The Waters of Eternity

by Howard Andrew Jones

  My friend’s expression soured even further as he glanced over the letter. “Fool! I should leave him to his fate.” His teeth were gritted. “Come, Asim.”

  “Where do we go?”

  “Someone has set a trap for the wretch and bade him to enter. Tell me,” he said to the dwarf, “did he at least take guardsmen with him?”

  “Of course.” He sniffed.

  Dabir then strode out onto the dark streets, me at his side. He still clutched the letter. “This is in a different hand than the other note,” he said.

  “And what does it say?”

  “It promises,” Dabir said bitterly, “that all will be revealed if Bassam meets with the note’s writer at a home beside that of Rashid the jeweler. It bids him to enter alone.”

  “You think he did so?”

  “You have met the man, what do you think?”

  “I think,” I answered after a moment, “that we shall be lucky to find him alive.”

  “Aye.”

  III

  Two of Bassam’s guards were rolling dice before the closed doorway to Rashid’s jewelry store. They said they’d been ordered to remain here while their master went inside the dark building next door.

  “There was a woman, waiting for him,” said one, a snaggle-toothed Arab.

  “Happens all the time,” his friend agreed.

  Dabir turned from them and tried the door. As you might expect, it did not give.

  “It’s probably too late,” Dabir told them sternly. “Asim?”

  I eyed the door and shook my head, for it was too solid to kick open. I then considered the edge of the one-story roof. I pointed to Snaggle-Tooth. “Make a stirrup with your hands.” The man complied, and I must say that if Bassam had not picked him for looks and brains, he may have chosen him for strength, for he had that in abundance. He had no trouble supporting me. I put hand to his shoulder, pressed my weight into his palms, then reached for the coping. I stepped off his other shoulder to pull myself up silently as I could, then knelt on the flat-topped roof and looked about. Like most homes, there was a central courtyard, and I heard a man’s voice rising up from it, although I could not make out many words. He sounded as though he were reading something aloud. And then I heard someone grunting, as if he strained, and another voice telling someone to be still if he knew what was good for him. The letter reading resumed.

  I leaned back out, lowered my hands, and in a moment Snaggle-Tooth helped Dabir up into my grasp. We left the useless bodyguards where they were, bidding them to silence, and Dabir and I advanced quietly across the wooden roof. In the heat of the summer, folk often slept on their roofs, so we were sure it would bear our weight. My concern was that we would reveal ourselves with the creak of a board. Indeed, there was a telltale noise beneath me as I slid forward, but the speaker droned on, and there was another groan, so I guessed that the sound had gone unnoticed.

  Soon Dabir and I were peering over the far edge and into a courtyard. The place looked to have been abandoned for a while, for the trees were dying and an empty central pool was a round spot of darkness. The fellow reading was standing on the far side of the pool, crouched near a lantern where he held a piece of paper. Bassam was tied to a wooden yoke and held in place by two hairy Berbers in shabby turbans. One had a long knife, and the other one stood behind, as if he meant to push the rich man forward into the tiled basin at his feet at any moment. Bassam’s eyes rolled wildly between the pit and the speaker, but he could not speak, for his mouth was gagged with a wad of cloth. The pool’s bottom was not far below, and a fall would not normally have hurt a man much, save that reflected glints from the lantern light caught on something sharp within. Knives, I thought, or spear tips.

  “We must move fast,” Dabir whispered. “Leave the reader alive.”

  I eased myself up to the roof edge to eye the ground below. Dark flagstones. From there it was eight swift paces to the men.

  “…breaker of promises and oaths such as you,” the man was saying, “who lies as easily as he breathes, and pretends that he will take advice only to do as he wishes, such a fate is well deserved.”

  Without waiting for the climax of the speech I swung down and dropped. Though many have remarked on my size, I was fairly light on my feet in those days, and I made no sound. Still, the letter reader caught sight of me and stopped short, staring. I’d hoped to creep up unawares, but hope fades swiftly as a dream at dawn. I whipped out my blade and charged.

