Jim Baen's Universe

Introducing: Stories by new authors

The Waters of Eternity

Written by Howard A. Jones

Thus said Asim el Abbas, slayer of ill-natured beasts and right hand of that most far-sighted of men, seeker of hidden things, Dabir ibn Khalil, favored of the Caliph Harun al-Rashid, upon whom be peace. These are his words:

The girl was going to die. So the hakim had pronounced and Dabir said there was no reason to doubt him. The wasting sickness would soon snuff her candle. Yet the girl trotted back and forth between the members of the expedition, chattering as though it were a feast we rode for.

On this, the third day of our travel, God had blessed us with mild winds and a warm sun. Captain Sarsour and the four-man escort waited with Lina's chaperone a few lengths ahead, at the mouth of the high, narrow pass. Pines fought for life here and there on the crags to either side, but snow and ice surmounted the heights. The soldiers made a brave sight, clad as they were in varied shades of blue, their helmets wrapped in turban cloth, their cuirasses gleaming. Gems flashed upon their belts and sword hilts. Not so many years ago I too had worn such gear, and ridden far under the banner of the caliph.

Lina lingered for a last look at the plains. I saw most of her long neck and thin face through her veil's fabric. Moments ago she had been laughing at ducks arrowing overhead. Now she was solemn. Might she be searching for a last sight of her home for all her fourteen years, the city of Dariashan?

The hakim, on his gray mount, cleared his throat, but Lina did not respond. I looked to Dabir.

Dabir opened his mouth to speak, then brushed his small spade beard instead. He smiled sadly at me. “Give her another moment.” His voice was soft.

My horse snorted impatiently and bent to nibble clover.

A long moment passed, yet the girl showed no signs of moving.

“Lina,” Dabir said gently, “we must be going.”

Lina’s eyes were half-closed as she looked over her shoulder. "Of course of course, don't rush my horse." She giggled, then turned with a toss of her dark curls, her veil swinging.

Lina kicked her mount into a canter, and Dabir and the hakim and I followed the doomed girl.

Captain Sarsour started the column forward.

"I gave her too much bhang this morning," the hakim confessed to Dabir, adding softly: "I thought she needed to relax. It's made her . . . silly."

"Yes," Dabir agreed.

The hakim was silent for a time, but I sensed he had another purpose in riding beside my master. I was right, for soon he asked another question. "Do you think we'll find the fountain?"

"It may be," he said. "I have seen stranger things." I knew from his tone that Dabir meant to conclude the conversation, but the hakim pressed on.

"Would we not have heard of such a miraculous fountain, were it true? Would not the map to it be revered, framed in gold, and kept under lock and key? It would not be kept in a corner, stuffed under some worthless scrolls. The matter is strange to me."

"Some true things are kept hidden for good reason," Dabir said.

The hakim gave him a funny look. He opened his mouth as if to ask further questions, but my master spoke first.

"How much longer will she last?"

The hakim glanced ahead before answering. The girl was out of earshot. "Two or three days at most. Long enough to get her to the fountain."

"Good," Dabir said, though his voice was grim. He clicked his tongue and urged his mount faster. The hakim had the sense this time not to pursue conversation.

I stayed at Dabir's side. “Do you believe it’s real, master?” I asked quietly. He had been mostly silent on the topic since the governor had presented us with the faded map. A week's worth of desperate searching by the whole of the palace staff had uncovered it, following the orders based upon the governor's vague memory of a tale his grandfather had told. I did not know why Dabir's mood was so dark, for surely he and I had looked upon many strange things in our years together. Could there not be a fountain that bestowed eternal life with its waters? Surely the governor believed it, and he was my master's friend and superior.

Yet Dabir’s blue eyes were grim as they flicked to me. “I hope, Asim."

Lina was the governor's only child, the light of his life. Poets compared her laughter to music. Scholars praised her knowledge of the book-to-be-read, from which she could recite long passages. Her keen wit pleased my own master, who enjoyed instructing her. As for myself, I had little patience for women, especially those who chattered—-yet I had enjoyed her singing, which echoed cheerily through the halls of the governor’s palace whenever Dabir and I were summoned there.

And so I hoped with Dabir.

Clouds blanketed the sun as we rode. Chill wind whipped down the heights. The trail steepened and we passed sheer drops of hundreds of feet. Then, in late afternoon, we reached a plateau several leagues across. High yellow grass waved about our horses' withers, and clumps of pine trees and boulders and small hillocks broke the horizon. Foreboding filled me. Though I saw nothing as I searched the distance, I felt certain we were watched from behind the boulders. Lions, perhaps, or bandits.

