The stranger grunted a short mirthless laugh. “Think a bit much of yourself, don’t you?”
“It’s true.” Asha caught the woman’s arm to stop her, and then she drew back her hair to reveal her right ear.
The stranger frowned and leaned in close to look at the scaled and discolored flesh. “Huh. I see. Bit you, did it? Maybe it does want you. All right, I can work with that. We’ll go back to your cave for now.” She turned and resumed walking.
Asha followed. “Are you alone out here?”
“I was until you showed up.”
“Are you a soldier?”
“Not really.”
Asha frowned. “What’s your name?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“Sorry. I just wanted to know what to call you.”
She glanced back. “Nadira.”
They trudged up the broken slope, slipping here and there on the slick patches rubbed smooth by the dragon’s belly, and hiking over the little walls of churned up earth. Asha pointed out the entrance to the cave, a small triangular gap in the wrinkled rock face.
“We’ll stay out here,” Nadira said. “I want to keep an eye out for your admirer. We can always go inside later if we want to die like mice. Call out your friend, if you want.”
Asha nodded and asked Priya to join them. Then she straightened up beside the armored woman and exhaled. “I can’t believe you fought that dragon with just a sword.”
Nadira shrugged. “I fight most things with a sword. It didn’t seem like a good time to start trying something new.”
“Uhm, right. Well, we’re from India. I’m an herbalist,” Asha said. “I can look at your injuries, if you have any.”
Nadira shook her head. “No leeches for me, thanks.”
Priya emerged from the tunnel and stood up. “We have a new friend?”
“Her name is Nadira,” Asha said, turning to the stranger. “Although, I suspect you’re also known as the Damascena, aren’t you?”
5
The woman smiled in the moonlight. “So you’ve heard of me?”
“Only in passing. But a friend said we might meet you if we ever came to Damascus,” Asha said. “Which is how I know you’re two thousand years old, thanks to a man named Bashir.”
Nadira’s sword sang as it flew from its scabbard and pressed against Asha’s throat. “So now she’s sending assassins after me?” The woman’s voice was utterly calm, a perfectly flat monotone without a hint of anger or passion. “At least she’s getting more creative, I’ll give her that much. A dragon. Where did she get the damned thing? Not in Ifrica, surely. Hm. So, can you control this dragon? Or are you just the bait, sent to lead the beast here to kill me?”
“What?” Asha spoke softly, not daring to move her mouth too much and risk touching the blade at her neck. “I don’t know what you mean. We weren’t sent by anyone. We met a man like you. With this ear of mine, I could hear that he had two souls, and he told me that a man named Bashir made him immortal by sealing a drop of his soul in a golden egg that he wore around his neck. Him and two others in Damascus. And just now, I could hear that you also have two souls, so I’m guessing you also have a little golden egg with you somewhere.”
After a moment, the sword fell away and Nadira stepped back. She reached into her armored breastplate and lifted up a small pendant that shone in the starlight, and then she put it away again. “You met Gideon?”
Asha nodded. “He saved us from a man with a burning sword. An Osirian.”
Nadira slipped her saber back into its scabbard. “Well, that’s Gideon for you.” She sat down on a stone looking out over the valley floor below.
They sat down beside her and Priya said, “And you must be the courtesan he spoke of.”
Nadira laughed a long loud laugh, her shoulders shaking until the laughter faded into a few weary gasps. “Oh really? I must be the courtesan,” she repeated mockingly. “Am I so beautiful? Am I so courteous? Or maybe I smell like roses and jasmine?” She sniffed her armpit and grinned.
“But if you’re not the courtesan, then that means…” Priya hesitated. “You’re the nun?”
“I am. Or I was. I took the vows for life, but that was when I assumed I was going to die,” Nadira said. “It doesn’t really seem fair to hold me to that promise after all this time, does it?”
“I suppose not. I’ve never met a nun who wore armor and carried a sword,” Priya said. “Is this common in the west?”
The Damascena winked at her. “Not really, no.”
Asha cleared her throat. “Look, I don’t know how much time we have before the dragon returns, and I don’t know of any way to stop that thing from killing me and everyone else in the city. I suppose with a fast horse, I might be able to lead it away into the mountains or a desert where I could hope to starve it out, but that’s a plan based on hope and luck.”
“And a horse,” Priya added with a playful little smile.
Asha ignored her. “Nadira, I watched that animal kill a hundred soldiers this evening in just a few minutes, but tonight you held your ground against it. And you can’t be killed. So do you think you can defeat this dragon?”
“I wish I could. I wish I had,” Nadira said as she wormed her little finger into her ear to scratch an itch. “It took everything I had to just keep away from its claws and tail. And while this sword of mine can split a hair length-wise, it couldn’t break that creature’s armored skin. I was damned lucky to cut its snout. I doubt I’ll be so lucky again, not that it would do much good. Something that big isn’t going to die of a bloody nose.”
Asha opened her shoulder bag and pawed through the little clay jars and glass vials. “What if that was all we needed? I could put something on your sword, a narcotic maybe.”
“But you said you didn’t have enough for that to work,” Priya said.
“Not if the dragon ate it, no,” Asha said. “But if we could get the drug directly into the animal’s blood, then it might work, at least for a little while.”
“A narcotic?” Nadira asked. “You want to put it to sleep?”
“Yes.”
The Damascena grinned and shook her head. “And then what? We should just walk home very quietly and try not to wake it?”
Asha frowned. “Once it’s asleep, you’ll have to kill it.”
“Those scales in your ear must make it hard to hear. I told you, my sword can’t break its armor. I tried. You were there, you saw. At best, I might stab out its eyes and hack out its tongue. I could make it bleed, and I could make it suffer. But I don’t think I can kill it, and I don’t want a blind rampaging dragon outside the walls of my city.”
Asha paused, staring at the powdered seeds and dried flower petals in her hands, and the scalpels and needles in the bottom of her bag. “Then maybe I can do it. But you’ll still need to subdue the dragon first. I’ll make an opiate paste to spread on your sword. You’ll have to cut it on the face again to get the drug into its blood. Can you do that?”
Nadira shrugged. “Sure. I’ve done it once, I can do it again.”
Asha sat down, took out her tools, and began grinding and mixing. A vast silence blanketed the valley as the moon rose in the southern sky and the constellations began their nightly trek across the heavens. The only sound in the world was the gentle breath of the wind playing through the grass.
“Sister Nadira?” Priya spoke softly. “Can you tell me what it’s like to be immortal? I can’t imagine what it would be like to walk in the world for so many lifetimes. To see the world growing and changing. Whole dynasties. Whole civilizations. I’m sure it has given you many profound insights into life and humanity.”
“Not really.” The Damascena chewed on her finger nail.
“Oh. I see.” The blind woman cleared her throat. “Could you tell me anything at all about your life? Please? I’d just like to try to understand what you’ve experienced. Please?”
Nadira sighed. “All right. Well, I entered the Mazdan Temple when I was young. I prayed, I fed the hungry, and I tended the sick. And then Bashir offered to make me immortal so I could help him. He taught me the laws of aether so I could study it, to find out whether the aether might be a path to understanding God and the meaning of life, or at least life beyond death. I was flattered and awed, so I agreed. I was so very stupid.”