Lina hunched forward in Dabir’s saddle, clutching her cloak tight despite warmth that streamed from the sun. Her carriage, too, had been destroyed; thus I had lifted her into the saddle before him, and she was light as a small child. During midday prayers her forehead was damp and her breathing shallow. I knew little of healing, but had seen enough injuries to sense that she’d tapped her last keg of strength.
Dabir was concerned enough that he sent me to confer with Sarsour, riding point with the governor’s map. It was afternoon by then and there was little wind. Each of us was masked by dust broken with rivulets of sweat.
Sarsour’s eyebrows rose when I reined in beside him.
“She’s failing,” I told him quietly. “How much farther?”
“We’ve passed all but one marker now,” he said. “The cliffs back there, and the three rounded boulders two hours back.”
“How much farther?” I asked again, for he had given me no good answer.
“It won’t be too much longer,” he said gruffly.
He was wrong.
The afternoon wore on and we descended into a narrow valley where small purple flowers with yellow throats bloomed cheerily. Wild hares bounded between low bushes and a small herd of gazelles bent to drink from a bubbling creek. The scene was improbably lovely and it looked a fine place to dig a grave.
Lina did not die there, though. She dozed in Dabir’s arms as evening came, her breath shallow and quick. Our shadows stretched around us as the trail twisted once more into the heights. All conversation had ceased. We pushed on, each of us resolved to reach the waters this day, for it took no hakim to realize the girl would not last the night.
And then Sarsour halted and threw up his hand. He urged his grunting horse closer, peered at the rocks beneath an overhang, then let out a triumphant little laugh. “This is it!”
“Where’s the fountain?” Fadil asked.
“This is the final landmark. This trail here will take us up to the valley!” And he urged his horse up a sandy, nearly vertical slope.
Trail was a grand term. Goat path described it better, and I have seen goats that might have bypassed it for easier climbs. Sarsour didn’t get too far before turning back and dismounting. “We’ll have to go it on foot,” he said. “I will carry Lina—”
“I shall carry her,” I said.
“No.” He lifted his chin in challenge. “You have said your job is to guard your master. I shall carry the girl.”
I did not correct him as to my station. He pulled the girl from Dabir into his arms even as my friend protested. I swung down from my mount, ready to argue, but Dabir was there to put a hand on my arm before it reached my hilt.
Sarsour bestowed a final glare upon us, then turned with the limp young woman. He motioned to Fadil and Tarik, who followed.
“He lacks manners,” I said to Dabir, who shushed me.
Some word had passed between Sarsour and the soldiers, and they turned to face us. Fadil drew first, then Tarik, and suddenly we confronted two bared blades. Sarsour continued up the path beyond them.
Now my hand found my hilt and I drew my weapon in a flash of steel. “You betray us?” I asked the soldiers. I was astonished, for we had broken bread together.
Dabir did not speak. I would have liked to gauge his thoughts from his expression, but my eyes did not waver from the blades of those against me. They, in turn, eyed me. Both were calm and capable. Broad, quiet Fadil had especially impressed me, so his challenge filled me with bitterness.
“The captain gave orders that he advance to the fountain first.”
“It seems to me that Asim raised his sword with you,” Dabir said. “Are you not sword brothers?”
Fadil’s eyes flicked down at his sword, then up again. Tarik watched him. “We are sworn to obey the captain.”
“You are both honorable men,” Dabir said. “I have seen it. I would not see your blood shed. The governor needs such men as you; as Asim and myself. Tell me, which action will please him less? That you stepped aside, or that the four of us shed our blood?”
Fadil breathed deeply.
“Dabir is the governor’s friend; he sat at the caliph’s right hand,” Tarik said to his companion. His dark eyes were narrowed tensely.
“I know,” Fadil snapped. Another moment passed. Finally Fadil straightened and slid his sword home into his sheathe. Tarik put up his own with a loud sigh of relief.
“The captain said only that he was to reach the fountain first,” Fadil declared. “He has surely done so.” He stepped aside.
“Come, Asim!” Dabir dashed past them. I scowled and followed.
“You too, fools!” I said in passing. “If there are more dangers, can Sarsour wield his sword with the girl in hand?”
Their footsteps scuffed the dirt behind us.
We cleared the top and looked down into a tiny bowl-shaped valley. The roofless building in its center resembled a caravanserai more than any pagan temple. Thick-leafed ivy smothered its walls. The girl stood hunched by Sarsour, drinking from a flask at the structure’s far end.
“Wait!” Dabir cried.
We ran down from the height. Long strands of ivy hung like a curtain from the arched entryway and I saw as we closed that the plants writhed.
“Dabir!” My blood thinned and the icy breath of djinn fell upon my neck. “The plants live!”
“Nay,” said Dabir, but did not stop to explain.
It was not until we ran through the threshold that I saw the greenery did not move of its own accord, but in response to the mouse-size red and brown bugs that burrowed among its leaves, their antennae twitching—insects that might well have been brothers to the monster we had fought, for they were identical in all but bulk. Farther off I spied a larger one the length of my arm. Might there be others nearby grown to match that we had battled? Had that one begun its life as small as these?
