Nexus Point (Meridian Series) (29 page)

       “Perhaps,” said the Kadi. “I choose other
means. Samirah would have melted his resolve in time. See that she is not
harmed by any of your men—understood? And you underestimate the skills of the
Mukasir
.
Jabr Ali S’ad was well chosen in this matter. He was taken from us for just
such an occasion, and trained in the ways of the stranger’s speech. Clearly
others have seen things that you have been blind to. It is not given for us to
know all things, but this man replaced the courier we expected from Egypt—that
much we do know. Whether he did this by foul means, or by chance as he claims,
is yet to be discerned. No matter. Sinan believes he has seen the heart of
this, and we must accede to his demands. Neither the stranger, not the Wolf are
to be harmed. Give me your word on this and you may go. Refuse the decree of
Sinan and I must set you in irons—yes, even you, the Sami of the Seventh Gate.”

       The Sami glared at him, his anger diffused
around the news that was still circling in his mind. “So be it,” he said at
last. “We will wait, like helpless children for the coming of Sinan. I will
stay my hand, but I do not forget what happened here this night.”

       “Nor I,” said the Kadi. “Nor I.”

       The Sami turned about as suddenly as he had
entered and strode to the bolted door. He struck hard upon the  riveted metal
plates, and it was opened to him. Then he vanished through the portal, and none
of the guards beyond the door dared look upon him as he went.

24

Paul felt
as though he had been dealt a physical blow. The
surface of his personality wanted to
immediately
reject what Jabr had told him as another ploy; another element of this strange
charade these people were playing out with him. Yet, something deep down began
to murmur in his head that Jabr’s words were true. He began to retrace his
experience, piecing together memories from the moment of that awful fall into
the chasm at Wadi Rumm. He vaguely remembered the lights spinning about him, as
though the walls of the sink were illuminated in vibrant hues of color. The
lights, the numbing cold, the unaccountable nausea and strange disorientation he
experienced when he awoke, all
augured the one conclusion he felt rising in his chest with a surge of anxiety.

       “Eleven eighty-seven?” He repeated the date
Jabr had given him, hoping for some obvious error in the calculation. “Come
now,” he said. “We’re missing nearly a thousand years there, aren’t we?” A thin
smile faded as he scanned Jabr’s face. The man looked at him from the deep
brown wells of his eyes, wholly sincere and without any semblance of pretense.

       “There is argument over the counting of
years,” said Jabr, “even among Christians, but that is as close to the
reckoning as I can come for you. Eleven eighty-seven; late in the sixth month.”

       Now one clue after another began to coalesce
in Paul’s mind. The near perfect preservation of the castle he had been in, the
dress and manner of everyone he had seen, the horses, weapons, scrolls and
maps; the lanterns —all archaic and wholly consistent for the late twelfth
century, but not the twenty first! Then the opposite end of his observations
voiced itself. The
absence
of anything even remotely associated with his
own modern world was just as convincing. There were no cars, none of the guards
carried guns; he had not seen a wire or even the ghost of an electric light.
Nothing moved in the night sky but the moon and stars: no jet contrails in the
air, and this strange hush upon the land. The world he had come from was always
abuzz with the hum of noise, yet here it was so quiet. A stillness and
tranquility lay upon the earth that he could only recall experiencing when he
was alone in the wilderness of Alaska, many years ago. Why hadn’t he noticed
all this before? Perhaps he was just too distracted by all that had happened.
Maybe he had noticed the clues, but simply chose to explain them all away with
the thought that these men were renegade terrorists. Then he thought of
something that would put the issue to one final test. The night sky!

       “Jabr,” he asked. “May I go out and look at
the stars for a moment?

       “Why do you wish to see the stars? It is
still dangerous, Do-Rahlan. We could have been spotted leaving the castle, and
the Sami’s men may have followed us here. Yes, Aziz is strong and brave, yet he
is but one man. I am a thinker; not a fighter.”

