E. Hoffmann Price's Fables of Ismeddin MEGAPACK® Read online

  And then Ismeddin began talking about the weather; nor could Farrell’s insistence make the old fellow reveal his plan.

  And thus from necessity he followed Ismeddin to the further edge of the plaza, where he laid out his first aid kit and the simple drugs he had taken from the medicine chest of the plane. Then, as the Sabeans clustered about, the old darwish proved himself a master juggler. He picked small trinkets and coins from the air, and from crevices in the paving, flinging them to the fascinated spectators; and all the while he chanted his patter:

  “The learned doctor! The healer of the sick! The mender of the broken! He sets aright whom the gods have afflicted!”

  As Farrell painted his patients with iodine, gave them powerful purgatives, and packed decayed teeth with oil of cloves, the old darwish vanished as though he himself had been palmed by a juggler. And late that afternoon, while Farrell was lancing and cauterizing a snake bite, Ismeddin was engaged in a way that would have made his chief’s eyes widen perceptibly.

  At sunset Farrell was accompanied to his quarters by three porters loaded down with gifts presented by grateful patients. Ismeddin was awaiting his return; and as he noted the display of food, trinkets, and clothing heaped on the floor, he grinned and said, “This will get you a place of honor at the ritual of sacrifice tonight.”

  “Why the hell should I attend that butchery?” growled Farrell. “Makeda told me—”

  The darwish grinned and stroked his beard.

  “Wallah! And so did the old woman, this afternoon. For reasons best known yourself, Makeda is not eligible to die on the altar. But you miss the point. You must attend the ceremonies. You are chief of the party, and your absence would not only be discourteous, but would arouse suspicion.

  “In the meanwhile, I will be arranging things. Perhaps I can get Makeda out of her cell while everyone’s attention is occupied with the orgy at the temple.”

  “Nothing doing!” snapped Farrell. “I’m going with you.”

  But the darwish shook his head.

  “Better do as I say. I can work more quietly alone. Take your pistols with you, so if that blood drunken crowd should get wild, you can hold your own. And don’t forget to wear a scimitar. But keep your head, and on your life, don’t interfere with the butchery—it is none of your affair.

  “And you, my lord bimbashi,” he concluded, turning to d’Artois, “be ready to leave in a hurry.”

  So saying, Ismeddin stalked to the archway, and vanished in the shadows before Farrell could detain him.

  “I smell trouble,” muttered Farrell. “I don’t like this being split up.”

  He grasped d’Artois’ hand, then strode to the plaza.

  The savage drums were rumbling, and as he walked up the broad avenue toward the ziggurat, the shivering clang of brazen gongs chilled Farrell’s blood. He scarcely felt the paving beneath his feet. He shuddered at the thought of being forced to witness a repetition of the past night’s savagery; and then his pulse raced maddeningly as he remembered Makeda’s loveliness shrouded only by her twining black hair. If his presence would lull suspicion, and give Ismeddin a free hand in liberating Makeda from the priests who were going to keep her as a temple slave, Farrell could swallow his qualms.

  He descended the broad stairs and found the terrace ablaze with smoking torches. He saluted the Amir who sat at the right, surrounded by his guard. Then Farrell worked his way to the front of the group at the left, close to the curtains of the shrine. As he waited for the parting of the veil, he glanced about, and up to the second stage of the terraced tower. There he saw a vague, whitish splotch in the darkness; and as he wondered at that lurking figure, it vanished behind the parapet that guarded the dizzy drop to the lower terrace. That shrouded shape might be Ismeddin, still seeking Makeda. Then the pipes and stringed instruments tore Farrell’s nerves to shreds. He steeled himself to endure the impending orgy.

  A warning clang of bronze told Farrell that the curtains of the shrine would part; and despite himself, his gaze was drawn to the altar. As before, a girl sat on the sacrificial block: nude, save for the jeweled girdle, arms crossed on her breast, and her head inclined. She awaited doom in drugged tranquility, and the tall priest stood by to receive the fatal knife from the hands of the acolyte who was whetting it with deliberate, ceremonial gestures.

