A pang of fear struck Zohra. She glanced around hastily and saw her rings lying on the table beside the bed, gleaming brightly in the candlelight. She sighed in relief.
The Black Sorceress was watching her gravely. “You don’t, believe me.”
“Of course not!” Zohra gave a brief, bitter laugh. “This is a trick to confuse me.”
“No trick, my dear, I assure you,” said the Black Sorceress. “You are to be honored above all mortals, your weak flesh will hold our God until He attains the strength to abandon it and take His rightful place among the other deities. If you do not believe me, ask your djinn.” The sorceress’s gaze fIxed upon the silver ring. Zohra’s face paled, but she pressed her lips tightly together and said nothing. The sorceress nodded. “I will give you a few moments alone to ease the turbulence of your soul. You must be relaxed and peaceful. When I return with the dawn, we will begin preparing you to accept the God.”
The Black Sorceress left the room, shutting the door softly behind her. There came no sound of a lock, but Zohra knew hopelessly that if she tried to open it, the door would not yield. Silently, unmoving, clutching the sheets to her bosom, Zohra lifted the ring.
“Usti,” she called out in a small, tight voice.
“Is she gone?”
“Yes!” Zohra checked an impatient sigh.
“Coming, Princess.” The djinn drifted out from the ring—a thin, wavering wisp of smoke that writhed about on the floor before finally coalescing into a flabby body. Subdued, miserable, and frightened, the fat djinn had the appearance of a lump of goat’s cheese melting beneath the desert sun.
“Usti,” said Zohra softly, her eyes on the candle flame, “is what she said true? Can they. . . give my body…to a God?”
“Yes, Princess,” said the djinn sadly, bowing his head. His chins folded in on one another until it seemed likely his mouth and nose would be swallowed up by flesh.
“And . . . there is nothing you can do?” Her spirit broken, her fears beginning to conquer, Zohra asked the question in a wistful, pitiful tone that wrung the djinn’s nonexistent heart.
“Oh, Princess,” Usti wailed, twisting his fat hands together in anguish. “I have been a most worthless immortal, all my life! I know that! But I swear to you that I would risk the iron box—I swear by Hazrat Akhran—that I would help you if I could! But you see!” He gestured wildly at the door. “She knows I am here! And she does nothing to try to stop me. Why? Because she knows I am helpless, powerless to stop her!”
Zohra bowed her head, her black hair tumbling over her shoulders. “No one can help me. I am all alone. Mathew has deserted me. Khardan is undoubtedly either dead or dying. There is no escape, no hope. . .” Slowly, despondently, she let the sheet slide from nerveless hands. Tears trickled down her cheeks and dripped onto the sheet, spotting the silk.
Usti stared at her in dismay. Flinging himself upon the bed, nearly upsetting it in the process, he cried, “Don’t give up, Princess! This isn’t like you! Fight! Fight! Look, aren’t you furious with me? Throw something! Here”—the djinn grabbed hold of a water carafe. Splashing water recklessly over the bed, he thrust it into Zohra’s unresponsive hands—”toss that at me! Hit me on the head!” Usti snatched off his turban, offering his bald pate as a tempting target. “Yell at me, scream at me, curse me! Anything! Don’t cry, Princess! Don’t cry!” Tears rolling in torrents down his own fat face, Usti dragged the bedclothes up over his head. “Please don’t cry!”
“Usti,” said Zohra, her eyes shining with an eerie light. “I have an idea. There is one way to prevent them from taking my body.”
“There is?” Usti said warily, lowering the sheet and peering over it.
“If my body was dead, they could not use it, could they?”
“Princess!” Usti gasped in sudden terrified understanding, flinging the sheet over his head again. “No! I can’t! I am forbidden to take a mortal life without permission from the God!”
“You said you would risk anything for me!” Zohra tugged at the fabric. Slowly, the djinn’s face emerged, staring at her woefully. “My soul will plead for you to Holy Akhran. The God has done nothing to help us. Surely He will not be so unjust as to punish you for obeying the final request of your mistress!”
Usti gnawed on the hem of the sheet. Zohra’s gaze was steadfast, unwavering. Finally, the djinn stood up. “Princess,” he said, his chins quivering, but his voice firm, “somewhere within this fat body I will find the courage to carry out your command.”
