The Dark Lord

CHAPTER FIFTY

The Wasteland

"You are Mohammed," the wounded man said in a weak voice, forcing his eyelids open. They were caked with grime, dried blood and crusty yellow crystals. The rest of his face-once darkly handsome-was no better, his eye sockets surrounded by glassy scars, his scalp lacerated by jagged cuts. "You were selling cups and plates; a whole caravan of beautiful red pottery…"

"Yes," Mohammed answered, lifting the Egyptian from the black sand. The body was very light, but still had some weight. Ahmet had been a strong man with a powerful build in life. "Is my caravan the last thing you remember?"

"I…" Ahmet turned his head weakly, an expression of bewilderment working its way across his wounded face. He did not seem to recognize the wasteland of broken, black stone and weathered spires. "I remember roses climbing a plastered wall and… and a woman." He stopped speaking, his body clenching convulsively into a tight ball. Mohammed let him shudder, holding Ahmet close while he climbed carefully out of the pit. There did not seem to be any weather in this place-the flat, black sky remained still and unblemished by clouds or wind or even a celestial body-but instinct bade him find shelter.

One of the jagged boulders harbored an egg-shaped opening in one side, the largest among hundreds of cavities and pits eroded from the glassy stone. Mohammed ducked inside, finding the floor covered with the same obsidian-colored sand as the plain. He noticed, but was no longer surprised by, the directionless, ambient light picking out every detail. There was no sun-the air itself seemed to be the source of this queer, febrile radiance.

He laid Ahmet down, letting the Egyptian's body uncurl at its own pace.

"Do you remember her name?" Mohammed sat on the sandy floor beside his friend, the staff of fig wood leaning against his shoulder. "Do you remember the golden city?" Do you remember the siege?

Ahmet managed to nod, though he seemed very weak. "I remember the last day. A dreadful shape rising above the towers…"

"You fell," Mohammed said softly, "and your body was stolen by the enemy. I searched among the ruins, but you had been taken away. Do you remember what happened after that?"

Convulsive shuddering wracked the emaciated body again and the Quraysh waited patiently until the spasms passed. This seemed to take a long time, though Mohammed noticed he did not tire, or grow hungry or thirsty. He began to wonder if time had any meaning in this place, wherever it was. It may not, he considered, if this plain is beyond life and death alike.

The Egyptian lay still again. Mohammed waited until the man's eyes opened. "Do you remember now?"

"Yes." The word was flat, and dead, and laden with enormous, inexpressible weight. "I do."

"How did you come to be here?" The Quraysh tried to restrain his curiosity-there is time enough to be patient, or is there? — Moha had claimed time did not pass in this place, but what if he had lied? What if the perception of timelessness were part of the trap, the prison?

A dry, rasping sound shook Ahmet's body and the Quraysh was heartened to recognize a feeble attempt at laughter. "I do not know what this place is. I became aware of this desert when you touched my shoulder. Before that… I was… I was in Egypt."

Mohammed frowned. "Egypt? What do you mean?"

Now the withered, scarred lips twisted, trying to smile. "I sat in a great temple-not the Serapeum, but one looking out upon the sea and the harbor-and the multitudes came before me, bowing, offering tribute and sacrifice." Ahmet's hands moved, groping around his head. "Hard to see what they dragged before my altar through the mask, but there were screams…" His lips fluttered, broken teeth making a click-click-click sound.

"What kind of mask?" Mohammed squatted, trying to make out the croaking words.

"…there were many priests and they wore the casque of Set and the lords of shadow… There were statues-new statues-of me… She was seated at my side, I could smell her hair!" Ahmet's eyes flickered open, filled with shock and surprise. "I can still smell her, hear them, hear the screams of men on the breaking block!"

Mohammed shook his head in confusion, then remembered something Zoe had once done. "Ahmet," he said, grasping the man's shoulder and feeling a chill shock as his hand started to pass through the wiry muscle and bone. "Ahmet, you are here with me, with your old friend Mohammed, the caraveneer. You are here, not there, not in Alexandria in a temple." Flesh stiffened and the Quraysh sighed in relief, seeing his friend become solid once more. Time is short, he felt. This interlude cannot last.

"Open your eyes," Mohammed commanded, putting steel in his voice. "Tell me what is happening in the world you saw."

