The Parched sea h-1

by Troy Denning

  The Parched sea

  ( Harpers - 1 )

  Troy Denning

  Troy Denning

  The Parched sea

  One

  Ruha woke abruptly, unsure of what had disturbed her languorous nap. The young woman lay next to her sleeping husband, their bodies touching at the hip and shoulder. She turned to look at his weathered face. Ajaman had the rough skin and thick mustache of a mature man, but his hairless chest was young, lean, and muscular. He was the only man Ruha had ever seen undressed.

  As the young wife gazed at her husband, her vision suddenly blurred. An instant later, it cleared and the face of another man appeared in place of Ajaman's. She gasped in astonishment, but did not cry out.

  The stranger's visage was unlike any she had ever known. His skin was red and sun-blistered, with a creamy white underlayer showing through where he had peeled. A black patch covered his right eye, and his left eye was as blue as the desert sky. Though his features were drawn and haggard, they were not so careworn that he could have been more than twenty-five.

  Any other bride would have run screaming from her new home, concluding that her father had married her to a djinn-but not Ruha. She had been suffering visions since before she could walk, so she recognized the image for what it was: a mirage from tomorrow. Sometime soon, the stranger would appear. What would happen then, Ruha could not say, though she knew it would be some mishap or catastrophe. She lacked the talent to interpret the mirages, but nothing good had ever followed one.

  Her first vision had been of thousands of butterflies. The butterflies had turned out to be moths, and within two months every yard of cloth in the tribe was full of holes. Another time, during a terrible drought, she had seen a vast green meadow to the south of the tribe. Her father, the sheikh, had taken the herds in search of the fresh pasturage. After a week of thirsty riding, they had finally found the meadow. It was on the edge of a contaminated pool, and half of their camels had died from drinking poisoned water.

  Not surprisingly, Ruha had come to regard her premonitions as more of an affliction than a gift. Without giving the vision further thought, the young wife shut her eyes tightly and hoped it would pass.

  Ajaman stirred beside her. "Is something troubling you, my wife?"

  The heat rose to Ruha's cheeks, for being addressed as "wife" gave her a capricious feeling that she found embarrassing.

  Opening her eyes, she was relieved to see Ajaman instead of the one-eyed man. The young bride smiled and answered, "Nothing we should worry about."

  She said nothing of her vision, for she did not want Ajaman to blame her for whatever misfortune the one-eyed stranger was bringing. Besides, the desert tribes were wary of magic, and if her new husband suspected her of being a witch, he would cast her from his tent.

  Abruptly Ajaman glanced at his nude body, then blushed. He reached for his aba, the loose-fitting robe of the Bedine tribes, and pulled it over his head. The couple had only been married for two days, and the bride knew it would be many weeks before they felt completely comfortable together.

  Ruha sat up and pulled her own aba over her nakedness, then studied her new khreima with a warm feeling of satisfaction. The dimly lit tent was nearly empty, for she and her husband had not yet acquired many possessions. A dozen cushions lay scattered over the ground carpet, her loom and cooking pots rested in one corner, and Ajaman's weapons dangled from hooks on the wooden tentpoles.

  The afternoon breeze drummed gently at the khreima, and Ruha heard feet scuffling outside. Several men began whispering to each other in jocular tones, probably speculating as to why the tent was closed on such a hot day. Irritated by the men's presence, Ruha lifted her chin toward the entrance.

  "We have visitors," she said. By the custom of her people, only her husband could welcome guests to their khreima.

  Ajaman nodded. "I hear them." Turning to the entrance, he called the host's traditional greeting, "Has somebody come to my khreima in need of help?"

  "Time for the watch," came the reply. Ruha didn't recognize the deep voice, but that was to be expected. She had not been a member of the Qahtan tribe until her marriage.

  Ajaman scowled. "It can't be dusk so soon."

  "You have the night watch?" Ruha asked, frowning at the memory of her premonition. "We've only been married two days. Let someone else take the duty."

  "And shame our family so soon?" Ajaman replied, rising from the carpet.

