RATUPOHON LED THE way past the polluted pool and the savaged garden, down some stone steps that led to yet another water piece, which had also been disturbed, though not as badly as the first one. “I was away when it happened,” she said, rather more quietly than she had spoken before. “I was on a visit to my sister-spirit in the holy forest of Demityangan, far away. I had left one of my human servants as guardian. When I returned, he had vanished, and my garden was desecrated. In the old days, I could go on such visits with no fear. Today, our power is weakened daily. Too many forget to honor us, and so our protection cannot extend very far. There are holes in it that evil can exploit.” Her voice was full of sadness. “My garden is afraid now. Look, child.” And she laid a finger softly against each of Dewi’s eyes, in turn, and as gently took it away.
Dewi felt as if her eyes had suddenly been rinsed clean. She looked around her and saw that they were not alone. Each bush, each plant, each flower had a presence; eyes looked at her from behind every leaf, soft voices breathed unintelligible words in every rustle of leaves. She felt she truly was now in the heavenly Water Gardens of Kotabunga.
“Now look at what they did,” came Ratupohon’s voice. Turning to where the guardian was pointing, Dewi saw with horror the laying out of green corpses, the closing of eyes in death, the terrible wounds still bleeding green. “These are my people, whom I am sworn to protect,” cried Ratupohon, “and I was not here when they needed me. Too long had my garden been sacred and peaceful; I had forgotten there were still enemies. I am ashamed—oh—I am so ashamed!”
Dewi felt the pain of it in her own soul. She whispered, “My Lady Ratupohon, I have a brother. His name is Jafar. He loves gardens. Perhaps he could…”
“Perhaps,” said Ratupohon, and her voice was soft. “I thank you for that thought. Bring your brother here, when this is over, when you have defeated the evil ones, and we will see whether a human can heal what a human has wrought. Now—you called on Rorokidul earlier, so I suppose you must want to be taken to her sacred place. Come with me.”
She was beckoning Dewi to what looked like an opening in the earth. Drawing closer, she saw that it was like a huge well, with a large spiral stone staircase descending down it, into deepest darkness. Yet right at the bottom, far below, was a pinpoint of soft light. Ratupohon started down the staircase, and motioned to Dewi to follow her.
She went down farther and farther into the bowels of the earth, down the great stone staircase that seemed to go on and on. All around her was the sound of water—water trickling down the walls, water gushing below. She was not exactly afraid, only a bit nervous. She no longer had her ring of protection. She touched her finger where it had been, remembering the twist of blackened, shattered metal that was all that was left of the ring. Oh, how she wished she had it with her.
At that moment, her foot kicked against something on the step—something that tinkled, and glittered with light. She stopped and bent down to look at the thing. It was the ring of protection Kwanyin had given her, as good as new! Greatly wondering, she bent down to pick it up and slipped it on her finger. As she did so, she felt a great jolt. Her finger burned with a cold, deep fire. She grabbed at the ring and tried to pull it off—but as soon as her finger touched it, she felt another huge jolt. “Ratupohon!” she cried then. “Ratupohon, where are you?”
“Here, here, here,” came the green woman’s voice, strangely distorted. “Here, here, Dewi, follow me.”
She could not see anything; she could only grope forward, following the thin threads of Ratupohon’s voice, the ring burning around her finger. Down, down, down she went, and the farther down she went, the lighter it became. At length, she came to a large and beautiful atrium surrounded by galleries; in the middle of the atrium was a pool of shining water. It was from this pool that the light came.
In all the galleries, faces were pressing, curiously, watching her; there were the rustlings of many presences, the whispers of many voices. But the shining pool was undisturbed and placid.
Down at the bottom, near the pool, difficult to see in the brightness but visible as a flowing of green, was Ratupohon. She called to Dewi. “You wanted to see the great Queen of the Southern Sea, Rorokidul? This is her atrium, the place where her human bridegroom, the Sultan of Jayangan, comes to pay her homage, every year, through all the centuries—or should. He has not come here for two years now, though it is the place of his family’s protection, the source of much of his power. You may call on her, if you follow my instructions very carefully.”
