Casca 13: The Assassin (9 page)

In the year 1095 (by the Frankish reckoning) two groups of pilgrims were approaching each other at a certain oasis in Persia. One group was Christian, pilgrims on their way to the holy city of Jerusalem. The other group was Muslim, pilgrims on their way to the holy city of Mecca. Both had armed protectors, though the size of the guard of either was not apparent to the other. Consequently they viewed each other as harmless and peaceful religious folk on a pilgrimage.

Therefore, as they approached the oasis, each signaled their peaceful intentions to the other.

In actuality each had concealed three-fourths of its soldiers and was planning to do the other in, this oasis being too remote for anybody to interfere. It never occurred to the leaders of either that the other side might be planning the same thing they were. So both groups proceeded peacefully toward each other.

It wasn't much of an oasis, but adequate as oases go. It was larger than usual, that is, except for the water. Actually, it covered quite a bit of ground, and there were some fairly large-size trees, but these were in rising ground at least five hundred feet away from the spring. In truth it was a shallow pool of fairly stagnant water surrounded by a very much larger expanse of mud. The underbrush did not really start to get very thick until two or three hundred feet from the pool, and then it shaded rapidly up into heavier growth that completely concealed what might be in the grove of trees on the rising ground.
Odd. One would expect the big trees to be where most of the water was.

The two groups of pilgrims paid no attention, however, to this odd geological fact. Nor did they notice that there was a thin, almost invisible, spiral of blue
-gray smoke coming from the area of the densest tree cover. (There was also a rather odd odor – definitely not jasmine – emanating from this same area, but considering how they themselves smelled, it was not to be expected that this would come to the pilgrims' attention.) Neither group was close enough to see that the surface of the muddy pool was being periodically disturbed by some force beneath it.

So neither group was prepared for what happened when they were almost within charging distance of each other. The pool blew up. The small muddy pool suddenly shot a plume of water high up into the air, high as the mosque at Isfahan, and then almost immediately afterward exploded upward into a great blooming mass of water, mud, and rock, roaring like a lion whose testicles have been caught in thorns.

Before the exploding material had a chance to land on the hapless men of God, from straight out of the ground where the middle of the pool had been and where now there was a huge, spurting fountain of crystal clear water, shot a man – a very dirty, muddy one in ragged clothes that had almost rotted off – a man so filthy that even the clear water propelling him upward could not cleanse him.

There was one other thing about him.
He was as mad as hell.

When he opened his mouth, the roar that came out of it seemed to the startled pilgrims to be ten times louder than the roar of the waterquake.

Instantly the coming battle was forgotten by both sets of pilgrims. They turned and fled, believing that Casca's roaring body was some sort of bad omen from their respective gods. One fearful monk was in such a rush to be gone from this place of horror that he took off on foot, leaving his bewildered ass behind.

Soon there was little evidence that the pilgrims had even been to this watering hole.
The spring – and Casca – stopped roaring.

Silence.

Casca's eyes had been in total darkness for several years. So at first all he saw was light, lots and lots of very wonderful light. When his eyes eventually did focus the first thing he saw was the ass the terrified monk had left behind.

Casca grunted. "Fellow, I come out of a hole in the ground, and the first thing I see is an ass." His voice didn't work right. Roaring had been one thing; this trying to say words was another. But the ass didn't seem to mind. He brayed.
Then lifted his nose to sniff.

Casca grinned. "Yeah, fellow, I guess I do smell kinda strong." By now his eyes were working fine.
He looked around him.

He was standing knee-deep in what was apparently the shallow end of a very large pool of clear, bubbling water. At the other end of the pool there was quite a flow of water over a rocky ledge, a miniature waterfall more than a cubit high. The run
-off formed a fast flowing stream, glistening in the sunlight. It had already begun to cut a channel in the dry soil. All around was evidence of the explosion of water and dammed up pressure that had brought Casca into the air once he had pierced the underground dam that held back the qanat, Casca saw all this, saw also how the green vegetation grew up toward the rise where the trees were.
The green ... the trees ... they show where I was
, he thought, a sense of wonder in his brain.

The ass brayed again.

"All right, fellow." Casca began to strip off the rotted remnants of the clothes he had been wearing when he was thrown into the Bottomless Pit. As he did so he noticed the material that littered the ground on the trail to and from the oasis.
Whoever I frightened away when I came out of the ground must have been in a hell of a hurry.
He even retrieved a vial of scented oil some dandy had lost. Naked, he walked to the miniature waterfall and scrubbed himself thoroughly.

He was not yet ready to step into any deep water... not
for a while anyway.

The warm sun felt good, and Casca felt good. When he finished washing he rubbed himself down with the perfumed oil and came back to the ass
who had now moved a step or two but was still stubbornly holding the territory.

"How do I smell now, fellow?"

Now he needed clothing. But, despite all the litter on the ground, there wasn't any. The ass, though, had a pack on its back, and the animal made no move to shy away when Casca went for the pack.

The pack held clothes.
Brand-new, clean clothes. But the clothes were for a fat monk – a black robe and a cowl. It was the habit of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem.

Like Friar Dilorenzi.

No problem, though. Casca felt too good to worry about the past. He held up the robe to the sunlight.
Never thought I'd make it to the Church. Guess they must be taking all kinds nowadays.

He didn't really relish wearing the hot robe, not right now anyway. The sun felt too good on his naked flesh. He pawed around in the pack and found a brand new loin cloth which he put on. Standing in the sunlight he flexed his muscles. He felt young. Too bad he was alone...

