Thunders tortured the cloudless sky. Lightnings pounded the desert. Women shrieked. Men hid their eyes. And moisture began to darken the hard baked mud.
El Murid wheeled on Mustaf and the abbot. “Do you label me fool and heretic, then? Speak, Hell serf. Show me the power within you.”
The handful of converts he had earlier won gathered to one side. Their faces glowed with awe and something akin to worship.
Nassef hovered in the gap between groups. He had not yet decided which party was truly his.
The abbot refused to be impressed. His defiant stance proclaimed that no demonstration would reach him. He growled, “It’s mummery. The power of this Evil One you preach... you’ve done nothing no skilled sorcerer couldn’t have done.”
A forbidden word had been hurled into El Murid’s face like a gauntlet. A strong, irrational hatred of wizardry had underlain all the youth’s teachings so far. It was that part of his doctrine which most confused his audiences, because it seemed to bear little relationship to his other teachings.
El Murid shook with rage. “How dare you?”
“Infidel!” someone shrieked. Others took it up. “Heretic!”
El Murid whirled. Did they mock him?
His converts were shouting at the abbot.
One threw a stone. It opened the priest’s forehead, sending him to his knees. A barrage followed. Most of the villagers fled. The abbot’s personal attendants, a pair of retarded brothers younger than most of the priests, seized his arms and dragged him away. El Murid’s converts went after them, flinging stones.
Mustaf rallied a handful of men and intercepted them.
Angry words filled the air. Fists flew. Knives leapt into angry hands.
“Stop it!” El Murid shrieked.
It was the first of the riots which were to follow him like a disease throughout the years. Only his intercession kept lives from being lost.
“Stop!” he thundered, raising his right hand to the sky. His amulet flared, searing faces with its golden glow. “Put up your blades and go home,” he told his followers.
The power was still upon him. He was no child. The command in his voice could not be refused. His followers sheathed their blades and backed away. He considered them. They were all young. Some were younger than he. “I did not come among you to have you spill one another’s blood.” He turned to the chieftain of the el Habib. “Mustaf, I offer my apologies. I did not intend this.”
“You preach war. Holy war.”
“Against the unbeliever. The heathen nations that rebelled against the Empire. Not brother against brother. Not Chosen against Chosen.” He glanced at the young people. He was startled to see several girls among them. “Nor sister against brother, nor son against father. I have come to reunite the Holy Empire in the strength of the Lord, that once again the Chosen might take their rightful place among the nations, secure in the love of the one true God, whom they shall worship as befits the Chosen.”
Mustaf shook his head. “I suspect you mean well. But riots and discord will follow wherever you go, Micah al Rhami.”
“El Murid. I am the Disciple.”
“Contention will be your traveling companion, Micah. And your travels have begun. I will not have this among the el Habib. I take no harsher action than banish you forever from el Habib lands because I consider your family, and your trials in the desert.” And — unspoken — because he feared El Murid’s amulet.
“I am El Murid!”
“I don’t care. Not who you are, or what. I won’t have you fomenting violence in my territories. I’ll give you the horse and coin you asked, and whatever you need to travel. You’ll leave El Aquila this afternoon. I, Mustaf abd-Racim ibn Farid el Habib, have spoken. Do not defy me.”
“Father, you can’t —”
“Be silent, Meryem. What were you doing with that rabble? Why aren’t you with your mother?”
The girl began to argue. Mustaf cut her short. “I’ve been a fool. You’re starting to think you’re a man. That is ended, Meryem. From this moment forward you will remain with the women, and do the work of women.”
“Father!”
“You heard me. Micah. You heard me too. Start moving.”
His converts were ready to resume scuffling. He disappointed them.
“No,” he said. “It’s not yet time for the Kingdom of Peace to challenge the unrighteous controlling temporal powers, corrupt as they may be. Endure. Our hour will come.”
Mustaf reddened. “Boy, don’t push me.”
