"So you are back with us, Kasim?" The voice was that of Karzan, a slow, easy-paced voice almost too soft for the size of the man. The Mameluke was larger than most of the brothers and stood half a head over Casca. His face and coloring along with slightly green eyes showed a mixture of many bloods in his veins. "Yes, you have been out for a long time."
"Where are we?"
"Who knows? Bu Ali is heading for the mountains. I heard the mob saying something about an Assassin being captured. You're not one of them are you?"
Casca shook his head to clear the remaining cobwebs. "That's a dumb question to ask anyone." He left the question unanswered since anything he said might have been the wrong thing. He didn't know if Karzan was a follower of Hassan al Sabah or not.
"Why am I tied down on this horse and why the hell did Bu Ali hit me?"
Karzan shrugged his sloped shoulders. "You're tied to the horse because that is what Bu Ali said to do. I don't know why he hit you, that is his business and he is in command." That was it. Karzan was content to follow his orders without question. Things he didn't understand, he wasn't meant to.
Casca was given water to drink from a leather skin and then studiously ignored. But Ali looked back at him once from the head of the column to give him a wide grin.
Bu Ali halted his men and rode to a small rise and looked back toward Apnea. He saw no sign of pursuit. Whoever it was that had been after them was no longer in view nor had they been since three hours past. Now he was facing one of the patches of wasteland where not even the creosote could survive. It was dry with fine dust that went ankle deep and stretched for twenty leagues.
Casca looked ahead. There shimmering in the distance and rising above the clear desert air was a range of mountains that would be a five-day ride away. The Elburz. Bu Ali was taking them to Castle Alamut.
The small unit of Mamelukes moved into the endless dust of the ancient seabed.
"Dust," Shojan pointed.
"I see it," Yousef said. He looked from the thin plume of dust to the mountains on the horizon, then back again.
"They have a good head start."
"True, but there is but one place they can head and that's toward the mountains. From where we are we can intercept them by going straight, then cutting across. Also we will have a better supply of water from some springs that I know of. The Mamelukes will have to ration theirs. We'll catch them."
"What if they travel all night?"
"It will make no difference for that is what we will be doing. It will only prolong the chase a few more hours, no more. Be patient, Shojan. Be patient. We will have them, this I swear."
Bu Ali made no camp. They traveled all that night stopping only to water their animals, then to cover more miles before the heat of day turned the seabed into an inferno. With first light they sought what thin shelter they could, using their cloaks to make tents to shield them and their animals from the hammering rays of the demon sun. Three more days and nights passed in this manner till they reached the base of the Elburz Mountains still in darkness. Dawn found them climbing a steep trail on foot, the horses left behind with a single Mameluke to guard them. Casca had one rope noosed around his thick neck, a second tied securely to his waist. The ends of both were in the hands of Karzan, who was quiet for the first two thousand feet. But when the sun warmed their backs in full light, he looked up at the steep climb ahead and muttered to no one, "I hope Bu Ali calls a rest when we get to that level site ahead." Never once had he or the other Mamelukes questioned why Bu Ali was taking them to Elburz instead of back to Baghdad and their Master Mamud. They, like Karzan, left the problem of thinking to others. Their job was only to obey and Bu Ali was in command therefore he must know what he was doing.
Casca also hoped for a rest. His legs were cramped from being tied under the belly of his horse and burned with each labored step up the foot trail. He had never been on this path before and wondered how long it would take them till they reached the summit of Alamut, where he would face Hassan and find out why this was being done to him.
Not once in the days of their trek had Bu Ali spoken to him, and after seeing Karzan do so had ordered all the Mamelukes to avoid any conversation with their prisoner at the risk of losing their tongues. Another hundred yards of climbing and Casca could barely make out the parapets of Castle Alamut still two thousand feet above them. He knew of this place. One of the Novices at Alamut had pointed it out to him from the Castle walls and had told him that this was where many who had transgressed were sent to their maker.
He looked down. There were jagged rocks below, and to his left, the black cleft that was the opening to the Bottomless Pit, which was, as the Novice had said, the entrance to death for many. Casca grunted knowing that every pit had a bottom. It was only a matter of reaching it.
A jerk on his lead rope and Casca stumbled over a rock to fall on his face. It distracted Karzan's attention and that of the other Mamelukes in front of him and behind him at the very instant that Yousef and his men attacked. They poured out of the rocks circling the level site by the Bottomless Pit.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Casca rose in time to be hit by Shojan's cane spear, its tip made of iron. Karzan dropped his rope in order to defend himself against an attack by two of the bandits. Casca staggered to the edge of the dark hole. The spear had passed through his right side, the head extending two hands breadth out the other side of his body. In his pain he stumbled again at the edge of the Bottomless Pit and tried to regain his balance. For what seemed an infinitely long second he wavered there, body half cast over the brink. Then the earth gave way. He fell far and long, his body bouncing off of boulders and branches that poked out from the sides of the pit. Then he was no more to be seen or heard from.
When Casca fell the fight at the top of the pit came to a quick conclusion. Though Yousef and his men outnumbered the Mamelukes they were by no means their equal in battle and none of the outlaws had a desire to die for such little profit. They fled the scene leaving Bu Ali looking over the edge of the Bottomless Pit wondering how to explain things to Hassan.
Back down the mountain the bandits fled. One had died in the exchange but the others all had minor wounds. Still Yousef gloated. He had accomplished his main purpose and the scar-faced one was finally dead. No one could live through such a fall. Perhaps now their luck would change and he would be able to pursue his dream of being a bandit chieftain.
Bu Ali had no such dreams of glory for he had to stand before the Master and explain his failure. To Karzan he ordered, "There is no need for you to go any further. Take the others and go back to Mamud. Your job here is finished." Karzan saw a look of desolate acceptance of fate on the face of Bu Ali. Yet this was no concern of his. He was to do as he was ordered. He asked no questions but merely nodded his head in agreement, glad to be rid of whatever job it was that Bu Ali had led them on.
They left Bu Ali at the edge of the pit tossing rocks over the side then cocking his head to listen. He never heard any of them hit bottom. Raising his eyes to the mountain above and the Castle Alamut he resigned himself to whatever fate was in store for him at the hands of the Old Man of the Mountain. There was no use trying to fight one's destiny for it had long ago been written by the hand of Allah and what would be would be.