  The chanting ceased. The silence was broken only by a restless stirring, and the gasp of sharply drawn breath. Farrell’s blood froze in his veins, and horror paralyzed him. It was Makeda who was awaiting the knife. Makeda, whose sultry kisses still tingled on his lips. Makeda, whose amorous frenzy had left his throat scarred and bruised. She had failed to save herself from the altar. Someone had misled Ismeddin.

  “God…” he muttered. The paving beneath his feet seemed to surge and billow, and his brain had become a blazing frenzy of blind despair. The knife was ready, gleaming in the high priest’s hand.

  Like the blood drunken Sabeans, Farrell’s eyes stared in fascination at the glistening steel. The priest’s sonorous voice rolled like the rumble of doom. Yet none knew whose doom it foretold; not even Farrell, for though he moved with panther swiftness, it was as in a hideous, incredible dream.

  As the great gong thundered, Farrell’s revolver cleared its holster. The brazen clang muffled the blast of the .45. The priest pitched backward in a heap beside the altar; and for a frozen instant no one but Farrell moved. The hypnotic spell of the interrupted blood ritual was not broken until the bewildered participants saw him bound forward, revolver in hand.

  The priests fled before Farrell’s insane charge; but the amazed Sabeans sensed his purpose. They surged forward in a yelling, steel armed wave.

  Farrell whirled at the altar. For a moment the deadly chatter of his revolvers held the blood maddened mob at bay. They recoiled, riddled by the murderous hail of lead. And then the hammers clicked on empty chambers.

  All in a crowded instant. Then he seized the drugged beauty and bounded forward, his ceremonial scimitar flashing in whistling arcs as the first of the mob closed in. Steel struck sparks from steel, and Farrell’s blade dripped red; but as he cleared the threshold of the shrine, a crescent of swords had him hemmed in. Encumbered by his lovely burden, Farrell had not been able to move fast enough to reach the stairs before his retreat was cut off. He backed into an angle to make his final stand. They saw no need for haste; and they knew the peril of crowding a man who had no chance. He would kill a dozen of them before they overwhelmed him, and no one wanted to be first.

  An angry voice from the rear urged them forward, but the charge was checked before it started. Something dropped from the parapet overhead, and burst into searing, blue white radiance that overwhelmed the wan torchlight, and dazzled the eyes that were fixed on Farrell.

  The distraction was no more than momentary; but in the face of a hedge of swords, that moment seemed a lifetime. Though blinded by that blistering glare, Farrell had the advantage. Slashing blindly, he bounded along the balustrade and to the head of the stairs. He knew that the choking, dense white fumes enveloped the mob and would for another instant screen his flight. And as he took the stairs three at a leap, he knew what had given him his chance: a landing flare Ismeddin had taken from the plane.

  Savage yells and deep voiced commands roared behind him; steel clanged, and the brazen gong thundered to urge the Sabeans to the pursuit as their eyes recovered from the incandescent blaze; but Farrell, as he dashed down the avenue, heard the drumming of the motors, and knew d’Artois was warming up. Farrell was now tearing across the plaza. He heard the clatter of hoofs, the roar of jezails and flint lock pistols, and the whistle of lead.

  One final effort. The horsemen were on his heels. Farrell tossed his burden ahead of him and plunged headlong into the cabin after her. And then the roar of the motors drowned the clamor. The plane rushed headlong across the great square and s
traight at the dizzily towering walls. Then it zoomed upward at a ruinous angle; but the powerful engines made it, and in another moment, d’Artois flattened out.

  “Holy smoke!” sighed Farrell. And then, raising his voice: “Ismeddin! Break out some brandy.”

  But Ismeddin had stepped into the pilot’s compartment. Farrell turned toward the girl he had stolen from the sacrificial altar. She was still unconscious, and beautiful as a sleeping goddess, despite the blood that had dripped on her slender body from a dozen grazing cuts which seamed Farrell’s head and ribs.

  And then Farrell’s blood froze. He now saw what he had not noted in the hell glare of smoking torches: it was not Makeda he had carried through a wall of blades.

