The Prophet of Akhran

by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman

  After the arrival of the soldierpriests—and Khardan was aghast and amazed at their numbers—the roaring of the crowd reached a din impossible to believe. A hundred mameluks, clad in gold skirts with white headdresses made of ostrich plumes, followed. In their hands they carried baskets and tossed handfuls of coins into the clamoring crowd. Khardan caught one and Auda another—pure silver. The Calif could not hear, but he knew by the expression on Auda’s face the words formed by his grinning lips.

  “Our Enemy not only opens the gate but pays us to enter!”

  Behind the mameluks two huge elephants hove into view, the sun gleaming brightly off ruby and emerald encrusted headdresses. Slaves rode their backs, guiding them through the streets. Golden, gemstudded bracelets glittered around the elephant’s thundering feet. Their long tusks were tipped with gold. Khardan felt Mathew’s body, pressed close against him by the crush of the crowd, tremble and sigh in awe. The young wizard from the strange land across the sea had never before seen such giant, wondrous creatures, and he gaped in staringeyed amazement.

  The elephants pulled behind them a gigantic structure built on wheels that, when it came nearer, could be seen to be a representation of a ram’s head. Cunningly constructed of wood covered with parchment, the huge ram’s head was painted with such skill that one might have mistaken it for a larger version of the real ram’shead altar that wavered and rocked on the swaying wooden base. Standing next to the altar, which had been hauled over the long miles traveled by the Amir’s conquering army, was Feisal, the Imam.

  At his coming, the cheers rose to a frenetic pitch, then dropped to an eerie hush that resounded in the ears more loudly than the shouts. Many in the crowd sank to their knees, prostrating themselves in the dust. Those that could not move because of the masses pressing around them extended their arms, silently beseeching their priest’s blessing. Feisal gave it, turning first one way, then the other, from his perch on the great wheeled wagon. Several high priests stood proudly beside him. A horde of soldierpriests marched around the wagon’s wheels, glaring fiercely and suspiciously at the adoring crowd.

  Glancing at Auda, Khardan saw the man’s usually impassive face thoughtful and grave and guessed the Paladin was imagining how best to penetrate this ring of steel and fanaticism. He did not appear perturbed or daunted by this sight, however; he was simply speculative.

  Probably leaving all the mundane details, such as getting round a thousand swords, in the hands of his God, Khardan thought bitterly, and turned his eyes back to the Imam just as the Imam’s eyes turned to him.

  Khardan shuddered from head to toe. It was not that he had been recognized. That must be impossible with thousands of faces surrounding the Imam. No, the shudder was from the look in the eyes—the look of one possessed body and soul by a devouring passion, the look of one who has sacrificed reason and sanity to the consuming flame of holy fervor. It was the look of an insane man who is all too sane, and it struck terror to Khardan’s heart, for he knew now that his people were doomed. This man would pour their blood into his golden chalice and hand it to his God without a qualm, believing firmly that he was doing the slaughtered innocents a favor.

  The Imam passed by, and the terror faded from Khardan’s thoughts, only to leave despair behind. The crowd turned to follow after the procession, which was apparently meant too wind its way through the city streets before returning to bring the Imam to his Temple. The Amir’s soldiers fell back once the priest was safely past, Khardan and his companions were swept along with the masses.

  “We’ve got to get free of this!” Khardan yelled at Auda, who nodded. Linking arms, he and the Calif held firmly to each other’s shoulders, forming a shield with their bodies around Zohra and Mathew. They fended off jostlers with blows and kicks and struggled to make their way down a quiet side street or into one of the nooks along the Kasbah’s walls.

  Gloom descended on Khardan like a huge bird of prey, tearing out his heart, blinding him with its black wings. Though he had repeatedly told himself he came without hope, he knew now that he had in reality been carried this far on the strong wave of that most stubborn of all human emotions. Now hope was draining from him, leaving nothing but emptiness. His arms ached, his head throbbed with the noise, he felt sickened from the stench. The desire in his heart was to sink to the ground and let the trampling feet of the mob beat him into oblivion, and it was only concern for the welfare of those dependent on him, and Auda’s firm grip on his shoulder, that kept him going.

