Defender of the Faith

Judith Tarr

Sometimes the simplest truths turn out to be the most complicated.

A prequel to the novel Alamut (Doubleday, 1989)

1.

Night had fallen in the Garden of Allah. Starlight caught and shattered in the fountain which played in its center. Upon its edges, deep in the scented shadows, a nightingale began to sing.

Morgiana slipped from tree to tree, cloaked in darkness. Voices drew her toward the fountain: human voices, harsh and unmusical, drowning out the liquid stream of song.

On a divan beside the fountain reclined the Master of the Garden. A lamp, suspended from a flowering branch, flick­ered upon his face. His beard was as white as his turban, the skin between them dark, deep-scored with lines of age and care and trouble. His son sat at his feet, a white-clad blur on the edge of the lamp’s light.

“No,” the younger man said: a deep voice, rough with the effort of holding some strong emotion rigidly in check. “With all due respect; my lord and father — no. There is another way. There must be.”

“So you have told me thrice before.” The old man’s tones were a fainter echo of his son’s, thinned and fined with age, but with a core of iron. “Thrice before we have done as you advised, and failed. Six good men have been lost to the Faith by your choosing. And the enemy remains, as strong as ever; and the world comes ever closer to the knowledge of our disgrace. “

“But — that.” The young man’s control cracked. Loathing lay beneath, and fear, and contempt for this aged dodderer.

“That,” his father said. “Men fail: even our fida’is, our faithful ones, with their blessed daggers and their dreams of Paradise. But one being never fails. My father used her, and the great lord before him, Hasan-i Sabbah, the Defender of the Faith, the Living Proof of the true Caliph who is hidden, the Master of Alamut.”

“It is a demon. A creature of Iblis.”

“One of the Jinn, who swore herself in fealty to the first lord of our Brotherhood, and to the second, and to myself who am the third. She has never betrayed us, and she has never failed in any task to which she has been set. And this one is indeed worthy of her. The strongest of the Faithful might quail before such a sorcerer as this one who has risen up under the Prince of Antioch. His power is mighty; and it thwarts us wherever we turn. While that man lives, neither our Faith nor our Mission can be safe. He must die.”

“He can die by more hallowed hands than those of that cat-eyed Ifritah. The last man nearly succeeded: he won his way into the sorcerer’s confidence and only failed at the last, through his own weakness. Surely, the next — ”

“The next will be the one whom I choose.” The blade had slid from its sheath; old though it was, it was deadly. The younger man opened his mouth and shut it again; his eyes smoldered in a face gone suddenly rigid.

Morgiana stood before them both where a moment before had been only darkness, descending in a deep obeisance. She could feel the young man’s hate and fear like a flare of cold fire upon her skin. As she rose, she turned toward his father, whose fear was a saner thing, the just and proper fear of a mortal for a daughter of the Jinn. “My lord has summoned me,” she said, not quite a question.

“Morgiana,” he acknowledged her. It was a conceit of his, that by her name he ruled her. “The Faith has need of you.”

She bowed. “I serve the true Faith and its true Master, in the name of Allah and of Mohammed who is his Prophet.”

“Upon his name be peace,” murmured the Master. His voice firmed, regained its edge. “There is a sorcerer in the land of Antioch: one of the accursed Giaours, a follower of the false prophet of Nazareth. He lends his aid to Infidel and heretic alike, and breaks the power of Alamut whenever he encounters it. For the Faith and for the Brotherhood, by the oath which you have sworn, I command you to destroy him. “

Once more she bowed low. “It shall be done,” she said. She drew from her sash a long and wicked blade, written about with holy words; kissed it; and vanished.

2.

Between breath and breath was a time of not-being. Morgiana lowered the dagger from her lips and glanced about. There was no light in this her chamber in the fortress of Alamut, but her eyes needed none. She sat cross-legged in a nest of cushions and carpets, laid the blade before her, and set her chin upon her fist.

Even here, if she chose, she could sense the young lord Hasan’s mad mingling of anger and terror. She closed her mind to it, reaching elsewhere, far and far, into the night. A sorcerer would blaze like a beacon in the world of the spirit.

