Throne of the Crescent Moon (9 page)

“Please, boy, no scripture quoting! Your inadequate interpretations help nothing here, and my energies are needed for more important things than enlightening you through exegesis. Now—”

Zamia tilted her head and sniffed. “You’re telling the truth,” she said in a suddenly weak voice. “I smell no trace of deceit upon you.” And tears began to well up in her eyes.

Adoulla was perplexed. “And I smell no deceit upon you, Zamia Banu Laith Badawi. Though, despite its prominence, I’m sure my nose is not quite so accurate as yours. But now it is my turn to ask questions. Why these tears now? And how is it that you came to be here alone, stalking these monsters? Where is your band?”

“That is none of your concern,” Zamia said, her words wooden and heavy as she wiped a few tears from her plain face. The wind whipped up for a moment, the sound blending eerily with the harsh call of a hunting night-kite.

“We clearly share an enemy, girl. Surely even a tribesman can see that we should share information as well.” The girl’s eyes tightened, and Adoulla recalled a favorite saying of Miri’s:
Bees and beetles alike love honey more than vinegar
. That Miri rarely followed this dictum herself
meant little. Adoulla needed to try a different tack. “Zamia, I don’t mean you any insult. I know what it is to lose your happiness to the ghuls. And I can help you, girl. If you let me.”

When the girl spoke it was with the voice of a dead woman. “I lied. When I spoke of finding the marshmen’s bodies, I said that I had never seen such a thing. I lied. I had seen it days before. It happened to my band.”

So that’s it
. Adoulla reached out a comforting hand to the girl, but she stopped him with an angry look. She swallowed, wiped away another tear, and continued. “I was out scouting one night, far ahead of the rest of the band. The next morning, when I returned to where they’d set their tents…What I found…” The girl’s matter-of-fact tone slid away. She fell silent, her eyes wide with remembered horrors. Then she smothered her pain again and went on.

“Bodies. All of their bodies. All seven and fifty of the Banu Laith Badawi—old Uncle Mahloud and spoiled little Wazzi. Faziza, who believed that she really ruled the band. My father. My beautiful young cousin, who would have been chieftain—his body had been burned. All of them, do you understand? I am the last.”

It had the sound of something the girl had been repeating to herself. Adoulla did not speak, hoping the girl would go on.

“There were foul, puzzling smells everywhere,” she said after a moment. “Jackal-scent where no hair could be found. Fresh spilled child-blood that smelled of ancient buildings. But these scents led nowhere. The only sign I could find was this.” Reaching into her tunic the girl drew forth an ornate curved dagger. The blade was stained with what looked like dried blood.

“It was my father’s. He had hidden it in the folds of his chieftain’s robes. There is blood on it, but the scent is neither man nor animal. And if the stea qd if thetories are to be believed, ghuls bleed no blood.”

Adoulla’s mind raced, recalling the strange phrases that had come to him earlier when he’d sought God’s help in finding the ghuls.
‘The jackal that eats souls.’ ‘The thing that slays the lion’s pride.’
He turned the lines over in his head but still came up with nothing. “Generally, the
stories are
not
to be believed,” he finally said to Zamia. “But that one at least is true. Which means that your father wounded something or someone else. God willing, that dagger may hold answers.”

“God willing,” the girl replied, though she didn’t sound as if she held out much hope. “I have been trying to find the trail of the creatures for days now, seeking to avenge my band so that I may die with honor. I came upon them almost by accident just as they attacked you two.” Zamia was quiet for a moment. She swallowed and then spoke again.

“This…this…soul-eating. This is what they did to my band.” It wasn’t a question. She looked straight ahead as she spoke, and her now dry eyes looked almost soul-eaten themselves. She held the dagger aloft. “This is all that I have of my father, though I will never wield it—for since I was given the lion-shape I foreswore other weapons. ‘
My claws, my fangs, the silver knives with which the Ministering Angels strike
.’ This is the old saying.”

