THE THIEF OF KALIMAR (Graham Diamond's Arabian Nights Adventures) (9 page)

“Poor Vlashi was frightened out of his wits when I saw him,” continued the girl. “And I’m sure he didn’t understand what he was doing.” She glanced up to her lover’s face, seeking a reaction. Then abruptly she said, “Vlashi broke the code, Ramagar. He told, told the beggar everything there was to know. How he sold the scimitar to you—and just who you were.”

This time when the thief slammed his fist the weak beams shook, dislodging a thin layer of dust that quickly descended over the floor. Ramagar clenched his teeth and did everything he could to control his temper. He should have known the pickpocket was untrustworthy, should have known that buying that cursed dagger was going to bring him ill fortune.

He folded his arms and drew a deep breath of the stagnant air. “Did Vlashi give you a description of this beggar?” he asked.

Mariana stared blankly. “No, he only said that the beggar was determined to find you at any cost—and that you had to be warned. He’s cunning, this beggar, Ramagar. He’s also eluded the Inquisitors. By now he might be anywhere in Kalimar, searching for you this very moment.”

The thief grimaced and began to pace again. “I should have known,” he rasped. “What a fool I am! I should have known!”

Mariana raised her brows inquisitively. “Known what?”

Deep in thought, Ramagar leaned on the far wall and clenched his hands together, rubbing them in a slow, deliberate motion. “All day,” he said, “ever since I fled from your roof, I’ve had this uneasy feeling, like I was being watched or followed. And more than once, even after I fled from the Jandari and made my way to the wharves, I kept seeing this same beggar; keeping his distance from me to be sure, but it was the same man everywhere I went. At first I thought it only a bad case of nerves. After all, there must be ten thousand beggars in Kalimar. But now, now I’m beginning to wonder …”

Mariana put a hand to her mouth.
“Az’i!
What if ‘I’ve helped lead him to you?” She looked around with a feeling of helplessness. “He could be here on the docks, in this very warehouse, waiting for us to show, biding his time.”

Ramagar put a finger to her pale lips and smiled. “Shh. We’re safe enough. What harm can a single beggar do me, the thief of thieves?” He laughed caustically. “Today I’ve managed to fend off a full cohort of regent’s soldiers—what do I have to fear from a single beggar?”

The girl was not put off by his taking the matter so lightly. She knew very well it was only his way of trying to put her own thoughts at ease, no easy task under the circumstances.

“What shall we do?”

He scratched at his beard. “We’ll have to think of a way to get out of Kalimar before worrying about other matters. Have you got any money?”

The girl turned sideways, put a hand inside her blouse, and unpinned the tiny purse. “It’s everything I have,” she said, offering it to him. “Just a handful of coppers and a silver piece.”

“More than enough,” replied the thief. “You hold onto it. And where’s the scimitar?”

Mariana smiled. “Well tucked away under my skirt—where even you won’t get at it.”

“As good a place as any, I should think,” he answered dryly. “Now what about us trying to get out of here? With any luck, we can be far away by daybreak.”

Mariana began to pick at the loose straw clinging to her cloak and smoothed down her skirt with an open hand. Ramagar drew beside her, grinning, and put his arm around her shoulder. At that moment she felt all her fears begin to vanish. Of all the men she had ever met, in the Jandari and indeed in all of Kalimar, it was only this handsome rogue who could make her forget so many tears with but a single smile. What sorcery or magic he had she didn’t know, nor did she care. Being with Ramagar was all that mattered now, all that had ever mattered in her young life. She was more than willing to share any fate with him.

“The first thing we have to do is get us some horses,” said the thief as he led her to the door.

“Where? It’s the middle of the night. Besides, my few coins won’t nearly be enough to buy one, let alone two.”

Ramagar grinned like a cat. “Then we’ll steal them—that is, if you don’t have any objections.”

Mariana shrugged. “How you earn your living is no business of mine,” she observed merrily. But then she hesitated and cast her gaze to the ground. “There’s one thing, though, that I think I’d better tell you.”

He cocked one eye. “Oh? What?”

“I don’t know how to ride.”

The thief of Kalimar groaned.

