Beneath Ceaseless Skies #70 Read online

  Issue #70 • June 2, 2011

  “From the Spices of Sanandira, Pt. I,” by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “The Nine-Tailed Cat,” by Michael J. DeLuca

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  http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/

  FROM THE SPICES OF SANANDIRA, PT. I

  by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  Uhammad ben Yazr woke with someone nudging his shoulder. By the pale light of the moon through the open window of his dhoba he could see his friend of twenty years, Jalaad, holding a finger to his lips.

  “We have to leave,” Jalaad whispered. His breathing was labored, as if he’d been running, and he smelled of sweat, and his eyes.... Jalaad was not a timid man, but here he was, the whites of his eyes revealing how deep his terror ran.

  “What’s happened?”

  “No time.... Hurry, and by the gods, tread softly.”

  As Uhammad pulled on his robe and sandals, Jalaad woke their adopted son, Riisi, and within moments they had climbed out through the window to the alley and were running through the cold streets of Sanandira’s northern end.

  They left nearly everything. Clothes, food, the supplies they had purchased—even Uhammad’s turban, leaving his long hair in a tangled mess. The only thing Uhammad had allowed himself was the precious wooden case of King’s spice, fyndrenna, the very reason Jalaad had been scouring the city for a sand ship.

  By the time they reached the docks, the eastern sky had brightened, coloring the pink sand of the bay with a yellow brush. A handful of sailors could be seen among the dozens of piers and various ships. It made Uhammad feel particularly exposed after so much creeping about. Out in the sandy bed of the harbor, undocked, was a warship flying King Sulamin’s colors.

  Jalaad led them to a bedraggled cutter whose sails had been patched and repatched, making Uhammad wonder if they could hold any wind at all. At least the ship’s skis that angled out from the hull and supported it against the sand were solid and made from quality skimwood.

  They rushed up the gangway and onto the deck, Uhammad kissing two fingers for luck, and they were off in moments.

  Before they’d even hoisted the mainsail, a group of city guardsmen reached the docks. Close in tow were two of King Sulamin’s veiled soldiers. They pointed to the retreating cutter, and the soldiers began sprinting for the open sand, toward the warship.

  Jalaad screamed, “Heave, damn you! Heave!”

  “Shut up, you bloody stick of a man, and heave yourself!”

  Riisi had seen only twelve, perhaps thirteen summers—he’d been too young to know his age when he’d come into their care—but he had always had a steady hand. At the rudder, he chose a shrewd path that avoided the ruts while keeping the sails full.

  Sulamin’s warship stirred as the guardsmen neared it. Uhammad stared at the forecastle and sterncastle, both of which housed several large ballistae that could cripple the cutter or launch grapples to reel them in. Still, the wind was brisk and they enjoyed a handsome lead; by the time the warship was taking on sail, they were already into the open desert, the only sound the sighing of the skis against the sand and the occasional snap of canvas.

  “Now,” Uhammad said, his heart finally beginning to slow, “do you mind telling me what happened back there?”

  Jalaad took the rudder from Riisi and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Sulamin found us.”

  “I’m not addled, Jalaad. How did he find us?”

  “The merchantwoman you bought the pepper from.... She must have told them.”

  Uhammad had bought the casks of pepper from Sanandira’s bazaar. The woman surely hadn’t known the treasure that had lain within them, but each cask had born the mark of Kaliil, the trader Uhammad and Jalaad had signed on with years ago in hopes of hiding from King Sulamin.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Uhammad said flatly. “She didn’t recognize the seal. Why would she have told them?”

  Jalaad shrugged, focusing on the horizon.

  Uhammad watched him carefully, working it through in his mind. They had been in Sanandira for eight years, but that only made the discovery of the casks—and the priceless box of spice hidden away inside one of them—that much more prophetic. Uhammad had always felt like a disloyal goat, abandoning the caravan the way he had. Clearly the gods were urging him to atone for his failure those many years ago on that final journey with Kaliil and Riisi. Jalaad had argued against it, blaming the discovery of the casks on mere chance, but what fool would ignore such a sign from the heavens?

