The Eye of Midnight (19 page)

“Everything is ruined,” said Maxine. “We failed you.”

“Failed me, my dear?” Grandpa said in amazement. “Never in all the world. In fact, for all my foolishness, there is only one respect in which I was never wrong. My judgment of the two of you! A salute,
mes enfants,
to your resourcefulness and resolve. The old Battersea blood runs thick in both of you, sure enough. Born adventurers! To think that you actually managed to lay your hands on the Old Man's mirror!”

“Nura called it the Eye of Midnight,” said Maxine, “the Key to Paradise.”

“I have heard it called such things,” Grandpa said. “Nura, though, is a name with which I am unfamiliar.”

“We met her in the park,” said William. “She's been with us ever since.”

“Do you mean to say this girl is the courier?” asked Grandpa with surprise.

William nodded. “She's out there in the lair somewhere, all alone—if the
fida'i
haven't caught her already.”

The colonel's jaw clenched and released mechanically as he contemplated their words.

“Grandpa, she's only twelve,” said Maxine.

“I see,” he said at last. “Well, let us hope the young lady shares some of your resourcefulness and resolve.”

The Rafiq's rant had echoed menacingly at the far end of the corridor as Nura crept away in the darkness. As she groped her way toward the end of the passage, her hand chanced upon a door handle. A moment later she found herself inside the empty temple.

Only the jinni saw her enter. She hesitated there in its sinister presence with a headful of helpless, haunted doubts. No longer did she hold out any real hope for her own escape. Her worries were for Maxine and William, and for Colonel Battersea and her parents; and still she clung to some indistinct notion of recovering the Eye of Midnight, no matter what the cost.

In the next instant, the enraged roar of the Rafiq reverberated in the corridor she had left behind, startling her from her tangled thoughts.

She scurried away along the back wall, behind the two tall boilers and past the entrance to the Rafiq's chamber, where she had found the keys. Another wide doorway, framed with rough timbers, was just ahead. The dark opening exhaled a warm, animal scent, and she paused there uneasily. Gathering her courage, she tiptoed onward, but before she had reached the far side of the mysterious portal, two
fida'i
carrying torches burst out of the corridor behind her and stormed into the temple. They drew up short as they entered and cast their eyes across the wide expanse, scanning the length and breadth of the hall.

There was no time for deliberation. Nura dove through the dark opening, into an unswept room with low beams. A flickering lantern hung on a hook above her. She heard a snort and glanced about sharply.

At the back of the room a coal-black stallion and a dappled gray mare shifted in their stalls—the same pair of horses she had seen in the temple pulling the cart and the wooden crate. They nickered and pawed at her arrival, and Nura ducked under the wooden rail and stroked the mare's arched neck.

“Hist!”
she whispered. “Hush, girl.”

The mare quieted for a moment beneath her hand but suddenly shied again as the dreadful thump of a great bass drum echoed through the lair. Nura stood trembling, and the horses snorted restlessly. The drumbeat rolled again, and in a split second of unaccountable panic, Nura dropped to the ground and burrowed into the straw between the mare's hooves.

No sooner had she buried herself away than the
fida'i
burst into the stable. Their torches swept the room, and the mare whinnied and stamped, her hooves thudding just beside Nura's head.

The men made a slow circuit of the room, then turned and hurried on.

Nura lifted her head cautiously from the straw and peered between the mare's forelegs. Outside the stable, preparations for the ceremony had already begun. Fire had been brought to the temple, and the doorway winked with amber light. The lair was alive now with the sounds of the Hashashin, and it was no longer safe for Nura to wander out into the open.

She rose and took a hurried inventory of the stable. A saddle and harness were slung beside her on the rail. She ran her hand over the smooth leather of the seat and cantle, measuring their curves with a practiced eye. A vague and desperate plan formed within her, and she set about saddling the mare.

“Grandpa, I thought you were retired,” said William. “How did you ever get mixed up in all this?”

Colonel Battersea breathed a long sigh.

