The mediko in Karl bar Edgar was horrified, overworked, desperately worried. Cliff Lion Oasis was past the saturation point. No matter how fast they dug, the latrine trenches kept filling. Dry and hot—for the steppes—weather meant windborne disease in the dust. Typhus, for starters, lice which could spread further. Of lice they had enough to conquer Old Sauron, if only they could train them up to war. Cholera morbus. Dysentery, which had killed more armies over the centuries than any weapon.
The man in him (no, the boy, he admitted) was happy as he had rarely been. With his wife Miriam there had been a steady warm glow; companionship, pleasure, children, shared work. With Aisha, there was the sort of giddy intoxication adolescents were supposed to experience, and that he never had. He distrusted happiness so extreme. It was too fragile.
"Dammit, we've got to get moving," he burst out, as Hammer-of-God joined him on a low rise of tumbled boulders. Absently, he noted that exercise and a course of hot baths were helping the warrior's injured leg muscles.
"Of course we will," Hammer-of-God said. His complacency irritated Karl beyond bearing.
"You're loving this, aren't you?" he said.
A shrill cry went up. "Prayer is better than sleep—" it began. Instantly, rugs were unrolled, men washed, then bent in prayer—in the direction of the star around which Earth circled, hence of Mecca. Mecca, like most of Earth, was tumbled ruin with nothing human left but the bones.
"Of course I am," Hammer-of-God said. "God made me for a purpose. Happiness is the service of God; and this is the purpose for which He made me."
"You're very certain of that."
"Of course. I asked, and He told me."
Karl shivered slightly. The other man's voice held utter sincerity. Hammer-of-God Jackson talked with God, a deity Who, in those conversations, tended to resemble nothing so much as an omnipotent Hammer-of-God Jackson. Now there was a thought to make a man shudder. So was the force of raw belief unrolled before the Hammer and him.
"They're not really that pious, most of them," Hammer-of-God said, as if reading his mind. That was disconcerting as well, the alternation of exaltation and detached analysis. Is he sane? Karl thought. Then: is any of us?
"They just don't want to be outdone; the steppe mullahs won't be shown up before the Tadjiks, and the Kherkessians"—he nodded to a group of men with Astrakan wool hats and silver-sheathed daggers worn in echelon on chest-straps; wild-looking men, handsome as hawks, their black hair long and carefully tended—"are self-conscious away from their aouls." The very word had a predatory sound, for all that it meant simply fortified village.
The prayer ended and the camp dissolved back into its usual milling chaos. Sapper was crouched before a smoking field of fumaroles, with a clipboard in one hand and a clock the size and shape of a turnip in the other. A crowd of women, children and carefully nonchalant warriors watched him. He stood, nodded—and the geyser thundered free, breaking high into a wash of bitter mineral-tasting droplets.
"Djinni," the crowd moaned, surging backward.
"Poor superstitious fools who know not Christ," Hammer-of-God said.
Karl snorted; he was a believing man in his way, but no fanatic. "Something I've always wanted to ask you," he said. But never dared before. "How is it that you get along so well with the Bandari clansfolk, since they're not of your faith?"
Hammer-of-God looked at him. "Some of you are Christian," he said. "Possibly heretics, but I'm called to be a soldier of Christ, not a theologian. Those who sacrifice to the Founders? Piet was a saint; there's no error in praying for the intervention of saints—just going through the chain of command, as I see it. I'm privileged to talk to the Commander-in-Chief, but I'm special-forces."
"And the Ivrit?"
"Oh," the other man said, waving a negligent hand skyward, "you have to make allowances for the Boss' relatives."
Karl gaped—humor was not something he had ever associated with Hammer-of-God, and the man's long bony face was perfectly serious. Then Hammer's eyes changed, looking out over the mediko's shoulder to the plains.
"Let me have your spyglasses," he snapped.
Mystified, Karl obeyed. He shaded his eyes with his hand and squinted; it was early trueday, Byers' Sun and Cat's Eye both behind him. There was traffic all over the steppe to the west, groups coming and going; the pickets checked them over lightly and sent them through. Eventually, he saw the group Hammer-of-God sought. Three mounted figures, about a dozen horses, some pack-muskies.
"Ah! Stay where you are, you little mamzrim, bastards . . . you spoiled-bastard runaways . . ."
Hammer-of-God plunged into the crowd with a certainty of purpose that sent tribesfolk scattering out of his way even before they recognized his face or distinctive gait. Now Karl too could see his target: a knot of three people. The tallest was half hidden by some horses and two dogs. Karl caught a glimpse of a pale face before the—what? trader? horsebreaker?—turned away. The other two . . .
"Front and center, boy," Hammer-of-God growled. "Don't even think about getting away. So help me, if I'd had the training of you . . ."
The stocky figure turned; he was dressed in a long sheepskin jacket with the fleece turned in, winter wear in high summer. Blood darkened a face that had been tanned in the womb against the sun of Frystaat it would never see, and green eyes flashed with anger and apprehension. His namesake, then. Young Karl bar Yigal fan Reenan, now standing in an awkward brace.
" . . . training of both of you," the Edenite continued, his glance taking in the blue-eyed girl who tossed a shock of dark hair, but held her ground. "You wouldn't have sneaked away from your duties to follow the war."
"Uh . . . sir," Karl's namesake began with what was really admirable pluck, not backing down, and actually getting a word in edgewise.
Hammer-of-God would have none of it.
"My men call me 'sir'! You may when you've earned the right; and right now, what I see is a badly trained, badly disciplined boy." Surrounded as they were by tribesmen, the older man kept his voice down, but the words stung all the worse for that.
Young fan Reenan stiffened further, Shulamit poised to spring beside him.
"You think you can? Go ahead. I'll paddle your spoiled butts," Hammer-of-God said. "Your father, young fan Reenan, rode up to my farm to chase me out of retirement. He's not in shape for a ride like that any more, and you know it. You really think you're worth that kind of pain?"
"Just because I'm his heir . . ."
"Dammit, he'd do the same for a dog he loved!" That came out as a growl.
The stranger's dog responded with one of his own. Hammer-of-God snapped his fingers, and the dog, if not the youth, subsided. Young Karl's Frystaat blood might make him more than a match for the older man in brute strength, but never in craft. He glared green rage, but knew better than to challenge.
"If I wanted to lie, I'd say he sent us after you to make sure you didn't get your stupid asses captured by Turks. Or Saurons. That would be a fine thing, wouldn't it? The first Bandari on Haven captured by Saurons—a fan Reenan. Oom Piet wouldn't just turn over in his grave; he'd circumnavigate this God-rotted planet. We'd have to abandon you, you know that?"
