Far south of Sebil el Selib, south of el Aswad, stood a mountain rising slightly separate from the mother range called Jebal al Alf Dhulquarneni. It was called Jebal al Djinn, Mountain of Demons, or, sometimes, the Horned Mountain. When seen from the southwest it resembled a great horned head rising from the desert. It was there El Murid met his angel when he felt lost enough to require face to face advice. He’d never wondered why the Lord’s messenger had chosen a meeting place so remote and of such evil repute.
The Disciple’s faith in his angel was tried severely during a long, solitary ascent which left his body feeling tortured. Would the messenger even respond after all this time? El Murid had not come seeking him since before his ill-starred visit to Al Rhemish. But the angel had promised. On Jebal al Djinn, though, even the promises of angels seemed suspect. The mountain was not a good place. It was cursed. No one knew why any longer, but the evil inhabiting the stones and trees remained, palpably beating upon any intruder. Each visit more than the last, El Murid wished his mentor had chosen somewhere more benevolent.
He hardened his resolve. Evil had to be defied in its very fastnesses. How else could the righteous gain the strength to resist the Darkness when it came against their own strongholds?
His doubts grew as a night and most of a day creaked past and there was no response from his heavenly interlocutor. Another evening was gathering. His campfire was sending shadows playing tag over barren rock.
The emissary arrived in a display of thunder and lightning that could be seen for leagues around. He raced his winged steed three times around the horned peaks before alighting fifty yards from the Disciple’s fire. El Murid rose. He gazed at his own feet respectfully.
The angel, who persisted in assuming the shape of a small old man, limped toward him over the shattered basalt. Slung across his back was a cornucopia-shaped instrument which looked far too massive for his strength.
He swung his burden down, sat upon it. “I thought I would hear from you sooner.”
El Murid’s heart fluttered. The angel intimidated him as much now as when he had been a boy in the desert so long ago. “There was no need. Everything was going the way it should.”
“If a little slowly, eh?”
El Murid glanced up shyly. A shrewd look had narrowed the angel’s eyes. “Slowly, yes. I got in a hurry. Wadi el Kuf taught me the folly of trying to force something before its time.”
“What’s happened now?”
El Murid was puzzled because the angel had to ask. He told of Yousif’s strange flight after the recent siege, and of an impending crisis in his own household. He begged for guidance.
“Your next move is obvious. I’m surprised you summoned me. Nassef could have told you. Gather your might and strike. Take Al Rhemish. Who will stop you if the Wahlig is gone? Seize the Shrines and your family problem will resolve itself.”
“But —”
“I see. Once burned, twice cautious. Twice burned, petrified. There will be no Wadi el Kuf. No surprises from children deft with the Power. Tell Nassef that I will be watching personally. Then unleash him. He has the genius to pull it off.” He sketched a plan, displaying a knowledge of desert affairs and personalities which quieted the Disciple’s doubts. “Before we part, I’ll give you another token.”
The old man slipped off his seat and knelt. He whispered to the horn, then hoisted it and shook it. Something tumbled from its bell. “Have Nassef transmit this to his agent in the Royal Tent. The rest will follow if he strikes a week later.”
El Murid accepted a small teakwood box. He stared at it, baffled.
The old man dashed to his mount and took wing. El Murid shouted after him. He had only begun to discuss his problems.
The winged horse swooped round the horned peaks. Thunder rolled. Lightning clawed the sky. Gouts of fire hurtled back and forth between the horns. Two blasts smashed together and erupted upward, forming some giant sign El Murid could not make out because it was directly overhead.
The blinding light faded slowly. And when El Murid could see once more, no sign of the angel could be found. He returned to his fire and sat muttering to himself, staring at the teakwood box.
After debating several seconds, he opened it. “Finger cymbals?” he asked the night.
The box contained an exquisite set of zils, worthy of a woman who danced before kings.
“Zils?” he muttered. What on earth? But a messenger of the Lord could not be wrong. Could he?
He searched the sky again, but the angel was gone.
