Swords and Magic, Page 2

that could drown any man’s soul.

  Any man, except Mufroen it seemed. She knew very well his interest had waned and that she needed to act soon. When he left the shelter after they made love, she watched him disappear smoothly between the rocks. Her full lips pursed in speculation and a deep line creased the smooth surface of her forehead. Had any man with half a brain seen her expression, he would have run. Fast and far.

  Golden dancer

  Late that night Mufroen sat outside the communal tent, listening to the raucous laughter getting louder, while the music got more and more out of tune. Their strange guests had been allowed to set their tents up just back from and between the communal tent and his father’s personal quarters. Women were barred from entering the men’s communal tent, but from the sounds drifting out an exception had been made for the women that came with the caravan. A carnival, Lillin had called it. He’d never heard of such a thing, let alone seen it, but he did not doubt that the collective memory of the women’s tents was correct.

  He was not allowed inside the men’s tent, but the loud sounds of enjoyment from within lured him closer. He followed its alluring tentacles to one of the eight corners where the outer covers met in a thick crease. A few flicks with his dagger opened a small hole, almost invisible in the shadows of the moon. Chucking the bulky, ankle-long sunrobes in a smooth twist from shoulder to hips, he wormed into the narrow space between the inner- and outer tents.

  The double fabric kept the inner tent cool during day and warm during the bitter desert night, and Mufroen now found out exactly how well the mechanism worked. The air in the layer between the two tents was warm, dank and stifling beyond belief. He lay gasping between efforts to breathe and not to sneeze. When finally he found an equilibrium, he crawled to a seam in the inner tent, open-mouthed and fuzzy-headed. Another two snips cut two leather bindings, letting in a relief of cool air that Mufroen breathed gratefully. When he finally focussed on the happenings inside the large tent, it took him a while before he could be sure what his eyes saw.

  The large cavern of the tent was divided into smaller spaces by hanging tapestries and he could see only one of those entirely, the rest mere suggestions of shadowy fabric and flickering candles in their glass housing. What he did see was enough to make him realize why the women had been so outraged. Fascinated, he stayed and watched as long as he dared.

  When he left, he deftly pinned the seam in the inner tent closed with a sharp piece of wood through the holes where the stitches had held it before. The hole in the outer tent where he entered was considerably larger, but a length of fabric from his robe and a clever fold hid the damage from casual inspection. He would have to make sure to repair it before the tent was disassembled at the beginning of the trekking season, but he would worry about that later. For now he had other places to be.

  The visitor’s tent was of shoddy quality compared to the tribe’s large, double layered tents. It did have an inner layer, but to Mufroen it seemed made only to please the eye and hide the course fabric of the outer tent, with no further practical use. No practical use besides hiding his presence that is. Long, narrow pieces of semi-opaque fabric hung from a frame up in the highest centre, flowing down along the walls to be held against the outer fabric by large leather loops at shoulder height. From there they flowed loosely to the thick layer of tapestries on the floor, creating an airy tunnel that provided both cover and ample view into the tent.

  He’d entered one of the smaller side tents and found it was divided by two thick drapes in a blocked pattern, that left a narrow slit in the middle for a doorway. While he sat there, wondering whether he dared to venture further into the main tent, a woman entered. She was wrapped in narrow but strategically placed lengths of green silk that took both his breath and his brain away. As he stared numbly out into the makeshift chamber, the woman lit candles from the stub she was holding while talking to someone beyond the curtains that divided the tent.

  “One hour Rheena,” Said the man on the other side “Make sure you’re ready. The woman called Rheena didn’t respond, she just smiled in the direction of the curtains as she handed the lighting stub back out. She waited until the sounds on the other side left the tent, holding herself up in a deep breath with both hands folded against her chest.

  Mufroen admired the intricate braid that trailed her head and down her back, going from a ruddy brown to a golden caramel in the light of the candles. She was as pale as distant sands at midday. Until now he’d dismissed the stories told at the night fire about golden people from beyond the desert as crazy man’s fancy, but as he watched Rheena move toward a bunk covered in skins, there was no denying she was real.

