Splinter Of The Mind's Eye

Chapter Five

A Fortress in Shadow

M egelin Radetic walked the stony slopes below the tired walls of el Aswad, the Eastern Fortress. Haroun tagged along, scattering his attention as small boys will, yet clinging to the one adult who had time for him. A scarred old veteran dogged them both, his sword always in hand.

Haroun had not spoken for days. He had become lost inside his own young mind. Now, at least, he chose to speak, as Radetic paused to stare out across the sere, inhospitable land. "Megelin, is Father going to die?"

"I don't think so. The physicians are hopeful."

"Megelin?"

"What?" It was time to be gentle. He knelt.

"Why did he kill them? The pilgrims at the shrine."

Radetic resumed walking. "I don't know. If anyone but El Murid had given the order, I'd guess for spite."

They moved round the flank of the mountain. On its eastern face they encountered Haroun's brother Ali. Ali was seated on a boulder. He stared at Jebal al Alf Dhulquarneni, as if his thoughts might conjure the Hidden Ones from their secret strongholds.

Radetic stared too. He wondered what the wizards of the mountains thought of recent events. Presumably they would pursue tradition and ignore their neighbors. They had been up there since time immemorial. They bothered no one who did not bring them trouble. Even the mighty Empire had let them be, and they had remained aloof from its death throes.

Haroun murmured, "Megelin, I'm afraid."

Ali started to make a cutting remark.

"He's right, Ali. It's a time for fear. We have to fear Nassef for his sword, and El Murid for his Word. They make a deadly combination. And we must fear this, too: that the Sword might become master of the Word, rather than the reverse. Go, then, and try to capture the whirlwind."

Ali frowned. Old Radetic was in one of his ambiguous moods.

Ali was cast more in the mold of his uncle than of his brother or father. He was no thinker. Haroun understood Radetic plainly.

Yousif had reached el Aswad only hours behind the returning family caravan. His force had been savaged, and he had come within a mouse's whisker of death.

The caravan had not come through unscathed. Yousif had left no guards. Disorganized bands of Nassef's pickets had tried their luck plundering.

Even Megelin Radetic had taken up arms in the running fight.

He gripped his left bicep. He had taken a light saber slash. The wound still ached.

He smiled. How he had amazed his assailant with his counterattack!

Fuad still could not assimilate the fact that his brother's tame intellectual knew which end of a sword to grab. Nor did he know what to make of the fact that the teacher had taken charge of old men, boys, women and camel drovers and had whipped hell out of tough young warriors.

Radetic found his incredulity amusing. He had told Fuad, "We study more than flowers at the Rebsamen." The remark referred to Fuad's bewilderment the time when he had discovered that Megelin was cataloging and making color drawings of desert wildflowers.

Ali descended from his perch. "Megelin?"

"Yes?"

"I'm scared too."

"We all are, Ali."

Ali glared at Haroun. "If you tell, I'll pound you."

Haroun snatched up a jagged rock. "Come on, Ali."

"Boys. Save it for El Murid."

"He asking for it," Haroun replied.

"You little snot—"

"I said knock it off. Haroun, come on. Ali was here first."

Ali stuck out his tongue.

Radetic strolled away wondering what Haroun did fear. People did not intimidate him. "Let's go back to the castle, Haroun. It's time we did a little studying."

El Aswad was a regional name which popular usage also applied to its capital fortress. The Imperial builders of the original featureless square stronghold had called it the "Eastern Fortress." Under the Empire it had been the headquarters of a major military command.

The castle was bigger now, though less important. Every generation did a little something to make it more impregnable. Rounded towers had been added to the original walls. Curtain walls and supporting towers had been appended to its north side, enclosing the whole of the mountaintop. Still farther north, connected to the main castle by the curtains, commanding the mountain's most gentle slope, stood a massive square sub-fortress.

The other three faces of the mountain were barren, rocky, and often precipitous. The surface rock was soft and loose. Weather had been gnawing away for ages. Tortuously curved layers of sedimentary rock showed the progress of ancient ages. The children of Yousif's courtiers and soldiers loved scrounging the slopes for fossils, for which Radetic paid a candy bounty.

Radetic found the castle a miserable place to live. It was either too cold and drafty, or too hot and stuffy. The roofs and walls leaked during the rare rains. The sanitary facilities were primitive, and furniture virtually non-existent. There was not one bath in the entire place. Hellin Daimiel was known for its communal baths. The only closable door he had ever seen was the one barring entry into the women's quarters.

