“I will give each of these ‘girls’ the ritual tests, of course,” Zohra said.
Her proud gaze swept over everyone to light upon Meryem, who shrank into the arms of Khardan’s mother.
“What about it, child?” Zohra asked of her with mocking gentleness. “Are you—a Sultan’s daughter—skilled in the art of magic?”
“I—I am not. . . very good,” the girl admitted timidly with a sidelong glance at Khardan from beneath her long lashes. She appeared confused, yet confident. She did not yet understand her danger. “But I would do my best to please my husband. . . .”
“I’m sure you would,” murmured Zohra with the purring sound a lioness makes before tearing the throat from her victim. “And I’m sure there will be many men here who will come to ‘your father’ “—Zohra smiled placidly upon the glowering Majiid—”and will offer to take you to wife despite your lack of skill in magic. For I am certain that you have talents in other areas. . .”
“But I am to be Khardan’s wife,” Meryem began innocently, then stopped, realizing something was wrong.
“Ah, I’m afraid not, poor child.” Zohra sighed softly. “Not if he takes this other ‘woman’ into his tent. Are you skilled in magic?”
Turning, she glanced at the youth, who had no idea what any of this was about and who knew only that—once again—his fate was being held in balance. Still crouched on the ground, the young man’s sobs had ceased. He stared from Khardan to Zohra in blank confusion.
“Yes, I am . . .skilled. . .” He faltered, not knowing what else to say.
Truly mad! Zohra thought. But—mad or sane—he serves my purpose.
Zohra had taken a gamble on her course of battle. Armed with knowledge of her husband and a woman’s knowledge of other women, she had ridden forth, confident of victory, and she had just achieved it. Like all men, Khardan distrusted magic, since it was something he could not control. No matter how proficient in the art Meryem truly was—and Zohra, thinking of the soft life in the Sultan’s court, did not believe this could be very proficient at all—the girl would surely play down her talent in this area in favor of others that Khardan was certain to find more to his taste. As for the madman, whether he was skilled or not didn’t matter. After all, it was Zohra who gave the tests and they were always given in secret. . .
“You see, my child,” Zohra continued, her limpid-eyed gaze turning back to Meryem, “Khardan has a wife already. This will make his second. It is a law that a man can take no more wives than he can support, and since the failure to sell the horses, it will be all my husband can do to keep the two of us. He cannot provide for a third.”
Had Zohra been watching Meryem closely, she would have seen the blue eyes go suddenly cold as blue steel, she would have felt their sharp, cutting edge, and she would have known that she had created an enemy—a deadly one, who could fight her on her own level. Exultant in her victory, enjoying the sweet fruits of vengeance against her husband, Zohra did not see the dagger in Meryem’s gaze.
One person saw it, however—the young man. But he was so lost in confusion that though he saw the girl’s deadly, darting gaze, he soon lost the memory in the turmoil of his mind.
“Father!” said Khardan, turning to the Sheykh. “I put this to you! Give me your judgment and I will abide by it.”
It was obvious from Majiid’s lowering brow and quivering mustache that he would have sided with his son. But he had the law to uphold, justice must be served.
Shaking his head, he said sternly, “We cannot leave the madman to starve; that would anger Hazrat Akhran. You have accepted responsibility for the madman. If you had not intervened, then he would be dead now—purely by accident”—the Sheykh looked up deprecatingly into the heavens—”since we would have had no way of knowing he was mad, in which case we would have been forgiven his death due to our ignorance, and you, Khardan”—Majiid glowered at his son—”would be making wedding plans. Let this be a lesson!”
He gestured at the girl. “I have accepted Meryem into my family. She will be well cared for until such time as a suitor comes who can claim her hand. “
The judgment given, the Sheykh’s lips snapped tightly shut. Folding his arms across his chest, he turned his back upon the supplicant, a sign that there was to be no further discussion.
“Now wait just a minute!” The voice was that of Badia, Khardan’s mother.
Stepping forward, she faced Majiid. A diminutive woman, she did not come to her tall husband’s shoulder. Generally meek and docile, knowing and accepting her place as head wife and mother, Badia had her limits, however, and these had just been reached. Hands on her hips, she faced her astonished husband, casting a glance around the assembled tribes.
