There were shouts from above. Men and women moving into skiffs. But Khadija paid them no mind. She concentrated wholly on the bond she had forged with the spirit of life, working desperately to sap the lift from the windwood. She coughed as she clung to the mast. Using the spirits to drain lift was like losing oneself, and she was pushing so hard she felt as if she were being drawn across the aether to the world beyond.
She grew lightheaded. Her skin began to prickle and tingle as the world around her spun. And still she pushed, for the dhoshaqiram on the deck of the ship was strong indeed. He was refusing to give up, though his brothers and sisters in arms were preparing the ship’s two skiffs.
He might be strong, but Khadija refused to bend. She pushed even harder than before, screaming to stay awake as blackness closed in around her.
She could see now that the ship would crash into the sea. She released her hold on the spirit of life. If she didn’t, it would have consumed her, or she would have passed out and fallen into the sea below to drown.
As the ship continued to drop, she shook her head violently in hopes of clearing her mind. Only as the ship neared the waves was she able to leap free and summon the wind one last time. The wind carried her like a seed in spring toward the skiff she’d left floating in the skies. She was nearly at her limits, and she thought surely she would never make it, but with one last push, she caught the gunwale and hauled herself over it as the wind finally gave out in a sharp gust that sent the skiff twisting and tumbling.
She raised herself up, staring at the remaining Maharraht ship, a wounded schooner, that was being pushed forcefully away by someone on the Landed barque. Khadija looked to that massive ship and thought she could see a boy looking over the side of the ship down at her.
It was Nasim, she knew, but he made no sign of recognition. He did not wave, nor, she suspected, did he smile. No doubt she was just some oddity that had caught his attention for a moment and nothing more.
The wood of the gunwale exploded next to Khadija.
She jerked back reflexively and scanned to her left.
There, not a hundred strides from where she sat, was a skiff filled with a dozen Maharraht, the ragged tails of their dark turbans fluttering in the wind. One of them had fired a musket at her. Bersuq. And he looked ill pleased that he had missed. He took another loaded musket from one of the other men and sighted along it. Khadija could feel it pointed at her chest. He would not miss again.
But then Soroush laid his hand on the barrel.
Bersuq stared unbelieving at his brother. He seemed ready to disobey, but then he lifted the musket and rested the butt against his thigh, the barrel pointing at the thinning white clouds above.
Khadija ignored him, though. She stared into Soroush’s eyes, and Soroush stared back, not with a look of betrayal, but of consideration, as if he were contemplating, even now, the lessons that had been laid before him this day.
Above, another cannon shot came from the barque toward the retreating ship, and a musket shot was sent down toward them, more warning than threat.
Khadija looked along the gunwale of the barque one last time, but Nasim was gone, and she never did see Ashan. She didn’t care, though. She’d done what she’d set out to do this day, and she hadn’t done it for Ashan’s approval.
As the barque limped on a westerly heading, she guided her skiff quickly eastward, allowing the prevailing winds to help her. The Maharraht did not give chase. And soon she was on her own in the skies, the wind and the setting sun her only company.
It was peaceful, she realized—more peaceful, in fact, than at any time since her sister’s death. This wouldn’t last. Her violent days in the Maharraht would come back to haunt her. As would her inability to support Mirilah when she had most needed it. Khadija was no longer Aramahn, nor was she Maharraht. She was of both, and of neither, and it was these things she would contemplate on her way around the world.
It might take her years to circle the world, but when she did, as she’d decided early that morning, she would go to the place she’d always dreamt of. She would go to the Towers of Tulandan, that place of ancient knowledge. She would learn, and in time, she might even teach.
And for now, that was enough.
From the Spices of Sanandira
Uhammad ben Yazr woke with someone nudging his shoulder. By the pale light of the moon through the open window of his dhoba he could see his friend of twenty years, Jalaad, holding a finger to his lips.
“We have to leave,” Jalaad whispered. His breathing was labored, as if he’d been running, and he smelled of sweat, and his eyes... Jalaad was not a timid man, but here he was, the whites of his eyes revealing how deep his terror ran.