He often longed for the comfort and privacy of his tiny apartment at the university.

Despite its drawbacks as a home, the castle served its intended function. Its granaries, cisterns and arsenals could support its garrison almost indefinitely. It commanded a view of vast territories. It had never been conquered by siege or storm.

Radetic paused at the gate and surveyed the miles of stony land surrounding the fortress. "Haroun, you know what I'd like to look out there and see? Just once? A tree."

Weeks passed. Fuad sent out a summons to the tribal levies. On the morning they were to muster, Haroun wakened his teacher. "What do you want?" Radetic growled, squinting one-eyed at the dawn light crawling through his apartment window. "Better be good. No normal human being ought to be up at this hour."

"Uncle Fuad is going to meet the levies. I thought you'd want to be there."

Radetic groaned, swung his legs out of bed. "Want to? No. You've seen one mob of fellahin, you've seen them all. But I suppose I'd better go, if only to keep your uncle from doing anything he'll regret. How many showed up?" He had had doubts that a call from Fuad would elicit the same response as a call from the Wahlig.

Haroun looked disappointed. "Not good. But they're still coming in. Maybe some were delayed."

"Uh? Pretty bad, eh? Here. Hand me those sandals."

The levies were assembling on the slope leading to el Aswad's main gate. Not all had arrived, as Haroun had said, but the few dust clouds approaching indicated that Fuad would be disappointed by the response to his call. "Not a third of what he has a right to expect," Megelin observed.

"Some of those eaters of camel droppings have gone over to the bandits." Fuad had come out. He scowled at the assembling host. "Cowardice is spreading like the pox."

Radetic replied, "I wouldn't think them that fickle."

"They are, fishwife. And those that haven't deserted are hiding in their tents like old women, afraid to take a stand. Their excuse to my brother will be that he didn't issue the call himself. I ought to ride out and punish them. Bloody crones."

"Maybe you ought to wait a few days," Radetic suggested. "Send another round of messengers and have them talk tough."

"What good will that do? They want to hide behind their women's skirts, let them. I'll mock them when I return with El Murid's head on my lance. Beloul! Assemble the sheiyeks."

The captain Beloul inclined his head and descended the slope. He passed among the contingents. Chieftains started uphill by twos and threes. Fuad did not greet any of them warmly, though he knew them all and had been riding with them for years. His black scowl compelled them to hold their tongues and keep their distance.

When the last arrived, joining the circle surrounding Fuad, Radetic, Haroun and Fuad's officiers, Fuad turned slowly. "So this is it. Only you have the guts to face these boy bandits. Taha. Rifaa. Qaboos. All of you. I promise you my brother will remember this. And he'll not forget the faces we don't see here today."

Someone suggested, "Maybe we ought to give the others more time."

"More time, Feras? Will the Disciple give us more time? No! We strike. No game. No subtleties. We hit them like a hammer. And we bring their heads back to decorate the walls. Every motherlorn one."

Radetic muttered, "Fierce this morning, aren't we?"

Fuad rewarded him with an ugly look. "You'll find out fierce, teacher. Keep nagging. Beloul. Order the column according to plan. Just drop the places of the cowards who didn't show."

"Fuad," Radetic whispered, "I really think you ought to reconsider this."

"We ride when the column is in order," Fuad countered. "There will be no more discussion. We will be victorious or we will fail. I wouldn't want to be in the sandals of those cowards if we fail and I survive. Get away from me, teacher. You don't have anything to tell me."

Hours later Megelin watched the column pass out of sight. "I did what I could, Haroun. But he's too damned stubborn to hear reason."

"You don't think he'll win?"

Radetic shrugged. "Anything is possible. Maybe he'll get lucky."

A messenger located Megelin in his classroom two days after Fuad's departure. "The Lord Yousif has awakened. He asks your attendance."

Radetic was irritated by the interruption, but could not ignore the summons. "Ali. I'm leaving you in charge while I see your father. Keep on with the lesson."

Outside, the messenger chuckled. "You set them a grim taskmaster."

"I know. It's the only way I can get him to learn anything. He doesn't want his students thinking they're smarter than he is."

"Would that I had had such an opportunity when I was young."

"Ah." Radetic smiled gently. Yousif's subterfuge was working. Before children could be educated their elders had to be convinced that there was some point to education. "How is he?"

"Quite well, considering. But he's tough. This is a tough family. The desert has never been kind here."

