The Will of the Wanderer Read online

  “I wish you had not done that, sidi,” said Sond in a low, subdued voice.

  “Bah! What’s the matter with you this morning, Sond? Some little djinniyeh say no last night, did she?” Majiid smote the djinn a blow upon his bare shoulders that nearly sent the immortal sprawling to the felt-covered tent floor. “Come along. Cheer up! We are having a game of baigha to celebrate. “

  The Sheykh turned to walk out the tent entrance—propped up by strong poles, the front of the spacious tent was open to catch the breeze—but he stopped in some astonishment as Sond laid his hand firmly upon Majiid’s strong arm. “I beg that you will take a moment to listen to my news, sidi,” said the djinn.

  “Make it quick,” Majiid demanded irritably, glaring at Sond. Outside, the Sheykh could see his men and their horses assembling, eager for the game.

  “Please lower the flaps, that we may have privacy.”

  “Very well,” Majiid growled, instructing the servants with a wave of his hand to lower the tent flaps—an indication to all who passed that the Sheykh was not to be disturbed.

  “Out with it. By Sul, man, you look as though you’ve swallowed a bad fig!” Majiid frowned, his thick, grizzled mustaches bristling. “The Aran, those camel-riding swine, have been using the southern well again, haven’t they?” Majiid’s big fist clenched. “This time, I’ll rip out Zeid’s lungs—”

  “No, sidi!” Sond interrupted desperately. “It is not your cousin, Sheykh Zeid.” His voice lowered. “I was summoned last night into the presence of Hazrat Akhran. The God has sent me with a message to you and your people.”

  Sheykh Majiid al Fakhar literally swelled with pride—in itself an imposing sight. The djinn, Sond, stood seven feet tall; Majiid came to his shoulder. A gigantic man, everything about the Sheykh was equally large and impressive. He had a thunderous voice that could be heard above the most furious battle. Fifty years old, he could lift a full-grown sheep with one arm, consume more qumiz than any man in camp, and outride all but the eldest of his many sons.

  This eldest son, Khardan—Calif of his tribe—was the light of the sun in his father’s eyes. Twenty-five years of age, Khardan— although not as tall as his father—resembled Majiid in nearly every other aspect. The Calif was so handsome that the eligible daughters of the Akar, peeping at him from the slits in the tent as he rode by, sighed over his blue-black hair and his fiery black eyes that—so it was said—could melt the heart of a woman or scorch that of an enemy. Strong and muscular, Khardan held his own in the tribe’s friendly wrestling matches, once even throwing the djinn, Sond, to the ground.

  The Calif had ridden on his first raid at the age of six. Seated behind his father on Majiid’s tall horse, screaming in excitement, Khardan never forgot the thrill of that wild ride—the tense, exciting moments sneaking in among the stupid sheep; the howls of triumph when the spahis galloped off, bearing their booty; the howls of rage from the shepherds and their dogs. Since that night Khardan lived for raiding and for war.

  The Akar were among the most hated and feared tribes in the Pagrah desert. Blood feuds existed between them and every other nomadic band of people. Hardly a week went past that Khardan didn’t lead his men on a sheep-stealing raid, a skirmish with some other tribe over disputed lands, or strike at another tribe in revenge for a wrong committed by one great-great-greatgrandfather against another great-great-great-grandfather a century ago.

  Arrogant, a skilled rider, fearless in battle, Khardan was adored by the Akar. The men would have followed him into Sul’s Hell, while there wasn’t an unmarried woman in camp from the age of sixteen and over who wouldn’t have gladly carried her bed, her clothes, and all her worldly possessions to his tent and humbly laid them at his feet (the first act a woman performs following her wedding night).

  But Khardan was not yet married—an unusual state for a man of twenty-five. It had been spoken at his birth, by the djinn Sond, that the God Akhran himself would choose the Calif ‘s wife. This had been considered quite an honor at the time, but as the years went by and Khardan watched the harems of men he considered beneath him grow, waiting for the God to make a decision was getting a bit tiresome.

  Without a harem a man lacks an important power—magic. A gift from Sul to women alone, the art of magic resided in the seraglio, where the head wife—generally chosen for her skill in this art—oversaw the usage of it. Khardan was forced to wait until he had a wife to obtain the blessings of magic, as well as the other blessings that come from the marriage bed.

