"Hey! I think I saw it," said a warrior. "Do it again, would you?" The man squatted in order to see better.
"Self, am humblest of entertainers," Mocker said. "Have been perilously buffeted by winds of war."
"Got you," the warrior said. "That's neat. Could you teach me how to do it? I've got a kid brother who would love something like that."
Mocker shrugged. "Self, can try. But take warning. Is more difficult of achieving than looks betray. Takes much practice. Self, am professional, yet must practice two hours daily."
"That's all right. Just the coin trick. Come on." The warrior, who was hardly older than Mocker, produced a coin of his own. Several others crowded around, equally interested.
Within twenty minutes that fat youth had three students and an audience of a dozen. The watchers taunted the trainees whenever their fingers betrayed them. Mocker provided a natter of invented self-history with his instructions. His biography was an epic of how the war, in the form of marauding Guildsmen, had robbed him of his position as jester to a minor Libianninese nobleman. The Guildsmen, he claimed, had erroneously concluded that the knight was collaborating with the Scourge of God. They had hung the man and burned his manor.
Mocker claimed that only a miraculous escape had saved him from the same fate.
"So uncivilized, this west! Understand that war is facet of mankind. Have studied with leading philosophers and know same. But barbarisms practised by combatants here... Self, am soured on whole end of earth. Am determined to return to east of childhood, where sanity reigns supreme."
The Invincibles took no offense. He seemed to be condemning their enemies more than themselves.
Their captain heard most of the tale. Mocker kept a close, if surreptitious, eye on the man, but could not detect a reaction. His fireside companions seemed satisfied, but their opinions were not critical. The captain's was.
Then he noticed the face in the shadows. A girl's face. How long had she been watching? And listening?
"Enough of teaching now. Is boring for soldiers out in wilderness, maybeso? Self, will do show. Same being entertaining enough, audience might reward self with copper or two to sustain same during hardship of eastward journey, maybeso." He recovered the rest of his tools and props.
He relied heavily on the stage magic, but after a while broke it up with Tubal and Polo. His audience did not respond. The Children of Hammad al Nakir were not familiar with urban-rural conflicts, and were too conservative to appreciate the ribaldry.
"No fun at all, these people," Mocker muttered to himself. "No imagination. Men of friend Haroun howled at same stories."
Two faces now watched from the shadows. He returned to the stage magic, carefully playing to that select audience.
He studied the children as much as he dared, feeling for something that might reach them. He thought the girl was the one he would win. The boy seemed sour, surly and impossible to impress.
He thought wrong. The boy was the one who defied the captain's glare and came to the fireside. "Can you teach me those tricks?" he demanded.
Mocker scanned the faces of the Invincibles. He found no guideposts. He spread his hands, shrugged. "Maybeso. All things are possible with faith. Show self hands."
"What?"
"Hands. Self, must see hands to say if true skill can be developed."
Sidi offered his hands. Mocker took them, studied their backs, then their palms. "Training is possible," he announced. "Fingers are thin enough. But not very long. Will be problem. Will require much hard practice. Get coin. Will begin... "
"Some other time," the captain said. "He needs his sleep now. We've spent too long on this as it is."
Mocker shrugged. "Am sorry, young sir."
Sidi glared at the captain. Suddenly, he whirled and stamped toward his sister. Mocker thought he heard a muttered, "I never get anything I want."
Mocker turned in with the warriors, but was a long time falling asleep. What had gone wrong? Was it too late to do something more? They would travel on in the morning, leaving him here to watch opportunity vanish into the badlands... Did he dare try something tonight? No. That would be suicidal. That damned captain would cut him down before he got out of his bedroll.
The captain wakened him next morning. He had been lying there half awake, trying to ignore the racket made by the rising warriors. "Pack your things, Entertainer," he ordered. "You're coming with us."
"Eh? Hai! Not into desert. Am bound for... "
The captain glared. "So you'll make a detour. The one you were were fishing for. That's what last night was all about, wasn't it? So drop the pretense. Pack your things. You've found your new sponsor."
Mocker stared at the ground. He fought fear. This man was dangerously perceptive.
The captain leaned closer. "The Lord Sidi and Lady Yasmid insist on having you. I won't defy them. But I'll be watching, fat man. One misstep and you're dead."
Mocker shook all over. He had had no illusions before, but with the captain having voiced his suspicion he became more terrified than ever. He rushed to his donkey. He irritated the captain further when the party got under way. He was the only one walking. But Sidi took a proprietary interest in him, shielding him from the Invincible, acting like a child with a new pet.
Mocker faked smiles and mumbled to himself, "Am going to repay this patronization with compound interest, Lord."
The Sahel he liked even less than he did Sidi. Between Hammad al Nakir proper and the domains of the coastal states lay a strip of land which made the interior desert attractive by comparison. A legacy of the Fall, a natural killing zone, it varied in depth from forty to one hundred miles. Virtually waterless and lifeless, it consisted almost entirely of sharp, low mountains and tortuous, rocky gorges. It was the crudest of lands. The few people who survived there were among the poorest and most primitive alive. They hated outsiders.
And they were El Murid's, heart and soul. Most of the current crop of Invincibles sprang from the Sahel. The sons of the Sahel saw more promise in El Murid's dreams than did the Children of Hammad al Nakir proper.
Mocker walked that barren land and wept for himself. However was he going to win his way back through this maze of dead hills and unseen sentinels? The watchful Sahel tribesmen were everywhere. Lean, ragged savages, they scared hell out of him each time they visited their brethren of the bodyguard.
He tried to keep them out of mind. Sufficient unto the day the evil thereof.
After three thoughtful days he selected the girl as his primary target. El Murid's movement would miss her more than it would Sidi. The heart of the insane beast would not miss a beat if she were to take over when the Disciple's last day came.
The boy was a useless little snot. If he assumed the mantle his father's movement would rush headlong toward the graveyard of history.
The fat man had begun, occasionally, to think politically. Haroun bin Yousif had set his feet upon the path.
He wanted to cause his enemies all the pain he could. Removing their future prophetess seemed the surest way.
He could not get close to the girl. His usual winning techniques seemed wasted on her. Though she often watched his entertainments, and sometimes observed Sidi's private lessons, she never betrayed amusement or delight. The Invincible captain was more responsive.
She had to be an inhuman monster. A child with no child in her at all. That was spooky enough in a grownup. In a kid it was horribly unnatural.
He worked hard with Sidi. The boy had no talent and a lot of impatience. He had to praise him constantly to keep him interested. Sidi was the only channel to Yasmid.