I looked up at the low lead-colored sky. Rain caught on my eyelashes. Dust from my lips washed into my mouth.
Mujahid turned and threw me his lucky smile.
"We arrive with the rain. It'll assure us a good welcome."
The trail took a sharply angled turn, became steeper, then leveled out and almost disappeared on a gradual slope dotted with spiny desert shrubs. It was darker than it had been above; the mass of the palm trees was only an outline against the slightly paler clouds, and even that disappeared when the steady shower suddenly became a downpour. The whisper of the rain became a rattle on the palm fronds, then a roar, until lightning, pale as death, vicious as Ka-dhim's dagger, blazed into the ground just ahead of Mujahid's camel with a thunderclap loud enough to curdle courage and split stones.
The world became a chaos of frightened animals plunging about in rain and darkness.
For moments I saw only the memory of the lightning. In that time the pack camel, lunging and dragging on its lead rope, dislodged the saddle I was riding; it tilted, both animals I had been leading reared free, and I went over blindly. I landed on hip and elbow and scrambled madly to avoid the trampling hooves of the horse.
As I blundered clear, a safely distant lightning flash showed Mujahid's camel struggling to stand, and over the following thunder's echo I heard a muttered curse. By then I could almost see clearly again. A few paces away Mujahid was picking himself out of a prickly shrub he'd fallen into, bending to disentangle his wet cloak from its stiff twigs and spines.
I said, "Mujahid?" and as though my voice had turned him into stone he suddenly stopped moving. He didn't speak. I don't think he breathed. For a slow count of three he just stood hunched over in the rain until suddenly he jerked to life, gave a strangled cry and reared back, tearing the cloak free.
Bending over, he picked up a double handful of wet gravel and broken rock and flung it into the heart of the bush he had trampled.
". . .I take refuge with the Mother of the Gods from all evil!"
I recognized the ritual with sudden dread. Without moving his feet he turned to me like an old grandfather withered by age and old battle wounds. Vaguely he reached up under his head-cloth and touched the side of his head above the right temple, lowered his hand, examined the fingertips, stared at me. His face framed by the dripping headcloth was empty, slack, his eyes lost in wells of darkness like a skull's.
"An ausaj bush," he muttered. "I fell and trampled an ausaj bush . . ."
My mouth was dry as blown dust. I licked rain off my lips to moisten my tongue.
". . . Perhaps you're wrong," I croaked. "It's dark, perhaps you mistook a —"
"You brainless dog turd!" He scooped up another handful of gravel and flung it — at me. I ducked with my arms around my head. Half a dozen small rocks bounced off me painfully. "Next you'll say I need sunlight to tell a woman from a man . . . Gods! — that this should happen when we've practically caught him. . ." He put a vague hand to his head again. "Are you dreaming? See to your animals."
"Are you hurt?"
"Not yet."
None of the animals had bolted, and Mujahid's camel was only ten paces away. As he approached her his knees buckled. He stumbled forward, kept from falling only by catching the decorative strips trailing from his saddlebag.
Perhaps the women's charm to assure us water was working too well. The lightning had moved away, and the thunder had become a distant grumble, but the rain continued to hiss and rattle, and profligate streams sluiced heedlessly down the steep valley wall. The space between the wall and the palm trees had become a shallow lake.
The difference between an ausaj and other stiff, dry desert bushes is this: that only the ausaj is protected by jinns. A vengeful jinni's curse can end a man's life in a day or follow it through decades of tragedy and dishonor. No better way to earn such a curse than to violate an ausaj, which is why bedouin take care to avoid them, hurling a rock or a pebble and taking refuge with the Mother of the Gods. What power had luck against the enmity of jinns? Maybe the lightning bolt had signalled that the reign of Mujahid's luck was over. . . .
