In the Shadow of Swords (22 page)

Munif set down his empty glass and was about to leave when he realized the revelers would try to stop him again; they would want him to stay and continue the party. He’d best depart as quietly as possible.

Or he could give them something to distract them.

He spotted a man on the other side of the crowd whose gaze was directed away from Munif. He looked like a
rawi
who’d come to entertain the revelers with his stories. Munif surmised that the man was waiting for an opportunity to acquire an audience.

Munif set down his glass and climbed onto the nearest table. A cheer echoed through the caravanserai, but he lifted his voice above it. “I beseech the fine men around me to hear the call of an important duty!”

“Don’t be turning serious, now, stranger,” one cried. “Let’s keep it light.”

“Let him speak,” Sudairi chided them. “No matter what he has to say, it’s his right to say it.”

A brief quiet settled as Munif addressed the group again.

“I speak of the important duty of men who drink! Men who drink must listen to other men who drink!”

Drunken roars of approval from his audience. Munif paused.

He had no idea what to say next. But the noise was increasing again, and he knew he had better work quickly or risk losing his audience altogether. “We also have a duty to listen to those who have important tales to tell,” he went on. “There’s an
rawi
before us who wishes to bring us sweet music—or perhaps a poet’s sorrow.” Munif placed his hand over his heart and bowed slightly from the waist—his best attempt at conveying sincerity—which, he hoped, would elicit a respectful silence from the crowd. “We should grant him respect and listen to him.”

From his vantage point, Munif watched as wisps of smoke gathered in the heavy air. The glow of candles and oil lamps was all that kept the room from utter darkness. Shadows played in the corners, accentuating the already forlorn ambience. The night wind whispered menacingly beyond the windows. He was content, for the moment, to be safe inside with the
arak
and his comrades. Right now, even failure did not seem quite so bad.

The
rawi
seized the opportunity Munif had provided. “Thank you, kind stranger,” he said, then turned to address the gathering. His sharp, clear voice rang through the smoky air. “I do indeed have a tale to tell.

“In the city of Cihharu,” he began, “there lived a tailor who had the good fortune to be married to a beautiful wife. The two shared a strong, mutual affection. One day while the tailor was at work in his shop, a filthy street urchin sat down at the door and began playing on a timbrel.”

Chairs scraped along the floor, and voices faded to a murmur as the revelers settled in for a good story.

“The tailor was pleased with this performance and decided to take the boy home and introduce him to his wife. He hoped the urchin might entertain them both that evening after dinner. He proposed this to the boy, who accepted the invitation. And the tailor—”

Munif was entranced by the stranger’s black eyes and enthralled, as were they all, by his dramatic delivery. Truly this

man had the gift of storytelling.

As the
rawi
continued his tale, keeping the audience’s attention on himself, Munif took the opportunity to leave.

He slipped out the door and into the darkness.

3

MORNING WAS NEAR.

The stars were just beginning to vanish as the horizon grew lighter.

Munif estimated he had an hour more before both dawn and he would reach the city again. Once there, he could find passage on one of the ships moored in the harbor. Then he would be off to Tammós.

He was drunker than he would have preferred, but he had not had enough wine to silence the swiftly growing alarm. As he rounded a corner in the narrow lane, he sensed something behind him. He turned and saw a shadowy figure moving toward him. His heart hammered in his chest as he thought,
Just my luck—I’m careless one time and Dassai’s fiends find me
.

The figure drew nearer. Munif was almost sober from fear. Realizing he could not flee, he chose the only alternative. He charged at the figure. Just as he was about to shove him to the ground, the stranger’s palm struck a glancing blow across his upper arm rather than his face.

Despite his muddled brain, Munif realized he had to end this fight quickly. No stalling, no circling; his actions, in his condition, would be too predictable. He began to shift back and forth, acting more inebriated than he really was, hoping to lure his attacker with a false opportunity. Then he took a wild swing, advertising it as plainly as possible by preceding it with a loud grunt.

