leave your prayer with this house; and if you lose your wager, you may keep your head.”

  “Of what use are my prayers, saidi, seeing that the servant of Satan the Damned this very day beguiled you? Where is the daughter of your brother, on whom be peace?”

  “On the way to the Valley of Djinn, with Zantut the darvish and his pious companions.”

  “And what of the infidel, Rankin?” next demanded the beggar.

  “The kaffir rides with them. But who are you, reverend saint?” wondered the Shareef; for there was something strangely familiar about this madman.

  “I am as much a saint as Zantut is a darvish. It is you who are stark mad, and not I,” declared the beggar.

  “Even so,” agreed the Shareef. “But what do you mean?”

  “Wait until we
are well without the city walls, and in the desert which has seen all things. Wait until we have seen what we are to see—”

  Kasim entered and bowed to the Shareef.

  “In readiness, saidi,” he announced.

  The beggar followed the Shareef to the main entrance, where a groom with two mares, saddled and richly caparisoned, awaited them.

  “Wallah!” ejaculated the beggar, “but my lord wagers heavily against one cracked head. Each a Saklawiyah-Jidraniyah—”

  He bowed low as he pronounced the race and strain of the matchless beasts; and then, “To horse, saidi!”

  “You are strangely familiar with noble horses,” observed the Shareef.

  The grimy hunchback smiled crookedly.

  “To the Isfayan Gate, saidi,” he suggested, as the Shareef took the lead.

  At the gate the sentries challenged them, but recognizing Sayyid Yussuf, permitted them to pass.

  The beggar muttered a few words to the sentry.

  “I have kept it safely, saidi,” replied the sentry, as he unbuckled from his waist a belt and scimitar which he handed the beggar.

  “I ride unarmed. Sayyid Yussuf, be kind enough to carry my sword.”

  “Allah, and again, by Allah!” marveled the Shareef as he accepted the blade, and noted the sentry’s respectful address. “Saint or beggar, or both…but who are you, old man?”

  “You would be amazed, my lord,” was the evasive reply. “Ride on yet a way. Let me lead.”

  This time the Shareef followed in the wanderer’s trace. And as he rode, he fingered the hilt of the beggar’s scimitar, and wondered at the cool, unblinking sapphires that adorned the pommel, and the cunning workmanship of the embroidered belt.

  * * * *

  “Let us halt here, saidi,” requested the beggar after half an hour’s brisk ride.

  They dismounted beside a low, half-crumbled, white-washed cupola that loomed spectrally in the moonlight: the ruined tomb of a forgotten saint. They made their salaam to the unknown occupant of the holy place.

  “For a beggar,” began the Shareef, “you are armed like a prince. And I wonder whether you are mad as you pretend to be.”

  “And for a cousin of the Prophet,” replied the beggar, “I wonder if you are as wise as you ought to be.”

  The moon was masked by a thin wisp of cloud. A cool, chilling breeze crept across the desert.

  “Kneel here, three paces before me, saidi,” murmured the beggar. “Kneel facing me, with this ghost of a wind at your left…and let this ghost of a moon bear witness to the truth that lies hidden in these sands… Let it bear witness to my wager: my head against those two asil mares… With my own sword strike off my head, saidi,” crooned the beggar, “if what you see be not the truth as Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate, sees it…and the truth, my lord, is that Iblis the Damned has beguiled you…

  “Look, saidi,” chanted the beggar, as he gathered handfuls of sand and let it trickle between his fingers. “Look at this sand which is the dust of unremembered kings and the dust of forgotten slaves…look at this sand over which kings and slaves have marched, endless procession, ages without end…”

  The beggar’s gesture of scooping sand lengthened until his hands swept in an arc from the ground to the full extent of his arm. The cool breeze caught the fine dust, blowing it into little clouds that whisked and whirled uncannily.

  “And that moon, saidi, that pale moon who hides her face behind a veil, saidi…let her bear witness, for she has seen all things and knows all things.…”

  As the beggar chanted, the breeze centered in a vortex between him and the Shareef.

  “Look closely, saidi…these sands bear witness, and this dust bears witness…and this moon also, who knows all things…”

  Faster and yet faster the old man flung sand before him; yet slower and still more slowly he chanted in murmuring monotone, like the maddening pulse of a necromancer’s drum.

  Sayyid Yussuf stared fixedly into the veil of ever moving, ever present, living dust…for the dust lived, and danced in tiny figures before him… He shuddered…

  “And now you see that which there is to see,” chanted the beggar. “Now you see the peril into which you sent Azizah…they file into the black pit of the Lord of the Black Hands…and Abdemon whom you denied is bound, and can not save her…it is written in this dust, saidi…it is written on these sands…and this moon bears witness, this moon who knows all that is to be…for that which is to be is one with that which has been, O cousin of the Prophet.…”

  The beggar abruptly ceased chanting, and clapped his hands sharply.