“Our time together has taken a turn I did not expect,” he said at length, not answering the question directly. “I was convinced my adventuring days were behind me, I suppose. I had visions of a golden summer with my grandchildren, of reclaiming something, perhaps, that I had lost with my own children. But it seems now that my past has caught me up and would drag me in again, like quicksand.”

A ponderous silence fell over the dank cell.

“Nura told us you could stop the Old Man's plans,” said Maxine, and there was disappointment in her voice. “She thought you would know what to do. She said you were the city's only chance.”

“A rather heavy burden for one person, don't you think?” said Grandpa. “The Rafiq's grand scheme may well succeed tonight, and I may not live to see the morning. But that will not be the end of the story. The Hashashin do not stand unopposed—they are not the only secret order in the wide world. There are others who keep watch.”

“You mean to say there's more than one bunch of cutthroats roaming around the city?” asked William.

“Cutthroats? Not exactly. I refer to an invisible fraternity of guardians, sworn to a single sacred purpose. An order known as the Cafara—the Sons of the Cipher.”

“And they're here—in New York City?”

“Sadly, no. The rise of the Hashashin on these shores was entirely unexpected, and the Cafara were not prepared to meet the threat with numbers of any significance. In fact, there were only three here. One of them is no more—a carpet merchant across the Brooklyn Bridge, murdered by the
fida'i.
A dear friend, and a great loss to me. The second I suspect you've met already.”

“What?” said Maxine with surprise.

“Tell me,” said Grandpa. “The man who delivered the telegram to Battersea Manor—did he sport a long, ratty beard, like a Victorian poet?”

William nodded. “And he made a funny sign with his fingers. Like a circle over his heart.”

“The Cipher,” said Grandpa with a nod. “The cipher, or the zero, as you would call it, is the token of the order.”

A light dawned on Maxine's face. “We saw zeroes all over Battersea Manor!” she said. “On the front bell and the mantelpiece, and on the door to the basement. Even on your letter opener.”

“Yes, my dear. I am the third member, you see, of the contingent of the Cafara on this coast.”

William squinted one eye. “Did you ever think of picking a different number than zero?” he asked. “Something a little more impressive?”

“Such as?”

“I don't know, like maybe seven, or thirteen, or something.”

“Yes, well, the cipher is not exactly a number, is it? And it is rather impressive in its own way. It is naught—nothing. A thing of no apparent value. It is unseen and uncountable, a placeholder and a substitute. It is that which stands in the gap. And so it is with the Sons of the Cipher. The Cafara are an ancient order, comprising the descendants of the oldest Arab tribes—a chosen few who have taken a vow to protect the weak and the innocent and to stand throughout the ages against violence and oppression and a darkness that would spread across all the world.”

“But you're not—” Maxine began.

“Not of Arab descent? No, my dear. I was made an honorary member of the Cafara many years back, during my years of service to the British Crown. I was adopted, you might say.”

“Well, that explains it, I guess,” said William.

“Explains what, my boy?”

“Explains why Nura thought you might be able to save the day. Her parents are prisoners of the Hashashin. She wanted to give you the mirror so that you could ransom them from the Old Man of the Mountain.”

“Yes, well, that may be wishful thinking. The Old Man is not a generous negotiator.”

“She seemed to think you'd be eager to help,” said Maxine. “I thought maybe you knew them.”

“The girl's parents?” Grandpa replied thickly. “Do I know them? Now, there's a proper question. I may have known them once. Once upon a time. I think I would very much like to meet this young friend of yours and ask her a few questions of my own.”

Colonel Battersea leaned back against the wall, and his chains clanked faintly in the gloom. He scraped a knuckle across his whiskered chin and offered nothing more.

The drumbeat rolled on like the heartbeat of the lair. The cousins slumped against Grandpa and braced for what would come. For a long while no one spoke, and as the minutes passed, a disconsolate shadow settled over them and their spirits sank down, down, like stones tossed in a murky pool. Even Colonel Battersea seemed to succumb at last to the drum's relentless throb and the oppressive confinement of the bleak cell.