Decades would pass before he encountered the emissary again.
“Zils,” he muttered, and stared down the mountain at the campfires where Nassef and the Invincibles waited. His brother-in-law’s face filled his mind. Something would have to be done. After Al Rhemish had been taken?
“Nassef, attend me,” he called weakly when he finally stumbled into camp. It was late, but Nassef was awake, studying crude maps by fire and moonlight.
El Murid’s brother-in-law joined him. With the exception of the Disciple’s chief bodyguard, everyone else withdrew. “You look terrible,” Nassef said.
“It’s the curse. I hurt all over. The ankle. The arm. Every joint.”
“Better get something to eat.” Nassef glanced up the mountain, frowned. “And some sleep probably wouldn’t hurt.”
“Not now. I have things to tell you. I spoke with the angel.”
“And?” Nassef s eyes were narrow.
“He told me what I wanted to hear. That the Al Rhemish apricot is ripe for the plucking.”
“Lord —”
“More listening and less interrupting, please, Nassef. There’ll be no Wadi el Kuf this tune. I don’t mean to try sweeping them away with sheer numbers. We’ll use the tactics you developed. We’ll move by night, along the trails Karim followed when you sent him to slay Farid.”
If he expected a reaction from Nassef he was disappointed. Nassef merely nodded thoughtfully.
He still wondered about that incident. Aboud’s hysteria had been predictable, though his turning to mercenaries had come as a surprise. Hali had provided a detailed report on the attack. Karim’s force had sustained startlingly heavy casualties. The man should have brought more of his soldiers home. But, then, Karim was Nassef’s creature, and the Invincibles who had accompanied him were not.
“But first, these have to be delivered to your agent in the Royal Tent.”
Nassef opened the box, then peered up at the horned mountain. Just three people knew who that agent was. He and the agent were two of those. The third was not El Murid. The Disciple, he was sure, had been unaware that such an agent existed. “Zils?” he asked.
“The angel gave them to me. They must be special. Carry out his instructions. Nassef?”
“Uhm?”
“What’s the situation on the coast?”
“Under control.”
“Do we really dare try Al Rhemish with just the Invincibles?”
“We can try anything. It would be a bold stroke. Unexpected. I don’t think a move that way will complicate the eastern situation. It’s winding down there. I had Karim take over. He’ll subdue the Throyens. They were ready to talk when I left. A few weeks of Karim’s attentions and they’ll accept any terms. And El-Kader has shattered the last resistance at the south end of the littoral. El Nadim will hold Sebil el Selib. With Yousif gone there will be no trouble out of el Aswad.”
The Disciple sighed. “Finally. After all those years. Why did Yousif run, Nassef?”
That was the critical question. “I wish I knew. It keeps me wondering what he has up his sleeve. Yes. We’ll try for Al Rhemish. It’s worth a try even if it doesn’t work. It’ll be a spoiling raid if nothing else. Yousif will be more dangerous there than he was at el Aswad, where his resources were limited.”
El Murid still carried Yousif’s taunting note. He studied it for the hundredth time, fixed though every word was in his memory.
“My dear Micah,” he read aloud, ?
??Circumstances compel me to be away from my home temporarily. I beg to leave it in your curatorship, knowing you will attend it carefully in my absence. Do feel free to enjoy its luxuries during your stay. May you anticipate all your tomorrows with as much eagerness as I anticipate mine.
“Your Obedient Servant, Yousif Allaf Sayed, Wahlig of el Aswad.”
“Still a mystery to me,” Nassef said.
“He’s mocking us, Nassef. He’s telling us he knows a secret.”
“Or Radetic wants us to think he does.”
“Radetic?”
“The foreigner must have composed that. Yousif isn’t that subtle. It smells like a sneaky bluff.”
“Maybe.”
“Let’s not play his game. Forget the message. In Al Rhemish he can whisper the words of the Evil One directly into the King’s ear. He can gather the Royalist strength against us.”
“Yes. Of course. We must do as the angel says, and strike hard, now, at the very nest of the vipers.”
