by Troy Denning
“The only way to ensure that is to help the Bedine drive them from the desert,” Lander said. “For that, we need the spellbook. Where is it?”
“The spellbook has been safe for years,” Kadumi said, guiding his mount toward the ponds. “First, we must drink!”
Both Ruha and Lander laughed, then let their camels follow Kadumi’s. The thirsty beasts pushed their way through the hedge of vegetation surrounding the closest pond and lowered their heads to drink, ignoring their riders completely. The trio had to slip from the backs of standing mounts.
Ruha and her companions went to the next pool to quench their own thirst. Lander and Kadumi simply stuck their faces in the cool pond and sucked water into their mouths, imitating their eager camels. Despite a burning wish to do the same, modesty forced Ruha to fill an empty waterskin and drink from it.
Once the trio had finished drinking, Kadumi assigned himself the task of setting up the night’s camp. Ruha and Lander went to the collapsed tower, then climbed down into its foundation and spent an hour digging sand out of one corner. By the time they reached the floor, night had fallen.
Lander went to the camp and started a torch from the fire Kadumi had built. When he returned, Ruha took the torch and pointed to a trap door of carefully fitted stone. “Pull that up.”
Lander did as asked, then Ruha used the torch to peer down into a dark pit. It was filled with spider webs and looked as though it hadn’t been disturbed in years.
“I’ll go,” the Harper volunteered.
Using the torch to clean the spider webs away from the entrance, Ruha said, “Fine with me. You’ll find a short corridor. If you turn left, it runs down the gulch. If you turn right, it ends in at an old vault. Inside the vault, you’ll find a sealed box of sun-fired clay. That’s what we want.”
The Harper nodded, lowering himself into the cramped pit. Ruha passed him the torch, and he disappeared down the tunnel. She heard him curse once, then everything was quiet for several minutes.
Ruha began to worry that something had happened to the Harper, but, just as she was about to call to Kadumi from camp to bring her another torch, Lander returned. In one hand he carried the torch and in the other the spellbook.
“What took so long?” she asked.
“Bats.” He passed her the box, then threw the torch back down the corridor. “They were all over.”
As Lander climbed out of the pit, Ruha smashed the clay box. The spellbook remained inside. They returned to the camp, and the widow immediately inspected it in the firelight, Her old teacher’s words rang in her memory as she turned each page. Ruha almost felt as though she were holding Qoha’dar herself in her hands.
At last, Lander asked, “Any damage?”
Ruha closed the book and hugged it to her chest. “No. Every page is the same as the day I sealed it away.”
“Let’s hope that’s for the best,” Kadumi said, casting an uneasy glance at the thick tome. “Right now, though, we should eat.” He set a plate of figs and roasted hare in front of Ruha, then another before Lander.
“A banquet!” the widow exclaimed. She took the plate and turned her back toward her companions so she could remove her veil and eat.
The trio ate in appreciative silence, then cleaned their hands with sand, rinsed in the oasis pools, and tethered the camels for the night. They drank their fill of cool spring water and, making his usual cautionary statement about Zhentarim pursuers, Lander assigned watches, taking the first for himself. Ruha pulled her jellaba over her shoulders, laid down with her back to the fire, and closed her eyes.
Sometime much later, Ruha woke, still groggy and confused. The night was quite chilly and still, but something poked her repeatedly in the back. She rolled over, asking, “Is it my turn already?”
“Shhhh!” Kadumi warned.
He was kneeling next to her with his jambiya drawn and staring in Lander’s direction. The youth’s jaw was set in grim determination and his eyes were narrowed menacingly.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“I heard something near Lander!”
Ruha rubbed her eyes and looked toward the Harper, who was still sleeping with his back to the fire. The light of the moon was shining over the entire camp, and Ruha could not see even a shadow within fifty feet. The image of the attack on Lander’s back flashed through her sleepy mind, and she found herself wondering if Kadumi had crossed the Shoal of Thirst to murder the Harper and avenge some imagined trespass against his family’s honor.
She grabbed the boy’s arm. “You’re lying.”
Kadumi looked away from Lander and frowned. “Why would I do that?”
