The Book of the Seven Delights (21 page)

That night, Smith and Haffe made their camp apart from the others and, knowing desert custom, Smith made a point of inviting Abu Denaü to sample the hospitality of their fireside. However, the merchant arrived with a bottle of whiskey and insisted they join him in a drink. Abigail declined and withdrew to sit by the fire with T. Thaddeus's journals, unsettled by the fact that Denaü—part Arab and part Berber, ostensibly Muslim—carried alcohol with him and drank it freely. When she looked up from reading, she caught Haffe scowling at Denaü across the flames. He, too, was uncomfortable that the chief trader was not a good Muslim. In this part of the world, a man who was faithless to his religion could not be considered trustworthy in anything else.

Despite her uneasiness, she managed to fall asleep and had to be shaken awake the next morning. The camel drivers were mostly packed and ready to travel, but Denaü was shouting and snarling orders at them, holding his head.

The sun grew stronger and hotter as the day progressed. The rocky soil disappeared altogether and beneath their feet, the base of sand deepened. By midday they shed their burnooses for lighter
jellabas
, but kept their turbans, which shaded their eyes and kept their heads surprisingly cool.

When they crested a rise and glimpsed the seemingly endless sea of dunes around them, Abigail caught her breath. Here, at last, was the desert she had come to search. Her heart pounded as she began to go over and over in her head the professor's accounts of visitors to the library.

"South of the last oasis, the land becomes sea," he had written. "Neither bird nor beast calls it home, for there is no sustenance to be taken from its depths. The sun pierces your bones… illuminating your darkest secrets, sorting your desires… measuring your will… even your will to live. And it decrees, based on its own relentless test: This one is strong enough… that one will perish…"

She had thought he must have been a little delirious from the heat to resort to such melodrama, but she saw now the overwhelming vastness and desolation that had generated such musings in him. And she also saw why the professor had been forced to abandon his final expedition: He simply hadn't the stamina for such a grueling undertaking.

As midday passed and the sun shone in their eyes, Smith pulled out their wire-mesh goggles. The contraptions screened out—literally—much of the brightness and kept them from going sunblind. Her lips dried, but licking them only seemed to make them dry faster. She thought of the beeswax balm deep in the bowels of a bag somewhere. A lot of good it did her there.

Her gaze was drawn to Smith, who looked exotic in his robes and turban, and strangely at home in the desert. These last few days had been no less than a revelation regarding the man inside him. He'd had plenty of chances to throw up his hands and abandon her to her ignorance and stubbornness. Heaven knew… he'd had plenty of provocation, too.

But he hadn't left. He'd given her the benefit of his experience with the brutal extremes of mountain and desert. She reached up to feel the goggles she wore. From the start he had known what sort of hardships she would face and tried to warn and even protect her. In the end, he had decided to take her himself…

despite the sun and heat and sand and scorpions… despite vengeful Legionnaires and plots to make him conform to the official record of him. Somebody wanted him dead, and he was out here in the blistering desert helping her look for a semimythical pile of papyrus.

She shook her head and prayed there would be something of value at the end of this eventful journey for them both.

A shaggy brown dot appeared on the horizon that evening, and as they approached, it grew into an uninhabited oasis that jutted out into the sand from a larger ridge of solid land that ran to the west for a distance before submerging back into the sands. A low stone wall and pole hoist were visible beneath clusters of palms and the animals, sensing water ahead, picked up their heads and their pace. There was daylight left, but Denaü told Haffe and Smith he knew the country well and this was the last good water for a hundred miles. They would camp early and get extra rest before continuing.

Since there was no grass to harbor scorpions, Abigail made a pallet on the ground by the fire and pulled out her map, her journals, and the astrolabe.

"Hey—there's still some light." Smith scooped up the astrolabe as he returned from unloading and watering their mounts, and he headed for the top of a nearby dune. "May as well get in some practice."

He was back soon with a pensive scowl. "Well I can still read the angles, but it doesn't mean much unless you have a map or chart as reference."

