The Impossible Contract

by K A Doore

  Mo had also spotted it. “What’s that?”

  Heru replied, but the wind ripped his words away. Thana didn’t need his explanation. The obstruction was low and long and thick. It had stout limbs, a ridged tail, and an elongated, flat snout. When it opened that snout, the creature revealed dozens of daggerlike teeth that serrated the air and tore the breath from Thana’s throat.

  She’d heard about such creatures, but only in the stories her cousins liked to tell to scare the younger cousins. Hide like metal, they’d whispered. Teeth like shattered glass. Jaws like a smith’s clamps. As fast as a sandstorm and twice as deadly. But don’t worry, they’d add conspiratorially, crocodiles are only found near water.

  This crocodile was very far from any water and much larger than even her young self had dared imagine. Worse, it had milky white eyes and was coming right at them.

  Thana freed a throwing knife and waited for that maw to open again. When it did, she leaned out as far as she dared from the lurching camel and threw. The blade pierced its tongue and the monster closed its jaw just as they passed. Thana kneed the camel, urging it to go faster. The camel lowered its head and snorted its annoyance. As the ride became even more precarious, Thana clung desperately to the back of the saddle and Heru, who was sliding sideways himself.

  Behind them came a rattling growl. The crocodile had recovered and was running full tilt at them, a sight that was as amusing as it was terrifying. Its stout body swayed side to side on stubby legs, but its long snout was pointed straight at them. It was gaining foot by foot. Thana kicked the camel again and again, panic lodged in her throat, but the beast, weighed down as it was by three riders, couldn’t go any faster.

  She had other knives, but she’d only be wasting them. She considered jumping onto the crocodile’s back, but even if she succeeded in cutting through the marks in its iron-like hide, Heru would leave her far behind. Then she’d be stuck on the sands with neither water nor shelter. But if she did nothing, the crocodile would catch them and tear them apart.

  There was another option, though.

  Thana tugged Heru’s sleeve. He jerked, almost lost his balance, righted himself on the saddle, and glared.

  “Can you do your magic and stop that thing from a distance? With, say, cloth?” asked Thana.

  Heru pressed his lips together in confusion before twisting them up into a sneer. “There’s a technique called jaani nullification, and it involves intense concentration, specific reagents, and—”

  “There’s a bound crocodile about to catch us, save the details for later. Can you do it?”

  “While on the back of a lumbering dromedary, in the middle of the desert, trying to hold my failing body upright? Of course.” But his words carried no sarcasm. Heru was already rolling back one sleeve, having looped the camel’s lead around his opposite wrist. “Give me one of your knives. And not a poisoned one—if I die, you die, too.”

  Instead of denying the implied accusation, she freed one of her throwing knives and held it out to Heru by its handle. He took the knife and sliced first the fabric of his wrap, then the flesh of his inner arm. He winced and pressed the fabric against the fresh wound, blood only just beginning to ooze up. His lips moved soundlessly.

  The crocodile was gaining on them. It’d already made up the distance it had lost earlier. The bound monster put on a burst of speed and clamped jagged teeth around the camel’s tail, severing it with one bite. The camel didn’t seem to feel it. Of course it wouldn’t, being recently dead.

  “Are you a good shot?” asked Heru, holding out the bloodied fabric and her knife.

  Thana snatched the items from his hand with a dark look. “Am I a good shot,” she muttered, piercing the blood-stained cloth with the knife and pushing it against the hilt.

  She twisted, careful to keep one hand on the saddle, and took aim. With the camel roiling beneath her and her legs weak from gripping its sides and with exhaustion from so many days and nights of too little sleep fogging her mind, aiming was difficult. But Thana trusted the hours and days and months and years of practice her mother had made her put into honing her skill. She let go of her panic and sighted on the crocodile’s head, waiting for the right moment.

  “What are you waiting for?” asked Heru with a hint of hysteria.

  “Shut up.”

