Chapter 9

The God Quar stood in the incensesweetened darkness of his Temple in the City of Kich, his hand resting upon the golden ram’s head of his altar. The God was obviously waiting and doing it with an obvious ill grace. Occasionally his fingers drummed nervously upon the ram’s head. More than once, his hand lifted a mallet to strike a small gong which stood on the altar, but he always—after a moment’s hesitation and an impatient snarl—withdrew it.

Lying on a pallet on the cold marble floor opposite Quar, the God’s Imam muttered and moaned, tossing in a feverish sleep. His selfinflicted wound had not healed cleanly, the flesh around it was swollen and hot to the touch, streaks of fiery red were spreading outward from it. Yamina had attempted to tend to the priest, as had all the court physicians, but Feisal refused all help.

“This is. . . between my God. . . and myself!” he gasped, clutching Yamina’s hand with painful intensity, his other hand pressed against the bandages that were wet with blood and pus from the oozing wound. “I have done. . . something to . . . displease Him. This. . . is my punishment!”

Pressing Feisal’s wasted hand against her lips, Yamina pleaded, calling him every endearing name that came to mind. Gently, firmly, he told her to leave. Sorrowfully, she did as he asked, secretly intending to sneak back in when he was asleep and use her magic to heal him without his knowledge.

To Feisal, Yamina was transparent as the water in the palace hauz. Feeling his strength dwindle, knowing that consciousness would soon leave him, the Imam commanded his servant to permit no one to enter, binding the man with the most terrible of oaths to insure his obedience. The servant was to shut the inner Temple doors and seal them. Not even the Amir himself would be allowed entry. The last sound Feisal heard before he sank into feverridden, insane dreams, was the hollow booming of the great doors coming together, the crashing fall of the iron bar across them.

Drifting in and out of delirium, the Imam was vaguely aware of the arrival of the God in his Temple. At first Feisal doubted his senses, fearing that this was a fever dream. Battling pain and the fire that was consuming his body, he struggled to hold onto consciousness and knew then that Quar was truly with him. His soul radiant with joy, the priest attempted to rise to do Quar homage, but his body was weaker than his spirit, and he fell back, gasping for breath.

“Tell me . . . what I have done . . . to incur your wrath, O Holy One,” murmured Feisal weakly, extending a trembling hand to his God.

Quar did not respond or even look in the direction of his suffering priest. Pacing about near the altar, he peered with markedly growing irritation into the darkness. Feisal lacked the breath to repeat his question. He could only stare with adoring eyes at his God. Even the pain and torment he was enduring seemed blessed—a flame cleansing soul and body of whatever sins he had committed. If he died in the fire, then so be it. He would stand before his God with a spirit purged of infection.

The gong spoke suddenly, sounding three times. Quar turned toward it eagerly. The gong was silent for the count of seven, then rang three times again. A cloud of smoke took human shape and form around the gong, coalescing into a ten foot tall ‘efreet.

Clad in red silken pantalons girded with a red sash around its massive stomach, the ‘efreet performed the salaam, its huge hands pressed against its forehead. Feisal watched silently, without wonder.

“Well, where is he?” Quar demanded.

“I beg your pardon, Effendi,” said the ‘efreet in a voice like the low rumbling of distant thunder, “but I have not found him.”

“What?” The God’s anger stirred the darkness. “He can not have gone far. He is a stranger in this land. Bah! You have lost him, Kaug!”

“Yes, Effendi, I have lost him,” replied Kaug imperturbably. “If I may be permitted to tell my tale?”

Turning his back upon the ‘efreet, the God made an irritated gesture.

“As you surmised, My Holy Master, the socalled madman was one of the kafir who came by ship across the Hurn Sea and landed near the city of Bastine. Immediately on their arrival, the priests and sorcerers of Promenthas—”

“—were met by a group of my zealous followers and slaughtered,” interrupted the God impatiently. “I know all this! What—”

“I beg, your pardon, Effendi,” interrupted the ‘efreet, “but it seems we were misled, It was not your followers who murdered the kafir.”

The God was silent for long moments, then said skeptically, “Go on.”

“Consider, Majesty of Heaven—if the unbelievers had been killed in your name, you should have had some claim to their souls,”

“They were protected by guardian angels—”

“I have fought the angels of Promenthas before, Effendi, as you well know,” the ‘efreet stated.

“Yes, and this time you fought them and lost and did not tell me,” Quar remarked coldly.

“This time, I did not fight them. I never saw them, I was not called to fight the angels.”

