The Water Wagon

"I didn't say," Z'mbutu's words were blunt, but his tone was friendly. He thought that the princess would love to hear she'd been mistaken for a profession dancer. He reminded himself not to tell her.

"Forgive my curiosity, I don't mean to pry into your affairs. But seeing after a female can get trying on a long journey. Perhaps you'd consider relieving yourself of the burden and selling her, eh?"

Z'mbutu arched an eyebrow, showing some interest, as any pimp would at the chance for profit. "How much do you offer?"

"Oh, I suppose I'd be willing to part with a gold sequien."

Z'mbutu gave a sincere scoffing laugh. The trading skills of the desert-folk were legend. "She earned nearly half that much tonight from her dance. Besides, she's not for sale."

"Oh? Perhaps yours is more than solely a professional relationship, eh? Given that, five sequien would seem a fair offer."

"As I have said, the girl is not for sale."

"How sad. I could use such a one in my shop."

"You have dancing girls in your lamp shop?"

"No, but what a novel idea. I also own a small wine shop."

"I see."

"I'm Ifrit."

Again Z'mbutu arched his brow. "You're named, Evil Spirit?"

"A nickname thrust upon me by my brothers in our youth. It adhered and now that is how I'm known."

"I'm Alaeddin."

"Ah, well met. Alaeddin. That is a desert man's name."

"Your people find my birth name too difficult to pronounce, so, I go by Alaeddin."

"I understand. Do you mind if I light an incense-oil lamp, to chase away the smell of the animals? The smoke will also relieve us this pestilence of flies."

"Be my guest." The smell of horse, camel, and unwashed Humanity, Z'mbutu could tolerate. But the flies were a shifting plague, he was constantly swatting at them on his arms and chest and legs. Waving them away from his eyes and face.

The merchant's movements were well-practiced as he trimmed the lamp's wick, then added the oil from a leather hard case flask. He struck a sulphurhead-head against the adobe of the wall then fit the dancing flame to the ready wick. Within movements the citrus scent of lemon first joined with then suppressed the malodorous aroma of the oasis and, as of a miracle, the swarms of flies retreated.

"You have my thanks," Z'mbutu said, nodding to Ifrit in true gratitude.

"A service I am only too happy to provide, worthy friend."

While his words were friendly, the man's smile now held an unwholesome quality the alchemist found disturbing. Z'mbutu felt himself grow suddenly dizzy, his vision doubling, then focusing for a few moments, before doubling again. "The smoke," he growled, through a grimace of self-condemnation. Too late, Z'mbutu realized that Ifrit, living up to his moniker, had poisoned him with the scented and obviously drugged smoke.

When he tried to stand, Z'mbutu accomplished nothing more than to pitch forward to the hard packed ground. As he lost awareness he felt himself falling down a long black hole, at the bottom of which he was sure waited grim and pitiless death.

:.

He was roughly shaken awake inside the princess' room.

Shujaa, Banturia Captain of the Palace Askari, stood over Z'mbutu. There was a fierce scowl on the deep brown face of the officer. "Where is the Crown Princess?"

The alchemist felt the askari's baritone reverberate painfully through his skull. It was as if the god of pain had come to reside in his head. He hissed as he opened his eyes and the bright desert sunlight hit his pupils. He shut them again, placing a hand over his face and groaning.

"Wake up, you besotted fool and answer me," roared Shujaa, poking Z'mbutu with the ivory hilt of his curved knife.

"Cease, yelling, ruffian. I'm not drunk. I was drugged. In the smoke."

"Ehh, by yourself to yourself, most like. Hashish is easier to find than water among these sand-ridden barbarians."

"Ass," Z'mbutu cursed. He forced himself to sit up on the cot, and cautiously opened his eyes once more. "I was taken in by a lamp merchant. He lit a drug-laced incense. What hour is it? What day?"

"It's noon, of the eighth day of the Month of the Low-Winds. Where is her royal highness? Where is Princess Kimya?"

Z'mbutu, his wits slowly returning, looked around the dishelved room. He saw the dull glitter of the coins the impulsive woman had earned with her passionate dance strewn about the sand-dusted floor. "From the looks of things, I'd say she's been abducted."

"Abducted?" The Captain roared again. "You were to deliver her safely into my hands, wizard. Your life is now forfeit."

