THE THIEF OF KALIMAR (Graham Diamond's Arabian Nights Adventures)

by Graham Diamond

  At the base of a steeply inclined mound the haj called the band to a halt. He worked his way alone up the tricky slope and dismounted when he reached the crest. There he wet a finger, put it to the wind, and nodded with satisfaction. Then he called his companions to join him at the top.

  The crest was far wider than it seemed from below, and to Mariana’s surprise she saw that a few scrubs and trees stood well concealed by boulders. There was even some weedy, yellow grass.

  “This will be a perfect lookout for us,” said the haj, stretching out his arms and moving them in a broad circle to indicate the vast field of vision the mound afforded. “From here we’ll be able to see anything moving at us for leagues in every direction. We can sleep peacefully knowing the baboons won’t be able to sneak up and kill us in our beds.”

  Saddles were hastily untied, and the mules began to buck joyously with their new freedom. Burlu began the task of watering them down and preparing to stand the first watch. Everyone else groaned, rubbed at sore muscles, and, spreading out blankets, fell thankfully to the ground. They curled up in a semicircle close beside the trees, too tired to speak or even eat, and there they went to sleep.

  The sun came up, hot and sultry. All the day they dozed and rested, tended to their various aches and pains. By the evening they were all wide awake again, fully refreshed and ready to continue. Spirits markedly lifted while they ate their cold breakfast/supper of salted beef and biscuits, and then in what had become humdrum routine, they rolled up the blankets, resaddled the mules, and eagerly looked forward to putting more distance between themselves and the searching baboons.

  It was a mild desert evening, pleasant for riding, with only the softest of breezes stirring. The moon was full and bright, and to Mariana it seemed larger and more luminous than ever. A thin layer of cloud dulled the dazzle of the stars into a pale bluish glow. Mariana found herself feeling calmed and relaxed after yesterday’s adventures.

  Pulling aside the veil from her face, she reached for the goatskin water bag, popped the cork, and took a long swallow. Ramagar reined in and pulled up close. He leaned over and kissed her quickly on the cheek. The girl blushed. “What was that for?” she asked.

  “For being so brave and so valiant,” he replied teasingly. “Next time you—”

  His thought remained unfinished. Mariana stared dumbly up at the cliffs overlooking the hills and concealed her gasp. Ramagar fixed his gaze steadily higher and gripped tighter at the reins. The cliffs were crawling with them, dark, shadowy creatures, scrambling in endless procession to the ledges and boulders below.

  The haj whirled his mule around, his face masked to hide his fear. “Ride back!” he shouted. “They’ve seen us! It’s an ambush!”

  The mules dashed back for the dunes, but it was too late. Ahead came racing a phalanx of baboons, screaming at the top of their lungs, sinewy arms flailing in the air, teeth bared like poison fangs. Again the riders turned, but again they came to abrupt desperate halts. The crazed screaming was growing louder and louder, coming at them from every direction. And there was no safety to be found.

  Ramagar slapped his mule and pushed her forward toward the hills. “Take cover at the rocks!” he cried. “It’s our only chance!” And in reckless abandon the others followed.

  Thundering along the gorge between the hills they ran headlong into a small group of concealed warrior baboons waiting to pounce. As Mariana and Ramagar wheeled to turn, the haj and the Prince drew their blades and began to deliver shattering blows. Dark blood spouted, and the baboons started to wail and leap high into the air like frogs hopping from lily pad to lily pad. Homer cried out in terror. A large hairy arm squeezed at his throat and he felt a rush of putrid breath zip up his nostrils as the baboon’s teeth made ready to bear down.

  The Prince’s dagger flashed, slashing and slashing again, cutting the monkey’s belly. The fierce beast let loose his hold of the urchin and, leaping to his feet on the mule’s back, dived straight for the stunned Prince. It was Burlu’s blade that caught him mid-flight. The knife dug up from the stomach, deep and straight into the black heart. The baboon shrieked so horribly that even its unharmed comrades shuddered.

