Esnat gestured irritably, “Oh, Elamain, sit down. It would do no good to send you to bed—you’d only listen at the doorway. So sit down and keep your mouth closed; maybe you’ll learn something.” He glanced now at Sabo. “You, too, Sabo. You know this man better than I.”
Elamain sat. Sabo sat. Esnat looked back to me.
“You view him as a threat,” I said. “All his foretelling of a jhihadi has every tanzeer frightened he might be telling the truth.”
Esnat nodded. “There is no doubt the Oracle has roused the tribes. When word came he was foretelling the coming of the jhihadi here in Iskandar, no one could believe it. But the tribes did, and they left the Punja en masse. That made us nervous.”
“So you came up here to kill him before this jhihadi can appear.”
Esnat shook his head. “I don’t want to kill him. I think that would touch things off. There are other tanzeers who believe as I do, and we want to avoid a holy war, not start one by killing the Oracle. We came to Iskandar hoping to convince the others.”
“The other tanzeers want war?”
He shrugged. “Hadjib and his followers consider it unavoidable. They believe nothing will calm the tribes now, unless the Oracle is killed. Without a leader to unify them, the tribes will fracture again.” Esnat scratched his chin, leaving red streaks. “They have brought as many men as they can hire, and are hiring more. They fully believe they can smash this rebellion before it occurs—or else consume the tribes in war.” He grimaced. “These men are accustomed to absolute power. They have no conception of religion, or what it can do to unify men … even desert tribes.”
Hadjib. Hadjib. Somehow I knew the name … and then I recalled how. Lena had told me about a tanzeer who’d come looking for me. Now I knew why.
“But you do understand it,” I said. “You understand, you and a few others, what could happen.”
Esnat didn’t hesitate. “It would be a bloodbath.”
“And you don’t want that.”
“No. Such a thing would be harmful.” Esnat frowned, glancing briefly at Sabo, Elamain, Del. “The tribes are no threat to us if they remain as they have been for decades: insular, independent races with no specific home, simply traveling about the South. But if they unite in a common goal motivated by faith, they become the greatest enemy we could know. They will gladly die in the name of their jhihadi, believing what they do is for divine favor … that sort of fanaticism can destroy the South. For us—for everyone—it is better left the way it is.”
“The tribes might not agree.”
Esnat shrugged. “They have been content with their lives, as you well know … had the Oracle not appeared, they would not now be here.”
“They believe,” I said quietly, “this jhihadi will change the sand to grass.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Esnat said. “You and I know such a thing cannot occur.”
“Magic,” Del said quietly.
Esnat glanced at her. He assessed her quickly, then smiled. “You have your own share of magic, bascha, and so does the Sandtiger. But surely you must see what it would take to alter the South. I don’t think such magic exists any more, if it ever did.”
“Never mind the magic,” I said. “There’s something else we have to think about.” I shifted on my cushion. “Esnat, what would you and the others say if I told you there was no jhihadi?”
He smiled wryly. “That we are all of a like mind. But what good will it do? Hadjib and his followers don’t care if the jhihadi is real or not.”
I leaned forward slightly. “What if I told you a man was behind this holy war, but not a true jhihadi? Merely a man, like you and me, but a very clever one. A man who has very carefully manipulated the tribes into believing he is the jhihadi, so he can gain power.”
Esnat’s eyes widened. “A single man?”
“A single Northerner with a gift for inspiring others.”
He sat stunned, thinking about it. Thinking of what it could mean. “But the magnitude of it …” He let it trail off. “It’s impossible.”
“Is it? Think about it. A man hires another and calls him an ‘Oracle.’ He sends him out to a few of the tribes well-primed with the kind of words that would appeal to nomadic peoples. This jhihadi, the Oracle says, can change the sand to grass, so that the tribes will know comfort again. The tribes will know power again.”
Esnat said nothing.
“After a while, the tribes themselves carry word throughout the Punja; eventually throughout the South. Bit by bit by bit this ‘Oracle’ seeds his ground, and eventually it takes root. Eventually it bears fruit.”