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Casca is captured by a slaver, Mahmud ibn Said, in a raid in northern Persia and taken to his camp. He impresses his host with his life's story and when the camp is attacked Casca assists the Muslims in defeating the bandits. As a reward, Casca is renamed Kasim al-Jirad - Kasim the Spear - and although still a slave is given higher status. The slaver's mercenary commander is a man named Bu Ali (secretly a member of the Hashashin Shia Muslim sect of Assassins, under the command of Hassan al-Sabah, who in reality is the new elder of the Brotherhood of the Lamb). Bu Ali recruits potential assassins to Castle Alamut, the hideout of Hassan, high in the mountains in the north of Persia, and Casca is kidnapped and taken there.
Although not recognized as the man who slew Jesus, Hassan thinks he passes close to Longinus' description and hopes to use him at some future date as an impostor. Casca is initiated into the assassin sect with other recruits, inhaling hashish and hallucinating he is in paradise. Afterwards he feels like a new man and willingly becomes a tool of the assassins, killing one victim in Jerusalem in a spectacular way. As a reward he is given another assignment, to kill a local Muslim governor. However Casca bungles the job and is captured and subjected to ridicule, but Bu Ali rescues him and intends sending him back to Castle Alamut in disgrace. At this time the survivors of the bandits that Casca had help defeat in the slavers camp recognize him and chase them back up the mountains where Casca falls into a deep ravine and down into an underground river.
Time passes and he sometimes comes to, only to go under the water again, but he realizes he is slowly making progress and passes from one air pocket to another. Eventually he reaches a large air pocket and manages to stand up, breaking free out into a desert oasis much to the surprise of two men seated there drinking. These turn out to be Omar Khayyam, a poet and writer, and his nephew. After spending a night talking Casca returns to the nearby city and plans to exact revenge on Bu Ali who he knows frequents a certain place. Confronting him he is soon bested in a duel and is taken captive by a group of sadistic women who torture him but Casca breaks free, burns the place down and escapes thanks to a Jewish trader who specializes in smuggling out Jewish women from Persia.
Once free of the Seljuk lands of Baghdad he is sent on his way, but bumps into Bu Ali, killing him in a short duel. Thereafter Casca turns westwards and meets up with Omar Khayyam who is en route to the lands of the Ru'shan and Casca agrees to accompany him. |
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The description of the initiation ceremony is good as are the descriptions of Castle Alamut and local life in the cities of the Seljuk middle east. Life in that area at that time, in between the Seljuk Turkish victories over the Byzantine Empire and the First Crusade, was very confused and the presence of the assassins in their midst made things worse. Sadler puts an interesting slant on things by making the assassin leader the Brotherhood Elder and describes the bloody way in how he came to his high position which explains why the Brotherhood had no firm description of Casca. The date this story ends in a very interesting one in that it is 1096 which is the year the First Crusade commenced. Although we now have to make a leap of over 80 years to the next story, (book #19: The Samurai) perhaps Casca does not follow Omar Khayyam to Russia but joins up with the First Crusade! Certainly prior to the start of the next book Casca has spent some time in China - during the Southern Sung period - and may have even been part of the Jurchen invasion of northern China in 1120 that spelt the end of Sung rule in that part of China. That, however, is for us to wonder at. |
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