Samarkand the Omnibus: Books 1-2

by Graham Diamond

  Sharon, Zadek behind her, and Asif behind him had been taken off their camels long before and forced to walk through a tunnel. It seemed a long time until they reached the open, and it was there that their blindfolds were at last removed and the bonds untied.

  Sharon’s eyes teared from the light as she scanned the unfamiliar surroundings slowly, seeing the enclosed circular patch almost as a prison. High above, along the heights of the chalky cliffs, unknown jailers stood mutely, peering down at the prisoners. She stood tensely, not daring to move. Off toward the west a red ember of dying sun burned, turning the waters of a nearby pool almost the color of blood. Overhead a gray lid of clouds was rapidly blotting out the last light of day.

  Zadek rubbed at the rope burns on his wrists and also looked about at the enclosure. Along the cliffs above, at least twenty hillmen gazed down at them, while at the mouth of the low tunnel entrance another group had gathered. Only the lumbering giant of a man who wore the scalp lock was familiar. The rest, four similarly dressed men and one woman, watched. The men were dressed in the simple garb of the Steppes: light-colored tunics covered by rough-hewn robes, and sandals made of hide; but they stood tall and they stood proud, bowing to no man. Free Men of the Steppes, Sharon thought, recalling to mind the Kazirs’ own description.

  Their captor with the scalp lock suddenly moved toward them from the shadows. It seemed to Sharon that there was a mocking laugh in his eyes he paced before them. He folded his arms, muscles bulging beneath his shirt, grinning when the terrified Asif shied away from his stare. Zadek, though, remained defiant; he held no fear of this barbarian brute or of his companions. He met the angry glare evenly.

  Sharon could not be as brave as her teacher. She could feel her flesh beginning to crawl the moment the steely eyes turned her way. The hairs along the back of her neck started to prickle, and she involuntarily flinched, wondering if the same foul thoughts now ran through his mind as they had Kabul’s.

  “Where did you find them?” The voice was that of the woman beside the tunnel entrance.

  The scalp-locked barbarian turned to her. “At the Green Pool, saya. They were resting themselves and their beasts, likely as not waiting for the blanket of darkness to cover their movements before continuing their journey.”

  The woman nodded; she dug the heel of her sandal into the gravelly dirt, squashing an insect. Then she too stepped out of the shadows. She was quite young, Sharon saw, little more than her own age, slender and not very tall; but she carried herself with poise and dignity. She seemed very different from other hill-women Sharon had seen, women whose backs had been bent and whose breasts sagged like those of old hags from long years of tilling and harvesting the brittle soil.

  A mass of brown hair — short, recently clipped at the nape of her slim neck — curtained the saya’s features as she studied the faces of the prisoners. Her almond eyes were a similar color, deep and brooding, her mouth small, her cheekbones high. Her skin was well darkened by desert sun, a testimony to her life of the Steppes. Of her simple dress there was nothing of note, only the leather necklace that hung from her neck and below her breasts. Dangling from it was a small piece of what looked like antelope horn. Although to Sharon it seemed no more than common adornment, she noticed that Zadek seemed most interested by it.

  “And why did you bring the infidels here?” the saya asked abruptly of the brute with the scalp lock.

  The broad man pursed his lips. “To answer your questions, saya.” He replied in a thick accent.

  At that the woman smiled, though only briefly, as if openly doing so was something she was not used to. “You did the right thing, Roskovitch,” she answered at length. Then, as the burly man stepped aside, she turned her eyes again to the outsiders, openly displaying mistrust and hostility, the same that all hillfolk reserve for those they know have come from the city and its decadent ways.

  To Asif she said nothing, not giving the boy a second glance, but of the mullah she asked, “You wear the robe of a holy man; are you one?”

  Zadek nodded somberly. “A humble follower of the Prophet and his word, saya.”

  A small smile parted her lips. “Then why are you not at your mosque at prayer?” Someone snickered from behind.

  “The sacred house of worship has been destroyed,” he replied truthfully, adding, “as has the city, as have much of your own lands.” Then he peered glumly skyward, glancing once more at the listening but unseen men atop the cliffs, knowing that his voice had carried to every ear.

