visit the old general, then another stranger came and took him away. The second visitor might have been the Empire Destroyer.” Al-Dimishqi chuckled. “No doubt he had exactly the right number of eyes, ears, arms, and legs.”
Elwas made a two-handed gesture of accession. “The evidence is indeed that slim, Shining One. It is equal y thin for a suggestion that Old Meddler turned up for a confab with Megelin right after. There are supposed eyewitnesses who won’t talk.”
Yasmid chose not to speak until she had had time to think.
Then, “He visited Megelin directly?”
“Probably, but not for sure. It could be a rumor planted by somebody who doesn’t like him. But there’s definitely evidence that there were other visits. Megelin may be in the vil ain’s thral .”
Al-Dimishqi agreed.
So even the fanatics now doubted El Murid’s angel.
How she wished that monster, the Star Rider, could be extinguished. There could be no truth more powerful than a reappearance of the angel while Old Meddler lay dead in the dust.
“Intriguing news, al of this,” she conceded. “But is it real y the sea change Habibul ah predicted when he dragged me from my sickbed?”
Al-Souki said, “We need you as the One Who Speaks for God.”
Suddenly, it felt like they were looking inside her, tapping into her thoughts and fears. Her stomach refused to let her be. She had a hard time giving a damn what anyone thought right now.
Past everything, and al the impossible morning misery—
she was too damned old!—she was terrified. She could not hide this much longer. The world would then get very ugly indeed.
She rose. “If that is al …”
“That’s not everything,” Habibul ah said. “We could have saved that til you felt better. The truth is… Only Elwas has heard this. The news came after I sent the cal to assemble.”
Yasmid settled again, with a sigh. “This is the part that I won’t like. Right?”
Habibul ah nodded. “This is that part. In trying to catch the ghost of Haroun bin Yousif, and to find out what Varthlokkur was up to, Megelin pushed a little too hard.” Yasmid said, “There was an uprising.”
“Yes. It’s stil going on.”
“What happened to Megelin?” Whatever else, he was her only child.
“I don’t know. The storm had only just begun when the news left Al Rhemish. It didn’t look good for those in charge, though. I should know more soon.”
Yasmid looked around. Each man showed mixed feelings, on her behalf and his own.
Megelin being pul ed down should be good for everyone but Megelin and Old Meddler. No one was set to replace the King. No one knew who an eligible successor might be.
Everyone had gotten sick of succession squabbles when the Royalists were stil in exile. Once Haroun named Megelin to succeed him the question had gone away. The boy had been young. He had had time to produce an heir.
He was stil young enough but seemed determined to avoid that royal responsibility—along with most of the rest.
Yasmid asked, “My part in this wil be what?” She suspected that Habibul ah wanted to make her the next king.
She giggled, startling everyone. Habibul ah considered her with narrowed eyes. She drove the hysteria down into the darkness. “You have given me a lot to digest. Permit me to return to my rest. I wil say something the moment I’m sure that I’ve put together a reasoned, rational argument.” As an afterthought, she added, “I’l have to talk to my father, too.” That, evidently, was a good thing to say.
Habibul ah began to shoo the men out.
Al-Dimishqi would not be shooed. “Lady, I have a matter that needs discussion as soon as possible.”
...
Yasmid sat down again. “Adim, I presume this is occasioned by your work in my father’s tent.”
“Yes, Lady.” Al-Dimishqi glanced at Habibul ah, who did nothing to conceal his displeasure. “At the risk of offering offense, I’d like to keep this between us two. If you want to include others afterward that is your prerogative.” Ah. So. He wanted Habibul ah out of the way. That rattled Yasmid. What was he up to?
She stifled the fear, put on her woman-of-iron mask. “It has to do with something you found over there?”
“It does, Lady. It goes beyond venality and criminal behavior.”
“Very wel . Step outside, Habibul ah. And please don’t eavesdrop. But stay close enough to respond if I scream.”
“As you wish.” The old man showed her the ghost of a bow.
He knew she would pass on whatever al-Dimishqi told her.
“He won’t go far,” Yasmid promised al-Dimishqi after Habibul ah stepped out.
“You misjudge me badly, Lady. This truly is a critical matter.”
“Please be quick, then. I am feeling…” More than just awful.
She was entirely alone with a man who did not approve of her at al . There were no witnesses to her propriety, not even a slave.
“Yes. Of course. I don’t want to intrude upon your il ness.
This, then, is the matter. We found a cache of moldy registers from the earliest days of the movement. Most are in your father’s hand. A few were recorded by your mother.
And there are two courtesy of the Scourge of God.”
“Wow!” She was amazed. Those might be important historical documents.
“Indeed, wow. Though the registers are in bad shape.
They’l be more valuable as keepsakes than as records—
though I did see some interesting short notes on daily thoughts that did not get into your father’s formal writings.”
“Did these records produce some remarkable revelation?
Or something painful y heretical? Is that your point?”
“Not at al , Lady. What was decipherable only reinforced my faith. The real matter I want to bring up is, what happened to the thunder amulet that your father got from his angel?” Yasmid frowned, frankly puzzled. She had steeled herself for a confrontation. Al-Dimishqi was rambling about something more legend than… “Oh! That amulet! That amulet? The one he could use to cal down the lightning or make boulders fal from the sky? That turned the tide at the Five Circles and on the salt pan?”
“That amulet, Lady. Yes.”
“It was lost.”
“Lady?”
“He lost it, Adim. For real and forever, to a western soldier after he went down outside Libiannin. The plunderers took him for just another dead warrior. My father spent years trying to find it again. He failed. Even his angel couldn’t trace it. You’d think he could have found it if it had survived.
So it must have been broken up and melted down. But why are you asking about it?”
Al-Dimishqi seemed stricken. “The journal… Is al that real y true? I was sure I’d stumbled onto something that could change everything.”
“You may have, just not the way you hoped. Find out more.
But I can tel you this: the real amulet would not have been missed by the thieves who went through my father’s stuff. It was gold and weighed a good half a pound. And it had gemstones set in it. The angel didn’t want it to be missed.” Al-Dimishqi sagged. “I am heartbroken. I was so excited. I was sure we were about to bring a powerful tool back to the holy struggle.”
Yasmid winced, pushed the pain down. “There may have been something. It might even have been given to my father by his angel. My father may have come to believe that it was the original amulet. I know he hated that thing. He sometimes risked disaster so he didn’t have to use it…
After what happened outside Libiannin—another one of his narrow, miraculous escapes from a situation that