"My father has other sons."
Hammer-of-God shrugged, a Bandari gesture he'd made his own over the years. "Any man's child is precious to him." Pain ached in his voice. "And Yigal's not the only man you're a son to, lad," he said. "You're all the son Tom Jerrison's got. He's put his whole life into you. You going to let some Sauron steal his harvest?"
Young Karl flinched. He looked down, a boy now, not a soldier subjected to a dressing-down, deserved or not.
The harsh voice turned gentler. "You going to behave now? Do I have to put guards on you and send you back to the Pale?"
"No, sir."
"Now I'll take that word from you. If you could get this far, I guess my Sayerets can use you." Hammer-of-God held up a hand. "You're under their orders, mind. Disobey them even once and back home you go, like a spoiled brat with a sore tail."
Young Karl's head was up, his eyes fairly blazing with pride. "I won't fail you, sir."
"No? I guess you won't. First, I need your report on what you've seen. I think the Judge will want to hear it too. She'll be glad—relieved!"—he shot over his shoulder as he turned toward the center of the camp, confident that people would get out of his way—"you've been found."
"What about me?" Shulamit bat Miriam burst out.
"Shulamit, shut up!" Karl hissed at her.
"Don't you think a girl can ride and fight just as well as he, is that it? We fought hotnots on the way up. And I killed . . ."
"Bragging about it, young meid? I wouldn't. Not here. Not anywhere. I'll take young Karl in charge because what he needs to learn, I can teach him. But now, let's consider you, Shulamit bat Miriam fan Gimbutas. You already know how to fight. You're damned good, in fact. Had better training than I got at your age. But I can't teach you a Bandari woman's responsibilities so you grow up like Judge Ruth or Ilona. That's for Judge Chaya, or maybe Aisha, who knows enough now to be thankful. And to listen."
Hammer-of-God set a long, limping stride toward the camp's center, and thrust one arm out, as if expecting to knock the third, half-hidden newcomer off-balance. They both swerved, both of a height. For a moment, the newcomer glared at him, in arrogance and some mild surprise.
Bringing up the rear, Karl bar Edgar snatched a look at the stranger. Tall. Very pale. Lean in a way that would have been lanky if it weren't controlled. Probably very strong. Altogether unusual on the steppes. A wild surmise seized him. The stranger melted into the crowd with incredible ease, but not before Karl the mediko saw two more things: what looked like a cliff lion's skin draped about the stranger's shoulders, and below it the subtle rise of small breasts.
Ah, he thought, with a mental sigh of relief. For a moment, he'd been afraid the stranger was a Sauron. But it was a woman instead.
About the time Aisha was deemed old enough to cover her hair like a grown woman, Badri had taken her to watch her father at his judgments. Women did not sit in the majlis, though it was whispered that Bandari women not only attended, but spoke up. Juchi might well have allowed Badri to do so, Aisha-the-girl thought with pride. After all, as much as anything else, it had been by her courage and her wits that Angband fell.
But Badri, subtle in the assurance of her power, preferred to listen from outside, to counsel Juchi later, when no voice would be raised in dissent and when her man was most likely to listen and be swayed. This was wisdom, she taught her daughter. A woman destined to rule a khan's tent watched and listened and learned the law in case she might need to advise her husband or counsel a son, Allah forbid, come too early to rule.
There sat her father, and there, dressed like a prince, deferred to and indulged by all the men present, her brother Dagor, commendably trying not to yawn and to listen in case, Allah forbid that too, his father asked him to speak.
It had been longer than she cared to remember, and a flash of a mirror. Everything was the same, and everything was different—reversed, as in the strange book Judge Ruth had treasured, Through the Looking Glass. (Karl fan Haller had told her stories from that—had given her a mirror of her own.) Carpets and cushions stitched from kilims too battered to use, but still bright-hued; the gleams of embroidery and jewelry, harness and arms amid clothes mostly brown or gray; riding boots tracking dust and dung into the tent; smells that assaulted the nose as the voices assaulted the ears.
But it was a mirror image of the majlis Aisha remembered. Here, women ruled with the men—except for the few women from each tribe who passed through the crowd, some veiled, all holding trays full of food.
Aisha took a skewer of lamb, contemplated a second, then waved the woman on. She had begun, however much it shocked her, to become used to food that was abundant, adequate even for her. (Karl had told her she didn't eat enough for her supercharged body.) The tribeswoman went on, though not without a glare of Who do you think you are? You should be here helping me.
Here Aisha sat, dressed as a prince, with a saber in her lap and watching her kinswoman render judgment. The Judge had even sent her own son out of the tent, so it was Aisha who sat listening as her brother had listened. She hoped she would not be asked to say anything. Speaking was still hard, let alone giving orders to so many men, even if they called her khatun and ghazi rather than other words they knew. When she preached to the crowds, she did not have to watch the faces of individuals or listen to them answer.
Now, two medikos stood before the Judge, shaking their heads. A Bandari Scout ran in to report that still more tribes had been spotted, heading for the hot springs—and one of the farmers, deprived of her brother's voice on their behalf, let out what Aisha could only describe as a howl. There was little food as it was and less of it hallal, ritually pure; soon there would be none.
Chaya spoke to comfort him. "Soon, we shall be leaving and you can purify your land."
"If you depart, who will protect us from the Saurons?"
Most of the tribes who owned this oasis were nominally subject to Quilland Base. The nomads left behind by the horde could scatter and flee, but farmers could not.
Aisha winced at the peasant's whine. She had heard it near the Citadel. All that was missing was the crisscross, the farmers here being Muslims of a sort. That struck her as odd; Islam was a faith for the wandering tribes, for herdsmen and merchants and warriors. The crisscross Bog was a good god for peasants like luckless Yegor. He was dead, too. Like her father.
"Trust in Allah," Aisha heard from one of the Gimbutas clan, and forbore to search further.
"Your mangy sheep are eating my sheep's grass, and your men do not respect my wells!" a khan from nearby shouted at a newcomer.
"Shall my sheep starve while yours get fat? Is that the charity Muslim owes to Muslim on jihad?"
Not that it mattered: the sere grass was clipped so close to the ground by grazing beasts that it was a wonder they had not already begun to starve.
"We will be moving soon," Chaya repeated. She waved her hand as if to brush smoke away from her face. "Then it will not matter which fields you use. Honor? Your honor is your honor—and it lies in your courage for marching against the cursed Citadel."
