by Barry Sadler
Silence.
Except for the sound of their breathing.
Then the faraway drums began again, only this time they seemed to move closer. And that heavy, sweet odor...
Suddenly there was light!
Not the light of lamps or torches, but the bright golden light of the sun coming from nowhere to reflect off the smooth polished roof of the tomb. The Novices gasped, except for Casca. It was the light of the sun all right, appearing here in the heart of the mountain, but Casca was pretty sure he knew how this was done. A renegade Egyptian priest had once told him how the Egyptians painted scenes inside their "Pyramids." Mirrors of polished brass (sometimes gold or silver) reflected the sunlight down chimneys cut in the stone. Turn the minor, and the light disappeared. Casca had to admit, though, that it was effective. Even he began to get caught up in the sense of awe as the leader led them into the room beyond.
The doorway he stepped through was small, square cut, and simple. The room beyond, though, was not. Casca's first thought was, they must have hired themselves a whore to decorate this hall. The thought came into his mind like the words of a song and indeed there was music, heavy with drums, coming through a latticed wall to the right but it fitted the room pretty accurately. The room was filled with rich, heavy wall hangings; thick carpets; cushioned divans for every Novice, big enough to screw on, but obviously intended for smoking since there was a hookah (water pipe) at each divan.
The divans were in a rough semicircle facing one wall, which had a curtained opening of some kind about halfway up and in the center. On the wall itself hung scarlet carpet upon which was embroidered in gold thread parts of verses from the Koran:
"Verily, the pious shall be in... pleasure, enjoying what their Lord has given them... reclining on couches in rows; and we will wed them to large eyed maids."
The other Novices did not share Casca's mood of mockery. They gawked at their surroundings as they were led to their couches and handed the mouthpieces of their hookahs. Then it was Casca's turn.
Suddenly he remembered the taste of the contents in the cup he had been given ... Zinjadil? ... the Arabic word for Ginger... No, but something like that... given to the Faithful when they entered Paradise.
Only what he had tasted had not been straight ginger. I've been drugged... Lightness was seeping into his head, that and a strange relaxed feeling of peace and goodwill. Even before the mouthpiece was between his lips the mockery was gone from his mind. And gone also was any critical sense. Like the other Novices, Casca leaned back on his divan and drew deep into his lungs the sweet, heavy smoke of the dried flowers of the hemp plant.
There was a salty taste in his mouth, but the sweet smoke blended with it. Everything felt good. The cushions of the divan caressed his body like the cloth of Chin; the smell of the air was as warm as the kiss of a maiden.
And the music...
Yes, the music beat in the room like a throbbing heart, the drums seemingly in perfect step with his own heartbeat, the wailing of the flutes like the soft whish of blood through his own brain, for he could feel his own blood coursing like a frolicking brook through his body. Then...
Time slowed. Ceased to exist.
Forever became now, and now became forever. Someone came and filled the bowl of the hookah. Came maybe more than once. Who knew? Who cared? Casca closed his eyes, still drawing the smoke deep into his lungs. Dancing, kaleidoscopic arabesques appeared before his closed eyes. Then a purple fernlike structure, a plant glowing against a velvet dark background, grew from his mind and towered out into all space. It was still there when he opened his eyes. He was suspended from one glowing branch. He was no longer Casca or Kasim.
He was part of everything, and everything was part of him, and a great wave of happiness caught him up. Each of his senses was heightened. He heard as though with a sounding box. He saw as though he were looking through twin prisms cut from beautiful jewels. The taste of the smoke multiplied a thousand fold. Everything was intense. Color deepened. Yet everything was at the same time transparent. It was as though he could see through the world and there was nothing but a sweet vibration in resonance with the beat of the music from beyond the veil, and all that was somehow within his own brain.
There were visions.
The air crackled silently. He felt himself pushed by some transparent current of light into a slowly turning whirlpool of naked bodies, all female except his, and he dived in and was engulfed.
The light in the room changed, softened, tinted gold, then whispered away leaving only a fingering taste upon the curtain, then grew... like the erection in a dream...
