Heart of Flame

by Janine Ashbless

  But they escaped Taysafun without harm in the end, scrambling through a breach in the southern curve of the wall. And they had the road in sight and were just hurrying past what might have been an orchard once, for the branchless stumps of dead trees stood in a cluster, when three fluttering white figures stepped out from behind a ruined outhouse straight in front of them. Taqla yelled a warning, Rafiq whipped his sword out and lunged forward to push the foremost of the three back on his heels. More cries went up, among which the words “We are under your protection!” were audible.

  It was the traditional formula for surrender. Rafiq stopped making cuts in the air, and moved to a guarded stance, blade raised. “Who’s there?” he demanded.

  “Pilgrims!” quavered the tallest, cowering but also trying to draw the smallest back behind him. “Mercy, prince of kindness!”

  As Taqla moved closer, she could confirm that their ghostly pallor was due to the seamless white pilgrim cloths wrapped about them. Three men—no, two and a boy. The one who had spoken had a gray beard and a shaven head.

  “Pilgrims?” Rafiq’s voice was harsh. “What are you doing out here, in the name of God?”

  “Our party has camped a little way from the road, kind master—but there are women in the group so we came away in order to make water in private.”

  They looked terrified, the whites of their eyes catching the moonlight. They repeated their assurances over again in the next few minutes, that they were only pilgrims, they carried no wealth and were not worth robbing, that God would bless those who treated them with mercy. Eventually Rafiq persuaded them that he had no murderous intentions and sheathed his sword. Then they asked, “Will you come and share our camp tonight, kind friends?”

  Rafiq turned to Taqla and she shrugged. Out on the road, safety was always sought in numbers, and protection was offered to pilgrims as an act of piety. It was certain that these two elderly men and the nervous adolescent were unarmed and offered no threat in themselves.

  So they all went back to the pilgrims’ camp together in the end, finding a group more than two-dozen strong squatting in the shelter of the orchard wall. Their arrival was greeted with some excitement, everyone clustering around to meet them.

  “Peace be upon you,” said Taqla for the twentieth time, trying to make sense of the indistinct moonlit faces and the murmuring voices. There were women here, and a few youths too. There was no sign of any mules or baggage camels. This was a gathering of humble people.

  “Have you not lit a fire?” Rafiq asked. “Is there danger of some sort?”

  “We didn’t want to be seen from the road,” someone answered.

  “Here, I’ll light one in the angle of the wall. If we keep it low and smokeless, it won’t be seen. And there’s plenty of dead wood.” He wandered off on his mission and Taqla was left with the half the group who did not follow him. They stood around her in a semicircle as if she were absolutely entrancing.

  “Where did you set off from?” she asked.

  “Baghdad,” one of the women answered, after a strange hesitation.

  “You’re heading to Mecca?”

  They looked at each other, shuffling a little. “Yes,” said the woman. Then they all went back to staring at her. Taqla felt a little uneasy. She longed to sit down and rest, but there didn’t seem to be anywhere but the dust to do it. She was getting the strange impression that no one in her audience had blinked yet, but that was undoubtedly a trick of the moonlight.

  “Hey,” she said, smiling. The smallest pilgrim, a boy, had shifted right up to her side and was gazing at her intently, his mouth a little open. He didn’t answer but a soft distinct noise came to her ears—he was sniffing at her. Her skin crept. Reaching under her outer coat, she delved in her travelling bag for the last few dates Safan had left them, and held out the sticky morsel to the lad. “Want something to eat?”

  His gaze dropped to the dark lump in her open palm and he wrinkled his nose with a snort. Very slightly he shook his head.

  Taqla felt a worm of misgiving slide up her spine, clammy enough to make her shiver.

  “He’s taken a vow of fasting,” the woman explained.

