The Fire in His Hands Read online

  He did not sound enthusiastic.

  “You were too much bother for them,” the girl said. “That’s why they gave you to Father.” She sounded bitter.

  “What?”

  “Our oasis is drying up. The one at the Shrine is still wet, but the abbot won’t share his water rights. The holy gardens flourish while the el Habib thirst.”

  Neither mentioned their sire’s pragmatic deal.

  “Did you really see an angel?” Meryem asked.

  “Yes. I did. He bore me up among the stars and showed me the lands of the earth. He came to me in the hour of my despair and gave me two priceless gifts: my life, and the Truth. And he bade me take the Truth to the Chosen, that they might be freed of the bondage of the past and in turn carry the Word to the infidel.”

  Nassef flashed a sarcastic look in his sister’s direction. Micah saw it plainly.

  “You too shall know the Truth, friend Nassef. You shall see the flowering of the Kingdom of Peace. The Lord has returned me to the living with the mission of creating his Kingdom on earth.”

  In ages to come there would be countless bitter words spilled over El Murid’s returned-to-life remarks. Did he mean a symbolic rebirth, or a literal return from the dead? He would never clarify himself.

  Nassef closed his eyes. He was four years older than this naive boy. Those years were an unbridgeable gulf of experience.

  He did have the manners to refrain from laughing. “Open the flap a crack, Meryem. Let the sun in little by little, till he can face it.”

  She did so, and said, “We should bring him something to eat. He hasn’t had any solid food yet.”

  “Nothing heavy. His stomach isn’t ready.” Nassef had seen victims of the desert before.

  “Help me bring it.”

  “All right. Rest easy, foundling. We’ll be right back. Think up an appetite.” He followed his sister from the tent.

  Meryem paused twenty feet away. Softly, she asked, “He really believes it, doesn’t he?”

  “About the angel? He’s crazy.”

  “I believe it, too, Nassef. In a way. Because I want to. What he says... I think a lot of people want to hear that kind of thing. I think the abbot sent him down here because he was afraid to listen. And that’s why Father won’t have him in the house.”

  “Meryem —”

  “What if a lot of people start listening and believing, Nassef?”

  Nassef paused thoughtfully. “It’s something to think about, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Come on. Let’s get him something.”

  El Murid, who was still very much the boy Micah al Rhami, lay staring at the tent above him. He let the leak of sunshine tease his eyes. A compulsion to be on his way, to begin preaching, rose within him. He fought it down. He knew he had to recover completely before he began his ministry.

  But he was so impatient!

  He knew the wayward habits of the Chosen, now that the angel had opened his eyes. It was imperative that he bring them the Truth as soon as possible. Every life the Dark Lady harvested now meant one more soul lost to the Evil One.

  He would begin with El Aquila and Al Ghabha. When these people had been saved he would send them to minister to their neighbors. He himself would travel among the tribes and villages along his father’s caravan route. If he could find some way to bring them salt...

  “Here we are,” Meryem announced. There was a musical note in her voice Micah found strange in one so young.

  “Soup again, but this time I brought some bread. You can soak it. Sit up. You’ll have to feed yourself this time. Don’t eat too fast. You’ll make yourself sick. Not too much, either.”

  “You’re kind, Meryem.”

  “No. Nassef is right. I’m a brat.”

  “The Lord loves you even so.” He began talking softly, persuasively, between bites. Meryem listened in apparent rapture.

  He spoke for the first time in the shade of the palms surrounding the el Habib oasis. Little but mud remained of that once reliable waterhole, and that had begun to dry and crack. He made of the oasis a parable paralleling the drying up of the waters of faith in the Lord.

  His audience was small. He sat with them as a teacher with students, reasoning with them and instructing them in the faith. Some were men four times his age. They were amazed by his knowledge and clarity of thought.

  They threw fine points of dogma into his path like surprise pitfalls, baiting him. He shattered their arguments like a barbarian horde destroying lightly defended cities.