"I do have a regular map the professor used… it has grid coordinates in mostly empty space. I've tried to compare it with the one the professor drew…" She spread both out between them, giving him a chance to study them firsthand. "I can see now why neither map includes many features. There's nothing out here to represent." She pointed to the professor's cryptic drawings. "There's Ouarzazate. But, we headed south before reaching it… perhaps along this route. Is it just me, or do those little figures look like camels?"

But Smith was focused on the oddly ornate compass rose T. Thaddeus had drawn in the lower right corner of the map. It contained a ring of Greek letters at the center in addition to the customary flowers and star points and was far more intricate that the rest of the map.

"Is it possible that he used this compass rose to mark a destination as much as direction?" he asked, pulling the lamp closer. Then he pointed to what appeared to be a gap in the arc of the compass. "And what happened there?"

She squinted to study the notch he indicated.

"I don't know. It doesn't seem to have been erased." She looked up at Smith. "He must have spent hours drawing that. More time than all the rest of the map put together. Why would he leave one ray of the compass empty?"

"He was an eccentric old cod, that's why. He used an astrolabe, for God's sake. Who uses such a thing these days? Present company excepted."

"Do you think you can use it well enough to help us find the library?"

He picked up the central disk of the astrolabe and studied the engravings… arabesque designs and sinuous curves that resembled… "Hey… does that look like script to you?" He handed it to her.

She rose and held up into the fading sunlight. "A bit. Elongated like waves… looks like Arabic…" She straightened, rethinking it. "Or
Greek
." She traced the letters with her finger. "Alpha… pi… that looks like an omicron… that one resembles a lambda…" She scowled and pressed fingers to the inner corners of her eyes. "No, no. I'm probably just reading things into it."

"Like what?" He leaned closer to stare at the disk. "What do you see?"

She looked up at him through her lashes. "I think they're the Greek letters A…P…O…L…L… and O."

He looked straight into her eyes. "That's me."

The shiver that ran through her raised gooseflesh all over her body.

"Don't be ridiculous." Her disclaimer was aimed at her own reaction, as much as his. "It's a old brass disk used to determine position from the angle of the sun. Of course they'd refer to the Greek sun god, Apollo. Half of the round objects unearthed around the Mediterranean have Apollo's name on them."

"Yeah? Well, I happen to be
touching
this one." He pulled the disk from her hands and tossed it onto the map. "And I actually know how to use it." He edged closer and his mouth quirked up on one side.

"I'm going to find your library for you, Boston. You're going to owe me…
big
."

She refused to retreat. The warmth of his breath on her lips was too much of a challenge. Or a promise.

"You help me find the library, Smith," she said, drinking him in like a potent elixir, "and I'll pay you…
big

."

His laugh was low and provocative and climbed inside her skin as he glanced down her front. But his gaze caught on the astrolabe lying on the map, and he drew back so abruptly that she felt the air being pulled from her.

"Wha-at's the matter?" she asked, watching him move the central disk of the astrolabe over the drawing of the compass rose.

"That notch on the compass"—he pointed to an unnoticed similarity—"there's one almost like it on the disk of the astrolabe."

When he placed the brass disk over the compass rose and turned it, sure enough the notches aligned.

"What does it mean?" she asked, frowning at it.

"It means… we have an angle, Boston." He traced the angle between the map's North and the compass notch, and grinned. "The old boy gave us a direction after all. Midday tomorrow, I'll take a reading and chart a course for your library."

Reassured, she poured over her map and journals, translating by lantern light. Later, after having a bite to eat, she curled up inside her burnoose and fell immediately asleep… so, did not see Smith stretch out on his blanket beside her, nor did she see him bolt upright later and sit listening in the darkness.

He drew his knife and crept to the palm trees where their horses were tied. There he watched and listened, nerves straining to detect what he thought was a voice. Then he spotted a lone figure walking along the top of the nearby rock ledge and climbing down it to head for the caravan camp. When the figure reached Denaü's camel, he delved into the saddlebags and drew out a whiskey bottle. It was the head man himself. He returned to the canvas shelter his men erected for him each night and sank onto his pallet with an audible groan.

