Assassins - Ian Watson & Andy West (25 page)

“I’m amazed that even the Mongols could take
this place,” she commented.

Kamal frowned. “In fact they didn’t. The
Nizari leader at the time was Rukn al-Din. He was naïve and
insecure, so he didn’t believe anyone or anything could battle the
mighty Mongol war-machine. No one could make a deal with them
either, but Rukn tried. He killed his own father to claim
leadership. Ala al-Din would have struck severely disabling blows
against the enemy, but his traitorous son ordered a surrender
before any major conflict happened. The majority of Nizaris simply
walked away from their many castles in this area, and most walked
straight into betrayal and death. A couple of sites disobeyed Rukn
al-Din, resisting right until the end. One fortress held out for
fourteen years.”

Abigail whistled softly. “Now that’s what I
call will-power!”

She opened her window. Though it was late
May, the mountain atmosphere that flooded their car was chill,
smelling clean, of rock and herbs with a metallic edge like the
scent of snow, though no snow was visible and Kamal said that even
on the tops it would have melted away a few weeks back. The sun was
hot on her arm.

A road to a car park just a few minutes from
the castle made the old exposed winding trail unnecessary. After
sandwiches, they assaulted Alamut more easily than any Mongol could
have dreamed.

Alamut was so well-crafted to the contours of
the natural rock, it seemed like an expression of the land itself,
a clenched fist of resistance. Kamal brushed his hand reverently
along a rimy wall.

“I haven’t been here for many years,” he
commented. “I’d forgotten how magical it is.”

Abigail smiled warmly back, but in truth she
was rather disappointed. Only roots of stone showed where much of
the castle had been, and some sections of the surviving walls were
covered in scaffolding. Yet the view from the remaining battlements
was awesome. Only a handful of visitors were present, seeming
subdued, perhaps spell-bound. The peaks were thunderously silent.
It would be easy to feel equal to God here
, thought Abigail,
or at least far above other religions; breathing thin air and
Gnostic poetry, wrapped often in cloud and always in secret
knowledge
.

Kamal picked up a handful of fine dirt and
let it stream out of his fist on the breeze as he recited:

“
My God, what difference can it
make
between my good and my bad
if both are as grains of dust to You?”

“Not the good Kamal al-Mustafa Abu al-Bashir
I think, so who are you quoting?”

Kamal smirked. “Hasan as-Sabah, the visionary
founder of the Nizari Ismailis, the man who took this castle and
made it their home.”

Abigail’s disappointment was ebbing away, as
the mood of the place seeped into her.

“Just think, we’re standing in the very place
where Hasan the Second declared
qiyama
, instructing the
Nizaris to turn their backs to Mecca, to turn their backs on
Shari’ah law.”

“Indeed! Though he probably did so from the
courtyard over there.” Kamal jabbed a finger. “There’s a lot of
clever engineering here, you know.”

He proceeded to explain the Alamut water
system in great detail, identifying the catchment scoops in the
mountain slopes above the castle. Abigail managed to repress a
girlish grin, but felt warm inside. He was so handsome when
animated like this! A boyish look came into his distinguished
features; the best of both worlds. He pointed to where excavations
had taken place a few years earlier by the north gate, with some
artefacts unearthed.

Descending to the base of the walls, they
edged carefully down a steep slope half carpeted with hardy grass.
Kamal was looking for evidence of the huge underground
water-storage chambers. Finding a faint and somewhat more level
girdle on the hill, they followed it until they came face to face
with a guard.

The man smiled, but barred their way and
spoke firmly. His uniform was dishevelled; grey hair protruded from
under a casually placed cap. Beyond were scaffolding and platforms,
piles of earth and stones, a muddy wheelbarrow, shovels and small
trowels, wooden crates. Above these was an intriguing dark hole in
the hillside.

Kamal answered the man smoothly and
cheerfully in his fluent Farsi, following up with something that
seemed like a question. The guard shrugged. Then Kamal pulled out a
hip-flask and offered the guard a drink. A hip-flask! Clearly she
still had a lot to learn about Kamal. His seemed to be a good call
though, as, despite Iran’s official ban on alcohol, the guard
grinned and gladly accepted. In under a minute he was chatting
amiably, while Abigail was becoming frustrated at not knowing what
was going on. While the guard took a second pull on the flask,
Kamal hurriedly flung some words at her.