  He had been more carefully schooled than he knew.

  He made no converts. He had not expected to do so. He wanted to start them gossiping behind his back, unwittingly creating a climate for the sort of speeches that would win converts.

  The older men went away afraid. They sensed in his words the first spark of a flame that could consume the Children of Hammad al Nakir.

  Afterward, El Murid visited Mustaf. “My father’s caravan? What became of it?” he asked the chieftain. Mustaf was taken aback, for he did it as an equal, not a child to an elder.

  “Ambushed. All wiped out. It was a sad hour in the history of Hammad al Nakir. That I should have lived to see the day wherein men turned upon a salt caravan!”

  There was something a little evasive in the way Mustaf had spoken. His eyes had become shifty.

  “I have heard that the men of el Habib found the caravan. I have heard that they pursued the bandits.”

  “This is true. The bandits crossed the Sahel to the country of the western infidel.”

  Mustaf had become nervous. Micah thought he knew why. The hetman was essentially honorable. He had sent his own people to extract justice for the al Rhami family. But there was a little of the brigand in all the Children of Hammad al Nakir. “Yet there is a camel outside which answers to the name Big Jamal. And another which responds to Cactus. Could it be sheer coincidence that these beasts bear names identical to those of camels which belonged to my father? Is it coincidence that they bear identical markings?”

  Mustaf said nothing for nearly a minute. Coals of anger burned briefly in his eyes. No man was pleased to be called to account by a child.

  “You are observant, son of al Rhami,” he finally replied. “It is true. They were your father’s animals. When news came of what had happened, we saddled our best horses and rode swift and hard upon the trail. A crime so hideous could not go unpunished. Though your father’s people were not of the el Habib, they were of the Chosen. They were saltmen. The laws shielding them are older than the Empire.”

  “And there was booty to be had.”

  “And there was booty, though your father was not a wealthy man. His entire fortune could scarcely repay the cost we paid in horses and lives.”

  Micah smiled. Mustaf had revealed his bargaining strategy. “You avenged my family?”

  “Though our pursuit carried beyond the Sahel. We caught them before the very palisades of the heathen traders. Only two passed the infidels’ gates. We were gentlemen. We did not burn their wooden walls. We did not slay the men and enslave the women. We treated with their council of factors, who knew your family of old. We presented our proofs. They took council, then delivered the bandits into our mercy. We were not merciful. They took many days dying, as an example to others who would break laws older than the desert. Perhaps the vultures still pick their bones.”

  “For that I must thank you, Mustaf. What of my patrimony?”

  “We treated with the factors. Perhaps they cheated us. We were but ignorant devils of the sands. Perhaps not. We bore scimitars still stained with the blood of those who had wronged us.”

  “I doubt that they cheated, Mustaf. It’s not their way. And, as you say, they would have been frightened.”

  “There is a small amount in gold and silver. And the camels did not interest them.”

  “What were your losses?”

  “One man. And my son Nassef was wounded. That boy! You should have seen him! He was a lion! My pride kno
ws no bounds. That such a son should have sprung from my loins! A lion of the desert, my Nassef. He will be a mighty warrior. If he outlives youth’s impetuosity. He slew three of them himself.” The chieftain glowed in his pride.

  “And horses? You mentioned horses.”

  “Three. Three of our best. We rode hard and swift. And there was a messenger, that we sent to find your father’s people, that they might know and make claims. He has not yet returned.”

  “He has a long journey. It’s yours, Mustaf. All yours. I ask but a horse and a small amount of coin with which to begin my ministry.”

  Mustaf was surprised. “Micah —”

  “I am El Murid now. Micah al Rhami is no more. He was a boy who died in the desert. I have returned from the fiery forge as the Disciple.”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  El Murid was surprised that there could be any doubt.

  “For the sake of the friendship I bore your father, hear me now. Do not pursue this path. It can be naught but a way of tears and sorrow.”

  “I must, Mustaf. The Lord himself has commanded me.”