The feint worked: the stranger sidestepped him easily. Munif allowed the motion to pull him forward as though he were offbalance, and the assailant stepped toward him. Munif’s left foot landed solidly on the ground, and he immediately kicked back with his right, catching the man high in the shin. He followed this by bringing his right elbow up in a weak but distracting blow to the attacker’s chest.

Now they were face to face again; Munif gave the man a swift punch just below the sternum, keeping the movement short. A hiss of breath let him know the stranger had definitely felt it, but the jarring impact awoke the old pain in his ribs.

Munif kept himself low and his forearms up to protect his damaged midsection. A fight like this would end with him on the ground; and he knew if the stranger were to get the advantage even once, he would lose. The assailant attempted to grab him, but Munif stepped as far back as he could to draw the man forward. With a sudden lunge, he launched himself. He threw short, furious punches into the man’s torso, then tried to knee him in the groin.

The other man smashed both fists into Munif’s back, driving him down. As Munif dropped to his knees, he brought his right forearm up between the other man’s legs, hoping for a disabling shot. His adversary stumbled back.

Before Munif could find his feet again, the stranger held up his hands. “Enough,” he gasped. For several seconds he did nothing but breathe. Gulping air, the stranger half-groaned. “Pavanan, stop!”

He knows my name!
Munif spent a few moments feeling exhaustion take over his mind and body. Then, wobbly as a newborn colt, he pulled himself to his feet. The stranger recovered more quickly, but this time when he advanced, he held out his hand.

“Forgive me, my friend. I’ve been trailing you since Tivisis. You know me.”

“I know you?” Munif was still on guard. How could he know this person?

The figure nodded. “Yes.”

As he drew nearer Munif got a better look at him. He drew in a sharp breath as dim moonlight illuminated the man’s face. “Prince Nasir! How?”

Nasir aït-Siwal nodded. The man who’d been thought lost in the desert—who’d gone missing during the 500-farsang Cibaq al-Bahr race and been presumed dead—was swathed from head to toe in a light-colored
abaya
. His skin was weathered, his face deeply lined. His eyes held deep secrets. “Calm your nerves,” Nasir murmured. “You are one of the few who knows that I am alive. Not even my father is aware.”

Munif nodded slightly, then mustered enough energy to ask, “Why? Why the attack?”

Dawn was approaching rapidly, and in the waxing light, Munif was able to recognize Prince Nasir’s countenance more readily. He still wondered how the Prince had been able to remain hidden for more than eight years, though the Prince’s features, which were remarkably ordinary, would make it easy for him to blend in with people anywhere in the kingdom.

“I wanted to see if you were worth saving,” Nasir answered.

Munif blinked in surprise. Nasir smiled. Slowly, Munif began to smile too.

He grasped the Prince’s hand in a warm grip.

4

THEY ALL thought he was dead
.

The air was blisteringly hot, and a sandstorm was about to move in with a furnace blast of wind from the east and a blizzard of white sand. Shielding his eyes, Nasir stared across waves of blinding white dunes that rose hundreds of feet in a glistening sea of gypsum sand
.

There was no shelter
.

No time
.

He dismounted, dragging his horse behind him, laboring toward thesummit of the dune. The
suns
dimmed as the deafening roar swelled at his back. He reached the top and raced down the other side just as the full force of the storm hit. His horse snorted in alarm and reared as an avalanche of sand nearly swept them both off their feet
.

Hot wind and blinding sand flung Nasir down the slope. He struck an exposed block of limestone, and his legs buckled. He plunged forward. His hand slipped from the reins and he fell over the edge
.

He crashed hard in front of a shadowy opening
.

His horse was gone. He struggled to his feet and moved toward the looming blackness. Even with his vision obscured he could see that this was not a cave. He knew the legends of the desert, which told of whole cities and civilizations lost—swallowed by the sand. He struggled into the darkness, while the wind tore at him in one last attempt to consume him
.

