The Will of the Wanderer Read online

  “Sandstorm!” Majiid shouted above the rising wind that, in sharp contrast to the searing heat, was damp and bitterly cold.

  Men, women, and children of the encampment ran to their tasks, the men securing the tents while their wives cast magical spells of protection over them, the children driving the goats and other small animals inside or running to the pools of water in the oasis to fill waterskins. Some of the women of the harems ran to the horse herds where the herdsmen were hobbling the animals in the shelter of the dune. Around the necks of the beasts the women hung feisha—amulets—magically endowed with soothing calm to settle the frightened horses, allowing the men to wrap the animals’ heads in soft cloths to protect them from the stinging, blinding sand.

  Favorite horses were taken inside the tents; Khardan himself led his black stallion, allowing no one else to touch the animal, whispering words of courage into the horse’s ears as he took the animal into his own dwelling place. Majiid’s wives returned, leading his horse. Watching the progress of the storm, the Sheykh gestured for them to lead the animal into his tent.

  “Sond!” he bellowed, peering into the stinging sand that was billowing around them even though the main storm was some distance away. “Sond!”

  “Yes, sidi,” the-djinn responded, springing up out of the sands.

  “Look. . . there!” Majiid pointed. “What do you see?”

  Sond stared into the approaching storm. His eyes narrowed, he looked back at his master with a grim expression. “ ‘Efreet!”

  The yellow cloud rolled down on them. Leading it, as generals lead an advancing army, were two great beings tall as the clouds of sand, surging over the desert before it. Lightning flared from their eyes, thunder roared from their mouths. In their hands they held uprooted trees, their giant feet kicked up huge clouds of dust as they sped down upon the camp. Nearer and nearer the ‘efreet came, whirling and dancing over the sands like dervishes.

  “Have they been sent by Hazrat Akhran?” Majiid roared. A gust of wind hit him, nearly blowing the big man off his feet. Seeing that everyone in the camp had taken shelter within their tents, he made his way back to his. “Undoubtedly, sidi,” Sond shouted back.

  Majiid shook his fist at the ‘efreets defiantly, then ducked inside the tent, his djinn hastily seeking shelter in his bottle. The Sheykh’s servants were endeavoring to calm Majiid’s horse, who was plunging back and forth nervously, threatening to tear down the tent.

  “Get away!” Majiid shouted at the servants. “He smells your fear!”

  Stroking the horse’s nose and patting him reassuringly on the neck, the Sheykh calmed the frightened animal. Under no circumstances had Majiid ever allowed women’s magic to touch his horse. Seeing the animal tremble, its eyes rolling in its head, the Sheykh began to think that this time he might make an exception.

  He was just about to go to his head wife’s tent, seeking her, when he heard a rustling sound and smelled the scent of roses that, no matter where he was, brought the image of Khardan’s mother to his mind.

  “You read my thoughts, Badia,” he said gruffly as she approached, and realized then that she must have been sitting quietly in his tent the entire time.

  In her late forties, the mother of seven children, Badia was a handsome woman still, and Majiid regarded her with pride. Though he rarely slept in her bed—he preferred his younger wives for his pleasure—Majiid often visited Badia’s tent at night anyway, to talk and receive her counsel, for he had come, over the years, to depend upon her wisdom.

  Smiling at her husband, Badia hung the feisha around the horse’s neck and whispered arcane words. Heaving a deep sigh, the animal sank down, resting its head in its master’s lap. Its eyes closed in peaceful sleep. Stroking his horse’s mane, Majiid reached out his hand, gripping his wife’s arm as she was about to leave.

  “Don’t go out there, my treasure,” he said. “Stay with me.”

  The tent walls heaved and billowed like a live thing, the chill wind sang a strange and threatening song in the ropes that held the tent fast. The light was a sickly ocher color, so murky it was as hard to see as if it had been night. Outside could be heard a low, grinding sound—the cloud of sand, accompanied by the ‘efreets, drawing nearer.