  It fell in a heap to the ground, knocking over three other charging baboons as it did. Madness took over. As a well-schooled group of warriors tore up from behind the rocks, Ramagar let loose. He heaved his long knife this way and that, thrashing faces, dismembering limbs. Baboons slammed into his mule, reeling, staggering, clawing and clutching at the matted mane. For a moment it seemed as though the thief would fall. Mariana saw the tumult and screamed, her own knife bearing down as she fought to wade through the crowd and reach her lover.

  Suddenly the haj was at Ramagar’s side. Then the Prince as well. But the baboons were forming into a solid wall of monkey flesh and escape became impossible. The three men continued their relentless barrage of blows. The mules felt the sting of monkey nails digging and ripping into their flanks. Ramagar knew they would soon fall. With a mighty leap he bounded from the saddle and onto the top of a high boulder. Two monkeys lurched; his fist slammed out, catching one in the jaw and sending it sprawling, the other squarely on its squatted nose and beating its soft flesh to pulp.

  Finding courage where none had been before, faithful Homer dodged his own assailants and somehow managed to clear a path for Mariana. The girl lost no time in reaching the others and then doing as Ramagar had, jumping for better safety among the rocks.

  Next it was the Prince who made it away from the fray. While Homer struggled to complete the jump, the haj boldly charged into the baboon midsts and dealt a series of shattering blows. If there had been any question of the old man’s prowess, it was soon dispelled. Even Ramagar, surely no slouch when it came to a fight, had to marvel at the way the aging haj twisted his blade this way and that and made chattering idiots of the baboon army.

  Then just as Burlu’s mule buckled, the haj kicked from the saddle, landed on the ground, knocked a baboon out cold, and successfully scrambled up the steep slope to the cheers of his companions.

  But the fight was not yet over—not by a long shot. Seeing their forces in disarray in the gorge, the baboon generals screeched commands and brought forth the charging phalanx. From the cliffs opposite the hill another brigade appeared, some racing down the incline at top speed, others flinging rocks, pebbles, sticks, and anything else they could get their devilish hands on.

  Mariana and Ramagar hit the dirt, the barrage flying above their heads. The haj took a blow from a sharp stone and angrily shook a fearsome fist. Baboons were climbing now, inching their way to higher ground on the hill and causing the travelers to hastily retreat up toward the crest.

  A group of monkeys grasped for Burlu’s legs; up went the haj’s boot, striking a powerful blow in the grabber’s face and heaving it backward into the arms of its confused friends. Another baboon sprang from the side. The haj ducked a blow, grasped the monkey by the arm, twisted it, and spun it around, then banged his fist evenly on the top of its head. The baboon sank in a daze to its knees. Then Burlu picked it up, lifted it over his head, and tossed it clumsily into the fast-approaching crowd.

  The dazed ape screamed as it went flying through the air. Other baboons looked up in horror and dove helter-skelter to avoid the soaring weight. For many of them, though, it made little difference. When the hapless baboon crashed you could hear the crunching of bone, the snapping of limbs like twigs. A half-dozen warriors lost their footing on the precarious sand, tumbled backward, and created a small landslide of monkey flesh, gathering the oncoming baboons and rolling them down back into the gorge.

  Taking a cue from the monkey army, Ramagar and the others quickly picked up the largest rocks they could lift. The thief hurled his with all the strength he could muster; the heavy rock crashed, crumpling some staggering baboons and splitting skulls like logs. The next rock hit a split second later. The haj had found one as heavy as he was. It smashed with such furied force against the boulders that it br
oke into a hundred whizzing missiles which cut and slashed through the ranks of the reeling enemy, rendering deep, ugly gashes across a dozen hairy faces.

  The Prince, meanwhile, was up to tricks of his own. At the top of the hill he found a large stick; he wrapped it with dried weed and moss, struck his flints, and smiled grimly as the tinder caught. The dried shrub burst into blazes, weed catching like sulphur.

  Fire was strange to the baboons—and all the more terrifying as the Prince fanned the flames against the black sky and threw the torch high into the air. The monkey army broke in panic, tearing along the gorge. The torch hit the earth, igniting nearby patches of weeds which in turn set off yet other, more distant patches. In this waterless land it took only moments for the entire gorge to erupt into something of a furnace. Hopping, yelping, moaning, and cavorting, the baboons desperately tried to dodge the ever-growing flames.