“What’s happened?”
“No time... Hurry, and by the gods, tread softly.”
As Uhammad pulled on his robe and sandals, Jalaad woke their adopted son, Riisi, and within moments they had climbed out through the window to the alley and were running through the cold streets of Sanandira’s northern end.
They left nearly everything. Clothes, food, the supplies they had purchased—even Uhammad’s turban, leaving his long hair in a tangled mess. The only thing Uhammad had allowed himself was the precious wooden case of King’s spice, fyndrenna, the very reason Jalaad had been scouring the city for a sandship.
By the time they reached the docks, the eastern sky had brightened, coloring the pink sand of the bay with a yellow brush. A handful of sailors could be seen among the dozens of piers and various ships. It made Uhammad feel particularly exposed after so much creeping about. Out in the sandy bed of the harbor, undocked, was a warship flying King Sulamin’s colors.
Jalaad led them to a bedraggled cutter whose sails had been patched and repatched, making Uhammad wonder if they could hold any wind at all. At least the ship’s skis that angled out from the hull and supported it against the sand were solid and made from quality skimwood.
They rushed up the gangway and onto the deck, Uhammad kissing two fingers for luck, and they were off in moments.
Before they’d even hoisted the mainsail, a group of city guardsmen reached the docks. Close in tow were two of King Sulamin’s veiled soldiers. They pointed to the retreating cutter, and the soldiers began sprinting for the open sand, toward the warship.
Jalaad screamed, “Heave, damn you! Heave!”
“Shut up, you bloody stick of a man, and heave yourself!”
Riisi had seen only twelve, perhaps thirteen summers—he’d been too young to know his age when he’d come into their care—but he had always had a steady hand. At the rudder, he chose a shrewd path that avoided the ruts while keeping the sails full.
Sulamin’s warship stirred as the guardsmen neared it. Uhammad stared at the forecastle and sterncastle, both of which housed several large ballistae that could cripple the cutter or launch grapples to reel them in. Still, the wind was brisk and they enjoyed a handsome lead; by the time the warship was taking on sail, they were already into the open desert, the only sound the sighing of the skis against the sand and the occasional snap of canvas.
“Now,” Uhammad said, his heart finally beginning to slow, “do you mind telling me what happened back there?”
Jalaad took the rudder from Riisi and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Sulamin found us.”
“I’m not addled, Jalaad. How did he find us?”
“The merchantwoman you bought the pepper from... She must have told them.”
Uhammad had bought the casks of pepper from Sanandira’s bazaar. The woman surely hadn’t known the treasure that had lain within them, but each cask had born the mark of Kaliil, the trader Uhammad and Jalaad had signed on with years ago in hopes of hiding from King Sulamin.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Uhammad said flatly. “She didn’t recognize the seal. Why would she have told them?”
Jalaad shrugged, focusing on the horizon.
Uhammad watched him carefully, working it through in his mind. They had been in Sanandira for eight yea
rs, but that only made the discovery of the casks—and the priceless box of spice hidden away inside one of them—that much more prophetic. Uhammad had always felt like a disloyal goat, abandoning the caravan the way he had. Clearly the gods were urging him to atone for his failure those many years ago on that final journey with Kaliil and Riisi. Jalaad had argued against it, blaming the discovery of the casks on mere chance, but what fool would ignore such a sign from the heavens?
Uhammad had begun plans to return to the desert, and all the while Jalaad had railed, blustered, and finally threatened to leave the journey to Uhammad alone. But in truth he cared about Riisi every bit as much as Uhammad did. He would never abandon them; he was not averse, however, to complain while the drink was on him, and he had returned that day near dawn with the smell of kefir on his breath.
The implications settled over Uhammad like the bitter taste of over-steeped tea. “You were in your cups... You were in your cups and you complained to anyone who would listen, like you always do.”
“I was angry! You were wasting our savings on nothing!”
“Nothing? Damn you, Jalaad! I should throw you to the mercies of the sand!”
