by Donald Tyson
Before we crossed half the distance to the wall, tiny flames covered the grass of the meadow. They burned brighter the longer they rested there. As more and more fell, they began to link together. The grass itself was burning now, and giving off plumes of gray smoke that danced in the morning breeze. Even through the leather soles of my boots I felt the heat. I did not dare turn my head, but the glare of the guardian of the wisdom seat on my back was as tactile as the flames, and pressed nearer with each of my steps.
When Martala reached the pool of dark water at the base of the wall, the little fool turned to wait for me. Her wide pale eyes went past me and upward, and she became motionless in her terror. I did not pause, but opened my arm and caught her to my chest as I dove into the swirling vortex.
Chapter 44
Neither of us had time to draw a deep breath. The water felt blissfully cool and soothed the pains of my burns. The current carried us forward. I felt a jut of stone bruise my shoulder, and scattered pebbles under the kicking toes of my boots. The girl I kept beneath my arm. She clawed at the water and helped to draw us along by pulling at the rocks on the sides and bottom of the passage. Something hard and flat grated against my head. I pushed downward from it and kicked more strongly.
The passage narrowed and the rush of the water quickened, so that it would have been impossible to resist even had we wished to turn back. The darkness became absolute. Only the current provided a sense of direction. My lungs began to ache. The yearning to breathe grew so powerful, I could not resist drawing small amounts of water in through my nose, although I kept my lips tightly locked. I felt the girl convulse against my chest, and knew that she had tried to breathe.
My head broke the surface in a black space, and I coughed and gasped simultaneously. We were in some kind of cave beneath the hills. I turned all around but of light there was no trace. I fought to touch the bottom with my feet, then thrust against it to lift the girl upward. She sputtered and drew a whoop of air. The flow of the stream carried us gently along as we held each other and regained our breath. It was shallow enough that my feet touched the bottom from time to time, even though my legs were bent at the knees.
There was no way to estimate how long we floated in absolute darkness on that icy stream, pressed and rolled over the rocks of the passage by its varying force. Where the way narrowed, the water flowed more swiftly and became impossible to resist. I soon discovered that it was best not to fight the current, but to yield to it, taking care only to avoid with outstretched hands any jutting points of stone that might project from the walls or roof. We spoke little. The swirling water filled our mouths when we opened them. At times we suffered acute terror, when the roof lowered so much that no space for breath remained. These sections of the underground water course were mercifully few and of no great length.
I began to fear that the stream had no outlet, but flowed ever deeper into the subterranean world. It was with joy of heart that I glimpsed a glow of light reflecting from the rocks through the clear water. Martala cried out when she saw it, so great was her relief. In minutes the stream vomited us forth into the rocky plain at the base of a range of steep hills.
We climbed from its depths on hands and knees and lay unmoving on the stones, content to allow the sunlight to warm our numbed limbs. My body shivered uncontrollably, so much so that when I threw off my cloak and tried to unbind my belt, my hands were not equal to the task. The girl shook in the same way. When I found the strength, I rolled toward her and gathered her into my arms to share my warmth with her. She pressed her face into the sodden shoulder of my tunic, and I realized from the heaves of her back that she sobbed in silence.
For a time I slept. When my awareness returned, the shivering of my flesh had ceased. I sat up. The rays from the sun, high in the heavens, had driven out most of the water from my clothing. The girl stood naked beside her outspread green cloak, hat, and other garments, regarding the contents of her travel wallet. She turned to me with a rueful smile.
“I dropped my sword and dagger in the caverns.”
“No matter. We can buy others with the smallest of those pieces of amber.”
With efficient motions I stripped off my boots and tunic, setting them where the sun would deprive them of dampness. Unlashing the front pocket of my wallet, I took up the scroll of the Old Ones and unrolled a portion of it with great care. I expected to discover a solid pulpy mass, but the water had done no damage that I could see. The inks were of a type that resisted moisture, and the papyrus needed only to be dried to restore its original strength. I did not attempt to unroll more of it, but left it exposed on the rocks to sun and breeze.
To my surprise, I found myself growing cheerful. True, my body ached from a dozen bruises, and showed red patches where the droplets of flame had settled on my skin or burned holes through the shoulders and back of my cloak, but I was still alive, and the contents of our wallets had suffered little loss. The salt cellar was impervious to dampness, the tinderbox could be dried, the salted meat and dried fruit had not greatly noticed their bath, other than a slight softening. I put a fig in my mouth and chewed thoughtfully as I turned the stripped silk rag that held the white spiders so that its underside would catch the air.
“What was the thing that attacked us?” Martala asked. “Did the sage write about it?”
“Not a word. I doubt Ibn Schacabao ever saw the wisdom seat with his own eyes. He probably heard some traveler’s tale of it repeated in the tavern.”
“Do you think it will pursue us?”
I shook my head.
“It is the guardian of the jewel. It will never leave it merely for the pleasure of killing us.”
When the sun finished its work, we dressed and set off through the rising columns of heated air that shimmered like transparent fountains above the irregular plain. We passed a decayed pyramid on our left near the horizon, but I had no inclination to investigate its dismal heap of scattered bricks.