  Uhammad had begun plans to return to the desert, and all the while Jalaad had railed, blustered, and finally threatened to leave the journey to Uhammad alone. But in truth he cared about Riisi every bit as much as Uhammad did. He would never abandon them; he was not averse, however, to complain while the drink was on him, and he had returned that day near dawn with the smell of kefir on his breath.

  The implications settled over Uhammad like the bitter taste of over-steeped tea. “You were in your cups.... You were in your cups and you complained to anyone who would listen, like you always do.”

  “I was angry! You were wasting our savings on nothing!”

  “Nothing? Damn you, Jalaad! I should throw you to the mercies of the sand!”

  “Me? I found us this ship! I smelled Sulamin’s men on our trail and paid the greedy goat of an owner an extra dram just to keep him quiet! I snuck back to get you when I could have left!”

  “Well,” Uhammad said, sketching a bow, “I suppose you should be granted a lordship then! Sooner or later, Jalaad, your mouth is going to get us killed.”

  “Either that or your fool plans,” Jalaad said, keeping his hands on the rudder and his eyes forward.

  “You can leave any time you wish.”

  Jalaad bit back a reply and instead kept his eyes on the horizon. As he often did when they argued, Riisi left to the only place he could: the single cabin belowdecks. And with that outward reminder of their hostilities, Jalaad and Uhammad settled into a silent and mutual détente.

  With no provisions, they were forced to dock at the first caravanserai they came across. It was little more than a collection of red-bricked dhobas clinging to a patch of land whose only distinguishable feature was that it contained a waterhole. They worried over Sulamin’s warship the entire time, and they returned to the open sands within a half-hour. It was only there, when they saw no sign of the King’s men, that Uhammad allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief.

  As they continued southward, memories of the desert began to flood back to Uhammad. The Jalari was cruel, but she was also achingly beautiful—her endless waves of rolling sand, her burning sunrises and sunsets, her indigo nights. The tricks of the wind and curve of the dunes came back quickly as well. He had been a crewman for nearly six years, after all, and the feel of the wind and tug of the rudder never truly left a man.

  The harsh cycle of day and night began to meld together as they approached their destination. Riisi spotted a broken mast, though the ship to which it was attached still lay hidden beyond a withered outcropping of rock. When they passed the outcropping, the derelict caravel came into view: Rhia’s Dream, the last ship Uhammad and Jalaad had served upon before leaving for Sanandira.

  They pulled in sail and searched the wreckage, but it had long been stripped of anything valuable. Jalaad was disappointed, but Uhammad didn’t care. They had come because their former captain, Muulthasa, had had a strong emotional experience here, an important component for the fyndrenna to work its spell.

  With Jalaad and Riisi watching, Uhammad settled himself onto the hot sand near the ship. From within the pockets hidden in his layer
s of clothing he retrieved the glass phial filled with the golden spice. For someone as uninitiated as he, the amount of fyndrenna he was about to apply would come dangerously close to killing him. But the old farseer in Sanandira had given him what advice she could.

  “I know you feel a sense of purpose, Uhammad,” Jalaad called down from the cutter, “but we don’t have to do this. We could just keep sailing to Ilinnon. We could sell the fyndrenna and live comfortably for the rest of our lives.”

  Uhammad glanced at Riisi. He had thought of selling the spice and living richly—any man would—but this was not for him. This was for the boy, who had lost himself in the desert those years ago. He had returned voiceless from the journey they had begun together, a terrible wound along his throat, and could remember almost nothing of his past. Uhammad would return this to him—his past—a thing every bit as important as his future.

  Jalaad took his silence for uncertainty. “You’re a cook,” he continued. “I’m a man of business. We have no place here, not anymore.”

  “Take Riisi and remain on deck,” Uhammad said. “I don’t know how long the spell will have me.”

  Jalaad screwed up his face in annoyance, but obeyed and guided Riisi back to the skimship.