  Tirelessly the Black Paladin forged a path for them, thrusting, shoving, and constantly tugging and pulling at them to follow him. Khardan marveled at the man’s strength, still more at his faith that had apparently not sunk beneath the weight of impossible odds.

  “Faith,” muttered Khardan, stumbling, falling, feeling Mathew and Zohra clinging to him, pulling himself up again, hearing Auda’s shouts driving him on. “Faith—all that is left once hope is gone. Hazrat Akhran! Your people are in desperate need! We do not ask you to come fight for us, for you are fighting your own battle if what we hear is true. We have the courage to act, we need a way! Show us, Holy Wanderer, a way!”

  The four were swept up against a wall with a suddenness that left them bruised and scraped. A panicked moment when it seemed they must be crushed against the stone passed, and then the worst of the crowd was by them, running after the procession, leaving relative quiet behind.

  “Is everyone all right?” Khardan asked. He turned to see Mathew nod breathlessly, his hands fumbling with the veil that had been torn loose from his face.

  “Yes,” Zohra answered, hurriedly assisting Mathew, for it would not do to let anyone catch sight of that fair skin or glimpse the fiery red hair.

  A glance was sufficient to show that Auda ibn Jad was the same as always—cool and unperturbed, his gaze fixed on several soldiers who, now that the excitement had passed, appeared to be taking an undue interest in the robed nomads.

  “Haste!” hissed Auda from the side of his mouth, giving elaborate attention to the arrangement of his disarrayed robes. Without seeming to hurry, he moved deftly into the shadows cast by the wall, herding Zohra and Mathew with him. Khardan, seeing this new danger, wheeled to accompany them, tripped, and nearly fell headlong over an object at his feet.

  A groan answered him.

  “A beggar, trampled by the mob,” said Auda indifferently, one eye on the guards who were standing on the opposite side of the street, obviously watching them with interest. “Of no consequence. Keep moving!”

  But Zohra was on her knees beside the old man, helping him with gentle hands to sit up. “Thank you, daughter,” grunted the beggar.

  “Are you injured, father? I have my healing feisha—”

  “No, daughter, bless you!” The beggar reached a groping, frantic hand. “My basket, my coins— Stolen?”

  “Leave him! We must go!” Auda said insistently, and was bending down to drag Zohra away when Khardan stopped him.

  “Wait!” The Calif stared at the beggar—the milky white eyes, the basket in the lap. . . Only he wasn’t seeing him now, he was seeing the beggar months ago, seeing a white hand fling a bracelet into that basket, seeing a hole in the wall—once gaping open— closed and sealed shut. Khardan looked around him. Yes, there was the milk bazaar where he had stolen the scarf for her head. Glancing up, he could see palm fronds swaying above the wall.

  “Praise be to Akhran!” Khardan breathed thankfully. Kneeling beside the old man, pretending to be offering aid, he examined the wall and motioned Auda to kneel down beside him. “Guards of the Amir are pursuing us!” he whispered to the beggar. “I know about the hole in the wall. Can you get us inside?”

  The milky white eyes turned their sightless gaze on Khardan, the wrinkled face was suddenly so shrewd and cunning that the Calif could have sworn the blind eyes were studying him intently.

  “Are you one of the Brotherhood?” queried the old man. Khardan stared at him in puzzlement, not understanding. It was Au
da who knelt near and, dropping the silver coin into the beggar’s basket, said under his breath, “Benario, Lord of Snatching Hands and SwiftRunning Feet.”

  The beggar’s toothless mouth parted in a swift leer, and he reached behind him with a dexterous hand. What hidden latch he tripped was kept concealed by his skinny body and the rags that covered it, but suddenly there was a gap in the wall behind him, large enough for a man to slip through.

  “The soldiers are coming this way!” said Auda calmly. “Make no move!”

  “Damn!” Khardan swore, able to see the pleasure garden of the Amir only inches from him.

  “Akhran be with you, sidi,” whispered a voice from the air. “We know what to do.”

  The soldiers were walking toward them, evidently wondering what the desert dwellers could find so interesting in a beggar of Kich, when two drunks—one of them a towering, muscular giant of a man with gleaming black skin, the other a welldressed servant, obviously belonging to the royal household—rounded a corner and slammed right into them.

