Chapter 10

Springing up from the sand, full ten feet tall, wielding a scimitar it would have taken four mortal men to lift, Sond stood between the captives and their attackers. Fanatic fighters though they were, the Black Paladins could not but be awed by this fantastic apparition appearing before them. Coming to a halt, they glanced askance at each other and at their Lord. Above them, the Black Sorceress called down death from the Castle spires, but she was far from the towering, grimfaced djinn and his scimitar that gleamed wickedly in the bright moonlight.

“Master, Master!” cried a voice excitedly. “Over here! Over here!”

Khardan raised his eyes—even that took a supreme effort it seemed—to see a rotting, leaking, tatteredsailed fishing boat nudging the shoreline, rocking back and forth with the waves. On board was Pukah, waving his turban like a flag, and a small, wizened man crouched at the tiller, who shook in such paroxysm of fear that the chattering of his teeth could be heard above the clash of steel.

Khardan forced his weary, aching legs to drag him forward another step. Fire burned in the muscles of shoulders and arms from carrying the unconscious Zohra, his wounds pained him, his strength was gone. Pride alone kept him from collapsing before his enemies.

Seeing his master begin to give way, Pukah leapt from the boat and ran toward the Calif, taking Zohra from him just as Khardan’s eyes rolled back in his head and he pitched forward onto the sand. Mathew stopped in his own headlong flight and knelt to help him.

“Run for it, Blossom!” Auda ibn Jad commanded harshly.

“I can’t leave Khardan!”

“Go on!” Auda hauled Mathew roughly to his feet. “I swore to protect him with my life! I will do so!”

“I will fight alongside you!” Mathew insisted doggedly. Ibn Jad glowered at him, then gave a grudging nod.

Several of the Paladins started forward, only to be confronted by the djinn. Undaunted, the knights were prepared to fight even the immortal when the voice of the Black Sorceress rang, out again from the tower.

“You are commanded to”—it seemed she choked on the words—”let them go!”

“Let them go?” Turning to face her, the Lord of the Paladins stared up at his wife in astonishment. “Who commands such a thing?” he shouted.

“Zhakrin commands!” came a deep voice that seemed to well up from the ground.

At the sound, several of the Paladins sank to their knees. Others remained standing, however, including their Lord. Sword in hand, he glared balefully at Mathew.

The volcano rumbled. The earth shook. Many more Paladins fell to their knees, looking at their Lord in fear.

Reluctantly, the knight lowered his sword.

“It seems our God owes Akhran a service,” the Lord of the Black Paladins growled. “Leave quickly, before He changes His mind!”

Together, Mathew and Auda ibn Jad lifted Khardan to his feet and dragged him across the sand to the waiting boat.

“What did you mean when you told me—’you can’t fool them any longer’?” Mathew asked the Black Knight.

“Surely you knew, didn’t you, Blossom”—Auda’s black eyes, glittered in the moonlight—”that you did not hold a God in your hands?”

Mathew stared at him, aghast. “You mean—”

“You held in your hands nothing but a dying fish!” A ghostly smile touched Auda’s thin lips. “The Black Sorceress was not the only one who would be aware of the presence of the God within the fish. I was there during the ceremony when we freed the God from the Temple in Khandar. I was myself the Bearer for a long time after that. The God left when the djinn—or should I say Hazrat Akhran—broke the crystal.

“But you—Why didn’t—” Mathew’s lips went numb. He felt the blood drain from his face, his strength seep from his body when he recalled how he had walked down that blackarmored aisle of death.

“Betray you?” Ibn Jad released Khardan into the strong arms of Pukah. “Ask the nomad when he awakens.”

Gently lifting up the Calif, the young djinn carried him through the water to the waiting boat and deposited Khardan next to his wife in the bottom. Pukah hurried back to pluck at Mathew’s sleeve.

“Come, Mad—” The young djinn’s gaze went to a point above and behind Mathew, his expression softened; indeed, it became almost enraptured. Looking around, startled, Mathew could have sworn that he caught a flash of white and silver. But there was no one near him. “Come, Mathew,” amended Pukah gravely and respectfully, holding out his hand to assist the young wizard through the sea water. “Hurry! We could throw this wretch of a fisherman to the ghuls if they decided to chase after us, but I doubt his scrawny body would content them for very long.”