The light on the curtain turned silver, burned. The curtain moved apart. A balcony was revealed. And upon it, coming out of lilac shadows, a woman clad in the flimsiest of orange veils, dancing, dancing, dancing. The beat of the music. Slowing. Rising. Slowing. Rising. Like intercourse. The woman began to pull off the veils. One by one. To the beat. The insistent, rising beat of the music, the heavy drums, the wailing flutes...
Completely naked, she danced on the very edge of the balcony, belly thrusting forward, thrusting... and the light was such that it was as though she were suspended in space, dancing in thin air, and Casca could no longer tell whether he was seeing a woman... or simply dreaming a fantasy.
At the very moment of climax the light was abruptly gone, the room completely dark except for the faint glow as from tiny, red, luminous worms of the hashish coals in the hookah tops.
Abruptly the music ceased.
The light came back, but this time it was only a faint golden wash in which robed figures moved, bringing flagons of some sweet, cool liquid which, once drunk, brought sleep and dreams, dreams forgotten as soon as they were dreamed, leaving only the teasing memory of some great ecstasy....
Afterwards, when he was back in the barracks with the other Novices, Casca became aware of the Change.
He was no longer Casca. He was no longer the Kasim he had been. He was a new Kasim, some new and purified creature who existed for only one purpose:
He was now an Assassin.
Some days later Hassan sent for one of his lieutenants, receiving him as usual on the parapet of the castle in the blood red rays of the dying sun.
"The Frankish Novice, Kasim?"
"Ready, my lord."
"Then give him a golden dagger and send him to Jerusalem."
"Against whom, my lord?"
"The Frankish monk, Friar Dilorenzi, the infidel beast who eats the flesh of the followers of the Prophet and boasts about it."
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was not known how the Friar Dilorenzi acquired his liking for human flesh. Certainly it was true that he hated the Turks. But so did most Christian pilgrims to the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, if for no other reason than that the Turks were infidels. But no Christian had eaten a Turk until Dilorenzi.
Not only eaten one but bragged about "the sweet taste of the Turk," a phrase which soon got back to Europe and caused something of a seven day sensation.
Friar Dilorenzi, however, was not the sensational type. Mostly he was a tub of lard bastard, a big, fat, greasy, dirty son of a bitch who was no credit either to Italy or to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, the order to which he belonged. The order had been formed a couple of dozen years earlier "to succor and protect Christian pilgrims visiting the Holy Sepulcher." At the moment Friar Dilorenzi was neither succoring nor protecting. He was getting ready to feed his face.
It happened to be a fairly dirty face, but so was the rest of the Friar Dilorenzi. The only thing close to being attractive about this wonderful representative of the Church was his habit, his clothes. He wore the dress of the order: a black robe and cowl with a white cross of eight points on the left breast. This particular uniform was brand new. Friar Dilorenzi had worn it less than an hour. It was about to endure its first meal, after which the white cross would no doubt no longer be white.
Suddenly there was a shriek from the kitchen, from Friar Dilorenz
i's young Greek slave. (Nothing in Church law permitted him to have slaves, but then if the Pope had known how Dilorenzi was going to turn out at the time of his conception, there might have been at least one exception to the Church's stand against birth control.)
At the second shriek, louder than the first, Dilorenzi waddled into the kitchen, his pudgy face red with anger.
The young Greek was standing as far away from the larder as possible, pointing at it, and babbling incoherently. Friar Dilorenzi looked in the open door. There was his haunch of Turk, which he had intended to eat tonight (particularly tasty since it was from a young one). And stuck into it was a gold handled dagger.
"What... ?"
Behind him came the voice of the cook: "The Assassins. The Hashishi. They have marked you. You are a dead man."
Friar Dilorenzi laughed. Stupid natives. Silly superstitions...
Casca's disguise was that of a Sufi. He knew little of this sect of Islam other than that the Whirling Dervishes might be Sufis, that Sufis were sometimes great poets, and that Sufis usually wore wool. The first two of these things meant nothing to him. The third did. The rough wool clothing of the Sufi made an excellent disguise. Hunkered down in the shadows of an alley in Jerusalem, watching the living quarters of Friar Dilorenzi in the twilight, he was as inconspicuous as it was possible to be.