El Murid turned. He faced the chieftain of the el Habib. He clasped his hands before him, right over left. The jewel in his amulet blazed at Mustaf. He met the chieftain’s gaze without flinching or speaking.
Mustaf yielded first, his eyes going to the amulet. He swallowed and started toward the village.
El Murid followed at a slower pace. His acolytes orbited him, their mouths full of soothing promises. He ignored most of them. His attention was on Nassef, who again was drifting aimlessly between parties, drawn both ways.
Intuition told him that he needed Nassef. The youth could become the cornerstone of his future. He had to win Nassef over before he left.
El Murid was as ambivalent about Nassef as Mustaf’s son was about El Murid. Nassef was bright, fearless, hard, and competent. But he had a dark streak in him that frightened the Disciple. Mustaf’s son contained as much potential for evil as he did for good.
“No, I won’t defy Mustaf,” he told his imploring companions. “I’ve recovered from my debility. It’s time I started my travels. I’ll return in time. Carry on my work while I’m gone. Show me a model village when I return.”
He began one of his gentle teaching sessions, trying to give them the tools they would need to become effective missionaries.
He did not glance back as he rode out of El Aquila. He had only one regret: he had had no opportunity to present Nassef with further arguments. El Aquila had been a beginning.
Not nearly as good a beginning as he had hoped, though. He had not been able to sway anyone important. Priests and temporal leaders simply refused to listen. He would have to find some way to open their ears and minds.
He took the trail that reversed the road his father’s caravan had been traveling. He wanted to pause at the place where his family had died.
His angel had told him his work would be hard, that he would be resisted by those who had an investment in the old ways. He had not believed. How could they refuse the Truth? It was so obvious and beautiful that it overwhelmed one.
He was two miles east of El Aquila when he heard hoofbeats. He glanced back. Two riders were overtaking him. He did not immediately recognize them. He had noticed them only momentarily, when they had helped the stoned abbot flee the oasis. What were they doing? He turned his face eastward and tried to ignore them.
His worry would not leave him. It quickly became obvious that they were trailing him. When he looked again he found that they were just a dozen yards behind. Naked steel appeared in their hands.
He kicked his mount’s flanks. The white stallion surged forward, almost toppling him. He flung himself forward and clung to the animal’s neck with no thought of regaining control.
The riders came after him.
He now knew the fear he had had no time for in the ambush of his father’s caravan. He could not believe that the Evil One would have become so desperate so soon.
His flight led him into and through the defile where his family had died. He swept round a mass of bizarrely weathered boulders.
Riders awaited him. His mount sank to its haunches to avoid a collision. El Murid tumbled off. He rolled across the hard earth and scrambled for cover.
He had no weapon. He had trusted in the protection of the Lord.... He began praying.
Hooves thundered down the defile. Men shouted. Steel rang on steel. Someone moaned. Then it ended.
“Come out, Micah,” someone shouted into the ensuing silence.
He peeped betwee
n boulders. He saw two riderless horses and two bodies lying on the stony earth.
Nassef loomed over them on a big black stallion. His right hand held a bloody blade. Behind him were another three youths from El Aquila, and Meryem and another girl.
El Murid crept out. “Where did you come from?”
“We decided to come with you.” Nassef swung down. Contemptuously, he wiped his blade on the chest of one of the dead men. “Priests. They send halfwits to do murder.”
The brothers had not been priests themselves, only wards of the Shrine who had been cared for by the abbot in return for doing the donkey work around the monastery.
“But how did you get here?” El Murid demanded.
“Meryem saw them start after you. Some of us were arguing about what to do. That decided us. There’s an antelope trail that goes over the hills instead of around. I took that, riding hard. I was sure they would let you get this far, then try to make it look like you’d run foul of bandits again.”
El Murid stood over the dead brothers. Tears came to his eyes. They had been but tools of the Evil One, poor things. He knelt and said prayers for their souls, though he had little hope that the Lord would show them any mercy. His was a jealous, vengeful God.
