Desert Wind

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Halim slowly turned his head to stare at the captain. “What do you mean?”

  “If there is one thing I’ve learned about Exento, it is that he is a natural-born thespian. He can mimic most every man among the crew and his impersonations are eerily accurate. If you could instruct him on how Prince Ardalan behaved, how he carried himself, I’ll wager Exento could give you a rendition so similar to the man himself, even his father would be hard-pressed to tell the difference.”

  “Ah, but having a man carry himself as another is one thing, but having him look exactly like the other is a different matter,” Halim said, although the notion did appeal to him.

  “You said they are virtually alike. How do they differ?” the captain asked.

  “As I said, Prince Ardalan is muscular. He—”

  “We can bulk Exento up,” the pirate suggested.

  “True, but there are the major differences,” Halim countered.

  “Which are?”

  “The tattoos that circle the wrists of the prince and the scars that cover his back and thighs.”

  “Scars from what?”

  “His father’s whip,” Halim replied. “The tattoos could be copied but the scars would not be easily duplicated for they took years to accumulate.”

  “Who would see the scars if he kept his clothes on?” Vasquez inquired.

  Halim looked up at Exento as the man clung precariously to the spar. “Who indeed?”

  “Could you tell Jorge what the tattoos looked like? He is a veritable artist and can draw anything you can describe,” the captain said, referring to one of his sailors.

  “I was there when they were being applied,” Halim said. “Each wrist bears the dragon of the Northern Sector. Most of the symbols are typical Asaraban cryptograms and the rest are words written in the Soqui language of our people.” He held up his right hand. “Around his right wrist is written his name as firstborn of the sultan. Around his left is the motto of the Jaleem clan.”

  “Which is?”

  “Annihilation to all who oppose us.”

  “Charming motto,” Vasquez muttered.

  “The sultan and his forbearers were not gentle men,” Halim stated.

  “And the son?”

  “A just and honorable man who would have been a savior to Asaraba if he’d been given the chance.” Halim lowered his head. “Now, he will not be given that chance.”

  Vasquez continued to stare at Exento. “Could you be his puppet master if it meant changing the course of your country’s destiny, Halim?” he asked.

  “Who?” Halim asked then followed the captain’s gaze. “We are speaking hypothetically here, are we not?”

  The pirate turned back to Halim. “Does it have to be hypothetical, my friend? Can we not attempt to change the face of the world one man at a time?”

  Halim chuckled. “A vast undertaking that would be.”

  “What of the revenge you spoke of while you were recuperating?” Vasquez asked. “Will you go after the two men you swore to kill?”

  Halim nodded. “I will. It may take me a while to do it, but I will exact vengeance for the hand they played in murdering my prince.”

  “Well, we’ve time yet for all that,” the Diabolusian captain said. “First we must sell the goods we carry if we are to have the gold to journey on to Asaraba.”

  “I look forward to setting foot on land,” Halim said. “Taking in a bazaar or two will break the monotony of this accursed ocean.”

  “Land ho!” Exento called out from his perch atop the crow’s nest. “We’ve got land, Captain!”

  “Merciful Alel, he even sounds like Ardalan,” Halim said with a shake of his head. “That is eerie.”

  “He is easily led,” Vasquez said, nodding toward Exento. “When he was captured, he threw down his weapon and begged for his life. We had no intention of murdering the fool, but he seemed to think we would. His fellow soldiers—all conscripts I might add—had fought bravely. Recklessly perhaps, but bravely. Exento? Exento merely wet his pants and knelt there on his knees pleading for his life. He swore he’d do whatever we asked of him if we but spared his life.” He laughed. “I think that would have included blowing every man on ship if he’d been ordered to.”

  Halim looked back up at the spry man leaning over the crow’s nest. He stared at Exento for a long, long time, and then asked the captain if he’d ever heard the expression that power corrupts.

  “Aye, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Vasquez agreed. “I’ve found that is very true of human nature.”

  “If we were to have our little monkey man assume the prince’s persona, train him to act as Ardalan did and would have under certain circumstances, teach him the ins and outs of government, would we be creating a monster that would later be hard to control?”

  “Should that happen, my friend, all you would need to do is threaten to expose him to the Asaraban people, strip the shirt from his back to expose clear and unblemished flesh, and I would venture to say he’d fall down on his knees and whistle a tune for you.” Vasquez’s lips twitched. “He’d blow that tune for you for hours on end.”

  Once more Halim regarded Exento. He kept his thoughts to himself, but the seed had been planted and was slowly taking sprout in the Asaraban captain’s brain.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The woman had been gone longer than she ever had before. Ardalan had to piss and he struggled to get up, his head hurting so badly he could barely think and swimming so brutally he had trouble holding onto the foot post of the bed. He clung to the tall post until some of the dizziness passed, forcing his eyes to focus until he found the chamber pot just under the bed. Nausea bubbling up in his throat, he bent over—holding onto the post—and stretched out his hand to grasp the handle of the porcelain pot. By the time he had the pot where he needed it and managed to aim himself at the opening, he was sweating with weakness. He felt completely drained in more ways than one when he’d finished and had just enough energy to push the chamber pot back under the bed before he collapsed onto the mattress.

