Samarkand the Omnibus: Books 1-2

by Graham Diamond

The Khan was moaning now, rolling over and over atop the scattered rugs, banging his head mindlessly onto the stone tile, his entire body writhing, chest gasping. For just an instant he saw his son through his misery, saw Khalkali stand and not do anything to help. Kabul’s hand struck out but whether to beg assistance or to kill his offspring was uncertain. In his anguish Kabul could not see the small smile of satisfaction his son wore.

  “What’s happened?” It was Tupol who had come into the chamber next, the deformed youth breathing hard from his run up the stairs from his own chambers on the level below.

  “What do you think is happening, eh?” sneered Khalkali contemptuously, eyes darting back and forth between the agonized man on the floor and the stupid brother fixed at the entrance. “He’s having another fit.”

  Tupol glared at his older brother. “And you’d just as soon stand and watch him die?” The youngest son glared across the room.

  “Don’t worry,” offered Khalkali, stifling a yawn. “The Chinaman’s been sent for; the Khan’s pain will soon be eased.”

  Tupol digested the scene around him, glaring at last to Khalkali and saying, “Perhaps one day fate shall pluck out one of your own eyes, Brother.”

  A pervasive loathing always filled him whenever he thought of his uncouth older brother. More than any of the others, Khalkali had taunted him throughout his life. Considering himself the greatest warrior among all the sons, brazen Khalkali had made the suffering and anguish of prisoners a specialty, a torturer whose thirst for human suffering rivaled that of beastly Krishna. But at least, in Tupol’s opinion, for Krishna there was an excuse. The dungeons were the only life he had known. Khalkali was different; and ever since the day when the Khan appointed Gamal commander of the Western Armies, the stirring hatreds had been fueled to a furious pitch. And no matter what Kabul’s sins, he was still the Khan.

  While his brother gaped with amusement at their father’s misery, Tupol quickly drew a small flat stick from his pocket, a stick he carried for such an emergency. He hovered over the twitching Khan, dodging his kicks and swinging fists, and when Kabul had all but lost consciousness, he bent down and forcibly thrust the stick between his clenched teeth.

  The Khan bit down hard, nearly cracking the brittle wood. Khalkali stood expressionlessly, his eyes intent on the younger man. Tupol soothed Kabul’s sweaty brow while the wails diminished to choking sobs.

  Suddenly there was the clatter of boots outside; Tupol and his brother looked to the door where the strutting guard returned with the shadowed figure of the awaited Chinaman, Sing-Li. Under his arm, protecting it as if it were the most prized of treasures, the Physician from Cathay clutched his box of instruments. His slanted eyes knowingly surveyed the scene, and disregarding both sons, he commanded the guards to lift the groaning Khan and carry him to the divan.

  Kabul, in his delirium, fought them, but he was growing weaker, as always happened during the waning moments of a prolonged fit. His arms hung limply at his side, though his hands still balled into menacing fists. The Chinaman expertly unlocked the snaps of his paneled box, raised the first fine needle between thumb and forefinger. The silver shaft glimmered momentarily. Tupol looked on with fascination as the somber Chinaman twirled it along the instep of the Khan’s foot, then poked it deep into flesh, so deep that it came out at the other side of his ankle. A bubble of dark blood formed, quickly coagulating. A second needle punctured Kabul’s left wrist, a third penetrated the fleshy fat of his breast. At this Kabul screamed, the needle working its way downward. The Chinaman edged the needle in deeper, pulled away. He drew a long breath, stepped back and waited. The Khan slobbered, froth dripping from the corner of his mouth and onto his beard. Then he sighed deeply and slumped.

  Khalkali leaned over and stared at the white face. Kabul did not seem to breathe, and his son’s heartbeat quickened. “He’s dead!” he rasped to no one in particular.

  Tupol froze in his place, eyed the inscrutable Chinaman suspiciously, wondering which brother had perhaps been able to buy the physician off.

  The Chinaman smiled. “Not dead, my lords,” Sing-Li told them in his Eastern tone. “I have slowed his muscular responses. His heartbeat is weak, but will regain its normal beat in a few minutes.”

  Tupol shuddered; he’d never liked nor understood this strange man brought to Samarkand from the East. He never could read what thoughts lay behind those black eyes, that peculiar, mysterious smile that seemed to mock them all even while his words spoke respect and his instruments worked wonders.