"I can see that." Megelin had heard the same remark so often, even where the desert had been kind, that he suspected it was a homily.

Yousif was sitting up, arguing with a physician who wanted him to lie down. "Ah. Megelin. Here at last. Save me from the mercies of this old woman."

"The old woman probably knows more about what your body needs than you do, Wahlig."

"You all stick together, don't you? Well, no matter. Come here. Take one of these cushions. I can't use them all."

Radetic sat. He could not conceal his discomfort. He was too old to adapt to the desert custom of sitting cross-legged on cushions.

Yousif ignored his discomfort. "I've been away from this world a long time. It makes a man take stock. You know what I mean?"

"I think so, Wahlig."

"My first job in this second life is to get you to stop acting like a servant. We have things to talk about, Megelin. I think the first should be friendship."

"Wahlig?"

"You brought my caravan through."

"Nonsense."

"I've spoken with Muamar. We won't argue it. I'm grateful. It hadn't occurred to me that I might be leaving enemies behind me."

"My life was in danger, too."

"That's one way of looking at it. Whichever view you choose, my wives and children came through safely. I consider your effort an act of friendship. I do as I'm done by, Megelin."

Radetic could not stifle a wry smile. "Thank you." The gratitude of princes was notoriously short-lived.

"Megelin, you show expertise in surprising directions. I value a man who has skills beyond those demanded by his profession."

"Score a point for education."

"Indeed. Tell me. What do you think of Fuad's expedition?"

"I haven't been over the ground, except on the chicken tracks you call maps. He had a thousand men. Maybe he'll get lucky."

"He outnumbers them three or four to one."

"The numbers might be enough to make his hammer blows more convincing than Nassef's finesse. Your brother isn't a thinker."

"How well I know. Tell me, why are you so impressed with Nassef?"

"He has the subtle touch of genius. In a western context his threat to send an assassin to el Aswad would have been brilliant. Here it's a waste of inspiration."

"I don't see it. That was just talk by somebody who got spit on."

"That's the flaw in his subtlety."

"What?"

"There's no one here subtle enough to see the implications of the threat. Is the assassin here already? If not, how will he get in? And so on."

"You westerners are a devious race. We're more direct."

"I've noticed. But Nassef and El Murid are working on a different level. Their behavior betrays careful calculation. They occupied Sebil el Selib knowing your strength and probable response."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning they're confident they can hold it. There's no point in their taking something they can't keep. Not at this point in their growth."

"You give them too much credit."

"You don't give them enough. Despite everything you told me at Al Rhemish, you haven't really convinced yourself that these people are anything more than bandits led by a madman. Do you recall what you said? About El Murid selling the snake oil everyone wants to buy? I've reflected on that, and I think it's even truer than you know."

"What would you have me do?"

"There are a lot of possibilities." Radetic suggested several, all of which Yousif rejected as impractical or politically unfeasible. "Then be direct. Murder El Murid. People will scream, but they will forget quickly enough. And Nassef won't be able to survive without him. Not at this point."

"I plan to try. Assuming Fuad fails. You haven't given me a thing."

"I know I'm overlooking the financial and political difficulties. You asked for options. I laid out what I see. Hell, it's even remotely possible we could ignore them till they all die of indifference."

"Megelin, my recovery wasn't spontaneous. I've been lying here for two days, aching more in mind than in body. I've thought of it all. And the only workable option is to fight and hope we get lucky. If we can't get lucky, then we'll try to keep them contained."

"This is depressing. We're talking ourselves into accepting a defeat before the event."

"Drop it, then. Megelin?"

"Yes?"

"You can do one thing to brighten my life."

"Wahlig?"

"Stay here when your contract is up. I may need the outsider's viewpoint desperately before this is over."

Radetic was surprised. This was the first time ever that Yousif had treated him with more than minimal respect. "I'll consider it, Wahlig. I'd better go. I left Ali in charge of my class."

Yousif chuckled. "Yes, you'd better."

"I'm a political historian, Haroun," Megelin explained. "That's why I'm going to stay. Why I have to stay. I can't leave during the political storm of the century, can I?"

The boy seemed slightly disappointed. Radetic understood, but did not have it in him to lay out the true, emotional bases for lengthening his stay. He did not understand all his motives himself.

"You see, I'm the only one here at the heart of it. History is written by prejudiced parties, Haroun. By winners, usually. This is a unique opportunity to capture the truth."

Haroun looked at him sideways, wearing an amused little smile. After a moment, Megelin chuckled. "You devil. You see right through me, don't you?"