Turning, Mathew waded into the rippling waves, then realized that Auda ibn Jad was not with him.

“Aren’t you coming?”

The Black Paladins had risen to their feet and were swarming down toward the boat. Pukah was tugging at Mathew’s sleeve. Sond splashed into the water beside him, appearing prepared to lift up the young wizard and carry him aboard bodily.

Auda ibn Jad shook his head.

“But. . .” Mathew hesitated. This was an evil man, one who murdered the innocent, the helpless. Yet he had saved their lives. “They will take their wrath out on you.”

Ibn Jad shrugged, and—ignoring Mathew—the Black Paladins descended on their fellow knight. Auda surrendered without a struggle. The Paladins divested him of sword and dagger. Wrenching his arms painfully behind him, they forced him to his knees before their Lord.

“Traitor!” The Lord of the Paladins stared coldly at ibn Jad. “From now on, every second will bring your tortured body one step closer to death—yet never close enough!”

Raising a mailgauntleted hand, he struck the Black Paladin across the face.

Ibn Jad fell back in his captors’ arms. Then, shaking his head to clear it, he raised his eyes to meet Mathew’s.

“As was our friend’s, my life is in the hands of my God.” He smiled, blood trickling from his mouth. “Do not fear, Blossom. We will meet again!”

The Paladins carried him off the beach, their Lord remaining behind. His eyes, blazing in the moon’s pale rays, were so filled with enmity that their gaze alone might kill. Mathew no longer needed Pukah’s exhortations and pleadings (all given in the most respectful tones) to hasten through the silverlaced, black sea water. Catching the young wizard up in his strong grip, Sond tossed him headfirst over the hull.

“The ghuls! They’re watching! They smell blood! Oh, make haste, make haste!” Crouched on a seat, Usti wrung his hands.

But Sond, shaking his head, was examining the boat with a frown. At the bottom lay Khardan and his wife. Pukah had taken advantage of their unconscious state to rest Zohra’s head upon her husband’s shoulder and drape Khardan’s arm around her protectively.

“Truly, a marriage made in Heaven,” sighed the djinn. Heaven! I’ve had enough of Heaven, thought Mathew wearily. Hunching down on his knees in the boat’s stern, oblivious to the inch or so of sea water that sloshed around him, he laid his cheek on a wet basket and closed his eyes.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” screeched the little old man from the tiller. “Get this thing moving.”

“Master, shut up,” said Pukah politely.

“The boat’s too low in the water. There’s too much weight,” stated Sond “Usti, get out!”

“Don’t leave me! You can’t!” wailed the djinn. “Princess, please don’t let them—”

“Stop blubbering!” snapped Pukah. “We’re not going to leave you. And don’t wake your mistress. We want a peaceful trip after what we’ve been through, to say nothing of what faces us when we reach shore. Crossing the Sun’s Anvil on foot. If we survive that, we must then raise an army to defeat the Amir—”

None of it mattered to Mathew. It was all too far away. “We need a new sail,” grunted Sond. “Usti, you’ll do fine!”

“A sail!” The djinn drew an indignant breath. “I will not—”

“Was that a ghul I heard, smacking his lips?” inquired Pukah.

“I’ll do it!” cried Usti.

The boat heaved and floundered. Startled, jolted to wakefulness, Mathew opened his eyes and beheld an astounding sight.

Curling his feet under the boom, groaning and protesting over the hardness of his life, Usti grabbed hold of the mast with both hands. His massive body stretched and expanded until all that remained recognizable were his woeful eyes, his turban, and numerous chins.

Sucking in a deep breath, Sond let it out in a whoosh.

Usti filled with air.

“Swells up like a goat’s bladder!” commented Pukah in awe.

The fishing boat began to move over the water. Taking the tiller, Pukah steered the vessel into a path seemingly laid down for them by the moon.

Mathew closed his eyes again. The wind sang in the rigging. Pukah began to relate some improbable escapade about himself and Mathew’s guardian angel in a City of Death. Usti whimpered and complained. Sond blew and puffed. Mathew paid no attention to any of it.

It seemed to him that he felt a gentle hand touch his cheek. A blanket of feathery softness wrapped him in warmth, and he drifted into a relaxed sleep.

A last image drifted into his mind, that of an imp appearing before Astafas, Prince of Darkness, bearing in its splayfingered hand. . .

A dead fish.