The Princess Who Tamed Demons (20 page)

Goose bumps tunneled down my spine despite the
desert heat as I realized what exactly I was seeing. Linn's
surprisingly sharp eyes made the discovery as fast as I
did.

"This is not good. Keep your amulet close." I
reached into my pocket only to feel that the amulet was gone. I had
showed it to Mhirra at breakfast and let her hold it. I remembered
her putting it down to eat. We must have left it in the
room….

"Linn." I turned to look at my partner with a
pale face. "I'm afraid I left it at Fasima's house."

Linn's thunderstruck glare told me just what
he thought of that.

The children stilled and said nothing, as if
they could sense our fear. The cloud of kicked-up sand moved closer
as I watched more than two hundred white-cloaked riders crest the
closest ridge and bear down on our tiny group like an ocean wave.
My senses corrected my earlier assumption now. Not all of the
riders wore blinding white in the desert haze. Two among the riders
wore only the charcoal robes of the Verse-preachers, the one
position in Tajmari society which demanded uncompromising
black.

Sir Brel and four of his knights drew up to
form a line beside us. The knight's deflated bearing told me just
how badly he felt about our chances.

"My Queen—"

"Let me handle this, Sir Brel. That is an
order." I thought I recognized the lead rider. Was
that…?

The stampeding swarm of galloping shapes
converged on our group, encircling us like a sandstorm. My horse
snorted, its ears flattening as it sidestepped and whined, as the
scent of so many unfamiliar animals spurred a sense of fear in the
beast to match my own. Mhirra stroked the animal's mane, whispering
soothing words, and it seemed to help. I squinted as the two
Verse-preachers detached themselves from the main formation and
rode up to us. As they neared I realize that I was staring at not
one but
two
familiar figures. One was a bear of a man,
muscular with just a slight paunch. His sharp eyes gleamed with
intensity above a frothy black beard peppered with grit. It was
Ghayth.

The imposing Verse-preacher halted his steed
maybe twenty paces in front of me. His broad smile revealed rows of
white teeth.

"Najika of the Black Kingdom. What a pleasant
surprise!" The man to Ghayth's right was Salib Aarda, the other
Verse-preacher whom Linn and I had spoken to at the Mosque of the
Twin Moons.

Why were they here? That was the question
worth all the rubies and emeralds in Arkor. If they were here to do
what I
thought
they were….I should never have trusted
Ghayth, not for a moment. Damn him. In our fixation on Fasima, we
had failed to anticipate that perhaps Fasima and her Jafarri
supporters had not been acting alone. Was that one of the 'details'
Fasima had said we were missing? An alliance of convenience with
some the Mosques?

"Can I help you gentlemen with
something?"

Ghayth shrugged. "Perhaps you can." He turned
to Salib. "Say what you would like to say, friend."

Salib drew himself up as if he was about to
preach to a temple's mass of faithful followers.

"It is so ordered, by
ildith
, that the
foreign whore is to be purged from the Tajmari Kingdom," Salib
said, his nasally voice as annoying as his words were chilling.
"You slipped through my snare near the Mosque of the Twin Moons,
but the Two Creators have guided me to you again. They smile upon
me."

Ghayth interrupted, his expression bemused.
"After our last enlightening conversation, Najika, I decided to do
a little discovery on my own. When my people brought word that your
librarian was having Fasima al-Sham watched, I decided to have you
and the librarian followed. We found it very interesting when you
left the city shortly after Fasima al-Sham's departure, heading in
the same direction."

"Wait! You don't know what you are doing!" I
cried. "I came to Asmyra because Fasima al-Sham was the true
plotter behind the assassination attempt on my life. Fasima planned
to kill me and make it
look
as if your people had done it to
bring the wrath of the Great Amir down on all the Mosques. By
killing me now you would be playing right into her hands." Whether
the Verse-preachers had conspired with Fasima or not, perhaps if I
could just make them understand their own danger…or was their
seething hatred for foreigners so intense that nothing I could say
would sway them?