The tall woman, part Bandari and part Sauron, raised her head. Her eyes looked strange, as they had for many days now. "I tell you, khans, the day will come that this campaign will be sung of and praised as if it were a hajj, with blood shed as freely as you offer prayers during Ramadan."
Aisha suppressed a shiver. What in her childhood she would have called power quivered in the thick air. In the past days, she had seen Chaya become more and more the prophet, less and less the friend and kinswoman she loved. It was another thing they shared, and she was still not easy with it.
Another mutter, this time from a warrior who rode with Gasim, one of the most powerful of the khans. Barely moving her head, Aisha listened as Chaya had taught her, using her augmented hearing to spy on what might be danger.
"Talk of honor is fine," the man Kumar said. "But from those with Sauron blood? Juchi's seed is doubly accursed. And it is said that his own son . . ."
"You think . . ."
"Had I been the khan who ruled after Juchi, I should not have allowed the young serpent to grow."
Flick. Aisha's mind registered faces and voices. She shot a brief warning glance in their direction. Flick. She would know these men if they spoke again. She would be watching. And Chaya would know.
Where did her brother wander? She would have given him her life's blood, accursed gift that it was, had he only accepted what was offered him.
"And who would have killed a man of that line and lived? Even the women are warriors," Gasim muttered, gesturing with his chin at Chaya and Aisha herself.
The Judge was speaking earnestly about boundaries. A foolishness between clans that rode as they would, as Chaya, who had ridden with them, should know. Well and oasis rights, now, that was a different story.
"Dagor should have been killed at once!" the tribesman went on, sotto voce.
"There is only shame in killing a boy who is kin to you," Gasim muttered. "Even if that kinman's very life sticks in your throat. No more of this, if you wish to live. You know who would avenge him. And she is watching you."
Kumar spat on the precious rugs of the Judge's tent. "I should fear a woman?"
"Not just a woman. A ghazi. And a Sauron of the Accursed One's line. She killed the Battlemaster of the Citadel, wine-bibbing fool; will she hesitate with you? This is no ordinary woman; this is She Who Must Be Obeyed!"
At least the blood that made her outcast made her feared. And there were even others who did not fear her. At his khan's word, Kumar's bluster subsided. Aisha caught a mutter about whores before he was sent outside. A moment later, the tent erupted into shouts of outrage as a Kurd claimed that one of the mujahidin had hamstrung his horse in a practice round of buzkashi. Aisha saw how Chaya shook her head imperceptibly. The close air in the tent and the shouting must be affecting her. She was old—she was Juchi's age, but a life within the Pale had kept her younger. Aisha rose to open a tent flap. The air would be chilly, but it would be fresh and clean.
A rush of cold air and the people it heralded made her stop where she stood. Pushing forward into the tent came the big Edenite, Hammer-of-God. The warriors glared at him, but he had always treated Aisha with respect. The enemy of all tribes—but who except an enemy knew them as well as kin? After him walked a youth with the dark and blond coloring that made him stand out and brought him the respect of much older Bandari. Shulamit was beside him, the runaways, cousins to her and Chaya. It would have meant a whipping in the yurts, perhaps. For the sake of that clever girl child who had offered Aisha an amulet, Aisha hoped not.
And following them came Karl the mediko. Aisha felt the blood rush to her face, warming her all over. His blue eyes sought her dark ones, and he smiled. He had dragged her back to life when she was dying on the steppe, had cursed her when she sought release, had followed her into this jihad which was likely to be the death of all of them.
He had brought her back to life in another way. Had held her hand as she wept. Had laid his arm over her shoulders in front of all the assembled Bandari. "An acceptable future," Chaya had called him, healed now of his wife's death, back in the Pale. Even Dagor, before he vanished, had respected him, or why would he have said he would give her to an outlander? The Bandari are my people now, Aisha told herself.
At the great oath-taking, she would be wed to Karl bar Edgar. It seemed like joy beyond all hope; she hated to admit that the planned ceremonies terrified her worse than fighting a Cyborg Battlemaster. That was ingratitude.
Seeing Karl bar Edgar's lined, clever face, she wanted to fling her arms about him the way she had seen Bandari women do. Meeting his eyes with a tent full of people watching her was hard enough.
Courage, she told herself and held out a hand. He was at her side, holding it, bending over her in a way that made her feel protected and delicate, though she knew that when they stood, they were of a height.
"You found them," she said. It was not what she wanted to say. Her fingers tightened on Karl's. "It is good to see you, khan."
"Karl," he corrected her. She lowered her eyes, flushed again, then tossed her head, angry at her own shyness.
"That's better." With his free hand, he tilted up her chin. She had seen Bandari, and seen that wild Shulamit, now enduring a scolding from the Judge, kiss their men. Karl had rarely kissed her. Would he claim her like this, before her other kin? Her lips trembled.
"I'd like to get you by yourself," he muttered. "Our wedding can't come too soon to suit me."
Behind her, she could hear Chaya's voice, reprimanding the two scapegraces, then trailing off.
"Are you well, ama?" the Edenite asked her.
"Just these damned background noises," said Chaya. "As soon as I filter out all the harness bells . . ."
"Shulamit," Hammer-of-God said sternly, "I hope you see the Judge needs help."
"I didn't think you were just turning me over to the women and kiddies," the girl retorted. "Waste of a good fighter."
"I'd look after her," the younger Karl offered. "Let her come scout with me."
"She can be attached to the headquarters unit. Tameetha bat Irene commands it."
"The old battle-axe . . . oops," Shulamit said.
Hammer nodded, grinning. "Not the way to talk about your aluf, unless you want to be sorry and sore," he observed.
"Why can't I serve with Karl?"
"Because I want the two of you separated," Hammer-of-God said. "At least in waking cycles. What one of you doesn't think of, the other will."
Shulamit's eyes flashed to her friend and went smoky in a way that Aisha finally understood.
She waved over one of the serving women. She had a responsibility to see that her promised husband was fed, even if she could not be a proper wife in other ways.
Karl bar Edgar waited for her to choose first, which startled her and the woman holding the battered tray. "You don't eat enough," he said, and held out a skewer. This one held meat patties, ground fine and heavily spiced.
Judge Chaya turned. Seeing Aisha with Karl, she rummaged through a stack of what looked like maps and beckoned. Still clasping Karl bar Edgar's hand, Aisha rose.
"Better watch that hand, Karl old man," one of the Edenites muttered. "You may never get it back in the same shape."
He stood among several big-shouldered men who'd ridden out with the guards to look for Karl and Shulamit She put name to him: Be-courteous Jackson. Some son of kin to Hammer-of-God and vilely misnamed. Well, there were bad ones in every bloodline.
