Master Of The Hashomi rb-27 Read online

  There was another way out of the hospital, to be sure. It lay through a tunnel carved from the solid rock behind the ledge where the hospital buildings stood. The tunnel began just behind the attendants’ huts and ran straight, to come out five hundred feet farther along the valley wall and a hundred feet below the hospital. Several smaller side tunnels or caves opened off it on the inward side. Each one was closed off by a heavy wooden door with a small iron grating in the center. Blade caught faint smells and still fainter sounds through these gratings that hinted of prison cells or even worse behind the doors.

  He could move freely up and down the chill, dim tunnel. He could not leave it. A few yards beyond the lower end of the tunnel was a twenty-foot gap in the ledge, spanned by a light wooden footbridge.

  Beyond the bridge was a shallow cave. In that cave fifteen or twenty of the fighting Hashomi were always on guard duty. No one could come out of the tunnel mouth and across the bridge without being seen and met by the guards.

  Blade knew he would not be getting out of the hospital without the consent of the Hashomi. At least not downward, and as for going upward, that would require more time. Time to regain his full strength, time to study the slopes above him, time to assemble some sort of climbing gear, food, and weapons. He would not plunge back into the mountains with nothing but a knife and raw goat’s meat between him and death, not when the Hashomi might be hard on his trail.

  He was considering where to look for climbing gear when he heard someone padding silently across the stones of the terrace behind him. Blade rose, turning until he could face the newcomer without having his own back to the edge of the terrace and the cliff below.

  He knew with a single glance that this must be the Master of the Hashomi. No one else in this valley would be carrying himself like this man, with the same air of command, of confidence, of total assurance that no one would show him anything but due and proper obedience.

  From the remarks he’d overheard, Blade would not have been surprised to find the Master a man seven-foot-tall and broad in proportion. He was taller than any man Blade had seen among the Hashomi-a hair under six feet. He was slender and supple as a whip, almost gaunt. Instead of trousers and vest, he wore a dark-blue robe embroidered with white poppy flowers, gathered in at the waist with a white sash. His bare feet were leathery brown, as was the face framed by a square-cut gray beard. His skull was bare and hairless. Two knives were slung at his waist and he carried one of the long staves in his left hand. This one was thicker than the one carried by the leader in the battle at the bridge. It seemed to be gilded, and there was a large silver ball at one end, perforated with a number of small holes.

  Blade decided against kneeling or bowing, even though it was probably expected. It might help to seem a man who could not be intimidated, cowed, or brought to obedience against his will. That might anger the Master, but it might also arouse his curiosity. Such a man could be something new in the Master’s experience, something not to be destroyed until its possibilities had been explored.

  It was a gamble, but it was a gamble that offered Blade more hope than jumping off the terrace or hurling himself barehanded at the guards below the tunnel.

  Blade stood calm and straight, hands clearly visible and motionless at his side. He never took his eyes off the Master, and particularly the Master’s hands. Both hands were long fingered and narrow, with prominent bones, encased in tightfitting white gloves. In those gloves they reminded Blade of the hands of a corpse or a skeleton.

  Then the Master spoke.

  «So. You have come to the Valley of the Hashomi, in the shadow of the White Mountain. That is a journey that few have made. None have returned from it, except as Hashomi or as corpses carried away by the streams of the mountains that shield us. Which will it be for you, far-traveling stranger?»

  Blade shook his head. «Neither.»

  The Master’s wide black eyes narrowed slightly. «That cannot be.»

  «With all respect, Master of the Hashomi, you are wrong.»

  Being flatly contradicted was defiantly something the Master seldom experienced. His eyes narrowed practically to slits, and his free hand tightened into a fist. His whole body seemed to be vibrating slightly, like a plucked harp string.

  Here was the first crisis. The Master’s notion of dealing with opposition might be a simple «off with his head.» In that case Blade had only a few minutes to live. The Master had even less. Blade was not completely well yet, but he knew he was perfectly able to wring the Master’s lean neck.

  The crisis passed. The Master’s fist unclenched, his eyes opened, and he hooked a thumb into his sash. With a look that might have held the hint of a smile, he nodded at Blade.

  «Very well. You will not become either a Hashom or a corpse. Tell me how this is to be.»

  «My name is Blade,» said the Englishman. «In my homeland, I was of an order not unlike the Hashomi» He gave a quick description of the British Intelligence Service, translating it into terms the Master would grasp. He described J as a man who’d been a mighty warrior in his youth and now instructed the young adepts of «the British agents.» Lord Leighton was a scholar and doctor, so learned and with so many devices and potions at his command that some suspected him of wizardry.

  «Do not think that because my Order has two men to do what the Hashomi do with one Master, we are weaker. In Britain, it has been found that the warrior and the scholar each do their own task best when they do not have to do the other’s as well. Matters seem to be different among the Hashomi, and I would gladly learn why.»

  «If you become one of the Hashomi, you will learn that and much else,» said the Master.

  Blade smiled. «I am sorry, but that is not possible. I cannot become of the Hashomi. At least I cannot become of the Hashomi as you have made them, with the drugs you take from the flower on your robe.»