Ghayth exchanged a look with Salib, and it
abruptly struck me how different the two men appeared. Salib had
the enraged rictus of a fanatic transforming his features, but
Ghayth sat calmly in his saddle, dispassionate.

Salib drew his saber, which caught the sun's
light and gleamed like a hideous grin.

"The
ildith
says you deserve death."
The
ildith
? My mind tried to unearth what that word meant.
Linn, as if reading my mind, helpfully whispered to me.

"The fool is talking about the pronouncements
that the higher-ranking Verse-preachers can make. Each one has the
force of religious law, which they believe supersedes all royal or
civilian authority."

I turned my attention back to Salib as he kept
prattling on in his sadistically nasal tones. "I had to grovel
before you and Linn before, swallowing my pride to appease two
worthless foreigners. Bah. No longer. Now perhaps if you beg, I
will let you live, Najika. Perhaps if you share your body with all
of the men here, then maybe I will allow you to limp back to your
own Kingdom."

Ghayth turned abruptly to his companion and
spoke as if his question held no importance.

"Salib, who issued the
ildith
calling
for Najika's death?"

Salib paused, bewildered. "You already know
the answer to this.
I
issued it. I have been inspired by the
Two Creators to cleanse this land of—"

The passionate Verse-preacher never finished
his sentence. The breath caught in my throat as I watched it happen
and at first refused to believe. Ghayth's blade tore viciously
through the other Verse-preacher's neck. Bright red blood spattered
Ghayth's arm and flew in flecks which the parched sands hungrily
soaked up. A few heartbeats passed, and Salib Aarda's head toppled
backward, his body slouching in the saddle.

There was a standoff of stunned silence. I
gaped at Ghayth as he nudged Salib's body with his boot, sending
the corpse toppling over in an undignified heap where the swirling
sands would be only too eager to consume it. Violent struggles
briefly broke out in the ranks of the white-cloaked riders, and I
realized that it was Ghayth's men overpowering Salib's. Ghayth's
loyalists far outnumbered his so-called ally, and the bloodshed was
over quickly, more bodies obscured by shifting sands.

After it was over, I drew my hands away from
Mhirra's eyes. I hadn't even noticed that I had covered
them.

Ghayth dismounted.

"Stay here." I carefully dismounted too,
striding up to the hulking man who looked even larger in his
wind-rippled robes.

"An
ildith
is only valid as long the
Verse-preacher who proclaims it still lives," Ghayth said, his
voice full of good humor. He glanced with distaste at the blood
coating his arm. "May I?" He nodded at the water flask belted at my
waist.

"Why?" I handed him my flask. He nodded in
thanks, used it to soak a sash untied from his saddle horn, and
then wiped the blood from his bronzed skin. I wondered…had he
listened to my reasoning, that to kill me would only bring harm to
his own people by incurring the Great Amir's vengeance? Had he
helped me simply out of self-preservation?

"It is not as you might think," he said,
smiling sadly at me.

"What do you mean?"

"Your question about the servants troubled me,
and I began to wonder if one of the Mosques had been using its
influence in destructive ways, perhaps to gain favor by betraying
the other Mosques. In making inquiries I discovered that two
servant boys from the palace had been abducted by people loyal to
Salib. When I confronted Salib about this, he confessed to issuing
a secret
ildith
calling for your death. I pretended to be
sympathetic. He confessed to be part of the plot to have you
killed. The two boys had been too close and attentive to you, so
Salib had had them removed. He also admitted to being the one
behind the attempt to kidnap you near the Mosque of the Twin
Moons."

I ran a hand through my grit-filled hair.
"Hold on. Are Reshi and Daeshka…?"

"The servant boys are safe," Ghayth said, his
hand cupping my chin. His thumb rubbed the side of my jaw
affectionately before he withdrew his hand. "You are a remarkable
woman, Najika of the Black Kingdom. I can't think of any other
foreign woman stupid enough, reckless enough,
bold
enough to
ride out with only seven men into the Tajmari desert to nab a
dangerous criminal who has nearly had her killed!" His words
carried notes of awe, abundant enough to compose a song. Then he
frowned.