Soaked, weary, beginning to shiver, I sloshed through ankle-deep water, leading all four animals up the valley toward the city. The three camels were linked one behind the other. The horse I led carefully by the sodden wool halter rope attached to her headstall. On her back slumped Mujahid, inert and dejected, without his headgear but with a bandage made from a strip torn from the hem of my thaub around his head. I kept expecting him to fall out of the saddle. . . .
We took a jog to avoid a rocky outcrop taller than a man, had just emerged beyond it when a child's voice laughed out of the rain. The laugh cut off sharply. I halted the animals, peered toward it.
A small naked boy pointed at us.
From a patch of deep water near him, an indistinct shape rose and turned to us. I saw a young woman in a narrow dress; I couldn't see details but had the impression of streaming hair falling past her shoulders, two slender braids on either side framing her face. Women often celebrated the coming of rain by joining the children splashing about in the short-lived pools and puddles, and our arrival had caught this pair by surprise. They studied us in startled silence.
But only for a moment. Even as I started formally to wish them peace, the young woman called out, "Ahlan wa sahlan" — a greeting with overtones of welcome. Her upturned hands caught the falling rain and tossed it back at the clouds. "A propitious time: your arrival is green! Tomorrow the wells will be full and the whole world fresh."
"May the Gods prosper you, lady." I wished I were talking to a man. A man had more authority. "My master is injured and appeals for your protection."
"You must take your appeal to my mother."
"Not to your father, or perhaps an uncle — ?"
"My fa— ?" A surprised pause. A bubble of amusement appeared in her voice; she quelled it politely. "No. We of Ahl al-Hilal do things the old way."
If the men were absent it would of course be proper to appeal to her mother, but somehow I thought she meant more than that. Ahl al-Hilal — kindred of the crescent moon. I'd never heard of them. But I had heard the rumor about a tribe of witches. Was it true after all? Might this kindred have no need of men? Might they have the power to call down lightning to guard Ras al-Wadi's approaches?. . .
The young woman said something to the boy. He turned and ran, splashing through the rain and the gathering dark toward the date palms. I thought I saw the outline of a small building up against the trees. Then she was speaking again.
". . . Lead the animals this way." A careful look at Mujahid. She couldn't have seen much. "Follow me exactly. I'll keep you on level ground."
The house was a minute's walk away, a low rectangle of mud brick thickly daubed with mud and straw. The flickering light from a small indoor fire showed an open doorway beyond which I could make out no details, and then someone blocked the firelight, ducking out into the rain holding what was probably a thick wool cloak overhead like a tent.
"Is that the injured one?"
A woman's voice, deep-toned and decisive even when asking a question.
"On the horse," I said. "His name's Mujahid bin Hasan an-Numayri and he appeals for your protection."
"He has it. Ahlan wa sahlan. I am Nur bint Hind. Mabruka!"
"Mother?" the young woman said.
"Tell Latifa to move her bedding in with us; we need her room for our guests. And bring in a candle."
Latifa was an aging servant woman with a small skinny old body muffled in peasant wrappings. In a cheerful cackle she assured us that Nur usually put up a tent to accommodate guests but how could you, when the world was under water? She bundled up her bedding with ostentatious good nature to emphasize the hospitality of her mistress's household and scurried out one door and into the other. There were two rooms in the building with no interior door between them.
To my eyes it was pitch dark in La-tifa's r
oom. With no will of his own Mujahid allowed himself to be guided inside to what my toes told me was a rug, at one end of which he obediently sat. I heard the settling rustle of clothing as Nur bint Hind sank to the floor beside him. Then I turned back toward the door to go and see about the animals and baggage just as Mabruka came in, cradling the guttering flame of a tallow candle with a careful hand.
Once inside she stood up straight and held the candle to illuminate the room. Or at least the people in it. What it showed best was Mabruka. Perhaps that was the idea.