  “Bazrat Akhran speaks to me!” Majiid said proudly. “What is the will of the Holy One?” His mustaches twitched eagerly. “Has it to do at last with the marriage of my son?”

  “Yes—” began Sond.

  “Akhran be praised!” Majiid shouted, raising his hands to heaven. “We have waited five and twenty years to hear the will of the God in this matter. At last my son will have a wife!”

  “Sidi!” Sond attempted to continue, but it was useless. Hurling aside the tent flaps with such force that he nearly upset the entire structure, Majiid burst outside.

  The spahis—the horsemen of the desert—do not live in the yurts, the semipermanent dwellings of their cousins, the sheepherders of the hills. Constantly on the move to find grazing grounds for their herds of horses, the Akar travel from oasis to oasis, their animals feeding off the grasses in one area, then drifting on when the grass is gone to return again when it has grown back. The Akar lived in tents made of strips of wool that has been stitched together by the fingers and held together by the magical arts of the women of the harem. Khardan’s mother—a sorceress of considerable skill—boasted that no storm wind that blew could upset one of her tents.

  The Sheykh’s tent was large and roomy, for here Majiid held council nearly every day, hearing petitions, settling disputes, passing judgement among his people. Though plain appearing on the outside, Majiid’s tent was adorned inside with the luxuries of the nomad. Fine woolen rugs of shimmering color and intricate design hung from the tent walls and ceilings. Silken cushions lined the floors (the Akar scorned to sit or sleep on wooden benches, as did their cousins the Hrana.) Several hubble-bubble pipes, an ornate silver-trimmed saddle used to lean against while seated as well as for riding, a few brass water pots, coffee and tea pots and Sond’ s golden bottle stood in an orderly row near an outer tent wall. A finely carved wooden chest that had come from the city of Khandar held Majiid’s weapons—scimitars, sabers, knives, and daggers.

  As with their cousins the Hrana, the past few years had been prosperous ones for the Akar. This news would mark the rising of Khardan’s star in the heavens. Truly now the Akar would become the most powerful tribe in all of Pagrah.

  “Men and women of the Akar. Now we truly have something to celebrate!” Majiid’s voice boomed through the camp. “Hazrat Akhran, all praise to His name, has made His will known concerning the marriage of Khardan!”

  Sond heard resounding cheers from the assembled people. Eligible daughters gasped, giggled, and clasped each other’s hands in hope. Mothers of the eligible daughters began planning the wedding in their minds, while their fathers hastily began to think of the dot—or dowry—each girl takes with her.

  Sighing, the djinn looked longingly at his golden bottle that stood in a comer of Majiid’s tent, near the Sheykh’s favorite hubble-bubble pipe.

  “I will double the prize money! Let the game begin!” Majiid called out.

  Peering from the tent flaps, Sond saw the Sheykh, clothed in his black robes and the full-cut white trousers of the horsemen, leap onto the back of his tall steed—a pure white horse with a long, flowing mane and a tail that swept the sands.

  “Sond! Come here! We need you!” Majiid shouted, twisting in his saddle to look back at his tent. “Sond, you son of— Oh, there you are,” the Sheykh said, somewhat discomfited to see the djinn spring up out of the desert and stand by his stirrup. Majiid waved a hand. “Take the carcass out.” He gestured some two hundred yards away. “When all is read
y, give the signal.”

  Sond made one last attempt. “Sidi, don’t you want to know who Hazrat Akhran—”

  “Who? What does it matter who? A woman is a woman. Beneath the neck, they are all the same! Don’t you see, my men are eager for their sport!”

  “First things first, Sond,” said Khardan, galloping up and wheeling his horse around and around the djinn. “My father is right. Women are as plentiful as grains of sand. The ten silver tumans my father is offering as prize are not so easily come by.”

  Heaving a profound sigh and shaking his silk-turbaned head, Sond lifted the freshly slaughtered sheep’s carcass from where it lay on the ground. Flying up into the air, the djinn skimmed over the windswept rock floor of the desert. When he found a suitable site, he first cleared the area of brush and cacti, then dropped the bloody carcass on the ground. Standing beside the carcass, his pantalons flapping in the desert wind, Sond gave the signal. A ball of blue fire burst in the air over his head. At the sight, with wild, shrill yells, the spahis kicked their horses’ flanks and began their mad dash for the prize. Sond, head bowed and feet dragging, slowly began to drift back to the side of his master.