“I will follow,” whispered Dewi, trying to ignore the pain in her finger.
“Stand by the pool. Look into it,” said Ratupohon. “Now say, ‘Great Lady of the Ocean, O Monarch of the Sea, I crave an audience with you, will you speak with me?’”
Dewi repeated the words, staring into the pool of water. The water began to boil in front of her, and clouds of steam issued into the atrium, hiding the galleries from sight, shrouding even Ratupohon in mist, so that Dewi was alone, quite alone, before the bottomless shining pool whose water boiled and churned. And then, from the great depths, something began to emerge. Just a thin pillar of mist at first, it grew and grew, and changed shape, and became a dark-eyed woman of great beauty.
“Queen Rorokidul,” whispered Dewi. “Queen Rorokidul, I have done as you said and come here to your atrium because the afreet came and bewitched Sword, and I do not know what to do now.”
“Sword?” The queen’s voice was strangely harsh, distorted. “The afreet has bewitched Sword? You are sure?” A strange smile played over her features.
Dewi was puzzled. She repeated, uncertainly, “Yes. Please, Queen Rorokidul, will you—”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha!” boomed the Queen of the Southern Sea. As she laughed and laughed and laughed, her voice rose in tone and volume, becoming a howl. “Ha, ha, ha, ha,” the voice mocked. Her face changed beyond all recognition, twisting, deforming into a hideous thing, shark mouth stretching, showing a thousand sharp, pointed teeth, throat red and throbbing, spewing out venom and flame like a vision of hell. And still the voice rose, screeching, tearing, rending at every shred of sanity left in Dewi. “You will die, Dewi! You will die! Die, like that fool driver of yours. Your death has been written—it cannot be escaped. You will die, transfixed by Sword, burned by Fire, smothered by Snow. It was your own death you came to find, Dewi! It was your death that sent you on the path to the rice field, your death that brought you to Kotabunga. Your death has brought you here!”
And suddenly, out of the water came a human figure, blinding in its whiteness, wrapped in a shroud, with icicles hanging from it. One arm was extended, and in this hand shone a great blade. “This is Snow, and Snow is your death, coming white and pure and blinding at you. Snow is ignorant of his destiny, but I know it, and can turn him into an instrument of my will. Snow, pure Snow, will sever your spirit from your body,” screamed the eldritch voice. “Come forth, Dewi, and meet your death!”
Dewi found her voice at last. “No, no!” she cried, stumbling back from the pool. But still the shrouded white figure kept coming toward her, machinelike. “No, no! Nothing is written, nothing can be, no one can know the future, in any of the worlds, save God.” She fell back, groping, in panic. The mist around the pool thickened, became denser and brighter, and still the figure called Snow kept coming—human and yet not, sword in hand—while the voice screamed in wild, unholy delight. The ring on Dewi’s finger burned like a bright coal, and the pain of it reached into her, consuming her.
But she did not want to die, not in this way, and so she fought. She would not die! Desperately, she scrambled away with all her will, and suddenly she could hear a voice, singing so sweetly. Softly the voice sang at first, then louder, and louder, until it felt as though the song were pulling at her, pulling, pulling. Gradually, slowly, the mist was being forced back and back and back, the shrouded figure hesitating, stopping, the arm lowered, the sword’s light dimming, and all at once the ring’s light winked out too, and it vanished in a puff of sulphur. Then she was falling into a blessed darkness, sweet and soft and cool; someone was holding her, rocking her; the singing went on, gentle now, soft, a wordless, blissful song. I know that voice, Dewi thought to herself, marveling, before she collapsed into the embrace of real and healing sleep.