  “Good God!” he muttered. There was no more than a mocking similarity. He swept aside the long strand of dark hair that curled over her shoulder and caressed her left breast. He knew then that she could not be Makeda, for there was no star shaped mole on the magnolia blossom perfection.

  It was too late to return. Triumph was bitter as the dust and blood on his lips. The girl on the lounge was stirring. The effect of the drug was wearing off. She sat up and regarded him with wonder widened, dark eyes…

  Farrell heard a click behind him. And for the second time within a few moments he stood dazed and gaping. A smiling girl stood framed in the doorway that opened into the pilot’s compartment, and behind her was white-bearded Ismeddin.

  “Well, for the love of Mike!” Farrell finally blurted out. “How—why—what the devil—”

  The girl was Makeda—Makeda as she had been that mad, amorous hour in that sombre vault, except that the splendor of her body smiled warmly through a gown of transparent gauze.

  Her arms closed about Farrell, and her lips stopped his queries. Finally she said, “Forgive me. But I had to do it. It was my cousin who was to die on the altar tonight. We resemble each other, and I didn’t think you’d notice the difference by night. So I put on those chains and sent for you—to—well, give you a reason for saving me—I mean, her.”

  “You mean you slipped into the plane while I was being damn near chopped to little pieces—for a total stranger?”

  Makeda smiled and shrugged. “I’m awfully fond of my cousin. And that old fellow said you could raise the dead, so I knew that saving her would be simple enough…”

  “Billahi!” interposed Ismeddin, “I didn’t know that until the old slave woman told me, the last minute. And I thought the flare would be better than—”

  “It was. And now you and Makeda’s cousin go forward and talk to Pierre. And break out something or other she can use to cover the points of interest. I don’t want Pierre to get eye strain and crack us up in the middle of this desert.

  “Now, get the hell out, the both of you. I’m going to be busy studying astronomy for some time to come.”

  “Astronomy?” wondered the old Arab as he wrapped a blanket around Makeda’s cousin. Then he winked, grinned, and added, “Sidi, that’s a new name for—”

  “Get out or I’ll break your head!” threatened Farrell as he snapped out the cabin lights. “I was referring to a star-shaped mole, which is something you’d not understand.”

  And then Makeda’s arms closed about Farrell and her questing lips sought his in the darkness.

  “And so you did notice that mole?” she finally murmured, as she sighed contentedly and untwined her arms. “I was rather worried…you see, I thought you’d be terribly angry, and I just dreaded coming in here to face you…but I was afraid you might make a perfectly terrible mistake—she looks so much like me…”

  A JEST AND A VENGEANCE

  Originally published in Far Lands and Other Days (1975).

  A bullet flattened itself against the chiseled arabesques of the wall behind Sultan Schamas ad Din of Angor-lana, spattering him with bits of lead and splinters of marble.

  “Maksoud is a notoriously wretched marksman,” observed the sultan as he fingered the leaden slug which Amru, his white-haired wazir, had retrieved from the tiled floor. “Still, with enough trials—”

  The sultan thrust his cushions a sword’s length to the right, and moved just far enough to be secure against further rifle fire from the minaret of the neighboring mosque.

  “With enough trials,” resumed Schamas ad Din, “Maksoud may not have to wait for the British Resident to find a pretext to depose me.”

  “It might not have been the son of your brother,” suggested Amru, as he moved the fuming nargileh to the sultan’s new position, and offered him the carved jade stem. “There are several who have old grudges to settle.”

  “Undoubtedly,” agreed the sultan. “But who else would fire from the mosque? And then miss such an easy mark!”

  From afar came the throbbing of drums that muttered of revolt in the mountains.

  “Rebels without and assassins within! A luxurious little coffin, this city which the Old Tiger and I built with our swords. Then with this infidel Resident, and Maksoud, who can’t wait for me to be deposed—”

  The sultan coiled the tube of the nargileh about his wrist and drank deeply of its white smoke. Then he achieved the smile he reserved for occasions demanding the higher justice.

