Arabesque

Carac

Just past midnight, the two summoners slipped out of the room and moved into the hallway. It appeared to be abandoned save for one man sleeping propped against the wall, a bottle held loosely in his hand. The summoners crept past the drunkard and down the back steps out to a deserted back street. The night was cool, and there was a biting wind. The echoing refrain of fellahmin music floated into the alley. Although the Jassaj were dead, the summoners knew not to become complacent; so they set out in opposite directions in order to elude any other spies.

The men moved with purpose, knowing their final obstacle had been removed. Assuming Fajeer Dassai kept his promise, they would have no difficulty finding their way out of the city. Soon they would be in the safe house that had been prepared forthem several farsangs northward, in the hilly lands beTivisis. Still, they remained wary.

Hersí felt confident about their apparent success. He wondered briefly if the three Jassaj who'd been consumed by the magical fire had time to realize what was happening to them as they were engulfed in flames by the unnalíí spell. Secretly, he hoped they had; he had nothing but distain for the Qatani people. His kind, those from Carac, would no longer be viewed with contempt while the Jassaj were exalted. Their mission would garner the summoners both awe and terror.

As Hersí continued on his path, he thought about the discussion he'd had with Bashír shortly before their departure. Bashír fretted that the plan might fail and those who'd been pursuing them were not dead. "I'm worried about what will happen to us if they indeed live," he said. Hersí assured him that the Jassaj had not survived.

"The Lamia'nar consumed every living thing there," he assured Bashír.

Despite these reassurances, Bashír was worried about being caught and concerned that the entire mission was still at risk. And he was afraid that if they were captured, they would suffer a pain worse than that experienced by the Jassaj they'd killed.

It was a promise.

§

Darkness revealed little as the two summoners moved through the night, leaving the gates of Tivisis behind them. They'd spent the day in a flat on the northern edge of the city, near the Lisbarre Cathedral, Faliini Monuments, and the plaza of commerce. Many of the buildings in this quarter were reserved for dignitaries, and offices gave way to the houses of nobles and merchants. From dawn to dusk this was a busy thoroughfare with many people passing through it to the port and the lofty towers at Tivisis' core. Now the cobblestone roads were quiet and empty.

The summoners climbed the steep road that separated the mainland from the sea. Between two sets of rocky ridges lay a succession of valleys, and the road dropped into the first one to meander for some distance beside a slow-moving stream.

This wide valley was planted with fields of oats. These farms supplied Tivisis with grain; they kept bread on the tables of those who could afford it. As the Carac continued, the cobblestones gradually became more worn and broken, until a well-traveled dirt road stretched out before them. They kept to the main path running northwest, aiming for a series of steeply rising ridges barely discernible in the distance: the foothills of the Tayar Mountains.

At the center of the valley, a small village divided the fields of grain from the pastures set aside for livestock. The sole purpose of the place was to provide for the transport of freshly harvested foodstuffs to Tivisis.

A cricket chirped in the darkness. A bull snorted from a corner pen. A mange-ridden dog trotted up but quickly turned and retreated as it caught the scent of the travelers. The two men moved on steadily northward without stopping for rest or a meal.