He had his excuse, though. It would be good enough to prolong his stay as grim weeks piled into months and years.

Haroun whipped into Megelin's room, almost falling as he swung through the door, almost overturning the little table where the scholar was pouring over his notes, inscribing one of his regular missives to a friend in Hellin Daimiel. "What is it, child?"

"Uncle Fuad is coming."

Radetic asked his next question by raising an eyebrow. Haroun understood. "No."

Radetic sighed, pushed his papers back. "I didn't think so. There would have been messengers carrying his brags. Let's go down to the gate."

The troops were dragging in when Radetic arrived. Megelin located Fuad. The Wahlig's brother was tired, deflated and had exhausted his stock of contrariness. He answered questions dully, frankly, apparently not caring how bad the answers might make him look. "Just get it down the way it happened, teacher," he muttered at one point. "Just write it up the way it happened. We came up one company short. One stinking company. One fresh company, in reserve, and we would have had them." Stalking toward his brother's quarters, he added, "One company from any one of those whoreson sheiyeks who didn't show at muster. There's going to be some new chieftains in el Aswad."

Three months later Yousif issued his own call to arms. It took Megelin by surprise. "Why?" he demanded. "And why didn't you tell me?" He was severely piqued because the Wahlig had not consulted him.

"Because," Yousif replied, donning a teasing grin. "Because I wanted to deal with your protests at one sitting, instead of endlessly."

Hardly mollified, Radetic demanded, "Why this hosting? That's the important question."

"Because I need to assert my primacy over the tribes. They need to be shown that I'm still strong, that I remain in command. We children of the desert are a lot like your forest wolves, Megelin. I'm the leader of the pack. If I stumble, if I reveal any weakness, if I hesitate, I'm lost. I have no desire to attack El Murid. The time isn't right, as you no doubt would have told me endlessly had you been informed earlier. But the eyes of a hundred chieftains are on el Aswad, waiting to see my response to my wounding and Fuad's defeat. Not to mention the turnout for Fuad's hosting."

Megelin now recalled the busy comings and goings of recent weeks, movements he hadn't thought significant at the time. Messengers, of course. But, too, he had seen several of Yousif's most devoted captains leading sizable patrols into the waste. Not one of those had as yet returned. "I presume your representatives will be in place when the call reaches certain sheiyeks of questionable devotion."

Yousif chuckled. "Gently put, teacher. And true."

"I suppose my wisest course is to keep my mouth shut, then. It's an ancient truism: what is logical and practical isn't always politic. And vice versa."

"Truer in this land than anywhere else, Megelin. Truer here than anywhere. How have my son's lessons been progressing?" He did not clarify which son. They understood one another plainly on that score.

Radetic searched for the right words. He decided he could do no better nor worse than to be straightforward. There were no witnesses. The Wahlig was tolerant in private. "I say it's a pity he wasn't born in a civilized land. He's brilliant, Wahlig. Positively brilliant. The sorrow is, he has been shaped by this savage kingdom. Already. He could become a great man. Or a great villain. He has it in him. Let us direct that thrust to greatness."

Yousif harumphed, stared into the distance, finally remarked, "Were it not for the situation, I would consider sending him to your Rebsamen. Perhaps that can be accomplished later. After this wicked little devil is put down."

Radetic studied Yousif from the corner of his eye. There was a halo of destiny about the Wahlig at the moment, an aura, a smell, and Yousif sensed it himself. His stance said he knew the future he faced was not the one he had described.

Yousif's expedition against the usurpers of Sebil el Selib, though stronger than Fuad's, suffered the fate of his brother's. Once again the loyalists came up that one fresh company short of strength enough to recover the Malachite Throne. In his determination to retain an image as strong and hard, Yousif pressed his attack far longer than was reasonable, well beyond the point when it became obvious that he would fail.

The bitter fighting brutalized both loyalist and rebel. Its outcome generated repercussions which only injured the loyalist stance. As the news swept the desert ever more opportunists gravitated to El Murid's standard. Nassef sent out a call. Recruits drifted to him. He began teaching them his own devilish style of warfare.

Yousif adopted more reactionary tactics, screening the trails from Sebil el Selib, using his household warriors to pursue enemy bands moving in and out.

Spies sent disturbing reports about new fortifications.

