The blow felt like a hammer stroke against his ribs. He felt bone crack. A whine ripped through his lips. The earth hurtled up. He tried to reach, to soften his fall. One arm would not respond. He hit the ground hard. His bodyguards wailed in dismay.
As consciousness faded he heard hooves racing away. He cracked one eyelid and watched his Invincibles flee.
The darkness came.
And the darkness went away.
A foot pushed against his ribs, rolled him over. A scream boiled in his throat. He swallowed it, did not breathe while the warrior went through his clothing. The man cursed him. He carried no wealth upon his person.
The warrior's eves brightened when he discovered the amulet. He removed it quickly and furtively, instantly concealing it within his clothing.
The jewel had ebbed low. The looter never noted its weak gleam.
El Murid confined his curses to his heart. The choice was the amulet or life. That was no choice.
A second warrior called, "You find anything?"
"Two lousy pieces of silver and a handful of copper. These guys are poorer than we are. This one's got decent boots, though. Look like they might fit."
The Disciple ground his teeth while the man yanked his boots from his feet.
The second warrior joined the first. "I found one of those silver kill-daggers. That ought to be worth something."
"Yeah? Let me see."
"Like hell."
"All right. All right. Hey, this one has a pretty fine sword here."
"Better than that nicked up hunk of Itaskian tin you're carrying."
El Murid wanted to laugh. The weapon had been given him in Dunno Scuttari only days ago. He'd never had it out of its scabbard. There was something ironic in that.
Even more ironic, he concluded after the warriors moved on, was the fact that his enemies were making no effort to learn if he were among the fallen. He did not understand their political apathy. They had him at their mercy.
How ironic it would be, too, if he were slain simply because he were found alive, with his killer never realizing the importance of the deathblow he dealt.
Darkness took the field into its arms. For a time, the more ambitious Royalists plundered by torchlight but eventually even the greediest opted for sleep.
The battlefield grew still and silent. El Murid waited. The pain kept him awake. When he was certain he would not give himself away, he began dragging himself from the field.
He had gone no more than a dozen yards when he came upon his physician. "Oh, Esmat. What have you done? I thought you were one of the immortals and here you've abandoned me. My old friend. My last friend. Lying here for the ravens. It's cruel. All I can do is raise a stele for you."
Someone or something stirred a short way down the slope. El Murid froze. He did not move for a long time.
Somehow, the plunderers had overlooked Esmat's bag. He took it with him when he resumed dragging himself from the field. When he felt safer he crawled to a tree and used it to pull himself to his feet. He began stumbling eastward by the light of a crescent moon, his feet bleeding. Twice he paused to draw strength from the medicines in Esmat's bag.
Near dawn he encountered a riderless horse. He caught and calmed the beast and dragged himself into the saddle. He walked his new mount eastward.
Two weeks of agony brought him to the Sahel, where he fell into the arms of devoted followers. They nursed him and eventually carried him back to Al Rhemish where he secluded himself in the Most Holy Mrazkim Shrines.
His high ambitions had died their final death.
The Royalist warrior who plundered the Disciple's amulet sold it to a goldsmith in Libiannin after the Chosen there withdrew. The goldsmith in turn sold it to a woman of quality returning south to reclaim family estates near Simballawein. She had had the amulet for two months when it came to sudden life, cursing in a foreign tongue. Terrified, certain the thing was some dread sorcerer's toy that had been fobbed off on her by a dishonest artisan, she had her servants hurl it into a deep well. The well she ordered filled with earth and planted over.
So El Murid's amulet vanished from the earth, to the bafflement of historians, the Faithful and, most of all, of him who had presented it to the Disciple.
The magic had gone out of El Murid's Movement. Literally.
Chapter Twenty-Four:
REVELATION
T he fat man was never more circumspect. He traversed an inhospitable land infested by piratical deserters from both the Itaskian army and Host of Illumination. These renegades preyed on everyone. The locals therefore greeted any stranger with violence, fearing he might be scouting for one of the bands.
Disorder held sway from the Scarlotti north to the Silverbind. He had survived that chaos. He had evaded misfortune week after week, making his way toward Portsmouth where the remnants of el Nadim's army yet awaited the Disciple's command.
"Self, am cast-iron fool," he berated himself at one juncture, forty miles from his destination. "Should be bound for easternmost east. Should be headed for lands where good sense is rule rather than exception, where man of skill and genius would have half chance to prosper."
His talents were wasted on this mad country. Its people were too damned suspicious and too impoverished. The to and fro of armies had destroyed tens of thousands of farms. Plunderers had carried off any wealth that had existed there. The natives had to scratch and fight to survive.
He was losing weight. Hunger was a monster trying to gnaw its way out of his guts. And he had no props with which to ply his trade even had he been able to gather the marks. He had had no time, and no money, to assemble a new inventory.
He never stopped asking himself what he was doing in this mad country, and still he went on. He had to get close to the eastern army. He had to know. He could not go on wondering if Sajac were out there somewhere, stumbling along on his backtrail, closing in for the kill.
That need to know had become an obsession. It drove him more mercilessly than any slavemaster's whip.
For the first time in his life he fell into the habit of introspection, trying to discover why this was so important to him. He encountered the shadowed reaches of his soul and recoiled. He dared not believe that such darknesses existed within him. He found his love-hatred for the old man the most repulsive monster hidden there. He wanted to be possessed of no feelings for Sajac at all. He wanted to be able to exterminate the old man like the louse he was—if he still existed.
He did not want to care about anybody but Mocker.
Yet he did care, not only about Sajac but about the friends he had made during his wartime adventures. He had grown fond of Haroun and Bragi, both of whom had treated him well and who had been understanding about his constant making an ass of himself.
Often, late in the night, he would waken and find himself afraid. It was not a mortal fear, a fear of this enemy land, nor was it a dread of specific enemies. It was a fear of having no more cause and no more friends and being totally alone.
He did not like that fear. It did not fit his image of himself as a man at war with the universe, beating it again and again by acuteness of wit. He did not want to be dependent on anyone, especially not emotionally.
He began to hear news of the eastern army as he neared Portsmouth. That last remnant of El Murid's might was preparing for a homeward march. An Itaskian force was camped outside the city ready to assume control when the easterners departed.
News was always a few days old. He lengthened his stride. He did not want to arrive only to discover that his quarry had departed by another route.