It had been easy to plant the dagger. Now he was supposed to wait until such time as he thought it proper to kill Dilorenzi. Casca did not intend for there to be much of a delay. Cannibalism brought back memories of Jubala, the very thought of whom was enough to make the blood vessels stand out on Casca's neck and cause his hands to clench. Even though the Change had made Casca calm and outwardly mild, he no longer used the language of a Roman legionnaire. He could not ignore the memory of Jubala and transferred the hatred he had for him to Dilorenzi. In fact, in his mind he was killing Jubala all over again in the killing of Dilorenzi, and he looked forward to it with pleasure.
Now in the alley watching Dilorenzi's living quarters, he was ready. As the twilight turned the street red he made one last check of his objective. A second floor was being added to the building where Dilorenzi lived, and there was a heavy scaffolding covering the front. Good. There was even a ship's block fastened on a beam not far from the door. Unfortunately there was no rope in the sheave, but the bag beside Casca would take care of that. Fortunately, though, the friar's household servants were slovenly. All kinds of lumber lay piled up against the walls and the scaffolding, and since the kitchen was being added to, some of the stores were outside, in particular two big amphorae of oil. Casca could see their shapes, dark against the stone wall of the building, and he fingered the two small objects he had hidden under his robe, the jar and the vial of seawater a renegade Greek had sold him in the thieves' market that afternoon. Casca had his doubts about this Greek Fire, but if it didn't work, there would probably still be coals banked in the kitchen fire. Lazy as Dilorenzi's cook appeared to be, he was not likely to start a fresh fire each morning. Anyway, Casca didn't worry. For that matter, he hadn't worried about anything since the Change...
He waited patiently until the street was dark. Night finally came and Jerusalem slept. Then, in the silence, he climbed the low courtyard wall, pulling his bag over with him, and made his preparations. Climbing the scaffold and threading the rope through the block was easy. It was a little farther from the door than he would have liked, but he made the loop just the same. It would show, of course, in bright light, but in the morning... The oil was a different matter. It had a rancid smell. Casca debated the matter, wrinkling his nose to sample the odors coming from inside. No, they won't be able to tell the difference. He emptied the oil where he had planned, then went back to his place in the alley.
Casca slept. His dreams, as they had been ever since the Change, were delicious, though the details he knew would be gone when he awakened...
The Change. It meant he had gone through the rites to become the perfect Assassin. And as the perfect Assassin he automatically had the right to Paradise. Becoming an Assassin definitely had its good points...
Casca was awake before Jerusalem, but he waited until the city stirred, until long after "the phantom of false morning died" as one Persian poet said and true dawn was bloodying the stones of the ancient city. When he was certain Dilorenzi's household was awake, he climbed the courtyard wall and went to the oil soaked timbers piled by the scaffolding. He took from under his woolen robe the purchase from the Greek soldier, and broke the jar on the oil as he had been instructed, but when he tried to take the stopper from the vial of seawater, the resin that made it waterproof resisted. He was pulling on it when the surprised face of the cook appeared in the kitchen window. The cook yelled in alarm.
Giving up on the stopper, Casca picked up a rock and held the vial over the Greek fire mixture. When he broke the vial, and the water hit the mixture, flames exploded, and one piece of broken glass drove itself upward, narrowly missing his face. But the oil caught fire as planned, and the flames roared up the scaffolding. Casca ran to the side of the doorway.
The young Greek slave was first out. Casca felled him with a single blow of his fist and pulled him clear of the rope loop. The big cook was next. Casca used a timber on him, hitting the dirty head with enough force to topple the cook forward. His left foot, though, was still on the rope loop, and at that moment Diorenzi, naked, eyes bleary with sleep, appeared in the doorway.
Casca did not have time to move the cook. He grabbed the rope and heaved, hoping the loop would clear or the cook would move, and yelled at the top of his lungs.