  Taqla had never heard of a child so young being made to fast. She shoved her hand back into her bag, casting a quick surreptitious glance to try to locate Rafiq. “What about a piece of this?” she said casually, producing a bundle of dried salted meat and tearing off a flat strip. She held it out to the boy and he nearly took the ends of her fingers off as he snatched it, cramming it into his mouth. Taqla took a step back. Everyone else took a step forward. She looked up to see a dozen faces fixed on her, devoid of any readable expression but so intent that it made her heart clench. “Why don’t you share it out?” she whispered, passing the whole package of dried camel meat to the nearest adult. Then she retreated smartly as the pilgrims crowded in without a word on that man, reaching for the meat eagerly, pulling it from hand to hand as they passed it round.

  She walked quickly to the wall, finding Rafiq there on his knees coaxing a fire into existence, surrounded by a loose ring of watching pilgrims. A big tangle of dead branches had been swept into the corner of the wall by some flood, promising a proper blaze in time. She squatted down over him. The first flames were licking up the curls of resinous tinder he had kindled the fire upon.

  “Rafiq.” She kept her voice low. “We’re in trouble. You’re going to have to fight.”

  He looked up at her and then round at the circle. The elderly man they’d met first smiled and nodded at him. “Zahir,” he muttered, “they’re pilgrims.”

  “They aren’t. Get up.”

  He looked up at her with his jaw set. “Pilgrims,” he repeated, and she recognized the exaggerated reverence of a not particularly pious man for those prepared to put in more effort than he. Not to mention a man still in an irritated mood over the setback with the seer. She took another despairing look at their audience and was sure they were closer than before, blank eyed and poised. She wished the moonlight were brighter and she could see them more clearly. There were dark stains on some of those white robes that she would really like to identify. Maybe—maybe—they didn’t have weapons, but the two of them were hopelessly outnumbered and would be dragged down before she had the chance to cast a spell to help them. She clenched her fist. “Rafiq—look at them.”

  He sat up. “Zahir!”

  The pilgrims shifted forward.

  She didn’t have time to cast a spell, so the single word she spoke was not a spell. It was a word that undid magic, a word that restored all things to their true seeming. She said it loudly, and as it fell on the assembled company they warped, casting off the appearance of pilgrims, growing bulkier and more hunched as massive doglike jaws thrust forward from their faces. They tore off their white robes with hooked claws, revealing hairless, corpse-gray and entirely inhuman bodies beneath, and they kicked the rags away with hoofed feet. The stench of an open grave rolled over the two travellers.

  Rafiq’s exclamation was blasphemous, but he had the sense to draw his sword as he jumped up.

  “The bond of salt!” Taqla screamed, her voice suddenly high. “You took the meat I offered you! Three days safe conduct! You ate my salt!” And the monsters farther toward the back hesitated, snarling.

  “Maybe some did,” said a voice behind them, almost human but distorted by teeth and jaws like a hyena’s. “But I didn’t.” As they turned, a pallid form launched itself from the closest mob. There was only a split second to react to the blur of its movement, and in that moment Rafiq whipped up his steel blade to intercept its rush with the full strength of his torso. The monster’s head hit the dirt well beyond arm’s reach of its body. Its claws spasmed in death.

  The mob howled, but they shrank back. Taqla reached down with her ring of black lava and seized the nascent flame from the hearth at her feet, lifting the ball of fire in her open hand over her head. Two more of the beasts who had been gathering themselves for a rush visibly changed thei
r minds. Back to back, she and Rafiq faced the encircling monsters, she with flame and he with a naked blade stained black with blood. As the noise settled to a poisonous hiss, she tried to draw breath. Two dozen pairs of eyes glowed green in the firelight.

  “Just how hungry do you think you are?” Rafiq warned.

  “Magic!” hissed a beast. “Isn’t one sorcerer in Taysafun enough?”

  “Safan’s bones are too old and dry for you, are they?” Rafiq’s grin, though not nearly so impressive as the fangs bared on all sides around them, still carried a threatening edge. “Don’t think ours will be any easier for you to taste!”

  Taqla was too busy trying to hold the fire’s shape and heat in her mind to speak, but she lifted her hand a little higher and the flames turned white, roaring softly. Snarling, the beasts averted their eyes from the light.