  Her moment arrived. The crocodile had closed the last few feet between them and now opened its jaws, teeth choked with dried blood and pieces of tail. Thana waited another half heartbeat, until the camel had settled into the bottom of its loping gait, which brought her in line with that mouth. Then she threw.

  The knife struck true, right in the center of the crocodile’s dark purple tongue. Its mouth snapped shut like a trap closing, but not on them. Its claws stopped scrabbling at the air and its tail stopped swishing back and forth and in another moment, the bound monster had dropped like a stone to the sand. The ground shook with its impact. The camel stumbled, but quickly caught itself and put on a burst of speed. Thana allowed herself a smile; maybe Illi wouldn’t complain so much about “useless” throwing lessons after hearing this story if she returned. When.

  Thana glanced back to make sure no more bound followed, but the only thing behind them was the camel’s long trail of dust. She concentrated on holding tight to Heru, who in turn kept a firm grip on Mo. Blood seeped wet and fresh from Mo’s shoulder and her head lolled to one side, jerking upright whenever she startled awake.

  Mo wouldn’t make it much longer, not without losing consciousness. They’d escaped Djet and his bound, but what now? Thana didn’t trust Heru to know the way to Na Tay Khet, let alone the nearest well. She didn’t trust his dead camel not to crumble beneath them.

  But she trusted G-d, and that was all she could do right now. She would survive this and make it back to Ghadid. She had to. She was the Serpent’s daughter. So Thana ducked her head and closed her eyes against the searing sun and scratching sand. She ignored the pain that ached and occasionally screamed in her muscles, the exhaustion that clamped tight in her chest, the dryness that felt like glass shards in her throat. She settled into the ride’s rhythm and didn’t think about when it would end—minutes or hours or days from now.

  They didn’t have water and they didn’t know where they were going and now Heru knew who she was. What was the worst that could happen?

  14

  One moment, the sun sat high in the sky. The next, Thana opened her eyes to swiftly darkening sands and the first few stars of twilight. The direction of the sunset’s lingering glow indicated they were still heading north, if a little east. At least Heru hadn’t led them off course.

  As the day’s heat dissipated, a creeping chill stole through Thana. Her limbs shook and her eyelids twitched and her skin prickled, but she didn’t sweat. She made the mistake of thinking about water, and then she couldn’t push the idea of just a little drink from her mind. She clung tighter to Heru, who’d begun slipping, slowly, to one side. No one spoke.

  The situation’s irony didn’t elude her. She’d personally slashed Heru’s waterskin and poisoned his meat and now those were the only supplies left to them. She couldn’t blame the Azal for taking the rest of the water, but that didn’t stop her from silently cursing them anyway.

  Time stretched, became painful, then twisted into a particular kind of torture. Every jolt of the camel’s stride threatened to break Thana’s hold and every time she managed to stay on, her muscles burned hotter. Each second that fell tore more moisture from her breath and threw more sand in her eyes. At least once, Thana found herself wishing Djet had caught them after all, or that she’d revoked her contract and remained in Ghadid, or that Heru had simply died like he was supposed to.

  She cursed herself for following Heru, for making that promise to Salid, and then she cursed Mo for joining the caravan. As her tongue swelled from dehydration and every swallow became like gulping broken glass, Thana cursed the sand and the sky, the camel and the Azal. She cursed the grit in her mouth and the
pain in her legs and shoulder. She cracked open her eyes and cursed every rock they passed and every new star that dared flicker above. The cursing became a rhythm that soothed and transformed time into something almost bearable.

  Cursing was easier than thinking about what came next. Amastan’s plan had only extended so far as the caravan’s path, and she’d left the bloodied fragments of the caravan far behind. The mark had been so close to death and oblivious to the assassin nearby—an ideal that should have ended in a completed contract. Instead, she’d been forced to save the mark and now he knew who she was. Worse, there really were two en-marab, and while the enemy of her enemy should have been her accomplice, Djet certainly didn’t seem to think so. His bound were indiscriminate in who they killed.

  What a fool she’d been, believing she could take on a contract alone. She’d become a legend all right—the cautionary kind.