  “I gather by the length of your face that the will of Hazrat Akhran is going to be difficult for my master to swallow,” said a voice in Sond’s ear. “Tell me the girl’s name!”

  Startled, Sond glanced about to find Pukah, the djinn belonging to Khardan, hovering at his elbow.

  “You will hear with everyone else,” Sond snapped testily. “Certainly I will not tell you when I have not told my master.”

  “Have it your way,” Pukah said easily, watching the horsemen gallop toward the sheep’s carcass. “Besides, I already know the name.”

  “You don’t.”

  “I do.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Not so. I talked to Fedj last night. Or what was left of him after Zohra was finished.”

  Sond drew a seething breath. “You consort with our enemy!”

  “Nay, no enemy! Have you forgotten? I consort with our brother! “

  “Why would Fedj, that son of a goat, tell you?” Sond demanded, nettled.

  “He owed me,” Pukah replied, shrugging his shapely shoulders.

  “Have you told—”

  “My master?” Pukah glanced at Sond in mocking amusement.

  “And find myself sealed up in my basket for the next twenty years for being the bearer of such tidings? No, thank you!” He chuckled, folding his arms across his chest.

  Pukah’s words brought back an unpleasant reminder. Thinking of Akhran’s threat, Sond turned moodily away from the grinning young djinn and pretended to be concentrating on watching the game.

  The object of baigha is to see which rider can bring the largest portion of the sheep’s carcass to Sheykh Majiid. Sixty horses and their riders were now galloping wildly across the desert, each one determined to be the one to carry the prize back to his Sheykh. Khardan’s fast horse and skill in riding giving him the advantage; the Calif was almost always the first to reach the carcass. He did so now, but that didn’t mean he had won. Leaping off his horse, Khardan grabbed the bleeding carcass and was struggling to lift it up to his saddle when he was overtaken by at least ten other men.

  Nine jumped from their saddles. Falling bodily on Khardan, they attempted to wrestle the carcass away from him, almost immediately dismembering the sheep. One rider—Khardan’s younger brother Achmed—remained on his plunging horse, leaning down from the saddle at a perilous angle in an attempt to grab a share of the prize and race off with it before the others could remount. By this time the rest of the riders had arrived to join in the fray. From the sidelines the spectators cheered madly, though nothing could be seen except clouds of sand and occasionally, a glimpse of a rearing horse or a toppling rider.

  Each man struggled ferociously to yank a portion of the carcass from his comrade’s hold. Blood-soaked riders were down, then up, then down again. Hooves flailed; horses whinnied in excitement, sometimes slipping and falling themselves, only to clamber back to their feet in well-trained haste. Finally Achmed—having possessed himself of a hind leg—galloped off, dashing back to the cheering Sheykh.

  Leaping onto their horses, several men left the group still fighting over the remainder of the carcass to pursue the victor, Khardan in the lead. Catching up with his brother, the Calif jumped from his saddle, dragging Achmed, sheep, and horse down into the sand. The three other riders—unable to stop their maddened horses—hurtled over the bodies rolling on the ground. Wheeling their steeds, the spahis rode back and the fight began all over again.

  Several times the Sheykh himself had to gallop out of the way in order to escape the melee that surged around him, his thundering shouts and cheers and laughter adding to the confusion. At the end of an hour everyone—man and horse—was exhausted. Majiid ordered Sond to signal a halt. A ball of fire—this one red—burst in the air with an explosive bang right above the heads of the contestants. At least twenty of them—laughing, bruised, battered, and covered with blood (some of which belonged to the sheep)—staggered up to their Sheykh, gory trophies grasped in their hands.

  At a gesture from Majiid one of the aksakal—a tribal elder— rode forward, carrying in his hand a crude balance. Sitting on his horse, he carefully weighed each bloody, sand covered hunk of meat in turn, finally pronouncing Achmed the winner of the ten tumans.

