Dreams of the Compass Rose (42 page)

And then it suddenly occurred to him, and he froze. “Egiras,” he said, his eyes intense upon her. “Can you see me?”

“
Yes.”

She spoke very lightly, and she stared back at him with her clear, suddenly familiar gaze. There was reason and understanding in her face.

“
Gods be praised!” exclaimed a servant. “The Princess can see again!”

And at that point Yaro made her way toward them by scrambling and crawling through the sandy morass, dragging along with her a large water sack. Uncapping the stopper, she drew its neck forward and offered it to Egiras.

“
Drink, my Lady, and then all the rest of you,” she said breathlessly. “The desert saps away your life-water invisibly, and you must replenish it now.”

Egiras slowly turned her face and looked directly at Yaro.

Yaro froze. The moment stretched and became immense and burning, like the heat of the sun, while sweat beaded on Yaro’s brow.

But Egiras did not say anything, merely took the heavy water skin. She leaned forward and put her lips to the neck to drink several swallows. When done, she moved back with a trickle of water on her lips. Only then did she speak.

“
Yaro. . . .”

That, and nothing else. Her fathomless black eyes remained impassive. Then Egiras looked away and wiped her lips with her hand. Her fingers lingered on the skin of her own face, outlining her cheek with possibly a tactile memory—one of masks and moons. She said softly, “I have drunk. Now, the rest of you, drink.”

But Yaro continued to stare, also speaking nothing. She was frozen in a bizarre state from within which she was compelled to look without end even after the lock of their gazes was broken, having met the basilisk gaze of the Princess but once, until it also made her cold and vacant. Only when the water was being passed around did Yaro regain her senses enough to turn away, with an exercise of painful ripping effort. She then made her way toward her old mother, who sat with closed eyes, like an old sack herself, in the sands.

Yaro removed from the folds of clothing at her chest a small flask, which she had refilled in secret just moments ago, before she had brought the large water skin to them all.

“
Mother,” Yaro whispered hoarsely, putting her hand over the old woman’s forehead. “Here, drink!”

The old woman gasped at the touch. The flask was put to her lips and she swallowed weakly, then pulled away. “
You
drink . . .” she croaked.

“
I already have,” Yaro lied.

“
No, drink!” said the old one. And so Yaro took a couple of swallows, feeling the coolness go down her throat like balm, before stopping up the precious flask once again.

In the meantime, the desert was warming up.

The sun rode near zenith as the guards and servants labored to dig up their belongings and the wagons, to reclaim what was theirs from the clutches of the desert. Air began to warp with radiant heat, and sweat rapidly escaped from the skin, evaporating and leaving in its wake slow, parched exhaustion.

They had managed to clear away two of the wagons while the third still lay partially buried.

“
We are wasting a precious day of water allocation and precious sweat. The gods must be willing for us to perish here in this merciless hell . . .” grumbled the servants and the guards, but mostly out of Nadir’s earshot. Dark tired looks were thrown his way. But, seeing that Nadir toiled as hard as if not harder than any two men, their grumblings mostly died unspoken.

They paused to rest while the sun shone with its greatest fierceness. A couple of swallows each of water was given to the lesser pack-beasts, which huddled together, but not to the camels, who could do without for longer. The rest of the water sack was passed around and consumed by the humans.

After a short rest they resumed work. The third wagon was almost completely excavated, and camels were hitched to it with ropes to help free it of the morass.

It was at that point that the gods must have been feeling particularly bitter with these representatives of the mortal race. Because suddenly the wagon bed cracked from the weight of the sand, and two of the wheel axles came off.

The damage was repairable. But it would take at least another day, concluded Patriq darkly, as he crawled under the wagon.

Another day of wasted water.

“
Then we leave this wagon behind us,” said Nadir. “And we continue on our way right now.”

“
What of the load that this wagon carried?” said the guard.

“
We leave it behind also.”

“
My Lord Nadir . . .” said Patriq, “That load is water. If we reallocated all the water sacks to the other two wagons, they would be too heavy to be pulled over the sands, and would slow down our progress considerably. And if we overload the pack beasts and camels, they will tire faster, and will have to take more frequent stops.”

Nadir listened attentively. “We can relieve the other wagons of superfluous load, and also relieve the animals of things we can do without.”

“
True . . . But—”

Patriq lowered his head, as though afraid of what he was about to utter.

“
What?”

“
My Lord, there really is no superfluous load. We packed very tightly, like misers, in the first place. However, if I may suggest this—if we leave the sedan chairs behind, we could instead load the four relieved camels. The mistress and her women can ride with us, each one sharing a mount with one of the guards. That way we can carry all of the water. If we conserve the remaining water properly, we can manage—”

“
Then, yes, we leave the sedans behind.”

It was Egiras. She stood behind them, and had spoken in a soft yet inviolate tone of voice that somehow was her old self, and yet unlike her. Something was different, something. . . .

Nadir turned to look at her, looked earnestly, trying to fathom it, then inclined his head before her. “If you are sure that you will manage, my Princess, then it will be done thus.”

“
I will ride with you, Nadir.”

“
I will be honored,” he replied, casting his gaze to the sand.

* * *

W
e moved forward once again, toward the East and the rising sun. I carried Egiras before me in the saddle. My horse was strong and great and seemed to feel no additional burden, maybe because the Princess was such an insignificant load.

She lay back against my chest, her veiled head resting lightly against me, and I could barely distinguish her breathing. At times she shifted slightly, and I felt the faint perfume of the precious rose oils that her handmaidens had used to anoint her hair. The scent carried on the wind and surrounded us and came with us on this journey in a living cloud.

