Al Assad tottered forward, trusting his ears far more than his cataracted eyes. The sound reached him again. It sounded like the muttering of a man dying on the rack.
He found the boy lying in the shadow of a boulder.
His "Who are you?" and "Do you need help?" elicited no response. He knelt. With his fingers more than his eyes he determined that he had found a victim of the desert.
He shuddered as he felt cracked, scabby, sunburned skin. "A child," he murmured. "And not of El Aquila."
Little remained of the youth. The sun had baked most of the life out of him, desiccating his spirit as well as his body.
"Come, my son. Rise up. You're safe now. You've come to Al Ghabha."
The youth did not respond. Al Assad tried to pull him to his feet. The boy neither helped nor hindered him. The imam could do nothing with him. His will to live had departed. His only response was a muttered incoherency which sounded surprisingly like, "I have walked with the Angel of the Lord. I have seen the ramparts of Paradise." He then lapsed into complete unconsciousness. Al Assad could not rouse him again.
The old man made the long and painful journey back to the monastery, pausing each fifty yards to offer the Lord a prayer that his life be spared till he had carried word of the child's need to his abbot.
His heart had begun skipping beats again. He knew that it would not be long before Death took him into Her arms.
Al Assad no longer feared the Dark Lady. Indeed, his aches and blindness made him look forward to the pain-ease he would find in Her embrace. But he begged an indulgence, that he be allowed to perform this one final righteous deed.
The Lord had laid a charge upon him, and upon the Shrine, by guiding this victim of the desert to him and Shrine land.
Death heard and stayed Her hand. Perhaps She foresaw richer harvests later.
The abbot did not believe him at first, and castigated him for having abandoned his post. "It's an el Habib trick. They're out there stealing water right now." But al Assad convinced the man. And that left the abbot no happier. "The last thing we need is more mouths."
" ‘Have you bread and your brother naught to eat? Have you water and your brother naught to drink? Then I say this unto you... ' "
"Spare me the quotations, Brother Ridyah. He'll be cared for." The abbot shook his head. He got little thrills of anticipation when he thought of the Dark Lady claiming al Assad. The old man was one too sincere pain in the neck. "See. They're bringing him in now."
The brothers dropped the litter before the abbot, who examined the tormented child. He could not conceal his revulsion. "This is Micah, the son of the salt merchant al Rhami." He was awed.
"But it's been a month since the el Habib found their caravan!" one brother protested. "Nobody could survive the desert that long."
"He spoke of being tended by an angel," al Assad said. "He spoke of seeing the ramparts of Paradise."
The abbot frowned at him.
"The old man is right," one of the brothers said. "He started talking on the way up. About seeing the golden banners on the towers of Paradise. He said that an angel had showed him the wide earth. He says he has been told by the Lord to bring the Chosen back to the Truth."
A shadow crossed the abbot's face. That kind of talk distressed him.
"Maybe he did see an angel," someone suggested.
"Don't be silly," the abbot countered.
"He's alive," al Assad reminded him. "Against all the odds."
"He's been with the bandits."
"The bandits fled across the Sahel. The el Habib tracked them."
"Someone else, then."
"An angel. You don't believe in angels, Brother?"
"Of course I do," the abbot replied hastily. "I just don't think they reveal themselves to salt merchants' sons. It's the desert madness talking through him. He'll forget it when he recovers." The abbot looked around. He was not pleased. The whole Shrine was gathering over the boy, and in too many faces there was a desire to believe. "Achmed. Bring me Mustaf el Habib. No. Wait. Ridyah, you found the boy. You go to the village."
"But why?"
A technicality had occurred to the abbot. It looked like the perfect exit from the difficulties the boy was generating.
"We can't nurse him here. He hasn't been consecrated. And he would have to be well before we could do that."
Al Assad glowered at his superior. Then, with anger to banish his aches and weariness, he set off for the village of El Aquila.
The hetman of the el Habib tribe was no more excited than the abbot. "So you found a kid in the desert? What do you want me to do about it? He's not my problem."
"The unfortunate are all our problems," al Assad replied. "The abbot would speak with you of this one."
The abbot opened with a similar remark in response to a similar statement. He quoted some scripture. Mustaf countered with the quote al Assad had used earlier. The abbot kept his temper with difficulty.
"He's not consecrated."
"Consecrate him. That's your job."
"We can't do that till he recovers his faculties."
"He's nothing to me. And you're even less."
There were hard feelings. It had been but two days since Mustaf had petitioned the abbot for permission to draw water from the Shrine's spring. The abbot had denied him.
Al Assad, cunningly, had brought the chieftain up by way of the Shrine's gardens, where lush flowerbeds in careful arrangements glorified God. Mustaf was in no mood to be charitable.
The abbot was in the jaws of a merciless trap. The laws of good works were the high laws of the Shrine. He dared not abrogate them before his brothers. Not if he wished to retain his post. But neither was he ready to allow this boy to mutter his heretical insanities where they could upset the thinking of his charges.
"My friend, we had hard words over a matter we discussed recently. Perhaps I reached my decision a bit hastily."
Mustaf smiled a predatory smile. "Perhaps."
"Two score barrels of water?" the abbot suggested.
Mustaf started toward the doorway.
Al Assad shook his head sadly. They were going to dicker like merchants while a boy lay dying. He departed in disgust, taking himself to his cell.
Within the hour he surrendered to the embrace of the Dark Lady.
Micah wakened suddenly, rational, intuiting that a long time had passed. His last clear memory was of walking beside his father as their caravan began the last league to El Aquila. Shouts... a blow... pain... reminiscences of madness. There had been an ambush. Where was he now? Why wasn't he dead? An angel... There had been an angel.
Snatches returned. He had been returned to life, to become a missionary to the Chosen. A disciple.
He rose from his pallet. His legs betrayed him immediately. He lay panting for several minutes before finding the strength to crawl to a flapway.
The el Habib had confined him to a tent. They had quarantined him. His words had made Mustaf tremble. The chieftain could sense the blood and pain beyond such mad perspectives.
Micah yanked the flap.
The afternoon sun slapped his face. He threw an arm across his eyes and cried out. That devil orb was trying to murder him again.
"You idiot!" a voice snarled as someone pushed him back inside. "You want to blind yourself?"
The hands that guided him to his pallet became tender. The afterimages faded. He discovered his companion to be a girl.
She was about his own age. She wore no veil.
He shrank away. What was this? Some temptation of the Evil One? Her father would kill him... .
"What happened, Meryem? I heard him yell." A youth of about sixteen slipped inside. Micah retreated in earnest.
Then he remembered who and what he was. The hand of the Lord had touched him. He was the Disciple. No one could question his righteousness.