The captain once more scanned out to the horizon, and then said, “Kammil,” and he gestured for them to continue riding duskwise.
Quietly Roel said, “Cherie, if they are from Aegypt or Arabie, they do not consider women the equal of men.
It would be best if you rode slightly back and to my left.”
Celeste hissed, and then muttered, “As you will, my master. Yet be aware, love, you will someday pay for this.” Then she grinned at Roel’s gape.
Roel then laughed and heeled his mare and together they rode onward, did the knight and his lagging princess.
And slowly they passed alongside the camel train, the beasts laden with trade goods. Dark-skinned men walked alongside, while others rode, trailing the pack animals on tethers running to nose rings.
“That must be painful,” said Celeste, “yet fear not, my love, I’ll not leash you that way.”
Roel burst into laughter, and on they fared.
For the rest of the day they rode, and that evening as dusk was falling, and even as they espied in the distance to the fore the twilight bound looming up into the sky, they heard water running somewhere to the starwise side of the road, and there they found a spring bubbling out from the ground and running through the grass and down a gentle slope.
“That’s odd,” said Roel, looking about. “There are no hills or mountains nearby, yet here we have a fountainhead.”
“ ’Tis Faery, love,” said Celeste. She glanced at the darkening sky and added, “Perhaps we should camp here.”
“Oui,” said Roel. “It is a good place. And on the morrow we can cross through the twilight and mayhap find the gray arrow.”
The next dawn, as they were breaking camp, a turbaned rider came to the spring and stopped to let his camel drink its fill.
“A scout, I think,” said Roel, “from the caravan.” As the beast sucked water, Celeste stepped to the man and offered him a cup of tea. The scout took it and smiled and nodded his thanks.
Roel saddled the mares while Celeste removed the nose bags and stowed them away. As she tied the bundles, the turbaned man rinsed out the tin cup and stepped to her side, and smiling and nodding, he handed the vessel to her. Then he helped Roel lade the gear onto the geldings. Finally, all was ready, and Celeste and Roel mounted up, and the scout strode to his now-grazing camel and commanded the beast to kneel; then he, too, mounted and got the animal to its feet.
They rode together in a comfortable quietness for a ways, still going duskwise. The horses snorted and were somewhat nervous in the presence of the camel, yet
Roel and Celeste held them firmly, and after a while they settled.
But within a league they came to a juncture, where a trail continued on toward the twilight bound, but the road began a slow arc starwise. Roel reined to a halt, Celeste stopping as well. The scout stayed his camel alongside them, a puzzled look on his face.
“Which way, cherie?” asked Roel. “What says the map?”
Celeste unfolded the vellum and looked and sighed.
“This road is not on the chart, nor the fork and the path beyond. We are to look for three boulders at the crossing, though.” Roel nodded and said, “Then let us choose.” As Celeste refolded the map she said, “Perhaps ‘left is right, but right a mistake’ applies here.”
“Hmm. . do you think? If so, then we should take the straight-ahead path.”
“I agree,” said Celeste, nodding.
“Betif’ tikir bi~e?” asked the scout.
“I believe he wants to know where we plan to go,” said Roel, and he pointed to himself and Celeste and then down the trail toward the wall of twilight looming in the near distance.
Frantically the scout shook his head and waved his hand back and forth in a negative gesture, saying, “La!
La! Abulhol! Abulhol!”
Roel shrugged and turned his palms up, clearly showing that he didn’t understand.
The man then patted up and down the length of his own body from shoulders to hips and then moved his hands as if he were turning his torso sideways. And then he stretched and stretched the envisioned form and held out his arms wide, indicating a gigantic body. He drew forth from the lower tip of his spine a make-believe tail and added it to the pretend body. Then he framed his face and lifted an imaginary head and placed it on the conjured creature. Lastly he clawed at the air and roared and then said, “Abulhol.”
“Some sort of huge, man-headed beast,” said Celeste.
Roel nodded. “Still, cherie, beast or no, I deem we must take the sinister way, for if left is right, and right a mistake, then somewhere ahead we must cross.” Celeste nodded and said, “Even if this isn’t the right way, we can follow the wall till we find the three boulders.”
“Just so,” said Roel, and he turned to the scout and shrugged. Then Roel touched his shield and lance and said, “Large or not, my spear and a swift charge should do.”
The scout moaned and shook his head and said, “La, la. Inte raltan.”
“Whatever he is telling us,” said Celeste, “he thinks we are making a mistake.”
“Nevertheless. .,” said Roel, and he turned up his hands and shrugged, and then heeled his mare and started down the path, Celeste following.
For long moments the scout watched them ride away.
Then he shook his head and turned his camel, and starwise along the road he fared.
A candlemark passed and then another, and nearer to the bound rode Celeste and Roel. Finally, “There are the boulders,” said Celeste, pointing ahead. “I deem we have chosen aright.”
Roel nodded and said, “If indeed we were to continue duskwise, though Lady Doom did not say.” Finally they came to the crossing and stopped. Roel dismounted and tethered his mare to Celeste’s gelding, then tied a rope ’round his waist. He handed the coil to Celeste, and she tied the end to her saddle cantle. As Roel took his shield in hand and drew Coeur d’Acier, he grinned and said, “Try not to drag me across all of Faery, my love.”
Celeste tentatively smiled but said nought.
Roel strode into the twilight, Celeste following, horses in tow. As they reached the midmost ebon wall, she stopped and payed out the line as Roel stepped on beyond. More and more length he took, and finally all rope was let out. Then it went slack, and Celeste began drawing it in and coiling it. At last Roel came through the midpoint, and in the darkness as he untied the line from his waist he said, “ ’Tis good that we filled all skins with water, for ’tis sand, all sand beyond, great dunes for as far as the eye can see.”
“What of the monstrous man-headed creature?” asked Celeste.
“No sign of such,” said Roel. “I believe the scout was speaking of a mythical beast that only exists in fable or imagination.”
Though Roel could not clearly see Celeste in the twilight, she shook her head, saying, “Forget not, love, ’tis Faery.”
Roel groaned and said, “Ah, me, you would have to bring that up.” He stepped to his mare and hung his shield on its saddle hook, and then untethered the horse and mounted and rode forward to Celeste and said,
“Shall we?”
“Let’s do,” said she, and laughed, and smiling, together they rode into the desert sands.
31
Cient
Over the sea raced the Eagle and into a raging storm, and the decks pitched and men were hard-pressed to keep control of the animals. Many members of the warband lost their breakfasts and lunches and other meals throughout the day, and yet they persevered as under foul weather they ran. Yet the winds were strong and in their favor, and three days later they arrived in Port Cient just as night drew across the land, and they spent much of that eve off-loading the animals and equipment and men.