The prince let out a bellowing war cry and brought his sword down for a glancing blow across her face. She blocked, but the very end of his sword glanced off her brow and drew a small line. Thick blood crawled rather than dribbled down her face. As she turned to launch her own attack, she crushed the few escaping worms with her palm.
This needed to end quickly — only a few seconds more before all of the water was used up and her strength would falter. She swung downward — such a long and unwieldy weapon compared to her sharp daggers — and almost cleaved into the prince’s shoulder before he rolled out of the way. Scanning his movements, she knew where he intended to stop and allowed herself to slip into a gap between dimensions. She barely missed the crushing weight of a large, squirming tentacle before landing exactly behind the prince. Her sword was at his throat before he could do anything.
“Weapons down,” she barked to the guards who were just now coming to his aid. Their fight must have been done in mere seconds. Time became a sluggish, gargled thing when she traveled. The palace guards paused, weapons still drawn, but not daring to move. The prince’s panicked noises finally drove his father out of his stupor.
“Do as she says,” he whispered, and the clangs of dropped weapons echoed throughout the halls. He turned to speak to her with lips ashen and drawn. “Please, don’t hurt him.”
She thought of him seconds ago, a king in all domains, secure in the knowledge that only death could touch him, but that his death would be further away than any other. She wished to see him grovel, to know the pain that plagued her, but even the cleverest of traps could be reset, given enough time. The stalemate would have to be broken.
The prince wriggled in her grasp and she could feel his rising hysteria. It was like holding a small, writhing worm that couldn’t understand the difference between flesh and dirt in its need to hide itself away.
“If you promise to leave my son alive, I can tell you the location of the Ma’ah Steed.”
The prince gasped and struggled to rise.
“Father — no! We have been pursuing the Steed for years!”
“Your life is more important than any trophy or glory.” The shah seemed to have shrunk in stature as his aged hands stroked his graying beard.
“More important than the welfare of our people? The Ma’ah could sustain our kingdom with water for the next fifty years!”
“We will find another way. We always do,” the shah said, in a resonating, peremptory tone that banished all argument. “One such as you —” he gestured to her webbed fingers as all traces of the parasites burrowed back into the depths of her body, “ — one with your abilities would benefit greatly from the powers that the Ma’ah Steed is said to possess. You are familiar with the Great Water Horse of the shifting sands?”
“I am,” she croaked. “A hundred thousand drops of water for a hundred thousand years for the man who can capture and tame the water beast of the sea-sands. Even in my faraway childhood in a faraway place were such tales told.” She looked at her now normal hand, seeming to try to see through the layers of skin and muscle to the bone, before speaking again. “I accept your offer, but I require three things if I am to leave without violence: my weapons, a flask of water — a mouthful will be enough — and your son.”
“What?”
“The word of the shah is law, but what is your law to one such as me? I require your son so that I know you will not pursue me in the desert after I leave. I will need no map, no faulty directions, if I have something precious of yours to ensure my continued survival. I promise not to harm a single hair on his body and to return him to you whole after we find the Great Ma’ah. With these conditions, I will leave peaceably, never to return to your kingdom again.”
“The word of a thief carries no great weight either, I am afraid.” The sigh escaped from deep within his chest and fell, heavy, into the room. A small light crept back into his eyes as he rose to greet her grim face. “But I accept. Now, release my son.”
She nodded and threw the sword to the ground, taking a step back. Servants scrambled noiselessly to find her belongings and to assemble a suitable pack of clothes and provisions for the prince. The thief slunk into the shadows, disguising the unsettling feeling in her stomach that would not go away until she could make her way to the winding sands outside of the capital. The prince argued in a low voice with his father that distracted some, but most of the harried glances carried her way were piercing and swift. No one dared look her in the eye, lest her tainted being somehow slither over to them. She had to check to ascertain that her skin was, indeed, its normal dark brown and her curly black hair no longer touched by green or webbing. Their gaze was heavier than it had been at the glistening drops of life-giving water, and it unsettled her; she wished once again to be alone.
Within twenty minutes she had an escort of fifty guards in a phalanx to the wall. At the gates, the prince pressed his forehead to his father’s, heaved a gravid goodbye, and then accompanied her past the border. Once she was on the other side, her small daggers and a sloshing flask were chucked over the stone wall to land in the sand at her feet. As she strapped on her belt and adjusted everything, she raised a tattered piece of black cloth to cover her face from the rising sun, leaving only her eyes exposed. The parasites didn’t like the beating orb any more than she did, and they pulsed with displeasure.
“We’re leaving now? As the sun begins to boil?” the prince asked in disbelief. They were his first words to her.
“Every servant was bustling within the city by the time we left. Many more than required to find my belongings and to equip you for a journey. The shah intends to go after us under cover of darkness, despite his promises otherwise. I intend to put as much distance as I can between them and us. So, the faster you lead me to the Ma’ah, the faster you can find your father’s men and be back home. He will see that the word of a common thief holds more honesty than a rich man’s.”
She gestured for him to walk in front and into the blazing fury of the sunrise. Slowly, he plodded westward and began their journey to find the Great Ma’ah.
As the sun grew, their steps became thoughtful and paced; the parasites inside of her delved deep, trying to find some solace from the burning heat. The prince fared no better, but he dared not ask for them to stop.
Relief came as the sun began to sink, and she looked back to see their winding trail of footprints slowly being eaten by the ever-present, wind-fueled dust devils. The city was a small dark spot below the mounds of the hills they had crawled to the top of around midday. Flashes of shining light off spears and helmets greeted her as she ordered the prince to stop and build a fire. He obliged, happy to sit and engage in something else other than staring at the orange horizon, sun-blind and burned.
Once the fire crackled, illuminating their faces and keeping their hands warm from the encroaching chill, the prince found a satchel of food in his pack and began to peck at the rations. After a few bites he looked at the thief, and then, with downcast eyes, offered her a small piece of dried meat. His hand lingered in the air for a few moments until he took it back and scoffed.
“You don’t eat?”
“This is all I need,” she replied, opening the flask at her hip and quickly draining it of its contents. As soon as the water passed her teeth, she grabbed the shocked prince and dragged him, screaming, into the other, chaotic world.
Once there, the clouds thundering and the sky an even darker shade of torturous green, she stayed still, holding the struggling prince in her scaled arms. Large tentacles burst out of the sky and plummeted toward them, until they blotted out the haunting, ethereal light. They grabbed hold of the proffered prince and drew him into the low clouds, until she could no longer hear his shrieks. The small piece of dried meat fell to the ground as she slipped back to the fire.