“Maracanda has grown rich on trade,” Balkis told him. “Caravans come from the west and south as well as the east, bringing not only goods but travelers. Some of the pilgrims choose to stay. My ancestors came from all lands.”
“If all their descendants are like you, their mingling has produced a beautiful people!”
Balkis lowered her gaze, hoping he wouldn't see her blush. “You are kind to say so…”
“Not at all,” Anthony breathed.
“… but I think that all peoples are handsome, though others may not see it,” Balkis went on, firmly ignoring his comment—but she kept her eyes, and her face, downcast. When her skin had cooled, she looked up and asked, “But what of this rhyming game of yours? Did Alexander bring that, too?”
“No one knows,” Anthony said frankly, “though we think it was there before him. It is a contest for whiling away the long winter nights, after all.”
Balkis gazed off into space, thinking, and nodded. “There is little point in sitting around the fire in summer, aye. But do you not sit out in the twilight, then?”
“We do,” Anthony said, “but there is little time between evening chores and bed, for we work in the fields as long as the light holds. There is much work to be done if we wish to wrest a living from the rocky ground of the slopes.”
“I suppose there must be.” Balkis thought of the wide, flat fields around Maracanda and saw his point. “Do you never tire of retelling the old tales?”
“Never, for there are many of them, and some, like the Ma-habhurata, are very long.” Anthony seemed to see nothing odd in a Christian knowing a Hindu epic. “And, of course, you must never use a verse, or even a line, that you have used before.”
“So you must always put the story into new words?”
Anthony nodded. “Always new rhyme and meter straight from your head, made up then and there. Some play it only as a game, but Father has always declared it to be a competition between his sons. At the end of the night, we discuss who has done best, and Father rules who won and who lost.” His gaze slipped away and his face darkened. “Almost always, they agree I have lost, for I am clumsy in my rhyming and keep breaking the meter.”
“Not the verses I have heard.” Balkis felt a dark anger growing. “You seemed quite deft and your rhymes ingenious. Have you ever won?”
“Oh, of course not!”
“Of course,” Balkis echoed with sarcasm. “You are the youngest, after all—how could they ever let you be first?”
Anthony frowned. “It is not their fault that I am slow.”
“I am not certain of that,” Balkis said, and before he could object again, added, “after all, they never let you begin the tale. You must always fit your thoughts to someone else's meter.”
“Well, true.” Anthony gazed out at the desert. “I have gained a great deal of practice at keeping the story going, though. Surely I will gain their respect someday, even though I may never win.”
“Not theirs,” Balkis said, “but mine, and that of any others who hear you.”
“Yes, if someone else makes up the first verse!” Anthony said with a rueful grin. “I have little originality and less imagination.”
“Or so your brothers would have you believe,” Balkis said sharply. “I suspect your imagination is only lacking in regard to your own talents. For myself, I can memorize any verse at one hearing and coin a new verse easily, but I have a bitter time of it trying to finish a final couplet.”
Still, Anthony had already proved that he was very good at improvising verses to add to her own spells. If she could start a spell, he could finish it, and make it much stronger in the process.
He did not say so, but looking into his eyes, Balkis saw that he realized it, too. She flushed and turned aside, not wanting to relegate him to being the clean-up man, even as his brothers had—but she had to admit his talent was useful. She resolved to give him a great deal of practice at beginning poems.
Anthony reached out for her hand but didn't quite touch it. “What are you thinking?”
“Only that it is a long way to Maracanda.” Balkis took his hand. “A long way, and months in which to come to know one another. Let us sleep while we may, and when the sun is low, we can manage a few hours' more walking.”
They walked northward until dark, with the setting sun on their left. They sheltered in the lee of a huge rock that stood alone and unexpected in the midst of the waste. Anthony kindled a small and smokeless fire with the dry brush that straggled about them while Balkis changed into a cat and crept downwind of some mice, watching them scurry about the brush finding dried berries to eat. Then a nighthawk found the mice, Balkis found the hawk, and they had fresh meat for dinner.
They traveled for two days, hiking northward from the first light of false dawn until noon, resting till the heat had slackened, then marching again until the twilight had faded into total darkness. On the third morning, though, they came to the rim of a valley and stared at an open river with groves of trees wherever it widened into a small pool.
“Do I see castles?” Anthony asked, eyes wide.
“You do, and I would guess them to be a day's march apart all along the river,” Balkis said. “Upon my word, I do not know which is more amazing—the river in the middle of a desert or the castles!”
“We must be wary,” Anthony cautioned. “Water is precious in this wasteland. The people who live here may raid one another to gain more acres of riverbank and may have built the castles to protect themselves from one another.”
“If so, they will not take kindly to strangers,” Balkis said, nodding. “But this valley runs northward for at least two days' travel, and the chance of having open water by us that whole way is too great a stroke of fortune to resist.”
“If there is trouble, you can always turn into a cat,” Anthony reminded her.
“Oh, can I!” Of course, Balkis had been thinking the same thing. “What shall you turn into?”
“A prisoner,” Anthony said frankly, “but you shall free me with your magic.”
Balkis stiffened in alarm. “Do not place too much faith in magic. You never know when your opponents will have a stronger wizard.”
“Well then, we shall have to outsmart them.” Anthony flashed her his dazzling grin again, then started down into the valley.
Balkis gazed after him, shaking her head—but his perpetual good humor did lift her spirits.
The going was easy on the valley sides, especially after they struck a winding path—apparently, the inhabitants climbed to the desert frequently, probably to meet the caravans. In fact, Balkis found herself wondering why so well-watered a place had not developed its own caravanserai and trade town.
They reached the valley floor before the sun had risen very high; in fact, they still walked in the shadow of the valley wall when they came to a huge heap of dirt beside a foot-wide hole.
Balkis stopped, staring. “What do you suppose made this? A fox?”
“A whole tribe of them, perhaps.” Then Anthony's eyes widened and, with a cry of delight, he bent down to the heap of dirt.
“What can be so wonderful about earth?” Balkis wondered if the sun had been too strong for her mountain-bred friend.
“This!” Anthony straightened up with something in his palm, holding it out for Balkis to see. She looked down and saw a golden nugget as big as a robin's egg. She stared, then felt fear reaching out from her stomach to weaken her limbs, though she did not know why. “This must be a miner's workings!”