"What if he sticks something else out? 'You will be gentle, won't you?' " His voice went up in an offensive falsetto. "Question is, which one of them is going to say it first?"
Chaya's head went up and her eyes glittered. Hammer-of-God started toward his kinsman as if he had Sauron hearing.
"Let me," Karl said courteously. With astonishing speed, he cut the man out of his knot of friends, twisted one arm up behind his back, and marched him to the back of the tent.
"Out!" he said shortly and shoved him, emphasizing the order with a kick to the man's buttocks.
"Nice job," Hammer-of-God approved. "Want me to help throw him in the midden? He ought to be right at home in the manure, cousin or no cousin. God, families."
"Any throwing gets done, I do it," Karl said. "Aisha's going to be my wife."
He yanked the tent flaps shut and tied them.
"Don't let him in till you're told otherwise," he shouted at the Bandari standing guard.
Then he came back to Aisha and put his arm around her as if she were much younger and smaller and weaker than she was. "I don't want you to be upset," he said. "I know you could tie him in knots. But I'm glad you let me do it. If he does get back in, I'll do it again."
That would be all they'd need. Edenites raising Cain until some tribesman seized upon the insult to Aisha—as if she could be insulted like a veiled maiden—followed by drawn steel and brother-killing all around. One death would involve every tribe—and the Pale—in a blood feud that would distract them from their hatred of Saurons.
If she were Sauron, she would try to start one. The thought struck her as something Chaya should hear, and she made a mental note. It was hard, this thinking like a Judge. Chaya had enough to worry about without Aisha running to her like a maiden afraid of her wedding night.
Sapper appeared by Chaya's side, holding out a sheaf of papers. He pointed at them and smiled in answer to the Judge's calculating grin.
"Something for the oath-taking," Aisha told Karl. More than ever, she dreaded the display, the songs, the jokes. Tribute maidens? Calling them "maiden" even before they left their yurts was often a case of wishful thinking. In the tribes, virginity was a thing everyone claimed to prize—but sought to do away with as soon as possible.
Aisha knew girls got lessons—she regulated her pulse to calm—on where to put all the arms and legs, not to mention everything else, on their wedding nights. There had been no time for Badri to explain. And since then, life had been not a matter of protecting a virginity no one prized, least of all in her, but of keeping herself from getting raped. The way the Cyborg would have used her, then killed her. She tightened her lips, though she knew Karl would worry. He had reason to worry. He needed to know she was giving him counterfeit instead of a dowry. She had tried to tell him that before. He hadn't listened.
Had she married at a proper age, it would not have mattered. A man like Kemal, say, who had actually begun to bargain for her before she joined her father in his exile, would simply insist upon submission. And she would know no better. At least, her tribe was civilized. In some tribes, women were cut before they were married, to make them faithful.
Her Karl was a woman's mediko, strange as that idea was. He would know women's bodies as well as a midwife. She told herself his knowledge would have to serve them both, more shame to her. And if it were not, she had Sauron blood. She could endure a little pain if it bound her to the man who had chosen her.
But she was abruptly certain that if people came to inspect her sheets for a smear of blood in token of her lost virginity, she might breach the truce herself. Living as she had, she doubted the barrier had survived, assuming a woman of Sauron blood ever possessed such a thing.
Chaya didn't need to hear that, didn't need to have to face it. Aisha didn't think she looked well. From the way Hammer-of-God gestured, sending a sullen Shulamit over to take a tray and place it before the Judge, he didn't think so, either.
Best slip away and deal with her fears in a decent privacy. She began to move toward the tent flap. Byers' Sun was setting. It would be dimday soon; truenight would come later. And after that, dawn and the oath taking Chaya was planning with such care.
Karl's hand slid up to her wrist and tightened. She knew—and so did he—that she could have snapped his arm, but the gentle touch held her where she was.
"It isn't the idea of marrying me, is it?" he whispered.
She shook her head, brazenly meeting his eyes for longer than she had ever done.
"It's all this? I don't like it either, but it's the custom. In the Pale, weddings can last for weeks." He too looked tense now. He had lost his last wife to a miscarriage. "As long as it's just the fact that this is public, Aisha, I don't want you worrying. We'll both have to be gentle with each other. Lord, I'm glad you're part Sauron. I heard they can control their fertility without drugs, and the idea of dragging a pregnant woman along on this crusade . . ." He snorted and shook his head.
Aisha narrowed her eyes. "Don't you want a son?" If Byers' Sun had suddenly cast bright warmth over all Haven, she could not have been more surprised. She would be Karl's wife. A measure of her worth was the sons she could bear him. Even at her age.
"I don't want to risk you. Maybe we should wait till this campaign is over."
Was he repudiating her? She would kill him: no, she would kill herself, and the afrit take this fantasy of the Seven against the Citadel. Panic threatened; then she looked again at her promised husband. She did not see disgust in his face, which he could not control like the Sauron-born, but remembered fear and sorrow, renewed as he faced the prospects of his Aisha pregnant on the steppe, away from the safe haven of a birthing valley.
"Ah, my life has been risked so many times. At least, this risk would give you a son. I would dare anything for that."
"I have a son," Karl bar Edgar said. "I have nephews. I would prize a daughter with your loyalty." Aisha started to shake her head.
"Aisha . . . so long as the child thrives. Were you not more to Juchi than many sons?"
She shook her head. "Poor Dagor." When Karl's arm went about her, she let herself rest her head on his shoulder.
Even for one of the Seven, steering through the crowd in the Judge's tent without causing irreparable injury by bumping into some rank-proud khan or irritable Bandari took some time. Judge Chaya, Hammer-of-God and Kemal were deep in a screaming match about the order of march.
"You can't all ride in front!" Hammer shouted, exasperated. "Take turns and satisfy everyone's honor—unless you're less interested in your own face than grinding mud into your enemy's."
The tamerlane's grin on Kemal's face indicated a direct hit. The prospect of putting his boot on Sauron necks was enough to soothe any man here.
"I knew I would regret placing you under my personal protection," Kemal said.
"Right. Later. You can try to kill me later. After we take out the God-bloody Saurons."
"I don't even want to hear that kind of talk," Chaya snapped. "Not before the oath-taking, and certainly not after it. What would you think if everyone who was able took the oath in as many languages as he could?"
"Wouldn't take long for some of these fools. They can barely speak Turkic, much less Americ or Russki."
"Impressive." Hammer-of-God grinned. "It's more real if you hear it in your own language."