God save us from the poetry of barbarians!
But the words were as bitterly spoken as any Adoulla had ever heard. He had seen God-alone-remembered how many pained faces during his career, but looking at the pain on the face of this rough little girl who was a lion, was not made easier by that history. Still, he knew that, unlike most victims he had dealt with, this one would want and need hard truth more than coddling.

“Listen to me, Angel-touched one. Your family is dead, in body and soul. I can offer you nothing that will change that. But I can offer you a chance at vengeance.” It was the only thing a tribesman could want right now, Adoulla knew. “You may travel with us as an ally if you wish, Zamia Banu Laith Badawi.”

Beside him, Raseed made a choking noise. Adoulla had almost forgotten he was there. “Doctor! We cannot have her…. There is no reason to—”

“Hmph. You forget yourself, Raseed bas Raseed. Who is the mentor and who is the assistant here, boy? Besides, we need Zamia’s knife to find the one that did this. The ghul pack has been destroyed. Now we must find out who made it. And we must kill him. Unfortunately my tracking spell has taken us as far as it is going to take us.”

“Can you not work another spell, then?” The girl was tense. If she were wearing her lion-shape, her tail would be switching, Adoulla thought. He ran a hand over his beard.

“My invocations have their limits, child, just as your powers do. The Chapters say ‘The mightiest of men is but a slim splinter before the forest of God’s power.’” He pulled out the scarlet-spotted scrap of cloth that he’d used in his tracking spell. “The blood on this was spilled by the ghul pack we just destroyed. That is how I was able to track them. But the pack’s master—the
true
murderer of those marshmen, and of your band as well—well, God requires more from us to oul qrom us tfind him. The blood on Nadir Banu Laith Badawi’s dagger is a good start. May I?” he asked, reaching gently for the weapon.

“You recalled his full name,” the girl said, her angry face showing what Adoulla supposed was a savage’s respect. She handed him the dagger with an anxious look in her eyes.

Adoulla had to nurture that respect if he wished to have the girl’s help without her arrogance and second guessings. Besides, he found that he was desperate to offer her some sort of comfort. He held the blade aloft and squinted at it. “Your father wounded this creature, Zamia. With this weapon we can find the thing and its master and destroy them. Your father has served your band to the last.”

He handed back the dagger, but the girl’s face was blank now. She said nothing.
Hmph. And why am I trying to indulge her incomprehensible tribal foolishness, anyway?
He got back to the matter at hand, making his tone coolly professional. “A man with the power to make such a ghul pack—and to command these cruel old magics—will have powerful screening spells at his disposal. He knows I am looking for him now, and he will prepare counter measures. Even with this trace of blood, his trail will be impossible to find without the aid of an alkhemist. Praise God, I happen to know one of the best in Dhamsawaat. She does not work on the road anymore, but she’ll help us nonetheless. We’ll return to town tomorrow.”

The girl’s eyes flashed, and Adoulla saw all his progress fly away. “Tomorrow!? Why do we not return
now
? I am looking for the dog that
murdered my band, you fat old fool!” The little Badawi’s expression was petulant and murderous.

His temper’s fire flared, and Adoulla had to remind himself what this savage girl had suffered. Still, he would not be told what to do by a child. Especially not a child with the gritty accent of a sand-behind-the-ears Badawi. She needed to be reminded of what was what.

“Listen to me, Zamia Banu Laith Badawi. These are deep, dark waters we are in here. We need help. But before that we need rest. You may eat with us now, if you wish. We will return to the city
tomorrow
.” Angel-touched or not, at bottom the girl was just another wounded child of God with a monster problem. Adoulla had learned over the years that those whom he helped needed as much as anything to be told what to do.

After a moment of silent seething, the girl seemed to come to the conclusion that she had little choice but to obey him. She ran a hand through her hair, drew herself up and put on a neutral face. She ignored the invitation to eat. “Very well, Doctor. Tomorrow,” was all she said. She gave Raseed an unreadable look then trotted toward a large rock overhang.