  “I should restrain you. I will not. May the ghost of your father forgive me. I will choose a horse.”

  “A white horse, if you have one.”

  “I have one.”

  Next morning El Murid again taught beneath the palms. He spoke with passion, of the scarcely restrained wrath of God losing all patience with his Chosen’s neglect of their duties. The argument of the empty oasis was hard to refute. The fiery summer could not be discounted. Several of his younger listeners remained for a more scholarly question and answer session.

  Three days later Nassef whispered from beyond El Murid’s tent flap. “Micah? May I come in?”

  “Come. Nassef? El Murid?”

  “Sorry. Of course.” The youth settled himself opposite El Murid. “Father and I have had an argument. About you.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. It isn’t a good thing.”

  “He ordered me to stay away from you. Meryem too. The other parents are going to do the same. They’re getting angry. You’re calling too many ideas into question. They tolerated you when they thought it was the desert madness talking. But now they’re calling you a heretic.”

  El Murid was stunned. “Me? The Disciple? They accuse me of heresy? How can that be?” Had he not been chosen by the Lord?

  “You challenge old ways. Their ways. You accuse them. You accuse the priests of Al Ghabha. They are set in their ways. You can’t expect them to say, ‘Yes, we are guilty.’”

  He had not foreseen that the Evil One would be so cunning as to deflect his own arguments against him. He had underestimated his Enemy. “Thank you, Nassef. You’re a true friend to warn me. I will remember. Nassef, I hadn’t anticipated this.”

  “I thought not.”

  “Go, then. Do not give your father cause for a grievance. I will speak to you later.”

  Nassef rose and departed, a small, thin smile on his lips.

  El Murid prayed for hours. He retreated deep into his young mind. At last the will of the Lord became clear to him.

  He looked up the long, stony slope at Al Ghabha. The low hill was barren, as if the darkness up there might creep down to devour any goodness surrounding it.

  It was there that his first and most important victory had to be won. What point to winning the el Habib if their traditional spiritual shepherds guided them back to the paths of wrongdoing the moment he traveled on?

  “I’m going to the Shrine,” he told one of the men of the village, who had come to see what he was doing. “I’m going to preach a sermon there. I shall show them the Truth. Then let them name me heretic to my face, and risk the wrath of the Lord.”

  “Will that be wise?”

  “It must be done. They must declare themselves righteous, or tools of the Evil One.”

  “I’ll tell the others.”

  El Murid began walking.

  The desert religion had contained no real devil figure till El Murid named him. Evil had been the province of a host of demons, ghosts, and fell spirits without leadership. And the paternalistic God of Hammad al Nakir had been but the paterfamilias of a family of gods suspiciously resembling the extended families of the Imperial and desert tribes. The Lord’s problems had tended to come from a black-sheep brother who meddled and politicked for the pleasure of causing discord. The religion had retained traces of animism, belief in reincarnation, and ancestor worship.

  The scholars at the Rebsamen University in Hellin Daimiel believed the desert gods to be vague echoes of a family that had united the original Seven Tribes and had guided their migration into the land that would one day become the Empire, and later Hammad al Nakir.

  El Murid’s teachings banished animism, ancestor worship, and reincarnation. They elevated the family chieftain to the position of an omnipotent One True God. His brothers and wives and children became mere angels.

  And the meddlesome brother became the Evil One, the master of djinn and ifrits and the patron of all sorcerers. El Murid railed against the practice of witchcraft with a vehemence his listeners found incomprehensible. His principal argument was that it had been sorcery that had brought on the doom of the Empire. The glory of Ilkazar, and a hope for its return, was a theme running through all his teaching.

  The primary point of contention at El Aquila was a proscription against praying to the lesser gods. El Murid’s listeners were accustomed to petitioning specialists. They were accustomed, especially, to approaching Muhrain, the patron of the region, to whom the Al Ghabha Shrines were dedicated.

