The Tower of Fear (22 page)

Azel whispered, “I’m going to take off the hood and show you your kid. You don’t do nothing. You don’t say nothing. You don’t turn around. You got that?”

The man nodded.

Azel removed the sack.

The man stiffened, took in a quick breath, restrained himself otherwise. Azel let him look as long as he wanted, till he nodded his head again to say he had seen enough. Then he replaced the sack, backed him out of the room.

Torgo closed the door. He whispered, “I woke her up. She wants to see you. I’ll take care of him till you get back.” Even in a whisper there was a hint of gloating.

“Good. I have a word for her, too. Where?”

“The altar.”

Amused, Azel left the traitor to Torgo and went to see the Witch.

He found her standing by what remained of her husband. Her face glowed with a mad determination. It illuminated and made strange her beauty. But it did nothing to conceal the fatigue that weighted her down.

“I’m here, lady.” No need to put her on the defensive. The news about Sadat Agmed was all the leverage he needed.

She turned, not removing her hand from the cold flesh of her husband. “Torgo tells me your General has threatened me.”

“Not my General, lady. I’m just a bridge between you and him.”

“By what right does he…?”

“By the right of good sense, first. Your haste has started to attract attention. And by the more primitive right of strength. We can’t operate out there without his blessing.”

“We shall see about that. Are you with me, Azel? Or have you truly deserted me?”

“I’m with you always, lady. Always. But I won’t screw everything up by getting in too big a hurry.”

“Damn you! You’ll do what I tell you…”

“Lady! Sadat Agmed was killed today.”

She looked at him hard. The color faded from her face. “How do you know that name?”

“I make it my business to know things. It’s how I stay alive.”

She stared for a moment, becoming just a tired woman as she did. “Tell me about it.”

“He tried to take a kid in the Astan. He blew it. A mob got after him. He couldn’t outrun them. They cornered him and beat him to death. Tomorrow the news will be all over Qushmarrah. It’ll be ten times as hard to grab a kid.”

The Witch sighed.

Time to drive it home. “I was in Char Street today, making arrangements about the traitor and trying to get the General to ease up on you. When I was leaving I was recognized by the Dartars I ran into the other day. I was luckier than Agmed, but a lot of people got a good look at me.”

The Witch sighed again. “I guess you win, Azel. If the Fates will a thing, nothing we do will change it. Tell the General I’ll do his boy next. Pick him up tomorrow night.” She patted her dead husband the way a mother patted a colicky baby.

Azel bowed. “Thank you, lady.” He backed out and returned to his charge, not convinced that he had been granted a triumph. “Come,” he said, and led the traitor away.

He decided to take the man home through the maze. Less likely to be seen by anybody that mattered.

He was ten steps in when he realized they were not alone in the darkness. His nose warned him, catching a hint of camel and horse. He stopped, turned his charge, whispered, “We just walked into an ambush. When I take the hood off, you run like hell. Straight home. I’ll hold them off.” He lifted the sack and gave the man a shove.

The traitor ran.

The Dartars began to move.

Azel squeezed his eyes shut, placed a hand over them, faced away from the ambushers, threw a packet of flash.

They screamed.

He drew his knife and went after them.

As he stalked the last of the three he heard shouts from others approaching. He finished it, got the hell out, and headed for Muma’s.

If they got in his way one more time, some night when he wasn’t exhausted he was going to go in there and show them how to run the maze. They’d be picking up pieces of camel jockey for a week.

*   *   *

The night was still and the fire was banked. The children were snoring and the women were sound asleep. But Aaron was not. Each time he started to slip off, something brought him back.

He was conscious of the warmth of Laella beside him. That kept his filthy mind straying across to Mish … For a while he thought it was the ferocious guilt from thinking the unthinkable. That carried a speck of the blame, but only a speck. The main culprit was that business in the street, that reminder that the horror was out there still, waiting to pounce. He did not want to go to sleep because the nightmares were waiting on the other side.

He did not at first recognize the sound for what it was, someone tapping at the door. Then, more puzzled than frightened, he went and peeked.

“Reyha? What in the world?”

“I have to talk to Laella. I don’t have anyone else.”

