The Lions of Al-Rassan (67 page)

“It is. We find a way out together, or we do not. Are you not proud of what we have achieved, we two? Is it not a denial of our very lives to speak as you are speaking now? I will not cling to some miserable form of existence at the price of all we have been.”

His chancellor said nothing. The king, after a pause, said, “Mazur, are there not some things we have made here, some things we have done, that are worthy to have been in Silvenes, even in the golden age?”

And Mazur ben Avren, with rare emotion in the deep voice, replied, “There has been a king here, at the least, my lord, more than worthy to have been a khalif in the Al-Fontina in those most shining days.”

Another silence. King Badir said, at length, very softly, “Then speak no more, old friend, of my losing you. I cannot.”

Ben Avren inclined his head. “I will speak of it no more,” he said. “My lord.”

They finished their wine. The chancellor rose, with some difficulty, and bade his king good night. He went down the long palace corridors, his slippers silent on the marble floors, walking under torches and past tapestries, listening to the rain.

Zabira was asleep. She had left one candle burning on a table with a flask of wine and another of water, and a glass for him, already filled. He smiled, looking down upon her—as beautiful in sleep as she was awake.

The northerners, he thought, the desert tribes: how could they even comprehend a place and time—a world—that had produced a woman such as this? She would be a symbol of corruption for them both. They would kill her or degrade her, he knew. They would have no idea what else to do with Zabira of Cartada or the music that she made, moving in the world.

He sat down with a sigh in the carved, deep-cushioned wooden chair he’d commissioned from a Jaddite craftsman in the city. He drank a glass of wine, and then, eventually, another, not really sleepy, deep in thought.

No real regrets,
he told himself. And realized it was true.

Before he undressed for bed he went to the inner window and opened it and looked out, breathing the night air. The rain had stopped. Water dripped from the leaves of the trees to the garden below.

A
long way to the south and west another man was awake that same night, beneath a very different sky.

Past the peaks of the Serrana; past Lonza, huddled and afraid behind its walls, waiting for the Valledans to come; past Ronizza whose lacework was known through all the world; past arrogant Cartada in the valley of its power where the red dye was made; past Aljais and the canals of Elvira, and Silvenes where ghosts and ghostly music were said still to drift among the ruins; past, even, Tudesca at the mouth of the Guadiara, where ships put out to sea with the wealth of Al-Rassan and brought eastern treasures home.

Past all of these and beyond the waters of the straits, outside the walls of Abirab at the northern tip of the Majriti sands, Yazir ibn Q’arif, lord of the tribes of the desert, Sword of Ashar in the West, breathed the salt air from the sea and, sitting alone on an outspread cloak, looked up at a clear sky strewn with the stars of his god.

The Zuhrites had been taught by the sage who had come to them that there were as many stars as there were sands in the desert. Twenty years ago, new to belief, Yazir used to try to comprehend what that meant. He would run grains of sand through his hand while gazing at the heavens.

He was beyond such testing now. Understanding of the god was only for one such as Ashar, worthy of the gift of vision. What could a simple warrior do but bow his head and worship before such unimaginable vastness?

Stars of the heavens like the sands of the desert? What could any man do but humble himself and serve, praying by day and night for mercy and grace, understanding that he was only a part—less than a grain in the drifting sands—of the larger, unheard purpose of the god.

How could men grow swollen with pride, nourish delusions of their worth or the worth of the frail, vain things they made, if they truly believed in Ashar and the stars? That, Yazir ibn Q’arif thought, was a question he would like to ask the kings of Al-Rassan.

The night was mild, though Yazir could sense a hint of winter to come in the wind from the sea. Not long now. Two moons were riding among the stars, the blue one waxing and the white one a waning crescent in the west beyond the last of the land.

Looking at the moons, he was thinking about the Kindath, as it happened.

He had only met one of them in all his life, a barefoot wanderer in a belted robe who had come ashore years ago at a trading station on the coast east of Abeneven. The man had asked to meet the leader of the tribes and had been brought, eventually, to Yazir.

The Kindath had not been a man as most men were; he was not even typical of his own people. He had said as much to Yazir at their first meeting on the sands. Hardened by years of travel, his skin burnt dark and weathered by wind and sun, he reminded Yazir of no one so much as ibn Rashid, the wadji who had come to the Zuhrites long ago—heretical as such a thought might have been. He had the same long, untended white beard, the same clear eyes that seemed to look at something behind or beyond what other men saw.

He was journeying through many lands, the Kindath said, writing of his travels, recording the glorious places of creation, speaking with men of all faiths and beliefs. Not to preach or cajole as the wadjis did, but to deepen his own sense of wonder at the splendor of the world. He laughed often, that Kindath traveler, frequently at himself, telling tales of his own ignorance and helplessness in countries of which Yazir had not even known the names.

He spoke, during his sojourn with Yazir’s people, of the world as having been made by more than one god, and as only one dwelling place among many for the children of creation. This was heresy beyond comprehension. Yazir remembered wondering if even to
hear
it condemned him to the darkness far from Paradise when he died.

It appeared that there was a sect of the Kindath, an ancient tribe, that taught of these other worlds scattered among the stars, far beyond the moons that wandered the night.

Ashar’s starry visions had been right, the traveler confided to Yazir, but so were the wiser prophets of Jad, and so, in truth, were the Kindath sages who had seen goddesses in the moons. All these teachings revealed a part—but only a part—of the mystery.

There were other deities, other worlds. There was one god above all, ruler of stars and sun and moons, of all the worlds. No man knew the name of this most high lord. Only in the world that had been made first, the world all others—including their own—had followed into Time was that name known and spoken.

Only there did the Supreme One allow knowledge of himself, and there the gods did him homage.