  She shivered lightly as she pulled up one of the furs around her shoulders. He held his breath against the urge to step to her and put a warming arm around her for comfort. She looked down at her hands holding the fur closed with a twitch of her mouth that suggested an urge to laugh beyond the demure smile on her lips.

  “You can step out now,” She said, sliding her gaze in Mufroen’s direction. “He’s a beast, but he does not begrudge us some time to ourselves.”

  “..- ” Mufroen gaped like one of the sand fish when they accidently jumped too high and out of their sandy habitat. Rheena now smiled directly at where he sat behind the shimmering drapes and held out a hand. Shy was not a word that featured in Mufroen’s vocabulary much, but now he felt a strange reluctance to step out in the open and face this delicate wonder that sat smiling at him with open amusement.

  “I won’t bite.” A musical tremor in her voice told Mufroen she might at any minute laugh at his unwillingness to show himself. That was too much to bear. No one had ever doubted either his manliness or his daring and the desert take him if he gave this woman reason to do either. In a single move he rose from his cross legged position on the floor and stepped through the curtains.

  Rheena looked at him in frank appraisal as he stepped closer and motioned for him to sit next to her on the bench. He sat down on the edge, half turned so that he could face and look at the cream woman that sat beside him in silent anticipation.

  “You laugh at me,” He said, speaking out despite himself and sounding more bitter than he expected. “And you make me speak when I should be silent. You must be a witch, no one could look the way you do without magics.” His expression was angry, but it didn’t hold out long against her delighted chuckles and faded into something akin to awe.

  “I daresay,” She said, taking his hand out of his lap and laying it open in her hand. “That you might just be the closest thing to a man this accursed village has.”

  “It’s a tribe, and I don’t believe it’s cursed.”

  “Never mind,” She gave a short, bitter laugh. “I guess you’re here for the same reasons the others will come for in a short while, it makes no difference to me.”

  She dropped his hand back into his lap and slung the fur from her shoulders. Mufroen frowned in the beginnings of anger as the meaning of her words dawned on him.

  “What do you mean by that?” He grabbed her shoulders and tilted his head in demand. “How do you mean, ‘the others will come.’?”

  “Judging by your frown, you know exactly what I mean,” She ignored his hands that had slid down to hold her arms and traced his face with her fingers. “Looks like my judgment of you was correct after all.”

  She gave him a smile that made him feel sad of the world in a way that he’d not before anticipated existed. “Come, I think will greatly enjoy being with you.” She said, pulling him down with her until they were laying on the bench.

  “He is not a pleasant man, but you cannot think the chief would -”

  “They will come, without a doubt. Your chief first and foremost unless I miss my guess.” She said, shivering again.

  “That is scandalous,” Mufroen said, sitting up to shake off his sunrobes again and wrap them around the woman beside him. He looked at her with a most serious expression. “I will get you out of here, somewher
e where you’ll be safe and free.”

  Rheena sat up clutching his robes around her and shook her head with vigour.

  “You must not. There is no such place, and even if there was we’d never reach it.”

  “The City of the islands will be safe -” He was cut of short by her laugh, which is what we will call it for lack of a better word, but never have you heard something with so little joy.

  “Where do you think they grabbed me in the first place? No. You will stay here,” She patted his arm with a sad smile. “And if you live, maybe you can make something better of this place.”

  “You be ready, tomorrow at midnight,” There was little room for anything else once Mufroen made up his mind and had Lillin been able to see his expression now, she would have screamed with jealousy that it was another that elicited this kind of devotion from him. “Bring as many furs as you can, it’ll be cold. I will meet you down by the boundary. All you need to do is climb out here,” He pointed at where he’d made a hole in her tent. “And walk down that way until you reach the edge of the green.”

  “I may not be able to get out that early..”

  “I will wait for you.” At that Mufroen ducked through the flimsy inner tent and into the freezing cold of the night air.