"We can abandon any hope of ever rooting them out," Radetic prophesied one day three years after the loss of the pass. Intelligence had just been received concerning the rapid growth of the fortress-palace guarding the Malachite Throne. The report also claimed that El Murid now had a full-time following of a thousand warriors, half of whom belonged to the fanatic Invincibles.

Nassef and his henchman Karim had begun slipping in and out to advise and occasionally direct the marauders plundering the desert in El Murid's name.

"They're like ghosts," Fuad murmured one day. "Yousif, you should have let me kill Nassef when I had the chance. He's everywhere and nowhere, and I can't get him to fight."

"Do I detect a case of the guerrilla warfare blues?" Radetic asked. "Of course Nassef won't stand still. He'd get whipped if he did. Give him a target he can't resist. Have a surprise waiting."

"His spies would warn him two days before we decided to do it," Yousif replied.

"I know. The real hope is that you can get him or El Murid with a knife in the kidneys."

"We've tried," Fuad growled.

"Keep trying. We're losing a little ground every day. They're wearing us down. As long as Aboud looks at it as a scuffle between Yousif and El Murid, and won't see how it spills over into the rest of the kingdom, our best bet is to hang on and pray that they do something fatally stupid before we do."

"How's your monograph coming, Megelin?" Yousif asked.

The monograph's incompleteness was Radetic's stated excuse for staying on. He reddened. Gripping Haroun's shoulder, he replied, "Damned slow. The war keeps getting in the way. I hardly have time to teach, let alone get any writing done."

Time had made of Radetic much more than a tutor. In some ways he had become the power behind the Wahlig. Yousif sought his advice ever more often, and followed it with increasing frequency.

El Murid had recognized Radetic's new importance in a recent sermon, naming him as one of the thirteen Barons of Hell on Earth, minions the Evil One had sent up to abuse the faithful. Megelin had been surprised to discover his noble standing. He thought Yousif more deserving.

Radetic was guiding Yousif's policy into a Fabian mode, getting the Wahlig to husband his strength and buy time. He hoped the Crown would recover its senses, or that Nassef would do something to defeat himself.

He composed countless admonitory letters, over Yousif's seal, to virtually everyone close to Aboud. He found a few sympathizers, but Crown Prince Farid was the only one in any position to influence Royal policy.

Young Haroun was growing, though more in mind than in stature. His father had begun to fear that he would become the family runt. Megelin soothed him with remarks about late bloomers. He had abandoned any pretense of educating anyone else. He no longer had time to coax and coddle Yousif's stubborner sons and nephews.

His concentration on the one child won him no friends. Not when he took the boy away from his regular shaghûnry studies and chores to accompany him on botanical and geological field trips. Not when he answered questions about the other children's talents honestly.

Other than Yousif and Haroun, Megelin had just one real friend in el Aswad, his bodyguard, Muamar.

Muamar enjoyed the field trips and studies more than did Haroun. For him they were play. The old warrior had reached that stage in life where mental challenges were more easily negotiated than physical. He responded to them with a heart never seen in the young.

In the fourth year the rebels made a small mistake. Fuad emerged triumphant, having trapped and slain nearly three hundred marauders. The victory guaranteed a respite from guerrilla activity. Yousif declared a holiday in his brother's honor.

Women were summoned from their quarters to dance. Yousif, Fuad and most of the captains brought out their favorite wives. The voices of kanoons, ouds, derbeckis and zils filled the hall with music. Radetic found it strident, harsh and discordant.

Laughter abounded. Even Radetic hazarded a few jokes, but his efforts were too esoteric for his audience. They preferred long-winded, intimately detailed tales about rogues who cuckolded pompous husbands and about nitwits who believed anything their wives and daughters told them.

There was no wine to modulate the merriment, but the air was sour with a mildly narcotic smoke produced in special braziers.

Haroun sat beside Radetic, taking it all in with wide, neutral eyes. Radetic wondered if the boy was becoming one of life's perpetual observers.

"Ho! Megelin! You old woman," Fuad called. "Get up and show us one of your infidel jigs."

Radetic was in a daring mood. He liberated a flute from a musician and danced a clumsy flamenco to his own abominable accompaniment. He laughed with the rest when he finished.

"Now you, Fuad. Put on the zils and show the ladies how it's done."

Fuad took the dare, without zils. He performed a wild sword dance which won a roar of applause.

The hall was packed with victorious warriors. With the women dancing, then the teacher and the Wahlig's brother doing their stunts, no one had any attention left over. Nobody noticed the slow drift of three men toward the leaders...

