by Glen Cook
Shadek said, "Let's hope they've gotten a little lax. They've had their own way for a long time. They can't keep on edge forever, can they? When every civilian practically kisses their toes?"
"Uhm," Haroun grunted. "Beloul, go get your man."
Beloul would slay the nearest fixed guard and don his robe. Haroun would steal up on the next and do the same. The two were the party's masters of the deadly sneak.
Together they would approach additional guards acting as a random patrol. They would clear the way and provide disguises for their henchmen.
Had there been an early moon they could not have done it. The sentries were posted within sight of one another.
Beloul was as slow, patient and deadly as a serpent. He performed his task to perfection. Haroun had more trouble but managed without alerting the enemy.
Fourteen Invincibles perished. The band reached the new circumferential street El Murid was paving around his island. A garden strip twenty to fifty feet wide would lie between it and the water's edge. No alarm had risen.
They were discussing how best to get the non-swimmers across. A pair of Invincibles materialized. "What's up?" one asked.
Haroun started a casual reply. One of Shadek's men panicked, threw a swordstroke that missed.
The group exploded.
Too late. One of the white robes got his whistle to his lips before he went down.
"Into the water," Haroun snarled. "Help each other the best you can." Softly, to Beloul, "I knew it was going too well. Damn! I thought we might have time to steal horses."
The water was cold. Haroun cursed as he towed one of the non-swimmers across those places where the man could not touch bottom.
He forgot the chill once he heard the clamor of pursuit, once the torches began appearing on the island shore.
Chapter Nineteen:
THE SORCERER
The miles grew longer every day. The hills grew steeper. Mocker worried about getting through Kavelin without being remembered, but Fate overlooked him.
The weather caused him misery enough.
He was in no real hurry. He spent the worst days holed up at wayside inns. Haroun had given him money, but where he could he paid his way by entertaining. He wanted to get his touch back. It had been years since he had played to strangers.
Not once did he allow himself to be drawn into a game of chance.
Three years in the witches' cauldron of war had matured him more than had three with the dubious Damo Sparen.
Slow as he traveled, winter was slower. He climbed into Kavelin's eastern mountains and the Savernake Gap during the worst time of year. At the last town, Baxendala, they warned him not to go on. They told him the pass would be snowed in, and the gods themselves only knew what awaited him beyond the King's last outpost, the fortress Maisak.
But Mocker recalled Baxendala, and was afraid Baxendala might remember him.
When he reached Maisak he was cursing himself for not staying. Winter in the Gap made winter in the Kapenrungs seem mild.
The Maisak garrison would not let him inside. El Nadim had assailed them with a hundred wiles. They were not willing to take a chance on so much as one little fat man.
He hunched his shoulders and trudged eastward, his donkey following faithfully.
Winter was not so harsh east of the mountains. He left the snow behind before he reached the ruins of Gog-Ahlan.
The nearby traders' town had become a ghost village haunted by a few optimistic souls trying to hold on till war's end. The fat man got good and drunk and warm there.
El Nadim, the townspeople assured him, had established his headquarters in Throyes. "Curious," Mocker mused, tramping down the road leading to that city. "Time and greed make friends of old enemies."
El Murid's faith had swept Throyes like the plague. The resulting changed political climate baffled the fat man. He did not understand religion at all. For him gods were, at best, excuses for failure.
He found Throyes in a state of high excitement, eager, already spending the riches el Nadim's troops would bring home. He was amazed. This was the Host of Illumination, in its halcyon days, all over again.
And he was supposed to stop it? Alone?
It looked like trying to stop an earthquake with his bare hands.
Nevertheless, he went to work. He had been to Throyes before. Memories of him might not have faded. He changed careers, becoming, instead of a con artist, thief and street mummer, a faith healer.
The eastern part of El Murid's empire was more tolerant than the rest. El Nadim had made no effort to exterminate its wizards and occultists. In fact, he maintained a personal astrological adviser.
