An Empire Unacquainted With Defeat

  The prospect fired her fantasies. She ached for the shaghûn. She held her left hand near the fire till pain burned the lust away.

  Shortly after Misr's third birthday Mowfik said, "I'm going to see Al Jahez. It's time you became Hammad's widow."

  "Will we be safer there? Won't the shaghûn just ride in like he did before?"

  "Al Jahez thinks not. He thinks the priests can drive him away."

  Narriman went to the tent flap, surveyed the unfriendly hills. "Go see him. I'm afraid to go back where people might cry shame, but I'm more scared of the shaghûn."

  "I'd hoped you'd feel that way."

  She had begun to relax. The night had passed without incident. Mowfik should be back by noon. If she could stay too busy to worry . . . .

  It was almost noon when Misr called, "Mama, Grandpa coming." She sighed, put her mending aside, and went to meet him.

  "Oh, no. Karkur defend us." Misr could not be blamed for his mistake. He'd seldom seen anyone but Mowfik on horseback.

  The shaghûn was far down the valley, coming toward her. He seemed larger than life, like a far city seen through the shimmer over the great erg. He came at an unhurried walk. The rise and fall of his animal's legs was hypnotic. He did not seem to draw any closer.

  "Go into the tent, Misr."

  "Mama?"

  "Do it. And don't come out till I tell you. No matter what."

  "Mama, what's wrong?"

  "Misr! Go!"

  "Mama, you're scaring me."

  She gave him her fiercest look. He scooted inside. "And close the flap." She turned. The rider looked twice as big but no nearer. His pace was no faster. The pain in her heart grew with the heat in her loins. She knew he would take her, and her evil side called to him eagerly.

  He came closer. She thought of running into the hills. But what good that? He would hunt her down. And Misr would be left alone.

  She snatched the bow Mowfik used for hunting, sped an arrow toward the rider. She missed.

  She was good with that weapon. Better than her father, who remained perpetually amazed that a woman could do anything better than a man. She should not have missed. She sped a second and third arrow.

  Each missed. The fourth plucked at his djellaba, but only because he was so close. There was no fifth. She had seen his eyes.

  The bow fell from her hand. He dismounted and walked toward her, reaching.

  Only one moment from the next hour stuck with her. Misr came outside, saw the rider thrusting into her, ran over and bit him on the buttocks. That would remain with her forever, in that mixture of amusement and pain such a thing could recall.

  Afterward he stared into her eyes. His will beat against her. She dwindled into sleep.

  Cursing wakened her. It was the violent cursing of savagery and hatred. She was too lazy to open her eyes.

  She recalled the inexorable approach of the man in black coming up the valley on a line as straight as the arrow of time. She recalled his touch, her fevered response. She felt the sun on her naked shame. She flew up, wrapped herself in discarded clothing.

  Mowfik belabored a fallen tree with his axe, cursing steadily. He blasphemed both Karkur and the Lord of the Disciple. She scrambled into her clothing, frightened.

  Exhaustion stopped Mowfik. He settled on the tree trunk and wept. Narriman went to comfort him.

  "It's all right, Father. He didn't hurt me. He shamed me again, but he didn't hurt me." She put her arms around him. "It'll be all right, Father."

  "Little Fox, he took Misr. It wasn't you this time."

  IX

  Narriman changed, hardened, saddened. The Narriman of Wadi al Hamamah would not have recognized her. That Narriman would have been terrified by her.

  Mowfik took her to see Al Jahez. The captain was properly outraged. He set his men to scouring the country. He sent an alarm across the kingdom. He appealed to the Most Holy Mrazkim Shrines for a Writ of Anathema, and for prayers for the Lord's intervention.

  "And that is all I can do. And it's pointless. He won't be seen. Those who serve the Masters come and go as they please."

  "Can't somebody do something?" Narriman demanded. "How long has this been going on? How many women have had to suffer this?"

  "It's gone on forever," Al Jahez said. "It went on throughout the age of Empire. It went on before the Empire was born. It'll go on tomorrow, too."

