The Dark Lord

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Near Iblis

"Begone! You are no protector, no friend!" Mohammed, strength returning to his limbs, pushed Moha away. The beautiful man leapt up, shocked, glorious eyes wide in surprise. The Quraysh drew himself up, leaning heavily against the trunk of the fig. The wood was rumpled and creased, coarse under his fingers. The sensation lifted his spirit.

"My lord! You wound me! I have watched over you while you slept, offered you food, drink, every hospitality… you are very weak, you should take your ease." Moha gestured to the city, where lutes were singing and people danced in the streets. Another festival was underway and the citizens were carrying young women, wreathed in flowers, saffron and silk on their shoulders. The maidens' faces were bright with ecstatic joy.

"No," Mohammed said, standing at last. Now he could see the extent of the city, for the fig grew upon a height, and the metropolis was vast-sprawling away over rumpled hills, crowned with towers and minarets and domes. Enormous statues rose over the buildings-noble men, with long beards and wise faces-and everything shone with gold and silver. The Quraysh squinted, keen eyes reaching for the horizon. He realized there was no smoke, no fumes, no heat haze rising over all those close-packed buildings. There were no birds in flight over the rooftops. "You are a guardian set here, to trap me, to keep me imprisoned, like the poor spirits in the forest."

Moha looked stricken. "My lord! Illness clouds your mind. The shades among the trees are the fearful; those men and women of the world who refuse to enter the city." The beautiful man knelt on the ground at Mohammed's feet, chiseled features slowly contorting, filling with despair. "Listen, my lord, do you remember how you came to be here?"

Mohammed blinked. He tried to reach back into memory, but could only grasp a fragment of sound-thunder rolling endlessly, booming and crashing over a plain. Before that moment, he could only barely remember standing in a tent with Zoe, eating a hasty breakfast. Everything else was shadow, fog, indeterminate. "No…" he said, grudgingly. The admission felt dangerous.

"I understand," Moha said, in a soft, companionable voice. "Let me show you." He raised his hands, cupped, as if he caught water spilling from a pitcher. Color and light pooled between his fingers. "Observe, my lord…"

Mohammed tried not to look, but a horrible fascination came over him and he gazed down into the swirling bright color.

A towering figure clenched his fist, will pressing against the sky, the clouds, the earth. A rolling series of blasts shook the ground, a howling cauldron of fire and lightning and hail converging on a distant sphere of orange light. Abruptly, like a wick being pinched, the light went out. Across the distance, a struggling, fierce will suddenly failed. There was a wink of orange flame and then only rain and darkness. The fires burning across the field sizzled down to smoke and ash, drenched by towering thunderheads sweeping across the sky.

"You are finished!" roared a voice of thunder. "I will crush the last breath…"

A man shouted: "Now! He's done it!" A tall, powerful figure swung a leaded sap fiercely against the towering, flame-shrouded figure. The apparition staggered at the blow, then crumpled to the ground, blood seeping from a fierce purplish bruise behind his left ear. The attacker, a Persian, loomed over his body. A thinner, leaner man crouched over Mohammed, hands upon his face.

"Khalid and his bodyguard." Mohammed breathed, transported by the vision. Memories of pain, of rain sluicing across his face, of men crying out in grief, flooded into his waking mind. They carried me upon their spears, he remembered. A hero's death. Everything seemed to be very clear. "I was murdered. Betrayed."

"Yet you did not die!" Moha leaned forward, face eager. His fingers clutched at the hem of Mohammed's robe. "You stand in the land between death and life! My lord, please, you must enter the city. You cannot remain here."

The Quraysh stared fiercely at the man's perfect face. "There is no city. I saw a wasteland of dark stones and a broken arch. You are keeping the dead from their peace! You are trying to lure them into the city, far from the voice of the lord and the paradise that awaits the faithful!"

Moha drew back, eyes narrowing. "A broken arch? A wasteland?"

"Yes," Mohammed said, drawing strength from the living tree under his hand. "You do not belong here! Your master has distorted this place, keeping the dead from their proper rest. You are his guardian and my jailer. So, I will take nothing from you and I will not enter the trap of your city! You are false, an abomination and a lure!"

