Throne of the Crescent Moon

by Saladin Ahmed

  It wasn’t the first time he’d seen such a thing.

  The rare, almost-forgotten gift of the lion-shape. He had known another tribesman thus gifted by God many years ago—a good man for a savage, but terrifying to witness when crossed. Adoulla would have to tread carefully here.

  “Hello,” he managed.

  The girl stared at him with those emerald eyes, wary.

  “God’s peace,” he tried.

  The girl’s expression softened almost imperceptibly, but she was still hard-faced. “God’s peace,” she said curtly, brushing her coarse, shoulder length hair from her eyes. A girl of her age speaking to a man of Adoulla’s ought to have been more respectful in her tone—at the very least, she should have called him “Uncle.” But the uncouth Badawi showed no decorum to any save their own. The girl followed her first two words with barked questions. “You were fighting these foul creatures? It was you who destroyed the others?”

  “Indeed.” Adoulla said, holding back the admonitions that were on the tip of his tongue. “Thank you for your help, child. It has been many years since I’ve been face-to-face with one who was gifted with the lion-shape.”

  The girl’s mouth fell open. “You know of the gift? And you do not fear me?”

  Adoulla shrugged. “You’re used to dealing with your ignorant fellow tribesmen, no doubt. Feared you even while depending on your powers? Well, I am no ungrateful savage.” The girl growled at the insult to her people, as if she were still a lioness inside.

  Adoulla put both hands up placatingly. “I am a scholar of such phenomena and of their dark versions, girl. The lion-shape is a gift given to men by God through the Angels. ‘You true Badawi watch for the Angel-boon—mane of golden sun, claws of silver moon.’ The shape is known to me, and is nothing to fear. Besides, after forty years of ghul hunting it takes more than a child wearing the shape of a lion to frighten me. Though I am surprised. It has been twenty years since I’ve met one of your kind. And I didn’t know that the gift could be visited upon girls.”

  Adoulla heard the faintest whisper of noise as Raseed hoisted himself up from the sheer face of the stone. The girl turned at the sound.

  “Well, boy, it’s about time!” Adoulla said as the dervish came trotting up. “Leaving an old man to fend for himself up here! Though, as you can see, we are not alone.”

  The boy’s sword was already in his hand, but his expression was more incredulous than battle ready. “Who is the girl, Doctor?”

  “Well, among other things she was the instrument of God’s Ministering Angels’ preserving my life. But we’ve had no time for proper introductions.” Adoulla turned to the girl, who was studying Raseed. “I am Doctor Adoulla Makhslood, young woman. My assistant is called Raseed.” A cold wind picked up and Adoulla folded his hands beneath his armpits to stay warm.

  The girl frowned again. “You are a ghul hunter? And this one is a dervish?” she asked brusquely, without taking her eyes off Raseed.

  Adoulla arched a displeased eyebrow at the ill-mannered child, though he wasn’t sure she saw it. “I am, and he is. But I thought that even the rudest of Badawi would have better manners than to nose into a stranger’s business before even giving their name.”

  No hint of embarrassment crossed the girl’s features. “I am Zamia Banu Laith Badawi, Protector of the Band of Nadir Banu Laith Badawi.”

  Adoulla glanced at his assistant. It was only then that Adoulla really saw the blood-stained slashes in Raseed’s blue silks. The cuts didn’t look deep, but Adoulla knew from experience how they burned. Of course, the stoic boy would show no sign of complaint. But herbs were needed there—ghulsbane and lavender. Adoulla was no healer, but his friends Dawoud and Litaz had taught him some little bits. “You’re hurt,” he said to his assistant, reaching into his satchel and producing a poultice pouch. He tossed it to the dervish, who sheathed his sword with clear reluctance and began mashing the pouch in his hands, preparing it for application.

  Adoulla’s nose twitched at the floral pungency of the herbs being crushed. He looked back to the girl. “Zamia here can take the lion-shape, boy. You do recall my lessons on the old powers of the Empty Kingdom’s desert tribes? She just destroyed the largest ghul I’ve ever seen.”

  The dervish’s eyes widened, and his hands stopped squeezing the pouch. He frowned slightly. “Impressive, Doctor. But the Traditions of the Order say ‘Being my enemy’s enemy does not make you my friend.’”