  "Why isn't it stopped?"

  "Because no one can stop it. One of the Emperors tried. He sent an army into the Jebal. Not one man returned."

  She was venting frustration. She knew the futility of battling the Masters. No, this was personal. This was between herself and one shaghûn. The Masters were but shadows beyond the horizon, too nebulous to factor into the emotional equation.

  "That man took my son. My son. I don't recognize his claim. He did nothing but force me onto my back."

  "Narriman?" Mowfik said, baffled.

  "I want my son back."

  "We can't do anything about that," Al Jahez said. "The shaghûn is who he is, and we're who we are."

  "No."

  "Narriman?" Again Mowfik was puzzled.

  "I thought about this all day, Father. I'm going after Misr."

  Al Jahez said, "But you're a child. And a woman."

  "I've grown up in the past few years. I'm small, but I'm no child. As to my sex, say what you will. It won't change my mind."

  "Narriman!"

  "Father, will you stop saying that? You stood by me when I begged you not to. You drowned me in love I did not deserve. Stand by me now. Give me what I need to get Misr back. Teach me what I need to know."

  Al Jahez shook his head. "Mowfik, you were right. She is remarkable."

  "Little Fox . . . . It would take so long. And I'm not rich. I can't afford weapons and mounts and . . . ."

  "We have a horse. We have a sword. You were a soldier. I can survive in the wilderness. I was of the al Muburak."

  Mowfik sighed. "The sword is too heavy, girl."

  Narriman glanced at Al Jahez. The captain tried to disappear amongst his cushions.

  "Little Fox, I don't want to lose you too. I couldn't bear that." Mowfik's voice cracked. Narriman glimpsed a tear in the corner of one eye. This would cost him dearly from his beggared emotional purse.

  He did not want to see her ride away. His heart said he would not see her again.

  That dark rider had stolen her from him as surely as he had stolen Misr. She threw her arms around Mowfik. "Father, I have to do this. Wouldn't you come after me?"

  "Yes. Yes. I would. I understand that."

  Al Jahez said, "This isn't wise. The impossibility of dealing with the shaghûn and the Jebal aside, what would happen to a young woman alone? Even honest men would consider her fair for a moment's sport. Not to mention slavers and bandits. The Disciple instituted a rule of law, little one, but the Evil One, as ever, rules most of the land."

  "Those are problems to face when they arise." What he said was true. She could not deny that. Women had no legal status or protection. When the shaghûn forced her onto her back he injured her father, not her. An unattached woman was not a person.

  Her resolve was not shaken. Damned be the problems, and anyone who stood in her way.

  X

  When she wanted something badly Narriman got her way. Mowfik surrendered in the end. Once he gave in, Al Jahez grudgingly endorsed her training.

  Narriman pursued it with a dogged determination that, in time, compelled the respect of Al Jahez's men. She arrived early and left late, and worked harder than any boy.

  She was hard. She ignored bruises and aches. Her instructors called her Vixen and backed away when the deadly fire rose in her eyes.

  One day she browbeat Mowfik into taking her to the captain. She told Al Jahez, "I'm ready. I leave tomorrow."

  Al Jahez addressed her father. "Will you permit this, Mowfik? A woman under arms. It's against nature."

  Mowfik shrugged.

  Narriman said, "Don't
stall me. Father's done that for weeks. I'll go with or without your blessing."

  "Mowfik, forbid this madness."

  "Captain, you heard her. Shall I put her in irons?"

  Al Jahez looked at her as if he would cage her for her own protection. "Then marry her to me, Mowfik."

  Though struck speechless, Narriman understood. Al Jahez wanted the legal rights of marriage. So he could forbid, so he could call upon the law if she persisted. If she rebelled, they would hunt her like a runaway slave.

  Pure terror gripped her. She stared at her father, saw him tempted.

  "Captain, heart and soul cry for me to accept. But I can't. A stronger voice bids me let her go. No matter how it hurts me."