Yet the day passed, and nothing ventured close but birds and rabbits. All was well after evening prayers. Even the weather was kinder, for the cold breeze that had blown throughout the day lessened beneath the dark blanket of clouds.

A scream woke me to nightmare. Instantly my hand found my sword and I rolled out of my covers. The watch soldier stared open-mouthed at the thing looming out of the starless night, the thing that even now doubly impaled the hakim on gigantic mandibles. The dying fire sketched a horse-high beast with a lobster’s segmented carapace and two waving antenna. A sickly number of legs skittered beneath its shell, and its mouth, inside the circle of its great mandibles, dripped foam as it opened and closed spasmodically.

It smelled of the grave, but sight alone was enough to take a man’s breath.

Dabir roused even as I yelled to God to give me strength. Sarsour shouted for his soldiers to take up arms, but I paused only to draw my sword and slap the stunned soldier on the back. “To battle!”

He picked up his courage and followed.

The hakim had ceased struggling. His body shook this way and that as the monster insect turned to us. The mandibles opened and he dropped like a grain sack.

Many were the monster’s legs, and they were swifter than I supposed. Its mandibles clacked like dancer’s bracelets. I was close enough now to see the black eyes set in the horror of a face. I cried out and cut. It was a mighty stroke, and sheered the insect’s mandible in half. So great was my blow that I lost balance and followed the direction of my swing. It was a beginner’s error not to have better planted my feet, and I attribute it to my fatigue and the unevenness of the ground; moreover, that God had not written my death for that moment, for there came a hissing noise from behind me and then a scream that did not stop. I rolled to my feet to see the face and tunic of the soldier covered in smoking black ichor. He threw down his sword and reached for the pitted ruin of his face, then wailed all the more as he yanked his hands away.

The remaining mandible impaled his neck and he ceased his cries.

Two of the soldiers plied their arrows against the thing, but that was folly, as even Sarsour saw, for he cursed them. “Lances, you fools!” He picked up one and tossed it to one man, then charged forward with a lance of his own. He did not lack courage.

I readied to follow, but Dabir called to me. “Asim!”

I looked past the bulk of the monster and saw Dabir holding something aloft. His oil flask. “Get fire!”

He dashed past Lina, who crouched in her blankets, her eyes like white pearls, and strode determinedly for the monster.

I leapt to obey, though I did not like it. The caliph had charged me with protecting Dabir by day and by night, yet what was I to do when Dabir sent me one way while marching to death the other?

Even as I raced to the fire I saw a smoking green spray shoot from the creature’s mouth and burn through a soldier’s face. He wailed only for a moment before falling. Sarsour and the remaining two stabbed the thing with their lances.

I snatched a blanket, whipped it around my hand, and grabbed a handful of sticks at the fireside. These I thrust into the dancing flames. In moments they were alight, and I looked back to Dabir.

Sarsour shouted for him to stay clear, but Dabir sidestepped one of the guards and the mandible I’d chopped, then hurled the contents of a cup he carried into the creature’s face. The thing hissed its anger as the oil splattered.

The nearest soldier pulled Dabir back, then tackled him as a smoking stream spewed from the thing’s orifice. It missed them by mere handspans. The other soldier danced away, but Sarsour jabbed the monster's mouth. It let out a high-pitched hissing sound.

“Asim!” Dabir cried even as I dashed forward, the flames trailing from the burning brands in my hand, “aim for its face!”

I was not so witless to have failed to divine his plan. I closed on the bug, and I threw the sticks, and my aim was good. I lashed it like a fiery whip and the flames licked up across the oil and spread over its face. “Get back!” I called.

But Dabir did no such thing. As the creature turned its flaming face from us he ran forward to its side and splashed it yet again with oil. The fire licked up along its carapace and it screeched.

Flame ate at the thing, and it tossed this way and that, as if it meant to dislodge a rider. Twice more it sprayed forth ichor, but we had all withdrawn. Its blackened limbs were still twitching a half hour later even after fire had consumed it.

We relocated the camp, bearing the bodies of the fallen with us. Fadil, the stocky soldier who had saved my master, helped me recover the horses, for God had given them the good sense to flee. Upon our return I discovered Dabir and Sarsour confronting each other beside the crackling fire. The girl wept nearby while the handsome Tarik looked on curiously.

