Snow, Fire, Sword Read online

  The Sultan raised his head and stared at the hooded figure.

  “I do not answer those who are too cowardly even to show their faces,” he said, with more than a hint of the steel Adi had heard in the audience chamber in the palace.

  The hantumu made as if to strike the Sultan, but the hooded figure held up a hand. “No, no,” he said softly. “He does not yet know how he will regret it all. Sultan of Jayangan, your insults have no effect on me. I am here to conduct your trial.”

  “My trial?” croaked the Sultan. Then he cried softly, “Where is my son?”

  “Your son is safe,” said the hooded figure. “We are holding him in a safe place. You will have to take my word on that.”

  The Sultan laughed harshly. Behind him, the afreet stirred, its gaze rolling restlessly around the atrium.

  “You do not even ask why you are on trial?” said the hooded figure.

  “No,” said the Sultan. “I have no interest in your wicked stupidities, Sorcerer. I want you to release my son immediately.”

  The hooded figure seemed to freeze. Its arms rose, and the light rose with it. “Sorcerer? What is this you have called me?”

  “Someone who has evil spirits at his bidding, does evil deeds in the shadows, and runs an army of masked hantumu is, I think, best described as a sorcerer,” said the Sultan defiantly, and this time the hantumu struck him, hitting him full on the mouth with a great crack. The Sultan doubled up, spitting blood and teeth, but he managed to say, “What else could you call yourself?”

  “I am the Bringer of Light,” said the hooded figure waspishly, approaching the Sultan. “Can’t you see that? What do I bring to this dark place but light? Look!” And he flung his arms out toward the Sultan, so that the light fell fully on him, drenching him with a blinding dazzle of white. “How can I be a sorcerer when I bring the light of truth into the darkness of superstitious fear?”

  “How can you not be a sorcerer when you have an evil spirit like that afreet at your beck and call?” snarled the Sultan. Trapped against the wall, Adi felt a surge of love and pride fill him like a wild flame.

  “There are means that must sometimes be used—but I have no call to discuss such things with you. Your time, the time of darkness and alliances with true evil, is over. Our time, the time of Light, the time of the real warrior, is about to begin. You, Sultan, you are nothing anymore. We will have no kings in the new Jayangan—no, not even your son, who will understand that he will have to abdicate. We will have no more doddering fools mumbling words of dotage to evil spirits. We will sweep the entire island clean of all wickedness. Everything will start afresh in Jayangan, through the Light we bring. And Jayangan will not be an end to it, but a beginning. We will bring the Light to the whole world. We will sweep darkness from the face of the earth, and all those peoples and places that have loved darkness for so long, and allowed evil to reign. It is I…I…who will accomplish all this, and end the reign of the demons forever on earth!”

  “You are raving,” said the Sultan pityingly, “raving to make yourself feel better, for being in thrall to evil spirits.” Whack! The hantumu hit him again, in the stomach this time. The Sultan doubled over, but he raised himself up again, raising his head to stare directly at the Sorcerer.

  “And you are still coward enough to hide your face,” he said, panting hard.

  The Sorcerer loomed over him, like a great evil bird of prey. The afreet said, “Master, let me teach him a lesson he won’t forget.”

  “Silence, Hareekshaytin,” snapped the Sorcerer. “There will be time enough for that. I will show this stiff-necked fool the truth!” And then, in one movement, he pulled the hood off his face, and the cloak off his shoulders, and stood revealed before them. No one moved or made a sound for a frozen second or two. Then a piercing scream rent the air. “No, no, no!”

  It was Sadik, running out from a corner of the atrium, away from the grasp of the hantumu, tears running down his face, kris in hand, toward the Sultan and the Sorcerer. Adi watched horror-struck as the young man reached the Sorcerer and stood before him, trembling, his face wild with uncontrollable emotions. “No! It cannot be you. It cannot be so. Say I am dreaming! Say I—”

  “Sadik,” said Shayk Rasheed al-Jabal quietly, in his normal voice, “you are a fool. Get back—stay there with Ibrahim. Nothing will happen to you; you are not an enemy but one of us.”

  “You…you said we were…we were the Army of Light…fighting the demons.”