  All regimentation was gone; senselessly they rolled in the sand and wailed while their hairy coats smoldered and blazed. Torch after torch came hurtling through the night. It was not long before the gorge was completely devoid of any baboon who could yet run for its life. Those left behind hobbled and cried over the corpses of comrades long since broiled.

  Panting, hands on their hips, the five travelers looked at the grisly scene below and smiled thankfully at their fortune. Mariana stared blankly at the cliffs and watched as what was left of the phalanx clambered among the ledges and over the top, running wildly for their very lives in any direction their legs would carry them. Even the dire shouts for order issued by their generals went unheeded. The troops were oblivious to commands; if the fight was to continue, then their leaders would have to carry it themselves.

  The battle of the gorge was a total rout. And to this very day, as a matter of fact, it is still spoken of in baboon land with whispers and shudders.

  “Run, you cowards!” hollered the haj, shaking an imperious fist as the last crippled stragglers dragged themselves into the night.

  “And don’t ever come back!” chimed in Homer, his face black with grime and soot, but his teeth gleaming with his grin. “Unless you want some more of the same!”

  Soon the flames were dying, and the travelers deemed it safe to climb down the hill and look over the wreckage of the battlefield.

  “Will they attack us again?” Ramagar asked the haj.

  Burlu wiped a grimy hand across his mouth and spat. “We taught them a lesson, this time,” he growled. “But the baboons’ king won’t rest so easily. If he can, he’ll send another army as soon as he can raise one.”

  The Prince shook his head and sighed. “In that case, we’d better get out of their domain with all the speed we can make …”

  Mariana nodded. But then she looked around at the carnage and tallied their losses. Of the seven mules, three lay dead at the edge of the gorge. Two more had run off the moment they saw the fire. That left two mules, two mules for the five of them. And to make matters worse, one of the absconded mules had carried the extra water bags. The little water left would have to be rationed, rationed while they walked to the sea.

  At Kalimar’s northernmost border, nestled along a fertile plain at the foot of the mountain range known as the Great Divide, lay the port city of Palava. A free port, visited by ships from every maritime nation among the Eastern Kingdoms and from across many seas, it stood as Kalimar’s greatest contact with the world outside her desert borders. And because of its free trade, there came to it men and women from every walk of life: foreign merchants and sailors, traders from both the desert and the hills, opportunists, fanatics, religious sects of dubious worth, and a host of nameless others who made the port a melting pot of cultures, some strange, some exotic, some as secretive as the Druids themselves.

  Much has been told of Palava; hardly a traveler to its walls did not return home filled with tales to whet the imagination. Its marketplaces and bazaars were like none others in all of the East. A visitor could wander through its maze of shabby streets and see a new wonder at virtually every corner. Once seen, Palava would never be forgotten. It was a city of the unusual, a city of mimes, of fire-eaters, magicians, and contortionists, dancers and strong men, flutists, animal trainers, lute players, and poets. Of head-shaven Karshi fanatics gathering to pay homage at the sight of the hovel where their leader was born. Of scholars and lunatics, of holy men who pierced their flesh with pins and needles and then lay down upon beds of broken glass, all to the amusement (and sometimes revulsion) of their audiences.

  Whatever the visitors’ opinions, all agreed it was a city you would never erase from your thoughts.

  Captain Osari, of the merchant ship Vulture, sat glumly at the inn, staring into his half-filled flagon of black Palavi beer. A hefty fellow, with prominent jowls and thick, slanting brows above keen, intense eyes, he made no pretense of hiding his moroseness on this particular evening. His cargo of furs and quarried marble had been delivered to its buyers in Palava more than two weeks before. His cargo for the return trip, cinnamon and other spices, sat in bags and crates at dockside ready to be loaded. His vouchers had been stamped by the proper authorities, his sailing permit had been issued without any problem. Now all he needed was to find a new crew.