He saw Aisha approach and moved aside to bring her and Karl into the circle around the Judge. "Is that what you're going to do with their wedding? Vows in . . .Turkic, Bandarit, Russki, Arabic . . ."
"Nothing of the kind." Chaya pulled out a document from the pile beside her. "Aisha, I ask your pardon." All her remoteness was gone for the moment. "I drew this up last night for you to look at, you and Karl."
"Aisha, it's our marriage contract." Karl put out a hand to touch it. His was admirably steady. Aisha suspected hers would not be. "They call it a ketubah in Ivriot."
In the yurts, she would not have seen her marriage contract until after the wedding, and it would have been signed for her. She puzzled out the words. "No dowry?"
"It's not customary, no more than a bride price," Chaya assured her. "This look all right to both of you?"
Karl nodded.
"But . . ." Aisha said.
"Aisha, I haven't had much time for you, but I have noticed one thing," Chaya said. "You hate the idea of the wedding we planned to cement the oath-taking."
"But if it's necessary . . ."
"Let's say it would be useful. But I've got a little leeway. Thanks to Sapper, I just got a little more. So, since this is likely the only wedding you'll ever have, I can give you the wedding gift you want. Privacy. I can do what we call a civil ceremony right here. Or, if you like, we can send for an imam. I warn you, though, that'll probably create family problems about who's entitled to hand you over to your husband."
Aisha turned to Karl bar Edgar. "I give myself," she announced. "That is . . ."
"With all my heart." Karl reached for a pen and handed it to her.
"I wouldn't even have been asked to look at the contract," she murmured. Her eyes blurred, and she let the tears come.
No elaborate robes or feasting or men riding horses about the camp, firing into the air. No gifts. Just a man who looked at her and saw a woman he said he loved—Aisha, not a Sauron cull or the daughter of a coupling that all Haven called abomination, or even the Allah-touched ghazi.
Given that, what need did she have of anything else? She remembered how to sign her name, even to the calligraphic flourish Badri had had her taught. Karl signed after her.
"Now," said Chaya. "Do you, Aisha bat Badri . . ."
The crowd in the tent pressed round, witnesses to the sudden wedding. Aisha found Shulamit and Sannie standing by her side, which was as much a surprise as anything else.
"Give them room to breathe, people," someone ordered on one side, even as Kemal, Aisha's distant kinsman, pushed back eager onlookers. The serving women clustered together, forcing out a few dutiful tears.
"Here, Karl. I didn't think you had a ring anywhere about you. We've been passing this one back and forth for years." Chaya pulled the ruby from her ring finger. "It's yours again, Aisha. Wear it in the best of health."
Karl placed the ring on Aisha's left hand and squeezed it. She clung to his hand, feeling about fifteen T-years old. "But I have nothing to give you."
"Let me be the judge of that," Karl said.
"Meanwhile, I am the Judge. So if you two will let me finish . . . that ought to do for the glass."
She pointed to a tiny flask lying haphazardly on a stack of books. Dutifully, Karl set it down.
"All right!" he said, and brought down his boot, grinding the glass into the crimson rug. The Bandari cheered, Shulamit clapped her hands, and even the dour Edenites applauded.
"We smash a glass at the end of each wedding," Chaya said. "It used to symbolize the destruction of the Temple back on Earth. Now it stands for the Wasting of Haven by the Saurons. Remember that sorrow, even as you build a life together."
Chaya stretched out her long-fingered hand and clasped both of theirs. "By the authority vested in me by the Pale of Settlement as leader of this campaign, I now pronounce you husband and wife."
The ring blazed like red fire on Aisha's hand.
"Come on, fan Haller, kiss your bride," Hammer-of-God ordered, grinning. "Before someone else does."
Lips brushed Aisha's mouth, and clung before she knew what was happening. Rocked off balance, she clung to her husband's shoulders, then steadied and kissed him back, while the Bandari cheered and the serving women tightened their fingers around their throats to produce the keening shriek that passed for rejoicing on the steppe.
As a Sauron, she knew she was physically stronger than he. But he was strong enough to hold her so tightly her blood raced. When he ended the kiss, she was breathless, though not from lack of air.
"Now," Chaya said, "where did I put that vadaha?" She produced a bottle and, for a miracle, clean glasses. Sannie slipped outside and returned laden with skins of kvass.
Some she tossed to the serving women. Others she passed with ceremony—hospitality from one of the Seven—to the leading khans. Chaya passed tiny glasses to Aisha and Karl. "L'chaym!" she proclaimed. "To life!"
Aisha, who never thought to have much of one, drank and smiled. To life.
"Now," Chaya said, "that's that. You've got till dawn after truedark. Not as much time as I'd like to give you, but if you start now . . . I had Sannie look you out a nice place. Yeweh knows, she and Barak have had plenty of practice. She'll take you there, make sure you're not disturbed."
Chaya bent to kiss Aisha's forehead. There was a time when Badri had kissed her in just that way. Imagine it: Badri, seeing her daughter married. She clung to her kinswoman, trying not to weep. "What are you waiting for?" Chaya asked. "Get out of here before I decide I have twenty more things only you or Karl can do. Besides the one."
"Come on." Sannie tugged at Aisha's sleeve. "I found a real nice place."
Still, Aisha hung back, watching the Judge.
Chaya's eyes went strange, and the voice that fell from her lips was stranger yet. "I promise you, sister and niece. You and your husband will never be parted in all the days of your lives."
Hand in hand, Aisha and Karl followed Sannie into the weird rock gardens of the hot springs. Aisha tried to hang back as a proper wife should, but Karl pulled her forward. "You want to be a good wife to me?" he said in her ear. "Then stay at my side."
Sannie turned a bend in the trail and promptly disappeared.
"Come on!" her voice urged. "This is the best place Barak and I ever found." They followed her and saw her pause in front of a compact, obviously new tent hidden in the shadows of two smooth boulders. To one side a hot spring bubbled, making the air warm and moist. The smell of sulfur was barely perceptible, and the lights that bloomed in the depths of the water cast a glow like lanterns over the tiny camp.
"Be happy, you two." She flung her arms enthusiastically around Karl. Will I ever feel comfortable enough to do that? Aisha wondered. Then, with more reserve, Sannie turned to Aisha. "I just want you to know," Sannie said. "We're going to be sisters. I'll do my best to be a good sister to you."
"So will I," Aisha said. "Oh so will I." She hugged the Bandari woman carefully.
"Now, I'm going to get out of here," Sannie said. "You two . . . be happy. You deserve it."
She disappeared around the bend in the trail, leaving Aisha alone with her new husband.
