Engraved on the Eye by Saladin Ahmed
Shaykh Zaad paused and frowned. His slow, cold speech reminded Layla of a lizard’s slither. “Indeed, how have you repaid Almighty God Himself? This scarf. This red scarf. Wearing the Traitorous Angel’s color would be foul on Dhamsawaat’s decadent streets, let alone in the Lodge, where our Traditions ban it. What justification can you have for this blasphemy?”
Layla had made an oath to God and her mother. An oath. How many times had she repeated that to herself? With the eyes of all the Lodge on her, all she could do was tell Shaykh Zaad the same thing again in different words.
“As I’ve told you before, O Shaykh, this scarf was given to me by my mother, God shelter her soul, the woman who brought me up to piety and led me to the Lodge of God.”
“More’s the pity,” Shaykh Zaad interrupted. Layla made herself wait for his nod before continuing.
“As she lay dying I swore to her, before God and His Angels, that I would remember her by wearing her scarf. My mother was a believer, but an outlander. In her country, such a scarf is passed from mother to daughter and—”
Shaykh Zaad snorted and spoke scripture as if lecturing a child. “’For God, the whole world is but a footstep,’” he quoted. “God’s law knows no borders. The scarf is red. And red is the Traitorous Angel’s badge. Nothing could be simpler.” Beside Zaad, Shaykh Saif nodded solemnly.
Layla spoke quickly, knowing that she would falter if she hesitated. “While the Traditions do say that wearing red is forbidden by God, O Shaykh, you know better than one so ignorant as I, that this is largely based on opinion. There is nothing explicit in the Heavenly—”
“Opinion?” Shaykh Zaad moistened his lips and smiled a smile that made Layla afraid. “I am twenty years a Shaykh, and you are barely a Dervish, girl. As far as you’re concerned, I determine what is blessed and what is forbidden.”
There was a loud scraping as her grand-uncle shot up from his divan, with none of the usual wincing. “Watch your tongue, Zaad!” He had not sounded so strong in months. “Do not forget that all power comes from God! I will not have usurpers of His authority sleep in His Lodge!” He sat back down, clearly exhausted.
Shaykh Zaad barely hid his irritation. “Of course, O High Shaykh. Forgive my careless words—they were spoken in anger.” He turned his gaze back to Layla and she felt as if a sword were pointed at her. “You were telling us, child, about your learned scholarship—you who can hardly read the Heavenly Chapters. Please, continue.”
Shaykh Rustaam replied before Layla could. “She is not a scholar, Shaykh Zaad. But I am. ‘O believer! Know that God is the fairest judge and the most doting father’ say the Heavenly Chapters. Come now, brothers. We all know the truth. The girl has always been pious in her conduct. We have all seen the miraculous speed with which she moves and leaps, and her prowess with the sword. If you’re honest with yourselves, you see God’s hand at work in her uncanny skill.”
“Ha! That the girl has a strange strength I grant,” Zaad said, “but her power comes not from God, but from the Traitorous Angel. No doubt this is why she wears his badge of wickedness!”
Layla held her tongue, though it wasn’t easy.
Shaykh Rustaam smirked. “O Zaad, God knows you’re a veritable scholar of wickedness! Still, at its bottom, this is where we are: the girl is a full Dervish, however young. She has made a fair ruling, given the Heavenly Chapters’ ambiguity. A valid if provocative interpretation.” He stroked his moustache. “I find Layla’s daring paradoxically pious in its way—for ‘Above all are love and bravery blessed,’ and ‘He who honors his mother hath a feast set him in Paradise.’ The Oasis Shaykh, God shelter his soul, taught—”
“Keep your heretical interpretations to yourself!” Zaad spat.
Shaykh Rustaam frowned. “The Oasis Shaykh was a revered saint who—”
“He was the degenerate founder of a degenerate school! A lover-of-boys who thought himself a mystic!”
“Zaad!” Her grand-uncle shouted as loud as his feeble lungs would allow. He was on his feet again.
Layla could not quite sort out all the hollering that followed. She’d always been bored by books and the Traditions, by scrolls and sermons. Even her command of the Heavenly Chapters wasn’t what it ought to be, she knew. For seven years now, she’d spent every moment she could in the training yard or the archer’s copse or the pool of hardening. This back-and-forth of saints and scriptures meant little to her. But in Zaad’s eyes she saw something that she knew well enough. Rage.
