Zaragoz Page 24

  Where there are daemons—in the searing heat of the desert and the black shadows of the night—the priests and prophets of our One God go to bind them...to seal them in bottles of brass and bury them in the sand or throw them into the sea. I do not know what you mean when you speak of Chaos but the priests of Araby know well enough what is meant by evil, and will stamp it out wherever it appears. I think this is a better land than Zaragoz, though I do not know how matters go in Bretonnia or the Empire."

  "There are men of the Arab kind in Estalia," said Orfeo. "I met some in Magritta, who told me many tales of the power which your priests and prophets have, which some use to bind evil. It was that which put it in my mind to travel in Araby, for I am a collector and a teller of tales, and I believed that there was much that I might learn in the Sultan's own city, and a little that I could teach, after my own poor fashion."

  "The wisdom of lore and legend?" asked Alkadi Nasreen, sarcastically.

  "I believe in that wisdom," said Orfeo, evenly. "I believe that there is a truth in tales, which is not the everyday truth of actual 212

  Zaragoz

  events, but a truth without which actual events cannot be seen for what they really are. I am a servant of that truth, and I am proud of what I am."

  "In Araby," said the Caliph, "we have a higher truth than that, which is the truth of our prophets and our priests—the truth of the One God. It is a truth which binds daemons, and will one day cleanse the world of evil."

  Orfeo did not know how to reply to that, for he could not guess how honest a believer Alkadi Nasreen really was in the faith to which he had been converted. His acknowledgement of the One God might be merely a ploy, to allow him to live among these folk and lord it over them as a pirate king...but it might, on the other hand, be the overzealous faith of the genuine convert, ever anxious to justify itself.

  Because of this doubt, he only said: "Every exercise of power produces resentment. If Araby grows too ambitious to convert the world, what begins as a cleansing may end as a nightmare of blood and fire. If, on the other hand, it grows too complacent in its wealth, and turns to the pursuit of luxury, what begins as pleasure may end as decadence. Your story-tellers know that, if your priests and your kings do not."

  "Story-tellers have been hanged or burned for sedition in many different lands," said Alkadi Nasreen, darkly.

  "Aye, my lord," replied Orfeo, softly. "I know it. I have been a prisoner myself, condemned to death and lucky to escape."

  The Caliph laughed again, still without much humour.

  "I might get a good price for a man like you," he said. "But the buyer might one day come to me and say that I had sold him an annoying thing."

  "It is only too likely, my lord," agreed the story-teller. And I believe that I have your promise that if the news which I brought you was good, you would set me free—and the boy too."

  "I remember what I promised," said the pirate. "And I would honour my word, if only I knew for certain whether I should weep or rejoice in consequence of what you have told me."

  Orfeo was disturbed by this, for he thought his tale plain enough.

  If this man had fled Zaragoz because he was Quixana, or an ally of the cause of the Quixanas, then the fell of the diAvilas should have been news that he was glad to hear. If he was not Quixana, 213

  Brian Craig

  then what interest had he found in what he had been told?

  "I have told you the truth, my lord," said Orfeo. "All that I know has been set forth before you. It is a grim tale, I know, but I think that it ended as well as it could have ended. Rodrigo Cordova is a good man, and he will rule as justly as any king or duke that I have ever encountered in my travels."

  "I am not concerned with Rodrigo Cordova," said Alkadi Nasreen. "And in the matter of justice, I am inclined to side with my brother's opinion, that much of what is said and done in its name is mere hypocrisy."

  "Your brother?" asked Orfeo.

  "Like me, he took another name. I became Alkadi Nasreen—he became the man you have called Semjaza."

  Orfeo's heart sank, as he remembered not only his account of Semjaza's death, but also the manner in which he had reproduced his conversations with the sorcerer. One spoken sentence now resurfaced in his memory: I had a mother and a father, a brother and a sister...

  Even the most vicious of magicians begins life as an innocent, as a child.

  "You took very different paths, my lord," said Orfeo. "What he had become..."

  "I know it," said the Caliph, interrupting him. "I know that we took very different paths. Even between brothers, there can be strife, and hatred, and an opposition which grows into intolerance. Even between brothers...and yet, when all is said and done, we were brothers."

  Alkadi Nasreen stood up, his hands lying limp at his side because he did not know what to do with them. He walked to the wall, and then turned on his heel, his brow deeply furrowed by anxiety.

  He had meant what he said when he told Orfeo that he did not know whether he should weep or rejoice. Orfeo waited patiently, not stirring in his seat.

  Several minutes passed, which seemed to weigh heavily upon the smoky air; and when Alkadi Nasreen turned again to face the story-teller he seemed no nearer to a settlement of his inner turmoil.

  "At least," said the Caliph, "I know what became of him. I believe that you have told me the truth, Master Player, and I am 214

  Zaragoz

  a man of my word. I will not sell you, or the boy either. If the price which you have paid for my mercy is not entirely to my taste, it was no fault of yours."

  Orfeo let out his breath with only the slightest of sighs.

  "Thank you, my lord," he said.

  "Do not call me that," said the Caliph. "You are a free man now."

  Orfeo said nothing, because the other man had not quite finished.

  There was something else which he intended to say, but he could not immediately find the words. In the end, the Caliph only said, in a voice near to a whisper: "He was my brother."

  "The wisdom of lore and legend," said Orfeo, quietly, "says that all men are brothers. It is true, in all that it implies."

  215