“I think you have all lost your wits! You are as mad as this wretched creature!” she said with a scathing gesture at the youth. “A man in the harem! Such a thing is not done unless he is . . . has been. . .” She flushed deeply but was not embarrassed enough to be swerved from her course. “Has had his manhood cut away,” she said finally, ignoring her husband’s shocked look.
Other women in the tribe nodded and murmured in agreement.
“The poor young man is mad. You’re not going to make a eunuch of him, too,” Khardan said coldly. “A beardless chin, a hairless chest. What harm can you fear he will do? Especially in my harem.” He cast a bitter glance at Zohra. “My wife is more of a man than this one! But—if it will please you, Mother—I will set a guard at his tent. Pukah shall watch over him. There is probably wisdom in that anyway, lest he—in his madness—chooses to do harm to himself or someone else. And now there is one more thing I will say before the matter closes.”
Leaving the center of the compound, Khardan walked over to stand before Meryem. He took hold of her hands in his, looking down into the adoring, tear-filled eyes. “By day, you are more radiant than the sun. By night, you brighten my darkness like the moon. I love you, and I swear as Hazrat Akhran is my witness that no man will possess you except myself, Meryem, if I have to steal the wealth of the Amir’s treasury to do it.”
Leaning down, he kissed the girl’s forehead. Weeping, Meryem nestled against him. He felt her body, soft and warm, trembling in his grasp. Her fragrance intoxicated him, her tears inflamed his heart. Hurriedly his mother came to take the girl and lead her away.
Breathing as though he had been fighting a battle with ten thousand devils, Khardan left as well, walking rapidly into the deepening darkness of the desert. If he went to find some glimmer of hope in the Rose of the Prophet, it was not there. Green and almost healthy looking when Khardan had left for his journey to the city, the plant was—once again—brown and shriveled.
One by one the other members of the tribes melted away, hurrying to their tents to discuss the day’s events in excited whispers. Only two were left standing in the compound, Zohra and the youth.
Zohra had won, but for some reason the sweet fruit of revenge had changed to ashes in her mouth. Hiding her wounds, she made her way with haughty demeanor back to her tent.
The young man remained behind, crouched on his knees on the hard granite of the desert floor. Many gave him sidelong glances as they scurried past. None came to him. He did not know what to do, where to go. If it had been his headless corpse lying there, he could not have experienced more bitterly the taste of the loneliness of death than he did now, surrounded by the living.
John had died once, his life severed by the blade.
“How many times have I died?” Mathew asked himself miserably. “How many times must I go on dying?”
His strength gave way and he sank down onto the warm, hard ground, his senses slipping from him. He never noticed the soft feathers of the angel’s wing drawing over him or felt the light touch of the angel’s tear, falling like dew upon his skin.
Chapter 12
“Who are you?” asked Pukah in astonishment.
The woman who had been hovering over the young man whirled in fear. At the sight of Pukah, she insta
ntly disappeared.
“Wait! Don’t go!” Pukah cried. “Beautiful creature! I didn’t mean to frighten you! Don’t leave! I—She’s gone.” The djinn gazed around disconsolately. “What was she? An immortal, of course, but like none I’ve seen in all my centuries!”
Coming nearer the unconscious youth, Pukah felt about in the air with his hands. “Are you here, lovely being? Show yourself. You needn’t be afraid of Pukah. Gentle Pukah, I am called. Harmless as a human babe. Come back, dazzling enchanter! I want only to be your adoring slave, to worship at your feet. Such small, white feet, peeping beneath your white gown, hair the silver of starlight, wings like a dove. . . Wings! Imagine that! And eyes that melt my heart!
“Nothing. She’s gone.” Pukah heaved a sigh, his shoulders slumped. “And I am desolated! I know what you are going to say.” He raised his hand to forestall any argument that might be forthcoming from his other half. “You, Pukah, are in too much trouble already. The last thing you need is a female—even if she did have wings. Because of you, Sheykh Zeid and twenty or so thousand mad meharistes—give or take several thousand—are going to sweep up out of the south and murder us all. Thinking to right this by trying to bring about peace between Quar and Akhran so that the tribes can separate and no longer prove a threat to Zeid so that Zeid would go back to his camels and leave us in peace, I went to Kaug—may sting rays swim into his pantalons—and told him that all three tribes were gathering together to strike out at the city of Kich.”
