The Eye of Midnight (18 page)

The girls nodded, and they all took a deep breath, passing through the opening in a huddled knot. A few steps inside, they came to a locked door. Maxine and Nura looked over their shoulders tensely as William fumbled with the keys. At last the wards of the lock turned, and the door swung open.

Nura led the way into the dormitories of the
fida'i.

Beyond the doorway the atmosphere of the lair was decidedly different. Every trace of luxury and opulence was gone. The walls were scarred and bare, and the passages were lined with a legion of cells—small, austere chambers with room only for a thin mattress and a single wooden chest.

Nura and the cousins crept single-file through the wandering catacomb, guided only by the weak glow of Nura's nail-pierced lantern, past a laundry filled with bundled garments and a darkened armory lined with blacksmith's tools.

Footsteps sounded ahead, where one passage met another. They pressed themselves against the wall and waited until the steps faded, then breathed again and continued on.

“Do you hear that?” whispered Maxine.

A chant rose somewhere in the dim halls ahead—a haunting murmur that surged and fell but never ceased. It grew louder as they went, until they reached the source. Ducking behind a tall urn on one side of the doorway, they knelt and beheld the appalling spectacle within.

The full muster of the
fida'i
was gathered in formation throughout a wide hall. Crimson sashes were double-bound across their wraith-white robes, and unsheathed daggers darted in their hands. They moved with hypnotic precision, twisting and lunging as one, all the while intoning a terrible chorus, their voices swelling with the movements of their veering blades.

“What happened to their black cloaks?” whispered William.

“It looks like they're dressed for some kind of ceremony,” Maxine said.

The three children shrank back, appalled to witness the full strength of Hashashin. Retreating from the training hall without a word, they fled deeper into the lair.

They went ahead in silence, treading softly and meeting no one, and came at last to a solitary wooden door, iron-banded and studded with black bolt-heads.

“In here,” whispered William, tugging on the handle.

They slipped inside. No light shone in the corridor, and Nura risked unshielding her lamp. Halfway down the long hall, two doors faced each other, one on their right and one on their left, both sealed with heavy padlocks. Beyond them the passage stretched on farther into the darkness.

William chose the door on their left and tried several keys of likely size and shape. On his fourth attempt the tumblers surrendered with a tired groan. The shackle dropped, and they winced at the sound, waiting fearfully. Not a soul stirred in the darkness. They crept into the room, and Nura raised her lantern high.

And there, propped against the wall at the back of the room, lay Binny. His ankle was chained to a rusted iron pipe, and his head slumped forward. He let out a groan and shuddered in his sleep, his chest rising and falling in rasping, uneven breaths.

“He looks bad,” whispered Maxine. “He needs a doctor.”

William swallowed uncomfortably. “First things first,” he said. “We have to find Grandpa.”

They backed out of the room and shut the door, and William crossed the corridor. He grasped the second padlock and tried the keys again.

“What's wrong?” whispered Maxine impatiently.

“I don't know,” William muttered. “None of the keys seem to fit. I need more light.”

Nura held her lamp close.

“Well, no wonder,” he said. “There's something jammed inside the lock. It looks like the keyhole is full of wax.”

“What?” cried Nura, backing away in alarm. “They know—” she stammered. “They know we have come!”

The children turned to flee, but the iron-bound door opened at the end of the hall, and a tall silhouette appeared, barring the way.

There was a sharp scrape, and a match flared.

“Marhaba,”
said the dark figure, cupping the flame and holding it close to his lips.

The keys slipped from William's hand and clattered to the floor.

There before them stood the Rafiq, his dreadful face lit by the orange glow of his cigarillo.

“You've found my keys,” said the Rafiq in impeccable English. “Many thanks. Let me offer you a reward for your troubles.” He thumbed the obolus toward them, and the silver coin rolled to a stop at their feet. “I'm afraid I was forced to take some precautions with the lock, to ensure that no one disturbed my guest.”

He looked the children up and down hungrily.

“How eager you all must be to see your grandfather again,” he said. “Patience. You will join him soon enough. But first, I believe you have something that belongs to the Old Man of the Mountain.”

