E. Hoffmann Price's Fables of Ismeddin MEGAPACK®

by E. Hoffmann Price

  “And I have been thinking of you,” he began, “ever since someone sent me this rug on which you stand. It is strange how this rug could bridge the gap of twenty years and bring into my very house a glimpse of the valley of Zarab-shan. And stranger yet that you could escape from your father’s house and find me here. Though strangest of all, time has not touched you, when by all reason you should be old, and leathery, and past forty.… Yet you are lovelier now than you were then, by that fountain in a garden near Samarcand.”

  “It is not strange,” contradicted the Yellow Girl, as she pirouetted with dainty feet across the moon-lapped silk. “For you see me now as I was when I wove my soul into this very rug.”

  Clarke smiled incredulously; which was illogical enough, since, compared with the girl’s presence, nothing else should be incredible.

  “How can that be, Yellow Girl, seeing that we two met one evening twenty years ago, whereas this rug was woven when the Great Khan sat enthroned in Samarcand and reproved the Persian Hanz for his careless disposal of the Great Khan’s favorite cities. This was the joy of kings hundreds of years before you and I were born—”

  “Before the last time we were born,” corrected the Yellow Girl. “But the first time—at least, the first time that I can recollect—the barred windows of a prince’s palace failed to keep you from me. And eunuchs with crescent-bladed scimitars likewise failed. But in the end—why must all loveliness have an end?—a bowstring for me, and a sword-stroke for you.…”

  The Yellow Girl shuddered as she stroked her smooth throat with fingers that sought to wipe off the last lingering memory of a cord of hardspun silk.

  “And from the first,” continued the girl, “I knew what our doom would be. So I started weaving, and completed my task before they suspected us and the bowstring did its work. My soul, my self, being woven cunningly and curiously into silk rich enough to hang on the wall of the khan’s palace, waited patiently and wondered whether you and I could have our day again. Thus it was in the beginning—”

  “Ah…now it does come back to me,” interrupted Clarke, “as in a dream dimly remembered. How compactly and stiflingly they would wrap me in a bale of silk and carry me past the guards and into your presence. And by what devious routes I would leave you…yes, and how painlessly swift is the stroke of a scimitar.…”

  The Yellow Girl shuddered.

  “A scimitar truly wielded is really nothing, after all,” continued Clarke. “I might have been sawn asunder between planks.… Well, and that meeting in the garden these short twenty years ago was after all not our first…it seems that I knew then that it was not the first. Though but for an evening—”

  “Yes. Just for an evening. So to what end were we spared bowstrings and the stroke of swift scimitars, since we had but an evening?” And thinking of the empty years of luxurious imprisonment that followed, she smiled somberly. “For only an evening. And then you forgot, until this rug—this same rug I wove centuries ago—interrupted your pleasant adventuring, and reminded you.

  “Death stared me in the face. The end of life more vainly lived than the first. I knew that I was leaving this avatar after having lived but one stolen evening. So I sent a trusted servant to carry this very rug to Meshed. For when we met in the garden, you were hunting rugs for him who now seeks them for your delight. And I knew that he would find you if you still lived. Thus it is that I have crossed the Border, and stand before you as I did once before—this time on that wry rug which I wove centuries ago, while living in hope of another meeting and in dread of the bowstring I knew would in the end find me.”

  The moon patch had marched toward the end of the rug from Samarcand, and was cutting into the blue web at its end. Clarke knew that when there remained no more room for her tiny feet, she would vanish, not ever to reappear. But Clarke hoped against knowledge.

  “Yellow Girl,” he entreated, “my door will be barred to friend and acquaintance alike, if you will but return on whatever nights the moon creeps across our rug.…”

  Had Diane, listening at the door, understood, she would have used her key. But Diane merely heard:

  “And I shall wait for these nights as long as life remains in me. For all that has happened since then is nothing and less than nothing; and all has been a dream since that one night in a garden of Zarab-shan.”

  Very little remained of the moon patch. The Yellow Girl stepped a tiny pace forward, to prolong her stay yet another few moments. All but the moonlit strip of the rug from Samarcand glowed bloodily in the flare of the brazen mosque lamp.