  Tribe rules

  “Did you hear,” Lillin bounced down beside him in the sand, rousing him from his slumbering plans. He would have to act as soon as the tribe burst into activity when the day cooled, but now all he had to do was think. “There’s a big uproar in the men’s tent,” She turned to a whispering tone that made all the voices of Mufroen’s intuition sit up in with sudden attention. “Apparently they found someone’s sunrobes in one of the dancer’s tents.” If she could, she would have purred. “I wonder who it is.”

  “I hate to break it to you, shade of my life,” He curled a strand of her hair around his finger. “But I seriously doubt they’ll come to you to confess.”

  “No need,” She smirked at him, obviously relishing in her superior knowledge. “The chief has a plan to flush them out, tonight at the fire dance.”

  “Oh, well, then I guess you’re right once again.”

  He smiled with a stony expression, trying to hide the blind panic that had erupted behind his façade of disinterest. If his father was going to try and flush out the culprit, which was Mufroen himself of course, at fire dance, then they both might not make it to their rendezvous, or out of the desert. Let alone what his father had in mind for those that were flushed out.

  The tribes of the high desert have long since the beginning of their histories had a power over the desert and the sands that can only be described as eerie. Bothersome enemies are known to have perished in sight of water and whole armies have marched just over the edge of a dune to vanish completely the next moment. There is some discussion as to who actually holds this power, the tribes’ men insists that only the joined Elders can utilise it, where the women hold to the belief that it has always been the gatherings of wives that do the actual wielding.

  For now, however, this discussion is moot, since in a rare moment of total agreement, they have simultaneously decided to invoke the desert to punish the desecration of long-held traditions.

  “You cannot do this,” The chubby merchant was bent double before the chief’s feet, occasionally rising to wring his hands and shaking them at the starry skies above. “She is my best girl!”

  Bound to a pole next to the chief’s seat, was Rheena. The moonlight and the fire seemed to conspire to make her look more palely golden and vulnerable than ever and Mufroen had to shake himself to keep from striding over to his father and demanding an explanation in anger. It would be foolish, for one, and also, he suspected that he knew all too well what was going on without his father’s, undoubtedly unctuous, explanations of why traditions were to be protected.

  Not enough years had passed since his birth for him to be of an age that would traditionally be considered appropriate to claim his manhood. Nevertheless, it had been more than enough for him to realize that tradition was something that the ones in power used to keep those without in check, while they did exactly what they wanted under the guise of that same tradition. It made him sick to his stomach and, more importantly, angry.

  There is nothing in the world that can burn as hot, or as deep, as the smouldering ashes of righteous anger, and Mufroen had been nourishing his for quite some time now. It had sparked when the chief, his father, had seen fit to banish his mother out into the desert on some futile charge. With every petty, selfish act, the flames burned higher. And there had been quite a number of those acts.

  “Don’t worry about your girl, Malik,” said the chief with a slick voice. “She might still walk away unharmed,” He smiled his gapped teeth to those gathered around the fire. There was much shuffling of feet and only rarely did anyone dare to meet his gaze. The chief was unpredictable when he was angry, so it was better not to attract his attention at a time like this. “All she needs is a protector for the coming trial.”

  Mufroen was sure his father’s gaze rested on him from across the fire. The tribesmen were a short people and Mufroen was of average height and for a moment he wondered how he would be able to recognize him over the blinding blaze of the fire between them. He gritted his teeth and waited, there was always a snake hidden under too smooth sands.

  “If her protector is able to bring us the sword of sands before sunrise in two days, she will be cleared,” The collective silence of shock was a sound in itself.

  Mufroen raised his eyebrows in surprise. The sword of the sands was a story that was told to unruly children when they had to go to bed at night. He’d never thought it could be real.

  “That’s just a fairy tale, there’s no way anyone could get that sword, it doesn’t exist!” The words had left his lips before he knew it, and when he saw his father’s content expression he also knew that he’d acted exactly as the old man had planned. He stepped forward into the ring of light around the crackling fire.