The fat man's little devil eyes glowed when he heard that. A chink! An avenue of approach. If he could eliminate that astrologer and appear at the right moment...
He was out of practice. And the eastern astrology differed from the western.
He located an old woman willing to tutor him in exchange for his faith-healing tricks.
Getting the patter down and becoming deft took three weeks. He was beginning to fear he would not get near el Nadim in time. Elements of the eastern army were drifting west already, into Hammad al Nakir.
There remained the problem of approach. No street corner stargazer was going to get past el Nadim's guards.
Eliminating the general's starry-eyed adviser beforehand was out. He was a mystery man. Nobody knew who he was or what he looked like. His very existence was little more than a rumor. Some people thought he was an invention of el Nadim's enemies, meant to discredit him with El Murid.
Whatever, getting close quickly had become the priority.
The parting was almost painful, but Mocker finally turned loose of some of Haroun's money. A tailor outfitted him in superb imitation of a sorcerer's apprentice. Another gentleman, of less savory profession, forged him letters of introduction, in Necremnen, over the dread signature Aristithorn.
Aristithorn was a Necremnen wizard. His reputation was not a pleasant one. El Nadim would have to become very suspicious before bothering him with authentication requests.
Everything was ready. His excuses for vacillating had been exhausted. He. had to move or confess himself a coward. He had to march up to the sentries outside el Nadim's headquarters and start lying, or to forget Damo, Gouch, and his promises to Haroun.
He did not tuck his tail and steal away. He marched.
His costume made an impressive rotundity of him.
Walking tall and arrogant, he seemed to rise above taller men. Curious eyes followed him, wondering,Who is that important young man?
He hoped.
He presented himself and his letters. He told the sentries, "Self, am called Nebud, apprentice primus to Lord Aristithorn, Mage of Prime Circle, Prince of Darkling Line, Lord of Foul Hills and Master of Nine Diabolisms. Am sent to Lord el Nadim by same, to assist in great work."
He spoke with all the hauteur he could muster, fearing the soldiers would laugh. Even his toes were shaking.
They did not laugh. Aristithorn was no joke. But neither did they seem impressed. Their senior disappeared briefly. He returned with an officer who asked a lot of questions. Mocker responded with odds and ends from his carefully rehearsed store of answers. The officer passed him on to a superior, who also asked questions.
And so on, and so on, till the fat man forgot his fear in his preoccupation with keeping his lies straight.
He thought himself free of preconceptions about el Nadim, but was not prepared for the creature who received him. The man was almost a dwarf. He was not old, but so hunched away from the world that oldness seemed to envelope him. He shook almost constantly. He looked no one in the eye. He stammered when he spoke.
This was a mighty general? This was the genius who had conquered the east? This little guy was scared of his own shadow.
This little guy had a mind. The Scourge of God had had faith in that. And from beyond timidity a man's brain had brought forth the miracle, uniting the mi
ddle east virtually without bloodshed.
El Nadim had to be taken seriously, no matter his appearance. He had done what he had done.
"I understand you were sent by the infamous Necremnen, Aristithorn."
Not sure if he were being interrogated, Mocker did not speak.
"I received no prior warning of your arrival. I did not request your presence. The wizard isn't one of my allies. So why are you here?" El Nadim seemed almost apologetic.
"Self, have asked self same question since moment Lord Aristithorn informed self that self would be coming to Throyes. Wizard is master of closed mouth. But was very explicit in orders. Aid el Nadim in all ways possible, as if same were true master of self, for period of one year, then return to Necremnos. Opinion of self: Master is well-known for interest in international affairs. Also for despite of problems born of needless conflict. Is aficionado of Old Empire. Would suspect lord will ask self questions to decide if El Murid and movement of same are worthy heirs to mantle of Ilkazar."
"I see. Some of my brethren in the Faith would consider that an insult to our Lord. A Necremnen wizard judging his fitness to found the New Empire. Moreover, the Disciple has banned all traffic with their ilk."