Karl bent and peered within the tent. "There's food in there, vadaka. They obviously don't want to see us for a while." He rummaged through parcels. "Quite a wedding feast they gave us when they haven't got enough food for themselves."
Not just abundant food, but foods she had learned were favorites of her new husband's—even the few favorites she had let herself enjoy.
"Should we . . . what if they need us?"
"Then they'll have to wait," Karl said. "When you're a mediko, you learn that. So we'll accept their gifts, I think, and thank them later. Right now, we need us." He touched her face.
Her glance went past him to the sheepskins and furs heaped within the tent. A bridal bed for a tribal princess, indeed. Allah, now what?
She shook her head. "I'm . . . sorry. I'm acting like a child."
He smiled. "No, you're not. You're acting like the inexperienced woman you are. It's all right, Aisha." He brushed the hair that had escaped from her braids back off her face. "You're Aisha. One of the Seven. Too strong—you would say too old, too—to be as nervous as a bride on her wedding night. But that's what you are. But think it through. If you were Aisha before all this happened . . ."
"I'd expect my husband to teach me," Aisha answered.
"Well enough. And I will. Everything I've wanted to do with you."
He undid the fastenings of her jacket and slipped it off. "Look at that hot spring. Think how good the water would feel."
It wouldn't be truly cold for awhile yet, Aisha thought. She nodded and backed away a step.
"You'd feel better getting undressed by yourself, wouldn't you?" Karl asked. "All right. Let me know when I can turn around."
She eased out of boots, breeches, shirt, and undergarments, then slipped into the water. Its warmth seemed to seep into her bones, and she sighed with pleasure.
Taking that for a signal, Karl turned around. To her shock, he pulled off his own clothes and joined her in the water. She had seen him naked before, when they all took dustbaths on their way to the Pale. It was different this time.
"It's getting cold. We'll be warm in here, though. And when we're finished . . ." He gestured at the tent.
He looked down. The lights in the water illuminated her body—and his. "You're lovely," he said, and ran a hand from her face to her shoulder. Then he drew her into his arms. Aisha relaxed as water and desire warmed her and his hands slid over her back and breasts and sides.
It seemed the most simple, necessary thing in the world to fold her arms about him and cling as his hands and lips touched her.
"If we stay in the water much longer, we may both be too relaxed." He laughed against her skin. "Let's go into the tent. I'll dry you off."
The wind stung them as they climbed from the pool.
"That's cold!" he yelped. Aisha managed not to laugh, but she was glad to burrow into the sheepskins that Sannie had left temptingly open. He followed her and drew the soft fleeces about both of them. Then he shivered, so she put her arms about him. "I'll warm you," she offered.
He had had his hands on her a long time before, when she was ill. And he had touched her just a moment ago. Now his hands felt different, more assured and more insistent. She felt heat rising from her skin, felt her muscles relaxing even more than they had in the hot water; and she drew him close against her.
Stories she had overheard as a young girl came back to her. They were lies. If her husband left no place on her body untouched, he also left her no room for fear. She felt no tearing or any of the pain the old stories had led her to expect—a little awkwardness because she was nervous; but she was used to depending on her body, and the strain of newness was quickly gone.
"Aisha . . ." His husky voice made her name come out like a sigh. "It's been so long! Move with me, girl. Rock with me. Hold me."
She wrapped arms and legs about him. Above and within her, she felt him tremble and clasped him even closer. It was a dance, she thought. Her body caught the rhythm from his own, and she opened under his touch.
She gasped, dazzled by pulses inside that snatched control of her body even as he gasped and spasmed upon her. She found herself crying as she had when she first came to the Pale. That time, he had stroked her hair and shoulders. That time, he had told her, "Get it out of your system. Let it go."
Now, he ran his hands over her entire body, reassuring her, setting her on fire. "You can let go, Aisha. I've got you safe." His fingers probed like no mediko she had ever imagined, and she gasped, heating up again.
"I should have done that the first time I wanted to," he murmured. "Professional ethics be damned."
She laughed. Astonishing that he knew her mind so well. "Even the way I was?"
"You needed me. Not just my skills, but me. Do you know how good being needed is?"
She nodded against his chest. "I thought I needed you. And now . . ." She ran her hand over his chest.
"You tie me to life—risking it to know I've got it back. God help me, I joined the Seven to be with you."
"I don't want to risk . . ."
"My dearest, I made the choice a long time ago. To be secure, or to live. When . . . Miriam died, I was secure for a long, bitter time. And dead inside. Now, I'm alive again, because you're with me."
He rolled off her, then drew her to lie with her head on his shoulder as if she had been an inexperienced young girl. So gentle he was with her. He didn't, couldn't know she would do anything to thank him—if thanks were possible. (They're not necessary, her Karl would say. Like a good wife, she would not gainsay him. But she would not be swerved from her purposes, either.) She was outcast, fated to wander lifelong, and she was Sauron, guarded all her life against feeling what she felt.
It was not submission. Islam, she knew, meant exactly that; but even now she could not bow to the will of Allah. She had been on her own too long.
A child, she thought. A wife and child to replace what he had lost in heart and life. A child to share this man's compassion and decency as well as the gifts she carried deep within her genes. A child who would be special as her line was special. A child to survive—she knew that as surely as she believed Judge Chaya's prophecies—the holy war that waited outside this tent and these magic hours. Revelation struck her: she was ready as women of Sauron blood always knew themselves to be.
Deep inside her came a melting, a certainty . . . . She had never felt either, but instinct woke and reassured her. "A child," she murmured, as she drifted toward sleep. A private miracle, like this time snatched from war. Hers, and Karl's.
And for the first time in years, prayer came to her simple and unforced. Allah grant it.
The air stank of sulfur, dung and tension. The Cat's Eye's baleful glare cast red shadows over the plain beyond Cliff Lion Oasis. Steam rose from the hot springs. It was tinged the color of old blood; the same ruddy light stained Chaya's leathers, which had been bleached as close to white as the finest leatherworkers among the Bandari could make. A Judge's robes would have been better, but she had abandoned them.
As she saw it now, she was no Judge. Yet here she was, playing Judge in front of the massed tribes of Haven. Years of practice had taught her when an audience wanted to believe. The need in this one reached out to snare her. Briefly, she shook her head, dizzy with revulsion. They wanted to believe. She wanted to use their belief. And so she would. A man back on Terra had preached what he called the Mother of All Battles. It had turned out to be the Mother of All Massacres. None of the tribes had ever forgotten or forgiven.
Chaya thought she knew why he had done it. And how.
