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trying to ignore the racket made by the rising warriors. "Pack your things,
Entertainer," he ordered. "You're coming with us."
"Eh? Hai! Not into desert. Am bound for... "
The captain glared. "So you'll make a detour. The one you were were fishing
for. That's what last night was all about, wasn't it? So drop the pretense.
Pack your things. You've found your new sponsor."
Mocker stared at the ground. He fought fear. This man was dangerously
perceptive.
The captain leaned closer. "The Lord Sidi and Lady Yasmid insist on having
you. I won't defy them. But I'll be watching, fat man. One misstep and you're
dead."
Mocker shook all over. He had had no illusions before, but with the captain
having voiced his suspicion he became more terrified than ever. He rushed to
his donkey. He irritated the captain further when the party got under way. He
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was the only one walking. But Sidi took a proprietary interest in him,
shielding him from the Invincible, acting like a child with a new pet.
Mocker faked smiles and mumbled to himself, "Am going to repay this
patronization with compound interest, Lord."
The Sahel he liked even less than he did Sidi. Between Hammad al Nakir proper
and the domains of the coastal states lay a strip of land which made the
interior desert attractive by comparison. A legacy of the Fall, a natural
killing zone, it varied in depth from forty to one hundred miles. Virtually
waterless and lifeless, it consisted almost entirely of sharp, low mountains
and tortuous, rocky gorges. It was the crudest of lands. The few people who
survived there were among the poorest and most primitive alive. They hated
outsiders.
And they were El Murid's, heart and soul. Most of the current crop of
Invincibles sprang from the Sahel. The sons of the Sahel saw more promise in
El Murid's dreams than did the Children of Hammad al Nakir proper.
Mocker walked that barren land and wept for himself. However was he going to
win his way back through this maze of dead hills and unseen sentinels? The
watchful Sahel tribesmen were everywhere. Lean, ragged savages, they scared
hell out of him each time they visited their brethren of the bodyguard.
He tried to keep them out of mind. Sufficient unto the day the evil thereof.
After three thoughtful days he selected the girl as his primary target. El
Murid's movement would miss her more than it would Sidi. The heart of the
insane beast would not miss a beat if she were to take over when the
Disciple's last day came.
The boy was a useless little snot. If he assumed the mantle his father's
movement would rush headlong toward the graveyard of history.
The fat man had begun, occasionally, to think politically. Haroun bin Yousif
had set his feet upon the path.
He wanted to cause his enemies all the pain he could. Removing their future
prophetess seemed the surest way.
He could not get close to the girl. His usual winning techniques seemed wasted
on her. Though she often watched his entertainments, and sometimes observed
Sidi's private lessons, she never betrayed amusement or delight. The
Invincible captain was more responsive.
She had to be an inhuman monster. A child with no child in her at all. That
was spooky enough in a grownup. In a kid it was horribly unnatural.
He worked hard with Sidi. The boy had no talent and a lot of impatience. He
had to praise him constantly to keep him interested. Sidi was the only channel
to Yasmid.
"Self, have decided," he announced one morning, after the Invincibles had set
up a semi-permanent camp just behind the Sahel. "Will show favorite pupil
secret of mesmerism after all." He had decided to go ahead with his final,
most desperate, most perilous line of attack.
He had been priming it from the beginning, of course, just in case, mentioning
hypnotism, when playing coy. His excuse for dropping the subject was always
the best: the Invincibles might accuse him of witchcraft. And there was the
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problem of finding a reliably close-mouthed subject on whom to practice.
Sidi had been voluntering his sister for almost as long as Mocker had been
tempting him.
"Now?" Sidi demanded. He was excited. Mocker watched the green burn in his
eyes. Damo Sparen certainly had been a student of the human race, the fat man
reflected. He had been guiding the Disciple's son according to the Sparen
precepts, letting the boy do all the work. He was ready. A lust for power over
people boiled within him.
"Soon, Lord. If same can be managed unbeknownst to white-clad savages. Same
being simple skill learnable by anyones, but subject to gross
misinterpretation by superstitious, self must protect self... "
"Tonight. Come to my tent tonight. My sister will be there. I promise."
Mocker nodded. He kept his mouth shut, let the boy have his head.
Sidi was the perfect mark, so avaricious and self-centered that he had no time
for suspicions. Mocker was ashamed. This was like robbing a blind man.
But the stakes! Oh, the stakes!
He worried about the captain all day. That man was the essence of vigilance.
He would have to be the first to die...
He dared leave no one like the captain alive on his backtrail. The captain had
that same abiding quality exemplified by Haroun's man Beloul. He would come
till he had gotten his revenge.
Not all the Invincibles remained cold and aloof. Several of Mocker's pupils
became quite friendly. He swapped jokes and quips with them, and regaled them
with endlessly shifting, slippery lies about his misadventures in the east.
They answered him with lies of their own.
Darkness finally fell. He let a few hours drag past. Finally, heart hammering,
he crept to Sidi's tent. No one challenged him.
It was a night without a moon, but he knew the guard only pretended not to
notice him. What if the man suffered a fit of conscience and reported this to
his commander?
"Lord?" Mocker whispered, his nerves howling. "Is self. Can same enter?"
"Come on! It's about time. Where have you been?"
Mocker slipped into the tent. "Waiting for camp to fall asleep." He smiled.
Yasmid was there.
She had brought one of her handmaidens. That was a complication he had not
foreseen.
Could he hypnotize three at one time? He had never tried. And a life or death
situation made it a hell of a time to start.
As if to soothe his nerves, he began tumbling a coin amongst his chubby
fingers, making it appear and disappear. "All is ready?" he asked. "All are
agreed? Lady? Self, will not undertake task if same offends... "
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"Get on with it." Yasmid smiled thinly. "Entertainer, I'm here because I'm
interested. But we have to finish before the guards change watches."
"Is not so simple like skinning goat, Lady. Stage must be set."
"So set it."
There was no doubt who was in charge here. Not Sidi. Mocker smiled wanly. Had
the girl been using her brother all along?
He assumed the lotus position. "If Lady will sit facing self? All right. Lord,
will do same here?" He patted the carpeted earth with his left hand. Beckoning
the handmaiden, "You, sit here, please." He patted with his right hand. "Lord
Sidi, and you, Miss, you must watch self close. See what self does. Is
impossible of explaining, but easy to show. Lady Yasmid, you concentrate on
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