The Parched Sea

by Troy Denning

  Lander wanted her, but, even if the sheikhs would leave them alone for more than a few minutes, he was reluctant to violate the taboo against sleeping with a widow. The Harper was not so much afraid of offending the dead husband’s spirit as he was concerned about upsetting the living Bedine. As superstitious as they were about all things magical, he feared that if they discovered that he and Ruha had made love, they would throw down their weapons and leave the Zhentarim free to roam the desert.

  Somewhat belatedly, Sa’ar called a warning. “Lander, Ruha! They are shooting arrows at us! Are you all right?”

  Another arrow splashed into the water at the base of the bridge.

  “We’re fine,” Lander responded. “Perhaps we should return to camp.”

  “An excellent suggestion,” said Utaiba. “We have seen enough to make our plans.”

  Lander waited for the next arrow to bounce off the stone bridge, then scurried from the protection of one arcade pillar to another. Ruha followed a few steps behind. After leaving the bridge, they returned to their camels and rode out of arrow range.

  “Perhaps we should assemble at my camp to discuss our strategy,” Utaiba suggested to the other sheikhs. “I haven’t much water, but I can offer dried figs and a few drops of camel’s milk.”

  The other sheikhs accepted the Raz’hadi’s offer, but Ruha shook her head. “If I am to be of much use tomorrow,” she said, “it would be better for me to return to Sa’ar’s camp and study my spells.”

  Utaiba and Sa’ar nodded, but Didaji said, “The gods gave your magic to us for a reason, Ruha. I am certain that whatever plan we develop, it will rely heavily on your spells.”

  “Then I will tell you the spells I can use,” the widow countered. “But if I don’t study them before I rest, I will not have them when you are ready to attack.”

  “What she says makes sense, Didaji,” Sa’ar noted. “The witch does not sleep in your camp, so you may not have noticed that she spends every evening poring over her book. If Ruha is to be of use to us, we must do our planning without her.”

  Didaji nodded, then Ruha spent the next half-hour describing her spells to the sheikhs. They asked her several questions about each one, then assigned one of their number to repeat its capabilities. When they had discussed every spell the widow knew, she listed the ones she intended to memorize and told them to send word to her as soon as possible if they wanted her to learn a different one.

  By the time they were done, it was well after dark. The sheikhs went toward Utaiba’s camp to make their plans, leaving it to Lander to escort Ruha back to her tent. In the Mahwa camp, the slow rasp of sharpening stones upon steel was punctuated by an occasional heavy twang as a warrior tested the strength of his bowstring. Some of the men were chanting an eerie, mournful song of war:

  Be gone, strangers, be gone!

  Leave the grass of our meadows

  For the camels of our tribes.

  Be gone, strangers, be gone!

  We ask Kozah for one of those bloody battles

  Where brave men die in pride and glory

  And not from some wasting illness.

  Ride, young men, ride!

  Arrows do not kill

  It is only fear that slays.

  Ride, young men, ride!

  Lander paused to take a burning twig from a campfire, then followed Ruha to the tent that Sa’ar’s men had pitched for her. Inside, it was mostly empty, save for a single sleeping carpet and the widow’s kuerabiches.

  Ruha opened one of her bags and set out a simple meal for them to share. It consisted of nothing but water and a plateful of raw tubers that looked like fat, white asparagus stems.

  “How soon will we leave for Sembia after capturing Orofin?” Ruha asked.

  The Harper thought he detected a melancholy note in her question. “Are you sure you want to go with me?” Lander’s stomach tightened with apprehension even as he voiced the question, but it was one that he had to ask. “The Bedine are growing accustomed to having a sorceress around, and you may not find Sembia to your liking.”

  Ruha offered him the plate. “If you are there, I will find it to my liking.”

  The Harper smiled. “Then we’ll leave as soon as the battle is won.” Lander took one of the roots and bit into it. It had the powerful taste of an onion, but did not make his eyes water. “Now that you’re safe in your own tent, I should leave you to your studies.”

  Ruha shook her head. “I already know most of the spells I’ll use tomorrow—unless they send word to learn new ones.”