  When the camel finally slowed and stopped, the sky was rich with stars. A quarter moon had risen, giving them just enough light to see their own hands and imagine the rest. Thana released her tight grip on Heru’s wrap and immediately regretted it. She slipped slowly, then all at once, from the camel to the ground.

  The next thing she knew, her skin tingled and something cool and sharp pressed against her throat. She tensed but didn’t move other than to crack open an eye. The crescent moon backlit Heru’s face, which was so uncomfortably close she could smell the peppermint on his breath. His hand was near her throat. Thana put two and two together and decided to keep staring straight ahead, lest she cut herself by moving. A breeze played across her jaw; her tagel was gone.

  “What,” said Heru, “do you think is stopping me from opening your throat?”

  “Mo would heal me before I bled out?”

  “The healer’s out of water. She’s also preoccupied elsewhere.”

  “Ah. Then you must be grateful for my help in saving you from the crocodile.”

  “It was your ‘help’ that got us into that mess first. If you hadn’t sabotaged my waterskin and poisoned my food, I wouldn’t have needed your help.”

  “How do you know I did that?”

  His blade bore down until Thana felt her skin break in a stab of pain. “Who else but the assassin?” Heru leaned in so that his mouth was all but touching her ear, his breath hot. “But I’m not going to kill you because we’re still far from any well and we could use your blood to survive in a pinch. For now, you’re my walking contingency plan.”

  Heru rocked back onto his heels, the knife held loosely in front of him. But Thana didn’t indulge the temptation to grab it. “You and I both know that I don’t need a weapon to kill you. I’d prefer to tie you up so you won’t bother me further, but that might bring to light certain … details that our healer doesn’t need to know. Fortunately, it appears you also have something to hide from her. I suspect she won’t take kindly to your attempts to see me dead. So we are, in that respect, on the same page. But”—he shook his knife at her like a chastising finger—“one more rotten meal, one more empty skin, one more of anything and I will have you dig the well, if you understand my meaning. And by that, I mean I’ll kill you and bind your jaani to my will. I don’t think you’d like that.”

  Thana shook her head, her gaze caught on the knife’s point.

  “Good.” Heru dropped his arm, then looked at the knife as if he’d forgotten it was there.

  “What do you want with her?” The question burst from Thana’s mouth before she could stop herself.

  “I saw an opportunity to expand my current understanding of the peculiar and much-rumored abilities of certain individuals residing near the Wastes and took it,” said Heru. “The girl was not coerced into accompanying me, if that’s your concern. She understands she has a greater responsibility to humankind in this matter and is willing to learn more about Djet and make certain he’s stopped—unlike, apparently, you. I’d thought you were at least a little intrigued by our shared dilemma, but it’s clear that’s not, in fact, the case.” Hurt briefly turned the edges of his mouth down and Thana wished he’d put his tagel back on already. Even in the dim light, it was off-putting to see his expressions.

  “So you just want to study her?” pressed Thana. “Is that why you’re so concerned about what she thinks?”

  “She could also prove to be an … important asset,” said Heru. “All available data indicates that your healers are capable of much more than they’ll willingly admit, being too blinded by their own sense of moral superiority. You, on the other hand, are little more than a shield made out of meat and bone.”

  “Where is she?” Thana sat up. A mistake. The world went dark. She blinked furiously, but her sight took its time returning.

  “She’s searching for water.”

  “What? You let her go off alone?” Thana stood—another mistake. Her vision darkened again and all of her muscles seized up in protest, tight as cables. She felt as if she’d been run over by a camel. She glanced at Heru; maybe she had.

  “The girl insisted.”

  Thana took a step, winced. “How long has she been gone?”

  Heru tilted his head back and observed the moon. “A while.”

  “Didn’t it occur to you that she could be in danger?”

  “No. But the point is moot. We have no water; if I didn’t let her go, we’d all be dead anyway, contingency plan aside. Besides, she afforded us the opportunity for this lovely little chat.” He paused for a heartbeat, then asked, “Who hired you?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does to me.”

  “What about Djet? What does he want?” asked Thana, hoping to change the topic.