Or be nothing at all.

She laughed softly to herself. So well had he hidden all his magics; the feeblest peri-child could find him merely by his absence. She traced the shape of him in the mortal minds about him, centered her power upon the heart of the void, and held it there as she made her preparations.

Upon the stroke of midnight, she sent her body in pursuit of her power.

oOo

Pain. Agony. A thousand tiny darts of fire, plunging deep into her flesh, severing the cords that bound it to her will. And all about her, a wall of light.

oOo

It was dark. Blessedly dark, and cool, and in her body, no pain. Morgiana huddled upon hardness, gasping.

After a long while she roused, enough to uncoil, to open her eyes. The hardness was earth; a wall rose above her, reaching toward the bitter-bright stars. Her fingers were locked about her dagger hilt. With an effort of will she loosed them. The weapon slid to the ground and lay there, gleaming dully.

Her hand, freed and shaking, explored her body. She was intact save for a bruise or two. When she burst into the solid world, she must have fallen.

With great care she ventured a mind-probe. Her power responded stiffly, with reluctance that was like pain. Yet she gained enough to know that she was no longer in Alamut. The earth was the earth of distant Antioch, and the wall was that of a house in the town of the sorcerer. The name of the town she did not gather, nor did she care to, for mind and body together rose in rebellion.

She was suddenly and violently ill.

The spasm passed as swiftly as it had come. She crouched shaking. Even in her misery, she managed a crooked smile. If Hasan could but see her now, he would forget all his fear of her.

It was well for her reputation that he could not. She groped for her knife, sheathed it with a hand that trembled madden­ingly, and dragged herself to her feet. Her legs would hardly hold her. She gritted her teeth and drove herself forward.

oOo

The innkeeper cursed the traveler who had driven him out of bed so late, and cursed more bitterly when he saw what it was: a slender boy in dark plain clothes, with neither baggage nor servant, and with a face as pale as death. But gold sweetened the man’s temper most admirably and gained the intruder a room to himself, away from the common herd of guests.

“Undisturbed,” he said in his light husky voice, “and unquestioned. “

The innkeeper hastened to agree. Nor was it only the gold that won his respect. “Eyes,” he said to himself as he returned to his cold bed. He shivered. “Allah defend me from such eyes.” He closed his own, resolutely. But he was long in falling asleep.

3.

Morgiana opened one eye. Light stabbed it. She gasped and threw up a hand.

It was only sunlight, slanting through a narrow window. Her left hand unclenched from about the hilt of her dagger; her right lowered, and she sat up. She had gone to bed fully clothed, turban and all; somewhere in her tossing, dream-­tormented sleep, it had fallen away, freeing her hair that tumbled about her shoulders, a rare, deep red, like wine in a dark goblet.

She yawned and stretched. She was ravenously hungry. But first — she grimaced with distaste — she had to dispose of the remnants of her sickness. She moved to gather up her hair, to rewind her turban. But she paused.

Her power, flexed, seemed as supple as her body, and wholly healed of its hurts. With it she summoned all she needed.

oOo

Bathed and fed and newly clad, she sallied forth. It was a large town in which she found herself, almost a city, centered about a steep rock whereon stood a castle. The white walls shone in the sun; bright banners flew about it, and chief among them a blood-red cross upon a white field. She spat toward it, by instinct. But the castle was not her concern, although it swarmed with Franks. They were no threat to Alamut.

There had been a mosque once. It lay in ruins, defiled with the dung of Frankish cattle and overrun with Frankish dogs. She laid a wishing on it that cleansed away the foulness and put the dogs to flight; and she prayed in the broken court­yard, face toward Mecca, as was proper.

The sorcerer lived not far from the mosque, beside a raw new structure, a church of the Christ. The church held no fear for her. But she approached the house with utmost care, all her power drawn close about her. To those who passed, she was a harmless saunterer, a smooth-faced youth affecting an air of great age and worldly wisdom.

The house seemed a poor dwelling for so mighty an en­chanter. It was small and unassuming; no symbols of power guarded its door, and no demons crouched within to devour any who approached. There was only the barrier she had met before, the wall of nothingness, that turned to searing fire when she touched it with her mind.

