The sorceress touched the assassin's arm. "What are you doing?"
"Sending Lord Memnon a message," he said; but his voice sounded weak, his eyes seemed cloudy.
Nonetheless, Mathayus managed to remove the bird's cowl and launch the falcon into the air; it wheeled, flapped regally, and flew away.
The Akkadian stood with his hands on hips, watching the bird wing toward Gomorrah, and he laughed a deep, hearty laugh that turned, startlingly, into a cough.
"Mathayus!" Cassandra cried.
The assassin, seized by a cramping of his abdominal muscles, doubled over.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
His fingers indicated the wound, from the arrow. "Poi... poisoned ..."
And the mighty warrior, legs buckling, pitched forward into the sand.
Touch of Magic
As sunset painted the rocky landscape around the great city of Gomorrah a vivid orange, as if the earth itself had caught fire, a falcon flew over the fortified walls and to its familiar perch within the turreted palace of Memnon. The marketplace was closing down—excluding the dens of sin, of course—and soon all but the most dedicated lechers would have retired behind walls of stone, for time with friends and family, for food and rest.
Lord Memnon, however, did not rest—he had assembled his generals in the great throne room, where maps were spread out over a large table. Most pressing, of course, was Ur—the only unconquered land—and the warlord was sharing his latest strategies with his battle chiefs. As usual, his generals paid rapt attention; but one of them—Toran— seemed strangely quiet, even preoccupied. And this troubled the Great Teacher, who preferred his pupils hang on his every word.
Takmet, the heir to the empty throne of Ur, was present, but he too seemed to have his mind elsewhere, and did not crowd around the map table with the rest. Of course, Memnon had already informed Takmet of these strategies; even so, the man’s nervous pacing was a distraction.
And of this assembly, of course, only Takmet knew the why of Cassandra’s absence . . . that the Akkadian had stolen her away.
A falconer entered, with the regal, recently arrived bird on his arm. Approaching the warlord, then half bowing, he said, “A message from Thorak.”
“Finally,” Memnon said, with a sigh of satisfaction. “The Akkadian is dead. . . .”
But the warlord soon realized he was looking at Thorak’s insignia – his blood-spattered insignia – and nothing else. Rage and even a kind of sadness rose in him – the scarred warrior had been at his right hand for many years, and now the Akkadian had slain him, and sent this taunting message.
Crushing the bloody amulet in a powerful hand, Memnon stood lost in thought for long moments, before General Toran stepped forward.
“My lord,” he said. “Is something wrong?”
The warlord banished the emotions from himself, and glanced impassively at his generals; he even summoned a small smile. “No – quite the opposite. All is in order.”
The generals exchanged glances.
"And I think, gentlemen," Memnon said, "this meeting is at an end."
The generals half bowed and were making their way across the throne room, toward the doors, when Toran stopped and turned, the other men halting as well, though their expressions were tentative.
With a boldness none of them had ever before dared, General Toran said, "My lord, it is customary for the seer to attend these meetings. We all know how valuable her council has been."
Takmet paused in his pacing to look tellingly Memnon's way.
"Why," the general was brazenly asking, "is the sorceress not with us tonight?"
Around him, the other generals were nodding their heads.
Memnon, hiding his anger at this affront, said only, "She is indisposed."
The generals again exchanged anxious glances, and Toran asked, the suspicion obvious in his voice, "Nothing ... serious, I hope?"
Memnon smiled, though his eyes were hard. "If it was serious, you would be informed.. .. Are you not my most trusted advisers of war?"
General Toran again half bowed. "Yes, my lord."
And the other generals did and said the same, and went out.
With a growl of fury, Memnon swept the maps from his table and hurled the wadded-up leather insignia at Takmet, who flinched.
The wispily bearded adviser said, "I said nothing! I revealed nothing!"
"Would that I could trade your worthless life for Thorak's," the warlord said bitterly. "Go! Leave me.
And Takmet, who for all his faults was no fool, did as he was told.
That night, in the surprising coolness of the sunless desert, under the purple star-tossed sky, the full moon touching the sands with a chalky ivory, the horse thief Arpid found himself in the unusual position of taking charge of their little camp. He built a fire, as the Akkadian lay shaking under a blanket, lost in fever's labyrinthian halls, beads of perspiration jeweling his copper-hued flesh.
Kneeling beside the assassin, the sorceress tended his wound, cleansing it with water from a goatskin pouch, bandaging it with cloth torn from the scarflike bedouin robes she wore. Mathayus mumbled in his delirium, with only the occasional word comprehensible—but among them were "Memnon" and "Cassandra."
Watching her as she patted a damp rag to the Akkadian's forehead, surprised by her tenderness, the thief settled himself down in his own blankets. He wondered if the woman knew that she loved this man....
Gently, Arpid asked, "Can you save him, sorceress?"
She glanced toward the little thief, her dark eyes leaping in the firelight. "Perhaps ... but his fever is strong. The poison is made from the venom of the scorpion."
He frowned in curiosity. "How could you identify the poison? What, from the signs of his sickness ... ?"
She shook her head. "I know, that is all.. .. This man is tied to the scorpion, in some mystical way even I cannot fathom. This may be a good thing— if he survives, that venom will always be within him."
"A poison in the blood is a good thing?"
She wrung out the cloth. "It may give him the strength of the scorpion ... and a resistance to any future poisoning."
"But will he survive?"
'Tonight will tell."
Arpid sat up. "Well, you better work your magic, woman. He's our only way out of this desert—he dies, we die."
Cassandra sat back, pausing in her ministering, as if considering the little thief's words; then she gazed up at the full moon, her lovely features bathed in its ivory glow. She might have been listening to words only she could hear—Arpid could not be sure. He knew only that she was lost in a near trance....
And then she seemed to relax, her shoulders settling, and her expression was tranquil as she turned to the thief and said, quietly, "He will not die."
Arpid frowned. "But he's poisoned, you said...."
"Hush now, little thief," she said, her voice both musical and kind. "Do not interrupt."
"Interrupt what... ?"
"Hush."
And Cassandra lay one hand over the Akkadian's heart and another over the nasty wound on his thigh; she closed her eyes, and drew within herself. The moonlight now seemed to provide an aura around her, her entire body haloed in its glow; or was the sorceress herself emanating that radiance ... no, surely, it was just the moon....
Yet Arpid knew, somehow, that the sorceress was healing the assassin—that she was calling upon all her powers, every particle of her very being, to use her magic as a cure.
Not far from their campsite, another figure trudged, a small figure with wild white hair and modest robes and an enormous pack on his back, the likes of which would half cripple a mule. And yet Philos the scientist had no means of transport beyond his sandaled feet, though he had a better sense of direction than most travelers.