  Heru’s expression softened. “The same thing anybody wants, I suppose: to conquer death. I’m very curious about his methods, even more curious about his reasons for trying to have me killed. Unlike with you, where the reason is likely as tired as it is political, it appears my death is a part of his greater plan. But why? I cannot die out here in this G-d-forsaken wasteland before I have a chance to research. It must have something to do with the binding of jaan, in which case … but he would need…”

  He trailed off, his gaze sliding past Thana toward the horizon where the stars abruptly ended and the world began. He pulled a scrap of paper and a pen from one pocket, smoothed the paper over his knee, and began scribbling. When he didn’t look up after a few heartbeats, Thana took the opportunity to quietly back away, then walk—jerkily but steadily—to the camel. The beast’s head was relaxed toward the ground as if searching for grass, but it wasn’t eating. Its eyes were open, staring, and every few moments the camel would huff out a breath, as if remembering that it should.

  Those weren’t the only signs that something was wrong with the beast. Far more obvious was how the skin had stretched and torn along its neck and back, exposing muscle and sinew and dried blood. Its body had shrunk from water loss and now ribs showed beneath its skin as if the beast were emaciated. In lieu of a tail, the camel had a blood-caked stump. This twitched as Thana slid her hand across its leathery skin.

  “Dust, what’s he done to you?” she asked.

  Footsteps hissed across sand. A dark shape resolved out of the thick night. Thana had drawn one of her knives before she noticed the shape was moving slowly, dragging something behind. A wounded bound? But a wound shouldn’t have slowed one of those monsters down—

  “Heru?”

  It was Mo’s voice, thin with exhaustion. Thana glanced around, but the en-marabi was nowhere to be seen. She put away her knife. Mo was limping, pulling a heavy weight through the sand behind her, the wooden stake she’d appropriated as a staff clutched in her other hand. As she approached, Thana heard the distinctly beautiful slosh of liquid.

  “Mo!”

  Still a few feet away, Mo stopped. “Thana?”

  “Are you okay? Let me get that.”

  Thana grabbed the skin from Mo. Without its weight, the healer sagged. Thana dropped the heavy waterskin next to the camel, t
hen returned for Mo, who gratefully leaned against her.

  “Where have you been?” asked Thana.

  “Finding water.”

  Then Mo winced and clutched at her shoulder. She’d folded and knotted her wrap back to make room for a bandage across the wound. The bandage was already dark with blood.

  “Mo—your shoulder. You need to sit down and let me look.”

  “I’m fine,” said Mo. But she let Thana guide her a few steps closer to the camel before sliding to the ground.

  Mo groaned as she collapsed, as if she’d been holding herself together for far too long. Her fingers stayed wrapped tight around the wooden stake. Why hadn’t someone started a fire? The air was growing chill and, though the moonlight illuminated some things, it cast everything else in deep shadow.

  Thana left Mo so she could dig through Heru’s bag, hoping he would at least carry a—ah, yes. Her fingers brushed across metal and she removed a tea brazier. In its belly was a ball of dried camel dung, which she lit with a spark from the brazier’s striker. Warm, golden light poured across the sand and turned the darker blues of Mo’s features to soft browns.

  Thana stared into Mo’s face, at first captivated, then concerned. Mo’s braids had lost their tie and now hung every which way, drawing sharp lines across her cheeks and neck. Her eyes were red and puffy with circles like dark bruises, her lips cracked and spotted with dried blood. Every line and wrinkle was crisp, her skin pinched like old leather.

  Thana caught herself leaning toward Mo and pulled back, wary of the firelight’s sharp intimacy. She looked down at her hands, no longer able to meet Mo’s exhausted gaze. Like Mo’s face, the skin on the back of her hands was lined and drawn from too little water. She wondered if her pounding heart was another symptom of dehydration.

  “Did you just leave me there lying in the sand for half the night?” blurted Thana.

  Mo shrugged, but the motion lacked energy. “You looked like you needed rest.”

  “After I fell off a camel?”