Wounds and Scars
The scrubby hill where they appeared wasn’t Anvanory Manor, but it was close enough. To the east, a few miles distant, a distinct squiggle of green and a patchwork of buildings with lanterns already lit against the encroaching evening identified itself as the south end of Lamasara. To the west, the land finally gave up any pretense at life and became the furrows and dunes of the true desert. Here, where the two travelers fell gratefully to the soft, sandy soil, a lone and twisted acacia tree held vigil as the last marker of habitability and a final warning to any who might seek to challenge the desert’s authority. Amazingly, directly below the gnarled tree and shading the few hardy grasses that dared to thrust up their heads, another tree lay. Or rather, its corpse—a log just as fat as the tree that stood as its obvious successor, and equally naked of leaves.
It was to this fallen sentinel that Salim and Neila now crawled, scooting backward on their hands and sighing with exhaustion as they propped weary backs against its smooth, bulgy surface. Sand worked its way inside Salim’s robes and infiltrated his lacerations, but it was at least a familiar grit, and he paid it no attention. He looked over at Neila.
For a moment she continued to stare blankly off toward the horizon, as if to reassure herself that it was indeed her home, not just a hallucination from yet another bizarre plane of existence. Then she turned back and met Salim’s gaze. The edge of her mouth twitched slightly. Slowly, it bloomed into a full-blown smile. She began to laugh.
The sound was infectious. Within seconds, both of them were howling, clutching their sides and pounding on the log in relief and exhaustion. And if that laughter was half sobs, what of it? They were both alive, and back where they were supposed to be, and just at the moment Salim didn’t give a damn about anything else. It felt amazing.
At last the laughter died down, and the rest of the world reasserted itself unceremoniously. A deep gash along the side and back of Salim’s ribs, pulled wide and ragged by his momentary merriment, sent a bolt of pain shooting through his torso and up into his brain. He grunted and grabbed at his flank, leaning over to one side in an instinctive attempt to push the broken seam in his skin back together.
Neila was instantly serious, her expression one of concern. “You’re hurt.”
Given the obvious nature of the statement, Salim contented himself with another grunt.
The girl reached out tentatively and felt the fabric where Salim was clutching at his robes. Her fingers came away wet and red.
“Why don’t you heal yourself?”
The answer was automatic. “I’m not a healer.”
Neila’s hand went to her face, feeling at the unblemished skin of her nose.
“You healed me. I remember that.”
Salim gritted his teeth, and this time it wasn’t entirely from the pain. “That was different. I don’t heal myself.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s disgusting!” The last word came out in a bark. “Some—thing—calling itself a goddess moving inside you, pouring its taint through your skin just to knit a few bones back together, and then expecting you to be thankful for it? It’s an abomination.”
Neila’s brow furrowed, and the skeptical look she gave him made Salim feel suddenly like a child.
“You’re telling me you won’t heal yourself because you don’t like how it feels? You’d rather bleed out on the sand than suffer an affront to your dignity?”
The strain of Salim’s clenched teeth was starting to match the pain in his side.
“Lady, if the price for healing was letting a pack of lepers use your body until all were spent, would you take it?”
The deliberate crudity made her recoil, and for a moment Salim almost regretted it. It wasn’t her fault she took such things for granted. But that greasy, unwashed feeling inside his skin—no, it wasn’t worth it. Better the blood.
Neila set her jaw. “Very well then,” she said. “We’ll do this the hard way. Take off the robe.”
Salim looked at her for a moment, but her face brooked no argument, and this time he couldn’t think of one anyway. He slipped the robe from his shoulders and let its folds fall around his waist.
Neila’s breath caught at the sight of his chest and stomach. Beneath the dangling amulet, the corded expanse of his sun-browned torso was a mass of old scars, crisscrossing his chest and stomach in no particular pattern. Some were thin lines, expertly closed by surgeons who knew their business. Others were monstrous, centipede-like things, the work of a few moments on a battlefield. Salim watched her, waiting for her reaction.