“Whatever his reasons, Lord, I think Yousif made a mistake. Without him to block the road I don’t think the Royalists can stop us. As long as we don’t meet them head-on, in a test of strength. They retain the advantages they had at Wadi el Kuf.”
“Gather the rest of the Invincibles. This year in Al Rhemish for Disharhun.”
“It will be a delight, Lord. I’ll begin now. Give my love to Meryem and the children.”
El Murid sat silently and alone till long after Nassef’s departure. The critical hour was at hand. He had to wrest the most from it. His angel had suggested that the resolution of many troubles lay in the taking of Al Rhemish. And he had begun to get a glimmering of what could be done.
“Hadj.”
“My Lord?”
“Find Mowaffak Hali. Bring him to me.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“My Lord Disciple?” Hali asked as he approached. “You wanted me?”
“I have news for you, Mowaffak. And a task.”
“At your command, Lord.”
“I know. Thank you. Especially for your patience while it was necessary that the Scourge of God direct the blades of the Invincibles.”
“We tried to understand the need, Lord.”
“You saw the light on the mountain?”
“I did, Lord. You spoke with the angel?”
“Yes. He told me it’s time the Invincibles liberated the Most Holy Mrazkim Shrines.”
“Ah. Then the Kingdom of Peace is at hand.”
“Almost. Mowaffak, it seems to me that worldly elements crept into the Invincibles during my brother’s tenure. Perhaps this is our opportunity to expunge those. The fighting at Al Rhemish will be bitter. Many Invincibles will perish. If those who are the most trustworthy are elsewhere, on a secret mission...”
He said no more. Mowaffak understood. He wore one of the cruelest smiles the Disciple had ever seen.
“I see. What would that mission be, Lord?”
“Use your imagination. Choose your men and inform me of the nature of the task I’ve assigned you. And we’ll celebrate Disharhun in Al Rhemish.”
Hali kept smiling. “It shall be as you command, Lord.”
“Peace be with you, Mowaffak.”
“And with you, Lord.” Hali departed. He walked taller than El Murid had seen in some time.
After a time, the Disciple called softly, “Hadj.”
“Lord?”
“Find the physician. I need him.”
“Lord?”
“The mountain was too much for me. The pain... I need him.”
The physician appeared almost immediately. He had been sleeping, and had clothed himself hastily and sloppily. “My Lord?” He did not look happy.
“Esmat, I’m in pain. Terrible pain. My ankle. My arm. My joints. Give me something.”
“My Lord, it’s that curse. You need to have the curse removed. A philter wouldn’t be wise. I’ve given you too many opiates lately. You’re running a risk of addiction.”
“Don’t argue with me, Esmat. I can’t cope with my responsibilities if I’m continuously preoccupied with pain.”
Esmat relented. He was not a strong man.
El Murid leaned back and let himself drift in the warm, womblike security of the narcotic.
Someday he would have to find a physician who could outwit his injuries and the curse of the Wahlig’s brat. The pain bouts came every day now, and Esmat’s dosages had more and more difficulty banishing them.
The desert was vast and lonely, just as it had been during the advance on Sebil el Selib so long ago, and as it had been during the desperate flight from Wadi el Kuf. It seemed to have lost its usual natural indifference, to have become actively hostile. But El Murid refused to be daunted. He enjoyed the passage, seeing whole new vistas, wild new beauties.
It was a matter of years no more. Just days remained. Hours and days, and the Kingdom of Peace would become a reality. In hours and days he could turn his mind to his true mission, the resurrection of the Empire, the reunification of the lands of yore in the Faith.
The days and hours of the infidel were numbered. Those sons of the Evil One were doomed. The Dark One’s long ascendancy was about to end.
Rising excitement made a new man of him. He became more outgoing. He bustled here and there, chattering, fussing, joking with the Invincibles. Meryem complained that he was destroying his sublime image.
He began to recognize landmarks seen years ago.
