He was stopped by a crush of immortals blocking his path. Their backs to him, they were staring at something in the center of the plaza and cheering madly. Standing on tiptoe, trying to see over veils and turbans, laurel wreaths and steel helms, golden crowns and tarbooshes and every other form of headcovering known to the civilized world, Pukah could make out a wisp of dark, foulsmelling smoke beginning to curl into the air. He saw Death, standing next to something in the center of the Plaza, a look of triumph upon her cold, pale face.
But what was it she was gazing at with those hollow, empty eyes? Pukah couldn’t see, and finally, exasperated, he increased his height until he towered head and shoulders above everyone in the crowd.
The djinn sucked in his breath, a sound like storm wind whistling through taut tent rigging.
Death was looking triumphantly at him!
But it wasn’t the him standing at the edge of the cheering mob. It was a him lying prone upon a bier of cow dung, flames flickering at its base from torches thrown by the crowd.
“Hazrat Akhran!” Pukah gasped. “There really are two of me! I’ve been leading a double life and I never knew it! Suppose”—a dreadful thought struck the djinn—”suppose he’s the one Asrial fell in love with!” Pukah shook his fist at the body on the bier. “You’ve been so understanding, so sympathetic! And all the time it was you making love to her!”
Jealousy raging in his soul, Pukah began to shove his way through the mob. “Get out of my way! Step aside there. What are you staring at? You’d think you’d seen a ghost. Move over! I have to get through!” So intent was he upon confronting himself with betraying himself, the djinn did not notice that—at the sight of him—the immortals fell back, staring at him in shock.
Striding angrily down the path cleared for him by the shaken immortals, Pukah came to the bier. Death gaped at him, her mouth open, her jaw working in unspeaking rage. Pukah never noticed. His eyes were on himself lying, covered with garbage, upon the smoldering dung heap. .
“You were with her last night!” Pukah cried, pointing an accusing finger at himself. “Admit it! Don’t lie there, looking so innocent. I know you, you—”
“Kill him!” Death shrieked, her hands clenching to fists. “Kill him!”
Howling in fear and fury, the mob surged toward Pukah, their screams and curses bringing him to his senses at last.
“I’m not dead!” he said. “But then who—”
The mob attacked him. The fight was hopeless; he was one against thousands. Falling back across the bier and the body on it—the body whose identity he now knew, the body who had given her life for his—Pukah raised his arm instinctively to ward off the blow. Averting his eyes from Death, his gaze rested on the face he loved, a face he could see beneath the mask it wore.
“Holy Akhran, grant my prayer. Let us be together!” Pukah whispered. Looking at Asrial, he did not see the sun vanish beneath the horizon.
Death saw. The dark eyes stared into descending darkness, and she gnashed her teeth in her wrath.
“No!” she cried, raising her hands to Heaven. “No, Sul! I have been cheated! You can’t take this away from me!”
Night came to Serinda; the sun’s afterglow lit the sky, and by its dim light the immortals watched their city begin to crumble and fall into dust.
Staring at the body on the bier, Pukah saw it change form. Blue eyes looked into his. “You’ve won, Pukah,” the angel said softly, her silver hair shining in the twilight. “The Lost Immortals are freed!”
“Because of you!” Pukah caught Asrial’s hand and pressed it to his lips. “My beloved, my life, my soul. . .” The hand began to fade in his. “What—” He grasped at it frantically, but he might as well have been clutching at smoke. “What is happening? Asrial, don’t leave me!”
“I must, Pukah,” came a faint voice. The angel was disappearing before his eyes. “I am sorry, but it has to be this way. Mathew needs me!”
“Stop, I’ll go with you—” Pukah cried, but at that moment he heard a harsh voice booming in his ears.
“Pukah! Your master calls you! Have you been purposefully avoiding me? If so, you will find your basket being used to roast squid upon your return!”
“Kaug!” Pukah licked his lips, peering into the Heavens.
He felt himself slipping away, as though he were being sucked into a huge vortex. “No, Kaug! Please!” The djinn fought frantically, but he couldn’t help himself.
