“My pleasure is serving Quar!” Kaug roared, straightening to his full height, his head punching a hole in the starry sky.
“Oh, yes, it must be, of course!” stammered Pukah, the resultant gale knocking him off his feet. “But,” he continued cunningly, picking himself back up, “you won’t be serving Quar, will you? You’ll be serving humans! Answering to their every whim. ‘See that my twelve daughters are married to rich husbands!’ ‘Bring me a chest of gold and two caskets of jewels!’ ‘Cure this ailment from which my goat suffers!’ ‘Convince my son that he wants a job selling iron pots in the marketplace!’ ‘Make my dwelling as large as my neighbor’s!’ ‘Deliver—”
“Enough!” Kaug muttered. It was plain from the angry expression on the ‘efreet’s face that Pukah’s shot had hit a vital spot. Endeavoring to fight a war in heaven, attempting to foment distrust and hatred among the various factions of immortals, Kaug was continually being forced to leave his important work to perform those very degrading tasks that Pukah had mentioned. Just a few days ago, in fact, he’d had to leave a pitched battle with the imps and demons of Astafas and return to earth to carry the houri, Meryem, to an audience with the Imam.
“What a waste it will be,” added Pukah sadly, “to set us all to guarding the dead, who, after all, aren’t in that much need of guarding. Not to mention serving Death. She doesn’t have half the responsibility that you carry, O Kaug the Overburdened.”
Pukah allowed his voice to trail off, seeing a thoughtful look crinkle the ‘efreet’s eyes. “Perhaps this intense mental process will rupture something,” the djinn muttered hopefully. A frown formed in the beetling brows, and he hastened to forestall what he guessed would be the ‘efreet’s next argument. “I am certain that Quar, having depleted his own supply of immortals—in a most worthy cause, I grant you, but leaving you, unfortunately, short of help—Quar will be most pleased at your resourcefulness and ingenuity in being able to furnish your Great God with additional help to run the world.”
Kaug absently uprooted a tree or two as he considered this latest proposition. Sond, taking advantage of the ‘efreet’s preoccupation, sidled nearer Pukah and hissed out of the side of his mouth, “Have you gone mad?”
“Can you win a fight against him?” Pukah demanded in a piercing whisper.
“No,” Sond conceded grudgingly.
“Do you want to guard the Realm of the Dead?”
“No!”
“Then be silent and let me—”
Kaug fixed Pukah with a steelyeyed gaze, and the djinn was immediately all polite and respectful attention.
“You are saying, Little Pukah, that you and your brethren should come work for me instead of Death?”
Pukah bowed, hands pressed together prayerfully. “We will be honored—”
“We will be damned!” Sond started to shout, but Pukah’s elbow in Sond’s solar plexus deprived the djinn of breath, voice, and defiance all at one blow. There is no doubt the other djinn would have shouted their own resistance but that the baleful eye of the ‘efreet swiveled round and gazed fiercely at each of them.
Gracefully Pukah glided in front of the gasping Sond and faced the ‘efreet.
“Most Generous Kaug, my brethren are, as you can see, overwhelmed by the opportunity. They are stupefied and cannot express their thanks in a fitting manner.”
“Thanks for what? I’ve made no offer yet!”
“Ah,” said Pukah, looking at Kaug out of the corner of his eye, “you dare do nothing without consulting Quar. I understand.”
“I do what I please!” thundered the ‘efreet, the blast smashing every pane of glass on the djinn’s immortal plane.
“Still, we wouldn’t want to rush things. Give my brethren and me seventytwo hours human time to consider your terms and decide whether or not we accept.”
Kaug’s great eyes blinked. The ‘efreet was somewhat confused. It was an unusual feeling for the generally sharpwitted Kaug, but then he’d had much on his mind lately. He did not recall offering terms. Or had he? The ‘efreet knew that somewhere he’d lost control of the situation, and this angered him. He considered flattening castle, garden, and these irritating djinn at a breath, then snatching their immortal spirits from the shells of their bodies and sending them forthwith to Death. But at that moment, Kaug heard a gong ring three times.
