by Glen Cook
The appeal went on and on, tailored to any woman who showed interest. He sold a lot of swamp water and odiferous juices and ichors.
Between his morning and evening shifts he prowled the marketplaces, picking pockets.
And by night he squandered his take.
Then a pickpocket victim recognized him while he was at his more innocent trade.
He tried bluffing it out, packing his gear and loading the donkey while he argued. But when a policeman showed signs of believing his accuser, he fled.
He was no more agile or fleet than he had been in Argon. He relied on cunning. Cunning was his edge on the rest of the world.
Cunning betrayed him.
The place he chose to go to ground was an outpost of a gambler he had bilked the autumn before.
"Seize him!" was his first intimation of disaster.
A pair of hoodlums, one lank and scarred, the other fat and scarred, piled on.
Beyond their flailing limbs the youth spied a man who had promised him a slow flaying at their parting.
He panicked.
From his sleeve he slipped the knife he used to cut pursestrings.
And an instant later his lean attacker wore a second, scarlet-gushing mouth below one opened in a silent scream.
Blood drenched the fat boy. It was hot and salty. He lost his breakfast as he writhed to get away from the other man.
This was nothing like getting an old fool to jump off a wall.
The gambler stared with wide, angry eyes as the fat boy charged him.
The fat hoodlum tripped the boy. The gambler scuttled out the back door. The youth bounced up, discovered that his antagonist had produced a knife of his own.
A crowd had begun gathering. It was time for him to leave.
His opponent would not let him.
He wanted to delay the fat boy till his employer brought reinforcements.
The youth feigned a rush, whipped to one side. He darted out the back door while the fat man was off balance.
It became a hell night. He scrambled across rooftops and crawled through sewers. Half the city was after him. Watchmen were everywhere. Hoodlums turned out by the hundred, lured by a bounty the gambler posted.
It was time to seek greener pastures. But only one direction lay open now. The west to which he had so long claimed to be bound.
He had not yet learned his lessons. He fully intended to pursue his habitual lifestyle once he crossed the mountains.
Even there he would be pursued by a doom of his own devising.
From a safely distant hilltop he laughed at, and hurled mockeries at, Necremnos.
Grinning, he told himself, "Am fine mocker. Finest mocker. Greatest mocker. Is good idea. Henceforth, sir," and he pounded his chest with his fist, "I dub thee Mocker."
It was the nearest thing to a name he would ever have.
He travelled south by remote trails till he reached a staging town on the outskirts of Throyes, where he wrangled a waterboy's job with a caravan bound for Vorgreberg, in Kavelin, in the Lesser Kingdoms, west of the Mountains of M'Hand.
The caravan crossed vast, uninhabited plains, rounded the ruins of Gog-Ahlan, then climbed into mountains more tall and inhospitable than any Mocker had seen in the far east. The trail snaked through the narrow confines of the Savernake Gap, past its grim guardian fortress, Maisak, and descended to a town called Baxendala.
There, after a girl and some wine, Mocker fell to dicing with the locals.
He got caught cheating.
This time he was on the run in a land where he spoke not a word of the language.
In Vorgreberg he lasted long enough to pick up a smattering of several western tongues. He was a fast, if incomplete, study.
Chapter Four:
THE MOST HOLY MRAZKIM SHRINES
Day after day El Murid sat at Meryem's bedside. Sometimes his daughter or Sidi would join him. They would share prayers. His captains sought him there when they needed instructions. It was there that his generals Karim and el-Kader came with the gift-news that they had won an astonishing victory over Royalist forces near the ruins of Ilkazar. That battle's outcome was more significant than his seizure of Al Rhemish. It broke the back of Royalist resistance. Hammad al Nakir was his.
It was at Meryem's side that, in time, an emaciated, dessicated Nassef finally appeared to report, "Yousif's brat eluded me. But Radetic paid the price."
El Murid merely nodded.
"How is she, Micah?"