“Come in.” Aaron opened up let her slip inside. He peered into the foggy street. “Where’s Naszif?” He could not imagine a woman—especially timid Reyha—hazarding the Shu’s night streets alone.

“Wake Laella. Please? I’ll tell it all at once.”

“I’m awake,” Laella said, sitting up.

Aaron saw the stir had wakened Raheb, too, though she was pretending otherwise. He said, “Sshh!” and followed Laella to the hearth. They settled there. Aaron began stirring and feeding the coals, building up a small fire for the comfort. Reyha seemed troubled.

She said, “I don’t know how to say this. It’s so new to me. And so dangerous. But I have to talk to somebody. Promise me you won’t say anything to anybody, ever. Please? Laella? Aaron?”

Laella nodded. “Of course.”

Troubled, Aaron did not respond. He liked Reyha a good deal, but …

“Aaron?”

Laella gave him a look. “I’m sorry, Reyha. My mind wandered. Sure. Of course. But where’s Naszif?”

“The kidnappers. They took him somewhere to show him they have Zouki. To make him do what they want.”

“But…”

“I have to get home before they bring Naszif back. So let me tell it first. All right?”

“Of course we will,” Laella told her.

“Sometimes I suspected but I never really believed it till he told me. Naszif is part of the Living. Very high up. They just promoted him to where he’s the third or fourth highest man in the Shu. But he’s in the Herodian army, too. They let him join right after the conquest. He’s a colonel and he’s been spying on the Living.”

“He told you all this?” Aaron asked.

“Keep your voice down,” Laella cautioned. “You’ll wake the children.”

“Yes. He did. This morning. He broke oaths to do it. But he said he had to tell me because of Zouki. He said the Living found out he was a Herodian and they took Zouki so they could make him do what they want, which is lie to General Cado and spy on the Herodians.”

Aaron thought she was awfully calm about the whole thing. But Reyha was a sort of passive person, accepting of things that were beyond her control. He grunted. Laella said, “Why are you taking a chance, telling us? Aaron and I have no reason to love the Herodians.”

“I’m too confused about my feelings. I need somebody to help me think.”

Nobody said anything. Aaron could feel Reyha’s pain. Nothing he could say would change that.

She finally observed, “You don’t seem very surprised.”

Laella rested her hand on Aaron’s. “We suspected for a long time. Naszif did strange things sometimes.”

“Oh.”

“What do you want, Reyha?” Laella asked.

“I don’t
know!
Except I want my baby back. If we had Zouki, Naszif says the Herodians would send us somewhere where we’d be safe and he wouldn’t have to spy on people anymore.”

Aaron wondered if they’d do that, really. Maybe. The tie that bound the Herodian empire together was its strange and bitter religion. If Naszif had adopted that, they might consider him one of their “confederates,” with a citizenship only slightly more restricted than that of native-born Herodians.

He said, “I don’t know how we could help, Reyha. Anything we did would put us in the middle between the Herodians and the Living. I won’t speak for Laella, but I’d just as soon not have anything to do with any of them. I have my own family to worry about.”

Laella said, “Aaron!”

“I don’t know what you could do. I just wanted Laella to know because she always stays calm, no matter what, and I get rattlebrained, so maybe she could think of something when I couldn’t. I wouldn’t ever ask you to do something that would get you in trouble.”

Laella told her, “We’ll do whatever we can to help you, Reyha. You know that.”

“Thank you. I’d better run home. Before Naszif gets back. He’d be very angry if he knew I told you anything.”

“He won’t know,” Laella said. “Aaron, you’d better walk with her.”

Aaron sighed. “Yes. I suppose I’d better.”

Reyha had little to say during the walk. She had exhausted her reserves of courage and talk. When he got back home, Laella said, “Well? Something got to you while she was telling us. What was it?”

“Zouki was kidnapped before they found out about Naszif. So that couldn’t be why he was grabbed. And bel-Sidek promised me the Living didn’t have anything to do with it. Even Naszif didn’t believe the Living would be involved in child-stealing. So how come all of a sudden they tell him they’ve got Zouki when they want to twist his arm?”

“Maybe they lied.”

“But they’re taking him to see Zouki.”