Suddenly he had the feeling eyes were watching him, and he whipped around, looking toward the underbrush and the trees beyond. He saw the thin sliver of smoke in the greenery; then he smelled the odd odor. He shaded his eyes from the sun and finally saw two men in the near cover.

They came out then, two happy drunks
– an imposing-looking noble with slightly-graying temples and wearing rich robes, and a young man whom Casca recognized. The drunk young Arab from the Cafe of the Infidels. The one with the powerful "wine." Only he was several years older now.

Casca waited.

"Ah, Kasim..." the young man was just drunk enough to be happy, still sober enough for his eyes to glitter in amusement. "In the Name of the Prophet I ask you, 'Dost thou always reside in muddy springs?'"

Casca grunted. The ass brayed.

The older man was obviously much drunker than the younger one. He looked at Casca, struck a pose as though he was declaiming – or rather as though he was satirizing the look of someone declaiming – and began to recite poetry: "'Come fill the cup, and in the fire of spring.

"Your winter garme
nt of repentance fling.' Ah... I see your winter garment, friend. But where is thine cup? Tis not possible to fill thy cup if thou hast no cup."

Casca grinned at the young Arab. "How do you put up with him?"

"He's my father. Here, Kasim, thou must meet him. Father, the semi-naked savage before thine eyes is Kasim al Jirad, the one who saved my ass from the Rh'shan. Kasim, my father, the one and only Court Poet and the Court Astronomer of Persia, Omar. Or, as he preferreth thou callest him, Omar Khayyam, Omar the Tentmaker."

"He's your father?"

"I am a bastard, Kasim. Nevertheless he is my father."

The older man was not as drunk as he had seemed. There was amusement in his glittering brown eyes and maybe just a slight cynical glow. But his voice was affectionate, and the hand he put on the young man's shoulder was gentle.
"The young man is a genius, sir. An alchemical genius." He tilted his head up and back toward the trees and wrinkled his nose. "Dost thou smell the paradisiacal odor which cometh from the alembic?"

Ah
... !

Later
, much later, the world looked even better to Casca. His belly was full of the roast whatever-it-was – maybe goat, but what the hell – that the young Arab had been cooking over slow coals back under the trees, and in his hands he held a big handleless mug of the young Arab's "improved wine."

The older man really was Omar Khayyam, Court Astronomer and Court Poet of Persia. Why was he out here at what had been up to this time a very insignificant oasis?

''Well, Kasim, thou knowest of course that the Prophet forbiddeth the fruit of the vine short of Paradise.

“
Well, now if I choose to consider that the Prophet might have spoken poetically here – and who better than I to consider the Prophet a poet? – why, those of a more orthodox view of the matter might have my head. That is, if I shouldst exercise such interpretation of mine own devising of the Holy Writings in Baghdad, or Nishapur, or Babylon. But if I shouldst indeed journey into the wilderness to seek the solitude under the stars and thereby perform my duties as Court Astronomer to whomever might be the ruler of Persia at the time, then all will be satisfied. And incidentally while I am alone or with some boon companion such as mine own son, bastard though he might be, or you, sir, I can exercise my particular views of what might be the will of Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate- and surely the understander of the blessings of the fruit of the vine, since He hath so graciously promised its said blessings in the glorious environs of Paradise – Ah...! I do wonder what wast I had to say..."

Casea grinned. "Old man, thou art a hypocrite."

The gleam came back into Omar Khayyam's brown eyes, and he quoted: ''I am myself with yesterday's seven thousand years."

"All right.
I get the picture."

"Besides, O savage Kasim," the young Arab added, "it would not be wise to run wine through the alembic in the heart of Baghdad. One mayest expect that even there where the odors are many the, ah, perfume of the alembic would attract attention."

"So you come out here where you'll be alone to improve your wine and do your drinking?"

"A crude way to put it, sir, a crude way
,” The more Khayyam talked the more sober he seemed to get. "But thou hast put a small handle on the vessel of truth.”

Truth.
Something in Casca's mind took him back in time... back to a courtroom scene... Pilate, fat Pilate the Roman judge... What is truth? the cynical Pilate had said. The cynicism in Omar Khayyam's eyes was gentler, more civilized... laced with a friendly merriment.

"What is truth?" Casca asked him.

This time it was Omar Khayyam who grinned and then quoted gleefully: "'Myself when young did eagerly frequent

"'Doctor and saint and heard much argument

'" About it and about that, but evermore

"'Came out by the same door by which in I went.
”

The young Arab passed the "wine" again.
All in all a very pleasant way to be welcomed back to the world of the living. Casca found he liked the worldly-wise and civilized "Tentmaker." He was, indeed, an excellent drinking companion. And at night, when he showed Casca the stars in the clear skies of Persia, he was obviously a very good astronomer. Much of what he had to say was beyond Casca's understanding – and not much use to the scar-faced one, either. When would he need to recognize Algol and Deneb and Betelgeuse?

The shooting stars, though
–

That first night not just one, but three bloomed briefly in the night sky at the same time, and Omar Khayyam laughed at Casca's excitement.
"Not unusual at all. In fact, sometime this month there may even be a "shower' of them."

"What are they?"

"Ah!... Well, those that hit the earth–"

"Hit the earth?"

"Yes. I have never seen one myself, nor known anyone who has, but the ancient writings speak of a few men who have seen these flame across the sky and land – and where they landed there would be a glowing hot stone no larger than a grape."

"Anybody
ever been hit by one of these?"

Omar K
hayyam laughed. "There is no record of that ever happening."

"And all the time I thought they were a sign of good luck." Casca remembered the shooting star that night in Mamud's slave coffle and his feeling that something important was going to happen to him
.