  «I think it is for me to say what is and is not possible, herein the Valley of the Hashomi. If you become of the Hashomi, handr potions will be in your body. If you do not become of the Hashomi-«

  «Yes, I know, I know,» said Blade. «Then my body will be in the mountain streams, food for the fish. You have said this before, and I know well enough what you believe: I say that this is not so. May I tell you why?»

  Either the Master was getting used to Blade’s contradicting him, or he was curious about how Blade proposed to accomplish the impossible. He nodded.

  «You may speak further.»

  «We use no drugs among the British agents, except for one. That is a drug that makes it impossible for us to receive any other drug into our bodies.»

  «How-impossible?» The Master at least seemed willing to hear him out.

  «Any other drug that is given to us will either kill us or at least make us sleep like men struck on the head.»

  «Any drug?»

  «Yes. The more powerful the drug, the more likely we are to die. The drugs you give the Hashomi must be very powerful. Also, I have not yet gained back all my strength. So if you were to give me the drugs of the Hashomi, I would most certainly die.»

  The Master took a strand of his beard between two fingers and twirled it. «This is as it may be. Yet it seems to me that you must die, in one way or another. If you do not take the drugs, we must-«

  Blade gently shook his head, until the Master broke off and looked at him, both suspicious and curious. Good. The Master of the Hashomi was a man willing to argue and capable of weighing the merits of a case put before him. Blade was not completely surprised to find that the Master was such a man. He’d always heard the Master spoken of as a wise leader as well as a mighty warrior. Such leaders could usually use their heads as well as their sword arms. He would still move cautiously, though. Strange orders of warrior adepts like the Hashomi sometimes had equally strange leaders, as deadly and ultimately as deaf to argument as the sands of the desert.

  «There is another possibility, if you are willing,» said Blade. «I am an exile from my homeland, with small chance
of returning. The fanatical rulers of our land have suppressed the British agents. Some have remained, in the vain hope of rebuilding the Order in secret. They will not succeed, not in Britain and not in their lifetimes.

  «I would not spend the rest of my years living like a rat in a cellar. If the British agents are to rise again, it will be with the aid of other warriors, their kin in spirit. Warriors such as the Hashomi. So I came to your valley in peace, and I would stay here in peace.»

  «Your arrival at the bridge was not the most peaceful sort,» said the Master.

  «No, it was not. That was not my choice. I do not know what level of skill the Hashomi who guarded the bridge that night have reached. I would say that it was not high. They may be brave and good with their swords, but I cannot say much for their ability to think.»

  The Master refused to be baited into giving a definite answer to Blade’s question. His lips wrinkled in a sour smile that showed Blade’s thrust had gone home. Then he spoke soberly, picking his words with care.

  «You, Richard Blade of the British agents, think that you are worthy to join the Hashomi, as you stand before me here and now?»

  Blade wanted to say «Yes,» but something told him that would be pushing matters too far too fast. So he shrugged.

  «I have been wounded, and that takes strength from a man. I must regain all the strength I had the day I came upon your Hashomi at the bridge. When I have done that, I will perhaps be worthy to join the Hashomi.»

  «You will submit to a proper testing of your worth?» The note of hope in the Master’s voice rang encouragingly in Blade’s ears. He felt like grinning. The Master wasn’t going to let a willing and gifted fighting man slip out of his grasp, even if he had to bend a few rules of the Hashomi to do it.

  «That depends on what you mean by a proper testing,» said Blade. He wasn’t going to let himself be trapped into promising to attempt the impossible.

  «You must face Hashomi fighters again,» said the Master. «You must show everything you have learned as a British agent. If you are superior to the Hashomi, certain things may become possible that would not be possible otherwise.»

  «What if I am not superior to the Hashomi? What if I am only-different?» Blade was equally unwilling to be caught in a «win or die» situation if he could avoid it.

  The Master’s fist clenched again. His voice did not change, but Blade sensed the impatience beginning to build up in the man. He decided to end this argument over the testing as quickly as he could without too much danger to himself.

  «Very well. I will go against the Hashomi.»

  «Barehanded,» interrupted the Master. «Barehanded, and your opponent will have a sword.»

  Blade shook his head. Talk about attempting the Impossible! «No. Think of the wounds a sword can inflict. I could win, slay my opponent, and still die myself. Even if I did not die, what could I teach the Hashomi if I had to spend the rest of my life with one leg or one arm? If I must fight unarmed a man with a sword, you risk losing my knowledge regardless of how the fight comes out. That does not seem the wisest course of action. I would be ready to go against two of the Hashomi together, if they have only their knives and the drug-staves.»

  «Two Hashomi, chosen by me?»

  «Yes.»

  «They will be chosen for their skill and speed, I warn you.»

  «I would not ask that it be otherwise,» said Blade. «You must give me a proper testing, and I must pass it. Otherwise you are setting aside the ways of the Hashomi to no good purpose.»

  «That is true,» said the Master. «Yet the ways of the Hashomi have only one aim, and that is to make the Hashomi fit for war. If this is not done, how can we pass the tests the future holds for us? If we fail, what good will it be to us that we have failed according to the ways of our fathers?» He raised a hand in a farewell salute to Blade. «In three weeks time, will you be strong again?»