  “But you said—”

  “That I need my rest,” the widow interrupted. “And it’s true. Whether or not I need to learn a lot of new spells, I will need my rest. But there’s no hurry, and for once the sheikhs have too much on their minds to worry about what we’re doing.”

  Ruha locked gazes with Lander, leaving him with no doubt about what she meant.

  “I should join the sheikhs in their planning,” he said, feeling the heat rise to his face.

  “They will argue for another two hours. Join them later.”

  “Tonight, of all nights, we should not give the sheikhs anything to worry about,” Lander objected.

  “Tonight, of all nights, we should not care,” she countered. Ruha’s dark gaze remained fixed on his face, her unspoken demand unmistakably clear. “Tomorrow, what the sheikhs think will not matter. The Zhentarim will be gone or we will be dead.”

  “Then wait a little longer,” Lander said. He could not bring himself to look away, though Ruha’s eyes were doing more to win her argument than her words ever could. “We will not die. I promise that.”

  “That promise is not yours to make. Only N’asr knows when we shall die, and he will not tell even an emir.” The young widow uncovered her face, revealing her tattooed cheeks and full lips. “Have you not sacrificed enough for the Bedine?”

  “But your husband’s spirit—”

  “I knew my husband for three days,” she said. “Certainly his spirit is concerned about a great many things, but I am not one of them.”

  The young widow kneeled in front of Lander, then took his face in her hands and drew his lips to hers. When she kissed him, a wave of fire coursed through his body. The Bedine’s superstition, tomorrow’s battle, even the Zhentarim, no longer seemed important. All that mattered was the burning thirst that racked his body. Nothing could quench it except Ruha.

  Lander felt the young widow slip the keffiyeh from his head, and then his own hands were clutching at her aba. In an instant, he had pulled it over her head and tossed it aside. Ruha let him run his callused hands over her soft sienna skin, then she unclasped his dagger belt and dropped it at his side. Her hands slipped beneath his robes, soft and caressing and igniting him with desire wherever they touched.

  The widow moved closer, and the frankincense odor of her body filled his breath. Lander found her lips, and they kissed again, their desire raging hotter than the rocks of At’ar’s Looking Glass. Ruha tugged the Harper’s aba over his head, plunging him into darkness.

  As they drank from each other’s lips, the scorched world outside the tent faded to a mirage, and Ruha became Lander’s cool well. He quenched his thirst with the sweetness of her love, and she took from him the comfort of his strength. Together, they made an oasis in the parched sea and, if only for a time, they held at bay the troubled sands of Anauroch.

  * * * * * *

  Later, Lander lay with Ruha pressed against his side, one of her arms and one of her legs thrown protectively across his body. Like a leopard on the stalk, tomorrow’s battle was creeping back into his thoughts. Instead of being anxious or worried, though, he felt strangely at peace.

  Tomorrow there would be a battle, and his task would be completed. If the Bedine won, he and Ruha would depart Anauroch together. They would return to his father’s house in Archenbridge, probably with Ruha still insisting upon wearing her veil in the streets. Behind them they would leave all of the witch’s years of l
oneliness and, Lander hoped, the shame of his mother’s secret life and the anger caused by her betrayal of his father. He and Ruha would start a new life together.

  Unfortunately, there was still one more battle between them and their newfound serenity. If the Bedine were going to win, it was time for him to join the sheikhs and to leave Ruha to study the few spells she needed to learn before morning.

  When Lander stirred, Ruha opened her eyes. “What’s wrong? You’re not sorry—”

  The Harper put his fingers to the young witch’s lips. “I’m not sorry at all,” he said. “I’m looking forward to spending my life making love to you.” He gently moved her arm off his chest and sat up. “But we both have things to do before morning.”

  Lander reached for his aba and slipped it over his head.

  “Yes, and I’m still enough of a Bedine that winning this battle is important to me,” Ruha said, reaching for her own aba. “I just pray to Eldath that the sheikhs have made a good plan.”