Adoulla watched her disappear behind the rock. He turned to his assistant and caught the boy half-gaping. The dervish shot his eyes to the ground. Adoulla knew this was not the time for ribbing, so he restrained himself. Instead he simply said “You fought well today.” He always felt awkward bestowing praise, but it did the self-doubting dervish good.

Raseed’s yellow-brown cheeks reddened ever so slightly, and he bowed his head in acknowledgement. He was as uncomfortable receiving compliments as Adoulla was giving them. Perhaps, Adoulla mused, this had something to do with why they worked well together.

The boy clearewat qboy clead his throat. “I will go and retrieve the mules, Doctor. They can’t have gotten far.” Tension was evident in his voice.
He’s more troubled than usual
.

“What is it, boy?” Adoulla asked bluntly.

The dervish seemed to think for a moment before speaking. He
adjusted his turban. “The Falcon Prince, a fierce ghul pack, an Angel-touched girl Badawi! Enough wonders and monstrosities for a lifetime. Does this day not trouble you, Doctor?”

Adoulla shrugged sleepily. “More than I can say. Still, I’ve seen worse, boy.”

That was a lie, of course. But it earned a brief, impressed smile from Raseed. The dervish nodded once and, without making a sound, stole his way down the sloped stone.

He watched Raseed’s swift steps and felt a stinging envy for the tirelessness of youth. For a few long moments Adoulla just stood there, listening to the insects of the night and wincing at the pain across his shoulder blades. There was a great stone-scrape across his shin, too, that he’d been too tired or too frightened to notice. He wondered if there was any inch of him that had not been slashed or bruised at some point in his life. Then he made his way carefully down the slope.

A few minutes later Raseed returned, silent as ever but betrayed by the noise the mules made as he led them. The beasts themselves seemed to be unharmed, praise God’s small providences. Adoulla had always found mules to be admirable animals—intelligent and suspicious of authority, but maligned as obstinate and ill-tempered.
Not unlike me.

The boy produced a small bronze cookpot and prepared a simple soup over a sputtering fire. Out in the cold night, something small squealed as it died.
Perhaps the girl is out there hunting up supper
, Adoulla mused, not sure if he was joking.

Raseed was clearly preoccupied as they set to their bread and broth. There was more to it than the horrors and wonders they’d seen today. Adoulla knew the cause, though he doubted the boy had yet admitted it to himself.

The girl
.

No doubt the dervish was twisting himself in knots trying to square the circle of his pious oaths with a young man’s natural reactions, and only half aware he was doing so. When Adoulla was a young man, he would have told the girl that she had a lovely face and been done with it. Though this particular girl did not have a lovely face, exactly.

No, the girl was not what anyone would call pretty, but she had a rough, vital energy that clearly spoke to Raseed. But the boy was incapable of being honest with himself, let alone with a woman. Adoulla faulted the rigid Lodge of God, which had trained the boy into being a sword of a man.

Then again, Adoulla himself hadn’t known a woman’s touch in a while. He glanced and occasionally winked at young women but he felt awkward doing anything more. And among the older women, there was only one who mattered to him.

Miri
.

Before he fell asleep, Adoulla let his thoughts linger for a while on Miri Almoussa. The great love of his life’s warm, welcoming curves danced before his mind’s eye, and he could almost hear her heavy, husky voice whispering loving taunts in his ear any. qhis ear d offering him teacakes. His eyes fluttered shut, and he drifted toward sleep, already half-dreaming of swaying hips and sugar frosting.

And again a small animal cried a death-cry out in the darkness.

The line from Ismi Shihab’s
Leaves of Palm
came to Adoulla unbidden. With a dejected snort he rolled over and resigned himself to sleeping alone on a pallet on the cold, hard ground.