For the first time, a flash of anger occluded Moha's beautiful face and Mohammed saw fear and pain and enormous, unbridled anger shining in the man's visage. Clenching a fist, tendons standing stiff in his arm, Moha loomed over Mohammed, growing enormous. His head blocked out the sky and even the round, unwavering sun seemed to dim. "I-an abomination? You are a reckless, arrogant creature-no more than a lump of clay given flesh and breath! You think yourself mighty, having heard a whisper of the wind that blew across the void at the beginning of the world!"

A harsh shout pealed out from the giant figure and the evenly spaced trees of the forest shuddered, spilling limbs, branches, leaves in the roar of wind. "I have seen the face of the sky," Moha boomed, "and knelt at a blazing hand, to take the manna that sustains life!"

The figure looked down and Mohammed was blinded by a burning radiance, brighter than the pale sun, a coruscating flare of dizzying intertwined shapes. The trees burst into flame and the short-cropped grass withered. The Quraysh raised a hand, blocking out the terrible glare.

"You are blind, blind and ignorant, O Man!" The flare of light abated, guttering down to a shining radiance, etching every wrinkle, every bone in Mohammed's hand like glass. "Your pride swallows all thought, all reason. This is my place-for the lord of the heavens and the world set me here-to guide lost spirits, to protect the land of the living from that of the dead. And the sleep of the dead from the troubles of the living."

Now Mohammed could make out, through the shining, half-blinding light, a winged figure towering over the plain. The city was gone, leaving only the wasteland he had glimpsed before, and the broken arch and the tumbled ruins of some greater city, now desolate. Eyes of fire filled the sky and Mohammed crumpled to the ground, nerveless, unable to stand.

"You served as I have served." The voice rumbled and rolled in the heavens. "And your time has ended. You must pass on, into the city of the dead. Only by restoring the gate will the restless, lost spirits find their way to peace."

"Why?" Mohammed tried to shout, to make his voice strong and powerful, but the words were weak and faint. "Why is the arch broken? Why is the golden city in ruins?"

"A door was opened," Moha said, his brilliant flame wicking down to a standing, leaping bar of fire. Nothing of humanity remained, only a twisting, rippling sheet of light pulsing in time with Mohammed's beating heart. "One that should have remained forever closed. The dead are disturbed. Corpses go about in the living world. The living walk in the land of the dead. The stars shift in their courses, bringing a terrible constellation into view."

Mohammed felt a chill rush through his limbs, his heart. "I am still alive," he said in wonder. His thin, parched fingers gripped the trunk of the tree. "How did I come to this place? What sent me here?"

"You did," Moha growled, the sheet of living flame shrinking again, outlining limbs, a noble head, a face, powerful arms. "You chose to cling to life, even when death opened before you. Already the gate and the city were shaken, cracked and splintered. You refused to die and with your arrogance, your sin, your pride the arch was cast down." The beautiful man, corporeal once more, stabbed a finger at the blackened, ashy woods. "You keep them from the land of peace. You are the abomination here, not I! You are the one who has brought ruin upon this world!"

Mohammed flinched. He remembered the sadness, the agony in Khadijah's eyes. The tears of the dead as they knelt over him, watering him with their tears. "I? No… You are the deceiver. I cannot trust you!"

Moha shook his head, long hair spilling over broad shoulders. "Can you hear the voice of the lord of the world? The voice that speaks from the clear air? The voice singing in the courts of the morning?"

"No." Mohammed gathered himself, rising up, back pressed against the trunk of the tree. "I cannot. I am captive in some realm where his will cannot enter, where his voice cannot be heard!"

"There is no such place." Moha's eyes were filled with grief. "Is he not the maker of all that is? How can he be shut out? He is already in your heart-do you deny this? If so, and you are here, then you can hear him, hear his beloved voice…"

"Can you hear him, then?" Mohammed stood, shaky on weak legs, but on his own two feet at last. "Does his voice sing in your heart?"

The beautiful man blanched and an expression of terrible loss cut into his face, graven deep in his eyes and the set of his mouth. "No. No, I cannot."

"What escaped from the land of the dead?" The Quraysh's expression was grim. "Was it you?"

"No!" Moha said in disgust. "I am not mortal flesh, not clay! I am eternal, the first one, the dawn star in the firmament of heaven! Death does not touch me, not as it burrows in your flesh like maggots…"

"Who then? Was it the dark power that destroyed Palmyra?"