"No change. Still unconscious. After all this time. The fates are cruel, Nassef. They give with one hand and take away with the other."
"That sounds like something I'd say. You're supposed to put it, `The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.' "
"Yes. I should, shouldn't I? Again the Evil One insinuates himself into my mind. He leaves no opportunity begging, does he?"
"That's the nature of the Beast."
"It's a hard path the Lord sets me, Nassef. I wish I understood where he's leading me. Meryem never hurt anybody. If she ever did, she paid for it a hundredfold just by being the Disciple's wife. Why should this happen now? With the victory at hand? With the naming of her daughter so near? When we could finally start living the semblance of a normal life?"
"She'll be avenged, Micah."
"Avenged? Who's left to avenge her on?"
"Yousif's son. Haroun. The pretender to the throne."
"He'll die anyway. The Harish have consecrated his name already."
"All right. Someone, then. Micah, we've got work to do. Disharhun starts tomorrow. You can't stay closed up. The faithful are gathering. We've promised them this festival for years. You have to put your personal agony aside."
El Murid sighed. "You're right, of course. I've been feeling sorry for myself. Just a little while longer. You. You look awful. Was it bad?"
"Words can't describe it. They did something sorcerous to us. I'm the only one who survived. And I can't remember what happened. I lost five days of my life out there. There was a tower... " But he wasn't sure.
"The Lord saw you through. He understood my need."
"I have to rest, Micah. I don't have anything left. I won't be much help the next few days."
"Take as long as you need. Heal. I'll need you more than ever if I lose Meryem."
El Murid prayed again after Nassef departed. This time he asked only that his wife be allowed to witness the christening of her daughter.
That had meant so much to her.
It was the wildest, hugest, most joyous Disharhun in living memory. The faithful came from the nethermost marches of Hammad al Nakir to share the victorious holiday with their Disciple. Some came from so far away that they did not arrive till Mashad, the last of the High Holy Days. But that was in time. That was the day when El Murid would accept his victory and proclaim the Kingdom of Peace. And they would have been present on the most important date in the history of the Faith.
The crowds were so huge that a special scaffold had to be erected as a speaking platform. Only a few specially invited guests were allowed into the Shrines themselves. Only the Disciple's oldest followers would witness the christening.
Shortly before noon El Murid strode from the Shrines and mounted the scaffolding. This would be his first annual Declaration to the Kingdom. The mob chanted, "El-Murid-El-Murid." They stamped their feet and clapped rhythmically. The Disciple held up his arms, begging for silence.
The blazing sun flamed off the amulet that had been given him by his angel. The crowd ohed and ahed.
The religion was changing beyond El Murid's vision. He saw himself as just a voice, a teacher chosen to point out a few truths. But in the minds and hearts of his followers he was more. In remote parts of the desert he was worshipped as the Lord in Flesh.
He was unaware of this revisionism.
His first Mashad speech said nothing new. He proclaimed the Kingdom of Peace, reiterated religious law, offered amnesty to former enemies, and ordered every able-bodied man of Hammad al
Nakir to appear at the next spring hosting. The Lord willing, the infidel nations would then be chastised and the rights of the Empire restored.
Men who had visited Al Rhemish before, to celebrate other High Holy Days, marvelled at the dearth of foreign factors and ambassadors. The infidel were not recognizing El Murid's claim to temporal power.
El Murid was weak when he left the scaffold. Pain ripped at his arm and leg. He summoned his physician. Esmat gave him what he wanted. He no longer argued with his master.
One hundred men had been invited to the christening, along with their favorite wives. El Murid wanted it to be a precedent-setting ceremony. His daughter was to approach the Most Holy Altar attired in bridal white. She would both receive her name and wed herself to the Lord.
He meant it to be an inarguable declaration of his choice of successor.
"She's beautiful, isn't she?" Meryem said huskily as the girl approached the altar.
"Yes." His prayers had been answered. Meryem had come out of her coma. But her limbs were paralysed. Servants had had to clothe her and carry her here on a litter.