  Lander smiled, then leaned down to kiss Ruha. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  Ruha pulled away. “You are very confident of yourself,” she laughed, slipping her robe over her head. “How can you—”

  The widow suddenly gasped. “Lander!” she cried, pointing toward the entrance of the tent.

  The Harper spun around, expecting the angry face of Sa’ar or Utaiba. Instead, he saw a slight figure wrapped head-to-foot in the black burnoose of a Zhentarim. The yellow eyes of a D’tarig gleamed out from the folds of the black cloth swaddling his head, and he held a gleaming jambiya in his hand.

  “Bhadla?” Lander gasped. “How’d you get here?”

  “The Zhentarim have ways of bypassing your sentries,” he said. “And the rest of your warriors are either sleeping or staring into their campfires and singing their death songs. Perhaps you have one you would like to sing?”

  The Harper laughed, instinctively reaching for his dagger. When he did not find it, he remembered that he had not yet put his belt back on.

  “I don’t have much of a voice,” Lander said, unconcerned. If Bhadla was foolish enough to attack, he did not think being weaponless would cause him much trouble. “Surely, you didn’t come here to listen to me sing. Have you come to beg for your—”

  Behind him, Lander heard the sound of fabric being cut, and he knew the D’tarig had not come to beg for anything. Realizing that Bhadla was a distraction, the Harper spun around, stooping to reach for his dagger belt.

  A black-robed figure, his sabre drawn, was just stepping through a slit in the khreima. Behind the first man, Lander could see another blade gleaming in the moonlight. The Harper did not pause to wonder how the invaders had managed to sneak past the sentries and into the camp. From what he had seen of Yhekal, the Zhentarim leader was a powerful spellcaster. There was little doubt that he could call upon his powers for the necessary spells to help a small band of assassins sneak into the Bedine camp.

  Lander pulled his dagger from its scabbard, then started to move toward his scimitar.

  “Step back, Lander!” Ruha ordered.

  The Harper heard her chant the words to an incantation and did as instructed, realizing that the beautiful witch was better equipped than he to deal with a group of assassins. No sooner had he stepped aside than a fiery blast of air crackled past him, engulfing the intruders in a white blaze.

  The Harper took an involuntary step backward, raising his arm to shield his face.

  “Now you die!” Bhadla rasped, already directly behind him.

  Lander sidestepped quickly, then felt the D’tarig’s blade run along his ribs. The cut began to sting immediately. Groaning, the Harper dropped his raised arm down to clamp the D’tarig’s knife hand.

  With his free hand, the Harper grasped Bhadla’s leathery wrist, then brought his knee up against the D’tarig’s forearm and broke it with a loud snap. Bhadla screamed and dropped the dagger. Without setting his leg back down, Lander swept the would-be assassin’s feet from beneath him, at the same time pulling forward on the broken arm. The D’tarig landed flat on his back directly in front of Lander.

  Before the Harper could do anything else, Ruha stepped around him. Her jambiya flashed once, opening a six-inch gash across Bhadla’s throat. Blood began pouring onto the same carpet that the Harper and the witch had been lying upon moments before.

  “Are there any more?” Lander asked, scanning the sides of the tent.

  “Wasn’t that enough?” Ruha responded. “How badly are you hurt?”

  Lander felt warm blood running over his fingers and realized that he was holding his wound. He pulled his hand away and looked at the cut. “Not bad,” he said. “It’s not—”

  His rib cage erupted into agony, sending fiery fingers of pain shooting through his torso. He let out an involuntary groan, then stumbled backward and dropped into a seated position. The blaze was spreading through his body like a wildfire, and he could feel himself beginning to sweat.

  Ruha rushed to his side. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Poison,” the Harper croaked. Already, his mind seemed lost in hot vapors, and the roar of an immense blaze filled his ears. He could think well enough, though, to remember something Florin Falconhand had once told him: Zhentarim assassins often carried counteragents to their own toxins, for they were afraid of accidentally poisoning themselves.

  Lander rolled onto his side and pulled himself toward the D’tarig. Ruha’s hands were on his back, and she screamed something at him, but the firestorm in his head muffled her words.