“Thank you, Usti,” Zohra replied gently.
“But only at the last moment, when there is no . . . no hope,” the djinn said, the final word lost in a knot of choking tears.
“At the last, when there is no hope,” Zohra repeated, her gaze going to the window to watch for the dawn.
Chapter 12
Mathew waited until he saw the Lifemaster’s bulbous head gleam in the flame of the most distant torch lighting the hallway, then the young wizard slipped from his alcove. Keeping to the shadows, he ran to the stairs and, clinging to the wall, fumbled his way down them. Once at the bottom, he could see the light streaming from the room where he knew Khardan must be held. No sound came from it. All was silent, silent as a tomb, he thought, his heart aching in fear.
Outside the door the memory of those agonized screams returned, and this courage failed him.
“Coward!” he cursed himself bitterly as he stood trembling in the doorway, fearful of entering, terrified of what he might find. “He is the one who is suffering and you shake in terror, unable to move to help him!”
“Help,” he scoffed at himself. “What help can you offer? What hope? None. Words, that’s all. What do you fear? That you will find him dead? Shouldn’t that be your wish for him, if you truly care about him? Or are you selfish as well as cowardly? And what if he isn’t dead? You will exhort him to accept more torment. Better to leave, better to let him go. . .”
“No! You’re wrong!” Mathew argued resolutely, pushing back his doubts. He recognized that voice, it was the same one that had told him to give up when he’d been captured by the slave trader, the voice that had whispered to him of the sweetness of death. “I’m wasting time. The tormentor will be back soon.”
Clenching his jaw tightly, Mathew walked into the torture chamber.
“Khardan!” he murmured. Compassion rushed in to fill fear’s dark and empty well. Mathew forgot that the tormentor might return any moment. He forgot the imp, forgot his own danger.
Khardan sat on the stone floor, his back against a wall, his arms chained above his head. He had been stripped of his clothes. Burn marks scorched his bare chest, blood oozed from strategically inflicted wounds. The Calif ‘s head lolled forward, he had lost consciousness. Tears stinging his eyes, Mathew pressed his hand to his lips, forcing back a choking cry of anguish.
“Leave him!” the voice urged. “Leave him this one moment of peace. It will be all he has. . .”
Shaking his head, blinking back the tears, Mathew summoned all his strength and courage—a far more difficult task than summoning demons—and knelt down beside the Calif. A bowl of water stood on a table nearby, just out of reach, probably placed there to enhance the tormenting of the chained man. Lifting it, Mathew dipped his fingers in the cool water and dabbed them upon the Calif ‘s bloodcaked lips.
“Khardan,” he said. The name came out a sob.
Khardan stirred and moaned, and Mathew’s heart was wrung with pity. The hand touching the lips trembled, tears blinded him momentarily and he could not speak. He forced himself to quash the sympathy, the vivid imaginings of what it must be like to endure such torture.
“Khardan,” he repeated, more firmly, with a sternness he knew to be a prop holding him up.
Khardan raised his head suddenly, looking about him with a wild terror in his feverish eyes that pierced Mathew to his soul.
“No more!” the nomad muttered. His arms wrenched, trying to drag the chains from the wall. “No more!
”
“Khardan!” Mathew stroked the man’s hair back with a gentle, soothing hand and held the water bowl to his lips. “Khardan, it’s Mathew! Drink. . .”
Khardan drank thirstily, then retched, moaning in agony, bringing most of the water back up. But his eyes lost their wild look, a glimmer of recognition flickered in the dark depths. He leaned back weakly against the wall.
“Where is . . . he?!” The horror with which Khardan said the word sent chills through Mathew. He set down the water bowl, his shaking hand was spilling most of it.
“He is gone, for the moment,” Mathew said softly. “The creature I . . . control. . . led him away.”
“Get me out of here!” Khardan gasped.
Removing his hand from the man’s forehead, Mathew sat back, looking into the black, hopeful eyes. “I can’t, Khardan.” No words ever fell more reluctantly from Mathew’s lips. He saw the eyes flash in contempt and anger, then they closed. Khardan sighed.