Till they sprang, one each at Yousif, Fuad and Radetic.

Each lifted a silver dagger overhead. Fuad stopped his with his dancing sword. Yousif evaded his by throwing himself into the screaming mob.

Muamar flung himself into the path of the third assassin. The silver dagger slashed his cheek as the killer desperately tried to reach Radetic.

Muamar's wound was bloody, but should have done no more than leave a thin scar. But the old warrior froze. His eyes grew huge. A gurgling whine crossed his lips. Then he fell, stone-dead.

The assassin drove toward Radetic again, struggling past grasping hands and flashing weapons. His dagger burned with a weird blue light.

"Sorcery!" a woman screamed.

The uproar redoubled.

Haroun kicked the assassin in the groin. It was as savage a blow as a ten-year-old could deliver. The knife wielder ignored him.

Neither he nor his companions seemed to notice the blows raining upon them. Six of Yousif's men perished before the assassins could be stopped.

Shaking, Radetic gasped, "I've never seen anything like it! What kind of men are they?"

"Back! Damn it, clear away!" Yousif bellowed. "Gamel! Mustaf! Beloul!" he roared at three of his captains. "Clear the hall. Get the women to their quarters. Don't touch them!" he snarled at a man who had rolled one of the assassins onto his back.

The three silver daggers lay on the dark stone floor, glowing blue.

Fuad crouched over the man who had come after him. He was pale. His hands shook. "Nassef said he would send an assassin."

"He waited long enough," Yousif growled.

"This isn't El Murid's style," Radetic murmured. "There's sorcery in this. It hasn't been six months since he preached that sermon against wizardry."

"Nassef. It has to be Nassef's doing," Fuad insisted.

Something about one assassin caught Radetic's eye. He dropped to one knee, lengthened a tear in the man clothing, gazed at his chest. "Come here. Look at this."

A tiny tattoo lay over the man's heart. It was not clear, but seemed to be two letters of the desert alphabet intertwined.

The tattoo faded away as they studied it.

"What the hell?" Fuad growled. He jumped to another assassin, hacked his clothing. "Nothing on this one." He went to the third. "Hey. This one's still alive." Again he cut cloth. "And he's got the same mark."

"Gamel. Send for the physician," Yousif ordered. "Maybe we can keep him alive long enough to get some answers."

While they were looking at the tattoo, Haroun collected one of the daggers. A blue nimbus formed round his hand. He held the flat of the blade to the light of a lamp.

"What are you doing?" Yousif demanded. "Put that down."

"It's harmless, Father. The light is just a spell unraveling."

"What?"

"There was a spell on the blade. This one includes Uncle Fuad's name. I'm trying to read the rest, if you'll let me. It's hard. It's fading away, and it's in the language of Ilkazar."

"If there's sorcery... "

"The blue is the sorcery giving up energy as it decays, Father. Because the knives cut the wrong men. They're just daggers now."

Haroun's assertions did not reassure Yousif. "Put the damned thing down."

"He just died," Fuad said of the third assassin. "Oh. There it goes."

The man's tattoo faded in thirty seconds.

"What are we into here?" Yousif asked the air. The air did not reply.

Haroun's shaghûnry instructors confirmed the boy's comments about the daggers. Spells had been placed on the blades to make even a slight cut fatal. But they could make nothing of the vanishing tattoos. Nor could they, with their most potent conjuring, determine whence the assassins had come.

The physician determined that the men had taken drugs. And everyone could see that they had bound their limbs and genitals tightly, severely restricting circulation. They had been both fearless and immune to pain when they had attacked.

"Whoever sent them has himself a potent weapon," Radetic observed. "Yousif, you'd better tell the gate watch to stay alert."

Once the excitement died and there was no other concern to stay him, Megelin knelt over Muamar and wept. "You were a true friend, old warrior," he murmured. "Thank you."

Fuad, of all people, placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "He was a good man, Megelin. We'll all miss him."

The teacher glanced up. He was surprised to see a tear on Fuad's cheek. "He was my weapons master when I was Haroun's age. As he was Haroun's." For Fuad that seemed to be ample explanation.

The man called Beloul, who, subjective centuries ago, had escaped the disaster at Sebil el Selib, examined the dead men. He was now one of Yousif's most savage captains. In his time, too, he had gone back into Sebil el Selib as one of the Wahlig's spies.

"These are El Murid's men," he said. "This one is Shehab el-Medi, a captain of the Invincibles. He was almost as crazy as the Disciple."

