Swords From the West (26 page)

Chin on hand, she glanced at him from the corners of her eyes, half smiling. She was lovely as an elf maid, and quite conscious of it. Nial turned abruptly and kissed her lips.

"What is that for?" she asked, surprised. No one had ever caressed her in that fashion.

"Thou art beautiful, little Alai, and I-" He bit his lip fiercely. "Go thou with Abu Harb, to safety."

The girl's hand was on his shoulder when she thrust him away and sprang to her feet, her eyes flashing.

"Thou! Thou art an ox with grass between thy teeth! A blind ox, with head hanging. And I thought thee a lion among men, since the night thou sought me in the dark. Nay, I go to seek Gutchluk in his aerie."

She ran down the pinnacle, springing from rock to rock, turning once to laugh at him.

"And if thou wilt see me, I shall be sitting at his feet, telling him the tale of thy folly to beguile him."

With that she was gone, and when Nial stirred to follow her he remembered the men on the trail below. A group of the Kara Kalpaks was outlined against the yellow gravel, their heads lifted curiously. Several of them pointed to the sky above him. Turning cautiously, Nial saw the white vulture moving in lazy circles over the pinnacle.

But the riders did not dismount. In spite of their wounds-many had bandaged faces and bound arms-they whipped on their stumbling ponies. Others came by, hurrying on foot, their horses burdened with heavy bales that might have been loot or possessions-it was all the same in these hills. Presently Abu Harb crept up beside him and grunted with interest.

"Allah hath caused fighting down the valley, yet these do not bear themselves like victors. They go too fast."

More of them appeared with mules and even a burdened Bactrian camel, led by women who plodded listlessly along. It was an hour before the trail was emptied of its human tide.

"Where is Alai?" Nial whispered.

"With the horses-praying at the shrine. She bade me come hither, saying thou wert useless as a child unweaned. Truly that vulture was an omen of evil, for now these dogs are ahead of us."

Restlessly the old Arab slid back and retraced his steps to the shrine, followed by Nial, who wondered what Alai might be up to. She was not in the clearing, and they dared not call to her. Abu Harb prowled about uneasily and came to a stop before the horses.

"Wallahi, her pony is gone, Lord Nial." He hastened to inspect the pile of packs by the brush. "Yet she bath taken nothing else that was hers. What more is to come upon our heads?"

"Look at the ground," Nial whispered. "Nay, over there by the sand under the rocks!"

Alai and he wore softened horsehide boots with heels that left a clear imprint, while the sand revealed the tracks of bare feet moving about haphazardly. He was certain those footprints had not been there when he left the clearing. Abu Harb clucked gloomily and muttered the name of Gutchluk.

"Salaam, 0 my companions of the road! " a strange voice saluted them. "I have looked for ye very patiently."

It was a courteous, amused voice, and it belonged to a slender young Persian with an immaculate white turban, who was making his way up through the brush. Abu Harb eyed him as a dog eyes an innocent-appearing leopard.

"Mir Farash," he ejaculated.

"Verily thou knowest the interpreter of dreams of Talas." The Persian stared curiously at Nial. "My ears have heard much talk of this noble farangi, and my heart rejoices at this unlooked-for meeting. That wild girl, Alai, sought me upon the road below and said that he was waiting here in the brush."

"By Allah, that is a lie!" stormed the Arab. "Thou art Gutchluk's man, and he sent thee."

The good nature did not fade from Mir Farash's opium-shadowed eyes, although he glanced once over his shoulder at the dozen tribesmen who made their way after Mir up the slope, fingering their weapons. Nial moved over to the packs, standing between them and the steep bank.

"Now-" Mir Farash smiled upon him-"we are all friends together, and surely thy troubles are past, since I have come to lead thee out of the abyss of peril to the height of safety."

The Persian's lilting cadence was barely intelligible to the Scot, but Abu Harb accepted him as the messenger of inevitable disaster. He looked once at the bows of the Kara Kalpaks carried ready strung, and squatted down indifferently to listen to what might be said.

"What seekest thou, 0 servant of Gutchluk?"

"No more than a gift, a useless little thing from this farangi. He carries a missive to Kublai Khan, and now thy servant will relieve him of its care."

There was no chance of flight. Even if Nial could have caught up his saddlebags and escaped the arrows of the tribesmen, he would not have been able to outrun mounted men. So, without moving, he nodded at the Persian.

