It was surprisingly tasty, a savory flavor with a smoky overtone, though that could have been the result of the dried palm fronds that made their fire. Every night thereafter, Balkis and Anthony caught three or four of the fish, and found there were many different kinds, from half a foot long to two feet, with many different flavors. Apparently, they weren't the only ones eating them, for several of the larger fish had smaller ones in their stomachs. Panyat always refused to look until they assured him that the meal was already cooked. The strips of crisp flesh bore so little resemblance to the whole fish that he could watch them eat without having to remember from where the food had come.
When they came to the fifth oasis, though, they found trouble. The pool teemed with water snakes, and Balkis drew back with a cry of distress. Anthony came at the run, saw, and blanched. “Quickly, away! They might squirm out onto land!”
They backed quickly, then watched warily, but the snakes seemed quite content in their watery home, darting and coiling and flashing about to feast on their smaller cousins.
“How can we dip up water?” Balkis asked, at a loss.
“We dare not,” Anthony said, tight-lipped. “There are so many that we cannot hold a waterskin under long enough to fill before one of them bites us—and they might be poisonous! Indeed, their very presence may have contaminated the water.”
Panyat stared at the pond, appalled. “These snakes were not here when I came by with the caravan last year!”
Balkis turned to him with narrowed eyes, thinking. “Someone may have brought in a mating couple,” she said after a moment, “but surely so many could not have grown from one gravid female in a year! Someone has polluted this pool deliberately.”
“Who, though?” Panyat asked.
Anthony gazed at Balkis and read her face. “Whoever did it could not have had us in mind, sweet lady. How could they have known we were coming?”
“A good question,” said Balkis, “and I would dearly love to know the answer.” She turned to Panyat. “Perhaps we should not stay here today.”
The Pytanian looked out over the desert to their north. “It is only false dawn, and we could march another mile before the sun rises—but what if there is no shelter?”
“They we shall have to fashion a tent of our cloaks and our staves,” Anthony told him, “but I think Balkis is right. I could not sleep with so many vipers nearby. Let us go.”
They set out across the desert again, but Anthony was unusually silent. Finally Balkis asked, “What are your thoughts?”
“Hm?” Anthony looked up with a start. “Oh, only wondering how snakes would taste, and if there is any way to be sure their poison does not infect their meat.”
Balkis smiled. “We lack time to experiment, sweet friend. Yonder is a dune with a face to the north; it should shade us for most of the day. Come, let us make a tent.
The day was a torment of thirst. Fortunately, they were able to fall asleep through the worst of it, but when they woke in the twilight, they were parched. Balkis and Anthony took only two swallows of water each, then asked Panyat, “How far to the next oasis?”
“I fear this is one that is three days distant,” he said mournfully.
“Three days!” Balkis's mouth already felt like cracked leather. “How shall we last so long?”
“We shall have to ration the water very strictly,” Anthony said grimly, “only one mouthful an hour.”
But Balkis had to remind him to take even that. Several times in the next few nights, she caught him pretending to drink when he really did not. “I shall endure as well as you ” she scolded. “Do not save your water for me! If we meet danger, we most both be able to fight!”
Anthony drank.
But three nights later, they still had not found the oasis.
“I am sure we have traveled in the correct direction!” Panyat said, on the verge of panic.
“Then we shall come to it.” Balkis clasped his shoulder. “Fear not, friend. We go more slowly when we are thirsty, that is all.”
They dared not eat salt beef when they had so little water, and the hardtack was almost gone. That evening, their traps caught no fish.
“I fear that even the sandfish do not like to go too far from water,” Anthony sighed.
“It is not that,” Panyat sighed. “It is only that they stay close to the rim of the desert, and we have traveled beyond their range.”
“The oasis cannot be too far away now,” Balkis said, and they marched hungry that night.
About midnight, they drank their last swallows of water. Anthony turned his waterskin upside down with a moan, catching the last few drops in his palm and licking them up.
When they stopped to rest an hour later, Panyat took out one of his apples, sniffed it, and held it out to them with a sigh. “Take and eat it, friends. There is moisture in it, and food enough to keep you another mile.”
Anthony stared at the apple and swallowed convulsively but said, “Thank you, good Panyat, but I could not. You will need its aroma for many miles yet.”
“Nor can I.” But Balkis couldn't tear her gaze away from the lovely fruit. “Your health and vitality are far more important to us now than food, for without you we would be completely lost.”
Panyat took the apple back, looking unhappy, but he tucked it back into his pouch with a sigh of relief. “We might have to go another night before we come to the next oasis,” he warned. “I have lost my sense of time, for I can no longer judge our pace.”
Small wonder that he couldn't—their feet dragged, and Balkis had begun to feel as though she were climbing a steep hill when she was walking on level ground. Anthony leaned heavily on his staff, his face drawn and pale under his suntan. On they went, forgetting why, only knowing that they had to raise each foot, swing it ahead, and set it down, following Panyat, who walked straight, sniffing now and again at an apple—but even he had begun to lean more heavily on his staff, weighted down by responsibility and the guilt they had told him he should not feel.
In spite of his warning of a fifth night, the sky's eastern glow showed them the silhouettes of palm trees.
Anthony ran toward them with a glad cry and an aching, waddling gait, but Balkis caught him and cried, “Not yet!”
They leaned together for a minute of sheer exhaustion. Pan-yat turned back and said, “She has the right of it. Those palms are a mile and more away.” But his eyes glowed, and his face seemed to sag with relief.
On they slogged, mouths and throats dry, their steps wobbling now—but they managed to struggle to the palms before Anthony tripped on his own feet and fell. Balkis knelt to help him, but before she could pull him up, Panyat came to her with cupped hands holding an ounce or two of water. “Quickly, drink! Before it trickles away.”
Balkis sipped the water gratefully, then held the last mouthful on her tongue and, with a supreme act of will, pressed her lips against Anthony's. They stayed obdurately closed, so she levered them a little apart with her tongue and let a little water trickle in against his teeth. His whole body stiffened; then his lips opened, and she let the water pour into his mouth. He licked her lips to draw the last drop, froze, then kissed her in earnest.
A minute later, she lifted her head with a gasp, then a shaky laugh. “What a pity that I am too weary and too thirsty to enjoy that as I should!”
“I am not.” Anthony gazed up into her eyes with adoration. “Angel of mercy, who brings water in the desert!”
“In the oasis, rather, and it was Panyat who brought it.” She turned away, feeling the need of a change of subject, and shrugged her flacid waterskin off her shoulder. “Please fill this, good Panyat, for I fear my companion will not go to the water yet.”