  “And so we are,” said the Shayk impatiently. “We are the warriors of truth, Sadik, fighting to cleanse Jayangan of its ancient evils, its alliances with unclean spirits. We will create a place worthy of the Light here, Sadik. A place from which all the demons will flee, blinded by the Light. We will establish here the reign of Light on earth!”

  “Well, what of…him…it…” said Sadik, jabbing with a thumb in the direction of the afreet, “and them.” He indicated the hantumu.

  “The afreet is under my command. You do not need to be afraid of it. It was thrown out of Jehannem by Iblis, but I have no dealings with that one. I do not need to. I have a ring, see.” And he held up his hand, on which his silver ring glittered. “It is a ring of power, which commands that slave. Sometimes unusual methods have to be employed, but we will have no need of it once the kingdom of Light is established in Jayangan. As to the others, they’re my dedicated fighters. You know them, Sadik. They’re your comrades.” He motioned to a couple of hantumu to take off their masks.

  Sadik stared at the faces revealed there. “Ali,” he murmured, “Jamal. Then our community…”

  “It was the nucleus of my army, yes. Not everyone there, oh no, not those like you, Sadik, who I could see were too weak to take part at present.” He sighed. “Yet I thought that had changed when you brought me the boy. I thought you had grown up at last, that you could become a fighter too. That’s why I took you with us. Sadik, come to me.” He held out a hand, smiling, but Sadik shrank away, still clutching the kris.

  “Very well,” said the Shayk coldly. In his spotless white robes with one of the big black revolvers he’d had in the car at his belt, he looked commanding despite his slightness—and utterly ruthless. Adi, staring from his helpless position, thought, Oh my God, how could I ever have thought this man good? How could I have ever thought that was purity shining from those icy-cold fanatic’s eyes? They were the eyes of a man ready to do anything to accomplish his utter will to power, power not only over the life and death of others but also over their souls and thoughts and feelings. His reign would be a terrible one indeed.

  And now the memory of his pleasure at hearing the Shayk’s life story made his flesh creep. He was a hardened fighter, a watcher in the shadows, an evil deceiver prepared to use anything, even demons, to achieve his single-minded aim.

  Adi’s attention jerked back to Sadik. He looked ill and was unable to stand straight but staggered, words coming jerkily from him: “Oh, God help me. I thought you so great…loved you so…trusted in you, O Master, and yet you have killed…you have deceived…you consort with evil spirits…”

  “Ibrahim, shut his stupid mouth—he will never understand,” said the Shayk wearily, and Ibrahim obediently came forward and fetched the boy a mighty whack with the flat of his sword, catching him on the side of the head. Sadik sank to the ground without a cry. The Shayk made a shooing motion, and Jamal and Ali dragged the unconscious young man to one side of the atrium. Adi cried out under the gag. This was his fault. He had thought the Shayk to be Snow, and now poor, innocent Sadik and the Sultan were paying the price.

  The sound he made must have reached the Shayk’s ears. He looked over at Adi and a smile creased his unwrinkled, ivory-colored face. “Why, my Nashranee friend, I was almost forgetting you. And yet how useful you have been to us!” Trailed by Ibrahim, and ignoring the Sultan, he strode over to where the boy was lying. “I should offer you the opportunity to be with us. Though you are a dirty little Nashranee, you can change. Do you want to ac
cept the Light into your heart, my son?”

  Over his gag, Adi’s eyes burned defiantly into the Shayk’s. The latter shook his head, ruefully. “I see by that fierce glare that the Light cannot reach your hardened heart. Never mind. I never really thought it would. Well, would you like to know what we have in store for you? We’ll be accomplishing that stupid prophecy you brought us, about needing Snow, Fire and Sword to defeat the evil in the land. See, Adi, Fire and Sword are already here.” He waved a hand at the afreet and Ibrahim. “Only Snow is missing. I know you thought I was it, but in the language of the spirit world, Snow is actually a sacrifice, for how can Snow survive in the land of the sun? So, Adi, being as you are so fond of the disgusting customs of your native land, I know you will enjoy fulfilling the wishes of the demons you have lived under for so long.” He jerked his head to Ibrahim and Jamal. “Take him, and that fool of a Sadik, and throw them both in the pool. We have wasted too much time on these stupid young men already.”