She could not tell how long she had been unconscious, but when she awoke, afternoon sunshine was streaming in through a window. She blinked, and closed her eyes again. Her head ached. She opened her eyes, trying to work out where she was, but it hurt. She tried to think, but that hurt too much as well. She could only remember running; and then falling into a terrible nightmare. The terror began to trickle back into her, and her heart hammered uncontrollably. She closed her eyes tight, but that was a mistake, because then random images began to flood into her mind, filling her with panic. Her eyes flew open.
She looked down at herself. She was lying on a couch, dressed in the clothes she had discarded the day Kwanyin gave her the beautiful costume. She was in a quiet, small, rather dusty room, with junk piled high in every corner. She knew that place—the She-Po Gold Market! She was back in Kwanyin’s place, and bending over her were Husam al-Din—and Kareen Amar.
“Now, now, young one, lie back down. Lie back down. Do not be afeared.” Kareen Amar’s deep voice had a pleading note, her taloned hands outstretched in entreaty, red hair flickering on her shoulders like licks of flame. “Please listen, do not be afeared of Kareen Amar.”
“Yes, there’s no call to be afraid of her,” Husam al-Din spoke briskly. “You are safe. Never safer. Show her, Kareen, my little nightingale. Show her.”
Then Kareen Amar opened her mouth, and instead of her clumsy words, the sweetest song imaginable came from between those lips. A song that filled Dewi with astonishment and delight. As the song slowly faded away, she whispered, “It was you who saved me from that thing…in my dream…in my nightmare…in whatever it was.”
Kareen Amar smiled but said nothing. She took Dewi’s hand, the hand that had worn the ring. She murmured, stroking the spot where the ring had been, “It was a false ring, you see, a false ring to lure and trap you.” Dewi saw that the skin there, though pink and a little sore, was still whole.
Husam said gently, “Kareen sang you the healing song, the song of flight. She has the sweetest voice in all of her world.”
Dewi remembered Kareen Amar handing her that badly printed business card back at the guesthouse—it seemed so long ago—and she blushed to remember what she had thought back then. She said, “Your song…it was so beautiful, so strong, it made me strong again.”
“Kareen Amar knows songs, yes,” said the redheaded woman with a look of satisfaction. “At least that is still the same, here in this mad world.”
“I am not surprised, mind you, that you were afraid of her,” said Husam with a grin, “but she is a true companion, Dewi. She has come to help us, and she has been trying to reach you and make you understand the danger you are in, and that she wishes to protect you.”
“This is true,” said Kareen Amar. She stood near Dewi’s bed, smiling. “Young one, I am a wandering spirit of the Jinn, who travels the wide world in search of music. I am Kareen Amar, singer of the Jinn. I have seen that you require my assistance, and I wish to proffer it to you.”
“I wish you wouldn’t speak like that, Kareen,” grumbled Husam al-Din. “That is half your trouble, speaking like some mad old book. And looking like you do, it’s hardly calculated to reassure Dewi, or anybody, come to that.”
“I must ask forgiveness,” said Kareen Amar, looking anxious, “if I offend. This world is cold to me, though you think it deliciously warm, so I must wrap as warmly as I can. And I can hardly show myself to you in my true form, being that my nature is of smokeless fire, like all my people. If I appeared the way I do in my own land, you could not look on me at all, but be burned, instantly, to a cinder.”
Dewi stared at her. Kareen Amar stared back; her pupils contracted, became vertical, turned red; and little licks of flame jumped up in them, only to die down almost immediately.
“Fire! You are of the nature of fire,” Dewi repeated, staring into Kareen’s eyes and smelling again that strange smell that she had noticed the first time she met her, and that she now knew to be fire.
“Why, yes, young one,” said Kareen Amar, “that is the way of it: We Jinn were created of fire, and humans of clay, and angels of…”
But Dewi was not listening. Her heart was leaping with gladness. “So that is why you came when I called on fire,” she burst out. Of course! Fire was a true companion, a living being, just as Sword was a man, and not just a weapon. She looked across at Husam al-Din, her eyes shining.
