Lord of the Silent Kingdom

23. Dreanger: At al-Qarn, in the Palace of the Kings

The old house slave, Gamel, strained under the weight of the burden he carried across the polished serpentine floor of the vast hall where Gordimer the Lion was holding the autumn assizes. Er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen was present, evidently having an interest in some case due to come before the Grand Marshal. Likewise, Kaif Karim Kaseem al-Bakr, who dozed on a chair nearby. He was there for a case with religious implications.

The slave had little time left in this hard vale. Decades ago he had been a fierce young Sha-lug. Time, luck, and an amazing knack for healing had conspired to rob him of a battlefield death. Sha-lug who grew old despite the endless wars had to earn their keep managing the work of the Palace.

Gamel was well known to Gordimer. Gamel had taught him the lance when he was a pup. The Marshal concluded the case at hand by ordering the defendant strangled for defiling the daughter of his sister. Sentence was carried out on the spot. Gordimer then ordered the daughter stoned. Both corpses to be thrown to the crocodiles.

Then he sent two lifeguards to help the old man.

"Forget all that, Gamel. Your life has earned you the right to stand in the presence of the Marshal." Though not, perhaps, in that of the Kaif. If the Kaif were anything but an extension of the will of the Sha-lug, and awake. "What is this?"

It had to be critical if the old slave came here, now, during the height of the assizes.

"This box was given to me to bring to you. I was told it had to be delivered immediately."

"And what is it?"

"I don't know. But it's been dripping cold water."

"Who gave it to you?"

"General Nassim. Nassim Alizarin."

"The Mountain? He's here? In al-Qarn? Er-Rashal. I thought Nassim was dead."

Shaken, the court sorcerer replied, "I was sure he was no longer among the living."

"Let's see what it is. You two. Bring that box here. Open it."

Er-Rashal faded into himself while the lifeguards carried out instructions. Suddenly, he snapped, "Don't open that!" An instant too late.

"What do we have?" Gordimer demanded. He glowered at the scores of supplicants and defendants, all of whom leaned toward the scene.

"A head. In melted ice." The lifeguard lifted a severed head from the box by its hair. His companion retrieved a wooden tube about six inches long and an inch in diameter, covered with wax. He handed that to the Marshal.

Gordimer twisted an end off the cold tube, fished out a piece of paper. He asked er-Rashal, "What's the matter?" The sorcerer stared at the head. "You've turned gray." The Lion unrolled the paper. And read aloud, " 'To my lord the Grand Marshal of the Sha-lug, Gordimer, called the Lion, and to the sorcerer er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen. Greetings. A gift. All that remains of the pagan sorcerer Rudenes Schneidel, by whose order my son Hagid was murdered. He was the first to pay. His partners in wickedness will follow.

" 'Nassim Alizarin, once a friend.

" 'In recollection of friendship, O Lion. A courtesy. Be warned. The storm from the north is rising. I have seen it with mine own eyes, and it is of your own construction. Nor even the Almighty Himself shall stand before it.'"

Gordimer the Lion closed his eyes. This was the voice of prophecy. Half a minute later, he said, "Clear the hall. The assizes will resume tomorrow morning." He roamed his own mind till the hall fell quiet.

He opened his eyes. Er-Rashal was no longer present. The Kaif still slept. Gamel had retired. He addressed the lifeguard still holding the head by its hair. "Glaid. What do you make of this?"

"That General Nassim disappeared because he heard his son was murdered. But Hagid was supposedly among those Sha-lug lost in Calzir."

"Where he was not supposed to have been."

The lifeguard nodded. "There are evil rumors about what happened over there. About Sha-lug who were abandoned, denied the chance to board ships carrying survivors of the disaster away from Calzir."

"Is that so? I haven't heard anything like that. Sidiki. You look like you're about to explode. If only you dared. Dare."

"There is much that you do not hear, sitting here in the Palace, O Lion." Sidiki carefully avoided the least implication of criticism, though the lifeguard complement were scandalized by the behavior of the Marshal in recent years and even those nearest him thought he had ordered those Sha-lug abandoned to the mercy of the Infidel because of their connection with Else Tage, the once-popular band leader whom Gordimer feared for no reason anyone could fathom.

In the end, the lifeguards, and those Sha-lug who spent much time around the Palace of the Kings, chose to blame all misfortune on the sorcerer er-Rashal el-Dhulquarnen.

"Enlighten me."