When he had finished, he asked, “What are you going to tell your father?”
“Nothing. We’re going with you.”
“But...”
“You need somebody, Micah. Hasn’t that just been proven?”
El Murid paused thoughtfully, then threw his arms around Nassef. “I’m glad you came, Nassef. I was worried for you.”
Nassef reddened. The Children of Hammad al Nakir were often demonstrative, but seldom in the tenderer emotions. “Let’s get going,” he said. “We’ve got a long way to travel if we’re not going to spend the night in the desert.”
El Murid hugged him again. “Thank you, Nassef. I wish you knew how much this means to me.” Then he went round clasping the hands of the others, and kissing the hands of the girls.
“I don’t rate a hug, eh?” Meryem teased. “Do you love Nassef more?”
Now he was embarrassed. Meryem would not cease playing her games.
He called her bluff. “Come down here.”
She did so, so he hugged her. It aggravated Nassef and completely flustered the girl.
El Murid laughed.
One of the youths brought his horse. “Thank you.”
So there were seven who began the long trail, the trail of years. El Murid thought it an auspicious number, but the number gave no luck. He would suffer countless nights of frustration and depression before his ministry bore fruit. Too many of the Children of Hammad al Nakir refused him, or were just plain Truth-blind.
But he persisted. And each time he preached he won a heart or two. His following grew, and they too preached.
Chapter Two
Seeds of Hatred, Roots of War
Haroun was six years old when first he encountered El Murid.
His brother Ali had found himself a perch in a gap in the old garden wall. “God’s Whiskers!” Ali squealed. “Khedah. Mustaf. Haroun. Come and look at this.”
Their teacher, Megelin Radetic, scowled. “Ali, come down from there.”
The boy ignored him.
“How am I supposed to pound anything into the heads of these little savages?” Radetic muttered. “Can’t you do anything?” he asked their uncle Fuad.
Fuad’s severe lips formed a thin, wicked smile. Can but won’t, that smile said. He thought his brother Yousif a fool for wasting money on a pansy foreign teacher. “It’s Disharhun. What did you expect?”
Radetic shook his head. That was Fuad’s latest stock answer.
This barbarous holiday. It meant weeks lost in the already hopeless task of training the Wahlig’s brats. They had come damned near three hundred miles, from el Aswad all the way to Al Rhemish, for a festival and prayer. Foolish. True, some important political business would take place behind the scenes.
The scholars of Hellin Daimiel were notorious skeptics. They labeled all faith as farce or fraud.
Megelin Radetic was more skeptical then most. His attitude had generated some bitter arguments with his employer, Yousif, the Wahlig of el Aswad. Fuad had become part of the class scene as a result. Yousif’s younger brother and chief bully remained on hand to assure the children’s insulation from Hellin Daimiel’s stronger heresies.
“Hurry!” Ali insisted. “You’ll miss it.”
All traffic passing through the Royal Compound, from the pilgrim camps to the Most Holy Mrazkim Shrines, had to follow the one dusty street beyond the wall of Radetic’s courtyard-classroom. This was the first time any of his students had joined their fathers during Disharhun. They had never seen Al Rhemish or its holiday displays.
“High Holy Week,” Radetic muttered sourly. “Spring Hosting. Who needs it?”
It was his first visit, too. In his quiet way, he was as excited as the children.
He had taken the teaching position in order to study the primitive political processes going on behind the Sahel. The unprecedented challenge of a messianic type like El Murid promised an interesting study of a culture under stress. His field was the study of the evolution of ideals in government, especially the monolithic state trying to survive by adapting to the changing perceptions of subjects believed to be politically disenfranchised. It was a subtle and tricky area of study, and one’s conclusions were always subject to attack.
His deal with Yousif had been accounted a great coup at his college, the Rebsamen. The secretive people of Hammad al Nakir were a virgin territory for academic exploitation. Radetic had begun to doubt the opportunity was worth the pain.