“Yes, little heart, that is so,” he said gently, reading her thoughts correctly. “I only wish I could have told you straightaway what Kareen Amar was, when I first set eyes on her. But I was in a trance; so amazed, and overcome, and delighted that what Queen Rorokidul had said turned out to be true so quickly that I could not react. But you did not give me or her time to explain to you; you ran away too fast.”
“I was glad you called, young one, though it did baffle me why I must be called with my nature’s name, and not the name I bear, which I had told you before,” said Kareen Amar seriously. “But many and varied are the words and ways of the Clay People, and I knew I was bound to you, and must find you, whatever happened.”
“Well, Kareen, how about now you tell Dewi what you told me—about what your people know about the nature of the evil we face here in Jayangan, given as you’re from the afreet’s own world? In simple words, Kareen,” said Husam. “Simple, please.”
Kareen Amar shot him a reproachful look, and her mouth drew down. “You listen,” she said huffily, “for it is a strange and perilous story. Know there are many different kinds of Jinns, and the wicked ones we call the afreets are under the dominion of the Demon King, wicked Iblis himself. Now there is an afreet named Hareekshaytin, who, because of a treachery he once committed against Iblis, was sold into slavery. He is in the service of a powerful human sorcerer, who has sovereignty over him. This afreet is skilled in transformation, and he can appear in many forms.”
Dewi interrupted, saying, “I’m sorry…. I—Ithought…”
“You thought Kareen Amar was an afreet,” said the Jinn, giving a thin little smile. “That is a sadness to Kareen Amar, and in my world, that would be an insult hard to bear. But Kareen Amar understands humans in this place are like children in this regard, so she forgives,” she added, gently touching one of Dewi’s hands. “Now—where was I? Ah, yes. This afreet has already helped to accomplish the will of his master, the Sorcerer, through the deaths and disappearances and destruction that have happened in this land.”
“So the man we seek is a sorcerer!” said Dewi, eyes wide. “Who is he?”
“We don’t know,” she admitted. “You see, young one, sorcerers are like slave traders in our land. To get too close to a sorcerer puts us Jinn in very great danger indeed.”
“But now you are here, getting closer to the Sorcerer all the time. Why do you risk your life?”
“Kareen is an unusual Jinn,” said Husam. “She is braver than any I ever met before.”
Two hectic flushes appeared on Kareen Amar’s cheeks. Embarrassed, she quickly said, “I am not brave. Only, it would please me if this Sorcerer was no longer a danger to any of us.” She paused, then went on more steadily, “An enslaved good Jinn is one thing, but an enslaved wicked one, like an afreet, quite another, and very dangerous. Once an afreet has been enslaved to a sorcerer’s will, he will do his bidding. But it is like holding a tiger: You cannot ever be sure of him. Yet a powerful sorcerer can hold an afreet for a long time, and the power of the afreet, when backed by the will of a powerful sorcerer, is such that it may even breach the protection of places that should normally be safe—especially if those places have been neglected of late by those who should know better.”
“The Water Gardens are not safe anymore, if the afreet was able to get in,” said Dewi.
“The spell of protection has been considerably weakened,” said Kareen Amar. “Thus the Sorcerer’s slave was able to slip in among the green things after you. The hantumu could not go in because they are mere human servants, not demons. They cannot break the spirits’ hold, but the afreet found a momentary hole in the protective spell, and slipped in in his elemental form. Ratupohon’s protection of you could never be complete while the gardens were in such a state. The afreet, under the direction of his master, sought for a tendril of your memory, something he might use to trap you.”
“He read my mind?” Dewi cried.
