Chapter 17
The camp slept. Mathew, lying awake on his cushions, thought he had never heard such loud silence. It actually echoed in his head. Sitting up, he strained to hear a noise—any noise that would be a comfort to his loneliness. But not a baby whimpered, not a horse whinnied nervously as it caught the scent of prowling lion or jackal. Nothing stirred in the desert tonight, seemingly.
Mathew sat up, shivering in the cold. Wrapping another cloak around him, he lit his oil lamp and prepared to work.
He drew forth a piece of parchment and spread it out upon the smooth surface of the tent floor. Zohra had brought him the quill from a falcon to use as his writing instrument. He wasn’t certain of its effectiveness in copying magical spells—he would have preferred a raven’s feather as was used in the schools. But he couldn’t recall anything in his texts stating that the quill itself possessed any inherent magical properties. Hopefully it was just tradition that dictated the nature of the quill used. Dipping it into the small bowl of ink that was made from burned sheep’s wool with gum water added to the cinders, Mathew slowly and laboriously began to draw the arcane symbols upon the parchment.
This was the third night he had devoted to his work, and he found that he spent most of the day looking forward to this time of peace and quiet when he could lose himself in his art. Everyone rested through the heat of the day in the afternoon,gave him time to nap and catch up on lost sleep. He already had a small packet of scrolls neatly tucked away in his pillow.
As he worked, he smiled with pleasure over the memory of Zohra’s reaction to the performance of his first, simple spell. Taking a bowl, he had filled it with a handful of sand. Then, holding a scroll, he had spoken the arcane words with some trepidation. Iwhich Would the falcon quill work? What about the ink? Had he spelled every word correctly and was he speaking the words of the cantrip in the proper cadence?
His fears had proved groundless. Moments after he had completed reading the spell, the words on the paper began to writhe and crawl. Zohra—her eyes wide as a terrified child’s—shrank back into a corner. She might have run from the tent had not Mathew, dropping the parchment into the bowl, grasped hold of her hand reassuringly. She had clung to him, watching as the words spilled from the parchment into the bowl. When the letters touched the sand, it began to change form, and within seconds the parchment had vanished, the words disappeared, and a bowl of cool, pure water stood on the floor of the tent.
“Here, you may drink it,” Mathew had said, holding it out to Zohra.
She would have nothing to do with it, however. He had drunk it himself—an odd experience, with her watching him, waiting half in hope and half in dread for something dire to occur to him. Nothing did, but she still had refused to drink the enchanted water. Mathew, sighing, knew that if Zohra wouldn’t touch it then certainly no one else in the camp would even consider such a thing. His dreams for bringing water to the desert in a magical manner ended rather abruptly at this point. It also occurred to him—not without some bitterness—that the nomads probably wouldn’t want any more water in the desert anyway. They seemed to gain a grim satisfaction out of battling with their cruel land.
Part of Mathew’s brain was thinking idly of this, part of it was concentrating upon the work at hand when both parts came together with a suddenness that sent a physical jolt through his body.
Somewhere in the camp, powerful magic was being worked. How he knew this, he could not tell. He’d never experienced such a sensation before, except, perhaps, when he’d performed his own spells. Or maybe he’d always experienced it at the school and simply never noticed, so pervasive was the magic there. No matter what the reason, the enchantment prickled his skin, shortened his breath, and he felt the hair on his head rise as it does when one stands too near where lightning strikes.
And it was black magic, evil magic. This Mathew recognized instantly, having been taught to be able to discern the difference, something a wizard must learn to detect in the event that he comes across a strange scroll or spellbook.
Mathew hesitated. Should he get involved? Might not he be putting himself in deadly danger, exposing his own power to whoever was practicing this? He tried to ignore it and turned back to his work. But his hand shook and he made a blot upon the parchment, ruining it. The aura of evil was growing around him.
Mathew rose to his feet. He might be a coward when it came to flashing steel but not to magic. The arcane he knew, he understood, he could fight. Besides, he admitted to himself ruefully as he hurriedly grabbed up the bag of scrolls and slipped out of the tent into the moonlit night, his curiosity was far outweighing his fear.