His figure cast a monstrous shadow on the wall behind, and as he approached, his dark brows lowered and he cast aside all pretense of civility.

“The Eye of Midnight!” he demanded. “Give it to me!”

Nura and the cousins stood paralyzed, rooted to the ground. The Rafiq took a step toward them and caught William by the arm.

“Where is it?” he snarled, holding the end of his smoldering cigarillo close to the boy's cheek.

William felt the heat on his skin. He inhaled the stinging smoke and struggled wildly against the iron grasp.

“Let him go!” shouted Nura.

The Rafiq relaxed his grip and turned to face the girl directly. An evil smile flickered on his lips, and Nura's fingers went instinctively to the amulet at her throat.

“Do you think your
nazar
can save you?” he asked, backing her against the padlocked door. “Can it keep me from my prize, do you suppose?”

With a rattlesnake strike, he snatched the necklace and snapped the chain from Nura's neck. He held the blue bead in his palm and juggled it carelessly for a moment, then dashed it to pieces on the floor.

Nura let out a pitiful moan and dropped to her knees, scrambling to gather the scattered fragments. In despair she cast them all aside and covered her face with her hands.

The Rafiq laughed cruelly and pulled her to her feet. His nostrils flared, and his hand shot greedily into the bulging pocket of her dress.

“A thief, like your mother,” he said with contempt as he withdrew the tightly wrapped bundle.

His face lit with a feral glint as he unwound the long ribbon of black silk and stroked the shining surface of the mirror. Muttering to himself, he read out the inscription in strange syllables that meant nothing to Maxine and William but made Nura cower against the cell door.

“It is an omen!” he cried fiendishly. “The Eye of Midnight is reclaimed on the night of the Old Man's glory! All just as it was determined and ordained long ago.” He licked his lips and turned his back on the three children, gloating.

“Tonight you will bear witness to the victory of the Hashashin,” he declared. “You will behold the ritual, and then you will be made a sacrifice.”

He cradled the mirror, bare and flashing in his hands, as if he would call down lightning with it from above. And then suddenly he stopped, stirring from his exultation. He spun about savagely, and his triumphant leer twisted in a snarl of rage.

Nura's lamp lay discarded on the floor. The girl was no longer in the corridor.

The Rafiq smoldered, the cords in his neck bulging as he bellowed a command. Deftly he hid the Eye of Midnight beneath his breastplate just as a trio of the
fida'i
burst through the doorway with burning torches. The Rafiq pointed down the darkened corridor, and two of the men bolted away in search of the missing girl.

He watched them go and fumed. Then, turning a murderous glare toward the cousins, he shouted another command in his native tongue.

Silence fell around them, an interlude of uncanny stillness. In reply an echoing boom rolled throughout the lair—the mighty throb of a giant drum.

The Rafiq gestured toward the cell door, and the remaining
fida'i
held his torch close to the padlock until a stream of molten wax trickled out onto the floor. The Rafiq stooped to pick up the fallen keys, and he unlocked the door.

“Happy reunions,” he said. With a vicious shove he sent the cousins sprawling into the cell.

The door slammed, and the padlock snapped shut behind them, sealing William and Maxine inside. The thudding drum continued in the darkness.

“Grandpa?” called out Maxine.

“Who—who is it?” came the hoarse reply. “Who's there?”

“Grandpa, are you all right?” she cried, crawling toward the voice.

“Maxine?” murmured the old colonel in disbelief. “Is that you?”

“It's me,” she said, finding him in the gloom and laying her head on his chest. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, yes. Of course, my dear,” he said. “Where is your cousin?”

“Over here,” said William, groping toward the back of the cell.

“But what are the two of you doing here?” he asked, thunderstruck. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head, as if clearing his mind might dispel Maxine and William from the confines of the dank cell.

“Oh, Grandpa,” said Maxine, her voice quavering.

“We kept your appointment,” said William quietly. “We found the courier.”

The old colonel's breathing halted briefly in the dark. “Where, my boy?”

“At the obelisk in Central Park.”