The ruse worked. The cook jerked his foot at the yell, and Dilorenzi was transfixed. The loop caught him around the ankles and tightened. Immediately Casca dropped the rope, moved to the friar, felled the fat monk with a blow behind the ear, ran back to the rope, and heaved. The monk was heavy. Casca threw his weight into it. The naked Dilorenzi rose, head down, hanging by the heels. Casca pulled him up, secured the rope to the scaffold, drew the butcher's knife from under his robe, and moved toward the dangling friar.
By now the young Greek slave had come to and the cook was trying to rise to his feet. Most of the scaffolding was in flames, but not yet near the doorway. An uproar was beginning in the streets, and men were running, hoping to peer over the courtyard wall.
Casca slit Dilorenzi's throat. Blood gushed out, a red fountain now in the bright sunlight. The fat monk, dying, hung like a side of meat from his own doorway.
He had considered his Turkish victims fit only for slaughter, so Casca paid him back in his own coin – slaughter. Then Casca headed toward the courtyard wall, bloody knife still in his hand.
Nobody tried to stop him.
Bu Ali had completed his assignment. Dressed as a Sufi like Casca had been, he assassinated Nizam al Mulk with a dagger while Nizam was traveling with the court between Isfahan and Baghdad, in the Frankish reckoning October 14, 1092.
Bu Ali got clean away and returned to Castle Alamut expecting high praise from Hassan al Sabah for a job excellently done. He arrived an hour after word of Kasim's much more gaudy execution of Friar Dilorenzi had come, electrifying the castle.
Kasim...
Jealousy burned in Bu Ali's heart. One of these days...
Hassan al Sabah's eagle eyes gleamed. This Kasim was a find. One must make better use of his talents. There was, for example, the matter of the Emir of Apnea. The Emir had already been given the Golden Dagger, and Bu Ali had been given the assignment since it was recognized at Castle Alamut that Bu Ali was the best. Now Hassan called for Bu Ali.
Bu Ali was with Casca at the time, both heading for their "trip to Paradise," the reward for their deeds. Bu Ali looked forward to this, and there was need for haste since he had to get back to Baghdad and Mamud. The slaver must not discover that the captain of his Mamelukes was an Assassin and the cock and bull story of a visit to a sick uncle a bald lie. Therefore it pained Bu Ali to watch Kasim go ahead of him, and it pained him eve
n more when he had to wait for Hassan. The leader of the Assassins was in one of his meditative moods, and by the time he had Bu Ali in his presence it was already too late for the Mameluke's "trip to Paradise." But perhaps he has some special reward for me...
"The matter of the Emir of Apnea..."
"Yes, my lord?"
"I have changed my mind. Kasim will get that assignment."
"Kasim?"
"Yes." For a moment Hassan saw an odd look in Bu Ali's eyes, and the thought occurred to him that perhaps Bu Ali might know of Kasim's past.
But there was no need to pump the Mameluke. Kasim himself would supply any answers needed. He had already seemed eager to talk. Up to now it had not seemed important to Hassan. Now he began to consider more and more the possibility of using Kasim as an impostor for Longinus. The matter of the scarred face could be taken care of. After all, one could put on a man's face as many scars as one wished...
Unknown to Hassan, the Assassin spy in the Emir's household, the man who had planted the dagger, had been caught and taken to the Emir's torture chamber. Before he died he had told his torturers the only pieces of information which he had the date, the place, and the method of the Emir's assassination. Unlike most such matters this Hassan had revealed the details of his victim's demise. Now the Emir knew these details but not who the Assassin would be.
He also knew the place. And the method...
Ah...!
Yousef the bandit did not know of Casca's role as an Assassin. But the image of the scar faced man had been branded in his brain. Yousef had fallen upon hard times ever since the ill-fated raid, and he blamed his bad luck upon the scar faced one. It was he who spotted Yousef and his bandits up in the high ground just before Mamud and his slave caravan would arrive safely in Baghdad. He had alerted the slave master at the moment when his archers were about to release their arrows. It was a brilliant ambush, but the scar faced one had ruined it. Everything had gone wrong since that time. Even now, as Hassan gave the assignment to Casca, Yousef was standing in an alley in the Emir of Apnea's city, having gone there for temporary refuge and reduced to the status of a petty criminal who stole from those unwary enough to go out into the streets alone at night.