The Parched sea

time like this.'

'What is there to think about?' Ruha asked.

'What is there to do?' added Sa'ar. 'We are doomed.'

'That may be,' agreed Utaiba. 'Certainly the violation of the widow's taboo is a bad omen. If the warriors hear of it, they will lose their spirit.' He cast a melancholy look on Lander's lifeless face, then continued. 'Still, we must attack. We have nothing to lose. As you have pointed out, Sa'ar, if we do not die in the morning, thirst will kill us by evening.'

Sa'ar looked thoughtful, then took his hand away from his scabbard and met Ruha's gaze. 'Utaiba speaks wisely, as always,' he said. 'If your husband's spirit has cursed us, there is nothing we can do about it now. We have no choice except to fight. Let us do it together.'

Realizing that the gesture was as close to an apology as she would get from the proud sheikh, Ruha dismissed the spell from her mind. 'Ajaman was only my husband for three days,' the widow said, 'But I knew him well enough to say that, even if his spirit were angry with me, he would do nothing to prevent us from destroying the Zhentarim and avenging the death of his tribe.'

'Then you will help us tomorrow?' Utaiba asked.

'I have more deaths than any Bedine to avenge,' Ruha replied, running her hands over Lander's brow and closing his eyes. As she slipped his head off her lap and stood, she said, 'I am hurt that you must ask.'

'Good, that is something,' Utaiba said. 'We must think of something to tell the warriors so that they will not take Lander's death as a bad omen.'

Ruha took a sleeping carpet from one of her kuerabiches and spread it over the Harper's body. 'They will not hear of Lander's death.'

'How can you hope to keep such a thing secret? Every camp already knows that the Zhentarim attacked you and Lander,' objected Sa'ar. 'When they do not see him in the morning, they will know he died. They will assume your husband's spirit arranged it.'

'Tell your men that Lander and I killed the assassins,' Ruha said. 'Tomorrow, he will join them in battle.'

The two sheikhs looked at each other with mixed expressions of nervousness and skepticism.

Ruha did not give them time to argue. 'Tell the sheikhs that Lander was not hurt by the attack, but that I was terrorized. That will keep anyone from wanting to see him tonight and give me time to prepare.'

The sheikhs nodded. 'We can do that much,' Utaiba confirmed.

Ruha pointed at the dead Zhentarim. 'Those men had to come from somewhere,' she said. 'And I don't believe they sneaked past our sentry's noses. We must find out how they left Orofin. Perhaps we can use their route to our advantage.'

'A good thought,' Sa'ar confirmed.

Ruha considered the two sheikhs for few more moments, then said, 'Utaiba, would you bring me Lander's djebiras?' When a scowl flashed across the wiry sheikh's face, Ruha quickly added, 'I'd ask you to send a guard, but he would gossip, and that's the last thing we need right now.'

The frown disappeared from the man's face, and he nodded. 'Of course, you are right. I will be back soon.'

While Utaiba fetched Lander's belongings, Sa'ar pushed the scorched remains of the Zhentarim assassins out the gap they had sliced in the khreima, then returned and carried away Bhadla's spindly body. The young widow spent the time stitching the gap closed. By now, Ruha knew, word of the assassination attempt had spread to all of the tribal camps, and she did not want any curious warriors peeking through the hole.

Utaiba returned just as she finished, bearing the single djebira containing Lander's belongings. Ruha went through the bag and extracted Lander's extra clothes, then put the bag aside.

'I shall see you an hour before dawn,' the young widow said.

Utaiba said, 'I'll send some guards to stand watch tonight.'

Ruha shook her head. 'Guards will only draw comment,' she said. 'Better to let the warriors think that Lander is confident of his ability to defeat more assassins.'

Sa'ar objected, 'But if the Zhentarim try something else-'

'I will deal with them,' Ruha interrupted.

'If you are awake, yes. But what happens if you fall asleep?' This time, the questioner was Utaiba.

Ruha pointed at Qoha'dar's spellbook. 'I'll be too busy to sleep,' she said, ushering the sheikhs toward the exit. 'Find out how the Zhentarim escaped their hole. I'll see you before dawn.'

'As you wish,' Sa'ar answered, stepping outside.

After the sheikhs left, the widow pored over Qoha'dar's spellbook, searching for a way to keep her promise. Finally she found an enchantment that would fulfill her need. Ruha spent the next few hours memorizing the new spell, as well as two others that she thought might prove useful supplements.

When she heard the warriors beginning to stir in Sa'ar's camp, Ruha sensed that the hour of battle was upon them. The widow put Qoha'dar's spellbook away, then took Ajaman's jambiya and slit a hole in the roof of the tent. She enlarged it until the moon cast a silvery light on the carpet covering her lover's corpse.

Ruha kneeled next to the body and pulled the carpet from Lander's head. She looked upon his sallow face for a full minute, fighting to hold back her grief, swearing vengeance on those who had taken his life. Finally she removed her veil and kissed him on the mouth.

Still holding her lips close to those of the dead man, she recited the incantation she had learned earlier that night. As she spoke, Lander's dead features softened, becoming darker and more feminine. The yellow stubble of his beard faded, his skin darkened to a deep sienna, his eyes assumed the almond shape of Ruha's, and his cheekbones grew high and prominent. Within seconds, the witch was looking at her own face. It looked so lifelike it almost seemed she had breathed life back into Lander's body.

A moment later, the vision in her right eye became milky and blurred, then faded to blackness. When she could see only out of her left eye, she knew the transformation was complete. Lander had her face, and she had his.

Ruha removed the Harper's eyepatch and put it over her now-useless eye, then took Lander's spare keffiyeh from his djebira and slipped it onto her head. Within a few minutes, she was dressed head-to-toe in his robes.

Before she could cover Lander's body again, Sa'ar and Utaiba approached, stopping outside the khreima and politely clearing their throats.

'Enter!' Ruha called. The voice issuing from her throat was Lander's, not her own.

Frowning in wary confusion, the two sheikhs obeyed, both stopping a step inside the entrance with their jaws hanging slack.

'Lander?' gasped Sa'ar.

'You look terrible!' added Utaiba. 'Your eye is sunken and your skin is the color of a camel's water. Wait, where is-'

'I am Ruha,' she announced softly. 'I told you that Lander would join the attack.' She waved the astonished sheikhs the rest of the way into the tent. 'I did not say he would look well.'

The sheikhs dropped their eyes from Ruha's face to Lander's body, which still lay in the center of the tent. The corpse now had the young widow's face, which was immodestly exposed. Flushing, Ruha kneeled down and quickly pulled the carpet over Lander.

'What have you done?' gasped Utaiba, still staring at the covered body.

'I don't think you want to know,' Ruha answered. Lander's loose robes made her feel awkward, and the fact that she was not wearing a veil gave her the uncomfortable sensation of being naked.

'Not in my worst nightmares,' Sa'ar agreed. He forced himself to look back to Ruha.

After a slight shudder, the sheikh began describing the plan he and Utaiba had developed with the other leaders. 'We followed the assassins' tracks back to a tunnel that opens in the desert outside the old city,' he began. 'Apparently, it was an old escape tunnel, in case the ksur was sieged.'

'Without doubt, the Zhentarim are guarding it,' Utaiba added. 'But if we can lull them into thinking we don't know about it, perhaps we can use it to gain entrance to the fortress.'