by Harold Lamb
The Tatar stared at him and cast a helpless glance around the room. Khlit saw his right hand go to his girdle and tremble convulsively.
“Fedavie!” the astrologer's voice was gentle, “show the Russian our law. By the oath of the Refik, kill thyself!”
With a grunt of sheer terror the man dropped his spear. His right hand rose from the girdle, gripping a dagger curved like a flame, rose, and sank it into his throat. With the hilt of the dagger wedged under his chin, the Tatar sagged to the floor, quivered and was still. One bloodstained hand had fallen among the chessmen.
There was silence in the room for a moment, broken by Toc-tamish. The Tatar stepped to Khlit's side.
“You and I are brothers, Cossack,” he growled, “and your danger is my danger.”
Rashideddin, who had given a sigh of pleasure at the death of the attendant, studied the disordered chessmen impassively. The
Dai sprang to his feet with an oath. For several heartbeats no one moved. Iba Kabash stared in fascination at a red pool which had formed under the dead Tatar's head.
VIII
The astrologer, apparently giving up as hopeless the attempt to replace the chessmen, stood up. And Khlit, who was watching, wondered at his figure. The man was bent so that his back was in the form of a bow. His head stuck forward, pale as a fish's belly, topped by the red skullcap. His gray cloak came to the ground. Yet when he moved, it was with a soft quickness.
“You see,” he said, as if nothing had happened, “the oath of Alamut—obedience, and—”
He stirred the shroud contemptuously with his foot. Then, as if arriving at a decision, he turned to Iba Kabash.
“Take these clowns to the banquet-place, and give them food. See that they are not harmed.”
With that he motioned to the Dai and retreated through one of the recesses. Toctamish wiped his brow on which the perspiration had gathered and touched the dead man with his foot.
“The good Rashideddin will not kill you,” chanted the Kurd eagerly. “It must be a miracle, for you are both fools. You have me to thank for your safety. I have given good advice, have I not?” Toctamish eyed him dubiously. He did not feel oversure of safety. Khlit, however, whispered to him. Rashideddin was not the man to play with them if he desired their death. It might be that the astrologer's words were in good faith—Khlit learned later that the latter never troubled to lie—and if so they would gain nothing and lose much by staying where they were.
So it happened that both warriors sheathed their swords with apparent good grace and followed Iba Kabash, who led them through empty rooms until they came out on a balcony overlooking the banquet-place of Alamut. And Khlit was little prepared for what he saw now.
The warm wind touched their faces again. Iba Kabash pointed up. In the center of the lofty ceiling of the place a square opening let in the starlight. A crescent moon added to the light which threw a silver sheen over the great floor of the ball. Toctamish grunted in surprise.
At first it seemed as if they were looking on the camp of an army from a hillside. Dozens of fires smoldered on the floor below them, and a hundred oil lamps sprinkled the intervening space. About the lamps men were lying, around small tables on which fruit, wine, and dishes massed. A buzz of voices echoed down the hall, and Khlit was reminded of bees stirring about the surface of a hive.
The sound of eating and drinking drowned the noise of voices. Along the stone balcony where they stood other tables were placed with lamps. Numerous dark figures carried food and drink to these and carried away the refuse left at other tables.
“Slaves,” said the Kurd, “captives of the Refik. Let us find a table and eat. It is a lucky night that I met you, for I shall go into the paradise of Alamut.”
Khlit paid little attention to the last phrase. Later, he was to remember it. Being very hungry he sat down with Toctamish at a convenient table and took some of the bread and roasted meat which he found there. Toctamish was less restrained, and gulped down everything with zest.
As he ate Khlit considered his companions, and the banquet-place. All of them, he noticed, seemed drowsy, as if drunk, or very gay. In the lamplight their faces showed white. They lay in heaps about the tables, sometimes one on the other.
To the Cossack drunkenness was no sin, yet there was something about the white faces and limp figures of the men that stirred his blood. And the smell of the place was unpleasant; a damp, musky odor seemed to rise from the hall under them, as of beasts. Piles of fruit lay rotting about the floor.