A last glance at the city of Serinda, the dying city of Death, revealed all the immortals looking around themselves in vast confusion. A seraphim dropped a wine goblet, staring at it in horror, and hastily wiped his lips in disgust. A virginal goddess of Vevin glanced down at her own scantily clad form and blushed in shame. Several immortals of Zhakrin, who had been leading the murderous assault upon Pukah, suddenly lifted their heads, hearing a voice long stilled. They vanished instantly. A deity of Evren dropped a sword she had been waving and lifted her voice in a glad cry. She, too, disappeared.
Sond staggered out of the Temple, looking dazed. “Kaug?” he muttered, shaking his head muzzily. “Don’t yell! I’m coming.”
Pukah tumbled through the ethers, whirling round and round.
Death stood in the midst of the ruins of an ancient city lying silent and forgotten, sand blowing through its empty streets.
Chapter 6
Khardan understood little of what was transpiring around him. It was magic—magic more powerful and terrifying than he could have ever believed was possible to exist in this world. At first he had assumed that this was all part of Mathew’s plan to help them escape—until he saw by the deperate, halfcrazed look in the youth’s eyes that Mathew truly meant to kill him. Khardan could do nothing to defend himself. Pain—numbed and shocked, he stared at Mathew in a stupor.
And then his eye caught movement.
Swiftly, silently, Auda ibn Jad drew his curved sword.
Light flashing on the arcing blade, the Black Paladin swung it in a slashing, upward thrust aimed at Mathew’s back. True to his oath, Auda was going to save his brother’s life.
Khardan’s sluggish heartbeat quickened; action’s heat surged through him, driving off the chill of helpless fear of the unknown. This he knew. This he understood. Steel against steel. Sinew and bone, muscle and brain against another man’s bone and brain and brawn. Counting life’s span by each panting breath, each thud of the heart, knowing any second it might end in a bloodred explosion of pain.
Far better than dying by magic.
Mathew did not see his danger. Eyes squinched shut, the youth lunged at Khardan with a despairing, clumsy thrust. Stepping lightly to his left, avoiding the dagger’s jab, Khardan clasped his right hand around Mathew’s wrist and yanked the boy past him and out of danger, sending him sprawling on his stomach to the stone floor. In the same movement, the nomad’s left hand knocked aside Auda’s sword thrust. Khardan intended to follow through with a knee to the groin, incapacitating his enemy, but ibn Jad quickly recovered and blocked the jab. Falling back before the nomad’s rush, Auda kept his sword easily clear of Khardan’s frantic grasp. His blade flaring in the torchlight, ibn Jad faced Khardan, who drew his own sword and fell on his guard.
“Tell me,” said ibn Jad, his hooded eyes glittering, “the name of the God you serve?”
“Akhran,” answered Khardan proudly, keenly watching the other’s every move.
The Black Paladins gathered round, watching, not drawing their weapons. It was Auda’s privilege to dispatch his foe himself. They would not intervene.
“That is impossible!” ibn Jad hissed, “You spoke the name ‘Zhakrin’!”
“Zhakrin, Akhran”—Khardan shrugged wearily, his wounds aching—”they sound alike, especially to ears listening for what they want to hear.”
“How did you manage to survive?”
“All my life I have made demands of my God,” said Khardan in a low, earnest voice, never taking his eyes from the eyes of ibn Jad. “When He did not answe
r in the way I wanted, I was angry and cursed His name. But in that terrible chamber, my pain and torment grew more than I could bear. My body and my spirit were broken and I saw—as you meant me to see—a God. But it was not your God. It was Akhran. Looking at Him, I understood. I had been fighting His will instead of serving Him. That is what had led me to disaster. Stripped naked, weak and helpless as when I first came into this world, I knelt before Him and begged for His forgiveness. Then I offered Him my life. He took it”—Khardan paused, drawing a deep breath—”and gave it back.”
Auda lunged. Khardan parried. The swords slid blade to blade to the hilts, the two men locked in a struggle that each knew would prove fatal to the one who faltered. They strained against each other, foot braced against foot, body shoving against body, arms locked.
Ibn Jad smiled. Khardan’s breath was coming in painful, catching jerks. Sweat broke out on the Calif ‘s forehead, his body began to tremble. Khardan sank to one knee, bowed down by ibn Jad’s strength. He held his sword steady until, striking like a snake, Auda dropped his weapon, and seizing the wrist of the nomad’s sword arm, he gave a sharp, skilled twist. Khardan’s sword fell from a hand that had suddenly ceased to function.
