fountains of which gushed wine, supposedly forbidden by Allah on Earth, but available in abundance in paradise. The walks of these fabulous gardens were graveled with precious and semiprecious stones. The buildings were probably similar to those later erected by the Moors in Spain in Grenada, the Alhambra.
“The follower was a simple Arab. He probably came from a small desert town, or had been born in nomad tents. This to him was inconceivable. The most water he had probably ever seen in his life would have been only enough to quench his thirst. He had probably never been clean before in his life. But the baths and fountains here were everywhere. On top of all else, there were eight of the most beautiful women he had ever even dreamed of, and they came in a wide selection of flavors. And they all adored him. They were obviously the houris promised by Mohammed for each man when he entered paradise. They were supposedly not truly human—because the Moslem woman does not enter paradise, but only the man—but each was more beautiful than any woman on Earth. At least, the Hasan follower must have thought so, probably never having seen a truly beautiful woman in his life, certainly not unveiled.
“On him they pressed the most delicious food he had ever eaten. They vied for his favors. They continued to ply him with hashish. They played exotic music for him, sang softly to him, saw he was most comfortable on his cushions. And, above all, they submitted him to every sexual act known at the time… and they knew as much then as ever before or after.
“Before he became seated, they gave him still more hashish so that he passed out again. When he awakened, he was back in the presence of Hasan Ben Sabbah, in that worthy’s throne room. The follower was again in his original dirt and rags, and probably had a hangover, at least a slight one, from the unaccustomed wine, the rich food, the sex, and the hashish.
“Hasan explained to him gently that he had just been to paradise, just as a sample of what would be his for all eternity if he but followed the commands of Hasan Ben Sabbah, leader of all the faithful Ismailians. Upon death, in the service of Hasan, he would immediately return to paradise and his eight houris. Obviously, the simple countryman swore devotion.
“Hasan would then dispatch him to assassinate this vizier, this sheik, or that emir, who was currently standing in the way of Ismailian ambitions. When it comes to assassination, there is little defense against a man who is willing to die in the attempt. Or, if there was a successful defense against the first one, another assassin came, and a third, and a fourth. And finally the proposed victim either got the message and made his peace with Hasan, or, sooner or later, he fell to the knives of the assassins.
“The origin of the word assassin is debated. It is evidently either derived from ‘Hasan’ or ‘hashish’ the drug he befuddled his followers with.”
“To use your favorite term, Jesus Christ,” Jo Edmonds said. “Just what do you want to dream doing in this garden of Hasan Ben Sabbah?”
Tracy said, “I want to enter it exactly as did his drugged followers. I’ll have to be able to speak Arabic or Persian, or whatever it was they spoke in Omar Khayyam’s time. Either that, or whoever I meet will have to speak English.”
“That’s no problem,” Edmonds said. “All right. Here you go.” He reached over to the small table beside the bed and flicked a switch.
Tracy was seated on a large, elaborately carved low wooden stool which was highly encrusted with jewels and inlayed with mother-of-pearl. The cushion he sat upon was embroidered with gold thread and with pearls. He was dressed in silken, baggy trousers, a richly embroidered vest-like jacket, wore a red silken turban on his head, and was shod in beautifully soft suede slippers, the toes of which turned up.
He had no memory of his past and, for the moment, no interest in anything save his immediate future. Somewhere in the near distance was the sound of swirling music.
He came to his feet and made his way in that direction. He was slightly high but not to the point where any of his senses were dulled. In fact, all of his senses were highly alert. The path which he followed was graveled with highly colorful stones of a score of varieties. He stooped and picked one up. It was a beautiful black opal, polished. Pleased with it, he put it in the dark velvet sash which encircled his waist, then stooped again and picked up a red stone which flashed light quite brilliantly. A garnet, or possibly a ruby, he thought. But it didn’t please him as much as the black opal had and he tossed it away. He stooped still once again and picked up an oval-shaped green stone. It came to him that it must be jade. Something flickered in his mind, a memory, but he rejected it and proceeded along the walk rubbing the piece of jade between a thumb and forefinger.
The path passed a fountain. In its center was a golden lion which spouted from its mouth some red fluid. There was a golden cup sitting on the fountain’s edge. It was beautifully worked and encrusted with cut jewels of red, blue, and green rubies, sapphires and emeralds.
He took the cup up, dipped it into the fountain, and then sipped at the contents. A red Bordeaux, very similar to Chateau Haut-Brion, he decided, although his memory gave him no inkling of where he had ever tasted the French wine. Though the drink was superlative, he didn’t pause to sample it further, but put the cup down and continued his way toward the music.
There was heavy natural fragrance in the air, undoubtedly due to the profusion of flowers. He could recognize only a few of them: roses, violets, lilacs, jasmine, bougainvillaea. The roses were in various colors and all surpassingly large and perfect; there was no sign of wilt on any of them.
There were hedges, ferns, trees of various species, including palm, all perfectly trimmed. The grass on the lawns was as that on the putting greens of a first-class golf course, though, once again, his mind refused to bother with the matter of where he had seen a golf course.
He passed several small buildings in the Persian tradition from the days of Tamerlane. Bougainvillaea, jasmine, and ivy climbed the walls; there were domes of blue, green, and gold tile; the doors and windows were horseshoe shaped, sided with pink-hued marble.
He passed through a massive gate. It was horseshoe-shaped, possibly twenty feet high and wide enough so that four cavalrymen abreast could have ridden through it without crowding.
Before him stretched a court some one hundred fifty feet long by seventy-five feet wide. In the center was a large pond set in the marble pavement. There were myrtles growing along its side, and they were being well cared for. In the pond were tropical fish of every hue. There were galleries on the north and south sides of the court; that on the south was about twenty-five feet high and supported by a marble colonnade. Underneath it to the right was what Tracy assumed was the principal entrance to the buildings proper. Over it were three elegant windows with highly decorated arches and miniature pillars, once again in colored marble. And it was in this direction from which the swirling music was coming.
The room beyond was a perfect square, about twenty-five feet to the side and with a lofty dome and trellised windows at its base. The ceiling was decorated with blue, brown, red, and gold tiles, and the columns supporting it sprang out into an arch in a remarkably beautiful manner.
He pressed on and passed into another patio, one even more elaborate than the first. It seemed to be some one hundred feet in length by sixty-five feet in width and was surrounded by a low gallery supported by a good many pure white marble columns. A pavilion projected into the court at each extremity, with filigree walls and light-domed roofs, elaborately decorated with openwork. The square was paved with colored tiles, and the colonnade with white marble, while the walls were covered five feet up from the ground with blue and yellow tiles, with a broader above and below of enameled blue and gold. In the center of the court was a fountain with a magnificent alabaster basin.
The music was coming from the pavilion to the right, the largest of the four which projected into the court. And before it, six girls twirled in a graceful dance, seemingly unaware of his approach.
On his way toward them, Tracy passed the alabaster fountain and its bouquet wafted over to him. The spray was slightly yellowish in color, and the odor was of the Moselle. He would have guessed possibly a Trockenbeerenauslese, though, once again, his memory told him nothing of where he would have picked up information about such a germanic wine.
Upon his approach, two of the dancing girls darted toward him, laughing; they captured his arms and laughingly dragged him toward the pavilion, the other four giggling behind, bringing up the rear.
The pavilion was largely furnished with low couches, piled high with pillows and cushions. And it was from here that the music had been coming: Two girls were playing long-necked stringed instruments.
Tracy looked at them, eight of them in all. They were dressed in diaphanous silken trousers and gilted slippers, similar to his own with the upturned toes; all were topless. Their clothing differed only in color; pink, blue,