“Yet another dig! It’s almost as if they’re
looking for something specific. I had no idea about this one.
Apparently the dig team are all down in Tehran, showing off some of
their finds and begging for funding. I’m trying to get us a look
inside.”

The conversation in Farsi changed tone; hands
were waved. Abigail willed Kamal to succeed; it would be so
exciting to enter the dark mystery of that hole, to peer into
Nizari history. Eventually Kamal handed over some banknotes; she
couldn’t see how much value. The guarded turned and headed away
past the scaffolding.

“He said it isn’t his fault if he needs a
pee. We have ten minutes!”

Abigail squealed with delight. “How clever
you are! Let’s hurry!”

They scrambled up to the entrance. A short
passage led through the skin of the mountain into a large hollow
within the rock. Only a couple of metres in it was too dark to see
much at all, but Kamal found a switch beside a stack of car
batteries. A string of small bulbs warmed into modest
illumination.

The space they entered was perhaps a natural
cave that had been enlarged. Under dirt and debris was evidence of
trimmed rock, carved pillars, even some tile-work. Piles of rubble
showed where much of the ceiling had collapsed. To one side were
big iron cages resembling cells or secure storage, still fairly
intact. An unpleasant, musty odour caught hold of Abigail’s nose.
She imagined that fossilised excrement might smell so.

One cage door was open, a floodlight strung
to the bars, not in use. Kamal and Abigail crouched and peered into
shadows. He pointed. Half excavated, were two skulls and a
scattering of bones.
Children! Had the Nizaris kept child
slaves?
But the proportions of the skulls were wrong, the brow
ridges too prominent.

“They’re monkeys!”

Kamal’s normal composure seemed to have
deserted him. His shoulders were hunched and he muttered a string
of words in Arabic, no doubt forgetting that Abigail couldn’t
understand. He rose and moved towards the back of the space,
perhaps searching for a passage up to the castle proper. Abigail
spotted a worktable on which were a lamp and a bowl, along with
brushes and tools for removing grime. A stained cloth on the table
clearly covered something. Immediately curious, she moved over and
lifted the edge of the cloth, revealing a broken bottle and three
odd but identical items of bone.

It took some time to figure this out. Each of
the three items was a snake’s upper jawbone, complete with
vicious-looking fangs. Assembling the pieces of bottle in her mind,
she realised it was exactly the same as those she’d seen in the
museum at Qazvin.

Of a sudden the snake fangs jumped towards
her fingers. Her knees buckled even as she registered shocked
surprise. Curtains of dirt cascaded from the roof.

“Quake!” yelled Kamal. “Out! Get out!”

He grabbed her from behind and half lifted,
half pushed her towards the exit.

The guard looked worried, but grinned when he
saw them emerging. No more shocks followed; the Earth had just
turned in its sleep.

“Quite common in this area,” commented Kamal.
“A big one back in 2002 badly damaged Qazvin.” Fresh air and
sunshine seemed to restore his mood, and he flashed a winning
smile. Abigail’s racing heart had slowed. Kamal’s strength might
have saved her from an untimely end in a dark hole if the cave had
collapsed…

As they headed towards the car park, Abigail
said, “Why on Earth did they have a menagerie at Alamut, do you
think?”

“Perhaps that’s what really made the legend!”
He laughed heartily, but said no more. Abigail grabbed his wrist
with one hand and proceeded to punch his shoulder with the other.
She may as well have punched an Ox.

“Tell me, tell me! What do you mean?”

“Maybe
that
is how their Assassins
came and went unseen, despite locked doors. They sent
trained
monkeys
in through the windows!”

Abigail laughed too, and they went arm in arm
back to the car.

Gazorkhan,
Elburz mountains, Iran: May

The first place the shopkeeper in Gazorkhan
recommended had no rooms left. The second was a large ramshackle
house painted in a faded flaking hue that once was probably bright
terracotta. The sagging slant of the roof extended over a boarded
wide veranda, and was held up by sturdy grey poles that looked like
old and untreated tree-limbs. White window frames, also flaking,
and lace curtains behind the glass, donated a hint of Western
suburbia and made Abigail feel comfortable about the place.