"You remind me of Aisha. You have her spirit,
even if you do not follow the Verses as you should."

I tried to process all of this, my hands
clutching my head as I felt a pounding headache coming on. Ghayth
was the ultimate contradiction. I got the feeling he would eagerly
lecture me for hours about the proprieties espoused in the holy
Verses, and yet whether Aisha had somehow softened him like a
princess taming demons, or whether he had a more understanding
nature which surfaced in its own unique way, I could not say for
sure. Perhaps it was both factors which had combined to form a
tipping point—to create the oddly pragmatic religious zealot who
was Ghayth.

"Wait, so why did you come at all?" I fumed.
"Why scare us half to death?"

Ghayth's voice turned sober. "We do not clean
our dirty linens in the open. Verse-preachers take care of their
own. If one Verse-preacher endangers the community of the faithful
by his obscene actions, bringing violence without cause…." He let
the words hang, then shrugged. "It would have been messy, killing
him and his rabid loyalists in the city and trying to cover it up,
all the while avoiding inconvenient witnesses. I needed to lure him
out into the desert with his closest followers. This way was much
better, do you not agree?" He beamed at me like a father who has
just found the perfect man for his daughter to wed.

"If you say so," I said. I didn't know whether
to call Ghayth a friend or a psychopath. I supposed he could be
both, but the idea had me feeling queasy. "It still seems like a
lot of work, if you ask me."

"Not so," Ghayth said, wagging his finger at
me. "I came also because I had no clear idea what you were up to.
For all I knew, you might have needed the extra help." He turned
back, glancing at his hardened men from the Mosque of the Twin
Moons. "I have nearly 180 true-and-tested fighters here. Are you
being pursued? Is everything well in hand, Najika? Because if
not—"

Letting inspiration guide me, I lunged forward
and gave him a peck on the cheek. That shut him up, at least. His
face transformed, the dazzling smile back in place.

"You've done quite enough, Ghayth. Truth be
told, I'm exhausted and just want to find my way back to the palace
and leave that nasty hag back there"—I jerked my thumb in Fasima's
direction—"to the Great Amir's not-so-tender mercies. If you could
just escort us to within a day's ride of Tajma, then that would be
more than enough."

Ghayth grunted. "This I can do, but on one
condition."

I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. "What
is it, Ghayth?"

"You and your husband will come to the villa
to have dinner with me and my Aisha, just the four of us, once he
has returned. Any man who can handle you must certainly be worth
getting to know," he finished with a sly wink.

I groaned. "If that is what it will take to
get you out of my face, then it's agreed. Happy?"

Ghayth nodded politely. "Let us just say that
I am pleased."

I turned to go, then stopped myself at the
last moment.

"Ghayth?"

He turned back. "Yes?"

"Aren't you worried that socializing with a
foreigner will discredit you in their eyes?" I made a small gesture
so that only he knew what I was talking about, that I was motioning
at all his men who now formed a spectating sea around
us.

Ghayth shook his head. "When a man surrounds
himself by able friends and leads by earnest example, he can do
many things, even unpopular things, and retain the people's
respect."

As the lumbering Verse-preacher turned back
toward his horse, I thought about what he had said. Truth be told,
I would return to those words and get comfort from them in the
weeks to come. I walked back to my horse, carefully re-mounting as
Linn gave me a curious look.

"He's agreed to escort us back to
Tajma."

Linn made no reply, but his unease was
palpable. Sir Brel rode forward, his every muscle trembling as he
asked me what in the Kingdoms was going on. I kept my reply terse.
As a Queen, one thing I was learning—often it was better to tell
people things on a need-to-know basis only. The thoroughly
dissatisfied knight rode away to check on Fasima, and Linn and I
led our little band in the wake of Ghayth's horde of riders. They
fanned out across the desert, thinning out into scattered groups so
that no matter what lay ahead or behind, there would at least be
warning for it. Slowly the excruciating anxiety from the initial
encounter with Ghayth's mounted equivalent of an armada was wearing
off, and my body began to relax.