"Oh, Papa!" Yasmid cried. "It's magnificent! So big and... and magnificent!"
"Your uncle tells me he's going to make it a gift to me. What would I do with a city? You think it's beautiful? I'll give it to you. Assuming Nassef can take it."
"He can, Papa. I know he can."
"What about me?" Sidi demanded surlily.
"There are other cities. Which one do you want? Hellin Daimiel?"
"I don't want another city. I want... "
"Let him have this one, Papa. It's beautiful, but I'd rather have Hellin Daimiel. That's where everything interesting... "
"He said I could have Hellin Daimiel, Yasmid."
"What you're going to get, Sidi, is a taste of the strap. Act your age. You're not four years old anymore."
"How come she always gets her own way? When do we get to see the ocean? I want to see the ocean."
El Murid's hand whipped out. "There are times, Sidi, when you disgust me," he said as the boy rubbed his cheek. El Murid glanced at Mowaffak Hali, who pretended an intense interest in the River Scarlotti. "There are times when I'm tempted to foster you with the poor tribesmen of the Sahel so you'll learn to appreciate what you have and stop whining about what you don't." El Murid stopped. The boy was not listening. "Mowaffak, have someone find the Scourge of God and tell him we're here."
Nassef himself came to greet them. He was an adolescent mass of uncontrolled emotion. He had happy smiles and ferocious hugs for everyone.
El Murid easily identified the indelible tracks loneliness had stamped into Nassef's face. He saw them in his own face whenever he glanced into a mirror.
"I'm glad you came," Nassef enthused. "So much work went into this. It would have been a sin if you'd have missed it."
El Murid noted how attentive Nassef was to Yasmid, with his little jokes, his teasing, his mock flirtation. He indulged in an old speculation. Did Nassef have designs on the girl? She was on the brink of marriageability. For Nassef to wed her would be a great coup for the ambitious Nassef who sometimes thrust his head out of the shadows surrounding the several Nassefs the Disciple knew.
There were those who would frown on a man marrying his niece, but it was not without precedent. Many of Ilkazar's emperors had married their own sisters.
A few months earlier Hali had brought El Murid a chart of succession found in the apartment of Megelin Radetic at el Aswad, the fortress the Wahlig of el Aswad had abandoned shortly before the assault on Al Rhemish. What El Murid had seen in that chart had startled him. And had revivified all the specters that had haunted him throughout his association with his brother-in-law.
If Radetic had guessed correctly, Nassef had powerful motives for pursuing Yasmid. Only Haroun bin Yousif stood between Nassef and the throne on that chart. A marriage could lead to Crown and Disciplate conjoined.
El Murid had visited his wife's father on the way west. The old man, who had disinherited his children in the beginning, had been on his deathbed. El Murid had introduced the old chieftain to his grandchildren. They had conquered him immediately. He had recanted. There had been tears of forgiveness and of reconciliation.
"Nassef."
"Lord?"
"I came by way of el Aquila."
A strained longing shone on Nassefs face.
"I saw him, yes. And these two stole his heart. He said they were just like you and Meryem at the same ages. He forgave us all. He wanted me to tell you that."
For an instant a tear glinted in Nassef's eye. "Then I can go home? I can see him again?"
"No. You know the Fates were never that kind. He was on his deathbed when we arrived. We stayed till the Dark Lady came for him. He had a gentle, peaceful death."
"And my mother?"
"She abides, but I don't think she'll survive him long."
"I'll visit her as soon as we go into winter quarters. What did he think about me?"
"Pray for him, Nassef. He never accepted the Faith. He died an unbeliever. But he was proud of his son and daughter. He talked incessantly of the things you've accomplished. He said he always knew you'd go far."
Nassef glowed through his sorrow.
Mowaffak Hali watched with the cold eyes of a raptor. For a man who abhors politics, his prophet thought, Mowaffak can play them craftily.
Nassef wasted little time getting on with the event that had drawn the Disciple to Dunno Scuttari. The next day he ferried the family across the river and guided them to a pavillion on a hilltop.
"You won't be able to see much, really," he said. "But what there is you can see best from here. In the morning."
"What is it, Nassef?" Yasmid demanded.
"A surprise, Little Dove. Get up early and you'll see."
"Come on, Nassef," she breathed. Already, unconsciously, she was adopting the little wiles a woman uses to bend a man to her will.
"No, I'm not telling. Not even you. You'll wait like everybody else." He gestured downriver, toward the eastern end of the fortress island. "They'll be the most surprised."
Yasmid's pleading and flirting went for naught. This, Nassef said without verbalizing, would be his greatest triumph. It was his game. It would be played his way, by his rules.
El Murid, uncharacteristically, had an image of an unconfident roue stalking a virgin who had spurned the advances of countless lovers with more to offer. A roue who did not disguise his intent to use her once and pass her on—yet one who had staked his fortunes and ego on the successful outcome of an otherwise inconsequential affair.
And so he gained yet another perspective on this stranger who was his oldest acquaintance. There seemed to be no end to the faces of Nassef.
That night El Murid stood outside his pavillion and marvelled at the magnitude of the Host of Illumination. Its campfires covered the countryside on both banks of the river. It seemed that whole shoals of stars had descended to the plains and hills. "So many... " he murmured. "All brought here by my dreams."
Nassef had told him that he had recruited almost twenty thousand westerners. The Word, or parts thereof, stirred sympathetic resonances in some western hearts. The New Empire was battling its way from the womb.
Yasmid began tormenting him before sunrise. "Papa. Come on. Come and see what Nassef did. You won't believe it when you see it."
It was hours before his usual rising time. He preferred to work late and sleep late. He fought her till it became obvious that her determination was the greater. Accepting defeat grouchily, he rose. He dressed and followed her to the pavillion's exit.
"All right, brat. Show me this miracle and get it over with. I need my sleep."
"Can't you see, Papa? It's right there. Look at the river, Papa."
He peered down at the Scarlotti.
The river was not there.
The once vast flood had dwindled to a few lakes connected by one murky stream a dozen yards wide. Great expanses of mud lay exposed to the breeze and the rising sun. The breezes shifted while he wrestled with his awe. A foul odor assailed his nostrils.
"How in the world... ?"
Nassef came striding toward the pavillion. Weariness seemed to drag him down, yet when he saw them watching, his step took on a boyish bounce. A broad grin captured his face. "What do you think?" he shouted.
The roue has broken his beloved's maidenhead, El Murid thought. And now he comes to gloat, to adore himself publicly, to brag...
He snorted softly. "What did you do?" he demanded. "How can you dry up a river overnight?"
"You can't. What you do is impress a couple hundred thousand people and make them dig a new riverbed. I started as soon as we got here. I got the idea from The Wizards of llkazar. Where the poet tells about Varthlokkur sending the earthquake to demolish the walls and a building collapses into the Aeos and dams it and floods part of the city. I thought, why didn't they dam it upriver? Then they could have gotten in through the water gate. Then I thought, why not reroute the river? It would just spill over a dam."