Fifty warriors were not enough to hold anything. Fa'tad knew that as well ashe did. They were a token, clinging to the dozen most important toeholds. Theycould be dislodged anytime the labyrinth creatures cared to make a concertedeffort.
Fa'tad was convinced there was little concert among them, despite apocryphaltales of the maze being ruled by a sort of king of the underworld. If Fa'taddisbelieved that, did he also disbelieve the stories of great treasurescollected by the people of the maze, of another labyrinth of natural cavernsinside the hill that supported the Shu, with mouths deep in the heart of thebuilded maze?
Mo'atabar thought al-Akla was looking for those, thinking they would provide away for him to sneak into the citadel and loot its reputed treasures. If thosewere half what was claimed, with them in hand the Dartar force could retirefrom the Herodian service and the tribes would never need fear the bite of the drought again.
Was that at the back of Fa'tad's mind? Nogah wondered. It did not seem quite the Eagle's style.
Something moved in the fog. He became alert. Then he gaped. He'd never seensuch a woman. Her beauty hit him like a physical blow. He eased forward, towatch her on her way. As a barely discernible shape she paused several minutesat the door to the place where Yoseh's little doe lived, then vanished intothe mist.
He wondered about his brother's injuries momentarily, then his thoughtsreturned to the woman. Had he seen a ghost? She had not made a sound. Butgods, what a lovely spook, if ghost she was.
Hadribel sensed something amiss the moment he stepped through the doorway. Hestopped.
There was a ghost of a hint of a scent on the air, vaguely feminine. He lookeddown. The apparently randomly distributed set of four dust bunnies, laid outaccording to bel-Sidek's instructions, had been disturbed. Oh. Of course.
Carza.
But he had relayed the instructions. Carza was not the sort to forget.
He shut the door and hurried to the bedroom.
"Sir? Sir? Are you all right?" he asked, though he knew better the moment helaid eyes on the old man. He was a soldier. He knew death intimately, in allits guises.
The impossibility of it held him for a moment. Then the enormity of thedisaster to the movement bore down on him.
The General gone! That indomitable will, that steadfast genius, lost forever.
Bel-Sidek was a proven field commander, a fine tactician, steady as a mountainin a storm, and the chosen successor, but the man lacked the magnetism, theability to fire the heart and imagination, that had marked the life of Hannobel-Karba.
Even so, bel-Sidek had to be made aware of the disaster immediately. Much hadto be done, and fast, if the movement was not to stumble over this terriblemoment. He forced leaden legs to take him out the door. Unaware that he wasdoing so, he cursed the Fates as he stamped along.
Bel-Sidek felt the recriminations seethe inside him, along with the pain, theloss, the anger, the embarrassment over having been found where he had beenfound with Meryel. He restrained it all. He could not afford to yield at thismost critical hour in the history of the Living. What he did this day woulddetermine whether the struggle continued or the movement collapsed. He had todeal with issues, problems, and people entirely in the light of cold reason.
He paused before the door to the place he had shared for six years with a man who had meant far more to him than ever his own father had. "Send for Carza, then join me here," he told Hadribel. "Tell your messenger he is to accept noexcuses or delays."
"What about the others?"
"After Carza gets here. I want to talk to him first." He pushed inside, leftHadribel to his assignment.
He sniffed. He did not catch the scent Hadribel had detected, but there hadbeen time for it to fade.
In the interim between Hadribel's arrival and Carza's departure could a womanhave come in? Absurd! But why not?
What woman? To what purpose?
He willed himself into the bedroom.
The old man seemed smaller and more frail in death. He looked as though he haddied angry. No. Not angry. Bel-Sidek knew that look. He had died exasperated.
Which suggested that the visitor, if visitor there had been, had been someoneknown to him.
The bedclothes were tousled as though he had wrestled his fate beforesuccumbing. His nightshirt was partly open, revealing sickly yellow skin and ... the edge of something black.
Bel-Sidek eased the dirty cloth back, using one finger.
A black handprint marked the old man's chest, over his heart. It was a daintyprint, too big for a child but too small for a man. Bel-Sidek stared at it along time.
It was a bad, bad omen. Because if it was what it looked like, the mark of akiller, they all had cause to be very, very troubled.
He had not seen this particular mark before, but he had seen its like. Thatrecalled the killing touch of a sorcerer. Marks of that sort had been found oncorpses often before the conquest, but not since. Cado and his henchmen hadforbidden the practice of sorcery.
Bel-Sidek knew of no black magicians being in the city on the sly. He hadheard of no witches but that one the new civil governor had brought along.
Her? Unlikely. Had the Herodians known where to find the General they wouldnot have chosen quiet murder. The end of the chieftain of the Living wouldhave been a public spectacle a match for those of olden times, before the morepeaceful Aram had dispelled the savage Gorloch.
He sat at the writing table while he awaited Carza, reviewing everything thatwould have to be done to ease the transition and keep the movement on itsfeet. His thoughts brushed the General's secret and special agent, passed on, came back again. If the man was half what the General had believed, he mightbecome the Living's instrument of retribution in this.
But later. Vengeance had to await stability.
Carza entered without knocking. He had not slept and was not in a good mood.
As he started to bitch, bel-Sidek pointed him toward the bedroom. "Oh, I'll be damned," Carza said. "When?"
"Between the time you left and the time Hadribel came back. Assuming he was all right when you left." "He was healthy and mean as a boar. Why?"
"Did you arrange the telltales the way Hadribel told you?"
"You know I did."
"I assumed. I had to hear it. They weren't arranged when Hadribel got here." Bel-Sidek pulled the old man's nightshirt open again. "Any ideas?" Carza stared at the print. He shook his head, muttered, "Did he see it coming?"
"What?"
"He had me come over to tell me about this big operation he had going for Qushmarrah. Just in case. So there'd be somebody to keep it going."
"What was it?"
Carza shook his head. "I can't say. He was firm about that. Don't tell bel- Sidek anything. I'm supposed to take over that one thing and you the rest of the organization. He was right about it but the only way I could show you would be to tell you." Bel-Sidek did not argue. No point. Instead, he decided to define the time gap in which the murder had taken place.
It could have been ten minutes or it could have been thirty. Carza could not be exact about when he had departed. Hadribel arrived looking harassed. "I got messages off to the others," he said. "It's going to be light out soon."
They can be grieving relatives," bel-Sidek said. "We've been setting it up that way." Carza said, "You won't be able to get hold of Zenobel."
"Why not?"
"The old man sent him out ... Hell. No need to keep it secret. You have to deal with the consequences."
Bel-Sidek asked, "What?"
"The new civil governor sent men to throw the widow out of her house so he could have it. The old man sent Zenobel to throw them out."
"Aram! Is that what he calls letting them think we're falling apart?"
"It had to be done."
"I realize that. But ..."
Hadribel beckoned bel-Sidek. "Can I talk to you privately?"
Bel-Sidek left Carza scowling. He did not like being shut out, either. Near the hearth bel-Sidek asked, "What?" While he was there he started a fire for breakfast.