  The boy’s path led him not to Al Ghabha but to the site where the imam, Ridyah, had found him. He did not at first know what drew him thither. Then he thought that he was looking for something.

  He had left something there, something that he had forgotten. Something that he had hidden in his last moment of rationality. Something that had been given him by his angel.

  Visions of an amulet came in snatches. A potent wrist amulet bearing a living stone. It would be, his angel had told him, the proof he needed to convince unbelievers.

  But he could not remember where he had concealed it.

  He scrabbled round the sides of the wadi that had prevented him from reaching El Aquila on his own.

  “What in the world are you doing?” Nassef asked from above.

  “You startled me, Nassef.”

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Looking for something. I hid it here. They didn’t find it, did they? Did they find anything?”

  “Who? The priests? Only a ragged, desert-worn saltman’s son. What did you hide?”

  “I remember now. A rock that looks like a tortoiseshell. Where is it?”

  “There’s one over here.”

  The rock was just a yard from where al Assad had found him. He tried lifting the stone. He did not have the strength.

  “Here. Let me help.” Nassef nudged him aside. In the process he tore his sleeve on a thorn of a scraggly desert bush. “Oh. Mother’s going to brain me.”

  “Help me.”

  “Father too, if he finds out I was here.”

  “Nassef!”

  “All right! I’m here.” He heaved on the rock. “How did you move it before?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Together they heaved the stone onto its back. Nassef asked, “Ah, what is it?”

  El Murid gently extracted the amulet from the rocky soil, brushing dirt from its delicate golden wristlet. The stone glowed even in the brilliant morning sun.

  “The angel gave it to me. To be my proof to the doubtful.”

  Nassef was impressed, though he seemed more troubled than elated. In a moment, nervously, he suggested, “You’d better come on. The whole village is going to be at the Shrine.”

  “They expect to be entertained?”

  Noncommittally, Nassef replied, “They think it’s going to be interesting.”

  El Murid had noticed this ev
asiveness before. Nassef refused to be pinned down. About anything.

  They strolled up to Al Ghabha, Nassef gradually lagging. El Murid accepted it. He understood. Nassef had to get along with Mustaf.

  Everybody was there, from El Aquila and Al Ghabha alike. The gardens of the Shrines had assumed a carnival air. But he received very few friendly smiles there.

  Behind the merriment was a strong current of malice. They had come to see someone hurt.

  He had thought that he could teach them, that he could debate the abbot and so expose the folly inherent in the old dogma and old ways. But the mood here was passion. It demanded a passionate response, an emotional demonstration.

  He acted without thinking. For the next few minutes he was just another spectator watching El Murid perform.

  He threw his arms up and cried, “The Power of the Lord is upon me! The Spirit of God moves me! Witness, you idolaters, you wallowers in sin and weak faith! The hours of the enemies of the Lord are numbered! There is but one God, and I am His Disciple! Follow me or burn in Hell forever!”

  He hurled his right fist at the earth. The stone in his amulet blazed furiously.

  A lightning bolt flung down from a sky that had not seen a cloud in months. It blasted a ragged scar across the gardens of the Shrine. Singed petals fluttered through the air.

  Thunder rolled across the blue. Women screamed. Men clutched their ears. Six more bolts hurtled down like the swift stabbing of a short spear. The lovely flowerbeds were ripped and burned.

  In silence El Murid stalked from the grounds, his strides long and purposeful. At that moment he was no child, no man, but a force as terrible as a cyclone. He descended on El Aquila.

  The crowd surged after him, terrified, yet irresistibly drawn. The brothers of the Shrine came too, and they almost never left Al Ghabha.

  El Murid marched to the dry oasis. He halted where once sweet waters had lapped at the toes of date palms. “I am the Disciple!” he shrieked. “I am the Instrument of the Lord! I am the Glory, and the Power, incarnate!” He seized up a stone that weighed more than a hundred pounds, hoisted it over his head effortlessly. He heaved it out onto the dried mud.