  “I challenge you.” He stared into his father’s desiccated face and jerked his chin up to underline his words. The old man cackled with pleasure, even going as far as to hit his legs with his hands in his joy. Mufroen didn’t know what was so amusing about his challenge, but he was pretty sure he’d find it the exact opposite.

  “No my boy, I don’t think so.”

  “You have to accept a challenge from anyone who thinks himself your better,” He showed his father his most expressionless face. “Or abdicate.”

  The chief raised a wrinkled finger and shook it slowly through the air.

  “Not quite,” He said with relish. “Can anyone tell me why not?” The silence around the fire eddied into frantic whisperings, but none spoke up.

  “Ah.. Don’t tell me no one knows..”

  Mufroen could have throttled his father with the greatest pleasure, just for the taunting expression that was now on his face.

  “Treason!” A light voice rang out and people shuffled aside behind Mufroen to let the speaker through. “One accused of treason must be tried before he can challenge,” Lillin stepped out into the light some paces from him. “And you have been accused.”

  “If he’s still alive after, that is!” His father laughed and the Elders and most of those around the fire laughed with him. It may not be heartfelt, but it made it very clear where they stood: safely behind their chief.

  “You dumb..-” Mufroen bit of his remark and stared back at his father with all the patience he could gather. They might kill him, but he’d be damned if he scrambled in front of his tribesmen.

  “But, I’m willing to be fair,” The chief said. He motioned for Lillin to join him and fondled her with gusto when she stepped up. “You’re a pretty thing, aren’t you?”

  Mufroen could see disgust flee across Lillin’s face and for a short moment he truly felt for her. She had no idea how badly she’d trapped herself, or him, but she was intelligent enough to realize her abominable future
soon enough. His father had decades of experience over on her. If she even tried to ply him in the smallest of ways, he’d end her before she’d have time to blink. But it might still be better than what awaited him.

  “As your trial, you’ll be this harlot’s protector and bring us the sword,” He leaned forward with a satisfied grin on his craggy features. “You have two sunrises, I suggest you make haste.”

  “I doesn’t exist,” He kneeled next to the pole to which Rheena was bound, she’d sagged down in her bonds and was sitting in an uncomfortable crouch. “I’m so sorry.”

  She smiled at him, squinting against the sand that blew in her face and shivering violently in the cold night air. He’d gotten the largest fur blanket out of her tent and tucked it in around her, but he could tell that she’d gotten too cold to warm herself up quickly.

  Only a few stragglers were left around the fire. Now that the spectacle was over and the victim’s fates as good as sealed, most had retreated to the communal tents to prospect on what would happen in the morning. He slid the blanket open again and folded himself around the trembling woman. A small sigh of relief escaped her mouth as she pushed into the heat of his body.

  They must both have fallen asleep somehow, because when Mufroen awoke some time later the fire was reduced to embers and nothing but silence could be heard from inside the tents. But something had woken him, so he disentangled himself from the sleeping Rheena as gently as he could and walked between the tents.

  He looked around, everybody seemed to be in the deep slumber of middle night and apparently nobody’d considered setting out guards. With a sniff he headed toward the back of the camp. If he could get some supplies from the storage tents and a sled, they would have a chance when they made a run for it. Honour was all nice when everyone played by the rules, but he preferred to play alongside the rules and live to enjoy another day. He was quite sure Rheena would have no compunctions in the area of tribal honour and he doubted his father saw her as enough of a person to have made her swear that she wouldn’t run. And even if he did, she didn’t have to run, he was taking her.

  He found one of his father’s competition sleds in storage and unwrapped it with pleasure. They were made of the best woods and skins the dessert could provide, its sleek form would give them a chance to outrace the tribe. He’d packed it lightly, but brought extra water and furs, Rheena would not be used to the hardship and there was no point in saving her if he couldn’t keep her alive long enough to get her safe. Although, he probably would still try, even without supplies. Better to be taken by the