She didn’t know! Blessed Promenthas, she didn’t know, didn’t suspect!
“Yes, that was it!” Mathew gasped.
“A hopeless, foolish thought.” The Black Sorceress made a clicking sound with her tongue; the noise flicked on Mathew’s exposed nerves. “How did you think to accomplish your escape, and why didn’t you go ahead and attempt it?”
“Madam,” interposed the imp, rubbing its hands as though they ached, “the nomad was too far gone for us to be able to help him. Madam will forgive us,” added the imp, licking its lips, “if we do not tell her our plans for assisting the nomad to escape.”
“Why will madam forgive you?” The sorceress smiled cruelly at the imp, keeping her hand on Mathew’s cheekbone, the young man not daring to move, though it seemed his teeth were on fire and his brain was expanding in his skull.
“Because, madam, you hope that Astafas will forgive you for harming one of His own.” The imp sidled nearer to Mathew. Elongating, stretching its small form like rubber, it closed its splay fingers over the hand of the sorceress. “When Zhakrin returns to the world, He will require the help of Astafas in the fight against Quar.” The imp’s narrowed red eyes were fiery slits against its blackened, wrinkled skin. “Zhakrin has Astafas’s help and freely given, but Zhakrin is not to forget that this young one is ours, not His.” Like slithering snakes, the imp’s words wound around Mathew, tightening their coils.
Slowly, the sorceress removed her hand, though her fingers lingered long on Mathew’s skin. “You are weary.” She spoke to Mathew, but her eyes were on the imp. “Sleep now.” The pain eased, submerged in a wave of drowsy warmth.
A soft pillow was beneath his head; he was lying in a bed. Darkness enfolded him, banishing pain, banishing fear.
“Thank you,” he murmured to the imp.
“Payment will come,” whispered the darkness back to him. “Payment will come!”
Chapter 14
Dawn—The sun’s light struggled feebly to penetrate the shroud of gray mist that overhung the Isle of Galos—and the day began to march inexorably toward night, time moving far too slowly for some, far too swiftly for others.
Mathew slept the sleep of exhaustion, waking well past midday. His sleep had been neither restful nor refreshing, however. Filled with terror, his dreams tormented his soul as the Lifemaster tormented Khardan’s flesh.
In the halcyon days in his own land, the young man had never given much thought to eternity, to the soul’s repose after its sojourn through the world with the body. Like most young people, he assumed he would live forever. But all that had changed. In those terrible days of enforced travel with the slave caravan, when death seemed the only end to his suffering, Mathew thought with longing of his soul ascending to a place where he would find comfort and ease and hear a gentle voice say, “Rest now, my child. You are home.”
Now he would never hear that gentle voice. Now he would hear only harsh laughter, crackling like flame. There would be no rest, no sweet homecoming. Only an empty void without and within, his soul gnawing at the nothingness in a hunger that could never be assuaged. For I have dared use the power of Astafas; not only used it—(Promenthas might be able to forgive that, considering the circumstances), but—and Mathew admitted this to himself as he stood in the sunlight trickling feebly through the leaded glass window—I have enjoyed it, exulted in it!
Deep beneath the shock at the imp’s appearance had run an undercurrent of pleasure, He had felt the same thrill last night when the imp did his bidding, and lured away the tormentor.
“I should cast away the wand,” Mathew said to himself firmly, “destroy it; fall to my knees and pray for Promenthas’s forgiveness; and give myself up to whatever fate awaits me. And if it were just me, if I were alone, I would do that. But I can’t. Others depend on me.”
Flinging himself back onto his bed, Mathew shut his eyes against the light.
“I said I would give my life for Khardan,” he said through trembling lips. “Surely I can give my soul!”
And Zohra—exasperating, foolhardy, courageous. Zohra— fighting her weaknesses, never seeing that they were her strengths. Trapped in these walls, without even the poor comfort of being able to exchange a few words as had Mathew and Khardan, Zohra must imagine herself completely alone. Had her courage given way at last? Would she go meekly to her dread fate? Perhaps, like Khardan, she believed that her God had abandoned her.
“I must go to her,” Mathew said, sitting up, brushing the tangled red hair out of his face. “I must reassure her, tell her there is hope!”