Quar half turned, regarding Kaug through narrowed eyes. “You are speaking the truth.”

“Certainly, Effendi.”

“Then it is Death who has failed us.”

“No, Effendi. The angels of Promenthas whisked their charges away without contest. According to Death, the kafir were killed in the name of a God of Evil—a God too weak to claim them.”

Quar sucked in his breath, the skin with which he adorned his ethereal being paled.

“Zhakrin!”

“Yes, Effendi. He has escaped!”

“How is that possible? He and Evren were being held in the Temple of Khandar, my most powerful priests guarding them. No one knew the Gods were being held there—”

“Someone knew, Effendi. At any rate, neither Zhakrin nor Evren are there now. One of your powerful priests, it now appears, was in reality in the service of Zhakrin. By some means not known to us, he managed to free the Gods and carry them away.”

“What do we know about him? Where has he gone?”

“I believe him to be the same man who slaughtered the worshipers of Promenthas. He passes himself off as a slave trader, but he is in reality a Black Paladin, a devoted follower of Zhakrin. He first appeared in Ravenchai, where he captured a number of the natives and brought them to sell in Kich. He has a troop of goums in his command, and it was they who killed the priests and the magi of Promenthas. But one person was left alive. A young man of extraordinary beauty who was mistaken for a woman. Thinking to fetch a high price for such a prize, the slave trader took her to Kich. The young man—maintaining his disguise as a woman—was put upon the block just as Khardan and his nomads were terrorizing the city. Khardan took it into his head to rescue the beautiful ‘woman.’“

“Took it into his head! Hah!” Quar snarled. “I see the guiding hand of Promenthas in this. He has joined with Akhran to fight me!”

“Undoubtedly, Holy One.” Kaug bowed. “The young man was taken to the camp of the nomads. Here, according to the woman, Meryem, he was nearly executed by the enraged man who sought to take the lovely ‘woman’ as his concubine. Khardan saved the young man’s life, proclaiming him mad. Meryem believes that it was this young ‘madman’ who thwarted her plans to bring Khardan to Kich.”

“Then the two are together.”

“Presumably, Effendi.”

“Presumably!” Quar’s rage beat upon the walls of the Temple. Feisal, in his fevered imaginings, thought he saw the marble blocks start to melt beneath the heat. “I am divine! I am allknowing, allseeing! No mortal can hide himself from my sight and the sight of my servants!”

“Not a mortal, Holy Master.” Kaug’s voice lowered. “Another God. A dark cloud hides them from my sight and the sight of your sorcercess.”

“A dark cloud. Slowly, inexorably, the power of my enemies grows.” Quar fell silent, musing. The ‘efreet’s hulking body wavered in the air, or perhaps it was Feisal’s dimming vision that caused the immortal to appear as if he were a mirage, shimmering against empty sand. “I dare not wait longer.”

The God turned his attention to his dying priest. Gliding across the black marble floor, his silken slippers making no noise, his silken robes shining a cold and brilliant white in the darkness, Quar came to stand by Feisal’s pallet.

Unable to move, the Imam gazed up at the face of the God with an adoration that banished all pain and fever from his body. The Imam saw his soul rise to its feet, leaving the frail husk of its flesh behind, holding out its hands to the God as a child reaches for its mother. Content, blissful, Feisal felt life ebbing away. The name of the God was on his lips, to be spoken with his last breath.

“No!” said Quar suddenly, and the Imam’s soul—caught between two planes—shrank back in bewilderment. Kneeling beside Feisal, the God tore off the bloodstained bandages and laid his hand upon the wound. His other hand touched the priest’s hot forehead. “You will live, my faithful Imam. You will rise up from your bed of pain and suffering and know that it was I who saved you. You will remember my face, my voice, and the touch of my hands upon your mortal flesh. And the lesson you will have learned from the agony you have undergone is this.

“You have placed too great a value on human life. As you have seen, it is a thing that can be taken from us as easily as thieves robbing a blind man. The souls of men are what is truly important and they must be rescued from stumbling about in the darkness. Those who do not believe in me must die, so that the power of their false gods dies with them.”

Feisal drew a deep breath and another and then another. His eyes closed in a peaceful sleep, his soul reluctantly returned to the fragile body.

“When you awaken,” Quar continued, “you will go to the Amir and tell him it is time. . .”

“Time?” Feisal murmured.

“Jihad!” whispered Quar, bending low over His priest, caressing him, smoothing the black hair with His hand. “Convert or die!”