“Congratulations, ibn Sabbah,” Abu Ali interrupted. “The fedayeen proved this morning that you’ve succeeded.”
“My friend, do you think I don’t know how far our fedayeen still lag behind Mohammed’s first believers? But let me also tell you this: I need to achieve more, far more than he achieved.”
The grand dais exchanged glances, smiling.
“You’re chasing us, as though you were the leopard and we were the prey,” Buzurg Ummid remarked. “You’re smiling that enigmatic smile of yours, and we’re already dying to find out where you’re headed with these strange meanderings.”
“My plan is enormous,” Hasan resumed. “That’s why I need believers who will long for death so much that they won’t be afraid of anything. In fact, they’ll have to be in love with death. I want them to chase after it, seek it out, beg it to have mercy on them, as though it were a hard and unwilling maiden.”
Abu Ali and Buzurg Ummid laughed out loud. They thought that Hasan was leading them on in his usual way, and that the cleverest thing for them to do would be to show that they didn’t believe him.
Hasan continued unperturbed.
“Our institution needs to be so strong that it can resist any foe and, if necessary, the whole world… It ought to become a kind of supreme supervisory council for the planet. Our believers’ infatuation with death will help us achieve that. Because by making it possible for them to die we’ll be demonstrating our special grace to them. Of course, they won’t be choosing the way they die. Every death we approve has to bring us a great, new victory. That is the essence of my plan and, at the same time, the testament that I want to reveal to you today.”
Despite the smile that accompanied his words, his voice resonated with a strange zeal. The grand dais didn’t know what to think.
“I wonder if today’s victory over the Turks aroused your pride and you’re joking with us now, or if…”
Abu Ali’s words got stuck in his throat.
“Yes …? Go on!” Hasan laughed. “Most likely you’ve come to the same conclusion as reis Lumbani when I was his houseguest in Isfahan. I see into your hearts. You’re thinking, ‘He’s gone mad.’ And yet wait till you see the surprises I’ve prepared for you.”
Abu Ali was silently angry.
“One way or the other,” he said irritably, “as long as people remain as they are now, nobody is going to fall in love with death, much less go chasing after it. Unless you’re able to create a new kind of human being. Everything else is a joke or insanity.”
“That’s just what I’m after!” Hasan exclaimed joyfully. “To sneak into the workshop of Allah himself, and since the man is old and feeble, take over his work. Compete with him in artistry. Take the clay in my hands. And then truly create a new human being.”
Abu Ali indignantly turned to Buzurg Ummid.
“And he calls Hakim the First crazy!”
Buzurg Ummid blinked at Hasan. He had been listening attentively to their dialog the whole time. He sensed that the supreme commander must be keeping something very special up his sleeve.
“At first you spoke of your testament,” he said, “then of the heavenly pleasures that the Prophet promised to those who fell in service to his cause, after that of a realm that will be able to withstand the whole world, and now you say you want to create a human being who will genuinely long for death. Now I’d like to hear what the connection is between all these things.”
“The connection between these things is all too simple,” Hasan replied, smiling. “As my testament I want to leave you the institution I have invented. The power of that institution will be built on a completely new kind of man. His distinctive trait will be an insane desire for death and blind devotion to the supreme commander. We can achieve both of these things through his utter faith—what faith!—his firm knowledge that the joys of paradise will be waiting for him after death.”
“That’s a good one!” Abu Ali said angrily. “Earlier you said that faith in the beyond faded after the Prophet’s death, and now you’re proposing to build our brotherhood on it. The devil take it, because I sure won’t!”
Hasan roared with laughter. It pleased him whenever he was able to make his assistant angry about something.
“Well, what do you think, Abu Ali, my friend,” he asked, “what would be needed to incite in our recruits such faith in the delights of heaven that they would be stark raving determined to die, so they could partake of them as soon as possible?”
“Open the gate to paradise and show it to them,” Abu Ali replied irritably. “Let them get a taste of it. After all, you teach that you have the key. I’d gladly die then too.”
“I’ve brought you just where I wanted you to be!” Hasan exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “Come follow me, men! I’m going to show you the key that opens the gate to paradise.”
He bounded over to the wall as though he were twenty years old and drew aside the carpet that hid the passageway leading to the top of the tower.
“Let’s go!” he called out and led them to the upper platform.
The grand dais looked at each other behind his back. Abu Ali pointed to his forehead and arched his brows questioningly. Buzurg Ummid raised a hand to signal patience.
They came out onto the terrace. This was the first time even Abu Ali had been here. It was a regular observatory. A large tablet lay on the ground. The paths of the earth and the other planets around the sun and the course of the moon and the zodiac had been charted on it. Smaller tablets were densely covered with equations. Geometric figures—circles, ellipses, parabolas and hyperbolas—were drawn on some of them. Strewn all around were rulers and scales of all kinds and sizes, astrolabes, compasses and other trigonometric equipment. A sundial had been drawn on the ground in the middle of the platform, the position of its hour hand calculated precisely. A small shed had been set up for all this equipment in case of bad weather. Next to the shed was a kind of flower bed with a glass cover that had been lifted up. Nothing grew in it except for some weed on long stalks that resembled nothing so much as an upended broom.
The grand dais took all this in quickly. Then the top of the tower opposite them drew their attention. A huge, black, mace-bearing guard stood on top if it, motionless as a statue.
The sun warmed the platform, but a pleasant mountain breeze cooled the air and brought the fresh smell of snow.
“You’d think we were up in the mountains,” Buzurg Ummid said, deeply inhaling the cool air.
“Don’t tell us you’ve set up this nest so you can gaze into heaven more easily,” Abu Ali laughed. “So is this the key that opens the gate to heaven?”
“Precisely, from this observatory I can look into paradise,” Hasan replied with a knowing smile. “But the key that opens its gate is in that flower bed over there.”
He approached it and pointed to the plants growing in it.
The grand dais followed behind him. They looked at each other and shook their heads.
“Hasan, Hasan,” Abu Ali said. “When are you thinking of letting up on all the jokes? Bear in mind that all three of us are getting on in years. A little more seriousness wouldn’t hurt. I won’t deny, today has been a great day and a little practical joke never hurt anyone. But you’ve been toying with us all morning!”