The source of the enchantment was easy to locate. It beat upon his face like the heat of the afternoon sun. He could literally almost hear its pulsing heartbeat. It was coming from Zohra’s tent!
Had the woman duped him? Was she really a powerful sorceress, involved in the black arts? Mathew, creeping nearer, couldn’t believe it. Wild, quick-tempered, fierce, but honest—to a fault. No, he thought grimly, if Zohra wanted to kill you she would simply come into your tent and stab you through the heart. None of the subtlety of black magic for her.
Which meant. . .
His own heart in his throat, Mathew quickened his steps.
The distance between their tents wasn’t great; they were, after all, together in Khardan’s harem. But to Mathew it seemed an eternity passed before he was able to reach the tent and thrust aside the entry flap.
He stopped, staring, transfixed in horror.
A luminescent cloud of smoke hovered over Zohra’s slumbering figure. Just as he sprang into the tent, the cloud dipped down and slowly slipped into the woman’s nostrils. She drew it inside her with her own indrawn breath.
She breathed out, but her next breath didn’t come. Zohra’s eyes opened. She tried to inhale and the cloud flowed into her mouth, strangling her. Her eyes widened in terror. She struggled against it, her hands clawing at the shimmering, deadly cloud. Her frantic fingers closed on nothing but smoke.
What was this apparition? Mathew had no idea; he’d never seen or heard of anything like it. Whatever it was, it was killing Zohra. She would be dead in minutes, already her struggles were weakening, the smoke continuing to seep into the woman’s nose. Where was it coming from? What was its source? Perhaps if that were destroyed. . .
Glancing hastily about, searching frantically for a scroll or a charm, Mathew saw the charcoal brazier, he saw the smoke rising from it and drifting—not up and out of the tent—but over to Zohra’s bed. The charcoal. . . burning. . .
Lunging outside the tent, Mathew scooped up a handful of sand, hurried back in, and flung it on the glowing hot brazier, thinking it might distract the thing. But it had no effect. Completely ignoring him, concentrating totally on its victim, the deadly smoke continued to enter Zohra’s body, suffocating her. Her face was dark, her eyes rolled back in her head, her body convulsed with her futile efforts to draw breath.
Falling to his hands and knees, Mathew scooped up handfuls of sand and flung them one after another over the brazier. At first he thought he had failed, that smothering the fire would not stop the magic. He couldn’t fight this thing, he realized in anger and despair. Not with the few scrolls he had. He would have to watch Zohra die. . .
Desperately Mathew continued to fling sand until the brazier was practically buried. Zohra’s body had gone limp, her struggles had ceased, when suddenly the smoke stopped moving. The cloud’s awful luminance began to dim and waver. Strengthened by renewed hope, Mathew grabbed up a felt blanket and flung it over the sand-covered brazier. Tamping it down, he began to press it firmly around the object, cutting off any possible source of air.
A wave of anger and hatred hit him a physical blow, flinging him backward. With a howl of rage that he heard in his soul, not with his ears, the cloud surged out of Zohra’s body. Rearing up into the air, it dove down for him with incredible speed, shimmering hands reaching for this throat.
Mathew could do nothing, there was no time to react to defend himself. Suddenly a cool breeze, blowing through the entrance at his back, drifted into the open tent flap. As if fanned by wings, the cloud separated and broke apart. Soon it was nothing more than wisps of eerily glowing smoke darting aimlessly and furiously about the tent. And then they, too, were gone.
Bowing his head, his body bathed in sweat, Mathew drew a shuddering breath. Rising on unsteady feet, he hastened to Zohra’s bedside. She lay still and unmoving, her face a deathly white in the moonlight, her eyes closed. He put his hands upon her heart and felt it beating, but very, very faintly. She was no longer under enchantment. The magic had been smothered with the charcoal. But still, she was dying.
Not knowing what else to do, realizing only that the thing had sucked the breath of life from her body and that it must be put back, Mathew opened her mouth and breathed his own life into hers.
