E. Hoffmann Price's Fables of Ismeddin MEGAPACK®

by E. Hoffmann Price

  * * * *

  Nureddin had entirely overlooked Habib in his proscription of those who knew Shams ud Din too well. He had instructed Mahjoub to remember the roses of Shiraz that the sultan cultivated when not engaged in drinking, raiding, or wrangling with the ambassadors of Yakoub Khan. But Nureddin had forgotten that there was a favorite tree which Shams ud Din had cultivated with his own hands; and thus it was that for a passing instant Mahjoub’s keen darwish wit was not quick enough to hide from Habib that it was not Shams ud Din who was inspecting the roses of Shiraz.

  Habib knew; and Mahjoub knew that he knew.

  “Very good, Habib,” said Mahjoub, aloud, as he regarded the tree; and then in a low voice, “The Companions have just been ordered into an ambush out there on the border, and they’re riding to their death. I’m a prisoner and I can’t warn them. Their fate is in your hands, O gardener! So serve the Companions once more if it costs your life!”

  The old man muttered inarticulately; but Mahjoub caught the fierce gleam in his eyes, and was content.

  The next day, toward sunset, Mahjoub walked again through the gardens. Habib, absorbed in his work, did not perceive the approach of the sultan until Mahjoub was almost upon him. Startled, the old man leaped to his feet, glittering shears clutched in his hand.

  The salaam to the sultan was never completed.

  The ever watchful escort, in their turn startled by the swift appearance and the flash of steel, leveled and fired their rifles. Habib dropped, riddled by the fusillade.

  Mahjoub remembered the conversation of the previous day, and wondered if the soldiers had been truly startled, or if they had acted on orders from the power behind the throne when they tore the old gardener to ribbons with a volley at short range. And lacking means of forming any decision, Mahjoub that night donned a light, tough shirt of mail, and ate corn parched with his own hands: for the glamour and witchery of kingship had not entirely blinded the darwish.

  * * * *

  During the time that had passed since Nureddin’s coup d’état had elevated a darwish to the throne, deftly arranged embassies, and disappearances of the sultan’s intimates had been so skillfully devised that there was no one left at court who could by the wildest flight of fancy imagine that it was not Shams ud Din himself who dispensed justice and received petitions in the throne room. Yet for all their security, Nureddin and the girl from Tcherkess were not entirely at their ease.

  “Almost-a-king,” murmured Lailat with just a shade of unnecessary sweetness, “the old gray wolf may die of old age, down there in that dungeon. And he may outlive all of us…”

  “Nonsense!” scoffed Nureddin. “His ragings don’t even amuse the jailer and the prisoners. He’s as firmly established as a madman as the darwish is as sultan.”

  “Still,” persisted the girl, “he’s still alive…that father of many little pigs, making me the slave of a slave… Ya Nureddin, you know I’ve not asked you any favors so far… I was thinking of telling you what I thought of Djénane Hanoum, but really one shouldn’t be spiteful. Anyway, I simply can’t sleep nights for thinking of what would happen if he did get away—”

  “By Allah!” assured Nureddin. “I’m sure I can take care of that.”

  “Of course you can,” agreed Lailat as she discarded a bracelet of uncut emeralds in favor of red gold set with cool sapphires. “But I do wish you’d do something about it. Nureddin, I’ve made you a king, and the only favor I’ve asked so far is your uncle’s head. I’d be ever so much more at ease—”

  “You don’t know this Shams ud Din,” countered Nureddin.

  “O, don’t I?” murmured Lailat, as her eyebrows rose in saracenic arches. “Really, Nureddin, you are naive…”

  Nureddin then and there began to see a trace of reason in Lailat’s whim for his uncle’s head. Still, reason ought to prevail over a passing fancy of a red-haired girl.

  “He’s killed a dozen assassins with his own hands already. It’s written that no assassin shall kill him—I myself had his life in my hands twice in one night, and each time he escaped—and whoever seeks my uncle’s life is seeking his own instead. Let him rage in his cell. Keep him in prison, and he will soon become a madman indeed, as mad as they now think he is.”

