the Walking Drum (1984) (58 page)

We rode, running before the storm, following where Khatib led.

The hammer of the storm beat upon the anvil of the mountain; rain lashed our faces, pounded upon our backs. We switched this way and that across the meadow, dodging soldiers who would stop us and slaves cheering us on, and then we were in a canyon, out upon a narrow ledge that clung to the mountain only by imagination, riding through a cascade that poured down the mountain above us.

Suddenly, livid and white in a brilliant flash of lightning, the Throne of Solomon!

When the sun of morning broke through the shattered storm, we were riding along a barren slope of rock, then a trail made bydjinns, and then we came to a city where no city could be.

Khatib chuckled at my astonishment. "It was built as a refuge before Darius, perhaps by Daylamites ... perhaps bywhom?"

An ancient town with an ancient shrine on a mountain where men no longer ride. Then Khatib pointed his bony finger at tracks in the earth, fresh tracks. "No! It cannot be!"

We rode across the small valley, we four, and up to the broken wall. No gate remained, only a hollow arch, and towers beside from which stones had fallen. Our horses picked their way with dainty feet among the stones.

Under the wide and empty sky from which the clouds fled like scattered sheep lay the empty streets, the roofless halls, the hoofbeats of our horses echoing hollowly. Beyond the frame of an arch lay a temple poised against a tawny slope, a solitary pillar like an arresting finger against the sky. Then there was a rattle of other hooves, and we drew up.

We waited.

A dozen mounted men and Mahmoud.

Of her own will, Ayesha stepped out toward them, her head up, nostrils distended.

"Mahmoud!"My challenge rang against the echoing walls. "Mahmoud! You and I ... alone ...now!"

"I shall kill you, Scholar! I was always the better man!"

Ayesha stepped toward them; she knew her business, that young lady did, just as she had on that day, long since, against Prince Yury.

He charged upon me, cloak billowing behind. He had always been a good man with a blade. I parried his blow, but he would not be put off and had at me again. He lifted his blade, and mine was too low. He started the downward swing, and death rode its edge.

"I am Kerbouchard," I shouted, speaking out of our past, "a student and a drinker of wine!"

Involuntarily, his muscles seemed to catch, gripped by memory, by surprise. My own blade came up, and his struck, but the force was gone, and his blade slid harmlessly off mine.

My thrust followed through; our eyes locked, and then his falling body wrenched the sword from my hand, and he struck the pavement on his back, looking up at me. Stepping down from my saddle, I lay hold of my sword.

"When you withdraw that blade," he said, "I shall die."

"Yes, Mahmoud."

"You always bested me. I was a fool to speak to you that day in the garden by the Guadalquivir. 'A student and a drinker of wine.' I remembered the words."

He stared up at me. "How often I remembered them! I hated you!"

My hand tightened upon the sword hilt. "Draw it," he said, "draw it, and be damned!"

I drew the sword.

Chapter
57

We paused upon the high road where the sun lay with a white hot hand, and our four horses were restive in the heat. Behind us, a few miles off, lay Hamadhan, a fair white city in a fertile lovely plain. It was said that long ago, under another name, it had been the capital of the Medes; at the moment I did not care.

Khatib and I faced my father, beside him, Zubadiyah.

"It is here then?" my father asked. "Is it here that we part?"

Two weeks had gone by since the death of Mahmoud on a shoulder of the Throne of Solomon, two weeks in which we had ridden down the mountain and to Hamadhan. From here my father would ride to Basra, on the Persian Gulf.

"And then?" I asked.

"A ship of my own, the broad sea. Men of my own kind."

"You will find them here?"

His hard brown face broke into a smile, revealing white, strong teeth. "Where there is a sea," he said, "there are corsairs. Pirates, if you will."

When Mahmoud died upon the mountain we stood shoulder to shoulder, we two Kerbouchards, prepared to meet the others, but they lacked the will to face our steel, too many had died.

"My way lies to Hind," I said, "to Rajastan."

"And mine to the sea again." He looked at me, understanding what I must do. "For two weeks I have had a son."

"We shall meet again. Wherever you go, in time I shall find you again."

We divided the purses of gold that had come from Mas'ud Khan and from Sinan. To my father I gave two mares. Zubadiyah would ride one to Basra. Her mother had been a Circassian, but her home lay near the Gulf.

We clasped forearms in the Roman fashion, and for an instant each stared into the eyes of the other. "You have the eyes of your mother," he said roughly-and then he smiled-"but my fist with a sword!"

"My destiny lies there"-I moved my head toward Hind-"you understand?"

"Go," he said, "it is the way of sons, and better so. A knife is sharpened on stone, steel is tempered by fire, but men must be sharpened by men."

We rode away then, and when a long way off, I looked back; they sat there yet, gazing after us. Ayesha was impatient, bobbing her head and tasting the bit. She was ever the mare who loved the road.

Khatib waited, facing east.

"Sundari," I whispered, "Sundari, I come! I come ... !"