  I heard Dabir drop behind me, which might explain why the Berber with the knife yelled “We’re surrounded!” and ran for the shadows.

  “Push him in!” the letter reader shouted.

  Bassam twisted as the man behind him shoved, and he teetered on the edge, fighting for his balance.

  The Berber snarled and whipped out his blade, but he backed from me as I charged, shouting out to Allah. I swear that I might have cut him in half in short order, but I had to toss my sword to my left hand in order to snatch the back of Bassam’s jubbah before he plunged into the pit. This gave the fellow with the sword an opening, and he sliced at my head.

  Were Bassam an enemy I would have sent him stumbling forward, but I caught the strike on my blade and blocked a second blow as I dragged my charge to safety. By that point Dabir was there, with a sword of his own. The man with the letter dropped it and fled into the shadows, and my opponent hurled his sword at me then followed him through a doorway. I knocked the forcefully flung steel aside and sprinted after, halting on the threshold. A new blade was suddenly thrust out from the darkness. The fellow had lingered just beyond and had meant to slice me as I ran on.

  I beat down the knife, wishing there were a visible hand and wrist, and swung into the darkness. There came a gurgling noise, and then the man—my most recent foe—was sinking to his knees, one hand to his throat. As God as my witness, to this day I know not how I managed to cut him, for only an idiot would have leaned forward at that moment. The blow should only have wounded his arm and forced him to drop the blade.

  I stepped past him and peered into the darkness beyond. Nothing.

  “Where are the others?” I asked of the dying man, realizing even as I did so that I wasted my time, for he could not speak even if he wished it. He coughed, and quickly expired.

  I hurried back to retrieve the lantern and search the rest of the house, but it was empty of everything save a pair of old rugs and a battered table. The letter reader and the other rogue had found egress through a servant’s door, which hung open into a back lane. There was no telling which way they had fled.

  Dabir, looking over the letter by moonlight, was nonplussed by my news. “All but the one you killed got away?”

  “He leaned into my blow,” I said, pointing to the slumped body by the door. “It is not so simple, you know, to capture such an idiot when he’s attacking.”

  Bassam, rubbing his wrists, advanced and bowed his head to me. “Captain, you saved my life, and for that I am eternally in your debt. I think I may owe you—”

  Dabir angrily slapped the letter with the back of one hand. “Madness!”

  “…an apology,” Bassam finished.

  “Who writes such a thing?” Dabir was saying.

  “It was my pleasure,” I said, and stepped over to peer into the pit. A series of spikes stood up from a wooden frame two feet below. Bassam would have been impaled in multiple places. And there was something more. As I crouched for a better look I saw that there was a gritty substance coating the blades. I reached down to rub the side of one of them, and raised my hand back up. It felt like sand, which made no sense.

  “Is it poison?” Bassam asked, his voice quavering.

  I touched it to my tongue. “Salt.” I stood. “All the blades are salted. Someone wanted you in as much pain as possible as you died.” It would have been no easy death.

  “Someone vindictive,” Dabir said to himself. “I have never seen such a long list of accusations.” He lowered the letter. “So let me see if I follow.
You received a note bidding you come—”

  “I know now I shouldn’t have,” said Bassam.

  “How long did it take you to figure that one out?” I muttered. I’m not sure he heard me.

  “And you did that, which I specifically warned you not to do. You had the foresight to bring guards, then promptly left them outside.”

  “Aye, a woman was within. She beckoned to me and said that she must speak to me alone.”

  “And you trusted her,” Dabir said.

  Bassam flashed his cockeyed grin. “Um…”

  Dabir cut him off. “Did you recognize her?”

  “She…Well, before I got a closer look, those murderers had hold of me, and the next thing I knew one of them was going on about arrogance and lack of discipline and nonsense. I’m not sure how much you heard. By the way, where were you?” Bassam sounded a little accusatory.

