El Murid was stunned. Me? The Disciple? They accuse me of heresy? How can that be? Had he not been chosen by the Lord?

You challenge old ways. Their ways. You accuse them. You accuse the priests of Al Ghabha. They are set in their ways. You cant expect them to say, Yes, we are guilty.

He had not foreseen that the Evil One would be so cunning as to deflect his own arguments against him. He had underestimated his Enemy. Thank you, Nassef. Youre a true friend to warn me. I will remember. Nassef, I hadnt anticipated this.

I thought not.

Go, then. Do not give your father cause for a grievance. I will speak to you later.

Nassef rose and departed, a small, thin smile on his lips.

El Murid prayed for hours. He retreated deep into his young mind. At last the will of the Lord became clear to him.

He looked up the long, stony slope at Al Ghabha. The low hill was barren, as if the darkness up there might creep down to devour any goodness surrounding it.

It was there that his first and most important victory had to be won. What point to winning the el Habib if their traditional spiritual shepherds guided them back to the paths of wrongdoing the moment he traveled on?

Im going to the Shrine, he told one of the men of the village, who had come to see what he was doing. Im going to preach a sermon there. I shall show them the Truth. Then let them name me heretic to my face, and risk the wrath of the Lord.

Will that be wise?

It must be done. They must declare themselves righteous, or tools of the Evil One.

Ill tell the others.

El Murid began walking.

The desert religion had contained no real devil figure till El Murid named him. Evil had been the province of a host of demons, ghosts, and fell spirits without leadership. And the paternalistic God of Hammad al Nakir had been but the paterfamilias of a family of gods suspiciously resembling the extended families of the Imperial and desert tribes. The Lords problems had tended to come from a black-sheep brother who meddled and politicked for the pleasure of causing discord. The religion had retained traces of animism, belief in reincarnation, and ancestor worship.

The scholars at the Rebsamen University in Hellin Daimiel believed the desert gods to be vague echoes of a family that had united the original Seven Tribes and had guided their migration into the land that would one day become the Empire, and later Hammad al Nakir.

El Murids teachings banished animism, ancestor worship, and reincarnation. They elevated the family chieftain to the position of an omnipotent One True God. His brothers and wives and children became mere angels.