“No, a human mind cannot be read. It is not like a book, with pages following pages, but rather like a vast storehouse, a jumble of treasure and trash, a repository of picture and thought and feeling. The afreet Hareekshaytin’s great skill is in capturing some filaments of this, and twisting them to his own ends. It is what made him so feared in the world of the Jinn. It is no doubt the reason the Sorcerer was keen to acquire him as a slave. Hareekshaytin saw you put a hand to your finger as you remembered the ring of protection. That was enough.”
“The feel of it,” Dewi whispered. “It burned coldly, like ice.”
“He found you. He entered into your soul’s eye through the false ring. He held you and made you see things, yes?”
Dewi was held as if by a vice, as the images from the garden flooded back into her brain, and she saw again the semblance of Rorokidul, and the way her face changed, the eldritch voice rising, taking glory and delight in Dewi’s prophesised death. “So it was not the real Rorokidul I saw? It was a vision? Just a vision?”
“It was not the real Rorokidul, no. This afreet specializes in twisting things in your mind to produce bitter dreams, harsh nightmares of great potency. These illusions he creates can send men mad, send them to their deaths through despair and fear, or fatally weaken them so they may be killed. That was what he sought. He wanted to make you think the spirits had deserted you, tricked you, trapped you. He wanted to make you despair, to curse the spirits and God, to lose your soul. That would finally break the last shreds of protection over that place. Then you would have been the Sorcerer’s. Lucky it was that Kareen Amar found you in time!”
Dewi shivered. She said, “How did you do it?”
“I did not try to follow you in this form,” said Kareen Amar cheerfully, “but streaked like a flame directly to where I could feel your struggling spirit. Because the protection of the garden had been breached before, it was possible for me to slip in, in my essential form. The Sorcerer’s strength may turn into a weakness—because once he has put a hole in the magic web of the spirits, he cannot control what comes through that hole any more than the spirits can. You see? In the garden, which still has some of the old protection, the Sorcerer is not strong enough yet to hold you, to break your defenses, so I could snatch you from the vision he had trapped you in. My song overcame the lying nightmare, you see. It can do so, if the nightmare has not already taken over too much of the soul.”
“Thank you so much,” said Dewi, impulsively laying a hand on Kareen Amar’s. She tried not to wince. The feel of it was just like Ratupohon’s—a mixture of fire and ice, the touch of the otherworld.
Kareen Amar looked grave and pleased, all at once. “Young one, you fought with all your might and strength of will, and that helped me greatly to draw you away. You have a strong spirit. The Sorcerer and his afreet are powerful, but you resisted them. That is a great thing indeed.”
Dewi colored a little. Then she remembered what she should never have forgotten. “Adi! Is he here too? Did he make it here?”
Husam and Kareen Amar looked at each other. Slowly, Husam shook his head.
“Then where is he?”
“He may not have arrived in Kotabunga yet,” said Husam. “He may still be on his way here.”
“Or he may have already been captured by the Sorcerer,” said Dewi harshly. Neither of the other two said anything. After a while, Dewi went on, her words tumbling over one another. “I think the Sorcerer is seeking to reel us right in to him. He needs us all before he can accomplish his entire plan.”
“Yes. That is why we must not go anywhere near him until we find Snow,” said Kareen Amar.
“No. That is wrong. We must go to him. We must call on his servants to take us to him,” said Dewi, speaking boldly, but trembling inside at what she was saying.
“But we cannot. We have not yet found Snow,” said Husam, staring at Dewi as if she had gone mad. “Fire, Snow, and Sword must be your companions, if you are to fight against the Demon King.”
“We must go to the heart of this Sorcerer’s power,” said Dewi. “In my nightmare in the atrium, there was a shrouded figure, and he was Snow. The voice in the vision said that the afreet’s master had found Snow before us, that he had made him ignorant of his true course. If we are to have any chance of succeeding, and save my father and any other captives, we must go right into the demons’ lair, into the hideout of the Sorcerer, and awaken Snow.”