She gave none. Instead, she reached down to the hem of her blouse and began to tear a long, winding strip of the silk, working at an angle so that the tear continued several times around her body, baring the slightest line of flesh above the waistband of her breeches. When she had a strip longer than her arms could reach, she tore it off and waved a hand, motioning impatiently for Salim to turn around.
He did, and after a few more moments of rustling, he felt the soft touch of her hands as she began to daub delicately at the long furrows the demons’ claws had made in his back. The silk stung, but her hands were cool, and she moved with unexpected confidence, never wavering. Stretching a hand over his shoulder and into his field of view, she snapped her fingers and pointed, and he handed her the waterskin from his belt. She uncorked it and let careful trickles run down his back, washing the wounds clean. The warm water burned like a brand.
For a time she worked in silence, and then she spoke. “I owe you my thanks. You saved me back there.”
Salim grunted once more, noncommittally. Now that they were finally resting, a bone-deep weariness was settling over him. Neila ignored him and continued.
“You didn’t have to,” she said. “This morning, I would have told you I could handle myself, and treated you like little better than hired help. Yet you were right—I’ve added nothing to this trip, and nearly gotten us both killed. You would have been better on your own. I should have known that from the beginning, and the demons proved it.”
“Wasn’t your fault.” As much as this revelation might have pleased Salim yesterday, he couldn’t let it stand unchallenged. “You got the draw on the one that grabbed you, fair and true. It was your sword that failed. Steel’s about as useful as a bouquet of flowers against a demon, and your blade had neither enchantments nor cold-forged iron.”
She said nothing, but her hands paused on his back.
“Besides,” he continued. “That little bastard in the market with the poisoned knife would have had me just as easily if you hadn’t stepped in. I’d say we’re even.”
“If you say so,” she said, but one hand rose up to the tendons where his shoulders met his neck and squeezed gently. Then it retreated, and was replaced by the sound of further fabric ripping. She moved closer, and delicate arms emerged from beneath his own on either side, carefully winding the cloth around his chest and torso to hold the bandages in place. Every time she leaned close to pass the wrapping across his front, her breath warmed the back of his neck, and the silk of her bodice brushed lightly across the skin between his shoulder blades.
“When you leaped off the cliff,” she said. “I’ve never seen someone do something that foolish. Or was that magic as well?”
He shook his head. “No. Just luck, and a sense in my gut of where the demon ought to be.”
“And yet you never hesitated.”
In the distance, the sun was setting behind the dunes, turning the sandy waves into an ocean of fire. Salim stared into it until his eyes watered, watching the air ripple where the land reached up to envelop the burning disk.
“Life is risk. You jump without looking, sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. But if you hesitate, you lose every time.
“And this time you won,” she said. “We won.”
She finished tying off the last of the bandages, and patted his shoulder to turn him around. He did.
In the red light, her black hair
was touched with flame, and her skin glowed like embers. The traveling shirt which likely cost as much as a day-laborer’s hut had been torn half away, leaving a wide swath of creamy stomach exposed, perfectly smooth except for the dark cavern of her navel. In seeing her stomach bared, Salim was suddenly acutely aware of everything that wasn’t—the small but rounded breasts pressing against the binding cloth that remained, casting their own shadow down onto the gentle peaks of her lower ribcage. Those ribs rose and fell quickly—too quickly for someone sitting and resting. His eyes went to her face.
She was staring at him, breathing hard, but not with exertion. For the first time in their acquaintance—perhaps the first time ever—she looked truly uncertain. One of those tiny hands came up and stretched out carefully, slowly, to touch his chest. He felt its weight there, pressing. She swallowed, and then her lips parted, and she spoke.
“So don’t hesitate.”
All at once, the full force of Salim’s desire fell down around him like a cloak of sandstone, crushing him beneath it. His groin ached, and his hands itched to hold this girl—this woman—who had stood beside him in battle, who had refused to shrink away even in the face of those who would tear both flesh and soul. He wanted to lay her down right there, in the shadow of the log and the falling sun, and run his lips over every inch of her, to smell and taste her—to know her completely, inside and out.