  “But didn’t you say the Companions will soon return?” queried Lailat, shifting the angle of her attack.

  “On the way back they’ll fall into an ambush. None of them will live to return and recognize Mahjoub as an impostor. And anyway, I’ve sent a messenger to Yakoub Khan to ask him for a regiment of troops that I can depend on in case we should have trouble.”

  “That was clever! You do seem to think of everything!” admitted the girl from Tcherkess. “So you might humor my whim about Shams ud Din. I know him too. He’s subtle and clever as Satan the Damned, and I can’t sleep nights for thinking that he might get out of his cell. So do give me his head, Nureddin…”

  Nureddin sighed wearily.

  “I betake me to Allah for refuge from Satan! Have it your own way. I’ll send Hassan and Mansur to take his head this very night.”

  Lailat clapped her hands delightedly. “Oh, Nureddin, you can’t imagine how relieved I am. You’ll call Mansur and Hassan right away, won’t you?”

  “Mansur and Hassan and a detachment of troops,” amended Nureddin. “Shams ud Din would tear those two slaves to pieces with his bare hands.”

  Then he smote a gong, and while awaiting the arrival of a messenger, he basked in the sea-green sorcery of Lailat’s smiling eyes, and agreed he’d done quite well in suggesting the decapitation of Shams ud Din.

  * * * *

  Shams ud Din sat on the floor of his cell, watching a patch of moonlight filtering through the barred cleft far above him, and marching slowly across the floor.

  “Night and the desert and the horses know me…” he quoted, as those fugitive moonbeams reminded him of the blue-white glare and the blue-black shadows of nights in the Nefoud. “But they will soon forget me. Even as I myself will in the end forget that I am Shams ud Din the son of Zenghi. God, by God, by the Very God! Blacken my face if ever again I imprison another man, though he be my worst enemy.”

  Then he heard the tramp of men marching down the corridor toward his cell, far from the cage in which minor offenders were herded. Out of the blackness came a glow of torches, revealing a detachment of soldiers, followed by Mansur and Hassan, those black envoys of the dark angel who had so often used sword and cord to execute the sentences of Shams ud Din. Now they sought him to slay him in his cage. Well, let them take his head, and Satan fly away with the vanity of kings, and its many-decked parasols, and resplendent captains; let the glittering jest end in a dungeon instead of a battlefield.

  And then the savage blood of the house of Zenghi boiled and fumed in his veins. He noted the number of the detachment of soldiers, and reckoned the hopeless odds. Hopeless if he were armed; and with empty hands—yet one could still slay with empty hands…

  As the door of his cell clanged open, Shams ud Din glanced again toward the barred cleft high above his head, then stepped into the patch of light to confront the headsmen and the soldiers.

  “Son of a disease? Why do you disturb me at this hour?” he demanded of the dah-bashi who commanded the platoon.

  The dah-bashi recoiled before that consuming wrath, then remembered that this was but a madman whose life the sultan for some odd fancy desired.

  “We have come to take your head,” he replied.

  Shams ud Din smiled as at one of his cup companions.

  “Neither you nor any man can take my head unless it so please Allah! But first of all, let me pray.”

  “Granted,” agreed the dah-bashi.

  Shams ud Din flicked the tattered rags he wore, and spat disgustedly.

  “Ya Allah! I haven’t any prayer rug, and
this filthy rag—”

  “Maqsoud,” commanded the dah-bashi, “give him your cloak, so we can get this over with, or Nureddin will have our heads.”

  “Nureddin,” said the sultan to himself, as the soldier passed his rifle to his right rank, removed his cloak, and flung it to the floor. “Who else but Nureddin devised this?…”

  A moment before, Shams ud Din had wondered how many he could slay with his bare hands before they overcame him and hacked him to pieces in his cell; but now his wrath had a personal object, and there was a vengeance to obtain before he died.

  He took his position on the soldier’s cloak. The headsmen leaned on the hilts of their great two-handed swords. The soldiers stood in column, their rifles at the order, and their minds far away from what was only another bit of routine: another execution.