  “Well, do a little dance, boy—for once those old hypocrites of yours had something wise to say. But I am not calling her a friend. I’m simply saying that she saved my life.”

  The girl spit. “Vile men! Do not speak of me as if I weren’t standing before you!” Tribesmen’s speech had always sounded to Adoulla like rocks talking. This rough-looking girl sounded like a grating rain of pebbles. She focused her angry young glare on Adoulla. “What are you doing out here, old man?”

  “Doctor, girl! You will call me Doctor or Uncle or something more respectful!” Angel-chosen or not, Adoulla had had enough of this rude little girl’s tone.

  “The Badawi owe no allegiance to city titles,” she said sneeringly. Then, reluctantly, “But I will call you Doctor if you wish.” An even more arrogant expression spread across the girl’s homely features. “You say with your own tongue that I saved your life—this means that you owe me a debt of death.”

  Adoulla barked out a laugh. Such notions these people have. “Does it, now? I am a ghul hunter, girl. Do you know how many lives I have saved? How many men and women and children I have kept from the claws of monsters? Did they pledge their lives to me? Did they become my slaves? No. This is a relic from one of your people’s ridiculous six-hour six-night story poems.”

  The girl growled again but said nothing.

  Adoulla sighed. “Look. You asked in your mannerless way what we are doing here? Well, as it stands, this ghul pack slaughtered a marsh family a few days ago. My assistant and I—”

  “I saw them,” Zamia interrupted, and it was as if all of the arrogance had been bled from her voice. “I have been tracking these creatures for almost a week now, since they left the deep desert of the Empty Kingdom. I found the marshmen after they were killed, their ribcages cracked open, their hearts ripped from their chests. And their eyes…I’ve seen dead men before. I’ve killed men! Watched life’s light die in their eyes. But this was…There was no brown or black or white in their eyes—only red! Not blood. A glowing red like…like nothing I’ve ever seen. If that is what it means to die beneath a ghul’s claws….” The girl shuddered, folded her arms around her boyish frame, and fell silent.

  Adoulla, as well, found himself momentarily speechless. Eyes bright with the color of the Traitorous Angel—more evidence that there was something here even grimmer than the hunting of ghuls. His insides clenched in fear. “Bone ghul or water ghul, sand ghul or night ghul, the unholy monsters eat the still-warm hearts of men. But this…This business with the eyes is something still more horrible. A cruel kind of magic, a form that the old scrolls say has vanished from this world. A sign that not just the flesh, but the soul itself has been sucked away and swallowed like marrow.”

  The girl’s green eyes widened with shock. “Such a thing is not possible!”

  Raseed, whose hands had been moving beneath his tunic as he applied the poultice, spoke before Adoulla could answer her. “The girl is right. God would not allow such a thing! The Heavenly Chapters say ‘Yea, though the flesh is scourged, the soul of the believer feels no—’”

  “Please, boy, no scripture quoting! Your inadequate interpretations help nothing here, and my energies are needed for more important things than enlightening you through exegesis. Now—”

  Zamia tilted her head and sniffed. “You’re telling the truth,” she said in a suddenly weak voice. “I smell no trace of deceit upon you.” And tears began to well up in her eyes.

  Adoulla was perplexed. “And I smell no deceit upon you, Zamia Banu Laith Badawi. Though, desp
ite its prominence, I’m sure my nose is not quite so accurate as yours. But now it is my turn to ask questions. Why these tears now? And how is it that you came to be here alone, stalking these monsters? Where is your band?”

  “That is none of your concern,” Zamia said, her words wooden and heavy as she wiped a few tears from her plain face. The wind whipped up for a moment, the sound blending eerily with the harsh call of a hunting night-kite.

  “We clearly share an enemy, girl. Surely even a tribesman can see that we should share information as well.” The girl’s eyes tightened, and Adoulla recalled a favorite saying of Miri’s: Bees and beetles alike love honey more than vinegar. That Miri rarely followed this dictum herself meant little. Adoulla needed to try a different tack. “Zamia, I don’t mean you any insult. I know what it is to lose your happiness to the ghuls. And I can help you, girl. If you let me.”