  She still had not given him any clothing and that annoyed him to no end. He’d tried ordering her to give him at least his pants, but she had simply shaken her head stubbornly. He’d tried pleading, but it was to no avail. She was adamant about him staying unclothed and he was too ill to continue arguing with her.

  Though she fed him well—the food tasty and plenty of it—he was still an invalid. The wounds on his chest and his head had healed but he was still dizzy, still nauseated a goodly portion of the time and as weak as a newborn kitten. The one time he had coerced her into helping him try to walk to gain back his strength had been disastrous. He had nearly fallen flat on his face and would have if she hadn’t struggled to keep him from doing so. Helping him back to bed, she had suggested he not try such a thing again until he was better.

  The trouble was, he was getting no better, and that worried him. It had been over two months since he had awakened in her bed and he still didn’t know her name. Each time he’d asked, she’d simply smiled and bid him give himself time. He’d remember, she said. All he needed was time.

  Time, he thought as he lay slumped on the bed, was something he had plenty of. Bored beyond reason, irritated that he could not take one step about the room without pitching to the floor, disgusted by her roaming hands that strayed over him whether he was awake or not, he was a man bordering on a breakdown.

  He heard the front door open but he didn’t look that way. Even though he found himself dreading hearing her voice, she was at least company and company kept him from going out of his mind with the inactivity to which he strongly suspected he was unaccustomed.

  “Are you getting hungry, my husband?” she asked.

  She was a good cook. That much he had to give her and she kept the bedroom—he had no idea how the rest of the house was—as clean as a new copper.

  “What’s wrong with me?” he blurted out. “Is there no healer here to come in and see to me?”

  “A hea
ler?” she asked, laughing. “Here? Not likely, my beloved. We are nearly at the summit of Mount Saffet. What healer would make the trek here?”

  “I should have been better by now,” he protested.

  “And you will be, Dev. Just give yourself time.”

  It was her mantra, he decided—“give yourself time”. She repeated it over and over again until he wished her tongue would drop out of her mouth. The thought of that soothed him for if she had no tongue, she couldn’t slurp on his cock the way she did every chance she got. Her insatiable appetite for his flesh was starting to wear very thin.

  “You are looking peevish again,” she accused.

  “I am not peevish,” he snapped. “I am bored.”

  “What you need is to throw me to the bed and ram that delicious tool into my sheath,” she said wistfully. “I can hardly wait for the day you are able to do that.”

  Anger prodded him like a nest of angry wasps and he spoke before he thought. “Why don’t you just throw your leg over me and impale your cunt on my cock and be done with it?”

  Her eyes widened, and at first he thought he had finally managed to shock her, yet he should have known a woman as unappeasable as she was would not be shocked but pleased he’d made such a suggestion. He groaned as he saw the slow smile begin to form on her thin lips.

  “Is that what you want me to do, Devrim?” she asked, coming closer to the bed, her eyes eating him up in their intensity.

  “No, I…” He stopped for she had taken the edges of her blouse and ripped it open, her unbound breasts tumbling into view.

  “Why didn’t you say so, beloved?” she asked, her hands going quickly to the closure of her skirt at her waist.

  “No,” he said, firmly, shaking his head. “That is not what I meant. It was said as—”

  He got no further for she was naked and on him in such a way it sucked the breath from his body. As weak as he was, he was no obstacle to prevent her from throwing herself upon him so she was writhing against him, the wiry patch between her legs grinding against his cock as she fastened her lips to one of his paps and began nibbling.

  Knowing he wasn’t strong enough to stop her from having her way with him, he just lay there beneath her frenzied assault and let her do what she wanted. She was—after all—his wife and he had no desire to hurt her either physically or mentally. He didn’t think it was in him to be cruel so he simply endured. He stared at the ceiling, finding the same water spot he spent hours contemplating and tried to ignore what she was doing to him.

  She reached behind her, found his cock and squeezed it into submission. Stuffing it between her legs, she slid down on it with such force he grunted, but he never took his gaze from the water spot on the ceiling. She was wriggling on him, lifting and thrusting her lower body, grinding against him, writhing and twisting as she threw her head back, riding him for all he was worth. Her hands were on his thighs—fingernails digging into his flesh—bracing herself as she arched her hips forward and upward, her shapeless breasts bouncing as she took him.

  He was glad when the ripples of pleasure claimed her for he would be rid of her touches, her overweight body, her slick, hot cunt that never seemed to ever get its fill, for at least a while. Although this was the first time she had actually used his flesh to penetrate her channel, it was not the first time he had watched her experiencing pleasure. The only difference was that this time his cock was in her and she was climaxing with a frenzy that stunned and embarrassed him.

  “Aye! Aye, Devrim, aye!” she screamed, and her voice made him jump with the force and loudness of it. Everyone in the village had to know what it was they were about and he felt his face burn with mortification.

  She fell upon him, her lips to the hollow of his throat and she lapped at him like a contented kitten, her hands caressing his bare shoulders.

  “You are more man than I deserve,” she whispered against his throat.