Shaking his head sadly, Pukah lifted the unconscious youth. “And it should have worked! Kaug was terrified, I swear it! Well, you know! You saw him!” This to Pukah’s alter ego, not the young man. “It was Quar, that archfiend of a God, who stirred up trouble. How was I to know the Amir was such a powerful general? How was I to know he had magical horses? How was I to know he would try to arrest my poor master and nearly get us all killed? I—”
“So it was you!” came a ferocious voice from out of the darkness.
Pukah nearly dropped the young man he was carrying over his shoulder. “Pukah,” he muttered to himself, glancing around swiftly, “will you never learn to keep your mouth shut? Who . . . who is there?” he called.
“Sond!” came the terrible voice.
The large, muscular djinn took shape and form, standing before Pukah, his strong arms folded before his broad chest, and a dark expression on his face.
“Sond! Honored friend! I would bow, but as you see, I am rather discommoded at the present time—”
“ ‘Discommoded!’ “ said Sond, his voice swelling with his rising passion. “When I am through with you, swine, you will not only be discommoded, you will be disembodied, disemboweled, disexcruciated, disenchanted, and dis-anything else I can think of!”
The young man, hanging upside down, his head and arms dangling across Pukah’s shoulders, groaned and began to stir. Wondering why Sond was in such a towering rage, and also wondering, uneasily, how much the elder djinn had overheard, and further wondering how he could escape with his skin and his ambition both intact, Pukah gave Sond a meek smile.
“I am honored that you take such an interest in me and my unworthy doings, Sond, and it would please me no end to be able to discuss them with you, but—as you see—my master has ordered me to tend to this poor madman, and of course, I must obey, being the dutiful servant that I am. If you will wait for me here, I will deposit the madman in his bed, then return. I swear, I will be back in two barks of a dog—”
“Two barks of a dead dog,” Sond interrupted grimly. “Don’t think you can escape me so easily, worm.”
The djinn clapped his hands together with a sound like thunder. The young man hanging over Pukah’s shoulders disappeared.
Pukah nervously began to back up.
“My poor madman!” he cried. “What have you done with him?”
“Sent him to his bed. Weren’t those your orders?” Sond said through clenched teeth, advancing one step forward for each step Pukah retreated. “I have done your work for you. Are you not grateful?”
“I—I am!” Pukah gasped, inadvertently putting his foot into a brass pot and nearly falling into a tent. “Dee-deeply grateful, friend S-s-sond.” .
Catching his balance, Pukah hopped along, trying desperately to extricate his foot from the pot. Sond, shoulder muscles bulging, veins popping, eyes flaming, continued to stalk the unfortunate young djinn.
“Therefore, since you are so grateful to me, ‘friend’ Pukah, do continue your most interesting conversation. You went to Kaug, you say, and told him—told him what?”
“That. . . uh . . . that the two tribes of Sheykhs Majiid al Fakhar and Jaafar al Widjar were united at last and that . . . uh . . . we were now rejoicing that a third tribe—that of the powerful Sheykh Zeid al Saban—would soon be united with us as well and . . . and”—Pukah thought swiftly—”I told Kaug that this was all your doing, O Great Sond, and that truly this is proof of your high intelligence—”
Thinking to flatter the elder djinn (also thinking that if Zeid did attack them it would be best to start laying the groundwork for casting the blame onto someone else’s shoulders), Pukah was astounded beyond measure to see Sond—upon hearing these words—go livid.
“You. . . what?” The djinn choked, near strangling.
“I gave you all the credit, friend Sond,” Pukah said humbly. Finally kicking the pot off his foot, he straightened and held up his hands deprecatingly. “Do not thank me. It was nothing but your due. . .”