  Sitting on cushions beside her husband, Badia laid her head on his arm. Her face was veiled against the storm. She was dressed in her winter cloak made of fine brocade, embroidered with golden thread and lined with fur. Rings adorned the fingers that held fast to her husband’s strong arm, gold glinted from her earlobes, the bangles on her wrists jingled softly. Kohl lined her eyes, her black hair—streaked with gray—was thick and long and fell in a single braid down her shoulder.

  “It will be a bad storm, husband,” she said. “You saw the ‘efreets that travel with it?”

  At that moment a blast of sand-laden wind struck the tent. Although protected by magic and the skill of the nomads in securing their dwellings against the storms of the desert, Majiid and his wife were nearly suffocated by the sand that swirled in every opening, seeming to penetrate the sturdy fabric of the tent itself.

  Casting a cloth over his head, cradling his wife protectively in his arms as she buried her face in his breast for protection, Majiid wished briefly he could ask her to cast a spell of calm over him. He could hear the ‘efreets stomping through the camp, battering against the tents with their giant fists, their voices howling in rage. The Sheykh’s nose, mouth, and ears filled with sand; drawing breath was a painful sensation. Out in the camp he heard shrill screams and hoarse cries and realized that someone’s tent had not been properly secured; probably a young man who had not established his harem yet and who perhaps had no mother to cast the spell of protection for him.

  There was nothing anyone could do for him but hope he found shelter in the tent of a friend or relative.

  An hour passed, and the storm did not diminish in fury. Rather, it appeared to grow worse. The yellow light deepened to an ugly brown. The wind pounced on them from every conceivable direction. Above the howling of the ‘efreets, Majiid could hear the wailings of his people, children crying, women sobbing, and even his brave men raising their voices in terror.

  “Sond!” shouted Majiid_ coughing and spitting sand from his mouth.

  “Sidi?” came a tinny-sounding voice from inside the golden bottle.

  “Come out here!” Majiid demanded, half-choked.

  “I would prefer not to, sidi,” returned the djinn.

  “How long will this cursed storm last?”

  “Until your noble son, Khardan, agrees to do the will of the most holy Akhran, sidi,” replied the djinn.

  Majiid swore bitterly. “My son will not marry a sheepherder!” The giant hand of an ‘efreet tore at the Sheykh’s tent, ripping loose the strong ropes and lifting one of the tent walls. Badia cried out in terror and prostrated herself on the floor, calling to Hazrat Akhran for mercy. The servants fled, lunging out beneath the flaps of the shaking tent, howling at the top of their lungs. Majiid, his face twisted in anger that vied with his fear, raised his face cloth to protect his skin from the stinging, biting blasts of sand as he staggered out of the tent to try to secure the ropes once more.

  Instantly the ‘efreets caught hold of him. Whirling him around until he didn’t know his front from his back, they sent the Sheykh on a tumbling, staggering dance through the camp— tossing him back and forth from one to the other, hurling him up against tents, throwing him down into ravines, nearly burying him in sand. Disoriented, almost completely blind from the sand in his eyes, near suffocation from the dust in his mouth and nose, Majiid was finally blown completely off his feet. Catching hold of him, the ‘efreets rolled his body over and over, sending him spinning across the rocky, windswept ground until he came to a sudden and painful stop, brought up by a palm tree bent double by the gale, its fronds kissing the earth in obeisance to the God of the desert.

  Rubbing the grit from his eyes, Majiid peered upward, groaning in pain. The ‘efreets towered
above him, spinning so swiftly it made the Sheykh dizzy to watch. In their huge hands they held fragments of tents. Lightning flared from eyes that stared down at the Sheykh without visible emotion as their bodies surged around him.

  For the briefest instant the storm abated, as though the ‘efreets were holding their breaths, waiting. Majiid groaned again; he had broken ribs in his wild dance through the camp, he thought he might have sprained an ankle tumbling down that last ditch. The Sheykh was a fighter from a long line of fighters. Like any veteran warrior, he knew overwhelming odds when he saw them.

  One could not—it seemed—fight a God.

  Sheykh Majiid al Fakhar cursed. Clenching his fist in impotent anger, he beat it into the sand. Then, lifting his head, he stared up grimly at the grinning ‘efreets.

  “Sond!” he roared, a shout that carried clear across the camp. “Bring me my son!”