Behind her stood the other Six. Kemal and Ihsan wore their finest felts and furs, flung open to show the splendor of embroidered silks. Their weapons—they must have spent every moment they weren't scheming or sleeping in polishing them—fairly glittered as they reflected the Cat's Eye's bloody light.
All the men who thronged this open place were armed. Anything else would have disgraced them and the ceremony she would seduce them into joining. Behind them, banners whipped in the wind.
At Chaya's back stood Barak, her son, and the greatest lie of her life. She knew, and the records knew—and now Barak knew too—that he was not the son of Heber, not a descendant of Piet van Reenan, but the son of a chance-met and quite deliberately slain Sauron from whom Chaya took the life of a son as bloodprice for the death of her husband. Sannie stood at his shoulder, watchful, stubborn, loving in her way.
Next to them stood the one decent thing to come out of this entire charade. Aisha and Karl had emerged with Byers' Sun from the blasted land by the hot springs, not quite wanting to touch each other in the sight of the tribes, not quite wanting to look at each other in public, but with such a sense of gratified passion and accord wreathing them that it soothed even Chaya. She could be cynical about everything else, but not about the way those two lives had flowed together—for as long as it lasted.
There was a truth. Perhaps corruption ran in their blood, but she could always hope.
Around the Seven massed the tribes and the Bandari. Her general seemed to have constituted himself her personal guard. That too was truth. Try it.
Light flickered in her eyes. She didn't flinch, not quite. Heliograph, she knew. Sapper, stationed in the waste between grassland and hot springs, signaled to one of his men, whose mirror flashed the message to her. Time. It was all a matter of timing.
Underfoot, the ground trembled. A pillar of steam hissed up from one of the smaller pools, and the air grew momentarily warmer.
What was that line about asking for bread and being offered a stone? These men and women asked for belief, and they'd get theatricals. Still, if her kin were to be avenged and a great evil stopped—she remembered the devastation around Angband Base, and her lips thinned.
The crowd's shouts and mutterings died into awed murmurs. She gauged that she stood fully in the light of the Cat's Eye. Her cue.
She raised her arms. The knife she had palmed in her sleeve slid gleaming out and shone redly, as if it had already drawn blood.
"We are here to march on the Citadel, we, the finest fighters on Haven. We are here—we who have shed each other's blood—to shed the blood of our common enemy. The blood that the cursed Saurons have shed cries out to Heaven for revenge. The very ground itself and all of us who walk or ride upon it cry out to drive these people from the earth. And toward that end, I call upon all of you to swear the oath of blood-kin."
Deliberately, watching the crowd—her audience!—Chaya drew the blade down one arm. Blood stained the white leather. She let it drip upon the ground with an effort of will as much as body: left alone, the wound was slight enough to clot almost instantly.
"Let the ground receive this sacrifice," she cried. "Let the ground remember faith kept and oaths broken. Let the ground remember how the Saurons tormented it.
"Let the ground be the judge. Let it receive this blood. Let it swallow all oath-breakers.
"I call on all who would ride with me to shed their blood in token of their faith."
She let the flow of blood slow to a very tiny trickle. Then she repeated her call to oath-taking in Arabic, then Ivrit, then Russki, working through all the languages she knew and a few she had memorized for the event.
Following her lead, her son cut his arm and swore. Aisha swore after him, her blood as quick to cease its flow as that of her kin. Kemal, Ihsan, Sannie. Karl spoke last of the Seven, his face grave. Chaya suspected that he itched to get his hands on the cuts made by the oath-taking. Well, he was going to have a lot more work than he could handle.
"Let this symbol of my art testify to my willingness to take this oath," he declared and slashed his arm, not with a knife, but with a scalpel.
Keep it moving, came a signal from one of Sapper's people—Timothy. He nodded, and Mark went trotting off toward the engineers.
"Now," Chaya said in a voice pitched to carry to the farthest reaches of the crowd, "the rest of you."
The air began to stink of blood as well as holiness. One of the minor geysers spewed sulfurous water: drops fell on the blood as it soaked the hard ground.
One by one, the khans came up, slashing their arms and repeating the oath, some in one language, some in many, some—like Gasim—obviously mouthing words they had learned to gain face among the other leaders. The man of Bod—from the far, high snows—swore in a tonal language Chaya knew to be Tibetan, though she could not understand it. Wonder if he's lying, she thought, then shrugged off the thought. Not in a reincarnate culture. Lies were for people who thought you lived only once.
And not even for all of them, as Kemal turned with elaborate, ironic courtesy to Hammer-of-God. "You've seen enough of our blood," he remarked. "Let's see yours." The Edenite flicked hand to breast, lips and brow, then slashed his arm, taking the oath, repeating the oath, swearing in almost as many languages as Chaya laid claim to. We're not all dumb peasants, she heard his voice rasp in memory. Besides, I had to do something while the damned medikos had me tied down, and I like learning things.
"My oath stands for my men. I will answer for their conduct with my life," he added. "Unless there is any objection . . ." He flicked blood off his blade into the fire, cleaned it, then bound up his arm neatly.
"The strangers," Gasim muttered. "Let them take the oath now." His eyes fell first on Karl fan Reenan, who shrugged and swore, even in the Farsi common around Ashkabad. Shulamit pressed forward and was humored: Chaya sensed her rage, as she sensed the hates and fears and hopes of every man and woman in the crowd of warriors and worshippers.
Keep it moving, Timothy gestured. You're doing fine, but don't let it get away from you.
A glance up at the Cat's Eye confirmed his signals.
"That one!"
Karl fan Reenan leaned forward. So did half the people nearby. The stranger Gasim had singled out was very tall for a woman, about of a height with Chaya. What made her stand out most, though, was her coloring—frost-fair, features like the blade of a knife before it is quenched in blood. She strode forward almost contemptuously. Disdaining Chaya's knife, disdaining even Karl's scalpel, for a blade of her own, severely plain of hilt, surpassingly fine steel. She spoke the words of the oath and repeated it in Russki. That wasn't all that surprising, given that the folk of Belarus were often fair. But some awareness twinged at the base of Chaya's consciousness, and she thought that Russki might not be the stranger's birth tongue.
Her eyes met Chaya's, who saw an irony almost equal to her own. She refused to acknowledge it and waited until the newcomer nodded respect. She was owed that much at least.
The pale woman's blood flowed; she bound up her arm with a clean cloth.
"Don't see why she bothers," Shulamit said sotto voce. "It'll stop in a minute."
Young Karl shoved her. "Will you stop that? Would you rather have her bleed herself white?"
