The Eye of Midnight (16 page)

“What do you suppose our parents would say if they could see us now?” asked William.

“It's a good thing they can't,” Maxine replied. “Mom especially. She doesn't need to know anything about it. She'd be worried to death.” She tugged at a loose strand on the burlap sack beneath her. “I hope she's sitting on a beach somewhere, without a care in the world—her hair tied up in a scarf and a dozen nurses waiting on her hand and foot.”

“She'll be all right, M,” said William. “Everything will be just like it was before she got sick. You'll see.”

Maxine sighed and hugged her knees to her chest. “She used to call me Blossom,” she said, and William and Nura couldn't tell if she was talking to them anymore or just remembering aloud. “Like something small and pretty, you know? Something worth stopping to admire.”

William let Maxine's words linger for a moment.

“What about you, Nura?” he asked. “You must be missing your folks, too, huh? I guess you must think about them all the time.”

Nura didn't answer. She pulled the cigar box from her haversack and ran her finger along its edge, lost in reflection.

“I owe you both a great debt,” she said. “You have placed yourselves in gravest danger for me—faced killers and entered darkened tombs—all to help me recover the mirror, when you could have left the city and returned to your grandfather's house. For all this and more, I offer my eternal friendship and my deepest thanks.”

Maxine put her hand around the small girl's neck and pulled her close until their foreheads touched. “Well, gee, Nura,” she said with a grin, “we accept your offer of eternal friendship. As far as I'm concerned, meeting you is the only redeeming thing about this whole wretched mess. I'd be awfully sorry if I hadn't.”

Nura bent her head shyly. “I have no brother or sister,” she said, struggling to find the words, “and unlike both of you, I have never known any cousin. But now we have found one another, and I am very happy. You are…” She faltered. “You are family to me,” she said, clearing her throat and twisting the corner of her scarf.

William put his arm around her awkwardly and gave her shoulders a squeeze.

Nura's face broke into a grateful smile, and she looked as if she had just unburdened herself of a heavy load. She sat between the cousins, motionless for a while, deep in thought. Then she rubbed her eyes and yawned, and soon her head sagged against William's shoulder and her breath came in long, even intervals.

“Sweet dreams, kid,” he said.

“She's not as fragile as she looks, is she?” said Maxine. “It's funny, but I think I feel the same way she does. Connected, I mean. I'm not sure why—we hardly know her at all.”

“Oh, I wouldn't say that. We know her name, don't we? At least her first one.”

“That's true.” Maxine giggled. “Nura…It sounds funny, doesn't it?”

“It means ‘light,' ” said Nura without opening her eyes.

Maxine gasped and pinched her arm. “That's a nasty trick, you know, eavesdropping on your friends like that.”

Nura laughed, for the first time since they had met her, perhaps, and then she closed her eyes again and recited softly:

“Ash-sha‘b as-salik fi az-zolma absara nur ‘azim.”

“Is that your name? Your full name?” asked William. “It's kind of a mouthful.”

She shook her head. “Ancient words. My parents chose them for me as a namesake. They speak of a people living in darkness and of a great light.”

Nura's thoughts bent homeward, to days that lingered only in her memory: her mother, picking dates in the cool of the evening when the grove was fragrant with laurel and honeysuckle; her father, reading to her by firelight, his rough hand on her head where it lay in his lap.

“Ana…Baba…,”
she whispered. “Where are you now? What has become of you?” She held the package close, as if it were a life preserver and she were floating in a vast ocean.

Maxine brushed the hair from the small girl's forehead and pulled her checkered scarf up under her chin. Nura smiled and scratched her nose, but her eyelids never lifted.

Above them the doves ruffled their feathers and settled on their perch. The night was cold now, and blighted. Maxine hugged her arms tight to her chest and stretched out on their makeshift mattress, wrinkling her nose at the disagreeable pong of mineral spirits and dusty hemp. She had never felt so lost and terribly afraid. These desolate thoughts were only in her head, of course, but Nura, on the edge of dreams, must have heard them all the same. She reached out and found Maxine's hand, and soon they both lay fast asleep.

They awoke to shouts and the sounds of screeching metal and groaning ropes. Morning had come and gone, and the afternoon sun slanted in through the dusty windows of the factory. William, Maxine, and Nura rubbed their eyes and lifted their heads cautiously, remembering where they were.