"I have no gift for thee. Take what thou wilt."

Smiling, Mir Farash shook his head.

"By the beard and the breath of Ali, am I a thief? Are we not friends?" But he crouched like a hungry jackal over the packs, loosening the thongs swiftly from Nial's saddlebags and dumping the contents on the ground.

"Nay," muttered Abu Harb, "thou art the father of all thieves. If thou wert minded to give even a bone to a dog, thou wouldst first break out the marrow."

Astonished, he fell silent. In all Nial's scattered kit there was no sign of the worn silver tube with the red seal. Intently he watched while Mir Farash ran his fingers through the Scot's garments without result except to uncover a sack of gold coins. Then the Persian searched Abu Harb himself thoroughly, despite the old hunter's comments upon the ways of human insects.

But Mir Farash still smiled.

"Hearken, Lord Nial, to thy peril. After ye three rode from Talas, that uncircumcised Tatar, Chagan, summoned other riders of the Horde from the Samarkand road. They cut their way through the Kara Kalpaks who stood against them, and when I set the foot of discretion in the saddle of preservation, they were within sight of Talas. Long since they have discovered the path of thy flight, for watchers on the river saw thee pass. A man of mine, who rode up without sleep or rest, said that they were pushing up the river.

"If thou art taken, they will not wait a minute before lifting the skin from thee slowly, beginning at the feet, until thou art minded to give up to them what they seek. We are making haste toward the Gate. Even those infidel Tatars cannot force the Gate, and safety awaits thee, if thou wilt yield me the missive to the great khan. Is it not a fair payment? Within the Gate thou art free to go where thou wilt."

He waited a moment to let Nial ponder.

"Where hast thou hidden that which was in the silver tube?"

"I have hidden naught and the tube is gone."

Suspiciously Mir Farash savored his words.

"What was within it?"

"I know not."

"Now verily am I a blind ox to be led by the nose?" He spat out red betel pulp and turned to his men. "Search this place and bring hither their saddles."

He was careful to leave warriors with bows to watch his prisoners while he searched all the packs anew. At the end of an hour he had found nothing except some carefully hidden trinkets which Abu Harb had not seen fit to reveal to his companions. His brow black with fury, Mir Farash struck his hands together to summon his men.

"To the Gate!" And to Nial he cried, "Better for thee to have spoken here than to go to the one who awaits thee."

For two days Mir Farash and his cavalcade pushed along a trail that was a path through a nightmare. Ascending from the river, it climbed the slope of yellow conglomerate until it crawled upon the face of solid basalt. The wind gusts swept the weary beasts from their footing.

More men and camels pressed up from behind, and a rumor ran through the tide of fugitives that the Tatars were cutting down the hindmost. At night-for even the hillmen could not travel that trail in the dark-the red eyes of fires and the tossing specks of torches outlined the way behind them. High-pitched shouts, tossed from fire to fire, echoed back from unseen cliffs. A half moon stared down from the rim of the valley upon restless, loaded camels tied to outcropping rocks, and knots of men sleeping where they could find shelter from the wind's blast.

It was after the third sunrise that Nial heard a reverberation in the air, faintly at first. Then it swelled to a metallic roar which beat back from the opposite cliff and dwindled away down the valley, as if mounted trumpeters had galloped at lightning speed over their heads.

"Gutchluk's horns," Abu Harb whispered.

Although Nial peered ahead, he could see no habitation of any kind, or any human above them on the mountain. A veil of mist hung about the peaks, forcing the eagles to fly low. Thousands of feet below them the gray Zarafshan twisted through its bare bed between the red lion's paws that looked diminutive from the heights. Abu Harb contemplated it listlessly.

"Before the sun is high, we will see the Gate," he observed, and added moodily that it was easier to pass through it once than twice.

The old Arab had sworn every day by all the ninety and nine holy names of Allah that he had not taken the silver tube from Nial's bag and he did not cease speculating as to what had happened to it. Nial only knew that it had been safe that morning when they had broken camp, and he wondered what Alai would say when she knew of its loss. Although he watched for her-and Mir Farash's stout horses and quick-tempered escort forced a way with knees and feet through the fugitives on the trail-he saw nothing of the Tatar girl.

When the mist cleared ahead of them, Abu Harb nudged him and pointed. The Zarafshan ended in a deep pool, and beyond the pool rose the ghost of a river, gray and motionless between the shoulders of two mountains. Over the summit of the gray ice gleamed the pure white of distant snow.