  “No, forgetful lover,” eluded the Yellow Girl, “I can not return. I can not cross the Border again. In Samarcand, eight hundred years ago we mocked for a while the doom that hung over us, and in the end called the bowstring but a caress of farewell. Again, in the garden of Zarab-shan we met, we parted, and you forgot: so this time I take no chances. While I can not return, you at least can follow me…if you will…for it is very easy.…”

  She edged along the ever narrowing strip of moon-bathed silk, and with an embracing gesture, lured Clarke to rise and follow her.

  “It is so easy…move lightly…but be careful not to disturb your body or overbalance it.…”

  Had Diane not turned away from the door, were she not even now strolling insouciantly down Royal Street—

  “Yellow Girl, you and I have had enough of farewells!”

  Something left Clarke, tottered perilously on the two handbreadths of moonlight that remained, then caught the Yellow Girl by the hand and took the lead.

  The blue web of the rug from Samarcand gleamed for another moment in the moonlight, then sweltered in the red glow of the mosque lamp.

  EVERY MAN A KING

  Originally published in Speed Adventure, Nov. 1943.

  “Do you have to go? At this hour?” Olajai turned from her mirror, but did not leave off unfastening the red velvet hood whose twinkling pendants trailed past her cheeks, and to her shoulders. “Couldn’t it wait till tomorrow?”

  Timur[1] frowned, which made it all the more certain that the King Maker’s granddaughter had not married him for his looks. He snatched a shirt of link mail from a hook, and as he worked it down over his broad shoulders, he grumbled, “One of Bikijek’s pets, and he’s got the king’s seal. Either be a good dog, or run out and join your brother at Saghej Well!”

  Olajai said, wistfully, as she wiped off the last bit of dead-white makeup, “And I thought it’d be lovely, living in Samarkand.”

  Olajai was shapely of body, and exquisite of face; the Turki heritage, showing in the peach blow tinge of her cheeks, gave features whose every line was sharp and clean and delicate in its drawing. This was Timur’s first and only wife, and thus far, he was glad that there were no others.

  Though not quite twenty-seven, he looked older, for mountain blizzards and desert blasts had weathered his flat face. Wind blown sand and storm driven sleet had set the Mongol slant of his eyes in a permanent squint; and for all the blue Zaytuni silk tunic he put on over his shirt of linked mail, and his gold embroidery boots, and plumed pork pie hat, he seemed out of place in a palace.

  “I’ll get away as soon as I can,” he promised, and limped out.

  Bow legged, and never built for walking, he was further handicapped by an ankle which had stopped a well-aimed arrow. In the tiled reception room, he said to the waiting official, “Something important going on?”

  The square-rigged Kipchak did not answer; he merely tapped the big four-cornered seal. In the court, a sleepy groom held his horse, and Timur’s.

  They skirted the plaza of splendid Samarkand. The bitter clear moon brought out the blue of tile-fronted palaces, and the golden crests of tall minarets. Samarkand, the jewel of the Jagatai Empire, was now the prize of the Kipchak Horde who had overrun the land: and Timur was weary of serving invaders. But for luck, a
nd a friend at Elias Koja’s court, he might be an exile, like Olajai’s brother, Mir Hussein. Yet, though his position as administrator of affairs gave plenty of enemies and little satisfaction, it at least enabled him to stand between Bikijek’s rapacious clique of nobles, and his own conquered neighbors.

  Timur trailed the official, instead of riding boot to boot. There was more than just the matter of rank involved. Then, wary ever since that first strange warning, he noted the stirring in the shadows of the archway to the left. Here the street was narrow; here he and his guide faced a cold, white moon.

  A bowstring twanged, the strident note of a horseman’s bow. Timur ducked. His sword was half unsheathed when the arrow thumped home, nailing the Kipchak squarely in the throat. The fellow made a choking sound, and lurched from the saddle.