Z'mbutu, his pride stung by falling victim to Ifrit's ploy, and the subsequent loss of the princess, was in no mood to be threatened. "The bargain was I deliver her safely here, which I did. Where in the countless halls of the Hell of the Doom Prophets were you?"

"We were delayed by an accursed sandstorm. But seek not to shift the blame, Z'mbutu. You've failed to hand over the Princess, as per arrangement, for that I should kill you."

Z'mbutu pointed his finger at Shujaa. "No, it was you, Captain, who failed in your mission to be on hand when the Princess was brought here. Killing me for your failure can only bring you dishonor."

Shujaa sneered. "And what does a wizard know of honor."

"I am not a wizard. I'm an alchemist. Best you remember the distinction."

The askari growled in response and looked at the wicked sharp curved blade in his hand, but he made no move to bring it to bear.

Z'mbutu held his head in both hands, willing his mind to clear, as he stood before the solider. Normally, he gave askaris a generously wide berth. They were generally quick-tempered and good fighters, a volatile mixture. The alchemist discovered himself somewhat nauseous, the smell of too many unwashed men crowded into too small a space, without proper air-circulation.

"There's no need for anyone to die a terrible death, just yet," he grumbled. "I believe I know who has taken her and I have an idea of the general direction in which they went. Come aside, and I'll speak with you."

Z'mbutu swayed for a moment on uncertain legs before he trusted himself enough to walk outside, into the blistering heat, which helped to revive him. He kept his voice low as he hurriedly related his suspicions to the soldier.

"Jinnis?" Shujaa responded, incredulous. "You mean the supposed magical creatures who are imagined to inhabit these desert men's lamps?"

"Lower your voice. There's nothing magical about the Jinni. They're mundane and human enough. In actuality, they're a secret society of assassins, spies, past masters of political skullduggery. They use the myth of the Jinn as a psychological edge, appearing to have magic as an ally, when in truth it's only a legend. I believe it is they who took Princess Kimya."

"Why should they do that?"

"I suspect they wish a war between your country and that of Ozymandias'."

The askari glared at Z'mbutu with suspicion. "Thin sauce, wizard."

"Alchemist."

"Just as thin, whatever you wish to be called. You were to have the princess here. She isn't here."

"Neither were you. But let's put all that behind us for the nonce. I know how to get her back. That's the important thing, isn't it?"

Shujaa grimly nodded. "Eeh. What's your plan?"

"We buy supplies and pursue."

Obviously," the captain harrumphed. "And where do you intend your pursuit to take you, Alchemist?"

"Into the Deep Wastes."

"Ah. Where you believe it will be a simple thing to elude me and my men, leaving us to perish on the dunes."

"A pleasant enough thought, captain, but multiple murder'll have to wait for another time. I believe the nabber has taken your princess into the Wastes. I believe the Jinn to be located there."

"Still thin. It's logical to assume the nabber has taken her Highness either back to the Forbidden City or north to Zur."

"Logic says there's no such thing as the future. Logic has its limits. If you want to rescue the girl you'll listen to me."

The askari frowned as he thought it over. "I'll go with you. But my men I will send north and west, in case the obvious turns out to be true. Beware, Alchemist, if this is a ruse of some sort, I'll slit your throat with glee."

"Of that, I have no doubt." Z'mbutu rubbed his temples, his head still aching.

:.

The chariot camel, or mule-camel, is a smaller breed than the more common camel. Shorter, but stronger and far less ornery than its taller cousin, the mule-camel also required less fodder and water. Z'mbutu managed to purchase two of the animals along with a couple of chariots, which had seen better days.

"What is taking you so long?"

Z'mbutu, who was busy loading his chariot looked up with impatience at the captain who stood in the well of his chariot, reins in hand. "Hold your water, askari, I'm nearly ready."

The space normally occupied by the chariot's second man, the archer or javelin-thrower, Z'mbutu had loaded with supplies of food, water, and salt. Between himself and Shujaa, they had a week of essentials. He hoped that would be good enough because, although Z'mbutu knew the direction to go he didn't have any idea how long the journey would take.

Making sure all was secure beneath a protecting tarp, the alchemist moved to the front of the well of the two-wheeled vehicle and grasped the reins. "Ipshee, ipshee," he shouted and snapped the reins.

The camel snorted and began to move. Shujaa followed. As they left the oasis the Sky was aflame with reds and oranges and burnished gold. The Sun sank in the west, hugging down toward the horizon.

:.

The stars of the deep desert Sky dazzled against the black velvet of night.