“Me? I found us this ship! I smelled Sulamin’s men on our trail and paid the greedy goat of an owner an extra dram just to keep him quiet! I snuck back to get you when I could have left!”
“Well,” Uhammad said, sketching a bow, “I suppose you should be granted a lordship then! Sooner or later, Jalaad, your mouth is going to get us killed.”
“Either that or your fool plans,” Jalaad said, keeping his hands on the rudder and his eyes forward.
“You can leave any time you wish.”
Jalaad bit back a reply and instead kept his eyes on the horizon. As he often did when they argued, Riisi left to the only place he could: the single cabin belowdecks. And with that outward reminder of their hostilities, Jalaad and Uhammad settled into a silent and mutual détente.
With no provisions, they were forced to dock at the first caravanserai they came across. It was little more than a collection of red-bricked dhobas clinging to a patch of land whose only distinguishable feature was that it contained a waterhole. They worried over Sulamin’s warship the entire time, and they returned to the open sands within a half-hour. It was only there, when they saw no sign of the king’s men, that Uhammad allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief.
As they continued southward, memories of the desert began to flood back to Uhammad. The Jalari was cruel, but she was also achingly beautiful—her endless waves of rolling sand, her burning sunrises and sunsets, her indigo nights. The tricks of the wind and curve of the dunes came back quickly as well. He had been a crewman for nearly six years, after all, and the feel of the wind and tug of the rudder never truly left a man.
The harsh cycle of day and night began to meld together as they approached their destination. Riisi spotted a broken mast, though the ship to which it was attached still lay hidden beyond a withered outcropping of rock. When they passed the outcropping, the derelict caravel came into view: Rhia’s Dream, the last ship Uhammad and Jalaad had served upon before leaving for Sanandira.
They pulled in sail and searched the wreckage, but it had long been stripped of anything valuable. Jalaad was disappointed, but Uhammad didn’t care. They had come because their former captain, Muulthasa, had had a strong emotional experience here, an important component for the fyndrenna to work its spell.
With Jalaad and Riisi watching, Uhammad settled himself onto the hot sand near the ship. From within the pockets hidden in his layers of clothing he retrieved the glass phial filled with the golden spice. For someone as uninitiated as he, the amount of fyndrenna he was about to apply would come dangerously close to killing him. But the old farseer in Sanandira had given him what advice she could.
“I know you feel a sense of purpose, Uhammad,” Jalaad called down from the cutter, “but we don’t have to do this. We could just keep sailing to Ilinnon. We could sell the fyndrenna and live comfortably for the rest of our lives.”
Uhammad glanced at Riisi. He had thought of selling the spice and living richly—any man would—but this was not for him. This was for the boy, who had lost himself in the desert those years ago. He had returned voiceless from the journey they had begun together, a terrible wound along his throat, and could remember almost nothing of his past. Uhammad would return this to him—his past—a thing every bit as important as his future.
Jalaad took his silence for uncertainty. “You’re a cook,” he continued. “I’m a man of business. We have no place here, not anymore.”
“Take Riisi and remain on deck,” Uhammad said. “I don’t know how long the spell will have me.”
Jalaad screwed up his face in annoyance, but obeyed and guided Riisi back to the skimship.
In little time, all was silence, and Uhammad was alone with the desert and his phial of spice. He pulled out the wooden stopper, to which was affixed a slim silver spoon. After shaking the excess away, he held it above his left eye and focused on his strongest memory from the early days of their journey. It was of Muulthasa leaning over the side of the gunwale, neck muscles taut as a harp string, sighting down the length of a crossbow.
After pulling back his lower eyelid, he tapped some of the powder into it. His eye began tearing immediately; it burned worse than the bright red peppers he used to flavor his dishes. He repeated the procedure with his right eye before the burning forced him to stop.
Tears mixed with the fyndrenna, turning the blue skyline liquid. The horizon blurred, then sharpened, then blurred again. He felt weightless. Foreign thoughts and emotions forced upon him a desperate sense of panic, and despite his sudden wish to fight the call of the spice, it had all too soon taken hold of his entire being.