“It is time,” chattered the Kurd, who was sipping at a goblet of wine, “Halen ibn Shaddah showed himself. He comes to the
banquet-place every night, and we drink to him. Drink, Khlit— are not Cossacks born with a grape in their mouths? You are lucky to be alive, for Rashideddin is a viper without mercy.” “Who is this Rashideddin?” asked Khlit, setting down the wine, for it was not to his liking.
“Oh, he is the wise man of the arch-prophet—the master of Alamut. He knows more magic than all the Greeks and dervishes put together. He reads the stars, and tells our master when it is time to send out expeditions. They say he has servants in every city of the world. But I think he learns everything from the magic sands.” Iba Kabash's tongue was outstripping his wit. “There is nothing that goes on in Persia and Tatary that he does not see. How did he know you wore a cross?”
“He saw the chain at my neck, fool,” retorted Khlit.
He began to feel strangely elated. He had had only a little wine, but his head was whirling and he had a curious languor in his limbs. The trouble extended to his eyes, for as he looked at the banquet-place, it seemed to have grown wider and lighter. He could see that Toctamish was half-unconscious.
Thus it was that Khlit, the Wolf, in the banquet-place of Ala-mut came under the influence of the strange evil that gripped the place. And came to know of the great wickedness, which set Alamut apart from the world, as with a curse.
Khlit, turning the situation over in his mind, saw that it was best to play the part he had taken on himself. He doubted if it were possible to escape past the guards by the river stairway, even if he could free himself from the guardianship of Iba Kabash. Rashideddin, he felt, had not left his visitors unwatched. Also, he was curious to see further of the strange world of Alamut, which was a riddle of which he had not found the key. He had seen a Tatar kill himself at a word from the astrologer, and Iba Kabash, who was a man without honor, speak with awe of the master of Alamut. Who was Halen ibn Shaddah? And what was his power over the men of Alamut?
As it happened, it was not long before Khlit saw the man he was seeking, and whom he was sworn to kill. There came a pause in the murmur of talk and Iba Kabash clutched his shoulder.
“Look!” be whispered. “Here is Sheik Halen ibn Shaddah, who will choose those to go into paradise tonight. You are newcomers in Alamut and he may choose you, whereon I shall follow behind without being seen. Pray that his eye may fall on us, for few go to paradise.”
Across the banquet-place, on the stone balcony, Khlit saw a group of torches. The bearers were Dais. In the center of the torches stood a tall man, dressed as the Dais except that he wore no turban, a cloak covering his head, drawn down so that nothing could be seen of his face. The sheik's shoulders were very broad and the hands that rested on his girdle were heavy.
As Khlit watched, Halen ibn Shaddah moved along the balcony among the eaters. On the banquet floor a murmur grew into a shout—
“Blessed be he that has unmade all laws; who is master of the akd; chief of chiefs, prophet of prophets, sheik of sheiks; who holds the keys of the gate of paradise.”
Iba Kabash shouted as if in ecstasy, rising on his knees and beating his palms together, as the group of the sheik came nearer them. Once or twice Khlit saw Halen ibn Shaddah beckon to a man who rose hastily and followed the Dais. Iba Kabash, he thought, was drunk, yet not in a fashion known to Cossacks. Khlit himself felt drowsy, although clear in mind. He saw that the noise had wakened Toc
tamish who was swaying on his haunches and muttering.
Halen ibn Shaddah stood over them, and Khlit thought that one of the Dais whispered to him. The Cossack had fastened his gaze greedily on the cloaked face, for he wished to see the face of the master of Alamut. He could make out only a round, dark countenance, and eyes that showed much white. Vaguely he remembered that he had seen others who had faces like that, but he could not think who they were. The sight of Halen ibn Shaddah affected him like the foul smell of the banquet-place and the rat-eyes of Iba Kabash. Halen ibn Shaddah beckoned to him and Toctamish.
Khlit supported his companion to his feet, but found that the wine had taken away all his own strength. Hands belonging, he suspected, to slaves, helped him after the white figures of the Dais. They passed from the banquet-place through passages that he could see only dimly. The torchlight vanished, and there came a silence, which was broken by music, very sweet. Khlit's head was swimming strangely, and he felt himself moving forward through darkness. Darkness in which the music echoed, being repeated softly as he had heard the voices repeated when they first came into the passages of Alamut.