His hand went to the wand in the pocket of his black robes. As his fingers closed over it, a surge of warmth washed pleasurably over Mathew. Drawing forth the wand, he examined it admiringly. It was a truly fine piece of workmanship. Had Meryem made it, or had she purchased it? He recalled reading of certain dark and secret places in the capital city of Khandar where devices of black magic such as this could be bought if one had the proper—
Mathew caught his breath. His hand began to shake, and he dropped the wand upon the bedclothes. When he’d first discovered the wand on board ship, when he’d first lifted it, his fingertips had tingled painfully, a numbing sensation had spread up his arm. His hand had lost all sense of feeling.
Now its touch gave him pleasure. . .
“Master,” hissed the imp, appearing with a bang, “you summoned me?”
“No!” Mathew cried in a hollow voice, shoving the wand away from him. “No, I—”
A thin curl of smoke drizzled into the center of the room and began to take form. Staring in astonishment, Mathew saw the many chins and round belly of a djinn emerge from the cloud.
“Usti?” he gasped.
He wasn’t certain even now, when the djinn appeared as a mountain of flesh before him, that it was Usti to whom he was speaking. The djinn had lost at least two chins, his rotund stomach was no longer capable of holding up his pantalons that sagged woefully around his middle, revealing a jeweled navel. The djinn’s ordinarily fine clothes were torn and dirty and disheveled, his turban had slipped down over one eye.
“Madman!” Usti fell to his knees with a thud. “Thank Akhran I have found you. I—” He stopped, staring at the imp. “I beg your pardon,” said the djinn stiffly. “Perhaps I have come at an inopportune time.” The immortal’s flabby form began to fade.
“No, no!” cried Mathew. “Don’t go!”
The imp darted Mathew a narroweyed, suspicious glance. “How clever of you, My Dark Master. Do you not find it confusing, serving so many Gods?”
“Whom do you serve, sir?” inquired Usti with a sniff, eyeing the imp’s skinny body with disfavor. “And doesn’t He feed you?”
“I serve Astafas, Prince of the Night!”
“Never heard of Him,” replied Usti.
“As for food,” continued the imp, its red eyes flaring, its splayfingers twitching and curling, “I dine off the flesh of those whose souls my Prince drags shrieking into the Pit!”
“From the looks of you,” said Usti, with a pitying glance, “the Prince’s larder must be rather bare. I should stick to mutton—”
The imp gave a piercing shriek and made a dive for Usti, who gazed at it in offended dignity. “My dear sir, remember your place!”
Hastily grabbing the wand, Mathew pointed it at the imp. “Be gone!” he ordered harshly, wrenching back a hysterical desire to laugh, at the same time choking on tears. “I have no more need of you.”
“How sweet will be the taste of your soft flesh, Dark Master!” The imp’s red eyes devoured Mathew, its hand groped toward him.
“Be gone!” Mathew cried in desperation.
“Ugghhh.” Looking at Mathew’s slender form, Usti grimaced. “There is no accounting for taste. Mutton,” he advised the imp, “sliced thin and grilled with mustard and pepper—”
The imp vanished with a deafening shriek and a blast that shook the room. Mathew rose hurriedly from the bed. Afraid that they had roused the e
ntire Castle, he stared fearfully at the door. He waited expectantly, but no one came. They must all be preparing for the ceremony, he thought, and turned to the djinn, who was still going on about mutton.
“Usti, where did you come from? Are the other djinn with you?” Mathew asked hopefully. “I remember that Khardan had a djinn—a young man with a foxlike face.”
“Pukah,” said Usti distastefully, mouthing the name as though it were a bad fig. “A lying, worthless—” The djinn’s fat face sagged. “But for all that, he might have been useful.”
“Where is he?” Mathew nearly shouted.
“Alas, Madman.” Usti heaved a quiveringchinned sigh. “He and the djinn of Sheykh Majiid were taken captive during the battle by Kaug, the ‘efreet of Quar—may dogs relieve themselves in his shoes.”
Hope’s flame died, leaving behind cold ash. “So that is why Pukah did not answer Khardan’s summons,” Mathew murmured. “How did you escape?”