“What's all the racket?” muttered William.

The sounds were coming from the direction of the pit.

They craned their necks to find the source, but their view was obscured by a pair of enormous cast-iron boilers that stood some ten feet beyond the precipice and rose from the unseen depths toward the ceiling high above. The boilers had been invisible in the gloom the night before, but now Nura and the cousins wondered how they could ever have missed them. Their cylindrical surfaces were knobbed with rivets and wheeled valves, and iron ladders were bolted to their sides.

Moving quietly, the trio crawled forward to a spot with a better view, flattened themselves to the floor, and peered over the brink.

Maxine exhaled weakly. “Heaven help us,” she whispered.

They were looking out over an immense space. The room below had once been the main factory floor of the varnish works, but apart from a towering iron furnace on the far wall, the decaying equipment had all been carted out to make room for a kind of broad amphitheater. Black banners lined the walls, and the ever-present twelve-pointed star was painted large on the center of the floor. The room was teeming with Hashashin.

“They've turned the factory into some kind of temple,” said William.

Down on the floor, in front of the unlit furnace, a wide wooden stage had been constructed, fronted with a broad flight of steps, and on this stretching dais there sat a great black chair, flanked by smaller versions of the same—six seats on either side.

A pair of
fida'i
turned a spoked windlass on one side of the room, straining against a system of ropes and pulleys that hoisted a spiked iron gate. When it was fully raised, the
fida'i
tied off the windlass and threw open a towering double door just beyond the iron teeth of the massive portcullis, and a pair of horses pulling a heavy cart clopped down a ramp outside. They passed beneath the spikes and came to a stop, stamping and snorting on the factory floor. A dozen of the Hashashin gathered around, and a long wooden crate was heaved down from the cart.

“That box looks awfully familiar,” Maxine whispered.

The
fida'i
shouldered the crate and bore it up the steps like somber pallbearers, then laid it on the dais and crowded near.

There was a great stir around the box. One of the Hashashin brought a crowbar and bent over the crate, prying open the lid. The pack of
fida'i
gave a heave, and a shining black statue rose from the packing straw, towering over the cloaked men.

“Hey! They've got a jinni just like Grandpa's!” whispered William.

“That
is
Grandpa's jinni, blockhead,” hissed Maxine. “They must have ransacked the manor.”

The wooden figure was raised on a pedestal behind the great chair, its widespread legs straddling the throne while its menacing stare surveyed the temple.

“That's not all they've got,” said William. “They must've found Grandpa's weapons case, too.”

The
fida'i
rifled through the packing straw at the bottom of the crate, and now they held aloft the shining blades and the small clay spheres.

But at that instant every head in the temple turned as a door opened between the two boilers, directly beneath Nura and the cousins. A tall individual appeared, crossing the great hall and making his way to the dais.

The Rafiq mounted the steps and approached the towering black silhouette. He climbed up onto the throne and stood on the seat, studying the statue thoughtfully for a moment, face to face, grasping the glass orb that hung round its neck and inserting it between the open jaws so that the gold chain draped from both sides of the creature's mouth like a bridle. The Rafiq's face creased in a sardonic smile, and he sat down in the large black chair and inspected the room, watching the preparations with satisfaction.

A group of gray-haired men entered, carrying small stools and enameled bowls with flashing instruments inside. They placed the stools beside the twelve chairs and arranged the bowls on top. Small bundles, wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine, were laid beneath the seats. An enormous bass drum stretched with animal hide was rolled up in front of the steps, and behind the dais the doors and vents of the furnace were opened wide and other servants brought wood and arranged it inside.

“It looks like they're getting ready for some kind of ceremony,” said William.

Maxine elbowed Nura. “Are they going to wake the jinni?”

Nura shrugged, clueless.

“Something bad is getting set to happen, that's for sure,” said William. “We've got to think of a plan to spring Grandpa, and the sooner the better.”

“Shhh!” said Maxine. “He's headed this way!”

The Rafiq had risen from the black throne and was crossing the temple floor toward them. The children ducked their heads and cowered as he passed between the boilers and disappeared beneath them.