       “I understand, but I’ll just be a moment.
Please, this is very important to me.”

       Jabr sighed. “As you wish, but I will come
as well.”

       They stood up and Jabr led the way back to
the narrow access passage and the cleft that formed the opening of the hidden
cave. He whispered to Aziz as they approached, saying something in Arabic. The
guard answered with an expression Paul took to mean that ‘the coast was clear.’

       Once outside Paul breathed deeply, taking in
the sweet cool air and adding it to the growing mound of evidence in his mind.
Not the slightest hint of pollution, he thought. The air is so completely fresh
here. Then he looked up, his eyes scanning the horizon and the vault of stars
above for familiar constellations. He spied the formation he was looking for,
but something was missing.

       “My God,” he said aloud. “It’s not there!”

       Jabr heard him invoke the name of Allah, in
his own way, and squinted to see what he was looking at. Paul had followed its
construction over the long decade or more that it took to build—until it was so
large that it gleamed like a new star in the heavens each night. He knew he
should be able to see it now, in this quiet hour before the dawn, but it was
not there. The International Space Station was gone.

       He passed a moment of uncertainty, wondering
if the station could simply be somewhere else in its orbit. But he had seen it
each morning for the last three weeks, from his Hotel in Amman. It was as
regular as clockwork, and it should be there—right now. A feeling of enormous
consequence fell upon him and he was finally forced to admit that the world he
was standing in now was not the one he had come to Wadi Rumm in. He was in
another time; another place even!

       How could this be? Was it some strange after
effect left over from their first mission? Could it be that he had not
completely rejoined the present, and that time was jealously clutching at his
heels, dragging him back into the past where he had dared to violate her? Was
he slipping, his substance and reality unable to maintain itself in the present
he had known? They were just neophytes, tampering with primal forces that they
were only barely beginning to understand. What had he done? What was happening
to him? Or was this all some drug induced dream he had sipped from the
porcelain cup Samirah had brought him each night?

       “Not there?” Jabr kept searching the sky.
“You mean the moon? It has long since set, Do-Rahlan.”

       Paul looked at him, a blank expression on
his face. Then he seized on Jabr’s own explanation and handed it back to him.
“Yes,” he said haltingly. “The moon is down. I had lost track of the time in
the cave, I suppose.”

       There was a dry hiss, and Aziz edged around
the screening shrubbery, a warning in his eyes. He pointed off down the long
slope of the ridge, his arm extending to the shadowed valley below. Jabr exchanged
words with him and turned to Paul.

       “Riders,” he whispered. “We must go back
inside.”

       Paul suddenly felt a low vibration in the
distance, a quiet rumble growing with each passing moment. He had never heard
anything like it—except in the movies. Then he caught sight of something below,
a glimmer of light in the distance that became more pronounced with each
passing moment. “Look there,” he pointed, seeing a long winding ribbon of
glowing light below, a river of torchlight snaking its way into the valley. The
sound grew louder and louder, and Aziz crouched low.

      
Jabr took
Paul’s arm, somewhat protectively, but his own curiosity had gotten the better
of his caution, and he too stared at the ever-broadening stream of liquid
torchlight flowing over the purple veiled landforms below.

       “Taki ad Din,” he whispered. “He comes from
the north where he has vied with Joscelin in Edessa and Aleppo. He comes
heeding the call of his master, Salah ad Din. And with him come the pride of
our horsemen, twenty thousand strong, veteran Faris cavalry. Listen to the
fierce beat of their hooves upon the ground! I’m afraid the Sultan’s wrath will
soon fall upon all these lands, Do-Rahlan. Taki ad Din is a stern master, cold
and furious in battle. War is coming to greet the quiet dawn. War and the
thunder of change.”