  The physician ordered all lights in the chamber extinguished.

  “The Khan needs to sleep,” said the Chinaman as he withdrew the needles and placed them carefully back into the tray. “The pain is gone, see for yourselves.”

  Tupol was surprised to see the hulking figure of his father yawn, then roll over peacefully on the divan. This acupuncture seemed more like witchcraft than medicine, making him more uneasy all the time. It was no secret that his father depended on it like a soldier depends on his sword, or the sailor depends on the stars to navigate. Already, and with some justification, every one of the eight brothers had begun to wonder how much influence this Cathay physician wielded. The two were together for far more hours than any of the sons, and even Tupol had begun to question the Chinaman’s motives. Still, there was no doubt that this Chinese sorcery had kept Kabul alive and sane. For the moment at least it served each of the sons equally well.

  “The banquet is set to start,” said Khalkali before the Chinaman turned to leave. “Our father must be ready for it; to greet our guests, sit among them and let them see —”

  A nod of comprehension and a small wave of the hand cut him off. “The mighty and glorious Khan shall be ready at the appointed hour,” promised the Chinaman.

  “You are certain?” asked Tupol.

  The physician slid among shadows, his eyes flickering at the grim silhouettes before him. “You may wake the Khan in three hours. For tonight all pain is gone.”

  The brothers glanced at each other, and by the time they looked back, the Chinaman was already gone, cowl over his head, shuffling down the tiled, ill-lit corridor.

  Chapter Twelve

  The day was hot, intolerably hot for this time of year. The special emissary from the court of Persia, instructed personally by the divine sanshah, took his place in the stands, sitting among a host of foreigners who babbled away in tongues both barbaric and unfamiliar. He impassively waited for the spectacle to begin.

  Slaves fanned the guests with ostrich feathers, shaded their heads with feathered umbrellas from the glare of the morning sun. Beyond the uncomfortable stand — which had been constructed hastily for the hundreds of foreign guests — the fields already teemed with life. Thousands of Kabul’s Hun followers and other barbarian allies had gathered, some since the night before, to find a good spot to watch the morning’s events. They were loud and crude, wearing furs and heavy robes of wool, ill-dressed for such weather and even more ill-mannered.

  Lucienus mopped his brow with a silken handkerchief. His mind scampered back to the night before, and the great feast that this unstoppable Hun had held for the dignitaries. The Samarkand palace had changed much since his last visit here, he realized. Gone were the splendor and opulence of the emir’s court, replaced by halls of squalor and filth. Oh, of course he knew about Kabul, realized that a barbarian from the steppes of Central Asia would not have much to offer in the way of Persian fineries. Yet the city he returned to had proven worse — far worse — than his boldest expectations.

  Samarkand had become a vulgar shamble, as was the grand palace itself. Gaudy, tasteless, its courtesans as rude and crude as the lowest beggars, lacking as much in table manners as in education. Lucienus had been appalled. While he was forced to eat with his fingers in the Great Hall, those around him were having a wonderful time. They ate like pigs, stuffing themselves until they vomited. They smelled like undried camel dung, drank heady brew until they passed out or were dragged fro
m the hall for fighting. Before the main course was finished, Lucienus had witnessed three fist fights and one murder. One of Kabul’s sons, the gross one who tended the dungeons and whose name he couldn’t recall, took insult at a clumsy slave and speared him to death in full view of the guests. It was after supper, though, that the real brawling started. Generals of the Khan laughed and jested while paid gladiators maimed and butchered each other. They fought with starving hounds and a bear — a great ugly beast, captured in the hills and dragged to the palace in chains for this special event. Then the female slaves were raped openly, the Khan’s sons partaking m the fornication and bestiality. Lucienus himself, as most honored ambassador, had been offered his choice of the Khan’s concubines — and it had been a diplomatic coup for him to gracefully refuse without insulting his hosts. A belching, foul Kabul had laughed boisterously when the fun-loving son named Niko had offered the Persian his personal boy slave to take to bed.