Nura pressed her eye to a crack in the floor and crawled away from the brink on all fours, following the same path that the Rafiq traveled below. She halted a short distance away, and Maxine and William crept to join her.

Through the narrow gap they discerned a new room: an opulent chamber with rich carpets and ottomans, filigreed screens, hanging lamps, and a splendid divan of blue and gold. The outline of the Rafiq passed beneath them as he crossed the floor and bent over a basin to splash his face, and they shrunk back as if, by some sorcery, he might see their hidden forms reflected in the surface of the water. He took up a towel and dabbed his eyes, then unbuckled the ivory breastplate from his shoulders and laid it to one side.

There was a knock outside the chamber, and the Rafiq opened the door to a young
fida'i,
who bowed stiffly and handed back the heavy ring of keys.

The Rafiq nodded and dismissed him. He returned to the far side of the room and took a black cigarillo from a lacquered box beside the divan. Grasping one of the pendant oil lamps, he swung it to his lips and lit the cigar in the flame.

Then, one by one, he snuffed the lights around the room. They heard the heavy clank of the key ring, followed by the closing of a lid or cabinet door, and then the long divan groaned as the Rafiq sank down upon it and sat motionless, like a spider in the dark.

The three children waited, spellbound, while only the fitful glow of the cigarillo served to show that the Rafiq remained. They might have lingered there forever if the deep peal of the bell in the round room had not echoed through the lair.

The Rafiq rose and relit the lamps and reassembled his vestments. He bent over the basin and washed once more and then departed from the room.

A feast was laid out in the round room. The scent of lentils and warm bread, spiced cucumbers and roast lamb wafted through the slatted ceiling, drawing Nura and the cousins to the spot above the purple flame. They lay prone on the dusty planking, heads together, eyeballs pressed to the floor.

The bell rang again, and white-cloaked servants entered with pitchers, trays, and steaming platters. They arranged the dishes on the central serving table, and a long procession of
fida'i
filed into the room through the doorway marked with the emblem of the scorpion, seventy or eighty of them at least, removing their shoes and reclining on the cushions beside the low, curved tables that encircled the room.

When all was made ready, the Rafiq entered, and the room fell silent. He made a slow circuit of the serving table, admiring the muraled wall and the sumptuous feast, and then he stepped toward the purple flame and stretched his hands wide as if waiting to receive an oracle from Alamut itself.

At length, he opened his mouth, but the words were unintelligible to William and Maxine, and they leaned close to Nura, who whispered the meaning in their ears.

“This is the night!” cried the Rafiq, turning as he spoke. “The night of triumph. An end to waiting. This is the eve of glory!”

Around the room the seated
fida'i
stiffened and bent forward.

“For every man, woman, and child upon these shores, it is the final night of ignorance and peace. Tonight they will lay their empty heads down to rest and dream their heedless dreams, but come the morning, they will wake to an unfamiliar dawn. Come the morning, they will know the yoke of bondage. They will know the meaning of fear. And come the morning, they will know the name of the Old Man of the Mountain.”

“May his arm grow ever longer!” cried the
fida'i,
all as one.

“Tomorrow brings the daybreak of the Hashashin,” continued the Rafiq above the din. “Tomorrow we blow a trumpet, for conquest and for power and for blood!”

The cries around the room swelled in a frenzy, and the Rafiq raised his hand.

“This city is the cornerstone of the West,” he said. “But the cornerstone will fall, and the tower will crumble. From their darkest slums to their marble mansions, every living soul will quail at the threat of the Hashashin. Every knee will bow at the foot of the one who sees all things in the Eye of Midnight, who declares the Unalterable Word, who holds the Key to Paradise.

“Twelve carefully chosen sacrifices,” he continued, leaning forward and pressing his knuckles on the table. “Their princes and their tycoons, their gray-haired scholars and their strapping champions, their precious children and their cherished wives—tomorrow twelve of them will fall. Tomorrow, disguised as their own, we will darken their halls of power and their houses of worship, their markets and their homes, and they will fall like cattle beneath our blades. Twelve sacrifices with each new moon is all that it requires, and the rumor and dread of the Old Man of the Mountain will spread throughout this realm entire.