"So," said Yousif. "The mystery deepens. They're El Murid's special bullies. Nobody gives them orders but the man himself. And yet it's only been six months since he outlawed any kind of sorcery. Curious."

The Disciple had, in fact, declared a death sentence upon all witches, warlocks, shamans, shaghûns, diviners and anyone who practiced any kind of occultism. He had charged Nassef with the eradication of sorcery wherever his troops found it.

"He's insane," Beloul observed. "He doesn't have to be logically consistent."

Radetic had thought at the time that the Disciple's declaration made a grim kind of sense. The Kingdom of Peace had won no converts among the wise. Men with the Power were almost universally his enemies. They aided the Royal cause where they could. That they were generally ineffectual reflected the level of competence of the sorcerers of Hammad al Nakir. The talent had been very nearly eradicated during the fury of the Fall.

Radetic again thought of the Hidden Ones. Would El Murid be fool enough to try expelling them from Jebal al Alf Dhulquarneni?

That was too much to hope. Like most of the Children of Hammad al Nakir, he probably did not think of them at all.

El Aswad buried its dead and went on, as it had done for years. A month later a spy brought news which illuminated the assassination attempt.

El Murid had instructed his Invincibles to found a secret order within the bodyguard. The available details convinced Radetic that it was a mystery cult. It called itself the Harish, and was extreme in its secrecy. Members were organized in pyramided "brotherhoods" of three men, only one of whom knew any cultist above the three in the hierarchy. The tattoo was El Murid's personal seal. It was formed from the initial letters of "Beloved of God," and meant that the bearer was guaranteed a place in Paradise. It supposedly faded when the cultist's soul ascended.

"That's spooky," Fuad observed, and seemed perfectly willing to write the idea off as another example of El Murid's insanity.

"It is," Yousif agreed. "It's also damned dangerous if they're all as willing to die as our three were."

They were. Dredging the dark corners of his mind, El Murid had created a dread new instrument for the furthering of his mission.

Nine weeks later Radetic received a long letter from an old schoolmate, Tortin Perntigan, who had become a professor of mercantile theory. Meaning he was a glorified accounting instructor.

He mulled it for days before taking it to Yousif.

"You look strange," the Wahlig told him. "Like a man who's just seen his best friend and worst enemy murder each other."

"Maybe I have. I've received a letter from home."

"An emergency? You don't have to leave?" Yousif seemed alarmed by the prospect. Megelin's pride responded warmly.

"No. I'm not going anywhere. The letter... It'll take some explanation." Quickly, Megelin explained that Perntigan was a long-time friend, that they had been close since entering the Rebsamen together nearly three decades ago.

"He's the one costing you so much when I send my fat packets of mail." Yousif was a tight man with a copper, like all his desert brethren, and repeatedly protested the expense of Megelin's communications with his distant colleagues. "I've been sending him fragments of my monograph as I write it, along with my natural observations, notes, thoughts, speculations and what have you. To ensure that not everything will be lost if tragedy strikes. Knowledge is too precious."

"I seem to recall having heard that argument."

"Yes. Well. Perntigan, old gossip that he is, responds by keeping me informed of the latest from Hellin Daimiel."

Sourly, Yousif observed, "It gratifies me no end that you're able to stay in touch. Though it beggars me. Now, what piece of foul gossip has this expensive excuse for scholarly chitchat brought me?"

"As you are aware, Hellin Daimiel is the financial axis of the west—though the standing is being challenged by Itaskian consortiums—"

"Get on with it, Megelin. Bad news is like a dead camel. It gets no pleasanter for being let lie."

"Yes, Wahlig. Perntigan is obsessed with a phenomenon the bankers have begun calling ‘the Kasr Helal Gold Seam.' Kasr Helal is a fortified Daimiellian trading village on the edge of the Sahel. The same one where, I believe, the Disciple's father traded for salt—"

"Megelin! You're still dancing around it."

"Very well. Of late large amounts of new specie have been reaching Hellin Daimiel, channeled through Kasr Helal. Thus the name Kasr Helal Gold Seam. According to Perntigan, the House of Bastanos—the largest of the Daimiellian international banks—has accepted deposits equalling a million Daimiellian ducats. And that's just one bank. He sent a long list of queries about what is happening inside Hammad al Nakir. His excuse is that he is a student of finance. His motive, of course, is that he hopes somehow to profit."

"Can't we somehow get to the point of all this? What're you getting at? The fact that this money is coming out of the desert?"