  But if one memory of the evening prevailed upon Lucienus, it was fear. Stark, unhidden terror. For now he had seen first-hand the horrors of which his friend Le-Dan had spoken. He’d never believed the constant reports flowing into Persia with escaped slaves and caravaneers. Now, though, he knew them to be true. Yet Kabul had also served his own purpose in letting the foreigners witness all this. In effect he was telling them to beware. That his empire, rightly claimed as the vastest in all the world, could crush like a grape any and all nations that dared oppose him. And slaves from every land too weak to withstand his onslaughts grimly attested to that fact. To Lucienus, the message was clear: If Persia valued its freedom and civilized way of life, it must not lift a hand against the Khan. It must submit to the raids of the Huns, pay whatever tribute Kabul demanded, or see its land ravished in the same manner as Samarkand.

  Deafening cheers rose with the first blasts of the horns. Lucienus snapped from his thoughts, stared across the open fields to where the Hun horse-backed archers had gathered. The crowd roared with delight at the sight, and around him the visitors from so many tribes, Afghani and Kurd, Mongol and Russian, looked on with breathless anticipation.

  Glancing to the side, Lucienus saw Kabul lift himself from his carved, serpent-armed chair to address the gathering. As he spoke of his empire, its victories and future conquests, the ambassador was fascinated by those who stood closest to the Khan, obviously demonstrating to all the importance with which they were held. At Kabul’s left was the deformed, stooping son called Tupol, a physical weakling compared to his brothers. On the right was the man most whispered about in the gossip Lucienus had picked up these several days in Samarkand, the Chinaman, claimed to be the Khan’s most trusted aide. Speculation was rife, particularly among the palace servants and slaves. Why him? wondered Lucienus. What power was it that he held?

  Directly behind the awning beneath which Kabul stood, sat the other sons, sullen and murderously silent, out of favor. Their eyes could not hide their jealousy and hate. The Persian hid a shudder of revulsion as he tried to analyze them one by one. The world would suffer a harsh fate, he was sure, should one of them ever wrest the throne and gain true power. Maniacal, godless heathens one and all. Wicked and bloodthirsty, from the beastly Gamal to the whoring Niko, the drug-addicted Mufiqua and the killers Krishna and Khalkali. The sight of surly, hot-tempered Temugin made Lucienus crawl with anxiety, but none disturbed him more than the desert-featured, slit-eyed Jamuga. Bastards all, in fact as well as deed. It made his head reel. He respected and honored Le-Dan for wishing to return and wipe them from the earth, while also scorning him and thinking him a fool for even contemplating such a course of action.

  Yet they must be stopped. Lucienus knew that now; he could no longer pretend to himself otherwise. If nothing else, only to protect his Persia from their hands. Yet even the sanshah cowered at opposing such a brutish horde. Who then? Who could prevent the awful, unthinkable calamity?

  He shook his head, wiped his brow again. It seemed hopeless.

  The crowds became silent. Kabul lowered his arms abruptly after his speech, and the trumpets blasted once more. Everyone held breath as the faraway horsemen started to ride toward the flat, hooves causing the ground to rumble.

  Upon spotted stallions and geldings came the front line of bare-chested warriors, silver and gold amulets dangling from thick chains around their necks. They rode like Lucienus had never seen men ride horses before, away from the swaying grasses toward the flattened tracks where scarecrow-like targets had been scattered. Each target had been fitted with helmet and armor, like a man; each held in its straw arms both a wooden shield and a curved sword.

  A lone cornet blew a long, piercing note. The steeds picked up speed, riders whooping. The riders loosed a torrent of arrows that sailed through the air, slamming into the scarecrows’ hearts. The throng gasped at the marksmanship, and the impressed Lucienus leaned forward, chin in his hand, staring while the bold archers reloaded upon the galloping horses and hit the straw enemy again and again, felling them.

  Pleased, Kabul glanced at his guests in the stand and laughed, clapping his hands loudly while those around him yelled for more. Only the aloof Tupol and the equally disturbing Chinaman showed no emotion.