"Self, would think that time has come for same to recognize reality. Will need help of thaumaturgic nature, absolute, to achieve temporal goals. Is fact. Western kings and captains have been petitioning western wizards for years. Now same are beginning to see El Murid as genuine threat, same being inflexible in hatred for Wise. Same have voted to ally with enemies of Disciple come summer should Host of Illumination manage big success early."
El Nadim smiled a secretive smile, then frowned, looking over Mocker's shoulder. He seemed both amused and slightly puzzled. And Mocker was slightly amazed when the man said, "We've heard something of the sort ourselves. Frankly, I'm worried. But the Disciple isn't. Yet your sources among the Wise would be better than ours."
Mocker gulped. Had he made up a truth out of whole cloth?
"But what could you do for me?" el Nadim asked. "That my captains and astrological adviser cannot?"
"Am only apprentice, admitted. Still, am skilled in numerous minor wizardries and expert at various divinations. Could assist adviser."
El Nadim's eyes narrowed.
"Liar!" someone squealed behind Mocker.
He began turning. Too late. The blow smashed his rising hand back against the side of his skull. Head spinning, he dropped to his knees, then pitched forward at el Nadim's feet.
He could not see. He could not move. He could scarcely hear. He could not curse the malicious fate that had brought him to this improbable pass.
"That's enough, Feager!" el Nadim shouted. "Explain yourself."
"He's a fraud," said Mocker's one-time companion Sajac, the general's half-blind astrologer. "A complete fraud."
This can't be happening, Mocker thought. The old man could not have survived that fall. Yet he had. So why hadn't time finished him by now?
Mocker should have understood necessity. He was its child himself. Crawling from the Roe, battered and no longer able to compel someone to care for him, Sajac had had to adjust to survive. The need had had a remarkably rejuvenating and regenerating effect.
"Explain," el Nadim insisted.
Mocker could neither move nor speak, but his debility and pain did not prevent him from being amused. Sajac would not expose him. By doing so he would betray himself.
"Uh... " Sajac said. "He was my assistant once. He tried to murder me."
Mocker was coming back. He croaked, "Is partial truth, Lord. Was travelling companion of same long ago. More like slave, in truth."
His remark initiated a battle of wits and half-truths. Student and teacher ingeniously skirted betraying themselves. And Mocker gradually got the better of it.
He knew El Murid's law. It shielded children well. He kept describing the maltreatment he had suffered at Sajac's hands. The old man could but answer his charges with lies. El Nadim sensed them.
"Enough!" the general snapped, for the first time sounding like a commander. "You each hold some of the right. And neither of you is telling the whole truth. Feager, I won't anger Aristithorn needlessly."
Mocker sighed, smiling. He had won a round. "Self, am grateful for confidence, Lord. Shall endeavor to requite same with quality of service."
El Nadim summoned a lackey. The man led Mocker to the finest room he had ever seen. Sequestered there, he went around and around and around in his mind, trying to figure out how Sajac could have survived. And how he could finish what he had started without getting himself shoved six feet under.
He would have to stay a quick step ahead of the old man.
He ought to say the hell with it. He had done his share in Ipopotam and with Yasmid. Yasmid. What the devil had become of the girl? Haroun had made her disappear... He imagined human bones scattered among the trees somewhere in the high Kapenrungs.
He received a summons from el Nadim next morning. "I want a divination," the general told him.
Mocker was puzzled. "Divination, Lord? What sort? Self, am poorly skilled as necromancer, entrail-reader, suchlike. Am best with stars, tarot, ching sticks."
"Feager gave me a reading earlier. Concerning my enterprise in the west. I want a second opinion. Even a third and fourth if you're willing to pursue more than one method."
"Will need to spend much time obtaining particulars to properly consult stars," Mocker said. "Preferring not to take word of colleague for same. Understand? So, for moment, we try cards, maybeso, same being quickest and easiest under circumstances."
He drew the book of plaques from within his robes, offered them to el Nadim. "Touch, Lord. Take. Mix up good, thinking questions while doing same."
