The Gate of Fire (29 page)

Khalid paused and unsnapped a pouch at his belt, drawing out a sliver of pale white bone. He held it up, and Uri frowned at it—the bone was almost translucent, passing the light of the noon sun through it like a prism. The youth turned it back and forth in the sun.

"Sometimes, when you are watching the flocks, out beyond the lights of town, you can feel the night hunters come. Do you know the feeling? Yes, all of us have felt it—something almost inaudible alerts us as we drowse at our watch to the soft pad of great paws on the sand. Or you are in a city, and a man hunts you, then you can feel it in the air—something is watching you. This was worse—this was being a mouse, hiding beneath a stone while the dragon walks past. I fell down, even before that thing came forth from the gate of the city, and screamed in fear. It felt so gigantic; oozing out of the wreckage of the gateway, like an enormous spider that was fat with blood. I tried to burrow into the earth, but the stones stopped me."

The youth held up his hands, and Uri saw that they were scarred along the fingertips and some of the fingernails were missing. Khalid half smiled at the blanched look on the older man's face.

"I left within a day—as soon as I could ride again. We passed thousands of Persian soldiers on the road, fleeing mindlessly from that same fear. We went southeast, into the deep desert, and I did not look back. One of my men, who caught up with us at the oasis of Sabkhat-Mukh, brought me the bone fragment."

Uri coughed, clearing his throat. He had heard parts of the story before, but he had not believed it. He still wasn't sure he believed it.

"Why did you come here? Why do you seek Lord Mohammed?"

Jalal stumbled out of the entranceway of the temple, his lungs burning with smoke. He carried Mohammed on his back, though the older man was beginning to struggle against him. The priests had run away, leaving the Tanukh milling about in front of the building with the hundreds of supplicants who had been trying to enter the temples. Smoke spilled out of the doorway, climbing into the clear blue sky. A great heat radiated out of the portal, making the air shimmer.

"Help me," he gasped at his comrades. The two closest jumped up the steps and took Mohammed from him. The passing of the weight was a great relief to Jalal; the smoke was cutting at his lungs, and he wanted nothing more dearly than to cough furiously. He knelt on the steps, hacking and spitting.

"O impious men!" Mohammed shook off the hands of the two tribesmen who were trying to help him down the steps. "In this place, something holy lives, something that came from heaven on a bolt of fire, a sign and a portent to guide us, to give us focus to our faith! Yet you spit upon it, crowding this house that Abraham built with dross and foul images!"

The Tanukh drew back from Mohammed, who was shouting at the crowd. The people stared back in interest—they had come for the religious festival, but the politics of the city had closed the doors of the temples to them. Now this man was ranting, much like the priests of Baalshamin, or Apollo, or any of the other gods whose images thronged the precincts of the sacred well and the black house. Some of the priests of the smaller temples along the outside of the courtyard shouted back at him. A few people in the crowd were staring at the flames rushing out of the door of the House of the Gods, wondering if it were a sign. Some thought it was part of the festival, and raised their voices in a chant.

Jalal crawled across the steps and tried to capture Mohammed's arm. "You cannot constrain the word of god in stone or wood!" Mohammed slapped Jalal's hand away and turned, staring back into the fire that was roaring in the doorway of the temple. Sheets of heat haze billowed out of the door and up, sending smoke rushing into the higher air. The heart of the doorway burned with a white heat, and the copper facings on the doors were beginning to bubble and melt.

"The dread King Nimrud cast Ibrahim into a furnace, but his faith carried Ibrahim through in safety." Mohammed's voice rolled across the courtyard, amplified by the shape of the doorway, rising above even the hiss of flames and the groaning sound of stone and brick shifting in the terrible heat of the fire. "This flame will cleanse the heart of Zam-Zam, this sacred place."

Mohammed began walking forward, his hands held out away from his body. Hot wind rushed out of the furnace, blowing his hair and beard back.