The bowl-shaped valley was nearby. And not a soul had challenged them. The angel had been right. And Nassef had been as competent as ever, slipping them past Royalist pickets as if they were an army of ghosts.
He laughed delightedly when he glimpsed the spires of the Shrines from the lip of the valley, standing like towers of silver in the moonlight.
The hour had come. The Kingdom was at hand. “Thank you, Yousif,” he whispered. “You outfoxed yourself this time.”
Chapter Fourteen
Stolen Dreams
To Haroun it seemed Al Rhemish hadn’t changed at all. The dust, the filth, the vermin, the noise were all exactly as he recalled them. The heat was as savage as ever, reflecting in off the walls of the valley. Hawkers cried their wares through the press of tents. Women screeched at children and other women. Men made sullen by oppressive temperatures exploded violently when tempers collided. If there was any change at all, it was that there were fewer people than during his previous visit. That would change as Disharhun approached, he knew. And the tension would heighten as the capital became more crowded.
There was a malaise in the air now, a continuous low grade aggravation which went beyond what one would expect. No one put it into words, but the appearance of the Wahlig of el Aswad, with his household and troops, had initiated a process yet to run its course: stirring guilt and shame amongst those who had done nothing to aid or support Yousif’s long fight in the south. His presence reminded them, and they resented it. A pale shadow of fear, too, haunted the capital. The reality of the threat posed by El Murid could no longer be denied except by a willful closing of the eyes.
“And that’s what they’re doing,” Radetic told Haroun. “Blinding themselves. It’s the nature of Man to hope something will go away if it’s ignored.”
“Some of them act like it’s our fault. We did everything we could. What more do they want?”
“That, too, is human nature. Man is a born villain, narrow, shortsighted and ungrateful.”
Haroun cocked an eye at his teacher, smiled sarcastically. “I’ve never heard you so sour, Megelin.”
“I’ve learned some bitter lessons out here. And I fear they’ll apply equally to the so-called civilized people back home.”
“What’s going on over there?” There was a stir around his father’s tent. He spied men bearing the shields of the Royal household.
“Let’s find out.”
They encountered Fuad near the tent. He looked puzzled.
“What is it?” Haroun asked. br />
“Ahmed. He’s asked your father and Ali to be his guests tonight. With the King.”
Radetic chuckled. “Surprised?”
“After the way they’ve ignored us since the first few nights, yes.”
A chill trickled down Haroun’s spine. His gaze swept the surrounding hills. Nightfall was not far off. Shadows were gathering. He had a sense of foreboding.
“Tell Yousif to keep his views to himself,” Radetic suggested. “They’re not socially acceptable right now. Aboud is old and slow and needs time to adjust to the loss of the southern desert.”
“He’d get used to it faster if that idiot Ahmed would get out of the way.”
“Maybe. Haroun, what’s the matter?”
“I don’t know. Something strange. Like this isn’t any ordinary night coming on.”
“Allegorical thought, no doubt. Beware your dreams tonight. Fuad, do tell the Wahlig not to get exercised. If he wants to make headway with Aboud he has to become acceptable company first.”
“I’ll tell him.” Fuad departed wearing one of his most fearsome scowls.
“Come, Haroun. You can help with the papers.”
Haroun’s shoulders tightened. Radetic had no end of papers and notes, all totally disorganized. He could spend years getting them sorted — by which time another mountain would have collected.
He glanced at the hills again. They seemed unfriendly, almost cold.
Lalla was the pearl of Aboud’s harem. Though she was a scant eighteen, and without benefit of marriage, she was the most powerful woman in Al Rhemish. The capital was drenched in a flood of songs praising her grace and beauty. Aboud was mad for her, a slave to her whim. There were rumors that he would make her a wife.
She had been a gift, years ago, from a minor Wahlig on the lost coast of the Sea of Kotsum. She had not caught Aboud’s attention till recently.
Aboud was an infatuated, silly and proud child. He wasted few opportunities to flaunt delights only he should have known in their entirety, taunting his court with his favorite toy. Night after night he summoned her from his seraglio and had her dance before the assembled nobles.