  “In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate!” began Shams ud Din, intoning the sonorous first chapter of the Koran. “Praise be to Allah, lord of the two worlds!”

  But beneath the mask of prayer, his mind spoke otherwise. He had paced his cage, and stretched and flexed his muscles, trying them daily against the bars of his cage; and now he wondered whether imprisonment had softened his sinews and dulled the agility that had made him death and terror in hand-to-hand fighting in the old days of border warfare. Vengeance keyed him to a pitch that the joy of battle had never reached; vengeance more precious than life itself.

  As he prayed, Shams ud Din groped with his toes for the edge of the paving-block that projected slightly above its fellows. And he found it, that block that he had so often and vainly sought to dislodge and use as a weapon. It was at the best only slim support, but still, a starting-point.

  The dah-bashi and his men waited for the madman to complete his prayer, and thought of the gaming and quarreling and drinking of ’araki that awaited them on their return to barracks.

  * * * *

  Shams ud Din raised his bowed head from the outspread cloak. But instead of rising to his knees, the next posture of prayer, he flashed forward like a beast of prey, catching the dah-bashi about the knees and bearing him to the floor. And before the soldiers could collect their wits and crush that incredible assault, Shams ud Din drew the dah-bashi’s curved knife, ripping the first of the enemy wide open with an upward stroke.

  Then came a confusion of men and arms. They hacked and slashed and struck with knife and rifle-butt at the madman whose attack had caught them flat-footed; but instead of seeking to rise, Shams ud Din remained crouched, thrusting, stabbing, hamstringing, and disemboweling. The enemy’s blood drenched him, and mingled with his own. They dared not fire into the mêlée. They struck into the thick of the mass at whose bottom their victim was, but for each cut that reached Shams ud Din, a dozen missed him and maimed his assailants. Shams ud Din went through the heap like fire through a train of powder. With his knees and feet he struck, with his knife he cut and thrust, and when his teeth met a throat, they closed fiercely. The taste of blood gave him new courage. He growled exultantly, and slashed anew.

  Yet the sheer weight of the assault finally crushed him flat against the floor. He was drained of blood by a score of stabs and glancing cuts. A rifle-butt found its way into the heap and struck his knife from his grasp. For one long, despair-laden instant he groped; and then his fingers closed on the hilt of the two-handed sword dropped by a headsman. He ceased struggling; and the enemy, thinking him finally overpowered, sought to untangle themselves. And as Shams ud Din was relieved of the full weight of the enemy, he emerged from the heap with a mighty leap, shook himself free, and leaped into the clear.

  “Dogs and sons of dogs!” he roared, as he whirled the great blade in a flailing sweep that sheared from shoulder to hip wherever it bit, “who will take the head of Shams ud Din?”

  Leaping, striking, weaving in and out like a wolf at bay cutting to pieces a pack of hounds, he slew until he was drunk with slaughter. The survivors dared not stoop to pick up their rifles to end the frenzied killer with a bullet. Several had already fled in terror; and panic-stricken by the inhuman rage and dancing blade of Shams ud Din, the rest followed. After them came the slayer, striking as he pursued with great bounding strides.

  Shams ud Din paused to cut down a sentry at the entrance of the prison. The momentary interruption of the chase cleared his mind of its red haze. He couldn’t kill them all. Some would escape and give the alarm. The thing to do was to take cover, steal a horse, and ride for the hills.

  And there, tethered to a ring in the wall at the farther side of the courtyard, was the horse he needed. Life, and vengeance!

  “El hamdu lilahi!” he gasped in grateful wonder at that gift of providence, as he started across the broad area. And then he halted.

  Coming across the courtyard, just clearing the gateway, was a detachment of the guard led by the officer of the day. The great wrath had left him when he ceased slaying, and Shams ud Din knew that he could not cut his way through such odds.

  The first to escape from the slaughter in the dungeon had spread the alarm. The guard would shoot him down as he stood there.

  The captain’s command rang clear.