Shujaa pulled alongside Z'mbutu's chariot, the customary scowl on his face. "I still do not understand how can you know where this imagined djinn is but not how far away it is?"

"Because, I've never been there," Z'mbutu answered honestly enough. "Trust me, askari."

"Trust an alchemist? Only as a last resort and only as much as required upon the moment."

Z'mbutu gave an open smile at that. "You are wise beyond your years, Captain."

Shujaa pulled a strip of jerky from his belt pouch and torn off a piece with his teeth. He chewed and a thoughtful expression molded his features. "Tell me, Wiz--, Alchemist, how did you free the princess from her prison?"

Z'mbutu was more than happy to do so. He considered the act of having liberated the crown princess as nothing short of a work of art. He was also a self-admitted braggart.

"For months I presented myself as a harmless and not terribly bright foreign aristocrat. I worked at the sultan's library. I'd forgone both wine and women, two of my favorite things, that my guise not be tripped up by over-indulging in either. As a librarian, among other things, I showed interest in the logs and journals kept by the royal torturers. Men are vain, even torturers and I was given access to their scrolls.

"I became somewhat of a fixture of the prison, which meant I became unnoticed by and large. I memorized the guard schedule of the prison tower. I even became friends with the captain of the night-watch. When the time was right, I dropped a pouch of gold into the watch-captain's palm. Nothing more complicated than that. The door to Kimya's prison swung open. I bundled her in a cloak and cowl and walked her from the cell while the guards were busy helping to exhaust a fire in another part of the prison, as arranged."

Shujaa's scowl was back. "Bribery? It is less than honorable."

"And yet, effective," Z'mbutu said with a proud smile in the starlight. "Only a grand invasion army could've taken the princess from that tower by force. The rescue required guile and gold. It's as simple as that."

"For a wizard, perhaps."

"The salient thing to remember here, Captain, is it got the job done."

"Eeh. That much is true. And this hiding place of the Jinnis. How did you come across it?"

"'Dark is the hand that pulls the candelabrum from its wondrous well and leads the faithful safely home'.

"Those were the words of a victim from nearly fifty years ago, a captured assassin from the deep desert, writ down in the Royal Torturer's journal. Towards the end, his body all but destroyed by enduring a month-long torture, the hired killer was babbling about being jinn-maddened. That he was a slave of the Lamp. The business about the candelabrum were his final words."

Shujaa looked at him, incredulous. "And you take the delirium of a dying, tortured man as some sort of gleaned intelligence?"

"It will, no doubt, come as a surprise to you, Captain, but unlike the military an alchemist lacks the luxury of having a field manual with all the answers in it. I, perforce, must glean knowledge where I can, from whatever sources I am able. Facts are facts, no matter from whence they emerge. And in a few hours, we shall see if madmen speak truth."

The night worn on and the stars wheeled in the Sky. Z'mbutu studied the celestial arrangement from time to time, until several hours after leaving the oasis he halted his camel and dismounted the chariot. He faced due east then simply stood, watching the dark horizon. Shujaa stopped as well, but he remained in his chariot, stone-faced, observing his accidental companion.

Minutes passed. The wind blew. The camels snorted. Then, to the southeast a constellation began to climb into the star field. Desert astrologers dubbed the star group, the Candelabrum.

"Astrologers call the point where a star or constellation lifts from the horizon as a well," Z'mbutu said to the askari. He pointed directly in front of him. "There is the direction of our pursuit. The way of the Faithful is lit by starlight."

Shujaa grudgingly gave a grin of admiration. "And yet you know not how far?"

"That, Captain, is presently beyond my knowledge." The alchemist once more climbed up into the chariot and urged his animal forward.

:.

They had traveled for nearly a week.

"You'd best find this well of yours soon. We've water for one more day. Two, if one of us kills the other and takes his ration," the askari dryly observed.

Both men were covered with dust and sand, their rich brown skin matted tan. The camels were, as ever, inscrutable.

"Thankfully," Z'mbutu rejoined, "such drastic measures will be unnecessary. For we're already within the well. Look around yourself. What do you see?"

Shujaa turned in a slow circle and realized that they stood within a crater, perhaps half a mile in diameter, and they were roughly at its center. The shallow bowl was inhabited by several shards of upright stone. The hummocky ridge of the eroded crater rim was outlined by the pewter light of the Moon. He saw the alchemist begin to move away from the chariots.