  The saya seemed to grow tense; she fondled the horn on her necklace and pressed her thin lips tightly. “What have you seen, holy man?”

  Zadek bowed his head respectfully. “Only little, saya, but enough — too much, perhaps. After crossing the desert, we came upon Kazir lands and the village that guards the border — a peaceful village, saya, deserted save for a few stray sheep.”

  “So?” Her tone was guarded.

  Zadek said simply, “A Kazir would never let a single sheep remain unguarded … unless he were dead.”

  From the side, Roskovitch became visibly angered at the brazen way in which the outsider from the city spoke to his saya. His hand slid down toward the hilt of his dagger, and Sharon was positive that this time he would have lifted it had not the level-headed woman stopped him before steel greeted daylight.

  “Who are you, holy man?” she snapped. “What is your name?”

  Zadek’s hands formed a pyramid as they touched his lowered forehead. Then he gave his name, boldly and proudly, so that everyone could hear and there would be no mistake or reason to repeat it.

  The saya glanced uneasily at Roskovitch. “I am familiar with your name,” she admitted, assessing him carefully. “Can you prove who you are?”

  “I can … if called upon to do so.”

  “They say you are a renegade, a madman and worse.”

  Zadek smiled mysteriously. Roskovitch grunted, saying, “The hated palace priest of Samarkand, is that not so?” He spit out the words contemptuously.

  The saya threw back her head and glared, her face bathed in darkening shadows of approaching night. “What do you say to that, holy man?”

  “That a man serves those he must in this life of pain.” Then: “But blood runs thickly, saya, as a Kazir woman must know.” He glanced sharply at Roskovitch. “Even an outcast from the bitter land of Rus would understand, especially when he also once came to the Kazirs for protection.”

  The saya looked at Zadek straightforwardly, not so much as flinching at his correct guess. Roskovitch, though, let his jaw hang with surprise. “How did you know that, holy man?” snapped the saya. Speak — now!” It was a command, the threat behind it barely veiled.

  “There is much I know of the Kazirs,” the mullah told her. “I am not the outsider you have thought me to be.”

  “Liar!” The voice shot like an arrow, echoing over the chalky walls, and another man stepped forward from the tunnel. Tall, sinewy, but not as large as Roskovitch, he had beady, intense eyes, black as coals, and a thin scar that ran from his temple almost down to his scowling mouth. “This man is not to be trusted,” he said through clenched teeth. “How dare he even speak like this?”

  Zadek remained calm and steady. “From the blood of my mother,” he whispered, “blood that flows through my veins that even you cannot deny.”

  The woman was astonished. “You claim to be of the Blood?”

  “I do. The Kazirs are my people as well as your own. Let no man try to deny it.”

  The outraged man spat at his feet. “I should flay the skin off your bones for this blasphemy, holy man,” he seethed, pulling out a tiny dagger from the collar of his tunic, behind his neck. The finely honed blade glimmered in the dimming light.

  Zadek stiffened but made no move to thwart any sudden thrust.

  His adversary grinned. “If you won’t fight, then die as you deserve — like a dog!”

  “Sheathe your blade, Yasir!”

  Yasir spun, dagger in
hand. He peered into the blackness of the tunnel entrance. The hatred in his eyes intensified when he saw who had spoken. While Sharon held her breath, another man stepped into the open, although not close enough for her to catch a glimpse of his face.

  A grim frown made Yasir’s features all the harsher. The two men faced off, glaring at each other for a long moment, tension thick and mounting between them. Anyone could tell that neither bore love for the other; they were obviously rivals, each holding the other in disdain.

  The saya stepped between them, pushing them apart. “Enough of this,” she warned sternly. Then, to Yasir: “Do as my brother said; put your knife away. There is no need for it here.”

  Yasir hesitated, but he knew that the demand of the saya could not be disobeyed — at least not here, within the confines of the Stronghold. Outside it, though, this little matter would have been resolved differently.

  The saya looked again at the mullah. “So you say you are of the Blood?”

