Glen Cook - The Fire In His Hands

The abbot was in the jaws of a merciless trap. The laws of good works were the high laws of the Shrine. He dared not abrogate them before his brothers. Not if he wished to retain his post. But neither was he ready to allow this boy to mutter his heretical insanities where they could upset the thinking of his charges.

“My friend, we had hard words over a matter we discussed recently. Perhaps I reached my decision a bit hastily.”

Mustaf smiled a predatory smile. “Perhaps.”

“Two score barrels of water?” the abbot suggested.

Mustaf started toward the doorway.

Al Assad shook his head sadly. They were going to dicker like merchants while a boy lay dying. He departed in disgust, taking himself to his cell.

Within the hour he surrendered to the embrace of the Dark Lady.

Micah wakened suddenly, rational, intuiting that a long time had passed. His last clear memory was of walking beside his father as their caravan began the last league to El Aquila. Shouts... a blow... pain... reminiscences of madness. There had been an ambush. Where was he now? Why wasn’t he dead? An angel... There had been an angel.

Snatches returned. He had been returned to life, to become a missionary to the Chosen. A disciple.

He rose from his pallet. His legs betrayed him immediately. He lay panting for several minutes before finding the strength to crawl to a flapway.

The el Habib had confined him to a tent. They had quarantined him. His words had made Mustaf tremble. The chieftain could sense the blood and pain beyond such mad perspectives.

Micah yanked the flap.

The afternoon sun slapped his face. He threw an arm across his eyes and cried out. That devil orb was trying to murder him again.

“You idiot!” a voice snarled as someone pushed him back inside. “You want to blind yourself?”

The hands that guided him to his pallet became tender. The afterimages faded. He discovered his companion to be a girl.

She was about his own age. She wore no veil.

He shrank away. What was this? Some temptation of the Evil One? Her father would kill him....

“What happened, Meryem? I heard him yell.” A youth of about sixteen slipped inside. Micah retreated in earnest.

Then he remembered who and what he was. The hand of the Lord had touched him. He was the Disciple. No one could question his righteousness.

“Our foundling got himself an eyeful of sun.” The girl touched Micah’s shoulder. He flinched away.

“Back off, Meryem. Save the games for when he can handle them.” To Micah he said, “She’s father’s favorite. The last born. He spoils her. She gets away with murder. Meryem. Please? The veil?”

“Where am I?” Micah asked.

“El Aquila,” the youth replied. “In a tent behind the hut of Mustaf abd-Racim ibn Farid el Habib. The Al Ghabha priests found you. You were almost dead. They turned you over to my father. I’m Nassef. The brat is my sister Meryem.” He sat down cross-legged facing Micah. “We’re supposed to take care of you.”

He did not sound enthusiastic.

“You were too much bother for them,” the girl said. “That’s why they gave you to Father.” She sounded bitter.

“What?”

“Our oasis is drying up. The one at the Shrine is still wet, but the abbot won’t share his water rights. The holy gardens flourish while the el Habib thirst.”

Neither mentioned their sire’s pragmatic deal.

“Did you really see an angel?” Meryem asked.

“Yes. I did. He bore me up among the stars and showed me the lands of the earth. He came to me in the hour of my despair and gave me two priceless gifts: my life, and the Truth. And he bade me take the Truth to the Chosen, that they might be freed of the bondage of the past and in turn carry the Word to the infidel.”

Nassef flashed a sarcastic look in his sister’s direction. Micah saw it plainly.

“You too shall know the Truth, friend Nassef. You shall see the flowering of the Kingdom of Peace. The Lord has returned me to the living with the mission of creating his Kingdom on earth.”

In ages to come there would be countless bitter words spilled over El Murid’s returned-to-life remarks. Did he mean a symbolic rebirth, or a literal return from the dead? He would never clarify himself.

Nassef closed his eyes. He was four years older than this naive boy. Those years were an unbridgeable gulf of experience.

He did have the manners to refrain from laughing. “Open the flap a crack, Meryem. Let the sun in little by little, till he can face it.”

She did so, and said, “We should bring him something to eat. He hasn’t had any solid food yet.”

“Nothing heavy. His stomach isn’t ready.” Nassef had seen victims of the desert before.

“Help me bring it.”

“All right. Rest easy, foundling. We’ll be right back. Think up an appetite.” He followed his sister from the tent.

Meryem paused twenty feet away. Softly, she asked, “He really believes it, doesn’t he?”

“About the angel? He’s crazy.”

“I believe it, too, Nassef. In a way. Because I want to. What he says... I think a lot of people want to hear that kind of thing. I think the abbot sent him down here because he was afraid to listen. And that’s why Father won’t have him in the house.”

“Meryem —”

“What if a lot of people start listening and believing, Nassef?”

Nassef paused thoughtfully. “It’s something to think about, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Come on. Let’s get him something.”

El Murid, who was still very much the boy Micah al Rhami, lay staring at the tent above him. He let the leak of sunshine tease his eyes. A compulsion to be on his way, to begin preaching, rose within him. He fought it down. He knew he had to recover completely before he began his ministry.

But he was so impatient!

He knew the wayward habits of the Chosen, now that the angel had opened his eyes. It was imperative that he bring them the Truth as soon as possible. Every life the Dark Lady harvested now meant one more soul lost to the Evil One.

He would begin with El Aquila and Al Ghabha. When these people had been saved he would send them to minister to their neighbors. He himself would travel among the tribes and villages along his father’s caravan route. If he could find some way to bring them salt...

“Here we are,” Meryem announced. There was a musical note in her voice Micah found strange in one so young.

“Soup again, but this time I brought some bread. You can soak it. Sit up. You’ll have to feed yourself this time. Don’t eat too fast. You’ll make yourself sick. Not too much, either.”

“You’re kind, Meryem.”

“No. Nassef is right. I’m a brat.”

“The Lord loves you even so.” He began talking softly, persuasively, between bites. Meryem listened in apparent rapture.

He spoke for the first time in the shade of the palms surrounding the el Habib oasis. Little but mud remained of that once reliable waterhole, and that had begun to dry and crack. He made of the oasis a parable paralleling the drying up of the waters of faith in the Lord.

His audience was small. He sat with them as a teacher with students, reasoning with them and instructing them in the faith. Some were men four times his age. They were amazed by his knowledge and clarity of thought.

They threw fine points of dogma into his path like surprise pitfalls, baiting him. He shattered their arguments like a barbarian horde destroying lightly defended cities.

He had been more carefully schooled than he knew.

He made no converts. He had not expected to do so. He wanted to start them gossiping behind his back, unwittingly creating a climate for the sort of speeches that would win converts.

The older men went away afraid. They sensed in his words the first spark of a flame that could consume the Children of Hammad al Nakir.