Quar was summoning him. Undoubtedly some human needed his donkey scrubbed.
“You can always return and squash us later, if that is what you decide,” suggested Pukah in the most respectful tones. “We’re not likely to go anywhere.” Except to rescue our master from the Sun’s Anvil, the djinn added to himself,” exulting in his own cleverness.
Seventytwo hours. Kaug considered. Yes, he could always return and squash them later. And in the meantime, seventytwo hours would be long enough to pluck a thorn from Quar’s flesh.
“Smart Little Pukah,” said Kaug to himself, “you shall have your seventytwo hours to hatch whatever plan is picking its way out of the shell of your mind. Seventytwo hours that will be the death of the Calif and soon be the death—or enslavement—of all of you.”
“Seventytwo hours,” Kaug stated out loud and—at the insistent clanging of the gong—the ‘efreet started to leave. Seeming, at the last moment, to remember something, Kaug returned. “Oh, and you’re quite right, Little Pukah,” he said, grinning as he dropped a huge iron cage over the palace and gardens of the ancient djinn. “You’re not going anywhere!”
Chapter 7
Khardan started up out of an exhausted sleep he never meant to take. He was wideawake, alert. Unconscious, his mind had warned him of danger, and now, crouching in the meager shade offered by a tall sand dune, he stared around to discover what had quickened his heartbeat and pricked his skin.
He did not have to look long or far. The distant, ominous grinding sound came to him instantly. Turning his head to the west, the direction they were traveling, he saw a thick cloud on the horizon. It was a strange cloud, for it came from the land, not the sky. Its color was peculiar—a pale gray tinged with ocher.
In the top of the cloud, two huge, glistening eyes stared down at Khardan.
“An ‘efreet,” the Calif said aloud, though no one heard him. Beside him, huddled in the sand, Zohra slept, and next to her Mathew either slept or was dead, Khardan didn’t know which. The boy had pitched forward on his face, unconscious, and nothing would rouse him.
Khardan looked away. If the boy was dead, he was lucky.
If he wasn’t, he would be soon.
Serinda was no longer visible on the horizon. The ‘efreet might have swallowed it up, for all Khardan knew.
Glaring at the ‘efreet and the sandstorm it generated, Khardan clenched his hand over the hilt of the dagger he wore in his sash. His djinn had provided the dagger, just as they had provided clothes and water. They had thought of everything.
Everything except defeat.
Khardan wondered where Pukah was. Enslaved? Guarding the Realm of the Dead?
“If so,” Khardan muttered, “you are liable to see your master very shortly!”
The death of the desert is a terrible one. It is a death of swollen tongue and cracked lips, a death of pain and suffering and eventual, tortured madness. Drawing his dagger, Khardan stared at the sharp, curved blade. He turned it in his hand. The sun, not yet obscured by the deadly, yellowish cloud, blazed on the steel, half blinding him.
Zohra slept the sleep of exhaustion and did not waken when he gently rolled her over onto her back. Khardan sat for long moments, staring at her face. He was dazed by the heat, and though the storm was still far away, there was a gritty taste in the air that was already making it difficult to breathe.
How long her eyelashes were. Long and thick and black, the lashes cast shadows over her smooth skin. He brushed his finger across them, and then, reaching out, he gently if clumsily unclasped the veil and removed it from her face.
Her mouth was parted, her tongue ran across it as th
ough she drank in her sleep. Lifting the girba, he poured the water— the last of the water—onto the curved lips. He spilled most of it; the sand drank it greedily and seemed thirsty for more.
Soon it would have a richer, warmer liquid.
Zohra smiled, sighed, and drew a deep, easy breath. The expression of fierce pride was gone, softened and smoothed by weariness and suffering. Khardan found that he missed it. A burning hot wind rose from in front of the Calif, whipping his robes around him. He glanced up. As the wind blew stronger, the cloud grew larger, the grinding sound louder, the evil eyes in the cloud nearer. Resolutely, Khardan turned the peaceful, serene face away from him.
“Farewell, wife,” he said softly. It seemed there should be more to say between them, but he couldn’t think of anything. He was too tired, too dazed by the heat. When they met again beyond, then perhaps he could explain, could tell her everything that had been in his heart.