"I hear you, O Lord of This World! I hear your voice calling me! I come to the call! I—"

Jalal tackled Mohammed from behind, crashing to the tiled floor in front of the door. The flames were rushing out only inches away. Jalal swallowed a scream as his hair caught fire and his beard began to smoke. Mohammed turned, his mouth open, but Jalal could not hear anything over the hissing roar. Something gleamed in the older man's eyes, some blue-white flame that sparked and flared like a hammer in a forge. Jalal felt the air around him shift and the heat of the flames was driven back. Mohammed pushed him away, trying to stand, but Jalal—his heart filled with a sudden unexpected fear—lunged forward and smashed his fist into the older man's face. Mohammed went down, his eyes wide in shocked surprise, and blood spattered from his nose. Jalal piled in, smashing his scarred knuckles down, and the chieftain went out like a snuffed candle. The glittering blue-white light faded and then was gone.

There was a huge cracking sound as the roof of the temple suddenly collapsed. Flames billowed out in a rush, sending smoke climbing even higher into the heavens. Jalal rolled away from the door, dragging his master—now safely unconscious—down the steps. The other Tanukh scurried up the steps to haul them away. The crowd stared up at the pillar of fire and smoke in amazement. This festival day would be remembered for a long time!

A rumbling sound drew Uri's attention and he turned, looking back into the temple precincts. He raised an eyebrow, seeing the huge column of black smoke that was rising from the center of the holy grounds. He lifted his chin, pointing at the distant fire, and four of his men jogged off down the narrow street with drawn swords. At his side, Khalid moved restlessly, but the Ben-Sarid chieftain shook his head slightly.

"Lord Mohammed is about a matter of his own personal business. It may require some stringent measures to flush out the man he seeks. We will wait awhile and let him deal with these matters himself."

Khalid sighed and motioned to his men, who had tensed, to stand down.

"This matter—it would be something to do with the murder of his daughter by the Bani-Hashim? His own relatives, cousins and uncles and aunts?"

Uri turned, his eyes narrowed and his forehead creased in a fierce expression. "Guest-right and hospitality were violated by these men, my young friend. The chief of this clan attempted to knife Lord Mohammed while they sat at dinner—in his own daughter-in-law's house! These Bani-Hashim dogs are without honor, and they will pay in blood for it!"

Khalid bowed slightly and raised his hands in a plea for peace. "I know this story, Lord of the Ben-Sarid! My grandmother took great and lengthy pains to explain it to me. Still, I wonder if Lord Mohammed will not bring misfortune to himself and to his house by burning down the temples of all the gods that bless Mekkah and this place with their presence."

"Huh!" Uri snorted dismissively. "There is only one god, and he cares not for graven images."

One of the Ben-Sarid ran back down the street, his cloak askew and his blade bare in his hand. "There's a riot," he shouted to the men at the gate. "Lord Mohammed has fallen!"

Uri cursed and raised his voice, shouting over the babble of the men crowding the gate. "Half of you stand at the gate, the other half with me!"

The Ben-Sarid chieftain threw his sand-cloak aside and took his sheathed sword in one hand. He and a crowd of his men jogged off down the street at a good pace. Khalid, still standing in the gateway, did not follow, but motioned to his men to dismount and join him in the shade of the gatehouse. Within minutes, all of the Ben-Sarid were gone, hurrying off to the sound of people shouting and screaming.

"Well," Khalid said, turning to his men with a feral grin, "it seems we may enter the city to pay our respects to Lord Mohammed after all."

A wall toppled, sending a river of bricks crashing to the ground. A line of statues came with it; the gods of Meroeë and Sa'na were shattered by the collapsing wall. White marble limbs bounced across the ground, shorn from their bodies. The crowd in the courtyard, now swollen to hundreds of people, drew back in a flood. The core of the old building now stood revealed, wreathed in rushing orange flame and clouds of billowing smoke. At the edge of the square, the Tanukh had fallen back into the long, pillared arcade, forming a ring of steel around Jalal, who was carrying the unconscious Mohammed. Part of the crowd, urged on by the priests who had fled when Mohammed had broken into the temple, muttered angrily and circled outside the blades and spear points of the tribesmen.

Jalal glanced around warily. The situation was becoming ugly. The novelty of the burning temple was fast wearing off, and the realization that the foreigners had violated their holy of holies was gaining ground. A rock sailed out of the milling crowd and bounced across the walkway. Jalal stepped aside from its path. "There," he rasped to his men, "into the passage."

A narrow corridor opened on one side of the arcade, leading between two buildings. Heaps of refuse lay against the mud-brick walls, but it seemed to offer a way out of the square. Jalal hurried into the passage, turning sideways to keep from cracking Mohammed's head against the walls. More stones clattered behind him, and the mutter of the crowd rose into shouts of anger and a shrill whistling. The other Tanukh filed in quickly behind him, shields raised behind them against the rain of stones and garbage.