       Paul gaped at the spectacle below. If there
had been any last shred of doubt in his mind about the circumstances of his
fate, it was quickly crushed under the thrumming beat of those riders. On and
on they came, filling the valley below. Aziz and Jabr had lost their fear and
crept down a ways to the lee of a stark outcropping of rock, elated at the
sight of the vast horde below. Now Paul could hear the chink and rattle of
metal and the muted twist of leather saddles. He started toward the others, but
his foot stumbled on a shadowy rock and he fell, tumbling down the hillside for
some twenty feet.

       His fall was broken by a stand of heavy
shrubbery, and he righted himself, hoping the riders below had not taken
notice. He rubbed his left arm, where a stone had bruised him as he slid down
the slope, but otherwise he was safe and unharmed.  As he struggled up, he
suddenly heard a low growl behind him that raised his hackles with a severe
chill. He turned, the fear of the unknown winning out over the primal instinct
to flee the feral sound, but now his eyes confirmed and magnified his fright
with the leering visage of a lupine creature—a gray wolf, large and fierce,
with burning red eyes. It was crouching low, as though ready to leap upon Paul
at any moment, the matted fur of its muscular shoulders and broad neck raised
with hostility, its dark lips stretched to reveal the white gleam of sharp
teeth. Paul staggered back, feeling the bloom of the animal’s scent and an
unaccountable chill. Its breath seemed
heavy with
frost,
and the low, threatening growl lowered, as though the animal was
poised in the moment of instinctual doubt, ready to leap and tear, or to bolt
away to safety. Their eyes met in that suspended moment of fear, and Paul felt
a queasy feeling shake his frame. It was almost as if…

       The wolf slavered, its growl becoming a
vicious snarl. Then, just as it seemed ready to strike, Aziz came barreling
down the slope, bright sword in hand.  Paul turned and saw that Jabr had fitted
a dark shafted arrow to a bow and was drawing a bead on the creature. He did
not know why, but something in him could not bear the death of a single living
thing because of his own foolish stumbles into the mists of time. He cried out,
raising a hand to ward Jabr off, even as Aziz reached him. The wolf gave back,
surprised by this new disturbance, and then leapt away with a powerful spring
of his lean hind legs. Paul fell backward, steadying himself on the side of the
slope. Aziz reached him, and stepped beyond, his sword held before him, he
looked at Paul, and the fear in his eyes was palpable. He moved his hand about
before him, and Paul saw how it quavered. His breath was a cold misty fog.

       “Do-Rahlan!” Jabr’s
whisper from above  was laden with urgency. Then he spoke to Aziz, and the
brawny man seemed to take hold of himself and moved. He helped Paul up and the
two of them ascended the steep slope, using the thick shrubbery for hand holds
along the way.

       “We must hide ourselves in the cave,” whispered
Jabr. “I do not think the riders below could see or hear us this far up, but
there may be scouts on the flanks of their march. Come. Are you harmed?”

       “I’m fine,” said Paul, though he was still
quite shaken by his experience.

       They sipped back through the entrance to the
cave and the relative warmth of the hidden library calmed his jangled nerves.
Paul slumped down on the carpeted floor, his breath still fast with fright and
the exertion of the climb. Jabr spoke with Aziz briefly, and then came to Paul’s
side.

       “That was very close,” he said. “Why did you
stay my hand? I could have felled the creature where it stood. My aim is very
true.”

       “I’m sorry,” Paul explained. “I wanted to
see the riders, and I lost my footing on the slope. I must have fallen upon the
creature while it hunted, and I did not think it right to kill for my mistake.”

       “It was my fault,” said Jabr. “I should have
been wiser. I trust you were not harmed? You are certain? Come, remove those
soiled robes and I will see to your wounds. We have fresh gowns here, fine
cotton. I will risk a fire in the furnace niche and boil water. There are oils
and balms in the next chamber. Then we will drink tea and eat.”

       “Coffee,” said Paul, still fighting off an
inner chill.

       “Yes, kahwa,” said Jabr. “Dark, rich kahwa
for the dawn.”

Part IX