  Timur wheeled, chin in, and crouching low, so that there was hardly any vulnerable spot exposed. The Ferghana stallion stretched out in a great bound; hooves struck fire. When things happened too fast for thought, Timur Bek was driven by the instinct to close in, to cut down.

  Then a man came out, barefooted and bearded. “Go home, Timur Bek. There was no other way to warn you.”

  The face was in shadow, but Timur recognized the voice and the figure. “Good shooting, for a scholar! But why?”

  “Allah will enlighten you. Also, the man you were following won’t be able to tell anyone you’ve been enlightened.”

  “What is this, Kaboul?”

  “If all is well with your family, then this is a mistake. And the peace upon you.”

  Kaboul the Darvish turned into the shadows of the archway. On the ground, Timur saw a horseman’s bow, but neither quiver nor arrows.

  “One man, one arrow.”

  And now Kaboul was going back to his cubicle to write a Persian quatrain, or an ode in Turki!

  Timur, retracing his course, held his horse to a walk, for in spite of the menace which threatened Olajai he could not risk the sound of galloping. When he finally reached the wicket which gave entrance to the rear court of his house, he hitched himself up and stood in the saddle. Then, catching the crown of the wall, he swung himself to the top, and dropped to the grass inside. His first move was to unbolt the little gate, and lead his horse in, for he dreaded the helplessness of being afoot.

  His felt boots made no sound. As he hurried past the servants’ quarters and down a hallway, he heard voices, in front: a challenge as of a drowsy porter, then brusque answer, and a scuffle which ended in a groan.

  There was time. He hurried back, mounted up, and again felt complete. He nudged the stallion with his boot, and stroked the sleek neck, wheedling the bewildered beast into the tiled passageway.

  A woman cried out, more in wrath and indignation than in fright. “Father of pigs! Get out of here or have you skinned alive.”

  “That’s her, Olajai Turcan Aga!”

  “Come down, khanoum; we won’t hurt you.”

  “So you do know that this is Timur’s house. You know, and come in?”

  They laughed at the threat. “And we know where Timur is.”

  That was when the lame rider’s scowl became a grin. “Come down, Olajai!” he called. “We’re leaving town!”

  The deep-chested hail made the men at arms whirl about. They had curved swords, they had maces; they wore peaked helmets, and armor of overlapping plates sewed on leather, but they were afoot, and they were surprised.

  The stallion snorted. He quivered, then leaped as Timur’s legs tightened. The heavy blade licked out, finding the gap between neck-guard and hauberk. As the stroke bit home, Timur traversed, so that the wall covered his left. He swayed in the saddle; a spike-headed “morning star” ripped his tunic, exposing the link mail beneath, and then his blade flickered, slashing the man’s forehead.

  Blood-blinded; that one was out of action.

  “Come down; we’re riding!” Timur shouted.

  Some were scrambling now to get to the front court, and their waiting horses; several tried to close in with swords. Blades clanged. Timur hewed down, slicing off plates of armor.

  Olajai snatched a tall Chinese vase from the landing and heaved it on the head of the rearmost. While his helmet saved him from a smashed skull, the impact dropped him in his tracks. She dashed down the stairs, and plucked the fellow’s helmet from his head.

  “Put it on!” she cried, crowding up on Timur’s left.

  “Grab a horse!” he answered, and booted the stallion after the handful who had raced for their mounts.

  And when his horse got firm footing on the hard-packed earth, Timur charged with effect.

  Olajai followed. She was not dressed for riding, but the ripping of her gown took care of that. And she picked a good mount.

  Two of the raiders galloped across the square. Two others fled afoot. Timur snatched the bow whose case hung from the saddle of Olajai’s horse. As he strung it, she passed him an arrow.

  The hindmost of the footmen pitched on his face.

  Timur grinned. “Good bow. Now keep behind me; there’ll be the devil to pay at the gate.”

  There was, but it did not last long.

  Guardsmen were turning out. The two surviving horsemen had attended to that. But the moon was bright, and Timur’s bowstring twanged, once, twice, thrice: the deadly Turki arrows, released at a dead run, cleared a path. Then a whirl of steel, and the fugitives went pelting down one of the lanes which threaded the orchard girdle of Samarkand.

