D & D - Red Sands

Paul B. Thompson and Tonya R. Carter

Cover Art

Clyde Caldwell

TSR, Inc.

Part i:

THE CAPTIVES OF FAZIR

Jadira

The guard's heavy tread stopped outside the door. With a rustle and a clank, the wicket-gate slid back. A copper dipper rimmed with green scum appeared in the hole. It tilted, pouring water into the clay cup on the floor below. The dipper withdrew and a wheel-shaped loaf of bread dropped through. The wicket squeaked shut, and the footsteps moved on.

Jadira
sed
Ifrimiya crept slowly from the far corner of her cell to the door. She waited until the guard's movements could no longer be heard, then she gulped the scant cupful of water. The sickly metallic taste in no way diminished her enjoyment of it.

The bread she added to the small heap of loaves already stacked in the near corner. Jadira knew they were not enough to nourish her but would only tease her starved stomach and cause unremitting hunger pains. So she fasted. Her belly tightened, and after two days she no longer felt acutely hungry. There was no doubt in Jadira's mind that in time her strength would fail from lack of food. The loaves did serve a purpose. Her captor,

Sultan Julmet, by his grace, allowed his prisoners one serving of bread per day. By saving her rations, Jadira kept track of how long she had been imprisoned.

Five loaves lay in the corner.

Her people were desert dwellers, nomads, who obeyed no lord and asked for nothing more than a spring of sweet water and fertile flocks. Jadira was a
malam,
a married cousin in the elder clan of the Sudiin tribe. Thus, she was pure Sudiin, in both parents' lines.

In the days since the sultan's cavalry had taken her, along with most of her tribe, she had seen many of her kinsmen and friends end on the block—either the executioner's or the slavemaster's.

Faziri soldiers had first delivered her to Kemmet Serim, procurer of slaves for the sultan's household. Serim, his bloated face shining with olive oil and his breath sour with the smell of dates, took one look at Jadira and exclaimed, "By Dutu's beard, what have you brought me?"

The soldier who held Jadira's arms pinned replied, "A nomad wench from the Red Sands, Revered One. Newly caught by the Invincibles and offered for your consideration."

Serim closed one puffy eyelid and peered closely at Jadira. She was taller than him by two fingers. Sculpted by youth and molded by toil, she stood proudly before the slavemaster. The soldier had pulled down her headdress, exposing a sleek mass of long black hair. Jadira's eyes were twin signets of jet, set in a taut aquiline face. Serim, squinting at her, thought of falcons.

"Kitchen or seraglio; where, I wonder, would this one be better placed?" he said.

"She has arms like a wrestler," said the soldier.

"Yet her face is not uncomely," said Serim. "Remove

her robe, so that I may see the body beneath."

"I dare not release her, Revered One. She unhorsed two Invincibles during the attack on her camp, and this morning she blacked the eyes of Sergeant Zayin."

"Tshaw! She is cowed. Here, I will do it myself."

The sultan's procurer laid his unclean hands on Jadira
scd
Ifrimiya. Jadira promptly buried her unfettered foot in Kemmet Serim's soft and yielding belly.

The soldier knocked her down and planted an iron-nailed sandal on her neck. As her face was only a hand-span from the prostrate Serim's, Jadira spat at the revered one and said, "Do what you will with me, father of piglets! Put me in your kitchen, and I'll slay Faziris with cooking spits. Consign me to the harem, and I'll st rangle the sultan with my silken veil as he takes his ease among his gilded wantons!"

"Treason! Blasphemy—!" Serim stammered, trying to rise. "Take her away!" Jadira tried to throw herself once more at Serim, but the burly soldier dragged her away, screaming in frustrated rage.

Thus did Jadira end in the sultan's dungeon. Her sentence: perpetual solitary confinement. Death was to be Jadira's only companion. She awaited it in her dark, dirty cell.

Her mind had not been idle in the darkness. She had examined every portion of the cell, often with only her fingertips as guides. The four walls, the floor, and the ceiling were all stone. The cell door was hardest
keshj
wood, strapped with black bands of cold forged iron. Jadira had no tools, little light, and less hope. She prayed to Mitaali, god of nomads, for succor.

Perhaps it was Mitaali who whispered in Jadira's ear:
How are the walls different?
How were they different?

The floor was smooth, but the walls were rough. The ceiling was one massive, seamless block. The rear and front walls were black-veined granite, set dry in sloping courses. The left and right walls were limestone and
set with mortar.

Mortar?

"Thank you, Mitaali! The blessings of my family's name upon you!" Jadira said to the empty air.

She needed a tool. Her only implement, her water cup, was baked clay too soft for use in digging. Something harder was needed.

Above the door was a slit that admitted light from torches in the corridor. By this faint source, Jadira saw that the lintel over the door was smooth, yellow stone, quartzite. This was the hardest sort of stone used in building, yet the lintel was fractured in two places. The enormous weight of the upper floors of the palace was bearing down on it.

