The Diviner (9 page)

“I—yes, of course, you're right,” the young man stammered. “I'll find him at once.” He cast one last appalled look at the dying man and fled the tent.

A little while later he was back, with Kabir and two women who could only be Challa Meryem and young Leyliah (both were beautiful, Azzad noted). They scarcely had time to exclaim in horror when Abb Shagara himself burst in.

“What has been done here?” Meryem demanded.

“Ask him,” Azzad advised. “If he can still talk.”

She knelt to examine the wound, the breath hissing in her teeth.“He will live a cripple—”

“
If
we allow him to live,” said Abb Shagara. Drawing a loose white robe more closely around him, he went on, “Azzad, tell me what happened.”

“He tried to kill me.” He nodded toward the corner. “His axe is right over there.”

Kabir went to pick it up, turning it over and over in his hands before giving it to Abb Shagara with a significant arch of his brows. They all looked grim-faced at the gleaming steel blade set in a haft of carved bone.

“I wish to know,” Akkil Akkem Akkim Akkar intoned, “how did this man enter the dawa'an sheymma with this in his possession? How did a man who is not sick feign illness so well as to fool the most accomplished of the Challi Dawa'an? How did this man outrage our tents by attempting the life of my friend Azzad? And how,” he finished harshly, “did a Geysh Dushann come into the camp of the Shagara undetected?”

“Well?” Meryem asked, slapping the agonized face below her. “Speak!” As his lips drew back in a ghastly grin, she slapped him again. “Speak, and I promise I'll kill you quickly.” When there was no response, she leaned closer and said with gentle ferocity, “I can make you live. But you will never again walk, never again have strength in your hands, never again enjoy a woman. Speak and die quickly—or stay silent and live to be very,
very
old.”

Azzad gulped, and blinked, and was very,
very
glad Abb Shagara liked him.

“This al-Ma'aliq—his death is my honor,” the man rasped. “He lives. I have no honor. Kill me.”

“Why must he die for your honor?” Abb Shagara asked.

“The Sheyqa our sister—” He coughed, and the spasm widened his eyes with fresh agony.

“I know the rest,” Azzad said. “I had better tell you. Sheyqa Nizzira of Rimmal Madar obliterated all my family in a single night. There was a banquet at her palace. The al-Ma'aliq men not killed by poison were slain by sword and axe. As for the women and children—they were burned alive inside Beit Ma'aliq. To my shame and sorrow, I escaped—through no cunning of my own. But now I am the only one left.” He glared at the assassin. “And I
will
be avenged.”

Kabir caught his breath. “This Sheyqa of your country—she is Geysh Dushann?”

“I've never heard ‘dushann' refer to anything but the smoke from a fire. As for a ‘geysh,' an army—I can tell you only what I know. Her ancestor came from a tribe called Ammarad and termed herself Ammara Izzad.” He shrugged. “A reminder of the crimson harvest of barbarian blood.”

“The Geysh Dushann,” Kabir said heavily, “are all of the Ammarad.”

Azzad rubbed an aching shoulder and said nothing.

“What did your family do, to incur the wrath of this Sheyqa?” asked Abb Shagara.

Softly, Fadhil said, “Power, envy, money, land, greed.”

Azzad nodded.

“But to murder a whole tribe—” Abb Shagara shook his head. “To poison men inside her own tent, to slay them with swords and axes, to burn women and children in their home—this Sheyqa is a monster.” Pausing, he bowed slightly to Azzad. “I am honored, Azzad al-Ma'aliq, that our enemy is also your enemy. I now accept this Sheyqa Nizzira as the enemy of the Shagara.”

Azzad knew the enormity of this declaration in his own country. It sounded very much as if things were the same here. And he knew what was required of him in return. Rising unsteadily to his feet, he said the words gladly. “I am honored, Abb Shagara, that my enemy is also your enemy. I now accept your enemies as mine own, forever.”

“Wait.” Meryem rose lithely to her feet. “I shall have something to say about this. Or does the Abb Shagara think he rules this tribe alone?”

“Mother—” the boy began.

Azzad stared, but he managed to keep his astonishment unspoken.

“My son, if Azzad has made an enemy of this woman, and if this woman is of the Ammarad, and if we accept
all
of them as our enemies, and if—”

“Mother! Do you question the righteousness of—”

“And
if
,” she repeated undaunted, “we all wish to live our lives without constantly looking over our shoulders, then we had best think hard and talk harder about this matter. We Shagara heal anyone who comes to us. We have never denied the dawa'an sheymma to anyone, not even the Geysh Dushann. If you declare the whole of the Ammarad enemy, my son, and not just the Geysh Dushann, you will tear the desert apart.”

“But Ammarad
beget
Geysh Dushann!”

“Yes, and train them to come and work their evil and then drift away like the smoke they are named for. If it becomes known that we refuse an entire tribe our healing, one of two things will happen: either the Za'aba Izim will accept the Ammarad as
their
enemies and make war upon them, or they will fear that one day we will deny
them
, so they will make war upon us.”

“Never,” Kabir stated. “We are their protection.”

“And if they do battle with us wearing our protections around their necks and on their arms and beaten into the grips of their swords?”

The old man shrugged. “Ayia, other tribes will come to our defense.”