Husam and Kareen Amar both stared at her, but before they could reply, Kwanyin came into the room. She was carrying a tray on which something hot and fragrant steamed. The smell made Dewi feel quite faint, for suddenly she realized just how hungry she was. Kwanyin walked over to her and put the tray on the table. She smiled at Dewi. “My dear Dewi, I am pleased to see you again.”
“As am I! Oh, dear Lady Kwanyin, so much has happened—and I’m so sorry that I misused the ring you gave me.”
“Do not be sorry,” said Kwanyin gently. “The ring served its purpose. Before you talk any further, my dear child, eat, and drink. Go on. You need all your strength.”
Dewi set to gratefully. She had soon made short work of the delicious spicy fried chicken, yellow rice, and vegetables, and the long tall glass of avocado and lemon juice.
“Better now?” Kwanyin said, when Dewi had finished.
“Oh yes, it was wonderful.” Dewi sighed.
“Good.” Kwanyin smiled. Then her expression changed. “My dear child, I heard what you were saying, about going straight to the heart of the Sorcerer’s power. You may well be right. You see why we wanted you? Your mind is an extraordinary thing. You are capable of learning and understanding so much, and acting on it. But that is also dangerous for you, as the Sorcerer, through the afreet, will have discovered that about you. And so he may well be trying to lure you in. Beware. You are brave. But I must warn you. There is no protection I can give you to do this.”
“Why not?” said Dewi.
“A protective talisman works only if you know the nature of the thing you are protecting against. We have tools of protection against common sorcerers, but this one is far from common. He refuses to accept the old ways; he does not want any of the old magical sources of power; he destroys all the sacred places. He uses the power of demons, but only when it suits him.”
Husam said, “Lady Kwanyin, what of the other powers—the native Jayangan spirits? Can’t they protect us in the Sorcerer’s place?”
“No,” said Kwanyin bleakly. “It’s not just because I’m a foreign spirit that I cannot do it. None of us otherworlders can. We cannot take you there, we cannot protect you once you are there.” She sighed very sadly. “Dewi, we spirits have brought you to this moment, but we can take you no farther. You will be on your own.”
“Dewi, little heart, you will not be on your own. We are all of us in this,” broke in Husam al-Din, his eyes shining brightly.
“Yes, all of us,” echoed Kareen Amar, though the blotches in her face came and went with alarming, hectic regularity.
Kwanyin smiled wearily. “Are you sure? There is no telling what will happen once you are in the Sorcerer’s power. You need the third one—you need Snow. And Snow is ignorant of his destiny.”
“That is precisely why we must go,” said Dewi. She remembered Senopati’s words, about light coming out of darkness, and was suddenly certain. “Please, Lady Kwanyin, I understand that you, as a spirit of good, hate the notion of being near the realm of darkness and fear, but I am sure we must go there if we are to find Snow and save my father.”
She felt afraid of her own words, yet she could not take them back now.
“Are you quite sure, then, child?” Kwanyin asked again.
Dewi nodded. Her hands were clammy, her voice unsteady as she whispered, “I will go out of this place of safety, Lady, into the street. The hantumu will come; perhaps even now they are there, waiting. This time I will not try to run, to escape from them. This time I will go with them.”
There was a long silence. Then Kwanyin nodded. “Very well, Dewi, it is as you wish it.” She looked at Husam and Kareen Amar. “And you?”
“Let us talk in private,” said Husam. He led Kareen Amar aside, and they spoke together, softly, briskly.
Minutes passed and Husam returned and said, “This is what we have decided. I will go with Dewi, for I am a human man and not at such grave risk as Kareen Amar, who, because of her nature as a Jinn, could be enslaved by the Sorcerer if he catches her. It is best that Fire stays here, till we are ready and we need her particular talents. Besides, if there is one of the three left here, the Sorcerer can do nothing to the rest of us, or he will never be able to harness our full power.”