6

Hand in hand they ran from the warehouse and the courtyard, dancing among the shadows, following the path beside the endless rows of decrepit quays and abandoned storage sheds until at last they came to the ancient footbridge that spanned the estuary at its narrowest point. Aging wood creaked and moaned beneath their feet. Around them they could hear the gentle slapping of waves against the docks and the occasional faraway blast of a ship’s horn piercing the fog-shrouded night.

In such tense moments the wily thief was at his best—every muscle taunt and strained, every sense fully alert, poised and prepared for unseen peril. With the night vision of a panther Ramagar led the dancing girl across the bridge. Where Mariana could see only shadows, he saw shapes and forms with animal clarity. But sometimes even a thief of thieves can err; and it would take only a single mistake to shatter all their hopes and dreams.

Beneath the bridge itself he followed. Wading slowly through the muddy, shallow water, hunching low under the planks, he listened to every footstep above. The water was foul; filled with moss and clinging slime, crabs and jellyfish that swam between his legs and crawled in the mud each step of the way. But the cunning beggar gave no thought to these things, not even when his tender flesh felt the sting of claws tightening around his ankles. As the thief and the girl moved he matched them with every pace. When they paused, he paused, when they hurried, he hurried. In the silence of night they almost breathed together, each hunted, each hunting. The beggar’s eyes watched, his ears listened. And the smallest hint of a smile parted his lips. At last, he thought, at last his search was nearing its end. Soon the precious scimitar would be in his possession again—where it rightfully belonged—and he could continue his long journey anew.

“This way,” whispered the thief, taking the girl by the arm and hurrying her onto land again. A berthed ship loomed high to their left, and Mariana glanced briefly at the tall, bared masts, the lonely silhouette of a sailor standing grimly at his post upon the quarterdeck.

Ramagar adroitly slipped them back into the safety of the lumbering shadows. The fog was rolling in more quickly now, tumbling down across the water and dimming the scattered lanterns and torches set along the wharves. Ramagar smiled; the mist was an ally, and never could one have come at a better time.

Shadows merged and merged again; Mariana held her breath trying not to listen to the grisly sounds of the wind. Kalimarians were a superstitious people, and their lore was filled with tales and legends of strange happenings that befell the city on nights such as this. As the fog became denser she fancied that above the wild throbs of her heart she could hear these legends come to life; fiendish voices calling to her, laughing, taunting; the flutter of huge unseen wings that at any moment would swoop down from the starless sky and whisk both her and her lover away to some bottomless pit where the fires of hell raged and crackled with laughter at the chance of capturing yet another hapless soul.

Such were her fears when Ramagar yanked her strongly and pulled her off her feet into a dark, deserted doorway.

He put a finger to his lips to keep her from venting her fright, then pointed his hand to the unseen street. A few seconds later she heard the sound, dim at first but steadily growing louder. The harsh scraping of hooves slowing moving toward them.
Soldiers!
And she bit her lip so as not to cry out.

Then there were voices, casual banter between the riders as they cautiously negotiated the tricky path. She strained to hear what they were saying.

“… or cut off his balls,” one shouted, to the hilarity of his companions. Then something else was muttered among them, something she couldn’t hear, and their laughter became louder.

Mariana was shaking. If only they would pass! If only time were speeded so she and Ramagar could run again, back to the shadows without being seen.

It seemed like forever, but at last they were gone. The last of the hoofbeats faded into the night and her prayer had been answered. Her sweat-drenched hand closed on Ramagar’s own and they stole from their hiding place. Racing along the broken cobblestone, they dodged helter-skelter among the warehouses, once nearly tripping over a drunken sailor lying in the middle of the road, another time zigging and zagging at sharp angles to avoid the roving eyes of a well-armed night watchman.

Away from the quays and storehouses at last, the lovers ran through a street of deserted, crumbling markets. Once this place had been the pride of all Kalimar, a central bazaar where goods from a dozen lands were hawked to milling throngs of shoppers from every district of the city. Now, as with so much else, it had fallen into disarray. Where stalls and gaily lit shops had stood there was nothing but the corrosion of time: crumbling brick, splintered wood. A virtual jungle of vegetation and sand had overrun the ruins.

At the end of the grim road they paused to catch their breath.