“And thus, as I have said, tear the desert apart.” Meryem folded her arms. “Now, should this happen, and I believe it could, think of this Sheyqa who is a sister to the Ammarad. There is a whole nation behind her, not just a tribe. She ordered the butchery of an entire family, and it was done. How many al-Ma'aliq died, Azzad? Hundreds? Thousands? And yet there was no outcry from the people?”

“None.”

“Ayia,” Meryem said heavily, “they did not protest the injustice. They do as they are told. My son, could we withstand a whole nation? Could any of the Za'aba Izim?”

“The Geysh Dushann are our enemies,” Abb Shagara said stubbornly.

“They are
everyone's
enemies. Restrict your rejection to them. No one will question it. They are too much hated by all decent people. After word of this night is spread—
without
reference to Azzad al-Ma'aliq—all will call the decision righteous.”

Azzad breathed a sigh of relief. To attach his name to this would confirm his continued existence. Better to keep Nizzira guessing a little while longer.

If, after this, it was at all in doubt that he lived. It was clear to him now that the hunter's corpse in The Steeps had not convinced them. Ayia, and he'd thought himself so clever, giving up the armband and the pearls and the key! It was the ring that had done it, he told himself with a sigh, the ring he could not bear to give up. And it would be a lesson to him, he vowed, a warning that he must be prepared to do anything, give anything, in seeking his just vengeance.

Nizzira would never sleep soundly until Azzad was proven dead—but neither would Azzad sleep in peace until he had his revenge upon Nizzira. And he didn't know what form this could take that would not bring the armies of Rimmal Madar down onto this desert country. It must be something subtle, a mortal wound to the Sheyqa and yet containing a warning that retaliation was useless. He owed the Shagara his life. Nizzira could not be allowed to exterminate them as she had the al-Ma'aliq. By accepting Azzad's enemies as their own, the Shagara were—as Meryem pointed out—receiving much the worst end of the bargain.

Abb Shagara regarded his mother narrowly for a time. Then: “Very well. The Geysh Dushann only. But I
shall
accept Azzad as our kin.”

“When did you hear me object? You do not listen, my son. Azzad alMa'aliq is indeed kin-worthy. He is civilized and honorable—for a barbarian.”

“And therefore,” Abb Shagara said, “he will be treated as Shagara. In all things.”

There was some significance to this that Azzad didn't understand, but by now bruises and welts and exhaustion were making his head reel. It must have shown in his face or his eyes, for Leyliah was instantly at his side, helping him to lie down.

“No more drugged wine, I beg of you,” he muttered.

“You'll sleep the day through without it,” she assured him with a smile in her voice, and added, “Aqq Azzad,” becoming the first of the Shagara to call him
brother
.

He opened his eyes. She was indeed lovely, with eyes like a fawn and skin like sage honey. “You are Oushta Leyliah now to me, yes?”

“Challa, one day soon.”

“I prefer ‘oushta.' All my sisters were as beautiful as you—and all my aunts were a million years old.” His eyes squeezed shut, and weakness threatened tears.

“How did you escape death? Ah, I can guess—a woman warned you.”

“No. But it did have to do with a woman.”

“This much is obvious. Sleep now, Aqq Azzad. We will see to everything.”

A
zzad never found out just how Meryem killed the Geysh Dushann—but that it was Meryem who killed him he had no doubt. Neither did he doubt that her son watched while she did it. When next he saw the two of them, there was something different about the boy's eyes; he was becoming a man who understood the burdens of responsibility. Za'avedra el-Ibrafidia would have thanked Acuyib on her knees to see such signs in her son Azzad.

A day later, he was invited to Abb Shagara's tent for the evening meal. The first thing Meryem said was, “I have realized, Aqq Azzad, that it was by my fault that you were attacked. I ask you to forgive me. It was I who spoke your name that night.”

He shrugged away the apology. “You thought him sleeping from the potion given him. There can be no blame upon you, Challa Meryem.”

Fadhil bowed his head. “I must have mixed it wrong.” Then, after a slight hesitation, he added, “I have told them what you know.”

“What I guessed,” Azzad corrected politely.

Meryem shook her head. “No, I have grown careless. And you are not to blame for the potion, Fadhil. I have long worried about the strength of this drug, and lately I have been using less in the mixture for fear of its power. But from now on, it will be as strong as before.”

“I beg you, do not test it on me!” Azzad's plea won a smile from her at last.

“I regret to say that is impossible,” she replied. “You must leave us tomorrow.”

Ayia, so soon? He had been so anxious to get moving, get on with his life and his vengeance—yet now he was reluctant to abandon these people who had become friends.

“We will give you water and food to last five days,” Abb Shagara said. “The provisions will take you to the first village northwest of here. Continue due north to the coast, and the way will be easy to any number of cities.”

“Which is precisely where the Sheyqa will be looking for me,” Azzad pointed out.

“Have no worries about this Sheyqa. We will give you many protections.”

The charms he'd seen the men making? He tried very hard not to look skeptical. They believed in the power of the tokens, and he could not insult his friends with open doubt. So he asked, “Is there no way to travel directly west? I have seen trade items from that country, brought by caravan and ship to Rimmal Madar.” Not terribly impressive items—blankets and a few spices—but it was trade he could understand and use to his advantage.