A wave of sand swept over the opening and cascaded down. He wavered, overcome by a sudden feeling of dread and the weight of unnatural sleep. Haunted images drifted through his mind
.

This will be my tomb, he thought—and remembered no more
.

That was eight years ago
.

5

NASIR GAZED at the sea.

He was a changed man. After years in the oasis of Waha al-Ribat, Nasir was compelled to leave for Riyyal.

The journey was imperative.

Rumor had it that his brother, Malek, was likely to be the next successor to the throne. Their father, Raqqas Siwal, was old and weakening. As the firstborn, Nasir was to have become Sultan upon their father’s passing. But when he went missing, the succession had been thrown into disarray. Malek was seen as cruel and corrupt. But there were few others of royal blood who held favor with the Sultan in Qatana.

Nasir stood at the rail, lost in memories of the past. The years he’d spent in exile had not only healed him physically, they had cleared his mind, giving him a different perspective on the royal family.

He knew that he was presumed dead. Hewad Sareef, his savior in Waha al-Ribat, had been feeding him the information. Sareef had also been keeping Nasir’s true identity concealed from the others in the oasis. They knew him only as an unlucky merchant who’d been rescued in the desert by the nomadic
badawh
during the height of the vicious sandstorm. He’d used time to his advantage and said little about his past, merely nodding in vague agreement—or sometimes apathy—whenever the topic turned to the sandstorm or his rescue from it.

There was an old tale of a man who had wandered for years in the desert. Mad with thirst, he had succumbed to illusions of immense struggles among the heavens. Nasir had suffered no such hallucionations, but he had seen the path he must choose.

He reached into the folds of his cloak and pulled out a parchment. He unfolded it.

Sareef had drawn the map years before. “If you take this western route,” he had said, tracing the line on the map with a gnarled finger, “it will lead you to the northern coast. From there, you can set sail to Cievv.”

Cievv was his destination. It was there he would meet with Hiril Altaïr.

He’d come across the literary relics in a forgotten city that had been unearthed during the sandstorm. He’d found shelter in its ruins, where the ancient walls had provided some relief from the storm. While he waited, he’d wandered through the abandoned chambers. There he discovered four manuscripts, leather-bound and set on a small niche chiseled in the stone wall. He’d opened them, but they were written in a language he couldn’t decipher.

Although he couldn’t have said why, he took them—he felt compelled.

He dug himself out of the ruins in the days that followed and made for the al-Ribat oasis. After a day in the blinding desert heat, he collapsed. His last thought as he lay baking in the suns was,
I am truly and hopelessly lost
.

When next he remembered, he woke in a white-walled room. Curtains fluttered in the windows. He lay on a large bed with sheets of fine cotton. He tried to sit up, but a woman dressed in a
hajib
urged him back down and gave him a sip of water. Nasir accepted the water gratefully, and in the days that followed, he learned what had transpired.

White Palm, a
badawh
people, had rescued him. They’d found him and brought him back to Waha al-Ribat where they’d nursed him back to health.

The White Palm took solace in elaborate rituals, praying to Ala’i for recognition and comfort. Their words flowed like poetry, weaving an intricate pattern as they spoke.

They’d found the books. In the weeks of his recuperation, Nasir learned that they not only understood the language of the text, they were descendants of the people who had written the words.

They told him a little of
Waed an-Citab
, the Books of Promise. This involved the blood of Ala’i, called
Azza
, used in lamps, among other things, across the lands of Mir’aj for over nine hundred years.

As the son of the Sultan of Qatana, Nasir was well versed in the kingdom’s stance on the burning of Azza—it kept the Jnoun, the evil spirits that dwelt in the unseen realm, from breaching the veil that divided them from Mir’aj.

These books were a contract between the tribes of Jnoun and the Sultans of Siwal.

After much discussion with the
badawh
, Nasir had suggested that if the Books of Promise were turned over to a trusted
sufi
, perhaps the truth would be revealed. Nasir was in no condition to make the journey to Havar, and asked therefore that the manuscripts be sent to Tariq Alyalah.