  There was no emotion in Zadek’s lined face as he replied, “I do, as much as any man. Chapter and verse I know the Laws, exactly as every child is taught by his mother while his father serves as Guardian to the land.”

  Sharon was perplexed by his answer, but she could tell that the saya had been impressed.

  “If all this is so, holy man, then why do you come to us now?”

  The mad mullah’s response was typically cryptic: “Because I now know that I had been charged to wait.”

  The saya’s eyes narrowed; she asked, “What is it that you have so patiently waited for, holy man?”

  “To bring to you one who can help.’’

  “Can help?” A sudden incomprehension showed in the saya’s brooding eyes, and she stared hard at the graying man of the Book.

  “It is true,” said Zadek, “although I would not be truthful to claim I have always known it. Indeed, I was not certain until only days ago — on the black day in which sacred Samarkand fell to the heathens.”

  “The holy man speaks to us in a priest’s riddles,” declared Yasir. “Are we, Free Men of the Steppes, to be so deceived by these twisting words?”

  “What exactly are you telling us, holy man?” said the saya.

  Zadek grimly let his eyes drift to Sharon, who remained silent at his side. “This child,” he rasped; “I have brought her to you to serve the Kazirs’ purpose.”

  “What purpose?”

  “Can you not guess?” He glanced around slowly at the puzzled faces. “Oh, Kazirs, has the time not come? Is not the Hundred Year Solitude at an end? And are we not ready to begin what must be begun? What has been laid down in the Laws for us to obey?”

  “You say many things, holy man. Speak plainly; do not tire our patience.”

  Zadek’s eyes smiled kindly at Sharon, who stood there quivering, not comprehending anything he had been saying. “I say to you all,” he went on, “under the open sky, under the shadows cast by the moon, that this child of Samarkand is the One, the One for which we have all reason to hope. With her there shall be a new glory. Without her there is only the darkness we have known — with the Huns at our backs and throats.”

  They listened in total silence, astounded, disbelieving their own ears. At length the saya turned to her brother, the young man washed in shadows that deepened as the last rays of sunlight faded and the sky turned purple. “What do you say?” she asked, shaken.

  Before he could reply, Yasir boldly stepped forward, enraged. “This holy man seeks to make fools of us all!” he cried loudly. “Are we to take his word like children, that a —” he leered at Sharon — “bitch of Samarkand is called out as the One?”

  At the insult, Zadek flushed; a man of peace, he nevertheless lifted his hand as if to strike. “Dare not speak so, defiler!” he boomed, so fiercely that his voice reverberated off the rock walls.

  But, where another might tremble at the mullah’s wrath, the cunning Yasir only laughed and taunted him further.

  “Let the judges decide,” called out the saya’s brother. He tilted his head and let his eyes search the stony silhouettes of the men on the cliffs. Then, raising his arms wide and high, his desert robe swirling gently behind in the sudden breeze, he told them, “You have all observed and listened, and you have heard what the holy man claims as truth —”

  “You believe him, then?” snickered Yasir.

  The saya’s brother shot around. “I did not say that. But only fools and hags laugh at things they do not understand.” Again he addressed the judges. “Before the holy man is called out as an impostor, let him prove his claim.”

  “And I say the holy man lies!” called Yasir. He came close to Sharon, sneering; then he glared at Zadek. “Tell us, holy man, who is this woman? Does she too claim to be of the Blood?”

  Zadek shook his head, sadly admitting that she was not.

  “Then who, holy man? Tell us who she is!”

  It was the saya’s brother who spoke, coming out of the shadows for the first time. “She is the daughter of Amrath, Lord of Samarkand, niece to the emir.”

  Gasps filled the air; the judges peered down at the frightened girl in shock. Even Yasir was taken aback. “How do you know this?” he sputtered.

  The young man smiled slyly and stood before the girl. Shivers ran over her body and she felt goose bumps rise on her flesh. She stared at the man confronting her, not daring to believe her eyes, yet she knew it was true.

  “Do you know me?” he asked.

  She nodded slowly, swallowing hard. He seemed somehow different now — older, more a man — but he was the same; the stare of his eyes into her own assured her of that. “You are the one whose life I saved … that day before Ramadan, during the festival.”