Before she could respond, the boy tore his arm free of her grasp and sprang toward the Harper.
“Lander!” she screamed, reaching for her own jambiya.
The youth reached the Harper an instant later, then slashed wildly over his prone form. A saber flashed out of midair, slicing into Kadumi’s collarbone at the neckline.
The boy did not even scream. His hand went slack, and his jambiya tumbled to the ground. A dark silhouette appeared on Lander’s far side, lifting its foot to kick Kadumi’s lifeless body off the blade.
In the same moment, apparently waking from a sound sleep, Lander twisted onto his back and slammed his fist into the figure’s lower abdomen. The man doubled up, then stumbled backward, groaning in pain.
Ruha leaped over Lander and was on the assassin in an instant. He lifted his blade to defend himself, but the witch slashed at the hand holding the saber. The man screamed again and dropped his weapon. With her free hand, she grabbed the wounded arm and used it to pull the man toward her, at the same time kneeing him in the midsection. He merely gurgled in pain and threw himself at Ruha.
The widow lifted her jambiya to meet his lunge. As the assassin fell on top of her, she turned the cutting edge up. As if gutting a gazelle, she ran the blade the length of the man’s belly. He went limp, then Ruha hit the ground, and he landed on top of her.
The widow slipped from beneath the eviscerated man. Leaving him to die in agony, she turned to where Kadumi had fallen. Lander was already there, cradling the boy in his lap. Kadumi’s eyes were closed and there was a terrible gash across his sternum. Ruha did not need to ask to know the boy was dead, and she felt sick that the last thing he had heard from her lips was a false accusation.
“Where did he come from?” she asked, motioning at the assassin.
“Magic,” Lander replied. “Probably the same ring that made Bhadla invisible when he was spying on Sa’ar and Utaiba’s council.”
Ruha then glanced around their little camp. “What if there are more of them?”
Lander shook his head. “No. He was the only one to make it across the Shoal of Thirst. If there were any more, they would have attacked with him.”
The widow stared at the boy for a long time, then dropped her dagger and fell to her knees at the Harper’s side. Lander laid Kadumi’s body gently aside and touched Ruha’s shoulders. “I’m sorry—”
Ruha spun and buried her face on Lander’s chest, then began weeping in uncontrollable waves. “Before he died, I called him a liar,” she sobbed.
Lander held her more tightly, but said nothing.
“When Kadumi drew his jambiya, I couldn’t see the assassin. I thought my vision was coming true,” she said. “I thought he was attacking you.”
“You were sleepy. It was a natural mistake.”
The widow pushed away from Lander and looked at the ground shamefully. “No. I was wrong to think that. Kadumi intended you no harm.”
Lander reached out and gathered her back into his arms. “Don’t blame yourself,” he whispered. “The boy shouldn’t be dead at all. I knew we were being followed, and I should have foreseen that the Zhentarim would use magic.”
“But we didn’t believe you,” Ruha objected, looking up at the Harper’s face.
“Which is why I should have been even more careful.” A cloud of self-reproach fell
over Lander’s face, and he remained silent for several moments. Finally he shook his head sadly and returned Ruha’s gaze. “We can’t bring Kadumi back. The only thing we can do now is make sure he did not die in vain.”
Ruha nodded, realizing that the youth’s death had affected her in a way that the slaughter of the Qahtan and the Mtair Dhafir had not. Suddenly nothing seemed more important to her than stopping the Zhentarim. “Tomorrow, we’ll wash and bury Kadumi,” she said. “Then we’ll take Qoha’dar’s spellbook to Elah’zad. Yhekal will pay for what he’s done.”
“Yes, but tonight you must rest,” Lander said, gently urging Ruha to lie down. “If we’re to succeed, we have a hard ride ahead.”
“Yes, we must save our strength,” Ruha agreed. She stretched out on the ground with her shoulder pressed against Lander’s strong thigh. “Tonight, there is no need to keep a watch,” she said, pulling the Harper down next to her. “We may as well rest comfortably.”