Smith watched and listened a bit longer, telling himself that the trader had probably just been answering nature's call. Everything else seemed quiet… even the camels. Rolling the anxiety from his shoulders, he returned to his own blanket and fell asleep like he was falling off a cliff.

It seemed he had no sooner closed his eyes than he was struggling back toward consciousness with inexplicable urgency.

Something was wrong. He lurched up with his heart pounding and found Abigail and Haffe still sleeping and their horses and mules still tied to the line he had strung between palms. Their cache of supplies appeared to be untouched. The only cause for alarm seemed to be the fact that the sun was already well above the horizon and it was unnaturally quiet.

He shoved to his feet and looked toward the caravan camp.

It was empty. Abandoned. Lock, stock, and camel.

He rushed to the cold remains of the fire the drivers had sat around the night before, then went over the area where they had bedded down the camels, finding only churned sand and camel dung. Denaü and his drivers had packed up quietly and stolen away like the proverbial thieves-in-the-night. He climbed the rock ledge and scanned the dunes to the south for sight of them. A tiny fleck on the horizon might or might not have been them before it disappeared.

Uttering a few choice oaths, he stalked back to their camp and dropped to one knee to give Abigail's shoulder a shake.

"Wake up, Boston," he said. "We've got trouble."

"The trader and his camels are gone," the tall, rail-thin Legionnaire known as Schuller reported as he flung himself over the crest of a tall dune and onto his belly beside his sergeant. "It is only Smith, the woman, and the servant."

Gaston grunted a laugh, baring teeth misshapen from decay.

"Take a lesson," he said to the men lying on their bellies along that slope, cradling their rifles across their arms. "These Berbers are fools for the clink of silver. Always eager to strike a deal… even if it means reneging on one they've already struck."

Garnering sly nods and looks of appreciation from his men, Gaston considered his next move carefully.

LaCroix's orders were to track the pair and to watch and wait until they had whatever it was the Merchant woman sought. But LaCroix was a fool. Anything Smith could do, a squad of Legionnaires could do better… including persuading a nubile young female to yield up the location of the valuables she hunted. The thought of "persuading" her repeatedly sent a shaft of heat through his loins.

Then his mind went back to the slippery nature of his prime quarry. Every minute Smith stayed alive was another minute Fate might decide to yank him from Gaston's grip yet again. And he did not intend to allow that to happen.

Apollo Smith was going to die today, whether he had the pleasure of killing him personally, or not.

"Check your lead," he ordered and took satisfaction in how quickly his men obeyed. "You have one target: the Englishman, Smith. I want the woman and the animals untouched. We will have use for them later."

Gaston sent half of his eight men around the rock outcropping in a flanking maneuver. When that contingent reached the ridge and began to climb, he motioned the rest over the peak of the dune with him. They kept silent as they started down toward the oasis, counting on the element of surprise. It was habit more than strategy, for at this range—and with odds of nine-to-one—the outcome was all but assured.

Abigail was draping her burnoose across the back of the saddle, and contemplating retying her turban… which seemed to have loosened as she slept on it. Who could have imagined that a turban would double so effectively as a pillow and save her from a serious crick in the—

Her gaze snagged on movement at the top of a large dune, not far away. Her eyes widened and for a fraction of a second she was struck dumb with horror. The movement took form…
human
… moving stealthily.

"L-Legionnaires!" Her shout set Smith crouching and pivoting—drawing his revolver.

"Take cover!" he thundered while ducking behind the nearest palm. He got off several shots that sent the Legionnaires diving onto their bellies, then glanced back at Abigail. Her head was still clearly visible among the horses. "Forget cover—get out of here!"

"Not without you!" She found her gun in her saddlebag and searched blindly with her fingers for the extra bullets she had emptied from her skirt pocket because she always managed to roll over on them in her sleep.

From the rock ledge came another volley of shots that whined past or cracked into the palms around her. Cradling her gun with both hands and stiffening her arms, she pulled back the hammer and squeezed the trigger… once, twice… more. Her bullets gouged out stone chips all over the ledge, but at least they kept that contingent from returning fire for a few critical moments.