Clan Novel Assamite - Book 7 of The Clan Novel Saga

by Gherbod Fleming

  “To strength,” said al-Ashrad, raising his goblet.

  Fatima nodded. “To strength long sought,” she said in homage to her host.

  A wan smile touched his lips, as if her words were amusing but painful. Perhaps he regarded her idea of a long time as ironic, considering that he had just made clear that her conception of time was shaped by her limited perspective. But somehow Fatima didn’t think that was what caused him to pause, goblet to lips. She sensed something more personal, a mixture of relief and regret, in his hesitation. Besides, the Tremere curse had lain on the children of Haqim for over five hundred years and, no matter what anyone said, it was a long time. Like seconds before the burning sun, or hours unsure of the fate of a loved one, it was a long time.

  Waiting for al-Ashrad first to drink, as was proper, Fatima then partook of the blood in her goblet. The fragrance washed over her as soon as she raised the vessel near her face. She sipped slowly, and the rich liquid eased down her throat, setting her insides afire with life. It was rich, too rich to be mortal or of the various concoctions the amr and other wizards of the clan had produced for centuries so that the assassins could keep their strength. No, this was vitae of the get of Khayyin.

  “From Clan Tremere,” said al-Ashrad, his face slightly upturned, eyes closed as he savored the libation.

  Though she thought she drank slowly, Fatima found her goblet empty too soon and her tongue licking bone, seeking that which was no longer there. What torture was this to have only half a goblet of such heady vitae? She tried to fight down the hunger, but she wanted more. Almost frantically, she cast a glance at the decanter in the corner. So close! Then her gaze fell on al-Ashrad, neck stretched taut, eyes closed, and for an instant Fatima imagined herself drinking his blood—so close to Haqim’s own! The Beast stirred within her. Her hunger cried out. The ecstasy that blood would bring her…and the power. Surely she would be like a god on earth!

  And then the amr’s eyes opened. They took Fatima in, and she stood as if naked before him. The hunger, her impulse to fall upon al-Ashrad, withered away to nothingness, and in its place was left only shame.

  “To strength,” said al-Ashrad once again. “To strength long sought.”

  Fatima stood perfectly still. She forced her fingers to ease their grip on the goblet lest the bone shatter. She forced her shame down into the same places where the Beast, cowed by al-Ashrad’s gaze, had retreated. She resisted, too, the anger that now flooded in to fill the emotional vacuum, her rage at her own weakness. She pressed the turmoil beneath hundreds of thousands of nights of death and days of oblivion—their weight was too great for any feeling long to survive.

  At last, she was her own master once more; the calm, so essential to survival, returned. The truth within again matched the facade without. Al-Ashrad still held her in his gaze, and she was too wise to think that he hadn’t witnessed her struggle, that he wasn’t aware of her weakness.

  “Weakness must be rooted out, if we are to serve our master,” said al-Ashrad.

  The words were spoken casually, but they struck at Fatima’s very thoughts. She managed not to flinch. There was no purchase in her soul for seeds of fear. If her elders found her lacking—for whatever reason—and decided that she was not worthy to continue in service to Haqim, then she would accept that judgment.

  “For that reason,” the amr continued, “it may be necessary that we reclaim the blood of one of the brethren.”

  All thoughts of self retreated from Fatima’s mind. The amr did not speak of her own weakness—at least not solely. Whatever lack she had shown here, she had not transgressed to the point of destroying her usefulness to the brotherhood. This time, she latched on to the stone-hard fact the amr had dangled before her; she clawed her way from the shifting sands. “One of the fida’i?” Fatima asked. Mentally, she combed the list of recent initiates. Dragomir had failed several tests, but only because Fatima had pushed the Russian woman harder than she had the men. There were too many among the elders, still, who felt that women had no place in the halls of the assassins, and Fatima had worked too hard over the centuries earning the traditionalists’ grudged respect, proving them wrong, to risk losing ground because another female slipped. So Fatima pushed the women candidates and fida’i even more mercilessly than she did their male counterparts. And the elders recognized this. They would not misinterpret Dragomir’s failures as weakness, but would know that, if she survived, she was made of sterner stuff than many.

  Fatima continued down the list. Who else…?