Time and again he did this, uncertain if it would work, but feeling that he must do something. And then he felt the chest beneath his hand move; he felt a stirring of air from her mouth touch his lips. Elated, he kept forcing breath into Zohra’s body. Her eyes—wide and terrified—fluttered open, her hands reached out and caught hold of his face.
“Zohra!” he whispered, stroking her hair back from her forehead soothingly. “Zohra. It is Mathew. You are safe. The thing is gone!”
She stared at him a moment, frightened, disbelieving. Then she gave a shuddering sob and buried her face in his breast. He held her close, smoothing her hair, rocking her like a child. Shivering with fear and the horrible memory, she clung to him, weeping hysterically, until gradually the hypnotic motion of his soothing hand and the soft, reassuring murmurs of his voice drove away the worst of the terror. Her sobs quieted.
“What. . . was it?” she managed to ask.
“I don’t know.” Mathew’s eyes went to the brazier, now covered with the blanket. “It was magic, whatever it was. Strong magic. Black magic. It came from that charcoal brazier. “
“Khardan tried to kill me!” Zohra gasped out, a last sob wrung from her body. She hid her face in her hands.
“Khardan? No!” Mathew said, holding her tightly and calming her again. “You know how he feels about magic! He wouldn’t do anything like this. Come to your senses, Zohra.”
Wiping away her tears with the heel of her hand, Zohra seemed to come suddenly to the realization that she was being held in Mathew’s arms. Her face flushing, she drew away from him. He, too, was embarrassed and uncomfortable and released her quickly.
Standing up hurriedly, Mathew walked over to the brazier and cautiously removed the blanket.
“Where did you get the thing?”
Zohra, after a few tries, her fingers still numb and trembling, lit the oil lamp and held its wavering flight over the brazier. Mathew brushed away the sand to reveal it, standing in the center of the tent.
“It’s cold,” he reported, staring at it in awe. He looked back up at Zohra, puzzled. “What do you mean, Khardan tried to kill you?”
“He sent this to me,” Zohra said. Her fear dying away, it was being replaced by anger.
“He sent it to you?” Mathew repeated, still refusing to believe it.
“Well,” Zohra amended, “I assumed. . .” She drew a shivering breath. “This was brought to my tent by a servant who said that she had been sent by Badia, Khardan’s mother—”
Mathew glanced up at her swiftly. “Meryem!”
“Meryem?” Zohra appeared scornful. “I’d sooner suspect a kitten!”
“Even kittens have claws,” he murmured, reliving with sudden, vivid clarity the night of his near execution. “I saw a look on her face when you thwarted her marriage to Khardan. She could have killed you then, Zohra, if she’d had the means. Lately I’ve seen her watching us. You stand in her way of marrying the Calif and she means to take care of that small matter.”
Zohra’s eyes flared with wild anger. She took a step toward the tent flap.
“Wait!” Mathew grabbed her. “Where are you going?”
“I’ll confront her with this! I’ll drag her before the Sheykhs! I’ll accuse her of being the witch she is—”
“Stop, Zohra! Think! This is madness! She will deny everything. She has been in the seraglio all night, probably being careful to keep in the sight of the women of Majiid’s harem. You have no proof! Just my word and I am a madman! Smoke tried to kill you? You will look a fool, Zohra—a jealous fool, in Khardan’s eyes.”
“Makhol! You are right,” she murmured. Slowly her anger drained from her, leaving her exhausted. She sank back down on her cushions. “What can I do?” she mumbled, clasping her head in her hands, her long black hair tangling between her fingers.
“I’m not certain,” Mathew said grimly. “First we must figure out why she did this.”
“You said it yourself. To marry Khardan!” Zohra’s eyes burned, a dreadful sight in her livid face. “If I am dead, then he can take another wife. Surely that is obvious.”
“But why such haste? Why risk revealing herself by this use of magic that only a truly powerful sorceress would know, especially when she lied to Khardan and to everyone in the tribe about her skills in the art. The odds are, of course, that she would never be discovered. This attempted murder was very clever of her. You would have been found dead in the morning. It would have looked as if you had died in your sleep. “
Zohra, shuddering, made a strangled sound, choked, and covered her mouth with a hand.