Retrieving his weapon, the Paladin prepared for the kill.
Khardan made a last, feeble effort to fight. His hand reached out for his sword that lay on the stone floor at Auda’s feet. The Black Paladin caught hold of Khardan’s arm. Blood flowed from a reopened wound on the nomad’s wrist—a cut that had been made with the Black Paladin’s own knife. Blood from that wound was on ibn Jad’s fingers—the blood of his bonded brother. . .
Mathew hit the floor hard, the fall slamming the air from his lungs and sending the dagger—wand flying from his grasp. He tried to draw a breath, but his breathing pattern had been disrupted, and for several horrifying moments he could not inhale. Panicstricken, he gulped and gasped until air flowed into his lungs at last. His breathing resumed its normal rhythm. Panic subsided and fear rushed in to take its place.
Mathew heard shouts behind him. The remembered flash of ibn Jad’s sword, glimpsed from the corner of his eye, filled Mathew with terror. The wand had changed back from dagger to its usual form. It lay only inches from his hand.
“Grab it! Use it! Kill!” The imp’s shrill command dinned in Mathew’s ears.
Scrambling forward, Mathew stretched out his hand to seize the wand when he felt something like feathers tickling the back of his neck. Startled, thinking someone had crept up on him from behind, he lifted his head and looked frantically around. No one was there. He started to turn his attention back to the wand when he saw the Black Sorceress. Ignoring the confusion and turmoil going on about her, she had lifted the ivory fang of the altar snake and was preparing to drive its pointed edge into the crystal globe that rested upon Zohra’s chest.
“Stop her! Use the wand!” hissed the imp.
The young wizard lunged forward, his fingers closed over the handle of petrified wood.
“Command me!” begged the imp, panting, its hot breath burning Mathew’s skin. “I will slay her! I will slay them all at your word, Dark Master. You will rule, in the name of Astafas!”
Rule! Mathew lifted the wand. Its evil power shot through his body with the tingling blast of a lightning bolt.
The imp’s red eyes left Mathew and gazed at something that had seemingly appeared above the young wizard. “In the name of Astafas, I claim him as mine!” the creature crowed triumphantly. “You are too late!”
“In the name of Promenthas,” came a whisper soft as the touch of a feather upon Mathew’s skin, “I will not let you take him.”
War raged in Mathew’s soul. Turmoil and doubt assailed him. The hand holding the wand shook. The hands of the Black Sorceress, holding the ivory knife, descended.
Fear for Zohra swept over Mathew like a cleansing, purifying fire, burning away terror, panic, ambition. He had to save Zohra. The magic was in his hand that could do so, but Mathew knew— and finally admitted to himself—that he was too young, too inexperienced to call upon it. Acting out of desperation, he did the first thing that came to mind. He lifted the obsidian wand and threw it, as hard as he could, at the Black Sorceress.
He missed his aim. The wand crashed instead into the crystal globe, knocking it from Zohra’s chest, sending it rolling and bouncing over the marble floor. With a piercing scream, the Black Sorceress left Zohra to chase after the precious globe.
“Our only way out!”
Scrambling to his feet, Mathew joined in the pursuit of the crystal fish bowl. Though he was faster, the aged sorceress was closer. She must win the prize.
“It’s over!” Mathew whispered to himself. Their brief, futile, hopeless battle was coming to its only possible end.
And then, suddenly, the globe vanished, swallowed up by what seemed to Mathew’s dazed eyes a mound of flesh.
Flopping on his fat belly, Usti had flung himself bodily upon the bounding crystal globe.
“Thank Promenthas!” Mathew cried, lunging forward. “Usti!
Give me the globe! Quickly!”
“Give it to me, meddlesome immortal,” shrieked the sorceress. “I might yet spare you the fate of an eternity locked away in iron!”
Ignoring threats and cajoles alike, the djinn lay prone upon the floor where he had landed, his arms stretched out above his head in an attitude that might have been mistaken for prayer until it became obvious to the two tense, eager observers that Usti seemed to be endeavoring to dig up the marble and crawl beneath it.