"Where are you going?"

"Behind yonder splinter of rock, to take a piss, move my bowels, and think. Maybe masturbate as well. I haven't decided on the latter, as yet."

"If you attempt to stroke off in the open, the desert will dust your pecker with grit. It wouldn't be an enjoyable experience."

"That advice rings with the tone of experience," Z'mbutu observed. And he began to laugh. The askari laughed along with him. The two men weren't friends, given their personalities they probably never would be, but several days in the desert together had made them tolerable traveling companions.

The alchemist had only been half-joking about the self-abuse, but he'd been entirely serious about the bowel movement. He did some of his best thinking while in squat. And the time had come for some deep thought. Z'mbutu had studied as many puzzles of the desert-folk as he could find. Their available technology of concealed mechanisms. Every culture has a distinct way of thinking, of developing codes, ciphers and concealed traps, which binds its inhabitants into certain habits of thought.

Somewhere in this crater is the entrance to the Jinn, Z'mbutu thought. Somewhere there is a door.

Having answered nature's call, the alchemist carefully wiped himself with reed-sheet he carried for just such a purpose. He stood and adjusted his clothing, feeling the ever-present sand in the crack of his buttocks.

The crater itself defines the search area, he told himself as he looked around. There should be some sort of marker, recognizable to the initiated, a direction finder showing the way to the entrance.

Inspiration struck and he pulled his compass out. the needle swung strongly to the southeast, the direction from which the Candelabrum constellation rose from its well. He began to walk, watching the twitching compass needle. He came upon the shortest of the upright finger stones, an obviously highly magnetic piece of rock.

It's the keystone, Z'mbutu thought. It has to be.

For several minutes the alchemist stood before the rock, pondering, trying to hear what the stone would tell him. But, he heard nothing. With a frustrated growl he retreated to the chariots.

"I've seen all that I can see by the light of the Moon," he admitted to Shujaa. "We'll have to wait for daylight. I'm going to get some sleep."

:.

For the second time in a week Z'mbutu found himself being shaken awaken by Shujaa.

"The Sun's been up for a couple of hours, Alchemist."

"Eeh," Z'mbutu grunted, clearing his throat as he opened his eyes and took his bearings. "Right, right. Back to the business at hand."

Yawning and stretching, the alchemist returned to the keystone. He found it as mute in the light of day as it had been under the glow of the Moon.

Do you have a secret niche that must be pressed, he wondered. Or must you be tilted over and if so in what direction? Or should you be rotated? From left to right or the reverse? Or are you supposed to be lifted. Or lifted and turned. Lifted, turned, then tilted? And if I get the sequence wrong what terrible things are there in store for me, eh?

He stroked his beard as he stared at the splinted of rock. The Sun climbed higher. He felt sweat run down the back of his neck. It was getting hot.

"Alchemist."

"A moment. I need a few more minutes with this," he answered.

The askari fell silent.

As the Sun rose in the cloudless desert sky its light revealed the pockmarked surface of the keystone, a testament to its origin as a meteor. Its rough and fractal surface was dotted with various-sized micro craters, tiny half-bowls described into the stone, one indistinguishable from the other.

"Alchemist. The day grows hot, we must dug shelter."

"A moment," Z'mbutu snarled, impatient at the interruption to his concentration.

He returned his sight to the craters, hundreds of them dotting the rock face, differing only in diameter. Except, one."

"Eeh," Z'mbutu exclaimed with a triumphant grin.

"You found something," Shujaa asked, now towering over the squatting alchemist.

"Mayhaps."

He undid the big buckle of his wide leather belt and took it off. Breaking the stitching on the back of the belt, revealing a secret recess, he took out an ornate ring of antique silver. There was some sort of seal or signet on its plate which Shujaa couldn't quite make out as the alchemist slipped the ring onto his finger.

Z'mbutu balled his hand into a fist and pressed the signet of the ring to the rock, just to the right of the keystone's peak. He held it there for some long seconds. Nothing happened. Feeling there was nothing to lose, he turned the ring left, then right, the direction in which the desert men wrote and read their texts. He then withdrew the ring. He stood up.

Both of the men heard the noise at the same time, they turned to the west and saw one of the large upright stones begin to sink with a disgruntled rumble into the sand. Within moments a large dark rectangle appeared in the desert floor.

"Well done, Z'mbutu," Shujaa said, slapping the man on the back. "Well done. What do you propose we do now?"