  Startled—Khardan had completely forgotten the presence of the djinn—he stared at the soldiers grappling with the drunks and was jolted to movement only when he felt Auda shove him roughly toward the wall. Mathew and Zohra had already crept inside, Khardan followed, and Auda came hastening after. A grinding sound and the hole was gone, the wall smooth, unblemished. A covering thornbush trundled back into place with such alacrity that the Paladin had to tug his robes free of the fleshtearing brambles before he could move.

  “You realize we are in the harem, the forbidden place!” said Auda coolly, glancing around the garden. “If the eunuchs catch us, our deaths will be prolonged and most unpleasant.”

  “Our deaths aren’t likely to be any other way no matter where we are,” said Khardan, stepping cautiously onto a path and motioning for the rest to come after him, “and this at least gives us a chance of talking to the Amir.”

  “Also a chance of getting into the Temple,” continued Auda. “When I served in the Temple at Khandar, I learned that there was, in Kich, a tunnel that ran from the Temple below the ground to the palace of the Amir.”

  “First we talk to Qannadi!” Khardan started to say harshly, when there came the snapping of a twig underfoot, a rustle in the trees, and a shout of joy and longing.

  “Meryem!”

  Chapter 4

  Obsession sees only the object of its madness. It believes everything it wants to believe, questions nothing. Achmed grabbed hold of the slender figure clad in the wellremembered green and gold spangled veil and whirled it around to face him.

  Mathew, startled, let fall his veil.

  “You!” Achmed cried, and hurled the young man from him.

  Looking around at the others with fevered eyes, he saw his brother, but it did not occur to him to question why Khardan was here, in the Amir’s garden. For Achmed there was only one question in his heart.

  “Where is she?” Achmed demanded. “Where is Meryem? This. . . man”—he choked on the word, pointing a shaking finger at Mathew—”is wearing her clothes. . .”

  Too late Zohra laid restraining fingers on Khardan’s arm. “Meryem’s dead,” said the Calif harshly, before he thought.

  “Dead!” Achmed went white to the lips; he staggered where he stood. Then, in a swift motion, he yanked the sword from its scabbard at his side and jumped at Khardan. “You killed her!”

  The young soldier’s leap was halted by a strong arm wrapping around his neck, throttling him. A silver blade gleamed; the cruel eyes of the Paladin glittered beside him. Within another second Achmed’s blood would have flowed from the slit in his throat.

  “Auda, no! He’s my brother!” Khardan caught hold of the Paladin’s knife hand.

  Auda stayed his killing stroke, but he held the young man tightly, his arm crushing the windpipe so that Achmed could neither speak nor yell. His eyesstaring at his brotherblazed with fury. He struggled impotently to escape his captor, and the Paladin tightened his grip.

  “I’m sorry, Achmed,” Khardan said lamely, mentally reviling himself for his callous bungling. “‘But she tried to kill me—”

  “It was my hand slew her,” Mathew said in low tones, “not your brother’s. And it is true, she wore a poison ring.”

  Achmed ceased to struggle; he went limp in Auda’s grasp. His eyes closed, and hot tears welled beneath the lids.

  “Let him go,” Khardan ordered.

  “He’ll alert the guards!” Auda protested.

  “Let him go! He is my blood!”

  Auda, with an ill grace, released Achmed. The young man, pale and shivering, opened his eyes and stared into Khardan’s. “You had everything! Always!” he cried hoarsely. “Did you have to destroy the one thing that was mine?”

  A sob shook him. “I hope they kill you, everyone of you!” Turning, running blindly, the young soldier plunged into the garden’s sweetsmelling foliage. They could hear him crashing heedlessly among the plants.

  “Don’t be a fool, Khardan! You can’t let him go!” Auda held his knife poised.

  The Calif hesitated, then took a hurried step forward. “Achmed—”

  “Leave the boy be,” came a stern command.