The Calif placed the point of the dagger on the skin right below Zohra’s left ear.
A sound—a ringing sound, the tinkling sound of bells that accompanies a camel’s plodding, splayfooted steps over the sand—arrested the killing stroke. Khardan paused, raising his head, wondering if the desert madness had overtaken him already.
“Pukah! Sond!” He meant it to be a shout, but the words came from his throat no more than a painful croak. There was no answer, but he heard the ringing clearly. If it was madness, then it had a smell as well. The odor of camel was unmistakable.
Sheathing the dagger, Khardan rose hastily to his feet and scrambled and crawled up to the top of the dune.
Crouched on the ridge, his arms braced against the blasting wind, the Calif looked below and saw camels—four of them tethered together—plodding through the sand. But there were no djinn hovering triumphantly in the air above them.
There was only a single rider. Swathed from head to toe in the black, flowing robes of the nomad, he kept his face covered against the sandstorm. Only his eyes were visible, and as he drew near, these stared straight at Khardan.
In the next instant, Khardan saw the stranger’s hand dart into his robes.
Realizing suddenly that he was an excellent target poised on the ridge of the dune, the Calif cursed and, hand on his own dagger, slipped swiftly back behind the dune’s rim. Peering cautiously over the edge, he kept the stranger within sight.
The man in black made a swift, deft throwing motion. Sun flared on steel. Flinching, Khardan instinctively flattened himself. The knife thudded into the sand, hilt up, inches in front of the nomad’s nose.
Khardan barely glanced at the knife. He stared warily at the stranger, waiting for the attack. The man relaxed in the camel saddle. Leaning one hand easily upon the leg that was crossed in front to help him maintain his balance, he gestured toward the thrown dagger. Squinting his eyes against the blowing sand, the Calif diverted his gaze from the stranger to the weapon.
The hilt was made of gold, inlaid with silver, and it was fashioned in a design he himself had worn on a suit of black armor. Two ruby eyes winked at Khardan from the head of a severed snake.
Chapter 8
Lowering his facecloth, Auda ibn Jad shouted over the rising storm. “Greetings, brother!”
Khardan scrambled and slid halfway down the side of the dune and halted some distance from the Black Paladin. Eyes narrowed against the stinging sand, the Calif stood, unmoving. Ibn Jad urged the grumbling camels forward.
“For a man who was expecting Death, you don’t look glad to see me,” he yelled.
“Perhaps that is because it is Death I see,” returned Khardan.
Snagging a waterskin from his saddle, Auda offered it to the nomad.
“I need nothing,” said the Calif, not glancing at the water, his gaze fixed on the Black Paladin.
“Ah, of course. You have drunk your fill from the vast rivers that run through this land.” Auda lifted the girba to his lips and drank deeply. Water trickled down the comers of his mouth, flowing into the short, neatly trimmed black beard that graced his strong jawline. Replacing the stopper, he wiped his mustached lips with the back of his hand, then cast a glance at the approaching sandstorm. “And, on a cool day like today, a man does not thirst as he does when it is—”
“Why are you here?” Khardan demanded. “How did you leave the castle?”
Auda glanced up at the rapidly darkening sky. “First I suggest we make what shelter we can before the enemy strikes.”
“Tell me now or we will both die where we stand!”
Auda regarded him silently, then shrugged and leaned close to be heard. “I left as you did, nomad. I placed my life in the hands of my God, and he gave it back to me.” The thin lips smiled. “The Black Sorceress called for my execution. I was accused of aiding prisoners to escape and asked if I had anything to say in my defense. I said you and I had shared blood. Closer than brothers born, our lives were pledged to each other. I had vowed this, before the God, before Zhakrin.”
“They believed you?”
“They had no choice. The God himself, Zhakrin, appeared before them. He is weak, his form indistinct and constantly shifting. But he has returned to us,” Auda said with quiet pride, “and the strength of our faith increases his power daily!”
