Mohammed shook his head in confusion, then remembered something Zoe had once done. "Ahmet," he said, grasping the man's shoulder and feeling a chill shock as his hand started to pass through the wiry muscle and bone. "Ahmet, you are here with me, with your old friend Mohammed, the caraveneer. You are here, not there, not in Alexandria in a temple." Flesh stiffened and the Quraysh sighed in relief, seeing his friend become solid once more. Time is short, he felt. This interlude cannot last.
"Open your eyes," Mohammed commanded, putting steel in his voice. "Tell me what is happening in the world you saw."
The Egyptian focused again and the Quraysh thought he saw awareness flare in the dead eyes before hopelessness dulled them again. Ahmet lifted a hand, his dusty fingertips brushing Mohammed's face. "Hah. Are you real? I can touch you-but any sensation may be deceived. How did you find your way into my prison?"
"I am a prisoner too," Mohammed answered, now sure time was pressing. "But I cannot see out into the living world. You can-is your body, your true body, in Alexandria?"
"My corpse, you mean," Ahmet said, voice strengthening a little. "Yes. A puppet, moved by a dark, implacable will."
Revulsion and disgust twisted his expression. "The Serpent's army has taken the city and my… my shape, for there is no better word, sits on a throne like Pharaoh and dispenses fear and terror in place of wisdom and judgment."
"Who else is there?" Mohammed felt oddly adrift. The Persians in Alexandria? What happened to the campaign in Thrace? Did Constantinople fall? Did Shadin and his little army overcome the Roman garrison?
"She is," Ahmet groaned, starting to curl up again. Mohammed pressed his shoulders down with both hands. A cold suspicion was growing, just under his breastbone. Bits and pieces of… of everything were beginning to come together in his mind.
"Who is she?"
"The Queen, my queen, my beloved," Ahmet whispered. "She sits by my side and her voice is gracious and sweet as she pleads for mercy. We make a fine pair-one to distill fear, the other to offer hope-each on a golden throne."
"Zenobia?" Mohammed felt the chill blossom into a deadly, breath-crushing flower. "Or Zoe?"
"They are one," Ahmet gasped, hands clutching on something only he could see. "One more horror laid at horror's feet…"
Mohammed sat back, mind roiling with fury, despair, realization; a whirlwind of emotion. He grasped the staff for support, pressing his forehead against cool wood. A regal voice echoed in his memory: You are being deceived. He'd recognized the clear soprano then and ignored her warning. I was a fool, the Quraysh thought. I am not the voice, I am not infallible.
"How… how did Zenobia-" Mohammed stopped, realizing what had happened. "No, I understand. The Queen's mutilated body was a trap. Zoe took her corpse from the mountain tomb, and her mind become ensnared…"
Ahmet nodded, knocking his bare skull against the sand. "He is fond of innocent-seeming lures. By our heart's desire we are captured and bound." The Egyptian managed another hoarse, rattling laugh. "He is strong, but made stronger still by the desires of others bent to his will."
Mohammed grasped Ahmet's hand. "This 'he'-the same wizard you fought on the plain of towers?" The Egyptian nodded. "Is he a spirit, a god, or just a man?"
"He was human once," Ahmet said bleakly. "He let a power enter him-one of the pitiless, inhuman Great Old Ones who were worshipped before man, an incalculable power beyond comprehension-and has been transformed. Only a tiny fragment of his master's strength can pass through him-but that is enough to make him formidable beyond all others…"
Mohammed tried to voice a question, but his mind grappled with a sudden realization. Mouth working soundlessly, he took a breath, then managed to speak. "Are these… Old Ones… opposed? Are they the wellspring of evil?"
Dead lips stretched over rotted teeth and Ahmet barked another hoarse laugh. "Evil? A human conceit, my friend. Do you remember our discussions round the campfire? The wise thoughts of the philosophers and sages? They are no more than rubbish, the prattle of children too young and shortsighted to grasp the truth of the world. There is no good and there is no evil." Ahmet shuddered. "But there are things-powers-which dwarf the works of man and have lived so long in the abyssal spaces between the stars, death no longer touches them or makes them weak."
Mohammed recoiled from the despair and nihilism in Ahmet's voice. This is not the man I remember! He had faith and a good heart, unbowed and unbroken.
"You have abandoned hope," the Quraysh said, changing the subject a little. "You think he has captured you, lured you into his service, bent your neck to the yoke."
"He has!" Ahmet rose, eyes blazing. "His will rides me like a ghoul, moving my limbs to murder, my power to strike-so many dead have I heaped at his feet I cannot remember their names! He sees with my eyes, speaks with my lips. I am no more than… a container for his desire. A tool to be picked up at need."
Mohammed's eyes glinted hard, his suspicions confirmed. "He holds the Queen-Zenobia-before you as bait, making you dance so you might see her once more, hear her voice, feel her touch? And too, now you fear death, don't you? You think there is nothing beyond the portal save annihilation and you cannot abide the thought of nothingness?"
Ahmet's face blanched and he lifted a skeletal arm to hide his face. "There is nothing," he groaned hopelessly. "I have passed beyond death-my body died on the steps of the palace, exhausted in the last effort of defeating the dhole-and there was nothing, only an eternity of darkness, before he summoned me back from oblivion." The Egyptian's voice faded to an almost unintelligible whisper. "Even this half-life is better…"
Mohammed's fierce expression faded, replaced by gentle understanding. He looked around the little cave. "You are not dead," he said in a matter-of-fact voice. "Nor were you before. Your body may have perished, destroyed by the forces unleashed in defense of Palmyra, but your spirit has not completed its last journey." The Quraysh looked down and found Ahmet watching him with a peculiar, fixed intensity. "You are trapped in the borderland, in the margin between death and life. Our enemy has great strength and a cunning mind. He has-he had-blocked the gate through which the dead must pass."
The Egyptian tried to speak, but could find no words.
"This place is illusion," Mohammed said abruptly, rising to his feet. His visage became stern and he raised the fig-wood staff with an abrupt, defiant motion. The wooden stave broke through the stone ceiling and light flooded into the cavity. Stones and shards of obsidian crumpled away, falling up into the sky, driven by the power of the blow. A faint rumbling sound trembled in the air. "Another trap, laid by a master of snares."
The ground did not heave or split, but shivered, and Ahmet gaped to see entire spires and boulders begin to fragment, splitting apart. Each shard, released from some strange gravity, tumbled up, filling the sky with a black, spiralling cloud. Mohammed ignored the fantastic scene, holding out his hand to Ahmet.
"You weld your own chain," the Quraysh said, lifting his friend to his feet. "You bind only yourself and you may free yourself."
Ahmet, hunched, unable to stand straight, stared fearfully at Mohammed, who now seemed to loom enormous against the rippling, unstable sky. The broken stones, monoliths, spires, boulders-they plunged into the perfect darkness arching overhead-and as they fell, spit fire and meteors, shedding a terrible orange-red glow. Ahmet's eyes burned in reflection. "No! I will never see Zenobia again, never taste life again… I will cease!" The Egyptian was crying, though he had only dust for tears.