Splinter Of The Mind's Eye

by Glen Cook

  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 t
ragedy 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."