Again her grand-uncle’s reedy shout cut through the other Shaykhs’ voices. “Disgraceful! I will not have the Lodge of God torn apart in these disputes! In God’s name, I—”
His words stopped as his eyes bulged out and he fell back in his seat. He sucked in a breath and Layla was close enough to see him grit his teeth. With every bit of discipline her training had given her, she kept from leaping to his side. Such a display would weaken his hand, and in this hall he was the High Shaykh, not her grand-uncle.
“We…will…adjourn.” Her grand-uncle bit the words out and put his hand to his chest. Two attendants half-carried him out of the room. Shaykhs Saif, Rustaam, and Zaad followed the High Shaykh.
After a long, shocked silence the hall began to clear.
“No! No! He can’t be dead!” Layla wailed. She sat on a large rock near the archer’s copse with Shaykh Rustaam who, with strong arms and a vial of salt-and-violet had twice now kept her from collapsing.
His own eyes shone with tears that did not quite fall. “Listen, child. High Shaykh Aalli scolded me often, but without his guidance I’d never have become a Shaykh. I loved him and I feel his loss—for ‘Death is only a loss for the wicked and the living.’
“Yet if we would honor your grand-uncle’s memory, there is work that falls to us—work that leaves us little time for grieving. You recall what the Lodge of God’s Traditions mandate in a situation such as this?”
Layla’s memory struggled through grief and neglected lessons. When the answer came to her, she gasped. “The Judgment of Swords and Souls!”
“So your learning isn’t so poor as some wagging tongues say! Yes, the Judgment. Zaad, in his lust for power, insists upon determining the new High Shaykh immediately after your grand-uncle’s funeral.”
At the word ‘funeral,’ Layla felt a sob rising up in her, but she smothered it and clenched her jaw.
Shaykh Rustaam went on “The Judgment is a matter between Shaykhs. Its contests of swordplay and piety act as arbiters between us and help us find our leader. But we Shaykhs are measured by our pupils as well—and so we are accompanied in the Judgment by a Dervish of our choosing. Zaad will bring that little-shit-in-a-big-man’s-body, Hakum. And I’ll bring you. Now, I ought not ask this—for High Shaykh Aalli’s sake I should protect you. But the Lodge that he has built needs your help.” Shaykh Rustaam stood.
Layla winced and again felt weakness creep in. But there was no time for it now. She rose and she and her teacher walked side-by-side. “I mourn my grand-uncle, O Shaykh, but Shaykh Zaad must not become High Shaykh. To tell truth, my grand-uncle spoke of your someday taking that place.”
Shaykh Rustaam’s eyes shone again. “Me? High Shaykh? Truly? And here I thought he had cast me in the dross-pile for a hopeless libertine! Nonetheless I loved him. And I’m proud to see that his grand-niece has made a fine Dervish. Daring! Honest! And ‘pointed,’ as the Traditions say a Dervish must be, ‘like God’s own sword at the heart of injustice’!” Her teacher had recaptured a bit of his bombast, and Layla drew strength from it as she walked.
They entered the burial yard.
From the small minaret above the High Shaykh’s house, the funeral-caller cried out scripture about souls weighed on golden scales and the brevity of men’s lives.
Death rites at the Lodge were simple, with none of the trilling and sweets that she remembered from her mother’s funeral. Within the Order, the rites grew simpler the more venerated the deceased was, so that the funeral for a High Shayk
Layla could not focus on even these simple, pious gestures. Her thoughts kept returning to the Judgment of Swords and Souls. A strange giddiness crept over her and she had to keep herself from smiling. In an hour’s time she would have a sword in her hand, and all of the intrigue and ceremony would be beside the point. She would prove with her skill that the Lodge of God belonged to her and those she loved.
Before an hour had passed, the ceremony was over and she was walking toward the training yard. Shaykh Rustaam fell in beside her. He diverted them, taking an indirect route.
