“It’s about to start. . . .”
36
Dance of the Dervish
“Ibn Qamar! Ibn Qamar!” cried out Sohkoor to the moon. “Shukran bezzef, lhamdo llaah!”
“What did he say?” Wake asked Woodgerd under his breath.
Woodgerd wagged his head. “Ibn Aqmaar. He’s called upon the son of the moon, who comes out very seldom. And he offered thanks to Allah for the arrival of the son of the moon.”
“What son of the moon? The moon doesn’t have a son, or even a moon of its own,” said Wake.
“Oh yeah? Look at the moon now, Wake,” said Woodgerd. “And I’ll be damned if the old sonovabitch wasn’t right.”
Wake, followed by Rork, stood up and walked to the edge of the firelight, focusing on the white moon, now above the southeast horizon and well into its evening flight across the sky. Wake guessed it was about two and a half points off the horizon, or maybe twenty-five, twenty-seven degrees up. The slightly more than half-crescent was bright white, illuminating the sky and blotting out stars that were close by, except for . . . Wake saw something. Something was close by the moon on the outer side, to the right of it. It was a bright spot, an object brighter than a star. Faber came over and Wake pointed it out to him. Soon all the men were standing there, staring at the moon and its “son.”
“By all the saints in Heaven, I never seen the like o’ that in all me years at sea,” muttered Rork. “Son o’ the moon, indeed.”
Wake had never seen anything like it either. It was very close to the moon, as if it had risen from the surface and was flying just above it. Wake tried to orient himself to the sky. There in the south, to the right and slightly above the moon, was the constellation of Leo, with its Zosma and Denebola barely showing closest to the moon and Regulus a bit father away and brighter. Over on the eastern side of the moon was the constellation of Virgo, with tiny Spica trying to be seen through the lunar light. Wake understood what he saw in the sky, except for that object next to the moon. He had no idea.
Sohkoor slowly circled now, palms outward, returning to face the moon. He paused, then resumed his turning around, chanting in a low tone that got higher and higher in pitch. The circling gathered speed as the chanting grew louder and louder. The Arab guardsmen grew nervous, backing away from the scholar. One started praying to the east. Sohkoor was spinning fast, the sounds inhuman, his face distorted as the firelight flashed on it, grimacing in pain or ecstasy. Screaming chants into the mountains around them, he whirled faster until he became a blur, the echoes eerily returning seconds later so that it seemed as if there were ten more Sohkoors out there, everywhere.
Sohkoor’s unworldly dance and the screaming and the strange lunar object presented an unreal scene in the firelight on the mountaintop, and Wake felt chills going down his spine. He looked around and saw the others felt it too, even Woodgerd the cynic.
“You knew something was going to happen. What the hell is all this?” he asked Woodgerd.
“I know that Sohkoor is not merely a scholar of classical knowledge, Wake. He is a mystic, a sufi. But he is more than even that, he is one of the dervishes, mystics who can predict the future by leaving their worldly bodies behind while in a trance. I saw him do it once before and, God help me, I know what’s about to come.”
A gasp came from the men and Wake turned to see that Sohkoor, still whirling and screaming, now held a skewer in his right hand. His eyes widened as he spun, a terrible sight to behold. Suddenly he froze in position, silent, the skewer held high, pointed to his face. Wake held his breath as Rork uttered a Gaelic oath.
And then in one smooth motion, Sohkoor plunged the skewer down into his right cheek, so hard that it emerged from the other side of his face.
Instantly, he circled again, the metal needle sticking out of his face, his voice growling louder and louder, a guttural rasping like a lion tearing meat. The trickle of blood coming out of both cheeks was spun away in a streak, so that his face was soon striped red, looking specterlike, the wounds bleeding more with each turn so that drops began to fling around him. Wake felt the blood splatter on his own face and realized that he was now part of this ritual, a blood brother in a bizarre way, and that the image would stay with him for the rest of his life.
Woodgerd, his face bloodied too, got Wake’s attention again. “One more thing you need to understand, Wake. Sohkoor is not just a mystic with special powers. He is also the vizier, the principal adviser, to the sultan. He is the one man the sultan always listens to, and whose advice he always follows. And that, Wake, makes the man you are watching right now the most powerful man in Morocco—in fact, in this part of Africa.”
“It is Jupiter, I think,” called out Faber, pointing to the moon and its strange satellite. “Yes, it must be Jupiter, right next to the moon.”
Sohkoor’s spinning was slowing down, no longer a blur of color, but now a man circling, his chant more human now. The soldiers crowded forward. It was all winding down. Wake realized he had been holding his breath and took a deep breath of the cold air. He saw that his hands were trembling. His words to Faber came out in a shaky voice.
“You may well be right, Henri. It probably is Jupiter, that’s the right position in regard to Leo. But as far as I’m concerned, Sohkoor’s correct and tonight the moon showed us its son.”
He was abruptly aware