Roses in the desolation.

There was something new about Egiras. I had sensed it from the first moment she had opened her eyes after the sandstorm. I had no words for what I saw there, but I suspected a strange calm wisdom had come to her together with the regained vision and reason.

Even now I was not sure. I was tense in her presence, afraid to properly hold her in the saddle, afraid to touch her—not because I expected the usual sarcastic putdowns and cruelty but rather because I knew they would no longer come.

Thus I knew not what to expect from Egiras. What I received was gentle silence.

The rest of the caravan rambled along. The two remaining wagons carried some extra weight, while the rest was redistributed among the pack beasts and the camels that no longer carried the sedans.

I had seen Yaro’s old mother hidden once again in one of the wagons, and the young woman herself walked alongside her under the pretense of assisting the driver. I felt a momentary pang of something—a worry, a restlessness—when I saw Yaro’s wiry, thin form struggling with each step as her feet sank in the sand. But she stubbornly said nothing and did not ask to be relieved of walking like the rest of the serving women.

Several of the guards were walking also, taking turns riding the heavily burdened horses and camels. The desert wind pulled at their long robes and entered their squinting eyes despite the protective wrappings over their faces. Their demeanor was grim when I caught their individual eyes.

It was then that I knew with my warrior’s sense that something was not quite right.

Something dark was brewing.

W
e had stopped to rest for the night, and the animals were unburdened and given spare amounts of water. The tent was once again rigged, and inside it the women had arranged bedding for the Princess and themselves. Now, in the welcome indigo coolness of evening, everyone sat near the light of the small fire, eating cheese and old flatbread.

Egiras had refused the preparation of soup they would ordinarily make for her, and shared the simple road fare in silence, sitting cross-legged and somewhat slumped in her tent.

I knew by her drooping, bowed shoulders and her motionlessness that she was sore from the unaccustomed riding and that she was exhausted, possibly ill.

Sitting several feet away from the open flap of the tent, I watched her as I ate the food that Yaro had brought me, forgetting for a moment my own weariness and parched throat and the low underlying hunger.

“
Eat, my Lord Nadir, and don’t worry for the Mistress, for she will be fine,” said Yaro, wrapping cheese in bread and handing it to me like a child, seeing that I was absent and remote. She poured water for me too, handing me a wooden bowl that I received automatically and drank from without looking.

The meal was quick, for everyone was so tired, and soon they all lay down to sleep. The handmaidens assisted Egiras, and the women now lay in the darkness of the tent except for Yaro who had crept silently to the wagon where I knew her mother lay.

Patriq and I put out the remains of the tiny fire by dousing it with sand, and then the guards and the rest of us stretched out in our blankets.

I was tired and yet could not sleep, instead lying on my back watching the infernal blackness of the moonless night, only a sparse casting of stars illuminating the airy vault overhead.

Eventually my eyes had grown used to the dark, and I stared into the darkness as I always had, alert to every tiny sound, hearing nothing but the occasional gusts of wind and the sleepers’ breaths.

It served me well, that alertness, for I saw the shadows come when they did, obscuring the stars above me.

I moved quickly like a panther, rolling away by instinct as my trained muscles took over.

There were lunges behind me, and the dull thud of movement and the scattering of sand as someone fell, narrowly missing me.

I crouched, gasping, whirled around, blinking away the sand, dancing in the darkness while my temples pounded. I recognized the shadows as the forms of three of the guards.

Patriq was not one of them. I heard a low groan and saw him a few feet away, still in his sleeping blanket, as a shadow detached itself from right above him. There was the dull glint of starlight upon a blade. Patriq was motionless.

There was no time for regret, not even a single pang. In the terrible dark I moved, having drawn the curved blade that I always kept concealed at my side. I saw shadows and I struck true, feeling my blade violently meet then penetrate something, someone. . . . Once, then again.

A grunt, a moan, and a shadow fell only to be replaced by another, which fell in turn from my blade. In the dark my hands felt the warm spray of moisture.

I did not think. I threw myself in the direction of the tent where I had to protect Egiras.

* * *

E
giras opened her eyes with a wild pang, for there was a hand against her throat and another against her lips to stop her screaming. Her body was held as in a vise.

She smelled sour breath and camel and darkness. . . .

“
Silence, lie still, or you die . . .” came a whisper, and Egiras knew she had heard that voice before. It belonged to one of the caravan guards.

And so she grew still, in a weird timeless suspension, while they both waited. Egiras wondered about the other women who had been in the tent with her that night, but she could not turn, could not look.

She heard the sound of a quiet struggle outside, all footfalls muffled by the sand. Superimposed over everything was the hum of the night wind.

The tent flap moved and a slightly lighter patch of darkness appeared for an instant as someone entered from the outside.

The hand over the mouth of Egiras tightened. At the same time she felt the sharp prick of a knife at the nape of her neck, in warning.

But Egiras was beyond comprehension of warnings. Ever since she had awakened after the storm—shaken by its fury out of her eternal hypnotic nightmare of blazing glorious moons in a sky that was nothing but light—all things seemed dull to her, dull and soothing like balm, and her heart maintained one steady calm rhythm of remote indifference.

Danger was incomprehensible.

Pain was remote.

Sensation was—Egiras was not sure.

And thus, because it had meant nothing to her on a personal level, that warning of sharpness pressing at her vulnerable neck, Egiras took the moment and did what she needed to do without a moment of hesitation—just as it was natural for a scorpion to lash out and sting.