  “Not one of the fida’i,” said al-Ashrad. “Rafiq.”

  Not one of the fida’i. Fatima found that difficult to believe. Occasionally, the worth of a new initiate would be reconsidered; the passage of what promised to be an endless succession of nights sometimes took too heavy a toll on the heart or mind of the freshly undead after a year or a decade. But Fatima could remember only one instance of a more veteran assassin’s reclamation.

  “The Greek,” al-Ashrad said at last, dispassionately.

  Fatima nodded. The Greek. Parmenides. She remembered the luster of his skin, which had been dark no few years; she remembered his initial insolence, his pride, the swagger of which he’d never been completely broken.

  “You opposed his Becoming,” said the amr.

  Fatima nodded again. It was true. Mortal assassins were a notoriously and uniformly arrogant lot. Only through the harshest training did they ever come to recognize their own smallness, the insignificance of the individual. From that point, they could begin to see how their existence could achieve meaning—through service to the Eldest. The lowliest, cast-off block of wood became, through the brotherhood, a cog among cogs on a wheel grinding toward destiny. Fatima had never been convinced that Parmenides had truly learned that lesson. He spoke the words of brotherhood well enough, but to Fatima’s ears they rang hollow; they flowed from his tongue, not from his heart. But Thetmes had been caliph at the time and had championed the Greek, and Parmenides had been accepted. Despite his excellent performance over the years, the arrogance had remained and perhaps increased, lurking never far below the surface. So Fatima was less surprised to hear his name than she would have been many others.

  Al-Ashrad paused, perhaps waiting for Fatima to speak, but she saw no reason to dwell on past disagreements, even if her position seemed to be vindicated. This was a matter of shame for the clan, not pride for her.

  “The fault may not lie entirely with Parmenides,” the amr continued. “We placed him in a situation that the caliph hoped he would be able to survive.”

  “Will the caliph be joining us?” Fatima asked. Al-Ashrad was obviously preparing her for a mission—the amr would not summon her merely for consultation—but normally Caliph Elijah Ahmed chose the hands that would wield the blade of Haqim’s will. Perhaps he would come now, and soon answer her questions about the Kurd.

  “No,” said al-Ashrad. “He will not.”

  The finality of the statement was jarring to Fatima. No. He will not. The amr’s flat, even tone left no room for further questions or for the expectation that the caliph might arrive at some later time. Al-Ashrad’s voice, lacking all emotion, devoid of life, carried a weight of permanence. Back when Thetmes had fallen into torpor, as those of elder blood sometimes did, Fatima had been told forthrightly. None could know how long her sire would rest, how many nights or years would pass before he again rose. The master, Jamal, the Old Man of the Mountain, had chosen a new caliph, and the nights had passed like those before. Something about what al-Ashrad said—or what he didn’t say, and how he didn’t say it—led Fatima to believe that whatever kept away Elijah Ahmed would continue to keep him away. Forever. But if something had happened to him, why had the master not named a new caliph?

  “There is another matter,” said al-Ashrad. “Contracts outstanding that must be fulfilled.”

  Fatima, though she betrayed no outward emotion, felt her heart constrict as if squeezed by the amr’s voice. As a favored rafiq, even
she was not likely to speak with the amr more than once in twenty years. Suddenly that was seeming far too often. For centuries, Fatima had felt a clarity of purpose, had led an existence of near certainty. In so little time tonight, al-Ashrad was plucking the few uncertainties from her heart and spreading them before her. Contracts outstanding. There was only one contract Fatima had ever failed to execute.

  “For yourself, as for your sire, there is one mark of failure,” said the amr. “As Thetmes is unavailable, you must see to both.”

  Fatima knew she could not avoid her duty, but the knowledge did not make her more eager. The briefest delay was better than none. She wanted to think of anything else. “I was not aware of my sire’s failure,” she said.

  “It is not often discussed,” said the amr. Perhaps he smiled for an instant, or perhaps it was the crackling of the air around him that gave that impression. “Just as you failed against the childe, so did your sire fail against the sire.”

