by Harold Lamb
“We will speak with Rashideddin,” whispered the Kurd, “the astrologer of Halen ibn Shaddah. Tell me now your mission? I can help you.
Toctamish would have spoken, fingering a money pouch at his belt on which the Kurd’s gaze fastened greedily, but Khlit shook his head. With a sneer, their guide stepped on the stairway. Khlit climbed after him, and noted that the stairs wound up still further. He guessed that they had ascended several hundred feet since leaving the bed of the river.
Then, leaving the stair, he found himself in a round chamber, hung with tapestries and rugs of great beauty. Several oil lamps, suspended from the ceiling lighted the place. A warm breath of air caused him to look up. A circular opening formed the center of the ceiling, and through this he could see the stars and the velvet vault of the sky.
Two of the dark-faced men, strange to Khlit, like the Dai of white and gold, stood by the wall, wearing mail and resting on spears. A small ebony table was loaded with parchments and instruments which the Cossack had never seen before. In the center of the floor was a chessboard, and sitting on either side of the chessboard were two men.
One, Khlit recognized by his tufted turban and brilliant white coat, to be of the kind Iba Kabash had called Dai. The other wore a close-fitting skullcap and a gray cloak without a sash. He looked at Khlit and the latter saw a lean face, gray, almost as the cloak, with close-set black eyes, and a loose-lipped mouth, very pale.
“Oh, Rashideddin,” said Iba Kabash, “here are the two who have just come, of whom I have sent word. The Cossack is a Christian and insolent. The other is altogether a fool.”
VII
Rashideddin is mentioned in the annals of Abulghazi as a savant of the khalifate of Bagdad and Damascus. He was a Persian, trained in the arts of astrology and divination, who could recite from memory the works of Jelaleddin Rumi. He was acquainted with many languages including Russian and Tatar. It is believed that he possessed all the works of the Alamut library which escaped the destructive hands of Hulagu Khan.
Inscrutable, and gifted, Rashideddin made a mockery of the Koran. He kept his truly great wisdom to himself, except for certain poems which he sent to princes of Persia and Arabia, who gained no happiness thereby. So it was not strange that Rashideddin, the savant of dark knowledge came to a place of evil, of strange and very potent evil. So say the annals of Abulghazi.
Rashideddin did not look at his visitors. He lifted a piece with care and replaced it on the chessboard. The Dai, who Khlit observed, was drunk, as were the men around the fires, yet very pale, did likewise. Khlit, who had small liking for chess, watched the players rather than the board. Especially did he watch Rashideddin. The pale-lipped astrologer sat with half-closed eyes, intent and motionless. The gray cloak seemed not to move with his breathing. When he spoke, his deep and musical voice startled them.
“Have you a god, Cossack? Is your faith firm in the Christian cross you wear around your neck?”
Startled, Khlit moved his hand to his throat, where hung a small, gold cross. Iba Kabash was making hasty signs to him which he did not see.
“Aye, Rashideddin,” said he gravely, “the batko has told me about the cross which I carry, and it is a talisman against evil. Hey, it has been good, that cross, because I have killed many and am still living.”
“Evil?” said Rashideddin, and moved a jeweled chessman to another square. “The earth is evil. If a saint handles earth it becomes gold. Yet who has seen a saint? Do you seek to bring your cross into Alamut?”
“Not so, Rashideddin,” vouchsafed Khlit, crossing his arms. “I bring a sword to Alamut, to Halen ibn Shaddah. The cross is my own. If you can see it through my svitza then you must have good eyes. I am outcast from my people of the Ukraine, and men told me there was work for swords with Halen ibn Shaddah.”
“And you call yourself Khlit, the Wolf?” queried the astrologer. “How did you find the gate of Alamut?”
Khlit was bewildered at the astrologer’s knowledge of his name until he remembered that he had told it to Iba Kabash.