Another shout of laughter boomed across the plain, sending burned trees cascading to the ground in plumes of ash. Moha wept quicksilver tears, which smoked and burned on the ground where they fell. "That is not dead," the beautiful man said, in a pitying tone, "which can eternal lie… You are a fool if you think such a power as the Lord of Ten Serpents could perish! No, you have escaped death, by refusing to enter the city. You have set the balance awry, leading to chaos in the heavens and the earth. You must set the balance right. Accept your fate! There is an end to all things."

"I will not abandon those who yet live, or those who have believed." Mohammed snapped, weary of the creature's prattle. "I will open this gate to the land of the dead and let the lost find their way home!"

Moha grinned. "You have no strength to raise such a weight. You were only a vessel for the power in the tide, in the air, in the stars above. You can help neither the living nor the dead, save by entering the city." The perfect face grew pensive. "You must hurry. The dead are a multitude and their numbers grow with each beat of your heart."

The dead… The Quraysh's eyes widened and he turned sharply, looking back into the burned, blackened groves. The transparent, ephemeral figures had returned and without the strange trees to block his sight, he saw they covered the land for as far as he could see. "The dead cannot pass from life to death without entering the gate."

"You are swift of thought!" Moha said in a mocking tone. "Are you deaf?"

Mohammed turned, eyes narrowed to bare slits, his face like iron. "The arch fell long before I entered this land. Khadijah was here, trapped like the others and she perished over a year ago. I am trapped in the same way! You are a deceiving, glib-tongued creature! You seek to lead the dead astray, to keep them from paradise, to turn their minds from the lord of the world! You are a false guide, a corrupt councilor!" The Quraysh raised a hand, his entire body suffused with righteous strength. "Begone, creature of sin! I cast you out, I deny you!"

"Sin?" Moha changed again, burning light oozing from the pores of his flesh, opening foundry doors in his eyes, his breath hot. "You speak of sin? You, who have murdered, stolen, cheated? You who sought revenge, hate hot in your heart? There is no one who will stand beside you in judgment and speak in your favor! You are monstrous, a thing of bleeding clay, your hands running with innocent blood!"

"The world will speak for me!" Mohammed's tongue was quick with anger. "I have placed myself in the lord's care, accepted his will, become his instrument! My soul will stand in the balance of judgment!"

"Will it?" Moha's expression became grave. His hand pointed, stiff in accusation. "Here is the world, at your hand. It suffers for you, sacrifices for you, gives you life… do you praise it, offer it thanks? No, there is only dirt to grind beneath your feet, a crutch for feeble limbs. Dare you ask the world for judgment?"

Mohammed grew still. Someone was standing behind him. He could hear the rustle of cloth, the soft motion of breath. Stiff fingers touched his shoulder, and he could feel smooth, cool skin against his neck.

"You drank from me," a female voice sighed, like wind rustling in dry leaves. "Without care. You ate of me, without thanks. My soil is wet with rich red blood you spilt, without leave."

Mohammed staggered, falling to his knees. Harsh shadows fell on the ground, thrown by the steady brilliance shining forth from the figure of Moha. His limbs grew heavy again.

"You sought glory in war, in the strife of men, abandoning your family, without forethought. You took up the path of vengeance, sending countless souls down to the house of the dead, without prayer to guide their path."

Mohammed struggled to rise, but his forehead cracked against the dry earth and his arms splintered, bones crushed by an ever-growing, terrible weight. He tried to cry out, but no sound escaped his dust-filled throat or passed his dry, crumbling lips.

"You spoke with the god's voice, without searching your heart. You strove in battle, without spying your enemy's banner or shield. Into an innocent's breast, you thrust your spear, blind in fury." A shadow fell across the Quraysh's face, but he could not see the slim, silver-gray figure leaning over him, harvest-gold hair shot with pale green, lambent umber eyes glistening with tears. "Illusion you took as a lover," he heard, as from a great distance. "Embraced as a dear friend. Pride killed you, son of the earth, who was born from clots of blood, mixed with clay."

The weight grew and grew, grinding Mohammed into the earth, skull fracturing under the pressure with a soft pop, thin, wasted shoulders flaking into dust.