  “The bond of salt will be honored,” said a different monster, slouching to the front. This one had an eye missing and a face marked, though hardly made fouler, by old scars. Its long white tongue licked drool from its chin. “We’ll give you three days of safe passage from this hour. After that…if you’re on the road or in the desert, we will hunt you down. How far can you run in three days, meat?”

  “We’ll see,” answered Rafiq.

  “And now you will give us back our comrade. The fallen belong to us.”

  “You’re welcome to him.”

  The circle bent out of shape as he and Taqla retreated warily from the corpse, and then three or four of the monsters snagged both body and severed head with their claws, dragging the parts away into the darkness. The little crowd followed, growling and reluctant at first, then increasingly focused on their fallen friend, leaving the two humans alone. Rafiq straightened slowly, relaxing his sword arm.

  “They’re ghouls, aren’t they?”

  “Yes.” Taqla lowered her shaking hand. She felt dizzy. “They can take on the form of…someone they’ve previously eaten.” She pressed her other hand to her lips as muffled but unmistakable noises became audible from the night, not nearly far enough away for comfort. “The Pale People,” she whispered. That was what Safan had called them.

  “I’ve heard stories, but I’ve never seen one.” Rafiq was keeping his eyes on the scrum of ghouls just visible beyond their circle of light.

  “Nor me.” She could hardly grasp that they’d come so close to being torn apart and devoured. She was a scholar and a quiet citizen of Dimashq—what on earth was she doing out here?

  “But you saw the danger.” There was a stiffness in his voice that did not suggest any form of apology.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m guessing there’s no point in us moving out until daylight?”

  “They’ll keep up with us easily.”

  “That’s what I thought. But not with the Horse, I’m hoping.”

  “No. I’m going…I’m going to have to put the fire back on the wood now.” She moved over to the makeshift hearth, piled up a few more sticks then let the flame flow from her hand back to where it belonged. It turned yellow and homely at once. She stared out into the dark but the ghouls were busy at their horrible repast, paying the two humans no attention at all. Then she looked up at Rafiq. He was watching her, his jaw clenched. Belatedly she plucked the jabbayah headscarf she wore around her shoulders and pulled it over her head, wrapping it to veil her lower face. Because, of course, the word that had revealed the true form of the ghouls had torn her disguise to shreds too.

  Rafiq uttered a harsh laugh. “Why bother with that?”

  “Don’t look at me.” She averted her face.

  “Sorry.” He didn’t sound it. “Let me not offend your sensibilities.” He rubbed his hand over his forehead. “So. Not a slave at all then. A witch like Safan, all the time.”

  Taqla clenched her teeth. “Not like him.”

  He laughed. Then he walked around a few paces before speaking up again. “I knew, you realize. I’ve known—I’ve guessed—for a couple of days.”

  “What?”

  “You talk in your sleep, you know. With a woman’s voice.”

  Taqla’s jaw dropped. How was she supposed to have guessed she did that? “What did I say?” she stammered.

  He gave her a guarded look. “Nothing clear enough to make out. But your voice is female. And once I noticed that…well, there were other things that catch the attention. You don’t make eye contact when you talk, you don’t like to stand too close—and no offense, but you fight very dirty, like a woman does.” He tightened his lips, his eyes as hard as the edge of a sword. “I took you to the bathhouse to make sure, but after that I thought that if it’s a disguise, it’s a very good one. Magic.” He said the word like it stained his mouth.

  Taqla bit her lip.

  “You’re the girl from the empty house, aren’t you? The watchman’s trull.” He smiled humorlessly. “I recognize that glare.”

  “The spell finished early,” she said, feeling like she were talking through a mouthful of ashes. “I was stuck for an explanation.”

  “Ah. And does your master Umar know about your real identity?” He paused. “Or, seeing as how I’ve not seen Zahir and Umar together, can I assume that you’re Umar too?”

  Taqla said nothing, feeling sick. She just wished he wasn’t so sharp. I’ll have to leave Dimashq, she thought. All my household—we will have to leave forever.

