“Ibn Qamar, gentlemen. The son of the moon has arrived as I had hoped, as our ancestors had said it would. I will now partake of kif, and afterward explain what all of this means. I would kindly suggest, Colonel, that everyone be ready to move. Our tasks have just begun this evening.”
Wake stared at the holes in Sohkoor’s face. They had stopped bleeding.
***
A few minutes later Sohkoor nonchalantly narrated in academic terms the significance of Jupiter’s rare but predictable emergence from behind the moon, explaining that he knew what was about to happen because the scholars of Damascus and Cairo had learned, and maintained the knowledge in great libraries, what the Greeks had discovered thousands of years earlier. He smiled when he said that the Islamic scholars had retained Western science when Europe had forsaken it after the fall of Rome and regressed into tribal barbarity, a comment which Wake saw made Faber twitch but not comment. He said that the trance that he had entered was a mystical communion with Mohammed and with Allah, demonstrating his faith by proclaiming his knowledge beforehand and sacrificing his flesh afterward. And no, he added, it didn’t hurt. He was without pain because his faith had overcome it.
Sohkoor then explained that, because of their vast repository of scientific understanding, the foretelling of celestial events was widespread in the Islamic world and that accompanying allegorical legends and tales were used to teach people the guidelines of life, much like the Christian Bible. The arrival of the son of the moon, he said, was a visual fable to teach believers that strange—and apparently impossible—events can come true, that unreachable goals can indeed be achieved.
The scholar then quietly suggested that they all mount their horses and depart, for they had to go into the land of the Tuareg, the Blue Men of the Sahara Desert, and the sooner they got started the better. When Woodgerd asked exactly where their destination would be, Sohkoor answered Marrakech, which made the Arab soldiers react with visible concern. Wake later learned that this was because they were coastal Arabs and had heard frightening tales of the desert and of Marrakech in particular. Sohkoor reminded them that Allah was guiding them and that they would be safe, but none looked reassured.
Now the file of men on horses was heading south, bound for a shadowy purple-tinged mountain in the distance that Sohkoor had pointed out to Woodgerd. After that mountain would come another and another, he said, and then they would descend out of the highlands of the Atlas and down into the desert of the Sahara.
As they slowly made their way across the rocky landscape, surrealistic in the moonlight, Wake’s mind was still captivated by Sohkoor’s performance—the dance, the self-mutilation, the subsequent explanation. He looked over at Rork, engaged in a pantomime comparison of daggers with a guardsman who spoke no English.
After regarding the Arab’s khanjar knife, the bosun raised a stiletto and said to the ferocious-looking man, “Aye, now that one’s a fancy bit o’ metal, but it’s too big for a quiet job. Take a sight o’ this, boyo. Now this little darlin’ can slide between the ribs an’ into the heart jes’ as pretty as you please, with nary a fuss about it.” Then Rork leaned over and grinned at the wary Arab. “Perfect for buggers who’re close alongside ya.”
The Irish bosun caught Wake watching and gestured toward the guardsman. “Thinkin’ jes’ a wee bit o’ deterrence would be a good thing right about now.”
Wake turned his attention to Faber. After his reconciliation with Wake, in which no accusations had been made between them, it was as if any unspoken fears or grievances had been forgiven. Faber seemed calmer, more human, to Wake. It was an immense relief.
A notion suddenly hit Wake. He examined his pocket watch. It said a quarter till midnight. The talk with Faber and Sohkoor’s subsequent trance had been about two hours earlier. He leaned over in the saddle and asked Faber, “Henri, what day is it?”
Faber pulled his chin, then said, “It would be the twenty-seventh day of April, Peter.”
“No, I mean what day of the week?”
Faber started to answer, then paused and looked at the back of the scholar riding ahead of them with Woodgerd. When he did speak there was reverence in his tone. “Mon Dieu . . . it is Tuesday, Peter. As Sohkoor predicted days ago, I feel changed.”
Wake wondered aloud. “It’s beyond strange, gentlemen—it’s positively crazy. Here we are, in the middle of who knows where in Africa. A mercenary, a diplomat, and two sailors, heading off in the dark of the night toward a den of thieves.”
Rork chuckled. “Aye on that, sir. An’ we’re bein’ led by a whirlin’ dervish o’ a mystic man, jus’ like the days o’ old. If this ain’t a test o’ faith, I don’t know what is!”
“Yea, though I go into the valley of death . . .” offered Wake.
“My thoughts exactly, Peter,” agreed Faber. “My thoughts exactly.”
37
Into the SaHraa
It took them five days—from sunrise to well past sundown each day—to go one hundred miles through the mountains. It was cold during the day at that altitude and freezing at night, and Wake struggled to continue, his stamina drained and his previous confidence in the expedition waning rapidly. The horses were exhausted, the lowland soldiers jumpy in the claustrophobic ravines and passes, and the foreigners worried, including Woodgerd, who had never been this far from the coast and was by this point was completely reliant upon Sohkoor for all decisions.
Only
