“No.”
“This is amazing,” Haroun said. “To think that I was that close. I wish I had known so I could have gotten a glimpse.”
“You wouldn’t have seen much,” the talkative Invincible said, moving away.
“Muftaq!” his remaining companion snapped.
“What? It’s no secret that she’s as homely as the back end of a camel.”
“You have no right to say such things in front of perfect strangers.”
Haroun muttered, “I’m definitely not perfect. I wouldn’t be in this fix if I was.”
The Invincibles moved on, leaving the traveler in furious thought.
...
“Could it have been?” Yasmid demanded. “He would have to be mad to be here. Wouldn’t he?”
Habibul ah agreed, in private and aloud. “He would. But his madness has never been in question.”
Yasmid struggled to shed a maelstrom of conflicting feelings. “You did hear what I heard?”
“It was the exact singsong the fat man used when we were young. Minus the accent.”
“Can there be an explanation other than the one our foolish hearts want it to be?”
“In God’s eyes al things are possible. We’l know for sure soon enough. The Invincibles wil question everyone who isn’t one of them. Anyone suspicious wil wind up at your feet.”
Yasmid said, “Uh-oh.”
Habibul ah said, “I’l put out a warning not to operate alone.
If it is him he won’t scruple to kil a man for his robes.” Yasmid said, “I don’t want him slain outright, Habibul ah. I want to see him first.”
“I understand.”
Watching the door again. Habibul ah knowing that. Her knowing that Habibul ah had told her what she wanted to hear. She was a woman. She was weak. She would not do what needed to be done. If Habibul ah got there first Haroun would die resisting capture.
Habibul ah’s foolish heart did not share the hungers of her foolish heart. Habibul ah nurtured an abiding and deadly grudge.
...
Haroun indulged in wishful thinking but did not waste time sitting stil . Aza was compromised. Aza would be very popular soon. Aza had to evaporate off the desert like dew in the morning sun.
Haroun pawned his cart and contents, and his animals, with a oneeyed rogue known as Barking Snake, a parasite grown fat off desperate travelers. He smel ed desperation when Haroun arrived in the night. He took every advantage.
Haroun did not argue. He did make a point of remembering the fat face and greasy beard fil ed with a vulpine smile.
Haroun had just departed when a dozen Invincibles descended on Barking Snake’s establishment. He listened.
The Invincibles were out rousting the usual suspects.
Barking Snake lied smoothly, unctuously, while his underlings were stil moving reluctant goats in the background.
Haroun al owed himself a grim smile. Unless he was slicker than he looked Barking Snake would soon be answering questions for which he could offer no satisfactory replies.
Haroun wore shabby clothing he had acquired from Barking Snake, stil smel ing of its previous owner, who may have died in it. As a disguise it would be useless soon. Once the hunters knew that Barking Snake had bought Aza’s things they would make him tel them what to look for.
He considered becoming one of the hunters. But that would be impractical except as a momentary expedient.
The old warriors here al knew each other and were working in groups.
He could not return to being a pilgrim. No Believer would hide him.
Patrols came close. They failed to catch him mainly because they had no real idea of what they were supposed to find.
Haroun considered fleeing Sebil el Selib. It was the logical course. But he could not reach the pass back to the east and he was not equipped to survive the desert. With a couple of water bags he could make it to el Aswad.
They would think of that right away.
It might be a useful false trail to lay down sometime.
The need for constant evasion pushed him toward the Disciple’s tent.
He rested in a shadowed dip fifty feet from that absurd sprawl of canvas. There was activity at its entrance, but only out of curiosity. The guards and staff refused to get caught up in the broader excitement.
The idea seemed obvious enough. If he could get inside…
Rumor said that the interior mostly went unused. A company of horsemen could hide in there.
Out of adversity, opportunity?
Why had the place not been picked clean by thieves?
If you were a Believer, perhaps, the Disciple’s presence made it holy and immune.
Haroun did not see the man as a god descended to earth, but was wil ing to profit from such thinking.
He used shaghun skil s several times, always at the weakest intensity. Stil , that should have attracted attention.
Did they not have anyone watching for sorcery? Was the Disciple’s ban on witchcraft and wizardry actual y observed at Sebil el Selib?
Excel ent. He could be more bold. But not now. For now he had to remain a ghost.
He reached the tent unchal enged. This sector was quiet.
These people were their own worst enemies.
Shadows embraced him as he explored.
He never saw a patrol, though there was a path beaten alongside the tent, maybe laid down by those who made sure pegs and ropes remained properly set and taut. The bottom edge of the tent was secured by iron spikes at two foot intervals. Haroun oozed along for a hundred feet without finding even one of those missing.
That was a lot of iron. He could not imagine why some vil ain had not taken every other one and sold them to Barking Snake, who could have a blacksmith hammer them into a slightly different shape before he sold them back as replacements.
He had to pul this off without leaving evidence. He had to penetrate a space he could explore only with a shaghun’s senses. His skil s were not infal ible when he had to keep watch in a dozen directions at once.
Maybe there was a sorcerer out there. The excitement was col apsing slowly toward him rather than expanding.
...
Yasmid and Habibul ah had just taken the latest confused reports from several baffled and weary Invincibles captains. Some of the elderly, hardline imams had come to poke their noses in. They could not be denied.
Yasmid murmured, “Please, God, make this a false alarm. Better, make these old coots keep their mouths shut and their ears the same.”
Habibul ah broke her heart by whispering, “The man in the pilgrim camp is the one we want. And he sounds like the man we don’t want.”
She understood. “Yes. He’s the one.” The fact that he had become a ghost was evidence enough. “But he isn’t Haroun bin Yousif.”
Habibul ah surprised her. “I concur. This is someone who wants us to believe he might be a dangerous dead man.
But he hasn’t affirmed it with the patterns of death that are the signature of the King Without a Throne.” Yasmid considered Habibul ah. What nonsense was this?
Haroun never tried to leave the survivors thinking what a clever murderer he was.
Elwas reported, “He must have fled into the desert. There is no sign of him.”
Yasmid sighed. She could not conquer mixed feelings. She yearned for the door to spring open and those