  “Wonderful. So now I’ve been lured into the wasteland where I’m surrounded by ghouls with a witch to keep me company. This isn’t one of my good days, I’d say.”

  Taqla’s anger flared. It was probably a good thing that he couldn’t see her mouth because she was baring her teeth at him now. “Lured? You’re the one who came looking for sorcerous help! This quest was your plan!”

  “So what’s yours then? What were you meaning to do to me?”

  “Do to you? We had an agreement, I thought.”

  “I had an agreement with Umar the Scholar as I recall—not with a witch.” His voice had risen to match hers. A couple of the ghouls looked up briefly, curious.

  “And I’m so much less to be trusted than the nice old man!” she hissed.

  “Oh, should I be taking the deceit as a sign of your good faith? Or is there some justification for your duplicity?”

  “Don’t be a fool,” she snapped. “Would you have made the same bargain with a sorceress?”

  “If I thought she was being honest with me!”

  “Could I have come out alone with you into the desert if you’d known I was a woman?”

  “All right, you tell me. Why the hell would you want to?”

  For a horrible moment the words choked in her throat. “You already know that. You get the amir’s daughter. I get the djinni and payment later. That was the deal. We both agreed to it and that’s what I wanted.” She swallowed. “Anyway, it’s all over now.” He’d moved disconcertingly close while they shouted at each other, she realized. “You should be keeping an eye on the ghouls right now,” she pointed out, gritting her teeth. “Not on me. I’m not the one who wants to kill you.”

  He snorted but turned away. For a moment there was silence except for the distant crunching of bones. “Why is it all over?” he asked at last, in a much quieter voice.

  Taqla bent to throw some wood on the fire. “I’d have thought that was obvious. You can’t trust me and I can’t trust you. Our pact is finished.”

  “You can’t trust me?” He actually sounded hurt. “I’d like to point out I’m not the one who’s been doing all the lying.”

  “I didn’t lie!”

  “No?”

  “If I did,” she amended, “it was in self-defense, not treachery.”

  “I gathered that.” He seemed much less argumentative with his back turned, she was relieved to find. “What do you plan to do tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Go home.”

  “You’re leaving me here? With the ghouls on my trail?”

  She hadn’t thought of that. “You should make it t
o the Baghdad walls by nightfall.”

  “Probably. And there is always a chance, God willing, that on my own and on foot and without bodyguards I still won’t be robbed and left for dead, or for the ghouls to find. But I’m not overly optimistic.”

  She bit her lip. “I’ll let you ride with me to Baghdad then.”

  “Take me south.”

  “What?”

  “You said it yourself. You want the djinni, I want Ahleme. We had an agreement. Let’s see it through.”

  She smiled but it was not really a smile. “No. That’s impossible now. You know that.”

  “I don’t see why not. It’s not as if there’s anyone around to pass judgment on you. And hard though it may be for you to believe, I am capable of resisting your allure.” He might as well have spat on her as spoken those words, but though Taqla froze, Rafiq, facing away from the fire, didn’t notice. “I want to rescue Ahleme. That’s all I want from you, I promise.”

  Taqla felt her stomach turn to stone.

  “We’ve come this far already. To give up when we know the route…” He looked back over his shoulder. “I’m sorry I got angry with you. I don’t like being lied to. But if we can trust each other, then we can work together to win our great prize.”

  Taqla felt the air go out of her lungs. It was like he were using the same hand to beat and caress her alternately, and she didn’t know which hurt more. But she was honest enough with herself not to pretend that she wanted to leave him, even now. However unpleasant his words, she was too proud to abandon him. And of course, without her, he had no chance of continuing his search. She could picture too well his failure and his disappointment if he was forced to give up, and though she had no place in his imagined future, she wanted to see him triumphant. She lifted a hand, making a gesture that was intended only to ask for a moment’s delay while she collected herself.

  “Besides,” he added, “I’d have thought a sorceress like you would want to see the Tree of Knowledge for herself.”

  “Don’t do that,” she said softly. “Don’t try to manipulate me. If you want honesty, then it must go both ways.”