The Parched sea

As she spoke, Ruha found her throat so dry that the words came out in a series of croaking gasps. Realizing that she was desperately thirsty, the widow reached for Ajaman's waterskin. The fall had burst the neck open, leaving only a few last swallows in the corners. Ruha placed her lips over the neck to prevent the loss of even a drop, then tilted her head back to drain the precious water into her parched throat.

Nothing.

Ruha tried to swallow again. Still nothing.

With a start, Ruha snapped back to the present, and she realized that she was a half-mile from her dead husband. He was still at El Ma'ra, buried in the cool, shallow grave she had dug for him earlier. Now, she was sitting atop a dune, exposed to At'ar's full glory and so sun-sick that she was hallucinating.

The young widow angrily pulled Ajaman's crushed amarat horn from around her neck, then threw it down the dune's slip-face. It slid clear to the desert's rocky floor.

'Why did you fall on your waterskin, husband?' she croaked, looking toward El Ma'ra's tawny pinnacle. 'An honorable man would not leave his wife without water!'

Of course, Ajaman did not answer, but Ruha did not doubt that he heard her.

'Ajaman, if you do not send me some water, there will be nobody to wash your body before the journey west,' Ruha threatened, still staring in the direction of her husband's body. 'Tonight, when the vultures come to take you to N'asr's tent, the odor of life will cling to you like blood on a newborn calf. Surely, the Pitiless One will give you to his djinns, and it won't be my fault.'

Bartering with the dead was dangerous, the widow realized dimly. Even those who had been friends often repaid their debts with plague and pestilence, but Ruha thought she had done everything she could to find water on her own. She remembered checking the canteen of the straggler she had killed last night. It had been empty. She had even found the milk skin she had been carrying when the attack started, but it had been trampled into the sand by the caravan. Ruha was desperate.

At the oasis there was plenty of water, but she did not dare approach it. In the entire khowwan, not a Qahtani remained alive. The men had fallen in contorted, inert poses at the camp perimeter. In the oasis itself, dog and camel corpses lay scattered among the tents and trees. The women and children were gathered beneath shredded and charred khreimas, their locations marked by lumps and dark stains in the cloth.

But it was not corpses that prevented Ruha from going to the oasis pool and drinking the water she needed so badly. The pale-skinned stranger who had appeared last night in the caravan's wake was searching the entire camp tent by tent. He had been since dawn. Methodically he furled back each khreima, then kneeled amongst the corpses. After a few moments, he covered the bodies again and went to the next tent. Never, as far as Ruha could tell, did he take anything from the dead or their households.

His behavior was a stark contrast to that of his companions, two creatures who stood about four feet tall. Ruha could tell little about the pair, for they were swaddled head to foot in white burnooses. The short bipeds were robbing the Qahtani warriors, pulling rings off dead fingers and prying jewels from scimitar scabbards.

Watching the strangers continue their desecrations, Ruha wondered who they could be and what they were doing at El Ma'ra's oasis. Her muddled mind could not even guess at an answer, any more than she could imagine the origin of last night's murderous caravan. She had never seen anything like either group in the desert, and her ignorance of the lands beyond Anauroch was complete. Both the caravan and the three strangers remained an utter mystery to her.

For the next hour, the widow pondered her ignorance and waited for the strangers to leave. A gray haze appeared on the southern horizon, and Ruha knew that a sandstorm was ravaging some distant part of the desert. She paid it no further attention, for it would not arrive soon enough for her to sneak to the oasis pond beneath its cover.

As At'ar grew brighter and hotter, Ruha's skin became pale and clammy. She felt sick to her stomach. Her head ached. Spots appeared in her vision, and she could not make them go away.

Ruha turned her gaze toward the vultures, barely able to distinguish the birds from the dots before her eyes. 'Surely, N'asr will punish these defilers of the dead. Ask him to do it now, so that I may live and prepare my husband for the journey to your father's camp.'

If the vultures heard her plea, they gave no sign. The bulky birds continued hanging in the sky, steady as clouds.

The widow waited. She did not exert herself by searching for non-existent shade. In the summer, At'ar rode proud in the sky, and it would have been futile to attempt escaping her heat. Only a tent or a palm tree's gaunt fronds could offer shelter from the sun, and the only sign Ruha saw of either was in the oasis. Everywhere else, on the gentle slopes and steep slip-faces of the dunes, and in the rocky valleys between them, At'ar blazed down on the parched sands in all her fiery radiance. The yellow goddess could not be avoided.

Ruha could feel herself growing perilously weak, but she resisted the dry voice whispering to her to sneak back to the oasis. Whoever the strangers were, their desecrations made it clear that they were no friend of the Bedine, and from what she had seen last night, the instincts of the one-eyed stranger were too sharp to challenge.

As she thought about the stranger, Ruha's mind wandered and she once again found herself standing in last night's shadows, the dead straggler lying in the sand beside her. The stranger was crouched atop the dune, where he had appeared so suddenly in the wake of the caravan. As the screams of dying Qahtanis began to drift over the sands, he continued to watch the battle, his attention fixed impassively on the oasis.

Ruha wondered if he was the man who killed Ajaman. Confident of the magic that kept her hidden and unheard, she gripped her jambiya and prepared to take vengeance.

As she picked up the handful of sand she needed to create her magical lion, the one-eyed man whirled about and drew a straight-bladed dagger. He stared into the quiet darkness protecting the young woman, seeming to sense her presence in spite of the spells hiding her. The stranger shook his head once, then sheathed his dagger.

Was he warning Ruha not to attack, or did he doubt the instincts that had alerted him to her presence? Before Ruha could decide, the stranger slipped down the other side of the dune and disappeared. The widow's knees were ready to buckle and her stomach felt as though her heart had dropped into it. She did not follow.

With a start, Ruha realized that the ache in her stomach was more than fear, and that her confused mind had again lost track of reality. Heat cramps were causing the pain she felt, and the reason it seemed like night was because her eyes were closed. She had lost track of reality again, drifting into a dream of last night.

Ruha held her head with both hands, vainly trying to stop the fierce pounding inside. The young widow realized she had to risk going to the pond, even without any spells to conceal her. With his acute instincts, the stranger would probably see her as she drank, but to wait was to die.

Ruha slid a few feet down from the dune crest, then turned toward the rocky labyrinth behind her.

To her surprise, a string of ten white camels stood two hundred feet away. Believing that her mind was playing tricks on her, she closed her eyes and whispered, 'Husband, by the last drop of water in my mouth, if this is a mirage, I will be slave to N'asr himself before I wash your filthy corpse.'

When she opened her eyes again, the beasts were still there. Though clearly mature riding camels, they had no halters or saddles. Instead, their driver had looped long ropes around their lanky necks and run lines from one beast to the next. The sight puzzled Ruha, for any man who owned ten matched camels could certainly saddle them properly.

Only the lead camel, an indistinctive brown gelding, carried a proper saddle or halter. Upon this beast sat a lone tribesman, his bow strung and his lance resting across his thighs. He wore a tawny aba similar to Ajaman's, and a white keffiyeh covered his hair. Though Ruha could not see his face at this distance, his head seemed turned toward her. Ruha guessed by his dress that the driver belonged to the Qahtan tribe, perhaps even her dead husband's clan.

Continuing her slide down the dune, she croaked, 'Worthy Ajaman, I should have known better than to doubt you, but I am a frail woman and thirst affects my judgment. Please forgive my nagging and don't send any blights to punish me.'

When her feet touched the rocky desert floor, she checked to see that her veil was still in place, then staggered toward the man.

Upon seeing her condition, the rider unfastened his waterskin and slid off his saddle. He thrust his lance into