  She was dead weight lying atop him, and the strain of it was making his head pound. He tried rolling her off him, but she would not move. She was lying between his legs, pinning him down, and he could do nothing but lie there and look up at the ceiling.

  “I love you, Devrim,” she said.

  He searched his heart and found there was no love for this woman lurking there. There wasn’t even like. He realized he hated her with a passion he could not understand. She was his wife, but had he been able, he would have gotten up from the bed and left her, never to return.

  “Do you love me?” she asked, twisting a lock of his chest hair around and around her finger.

  “I don’t feel well,” he said. “My head is killing me.”

  She slid off him and got up from the bed. “You need your medicine,” she said.

  He frowned. “What medicine?”

  She didn’t answer but came back to the bed with a goblet of water. “Here, my love. Drink.”

  He looked at the goblet and tried to remember if he had ever seen her sipping from the pitcher she kept by the door. He could not remember. His mind was a blank on most things and seemed to stay that way.

  “Devrim, drink your water,” she said. “You don’t want to get dehydrated again.” She put her hand under his back and lifted him as though he were a child. Not for the first time did he have the fleeting thought that she was a very strong woman.

  The rim of the goblet was against his lips, the coolness of the water pressing against the folds. He was thirsty and he drank, though in the far reaches of his mind he knew he shouldn’t.

  “Drink it all,” she ordered.

  He did as he was told and, almost as soon as the last sip was swallowed, he felt the dizziness increase. The numbness spread over him and he became listless, weak, his head a blinding, throbbing agony.

  “What is in the water?” he asked, knowing of a certainty that she had put something in it.

  “You sleep now,” she said, and tugged the covers over him. Through the fabric of the sheet she caressed his manhood. “Sleep until you need me again.”

  The last thought he had before slumber claimed him was that she might well be poisoning him.

  * * * * *

  He was humming to himself as he sat by the window looking out at the mountains. Beyond the window he could see his wife—whatever the hell her name was—working in the small plot that provided fresh vegetables for them. Now and again she would look up at him and wave. He’d wave back. She’d blow him a kiss. He’d ignore it and continue to hum. It was easier on him that way.

  Though she had stopped forcing water on him, he was still weak, still dizzy. Still nauseous a good deal of the time and his headache had gotten no better, but then again, neither had it gotten any worse. She had allowed him a pair of pants and he had accepted them gratefully with tears in his eyes.

  “I’m going to help you over to the chair so you can see out,” she’d said. “We don’t want you getting bedsores, now do we?”

  He’d gladly agreed to her suggestion and, though it had taken an inordinately long amount of time to cover the six or so feet from bed to chair, it had been worth it as he sat up and could see beyond the confines of the bedchamber.

  “If you need me, just call,” she’d said, leaving a cool glass of water on the table beside him. As soon as she was out the door, he’d poured the water out the window. He thought he was thwarting her but he would have been shocked to learn the drugs she had been giving him in the water had been transferred to his food.

  He didn’t really think he was getting any better and he had accepted the fact that he wasn’t going to. There were no memories of his past to entertain him as he sat at the window and faces that looked up at him, called greetings to him, were nameless, past-less entities. If he wondered why none of the villagers ever came up to talk to him, it didn’t seem to matter. He was numb and the numbness had spread to push away any drive he might have had to live a normal life.

  So he sat at the window well into the fourth month of his captivity and hummed a tune that cam
e to him from somewhere. He wished he had his tin whistle but…

  The thought jumped unbidden to his mind and clung there. He probed at it as one would a rotten tooth.

  “Did you miss me?” she asked as she came over to his chair.

  He looked up at her, wondering how long he’d been sitting there thinking of the tin whistle. “Do I play any instruments?” he asked.

  “You? Oh, Dev, that’s silly. What instrument would you play?”

  She bent over to kiss him on the top of the head then went back into the living part of the house to begin making supper for the two of them. He listened to her rattling pots and pans for a moment then slowly turned his head to look out the window again. He began to hum the song that had been running through his head all day. Pretty soon the hum became words.

  “Where are you going, my lady, my love?” he sang softly. “Where are you going this day?”

  He knew the song, though the name of it escaped him. He went through all the verses, and as he sang the last words knew he’d discovered the song’s title—“And the prince’s lost lady is found…”

  He stopped singing, a terrible ache forming in his heart, clogging his throat, tears burning his eyes.

  “The Prince’s Lost Lady,” he said aloud.

  “What did you say, beloved?” his wife called out to him.

  “Nothing,” he denied, his stare tight on the jagged mountains surrounding the cliffside dwelling that had become his prison.

  Flashes of memory suddenly shot across his mind with such force it threw him back in the chair. He sat there stunned as a ghostly vision of another mountain thrust itself over what he was actually seeing. There were sounds and smells and snatches of conversation all overlapping one another with such intensity he found he could barely breathe. He sat with his hands gripping the chair arms as disjointed images flew by…

  Two friends riding beside him, laughing, joking with him, heavy swords strapped to their backs, lethal daggers sheathed at their thighs.

  Hundreds of men following in his wake—looking to him for leadership and direction.