  “Looking into matters,” Dabir said.

  “It is only by Allah’s grace that we arrived in time,” I interjected. “Dabir asked you to stay in place; it is not his fault that you nearly ended up squirming on a bed of salted nails.”

  “Have you found anything?” Bassam demanded.

  “We found you,” Dabir offered. He picked up the lantern and walked over to the dead man, shining it down on him. “Come here, Bassam.”

  We both followed.

  “Had you seen this man, before tonight?”

  “Nay. Though I can’t imagine paying attention to him were he not trying to kill me.”

  I grunted. So do all common men look to those from on high.

  “Does he look like any of the men who attacked you the other night?”

  “Eh…no. I’m fairly sure they weren’t Berbers. One was a Turk.”

  “So you said. Did any of these men resemble the fellow driving the cart?”

  “Nay—he was a Persian.”

  “So you said,” Dabir repeated. “And it was a boy who dropped off the wine for you. I wonder why a murderer would hire entirely different folk for every attempt.”

  “Perhaps,” Bassam offered, “he hires someone new whenever the other one fails.”

  I offered a thought of my own. “The attempts are getting more outlandish.”

  “Truly,” Dabir agreed. He was rubbing the band of his ring as he fastidiously stepped around the blood pooling from the Berber. He then bent down on the fellow’s right side and began a search through his garments.

  “What is he looking for?” Bassam asked me.

  “He will know when he finds it,” I said shortly.

  The dead man did not have much, as anyone might have guessed at first glance. Apart from a poorly sharpened knife and a handful of coins, there was a hunk of stale bread, a wine sack, and several sets of dice. Of greatest interest to Dabir was a folded piece of parchment paper that bore writing in a large, easily legible hand. Once Dabir was through with it, he passed it up to me, and Bassam crowded in to read it. On it was written “Bet on Blue, 10 Dirhams,” with the day’s date and month recorded beneath.

  “A gambling receipt,” I said.

  “From the Inn of the Two Palms,” Dabir said. Adding, “Muwaffaq bin Hasim only hires folk with clear handwriting to draft his markers.”

  “So he is a gambler,” Bassam said, sounding irritated again. “A lowlife—why else would he be a murderer?”

  “You look but you do not see,” Dabir told him.

  I didn’t see, either, but I wasn’t about to let him know that. “You have discovered something.”

  “I have a theory,” Dabir admitted, but would only shake his head when Bassam asked him what it might be.

  “You are an infuriating man!” Bassam burst out. “Why will you not tell me what you are thinking?”

  Dabir stared at him, and for a moment I thought my friend affronted. Then he pointed at Bassam. “You will have to try a little harder to be dead for the rest of the evening.”

  IV

  For the second time that night I ventured to the tavern where Samar danced, and for the second time I identified myself to the doorman, who let me in without comment. I peered at him as he yawned to see if the fellow had had his tongue cut out, but it was impossible to tell by lantern light. He presented me to that backstage room, which was opened by Samar’s maid. She brightened in surprise at sight of me.

  “Peace be upon you,” I said. “Is your mistress here?”

  The servant woman leaned against the door frame. “She dances before the guests. Is it she you came to see?”

  I allowed a smile, for she was a fetching woman. “My friend Dabir has asked me to relay a message for her. I had hoped to deliver it in person. Do you know how long she will dance?”

  “Nay; it depends in part on how well she is rewarded. If the men call for more dances and shower more coins, then she will carry on. She might be gone quite a long while,” the woman added, sidling a little closer.

  Such attention is pleasing to a man, but I knew better than to show interest in one such as her.

  “Please pass on that Dabir would have liked to come, but that the man he was assisting, Bassam, has been attacked.”

  Instantly the woman’s playful demeanor vanished, and she grew solemn, almost alarmed. “Attacked? How? Who?”

  “Hired thugs,” I said.

  “And he is badly wounded?”