IX
If it was a dream, Khlit asked himself, why should he be able to taste the red wine that trickled down his throat? Yet if it were not a dream, why should a torrent of the red wine issue from a rock? And sunlight burn on the red current, when Khlit was in the passages of Alamut, under the ground?
Truly, it must be a dream, he thought. It seemed that he was lying on his side near the flowing wine, with the sun warm on his face. Whenever he wanted to drink, he did not need to sit up, for he raised his hand and a girl with flowers around her head and breast came, and filled some vessel which she held out to him. Khlit was very thirsty and the wine was good.
The girl, he felt, sat by him, and her fingernails and the soles of her bare feet were red. He had never seen such a maiden, for her hair also was red, and the sun glinted through it as she drew it across his face. Her hair must be perfumed, he thought, like the harlots of Samarkand, for it smelled very good.
The music came to his ears from time to time, and he snorted, for Khlit was no lover of soft sounds. Neither did he fully relish the wine, which was oversweet. He was well content to be in the sun, and too drowsy to wonder how it happened.
The dream, if it was that, changed, and Khlit was in a boat lying on some rugs. The boat was drifting along a canal. From time to time it would pass under a porcelain kiosk, tasselled and inlaid with ivory. From these kiosks girls laughed down at him and threw flowers. One of the tinted faces was like Berca's, and Khlit thought then it was surely a dream.
One other thing he remembered. It was in a grove of date trees where young boys ran, shouting, and pelted each other with fruit. In spite of the warmth and pleasantness, Khlit felt very tired. He was in the shade of one of the date trees with his sword across his knees. The music was very faint here, for which he was glad. He seemed very wakeful. The air was clear, and looking up he could see the sky, between jagged walls of stone. He had seen other walls of stone like these. That was when he and Toctamish had stood at the Shahrud looking up at the dog rock that was Alamut.
Even in the dream, Khlit felt ill. He saw the damsel of the red hair and flowers and beckoned to her, for he was thirsty. She ran away, probably at the sight of his sword. Khlit felt angry, for she had given him drink for what seemed many years.
Then he saw the gray-cloaked figure of Rashideddin, the astrologer of Alamut, beside him, and the white face stared at him until Khlit fidgeted. He heard Rashideddin speak, very faintly.
“Where art thou?”
Khlit was too tired to answer at first.
“I know not,” he said finally.
“Thou art in paradise, and by favor of Halen ibn Shaddah. Do not forget.”
Truly, Khlit had not forgotten. There were other things he remembered. Vistas of blue pools where dark-skinned men bathed, and date groves where bright-colored birds walked, dragging their tails on the ground. He saw girls pass, hand in hand, singing. And the music did not cease.
If it had been a dream, Khlit said to himself, how could the taste of the strange wine stick to his palate? Or the warmth of the sun be still burning on his skin? Nay, surely it must have been a dream. And the waking was disagreeable.
The place where he found himself on waking was dark, wet, and smelled strongly of wine dregs. Khlit rose to his knees cautiously and felt about him with his hand. He could feel the outline of something round and moist on all sides except overhead. Also he came upon the body of a man lying by him, which he identified by its fur tunic and peaked helmet as Toctamish. The Tatar was snoring heavily.
“Wake, Flat-Face and son of an unclean animal,” he growled, shaking him. “We are no longer in paradise. Devil take me, if it ain't a wine cask.”
Toctamish roused at length and sat up reluctantly.
“Is it you, caphar?” he asked, stretching himself. “Many times have I been drunk as an ox, but never such as this. May the devil bite me, if there was ever such wine! Let us find some more.” “Then you have been dreaming, also,” meditated Khlit. “Did you imagine that you saw Berca?”
“Berca? Nay, but she said that she would visit us here. That was no dream, caphar, for there was sunlight, and much feasting. Did Rashideddin tell you it was paradise? I met other Tatars there. They told me what it was.”
“Were they also men who dishonored their god at Rashided-din's bidding? What said they concerning this paradise of yours?” Toctamish snarled in anger, at the memory of the scene by the chessboard.
“You are one without brains, Cossack, and it is well that we are here alive. My companions said this: that all who came to Alamut were admitted to the paradise by Halen ibn Shaddah, if they were worthy. Then, if they were killed in the ranks of the Refik their souls returned to the paradise. That was a lie, for how can there be a soul in a man?”