“And after, whenever the master commands them, they will tremble and obey. They will beg to do his bidding. We will plunder their treasure and rewrite their laws. We will carry their women and children away to Alamut to serve the whim of the Old Man of the Mountain. And all who will not bend the knee or pay a tribute of gold will pay a ransom of blood.”

The Rafiq fell silent. His pupils narrowed to pinpricks, and he rocked where he stood.

“And blood will be shed within these walls as well,” he murmured feverishly, nursing a lethal desire. “The Old Man's sworn enemy lies captive in our cells, and tonight his life is forfeit. We will observe the ritual, and he will answer for his trespasses.”

“Grandpa!” whimpered Maxine.

“So may it be with all the enemies of the Old Man of the Mountain!” shouted the
fida'i,
raising their palms and hammering the tables.

“And now, a feast!” cried the Rafiq, clapping his hands. “In honor of the Old Man's triumph. Behold, his long arm giveth gifts as well.”

A host of servants appeared and proceeded to wait on the seated
fida'i.
Up above, the floor creaked beneath the three children as they scrambled away in horror.

The Rafiq raised his heavy-lidded eyes to the ceiling, stroking his beard, and then he turned back to the feast.

The three children huddled among the long rectangles of late-afternoon sunlight that lay upon the attic's gray-planked floor, staring at one another with waxen faces.

“We've got to get out of here and tell somebody,” whispered William.

“Who?” said Maxine. “Who will believe us? The police certainly didn't listen to us before—or to Nura, for that matter.”

“There is only one way,” said Nura. “We must find Colonel Battersea.”

William nodded. “If we're going to do it, now's our chance.”

“Our chance for what?” asked Maxine.

“Our chance to get those keys while everybody below us is stuffing their gullets.”

“Brilliant,” said Maxine with a scowl. “We'll march down there and say, ‘Excuse me,' then waltz through the middle of their dinner party and barge straight into the Rafiq's bedroom.”

“I have a better idea,” said William. He led the girls back across the dusty attic to the precipice. “The Rafiq's private chamber is just below us, right? One way in is through the door in the round room, the one with the winged snake. But there's another entrance. We watched the Rafiq walk in and out of the temple right between the two boilers, so there must be a door straight below us. All we have to do is get down there and grab the keys before he finishes the feast.”

“You're crazy, Will. Even if we do find the keys, we still don't know where they're keeping Grandpa.”

“One can of worms at a time,” he said.

“And how exactly do you plan to get down there?”

William pointed at the iron ladder fixed to the side of the boiler. “I'll go,” he said. “You and Nura can stay here and be the lookouts.”

“How are you going to get out there without splattering yourself on the floor?”

William peered across the gap between the precipice and the tall boilers, and his brow creased. He started to say something, but the words stuck in his throat.

“I know a way,” said Nura. She disappeared for a moment among the rubble of the attic and returned dragging a discarded wooden plank, twelve feet long and half a foot wide. Struggling a bit, she and William heaved it out and rested the far end atop one of the ladder's iron rungs so that it spanned the fissure.

William gave the narrow footbridge a dubious look. He wiped the sweat from his palms and steadied himself with a hand on Maxine's shoulder, shuffling out tentatively onto the board. The plank bounced and sagged, and he gulped and clenched his eyelids tight.

“Open your eyes,” Maxine said anxiously.

“I—I thought you were never supposed to look down,” he stammered.

“Fine, so don't look down. But you can't cross a six-inch board with your eyes closed.”

Shivering, William pried his lids apart one at a time.

“Well, go on,” said Maxine.

“I—I can't. I told you back at the Needle, I'm scared to death of heights.”

“Vay canina,”
muttered Nura in frustration. “This will never work.”

They hauled William off the plank and away from the ledge, where he stood in a cold sweat. He wiped his brow with his sleeve and watched, incredulous, as Nura shifted her haversack on her shoulder, then stepped out onto the board and trotted lightly across the gap.

“While you're down there, have a look in the jinni's crate on the corner of the stage,” he said. “See if you can find us something in there that might come in handy later.”

Maxine shoved William to one side. “Never mind that. Just get the keys and get back here. If you hear me whistle, forget the whole thing and make a run for it.”

Nura nodded, and her head disappeared below the lip of the precipice.

Maxine shooed her cousin away toward the far reaches of the attic.

“Go keep an eye on dinner,” she said.