  More war cries, another volley. Then the line of riders fanned off into different directions while another, even more terrible line, came charging from behind sheltering rows of trees along the crests of distant hills. Like a tempest, like a dreaded hamsin, these warriors came dressed in European-style shirts of mail, intertwined ringlets of metal, double-coiled and virtually impenetrable to enemy arrows. The scales of their shirts glimmered in the bright, swords swung in wheels above their scalp-locked and shaven heads, as they bore down at breathtaking speed. Awe-struck, Lucienus cringed as these weapons sliced off the straw heads, sending helmets flying and tumbling. Then, as the first line completed the field and a new line appeared from the trees, the first rank swung expertly around, doubled back, thunking their swords against the wood of the hapless shields. The latest line of horsemen rained spears through the air, and like the arrows, almost every one hit a mark. Within moments the broad field was littered with shafts, a terrible display of Hun ability and power.

  The ambassador leaned back and gasped. No army on the face of the earth could stop them!

  The first line, with a seemingly single motion, dismounted, swords yet in hand; and while pages ran to gather the scattering horses, they formed a Roman-like phalanx, shields held high. The deadly rain of spears from the next line poured down over them. It was only mock combat, yet no less harrowing than if this were a fight to the death. Leaping, screaming riders hurled themselves from their saddles, knives set between their teeth and glinting, and fell upon the slowly marching line. Soon there were hundreds, then a thousand, and still from the trees and hidden folds in the land came more and more.

  The crowd was going wild. Kabul beamed, urging them on. Lucienus turned to see him. The Khan’s eyes were ablaze, proud, hungry for more. From all around the cheers rose to deafening pitch; Lucienus wanted to cover his ears, shut his eyes against this madness. For an instant his eyes met Kabul’s, and he was positive that the Khan was grinning, laughing at him, scorning both him and his empire.

  The trumpets blared yet another time. The din of battle ceased; warriors sheathed weapons and jumped for their saddlehorns. Then, surrounded by swirling clouds of thick dust, they rode away from the open field, leaving behind the havoc and litter, disappearing like the ghostly phantoms the Kazirs were renowned to be.

  From far, far away a solitary horseman appeared. A hulking man dressed in a leather corselet and a helmet with noseguard, he was mounted upon one of the finest Arabian horses that Lucienus had ever seen. At sight of him the throng lost control. Had it not been for the line of guards keeping them behind their ropes, they would have trampled thousands to greet him, given their lives merely to touch his sleeve or kiss his muddied leather boots.

  Kabul watched, licking his lips with his tongue. “My son,” he crooned
, arms spread wide as though to enfold him. “Gamal! Gamal!”

  The mass of barbarians picked up the cry. “Gamal!” they chanted, louder and louder. “Gamal! Gamal!”

  Gamal came prancing, his mare’s mane flowing exquisitely in the wind. He paraded on display, raising his twin-edged broadsword high into the air, his other hand gently gripping the reins. This was his moment of triumph, and even Kabul himself had become swept up amid the swelling exultations of the crowd. The heir apparent pulled off his helmet, flung it to the ground. In his splendid armor, fiery crimson beard, he seemed the reincarnation of Kabul himself some thirty years before. Hero. Conqueror. Leader of men and nations. Scourge of the Huns.

  “Gamal! Gamal!” sang the multitudes with growing urgency.

  Shrewdly this bold, cunning son scanned the faces of his brothers, outwardly hailing them in greeting, but inwardly taunting them, demonstrating for once and for all that he and none other would gain the coveted throne when Kabul’s days were at an end.

  Stoic and grim, save for the false hail of bragging Niko, they sat mute.

  Already Gamal was making plans. His agents for months had been in the palace, bending Kabul’s mind against his brothers and in his favor, seeing to it that when he arrived, he would be ushered inside the gates by thousands of his faithful followers. He would see to his brothers — relegate them one by one to the farthest-flung outposts of his empire, let them rot in their lonely garrisons, separated, weary, forced to protect his frontiers while Samarkand bowed at his feet. Glorious day! thought Gamal. Nothing could stop him now! He was invincible!

  He dug his boot into the mare’s flank, urged the horse on. The Arabian steed broke into a trot, then a gallop, kicking up dirt along the worn tracks where the battalions of his finest troops had paraded. He tightened the grip on his ornate sword, taken from the corpse of a Christian Turk, set his eyes upon the last standing scarecrow, making to slice off its head with a single stroke. The heathen throng urged him on, continuing to shout his name. Gamal laughed lustily, picturing the composite faces of his siblings in the straw features of the scarecrow. He sang Kabul’s name on his lips, seesawing the reins, simultaneously shifting his weight in the saddle as he crouched and bore down for the kill.