"Not that," said the Arab, "it is here, the Jissn al-Hadid."

Beside them stood the mighty pedestals of the twin rock towers, rising from the lower valley, looking from the trail like pyramids. Between these pillars in steep traverses, more than once crossing a rude bridge of tree trunks and stones, the trail ascended to the gut of the pass.

The Kara Kalpaks who escorted them paid no more attention to the mighty gateway than to the rubbish lying beside the road. But even they dismounted to pass over some of the bridges that led across narrow chasms. And once, looking down, Nial saw the bare bones of a horse and man stretched on the rocks.

They climbed steadily, for Mir Farash had gone on ahead, and the tribesmen had orders to make haste. Above them the gate itself began to take shape-roughly cut limestone blocks fitted together into a wall. Above the wall shaggy heads peered down at them; and once a tribesman near Nial howled up at them like a wolf until the alert echoes yelped back like fleeing jackals. More heads appeared; and when they stood at last, breathing heavily, a mocking clamor greeted them.

"Ai, the antelope have been driven from the plain! They come panting with ropes on their necks."

"Wallahi, 0 brothers, open to the emir of the infidels!"

"Nay, his woman was more of a man."

But the Kara Kalpak shouted impatiently, and the dark gate swung back. It was of massive teak, cracked with age and bound by bronze wrought into the shape of flying birds. Nial was thrust through by the tribesmen, who beat back the guardians of the wall until a fight seemed in the making. Abu Harb, who had used his tongue to return abuse for insult, was borne along.

"May dogs litter on your graves," he yelped. "May God preserve me from the contamination of your touch, and assuage my nostrils from this stench that is worse than the stench of camels rolling in dry mud. What bath befallen your noses, that they are slit? Now I know why the women of this place of abomination have no noses."

Stones flew at him, and the hillmen rushed with drawn knives, while the Kara Kalpaks held them off with sword and shield and Abu Harb's shout rose to a crescendo.

"Spawn of a dunghill! Is this the city of goat tenders-the abode of those who have left shame behind them?"

But presently even Abu Harb drew a breath of silent amazement, and the Kara Kalpaks looked ahead with interest. They had come to the far end of the gut, where they could see out upon the eastern side of the range. Accustomed to the desolation of the upper Zarafshan, they beheld now the very opposite. A circular valley lay some three thousand feet below them, surrounded by the familiar red mountain slopes, rising terrace upon terrace, darkened by pine growth.

But the valley itself gleamed pure green except where the water of a lake reflected the blue sky. Wind ripples passed over the tall grass and wheat fields, divided by tiny streams and clusters of fruit trees. But the round domes of tents and the square roofs of tiny stone huts marked a city of some size.

"Eh," breathed Abu Harb, with a desert man's appreciation of flowing water, "an oasis on the veritable top of the world!"

"Nay," grunted one of the Kara Kalpaks, "Paldorak, our city, where thou wilt dwell for perhaps one dawn and darkness again before thy grave is dug yonder."

He curved a scarred finger toward the center of the valley, above the lake and the roofs of Paldorak. Here rose a single height of red rock, so serrated by erosion on the summit that it might have been a ruined citadel built by men of another age.

"The house," the tribesman vouchsafed, "of Gutchluk Khan. It is empty."

"And where is he?" Abu Harb glanced up involuntarily.

The only answer was the wave of a long-sleeved arm across the valley and the sky.

As he descended the road Nial noticed that two other passes cut the circle of mountains about the flat basin of Paldorak. The one to the north seemed to be a gorge that might lead anywhere or nowhere. But to the east a narrow valley opened up, and beyond it showed the white summits of distant mountains. He wondered if this were the caravan road to Cathay that had been closed by Gutchluk's will.

He wondered more when they rode through the alleys of Paldorak. The place was a labyrinth of dwellings built of stone so old and worn that it was black and smooth to the touch. From the open doorways came a stench that made him choke. Even the dogs that nosed the offal in the alley dirt knew him for a stranger and snarled at his passing. Bald vultures squatted on projecting roof beams. Men sprawled in sleep underfoot, with their arms thrown over rag bundles. Felt tents covered every vacant space, and ponies that bore signs of desperate riding were tethered wherever the streams of human beings gave them space.