They had broken bread together for several mornings and nights, and spoken of many things. Then the Kindath traveler had begged leave to go alone from Yazir’s camp that he might travel the vast and mighty Majriti desert and worship the splendor thereof.

Ghalib, who had been listening to some of what had been said over the past days, had asked Yazir’s permission—unusual, for him—to follow and kill the man because of his impieties. Yazir, torn by the burden of a host towards a guest and the spiritual duties of a leader to his people, had given his consent, reluctantly. One more transgression for which Ashar would have to grant forgiveness when Yazir’s time came to be judged.

That strange man had been the only one of the Kindath he’d ever met.

Two days ago a letter had come, delivered by a tribesman crossing back to the desert from Tudesca. It had been carried before that by messengers across most of Al-Rassan. It had begun as a note tied to a pigeon’s leg, carried out from besieged Ragosa.

It was from the sorcerer himself, Mazur ben Avren.

After it had been read to him, three times, by a scribe, Yazir had walked from his tent and mounted a camel and ridden into the desert alone to think.

He was still thinking, tonight under the stars. He had a decision to make—one that might shape the destiny of his people—and no more time for delay. To delay further was to decide.

Ghalib was ready to cross to Al-Rassan, Yazir knew that. Ghalib wanted to go where there was already war, to test himself and his tribesmen. To die, if it came to that, with a red sword in his hand, battling in Ashar’s name. The surest path to Paradise.

The Kindath traveler, years ago, hadn’t named that first world where the one true god reigned. He’d said the name was another mystery. Yazir wished he’d never heard the tale. It refused to leave him, still.

Ragosa will not hold out until winter, as matters now stand,
Mazur ben Avren had written.
But if you so much as land at Tudesca, and come no further this autumn than Aljais or Cartada, the Jaloñans here will be greatly afraid and our people will take heart. I believe we can endure if this happens, and in spring we may turn them back.

Ghalib had said the same thing. He wanted to land before winter, to let the Jaddites fear their presence and push forward no further. Yazir had been inclined to wait—for more ships, more men, and most of all, for tidings from Soriyya, towards which a Jaddite army was sailing even now.

What did a pious man do when he was asked, desperately, for aid in two different fields of holy war?

It has come to me as a thought,
Mazur ben Avren’s letter went on,
that one reason you hesitate to relieve us from this peril is my own presence in Ragosa. King Badir is a good man and a wise king, beloved of his people. If it will ease the burden of decision that lies upon you, know that I am ready to leave this city should you send word.

Leave the city? One did not leave besieged cities. Unless . . .

I will walk into the Jaddite camp so soon as word comes from you that you have elected to cross to Al-Rassan and cleanse it of those who must be driven back lest this land be lost to Ashar and the Star-born.

It was a Kindath saying this, offering this.

Yazir imagined his reply being carried north and east, one rider after another, city to city, and then a carrier bird loosed from hills near Ragosa. He imagined that bird landing in the city, his scribe-crafted note carried to the sorcerer. Yazir pictured him reading it.

Strange, strangest thing of all: he never doubted for a moment that the man would do what he said.

The king will not take happily to my presuming to send this letter, and I beg your own forgiveness for my impertinence. Should you agree with my unworthy thoughts, O Sword of Ashar, leader of all the tribes, send only the words “It shall be as has been written,” and I alone will understand and offer thanks to you and act as I have said. May whatever sins Ragosa holds in Ashar’s sight and your own be deemed to rest upon my head as I walk out. My own people in this city honor their Asharite king and know their proper place. If there has been arrogance and presumption it has been my own, and I am prepared to make atonement.

The crescent of the white moon lay almost upon the sea. Yazir watched as it slipped down and out of sight. The innumerable stars were everywhere in the sky and the innumerable sands were about him.

He heard a footfall, and knew it.

“You asked me to come at white moonset,” his brother said softly, crouching on his haunches beside Yazir’s spread cloak. “Do we cross? Do we wait? Do we sail for the homelands?”

Yazir drew a breath. There were deaths and deaths to come. Man was born into this world to die. Best do it in the service of Ashar, essaying those things that could truly be done.

“Soriyya is too far,” he said. “I do not think either of us are destined to see the homelands, my brother.”

Ghalib said nothing, waiting.

“I would be happier in spring,” Yazir said.

His brother’s teeth showed in the darkness. “You are never happy,” Ghalib said.

Yazir looked away. It was true, of late. He
had
been happy once, as a young man, without any great cares, in the Zuhrite lands south of where they were tonight. Before his feet had been placed on a path of righteousness carved in blood.

“We will cross the straits,” he said. “Beginning tomorrow. We will not allow the Sons of Jad to burn any more of the Star-born, or take any more cities, however far our people may have strayed from Ashar’s path. We will lead them back. It comes to me that if the city-kings lose Al-Rassan to the Jaddites, we are the ones who will be answerable before the god.”

Ghalib rose to his feet. “I am pleased,” he said.

Yazir saw that his brother’s eyes were gleaming, like those of a cat. “And the Kindath sorcerer?” Ghalib added. “The letter that came?”

“Go to my scribe,” Yazir said. “Wake him. Have him write a reply and have it carried across the water—tonight, before the rest of us depart.”

“What reply, brother?”

Yazir looked up at him.
“It shall be as has been written.”

“That is all?”

“That is all.”

Ghalib turned and walked back to his camel. He made it kneel and then he mounted up and rode. Yazir remained where he was. So many stars, so many, many sands, the blue moon high in the clear night.

He could still see his message crossing the straits, men riding, a bird flying. A hidden opening in the walls of Ragosa, perhaps in the grey hour before dawn. A man walking out, alone, towards the watchfires of his enemies.