“I’m sorry,” Mathew said softly. Sitting beside her, he put his arm around her again and she wearily laid her head on his chest. “I forgot. . . I thought I was in the classroom again. Forgive me. . .”
She nodded, not understanding.
“You had better rest now. We’ll talk about this more tomorrow—”
“No, Mat-hew!” Zohra clutched at him fiercely. “Don’t leave me!”
“You will be safe,” Mathew said soothingly. “She can’t do anything else tonight. She’s already taken a great risk. She must wait until morning to see if her magic worked.”
“I can’t sleep. Go on . . . go on with what you were saying.”
She drew away from him. Mathew, swallowing, struggled to recall his chain of thought under the gaze of those black, fiery eyes.
“Haste, Mat-hew . You mentioned haste.”
“Yes. She knows that undoubtedly, within a month or so, she will have a chance to marry Khardan. If she were truly the innocent girl she pretends, such a short time would not matter. But she isn’t an innocent girl. She is a powerful sorceress who wants, who needs to marry Khardan immediately and who will commit murder to do it.”
He pondered. “Where would she have come by such magical arts?”
“Yamina, the Amir’s wife, is a cunning sorceress,” Zohra said slowly, staring at Mathew, both of them thinking the same thing.
“And Meryem comes from the palace. Truly, this begins to make more and more sense! Wasn’t it providential of Khardan to come upon Meryem in the garden like that! Some God was surely smiling on her.”
“Quar,” muttered Zohra. “But, what could be her motive in coming here? Is she an assassin?”
“No,” Mathew said after a moment’s thought. “If she were sent to kill Khardan, she could have done it a dozen times over before this. She tried to kill you, but only because you stand in the way of her marriage. That’s the key. She must marry him and quickly. But why?”
“And we cannot tell anyone!” Zohra said, rising impatiently and pacing the tent. “You are right, Mat-hew. Who would believe us? I am a jealous wife, you—a madman.” She twisted the rings on her fingers round and round in her frustration.
“Ah, how stupid we are!” Striking her forehead with hand, Zohra turned to Mathew. “It is very simple. There is no need to worry about any of this. I will kill her!”
Moving to the bed, Zohra slid her hand beneath her pillow, grabbed the dagger, and slipped it inside the folds of her gown. She moved
swiftly and calmly, and she was halfway out of the tent before Mathew’s dazed brain caught up with her.
“No!” Flinging himself after Zohra, he grabbed hold of her arm. “Y—you can’t kill her!” he stammered, shocked.
“Why not?”
Why not? Mathew wondered. Why not kill someone who has just tried to kill you? Why not kill someone you believe is a threat, a danger? I could say that life is a sacred gift of the God and only the God has the right to take it back. I could say that taking the life of another is the most dreadful sin a person can commit. That was true in my world, but is it true in this one? Perhaps that belief is a luxury in our society. If I had John’s murderer before me, would I extend my hand to him in forgiveness, as we are taught? Or would I extend it to clutch him by his throat. . .
“Because. . . if you kill her,” Mathew said slowly, “no one will know of the foul deed she has committed. She will die with honor.”
Zohra stared at Mathew intently. “You are wise for one so young.” Sighing in disappointment, the woman lowered the tent flap and stepped back inside. “And you are right. We must catch the snake that hides beneath golden hair and put her on display for all to see.”
“That. . . that might take some time.” Mathew had no idea what he was saying. I nearly let her go, he thought, trembling. Killing that girl seemed perfectly logical! What is this land doing to me?
“Why?” Zohra’s question forced him to concentrate.
“When. . . um . . . Meryem discovers she’s failed, she’ll be nervous, wary, on her guard. Did her magic go awry? Perhaps you didn’t use the brazier at all and will use it tomorrow or the next night. Or did you, somehow, manage to thwart her? If so, do you suspect her? She will be leery of using her magic again too soon, although she may resort to more conventional means of getting rid of you. I do not think I would accept any food or drink from your father-in-law’s tent.”
“Usti!” said Zohra suddenly.
Mathew stared at her blankly, not understanding.
The Will of the Wanderer Page 37