Khlit said nothing. But he thought that he had found the key to the riddle. Halen ibn Shaddah's power lay in the lusts of his men. They looked on him, even so shrewd a man as Iba Kabash, as one who held the secret of paradise. And, although he did not know it, Khlit's thought had come near to the evil of Alamut, which was a plague spot on the face of the world.
X
In the next few days the two warriors, bound together by mutual interest, although cordially hating each other, made frequent explorations of the chambers of Alamut. In the daytime sunlight filtered in at the banquet-place, the round chamber of Rashided-din and other places, but at night the only light was from lamps or torches. The chambers were large enough to hold a hundred men in each and there were many. Khlit, who had keen eyes, learned several things, including the place of the Refik treasure.
First, a certain area was guarded against intrusion by picked Tatars and Arabs. Into the guarded chambers he had seen Dais and other higher dignitaries called Dailkebirs go, and he guessed they were occupied by Halen ibn Shaddah and his court, where was kept the gold that flowed into Alamut as tribute money.
Also, there was no exit from the chambers of Alamut save by way of the stairway and the river, which was guarded. Frequently armed bands went in and out, also messengers of many races, but all were closely watched. Moreover, few except old residents of the place, like Iba Kabash, the Kurd, knew the way to the river stairway.
The slaves, he learned, brought food not from the river stairway but from another source. Also wood for the fires. The warriors of Alamut, fedavie, as they were called, lived as they chose, under the eyes of the Dais, ornamenting their quarters with spoil taken in raids or from caravans. Each man was richly decked in whatever suited his fancy, of silks or jewels. The Dais who commanded them took interest in them only when it was time to take an expedition out of Alamut.
So much Khlit saw, and more he learned from the talkative Iba Kabash, who had won some gold at dice from Toctamish, and was inclined to be friendly. The slaves, he said, brought the food from the side of Alamut away from the river, where they dre
w it up in baskets to the summit of a wall that barred all egress from the citadel.
Iba Kabash had not been beyond the walls of Alamut since his entry. Yet he had heard much of the empire of the Refik that stretched its power from Samarkand to Aleppo and from Astrakhan to Basra. The murderers of the Refik were feared so greatly, he explained, that tribute was paid by the cities to Ala-mut. Questioned by Khlit, he admitted that in numbers any of the caliphates were superior to Alamut. The power of Halen ibn Shaddah lay in the daggers of his men. No enemy escaped assassination once he was marked. And many were marked.
“Then there is no way to leave save by the river stair?” asked Khlit, who had listened attentively.
Iba Kabash stared and shook his head.
“Where is the fool who would escape, Khlit?” he responded. “Thrice lucky are we who are here. There was a caliph who marched against us with horsemen from Irak. We rained down stones and baked clay on his men; then sallied forth, and the Shahrud was red with blood.”
“Aye,” said Toctamish sullenly. “There are no better fighters than those of Irak. Remember Hulagu Khan and his horsemen.”
“Nay, I knew them not.”
Iba Kabash glanced at the Tatar curiously, and Khlit laughed to distract his mind, for he did not trust the Kurd.
“There was another who opposed us,” continued Iba Kabash. “That was a sheik of the hillmen in the mountains around Ala-mut. Him we killed by tearing out his belly and bowels. He had a daughter, who was a spitfire. Rashideddin dealt with her.”
“How?” asked Khlit carelessly, recognizing the description as Berca.
“Cleverly, very cleverly,” chuckled the Kurd, rubbing his hands together. “He had Halen ibn Shaddah order her off to marry some Tatar chief who knew her not. It was when she had gone that we slew the old chief slowly, and scattered his tribe.”
“Truly a shrewd trick.” Khlit gave Toctamish a warning blow in the ribs that made the stocky warrior grunt. “How fared the chief's daughter at the hands of the Tatar? Your knowledge is greater than that of others, Iba Kabash. Can you tell me that?” “Nay, that is a hard one,” laughed the Kurd. “I have heard, from a slave that the chief's daughter, Berca, was seen in Astrakhan. Also that she was taken as a slave by some caravan not far from here. I know not.”