In the candlelight her eyes were huge and dark and almost magical. I had thought her young but not this young. Two years ago she could have showed no sign of the breasts and hips that pushed against the fabric of the narrow wet dress. New womanhood glowed from her like a mystery, increasingly exciting in its unfolding possibilities. Perhaps she was fourteen. I couldn't imagine anyone less like Filwa. Filwa was taller, slimmer, her beauty quiet and shy. Mabruka's was sturdy and exuberant, as outgoing as laughter, as confident as a spring sunrise.
Her eyes slid past me to her mother, then fixed on Mujahid. Lucky Mujahid. Mabruka knelt at the edge of the rug, brought the candle nearer his face. He turned slightly to look at it, then at her. His eyes below the rough bandage showed no spark of interest. I was suddenly afraid that this was no temporary despondency, that the old ways and the smiling assurance were gone for good.
Something bitter twisted my lips. A flower of remorse blossomed suddenly under my ribcage, bewildering me. No, not remorse. Guilt. I was guilty of something, the accusation was unanswerable, but. . . of what was I accused? And once the question was asked the answer came without effort. You are accused of secretly, bitterly, under a cloak of admiration, resenting Mujahid's good luck. And hard on the heels of this recognition came the further question: Must it mean that now I actively wanted Mujahid's luck changed?
I was appalled. Since I had already been feeling obscurely disloyal to Filwa for the impression created by my first good look at Mabruka, I had to wonder if I had any loyalty at all. Of course I didn't want Mujahid's luck changed! — if only for the practical reason that he might need it to avenge his father, and if he did I certainly would too. Besides, though we shared no formal kinship ties yet, circumstances had made me as much a Numayri of the Bani Faris as anyone; he was my brother, and my friend.
Nur bint Hind leaned into the candlelight. She had dropped the cloak that she'd held overhead down around her shoulders. She had a light shawl draped over her hair and wrapped about her neck; a strikingly handsome woman I guessed to be no more than twice Ma-bruka's age, her face calm under dark level brows, her eyes direct, with a challenging intelligence. Her hands rose to Mujahid's bandage, showing on her fingers silver rings set with turquoise and red stones, on one wrist the wink of solid silver.
"Are you a healer, lady?"
"I have no magic, but I've treated the cuts and scrapes of many children besides my own, more than my share of lance and knife wounds, and seen women through childbirth. If his hurt's beyond my skill we'll take him in the morning to a healer we know in the city." She slipped the bandage over his head, detaching it carefully from the wound, then used a corner to wipe away congealing blood.
Mujahid flinched slightly. He flinched again when she prodded delicately around the edges of the wound, which I couldn't properly see. Then she sat back on her heels, dropping her hand into her lap and giving him a thoughtful stare which, after a long moment, she turned on me.
"I've seen worse head cuts on five-year-old boys playing sword fights with sticks. Did something else happen to him?"
"His camel stumbled." I licked parched lips. My tongue felt like dry wool. "He was thrown and hit his head and trampled an ausaj bush."
She finished the explanation for me. "He fears a jinn curse."
I nodded.
She thought a moment, then looked full into her daughter's face. Her brows rose slightly, an unvoiced question.
Mabruka nodded, settling slowly back on her heels. She lowered the candle and sat with the other hand in her lap, unmoving, not visibly breathing. I only had the space of a heartbeat to wonder what was happening before I felt myself caught in a curious moment of stretched time, like an insect caught in a drop of honey, with the world stopped. My vision was restricted, I saw only the heavy silver bracelet on Nur's wrist, the upturned fingers of Mabruka's hand lying in her lap. The candle flame was unnaturally still, a golden blade glowing in the first red light of some mythic dawn in a desert without landmarks where the only sound came from the collision of one sand grain against another, each tick and click distinct and separate, slower than the rattle of a kitten's first purr, inexorable as the fall of mountains but more threatening
Who knows under what spell I was falling? Or perhaps it was only weariness and anxiety played on by the candle flame, evoking a waking dream finally interrupted when an impurity in the tallow caused the flame to sputter and flare up. I was instantly wide awake, my heart hammering under my ribs, and I was staring at Mabruka.