  “No!” Adi tried to say, under the gag. He looked at Ibrahim, trying to plead with his eyes, to ask for mercy, but Ibrahim merely smiled and roughly picked him up under the shoulders. Jamal stared impassively at him, picking up his feet. Adi struggled, but the men held him in a grip of steel. The Shayk had already turned away, murmuring sadly, “Thus die the evildoers at the hand of—” when all at once, a screaming, yelling girl seemed to appear right out of the shadows, caught him squarely around the middle, and sent him flying backward to land on the ground, thoroughly winded.

  Pandemonium erupted. Ibrahim and the others immediately dropped Adi and ran to their master’s aid, pulling the girl off him and throwing her so heavily to the ground that her eyes rolled back in her head. But before they could do any more, they were set upon by a whirling, black-robed giant, swinging a massive curved sword above his head. “Back, back, cowards, murderers!” he yelled in a stentorian voice, pushing Ibrahim and his friends away from the fallen girl. “Or are you too scared to fight like men, from spending too much time with a liar and traitor and coward like al-Jabal?”

  Howling like a banshee, Jamal threw himself at the swordsman; the curved sword descended, and Jamal’s head flew across the room. Ali dropped his sword and backed away, but Ibrahim, with a raucous cry, parried with his own sword, in a lightning movement and a resounding clash of metal on metal. The other hantumu, who had been frozen into immobility by the sight of Jamal’s severed head, rushed in to help now, but the black-robed swordsman was fighting hard, his eyes gleaming madly above the cloth that swathed the rest of his face. Thwack! He got in a huge hit with the flat of his sword on a man’s shoulders, and the man went down without a sound. He whirled around just in time to face another attack from Ibrahim, and at that moment the Shayk rose swiftly from the ground, his hand on his gun. Quick as a striking snake, he took aim and fired straight at Husam—for of course the swordsman was he. There was a huge roar, and a tongue of red and yellow flame enveloped the bullet in a shower of sparks. The hantumu jumped back in alarm as the fiery bullet reversed its course and came speeding back toward the gun. The Shayk only just had time to throw the weapon away from him before it literally exploded, setting the hem of his robe on fire and scorching his eyebrows. The tongue of flame rose and took on the shape of a great red bird, with claws of molten metal, feathers of flame, and eyes that glowed. Just as it was about to swoop on the Shayk’s head, he twisted his ring and screamed something, and the afreet abandoned its post behind the Sultan and jumped into the air, its body vanishing. In its place was a great white dragon that flamed with pure, blinding fire all along its sides and back; its eyes were red as hot coals. The white dragon threw itself on the red bird, and for an instant all the other combatants paused, struck by the terrifying sight of fire fighting fire. Then the battle began again in earnest, the Shayk himself picking up Jamal’s sword and throwing himself into the fray.

  The noise of the battle would have been enough to wake the dead, and it certainly woke up Sadik, who had been forgotten in the melee. For an instant, he stared at the scene before him, then, catching sight of Adi still lying trussed and helpless where he’d been dumped, he slid over to him and pulled the gag from his face. “My kris, over there,” whispered Adi. “Quick.”

  Sadik grabbed the kris and cut Adi’s bonds. Adi winced. His hands and feet tingled and spasmed abominably; they would not obey him. Sadik, picking up a sword from the ground, crawled over to the Sultan as fast as he could to cut his bonds. Biting down on his lip with frustration and rage, Adi managed to bring one of his hands under command, grabbed his kris, and set off as quickly as he could, sliding along the floor, toward Sadik.

  But the Shayk had seen what was happening. Twisting his ring, he called for the afreet. The white dragon paused in its battle with the other fire spirit to send a livid, dazzling tongue of flame racing toward Sadik. It struck him full on the forehead, sending him reeling back, his eyes suddenly filling with horror, his arms whirling like windmills as the full force of the afreet’s power crashed into his defenseless mind. He stumbled and fell heavily to the ground, striking his head hard on an outcrop of rock, and lay still. The Shayk smiled thinly and turned back to the battle, but Adi, with a roar of rage, sprang up from the floor, his kris gripped tightly now. He couldn’t feel or hear anything. There was a great roaring in his head that didn’t just have to do with the battle of the two Jinns. He had never felt like this before; he wanted to wipe the Shayk not only off the face of the earth, but from all memory. But as he charged at the old man, one of the hantumu stuck out a foot and sent him crashing down. In the same instant, the Shayk threw himself on the Sultan, pinned his arms to his side, and held a sword to his throat. Then he put a finger on his ring and called, “Hareekshaytin, come to me!”

