Барб Хенди - First and Last Sorcerer

Ghazel put her finger back on the image of Mas’ud, pointed at Magiere again, and then to the boat. She paused but soon continued, moving her finger to the painting of the lake, sliding it to the center of the waters. She returned to acting out carrying something heavy and heaved it toward the water in the picture.

Again, Magiere understood. Two ancients had carried the orb across the desert, had this large dwelling constructed by slaves, and then took the orb out to sink it in the lake.

What more secure place to hide it? It all matched what Wynn had found in the scroll’s poem.

But where had the boat come from? More than that, how had the orb ended up back in this room?

Ghazel held up both hands, churned them around each other, and said, “Ahyaan.”

This was one of the few Sumanese words Magiere had picked up in their travels. It meant “time,” and she assumed the girl was telling her that time had passed.

Ghazel pointed to the lake, turned her palm downward, and lowered it halfway to the floor.

“The lake began to dry up,” Magiere said, more to herself than to the girl. And how many centuries had that taken? If Ghazel knew about it, had she been here since then?

The girl appeared to grow frantic, and her face suddenly filled with fright. She pointed to Mas’ud, grabbed her head with her small hands, and began rocking wildly around. When she stopped, she seemed at a loss for what to say, do, or show next. She pointed at Baseem’a with one hand; with the other she pointed to Magiere.

Ghazel then ran trickling fingers down both of her cheeks, and her eyes filled with sadness.

Again, Magiere wasn’t certain what this meant at first. She looked to the painting of two pale figures and back at the girl, and she understood.

Mas’ud had begun to go mad, and Baseem’a had fallen into sorrow.

Ghazel pointed to Mas’ud again and slid her hand across the painting of the desert all the way to the painting of the village. Without warning, she grabbed the front of her dress and acted out being dragged. She slid her finger back across the desert and then pointed to the painting of the stone dwelling. Touching two fingers to her throat, she snapped her teeth.

Magiere went cold inside. “He stole you from your village, brought you here, and turned you. Why?”

Ghazel pointed to Baseem’a and hugged herself with a wistful expression.

Magiere did not fully follow, but she guessed that as the female had grown sad, perhaps the male had attempted to provide her with company ... a little girl. Somehow Ghazel had come to care deeply for Baseem’a. It also struck Magiere as possible that Ghazel had never once fed on a human being. The slaves would have been gone long before her arrival, and the orb would have sustained her all these years.

But if the girl had not come here until the lake began to dry, how did she know what had happened before then?

Magiere shook her head and pointed to the boat. “How did you know ... ?” She pointed to Ghazel as well and tapped the side of her own head.

Ghazel pointed back at Magiere. When Magiere didn’t respond, she pointed to the image of Baseem’a and then to Magiere again. She gestured from her mouth to her ear.

Magiere nodded, ignoring the girl’s confusion about who she was. Baseem’a had told Ghazel everything.

Ghazel churned her hands, one around the other, and again: “Ahyaan.”

More time had slipped by. She pointed to the blue lake and again pressed her palm downward, this time all the way to the floor.

The lake had dried completely.

Magiere could imagine other changes that had followed. The heat would’ve grown unbearable, and all trees and flowers would have died.

First pointing to Mas’ud, Ghazel then slid her finger along the lake, curled her fingers as if taking something from it, and again acted out carrying something heavy. She took it to the table and dropped it with both hands, as if setting the orb where it rested.

When the lake or sea had dried up, the ancients had brought it back. By then, no one could’ve reached them in the searing heat—at least nothing living could have—but what had become of the guardians?

Magiere pointed to their picture. “Where?”

Ghazel’s small face twisted with sorrow. She put her finger on Mas’ud, and then once again put her hands to her head. Only this time she turned her head back and forth violently. Mas’ud had fallen further into madness.

Turning from the wall, she ran across the room, pointed down to the curved sword on the floor, and made a harsh slicing motion.

Magiere stood frozen as the girl knelt beside the robe nearest the thôrhk.

“Baseem’a.”

And Magiere understood. The robes were not merely clothing lying on the floor. They were the only remnants of where the ancients had fallen. Mas’ud had murdered his companion.

Ghazel grew visibly frustrated as she attempted to relate the rest. She struggled for Numanese words. “Mas’ud ... make ... me.” Again, she pointed to the sword and repeated the slashing motion.

Magiere exhaled quietly.

If Mas’ud had been the one to turn Ghazel, she would not have been able to refuse any order he gave her. Wynn had explained this once. The child of the creator was physically compelled to obey any order.

Mas’ud had ordered Ghazel to kill him.

Both ancients were dead, and the only one who knew the orb’s current location was a small, undead girl.

Then Magiere remembered something else.

Even the undead needed moisture, fluids to stay functional. How had Ghazel done so after the lake had dried out? As the girl’s mouth opened, as if to say something, Magiere waved her off.

“Water?” she demanded.

Her mouth still open, Ghazel tilted her head with a frown. She hurried to the painting of the lake. Instead of pointing, she gripped its bottom, pushed up, and pulled it off the wall.

Behind it was a crude opening in the stone.

Ghazel looked back as if this should mean something, but again Magiere shook her head. The girl stood there an instant longer and then grabbed the lip of the opening to pull herself up and in.

Magiere sheathed the falchion and followed to peer into a rough tunnel angling steeply downward. The girl waved her in and led the way as they crawled. In only moments, Magiere caught a taint in the air both humid and unpleasant. They kept on for far too long until Ghazel sat up, but her head didn’t hit the tunnel’s top.

Magiere crawled closer, and the knees of her pants were instantly soaked as a smell choked her. By the crystal’s light, water filled a small, jagged fracture in the earth in which they knelt. Even before Magiere raised a wet hand to lick it, she knew it wouldn’t help. The water was beyond briny, as if a shovel of salt filled her mouth. This might be all that was left of the lake that sunk deep into the earth. Perhaps it was even part of the source that had once created that body of water.

It was no good to Magiere, though an undead could’ve consumed it without harm.

She turned to crawl back up the tunnel, hearing Ghazel following behind her.

Once back in the room, the girl rushed past her to kneel by the robes. She grabbed one robe and the orb key and held both out to Magiere.

“You ... stay ... me?”

Magiere had never before looked at any undead as a victim. To her own disgust, she couldn’t help it now. Yet that didn’t alter what the girl was or that Magiere was here to take the orb.

Once the orb was gone, what would happen to Ghazel?

Magiere gripped the sheathed falchion’s hilt with her right hand.