"For that I must thank you, Mustaf. What of my patrimony?"

"We treated with the factors. Perhaps they cheated us. We were but ignorant devils of the sands. Perhaps not. We bore scimitars still stained with the blood of those who had wronged us."

"I doubt that they cheated, Mustaf. It's not their way. And, as you say, they would have been frightened."

"There is a small amount in gold and silver. And the camels did not interest them."

"What were your losses?"

"One man. And my son Nassef was wounded. That boy! You should have seen him! He was a lion! My pride knows no bounds. That such a son should have sprung from my loins! A lion of the desert, my Nassef. He will be a mighty warrior. If he outlives youth's impetuosity. He slew three of them himself." The chieftain glowed in his pride.

"And horses? You mentioned horses."

"Three. Three of our best. We rode hard and swift. And there was a messenger, that we sent to find your father's people, that they might know and make claims. He has not yet returned."

"He has a long journey. It's yours, Mustaf. All yours. I ask but a horse and a small amount of coin with which to begin my ministry."

Mustaf was surprised. "Micah—"

"I am El Murid now. Micah al Rhami is no more. He was a boy who died in the desert. I have returned from the fiery forge as the Disciple."

"You're serious, aren't you?"

El Murid was surprised that there could be any doubt.

"For the sake of the friendship I bore your father, hear me now. Do not pursue this path. It can be naught but a way of tears and sorrow."

"I must, Mustaf. The Lord himself has commanded me."

"I should restrain you. I will not. May the ghost of your father forgive me. I will choose a horse."

"A white horse, if you have one."

"I have one."

Next morning El Murid again taught beneath the palms. He spoke with passion, of the scarcely restrained wrath of God losing all patience with his Chosen's neglect of their duties. The argument of the empty oasis was hard to refute. The fiery summer could not be discounted. Several of his younger listeners remained for a more scholarly question and answer session.

Three days later Nassef whispered from beyond El Murid's tent flap. "Micah? May I come in?"

"Come. Nassef? El Murid?"

"Sorry. Of course." The youth settled himself opposite El Murid. "Father and I have had an argument. About you."

"I'm sorry to hear that. It isn't a good thing."

"He ordered me to stay away from you. Meryem too. The other parents are going to do the same. They're getting angry. You're calling too many ideas into question. They tolerated you when they thought it was the desert madness talking. But now they're calling you a heretic."

El Murid was stunned. "Me? The Disciple? They accuse me of heresy? How can that be?" Had he not been chosen by the Lord?

"You challenge old ways. Their ways. You accuse them. You accuse the priests of Al Ghabha. They are set in their ways. You can't expect them to say, ‘Yes, we are guilty.' "

He had not foreseen that the Evil One would be so cunning as to deflect his own arguments against him. He had underestimated his Enemy. "Thank you, Nassef. You're a true friend to warn me. I will remember. Nassef, I hadn't anticipated this."

"I thought not."

"Go, then. Do not give your father cause for a grievance. I will speak to you later."

Nassef rose and departed, a small, thin smile on his lips.

El Murid prayed for hours. He retreated deep into his young mind. At last the will of the Lord became clear to him.

He looked up the long, stony slope at Al Ghabha. The low hill was barren, as if the darkness up there might creep down to devour any goodness surrounding it.

It was there that his first and most important victory had to be won. What point to winning the el Habib if their traditional spiritual shepherds guided them back to the paths of wrongdoing the moment he traveled on?

"I'm going to the Shrine," he told one of the men of the village, who had come to see what he was doing. "I'm going to preach a sermon there. I shall show them the Truth. Then let them name me heretic to my face, and risk the wrath of the Lord."

"Will that be wise?"

"It must be done. They must declare themselves righteous, or tools of the Evil One."

"I'll tell the others."

El Murid began walking.

The desert religion had contained no real devil figure till El Murid named him. Evil had been the province of a host of demons, ghosts, and fell spirits without leadership. And the paternalistic God of Hammad al Nakir had been but the paterfamilias of a family of gods suspiciously resembling the extended families of the Imperial and desert tribes. The Lord's problems had tended to come from a black-sheep brother who meddled and politicked for the pleasure of causing discord. The religion had retained traces of animism, belief in reincarnation, and ancestor worship.

The scholars at the Rebsamen University in Hellin Daimiel believed the desert gods to be vague echoes of a family that had united the original Seven Tribes and had guided their migration into the land that would one day become the Empire, and later Hammad al Nakir.

El Murid's teachings banished animism, ancestor worship, and reincarnation. They elevated the family chieftain to the position of an omnipotent One True God. His brothers and wives and children became mere angels.

And the meddlesome brother became the Evil One, the master of djinn and ifrits and the patron of all sorcerers. El Murid railed against the practice of witchcraft with a vehemence his listeners found incomprehensible. His principal argument was that it had been sorcery that had brought on the doom of the Empire. The glory of Ilkazar, and a hope for its return, was a theme running through all his teaching.

The primary point of contention at El Aquila was a proscription against praying to the lesser gods. El Murid's listeners were accustomed to petitioning specialists. They were accustomed, especially, to approaching Muhrain, the patron of the region, to whom the Al Ghabha Shrines were dedicated.

The boy's path led him not to Al Ghabha but to the site where the imam, Ridyah, had found him. He did not at first know what drew him thither. Then he thought that he was looking for something.

He had left something there, something that he had forgotten. Something that he had hidden in his last moment of rationality. Something that had been given him by his angel.

Visions of an amulet came in snatches. A potent wrist amulet bearing a living stone. It would be, his angel had told him, the proof he needed to convince unbelievers.

But he could not remember where he had concealed it.

He scrabbled round the sides of the wadi that had prevented him from reaching El Aquila on his own.

"What in the world are you doing?" Nassef asked from above.

"You startled me, Nassef."

"What're you doing?"

"Looking for something. I hid it here. They didn't find it, did they? Did they find anything?"

"Who? The priests? Only a ragged, desert-worn saltman's son. What did you hide?"

"I remember now. A rock that looks like a tortoiseshell. Where is it?"

"There's one over here."

The rock was just a yard from where al Assad had found him. He tried lifting the stone. He did not have the strength.

"Here. Let me help." Nassef nudged him aside. In the process he tore his sleeve on a thorn of a scraggly desert bush. "Oh. Mother's going to brain me."

"Help me."

"Father too, if he finds out I was here."

"Nassef!"

"All right! I'm here." He heaved on the rock. "How did you move it before?"

"I don't know."

Together they heaved the stone onto its back. Nassef asked, "Ah, what is it?"

El Murid gently extracted the amulet from the rocky soil, brushing dirt from its delicate golden wristlet. The stone glowed even in the brilliant morning sun.