And to let her know him. Know him for what he was.
As quickly as it came, the desire receded—not like a guttering fire, but like a door closing on a room with a hearth. The warmth was still there. But not for him.
She must have seen something in his eyes, for her own tentative smile faltered and grew brittle. He took the hand from his chest and held it in both of his.
“How old are you, Neila?”
A new flame, this one cold, sprang up behind her eyes, reddening her high cheeks.
“I’m twenty years old,” she said sharply. “Many years a woman, and master of my own house and fortune.”
Gods, but she was beautiful. Beautiful—and a child. “I’m too old for you, girl,” he said. “Too old, and too scarred. Don’t waste yourself.”
Despite the gentleness of his voice, her head snapped backward as if slapped. Thin, perfect arms rose to cover her still-clothed breasts. When she spoke, her voice was ice.
“I don’t understand you,” she said, and Salim could hear tears in her words.
And you never will, he thought. Pulling back, he picked up his pack and plumped it like a pillow, then lay it down next to the log.
“Night will fall soon,” he said, “and we’ve had a long day. Best get some rest.”
Without waiting for a response, he wrapped his beleaguered and bloodstained robes around himself and lay back, propping his head on the rucksack.
For a few moments longer, Neila continued to stare at him, arms crossed, belly exposed, black hair wild. Though he didn’t meet it, he could feel the force of that gaze—the anger, the shame, and most of all the burning confusion. Yet she did not speak. After a time she rose and crossed to the other side of the log, lying down out of sight. Eventually exhaustion overcame emotion, and he could hear her breathing slow and even out.
Lying in the sand, his hands woven together behind his head, Salim watched the rapidly darkening sky and waited for the first stars to show.
Chapter Fifteen
Rabbits in a Snare
Salim woke to a trail of ants crawling over his body, marching single-file from their nest in the shade beneath the log over to his waterskin, where an imperfect seal around the stopper let water bead slowly on its underside. As each ant reached the leak, it stretched forth its mandibles and carefully procured a single, tiny drop. Prizes held high, the ants then turned and marched back the way they had come, disappearing beneath the log, no doubt to bathe and refresh the fat queen who sat at the nest’s middle. Salim briefly noted the similarities between the ants’ situation and his own, then pushed the idea from his mind.
To his surprise, Neila was already awake and moving about. Even more astonishing, she appeared to have bathed, or at least employed some of their water to scrub the grime from her face and hands. Under other circumstances he might have been exasperated by such a waste of water in the desert, but given the awkwardness of the night before and their relative proximity to Lamasara and the river, he elected to keep his mouth shut. At least she’d cleaned her sword, he noted.
He spoke a brief word of greeting, and when he got only a nod in response, he followed her lead and went about collecting his gear in silence. It took only a few moments, and as he finished, Neila approached and sat down on the log, hands folded atop crossed knees as properly as if she sat in a receiving parlor. The fact that the missing strips from her shirt still bared her midriff to the sun like a temple dancer was more than countered by the stern set of her face.
“Shall we discuss the next steps in our mission, Mr. Ghadafar?”
Salim winced internally at the return of the honorific.
“Neila—”
“I assure you, Mr. Ghadafar, that anything which may have been said last night was entirely the result of trauma and overexertion. I thank you for your discretion in the matter, and am equally relieved that we will never need to speak of it again. Don’t you agree?”
Salim sighed. If that was how she wanted to play it—fine.
“Of course, Lady.”
“Excellent.” Some of the tension drained out of her face, which he noted now had slight shadows beneath the eyes. Apparently she hadn’t slept well either. When she spoke again, it was in more normal tones. “So what’s the next move? Contacting the city authorities? Or one of the other churches?”
“Neither.” Salim drew his sword halfway out of the sheath at his hip and glanced at the blade, checking to make sure the demons’ acid hadn’t etched it. Flawless steel gleamed in the morning sun, and he rammed it home with a snap. “This is a church matter, and best handled within the church.”
“You mean you.”
