R. Salvatore: The Companions

“Sixty-three,” Untaris said, counting back the years.

The two Shadovar nodded and exchanged smiles.

“My igal,” Jhinjab said, reaching for the item. But again, Alpirs pulled it back from him.

“You are certain of this?”

“Five, yes, five,” the Bedine informant replied.

“No,” Alpirs clarified. “Of all of it. You are certain that this child is … special?”

“She is de one,” the Bedine replied. “She singing, all de time singing. Singing and not to Icewind Dale.r5N3 words dat make no words, you know?”

“Sounds like any other child,” Untaris said skeptically. “Making up words and singing nonsensically.”

“No, no, no, not like dat,” Jhinjab replied, frantically waving his skinny arms around from out of his triangular sleeves. “Singing de spells.”

“A wizard, you claim,” said Alpirs.

“She make de garden grow.”

“Her garden. Her shrine?”

Jhinjab nodded enthusiastically.

“So you have told us,” said Untaris, “and yet, we have not seen this shrine.”

The old Bedine informant squinted and looked around, shading his eyes and obviously trying to get his bearings. He pointed to the southeast, to a high sand dune with a white alabaster pillar showing among the blowing sand. “Beyond dat dune, to de south, hidden among de rocks where de wind has blown de sand away.”

“How far to the south?” Alpirs asked, holding up his hand to prevent Untaris from speaking.

Jhinjab shrugged. “Long walk, short ride.”

“Across the open, hot sands?” Alpirs asked, not hiding his own skepticism now.

Jhinjab nodded.

“You said the camp was to the west,” Untaris said before Alpirs could stop him.

Again, the Bedine informant offered a nod.

“A new camp, then,” said Alpirs.

“No,” said Jhinjab. “Been dere since de spring.”

“But the girl’s shrine is the other way, a long walk.”

“We are to believe that a child crosses the desert alone? A long walk, you said, and across dangerous ground,” Untaris reasoned.

Jhinjab shrugged, letting his answers stand.

Alpirs hooked the igal over a loop on his belt, and held up his hand when Jhinjab started to protest.

“We will go and see this shrine,” he explained. “And then we will return to you.”

“It is hidden,” Jhinjab protested.

“Of course it is.” Untaris snorted, and he climbed up on his pinto. “Could it be any other way?”

“No, unacceptable!” Jhinjab protested. “I have done as you asked, and will be paid. De girl is in de camp!”

“You will remain here, and perhaps you will be paid,” Alpirs replied.

“Oh, there will be some reward, indeed,” Untaris added ominously.

Jhinjab swallowed hard.

“If you are confident in your information, you will remain here.”

“You will pay!” the Bedine insisted.

“Or?” asked Alpirs.

“Or he will go and tell the Desai,” Untaris added, and when both Shadovar turned to regard the old Bedine threateningly, the blood drained from Jhinjab’s face.

“No,” he started to protest, but the word was cut short as a long dagger appeared in Alpirs’s hand, its tip coming to rest against the poor Bedine’, and she couldIesnos throat in the blink of an eye.

“Ride with my friend,” Alpirs instructed, and Untaris reached a hand down to Jhinjab.

“I cannot go …,” the Bedine stammered. “I am … de Desai do not know I am out … dey will miss Jhinjab. Dey will look for …”

Alpirs retracted the knife and kicked the old Bedine hard in the groin. He bent low as Jhinjab doubled over, and whispered into the man’s ear, “The Desai can do nothing to you that I won’t do if you don’t get up on that horse right now.”

Without even waiting for an answer, Alpirs moved to his own horse and mounted, and indeed, Jhinjab took Untaris’s hand and settled in as the two mounts charged off toward the high dune in the southeast.

Five-year-old Ruqiah scrambled around the side of the tent and crouched low against the fabric, trying to control her breathing.

“Over here!” she heard Tahnood call out, but fortunately, her tormentor was moving in the wrong direction, between a different pair of tents.

Ruqiah dropped to her belly and crept forward, smiling as the gaggle of older children followed Tahnood further astray. She had avoided them, for now, but it was only a temporary reprieve, she knew from long experience, for Tahnood was a relentless adversary and took great pleasure in showing his dominance.

The girl sat back and considered her next move. The sun sank low into the western sky, but the tribe had found a new wellspring and the celebration would continue long after dark, she knew. The children would not be told to go to sleep, and the mud fight would continue, encouraged by the adults.

The mud pit caused by the wellspring symbolized that there was enough water to waste, after all, and for the desert-dwelling, nomadic Bedine, that was surely cause for celebration.

Ruqiah just wished that the joyous games didn’t hurt so much.

“Sitting alone, always alone,” came a voice, her father’s voice, and he grabbed her by the ear and ushered her to her feet.

Ruqiah turned to regard the brilliant smile of Niraj, a smile full of life and mirth and love. He was short by Bedine standards, but stout and strong and quite respected. He rarely wore his kufiya, letting his bald brown head shine gloriously in the desert sun.

“Where are the other children?” he asked his precious daughter.

“Looking for me,” Ruqiah admitted. “To make me darker.”

“Ah,” Niraj replied. Ruqiah was lighter-skinned than most Bedine, lighter even than her mother, Kavita. Ruqiah’s thick wavy hair, too, was a lighter hue, with many red highlights showing among her light brown locks, instead of the normal Bedine darker brown or even raven black.

“They tease me because I am different,” she said.

Niraj winked at her and rubbed his hand over his bald pate. “Not so different,” he explained.

Ruqiah smiled. Her father had told her that her lighter hair had been inherited from his side of the family, although she hopefully wouldn’t lose hers as he had shed his own. The young girl didn’t completely believe the tale, for others had told her that Niraj’s hair had been as black as a starless night in the tunnels around Mithral Hall, then halfling, but that only made her appreciate her father’s gesture all the more.

“They will hit me with their mud balls and throw me in the pit,” she said.

“The mud is cool and soft to the touch,” Niraj replied.

Ruqiah put her head down. “They shame me.”

She felt her father’s hand under her chin, lifting her face up to look into his dark eyes, eyes very unlike her own deep blue orbs. “You are never shamed, my Ruqiah,” he said. “You will be like your mother, the most beautiful woman of the Desai. Tahnood is older than you. He already sees this truth of Ruqiah, and it stirs him in ways he does not understand. He does not seek to shame you, but to keep your attention, fully, until you are old enough to marry.”

“Marry?” Ruqiah replied, and she almost burst out laughing, before realizing that such a reaction wouldn’t be seen as appropriate from a child her age. As she suppressed her reaction, she realized that among the tribal Bedine, Niraj was probably correct. Her parents were not among the leaders of the tribe, but they were well-respected, after all, and had a well-appointed tent and enough animals to provide a proper dowry, even to Tahnood, whose family was in high standing among the Desai, and who was regarded as a potential chieftain. He was barely ten years old, but he commanded the children, even those about to be formally deemed adults, two years his senior.