"Exactly. Which is the root of the mystery. There is a trader's axiom that says specie is as scarce as frog fur in the desert. In this land debts are almost always paid in service or kind. Are they not? What silver and gold there is has a tendency to remain motionless." Radetic indicated the rings and bracelets Yousif wore. They formed a considerable portion of the Wahlig's personal fortune. The men of Hammad al Nakir customarily wore or hid whatever valuable metals they possessed. They yielded them up only in the direst extremity. "The movement out of the desert of fortunes of the scale Perntigan describes represents a huge financial anomaly. There is a great deal of trepidation among the bankers, though they profit. They foresee some titanic economic disaster."

Yousif simply looked puzzled. Half of what Radetic was saying had to be couched in the tongue of Hellin Daimiel. The desert language hadn't much of a financial vocabulary. And, though Yousif spoke some Daimiellian, he did not comprehend merchants' cant.

"Perntigan questioned his contacts in the banking establishment. He assembled a list of names associated with the suspect deposits. Along with another list of questions. You put everything he wrote together and it implies a rather disturbing process."

"I see that somebody is sending a hell of a lot of wealth out of the kingdom."

Radetic nodded. Finally. About five minutes behind, but finally. "Exactly. The whos and whys are what make the news interesting."

Yousif puzzled for a few seconds, then started to speak. Haroun tugged at his clothing. "Father? May I?"

The Wahiig grinned. "Of course. Let's see if this old fussbudget is worth his keep. Show us what he's taught you."

Radetic smiled too. The boy was showing signs of overcoming his innate reserve.

Haroun proclaimed, "There are only two people who could have that much money. The King and El Murid."

"Your reasoning?" Radetic demanded.

"The King because he accepts money instead of service. Also, he collects some rents and trade taxes. And El Murid because he has been looting people for years."

Yousif peered at Radetic. "Well? I take it from your look that he's wrong. Explain."

"Not really. He just hasn't reasoned closely enough. Tortin indicates that the Quesani family did make a big deposit. It was used to purchase properties on the Auszura Littoral. That's a stretch of seacoast north of Dunno Scuttari. It's a sort of elephant's graveyard of deposed princes. The purchase makes it look like somebody at Al Rhemish is covering the Quesani bets."

"Not Aboud. He doesn't have the foresight."

"Farid, perhaps? No matter. That was only a small part of the flow, and not what was bothering Tortin. What did bother him came from two other sources. The loot Haroun mentioned without carrying his reasoning to the point where he mentioned that it hasn't been El Murid doing the pillaging. The depositors have been Karim, el-Kader, el Nadim and that bunch."

"Nassef s bandits-turned-generals. That's good news, Megelin. We could make the Scourge of God damned uncomfortable by spreading that around. In fact, the Invincibles might end his tale if he's been slipping something over on El Murid."

Radetic was not cheered by the opportunity. "Our side is vulnerable too."

"Aboud's money? It's his. He can do what he wants with it. Besides, he isn't looting the realm."

"Not Aboud. The priesthood. They've been sending out as much bullion as Nassef's gang. Which means they're stripping the holy places and melting the gold and silver down. What would the faithful do if they found out that they're being robbed by their own priests? El Murid can explain Nassef, more or less. Soldiers pillage their enemies. We can't shed ourselves of the priesthood.

"A lot of people already damn Nassef without damning El Murid. They consider him the Disciple's compromise with fate. They figure he'll disappear if El Murid's Kingdom of Peace becomes a reality."

"Looks like Nassef is worried about it too. He and his boys are putting a little away for their old age."

"Don't you think the priesthood's behavior will win El Murid a lot of converts?"

"Absolutely. I'll write Aboud."

"Who is under the thumbs of the priests. Who will give you the same answer he's been giving you since this mess started. If he bothers to answer at all."

"You're right. Of course. We'll just have to intimidate a few priests. Cover it up." Yousif closed his eyes wearily. "Megelin, what do you do when your allies are more trouble than your enemies?"

"I don't know, Wahlig. I really don't. Stupidity and incompetence create their own special rewards. All I foresee is deterioration and more deterioration, and most of it moral. Maybe Hammad al Nakir needs the purifying flame of an El Murid."

Haroun gripped Radetic's elbow. "Don't give up yet, Megelin."

The boy's face had assumed an expression of stubborn determination. It made him seem far older than his years.

Radetic thought it a pity that a child had to grow up in the fires of this particularly chaotic furnace.