“. . . to be an expert on such things,” Sarsour was saying.

"Do you suggest I should have foreseen the insect’s coming, witless one?”

“We delayed for two days so we could have an ‘expert’ who’s useless! I’ve lost two men, her hakim, and her chaperone. Now you tell me you don’t even know medicines!”

“Do not threaten my master,” I said, and put my hand to my sword.

The captain snarled and placed a large-knuckled hand on his own hilt.

"Stop!"

As one, Dabir, Sarsour, and I turned to the girl.

Lina’s eyes blazed with fever or fury. “Four lie dead and you would duel?”

“This is men’s talk,” the captain said gruffly.

“Am I not the governor’s daughter? Am I not your charge?” Lina swung a hand at my master. “He is no hakim, but Dabir has pledged to aid me, and I accept his offer. Captain, I treasure your bravery, but save it for your foes. Dabir could not have guessed a monster would attack us any more than you could.”

Sarsour frowned, saying nothing, but the tension was broken as my master bent to a pack beside him that I recognized for the hakim’s. Sarsour glared at his back.

“This man is beloved of the caliph, may peace be upon him,” I said. “And the caliph placed him in my charge. Men do not lightly cross swords with Asim el Abbas. If you are fond of your head’s seating, I would watch your tongue.”

He scowled, but turned from me.

Dabir prepared a potion for the girl from the healer’s notes and bedded down near her. I kept watch next to him, trusting neither Sarsour nor the dark grasslands, which might vomit up another horror at any time. The girl passed soon into sleep, and I thought my master had as well, but after a time I heard him whisper my name.

"Asim."

“Yes, master?” I answered softly.

“You are sworn to protect me. Yet . . . I would think, if something horrible were to happen, you would know what to do."

I hunted for meaning in his words. "You have been thinking about the men wounded by the great bug," I said. It was not like him to ponder such things, and I wondered at his weakness, although it was a horrible death and men would rightly fear it.

"Suppose it was something like that, yes. If I was wounded or . . . changed, somehow. I trust you would not let me linger."

"Nay, I will let no harm come to you—"

"Promise me, Asim, that you would send me to God." His voice was low, insistent.

I thought first to remind him again of my oath of protection. Yet something stayed my tongue. He had never spoken to me like this before, and I felt his eyes fastened sharply upon me. "By the ninety and nine holy names, I promise, master."

This must have satisfied him, for he rolled onto his back. "I did not think we would find it," he said. "Yet we have seen two of the map’s landmarks. I no longer think the tale a fable."

Earlier that day we had passed a great mottled rock shaped like a goat skull, and a small oval lake shimmering like a mirror.

“Now the trick is to keep the girl alive," he said quietly.

"But you have mastered the hakim’s medicines.”

“I do not recognize all of the medicines.” His voice was softer even than the nearby crickets. “Many of them are unknown to me, and even though some are labeled, I do not understand their use.” He was quiet for a time. “Even if I can induce her to live another few days . . ."

"What, master?"

He did not respond. I wondered if he were on the cusp of one of his black moods, which might explain his brooding. Once they seized him he was poor company for many days. "Do not fear for the girl, master," I said. "You will see her through.”

“It may be so,” said Dabir. But his voice did not betray hope.

I woke late, to my master’s voice. He spoke with Lina. A short distance away, Sarsour, Fadil, and Tarik dug at the earth.

"Did you see his preparations?" Dabir was asking.

"No, I did not."

I looked over at them, but did not rise.

“I'm sorry, then,” Dabir said. “I do know that the bhang would help ease your sorrow, and any pain—"

"No." Her voice was suddenly sharp. "No more bhang. I'm dying. No more. It makes a fool of me, and if I am to die this day it will not be as a fool."

"I don't think you'll die this day, lady."

"How soon then? Tomorrow? How long do I have? The truth.”

The steady chunk of spade into dirt paused for a moment, before Sarsour mouthed a low curse. The spade work resumed. Why, I wondered, did they have spades at hand on this journey in the first place? And then I realized that they must have been packed should the girl die.

I watched Dabir. His lips pursed. “The hakim said you had two or three days. We should reach the fountain by then." He smiled. "You heard the captain this morning. He thinks we'll get there tonight."

"And do you think they'll be some magic waters there, Dabir? If such a thing existed, surely the map would not