“What next?” Mariana asked, panting.

Ramagar furrowed his brow. “We still need those horses,” he said. “If we follow the road to the palace we’re bound to come to a stable.”

“You’d steal our horses from right under the regent’s nose?” she said, bewildered.

Ramagar chuckled. “Sort of poetic justice, isn’t it?”

Soon the road had broadened and they found themselves reaching even higher ground, a place where the fog was merely the thinnest of hazes and they could look back almost without obstruction at the harbor below. There, the fog was still spreading out like a blanket, settling slowly over the estuary, obliterating all of the eastern half of the city including the Jandari.

Mariana took a deep breath of the clean, fresh air and sighed thankfully. She could see the moon, hazy and high above the distant palace walls, and the dim glitter of stars flickering against the velvet black sky.

A low stone wall, partially covered by twirling boughs of ivy, twisted up and down the road’s shoulder. Behind the wall stood rows and rows of leafy palms, willows, figs, and a plethora of other colorful fruit trees. They paused to rest and take a drink from a brook. Ramagar bounded the wall and came back in a moment grinning, his hands filled with apples.

Mariana sat on the wall, her bare feet dangling over the side and her toes barely nudging the cold water. Her scuffed, worn boots at her side, she eagerly took one of the apples and savored her first bite. On either side of the wide road stood an array of homes, the likes of which she had never seen before. They were made of brick, with real glass set into the windows and spryly colored roofs of tile. She stared at them in amazement. Tall iron gates stood before every one; there were gardens and flowers and ponds overflowing with color. So far removed was she from the squalor of the Jandari that for a while she wondered if this entire setting was not just part of a dream.

Ramagar chomped loudly into his apple and threw away the core. “We’d best be on our way,” he said. “We can’t afford time to dawdle.”

Mariana sighed and began to put her boots back on. Then Ramagar suddenly stood up and pushed her harshly off the wall and into the grass. Before she could lift her head he was beside her again, telling her not to make a sound.

Ahead down the road, making their way through the peaceful streets, rode three soldiers, their blue tunics shining in the moonlight. Mariana and Ramagar at once knew them to be palace guards—probably on their nightly patrol of the western edges of the city. Stern-faced and handsome, they spoke little among themselves, content to keep their eyes straight ahead and their hands on the hilts of their curved swords.

“Do you think they’ve seen us?” she whispered.

Ramagar bit at his lower lip. “I don’t know. I hope not.”

“But they’re not Inquisitors,” protested the girl. “They won’t be looking for us …”

He looked at her with steely, cold eyes. “We can’t take any chances.” Then, to Mariana’s shock, he drew a dagger of his own from inside his shirt.

“Ramagar, no! There are three of them!”

The voice was rough and deep. “Come out of there!” it barked.

Mariana froze. Peeking above the wall, she saw that one of the soldiers had ridden ahead of the others and had now stopped some twenty paces before the wall.

Ramagar was about to leap, dagger at the ready, when the girl quickly pushed him down from sight. She stood up slowly, smoothing the wrinkles out of her skirt as best she could, all the while widening her shy gaze at the demanding soldier. Ramagar crouched low beside the wall and watched the girl in puzzlement.

The keen-eyed soldier gaped at the sight of the girl, certainly surprised at his catch, and secretly somewhat delighted. One hand held firm on the reins and the other loosened the hold on his weapon. His eyes wandered over her from head to foot, noticing the opened buttons, the firm, supple breasts half exposed in the soft silver moonlight. He looked deeply into her eyes, black as coals, luminous and entreating, stirred at the sight of her slightly parted lips, nothing less than seductive.

“Who are you, girl?” he barked down at her, controlling his restless stallion. “What are you doing here?”

Mariana sat down on the edge of the wall, her arms stretched behind and her chin held high. She made sure that her dress was raised slightly higher than normal modesty would permit. Then, secure in the knowledge that the soldier’s attentions were undivided, she coolly put the apple to her mouth and took another bite.

“Well?” said the soldier, sounding vexed. “I asked you a question,”

“I came to visit a friend,” she replied with a smile.

A shadow crossed the soldier’s brow. “Oh? You have friends here, in this part of the city?”