My spirits were strong. We had survived the valley and emerged from it greatly enriched, with only a few burns that would heal in a week or two. The damage the fire and underground stream had done to our clothing, coupled with my burnt hair and the sear marks on our faces, made us resemble beggars, but in this uninhabited land we suffered no criticism. My water skin hung full and our wallets held enough food to carry us across to the Tigris. The scroll of the Old Ones, once again banging against my chest in the front pocket of my wallet, had been improved by its dunking, as the waters had removed some of the dust and finger marks from its surface.
When our shadows lengthened before us and the air ceased to dance like the blast from a blacksmith’s forge, Martala began to sing one of her Egyptian folk songs that I had come to know well. I joined in harmony, and the notes of the ancient tune floated across the baked clay and tangled stone-choked gullies to startle the desert foxes, who stopped running and stared at us with their enormous ears upraised and turned toward us like fans.
We made camp at twilight. One place seemed as good as another in that broken but monotonous landscape. I chose a flat slab of stone elevated several cubits above the plain, on the consideration that its warmth would be welcome when the chill of night descended full upon us. There was not enough wood to make a fire, even had the tinder in my tinderbox dried sufficiently to attempt to ignite a spark. Our sleeping rugs were still on the bridge, and would no doubt puzzle the next traveler who sat upon the wisdom seat, should another man ever have the misfortune to do so.
By morning the rock had cooled, and we woke shivering. It was not long before the rising sun heated our faces. The quality of the land began to change in slow stages, becoming greener as we continued our trek eastward. In low-lying hollows the grass-covered ground was soft beneath my boots, betraying water not deep beneath the surface. Here and there, groves of trees cast cool patches of shadow. Martala welcomed the growing things that reminded her of the lus
hness of her homeland, but I looked upon their gathering density with disapproval. They made walking more difficult, and with moist earth and green plants came the inevitable swarms of biting flies that are one of the plagues of humanity.
They seemed to enjoy the taste of my sweat. For some reason the girl was less afflicted by them.
With a curse, I swatted my neck for the third-score time and glared across at her. Not a single bead of moisture clung to her serene brow beneath the brim of her felt hat, her skin white as milk after its bath in the stream.
“Why is it that these devils bite me and not you?” I asked, unable to restrain myself any longer.
She smiled, and I saw that my discomfort was a source of amusement for her. She raised her hand with its back to me and wiggled her fingers to draw my attention to the points of her fingernails.
“They are obedient to the Goddess. The Goddess watches over me and protects me from those creatures that worship her.”
Her words, or perhaps her good humor, made me scowl. I had not renewed the glamour of my face, so my expression must have been truly horrifying. Her explanation displeased me, but I could conceive no other reason why the flies would bite me and not her, so I said nothing, but merely brooded on the injustices of the world.
When we came upon the northern end of a vast lake, the breeze that blew across the water and drove the swarms that had followed us for miles back into the trees was like a blessing from heaven. A small fishing village occupied a headland to the east. The white triangular sails of its boats dotted the expanse of blue water, and I saw a distant flash of silver as a fisherman cast his net over the side of one vessel. The air to the south was thick with flocks of water fowl, flying and diving in unison as though with a single mind. The expanses of green reeds along the margin of the lake provided ideal homes for such birds. I had seen similar flocks in Egypt on the delta of the river, but none so large as these.
We approached an ancient fisherman sitting beside his upturned boat, mending his net. From time to time he raised his head from his bone needle to observe our progress along the shore. I had completely forgotten my face, but the whisper of the girl reminded me. I turned as though to look behind and applied the spell. The old man’s eyesight was poor enough that he failed to notice the change. When we drew nearer, I hailed him and asked if he knew the location of a monastery of wise men.
His Persian was so corrupt, the linguistic skills of Nectanebus were nearly unequal to the task of translation.
“You mean the Order of the Sons of Sirius,” he said, squinting at me. “Everyone knows them in this land. They buy our fish and give us fair prices. They are honorable men, every one of them, and great warriors.”
Once started in conversation, he was difficult to stop. I listened with what patience I could muster to his babbling. When he paused for breath, I turned to Martala.
“He says the fortress of the magi lies to the east, nearly a day’s brisk walking from his village,” I interpreted for Martala. “There is a road, but not a very good road.”
“Perhaps we can buy horses in his village.”
I surveyed the shabby cluster of huts, half of them built on posts so that they hung over the shallows of the lake, and shook my head.
“What use would poor fishermen have for horses?”
The old man confirmed my surmise. Neither horse nor camel were to be had in his village. There was a man who owned a donkey, and for gold he might be persuaded to part with it, even though its loss would break the heart of his wife, who regarded the beast as fondly as though it were her own child.
“I don’t believe we will cause the woman grief,” I said to the girl as we continued our way toward the village. “What use is a donkey to us, when we have nothing for it to carry?”
“It is better than walking,” she murmured. She was in an argumentative humor.
