Chapter 31 #3
My arm smashed through the stalagmite, sulfur exploding in messy, fetid crumbles. I kicked at the base, sending a spray into
the Frank’s face as he backpedaled and lifted his weapon, attempting an offensive strike.
But I was the faster one now. The stronger one. I brought my sword down again and again on his, Falco struggling to defend himself.
He shouted in pain as one of my strikes ripped through his chain mail, opening a nasty, bloody gash across his torso. I slashed
down at his neck and while he jerked away to avoid the killing blow, he caught the hilt in his face, blood spurting from his
nose.
“Wait!” he cried, spitting out a tooth and staggering back. His eyes were wild in his bloody face. “You plague of a woman, if you would just listen to reason!”
The only thing I wanted to listen to was this man’s last gurgling breath. I circled closer, contemplating the best approach
to end this. Falco had lowered his sword, but I did not trust his seemingly vulnerable position.
Dunya suddenly shrieked.
It was an unnatural yelp, as though something old and inhuman had briefly stolen her voice. I whirled back to see the lump
of salt in her hand vanish in a burst of mist. And then the entire stone column exploded, great geysers of water tearing through the rock as if it were nothing but pebbles, lashing the air with drenching sprays of liquid gravel.
“Dunya!” Shielding my face, I ran for the scholar.
When I got to her, she was crumpled on the wet ground, whatever magic had made her float vanishing. She’d taken a nasty bump
to the head, and blood was streaming down her brow and arms from a dozen small lacerations. I dropped to her side. Dunya’s
damp face was pale as parchment and cold to the touch. Her eyes were closed but her lips were still moving, murmuring breathy
chants I couldn’t understand.
“Dunya,” I said urgently, gently shaking her shoulder. To hell with this not-interrupting-the-spell rubbish. “Dunya, can you
hear me? Are you all right?”
She stopped her nonsensical rambling and, God be praised, a little color reappeared in her cheeks. Her eyes slowly blinked
open, her bleary gaze struggling to focus on my face.
“Nakhudha...” she whispered. “Is it really you?”
“Aye.” I cradled her head, trying to examine the bruise already swelling on her brow. “Take care. You are bleeding.”
But Dunya was already trying to sit up, wincing in pain. “Did it work?”
From the other side of the cave came a giddy chuckle.
Falco . I’d been so concerned with Dunya that I’d briefly paused my mission to murder the Frank, but I glanced up now to see him
sitting on the ground, happy delight in his expression. He was gazing at his lap like he didn’t have a care in the world.
No, not at his lap. At the silver basin nestled in his hands.
The Moon of Saba.
Its glimmer entranced me, snared me, and all other thoughts vanished.
The silver-worked basin that had once belonged to Queen Bilqis, that had trapped a lunar admirer, that had launched wars and destroyed kingdoms, was magnificent.
I suppose that should have been obvious—it had belonged to a queen.
It was not overly large, about the size of a winter melon, and yet I could see the scenes carved on its curving sides as though the basin were right before my eyes.
A garden with date palms and a lute player, an ibex with scrolled horns peeking mischievously from behind a screen of leaves, and a pair of hoopoe birds with their beaks opened in mid-song.
The silver gleamed as though freshly polished, as though it had not already been ancient a millennium ago.
And staring upon it... I felt silly , my cares gone and my heart loosened. Falco’s and my gaze caught, briefly sharing a moment of happy, drunken commune before
the disgust of doing so with the murderous sorcerer broke whatever spell the Moon of Saba had cast upon me. I shivered and
blinked rapidly—then realized the basin’s gleam wasn’t only coming from the polished silver.
It was coming from the water glistening in the basin’s depths.
Water .
The stories rushed back to me, the lies and truths mixing together. One had to see their reflection to possess al-Dabaran
and now Falco was—
“No!” I shot to my feet, but not even my new speed would get me across the chamber in time. However, I did have time to rip off my boot and hurl it at the Moon of Saba with enough force to send the lovely, priceless historical artifact
spinning out of Falco’s hands and toppling to the dirty floor.
But it was too late.
Falco kept laughing, a light airy sound. He met my gaze again, and I gasped. His brown eyes were filling with celestial light.
“Behold!” he cried. “I have accomplished what no man has since Solomon! I have mastered the spirits of discord and the hidden
sciences!” He raised his hands, and from around the chamber there was hissing and the papery brush of wings and chitin as
moths, snakes, centipedes, and a whole host of foul creatures emerged from every dark crevasse. “Let God Himself tremble at
the world I will build!”