El Murid recalled how proud she had looked on her white camel. How bold, how beautiful, how defiant she had been that first venture into Al Rhemish! Everything went misty. He took Meryem's hand and held it tightly throughout the ceremony. The girl was nearly an adult. There was little parents could contribute. She could handle her own responses.
When the newly-appointed High Priest of the Shrine asked, "And by what name shall this child of God be called?" El Murid squeezed Meryem's hand more tightly. Only she knew the answer. This was the moment for which she had lived.
"Yasmid," Meryem replied. Her voice was strong. It rang like a carillon. El Murid felt a surge of hope. He saw another rise in Nassef. "Call her Yasmid, the Daughter of the Disciple."
She squeezed his hand in return. He felt the joy coursing through her.
Her recovery lasted only minutes more. She lapsed into coma before the ceremony's conclusion. She passed to Paradise before morning.
The end was so certain that Nassef ordered Al Rhemish dressed for mourning shortly after sundown.
El Murid had been so drained by constant concern that the event itself left him numb. He could shed no tears. The little energy he had he devoted to Yasmid, Sidi, and Nassef.
The ever-calm, self-possessed Nassef had gone to pieces.
More than to El Murid himself, Meryem had been all he had had in the world.
"She is asleep in the arms of the Lord," satisfied no one.
Nassef's response was to plunge into his work with redoubled energy, as if to take his grief out on the world. Some nights he skipped sleep altogether.
Sidi simply withdrew. And Yasmid became more like her mother at the same age. She was brash, bold, and fond of embarrassing her father's associates. She had a low tolerance for pomposity, self-importance, and inflexible conservatism. And she could argue doctrine with a skill that beggared her father's.
For that reason alone the new priesthood gradually accepted the notion of her succession.
She spent a lot of time dogging her uncle as he poured over his maps and tactical studies. She knew more about his plans than did anyone else alive. A half-serious story went the rounds, to the effect that she would succeed her uncle too.
The wave of the idealist had crested, but had not begun to recede. People still worried honestly about goals and doctrinal purity. The inevitable, post-revolutionary wave of the bureaucrat had not begun to gather.
Yasmid would not be challenged till professional administrators supplanted professional revolutionaries.
Nassef dumped the pacification of Hammad al Nakir onto el-Kader. He made a crony named el Nadim his satrap on the east coast and Throyen marches. He and Karim focused their attentions west of the Sahel, on lands El Murid was determined to restore to Imperial dominion. They spent month after month in the careful reinterpretation and reiteration of plans Nassef had nurtured for years.
Occasionally accompanied by his son, El Murid sat in on some of their staff meetings. He had his mission and his children, and nothing more. The pain in his limbs was unrelenting. He could no longer pretend, even to himself, that he was not dependent upon Esmat's drugs.
Despite a close watch, he could not resolve his increasingly ambiguous feelings toward Nassef. His brother-in-law was a chimera. Perhaps even he did not know where he stood.
Nassef's headquarters became cluttered with artwork. Years earlier he had employed several skilled artists to travel the west. He had called in their work: detailed maps, drawings and specifications of fortifications, sketches of prominent westerners with outlines of their personal strengths and weaknesses. He adjusted his master plan as information came in.
"The base plan is this," he told El Murid. "An explosion out of the Sahel, apparently without direction. Then one strong force materializing and heading toward Hellin Daimiel. When they think we're committed, we wheel and overrun Simballawein to clear our rear against our push north."
"Ipopotam... "
"Eager to please, my agents say. They'll stay neutral till it's too late. With Simballawein taken, we turn on Hellin Daimiel. But when they withdraw behind their walls we bypass them again. We push to the Scarlotti. We seize the fords and ferries so help can't get across from the north. All this time raiders will be roaming the Lesser Kingdoms, keeping them too busy to threaten our flank. In fact, after I've got everybody's attention, el Nadim will cross Throyen territory and attack Kavelin through the Savernake Gap. If he breaks through we'll have the Lesser Kingdoms in a vice. They'll collapse. If everything goes right, we'll overrun every kingdom south of the Scarlotti before summer's end."