  In little time, all was silence, and Uhammad was alone with the desert and his phial of spice. He pulled out the wooden stopper, to which was affixed a slim silver spoon. After shaking the excess away, he held it above his left eye and focused on his strongest memory from the early days of their journey. It was of Muulthasa leaning over the side of the gunwale, neck muscles taut as a harp string, sighting down the length of a crossbow.

  After pulling back his lower eyelid, he tapped some of the powder into it. His eye began tearing immediately; it burned worse than the bright red peppers he used to flavor his dishes. He repeated the procedure with his right eye before the burning forced him to stop.

  Tears mixed with the fyndrenna, turning the blue skyline liquid. The horizon blurred then sharpened then blurred again. He felt weightless. Foreign thoughts and emotions forced upon him a desperate sense of panic, and despite his sudden wish to fight the call of the spice, it had all too soon taken hold of his entire being.

  * * *

  Though everyone is exhausted from the dawn-to-dusk work of transporting our goods, we set out before last light and join a sizable caravan heading north. The desert heaves a great sigh as the sun nears the horizon and cooler winds slip over the deck.

  Kaliil’s sandships are only three of forty in the caravan, and we’re near the fore—the more dangerous position—since Kaliil isn’t nearly as wealthy as most of the other caravan masters. Kaliil’s ship, The Crying Gull, skims astern of my own, Night Wind. The yellow canvas of our third, Rhia’s Dream, the one carrying the fat rahib and his guards and the least of the spices, brightens like burning copper as it moves between me and the sun. I refrain from shouting at the helmsman, Uhammad, for not staying in line; the men have been on the sands long enough to be granted some leniency, and there’s little harm in stretching the sails a bit.

  Just then a huge black fist punches up from the sand and catches Rhia’s Dream. One of the spars along the ski shatters and the flat prow crashes, spraying a fan of red sand to both sides as the ship gouges the dune and tilts hard alarboard.

  I scream for my ship’s pilot, Rafaf, to slow. He ignores me, making me scream until my throat burns. The sand, as if it were so much water, parts, allowing a black-as-night head with two misshapen ears and a crown of black spikes to rise above the surface. Broad shoulders and a muscled chest follow, and then the creature stalks toward the stricken skimship.

  As our ship heads downslope, the scene is lost from view. My standing orders are to abandon a ship before risking another to a vengeful creature like the ehrekh, but two of the men aboard, Jalaad and Uhammad, I know from my days in Harrahd as a member of the King’s guard—orders or no, I can no more leave them than I could cut the heart from my own chest.

  I run back to the wheel and push Rafaf aside, screaming at him to watch the fore. He does, though his eyes are wild with fear. I pull at the wheel, tipping us larboard and nearly sending two men over the side.

  We come about.

  Behind us, The Crying Gull slows but does not follow. I can hear Kaliil screaming, “Leave them, leave them!” But his words are lost as we tack west and the rear ships whip past us.

  “Crossbows at the ready, men, and load the ballista!”

  Rafaf and another crewman pump their arms against the huge windlass used to draw the ballista’s firing cord into place. The other seven that can be spared from the pursuit take up crossbows and crank them to the ready and lace the tips of the quarrels with wax to better penetrate the ehrekh’s skin. In truth we can only hope to wound it, to slow it perhaps, but at my core I fear that striking it will only make it shower its rage on us instead.

  As we crest the dune and the sight of devastation comes back into view, my arms tighten to the point where I can no longer steer the ship. The ehrekh has already caught up to Rhia’s Dream, which lies capsized against a sharp outcropping of rock. Some of the men stagger away in ragged paths.

  The rahib’s round form crawls from the rear of the broken hull just as the ehrekh—easily as tall as two men—rips a thousand pounds of rigging from the ship. The silk trader, Azadeh, with her boy in tow, stumbles through the uneven sand after them. Her blue veil is marred by a swath of red blood.

  The ehrekh turns, its jaundiced eyes ablaze, as a spear flies upward and grazes its jaw. It rears back and growls like a struck lion and then unleashes its vengeance on the poor soul who loosed the spear. His screams stop moments later.

  The survivors flee, but at a pace so slow that I fear they’ll never reach us in time. The ehrekh hurls a barrel at them. It narrowly misses Azadeh and crashes into one of the rahib’s guardsmen, sending a cloud of black peppercorns over the sand.