  CHAPTER II

  The Beggar

  Once a bend in the lane furnished momentary cover, Timur pulled up. “Get Eltchi Bahadur and as many others as you can, and ride direct for Saghej Well. I’ll keep the Kipchaks off your heels, and I’ll meet you later.”

  Olajai had long since learned to think quickly, and to move while thinking; she waved, reined her horse down a cross lane, and galloped to notify the chief of Timur’s fifty picked fighting men who had followed him from his home in Kesh. And since they lived outside the city walls, Olajai’s task was safe enough.

  Her brother, Mir Hussein, was at Saghej Well with forty-odd retainers. They had outraced the Kipchaks to find refuge in the wastelands, and their heads apparently were not considered worth the cost in horseflesh.

  Timur dismounted. When he heard the approach of the pursuers, he pretended to be picking a stone from his horse’s hoof. In a moment they came into view, and in the full moon, they saw him. Olajai could not be far away. The horsemen reined in. It was over, they thought.

  The fugitive, having the advantage of the moon, fired from his own shadow. A man toppled. Timur swung into the saddle, and the Ferghana stallion took off in a falcon swoop.

  He twisted, shooting as he rode. And this was not his second-choice horse!

  They would stick. Speed was not the essence of this chase, since he had neither rations nor water nor a spare mount. As he gained a lead, he reined in a little, holding the distance just beyond arrow range. For all they knew, Olajai was ahead of him, just beyond sight.

  Timur now had time to ponder on the reasons behind the raid on his house. Bikijek’s resentment at a man who spent too much time blocking the sale of justice, blocking the extortion of doubled taxes, and the making of false returns: that was one fair guess. The other, plain court jealousy. Though the attempt to kidnap Olajai suggested a third answer—a blow at her exiled brother, or a stranglehold on Timur himself.

  And as he rode, his memory reached back to that night when he had drunk his guests off their feet; it all came back, that survey at sunrise, of his littered banquet room.

  He recalled the drums which had rolled and thundered across the broad maidan. They blotted out the muezzin’s call to prayer. From a high window he could see the horsetail standards at Bikijek’s door. The puppet king, Elias Koja, old Togluk Khan’s son, let Bikijek play with th
e tokens of royalty, instead of setting to work with a running noose.

  It would not, it could not last long, and when it ended, the Golden Horde of the Kipchak would restore order.

  Order: herds eaten by Kipchak soldiers, granaries emptied by Kipchak officers, towns and farmsteads burned, and all Timur’s broad acres in Kesh devastated with the rest. All because Bikijek, chief lord of the young king’s court, had drums beaten five times daily before his palace.

  Ten or a dozen local émirs, so busy battling each other that they had not stopped Elias Koja when his father sent him south to be Grand Khan of the Jagatai; that was the trouble. Rugged individualists, every man a king, and so now they had the Horde on their necks, and now their lands were the proving ground of an apprentice whose father had handed him the entire Jagatai heritage in which to learn the trade of kingship.

  Timur had laughed aloud, for wine and fermented mare’s milk had made him see the truth with a bitter clarity which his sober and busy days had never permitted. “First I fought Uncle Hadji, after Uncle Hadji and I drove Beyan Selduz out of town. Then they murdered Uncle Hadji, and I got an army to avenge him, and then the army divided into three parts and we had a war to settle the dividing of the booty. Every man a king. Allah! What we need is one king, and that one home grown. Too bad Mir Hussein’s grandfather isn’t alive.”

  He had smiled, in half drunken grimness and regret, thinking of the King Maker and the King Maker’s grandson, handsome, hard fighting Mir Hussein, fickle, crackbrained, unpredictable Hussein who had the loveliest sister in the world.

  “Allah curse Bikijek, Allah curse every man who does not curse Bikijek’s religion and his father and his grandfather!”

  He had spoken aloud. A grave voice had made him turn. There, in the arched doorway stood a ragged man with a snarled beard; the slanting rays kept his face from being any too clear.