Chapter 5

The nomads of the Pagrah desert believed that the world was flat and that they were in its center. The huge and splendid city of Khandar—as far distant, in their minds, as a remote star— glittered somewhere to the north of them and beyond Khandar was the edge of the world. To the west was the city of Kich, the mountains, the great Hurn Sea, and, finally, the edge of the world. To the south was more desert, the cities of the land of Bas in the southeast, and the edge of the world. To the east was the Sun’s Anvil—the edge of the world.

It was rumored among the nomadic tribes that the city dwellers spoke of the existence of another great sea to the east, beyond the Sun’s Anvil, and had even given it a name—the Kurdin Sea. The nomads scoffed at this belief—what could one expect of people who built walls around their lives—and spoke scornfully of the Kurdin Sea, referring to it in ironic terms as the Waters of Tarakan and considering it the biggest lie they had heard since some insane marabout of Quar’s had ventured into the desert a generation ago, babbling that the world was round, like an orange.

There was also rumored to be a lost city somewhere in the Sun’s Anvil—a city of fabulous wealth, buried beneath the dunes. The nomads rather liked this idea and kept the tradition of Serinda alive, using it to illustrate to their children the mutability of all things made by the hands of man.

The djinn could have told their masters the truth of the matter. They could have told them that there was a sea to the east, that there had been a city in the Sun’s Anvil, that Khandar did not stand at the top of the world nor was the Pagrah desert the world’s center. The immortal beings knew all this and much more besides but did not impart this information to their masters. The djinn had one abiding rule: When in the service of humans, you who are all knowing know nothing and they who know nothing are all knowing.

To be fair to the nomads, the average city dweller of Kich or Khandar or Idrith thought the world considerably smaller. Let the madrasahs teach differently. Let the Imam preach about bringing the kafir who lived in lands beyond to a knowledge of the True God. To the coppersmith, the weaver, the baker, the fabric dyer, the lamp seller—the world’s center was the four walls of his dwelling, its heart the souk where he sold his skill or his wares, its edge the wall surrounding the city.

Born and bred in the court of an enlightened Emperor, the Imam knew the truth about the world. So did the Amir, who— though not an educated man—had seen too much of it with his own eyes not to believe that there was always more over the next hill. The learned scholars in the Emperor’s court taught that the world was round, that the land of Sardish Jardan was just one of many lands floating atop the waters of several great oceans, and that people of many kinds and many different beliefs lived in these lands—people who were to be drawn inevitably into the arms of Quar. Thus, when the Imam heard from Meryem about a madman who claimed to have come from over the sea, Feisal considered this news worthy of being passed on to his God.

The Imam prepared for his Holy Audience by fasting two days and a night, his lips touching only water and that sparingly. Such a feat was no hardship for Feisal, who had fasted whole months at a time in order to prove that the body could be subdued and disciplined by the spirit. This short fast was undertaken to purge the unworthy house of the spirit of all outside influences. During this time, the Imam kept strictly to himself, refusing contact with anyone from the outside (particularly Yamina), who might draw his thoughts from heaven. He broke his selfimposed restriction only twice—once to talk at length with Meryem, another to question the nomad, Saiyad.

The night of the Audience came. Feisal bathed himself in water made frigid by the addition of snow hauled from the mountaintops; snow that was used in the palace to cool the wine, used by the Imam to mortify his flesh. This done, he anointed his unworthy body with scented oils, to make it more pleasing to the God. At the hour of midnight, when the weary minds and bodies of other mortals found solace from their sorrows in sleep, Feisal stripped himself of all his clothes except for a cloth wrapped about his thin loins. Trembling, in an ecstasy of holy fervor, he entered the Inner Temple. Carefully, reverently, he struck the copperandbrass gong on the altar three times. Then he prostrated himself flat on the floor before the golden ram’s head and waited, his skin shivering with excitement and the chill of the air.

“You have called, my priest, and I have come. What is it you want?”

The voice caressed him. The Imam caught his breath in rapture. He longed to lose himself in that voice, to be lifted from this body with its weak need for food and water, its unclean habits, its impure lusts, its unholy longings. It was with an effort that the Imam reminded himself of what Quar had told him when the priest was young—it was through this unworthy body that the Imam could best serve his Master. He must use it, though he must fight constantly never to let it use him.

Knowing this and knowing, too, that he had to wrench his soul from the peace it longed to attain in heaven back to the travails of the world, the Imam lifted a silver dagger and thrust the knife blade with practiced skill into his ribs. There were many such scars on the Imam’s body; scars he kept hidden from view, for knowledge of such selfinflicted torture would have shocked the High Priest himself. The pain, the knowledge of his mortality, the blood running down his oiled skin—all brought Feisal crashing down from heaven and enabled him to discuss the concerns of humans with his God.

Pressing his hand over his side, feeling the warm blood well between his fingers, Feisal slowly drew himself to a kneeling position before the altar.

“I have been in contact with the nomads and I have heard, O Most Holy Quar, a very strange thing. There is or was a man living among the followers of Akhran who claimed to have come from over the sea and—what’s more—who claimed to possess the magic of Sul.”

The very air around the priest quivered with tension. Feeling now no pain from his wound, Feisal reveled in the sensation of knowing that, as he had believed, this information was welcome to his God.

“Is your informant reliable?”

“Yes, Holy One, particularly because she considers this to be of little importance. The man is dismissed as mad.”

“Describe him.”

“The man is a youth of about eighteen years with hair the color of flame and a hairless face and chest. He goes about disguised in women’s clothes to hide his identity. My informant did not see him practice magic, but she sensed it within him—or thought she did.”

“And where is this man?”

“That is the strange part, Hazrat Quar. The man escaped capture by the soldiers when they raided the camp. He interfered with plans to bring that most dangerous of the nomads—Khardan—into our custody. Both the madman and Khardan have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Their bodies were not found, yet—according to those I have questioned—neither has been seen. What is stranger still is that my informant, a skilled sorceress, knows Khardan to be alive, yet, when using her magic to search for him, she finds her mystic vision obscured by a cloud of impenetrable darkness.”

The God’s silence hummed around the Imam, or perhaps it was a buzzing in his ears. Feisal was growing dizzy and lightheaded. Grimly, he clung to consciousness until his God should have no further need of him.

“You have done well, my servant, as usual,” spoke Quar finally. “Should you hear or discover anything further about this man from across the sea, bring it to my attention at once.”

“Yes, Holy One,” murmured Feisal ecstatically.

The darkness was suddenly empty and cold. The God’s presence in the Inner Temple was gone. The bliss drained from the Imam’s body. Shivering with pain, he rose unsteadily to his feet and crept over to where his pallet lay on the cold marble floor. Knees weak, he sank down onto it and groped with a shaking hand for a roll of soft cloth he had hidden beneath it. Pulling it out, Feisal—with his fading strength—bound the bandage tightly about his wound.

His consciousness slipped from him and he slumped down upon the bloodstained pallet. The ball of cloth fell from his hand and rolled, unwinding, across the black, chill floor.