“Aye. There was a caravan by the Sea of Khozar that a band from Alamut robbed. We,” Khlit bethought him swiftly, “followed the riders to the mountains and waited by the gate.
Rashideddin considered the chessboard silently.
“You came over the Sea of Khozar,” he murmured, “from Astrakhan? That must have been the way. There is another way around by land that the caravans take. They are our prey. What the Kallmark Tatars leave the merchants, we share. Did you see a Syrian armorer in Astrakhan?”
“Aye, a bearded fellow. We stayed at his house. He told us we might find use for our swords with Halen ibn Shaddah.”
With a delicate movement, Rashideddin lifted one of his opponent’s pieces from the board.
“And your companion?” he said.
“A Tatar horseman who has quarreled with his kin,” spoke up Toctamish bluntly. “I’m tired of laws, noble sir, and I—”
“Laws are too complex, Tatar. If a man has an enemy, slay him. If a man desires a certain thing, take it. Are not these the only laws? In Alamut you are free from all laws except those of the Refik. You have an image of Natagai in your girdle, Tatar.” Rashideddin had not looked at Toctamish since the first moment. “Take it and throw it on the floor.”
Toctamish hesitated. He glanced irresolutely at Khlit; then drew out a small cloth figure, painted like a doll and tossed it on the stones. The Cossack saw that it was ragged and worn by much use. He had not suspected that his companion cherished any holy image.
“Spit on it,” directed Rashideddin softly.
With a muttered curse Toctamish did so. His lined face was damp with perspiration, and Khlit saw that his hands were trembling. The shifting eyes of Iba Kabash gleamed mockingly.
“The armorer at Astrakhan must have told you that Alamut is no place for one who has a god,” went on Rashideddin. “There is one here who is greater than Mohammed. We are his servants. Yet our ahd says that none go forth who are not of us. Think, Khlit, and decide. Meanwhile—”
The astrologer spoke to Iba Kabash in another tongue and the Kurd went to a corner of the room where a pile of rugs and cloths lay. Selecting a long, white cloth, he laid it in front of Khlit. This done, he stepped back, licking his thick lips softly.
“Tell the Cossack what you have done, Iba Kabash,” said Rashideddin.
“This cloth,” whispered the Kurd, “is a shroud, Khlit. The astrologer may call his men and lay you in it dead, unless you say you have no god. Do as your friend—remember I have given you good advice. You are in a place where your life is worth no more than a dagger thrust. Your sword will be useless.”
With a beating heart, Khlit glanced around the chamber. The two mailed Tatars were watching him silently. He thought he could see the dim forms of other men in recesses in the wall. And for all Rashideddin’s unconcern, he felt that the astrologer was alive to every move he made. He felt as he had once when the Krim Tatars had bound his limbs, leaving him powerless.
“Aye,” he said.
Without looking at Rashideddin, he moved to the pile of cloths and selected another shroud. This he brought back and placed beside the other. Iba Kabash watched him with staring eyes. The Dai frowned and fingered a dagger at his girdle. Khlit drew his curved sword and stood over the white cloths.
“Tell Rashideddin, Iba Kabash,” he said, “what this other shroud is for.”
“What—how do you mean?” muttered the Kurd.
“It is for the man who first tries to kill me, dog,” snarled Khlit.
The astrologer bent over the chessboard impassively. Apparently he was blind to what passed in the room and to the words of Iba Kabash. The others watched him, and there was silence. Until Rashideddin raised his head suddenly and compressed his pale lips.
“You fool,” he smiled, “blunderer of the steppes! This is not Russia. Here there is one law, and punishment; murder! See!”
He pointed a white hand at one of the mailed Tatars. The
man started forward, and drew back shivering.
“Kill thyself, fellow,” said Rashideddin quietly.
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 Toctamish. 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 Alamut 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, y
et not in a fashion known to Cossacks. Khlit himself felt drowsy, although clear in mind. He saw that the noise had wakened Toctamish 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 trinkled 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.