  Given her husband's reply, Ruha knew arguing the point would do no good. If Ajaman considered the watch a matter of family integrity, even the certain knowledge of impending death would not have stopped him from going. Like all Bedine, he considered honor more important than his life.

  "Besides," Ajaman added, "there is danger of raiding tonight. The Mtair Dhafir is not the only khowwan within riding distance, you know."

  The Mtair Dhafir was the tribe of Ruha's father. Her marriage to Ajaman had sealed an alliance between their tribes. There would be no raiding between the two khowwans while both Ajaman and Ruha lived. Unfortunately, there were many other tribes with whom the Qahtan had no such ties.

  It was not raiding that worried Ruha, however. By his pale skin, she knew that the one-eyed foreigner did not belong to any Bedine tribe. Whatever his reason for coming to the camp of the Qahtan, it was not intertribal raiding.

  "Come, Ajaman," grumbled the deep voice outside. "We're due at our posts."

  Ajaman took his keffiyeh off its hook and slipped the white head-cloth over his hair. Ruha stood and straightened it so the long apron hung square across his shoulders. "Stay alert, Ajaman," she said. "I would be disappointed if you let some boy cut your throat."

  Ajaman grinned. "Have no fear of that, Ruha," he replied, reaching for his scimitar. "I watch from El Ma'ra's crown. I'll see our enemies from miles away."

  Ruha knew the place to which her husband referred. A mile outside the oasis, a lonely spire of yellow sandstone towered more than one hundred feet over the desert. That pinnacle was El Ma'ra Dat-ur Ojhogo, the tall god who lets men sit upon his head.

  Keeping her voice low so she would not be overheard, she said, "After dark, I'll bring you apricots and milk."

  Ajaman nearly dropped his scabbard belt. "You can't do that!"

  "Why not?" the young bride demanded. "Is there any shame in a wife bringing food to her husband?"

  Ajaman scowled at the challenge to his authority. "There is enough shame in violating your purdah," he countered.

  "The purdah is to keep frightened young brides from returning to their father's khowwan," Ruha said. "I am hardly frightened, and I have no desire to go back to the Mtair Dhafir. You have no need to isolate me."

  "I know," Ajaman whispered, his tone losing its earlier sternness. "But if someone should see you-"

  "I'll say you told me to bring you supper," Ruha responded slyly.

  Seeing that his wife would not be denied, Ajaman sighed. "If all women of the Mtair Dhafir are this willful, perhaps they are the ones who should pay camels the next time they send us a bride."

  Ruha smiled, pleased that her new husband was not the type to bully his wife. The young bride had no idea how she could safeguard Ajaman from whatever the vision presaged, but at least she would be with him to watch for ominous signs.

  As Ajaman fastened his scabbard belt, Ruha kissed him. "How much supper should I bring?"

  "What you can carry easily," Ajaman answered, still whispering.

  Outside the tent, the deep-voiced man called, "Ajaman, quit your bed games and come to the watch!" The exhortation brought laughter from a dozen throats.

  "How many men does it require to fetch you, my husband?" the bride asked, irritated by the intrusive gathering outside the khreima. Though Ruha h
ad addressed Ajaman, she had intentionally spoken loud enough for the men to hear. They tried to pretend they had not heard her complaint, as it was forbidden for a bride in purdah to speak directly to any man except her husband. Despite their efforts, several men could not stifle snickers.

  Ajaman raised an eyebrow, but did not seem upset by Ruha's audacity. He covered the appearance of impropriety by repeating her question, "My wife wishes to know how many men are required to summon me."

  "More than we have brought, apparently," the deep-voiced man returned. "To keep you from your duty, she must truly be as beautiful as her father promised."

  Ruha smiled at the man's comment. Her father had also promised her that she would be pleased with Ajaman. So far, it appeared that her sire was as skilled at matchmaking as at camel herding.

  Picking up his quiver and bow, Ajaman beamed at his new bride. "Indeed, my wife's father comes from an honorable family," he called. "It is a pity you cannot see how well he keeps his promises, Dawasir. My words cannot describe her."

