“Oh?” He had to think about that. After a few seconds, “People run it, don’t they? Maybe that’s what she meant. Anyway, we could find out about it before we tried the Guild.”
“No. It’s too hot down there. They’ll hang us. Besides, I don’t think Mother wanted us to go there. Not really. Not unless there was nowhere else we could go.”
“The excitement should have died down.”
“You’re fooling yourself, Bragi. I say try the Guild.”
“You scared of Hellin Daimiel?” Bragi was. The city was too huge, too foreign, too dangerous.
“Yes. I don’t mind admitting it. It’s too different to just jump into. Too easy for us to get into something we can’t handle because we don’t know better. That’s why I say go with the Guild.”
Bragi saw Haaken’s reasoning. The Guild would provide a base of safety while they learned southern ways.
He fingered his mother’s gift, battled homesickness and temporized. “In the morning. We’ll decide after we’ve slept on it.”
He did not sleep well.
Chapter Seven
Wadi el Kuf
El Murid stalked around Sebil el Selib like a tiger caged. Would this imprisonment never end? Would that villain Yousif never crack? The desert was on his side, if his advisers were to be believed. Nassef claimed he could stamp his foot and twenty thousand warriors would respond.
Why, then, did the Kingdom of Peace still extend no farther than he could see? Like the Lord Himself, he was running short on patience.
The pressure had been building for months. He was growing increasingly frustrated, increasingly suspicious of Nassef and his gang of self-made generals. He had told no one, not even Meryem, but he had begun to believe that Nassef was keeping him here intentionally, isolating him from his people. He was not sure why Nassef should want it that way.
Sometimes he took his son or daughter along on his walks, explaining the wonders of God’s handiwork to them. Over Nassef’s objections he had had several scholars brought in to explain some of the less obvious miracles of nature. And he had begun learning to read and write so that he could promulgate his laws in his own hand.
But usually he roamed alone, accompanied only by the Invincibles. The Invincibles were necessary. The minions of the Evil One had tried to murder him a dozen times. Sometimes it seemed his enemies had more men in his camp than he did.
He would greet soldiers by name, study the ever growing barracks-city or inspect the new truck gardens being terraced into the hillsides. The army was devouring the available flatland. The gardens did not provide enough, but they helped. Every vegetable raised here meant one fewer that had to be bought on the coast and transported through the pass. And the fieldwork kept idle hands from turning to the Evil One.
It rained the day El Murid decided to end his confinement. It was not a pleasant rain, but one of those driving, bitter storms that beat down the spirit as easily as they beat down grass and leaves. The rains passed, but left the sky and his mood low, gray and oppressive, with the potential of turning foul.
He summoned the captains of the Invincibles.
His bodyguard now consisted of three thousand men. It formed a personal army independent of that which Nassef commanded. The quiet, mostly nameless men who formed its brotherhood were absolutely faithful and completely incorruptible.
They had, for the past year, been undertaking operations of their own out in the desert. Unlike Nassef’s men, they did not concentrate on attacking and looting loyalists. They moved into preponderantly friendly areas and stayed, assuming both administrative and defense functions. They spoke for the Lord, but contained their enthusiasm, proselytizing by example. They did not bother local loyalists as long as the loyalists observed a strict pacifism and tended their own business. The areas they occupied were largely free of strife. They had skirmished with Nassef’s men on several occasions because they refused to allow anyone to disturb the peace of their lands.
Once the commanders assembled, El Murid said, “My brother, the Scourge of God, has returned. Has he not?”
“Last night, Disciple,” someone volunteered.
“He hasn’t come to see me. Someone go get him.”
A half minute after an emissary departed, the Disciple added archly, “I’d be indebted if someone could manage to borrow a Harish kill dagger.” Though he knew who the senior members of the cult were, and had several in his presence, he wanted to allow them their secrecy. They were useful. “We’ll leave it lying around as a reminder of where the final authority lies.”’
El Murid’s formal audience chamber, before the Malachite Throne, was large and formularized. He had a bent toward show and structure. Petitioners had to come before him and stand at one of several podium-like pieces of furniture, wait their turn to be recognized, then present their plea and any important evidence.
At twenty-two El Murid was a hard, strong-willed, dictatorial leader — once he had suffered through his private hells of indecision. He no longer brooked defiance. The men and women of Sebil el Selib lived to the letter of his laws.
Less than two minutes passed before an Invincible placed a kill dagger on an evidence stand near the chief petitioner’s podium. El Murid smiled his approval and suggested that the man move the blade slightly, so that it could not be seen from the Malachite Throne.
They waited.
Nassef stalked in sullenly. His lips were tight and pale. The Invincible accompanying him wore a smug look. El