  Chapter 4

  Although the mapmakers of the Emperor of Tara-kan had undoubtedly given it some fanciful name, the outcropping of rock that jutted up unexpectedly and inexplicably in the center of the Pagrah desert was called by the dwellers of the desert the Tel, a word meaning hill. A forthright, laconic people, whose harsh surroundings had taught them to be sparing of everything including breath, they saw no need to call things other than what they were or to add any frivolous embellishments. It was a hill, so name it a hill.

  The highest point of land for hundreds of miles in any direction, located in the heart of the desert, the Tel naturally became a prominent landmark. Distance was measured by it—such and such a well was three days’ ride from the Tel, the Sun’s Anvil was two days’ ride east from the Tel, the city of Kich was a week’s ride west from the Tel, and so forth. Situated in the center of nothing, the Tel and its surrounding oasis was, in fact, at least two days’ ride from anywhere which is what made it so remarkable to find two tribes of nomads camped on either side, one to the east and one to the west.

  South of the Tel, standing in a spot that was equidistant from each tribe’s encampment, stood a huge ceremonial tent. Measuring seven poles long and three across, it was made of wide woolen bands sewn together—bands that appeared to have come from two different sources, for the colors of the tent clashed wildly, one side being a dark, sober-minded crimson and the other a flamboyant, dashing orange. A bairaq, tribal flag, fluttered in the desert breeze at either end of the tent—one flag was crimson, the other flag orange.

  The ceremonial tent—sturdy and stable at the far ends appeared to be unstable in the center, as if the workmen of the two tribes erecting it had become distracted by something. Several splotches of blood on the ground near the middle of the tent may have accounted for the wobbling centerpoles.

  Perhaps it was these splotches of blood that also accounted for the unusually large numbers of carrion-eating birds that circled above the huge tent. Or perhaps it was simply the unusually large number of people camped around the oasis. Whatever the reason, vultures wheeled in the skies above the Tel, their wings, black against the golden twilight, casting shadows that flowed over the huge tent—an ill-omen for a wedding day.

  Neither bride nor groom noticed the bad luck sign, however. The groom had spent the day being plied with qumiz—fermented mare’s milk—and was, by evening, so drunk that he could scarcely distinguish sky from ground, much less notice the scrawny birds flapping in eager anticipation above his head. The bride, dressed for the occasion in a paranja of finest white silk embroidered with golden thread, was heavily veiled; one might say extremely heavily veiled, since it was not generally the custom among her people to blindfold the bride before the wedding ceremony.

  Nor was it the custom to bind the bride’s wrists tightly together with strips of sheepskin, or to have the bride escorted to the tent by her father and his strongest men rather than her mother, sisters, and other wives of the seraglio. The bride’s mother was dead, she had no sisters, and the other wives of her father were shut up in their tent, ringed round by guards, as they were when a raid was expected.

  No music accompanied the bride’s procession through her camp to the wedding tent. There was no strumming of the dutar, no clashing of tamborine, no wailing of the surnai. The journey was completed in silence, for the most part; silence broken only by the oaths and cursings of the men responsible for bearing the blushing bride to the ceremonial tent, the bride taking every occasion possible to kick the shins of her escorts.

  At last the bride, still struggling, was dragged into the garish, unsteady wedding tent. Here her escorts relinquished her thankfully to her father, whose only comment on receiving his daughter on her wedding day was, “Make certain she doesn’t get her hands on a knife!”

  The groom’s procession through his camp was considerably less painful for his escorts than the bride’s, this being due to the fact that most of the escorts were in the same state of drunken euphoria as the groom. His djinn, Pukah, had passed out cold. Several of the aksakal, tribal elders, had remained sober—on orders of Sheykh Majiid—or the groom might never have arrived at his wedding at all; that small matter having slipped the besotted minds of the Calif and his spahis, who were reliving glorious raids.

  At aseur, when the desert sun was sinking down behind the far-off foothills, the groom was lifted to his feet and hauled bodily into the ceremonial tent, accompanied by those of his companions who could still walk.

  Inside the tent the groom’s father met his son. At the sight of Majiid, Khardan’s handsome face split into a grin. Spreading his arms wide, he lurched forward, wrapped his strong arms around his father’s shoulders, and belched.