She gathered all her courage and firmed her power, and laid her hand upon the gate. No mighty force drove her back. She looked into a dim passage, and a sunlit court with a young tree in its center. A man bent over it, watering it from a wooden bucket. He was a small man, rather plump, with a fringe of colorless hair round a shining bald crown. He wore the coarse black robe of a Frankish priest, knotted at the waist with a cord; a wooden cross lay on his breast.

He looked up, full into her stare, and smiled. His face was soft and smooth-shaven, his eyes round and clear and blue and utterly guileless.

She had never seen a face more innocent, or more terrible.

4.

Morgiana prowled her chamber like a panther in a cage. Below her, in the common room of the inn, the nightly throng waxed hilarious. The innkeeper was a Muslim, but business was business; if one served Franks, one served wine. He had not had the temerity to offer her any. Hajji, he was calling her now — rightly enough, if it came to that. There had been a man in Mecca who had dared to speak ill of the Lord of Alamut.

There was a man in this town of Alsalam whose very existence was a threat to the Faith.

In the center of the faded carpet, thrust upright into it, glittered her dagger. She circled it and sat before it, glaring at it. “Never,” she said to it. “Never have I failed. Never. And never before now, on the first attempt. “

Allahu akbar, said the writing upon the blade: God is great.

“But,” she said. “They have always been mortal men. Every one. And I . . . I am the Ifritah who followed Hasan-i Sabbah out of the desert, whom he tamed and took for his own; whom he made into the Blade of Alamut, to strike when all else fails. He turned me against sorcerers — oh, many a time! Yet all were charlatans. I slew them all with the ease of true power.”

Inshallah, said the blade: God’s will be done.

“This is not a charlatan,” she said. “This, truly, is a sorcerer, a man of power. I am not afraid of him. Allah be my witness, I am not. Yet he has power. None of the others has ever had power. I do not know — I do not — ”

The blade had nothing to say.

5.

The knights of Alsalam had their own priest and their own chapel; the Christians of the town worshiped their God in the church of Saint Paul of Damascus. The priest there, Father Wilfrid, was a gentle soul — a saint, some would say.

A sorcerer, thought Morgiana. Wrapped in a pilgrim’s mantle, she knelt and sat and stood with the others as her quarry moved through the ritual of the Mass. The church was very small, and she very close to him; two long strides could have brought her to his side as he bowed upon the altar. So harmless, he seemed, this small fat man with his round blue eyes.

The air sang with power. Her own, she furled close about her like her cloak, lest it betray her. Now and again, her hand would creep beneath the shrouding fabric, to close about her dagger’s hilt.

Soon now. The people about her shifted and stirred, minds reaching for the outer air; the acolytes measured with their eyes the path of escape. Only the priest had not changed, rapt in his rite.

As it ended, Morgiana’s heart thudded against her ribs. Her fingers tightened about the cold smoothness of the hilt. Clouds of incense blurred her sight; figures stirred within them, chanting in sweet alien voices.

Allah! her mind cried. Allahu akbar!

The clouds thickened. Shadows passed her, moving slowly, like figures in a dream.

But one was real. A round pale face, and round pale eyes. They smiled at her.

oOo

She was alone in the house of the Frankish God. There was no incense, scarcely even its memory. Only the painted walls, and the painted idols; and the Christ upon his cross, erect and triumphant, as if his convict’s death had been a victory.

She raised her blade to him. Her eyes blazed, green as a cat’s in her white face; her power, freed, crackled about her. “I shall defeat you,” she said. “I shall trample you beneath my feet. You, and the demon-spawn who serves you.”

She spat in his blank unheeding face, and spun away from him.

6.

Once again, Morgiana set her hand upon the gate of the sorcerer’s house. But now it was deep night, and she had laid aside all disguises. She wore the white robes of the Brother­hood of Alamut, whom the men of this land called Hashi­shayun, and the Franks Assassins.

The gate opened easily. No servant or porter challenged her within. The priest had but two to wait upon him — an ancient Frankish monk and a slave-boy he had bought in Alsalam, whom, people said, he had freed, but who would not leave him. More than they, he did not need. He had the power of his God.