  Thetmes. His failure. Fatima latched onto that rather than facing her own. Her sire, too, had failed to destroy one of his intended victims, though Fatima had never known this until now. For so many years, the clan’s tradition was that a target fortunate enough to thwart one of the brotherhood had thus proven himself honorable—trial through combat, only the worthy persevered. The surviving target was then beyond the reach of the brotherhood; no further contracts against him would be undertaken.

  The mood of the elders had shifted in modern nights, however. Traditions stood only to serve Haqim, some argued. Haqim’s will was clear. No creature of night beyond the brotherhood was honorable. Each and every one was marked for extinction. Did not the Path of Blood say so? The Reckoning would not be denied. How then could any kafir prove worthy?

  The change had come about around the time that Thetmes had succumbed to the lingering sleep and Elijah Ahmed had succeeded him. Few kafir had noticed, for the tradition had been little more than rumor to those beyond the clan. But one by one the survivors had met their judgment. The children of Haqim had claimed their due. Now no get of Khayyin was protected. Fatima locked away the confusion and pain brought to her heart. There was no room for them. Duty crowded them out. Al-Ashrad seemed intent on releasing all the confusion, all the dilemmas she had denied for so long.

  “The childe is not so important at the moment,” said the amr, “though you must claim her blood soon…if you are to prove worthy. But the sire you must destroy.”

  The sire. Monçada. And his childe—Lucita. “Has this to do with the war among the kafir?” Fatima asked. She had to focus on Monçada, else she would lose control again, and that she would not allow herself. She faced the diamond-blue eyes of the amr, forced herself to confront the facts, to bury the emotions. Monçada…not the childe. Monçada.

  Al-Ashrad regarded her, and Fatima felt that this moment was but one grain of sand in a mammoth hourglass resting in the palm of the amr’s hand. “The time has come,” he said, “when we must reclaim the blood that is spoken for. We must prepare the way.” Fatima nodded. Monçada. Cardinal of the Sabbat. The mission would not be simple. Already her mind was fastening on to the details that would prove her triumph or her doom. No room remained for confusion, for doubt. Monçada, not the childe. Monçada.

  “There are immediate considerations, as you suggest,” al-Ashrad said, “involving the conflict between the kafir. While they war, they do our work for us, winnowing the weak. But if the war ends too quickly, our task is that much larger. And time is growing short.”

  “Is Monçada such a potent leader?” Fatima asked. She was dredging up what little she knew of the cardinal’s haven in Madrid—a deadly labyrinth beneath a church.

  “He commands fear that few others in the Sabbat can match, and he is very nearly beyond the reach of the regent and the Black Hand. He has chosen this time to stretch out his own hand. We must cut it off.”

  This Fatima could understand, if only she could keep her mind on the immediate task. She must. Thankfully, there would be a multitude of details and arrangements, enough to occupy her thoughts for many nights to come.

  For now, Monçada. The sire.

  Not the childe.

  Sunday, 29 August 1999, 9:46 AM

  Day chamber, Alamut

  Eastern Turkey

  La ilaha ilia ’l-Lah. There is no god but God.

  Wa Muhammadan rasula ’l-Lah. And Muhammad is the messenger of God.

  Several hours ago, Fatima had completed her prayers of the subh, that time when the sky is light, but the sun has not yet crested the horizon—for mortals, a time of beginning, of emerging from night; for her kind, a time of retreat, of banishment from day. But that was the will of God as laid upon Haqim and all his childer: that they would never again feel the warmth of the sun or see the bands of a rainbow after the storm; that just as the spider eats the buzzing insect, and the sparrow the spider, and the hawk the sparrow, the children of Haqim would some night rid the earth of the creatures that preyed on mortal blood.

  Salla-’L-ahu ’ala sayyidina Muhammad. May Allah cause His prayers to descend on our lord Muhammad.

  Al-salamu ’alaykum wa rahmatu ’l-Lah. May peace and the mercy of God be with you.

  The words of salah usually soothed Fatima, usually led her calmly into the rest that was not sleep, but this morning the peace of God seemed far away, a stranger traveling distant roads.

  During the hours of the sun, do you rest peacefully? Perhaps it was the words that al-Ashrad had spoken that now burdened her heart. There are no dreams? There were no dreams. But, this day, neither was there rest. The lack of dreams kept her mind racing Ss much as dreams could have, because the amr had implied that she should have dreams, or that she would have dreams—dreams that would tell her whether she must betray her God if she wished to remain true to her blood. How would she answer those dreams if they did visit her? How could she?