Grandpa chuckled to himself. “Cleopatra's Needle…,” he murmured. “Yes, yes, of course.” He leaned forward, and his chains rattled. “And the parcel?” he asked in a hushed voice.

“Oh, Grandpa,” said Maxine again, “it was awful! The courier lost the package, and the gangsters who stole it caught us and tied us up, and there was a gunfight, and a tunnel underneath the graveyard, and we saw the Rafiq cut the White Rat's throat, and—” Tears came, and she couldn't continue.

Grandpa sat in silence, trying to make sense of her tangled story.

“Forgive me, both of you,” he said, shaking his head. “I underestimated the danger grievously—perhaps disastrously. I would never have brought you to the city if I had known the stakes, not for all the relics of Solomon.”

“It's real,” said William. “The mirror—it's not just a bedtime story.”

“No, my boy, it is not. The professors and the history books will tell you differently, of course. They claim that the mirror and the Hashashin are no more—gone the way of the dodo bird and the lady's corset. But that is only here in the West. Those who live among the Assassins know better.”

“The Assassins? You mean the Hashashin?”

“Yes, the Hashashin.
Hashashin,
‘assassin,'…our English word is derived from the Arabic name bestowed upon these diabolical fiends. For centuries they have tyrannized the innocent inhabitants of the Orient, from the Great Pyramids to the Arabian Sea. And now they are here among us. Who knows how long they have been at their work, beneath my very nose, establishing their lair and tightening their stranglehold on the city.”

“How many of them are there?” asked Maxine.

Grandpa shrugged. “In New York City? A couple hundred, maybe. Across the sea, perhaps a few thousand more. But never presume that the strength of the Hashashin relies upon their numbers.

“Horror is their chosen weapon. They have always used violence to exert influence, to move kings and topple seats of power. They disdain the vial of poison in the cup, the silent arrow from the battlement, the garrote in the dark. They are masters of disguise and assumed identity, virtuosos of death, and their instrument, their emblem, is the
djambia
—a ghastly, lethal blade—and the bloodier its work, the better, for with that steely brush and that scarlet stain they paint such a picture that none who witness it can ever forget.”

Maxine tugged at the shackle that held Colonel Battersea's leg, and the chain rattled heavily on the concrete floor. “They have a plan for you, Grandpa,” she said. “They mean to—to…”

“Let me guess: they intend to do me in,” replied the old colonel with a grunt. “Well, now, that's hardly a surprise. The Hashashin are not overly fond of me, my dear. My work has earned me more than a few enemies over the years, but the Old Man of the Mountain is my most formidable. And this is not the first time the two of us have locked horns.”

“Grandpa, back at the train station,” said William, “what happened?”

“I was shanghaied, my boy—ambushed on the platform, as you saw. They pushed me into a waiting automobile and etherized me. When I came to, I found myself here.”

“Was it the Hashashin?”

“No, no. Garden-variety gangsters. The Old Man controls all the criminal organizations in the city now, it seems, bending them to his purposes.”

“But why?” asked Maxine. “What does the Rafiq care about gangsters? Why does he even need them? We can't figure out why he didn't just send the
fida'i
to steal the mirror.”

“The Hashashin will use any means necessary to spread their intimidation and influence,” replied Grandpa. “But the Rafiq has another, more insidious reason, I suspect, for using these hired criminals.

“The
fida'i
have no knowledge that the Old Man of the Mountain has lost his mirror, you see. They believe that he is never without it. If the rank and file of the faithful were to learn that it is gone, his control over them would be unhinged.

“He caused a counterfeit to be made, which he keeps to fool his servants. Only a few of his inner circle—the Rafiq, for one—know the truth. But the Old Man lives always in dread of his ruse being discovered. As long as the true mirror remains beyond his grasp, he knows there is a danger that his secret will be found out and his power will be destroyed. He will not rest until the all-seeing mirror lies safe against his breast. And so the Rafiq labors mightily on his behalf to recover the mirror without revealing its presence to the faithful.”

“Well, he got his way,” said William despondently. “We had it, Grandpa! He snatched it from us in the hallway—right out of our hands. We were so close. We thought if we could bring it to you, then you might be able to stop the Hashashin's plans.”