  Clasping his strong arms around his seventeen-year-old half brother, Khardan hugged the panting boy close in congratulation, advising him to save the money for their annual horse-selling trip to the city of Kich.

  Achmed turned to his father to receive a similar reward—a reward that would have been more precious to him than silver. But Majiid was far too excited over the forthcoming revelations from the God concerning his eldest son to pay any attention to the younger one. Elbowing Achmed aside, Majiid gestured for Khardan to approach.

  Achmed fell back a pace, giving way—as usual—to his older brother. If the young man sighed over this, no one heard him. In the heart of another there might have been bitter jealousy over such favoritism. In Achmed’s heart there was only admiration and love for the older brother, who had been more father to him than sibling.

  His arms and chest smeared with sheep’s blood, his mouth split in a grin—white teeth shining against his black beard— Khardan accosted the somber djinn.

  “Very well, Sond,” the Calif said laughingly. “I have lost at baigha. Certainly I will prove more lucky at love. Tell me the name of my betrothed, chosen by the Holy Akhran Himself.”

  Sond swallowed. From the corner of his eye he saw Pukah leering at him wickedly, making a gesture as of a man stopping a bottle with a cork then tossing it away. Flushing angrily, the djinn faced Sheykh Majiid and his son.

  “It is the will of Hazrat Akhran,” said Sond in a low voice, his eyes on the feet of his master, “that Khardan, Calif of his people, wed Zohra, daughter of Sheykh Jaafar al Widjar. The wedding is to take place on the Tel of the Rose of the Prophet before the next full moon.” The djinn spread his hands deprecatingly. “One month from today. Thus speaks Hazrat Akhran to his people.”

  Sond kept his gaze on the ground, not daring to raise it. He could guess the reaction of his master, the Sheykh, from the terrible, thundering silence that was crashing about the djinn in waves. No one spoke or made a noise. If a horse so much as grunted, it was stifled by its master’s clasping a swift hand over the beast’s nose.

  The silence lasted so long that Sond at last risked a glimpse, fearful that perhaps his master had fallen into a fit. This seemed not unlikely. The Sheykh’s face was purple, his eyes bulged in rage, his mustaches stood nearly straight out in bristling fury. Sond had never seen his master so angry, and for an instant the bottom of the Kurdin Sea was a haven of peace and calm by comparison.

  But it was Khardan who spoke, breaking the silence.

  “The will of Hazrat Akhran,” he repeated, drawing a deep, shivering breath. “The
will of Hazrat Akhran that I mingle the tainted blood of Hrana”—he exhibited his crimson-stained hands, glaring at them in disgust—”with the noble blood of the Akar!” The young man’s face was pale beneath his black beard, the dark eyes glinted more brightly than the sun off polished steel. “Here is what I think of the will of Hazrat Akhran!”

  Catching up the sheep’s head from the pile of legs and guts and ribs and haunches, Khardan hurled it at the feet of the djinn. Then—drawing his scimitar—he plunged the blade through the animal’s skull.

  “There is my answer, Sond. Take that to your Wandering God-if you can find Him!”

  Khardan spit on the sheep’s head. Reaching out, he laid a bloody hand on the shoulder of a man standing near him, who cringed at the touch. “Abdullah? You have a daughter?”

  “Several, Calif,” said the man with a profound sigh.

  “I will marry the oldest. Father, make the arrangements.”

  Turning on his heel, without a glance at the djinn, Khardan stalked off toward his tent, wiping the blood of the sheep from his hands as he went.

  That night the desert of Pagrah was hit by the worst storm in the memory of the oldest aksakal.

  Chapter 3

  The day had grown increasingly hot, unusual for late winter in the desert. The sun beat down unmercifully; it was difficult to breathe the scorched air. The horses were nervous and uneasy, nipping at each other and their herders, or standing, huddled together, in what shade could be found from a tall sand dune that cut across the northern side of the oasis where the Akar were currently camped.

  Late afternoon, one of the herders sent a boy running with a message for the Sheykh. Emerging from his tent, Majiid cast one look at the ominous sight on the western horizon and immediately cried out the alarm. A yellow cloud, standing out vividly against a dark-blue mass of clouds behind it, was rolling down out of the foothills. Seemingly as tall as the hills themselves, the yellow cloud was moving against the wind at an incredible rate of speed.