  The guard halted. The cold, full moonlight played on bare steel and leveled rifles. Death was about to pour out of their gaping muzzles.

  Shams ud Din dashed his blade to the paving.

  “Ho, there, Mamoun!” he shouted. “Steady! Hold your fire!”

  The captain started at that calm, commanding voice, and looked about. Only one man faced the guard, and he was empty-handed.

  “Mamoun, answer me a riddle,” proposed Shams ud Din as he advanced to meet the captain. “What is stranger than a dish of cucumbers stuffed with pearls? Do you remember the night before we sacked Kubbat al Ahhmar? Think, Mamoun!”

  Shams ud Din smiled, and wiped the blood from his lips, and the sweat from his forehead.

  “There is neither might nor majesty save in Allah, the Great, the Glorious!” exclaimed the captain, staring in wonder at that gory wreck of a man who was saying what only the sultan could have known and spoken. “By your life and by your head, ya malik! I remember the story, the riddle, and the answer. But where is the riot, my lord?”

  “The answer is different this time, Mamoun. Listen: Cucumbers stuffed with pearls are not as strange as Shams ud Din flung into jail as a madman. Your guard will be my army with which I will regain my throne—”

  “Regain your throne?” marveled the captain. “But, my lord, I saw you not two hours ago in the majlis—”

  “What? Saw me?” demanded Shams ud Din.

  “Yes, by Allah and again, by Allah! In your private reception hall, with Nureddin, your nephew. Either you, or an efrit that resembled you.”

  “Nureddin, that father of many pigs?” raged Shams ud Din. “But efrit or Satan himself who masquerades in my place—will you follow me to regain my throne, or to be hacked to pieces in the side streets of this madhouse of a city?”

  “To the death and to the uttermost, ya malik!” replied the captain. “But better work stealthily, my lord. Nureddin and that evil spirit, or whoever or whatever it is that resembles you as one grain of sand resembles another, have done their work well. The Companions are on the border. And most of the captains of the garrison are newly commissioned friends of Nureddin.”

  “No matter, Mamoun. Release and arm all the prisoners. Freedom and a purse of gold to each who survives this night’s work. Recall the relief now on post, and the one at the guard house. Then go to barracks and get as many of the captains on our side as you can. Nureddin may have left one or two at least.

  “In the meanwhile we’ll set fire to the bazaar and start the loafers and caravan guards from the taverns to looting. Then as the troops turn out from barracks to stop the rioting, we’ll catch them from the flank. And taking them by surprise, we can cut right through them,
clean out the palace, and dispose of Nureddin.”

  “We’ll have to work fast, my lord,” replied the captain. “Nureddin has sent for a regiment of Yakoub Khan’s troops, and they’re expected any time now. But how—”

  “All the better!” exclaimed Shams ud Din. “Things aren’t going so well with Nureddin and the impostor, or he’d not have sent to Yakoub Khan for reinforcements. So go to barracks and get busy.”

  Whereat Shams ud Din called the guard to attention, and marched them toward the bazaar. A squad remained behind to liberate and arm the prisoners.

  * * * *

  Nureddin and the red-haired girl from Tcherkess sat on the roof of the palace. Near by stood an attendant with a lance-shaft on which to raise the head of Shams ud Din when the executioners brought it from the dungeon.

  “Ya Allah!” muttered Nureddin. “How long does it take those children of Satan the Damned to behead my uncle?”

  “Don’t be impatient,” chided Lailat. “They’ll bring you the head of the old gray wolf, and then you’ll be sultan indeed. Sultan openly, with Yakoub Khan’s troops to support you, and the head of Shams ud Din greeting the morning from that lance-shaft.”

  “I hope this brilliant idea works out that way. But if some soldier recognizes him—some fellow who served with him in the field—Shaytan rip me open, but what’s that?”

  “Sounds like shouting and firing in the neighborhood of the bazaar,” replied the red-haired girl.

  From the roof of the palace they saw tall flames rising from the bazaar, and heard the shouting of looters, and ragged, crackling bursts of rifle and pistol fire.