Though everyone is exhausted from the dawn-to-dusk work of transporting our goods, we set out before last light and join a sizable caravan heading north. The desert heaves a great sigh as the sun nears the horizon and cooler winds slip over the deck.
Kaliil’s sandships are only three of forty in the caravan, and we’re near the fore—the more dangerous position—since Kaliil isn’t nearly as wealthy as most of the other caravan masters. Kaliil’s ship, The Crying Gull, skims astern of my own, Night Wind. The yellow canvas of our third, Rhia’s Dream, the one carrying the fat rahib and his guards and the least of the spices, brightens like burning copper as it moves between me and the sun. I refrain from shouting at the helmsman, Uhammad, for not staying in line; the men have been on the sands long enough to be granted some leniency, and there’s little harm in stretching the sails a bit.
Just then a huge black fist punches up from the sand and catches Rhia’s Dream. One of the spars along the ski shatters and the flat prow crashes, spraying a fan of red sand to both sides as the ship gouges the dune and tilts hard alarboard.
I scream for my ship’s pilot, Rafaf, to slow. He ignores me, making me scream until my throat burns. The sand, as if it were so much water, parts, allowing a black-as-night head with two misshapen ears and a crown of black spikes to rise above the surface. Broad shoulders and a muscled chest follow, and then the creature stalks toward the stricken skimship.
As our ship heads downslope, the scene is lost from view. My standing orders are to abandon a ship before risking another to a vengeful creature like the ehrekh, but two of the men aboard, Jalaad and Uhammad, I know from my days in Harrahd as a member of the king’s guard—orders or no, I can no more leave them than I could cut the heart from my own chest.
I run back to the wheel and push Rafaf aside, screaming at him to watch the fore. He does, though his eyes are wild with fear. I pull at the wheel, tipping us larboard and nearly sending two men over the side.
We come about.
Behind us, The Crying Gull slows but does not follow. I can hear Kaliil screaming, “Leave them, leave them!” But his words are lost as we tack west and the rear ships whip past us.
“Crossbows at the ready, men, and load the balli
sta!”
Rafaf and another crewman pump their arms against the huge windlass used to draw the ballista’s firing cord into place. The other seven that can be spared from the pursuit take up crossbows and crank them to the ready and lace the tips of the quarrels with wax to better penetrate the ehrekh’s skin. In truth we can only hope to wound it, to slow it perhaps, but at my core I fear that striking it will only make it shower its rage on us instead.
As we crest the dune and the sight of devastation comes back into view, my arms tighten to the point where I can no longer steer the ship. The ehrekh has already caught up to Rhia’s Dream, which lies capsized against a sharp outcropping of rock. Some of the men stagger away in ragged paths.
The rahib’s round form crawls from the rear of the broken hull just as the ehrekh—easily as tall as two men—rips a thousand pounds of rigging from the ship. The silk trader, Azadeh, with her boy in tow, stumbles through the uneven sand after them. Her blue veil is marred by a swath of red blood.
The ehrekh turns, its jaundiced eyes ablaze, as a spear flies upward and grazes its jaw. It rears back and growls like a struck lion and then unleashes its vengeance on the poor soul who loosed the spear. His screams stop moments later.
The survivors flee, but at a pace so slow that I fear they’ll never reach us in time. The ehrekh hurls a barrel at them. It narrowly misses Azadeh and crashes into one of the rahib’s guardsmen, sending a cloud of black peppercorns over the sand.
Dear gods, thirty have been reduced to nine in the blink of an eye.
I pull us about, heading straight for the ehrekh. “Now, Rafaf! Now!”
The ballista bolt flies.
The aim seems off as it eats the distance between my ship and the ehrekh, and my heart sinks as the man-length bolt bites into the sand just short of the creature, but praise be, the bolt’s momentum is enough to score a strike. A moment later the thing rears back and releases a howling call to the skies. It rips the bolt free, sending an arc of ochre blood over the dusky sand.
Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories Page 40