  Captain Osari put his head in his hands and groaned. A new crew! Where in this forsaken backward land of Kalimar would he find the caliber of men needed for the Vulture? Of his twenty hands only three remained, the others having run off the moment they berthed and their wages were paid. Osari knew he should never have taken such men on in the first place. It would have been better to have sailed on to Cenulam and signed on a crew of trustworthy hands. Men from his own land whom he could count on. True seafarers; not a bunch of swaggering misfits from the East. But time had pressed. The cargo was urgently required. So, he had done the expedient thing and hired on in the first port he reached. A very foolish mistake. Oh, the slouches had made it to Palava all right. Problem was, where would he get the men he needed for the return voyage? A voyage that would take them a thousand leagues from home across some of the most violent seas the world had ever seen.

  Ah, to be back in Cenulam now. Among real civilization again. Far away from places like Kalimar. Osari shook his head sadly. Within three days’ time his permits would no longer be valid. His cargo would find another ship, while the Vulture would be forced to lie languid and rot upon this uncivilized shore.

  It was with these thoughts in mind that the captain ordered another round of the bitter beer and blotted out the noise of the rowdy crowd of sailors milling about the inn’s tavern. Sailors indeed, he mused. They were nothing but dregs of the lowest kind. A poor substitute for honest seafaring men. Only sheer desperation had brought him here tonight; that, and an urgent need to get the Vulture away from Kalimarian waters before the corrupt military authorities took a mind to impound it.

  Amid the flute music and the dancing girl’s cavorting and the raucous laughter that accompanied them both, the Cenulamian captain hardly saw the two hooded figures who had briskly entered and asked questions of the landlord. It was only when the proprietor pointed his hand in his direction that Osari took notice. One was a man, tall and rugged; the other a woman, well tanned and pretty, with fire in her eyes.

  The man approached the table first. “Is the Vulture your ship?” he asked.

  “Are you Captain Osari from Cenulam?” quizzed the girl.

  The seafarer looked slowly from one face to the other before answering. “I am Captain Osari,” he said at last. “What of it?”

  Mariana glanced to Ramagar and sighed. Then she turned with a smile to the captain, saying, “At last we’ve found you. We’ve been searching all day. Your first mate told us he hadn’t the slightest notion where you were …”

  “And now you know where I am,” observed the captain dryly.

  Ramagar leaned his forearm against the table and met the captain’s questioning gaze. “We would like to speak with you, Captain. A few moments of your time is all we ask.”

&n
bsp; Sensing a business proposition in the offing, Osari gestured for them to take chairs. Then he snapped his fingers to catch the barmaid’s attention and shouted for a small bottle of sweet wine to be brought.

  When the wine was served he leaned forward, his hands clasped together, and said, “What’s this all about? There must be a hundred captains in Palava. What is it that brings you to see me?”

  “We understand that your ship is scheduled to leave for Cenulam,” said Mariana, wasting no time. “We want to book passage and sail with you.”

  The captain nodded, thoughtfully wondering why these obvious Kalimarians seemed so eager to reach a land so alien to them. “Have you business to conduct in Cenulam?”

  “Not in Cenulam itself,” replied Ramagar mysteriously. “But in waters nearby. We’ve queried every captain we could find. Only you are sailing across the Western Sea.”

  Osari frowned. “It is a very long voyage, my friends. And a difficult one to boot.”

  “We understand,” said Mariana. “We have some money; will this be enough?” She spilled the contents of a small purse onto the table. Osari stared at the glittering coins, a few gold, but mostly silver.

  “More than enough for two,” said the captain.

  Ramagar shook his head. “We are five. Five passengers—”

  “And we’re willing to work to make up any difference,” added Mariana. “What do you say? Will you take us on your ship?”

  Osari scratched his head. This was a most baffling offer. His companions certainly were not merchants, nor even traders, if he had sized them up properly. From the looks of it they were offering every penny they had in the world to make the journey. Curious, as most Cenulamians are, Captain Osari wondered why. Still, it wasn’t his affair, and he had need of the offered money to help defray the cost of a new crew.

  “Have we a bargain?” pressed the thief.