The sorceress gave an impatient snarl, and—at this dreadful sound—Usti lifted his head. His chins shook, the fat face was the color of tallow, congealing into lumps of fear. The djinn’s eyes darted from one to another.
“Madam, Madman”—Usti raised himself up slowly off the floor—”I fear that I cannot accommodate either of you, no matter what”—the djinn gulped—”you threaten to do to me!”
“Give me the fish, Usti!” Mathew demanded in a cracked, terrorladen voice.
“—to me, or I’ll rip out your eyes!” hissed the sorceress, clawlike hands twisting, taloned nails ready to sink into immortal flesh.
“I cannot!” Usti cried, wringing his hands. Sitting back on his fat knees, he gazed despairingly down at the front of his rotund belly. Water soaked the front of the djinn’s silk blouse; the torchlight winked off shards of bloodsmeared crystal poking out of his stomach. On the floor before him, two fish flopped feebly in a puddle.
“I broke it!” said Usti miserably.
Chapter 7
“From my heart to yours, from your heart to mine. . . closer than brothers born.”
Khardan heard the whispered words, felt ibn Jad’s grip on him relax. Pulling Khardan to his feet, Auda tossed the Calif his sword and then put his back to the nomad’s. The Black Paladins, who were waiting for ibn Jad to finish his opponent, stared at their comrade in wordless astonishment.
“What are you doing?” Khardan demanded, his voice thick, his breathing ragged.
“Keeping my oath,” said ibn Jad grimly. “Have you strength to fight?”
“You’re going against your own?” Khardan shook his head in confusion.
“You and I are bonded by blood. I swore before my God!”
“But it was a trick! I tricked you—”
“Don’t join your arguments with those of my own heart, nomad!” Auda ibn Jad snarled over his shoulder. “I am already more than half inclined to sink my blade in your back! Do you have the strength to fight?”
“No!” gasped Khardan. Every breath was burning agony. The sword had grown unaccountably heavy. “But I have the strength to die trying.”
Auda ibn Jad smiled grimly, keeping his eyes on the Paladins. At last beginning to understand that they had been betrayed, they were drawing their weapons.
“Nomad—you have stolen from me, cheated me, tricked me, and now it seems likely you are going to get me killed by my own people.” Ibn Jad shook his head.
“By Zhakrin, I grow to like you!”
Swords slid from scabbards, blades gleamed red in the torchlight. Their faces grim, confused no longer, the Black Paladins closed the circle of steel.
Broken! Mathew stared bleakly at the water dribbling down Usti’s belly, the shards of crystal on the stone floor, the fishing lying—gasping and twitching—in a puddle. But the globe couldn’t break! Not by mortal hands! But, perhaps, an immortal belly?
“You could have had much, but you wanted it all!” whispered the Black Sorceress in Mathew’s ear. Hands gripped his arm, and he flinched at the touch, knowing in sick despair that there was worse—far worse—to come. “What would Astafas have given you for them that I couldn’t give you?”
Her hands crawled over his chest, up his neck.
Mathew couldn’t move. Perhaps the sorceress had laid a spell on him, perhaps it was her awful presence alone that stung him, paralyzing him. He stared at her, seeing her emerge from her unnatural youthful shell like some dreadful insect crawling out of its husk. The flesh receded from the fingers; they were pincers with bloodstained talons scraping his chin, tearing his lips.
“First the eyes!” Her breath was hot and foul against his skin, her gaze mesmerizing, and Mathew felt his blood congeal, his senses go numb. The pincers clawed over his cheeks, piercing the flesh. “Then I will turn you over to the torturer and watch while he removes other parts of you. But not the tongue.” A thumb caressed his mouth. “I will save that for last. I want to hear you beg for death—”
Mathew shut his eyes, a scream welling up inside him. The pincers were on his eyeballs, they began to dig in…
Suddenly there was a soggy thud, a muffied groan. The pincers twitched and relaxed. The hands slide horribly down his face, his body, but they were limp and harmless. Opening his eyes, Mathew saw the Black Sorceress lying unconscious at his feet, a bruised and bloody mark upon her forehead.
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