  “By Allah and by Abaddon and by the honor of my beard! Resident or no Resident, we will convince this Maksoud of his stupidity! Amru, call me that old bandit of an Ismeddin!”

  “At once, saidi?” queried the old wazir, as he bowed.

  “No. Tonight. He’s doubtless asleep now, after a hard evening’s discussion with some poorly guarded caravan.”

  * * * *

  The drumming in the mountains at last ceased. But late that night, long after the outposts at Djeb el Azhár had been doubled, there came another and a different drumming, this time from the palace itself: very low, giving rather the sense of a massive vibration rather than of sound. And this deep pulsing was picked up and relayed until it crept into those very mountains where the tribesmen sharpened their curved yataghans, stuffed their scarlet saddle-bags with grain, and awaited the signal to descend and plunder, certain that they would not be pursued beyond the Sultan’s borders, and safe in the assurance that the Resident was but waiting for a pretext to depose Schamas ad Din.

  To one who lived in those mountains, and understood the code, the deep-voiced, far-relayed drum spoke very clearly; so that, late as it was, Ismeddin emerged from his cave, belted on a jeweled scimitar that gleamed frostily against his tattered, greasy garments, and picked his way on foot along the hidden trails that led through the camps of the revolting tribesmen and to the plains below.

  The darvish had heard the signal, and knew that the son of the Old Tiger was in need.

  Ismeddin smiled as he heard the guttural chant of the rebels about their guard fires. But as he approached their outposts, he picked his way more warily, ceased smiling, muttered in his long beard something about the exceeding unfairness of having to contend with mounted sentries, and loosened the Ladder to Heaven in its scabbard…

  * * * *

  Since the flat roof of the palace at Angor-lana was higher than any building in the city, the sultan was passably secure against marksmen addicted to royal targets, particularly in view of his being in an angle of the parapet that could not be reached from the minaret of the mosque. And thus it was that he reclined at ease in the shadow of a striped canopy, sipping Shirazi wine to his heart’s content and his soul’s damnation.

  But peace and sultans are strangers. A captain of the guard clanked into the Presence, saluted, and made his report: “Saidi, the troops at Djeb el Azhár surprised and captured a detachment of the rebels. A ragged old man riding a stolen horse led the outpost commander—”

  “Ismeddin, by the Power and by the Splendor!” interrupted the sultan. “Where are the prisoners? And Ismeddin?”

  “In the hall
of audience, saidi. Abdurrahman Khan, his son, and sixty of their followers.”

  “Very good, Ismail,” exulted the sultan. “We will pass sentence at once. Announce me to the court.”

  The older lords of the court, stout, white-haired ruffians, companions of the Old Tiger, knew well what the Old Tiger’s son contemplated when he appeared in the hall of audience. And the younger lords knew the tradition, and beamed in anticipation of old glories revived.

  Each of the two chief executioners had three assistants, standing a pace to the left and three paces to the rear; and all were fingering the hilts of their two-handed swords.

  There would be notable dismemberments, and a surprising scarcity of rebels long before evening prayer. As for Abdurrahman Khan—

  * * * *

  Old Ismeddin, ragged and grimy among the glittering captains, smiled as he thought of an ancient score.

  And then the Resident appeared to take his customary station at the left of the throne. He whispered in the sultan’s ear; but not even the fan-bearers behind the throne could hear what he said.

  The captains exulted at the great rage that flamed in the sultan’s eyes as he rose from the dais. But the captains gaped stupidly when the sultan spoke.

  “Take these sons of flat-nosed mothers back to their cells. I will deal with them later.”

  The court dispersed.

  The lords and ministers escorted the sultan to his apartments. The brazen doors closed softly behind him, so that they did not see him hurl his turban to the floor, did not hear his scimitar clang against the tiles, rebound, and clatter into a corner. Nor did they hear the Resident, materialized at the height of the storm, expostulate: “But, your Majesty, you may have them hanged, you know—have all of them hanged, in public—roll of drums and all that. But one simply can’t have these dismemberings and impalings, you know. Barbarous, and uncivilized, and all that.”