Fourteen
Lander and Ruha crested the last of a seemingly endless chain of thousand-foot knolls. The Harper did not need to ask to know they had reached Elah’zad. The hill sloped down to a small basin encircled by grayish ridges similar to the one upon which they sat. Over a hundred small springs opened on the hillsides and trickled down the gentle slopes. Crimson-leafed shrubs with blue stems and twiggy trees with copper and silver sprigs bordered each stream. From the ridge, the vividly colored shrubs resembled magic fires and the metallic-hued trees looked like billows of enchanted smoke.
The colorful bands of vegetation were spread over the basin like an immense spider web. Each strand followed a life-giving stream down the hill to a sapphire nucleus of water, a lake covering fully a square mile of the bottom of the basin. In the center of the lake sat a small, grassy island. On the island stood an alabaster palace built in the shape of a three-quarters moon.
Along a band of lush grass girding the lake, fifteen khowwans had pitched their tents in tribal clusters. Men were gathered in small groups in the areas between the tribes, but the women and children remained steadfastly within their own camps. Lander saw no sign of any camels.
“It’s magnificent!” Lander gasped.
“Elah’zad was the home of the moon goddess,” Ruha explained, forcing her camel to kneel. “But At’ar drove her away and made it a prison for the Mother of the Waters.”
“Why?” the Harper asked.
Ruha gave Lander an alluring, mocking glance. “The usual reason women quarrel. At’ar was jealous of Eldath’s beauty.”
Lander was surprised to hear Ruha use a familiar name for the goddess of the singing waters. “Eldath is free,” he objected. “She is worshiped all over Faerun.”
The widow looked over her shoulder. In the distance, just beyond the farthest set of hills, the white salts of the Shoals of Thirst still gleamed in the sun. “Perhaps Eldath is free in Sembia,” she said, “but in Anauroch, she is At’ar’s prisoner.”
The young widow slipped off her camel, then motioned for Lander to do the same.
They led their mounts down the hill as far as the first spring. Ruha carefully tethered the beasts to a smoke-twigged tree, well out of reach of the water. “Camels are not allowed to drink of the sacred waters,” she explained. “Some boys are coming to take them to the camel well.”
Lander raised an eyebrow. “How do you know that?”
“By now the sentries have relayed word of our arrival to Sa’ar and Utaiba. One of them will send some boys from his tribe to tend our camels.”
“That makes sense,” the Sembian replied. He had given no thought to the sentries surely posted around the oasis, for he had not heard them sound any alarm. “Why didn’t we hear any amarats?”
“I don’t know, and it worries me. But rest assured that we have been seen.”
“Should we take their silence as a warning?” he asked. “Could Sa’ar and Utaiba have changed their minds and be planning some sort of an ambush?”
The widow shook her head. “Most Bedine keep their word,” she said, pulling the djebiras containing Qoha’dar’s spellbook off her mount’s back. “Still, there are many other sheikhs down there, and they were not a party to our agreement.”
Lander scowled, his stomach already growing knotted at the prospect of being turned away after his difficult journey.
When the Harper did not move toward the camps, Ruha said, “Let’s go. We are not going to stop the Zhentarim and kill Yhekal by standing around up here.”
She started down the hill, leaving the camels roaring in protest at not being allowed to drink. As she passed Lander’s mount, it even tried to nip at her. The Harper could sympathize with the beasts’ fury. The animals had not had any water since leaving the Sister of Rains three days ago.
On the morning following the assassin’s attack, Lander had taken the camels to drink from the springs while Ruha washed Kadumi’s body. After the corpse was prepared for its journey, the pair had buried it near the wall, covering the grave with rocks to prevent scavengers from digging it up. They had bothered with no such courtesy for the Zhentarim. Instead, Lander had taken the man’s magic ring, then dragged his body away from the oasis and left it in the open for the vultures.
After that, they had picked the last of the wild figs, then dashed across the northern edge of the Shoal of Thirst. Though the journey had seemed hotter than the first crossing, it had been alleviated by a surplus of drinking water and the fact that the milk camel had started providing again.