The Egyptian focused again and the Quraysh thought he saw awareness flare in the dead eyes before hopelessness dulled them again. Ahmet lifted a hand, his dusty fingertips brushing Mohammed's face. "Hah. Are you real? I can touch you-but any sensation may be deceived. How did you find your way into my prison?"

"I am a prisoner too," Mohammed answered, now sure time was pressing. "But I cannot see out into the living world. You can-is your body, your true body, in Alexandria?"

"My corpse, you mean," Ahmet said, voice strengthening a little. "Yes. A puppet, moved by a dark, implacable will."

Revulsion and disgust twisted his expression. "The Serpent's army has taken the city and my… my shape, for there is no better word, sits on a throne like Pharaoh and dispenses fear and terror in place of wisdom and judgment."

"Who else is there?" Mohammed felt oddly adrift. The Persians in Alexandria? What happened to the campaign in Thrace? Did Constantinople fall? Did Shadin and his little army overcome the Roman garrison?

"She is," Ahmet groaned, starting to curl up again. Mohammed pressed his shoulders down with both hands. A cold suspicion was growing, just under his breastbone. Bits and pieces of… of everything were beginning to come together in his mind.

"Who is she?"

"The Queen, my queen, my beloved," Ahmet whispered. "She sits by my side and her voice is gracious and sweet as she pleads for mercy. We make a fine pair-one to distill fear, the other to offer hope-each on a golden throne."

"Zenobia?" Mohammed felt the chill blossom into a deadly, breath-crushing flower. "Or Zoe?"

"They are one," Ahmet gasped, hands clutching on something only he could see. "One more horror laid at horror's feet…"

Mohammed sat back, mind roiling with fury, despair, realization; a whirlwind of emotion. He grasped the staff for support, pressing his forehead against cool wood. A regal voice echoed in his memory: You are being deceived. He'd recognized the clear soprano then and ignored her warning. I was a fool, the Quraysh thought. I am not the voice, I am not infallible.

"How… how did Zenobia-" Mohammed stopped, realizing what had happened. "No, I understand. The Queen's mutilated body was a trap. Zoe took her corpse from the mountain tomb, and her mind become ensnared…"

Ahmet nodded, knocking his bare skull against the sand. "He is fond of innocent-seeming lures. By our heart's desire we are captured and bound." The Egyptian managed another hoarse, rattling laugh. "He is strong, but made stronger still by the desires of others bent to his will."

Mohammed grasped Ahmet's hand. "This 'he'-the same wizard you fought on the plain of towers?" The Egyptian nodded. "Is he a spirit, a god, or just a man?"

"He was human once," Ahmet said bleakly. "He let a power enter him-one of the pitiless, inhuman Great Old Ones who were worshipped before man, an incalculable power beyond comprehension-and has been transformed. Only a tiny fragment of his master's strength can pass through him-but that is enough to make him formidable beyond all others…"

Mohammed tried to voice a question, but his mind grappled with a sudden realization. Mouth working soundlessly, he took a breath, then managed to speak. "Are these… Old Ones… opposed? Are they the wellspring of evil?"

Dead lips stretched over rotted teeth and Ahmet barked another hoarse laugh. "Evil? A human conceit, my friend. Do you remember our discussions round the campfire? The wise thoughts of the philosophers and sages? They are no more than rubbish, the prattle of children too young and shortsighted to grasp the truth of the world. There is no good and there is no evil." Ahmet shuddered. "But there are things-powers-which dwarf the works of man and have lived so long in the abyssal spaces between the stars, death no longer touches them or makes them weak."

Mohammed recoiled from the despair and nihilism in Ahmet's voice. This is not the man I remember! He had faith and a good heart, unbowed and unbroken.

"You have abandoned hope," the Quraysh said, changing the subject a little. "You think he has captured you, lured you into his service, bent your neck to the yoke."

"He has!" Ahmet rose, eyes blazing. "His will rides me like a ghoul, moving my limbs to murder, my power to strike-so many dead have I heaped at his feet I cannot remember their names! He sees with my eyes, speaks with my lips. I am no more than… a container for his desire. A tool to be picked up at need."