  “Get him up to the center of the tent,” commanded the Sheykh, casting a nervous sidelong glance at the unusually sternfaced and formidable-appearing Sond, who was standing near the centerpole.

  The aksakal went into action. Without further ceremony Khardan al Fakhar, Calif of his tribe, was pushed and pulled over to stand unsteadily next to the centerpole. His drunken friends, shoving their way in behind their Prince, took their places on the right-hand side of the tent. They did not sit down as was customary, but remained standing, glaring balefully at the escorts of the bride, who were on the left-hand side.

  The sight of the shepherds effectively sobered most of the spahis. Laughter and the crude jokes and boasts about the groom’s prowess in the marriage bed died upon the warriors’ bearded lips, some still frothy white from the qumiz. Armed to the teeth, the Akar and Hrana fingered the daggers thrust into their sashes or fondly caressed the hilts of scimitars and sabers, a low muttering rising from their throats as the bride and groom were being shoved and jostled into position.

  “Let’s get this travesty over with!” gasped Sheykh Jaafar al Widjar. Sweat poured from beneath his headcloth, both arms encircled his struggling daughter. “I can’t hold her much longer, and if that gag comes loose from her mouth . . .” His voice trailed off ominously.

  “Gag! How is she going to say her vows if she’s gagged?” demanded Majiid al Fakhar.

  “I will say them,” grunted Jaafar al Widjar.

  Traces of blood decorated the sleeves of his daughter’s wedding gown, her hands twisted together as she fought to free herself of the bindings around her wrists.

  Noting that Majiid al Fakhar looked dubious, Jaafar added harshly, “If she is allowed to speak, she might use her magic, and she is the most powerful sorceress in my wife’s seraglio!”

  “Bah! Women’s magic!” snorted Majiid scornfully, but he glanced somewhat uneasily at the heavily veiled bride nonetheless. Reaching out, the Sheykh caught hold of his drunken son, who was slowly listing to one side, and yanked him upright. “Sond! If Jaafar speaks his daughters vows, will she and my son be married in the eyes of Hazrat Akhran?”

  “If Zohra’s father’s camel said her vows, his daughter would be married in the sight of Hazrat Akhran!” growled Sond, exchanging glances with Fedj.

  The other djinn nodded in agreement, making a gesture with his hand. “Get on with it!” The ligh
t of the hanging oil lamps flashed off golden bracelets ringing muscular arms.

  “Very well,” Majiid agreed with an ill-grace. Taking his place between the couple, flanked on either side by the grim-faced djinn, the Sheykh raised his eyes defiantly to heaven. “We, the chosen of the Most Holy and Beneficent God Akhran the Wanderer, have been brought together by a message from our great Lord”—a note of bitterness here—”to the effect that our tribes be joined by the marriage of my son, Khardan al Fakhar, Calif of his people, to this daughter of a sheep—,

  A shrill scream from the bound and gagged Zohra and a sudden lunging of the bride in the direction of Majiid al Fakhar caused a momentary interruption in the ceremony.

  “What insult is this ‘daughter of a sheep’? Zohra is the daughter of myself, Jaafar al Widjar, princess of her people!” yelled Jaafar, catching hold of his daughter around the waist and wrestling her backward.

  “Zohra, princess of sheep,” resumed Majiid coolly. “Better than a four-legged son of a horse!”

  Hanging onto his kicking, screaming daughter with one hand, Jaafar reached out and shoved the reeling, grinning groom with the other. His face flushed in drunken anger, Khardan staggered back into his parent, nearly knocking them both over, then lurched forward to take a wild swing at his future father-in-law.

  The low mutterings on both sides of the ceremonial tent broke into open, shouted insults. Loud cries and the clashing of blades being drawn on the bride’s side of the tent precipitated a clashing of steel on the groom’s side. Sayal, one of the bride’s brothers, hurled himself at Achmed, one of the groom’s brothers, cousins of both gleefully joining the fight. A glorious brawl was in the offing when a blinding flash of light and deafening explosion knocked the combatants to the ground and caused the center post of the tent to sway in an alarming manner.