  Ruha's smile vanished with her husband's words. The comment made her feel as if she were on display. Like all Bedine women, Ruha reserved her beauty for her husband's eyes alone. Outside her home, the curves of her firm body would always remain concealed beneath her baggy aba. A shawl and veil would hide her sable hair, her proud nose, and the strong features of her statuesque face. All Dawasir or his comrades would ever see of Ruha were her sultry eyes and, perhaps, the crossed hash marks tattooed on her regal cheeks. She could not help feeling betrayed by Ajaman's boasting.

  Ruha caught her spouse by his sleeve and pulled his ear close to her mouth. "If you don't watch your tongue, my husband," she whispered, "your friend Dawasir is not the only one who won't see how well my father keeps his promises." Her tone was serious enough to make Ajaman heed her words, but also light enough not to sound like an insult or challenge.

  Ajaman clutched at his breast, feigning a wound. "Your words have pierced me deeper than a raider's arrow," he responded, his mouth upturned in a roguish smile. "I shall die with your name upon my lips."

  Laughing, the bride pressed her mouth to her husband's. "I'd rather you die with my kiss on your lips than my name."

  Ruha retrieved Ajaman's amarat from its hook. Before giving it to him, she stopped to run her hand along its hand-carved curves. The horn was already the source of her fondest memory, for when Ajaman had come to claim her as his bride, he had announced his arrival by sounding the amarat a mile outside the Mtair Dhafir's camp. Its brazen tones had been Ruha's first hint that she would like her new husband, for she had not even met him before he came to take her away.

  Their marriage had been arranged by fate, or so her father claimed. A waterless summer in the north had driven Ajaman's tribe, the Qahtan, into the sands traveled by the Mtair Dhafir. Instead of chasing the strangers away, Ruha's father had proposed an alliance. In return for the Qahtan's promise to return north at summer's end, the Mtair Dhafir would share their territory for a few months. The bargain had been sealed by Ruha's marriage to Ajaman, the son of the Qahtan's sheikh by his second wife.

  What the Qahtan had not realized was that they were solving another problem for their new allies. Witches were no more welcome in the Mtair Dhafir than any other Bedine khowwan, and Ruha had always been a problem for her father. When the strangers wandered into Mtair territory, the sheikh seized the opportunity to marry his daughter into a tribe that had no way of knowing about the visions she suffered. Of course, her father was risking a blood feud if the Qahtan ever found out that she was a witch. Since it was in the best interest of everyone involved in the deception to keep the matter hidden, he was willing to make the gamble. It was a risk that Ruha intended to see that he never regretted.

  As she hung her husband's horn around his neck, Ruha pushed him toward the khreima exit. "You'd better go before Dawasir comes in to get you," she whispered. "I'll join you after dark."

  "Don't let anyone see you," Ajaman said, turning to leave. "It might not dishonor our family, but it would embarrass me."

  Ruha shook her head at his unnecessary concern. Ajaman had no need to worry, but could not be blamed for his apprehension. He did not realize that his wife could shroud herself in the shadow of a dune, or that an owl would envy the silence with which she slipped through the desert night. The young husband could not have known these things, for he did not know of the magic that made them possible or of the old woman who had taught Ruha how to use the spells.

  Ruha's marriage to Ajaman was not the first time her father had tried to find another place for her to live. Her mother had died when she was only five. Because of her premonitions, none of the sheikh's other wives would agree to raise her. Her father was left with no choice but to give up the young girl. He led the tribe to a remote watering hole where an old witch lived in exile.

  Like most "shunned women," the witch was lonely, so she gladly agreed to take the child as her own. With a peculiar blend of love and forgetful indifference, Qoha'dar set about teaching Ruha how to survive alone in the desert-a talent that relied heavily on the use of magic. By the time Ruha reached the age between childhood and womanhood, she could conjure sand lions, summon wind dragons, and scorch her enemies with the heat of the desert.

  In Ruha's sixteenth year, Qoha'dar passed away. For several months, the lonely girl pored over Qoha'dar's books. Without the old woman to explain the runes and act as a guide, however, most of the effort was wasted. In all that time, Ruha learned only how to make a wall from wind and dust.