She dared not use her own within these walls, quiet though they seemed. Without it she felt blind and deaf, keen though her senses were, keener than any man’s. She advanced like a hunting cat, eyes huge and flaring green in the light of the faint new moon; her ears cocked at every sound, her nostrils flared wide, seeking a single scent. The air reeked of humanity, and of Frankish piety. Of power, there was no tangible sign.

Softly she slipped across the courtyard, round the slender shadow of the tree. Close by, someone snored, a constant, senile wheeze. A childish snuffling played counterpoint. She

passed that door without pausing.

Beyond, she heard soft regular breathing. Her own caught; she softened it.

Again, there was no lock, no barrier at all. No storm of fire swept upon her; no sacred terror seized her. She looked upon a tiny cell of a room, a rough cot, a vigil-lamp beneath a crucifix. And her prey.

He slept as a child might sleep, utterly at peace. His shirt was old and threadbare; beneath it she saw another, dark and harsh. Yes; he would wear a hair shirt, would this sorcerer­ saint. She eased her dagger from her sash and glided into the cell.

oOo

The blue eyes opened. Father Wilfrid smiled, a little puz­zled and not at all dismayed that an Assassin’s dagger hov­ered above his throat.

Hovered, only. Morgiana made no move to take the life that lay so placidly in her hand.

The priest blinked and shook his head. “Such dreams I have — and at my age, too. I’d be ashamed of myself. Except,” he added in unabashed delight, “that you are so beautiful.”

Morgiana cherished the cold fire of wrath which had brought her here, though it hurt almost beyond bearing, a dart of ice, twisting her vitals. “I am your death,” she said.

“Indeed? How splendid! So often, I’ve prayed…let it be a good death. Let it be a worthy one. Worthy of God, that is,” he said humbly. “Certainly I deserve nothing at all. But I never dreamed that it would be such as you. Are you an angel?”

“I am an Ifritah. I serve the Lord of Alamut.”

“Even they serve God, then.” The priest sighed and smiled. “I’m glad. I’m not a very good priest, you know. I’ve always been uncomfortable with the thought of damnation. If one chose it, certainly . . . but what if one believes that one is choosing salvation? How does God go about solving that?”

“You are damned. You have destroyed six of our Brother­hood.”

“But,” the priest said, baffled. “Six…?” Suddenly, light dawned. “Ah! All those poor boys who came to kill me. God smote one, not into Hell, I hope; I did pray for him as hard as I knew how. The others stayed to talk to me. They saw the light at last, God be praised. One has even taken the most blessed path of all. That was Hakim. Brother Paul, he is now, for the great Saint. He was my servant for a long while before he confessed all his sins. Poor lad, he truly believed that my death would take him to Paradise.”

Morgiana ground her teeth. Her hand shook upon the dagger hilt; she could not control it.

“Child,” the priest said, “you must be tired of standing like that. Won’t you put your knife away? You can use it later, when you’re feeling stronger. Meanwhile, will you eat something? Drink a little? Or don’t Afarit . . . ?”

She ventured a stab of power. It met no resistance. Star­tled, she plunged deep, into a mind like a limpid pool. A peaceful, pious, utterly human mind. He had no power at all. No sorcery, no weapons of light. All his strength was piety, prayers and holy words and a faith which no force of the world could shake.

The crucifix glittered; she forced her eyes away from it, upon the priest. “You are the enemy,” she said. “You have thwarted our da’wa, our sacred Mission. Through you and your prayers, all of Outremer is closed to us, and far too much of Islam. “

“Through me? But how — ?”

“They come to you, knight and commoner, emir and fellah. They seek your blessing or your counsel. They depart, and no one of us can touch them.”

Father Wilfrid sat up, heedless of her dagger. There was a thin line between his brows, a ripple in his mind. He was truly and deeply dismayed. “Oh, no, certainly…they come, it’s true, but people always seem to come to a priest. Of course I give them my blessing. Even the Infidels seem to want it. How can I refuse them? They’re all God’s children.”