Now Lander was looking forward to a meal of solid food. Other than the figs and the rabbit Kadumi had caught at the Sister of Rains, he and Ruha had eaten nothing but camel’s milk and blood since the Battle of the Chasm. The Harper was surprised at how well it had sustained him, but the effects of his liquid diet were beginning to tell. His scabbard belt was now wrapped three times around his waist instead of the customary two, and he had taken to chewing scrub twigs just to exercise his teeth.
As the pair descended toward the lake, a handful of boys rushed up the slope to meet them. When the group arrived, Ruha told them where to find the camels, then the youths rushed off to fulfill their responsibility. A few moments later, another group of older boys, about ten or twelve, approached.
“You are to come with us to Sheikh Sa’ar’s tent,” said the tallest. He studied them carefully, then looked past them up the trail. “We were told there would be three of you.”
“Kadumi isn’t with us,” Lander answered, not bothering to explain what had happened.
The boys glanced from the Harper to Ruha, exchanging knowing looks and regarding Lander with suspicious expressions.
“Lead the way,” the Harper ordered, upset by the iniquitous assumptions that he guessed were running through the youths’ minds.
The boys surrounded the pair and eventually led them into one of the camps at the edge of the lake. As the escort brought Lander and Ruha through the circle of tents, the women and the children stared at the small procession. The children’s eyes were round with curiosity, and they were plainly wondering why the pair of strangers was receiving so much attention. The expressions of the women, mostly hidden behind their veils, were harder to read. Their eyes betrayed both interest and fear, but Lander could not guess why the women were frightened.
The Harper noticed that everything in the camp seemed new and fresh. The khreimas had been recently colored with henna juice and other dyes. They were in such excellent repair that Lander guessed all the tents were newly made, which would only make sense if this was Sa’ar’s tribe. The Mahwa had lost all of their khreimas when they fled the Zhentarim at Colored Waters. He was surprised that they had recovered so quickly, however, and wondered if the other tribes had helped them. If so, that was a good sign, for it indicated that the Bedine were already working together.
The procession stopped in front of a large closed tent, around which were gathered dozens of mature warriors. Lander recognized Kabina and a few others from the Mahwa and Raz’hadi,
but most of the faces were new to him. Their keffiyehs were decorated in the varying patterns popular in different tribes: red and white checks, solid browns or blacks, green stripes, and many more. Some even wore turbans.
Kabina waved the boys away, then regarded Lander and Ruha with a surly frown. No one said a word, and the gathering remained as silent as the Shoal of Thirst. From inside the tent came the scent of roasted meat and the quiet murmur of polite conversation. Lander’s mouth started watering, and he felt his knees grow weak. He took an absent-minded step toward the open khreima, but Kabina held up a restraining hand. “No,” he said. “The sheikhs are feasting.”
“Tell them we are here,” Ruha demanded. “We have had a long journey.” Her gaze was fixed on the tent, and the Harper could tell that the smell was having the same effect on her.
Kabina did not lower his hand. “They know,” he said.
They waited for several more minutes, straining in vain to hear the muffled words of the sheikhs. Lander had not expected Sa’ar to be overjoyed at seeing him and Ruha, but he had expected a more civil reception. He began to worry that the other sheikhs were resisting the agreement that Sa’ar and Utaiba had made regarding Ruha’s magic.
At last, Sa’ar stepped out of the tent, Utaiba and thirteen more sheikhs behind. “So, berrani, you dare set eyes on Elah’zad, the secret paradise of the Bedine?” He addressed Lander alone, ignoring the widow.
“I do,” Lander replied. He motioned to Ruha, who was still holding the djebiras containing the spellbook. “We have crossed the Shoal of Thirst and recovered the spellbook of Ruha’s mentor, and we have crossed it again to meet you here. Surely, the gods look well upon us.”
Sa’ar grunted an acknowledgement.
Ruha interrupted the conversation by sniffing loudly at the air. “What’s that peculiar odor?”
Utaiba frowned and stepped to Sa’ar’s side. “What odor?”
The widow stepped toward the khreima’s entrance. “It’s coming from in there,” she said, pointing at Sa’ar’s tent. “It smells like cooked meat. Perhaps we should go and eat it before something happens to it—though after ten days on the trail, I’d rather drink a bowl of warm camel’s blood.”