  Al Jahez sighed, defeated. "As you will. Child. Bring your father no sorrow or shame." He scowled at her expression. "No sorrow or shame of your own doing. That which is done by a shaghûn isn't of your doing. They're like the great storms in the erg. A man—or woman—can but bow his head till they pass. Come. The priests will bless your quest."

  They waited in their fine ceremonial raiment. Al Jahez's eyes twinkled. "You see? Even the old Captain begins to know you."

  "Perhaps." She wondered if she was too predictable.

  The ceremony was less important to her than to Mowfik and Al Jahez. She endured it for their sakes. She would ride with Karkur.

  "Now then," Al Jahez said. "One more thing and I'll harass you no more. Gamel. The box."

  A priest presented a sandalwood box. Al Jahez opened it. Within, on white silk, lay a pendant. It was a small, pale green stone not unlike many she had seen on the ground. Al Jahez said, "Perhaps this will be gift enough to repay you, Mowfik." And to Narriman, "Child, the Disciple teaches that even the acquiescence to sorcery is a sin, but men have to be practical. The Disciple himself has shaghûn advisers.

  "The stone is an amulet. It will warn you if you are near one with the Power. It will begin to grow cooler when you're a mile away. When you're very near, it will shed a green light. It's the best weapon I can give you."

  Narriman tried to control the shakes. She failed. Tears broke loose. She hugged the captain. He was so startled he jumped away, but his face betrayed his pleasure.

  "Go with the Lord, Little Fox. And with Karkur if it pleases you."

  "Thank you," she said. "For everything. Especially for being Father's friend."

  Ah Jahez snorted. "Ah, child. What are we without friends? Just severed heads rolling across the sands."

  XI

  Narriman looked back just before Al Jahez's fortress passed out of sight. "That's yesterday." She looked southward, toward the great erg. "There lies tomorrow. Eight hundred miles." She gripped her reins, touched the amulet between her breasts, her weapons, the bag that Mowfik had filled with war booty when he thought she was not looking. He had done everything to dissuade her, and everything to help her.

  She looked back again, wondering if their concepts of manhood and womanhood would compel them to send guardians.

  "Go, Faithful," she told her mare. The fortress disappeared. Her heart fluttered. She was going. Alone. A severed head, rolling across the sand, cut off from her body—with a little help from the rider.

  She pictured him as he had been the day he had taken Misr. She got that warm, moist feeling, but not as powerfully. Hatred had begun to quench that fire.

  She wished there was a way a woman could do to a man what he had done to her.

  The wilderness was all that she had been warned. It was bitter, unforgiving, and those who dwelt there reflected its harshness. Twice she encountered men who thought her a gift from heaven. The first time she outrode them. The second, cornered, she fought. And was surprised to find herself the victor.

  Though she had told herself that she was the equal of any man, she'd never believed it in her heart. Could the wisdom of centuries be wrong? She rode away more mature, more confident.

  The great erg was more vast than she remembered. It was hotter and more harrowing. She had no one and nothing to distract her.

  "The severed head has to roll without its body." She put her thoughts into words often. Who was to hear?

  She had no choice but to enter Wadi el Kuf. They were shocked to see her, a woman in man's wear, hung about with weapons, talking as tough as any wandering freesword. Even the whores were scandalized. Nobody knew what to make of her. She bought water, asked questions, and rode on before they regained their balance.

  Someone came after her, but one arrow altered his ambitions.

  She rode with dust devils as companions. The al Muburak believed dust devils were ifrits dancing. She called out, but they did not respond. After a few days she began to think oddly, to suspect them of being spies for the Masters. She mocked and taunted them. They ignored her.

  Finally, she checked the amulet. Not only did it not shed light, it was not cool. "So much for old stories."

  She rode out of the erg and paused at the oasis she had visited coming north. There, as at Wadi el Kuf, she asked about a man in black traveling with a child. There, too, no one had seen such a traveler.

  "Of course," she muttered. "And maybe they're telling the truth. But he's human. He had to stop at Wadi el Kuf." But he need not have appeared as a shaghûn out of the Jebal, need he?

  No matter. She knew his destination.