El Murid examined the maps. "That's a lot of territory, Nassef."
"I know. It's chancy. It depends on the speed of our horses and confusion of our enemies. We can't fight them on their terms. Wadi el Kuf proved that. We have to make them fight our way."
"You're the general, Nassef. You don't have to justify to me."
"As long as I'm winning."
El Murid frowned, unsure what he meant.
Later that day he called for Mowaffak Hali, a senior officer of the Invincibles, who had been conducting an investigation for him. "Well, Mowaffak? It's getting close to the hosting. Am I in the hands of bandits?"
Hali was a fanatic, but he tried to be honest. He did not create answers in hopes they were what his master wanted to hear.
"Nothing damning, Lord. They've given up plundering their own people. I suppose that's a good sign. In private, they're excited about plundering the infidel. I couldn't trace most of the specie that went west. Some apparently went to pay spies. Some apparently bought arms. Some remains in the banks at Hellin Daimiel. And a lot has disappeared. So what can I say?"
"What's your feeling, Mowaffak?"
"I'm baffled, Lord. I lean one way one day, the other the next. I try to leave my personal feelings out."
El Murid smiled. "I've reached this point a dozen times, Mowaffak. And every time I end up doing the same thing. I let it go because Nassef is so useful. I let it go, and hope he'll eventually reveal the real Nassef. I thought an independent viewer might see something I'd missed."
"We don't punish our hands when they fail us by dropping something. I don't like the Scourge of God. I don't trust him, either. Yet he has no equal. Karim is good. El-Kader is good. And yet they are but shadows of the master. I say the Lord wrought well when he brought you two together. Let him undertake to keep you together."
"And yet... "
"The day he becomes a liability will be the last day of his life, Lord. A silver dagger will find him."
"That's a comfort, Mowaffak. I sometimes wonder if I deserve the affection of the Invincibles."
Mowaffak seemed startled. "My Lord, if you didn't you wouldn't have won our love."
"Thank you, Mowaffak. You reassure me, even if you can't ease my confusion."
Disharhun was coming again. Each day made him more
nervous. The moment of no return was hurtling toward him like a falling star. It would be too late once the Children of Hammad al Nakir crossed the Sahel. The great war would continue till the Empire was restored or his people had been trampled into the dust.
Warriors were arriving when he asked Nassef, "Should we put it off a year? So we'd have more time to get ready?"
"No. Don't get the jitters. Time is our enemy. The west is weak and confused. Not sure we'll attack. But they're bumbling along, getting ready. In a year they'd know and be organized."
El Murid made his Mashad speech to the assembled host. He was awed by its vastness. Fifty thousand men faced him. They had gathered athis command. And as many more were moving toward the Sahel already.
Hardly a grown man would stay home this summer.
He exhorted them to carry the Word, then returned to the Shrines. He was prepared to remain near the Most Holy Altar, praying, till the trend of the campaign became clear.
The first reports seemed too good to be true. Yasmid told him it was going better than Nassef had hoped.
Then Mowaffak Hali came to him. "Lord, I need your advice."
"How so?"
"A man named Allaf Shaheed, a captain of the Invincibles, has made a dangerous mistake. The question is how we should react."
"Explain."
"A force of Invincibles encountered Guild General Hawkwind in the domains of Hellin Daimiel. Foolishly, they offered battle. Hawkwind shattered them."
"And that has what to do with this Shaheed?"
"He assumed command of the survivors. While fleeing he chanced on a Guild landhold. He slew everyone there."
"So?"
"We're not at war with the Guild proper, Lord. We're at war with people who employ Guildsmen. That's a critical distinction. They demand that it be observed."
"They demand? Of me, Mowaffak? The Lord makes demands of El Murid. Not men."