Book 4 - The Fire in His Hands by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online Page B

had to do was recant.
    Had there been any genuine crime the sentence would have been scorned for its mildness.
    This was a land where they lopped off hands, feet, testicles, ears, and, more often than anything, heads. But the sentence fulfilled the Royal goal. Executed immediately, it would keep El Murid from preaching during Disharhun, to the vast gatherings this year’s High Holy Week had drawn.
    Radetic chuckled softly. Someone was scared to death of the boy.
    Fuad gouged him again.
    “My lords! Why hast thou done this to me?” El Murid asked softly, his head bowed.
    He does it well, Radetic thought. The pathos in him. He’ll win converts with that line.
    Suddenly, proudly, El Murid stared the chief magistrate in the eye. “Thy servant hears and
    obeys, O Law. For does not the Lord say, ‘Obey the law, for I am the Law’? At Disharhun’s end El Murid shall disappear into the wilderness.”
    Sighs came from the crowd. It looked like the old order had won its victory.
    Nassef shot El Murid a look of pure venom.
    And why, Radetic asked himself, hadn’t Nassef said a word in their defense? What game was
    he playing? For that matter, what game was El Murid playing now? He did not seem at all
    distressed as he laid himself open for further humiliation.
    “The Court of Nine orders that the sentence be executed immediately.”
    That surprised no one. How else to keep El Murid from speaking?
    “One hour from now the King’s sheriffs will receive orders to seize any of the proscribed, or their families, found within any of the restricted domains.”
    “That,” Megelin murmured, “is too much.” Fuad jabbed him again.
    Seldom was it that a pivoting point of history could be identified at the precise instant of
    turning. Radetic recognized one here. A band of frightened men had compounded an action of
    self-defense with one of spite.
    They were trying to rob El Murid of a father’s precious opportunity and inalienable right to
    have his child baptized before the Most Holy Mrazkim Shrines, during Disharhun. El Murid had
    already announced that he would dedicate his daughter to God on Mashad, the last and most
    important of the High Holy Days.
    Radetic need be no necromancer to predict the long-term results. The meekest of the desert-
    born would have felt compelled to respond.
    In later days El Murid’s followers would say that this was the moment when the grim truth
    of reality finally burst through the curtain of ideals blinding the youth to the hypocrisies of his world.
    Radetic suspected that that revelation had come a lot earlier. The youth seemed secretly
    satisfied with the pronouncement.
    Nevertheless, he reddened. The muscles in his neck stood out. “It must be God’s will. May
    the Lord grant his Disciple an opportunity to return to grace.”
    He spoke softly, but his words were a threat, a promise and a declaration of schism.
    Henceforth the Kingdom of Peace would make war on heretics and the enemies of its future.
    Radetic could smell the stink of blood and smoke drifting back across the years. He could
    not understand how El Murid’s enemies could fail to see what they had done. Old cynic that he was, he studied El Murid intently. Behind the very real anger there was evidence that the youth had expected this.
    He did detect a barely restrained glee in Nassef.
    El Murid departed Al Rhemish meekly. But Meryem left word that her daughter would bear
    no name till she received it before the Mrazkim Shrines themselves. Fuad laughed when he
    heard. “Women making threats?” he demanded. “Camels will fly before she sees Al Rhemish
    again.”
    Yousif was not as sure. Megelin’s naggings were forcing him to think. He did not like the
    thoughts that came to him.
    The rioting started before the dust had settled on El Murid’s backtrail. More than a hundred
    pilgrims died. Before the end of Disharhun, El Murid’s partisans had defaced the Shrines
    themselves.
    Yousif and Fuad were amazed.
    “It’s begun,”