Kamal negotiated with a smiling woman, whose
deeply carved face seemed outsized above a body like a gangly
girl’s. A dress the same colour as her house stuck out from the
bottom of her burkha. Below were thick black boots.

“She only has one room.” Kamal’s voice
betrayed no hint of hope or hunger, or even humour, yet his eyes
twinkled. “Is that all right?”

Abigail flushed and many butterflies
fluttered in her tummy, yet lower still something pleasant pulled
inside her. She tried to keep her voice light. “It’s fine.”

She’d already been wearing a wedding ring
since Tehran. On her own, a ring deterred unwanted attention. In
company with Kamal, it avoided awkward questions.

The room was cramped, but cosy and clean and
warm. The second the door was closed, there was no thought of
anything else. They both knew what had to take its course,
immediately, urgently. Indeed, it was overdue. The cries of
children and revving of scramble-bikes, filtering in from outside,
quickly receded from their attention.

Clothes seemed to drop away of their own
volition; certainly Abigail wasn’t too aware of that phase. Her
mind was filled with Kamal’s princely face, the depth of his eyes,
the taste of his kisses, the intensity that was locked within him.
Suddenly there was the tingle of his skin up and down her, all
around her. She gasped and clutched him tighter. Looking down, she
saw the taught muscles of his dusky thigh pressed against her own
soft whiteness. He seemed so exotic, almost alien. A moment of
panic grasped her. She was still tense inside, unready. She hoped
he wouldn’t rush.

An arm grabbed her shoulders and she felt her
feet swept from under her.

“Kamal!”

He said nothing, but placed her gently on the
bed, as though she was a child. He climbed up beside her. She
closed her eyes. His lips found a nipple, a surprisingly rough hand
stroked her belly. The sensations were good. And she wanted this,
needed this. Yet she couldn’t relax. She felt like a stick, waiting
to be snapped.

Somehow, he knew. He flipped her over, easily
and gracefully. His powerful hands began to massage her. Firm
fingers ploughed down her neck, then dug into the muscles of her
shoulders. Abigail groaned with satisfaction, and at last she felt
her body begin to unwind.

Kamal didn’t hurry. When he parted her legs
and forcefully squeezed her right thigh, desire overtook mere
satisfaction; she felt ready. He followed up with the left thigh,
then a gorgeous prickly feeling ran swiftly down her spine. An
involuntary cry escaped her, and at the same moment she was
abruptly aware of her own moistness between her legs. Kamal was
using his beard to massage her!

He rolled her back, face up again, then once
more spread her thighs. He was manipulating her like a doll, but
she was a willing doll, so
so
willing. She kept her eyes
shut and revelled in the luxury of total attendance, not having to
do a thing. It was so different to the scenes with Terry, his
alternate hesitancy and blundering.

“Aaahh…”

The soft slippiness of Kamal’s tongue had
found her slit, and he seemed to know exactly what to do there.
Waves of wonderful sensation washed upward to almost swamp her
consciousness. She gasped like a struggling swimmer, but still the
surges came. She arched back and her thighs bunched but, whenever
she came too near to the ultimate intensity, Kamal slackened off,
only to follow up with more waves a minute or so later. Stars and
colours danced in front of her closed eyes; she sensed her skin
going slick with sweat. Kamal was drowning her in delight!

Then, as his tongue continued to work, she
felt his finger slip inside her too. In just seconds, he found a
place she was not too expert with herself. But Kamal clearly was.
An explosion of ecstasy ripped through her. She cried out as her
thighs jerked right up into the air, temporarily disconnecting
Kamal. Aftershocks rippled up her, causing her to moan even though
she tried to speak instead, tried to ask for a rest.

But Kamal had no mercy. A strong arm anchored
her waist, preventing her lower body from moving at all. Then the
beautiful waves started again, and then…

She screamed long and hard at the top of her
voice as another explosion hit her. Never had she done such a thing
before. She fought against the pleasure, it was too much for her!
She thrashed her arms, but to no avail. More came. It was as though
Kamal had connected a pressure hose of pleasure right into her, and
refused to turn it off. Agonising orgasms poured into her. And yet
somehow, in all this, he kept her
just
below a final climax
that would set her free, that would desensitise her even beyond his
skill.