  Fatima felt the lure of oblivion, the call of day, but she could not answer. It tugged at her like a great hand risen up from the dark places of the earth that would take her back with it, but she was held fast in the waking world. She felt every twist of every reed in the sleeping mat beneath her back, and though her eyes were closed, she could picture every tiny depression in each and every great stone above, around, and below.

  Even when she managed to set aside all thought of dreams, other words spoken by al-Ashrad that night weeks ago haunted Fatima. Just as you failed against the childe, so did your sire fail against the sire. The words resounded like crashing cymbals destroying peace.

  Monçada, not the childe. But no matter Fatima’s denials to herself, she was sent for both, sent to cleanse not just her sire’s failure but her own as well. Eventually, she kept telling herself. First things first.

  Monçada, not the childe. Not yet.

  Yet it was the childe who had held a place in Fatima’s thoughts for hundreds of years. Lucita.

  How long ago it had been, how young in death they had both been, when first they met, when first they battled. Fatima herself had been overconfident. After all, was she not the first of her sex Embraced by the children of Haqim? Had not her passion and her skill convinced the feared assassins that she deserved to stand among their ranks despite the perverse whim of nature that had created her female? Those were the nights when she’d strode with purpose across the rocky slopes of the Holy Land, when she was determined to prove to the brotherhood that she would be second to none among them.

  Fatima and Lucita had met in the land of the Christ. To one he was prophet, to the other Messiah. And thus, for such a distinction, were they lethal enemies. Had their mortal lives in Spain coincided, still they would have been enemies: vengeful protector of the Almohads and daughter of a Christian king.

  Fatima had approached Lucita directly, eschewing guile and stealth. The Dark Rose of Aragon was newer to the blood, but she fought with a reckless abandon that amazed Fatima. From the time that the moon was high in the night sky until it was long hidden beyond the hor
izon, scimitar met broadsword, steel rang out against steel. Fatima was the stronger and the more skilled with a blade, and she attacked relentlessly. Yet Lucita called the darkness to her aid, an army of shadows to distract and deflect. The Moor slashed through the black tentacles, kept one step ahead of the darkness that would smother her, and still rained blows down upon Lucita; but just when the Lasombra childe was forced to her knees, or pressed to the edge of a chasm without hope of escape, the shadows came to her rescue. They knocked aside Fatima’s killing blow, or dug at the loose earth beneath her, or pummeled her with attacks she must turn aside or fall beneath.

  Daybreak found the combatants still at one another’s throats, but now the swords thrust more infrequently, and the shadows melted away before the coming dawn. Weakened by exertion, lack of blood, and wounds suffered throughout the night, each faced destruction by an impartial sun. Defeat was as foreign as compromise to both, but Fatima laid down her sword.

  “There is no shame in honorable defeat,” Fatima said.

  “That is what your masters would have you believe,” Lucita said, reluctantly lowering her own weapon.

  It was then that Fatima knew for certain what she’d already suspected—that this tall, beautiful Christian, so full of fire, would have fought until she could not crawl away, until the dawn burned her to embers, rather than give in, had Fatima not first laid down her sword. The day had passed, as they huddled together in a shallow cave against the cruel rays of the sun, and the next night they had parted.

  There had been other battles over the centuries, conflicting objectives that brought the two killers—for that is what Lucita went on to become, a feared assassin in her own right—into opposition, but always it seemed that each achieved her goal without completely thwarting the other, and without the need for a final, lethal confrontation. Fatima once killed a bodyguard of thirty men along with their German baron, rather than strike a week earlier when Lucita had been the baron’s only guardian. Lucita’s activities tended to follow a similar pattern, and though the two crossed paths many times, this state of live-and-let-live prevailed. The undeclared detente held not out of fear—for Fatima knew none and could not imagine such of Lucita—but out of admiration and respect…and yet, something more as well. Fatima had never fought so close a contest; she had never poured out all her energies and been denied. Nor, since her Embrace into the existence of eternal night, had she passed such a day, curled together with another body that, hours before, she’d tried so hard to destroy.