“Wow!” She was amazed. Those might be important historical documents.
“Indeed, wow. Though the registers are in bad shape. They’ll be more valuable as keepsakes than as records-though I did see some interesting short notes on daily thoughts that did not get into your father’s formal writings.”
“Did these records produce some remarkable revelation? Or something painfully heretical? Is that your point?”
“Not at all, Lady. What was decipherable only reinforced my faith. The real matter I want to bring up is, what happened to the thunder amulet that your father got from his angel?”
Yasmid frowned, frankly puzzled. She had steeled herself for a confrontation. Al-Dimishqi was rambling about something more legend than… “Oh! That amulet! That amulet? The one he could use to call down the lightning or make boulders fall from the sky? That turned the tide at the Five Circles and on the salt pan?”
“That amulet, Lady. Yes.”
“It was lost.”
“Lady?”
“He lost it, Adim. For real and forever, to a western soldier after he went down outside Libiannin. The plunderers took him for just another dead warrior. My father spent years trying to find it again. He failed. Even his angel couldn’t trace it. You’d think he could have found it if it had survived. So it must have been broken up and melted down. But why are you asking about it?”
Al-Dimishqi seemed stricken. “The journal… Is all that really true? I was sure I’d stumbled onto something that could change everything.”
“You may have, just not the way you hoped. Find out more. But I can tell you this: the real amulet would not have been missed by the thieves who went through my father’s stuff. It was gold and weighed a good half a pound. And it had gemstones set in it. The angel didn’t want it to be missed.”
Al-Dimishqi sagged. “I am heartbroken. I was so excited. I was sure we were about to bring a powerful tool back to the holy struggle.”
Yasmid winced, pushed the pain down. “There may have been something. It might even have been given to my father by his angel. My father may have come to believe that it was the original amulet. I know he hated that thing. He sometimes risked disaster so he didn’t have to use it… After what happened outside Libiannin-another one of his narrow, miraculous escapes from a situation that should have killed him-my father deluded himself about a lot of things. So Habibullah tells me. He witnessed most of my father’s descent. I did not. I was elsewhere. So talk to Habibullah. He may be able to put you on to the real story.”
Al-Dimishqi’s shoulders slumped further. “I apologize for wasting your time. I will go, now.”
“No waste, Adim. Never. You give cause to reflect on secret history. And… Perhaps you did come across something important that you didn’t recognize because you jumped to this conclusion. Do keep after it. And do keep me posted.”
“As you will, so shall it be.”
Yasmid watched him go, hoping that all this would keep him from thinking about her health long enough for her and Habibullah to find a strategy that would get her through this intact.
It would take a miracle. If one occurred it would be the old man’s doing. She was capable of nothing but panic anymore.
…
Yasmid was back in her private audience, Habibullah attending, now with women watching from beyond hearing. She said, “I have to go get father’s opinion now that I opened my big mouth.” She was badly distracted after her discussion with al-Dimishqi. Had Haroun gotten hold of something of great potency? Had finding that been his true purpose for coming to Sebil el Selib?
Her stomach taunted her anew.
“You will, yes. But that is a necessary gesture, the more so because we have declared the Disciple almost recovered.” Habibullah watched closely. “Sharper questions would be asked if you did not consult him.” He knew al-Dimishqi had rattled her somehow.
“I know. But his advice is useless. He doesn’t realize that years have passed. If we bring him out to show off he’ll ruin everything by refusing to recognize that the world has changed.”
“True. But you have to go through the motions. He had to go through motions himself even when he was his most popular. Those who place their lives and honor at your disposal have expectations and have the right to have them. If you fail to meet those expectations you could face what seems to have caught up with Megelin.”
Yasmid grunted, not because she agreed but because her breakfast was making a bid to return.
She controlled it yet again.
So softly she barely heard him, her lifelong friend-companion-guardworshipper asked, “Is there something you need to tell me?”
He knew.
How long before everyone did? How long till the bad end came?
With marvelous caution Habibullah observed, “All is not lost. You are a married woman.”
Who had a husband only she loved, whom her people all wanted to stay dead.
She shuddered, afraid.
“We will cope,” Habibullah promised.
She could not believe him. Her hours were numbered.
…
“I’m just not comfortable,” Mist said. “But there is no undoing what’s already done.” She tried to follow three things at once: Scalza manipulating his scrying bowl so he could spy on people at Sebil el Selib; Ekaterina and Ethrian, just staying close enough to warm one another with their presence; and Haroun bin Yousif, who was straining to follow developments in Al Rhemish. Skilled as he had become, Scalza had difficulties due to distance, and had no sound. When they did anything other than vegetate Ethrian and Eka usually only observed the shogi wars. Bin Yousif spent a lot of time muttering and being confused. He was not pleased about the troubles in Al Rhemish but could not form a solid opinion because he did not understand them, either. Nor was he even a little relaxed in the company of so many strangers, some of whom had held him prisoner not so long ago.
Mist was uncomfortable with his presence. Varthlokkur had not been forthcoming on how bin Yousif fit his own form of the Plan.
There were several of those, puffing along in parallel. The upside was, if Old Meddler knocked one down others would keep on rolling. The downside was, she and Varthlokkur kept tripping over one another’s feet.
…
Haroun concluded that Varthlokkur was right. Most of these people were supposed to be dead. He had been shocked to learn that some were still alive, Ragnarson in particular-though he had gone off to create excitement in Kavelin.
Despite explanations from Varthlokkur and the eastern empress, Haroun remained unsure where he stood. Mainly, he did not understand why they were so determined. Why try to thwart the storm?
The Star Rider was weather. Historical and social weather. You planned ahead and did what you could to endure. Prepared, you could ride it out. You did not tempt fate by trying to control the storm.
Old Meddler was no deity but he was the closest thing Haroun ever saw. The God of his childhood was a god of storms.
He could never be comfortable around so many people, in such a tight space. He did especially poorly with children. They recalled times he would rather forget.
The insanity in Al Rhemish was most worrisome. Angry people kept destroying things, venting frustration caused by years of incompetence. Men of standing kept their heads down and their mouths shut. Beloul barricaded his door once Lalla eliminated outside evidence that the place was occupied by a hero of the old days. He had chosen to weather the storm, then live with whatever coalesced under subsequent rainbows.
Haroun did not miss the parallels between Beloul’s attitude and his own.
…
There were no hours of the day when either Mist, Lord Ssu-ma, Lord Kuo, or Lord Yuan were not engaged in advancing some fraction of the eastern plan. Lord Yuan worked harder than any of the others. Their scheme was more complex than Varthlokkur’s, which risked little more than self and family, huge enough in his mind but trivial by rational comparison.