The guards stared into nothing, as they always did.

El Nadim took the deck. He touched. He mixed. He returned the cards. Mocker hunkered down and began laying them out at the general's feet.

He had five cards down. His heart hammered. The sixth was a long time coming.

It was another bad one. He glanced up. Did he dare start over?

Subsequent cards made a worse picture still.

He could not lie outright. El Nadim might know something about reading the tarot.

"Bad, eh?"

"Not good, Lord. Great perils lie ahead. Self, would guess same not to be insuperable, but very unpredictable. Would like to do astrologic chart now, stars being more exact."

"That bad? All right. Ask your questions."

El Nadim's stars were no better than his cards. Mocker was sure Sajac had derived similarly bleak forecasts; el Nadim had sensed it and had hoped that an alternate divination would prove more hopeful.

"Nevertheless," el Nadim mused after the fat man had reported his findings. "Nevertheless, we're going. Tomorrow. El Murid himself has commanded it."

He seemed so sad and resigned that Mocker momentarily regretted having to make his prophecies become fact.

There were always good men among the enemy, and el Nadim was one of the best among today's foe. He was a genuinely warm, caring and just man. It was his humanity, not his battlefield genius, that had melded the middle east into a semblence of the Old Empire. He truly believed, in his gentle way, in El Murid's Law—and he possessed the will and might to enforce it.

The disease of nationalism had not yet infected the east. El Nadim's vision of Empire met needs there that had died long since in the fractious west.

Mocker could see that. Perhaps el Nadim saw it. But Al Rhemish did not. El Murid expected his general to plunge into an alien civilization, comprised of scores of divers cultures and kingdoms, and repeat a success he had wrought in an area where only three significant cultures existed.

"Foredoomed," Mocker muttered as he dogged el Nadim through Throyes' western gate. El Nadim would find suasion and right dealing of little value beyond the Kapenrungs. The lords of the west spoke and understood only one language, shared only one reality, one right, and the sword was its symbol.

Each day the fat man grew more nervous. Sajac lurked like death in the shadows, a constant reminder that the past has a way of coming back. To the west there were Invincibles who might remember him, who had less to lose than did the old man.

Sajac made his move after a lulling week.

Mocker guided his mount off the trail, swung down, hiked his robe, and squatted. And it was while he was in that inelegant pose that the Dark Lady reached out and tried to tap his shoulder.

A foot crunched gravel. A shadow moved swiftly, like nothing of the desert.

The fat man moved faster, diving, rolling and springing to his feet with blade in hand.

The assassin, a young Throyen soldier, gaped. No human being ought to move that fast, let alone a fat man.

Mocker moved in. His blade danced in the sunshine, flinging sprays of reflected light. Steel sang its song meeting steel. Then the soldier was staring forlornly at an empty hand.

"Self, am perplexed," Mocker said, forcing the man to sit on a rock. "Am beset by epical quandry. By all rights, should slay attacker as example to vituperative old man who sent same. Not so? Terrify greedy instantly? But am afflicted by disease called mercy. Will even withhold curse of revenge... " A wicked smile danced across his round face. "No! Will not withhold same."

He began to whoop and holler and dance, though his sword's point remained unerringly centered on the soldier's Adams apple. He howled out a few spirited, obscene tavern songs in guttural, fractured Altean while gesturing as if summoning up the Lords of Darkness.

"There. Should do job. Have set curse of leprosy, my friend, same being very specific."

The soldier flushed. He could imagine no worse fate.

"Very specific," Mocker reiterated. "Same becomes incumbent only when recipient tells lie." He laughed. "Understand? One lie and curse begins to take effect. Within a few hours skin yellows. Within few days flesh starts to fall away. Smell grows like stench of old corpse. Listen! Should lord general summon erstwhile assassin as witness, report whole truth of situation, exact. Otherwise... "

The fat man whirled, sheathed his blade, caught his mount, finished his wayside business, then returned to his place in the column. He kept bursting into giggles. That fool soldier had fallen for it.

The fat man muttered and cursed as the column approached Al Rhemish. His companions fussed and bothered. They were eager to visit the Holy City and Shrines. Mocker sweated constantly. This was the critical period. It was here that he was most likely to encounter a familiar face. It was here that Sidi now resided. It was here that Sajac would find his best opportunities.

El Nadim's army assembled on the lip of the bowl, looking down on Al Rhemish.

"Where are the divisions I sent ahead?" el Nadim asked no one in particular. They were nowhere to be seen. They were supposed to have awaited him here.

A lone. Invincible came galloping across the bridge and upslope. "You're not to enter Al Rhemish," he shouted. "Our Lord bid me tell you to go on westward."

"But... "

"That is the command of the Disciple." The messenger seemed uncomfortable. He was relaying orders he did not himself approve.

"We've come a long way. We want to pay homage at the Shrines."

"Perhaps when you're returning."

"What's going on? What's happened?" el Nadim demanded. "Something has, hasn't it?"

The messenger inclined his head slightly, but said only, "The Disciple has barred outsiders from the city." He indicated the bowl's south rim. "Even the pilgrims, who are old folks, women, and children."

"Even his generals? Will he see me?"

"No. I'm to offer his apologies and tell you that you'll understand in time. He said to remain steadfast in the Faith. He said his prayers will go with you." The messenger then wheeled and descended into the valley.

El Nadim waited a long time before saying, "We'll camp here tonight. He may change his mind."

There was no change of heart. Al Rhemish ignored the army's existence.

Mocker sighed after the column began wending through the desert once more. He was safe. He could concentrate on Sajac.

The crazy old man was careful. He had received a convincing lesson in Argon.

Mocker found scorpions in his boots. He found a poisonous snake in his bedroll. A flung stone narrowly missed his mount while he was negotiating a particularly nasty piece of mountainside trail. He found doctored water in his canteen, and feared his food would be poisoned if he stopped eating from the soldiers' common mess.

Sajac had his bullies. They made sure Mocker got nowhere near him.

The problem became a challenge. Poison would have suited Mocker's sense of propriety perfectly. An agent that would cause heart failure...

Heart failure. Sajac was old. His heart might be weak. Scare him to death? Using sympathetic voodoo magic like he and Gouch had seen in Ipopotam?

Notions and schemes fluttered through his head like drunken butterflies. He was supposed to be a sorcerer, wasn't he? Why didn't he get with the hoodoo and the mojo and make the old bastard think he was on his way out? Sajac could never be sure he wasn't Aristithorn's apprentice.

In minutes Mocker was telling a soldier, "Self, am tired of constant sniping." Sajac's attempts had become common knowledge. "Look!" He held up a hideous, venomous little lizard that looked more like an example of primitive beaded artwork than it did an animal. "Found same snoozing in donkey pack. Patience is at end. Am casting curse taught by master Aristithorn. Will gnaw heart of squamous old buzzard. Is slow curse. Sometimes takes months to kill victim. Beauty is in torture of waiting. Will end come immediately? Tomorrow? Will hurry to settle affairs maybe hasten same? Hee-hee. Was exceedingly difficult of learning said curse, but am glad today. Is even more beautiful because same curse can be hastened any time with proper cabalistic processes. Friend, self is not cruel. Do not like harming even monsters like bilious little villain of lizard. But, and am ashamed to admit same, am going to enjoy watching agonized waiting of nasty old back-stabber."