“One donkey?”
“We could take turns riding.”
“Have you ever ridden a donkey? I’d rather be beaten on the buttocks with a club.”
She stopped and put her hands on her hips, and I almost felt sorry for having spoken.
“I have ridden many donkeys. What of you, O resident of the royal palace of Sana’a? Have you ridden a donkey?”
I brushed her question aside with my hand.
“Anyone can see to look at the creatures that their legs are too short to be of use for riding. We could walk with greater ease.”
She made a sound of derision in her throat.
It was true, the royal hunting expeditions of the king had not involved donkeys, nor were they stabled at the palace, and my direct experience with the creatures was limited. My father had been too poor to own such a beast. I turned over my words in my mind, looking for weakness in my argument, but it appeared no more than reasonable.
Even so, I found myself haggling behind one of the huts situated on dry land over the purchase of a beast so old, it threatened to collapse on its trembling knees before my business could be concluded. A fat woman of middle age sobbed and caressed the hairy nose of the donkey as she watched with wide eyes her avaricious husband demand more gold. At first I tried to rent the donkey, which pleased the woman, but the sneering owner refused, saying there was no one to bring the beast back when I finished with it. My promise to hire a boy to ride the donkey home did not satisfy him, and I perceived that he wished to sell it merely to spite his wife, so I paid his price.
I wondered if the peasants of this disagreeable land saved all of their sickest and most ancient beasts of burden to sell to travelers. I had no intention of wasting another piece of precious u’mal root on this infirm creature. If it dropped dead beneath the girl, so much the better. It would teach her to mind her tongue.
We bought a small bag of salted fish and some flat loaves of unleavened bread. The girl searched for a dagger all over the village, but the fishermen only possessed fishing knives and could not by any argument be persuaded to part with them for a reasonable exchange. I refused her request that I bribe them with amber. It was too precious to waste. Instead, to sooth her mind, I gave her my dagger. She seemed content to have its ornate ivory sheath belted to her waist.
She made little argument when I insisted that she ride. Her feet almost brushed the ground on either side of the narrow rut that served as the road mentioned by the old fisherman. To my surprise, the beast did not fall dead, but plodded along at a walking pace, making little complaint. Several times through the afternoon, Martala offered to give up her seat to me, but the prospect of bouncing along on the bony spine of the beast did not appeal. I declined with what grace I could manage and attempted to ignore the ache in my legs. The progress of the animal was quicker than the pace I would have chosen for myself.
By the time we reached plowed fields and heard the lowing of cattle in their pastures, darkness had almost descended around us. We climbed a low rise and stopped upon the crest. I saw that we had entered the bend of a broad river that could only be the Tigris. It wrapped its crescent course around extensive farmlands before continuing its journey southward. Trees and brush grew densely along its banks and defined its channel to the horizon.
A thousand paces would bring us across the fields to the outskirts of a well-populated village of flat-roofed buildings located near the river at the head of the bend. Many of the houses stood taller than a single level, and were of more elaborate construction than the usual hovels of country folk. Behind them loomed the wall of a fortress of impressive dimensions. It appeared gray in the gathering twilight. I saw a sentry with a bow slung over his shoulder, no larger than an ant in the distance, walk along its battlements between two square towers that stood at its corners.
“That must be where the wise men keep their school,” Martala murmured, pale eyes wide with interest.
“It is larger than I expected, and uncommonly well defended for
a place of learning.”
“Let us go and look at it,” she said in an eager voice.
I caught her arm before she could strike the flank of the donkey with her switch. For several minutes, I stood in silent thought.
“We will walk around the fortress and examine it. Stay in the shadows and keep your head bowed. Say nothing to anyone.”
My serious mood banished her bright spirits. We went forward at a modest pace. A dog began to bark, and another, and then another. I expected a group of villagers to confront us as we passed down a cart track between the houses, but the barking was ignored. The reason became apparent as we rounded the southern side of the fortress and approached the river. Several inns occupied the road, which became paved with well-cut flat stones beneath our feet. The passage of strangers must be a nightly occurrence.
An impressive system of docks stretched along the buttressed bank of the river, piled high with cargo from numerous boats tied against its side. On the broad paved plaza that occupied the space between the docks and the east-facing gates at the front of the fortress, dozens of brightly clothed men and women walked and conversed. It was a kind of open marketplace, and the sellers were just closing their stalls for the evening. We attracted no particular attention as we moved along the edge of the docks with our heads bowed, keeping our distance.
We continued around to the corner. I was struck by the contrast between the two sides of the fortress. The inns under the southern wall were respectable establishments in which to sleep and eat, but on the north side a scattering of poorer structures hugged the shadow at the base of the wall, and I saw that several of them were the huts of harlots. Loud laughter and the babble of voices issued from the open doorway of a wine seller. The men who staggered past us, leaning on each other for support, ignored us. Some had the look of farmers, others were boatmen, while a few appeared by their rich clothing to be prosperous merchants or travelers. Near the bank of the river I could see and smell piles of garbage, the detritus of this thriving community.