As they walked, he twirled his sword between his left and right hands, an old Order exercise for mind focusing and wrist limbering which he’d always performed with a unique flair. But the Shaykh displayed little of his usual mirth. “Listen closely; I want to be sure you’re clear about how the Judgment will proceed. After the opening invocation, the middle tambour will sound and you and Hakum will duel until one of you is disarmed and yields, or Shaykh Saif sounds the low tambour to signal a breach of rule. You may wield no weapon other than your body and your forked sword. To blind, cripple, or kill is to forfeit victory. When the duel between you Dervishes is over, the high tambour will sound and then Zaad and I will cross swords, bound by the same rules.”
“What if I lose?”
“You won’t, God willing. Regardless, the outcomes of both Sword-Judgments are considered mere preliminaries to the Judgment of Souls that follows. After the two duels, Zaad and I, our spirits strengthened or weakened by our own contest and that of our pupils, will have a battle of closeness-to-God. A weaponless duel, of gazes and all that lies behind a gaze. It is the Judgment of Souls that truly determines the contest’s winner.”
It was as strange a notion to Layla as when she’d first read about it. Still, beneath all the words it meant that, between the contesting Shaykhs, the best and most pious warrior would become High Shaykh. Which surely meant that Shaykh Rustaam would win. She smiled and said so, but Shaykh Rustaam sheathed his sword and frowned at this.
“It’s not so simple, Layla. With High Shaykh Aalli gone, God shelter his soul, the Lodge already half-belongs to Zaad.”
“But if we win the Judgment, then things will be different!”
Shaykh Rustaam ran one hand over his moustache. “Perhaps. At least, if we win the Judgment, I will be High Shaykh in name. But don’t put too much faith in even a zealot’s adherence to inconvenient old codes. Too many men here are loyal to Zaad. The Lodge’s troubles will have just begun. Still, if we lose…” He held Layla’s gaze. “It won’t be easy for you. Your grand-uncle’s authority protected you from…many things. If we lose, I’ll be under Zaad’s authority, and I won’t be able to protect you.”
Layla took a moment to think about what that might mean. But it changed nothing. “I understand.”
Shaykh Rustaam’s solemn stare broke into a smile. “But why do I speak so grimly? God forgive me my boasts, but I could defeat two Zaads even if I missed my morning tea and yogurt. No reason for fear, child!”
They arrived at the training yard and Layla hoped to Almighty God that her teacher was right.
Two hundred men and boys—students and Dervishes alike—stood forming a large circle around the training yard. Even more men than had been at the tribunal. The entire Lodge, in fact. It was as she had expected.
The crowd parted as she and Shaykh Rustaam made their way into the circle. Layla ignored the murmured words that followed her. She stepped into the circle and saw that Shaykh Zaad and Hakum were already nearing its center. Beside her, Shaykh Rustaam said nothing, but flashed her a grim smile as they went to stand face-to-face with their opponents.
Shaykh Saif, acting as judge, stood just inside the circle. He held a small mallet over a three-tiered tambour. He called out in a clear, thunderous voice “’If there is no High Shaykh, there is no Lodge of God’! So say our Traditions. So it is that we gather here to…”
He said more words, but Layla did not really hear them. She studied Hakum, weighed different opening gambits. She gripped her swordhilt and nearly jumped when the middle tambour sounded.
Hakum wasted no time in beginning his attack. He was one of the biggest Dervishes in the Lodge, and the savage blows Layla parried were jarring. Her teeth rattled. But she was confident.
She’d bested Hakum each time they’d met in the training yard. He fought now as he had then. Still believing that raw strength was enough against her. She watched his hacking sword arm with disdain. Waited for her chance.
He kicked her left shin. Hard. Layla hopped back two steps and nearly buckled from the pain. Hakum pressed the attack, but she gave no more ground. She saw her opening. She slashed out once and sliced open Hakum’s forearm. Another swift blow knocked his sword away.
As Layla expected, he scrambled for his lost weapon. But then, without retrieving his sword, he turned awkwardly and swung at her. Was the angry fool venturing his bare hands against her? She brought her arm up in a scornful block.
And felt a blade bite deep into her flesh. A second weapon! The dog had a palm-dagger! A coward’s weapon, and blasphemy to bring into the Judgment. The pain seared. Surely Shaykh Saif would call this a breach of rule and sound an end to the duel. The Traditions demanded it. But she dared not turn to catch the Shaykh’s eye.
