A Covenant with Death: The Peacock Trilogy - Book 3 Read Free Page B

be composed of Islamic believers only. Transferees in must be practicing Sunnis or Shias. Rumors abounded that Shia Muslims and Sufis received preferential treatment.
    Ammad, the peacemaker, earned Pendleton’s ear when civil disobedience broke out in the Global complex of Jerusalem a decade earlier. To maintain control, the Jerusalem governor had limited the Christian Easter pilgrimage to 50,000 visitors. Ammad negotiated an agreement involving Jewish, Muslim, and Christian factions that eased the tension. Still the single most difficult problem the Realm faced was the zealots on all three sides.
    Ammad proposed and negotiated a neutral Jerusalem, with the rest of the Israeli complexes to be Jewish exclusively. Pendleton, believing this to be a road to pacification, bought into the plan. Then Ammad used the Jewish precedent to justify his claim to Muslim complexes being restricted to Muslims only. Laverna cringed at the sight of the man’s face as it formed on the screen. As Peacock, she remembered this teenage son of Grandayatollah al-Sistani. 
    Van Meer had warned Pendleton that any al-Sistani was a threat. Pendleton took the position that Ammad was useful. If he became a problem, he’d deal with him. Thus far, he had not dealt with him.
    #
    25 years earlier.
    “Where are we?” Ammad al-Sistani followed his rescuer along the steep, rocky mountainside.
    “Nearing the Valley of the Magi.” Atash Akbari answered. “Our meeting place is in sight. See the crescent-shaped rock across the gorge, jutting out like a weapon embedded in the ground?”
    Ammad squinted. “The whole area looks lifeless and barren. I see the rock you mention, but nothing near it.”
    “The entrance to the cave is positioned out of sight. There we will learn our fate.”
    Ammad’s teeth clenched as the wind peppered his face with specks of debris. “Stop a moment. I need to catch my breath.”
    He took a drink of water from a goatskin bag given to him as the two fled the ambush that killed his father.
    “Pain accompanies your tariq’ , my youthful friend,” Akbari said. “Best to thirst and succeed, than satisfy the body and fail.”
    “So what my father suspected is true.” Ammad smiled at the words his protector spoke. Only a Sufi cleric would speak this way. His father lifted the ban on Sufi practices, and Ammad was endeared to him all the more. “You are a Sufi.”
    “Yes, a spiritual descendant of Imam al-Ghazali in practice. I come to enlighten you to the truth in this final age.” Akbari touched his shoulder. “Our paths connect for life, and soon you will understand why.”
    The two descended the mountain, following a winding trail that weaved snakelike along the western side. Ammad still bled from the wounds of battle. His father died at the hands of the redheaded devil-woman. If not for Atash, he most likely would have suffered the same fate. Minutes turned into hours. Ammad’s eyes moistened from sorrow and pain. But he did not complain. Sacrifice and pain would be his to accept if Allah said so. He would not see disappointment in Akbari’s eyes again.
    Finally, his mentor left the path and the two ducked behind the rock he’d seen from the opposite side of the valley.
    “Here.” Akbari slipped into a narrow fissure that split the rock. Ammad followed.
    “Behold,” Akbari said.
    Behold echoed in Ammad’s mind, and his senses opened to the faintest sound and beam of light.
    The rock wall gave way, revealing an immense cavern. Two shafts of light illuminated the space inside. Small holes in the rock ceiling allowed eerie, orange rays of sunlight through, appearing like the eyes of a leopard. The wind howled one moment and whistled the next. He swore he heard voices within the streams of air swirling inside the cave.
    Akbari fell to his knees as did Ammad.
    “Here is the place where the Magi of old spoke to the spirits in Jannah, ” Akbari said. He bowed low to the ground and chanted his mantra.
    “Wait.” Ammad