"No chance . . ."
A hiss, and the two adolescents were separated before they could quarrel and break the mood Chaya had worked so hard to create. The dung fires smoked, stinking to high heaven against the reek of the blood. The Tibetans swung mallets against bronze gongs and blew those sinister bone horns of theirs; she had never liked to speculate on where they got the bones. The curved radongs bellowed like beasts in pain.
She sensed the belief in the crowd, the wildness held in restraint—barely. Like icemelt off a glacier, waiting only for a rock to shift before it plunged down a hillside, it could sweep away all that lay in its path.
Or it could turn a mill and feed the children of entire towns. But there was always that moment of peril before you knew whether the power you had released would obey your will or destroy you.
Barak gave her a thumbs-up. You're doing fine.
But she wasn't. She had smelled that smoke, heard those bells before—before she had collapsed in the blasted land by the hot springs and been tended by some anonymity who had yet to claim a price of her. Her head spun, and she felt surrounded by an aura of light and sensations surrounded her.
If she hurried, she could race through the remainder of this spectacle and take herself to her tent—maybe even have in decent privacy whatever seizure might be coming. It was too much to hope that Karl bar Edgar might tend her; he had her medical records. A treat for you, Karl. See senile deterioration in a Sauron 'breed. Juchi had not lived long enough for it to start in him.
Urgency came upon her, and a frantic, shamed desire not to let her son and Aisha see how her genes betrayed her—how their own might turn on them to their destruction.
But the faith was there; the oath; and the spilled blood. It remained only for her to take those threads of belief, of fanaticism, and of controlled violence into her hands, and of them weave a noose strong enough to hang every Sauron in the Citadel, hang him higher than the Haman of Bandari festival tales.
The familiar rumble was building under the earth. She knew what that meant, knew she had limited time either to consummate this ritual or to flee. God, she hated the idea of twitching and spasming in front of half the tribes on Haven, like some filthy shaman in pelts and bone beads. But if she fled—what would become of them all?
They were watching her. Clearly the oath to one another was not enough. Kemal drew his sword and strode forward as the other khans muttered approval. He laid the sword at Chaya's feet.
"I have sworn to my brothers," he said. "But I will swear again to one of us who has been warrior and scholar and who leads the Seven."
Only her will kept her on her feet. She could not flee now, even if she wanted, without collapsing the entire structure she had spent blood to build. Damn these tribes! What barbarians they were, demanding an oath made flesh—and now she knew: that flesh must be hers.
Kapetein Piet was right. We have moved from history to legend, and none of us is civilized. Especially not me.
Real Saurons had training, she knew, that let them rifle their memories as fast they might snap a neck. She tried to imitate it. Saurons. Myths. There was an oath once, taken when a tribe, no, a king set out to oppose Saurons. What was it?
She was not Cyborg to have an eidetic memory, but even now, hers would serve, unless her genes ripped the wits from her. She drove her will back into the reaches of her memory. Ahhh . . . she had it now.
"Come forward, Kemal," she told him. She let her voice wrap about him, almost seductive. "Kneel before me." He stiffened, then dropped to his knees, caught up despite himself.
Over to one side, Sapper's engineers waved frantically. The rumbling beneath their feet grew louder. Chaya felt the earth shake, and knew that it was not part of the seizure that must come soon.
"Repeat after me: I swear loyalty and service to my brothers and to the Judge of this host, to speak and to be silent, to do and to let be, to come and to go, in need or plenty, in peace or war, in living or dying, from this hour henceforth, until my Lord release me, or death take me, or the world end. So say I . . . ."
Kemal's eyes met hers. He looked stupefied yet exhilarated, as if he had been smoking hemp or eating hashish. But he added his name and patronymic with a flourish.
The tall, pale woman looked startled. Interesting. Chaya bent to take up his blade and hand it to him in token his oath had been received. Don't you just wish you could see yourself? She knew she was shaking. The gongs grew louder. Judging from the others' expressions, no one else could hear. Best finish while she could.
"And this do I hear, Chaya bat Dvora, Judge of the Pale, Leader of the Seven, and I will not forget it, nor fail to reward that which is given: fealty with love, valor with honor, oath-breaking with vengeance."
Barak glared at Mark, Sapper's man. Well, where is the damned thing?
For a moment, the entire camp was still. And then the great geyser erupted in steam and spume, a column of scalding water ejected into the chill air.
It stank of sulfur and blood, like the pits of hell. She knew a moment of wild exultation. She had unleashed the torrent, and now it would flow into the channels she had devised.
Then the clamor of the gongs rose and struck her down. Even as she collapsed, she heard the warriors cheer and clash their weapons.
Foam ran down her chin. Her back arched, and she cried out. For an eternity, she thought that no one noticed. Hoped, maybe, was a better word. "Quick, the Judge! She's fallen!"
"Your Honor . . ."
"Tanta Chaya!"
"Sister!" Pure panic in Aisha's voice, in Barak's eyes.
I will not be cattle! She forced some remote corner of her awareness to hold aloof from the convulsions that racked her. To remain aware. She rose above the pathetic, spasming, aging body she knew to be hers. The Edenite general thought to restrain her? It would not work; she was still too strong . . . no . . . her son had joined Hammer-of-God.
Both men's lips were bleeding: she had struck at them. Her own lip bled too; she could taste the iron tang. She could not feel it. She wondered if she would wake up paralyzed—or at all. It hardly seemed to matter. Now the wave had been set free. For all she cared, it might roll over her, provided it reached the desired shore.
"She's had one of these seizures before. I was there. Don't worry, Barak—help me get this cloth between her teeth. For Christ's sake, man, it's not a death sentence."
Oh, but it was, it was, the instability coming out in the genes.
Karl bar Edgar knelt by her side, helping to turn her, ordering around men half a head taller than he and infinitely more wealthy. At this moment, though, he was khan and they were—all of them—warriors yet to win the name.
To his surprise, he was not alone. Aisha had not fled; Barak was at her side; and even the tall, pale woman had edged forward, fascination writ large on her features.
You. Her eyes met the stranger's, then glazed over. She felt her feet drumming against the bloody ground. Voices spoke in wonder: "The falling sickness! Ai-yai! Like Kubilai's son or . . ."
Khan, king, tsar . . . Caesar. She had the falling sickness. That alone removed this from the realm of arms and into the realm of holiness, as jihad was holy.
Then the lightning struck her down. She screamed—a strangled noise of horror and obedience mingled—and as the black cloud of unconsciousness offered itself to her, she embraced it, clasping it to her breast like the lover she had awaited all her life.