These evil people had never wavered in their faith, even when it seemed their God had left them forever. Now he was increasing in strength. Our God, Akhran . . . wounded. . . dying. Khardan flushed uncomfortably and, reaching out his hand, took the waterskin from the Black Paladin. He drank sparingly, but Auda waved a hand at his camels. “Take your fill. There is more.”
“There are others in my care,” Khardan said.
A spark flickered deep in Auda’s dark, hooded eyes. “So they survived, the two who were with you? The beautiful, blackhaired wildcat, your wife, and the gentle Blossom? Where are they?”
“They lie on the other side.” Covering his mouth and nose with the cloth against the blowing sand, Khardan turned and began to clamor up the side of the dune, wondering why it was like setting a spark to dry tinder to hear the Black Paladin praise Zohra.
Tugging hard on the camel’s lead, shouting imperative commands, Auda dragged the recalcitrant animals to their knees at the bottom of the dune where they might find some protection from the fury of the storm.
Zohra was awake. Hearing their voices, she had climbed partway up the dune to meet them.
“Mathew!” Khardan shouted, pointing and indicating with a wave of his hand that Zohra was to bring the boy with her.
She understood and slid back down to get him. Hand on his shoulder, she shook him hard. There was no response, and she glanced up helplessly at Khardan.
The ‘efreet howled furiously, sand swirled around them, making it nearly impossible to see. Sliding down the side of the dune, Khardan reached Zohra. Between them, they pummeled and screamed and managed at last to wake the young man and indicate to him that he must climb the dune to escape the storm.
Dazed and uncomprehending, Mathew did what he was told, responding to the hands that dragged him along and the voices that yelled in his ear. Once over the top, he collapsed and slithered down the side. Auda caught him and carried him to where the camels crouched, heads hunched down. Propping the boy up against the flanks of the animals, sheltered from the blasting wind, Auda flung a blanket over him and returned to assist Zohra.
Black eyes blazing, she drew away from Auda as he would have taken her hand, and stumbled through the sand to make her own shelter near Mathew. She would not even accept water until Khardan took it from the Paladin’s hand and gave it to her.
Shrugging, Auda leaned back against the flanks of the camel he had been riding. Khardan sank down next to him. “This is useless,” he yelled. “We cannot fight an ‘efreet!”
“Ah, but we do not fight alone,” Auda replied calmly.
Looking up into the sky, startled, Khardan saw that the eyes in the storm cloud were no longer gazing at him but at something on their own level, somethin
g he could not see. A strong breeze, cool and damp and smelling faintly of salt spray, rose up from the opposite direction, blowing against the ‘efreet. Caught in the crosscurrents of opposing winds, the sand swept about them in blinding, whirling clouds. The camels faced out the storm stolidly. The humans ducked beneath blankets. Despite that, sand clogged their mouths and noses, sending them coughing and choking, making each breath a struggle.
Abruptly the ‘efreet drew back. The winds ceased to howl, the sand quit its eerie wailing. Stirring, displacing a mound of sand that covered him, Khardan raised his head.
“Either the ‘efreet believes we are dead, or he has decided to leave and let the sun finish us off,” he stated, spitting grit from his mouth. “The creature is gone.”
Auda did not respond. The Paladin’s eyes were closed, and the Calif heard a faint murmuring coming from behind the folds of the haik.
He is praying, Khardan realized. “So it was your God who let you go,” he said gruffly when ibn Jad opened his eyes and reached for the girba.
“I am honor bound to keep my vow,” Auda replied, swishing water in his mouth and spitting it out. “Zhakrin commanded that I be set free. Free . . . to keep another vow—a vow made by another brother.”
“I think I know of this vow.” Khardan accepted the girba and, out of habit, drank sparingly.
“They told you of it that night. . .”
The first night at Castle Zhakrin. The Calif had been present—a prisoner—at a meeting of the Black Paladins and had heard the story Auda was now repeating.
“Dying at the feet of the accursed priest of Quar, dying of wounds inflicted by his own hand so that the kafir could not claim his life nor their God his soul, Catalus, my brother in Zhakrin, laid the blood curse of our God upon the Imam. I have been chosen to redeem that curse.”
The Prophet of Akhran Page 9