Usti was instantly defensive. “I saw the great horrible hairy hands of the ‘efreet sweep Sond’s lamp and Pukah’s basket up into his arms. I heard his booming laugh, and I knew that I was next! Is it to be wondered that I fled to a place of safety?”
“Meryem’s ring,” guessed Mathew grimly. “So you thought you’d try life in the palace of the Amir?”
“You have sadly misjudged me, Madman. I would never desert my mistress, no matter how wretchedly she used me, no matter that she made my life a living hell!” Usti regarded Mathew with wounded pride. “I had no doubt that you would stop the rosecolored whore in her vicious plot. When you clouted her upon the head, I took that opportunity to scape her, causing the ring to slip off her finger and commanding it to hide in your pouch.”
Mathew had his doubts about this; he considered it far more likely that Usti had been cowering in the ring and that he’d been taken up by sheerest accident. It was pointless to argue; time was pressing.
“Your mistress, Zohra, how is she? Is she all right?” Usti’s fat face crumbled with true, sincere distress.
“Ah!”—he clasped his chubby hands—”that is why I have I come to you! The Princess I knew and feared is gone! She wept, Madman, wept! Oh what wouldn’t I give”—tears crept down the fat cheeks, losing themselves in the crevices of the djinn’s remaining chins—”to be back in my dwelling as it goes sailing through the air! To sew up my mistress’s ripped cushions! To . . . to feel an iron pot she has thrown at me wang against my skull!”
The djinn flung wide his arms. “My mistress has commanded me to kill her!” he sobbed.
“What?” Mathew cried, alarmed. “Usti, you can’t!”
“I am sworn to obey,” said the djinn solemnly, with a hiccup. “And, indeed, I would do that rather than see her suffer.” Usti’s voice grew gentle. “But that is why I came to you, the first chance I had. My mistress says that you have deserted her, but I did not believe that, so I came to see for, myself.” Usti glanced dubiously at where the imp had been standing. “And I find a creature of Sul who calls you Dark Master. Perhaps, after all, the Princess is right.” Usti’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You have betrayed us, gone over to the side of darkness!”
“No, no! I haven’t!” Mathew lowered his voice. “Trust me, Usti! Tell Zohra to trust me! And don’t harm her. I have a plan—”
A knocking came at the door. Mathew cringed. “Who is it?” he managed to call out, in a voice that he hoped sounded as though he’d just awakened.
“I have food and drink,” came the answer, “to break your fast.”
“Just. . . just a moment!” Mathew couldn’t delay long. Moving slowly toward the door, he spoke hastily to the djinn, who was already beginning to disappear. “Tell Zohra to have faith in her God! He is with her!”
Usti appeared dubious. “I will give her the message,” he said morosely, “if I have the chance. Already the witchwoman has taken her and begins some evil process of purification—”
There came the grating of a key in the lock; the door began to swing open.
“Don’t carry out Zohra’s command!” Mathew begged to the vanishing smoke. “Not unless all is lost!”
He spoke to empty air. Sighing, he barely glanced at the slave who entered with a laden food tray. He did notice, however, a Black Paladin standing guard outside his door, and he knew there would be no more opportunities to walk freely through the Castle.
The slave placed the tray upon a table and left without a word; Mathew heard the door lock click. Feeling little appetite, but knowing he should eat to keep up his strength, he sat down to his gloomridden breakfast.
Up above him, in the shadows of the ceiling, the imp glared at the young wizard. “He has a plan, does he? You’re thinking much too hard, human. I see your thoughts. I believe my Prince will find this most interesting. . .”
Chapter 15
Auda ibn Jad opened his casement to the night air, feeling it blow cool against skin flushed and feverish with excitement and anticipation. He reveled in the sensation; then, turning back to his room, he bathed—shivering in the chill air—and arrayed himself in the black armor, donning at the last the black velvet robes. Examining himself critically in the mirror, he searched for the slightest flaw, knowing that the eyes of his Lord would be hard to please this night. He smoothed the black beard that ran across his strong jaw, brushed the wet black hair so that it glistened and tied it behind his head with a black ribbon. The mustache that grew over his upper lip traced two fine lines down either side of his mouth, flowing at last like a thin black river to the bearded chin. His pale face was stained with an unnatural infusion of blood beneath the skin, the black eyes glittered in the light.