Sarsour waited with drawn blade and snarled at us as he pushed Lina back. She called for him to stop.
There was no place for larger monsters to hide. The courtyard was bare save for slim greenery-choked lumps that might have been benches and some rusted helms and weapons beside the pool and the fountain that rose from it.
The fountain was no grand construction, but an old, man-high cylinder of stone surrounded by a plain pool beside the far wall. Dark liquid trickling from its height had stained the stone along its path an ugly greenish-black.
A fetid odor reached my nostrils and grew stronger as we closed on the water.
“Fadil!” Sarsour roared. “I told you to keep them back!”
“You said to make sure you reached the fountain first,” I heard Fadil answer from behind me.
Sarsour spat. “You shave meaning like a miser with his coins.”
“Hold,” Dabir told me. His breath came swiftly. We stopped two spear lengths from the captain. I watched Sarsour carefully.
“Did you drink the water?” Dabir demanded of Lina.
“I did,” she said weakly. “It was foul.”
“We both drank!” Sarsour said. “If it tasted like honey, immortals would stride everywhere. Fadil, Tarik, these two never meant us to find this.”
“What?” Dabir asked. He could not keep astonishment from his voice.
“You are a fine actor! Look, Tarik—do you not see his eyes roll as he lies?”
“You are a braying ass,” I said.
“Nay, I am more clever than you think. Tarik, do you not see how they blocked us at every hand? How they delayed in coming? How they scoffed at the tale? How they kept knowledge of perils from us? They would keep this secret only for the caliph!”
Dabir’s voice rang with contempt. “You are a fool, Sarsour!”
“It can be our secret,” Sarsour implored to the men behind us. “We can sell the water for the wealth of kingdoms!”
“What of the governor’s daughter?” Dabir asked.
“She shall be the first of my wives.”
Enough madness had passed his lips. I charged him. He swung up his blade in time to parry. Sparks flew. I turned him so that I might see both Fadil and Tarik, but they watched to the side of Dabir, arms folded.
Dabir had circled around to Lina, and sheltered her protectively with one arm. “Asim!” she cried. “Do not kill him!”
But I do not take orders from children. Do I hesitate to slay a frothing dog?
Sarsour was mighty and skilled and we spun across the courtyard, trading blows. Our shadows, stretched by the sinking sun, loomed across the stone.
The captain’s lips were bared in a grimace. He beat me back, then readied another swing as his mouth twisted wide. He blinked, and the blade lowered. He looked down at his side. I might have killed him then, but something stayed my hand. I sensed a ruse.
It was no act. Sarsour collapsed to the stones. His sword rang dully as it landed near his thigh. I wondered if I had struck him and not noticed. He pushed himself up on one hand, groaned.
“Get up!” I called.
Sarsour’s eyes rolled like a drunkard’s. His lips drew back from his teeth. His brow furrowed. And then he screamed in agony.
“Did you strike him?” Fadil called.
I stepped back, shaking my head.
Sarsour shrieked to the clouds, again and again, his calls rising in pitch. His form twisted and writhed and slid in on itself in a blur…and suddenly there was another bloodred bug crawling on the stone.
Behind me came the unmistakable sound of a man retching—one of the soldiers. I was too shocked by the transformation to look back and see which.
Lina screamed. I was still trying to wrest meaning with my eyes, but she had already done so and reached a terrifying conclusion.
“Dabir!” she cried. “It was the water! It’s going to happen to me!”
At last I turned from the insect that had been Sarsour struggling to free itself fully from the empty clothes. The girl wept. Tears seeped from his own eyes as well.
“It’s going to happen to me….”
“Shhh.” Dabir stroked her hair. “I won’t let it happen to you. I promise.”
Had he some antidote? My heart sang. Of course. He must have anticipated this all along. Was he not the wisest of men?
Dabir smiled kindly. “Go now, with God.”
She must have felt the knife thrust, but I do not think she saw Dabir readying the blade, and I do not think the pain could have lasted long. He was no warrior, but certainly he knew his anatomy well enough to tuck the point up under her ribs.
She gasped, then her head fell upon his shoulder.
He threw the blade far out across the stones, his teeth clenched. It struck the wall and clattered against the flagstones. Then he pressed the girl’s body fiercely to him, tears streaming down his face, his mouth working but stricken into silence.
I searched Fadil and Tarik for challenge, but there was none there, only the sorrow mirroring that etched upon my own face.
One thing remained to be done. I strode after the scurrying bug that had been Sarsour and lifted my heel above it.
“Let him be!” Dabir shouted, his voice choking.
Bewildered, I lowered my foot to the ground.
“Leave him to his immortality,” Dabir declared, then turned to bear the dead girl from the waters that still bubbled behind us.
What more is to be said? We used our own strength to topple the column and worked into the night to stop the pool and fill it with stones. Lina we bore to the lovely valley with its swaying flowers and interred her deep in soft earth, her slim body wrapped within a shroud. Surely she walks now in paradise.