  After accidentally enlarging a scorpion to the size of a camel and spending twenty-four hours hiding from it in a rock crevice, Ruha realized that sand magic was no substitute for companionship. She decided to return to the Mtair Dhafir, pretending that her premonitions had stopped.

  Ruha made copies of her favorite spells by sewing them inside her aba, then hid her mentor's books in the foundation of an ancient ruin. As much as she hated to abandon tomes of such value, there was no other choice. If she brought the books along, her tribe would never believe her curse was gone.

  Unfortunately, after spending a year locating her father's khowwan, she discovered that the memories of her tribesmen were long. Less than a week after Ruha had entered camp, half the families threatened to leave if she remained. Although the sheikh had no desire to abandon his child, he was forced to consider the wishes of the malcontents. If he allowed the khowwan to split, both halves would become easy prey for raiders from other tribes.

  He had called Ruha to his side, no doubt to ask her to leave. Before he could force himself to bring up the painful subject, a pair of herdboys burst into the tent to report the presence of an unfamiliar tribe at El Ma'ra oasis. Because El Ma'ra was one of two other oases located within a two-day ride of the Mtair Dhafir, the news would normally have been received with alarm. Unallied Bedine tribes seldom camped so close together, for their camels would compete for pasturage and the close proximity would make raiding a virtual certainty.

  Instead of receiving the news with a frown, however, Ruha's father had smiled broadly. He sent a messenger to arrange a meeting with the strange tribe, then told Ruha to prepare herself for a new life. Seven days later, Ajaman's amarat had sounded outside camp as he came to fetch his bride.

  Remembering the short ride back to the Qahtani camp, Ruha smiled. Ajaman had led her camel, while a dozen friends surrounded them with drawn scimitars to discourage anybody from stealing the new bride. Ajaman had dared to speak to her only a half-dozen times, to reassure her that she had no reason to be frightened. When she had finally told him she was not at all scared, he had blushed and looked away. He had hardly looked at her until twilight the next day, when his father had filled their marriage cup with honeyed camel milk.

  Now, as twilight set on her marriage for only the third time, Ruha sat inside her new tent and listened to noises as comforting in the Qahtani camp as they had been in that of the Mtair Dhafir. Loudest was the petulant braying of the camels wh
en they returned from grazing and went to drink at the water hole. With the camels came the sound Ruha found most pleasing, the joyful cries of the children who had been tending the herds. From the rocky outcroppings east of camp came the eerie calls of raptors taking wing for their nightly hunt. More haunting still was the incessant tittering of the desert bats as they swooped low over the oasis pond to scoop up tiny mouthfuls of water.

  Finally dusk faded to night. The camels were tied up, the children called to their parents' tents, the noisy birds drawn to the hunt, and the bats lured away to distant clouds of insects. The desert again grew as quiet as it had been during the day. In camp, the men plucked their rebabas and sang stories to amuse each other. The women, as always, were more silent than gazelles, but Ruha did not need to hear to know they were serving hot salted coffee to the men.

  After allowing the camp to settle into the comfort of darkness, the young wife tied her belt around her waist, slipping her jambiya into an empty scabbard. The curved, double-edged dagger was Ruha's prized possession, for Qoha'dar had given it to her on her twelfth birthday. Next, she wrapped herself in a billowing, black robe that would camouflage her in the darkness. It would also keep her warm, for the desert was as cold at night as it was hot during the day.

  Ruha started to leave the khreima, then realized she had forgotten Ajaman's meal. She returned and put a skin of camel's milk into a kuerabiche, then filled the rest of the shoulder sack with wild apricots. Carrying supper to her husband would hardly have seemed a valid reason for visiting his post if she forgot the food.

  The young wife returned to the door and paused to study the camp. A hundred feet ahead, the full moon glistened off the oasis pond. As a steady breeze rippled the water, the tiny waves sparkled like white diamonds. The tangled branches of wild apricot trees ringed the pool, perfuming the air with the scent of ripe fruit. Above the apricot trees towered thirty majestic palms, their fernlike fronds splayed like open fingers against the starry sky.