  Fourteen days passed. She rode into Wadi al Hamamah.

  The al Muburak were not there. It was the wrong time of year. They were farther west, stalking wild camels in hopes of adding to their herd.

  She camped in the usual place. When night fell she went to Karkur.

  After the proper greetings and obeisances, she told her story in case Mowfik was wrong about his being able to follow an al Muburak anywhere. Karkur sat and listened, firelight sending shadows dancing across his ugly face.

  She said, "Father says you aren't as great as I thought. That others are more powerful so sometimes you don't dare help. But if there's a way you can, help me do what I have to do."

  She stared at the image. The image stared back. Time passed. The fire died. The moon rose, filled the Circle with shifting shadows.

  "Karkur, there's a man named Al Jahez. He follows the Disciple, but he's a good man. Could you reward him? Could you tell Father I've come here safely?"

  She thought, I'm talking to a lump of rock as though it really could do something. "Tell Al Jahez the severed head goes daft after it's separated."

  The moon was a great, full thing that inundated the wadi with silver light. She leaned back and stared.

  Something startled her. Fool, she thought. You fell asleep. Her dagger filled her hand. She searched the shadows, saw nothing. She listened. Nothing. She sniffed the air. Again nothing.

  She shivered. It was getting cold. Colder than she remembered the nights this time of year. She pulled her cloak tighter.

  And realized that the cold radiated from one point. The amulet!

  She snatched it out. Green! Glowing green. Had the shaghûn come out to meet her?

  The stone flared. It crackled. An emerald snake writhed between it and Karkur. A cold wind swirled around the Circle. Dead leaves pattered against her. She glanced up. No. The sky was clear. Stars winked in their myriads. The moon shone benevolently.

  The emerald snake turned amber shot with veins of blood. Narriman gasped. That was the combination they mentioned when they talked about the Great Death.

  The snake died. The stone grew less cold, became just a small, pale green piece of rock lying in her hand. She stared at Karkur.

  "What have you done? What have you given me? Not the power of the Great Death?"

  The image stared back, as silent as ever. She was tempted to rant. But Karkur gave short shrift to ingrates. He was more a punitive than a helpful god. "But loyal to his people," she said. "Thank you, Karkur."

  She hurried through the parting rituals and returned to camp. She fell asleep still astonished that Karkur had responded.

  There were dreams. Vivid dreams
. She rode into the Jebal, moving with an absolute certainty of her way. She knew exactly when to expect the first challenge.

  The dream ended. The sun had wakened her. She felt fit and rested. She recalled every detail of the dream. She looked down the wadi. A dumb stone god? She examined Al Jahez's stone. It looked no less ordinary this morning.

  XII

  The trails were faint, but she followed them confidently. Once she noted an overturned stone, darker on the exposed side. Someone had been this way recently. She shrugged. The amulet would warn her.

  The mountains were silent. All the world was silent when you rode alone. The great erg had been filled with a stillness as vast as that of death. Here it seemed there should be some sound, if only the call of the red-tailed hawk on the wing. But the only sounds were those of a breeze in scrubby oaks, of water chuckling in one small stream.

  She moved higher and higher. Sometimes she looked back across the hills where the wadi lay, to the plains beyond, a distance frosted with haze. The al Muburak might profit from such a view.

  Night fell. She made a fireless camp. She drank water, ate smoked meat, turned in as the stars came out.

  She wakened once, frightened, but her stone betrayed no danger. The mountains remained still, though the wind made an unfamiliar soughing through nearby pines. She counted more than a dozen meteors before drifting off.

  Her dreams were vivid. In one her father told Al Jahez he was sure she had reached Wadi al Hamamah safely

  The mountains continued their rise. She rested more often. Come midday she entered terrain scoured by fire. That stark, black expanse was an alien landscape.

  The trees changed. Oaks became scarcer, pines more numerous. The mountains became like nothing in her experience. Great looms of rock thrust out of their hips, the layering on end instead of horizontal. Even where soil and grass covered them she could discern the striations. Distant mountainsides looked zebra-striped in the right light.