  “Wallah!” gasped the Shareef, blinking. “By my beard!”

  He trembled violently at that which had left the beggar’s swiftly weaving hands to dance in the tiny whirlwinds before him.

  “That sign with the left hand, old man—”

  “Just as I said. But it has not yet happened—”

  “Not yet?”

  The Shareef vaulted to the saddle.

  “No. But wait a moment. We have time. Your horses are fast.”

  The beggar drew from somewhere in the ragged folds of his dirty djellab a slender tube the length of his forearm.

  “Strike light, saidi!” he commanded.

  The Shareef fumbled with flint and steel.

  “The fire of your pistol will do!” snapped the beggar. The Shareef fired. Then the sputtering of a fuse, and a shower of sparks, and three red stars hung high above them, flamed ruddily for half a minute, and vanished.

  “The Feringhi troops used them to signal,” explained the beggar. “I stole a box of them at Beirut.”

  “Ah!” And the Shareef frowned.

  “Old man, whom are you signaling? On your head—”

  He leveled his pistol.

  “Peace upon you, my lord,” grinned the beggar. “I am signaling a detachment of the guard to follow us as fast as their horses can travel.”

  “You, signal the guard? Now, by Allah, but this is too much! Who are you?” demanded the Shareef.

  The beggar readjusted his turban; reached with his right hand into his djellab and over his left shoulder, dragging forth a large leather pouch; jerked, the patch from his right eye; stretched himself, clutching skyward with his grimy talons; and then stood before the astonished Shareef, straight as a lance, fierce-eyed as a bird of prey.

  “I am Ismeddin! Whose head you swore you would have. As it is, I keep my head, and, inshallah, those two asil mares,” exulted the darvish.

  “By Allah and by Abaddon!” gasped Sayyid Yussuf. “Old thief, you dared venture into Tekrit at the risk of your head?”

  “Even so, my lord. For the promise of Suleiman has waited all these centuries for fulfilment. And the infidel Rankin, who was once Abdemon, could not have accomplished his mission single-handed. But now, to horse! Those sons of Iblis the Damned are mounted on your swiftest meharis.”

  The Shareef snorted.

  “Follow me!”

  Their mounts stretched out in an extended gallop.

  “Wallah!” exulted Ismeddin, as he drew up beside the Shareef’s mare. “She flies! And to think that I overlooked her when I raided your camp at Deir el Zor…had your men but snored a moment longer…but give me my sword, saidi…we have hot work ahead of us.…”

  Ismeddin leaned forward in the saddle, caught the scimitar the Shareef tossed him, and buckled the belt about his waist.

  * * * *

  Biban ul Djinni they called that desolate, narrow valley: the Valley of the Djinn. But these bearded strangers out of northern Kurdistan eagerly sought that avoided citadel where their dark monarch sat dreaming of ancient days before Suleiman learned the Word of Power; for this was the eve of the 14th of Nisan, when they could make secure for th
eir lord forever after the triumph of that one day wherein he held absolute power over the word of Suleiman.

  Ten meharis filed down an avenue dimly outlined by the stumps of shattered columns. They picked their way slowly, for the full moon had not yet risen to illuminate the desolation. Finally, at the end of the avenue, they halted. The seven soi-disant darvishes dismounted and gathered about the kneeling meharis that bore the rich tahkt rawan. Zantut parted the curtains and by the light of a torch looked in.

  “As I expected,” he announced, “she is in a trance. Ibrahaim, stand guard,” he commanded. “And keep an eye on the infidel, Rankin. The rest of you, follow me.”

  Zantut, followed by his adepts, turned toward the black-tiled circular court at the extremity of the avenue up which they had ridden.

  “Look, master! There it is, just as it was written!” exclaimed one of the adepts as he pointed out to Zantut a copper image that gleamed dully on its basalt pedestal.

  “There is where Iblis sits dreaming of those broad, rich days before Suleiman—may wild hogs defile his grave!—learned the Word of Power. Stand by, brethren!” commanded Zantut.

  They formed in a crescent before the image.

  Zantut advanced, bearing in each hand a torch which he planted at either side of the image. Then, taking from his belt a small copper mallet, he tapped the image in various spots, each tap sounding a different note; and as he tapped, he listened carefully. Over and over he tapped, here and there; then finally announced, “The third arm; the second hand; the fourth head.”

  Three stepped forward, each grasping one of the members named by Zantut.

  “Ready?” demanded Zantut.

  “Ready, master,” they replied. “Now!” exclaimed the master.

  And as each adept twisted the member he grasped, the copper image, pedestal and all, swung noiselessly aside.

  “Follow me!” directed Zantut.

  The dark-robed devotees of Iblis, torch in hand, filed after the master, stepping in unison down the smooth, black stairs.

  “The Sura of the Darkness!” commanded Zantut. “One… Two… Three!”