“Don’t bark at me, Aaron. I don’t know who’s doing what to whom, or why. I’m not sure I care. Reyha and Zouki are what I care about. Do you understand?”

“Yes. There’s no point fussing about it till we find out what they showed Naszif or did to him. I guess.”

“What if he doesn’t come home, Aaron?”

“Huh?”

“What if they … they did something with him: What would Reyha do?”

“We’re getting ahead of things. When Reyha needs help—
if
she needs it—we’ll do whatever we can. So let’s not get fussed. Let’s get back to bed. I have to work tomorrow.”

*   *   *

Naszif burst out of the mouth of the Shu maze, turned left, lengthened his stride, ran all the way to the side door of Government House. He gave the password and his emergency code. To his amazement he was in to see Colonel Bruda before he got his wind back.

“What is it?” Bruda asked, knowing it would be dramatic if it had to be done this way.

“They’ve found me out. I can’t take more than a few minutes or they’ll know I came here. They’re trying to force me to work against you.”

“Damn!” Bruda punched the wall. “Just when we were getting close to them.” He kissed a skinned knuckle. “You want us to take you out? I can send troops to get your wife.”

“No. They have my son. He’s their leverage. I’m going to stay in till I can get him out, too. And meanwhile try to learn enough to gut them. I just wanted you to know they’re using me now. Whatever you hear from me will be what they want you to hear. I have to go. I don’t want them to suspect I’ve slipped the leash. Tell the General.”

“You’ve got more guts than I do. You find out where they’re holding your son, let us know. We’ll hit them and get him out. Then send you out of town.”

Naszif nodded. “I will.” He went downstairs, out the side door, and ran all the way home, where he found a shivering Reyha waiting in his bed.

“Did you see him, Naszif?”

“Yes.”

“How was he? Was he all right?”

“He was clean and well dressed and looked well fed. He seemed healthy. They wouldn’t let me talk to him. He didn’t know I was there. He’s all right except for being scared.”

“What are we going to do, Naszif?”

“We’re going to do whatever they tell us to do. For now.”

*   *   *

The Witch waited only till Torgo told her that Azel and his companion had cleared the Postern of Fate. She told the eunuch, “I’m going to go have an unfriendly chat with our ally, General bel-Karba.”

“My lady, I don’t think…”

“That’s right, Torgo. You don’t. Because I don’t want you to. You understand?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“I won’t be gone long. Get that child ready. I’ll do him when I get back.”

“But…”

“I’m strong enough, Torgo. I don’t need to rest. Get on with your business and let me get on with mine.”

She watched the eunuch depart, then gathered her skirts and headed for the Postern of Fate.

She had not been out into the city since the conquest. It seemed little changed, except that the night was more quiet. The Herodians had stilled the rowdy darknesses that had stemmed from the citadel and the mouth of Gorloch.

She slipped out of the naked openness of the acropolis and headed down Char Street, into the inevitable night fog. She made no more sound than the fog itself, and felt no more fear. There was nothing in Qushmarrah more dangerous than its Witch.

She came to the General’s door. She paused. She sensed only the one enfeebled spirit within. The door was not barred.

Only someone supremely confident of his power would lie sleeping behind an unbarred door in the Shu.

She invited herself inside.

“Hadribel? Are you back already?”

A light sleeper. She stepped into the room where he lay. “No, General. Not Hadribel. Someone you don’t want to see at all. Someone who did not want to come see you. But someone sufficiently tired of your lapses in regard to recognition of who is ruler and who is ruled that she felt compelled to come make the point clear.”

The General met her gaze without flinching. He grunted. That grunt seemed to call her a damn fool woman.

“You had your creature Azel threaten me.”

He looked at her a moment, then snorted. “My creature? Azel? Azel is nobody’s creature but his own. He carried my message, yes, and it doesn’t seem to have gotten garbled. He did his job. But if he were to surrender to his prejudices I suspect there’s only one person who could touch his heart. That person is here and it isn’t me, woman.”

“You dared to presume to control me, General.”

“I have a duty to Qushmarrah and my lord Nakar. Your obsessive behavior imperils the recovery of both. Go back to the citadel, woman. Examine the children already in your power and leave the city alone. If you press it too much it will turn on us all. None of us will get what we want.”