  When the girl spoke it was with the voice of a dead woman. “I lied. When I spoke of finding the marshmen’s bodies, I said that I had never seen such a thing. I lied. I had seen it days before. It happened to my band.”

  So that’s it. Adoulla reached out a comforting hand to the girl, but she stopped him with an angry look. She swallowed, wiped away another tear, and continued. “I was out scouting one night, far ahead of the rest of the band. The next morning, when I returned to where they’d set their tents…What I found…” The girl’s matter-of-fact tone slid away. She fell silent, her eyes wide with remembered horrors. Then she smothered her pain again and went on.

  “Bodies. All of their bodies. All seven and fifty of the Banu Laith Badawi—old Uncle Mahloud and spoiled little Wazzi. Faziza, who believed that she really ruled the band. My father. My beautiful young cousin, who would have been chieftain—his body had been burned. All of them, do you understand? I am the last.”

  It had the sound of something the girl had been repeating to herself. Adoulla did not speak, hoping the girl would go on.

  “There were foul, puzzling smells everywhere,” she said after a moment. “Jackal-scent where no hair could be found. Fresh spilled child-blood that smelled of ancient buildings. But these scents led nowhere. The only sign I could find was this.” Reaching into her tunic the girl drew forth an ornate curved dagger. The blade was stained with what looked like dried blood.

  “It was my father’s. He had hidden it in the folds of his chieftain’s robes. There is blood on it, but the scent is neither man nor animal. And if the stories are to be believed, ghuls bleed no blood.”

  Adoulla’s mind raced, recalling the strange phrases that had come to him earlier when he’d sought God’s help in finding the ghuls. ‘The jackal that eats souls.’ ‘The thing that slays the lion’s pride.’ He turned the lines over in his head but still came up with nothing. “Generally, the stories are not to be believed,” he finally said to Zamia. “But that one at least is true. Which means that your father wounded something or someone else. God willing, that dagger may hold answers.”

  “God willing,” the girl replied, though she didn’t sound as if she held out much hope. “I have been trying to find the trail of the creatures for days now, seeking to avenge my band so that I may die with honor. I came upon them almost by accident just as they attacked you two.” Zamia was quiet for a moment. She swallowed and then spoke again.

  “This…this…soul-eating. This is what they did to my band.” It wasn’t a question. She looked straight ahead as she spoke, and her now dry eyes looked almost soul-eaten themselves. She held the dagger aloft. “This is all that I have of my father, though I will never wield it—for since I was given the lion-shape I foreswore other weapons. ‘My claws, my fangs, the silver knives with which the Ministering Angels strike.’ This is the old saying.”

  God save us from the poetry of barbarians! But the words were as bitterly spoken as any Adoulla had ever heard. He had seen God-alone-remembered how many pained faces during his career, but looking at the pain on the face of this rough little girl who was a lion, was not made easier by that history. Still, he knew that, unlike most victims he had dealt with, this one would want and need hard truth more than coddling.

  “Listen to me, Angel-touched one. Your family is dead, in body and soul. I can offer you nothing that will change that. But I can offer you a chance at vengeance.” It was the only thing a tribesman could want right now, Adoulla knew. “You may travel with us as an ally if you wish, Zamia Banu Laith Badawi.”

  Beside him, Raseed made a choking noise. Adoulla had almost forgotten he was there. “Doctor! We cannot have her…. There is no reason to—”

  “Hmph. You forget yourself, Raseed bas Raseed. Who is the mentor and who is the assistant here, boy? Besides, we need Zamia’s knife to find the one that did this. The ghul pack has been destroyed. Now we must find out who made it. And we must kill him. Unfortunately my tracking spell has taken us as far as it is going to take us.”

  “Can you not work another spell, then?” The girl was tense. If she were wearing her lion-shape, her tail would be switching, Adoulla thought. He ran a hand over his beard.