  “I am no hakim,” I said, “but his garments were covered in blood, and he had to be carried from the attack. Dabir is worried for him.” All this was true, for we had rolled the fellow in the blood of the murderer I myself had slain, and had the bodyguards carry him from the assault so that word would spread. I took no pride in deception then or now, but I did not mind overmuch misleading someone whom I was sure had been party to lies herself.

  The woman’s face paled. “Excuse me,” she said, and ran fleetly down the hall and around a corner. I followed into the darkness, and soon her slapping sandals were drowned out by the sound of flutes and tambours as she drew closer to a curtained doorway. She pushed through it; I waited outside, the fabric nudged just far enough for me to look out onto the room. She stepped around a long-legged drummer and waited along the edge of the performance area on my left while Samar swayed and shimmied with two other women. Men were there, gathered to drink and watch the dancing, but there was little to be seen of them beyond their outlines. It is true that in Frankistan and Constantinople folk drink wine sometimes to quench their thirsts, but here, in the lands of the true faith, misguided men break God’s commandment only to become drunk. Thus these shadows slouched and leaned back on the low couches.

  The servant hissed at Samar, who finally spun, glaring daggers, and came over. They exchanged whispers and Samar’s head drew back as though a snake had bitten her, then both came through the curtain. I stepped aside.

  Samar was even more beautiful in her finery, though her lovely face was drawn into a scowl, and she stopped short at sight of me.

  “It is true? Bassam is dead?”

  “That I cannot say,” I admitted. “But there was enough blood on him to fill a living man.”

  Samar cursed more violently than some soldiers I have known, but she did not seem especially sad. Her eyes centered on me. “Dabir is with him? He has sent for hakims?”

  “I am sure Bassam is being well tended to.”

  She nodded shortly, then seemed to gather her thoughts. “I cannot talk with you now. I thank you for…this bitter news. It is all too much for me.” She bowed her head. “I must withdraw, to grieve.”

  “Go with God,” I said.

  Again I spoke with the door man, and then met up with Dabir, who waited in the darkness without. He asked many questions as to Samar’s demeanor and actions, all the while watching that back entrance. We were rewarded, for before he had finished querying, two cloaked female forms hurried from the place, the mute guardsman walking with them, hand on a naked blade.

  “Were I a betting man,” Dabir said quietly to me as we watched their retreating backs, “I would
wager they walk for the Inn of the Two Palms.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Call it gambler’s intuition. Come, Asim. We must follow discreetly.”

  Follow we did, into The Dregs, a suburb south of the city through which goods flow but nothing good remains, and soon advanced toward a worn two-story inn. A wooden placard showing a pair of palm trees hung over the large archway our quarry scurried beneath.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “We give them just a few moments,” Dabir answered, as if distracted. He turned, and at a sound behind us I spun, hand to sword.

  Up walked two men with their cloaks drawn up to hood their faces. If they meant to conceal their identities they did a fair job, although they looked altogether suspicious even in this neighborhood.

  “What are you two doing?” Bassam’s voice came from one of the cloaks. After his speech, I recognized his gait.

  Dabir was stricken with horror, and motioned for Bassam to hurry after him. The four of us retreated behind a wagon sitting in the dark street.

  “I told you to remain in your home!” Dabir hissed. “What are you doing here?”

  “I had to come see what happened,” Bassam said diffidently.

  “How will word spread of your death if you’re walking the street?” Dabir’s clenched hands were shaking, and he looked at me as if he needed an audience for his disbelief.

  “I could kill him,” I offered.

  Bassam held up his hands. “Ubu and I are disguised. No one will—”

  I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him in closer, for a group could be heard approaching along the street. From Bassam’s gasp I think he might have been afraid I was drawing him onto a knife.

  What should we see next, but four women, likewise garbed in hooded robes, each warded by men-at-arms—bald ones, squat ones, hairy ones—each of them watching the shadows as well as the other folk who were advancing now from every direction, some holding folded-up pieces of paper very much like that we’d confiscated from the corpse.