Jadira stood on her toes and strained to reach the lintel. Too high. She braced one foot on the door's middle strap and grasped the narrow light-slit with her left hand. The wall was so deep her arm did not reach all the way through. Still, Jadira stayed there, the strap rivet gouging her foot, as she picked at the broken lintel. After breaking four fingernails, she managed to pry loose a fragment of quartzite. It was as big as her palm and shaped like an arrowhead.

She decided to dig in the middle of the right wall. Her target was a roughly hewn cube of limestone, a block slightly wider than her shoulders. Jadira put the sharp end of the quartzite fragment in the finger-wide groove between blocks and began to scrape away the mortar.

It was tedious, painful work, and she quickly skinned the knuckles of both hands. By the time two more loaves had come through the door, she'd cut a socket as deep as her fingers could reach, all around the limestone block.

A new problem appeared. Jadira saw she would have to chip away the stone itself in order to get at the softer mortar deeper in the wall. She wrapped the quartzite in the trailing end of her headdress to deaden the sound of the chipping.

Peck, peck, peck. The block yielded in flakes and fragments. The hours passed. As Jadira's hands worked, her mind journeyed back in time to when she was free.

She had won the right to wear the black headband of the Sudiin when she roped and tamed a wild horse. What a fine animal he was—Khemay, "The Colors," was his name. He was black, so black he took on different colors at different times of day. In the chill desert morning, Khemay was dark blue, like the water in the deep wells of Julli Oasis. At sunset, he burned red like new copper.

Peck, peck, peck. Outside the walled city of Rehajid, Jadira knelt on a wool blanket and pounded rye and wheat into flour. Her brother, Mohar, and her husband, Ramil, argued over how much to demand per head for their yearling goats. Jadira tossed in her opinion as she dipped into the grain basket for more rye. Peck, peck, peck.

Clink.

The sound of metal on rock filtered through the thick wall and snatched Jadira from her reverie. She stopped chipping and held her breath. Had she been discovered? The cell door was silent and still.

There it was again. A bead of sweat rolled down the nomad woman's face. It was metal on stone all right. Jadira rapped her tool in reply. Her reward was a chorus

of taps.

She chewed her lip as she pondered what this could mean. If there was a prisoner on the other side of the wall, then they could halve the time it would take to release the block. Of course, they would still be in the cells, but they might accomplish far more together than separately.

Jadira put an ear to the wall. The taps seemed to be in some sequence, but she didn't understand it. Finally she knocked until the other fell silent, then she started scraping at the mortar again. It was the only way she knew to convey what she wanted.

The next loaf of bread added to her pile made nine. The bottom-most were fuzzy with faintly luminous mold. Jadira was elbow-deep in the wall by then, and nearly delirious with despair. The wall seemed ten leagues thick. The tapping she heard was the malicious demon-king Dutu himself, leading her on with false hopes of success. Her fast had weakened her and she could no longer dig for hours at a time. The hard stone chip was wearing down to a blunt nub.

There were thirteen loaves on the floor when the quartzite arrowhead shattered. Jadira sank down on her knees and let the ruined bits of stone slip through her fingers. Tears filled her eyes. She wept bitterly, clenching her battered hands into fists. She cursed Mitaali and all the gods for their injustice, and when the last curse had left her lips, she slumped against the cold limestone block.

It shifted.

Oh you gods, torment me not! Jadira cried in her heart. She leaned her shoulder into the block. It moved a bit more.

From weeping, Jadira burst into laughter. She slid away and turned around. Lying on her back, she planted both feet on the block and pushed. The stone crept forward, slipping grittily through powdered mortar. When Jadira's legs were nearly straight, she wriggled in closer and pushed anew.

It was all over in a rush. The block seemed to fly away from her feet, opening up a gaping hole. Jadira withdrew her legs and crouched by the opening. "Hello?" she called softly.

"Who is it?" answered a voice. The accent was not Faziri.

"A prisoner. Who are you?" she asked.

"I am a captive, also. I thought we would never get that stone out."

"Then you were helping me?"

"I've been digging at it for days and days."

Jadira smiled into the hole. "May I come through?" she said.

"Certainly! Come ahead!"

She had to lie prone in order to pass through the narrow tunnel. Just as she pulled her feet into the hole, a pair of hands grasped hers and drew her out. She stood up in her neighbor's cell.

An oil lamp burned in the gloom. By its light Jadira regarded her fellow prisoner. He was a young man from a northern clime, clad in close-fitting garments of heavy green cloth. White lace bloomed at his neck and wrists. He picked up the lamp, and she saw that his short hair was light, like river sand, and his eyes were sky-colored.

His mouth hung open. "By Tuus! A woman!" he exclaimed.

"You have not been in the sultan's keeping so long that you have forgotten women, I see," said Jadira.

"Your pardon, lady. I did not imagine my tireless companion beyond the wall to be a woman." He bowed at the waist. "I am Marix, third son of Count Fernald of Dosen."

"Jadira
s
e
d
Ifrimiya, of the tribe Sudiin."

"You are Faziri?"

"Pah!" She spat at his feet. "The Sudiin are not slavish house-dwellers!"