Saladin Ahmed - Throne of the Crescent Moon

They reached the road, and the Doctor mounted his mule with a series of grunts and huffs from both him and the beast. Raseed eyed his own mule again. He’d had little need of steeds or pack animals in his solo travels. The true dervish needs no horse, said the Traditions. And his Shaykhs at the Lodge of God said that Raseed was the fastest dervish the Order had ever seen. He could run for miles without tiring. As far as pack animals went, the Traditions were equally clear: The true dervish needs no more than he can carry on his back . Still, the Doctor always traveled by beast, and called it “show-off-ish” when Raseed insisted upon walking beside him. Raseed had taken to hiring mules and sedan chairs along with the Doctor, just to keep from hearing him complain.

Just for that? Or because you have grown lazy, and he gives you an excuse? His own reprimanding voice echoed through his head. Next time he would walk, he resolved.

They spent hours riding, moving past suburbs and outlying farms until there were no signs that they had left the world’s greatest city behind them. There were few people moving along the hard-packed road now, only one or two carts or camels at a time. Since leaving the Lodge, Raseed had spent little time outside of Dhamsawaat, and as he rode he marveled again at how the sky seemed to open up above them.

Finally, when the sun had sunk halfway to the horizon, and they were alone on the road, the Doctor brought his mule to a halt, struggling briefly with the beast. Raseed pulled up beside him. “Well,” the Doctor half-shouted, “this is as good a place as any to cast the tracking spell. Come!” He gestured Raseed to the side of the road and dismounted with a loud grunt. The Doctor then reached into his satchel and hunched down to the ground with an even louder grunt.

He is always making rude noises, Raseed thought with irritation. Grunting, scratching, laughing too loudly. But it is my duty to keep him safe. In one motion Raseed also dismounted, gathering the reins of both mules and standing over the Doctor protectively as he worked his spell.

The Doctor had pulled out a bit of paper, the bloody scrap of the child Faisal’s clothing, a vial, and a long platinum needle. He wrote something on the paper, pricked his finger with the needle, and pinned cloth and paper both to the ground. Then he stood, closed his eyes, and recited from the Heavenly Chapters, sprinkling out a dark green powder—mint?—with each Name of God he spoke. “ ‘God is the Seer of the Unseen! God is the Knower of the Unknown! God is the Revealer of Things Hidden! God is the Teacher of Mysteries!’ ”

Nothing happened, so far as Raseed could see, but the Doctor, his brow sweaty now, opened his eyes and took his mule’s reins from Raseed. He remounted and continued down the road. He said nothing, not even turning to see if Raseed was following. As Raseed mounted and trotted up beside the Doctor he realized why. He’s winded—the traveling, the spell—it’s all taking its toll on him. Raseed tried not to be worried by this.

Raseed gave the Doctor a few minutes to catch his breath before he spoke. “You have found the ghuls’ trail, Doctor?”

“Aye,” was all the Doctor said.

Mile after mile they rode the mules at a brisk walk, moving at a slant toward the sinking sun. As the road veered further west and closer to the River of Tigers, the land swiftly sank and grew marshy. The air grew more humid and more and more gnats filled it, irritating Raseed’s eyes and nose. When the sun was touching the horizon with pink and purple, Raseed saw a scrawny, bearded farmer walking toward them—the only traveler they’d come across in an hour. The man gave the mules a wide berth and mumbled “God’s peace” from the opposite side of the road as they passed, avoiding eye contact. Is he afraid of us? Or does he have something to hide?

He is not why you are here, Raseed chided himself. S tay focused.

The landscape was dotted with large boulders that might hide anything. Raseed watched for signs of movement about them. The River of Tigers lay just out of sight on their right, its presence indicated by a clean, wet scent, by date palms and by the great patches of steelreed that clacked in the evening breeze.

“Stop.” The Doctor spoke the word loudly enough to startle two marshbirds into flight. It was the first time he’d spoken in a long while. “The trail veers off here, but something is not quite right.”

“What do you mean, Doctor?”

Raseed’s mentor looked truly confused—a rare sight. “I don’t rightly know, boy. In all my years of casting tracking spells, nothing like this has happened. Normally I feel—maybe better to say I hear within my mind—God’s prompts in the direction of my quarry. And this is still the case. Our prey is close and in that direction.” The Doctor pointed off the road to the left, toward a dense patch of boulders and a lone hill with a pointed top. “But I also hear His hints about other dangers. ‘The jackal that eats souls.’ ‘The thing that slays the lion’s pride.’ I… I don’t know what it means. In all my years I’ve never…” The Doctor let go of his reins and held his head in his hands. Raseed tried to hide his worry.

The Doctor took a deep breath and noisily exhaled. He looked up, shook his head, and ran a hand through his beard. “Gone. Whatever it was, it’s gone.” He looked around as if he’d been woken from a dream. Another deep breath and an exhalation loud enough to be a camel’s. “Forget it, boy, never mind. I’m old and tired and haven’t had enough to eat today.” Raseed’s mentor clearly did not believe this, but if the Doctor wished to say no more, Raseed could do little about it. “Let us continue,” the Doctor said, turning his mule off the road and picking his way downward with the slight decline of the land.

Raseed followed.

After another quarter hour it was dark, save for the faint light of the stars and the moon, hidden behind a silvery shroud of cloud. They came to the base of the point-topped hill, and Raseed saw that it wasn’t a hill at all, but a sloping rock formation that jutted up fifty feet from the ground at an angle, like a tiny mountain. The Doctor guided his mule’s steps onto the rock, and its hooves clopped loudly against the stone. Behind, Raseed rode his own mount up the incline as it steepened sharply. The Doctor, following prompts that Raseed could neither hear nor see, then turned, to ride across the huge wedge of stone.

The precision of the rock’s triangular shape and the smoothness of the stone made Raseed wonder whether the slope they were riding across had been shaped by men. If so, what sort of men walked on it?

“Doctor where does this stone come from? What building once stood here?” Raseed asked quietly. He prided himself that he did not feel fear easily, but there was something troubling about walking across the floorstones of the long-dead.

The Doctor spoke distractedly, looking all about him as he did. “It’s from the Kem empire, that’s for sure. Maybe the cornerstone of—”

The Doctor let the sentence die on his lips and drew his mule to a sharp halt, the animal objecting noisily. He narrowed his eyes and peered about. “Dismount!” he whispered, and clambered off his mule.

Raseed obeyed. He gathered both animals’ reins, but let them fall as the Doctor whispered again.

“Let them go. No time to tie them.” Again Raseed did as he was told, and the beasts trotted down the slope toward a patch of thornclover near the stone’s base.

“Bone ghuls. More than one… nearby.” the Doctor said, cocking his head. It looked as if he were listening to something inside his skull. He shot his big hand into his satchel. “Bottom of the slope!” he barked.