  Dear gods, thirty have been reduced to nine in the blink of an eye.

  I pull us about, heading straight for the ehrekh. “Now, Rafaf! Now!”

  The ballista bolt flies.

  The aim seems off as it eats the distance between my ship and the ehrekh, and my heart sinks as the man-length bolt bites into the sand short of the creature, but a moment later the thing rears back and releases a howling call to the skies. It rips the bolt free, sending an arc of ochre blood over the dusky sand.

  Two men release their quarrels.

  “Wait for him, damn it! Wait for him!”

  The ehrekh charges as I order the sails reefed. The ship slows, but the nine running from the ehrekh are losing strength while the desert spirit gains ground.

  Inexplicably, the ehrekh halts near the rahib’s fallen man. From the puddle of peppercorns littering the desert floor it snatches a wooden case, which had apparently been stowed inside the peppercorn barrel. A golden powder leaks from within to float like so much dandelion seed on the wind. The ehrekh sniffs it and throws it to the ground in a renewed rage.

  Our ship slows to a crawl, and the first of the staggering survivors reach the hull and are pulled up by waiting arms. The ehrekh bears down.

  “Open sails, men!” I scream. “Ride the sand, or we die this day!”

  We pull the rest of the survivors to safety, including Jalaad and Uhammad. The fat rahib is the last to make it aboard as the ship takes speed. Too slow. Too slow!

  The ehrekh charges forward, but our speed is gaining.

  Then it slows. I think it is giving up the chase, but it opens its maw and bellows at the ship.

  Something strikes me full on. The wind is knocked from my lungs. The hull groans and the mainmast releases a sharp crack. I pause, sure the mast will split and come falling down on us, but praise to the gods above, it holds.

  We crest the dune and make for the tiny silhouette of The Crying Gull several miles ahead. The rest of the caravan has been reduced to little more than a flock of black triangles against the indigo sky. As we gain on them, I find myself u
nable to be angry at Kaliil for not helping—all I can feel is relief—but through the emotion I realize what the presence of the ehrekh might mean.

  The ehrekh are solitary spirits, rarely seen, but King Sulamin the Betrayer has two under his yoke which he uses to control the caravan trade. Was it one of his ehrekh that attacked us? The possibility of crossing the path of one by chance seems unlikely. And there is the golden spice hidden within the peppercorn barrel. The ehrekh became enraged after smelling it. King Sulamin worked hard at eradicating competition for a few select spices; perhaps the spice had been one of those.

  There is yet another possibility. Stories are told of the ehrekh being sent by the Kings of Harrahd as crude yet effective assassins. My fear grows that Sulamin has found me at last. Six years ago, mere minutes before Huad, the rightful King, was murdered by agents of Sulamin, I was asked to gather men and spirit the Queen away. I thought surely it would be only days, perhaps weeks, before peace was restored in Harrahd, but Sulamin was ruthless in securing his position, and soon there was no one to challenge his claim to the throne.

  No one but the Queen.

  But if Sulamin had found me, the ehrekh would have been bent on my destruction, would it not? It had seemed too intent on the rahib, and so I had to wonder if he had angered King Sulamin in some way.

  Many questions with few enough answers. But I intend to find some of them when we land again.

  * * *

  Uhammad coughed, puffing red sand into his nose. He pushed himself off the desert floor as Muulthasa’s memories—like the scent of juniper in autumn—faded with great reluctance.

  Jalaad appeared before him with an urn of water. “I thought you were dying.”

  Based on the position of the sun and his aching bones, Uhammad guessed that nearly four hours had passed. “Then why didn’t you come save me?”

  “You looked so peaceful.” Jalaad’s exaggerated smile was not in the least bit comforting. “What did you learn?”

  “What have I learned?” Uhammad wiped the back of his hand across his wet mouth and beard. In truth, he hated reliving that experience, in part from the fear it rekindled, but mostly from the shame. What he had done to Muulthasa.... “I have learned that I have made poor choices in life, Jalaad.”