  “And you gave, me your hand to lift me from the dirt.”

  “Tariq. You are Tariq.”

  He smiled once more. She could feel all eyes turning to her suddenly, gazing down from above with an understanding of things she did not share. Even Zadek seemed somehow different. Was he the same kind, wise teacher who had always comforted her and been her friend, or was he someone else — a Kazir, back among his own strange people, standing now in the fading light and speaking of things she could never explain? She wanted desperately to pull away from Tariq’s piercing look, but she forced herself to meet it.

  “Give me your hand again,” he said, and dumbly she complied. Tariq opened her palm and searched it slowly, noting the deep lines crisscrossing one another, the deeper lifeline that cut from her middle finger almost to her wrist. Tariq nodded several times, then released her and turned to Zadek. “I believe you, holy man. Once I too doubted, even though I saw with my eyes, but now I doubt no longer; she bears the Mark.”

  “Impossible!” bellowed Yasir.

  Tariq boldly confronted him: “Then look for yourself.”

  “Never!” He pointed a bony finger at the girl. “She is the living embodiment of our enemies, the blood of the Samarkand kings!”

  “Samarkand has no more kings,” observed Zadek. “She must be taken in by the Laws and accepted as one of your own.”

  Tariq glanced at his sister. “The holy man speaks the truth,” he said. “Let the Laws decide. What say you, Carolyn?”

  Carolyn tightly gripped the antelope horn on her necklace, her face etched with questions. “You know that we must put her to the test.”

  Her brother nodded. “I would ask of the judges nothing more.”

  Yasir spun toward the younger. “I shall never accept such blasphemy! The holy man is a dreamer, a fool at best, or a clever spy sent to bring this girl among us to create disunity.”

  “Think of me what you will,” said Zadek. “My life is of little consequence. But the Mark she bears is there for all to see, and not even you can deny it.”

  Yasir hotly spurned the offer. “You are all fools, then. I shall listen no more. I vote no! The girl is an impostor.” And he turned to leave, heading back toward the tunnel, the judges of his own clan making ready to leave with him.
/>
  “Go now and the bonds that hold our clans shall be broken,” warned Tariq. “Will you not stay and reconsider?”

  The fiery rival made no reply. Tariq reached out and grabbed his arm. “Care you so little for justice and truth?”

  Their eyes met like thrown daggers. “You are the biggest fool of all, Tariq,” growled his adversary. “Tears would fill old Shoaib’s eyes if he could see you now, whimpering like a toothless hound at the feet of a Samarkand bitch!”

  In a fit of fury, Tariq drew back his fist and hit Yasir, sending him sprawling into the dirt. The older man wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and spit blood. He looked up, not at his rival, but at the stunned saya, standing mute in the shadows. “Your brother shall pay for this,” he snarled. Rising slowly to his feet; he lifted his arm and pointed to Tariq.

  “Tariq, son of Shoaib, before all judges, before the saya of the Stronghold, I call you out, man to man, as a Kazir calls upon another! Shall you meet me now in the circle? Or do you claim the right to sanctuary — while your sister lends her protection?” The air ran cold as he spoke, and his sneer seemed as loud as a clap of summer thunder.

  A small pulse throbbed in Tariq’s throat. Yasir had been spoiling for this moment for years, he knew — ever since Shoaib, on his deathbed, proclaimed his son successor. There was no room for two to claim leadership of the clans; Yasir knew this well and so did he. Sooner or later the bad blood between them was sure to surface, as it must when a nation is divided. His judgment told him to avoid the confrontation — it was what Carolyn silently begged with her eyes, what Shoaib would say were he here — but Yasir’s affront had been total. Kazir law demanded Tariq reply honorably and fight to the death, if need be, against the man who publicly derided him.

  Tariq knew that the eyes of the judges would be upon him now, assessing him as his father’s son, watchfully anticipating his response. The Stronghold was neutral ground for all the clans; he need not answer to the call, need not face Yasir within the confines of the circle. There would be no shame. Yet Tariq was proud and vain, as were all Kazirs, and to let his rival shame him thusly would only make things worse later.