El Nadim glanced at the expressionless guards spaced around the chamber walls. The Hand of the Law should not be seen flouting it.
The guards stared into nothing, as they always did.
El Nadim took the deck. He touched. He mixed. He returned the cards. Mocker hunkered down and began laying them out at the general's feet.
He had five cards down. His heart hammered. The sixth was a long time coming.
It was another bad one. He glanced up. Did he dare start over?
Subsequent cards made a worse picture still.
He could not lie outright. El Nadim might know something about reading the tarot.
"Bad, eh?"
"Not good, Lord. Great perils lie ahead. Self, would guess same not to be insuperable, but very unpredictable. Would like to do astrologic chart now, stars being more exact."
"That bad? All right. Ask your questions."
El Nadim's stars were no better than his cards. Mocker was sure Sajac had derived similarly bleak forecasts; el Nadim had sensed it and had hoped that an alternate divination would prove more hopeful.
"Nevertheless," el Nadim mused after the fat man had reported his findings. "Nevertheless, we're going. Tomorrow. El Murid himself has commanded it."
He seemed so sad and resigned that Mocker momentarily regretted having to make his prophecies become fact.
There were always good men among the enemy, and el Nadim was one of the best among today's foe. He was a genuinely warm, caring and just man. It was his humanity, not his battlefield genius, that had melded the middle east into a semblence of the Old Empire. He truly believed, in his gentle way, in El Murid's Law-and he possessed the will and might to enforce it.
The disease of nationalism had not yet infected the east. El Nadim's vision of Empire met needs there that had died long since in the fractious west.
Mocker could see that. Perhaps el Nadim saw it. But Al Rhemish did not. El Murid expected his general to plunge into an alien civilization, comprised of scores of divers cultures and kingdoms, and repeat a success he had wrought in an area where only three significant cultures existed.
"Foredoomed," Mocker muttered as he dogged el Nadim through Throyes' western gate. El Nadim would find suasion and right dealing of li
ttle value beyond the Kapenrungs. The lords of the west spoke and understood only one language, shared only one reality, one right, and the sword was its symbol.
Each day the fat man grew more nervous. Sajac lurked like death in the shadows, a constant reminder that the past has a way of coming back. To the west there were Invincibles who might remember him, who had less to lose than did the old man.
Sajac made his move after a lulling week.
Mocker guided his mount off the trail, swung down, hiked his robe, and squatted. And it was while he was in that inelegant pose that the Dark Lady reached out and tried to tap his shoulder.
A foot crunched gravel. A shadow moved swiftly, like nothing of the desert.
The fat man moved faster, diving, rolling and springing to his feet with blade in hand.
The assassin, a young Throyen soldier, gaped. No human being ought to move that fast, let alone a fat man.
Mocker moved in. His blade danced in the sunshine, flinging sprays of reflected light. Steel sang its song meeting steel. Then the soldier was staring forlornly at an empty hand.
"Self, am perplexed," Mocker said, forcing the man to sit on a rock. "Am beset by epical quandry. By all rights, should slay attacker as example to vituperative old man who sent same. Not so? Terrify greedy instantly? But am afflicted by disease called mercy. Will even withhold curse of revenge... " A wicked smile danced across his round face. "No! Will not withhold same."
He began to whoop and holler and dance, though his sword's point remained unerringly centered on the soldier's Adams apple. He howled out a few spirited, obscene tavern songs in guttural, fractured Altean while gesturing as if summoning up the Lords of Darkness.
"There. Should do job. Have set curse of leprosy, my friend, same being very specific."
The soldier flushed. He could imagine no worse fate.
"Very specific," Mocker reiterated. "Same becomes incumbent only when recipient tells lie." He laughed. "Understand? One lie and curse begins to take effect. Within a few hours skin yellows. Within few days flesh starts to fall away. Smell grows like stench of old corpse. Listen! Should lord general summon erstwhile assassin as witness, report whole truth of situation, exact. Otherwise... "