Chapter Five
A Fortress in Shadow
Megelin Radetic walked the stony slopes below the tired walls of el Aswad, the Eastern Fortress. Haroun tagged along, scattering his attention as small boys will, yet clinging to the one adult who had time for him. A scarred old veteran dogged them both, his sword always in hand.
Haroun had not spoken for days. He had become lost inside his own young mind. Now, at least, he chose to speak, as Radetic paused to stare out across the sere, inhospitable land. “Megelin, is Father going to die?”
“I don’t think so. The physicians are hopeful.”
“Megelin?”
“What?” It was time to be gentle. He knelt.
“Why did he kill them? The pilgrims at the shrine.”
Radetic resumed walking. “I don’t know. If anyone but El Murid had given the order, I’d guess for spite.”
They moved round the flank of the mountain. On its eastern face they encountered Haroun’s brother Ali. Ali was seated on a boulder. He stared at Jebal al Alf Dhulquarneni, as if his thoughts might conjure the Hidden Ones from their secret strongholds.
Radetic stared too. He wondered what the wizards of the mountains thought of recent events. Presumably they would pursue tradition and ignore their neighbors. They had been up there since time immemorial. They bothered no one who did not bring them trouble. Even the mighty Empire had let them be, and they had remained aloof from its death throes.
Haroun murmured, “Megelin, I’m afraid.”
Ali started to make a cutting remark.
“He’s right, Ali. It’s a time for fear. We have to fear Nassef for his sword, and El Murid for his Word. They make a deadly combination. And we must fear this, too: that the Sword might become master of the Word, rather than the reverse. Go, then, and try to capture the whirlwind.”
Ali frowned. Old Radetic was in one of his ambiguous moods.
Ali was cast more in the mold of his uncle than of his brother or father. He was no thinker. Haroun understood Radetic plainly.
Yousif had reached el Aswad only hours behind the returning family caravan. His force had been savaged, and he had come within a mouse’s whisker of death.
The caravan had not come through unscathed. Yousif had left no guards. Disorganized bands of Nassef’s pickets had tried their luck plundering.
Even Megelin Radetic had taken up arms in the running fight.
He gripped his left bicep. He had taken a light saber slash. The wound still ached.
He smiled. How he had amazed his assailant with his counterattack!
Fuad still could not assimilate the fact that his brother’s tame intellectual knew which end of a sword to grab. Nor did he know what to make of the fact that the teacher had taken charge of old men, boys, women and camel drovers and had whipped hell out of tough young warriors.
Radetic found his incredulity amusing. He had told Fuad, “We study more than flowers at the Rebsamen.” The remark referred to Fuad’s bewilderment the time when he had discovered that Megelin was cataloging and making color drawings of desert wildflowers.
Ali descended from his perch. “Megelin?”
“Yes?”
“I’m scared too.”
“We all are, Ali.”
Ali glared at Haroun. “If you tell, I’ll pound you.”
Haroun snatched up a jagged rock. “Come on, Ali.”
“Boys. Save it for El Murid.”
“He asking for it,” Haroun replied.
“You little snot —”
“I said knock it off. Haroun, come on. Ali was here first.”
Ali stuck out his tongue.
Radetic strolled away wondering what Haroun did fear. People did not intimidate him. “Let’s go back to the castle, Haroun. It’s time we did a little studying.”
El Aswad was a regional name which popular usage also applied to its capital fortress. The Imperial builders of the original featureless square stronghold had called it the “Eastern Fortress.” Under the Empire it had been the headquarters of a major military command.
The castle was bigger now, though less important. Every generation did a little something to make it more impregnable. Rounded towers had been added to the original walls. Curtain walls and supporting towers had been appended to its north side, enclosing the whole of the mountaintop. Still farther north, connected to the main castle by the curtains, commanding the mountain’s most gentle slope, stood a massive square sub-fortress.
The other three faces of the mountain were barren, rocky, and often precipitous. The surface rock was soft and loose. Weather had been gnawing away for ages. Tortuously curved layers of sedimentary rock showed the progress of ancient ages. The children of Yousif’s courtiers and soldiers loved scrounging the slopes for fossils, for
