Chapter 1 #2
an undeserving noble. The small straight knife that hides in an ankle holster and a truly excellent bladed disc from my second
husband, who learned to regret teaching me to throw it.
But there’s only one weapon for situations like this, one I commissioned myself and never leaves my presence. Made of pure
iron, it isn’t my sharpest blade and its weight can make it unwieldly. Spots of rust from the sacred Zamzam water I sprinkle
over it in nightly blessings pepper the metal, the red flakes making it difficult to discern the knife’s inscribed holy verses.
But I didn’t need the knife to be pretty.
I needed it to be effective when more earthly weapons failed.
I seized Khalid by the collar and ripped him off the other boy. Before he could make a grab for my throat, I put my blessed blade to his. “Be gone,” I demanded.
He wriggled wildly, sea-foam flying. “You shall not have me. You shall not have me! ”
“I do not want you! Now, in the name of God, be gone!”
I pressed the knife harder as the bismillah left my lips. His flesh sizzled in response, and then he crumpled. The sea-foam
that had wrapped his body hovered in the air a moment then hurled itself at me. I fell as though struck by a battering ram,
my head slamming into the boat’s bottom.
Icy fingers with bone-sharp tips were digging into my ears, a great weight pinning me in place. But by the grace of God, I
was still holding my blessed blade. I struck out madly, and the knife stuck in the air.
There was a shriek—an evil, unnatural sound like claws scraping over seashells—and then the scaled monstrosity squatting on my chest rippled into sight.
Its glittering eyes were the color of bilgewater, its filthy straw-like hair matted with barnacles.
It screamed again, revealing four needlelike teeth. Its bony hands scrabbled on my own as it tried to wrest away the dagger
sunk into its wine-dark breast. Silver blood bubbled and dripped from the wound, drenching us both.
The youths were sobbing and begging God for mercy. The demon was shrieking and wailing in an unknown tongue. I shoved the
blade deeper, thundering to be heard over all of them.
“God!” I shouted. “There is no god worthy of worship except Him, the Ever-Living, All-Sustaining!” Holding the dagger tight,
I launched into ayat al-kursi, the passage from the Quran I had been taught all my life would protect me.
The demon on my chest howled and writhed in pain, its skeletal hands flying to cover scaled ears.
“Neither drowsiness nor sleep overtakes Him! To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth— will you get off of me? ” I elbowed the creature hard, and it spit in my face. “Who could possibly intercede with Him without His permission? He knows
what is ahead of them and what is behind them, but no one can grasp any of His knowledge—except what He wills!”
Its skin smoking, the demon must have decided it had had enough. A pair of bat-like wings sprouted from its back, and with
a gusty flap, it pulled itself off the blade and was gone, vanished into the night.
Gasping, I sat up. The mists were already receding, the youths still clutching each other on the other side of the boat. I
held the dagger tight, searching the retreating fog for anything else. Fear coursed through me, thick and choking, as I waited
for that familiar laugh. For fiery black eyes and a too-silky voice.
But there was nothing. Nothing but the star-splashed lagoon and the gentle murmur of the tide.
I spun on the youths. “You said you were after treasure.”
Oil-Lamp Boy flushed, spots of color appearing in his chalky skin. “Treasure is a concept open to—no, wait!” he cried as I
snatched their map and lump of carnelian, thrusting them over the water. “Do not do that!”
I tossed and caught the glittering red gem in one hand. “Do not pretend with me, boy,” I warned. “Lie again and I will throw
you both overboard. You mentioned payment and a name. What were you trying to summon?”
“We were not trying—Bidukh!” he confessed when I dipped the map into the sea. “My cousin told me about her. She is...”
He swallowed loudly. “She is one of the daughters of Iblis.”
I gaped. “You were trying to summon a daughter of the lord of hell? On my boat?”
“We did not mean any harm!” The moonlight had returned, and I could see him cowering. “It is said that if you please her,
she will whisper the secrets of love into your ear.”
Khalid swayed in his friend’s arms. “I am going to be sick.”
“Throw up in my boat, and you swim back to shore. A daughter of Iblis... may you both be cursed.” I hurled the map and
carnelian into the lagoon. They vanished with loud splashes amidst the protest of my passengers.
“Hey!” the boy cried. “We paid a lot of money for that!”
“You should be thanking God you did not pay with your lives.” I thrust an extra oar in his arms. “Row. Perhaps some labor
will knock a bit of sense into you.”
He nearly dropped the oar, his eyes going wide as I shifted positions, the movement revealing the other weapons concealed
beneath my cloak. I wiped the iron knife clean, placing it back into its sheath before taking up my own set of oars.
Both boys were staring at me with expressions of shock.
I could not blame them. I’d fought off a demon, given up the slouch I’d been affecting to reveal my true height, and now rowed with my full strength—a far cry from the quiet, hunched-over old fisherwoman who’d reluctantly agreed to take them out here.
“Who are you?” Khalid asked hoarsely.
The other one gawked. “ What are you?”
The lagoon was receding, but I would swear I still felt a heaviness in the air. For a moment the water splashing at the rocky
beach looked like the yellow-hued crimson of the now-vanished sea-foam, the shadows dancing on the cliffs like tentacles.
“Someone who knows too well the price of magic.”
I said nothing else, and they did not ask. But they did not need to. For stories carry, and even if the youths were ashamed
to confess their own schemes, the tale of an unassuming fisherwoman who fought a demon like a warrior of God? Who threw off
her tattered cloak to reveal an armory at her waist and a form like an Amazon?
Exaggerations, but the truth scarcely matters when it comes to a good tale. The kind of story that spreads in taverns and
shipyards. To wealthy women’s harems and the kitchens of their servants.
To the ear of a very desperate grandmother in Aden.