Khalid entered the square slowly, his men arrayed in a phalanx around him, weapons bared but held low and out of sight. Thousands of people crowded there now, shouting and screaming. The pyre of the old temple building burned merrily, filling the air with sharp reports as stone and brick shattered in the furnace like heat. The mob surged first this way and then that. The festival offerings lay scattered on the ground, trampled by many feet. A profusion of spears, rakes, and scythes danced above the heads of the people. Khalid held up a hand, halting his men at the end of the street. He looked around carefully, and cocked his head, listening, but he did not hear any sound of steel on steel. The noise of the crowd was enormous, echoing off of the building fronts and reverberating in the recesses of the arcade that surrounded the square. Many priests seemed to be shouting or chanting at the mob, but none of them had managed to focus the anger that was simmering in the afternoon air.

Khalid motioned with his hand, and some of his men moved ahead, into the crowd. He looked around again but could not make out the blue-and-white
kaffiyeh
of the Ben-Sarid anywhere. More of his men drifted past, forming a quiet wedge that pushed its way through the people milling around the square.

Another cracking sound echoed from the burning temple and another wall collapsed, spilling bricks and blazing timbers into the square. Only some inner wall still stood, wrapped in fierce yellow flame.

Jalal peered around the corner of the building, his cheek pressed to the rough whitewashed wall. The street beyond was empty, bounded by blank-fronted buildings and a few recessed doorways. The street itself slanted away, winding off through the two- and three-story houses. The dim sound of the mob in the temple square barely penetrated over the rooftops.

"Let's go," Jalal barked in his rough voice. His throat felt like sandpaper and tasted of smoke. "We need to get back to the northern gate."

The Tanukh slipped past, their sabers and long knives at the ready. Four of them now carried Mohammed in a litter. The chieftain was very pale and still. Jalal watched him being carried past, and worry clouded his long, lean face. He wondered if he had struck too hard. The fear had been real, though, and the strange gleam in the man's eye had set him on edge. Jalal turned the corner after the last of his men were past. He was not familiar with the maze of the temple precincts, and he wondered how they were going to find their way back to the gate.

The street ended in a blank wall of crumbling brick and a climbing vine with small red flowers. The lead men were already rattling the doors that led off of the cul-de-sac. Jalal cursed as he came up. Then he froze and motioned his men to the sides of the street. An echo of running feet rippled along the walls behind him. He stepped to the nearest wall and flattened against it. One thick thumb eased his saber from its sheath and he held the leather scabbard across his chest, his left hand wrapped around the hilt. Likewise, his men crouched against the walls, waiting. The four men with Lord Mohammed carried him to the back corner of the cul-de-sac and placed him gently on the ground.

A youth in a long robe and a small striped blue cap trotted around the corner, breathing easily. He had a wooden staff in his hand. The Tanukh crouched at the corner looked down the street behind the lad after he had passed and held up two fingers. Jalal cursed again—silently, this time—and stepped out in front of the running boy. The lad pulled up sharply and opened his mouth to cry out. Jalal's fist cracked him on the side of his head, felling him like a poleaxed ox. The staff clattered to the ground and rolled away to fetch up at one of the doorsteps. The Tanukh tensed, ready to meet the dozen men who could now be heard running closer.

Jalal drew the saber, feeling the metal slither out of the sheath. The air seemed clearer to him, the surfaces of the walls and the edgings of the doorways very distinct.

Khalid stood at the edge of the milling crowd, looking upon the burning ruin of the great temple with wry amusement. Around him his men made a living wall of shoulders and interposed bodies. The fires in the crumbled building were still burning merrily, consuming the shapes of the gods and demons who had filled the temple. The crowd was still angry, but directionless. The priests of the outer temples mocked those who had served within the great building, while those worthies accused the "lesser" priests of black treachery. Khalid turned around, slowly, watching the roofs of the other buildings and feeling the tension in the air. Soon something would spark this tinder, and blood would flow. He smiled again, catching the eye of two of his lieutenants. "It is a sign," he cried out, his clear, young voice rising easily over the bickering of the crowd. "The corruption of the temples will be cleansed with fire! Cast down these foreign idols!"