  “My invocations have their limits, child, just as your powers do. The Chapters say ‘The mightiest of men is but a slim splinter before the forest of God’s power.’” He pulled out the scarlet-spotted scrap of cloth that he’d used in his tracking spell. “The blood on this was spilled by the ghul pack we just destroyed. That is how I was able to track them. But the pack’s master—the true murderer of those marshmen, and of your band as well—well, God requires more from us to find him. The blood on Nadir Banu Laith Badawi’s dagger is a good start. May I?” he asked, reaching gently for the weapon.

  “You recalled his full name,” the girl said, her angry face showing what Adoulla supposed was a savage’s respect. She handed him the dagger with an anxious look in her eyes.

  Adoulla had to nurture that respect if he wished to have the girl’s help without her arrogance and second guessings. Besides, he found that he was desperate to offer her some sort of comfort. He held the blade aloft and squinted at it. “Your father wounded this creature, Zamia. With this weapon we can find the thing and its master and destroy them. Your father has served your band to the last.”

  He handed back the dagger, but the girl’s face was blank now. She said nothing. Hmph. And why am I trying to indulge her incomprehensible tribal foolishness, anyway? He got back to the matter at hand, making his tone coolly professional. “A man with the power to make such a ghul pack—and to command these cruel old magics—will have powerful screening spells at his disposal. He knows I am looking for him now, and he will prepare counter measures. Even with this trace of blood, his trail will be impossible to find without the aid of an alkhemist. Praise God, I happen to know one of the best in Dhamsawaat. She does not work on the road anymore, but she’ll help us nonetheless. We’ll return to town tomorrow.”

  The girl’s eyes flashed, and Adoulla saw all his progress fly away. “Tomorrow!? Why do we not return now? I am looking for the dog that murdered my band, you fat old fool!” The little Badawi’s expression was petulant and murderous.

  His temper’s fire flared, and Adoulla had to remind himself what this savage girl had suffered. Still, he would not be told what to do by a child. Especially not a child with the gritty accent of a sand-behind-the-ears Badawi. She needed to be reminded of what was what.

  “Listen to me, Zamia Banu Laith Badawi. These are deep, dark waters we are in here. We need help. But before that we need rest. You may eat with us now, if you wish. We will return to the city tomorrow.” Angel-touched or not, at bottom the girl was just another wounded child of God with a monster problem. Adoulla had learned over the years that those whom he helped needed as much as anything to be told what to do.

  After a moment of silent seething, the girl seemed to come to the conclusion that she had little choice but to obey him. She ran a hand through her hair, drew herself up and put on a neutral face. She ignored the invitation to eat. “Very well, Doctor. Tomorrow,” was all she sai
d. She gave Raseed an unreadable look then trotted toward a large rock overhang.

  Adoulla watched her disappear behind the rock. He turned to his assistant and caught the boy half-gaping. The dervish shot his eyes to the ground. Adoulla knew this was not the time for ribbing, so he restrained himself. Instead he simply said “You fought well today.” He always felt awkward bestowing praise, but it did the self-doubting dervish good.

  Raseed’s yellow-brown cheeks reddened ever so slightly, and he bowed his head in acknowledgement. He was as uncomfortable receiving compliments as Adoulla was giving them. Perhaps, Adoulla mused, this had something to do with why they worked well together.

  The boy cleared his throat. “I will go and retrieve the mules, Doctor. They can’t have gotten far.” Tension was evident in his voice. He’s more troubled than usual.

  “What is it, boy?” Adoulla asked bluntly.

  The dervish seemed to think for a moment before speaking. He adjusted his turban. “The Falcon Prince, a fierce ghul pack, an Angel-touched girl Badawi! Enough wonders and monstrosities for a lifetime. Does this day not trouble you, Doctor?”

  Adoulla shrugged sleepily. “More than I can say. Still, I’ve seen worse, boy.”

  That was a lie, of course. But it earned a brief, impressed smile from Raseed. The dervish nodded once and, without making a sound, stole his way down the sloped stone.

  He watched Raseed’s swift steps and felt a stinging envy for the tirelessness of youth. For a few long moments Adoulla just stood there, listening to the insects of the night and wincing at the pain across his shoulder blades. There was a great stone-scrape across his shin, too, that he’d been too tired or too frightened to notice. He wondered if there was any inch of him that had not been slashed or bruised at some point in his life. Then he made his way carefully down the slope.