And the low tambour did not sound. A few feinting steps brought her into Shaykh Saif’s line of vision, but he just stared at her coldly. Of course. Even the Traditions did not matter to him so much as a unified Lodge. He had chosen not to see the dagger.
So this is how things stand.
The wound in her arm burned, but she had her sword and Hakum had only a tiny dagger. There was no contest. With two vicious but careful slashes she disarmed him a second time. She slapped his face with the flat of her blade for good measure before she cried “Yield!”
The big, sour-faced Dervish breathed heavily. He did not speak or move.
“Yield!” Layla repeated.
Another silent moment. Then Hakum bowed stiffly to her. With murder in his eyes, he mumbled, “I yield.”
As soon as the words left Hakum’s mouth, the high tambour sounded and Shaykhs Rustaam and Zaad stepped toward each other, swords drawn.
The forked sword of the Order was a slashing weapon, but Shaykh Rustaam thrust his out before him. He easily kept Zaad at a distance. Then Shaykh Rustaam darted his sword-tip almost past Zaad’s own sword. Zaad clumsily turned away the blow, but he was in a desperate defensive position now. Shaykh Rustaam drove him back a dozen steps with a whirling attack that made his one sword seem like three.
Shaykh Rustaam toyed with Zaad, wearing the older Shaykh down. Zaad was not unskilled with a sword, but Layla thought her teacher had boasted true—it would take two Zaads to even challenge one Shaykh Rustaam.
Again and again the two swords crossed in parries and flurries of blows. Shaykh Rustaam touched his opponent five or six times to Zaad’s one. The older Shaykh managed to get in one more accurate slash at Shaykh Rustaam’s arm before Layla’s teacher knocked the weapon from Zaad’s hand.
There was no question who would win the Judgment of Swords. Shaykh Rustaam still held his blade and his forearm was marred only by two small slashes. Shaykh Zaad was disarmed and his silks had been sliced open in a dozen places. Still, Zaad smiled as if some comforting thought kept the pain from him.
Shaykh Zaad moved to recover his weapon. But Shaykh Rustaam pointed his own sword at his opponent’s throat. “YIELD!” the younger Shaykh boomed. Zaad still smiled when he ought to have been furious. “I yield.”
Shaykh Rustaam nodded and sheathed his sword. But something seemed wrong. He’d barely exerted himself in defeating Zaad, yet sweat poured down his face, and his breath was now coming sharper and quicker.
All three tambour-tiers sounded in quick succession, and Shaykh Saif intone
Their gazes locked, the two Shaykhs moved in unison. Each took one long step back from the other and sank down to sit cross-legged on the packed dirt. And then Layla knew something was wrong. Though he held Zaad’s gaze, Shaykh Rustaam was sweating and breathing harder than ever. It wasn’t battle fatigue. Layla had sparred with her teacher countless times, and she’d never seen this.
The two Shaykhs continued to stare at one another, their souls in a strange silent duel. But after a few long moments, Shaykh Rustaam began to swoon, and he huffed as if he’d been running for hours. It made no sense. Except—
Poison.
Just as the thought formed in her head her teacher swooned again, as if he couldn’t breathe. He righted himself and kept his gaze hard on Zaad, who suddenly seemed, behind his own strange stare, to be afraid.
Then Shaykh Rustaam collapsed.
Poison!
It was the only explanation. Caring little for propriety, she scrambled to his side as Shaykh Saif sounded the high tambour and shouted words about victory and God’s Judgment.
When Layla reached her teacher, she saw that Shaykh Rustaam would never breathe again.
Poison was the most reprehensible weapon in existence, according to the Traditions. Zaad visibly withheld a smile as he looked on Shaykh Rustaam’s body. In his eyes she saw her suspicions were right.
But if she was close enough to see the signs, surely Shaykh Saif was. Layla turned to him. “What…what could cause this, Shaykh Saif? Only an envenomed sword!”
The assembly murmured around them. Shaykh Saif’s look was dark, but he said nothing.
Zaad turned toward her and shrugged. “His wicked soul shriveled when it stood unmasked before a servant of Righteous and All-Scouring God! Such things have happened before in the Judgment of Souls.”