“Thank you for this much, at least,” he said slowly, painfully nodding toward the water. “You had better leave now. You’ve risked a great deal in coming to me. . .”
“Khardan!” Mathew clasped his hands together pleadingly. “I would free you if I could! I would give my life for you if I could!” Khardan opened his eyes, looking at him intently, and Mathew flushed. He hadn’t meant his words to come out stained with his heart’s blood. Lowering his head, staring down at the bowl of pinkish water sitting on the floor at his knees, Mathew continued speaking in more subdued tones, all the while nervously twisting the black velvet robes between his trembling fingers. “But I can’t. It would be pointless. There is nowhere to go, no hope of escape.”
“We could at least die like men, fighting until the end,” Khardan said warmly. “We would die, each in the service of his God—”
“No!” Mathew said stubbornly, suddenly clenching his fist and driving it into his knee. “That’s all you think about—you nomads! Death! When you are winning, life is fine; when you are losing, you decide to give up and die!”
“To die with honor—”
“Honor be damned!” Mathew cried angrily, lifting his head and glaring at Khardan. “Maybe your death isn’t what your God wants! Did you ever think about that? Maybe you’re of no use to Him dead! Maybe He’s brought you here for a reason, a purpose, and it’s up to you to live long enough to try to find out why!”
“My God has abandoned me,” Khardan said harshly. “He has abandoned all of us, it seems, for now He talks to these unbelievers.”
“That’s what they want you to think!” Impulsively, Mathew reached out to take the pale, suffering face in his hands. “Believe your God has abandoned you, and you will abandon your God!”
“What do you know of my God, kafir?” Khardan jerked his head away from Mathew’s touch, averting his eyes.
Clasping him by the shoulders, Mathew moved so that the black eyes had nowhere to look but at him. “Khardan, think about what we heard up there! Think about what these people have endured, have suffered for their faith. Their God was dead, and still they didn’t forsake Him! Are you less strong? Will you give in?”
Khardan stared at him thoughtfully, brows furrowed, eyes dark and unreadable. His glance went to Mathew’s hands, the thin, delicate fingers, cool from the water, against the Calif ‘s burning skin.
“Your touch is gentle as a woman’s,” he murmured. Flushing in shame, Mathew snatched his hands away.
“More gentle than some women’s—like my wife’s,” Khardan continued with a ghastly smile. “I don’t envy the one who tries to take her body. God or no God, He’s going to be in for an interesting time—” Khardan gasped in pain. His body doubled over, nearly wrenching his arms from their sockets.
Mathew looked about frantically for the source, but saw nothing and realized it must be coming from within. Helplessly he watched Khardan writhe, his body jerking convulsively, and then the spasm passed. Breathing heavily, his flesh glistening with sweat, Khardan slowly lifted his head.
Mathew saw himself reflected in the redrimmed eyes. He might have been the one tormented. His face was ashen, he was shaking in every limb.
Khardan smiled gently. His lips almost instantly twisted in a painfilled grimace, but the smile remained in the dark, shadowed eyes. “You better go,” he spoke almost inaudibly. “I don’t think. . . you can take. . . much more of this. . .”
Praying that the imp was still leading the Lifemaster a merry chase, Mathew caught up Khardan’s bloodstained shirt and, dipping it in the water, washed the man’s feverish forehead and face with cooling liquid. Khardan’s eyes closed, tears crept from beneath the lids. He gave a shuddering sigh.
“Khardan,” said Mathew softly, “there is a way out, I think, but it is desperate, almost hopeless.”
Khardan nodded weakly, to show he understood. He had strength for nothing more, and Mathew—seeing his suffering nearly gave way. “Be at peace,” he longed to say, “go ahead and die. I was wrong. Give yourself rest.” But he didn’t. Gritting his teeth, dipping the cloth in the water again, he continued, the knowledge of what he was going to ask making his heart wrench. “We must try, somehow, to gain possession of the two Gods before Zhakrin can come back into the world. Once we have them both, we must free Evren, the Goddess who is Zhakrin’s opposite. With Her power—weak as it is—on our side, I think we might succeed in escaping.”