She was on her heels, her body tilted slightly forward from the waist in an attitude of attention, her breasts urgent against the wet dress. Desire for her went through me like a sword. My knees dissolved. I almost groaned aloud.
Mabruka met her mother's eyes and shook her head. Mujahid could not have cared less. Nur looked past him up at me.
"Your master is safe. My daughter tells me there are no spirits present."
I said without thinking, "How would she know?"
"She knows. It's her gift."
"And there's no curse," Mabruka said. "A curse leaves ... a kind of echo."
I stared. Mabruka looked defensive.
She said, "Some people can make poems, or play music. I can do this."
"It's a great. . . skill, gift," I fumbled huskily, hopelessly.
"It's not fun, you know. It's frightening."
"Look," Nur said.
Mujahid was returning to us.
Not quickly, as at the snap of fingers. I didn't know what Nur had seen but when I looked he moved his shoulders, like a child disturbed in sleep. Then his throat made a small soft sound, half query, half protest. After a while he blinked. Several times. When his eyes stayed open the lost uncaring look had left them and the slack lines of his face and body were tightening into a semblance of Mujahid living. Staring at Mabruka whose gleaming hair fell past her shoulders, the slender braids framing her face. At the hand holding the candle. At the other still resting in her lap. At her mouth.
When he spoke his voice was as light and dry as wheat chaff.
"Sorceress."
"No," she said.
Relief had begun storming through me at the first sigh of his recovery. Now it subsided, leaving me weak and angry.
"So you heard it was safe and decided to come back," I sneered. "Where've you been?"
I was still standing. He looked up at me wanly. "Nowhere."
Nur said, "Your injury's nothing, a skin wound, hardly enough to take away your senses. Your servant's been worried."
"Sorry, Talal." He thought a minute, and when he finally shrugged it was almost humorously. The old confidence was returning. In a minute more, I thought, he'll be displaying the full panoply that identified lucky Mujahid, warrior Mujahid, courteous and tender Mujahid, Mujahid the romantic conqueror . . .
I almost snarled, "He thought a jinni was after him and it scared him witless."
His face closed like a fist; he gave me a cold rejecting stare. It got even worse when a spasm quivered in his cheek and one corner of his mouth began lifting in a ghastly half-smile. I tried to match him stare for stare. I don't think I did too well. And then his face began to relax. He sighed.
"A jinni's a hard enemy to fight. You could be right." His voice was getting stronger every minute. He explained my outburst to the two women: "Talal's as much a younger brother as a servant. Or thinks he is. But that's all right, I often think so
too."
I felt obscurely apologetic — and too angry to apologize.
I said awkwardly, "Whichever I am, I still have to see to the animals," and went outside.
The rain had stopped. Water dripped noisily from palm fronds in the date garden that was only visible as a looming mass in the dark.
From somewhere the little boy had summoned a man I later learned was a field hand and the servant Latifa's nephew. So at least these Hilali people weren't a kindred of women only. The man and the boy had the pack camel barracked near the house and were unloading her. I joined them and soon we had all three camels unloaded and the gear and baggage and saddlebags carried in and stacked in Latifa's room. The two women had gone to hurry up the meal that Latifa was preparing next door.
To keep the animals out of the vegetable field, the man helped me lead them into a mud-walled pen. I thanked him. He assured me no thanks were due for the performance of a duty, and when I squatted by a deep puddle to wash my face and arms and feet, the little boy told me to hurry and not miss my dinner because they had killed a sheep yesterday and there was meat in the stew. I said I was sure it was delicious. He nodded solemnly. I complimented Nur bint Hind's hospitality. He proudly told me she was his mother; he was Sa'd bin Nur. I didn't ask about his father.
"Soon," he told me, "I go to my uncle to learn to be a bedouin herdsman and a hunter. I will hunt gazelle."
I told him gazelle meat was tasty eating.
Weird Tales - Summer 1990 Page 18