“Yes.” He picked up the strap of the waterskin and slung it over one shoulder. “Khoyar’s a powerful man, and the church more powerful still. The city authorities aren’t going to casually accuse him on the word of two outsiders, and even the jihadist warriors of Sarenrae are going to be hesitant unless they can independently verify our claims.”
“But we have evidence!”
“No,” Salim said. “We have beliefs. We heard the protean speak, and I believe it. But our belief isn’t going to be worth a pinch of camel shit if it means they have to go up against the church of Death Herself. That’s why we also have this.” He reached into a pocket and held up the emerald they’d borrowed from Buskin. “With this, we should be able to see through whatever illusions Khoyar’s bound around your father’s soul, and allow the proper authorities to do the same if it comes to that. But we’ll never get the chance if we don’t catch him by surprise. We need to take him out fast, release your father, then let Faldus himself exonerate us.”
“Besides,” he said, and now he was grinning humorlessly. “This is what I do. A bunch of guardsmen will just slow me down.”
“Good thing we won’t have to deal with them, then.”
The emphasis she put on we made Salim want to scream—what happened to the girl who just the previous evening had acknowledged her own inexperience in these matters?—but he held his tongue. There was bloodshed in their immediate future, and potentially a lot of it, but he didn’t see any point in arguing with her about the finer points of her own safety. And in truth, she’d held her own so far. Part of him was glad to have her with him, whether or not it made tactical sense.
“If it’s surprise we’re after,” she continued, “we’d best get moving. There’s no telling what Khoyar’s been up to while we’ve been gone. For all we know, the protean’s already contacted him, and he’s arming himself as we speak.”
Salim doubted it—he had the feeling the protean would rather see the p
oetic destruction of the arrogant priest who’d thought to employ it as an errand boy—but who could say anything for certain where the chaos worms were concerned?
Neila didn’t wait for an answer. She turned and began hiking down the sand of their barren hill toward the scrublands leading into the river valley. As she did, Salim was suddenly faced with the bare expanse of her lower back. Twisting back and forth with the sway of her hips, a long, bubbled scar from the demon’s acid now ran in a narrow river across her spine and down to a point just above the hem of her pants.
Seeing that imperfection sent a wave of emotion rushing back through Salim. In its rough red path, he saw her lying crumpled and tiny on the floor of the demon’s cave; saw her biting back tears for her father as she demanded the right to accompany him into danger. He saw her outlined in the sunset, hands soft on his skin. All at once, he couldn’t leave things as they lay.
“Neila, wait.”
She stopped but didn’t turn around. For a moment she stood there, scarred back straight and proud, face turned toward the city. Then she spoke.
“Salim,” she said, “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me and my father, and I understand that you’re about to risk your life once more on our behalf. But if you say one more word about last night, I swear to all the gods that I’ll stick a sword through you myself.”
She resumed walking, and after a moment Salim followed. He let out another sigh—quiet this time, so that she wouldn’t hear—only to discover that something felt different.
It took him a second to realize he was grinning.
∗∗∗
Over the course of their long walk back to civilization, Neila slowly managed to convince Salim that, while the element of surprise was crucial, it might be best for them to hedge their bets by at least notifying the authorities of Khoyar’s betrayal before they confronted him, rather than afterward.
Salim wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about the plan—working with anyone else always set his teeth on edge, let alone a passel of bureaucrats—but he had to admit that capturing or killing the priest before they’d tipped off the authorities made their story look suspiciously like an after-the-fact justification. Normally Salim wouldn’t have worried about it, and simply moved on as soon as the job was finished, leaving the authorities to draw their own conclusions. But Neila still had to live here, and that complicated things. In the end, he agreed to stop by Anvanory Manor long enough for her to send a sealed letter by slow messenger—insurance with the authorities, in case something went wrong. If Salim knew the coin-counters and petty lordlings—and he was more familiar with their sort than he might have liked—when they were finally confronted with the aftermath of Salim’s work, they’d be happy enough to take his word for it and chalk the whole thing up to internal conflict within the church, thus absolving themselves of the need to stir a finger.
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