  As he did so, Dewi appeared from under his arm, grabbing for his hand with all her might. “The ring! The ring!” she screamed. “It’s the source of his power over the afreet. Without it, he cannot command it. Kareen Amar, help us!”

  The white dragon roared. Like an arrow it came flying down from the air toward Dewi, but the red bird was on its tail, singing a long, wild, wordless song, its claws outstretched to rip at the dragon’s form. The dragon was not hurt, but it was hindered, halted long enough for Adi to tear up from the ground, raise his kris, and stab blindly, connecting with flesh. He stumbled back as the Shayk, with a piercing scream, dropped his sword and clutched at the bloody wound where his ring finger had once been. Everything stilled around them for an instant. But the old warrior was not yet done. His face pale as death, and contorted with fury and pain, he dived for his own severed finger on the floor, pulled off the bloody ring, threw it in the air, and yelled, “Son of the Flame, I set you free! Remember that for this you owe me one last thing—I command you to unleash your full power against all my enemies!”

  At once, the ring vanished in a shower of sparks. The white dragon shivered. Flames shot out from it, and the usual form of the afreet emerged like a form from molten glass. It put its head back and gave a most peculiar call that threw ice into the spines of all there and rooted them to the spot, thoughts of battle forgotten for the moment. “I am the Son of the Flame! I am Hareekshaytin! I am the vizier of dread Iblis, Lord of Jehannem!” bellowed the afreet, and as they watched, it grew bigger and bigger and bigger, till it towered above them. “Your ring has gone, and you cannot command me anymore, old man. I bow only to Lord Iblis now.” It vanished in a thunderclap, and as the echoes of the thunderclap died away, a terrible smell filled the atrium and two huge eyes—white-hot, inhuman—appeared. Someone screamed, “It is dread Iblis himself, come in place of his vizier!” and in that instant an enormous wall of roaring white flame appeared, cutting the atrium in two. A couple of hantumu, caught near the wall, were immediately enveloped in flames and writhed, screaming, while the other combatants fell over each other in their rush to get away. Adi and Dewi were thrown across the chamber and lay stunned. The Shayk, however, had seized his chance. He was escaping up the stairs
, safe behind the wall of flame. But all at once a song was heard—a song high and sad and beautiful and strong in its longing—and the red bird shot through the wall of flame and disappeared. Clearly, they heard a scream from the Shayk. “Iblis! I command you! Kill the Jinn, and the others!”

  The wall of flame wavered; then a wild howl of rage echoed around the chamber. It was Iblis’s voice—the voice of the dread Lord of Jehannem, the voice that would come to them in their nightmares for years on end. “You dare command me! You dare! I bow to no man!” The wall of flame wavered, then shot upward and whooshed out of the atrium, straight up the stairwell, enveloping the Shayk in a ghastly dazzle of blinding light, which shattered and was instantly gone. The Shayk vanished into thin air.

  The chamber was suddenly plunged into complete darkness. A terrified silence held for a heartbeat; then confused shouts and yells erupted. Adi had no idea what was happening; he could hear the sound of running feet, screams, a splash, yells. Someone trod heavily on one of his hands, and he heard Ibrahim’s angry voice. “The boy, Adi, find him. Stop, you cowards. Stop!”

  Adi slid quietly along the floor, away from the voice, knowing Ibrahim would be as blind and confused as he was; the combination of the terrible dazzling flame followed by the utter darkness made it impossible to see anything at all. But he rather thought that the hantumu, thrown into utter panic by what had just happened, were not listening to Ibrahim, just trying to escape as quickly as they could.

  He tried to peer into the darkness. Where was the black-robed swordsman? And where was Dewi? Last he’d seen of her, she’d been sent flying. Where had she fallen? By the pool? Where was the pool? He crawled across the ground, trying to stay as quiet as he could. Then his groping hands found a body, a face, a pulse that was still beating, though faintly. Not Dewi, but…

  “Oh, Sadik,” whispered Adi in the other boy’s ear. “Wait, we will get help. We will find healers who—”