Kareen Amar looked very unhappy, but she nodded her agreement. “Kareen Amar will wait with Anda Mangil’s beloved, and be ready to join the great battle when it comes, for come it will, and not long from now.”
Kwanyin said, very quietly, “So be it.” She addressed Dewi. “Are you ready, then, child?”
“Yes.” Dewi’s chest muscles tightened as she thought of the waiting hantumu and the afreet’s invasion of her mind. She breathed a prayer deep inside herself. “I am ready, Lady Kwanyin.”
Kwanyin put a hand on Dewi’s shoulder, and the girl felt the icy, burning touch of the otherworld on her skin again. It did not hurt her, only sent a shock through her, a thrill of courage. She looked at Kwanyin and knew that the otherworlder was arming her in the only way she could. Tears came to Dewi’s eyes. “Thank you, Lady Kwanyin,” she murmured. Kwanyin did not answer, but touched Husam’s shoulder as well. Then she walked away from them and stepped to one side, with Kareen Amar.
Dewi and Husam’s eyes met. “Ready?” the old man whispered. Dewi nodded. Husam walked to the door and opened it. Just as she was about to follow him, Dewi remembered the tiger’s claw her father had given her. She must have it with her: It linked her to her father. But the hantumu must not find it. She slipped it under her tongue, then followed Husam out into the street.
Outside, everything was bathed in an eerie golden light. And on the opposite side of the street, sitting waiting in unnatural stillness on their motorbikes, dressed all in black, long swords in their hands, their eyes masked, were the hantumu. Dewi saw that one of them held his arm stiffly, as if he were hurt. There was no monkey with them.
She stepped toward them. “We wish for an audience with your master,” she said, in a voice that sounded thick and heavy because of the tiger’s claw under her tongue. She hoped they would think it was fear that distorted her voice. “We come unarmed to parley with him.”
The hantumu sat staring at them for an instant; then slowly one of them got off his bike and approached them, holding his sword in his hand. Dewi could see him closely now; he had thin, pale brown skin, with deep, cruel lines under the mask that hid his eyes, and he wore a long mustache. It was hard to tell his age, but he walked like a young man, with a swaggering gait. He stopped a few paces from them, his sword held out in front of him. “Why do you wish to do this? You sound mortally afraid,” he said. His voice had no inflection or expression, and it sent a shiver down Dewi’s spine.
Trying to keep her voice steady, she said, “That is not for you to know. We do not give our reasons to servants.”
The hantumu’s hand moved imperceptibly. Instantly, the tip of his sword was under Dewi’s chin. “What if I killed you right now, you scum?” he spat. “Don’t think I wouldn’t, just because you’re a female—I’ve killed girls and women before now.”
“I am sure you have,” said Dewi, trying to sound calm, though she was so frightened she felt paralyzed, her very limbs turned to ice, her tongue over the claw heavy as a lump of wood.
By her side, Husam growled at the hantumu, “Your master would not be happy with you if you killed her or me. You know he has been seeking us.”
The hantumu flicked his head toward him, like a snake. For a moment, it looked as if he would attack Husam. Then he lowered his sword and shrugged. “You won’t be talking like that soon, old man,” he said, and motioned to the other three hantumu. “Check they have no concealed weapons or magic talismans.”
“We told you we were unarmed,” said Husam quickly.
The hantumu sneered, “You don’t expect us to take your word for it, do you?”
They checked them thoroughly, but did not look in their mouths. Why should they? When the check was finished, the leading hantumu turned to his companions and said, “The girl will ride on the back of my bike, the old man on that one over there. They are to be blindfolded, gagged, and bound until we get to our master’s place.”
Dewi put a hand to her mouth, as if to suppress a gasp of fear, but in reality to take the tiger’s claw from under her tongue and palm it into her shirt pocket. Husam, knowing this, diverted the hantumu’s attention by blustering, “Don’t think you can trick us…” but the hantumu cut him off.
“Shut up. You are going to our master’s realm.”