Khardan moved his head, the eyes opening the tiniest crack to look at Mathew intently. Mathew laid down the cloth. Gently, he ran his fingers through the crisp, curling black hair. Unable to meet those eyes, he gazed above them, at his own hand. “To do this, you must gain admittance to the ceremony,” Mathew said, his voice catching in his throat. “To gain admittance, you must be a Black Paladin. . . .”
Khardan’s jaw muscles twitched, his teeth clenched.
“Do you know what I am saying?” Mathew persisted, emotion choking him. “I am saying you must hold out until the point. . . the point of. . .” He couldn’t continue.
“Death. . .” murmured Khardan. “And then. . . convince them I am. . . one. . .”
Mathew froze. What was that? Fearfully he listened. Footsteps! On the stairs!
Khardan did not move. His face was livid, blood trickled from the comer of his mouth.
Shivering so he could barely stand, Mathew somehow managed to regain his feet. His legs seemed to have gone numb, however, and he thought, for a moment, he must sink back down to the floor again. Hesitating, he looked at Khardan.
I should forget this! The idea is insane. Far better to give up now!
Khardan’s sunken eyes flickered. “I . . . will . . . not. . .fail!”
Nor will I! Mathew said to himself in sudden grim determination. Turning, he fled from the chamber, darting farther down the hallway, out of the light, to hide himself in the shadow of another cell.
Muttering irritable imprecations down upon Auda ibn Jad for disturbing his work for nothing and then having the nerve to try to deny that he had done anything, the Lifemaster shuffled back into the chamber.
Mathew heard the small man’s dragging footsteps cross the room; he heard them stop and could almost picture the tormentor bending over Khardan.
“Ah, had a visitor.” The Lifemaster chuckled. “So that’s what all that rigmarole and faldera was about. Whoever it was gave you back a bit of strength, I see. Well, well. No thanks to whoever it was. We’ll just have to work a little harder. . .”
Khardan’s scream tore through the darkness and through Mathew’s heart. Putting his hand in his pouch, gripping the wand tightly, the young wizard spoke the words of magic and felt impish hands grab hold of him and pluck him into the darkness.
Chapter 13
“Take me to the Tower of Women,” Mathew ordered wearily.
“To see the Black Sorceress? I think not!” the imp returned.
“No, I must talk with—” Staring around him, Mathew swallowed the word with a gulp.
The imp had retu
rned Mathew to the room where the young wizard had been first taken on his arrival. Materializing within it, both Mathew and his “servant” were unpleasantly astonished to see the Black Sorceress standing before the cold ashes left scattered in the fireplace.
“Talk with whom?” inquired the woman. “Your other friend?”
“If you have no further need of me, Dark Master—” whined the imp with an obscene wriggle intended for a bow.
“Do not leave yet, creature of Sul,” commanded the sorceress.
“Servant of Astafas!” hissed the imp angrily, its tongue sliding out between its sharp black teeth. “I am not a low demon of Chaos, madam!”
“That could be arranged,” said the Black Sorceress, her brows coming as close together as was possible on the tightly stretched skin of her face. She glanced at Mathew. “Make me a gift of this creature.”
“I cannot, madam,” said Mathew in a low, respectful tone. He had little to fear. The sorceress might try to take the wand from him by force, but the imp would most certainly fight—if not to protect him, then to protect its own shriveled skin.
“You are wise for one so young.” The sorceress gazed at him searchingly. Moving close to him, she laid a hand upon his cheek. Her touch was like the bony fingers of a skeleton. Mathew shivered but did not move, caught and held by the mesmerizing stare of the woman’s eyes. “Your wisdom comes not from years but from the ability to see into the hearts of those around you. A dangerous gift, for then you begin to care for them. Their pain becomes your pain.” She lingered on the word, her fingers softly caressing, and the chill touch began to burn, like ice held in wet hands.
Trembling, Mathew held himself very still, though the pain increased immeasurably.
“You have seen what you should not have seen,” the voice breathed all around him. “You have been where you should not have gone. In time, when you were ready, I would have shown you all. Now, because you do not understand, you are confused and disturbed. And you have done nothing for your nomad friend except increase his torment. Why did you go? Did you think you could free him?”
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