“I am not. You cannot corrupt me as you have corrupted my lost brethren.”

“I only talked to them, and told them of the true Faith. Of course they saw its truth: they were already seekers after God. They had only been distracted by a false path. God has forgiven them. God will forgive you — even you, beautiful demon-child, if you ask Him.”

He needed no weapons, nor any sorcery. He had the purity of his faith. Morgiana threw up her anger as a shield against it. “Twice I have struck at you. Twice I have failed, for your false God defended you. This time I shall not fail.”

“If my God is false,” asked Father Wilfrid in honest curiosity, “then how could He defend me?”

“There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet.” A second shield, that, a bulwark of belief.

“There is no God but God,” the priest agreed, crossing himself devoutly. “How fortunate you are, that you see so much. But how unfortunate that you’re blind to the rest.”

“I see Truth. There is Allah, the Merciful, the Compas­sionate; there is the Prophet; there is the Book. And there is Alamut, which defends them all.”

“With steel?” The priest took it from her, easily, and turned it in his plump fingers. “How lovely. How deadly. How like its owner.” He looked up at her, smiling. “My soul will be delighted to be free at last. Such a burden, a body is. I only wish . . . you should think about things, you know. About God, and truth, and faith. I know He loves you. After all, He made you.”

“He made me the Dagger of Islam.” She snatched her own from his unresisting hands. She would kill him. For the Faith, and for her own sanity, she would — ­

He regarded her, head cocked a little to one side. “Have you killed many people?” he asked.

“Too many.”

She had not meant to say that. She did not mean it. She obeyed her Master; she served her Brotherhood. The blood on her hands was the blood of sacrifice. She had never killed in anger, never in greed or in hatred. Always in holy zeal.

“Ah, poor child,” said this latest of her sacrifices. She saw herself reflected in his eyes, a slender child-woman with a white desperate face.

She was not a child. She was not even a woman. She shifted her grip upon the knife.

The priest nodded. “Yes, it’s time now. I’ll do what I can for you, when I stand in front of my God.” He crossed himself and bowed his absurd, bald, saintly head.

Swiftly she struck. The blade pierced his heart; pulsed once, and was still. With a sigh the priest fell back.

“My victory!” cried Morgiana, fierce and high. “Mine for Allah!”

Ah, said the priest’s smile, and the smile of the figure on its cross above him, but we allowed it.

She snatched her dagger from its sheath of flesh and bone and blood, and fled.

7.

The Lord of Alamut walked aimlessly in his Garden, pausing now and then to inspect a rare blossom or to remove a withered leaf. His son followed him in a black cloud of anger and impatience.

At last Hasan stopped short. “She has not come back. She has failed like all the rest. She has deserted us, and turned to the Giaours.”

“She faced a very great sorcerer,” his father said mildly, “whom she might not have defeated all at once. He was a very holy man.”

“Holy! “

“A saint of our enemies.” The old man sighed a little. “Sanctity is the most powerful sorcery of all, and the most deadly. But,” he added softly, “you will never know that, though they name you Imam in place of the one who is hidden, and make a lie of your ancestry, and worship you as but little less than God.”

Steel flashed in the young man’s hand.

It never reached its target. The old man smiled into Morgiana’s wild green eyes. “Ah, my Ifritah. It is done?”

She released Hasan’s wrist. He snarled but retreated from them both, glaring at the ground.

Neither heeded him. She bowed low and laid her blade at her Master’s feet. “It is done,” she said in a strange, flat voice.

He laid his hand upon her head. “Blest be the name of Allah!”

“Whom I serve as best I may.” She raised her eyes. They saw the lined and reverend face, the dark steady stare; but her mind saw another altogether. It would be a long, long while before she was free of it. “Have I my lord’s leave to go?”

“Go in peace,” said the Lord of Alamut.

She laughed, briefly, half in mockery, half in pain, and vanished from the Garden.

But the dagger remained, abandoned at his feet, its bright blade dulled with the blood of the saint.

Copyright © 1985 by Judith Tarr

First Published: Moonsinger's Friends, ed. Susan Shwartz (Bluejay Books)