  «I expect to be.»

  «Very well. In three weeks, then.» The Master turned and strode across the terrace, quickly vanishing among the buildings of the hospital.

  Blade found it easier to breathe after the Master was out of sight. He’d won himself at least three weeks more of life for certain. If he passed his testing, he’d win more life, perhaps freedom of movement, perhaps even the favor of the Master.

  That was not altogether a good thing. The Master’s favor could protect him, but it would also mean the Master’s eye on him and the Master’s keen mind analyzing all his actions.

  It was not necessarily safe to have someone like that watching you, even if for the moment he might be on your side.

  Chapter 6

  Blade was ready to fight any reasonable number of Hashomi within two weeks. As far as he was concerned the third week was a waste of time. He had nothing to do but pace up and down the terrace or around and around his hospital room like a caged tiger. The guards at the far end of the tunnel were unfailingly polite, but flatly refused to let him pass. The only way he could hope for the freedom of movement he needed was to pass the testing, and that was that.

  At least there seemed to be no possible danger as long as he was in the hospital. Except for the Master himself, no armed Hashomi ever seemed to enter it. The most lethal weapons on hand were the surgeons’ instruments.

  Of the forty-odd people in the hospital, ten were old men, wrinkled and gray, and twenty were equally elderly women. They were brisk, efficient, and clearly knew their business. Once Blade was on the way to recovery, they seemed ready to treat him as if he was no more than a prize animal.

  The rest of the hospital staff were younger women, few of them over twenty and most of them quite attractive as far as Blade could see. Blade sensed one or more of them watching him almost every moment he was out of his room. He was never able to ask one of them what they were looking for, though. Every time he tried, the girl would smile shyly and then dart away.

  Blade wondered if orders had come from the Master to keep him in a sort of isolation booth until the time came for him to be tested. The idea made sense. Blade was where no man with his mind intact and free of drugs had been since the Hashomi were founded, centuries before. The Master wasn’t prepared to risk destroying him out of hand-or risk letting him find out too much about the Hashomi.

  The duel of wits with the Master would be going on long after the testing was over and done with. Blade knew he could not relax for a moment as long as he was within the valley, and perhaps not even in this Dimension. If the Hashomi had reached out across the desert to establish their agents in Dahaura, he might be in some danger even if he escaped to the city.

  But that was a thought for a future that might never come unless he passed his testing against the two picked Hashomi. Blade put the matter out of his mind and settled down to eight hours a day of conditioning and unarmed combat exercises. He was careful to do them in the privacy of his room, for he wanted his skill and strength to be as much of a surprise as possible.

  The two Hashomi chosen by the Master would be among the most formidable opponents Blade had ever faced. He would give them no unnecessary advantage.

  Six Hashomi came to the hospital before dawn one morning to escort Blade down to the testing. They found him already out on the terrace, watching the sun turn the summit of the White Mountain to flame and start sucking up the mist in the valley, below. He wore sandals and a white hospital robe, but he planned to fight barefoot and naked, except for a loincloth and a sash. Clothes would be more likely to slow his movements than protect him from the razor-sharp knives and the drug-laden tips of the black staves.

  The six formed a rough circle around Blade, and kept pace with him down the tunnel. Was it just his imagination, or did the rank smells and the cries from whatever lay beyond the side doors seem stronger today? Blade decided one thing. He’d force the Hashomi to kill him before he’d let himself be locked behind one of those doors. If the Hashomi were planning treachery, he could not stop them. But he could make them pay for it with the lives of as man
y men as he could reach before he went down-perhaps even the life of the Master himself.

  They came out of the tunnel, crossed the bridge, and continued their descent of the path toward the valley floor. The path zigzagged back and forth down the steep slope, taking nearly half a mile to descend the last three hundred feet to level ground.

  By that time the sun was fully up, and the mist was lifting from the valley. The ground rolled away toward the opposite side of the valley, a good ten miles away. Blade saw plowed fields, huts, little stands of wood, all connected by paths of hard-beaten earth and split up by small streams and fences of logs and piled stones. The soil on either side of the path was dark and moist, and the grass was green and lush. The Hashomi had certainly found themselves a good home in this valley, and done much work to make it even better. Blade could understand why they had little to do with the outside world, preferring that it remain ignorant of where they were. The Valley of the Hashomi was a rich prize. It might be rich enough to tempt someone who knew where it was into leading an army against it.

  Blade and the six Hashomi walked for nearly two hours before they came to the testing place. By that time the sun was well up in the sky, and the day had turned pleasantly warm. At last the party came around the end of a low hill and faced a large square of beaten earth, at least two hundred feet on a side. On three sides of the square rose a low wall of stones and dressed logs, just high enough to keep out stray livestock. On the fourth side rose several pyramidal stone buildings. On the ground along this side were spread a number of mats and cushions, and a large tent had been erected in front of the buildings. Above the tent flew a long blue banner with a white poppy in the center.

  Several Hashomi came out of the tent as Blade appeared. He went forward to meet them as his escorts dropped back and spread out along the edge of the square.