"Do it quick. Make it good. And honest. You won't be back in a half hour to tear it up." Haroun could commiserate with the fat youth. How Radetic had driven him in his reading, writing, and language lessons!

Mocker was cunning enough not to assume that his captor was illiterate. He wrote a simple parting note saying that he would return in a few days. He had chanced on an opportunity to profit from the confusion along the border. He wrote in the language of Hellin Daimiel, which was the lingua franca of the Lesser Kingdoms, and Haroun's best foreign language.

"Is there anything else?" Haroun demanded.

"Donkey, that is oldest friend of self. Is in corral."

"You lead. I'll be a step behind you." He shook his head, muttering. "Might have known. Best friends with a jackass." He let Mocker leave before sheathing his dagger.

Two men were waiting outside. Mocker stood there with his mouth open, speechless. He seemed caught in the gap between relief and fear.

"What's this?" Haroun demanded.

Mocker found his tongue. "Sparen. Gouch."

Haroun had no trouble guessing which was which. Gouch would be the mountain of beef blocking their way past the performance booth. "Move this creature," he told the smaller man, who was seated on a crate.

"Where're you going, Mocker?" Sparen asked. He ignored Haroun. "Would you be taking anything with you?"

"Donkey... "

Haroun pushed past the fat youth. "Move it," he told Gouch.

Gouch seemed to be deaf. Sparen said, "I wasn't talking to you, boy."

"I have spoken twice. I won't speak again."

Sparen's irritation showed. "You've got a mouth, boy. Gouch, shut him up."

Gouch moved quicker than a snake striking

Haroun moved faster. He cut the big man three times, not too badly.

Mocker tried to run. Haroun tripped him, wheeled on Sparen. "I'd guess Gouch is a valuable property. Move him or lose him."

"You have a point. Gouch, step back. I'll handle this myself."

Haroun took Mocker's elbow, started forward.

"I didn't say you could go, boy," Sparen said. "I just decided to kill you myself."

"Take care, Damo," Mocker said. "Is trained in Power."

"Isn't everybody in this business?"

"Is slight and arrogant, but is one known as King Without Throne."

Sparen spat to one side. "Right. And I'm the Lost Prince of Libiannin."

Haroun took advantage of the diversion of the exchange to palm a blow-tube. He raised his hand, coughed.

Sparen saw it coming, but too late. He made one violent thrust, then collapsed. An expression of incredulity contorted his features.

Gouch and Mocker crowded Sparen. "What did you do?" Gouch demanded. He shook Sparen. "Mr. Sparen, wake up." The giant seemed unaware of his own wounds. "Tell me what to do, Mr. Sparen. Should I break them?"

"Come on," Haroun snarled, grabbing Mocker's shoulder. "The big guy's got this figured as your fault." He was thinking he would have to get a lot of use out of this Mocker to repay himself for all this trouble.

A little later, Mocker remarked, "Sparen was friend of self. Not very trusting friend, but best friend even so."

Haroun heard the gentle threat. He saw the promise of murder in his companion's eyes. "I didn't kill him. The dart was coated with a nerve poison that causes temporary paralysis. It comes from the jungles south of Hammad al Nakir. He'll be all right in a couple of hours, except for a headache and a bad temper."

He hoped. The drug was fatal about a quarter of the time.

The more Haroun observed his companion, the more he became sure Mocker would make a dangerous enemy. The fat and incurable optimism hid a lean, conscienceless killer.

They were halfway to el Senoussi's encampment, several days later, when they encountered the refugees. These were not desert-born fugitives from the wrath of the Disciple. They were natives fleeing El Murid's minions.

The El Murid Wars had begun, and troops of desert riders were in Tamerice already.

They gave Haroun a hold on the fat man.

There was no point continuing southward. He turned back, heading for a camp in Altea. Invincible patrols forced them into hiding several times.

North of Feagenbruch they came across the burned wagons of the Sparen carnival. Sparen himself was among the dead, but Gouch had survived. They found him, wounded, lying beneath a mound of desert warriors.

Mocker studied Sparen for a long time. "Was paranoid fool, sometimes, maybeso, this man. But was friend. In some way, even, was like father. There is blood now, Haroun bin Yousif. Same must be cleansed in blood. Self, am now interested in politics." He moved to Gouch. "Gouch. You. Big fellow. Get up. Is work to do."

Incredibly, Gouch rose out of his pile of victims.

"They slew both my fathers," Haroun whispered.

It would be a long time before Mocker understood that remark.

He soothed Gouch's tears and wounds and fears and listened while the King Without A Throne explained the part he could play in bringing about the downfall of the Disciple.

THE LONELY CITY

A l Rhemish was a lonely city that first summer of the wars. All the Disciple's intimates had abandoned him for the excitement and loot of the west.

He often strolled the dusty streets with his children, having trouble accepting his fortune. He ached continuously in the vacuum left by Meryem's passing.

His loneliness grew as the victories mounted and the euphoria of the stay-at-homes transmogrified into a worshipful awe of the man who had dreamed the dream and made the turnaround possible.

"They're trying to make me their God," he told his children. "And I can't seem to stop them."

"They already call you The Lord in Flesh some places," Yasmid told him. She not only had the boldness her mother had shown when young; she also possessed that adult self-assurance El Murid had developed after his first encounter with his angel. She seemed an old child, an adult looking out of a half-grown body. Even he was disturbed by her excessively grownup perceptions.

Sidi, on the other hand, threatened to remain an infant forever.

"I issue edicts. They ignore them. And the men I set to police heresies become the worst offenders." He was thinking of Mowaffak Hali. Mowaffak was smitten by the man-worshipping disease.

"People want something they can touch, Father. Something they can see. That's human nature."

"What do you think, Sidi?" The Disciple took every opportunity to include his son in everything. One day Yasmid would have to depend on her brother the way he depended on Nassef.

"I don't know." Sidi was surly. He did not give a damn about the Lord's work. The Evil One was in him. He was the antithesis of his sister in everything. He afflicted his father with a desperate pain.

El Murid had trouble handling his feelings toward Sidi. The boy had done nothing blatant. Yet. But the Disciple smelled wickedness in him, the way a camel smelled water. Sidi would be trouble one day, if not for his father, then for Yasmid when she became Disciple.

El Murid felt trapped between jaws of faith and family. Rather than deal with it, he was letting everything slide during the boy's formative years.

He prayed a lot. Each night he begged the Lord to channel Sidi's wickedness in useful directions, as He had done with Nassef. And he begged foregiveness for the continuous quiet anger he bore because of Meryem's untimely passing.

Yasmid had taken Meryem's place, becoming confidant and crying shoulder.

El Murid was strong in his faith, but could never still the lonely, frightened boy within him. That boy had to have someone...