  “Antidote!” he gasped, finally latching onto Bhadla’s lifeless arm. His vision had narrowed to a tunnel, and he could see nothing but the D’tarig’s body at the end of his own long arm. He ran his fingers through Bhadla’s robes, searching for a vial or a tin of powder.

  “There is no antidote,” said a woman.

  Lander felt Ruha’s hands brush his fingers aside, and he knew she was taking over the search. He sank back on his haunches and looked in the direction of the voice. “Who’s there?”

  “You know me.” The voice was as sweet as the song of a morning dove.

  The tunnel of Lander’s vision closed altogether and became a white light. The light wavered for a moment, then took the shape of a ghostly, unveiled woman. “Mielikki?”

  The Lady of the Forest nodded, coming closer. She kneeled at Lander’s side, then wrapped her arms around his body and pulled him into her lap.

  “Save me,” he whispered.

  “No.”

  “But the Zhentarim—we’re not finished.”

  “You are,” the goddess answered, stroking his brow.

  The agony in Lander’s body began to subside, and he realized that the fire was dying because it was running out of fuel. “I violated the taboo,” he cried. “I slept with Ruha, and now the Bedine will pay.”

  The ghostly woman kissed Lander’s forehead. He felt the last of his pain gather in his brow and flow out where her lips had touched his skin. “No, you helped a woman find her place,” she whispered. “Now her people will have a chance at freedom.”

  Eighteen

  Ruha heard two warriors rush through the entrance of the khreima. The young witch did not wait for them to ask what had happened. “Leave!” she ordered, hoping to hide the tears streaking down her bare face.

  They did not obey. “What of the assassins?”

  “All the Zhentarim are dead,” Ruha answered, barely able to keep the grief out of her voice. “We have no need of help.”

  There was a silence as the two sentries studied the scene in the khreima.

  “Go!” Ruha ordered. “Or must I use magic to ensure my privacy?”

  The warriors withdrew, and Ruha finally felt free to cry. Her tears fell on Lander’s brow, for she was kneeling on the bloody carpet where he had fallen. His lifeless head was cradled in her lap.

  The fatal attack had come so suddenly that Lander was cut and Bhadla lying on the ground before the widow realized she had se
en it happen once before. She had reached for her jambiya with a disjointed feeling of being a helpless spectator, and when she had cut the D’tarig open it had seemed as if she were watching someone else kill him. There had been an eerie quality to the whole fight that made it seem like a recurring dream, but, just as in a bad dream, she had not been able to change the outcome.

  Looking toward the roof of the tent, Ruha let out an agonized sob. “If I can do nothing to change them, why do you torture me with mirages from tomorrow?” she cried. “If I knew where this loathsome sight came from, I would tear out the organ and fling it to the vultures!”

  The gods did not answer, though Ruha had no doubt that they were watching her with cruel amusement. She sat staring at the khreima’s roof for a thousand pained heartbeats, looking past it in her mind’s eye to the starry sky above. “How much longer must I endure your curse?”

  Again the gods remained silent, and the young widow dropped her eyes from the impassive roof. Her gaze fell on Bhadla’s jambiya and then rested on the glistening blade. She remembered that Lander’s death had been quick. No matter how painful the poison, it could not hurt any more than the grief she now felt. The widow reached for the dagger, still talking to the gods, “You always destroy those beloved to me and leave me with nothing. Why?”

  As Ruha’s fingers closed around the hilt of the venomous jambiya, she thought of the man who had sent the treacherous weapon here with Bhadla. She was wrong, she realized, for at least one very important thing remained to her. Yhekal was still alive, the Zhentarim were still in Anauroch, and the Bedine needed her magic to win the victory.

  Ruha removed Ajaman’s jambiya from the sheath on her belt and replaced it with the poisoned blade Bhadla had carried into her tent. “I know what you would want, my love,” she whispered. “I will not fail you.”

  Sa’ar’s concerned voice sounded at her tent entrance. “Ruha, Lander!” he cried, bustling into the tent. “The warriors say there was a stream of fire and—”