Only little Haroun remained attentive. The others jostled Ali for vantage points.
“Oh, go on,” Radetic told his one remaining pupil.
Haroun was the sole intellectual candle Radetic had found in this benighted wasteland. Haroun was the only reason Radetic did not tell Yousif to pack up his prejudices and head for Hell. The child had shown tremendous promise.
The rest? Haroun’s brothers and cousins, and the children of Yousif’s favored followers? Doomed. They would become copies of their fathers. Ignorant, superstitious, bloodthirsty savages. New swordbearers in the endless pavane of raid and skirmish these wild men accounted a worthy life.
Radetic would have confessed it to no man, and least of all himself. He loved the imp called Haroun. He followed the boy and for the thousandth time pondered the mystery of the Wahlig.
Yousif’s station roughly equated with that of a duke. He was a cousin of King Aboud. He had every reason to defend the status quo, and much to lose by change. Yet he dreamed of ending the old killing ways, the traditional desert ways, at least in his own demense. In his quieter, less abrasive way, he was as revolutionary as El Murid.
One of the older boys boosted Haroun to the top of the wall. He stared as if smitten by some great wonder.
Radetic’s favorite was slight, dusky, dark-eyed, and hawk-nosed, a child-image of his sire. Even at six he knew his station.
Because he was only a fourth son, Haroun was fated to become his province’s chief shaghûn, the commander of the handful of sorcerer-soldiers serving with the family cavalry.
Yousif’s Wahligate was vast. His forces were numerous, for they nominally included every man able to bear arms. Haroun’s responsibilities would be large, his immersion in wizardry deep.
Already Radetic had to share his pupil with witch-teachers from Jebal al Alf Dhulquarneni, the appropriately named Mountains of a Thousand Sorcerers. The great adepts almost always began their studies at the time they were learning to talk, yet seldom came into the fullness of their power till they had passed their prime mating years. The young years were critical to the learning of self-discipline, which had to be attained before the onset of puberty and accompanying distractions.
Radetic wriggled his way into the pack of children. “I’ll be damned!”
Fuad pul
led him back. “Of that there’s no doubt.” He assumed Radetic’s place. “Holy!... A bare-faced woman! Teacher, you might as well turn them loose. They’ll never settle down now. I’d better go tell Yousif that they’re here.” Fuad’s face had taken on the glassy look of a man in rut. Radetic did not doubt that he had an erection.
The ways of the desert were strange, he thought.
Speculation had haunted the Royal Compound for days. Would El Murid really dare come to the Shrines?
Radetic shoved himself into the gap again, staring.
The woman was younger than he had expected. She rode a tall white camel. The fact of her facial nakedness completely eclipsed the presence of the wild-eyed youth on the white mare.
El Murid was, for that matter, overshadowed by the man riding the big black stallion.
That would be Nassef, wouldn’t it? Radetic thought. The brawler who led El Murid’s dramatically named bodyguard, the Invincibles, and who was the brother of the Disciple’s wife.
“El Murid. You’re a bold bandit, son,” Radetic murmured. He found himself admiring the youth’s arrogance. Anyone who thumbed his nose at priesthoods rated with Megelin Radetic.
“Boys. Get down. Go find your fathers. Do you want a whipping?”
Such was the punishment for gazing on a woman’s naked face. His pupils fled.
All but Haroun. “Is that really El Murid? The one Father calls Little Devil?”
Radetic nodded. “That’s him.”
Haroun scampered after his brothers and cousins. “Ali! Wait. Remember when Sabbah came to el Aswad?”
Megelin suspected imminent deviltry. Nothing but bad blood had come of that ill-starred peace conference with Sabbah i Hassan. He stalked his pupils.
He had warned Yousif. He had cast horoscope after horoscope, and each had been blacker than the last. But Yousif had rejected the scientific approach in his own life.
There was a natural yet innocent cruelty in the Children of Hammad al Nakir. Their very language lacked a means of expressing the concept “cruelty to an enemy.”