Pukah’s voice died. Sond, bellowing terrifyingly, had soared to nearly twenty feet in height. His great arms lifted above his head as though he meant to tear the stars, one by one, from the sky. Pukah saw instantly, however, that the stars were not the target of Sond’s wrath. Plunging down like a meteor, the djinn descended upon Pukah.
Panic-stricken, the young djinn had time only to hide his head in his arms and regret his young life, tragically ended, visualizing himself stuffed in an iron money box, locked and sealed and buried one thousand feet below the surface of the world. A gigantic wind hit him, blew all around him, completely uprooting two palm trees. . . .
Then the gale stopped.
This is it, the end, thought Pukah grimly.
But there was nothing.
Fearfully he waited.
Still nothing.
Keeping his arms covering his head, his eyes squinched tightly shut, Pukah listened. All he heard was a pitiful moaning as of a man having his guts wrenched out. Cautiously Pukah opened half an eye and peered out over his elbow.
Bent double, his arms clasped around his stomach as though he were holding himself together, was Sond—sobbing bitterly.
“Ah, my dear friend,” said Pukah, truly touched and feeling more than a little guilty that he hadn’t spoken the truth. “I know that you are grateful to me, but I assure you that this display of emotion is completely—”
“ ‘Grateful’ !”
Sond lifted his face. Tears streaked the djinn’s cheeks, foam frothed on his lips, blood dripped from his mouth. Teeth gnashing, hands outstretched, Sond leaped for Pukah’s throat.
“Grateful!” Sond screamed. Knocking Pukah to the ground, he grabbed the young djinn around the neck and began bashing his head into the desert floor, driving it deeper with each word he spoke. “She is lost! Lost to me! Forever! Forever!”
Bash, bash, bash. . .
Pukah would have screamed for help, but his tongue was so tangled up with everything else rattling around in his head that all he could do was gasp “Uh! Uh! Uh!” at each blow.
Eventually Sond’s strength gave out, or he might have bashed Pukah clear through the world, where the djinn would have come out on the other side and discovered that Mathew wasn’t mad after all. Exhausted by his grief and his rage, Sond merely gave Pukah a final shove that sent the young djinn down through six feet of solid granite. Then Sond fell over backward, moaning for breath.
Dizzy, disoriented, and thoroughly shaken, Pukah at first con
sidered staying in his hole and—not content with that hiding him from Sond—pulling the desert in on top of him. But as his head cleared, he began to consider the elder djinn’s words: She is lost. . . Lost to me forever. . .
She who? Lost how? And why was it apparently all his—Pukah’s—fault?
Knowing he would never rest content—not even locked in an iron money box—without the answer to these questions, Pukah peered up out of his hole.
“Sond?” he said timidly, preparing to dive back down if the elder djinn showed signs of renewed hostility. “I don’t understand. Tell me what’s wrong. Something is wrong, I take it.”
Sond groaned in answer, flinging his head about from side to side, his face contorted in a grief most awful to witness.
“Sond,” said Pukah, beginning to have the feeling now that something was really, really wrong and wondering if it was going to further compound his own troubles, “if you’d. . . uh . . . tell me, perhaps I could help—”
“ ‘Help’!” Sond propped himself up on his elbows, gazing at Pukah with bloodshot eyes. “What more can you do than you’ve done already except to take my sword and slice me in two!”
“I would be honored to do that, of course, if it is what you truly desire, O Sond,” began Pukah humbly.
“Oh, shut up!” Sond snarled. “There is nothing you can do. Nothing anyone can do, not even Akhran.”
Upon hearing the name of the awful God, Pukah glanced nervously up into the heavens and scrunched back down into the hole.
“You. . . spoke to Holy Akhran?”
“Yes. What else could I do?”
“And. . . what did you tell him?”
“I confessed my guilt to him.”
Pukah heaved a sigh of relief. “For which guilt I am certain the merciful God has forgiven you,” he said soothingly.
“That was, of course, before I knew anything about the hand you had in this!” Sond growled, glaring at Pukah. He sighed bleakly. “Not that it matters anyway, I suppose.”
“I’m sure it doesn’t!” Pukah said, but Sond wasn’t listening.
The Will of the Wanderer Page 32