I must calm myself. This excitement is unholy and irreverent. Kneeling down upon the cold stone floor, Auda clasped his hands in prayer and brought a restful repose to his soul by losing himself in holy meditation. The Castle around him was abnormally still and quiet. All were in their, rooms alone, preparing themselves with prayer and fasting. They would remain there until the hour for the Gathering came. Eleven times the iron bell would toll, calling all forth to the Vestry.
It lacked an hour till that time yet. Ibn Jad rose to his feet, his prayers concluded. His mind was clear, his racing pulse once more beating slowly, steadily. He had a matter of importance to attend to before the Gathering. Walking from his room, his booted feet making as little noise as possible upon the stone so as not to disturb the others in their holy solitude, ibn Jad went forth. He left the upper recesses of the Castle, making his way down to the chambers below the surface of the earth.
He had seen the Lifemaster this morning. Exhausted from having had no sleep throughout the day and night, the man was on his way to his room to eat a morsel (the strictures of the fast being required only of the knights) and then nap a few hours. An assistant, one to whom he was teaching his heinous skills, had taken over with the subject.
“The nomad is a strong man, ibn Jad,” said the Lifemaster, his oversized head bobbing upon its spindly neck. “You chose well. It will be nightfall before we break him.”
“The only man alive who ever bested me,” said Auda ibn Jad, remembering Khardan raiding the city long months ago. “I want the bonding, Lifemaster.”
The Lifemaster nodded, as if this did not surprise him. “I thought as much. I heard about Catalus,” he added softly. “My condolences.”
“Thank you,” said ibn Jad gravely. “He died well and for the cause, laying the blood curse upon the priest who seeks to rule us all. But now I am brotherless.”
“There are many who would be honored to bond with you, Paladin,” said the Lifemaster emotionally.
“I know. But this man’s fate and mine are bound together. So the Black Sorceress told me, and so I knew in my heart from the moment we looked upon each other in the city of Kich.”
The Lifemaster said nothing more. If the Black Sorceress had set her word upon it, there was nothing more to say.
“The critical time will come this evening. His pa
in and anguish will have drawn him near death. We must be careful not to allow him to slip over.” The Lifemaster spoke with the modest air of one who has mastered a delicate art. “Arrive at ten strokes of the bell. The bonding will be stronger if it is your hand that leads him away from death.”
The final strokes of the iron bell were just fading away when Auda ibn Jad entered the Lifemaster’s dread chamber.
Khardan was very far gone. Ibn Jad, who had murdered countless of his fellow beings and felt without a qualm their blood splash upon his hands, could not look at the nomad’s tortured body without feeling his stomach wrench. Memories of his own conversion to Zhakrin, of his own suffering and torment in this very chamber, seared through the blackness of deliberate, blessed forgetfulness. Auda had seen others endure the same fate without thinking back to that time. Why? Why now?
Face pale, a bitter taste in his mouth, the Black Paladin sank weakly back against a wall, unable to wrench his gaze from the dying man who lay limply on the floor. Khardan was no longer chained. He no longer had the energy left to escape or fight his tormentor.
The Lifemaster, busy with his work, spared ibn Jad a glance. “Ah,” he said softly, “the bonding starts already.”
“What. . . what do you mean?” ibn Jad asked hoarsely.
“The God has given you back the memory He once blessedly took away. Your souls share pain, as your bodies will soon share blood.”
Falling to his knees, ibn Jad bowed his head, thanking Zhakrin, but he flinched and came near crying out when the Lifemaster grasped hold of his arm.
“Come forward!” the tormentor said urgently. “It is time!”
Auda moved near Khardan. The nomad’s face was ashen, his eyes sunken in his head. Sweat gleamed on his skin. Mingling with blood, it trickled in rivulets over his body.
“Call to him!” ordered the Lifemaster.
“Khardan,” said ibn Jad, in a voice that trembled despite himself.
The nomad’s eyelids shivered, he drew a quivering breath.
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