used as bodyguards. It was all due to those accursed fanatics of Hassan ibn Hassad, the Sheikh al Jebal. Hemp- eaters. Assassins.
Assassins. One never knew when they would strike, and there was nothing that could be done to scare them off. Indeed, when captured they went to their deaths eagerly, joyfully. How can one deal with men who do not fear death? What was the power the Old Man of the Mountain had over his followers that they obeyed his every wish without consideration of their own lives?
Mamud warmed his tea from a brass pot and sipped, luxuriating in the small comfort it gave him. At any rate, the Assassins were good for his business. Newly captured slaves such as he sold, being not only foreigners but infidels as well, were not likely to be followers of Hassan al Sabah, and so they made good guards. And, since the Assassins of Hassan al Sabah might be one's own body slave — or even men of noble birth — no wonder there was such a market for men pure of the unclean contamination of the Assassins who had, to Mamud's knowledge, never failed to make their kill, usually after warning the victim in advance with a gold-handed dagger…
Thinking of the scar-faced one he had lashed earlier, Mamud looked again to his catch. It was as he turned his head that in the corner of his vision he saw the flash of light in the now-darkened western sky.
A shooting star? An omen from Allah?
Thinking as he was at the moment of profit and the new slave, Mamud chose to consider it an omen of good fortune. The scar-faced one was very strong. Mamud would take him to Baghdad and offer him up to Nizam al Mulk. The Vizier was known to be a connoisseur of fine fighting men. He would pay well for one such as this.
Ah!
Calling to Bu Ali to make certain that all the slaves' bonds were secured and the sentries alert, Mamud closed the flap of his tent and retired. He was at peace with himself, even though there were still many leagues to travel before he could indulge himself once more in those refined pleasures which made life worth living…
Casca was not at peace with himself. He too had seen the shooting star, a thin scratch of light ending beyond the distant mountains, so minor that neither the guards nor the other slaves had noticed. But to Casca it was an omen, one more thing to feed the uneasy feeling that had been building in him all day, even before the fight in the rocks.
I never should have come back to Persia. Something damned unpleasant is about to happen to me. I can feel it. I should have kept my ass away…
It was not just being a slave. He had been that before. It was not the pain of his broken ribs… or anything like that.
No, it was something new.
He was staring at the line of mountains, black against the starlit sky.
Shit!
CHAPTER TWO
Hassan ibn Hassad, Hassan al Sabah, the Sheikh al Jebal, the Old Man of the Mountain, the leader of the Assassins leaned over the battlements of Castle Alamut in the region of Dayam, set high as an eagle's perch in the Elburz Mountains, and surveyed the valley six thousand feet below. In the darkening twilight he looked with approval at his domain. His eyes were sharp and burning, set in deep sockets over a proud, hooked nose and thin, humorless mouth. He had eagle features. He was the eagle of this Eagle's Nest.
It had taken long for him to find and secure just the right place from which he could launch his program of terror upon the world. Now he had it. Here he had total control. Control which Nizam never dreamed of, he thought with satisfaction. Control such as few in the course of history had ever tasted.
Hassad stroked his beard, now turning gray with time but still tough and strong, like his eyes, youthful. For they were as clear as those of a twenty-year-old man and burned in their dark brown depths with an intensity and fire that only one who knows he has a mission in life can possess. A mission. And a passion.
Passion.
In Hassad's chest beat passions that the loveliest houri dwelling in Paradise could never sate. Their earthly counterparts were only receptacles for his seed by which he would pass on his heritage to those who came after him.
But even the flesh of his own flesh was not immune to his wrath if they angered him or failed in their duty to him and the Holy Mission. They would then pay the same price that the lowliest-born infidel would. Tolerance and forgiveness lead only to weakness. Hassad was not one who would ever be weak. He could not. His was a great calling, passed on to him from centuries past, and he would not fail.
His word was never broken.
That was one of the secrets of his power.
To all the world his word was always kept — for good or ill. Those that he marked for death always died. He was the Sheikh al Jebal and he was not to be denied. When he cast a sentence of death on one who refused him his price, the doomed one knew the shadow of the dark angel was over him and a gold-handled dagger would end his term on earth. And now even the most powerful man in Persia, the Vizier — and in actuality the regent — to the youthful Caliph of Baghdad was to receive the gold-handled dagger.
It was with no regret that Hassad was now ready to order the death of his once-good-friend and counselor, Nizam al Mulk, Vizier to the Caliph of Baghdad. Nizam had been offered a chance to be one with Hassan, and thus live. But he chose the way of personal aggrandizement and power, Hassan said to his inner soul. He did not keep his word to me. He has not been faithful to the oath spoken twenty years ago when we were both young men. Hassad recalled the oath as though it had been yesterday, the oath witnessed by the strange one, the friend of both, Omar. Oaths such as that could not be broken with impunity, therefore Nizam had to die and by his death bring the world to know the awesome power that a few men can hold when they use their intelligence — and the minds of others — as their weapons. For everything is an illusion except death.
Death, of course, was the one thing that both princes and paupers understood, and he, Hassan ibn Hassad, was the Grand Master of Death. Only those who served him were without fear of the Dark Angel, for he had already shown them their reward and had briefly opened up the gates of Paradise to them.
Paradise. Before him lay the parable. Twilight had already darkened the bottom of the valley, but up there it was the time of the sunset, and Hassan gloried in the view before him. The red rays of the evening sun speared through a layer of low-lying clouds that brought with them the rare promise of rain. Hassan thought of himself as one who had prepared the soil of his fields for planting and had sown the first row of seeds. In the rain of time, when the earth had been properly enriched with the blood of his enemies, the seeds would sprout and grow and reseed themselves until he — and those few who knew the real reason for the Brotherhood's existence — would have prepared the way for the coming of the Master.
He looked down into the black depths of his valley, the sun painting his eagle's face the red of blood.
'Master?'
It was Sulman, approaching him reverently even though Sulman wore the robes of his rank which showed him to be one of the favored three who always had access to Hassan's ear, any time of the day or night. Through Sulman and his two peers in the highest rank of Dai al Kirbal Hassan's orders were passed down to the other ranks of the Brotherhood. From the Dais and the Fidais, who were the swords of the Brotherhood, they traveled down to the lowest order, the Lasiks, who served the others, performing the thousand daily tasks required to keep the castle in order. All was not forever fixed, however. The Lasiks, though servants and Novices now, might, if they progressed well enough, be permitted to have a sample of Paradise before their deaths, and could even advance up through the ranks to where they would be entrusted with the high honor of the gold-handled dagger, symbol of the Brotherhood, instrument of retribution, and the path which led to power.
'Master?' Sulman repeated diffidently.
Hassan gave him his orders, the command that Bu Tahir Arrani, one of the first of the Fidais and now serving the slaver Mamud ibn Said under the name of Bu Ali, was to be given the glory of being permitted to strike the death blow to the Vizier, Nizam al Mulk.
But, Hassan continued, there would be some time yet before the Golden Dagger would strike. First, Nizam