  Abul Qasim Qannadi, Amir of Kich, stepped out from the shadows of an orange tree. The perfume of late morning hung heavy in the gardenroses, gardenia, jasmine, lilies. The palm trees whispered their endless secrets, a fountain gurgled nearby. Somewhere in the darkest shadows a nightingale lifted his voice in his pulsing song—trilling a single heartpiercing note until it seemed his small chest must burst, and then holding it longer still.

  The Amir was alone. He was not dressed in armor but clad in loosefitting robes, thrown casually over one arm. One shoulder was bare, and from his wet hair and the glistening of oil upon his skin it seemed he had just come from his bath. He looked tired and older than Khardan remembered him, but that may have been because he was not king in a divan but a halfdressed man in a garden. Certainly he had not ridden with his troops this morning, nor—apparently—had he been present to watch the entrance or greet the Imam upon his arrival into the city.

  “Assassins?” asked the Amir, looking coolly and unafraid at the sunlit blade of Auda’s dagger.

  “No,” said Khardan, putting his own body between the Paladin and the Amir. “I come as Calif of my people!”

  “Does the Calif of his people always sneak through holes in the wall?” Qannadi asked drily.

  Khardan flushed. “It was the only way I could think of to get in to see you! I had to talk to you. My people. . . They say they’re going to be slaughtered this next dawning!”

  Qannadi’s brown and weathered face hardened. “If you have come to beg—”

  “Not beg, O King!” Khardan said proudly. “Let the women and children, the sick and the elderly, go free. We”—he gestured out past the palace walls toward the desert—”my men and I, will meet you in fair and open battle.”

  Qannadi’s expression softened; he almost smiled. He glanced where Khardan pointed, though there was nothing to be seen but tangled, flowering vines and waxyleafed trees. “There must be very few of you,” the Amir said in a soft voice. He turned his penetrating gaze to Khardan. “And my army numbers in the thousands!”

  “Nevertheless, we will fight, O King!”

  “Yes, you would,” said Qannadi reflectively, “and I would lose many good men before we succeeded in destroying you. But tell me, Calif, since when does the desert nomad come to issue a battle challenge with his women and”—his gaze lingered on Auda—”a Paladin of the Night God.

  “Or, perhaps not women plural but woman alone.” Qannadi considered Zohra gravely, speaking before Khardan could reply. “Flowers bloom in the desert as beautiful as in a king’s garden. And more courageous, it would seem,” he added, noting that Zohra’s defiant eyes were fixed on him, not lowered in modesty as was proper.

  There was no time for propriety, however. A word from Qannadi and the intruders in his garden wo
uld face the Lord High Executioner, who would see to it that they left this world in agonized slowness. Why hadn’t Qannadi said that word? Khardan wondered. Was he toying with them? Hoping to find out all he could? But why bother? He would soon have everything they knew ripped from their mangled bodies.

  “And you.” Qannadi had been obliquely studying Mathew ever since the beginning of this strange conversation, and now his eyes finally settled on the object of their curiosity. “What are you?” the Amir asked bluntly.

  “I—I am a man,” Mathew said, crimson staining the smooth, translucent cheeks.

  “I know that. . . now!” Qannadi said with a wry smile. “I mean what manner of man are you? Where are you from?”

  “I am from the land of Aranthia on the continent of Tirish Aranth,” said Mathew reluctantly, as though certain he would not be believed.

  Qannadi simply nodded, however, though he raised an eyebrow.

  “You know of it?” Mathew asked in wonder.

  “And so does the Emperor,” the Amir remarked. “If Our Imperial Majesty has his way, I might soon see this homeland of yours. Even now, Quar’s Chosen readies his ships to sail the Hurn Sea. So you are the fish bone that has been sticking in Feisal’s gullet.”

  Mathew blinked in confusion, not understanding. Qannadi smiled, but it was a smile that was not reflected in the eyes, which remained somber and sober. Khardan shifted uneasily. “The Imam received word that one of the followers of your God—I forget the name. It is not important.” He waved a hand as Mathew would have spoken. “One of the followers who were presumably all struck down on the shores of Bas still lived and walked our land. And not lost and alone, but with friends, it appears.”

  He was quiet, thoughtful. Khardan waited nervously, not daring to speak.

  “So Meryem is dead”—Qannadi’s voice was smooth—”and it was you who struck her down.”