[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
of the chamber.
"Come to me," he said. "The girl will not be harmed; you can leave her there."
Agla seemed to have frozen into lifelessness. She stood stock-still, clutching my arms, staring ahead
blindly into the darkness.
"She will neither see nor hear anything," Ahriman told me. "Leave her and come to me."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
I disengaged my arm from Agla's grasp. She was still warm and alive, but I could detect no breath in
her, no heartbeat.
"I have merely accelerated time for the two of us," Ahriman said as I studied her. "This way we can talk
without being overheard or interrupted."
I stepped across the stone floor toward him. The stones felt solid and real. Ahriman looked as I had
remembered him a dark, brooding, powerful hulking body and red burning eyes. Agla remained as
lovely and as still as a statue made of living flesh.
"When you return to her, she will not know that an instant has passed. And for her, no time will have
elapsed."
"You play many tricks with time," I said.
He was standing straddle-legged, his huge fists planted on his hips. He wore fur-trimmed robes and high
leather boots. I could see no weapons on him, but how paltry a sword or dagger would be to a man of
his powers.
"You travel through time quite easily yourself," Ahriman hissed. "And through space. It was a long
journey from Hulagu's camp."
"You never rode in the camel caravan, did you?"
His broad, brooding face almost smiled. "No. I took a different mode of transport. I have been here in
Karakorumfor three months now. I am highly regarded as a priest of a new religion, a religion for
warriors."
"You sent those two assassins."
"Yes," he admitted easily. "I doubted that they would accomplish much, but I had to see if you still
possessed the powers that you had the last time we met."
"At the fusion reactor."
His heavy brows knit in puzzlement for a moment. "Fusion rea..." Then he took in a deep breath. "Ah
yes, of course. You are moving back toward The War. I haven't reached that time yet."
We were traveling across time in different directions, I remembered. We had met before, and we would
meet again.
"Did you... kill me, then?" Ahriman's labored voice almost sounded worried.
"No," I answered. "You killed me."
He seemed pleased. "Then I still may accomplish my task."
"To destroy the human race." He glowered at me. "Human. Look at the wonders that these Mongols
have achieved. Observe how they slaughter their own kind by the hundreds of thousands, and how
others who believe themselves to be civilized applaud such slaughter and benefit from it. Human, indeed."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"Do you count yourself better because you plan to slaughter us by the billions?"
"I plan to correct a mistake that was made fifty thousand years ago," Ahriman rasped. "For every life
that is snuffed out, a life will be gained. My people will live; yours will die. And so, too, will your creator
die the one who calls himself Ormazd."
"The War was fifty thousand years ago?"
"You will learn," he said. "You will meet me then. You will see. Why else would Ormazd have you
moving back from The End toward The War? To keep the truth from you."
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to keep his lies from penetrating my consciousness. I formed a mental
image of Ormazd, shining, glowing against the darkness of eternity. The Golden One, the giver of life and
truth. Ahriman called him my creator and said that he would kill us both.
Opening my eyes, I said, "My mission is to kill you."
"I know. And I would happily kill you, as easily as you would crush an insect beneath your heel."
"As easily as you murdered her?"
"The girl?"
"Her name was Aretha... in the twentieth century."
"I have not been there yet."
"You will be. And you will kill her. If there were no other reason for me to hate you, that would be
enough."
He shrugged those massive shoulders. "You can hate; you can love. Ormazd has programmed you quite
flexibly."
I was close enough to reach out and take him by the throat. But I had felt the strength of those mighty
arms before, and I knew that even with all the powers I possessed, he could toss me about like a
matchstick.
"The Mongols make it difficult for us to do battle," Ahriman said, breaking into my thoughts. "They have
their laws, and they will do their best to see that we obey them."
"I will gain an audience with Ogotai and warn him against you. You will not succeed here."
His almost lipless slash of a mouth curled back in a hideous smile. "Succeed? I have already succeeded.
And you have helped me!"
"What do you mean?"
He shook his head. "What do you expect of me? Do you think that I am here to assassinate Ogotai?"
"You are the leader of the cult of the assassins, aren't you?"
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
The smile degenerated into a sneer. "No, my ancient adversary. I am not the Old Man of the Mountains.
Only a true human would think of murdering his fellow humans for profit. The leader of the assassins is a
Persian, as human as you are. He was a boyhood friend of someone you may have heard of Omar
Khayyam, the astronomer."
"I know the name as a poet."
"Yes, he scribbled some verses now and then. But as for the assassins, Hulagu will crush them after he
takesBaghdadand destroys the flower of Islamic culture."
"You said you have already succeeded here... and I helped you."
"Yes," Ahriman said, his face becoming serious again. "Come. I will show you."
He turned and walked toward the solid stone wall that had been behind him. Remembering what he had
done in the twentieth century, I hesitated only a moment, then followed him.
I stepped through the wall, again feeling the chill of deepest space for an instant. And then we were in a
forest, surrounded by tall, dark trees that sighed in the night wind. Wordlessly, Ahriman led me along a
path that meandered through the underbrush. High above, through the leafy canopy, I could see a thin
sliver of a moon racing through scudding clouds. An owl hooted in the darkness; crickets chirped
ceaselessly.
We stopped at the edge of the woods, where the ground slanted downward toward a wide grassy plain.
Tents were pitched there; horses were tethered in long sleeping lines. But these tents were high-pitched
and square in shape, not like Mongol tents. The carts were huge and heavy compared to those I had
seen inKarakorum. And the horses also looked different from the ponies of theGobi bigger, heavier,
slower.
"The cream ofEastern Europe's knighthood," Ahriman whispered to me, "led by Bela, the King of
Hungary. A hundred thousand men are camped there, knights fromCroatia,Germany, the Hungarian
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]