Mohammed's eyes glinted hard, his suspicions confirmed. "He holds the Queen-Zenobia-before you as bait, making you dance so you might see her once more, hear her voice, feel her touch? And too, now you fear death, don't you? You think there is nothing beyond the portal save annihilation and you cannot abide the thought of nothingness?"

Ahmet's face blanched and he lifted a skeletal arm to hide his face. "There is nothing," he groaned hopelessly. "I have passed beyond death-my body died on the steps of the palace, exhausted in the last effort of defeating the dhole-and there was nothing, only an eternity of darkness, before he summoned me back from oblivion." The Egyptian's voice faded to an almost unintelligible whisper. "Even this half-life is better…"

Mohammed's fierce expression faded, replaced by gentle understanding. He looked around the little cave. "You are not dead," he said in a matter-of-fact voice. "Nor were you before. Your body may have perished, destroyed by the forces unleashed in defense of Palmyra, but your spirit has not completed its last journey." The Quraysh looked down and found Ahmet watching him with a peculiar, fixed intensity. "You are trapped in the borderland, in the margin between death and life. Our enemy has great strength and a cunning mind. He has-he had-blocked the gate through which the dead must pass."

The Egyptian tried to speak, but could find no words.

"This place is illusion," Mohammed said abruptly, rising to his feet. His visage became stern and he raised the fig-wood staff with an abrupt, defiant motion. The wooden stave broke through the stone ceiling and light flooded into the cavity. Stones and shards of obsidian crumpled away, falling up into the sky, driven by the power of the blow. A faint rumbling sound trembled in the air. "Another trap, laid by a master of snares."

The ground did not heave or split, but shivered, and Ahmet gaped to see entire spires and boulders begin to fragment, splitting apart. Each shard, released from some strange gravity, tumbled up, filling the sky with a black, spiralling cloud. Mohammed ignored the fantastic scene, holding out his hand to Ahmet.

"You weld your own chain," the Quraysh said, lifting his friend to his feet. "You bind only yourself and you may free yourself."

Ahmet, hunched, unable to stand straight, stared fearfully at Mohammed, who now seemed to loom enormous against the rippling, unstable sky. The broken stones, monoliths, spires, boulders-they plunged into the perfect darkness arching overhead-and as they fell, spit fire and meteors, shedding a terrible orange-red glow. Ahmet's eyes burned in reflection. "No! I will never see Zenobia again, never taste life again… I will cease!" The Egyptian was crying, though he had only dust for tears.

"While you cling to this half-life," Mohammed said, "you bind her as well. She has fallen into the same trap, bound by love and desire and-most of all-fear. While you live, you do countless harm, trampling the weak, throwing down the strong, spreading evil with either hand." His voice rose to a sharp snap. "And there is evil in the world and good too. You know the difference, in your heart."

"Yes," Ahmet gasped, clubbed by the harsh words. "But… but… have you seen what lies beyond the gate? Can you tell me what will happen? Truly?"

Mohammed shook his head, meteors streaking in his flashing eyes. "No. I have not made that journey. But I have faith and trust to the lord of the world, who made all things, all powers great and small, and whose provenance none can deny, not serpents or dead gods, or even the great ones who prowl the abyss among the dead suns."

Ahmet stood at last and looked into his friend's face and saw an incomparable strength shining there. "You have changed," he said. "You are not the man I knew-lost in his heart, confused, searching always for some answer beyond the next city, town, hill-what happened?"

"I grew still," Mohammed said, leaning on his staff, "and I listened."

Ahmet's face changed, growing pensive. "What did you hear?"

"Wind rattling the leaves. Stone groaning in the heat of the day. The voice of the world."

Ahmet let his hands fall to his side and closed his eyes. "What did the voice tell you?"

Mohammed smiled slightly. "The truth."

With a sigh, the Egyptian collapsed backwards, falling a little to the side. His body struck the ground in silence and the wasteland of shattered stone was gone. Only the black, perfect sky remained, now conjoined to an endless, glassy obsidian plain. Mohammed looked around, a bemused look on his face. "Good-bye," he said to the empty air. "My friends."

A look of determination and purpose came over him and the Quraysh reached up with one hand, grasping the sky and-with a powerful motion of his arm-tore open the firmament with an impossibly loud ripping sound. A blaze of light flooded down on his face, coupled with the roar of the sea and men shouting and the cry of gulls wheeling against an azure sky.