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Against the shadowy blackness of the central obsidian arch, he saw a figure that might have been a sitting man; then an arm was raised, and Hale knew that he and bin Jalawi were not alone in the waste of Wabar.
He unslung the slim Mannlicher and rocked the bolt back to be sure there was a cartridge in the chamber; and after he had closed the bolt he patted the canvas bag at his waist, and was reassured to feel the weight of the loaded clips. He began striding across the sand toward the strange black palace.
From this distance he could vaguely make out ornately carved lattices and minarets, but as he got closer, the details became blurred and irregular; and by the time he had approached closely enough to see the black beard and embroidered red robe of the man who was sitting cross-legged in the arch, the arch was nothing but a natural cavern mouth, and the meteor crater wall was just irregular bumpy black stone, ragged at the top edge.
What from farther back had appeared to be steps leading up to the arch were just tumbled black boulders, and Hale gripped his rifle carefully as he climbed up to the broad ledge on which the man sat.
The air was cool in the shadow of the tall cave mouth, and a breeze sighed out of the black depths as if a tunnel beyond led to underground caverns. A cluster of doves and chickens hopped around on the cave floor behind the sitting man, and a big green parrot stood by the man's robe-covered knee.
Hale was standing a dozen feet to the man's right, holding the rifle pointed in his direction-but he let the barrel swing down when he saw that both the man's hands were open and empty on his knees and that there was no sign of anyone else in the cave behind him.
The parrot cocked one glistening eye at Hale and squawked in Arabic, "What brings you to me, seeing you are not of my kind and cannot be assured of safety from violence or ill usage?"
Hale stared at it in alarm, and in his disorientation had even taken a breath to answer it, when the sitting man opened his mouth and spoke.
His voice was rich and deep as he spoke in archaic Arabic: "You are hungry. You have come a long way. Wash your hands so that we may eat."
The man leaned forward and began dipping his hands in the air and then rubbing one hand over the other, as if at an invisible bowl of water.
After a moment he looked up at Hale, his black eyebrows raised. "You stand while I sit? You do not join me at my table?"
Helplessly, Hale slung his rifle Bedu-style and elbowed the stock behind himself to sit down cross-legged on the rough stone a yard away from his host, facing him; and after a moment of plain embarrassment, Hale too began doing a pantomime of hand washing. What is this, he wondered dizzily, some ritual? Is this man insane? Could he simply be making fun of me?
Then the man flicked his hands and began moving his extended fingers from a point above his left knee to his mouth and back, his jaws working as if he were chewing.
"Do not be abashed," the man said. "Try some of this bread-note how white it is!"
Hale nodded awkwardly and pretended to eat a piece of bread, darting a nervous glance at the parrot.
"Have you ever tasted anything like this?" the man asked.
"Never," said Hale. He was sweating.
The man nodded with satisfaction. "You are a god?" he asked then.
"No," said Hale cautiously. "A man."
The smooth brown forehead above the topaz eyes creased in a mild frown. "But the ghosts of my people rose for you-and you drove them back." He waved a hand dismissively. "You are not of our covenant. Perhaps you are an agent of the one god. Why do you examine the killing stone?"
Hale understood that the man was referring to the stone he had found out on the sand, and he was guardedly pleased to hear his estimation of it confirmed. "I am going to take it away with me."
"That will not revive my people. My people are dead, irretrievably killed by it." He looked at Hale's hands. "I wonder to see you eating so sparingly. Do not stint yourself."
Hale again mimed eating a piece of bread. "It is not my purpose," he said as he pretended to chew, "to revive your people."
The bearded man smiled. "My people and I are secure from judgment. We have made a covenant with the Destroyer of Delights, the Sunderer of Companies, he who lays waste the palaces and peoples the tombs. We stay here. We do not go on, we do not face-"
The man had paused, so Hale ventured to complete the thought. "Consequences," Hale suggested softly. "Retribution."
"Leveling. We remain distinct."
At the sound of hooves in sand behind him, Hale spun up into a crouch, the rifle's stock fitting quickly to his shoulder and his eye looking over the gold bead-sight at the end of the barrel; but Hale recognized the camel that was still a hundred yards off on the sunlit sand to the northwest, and a moment later he recognized bin Jalawi riding it.
Instantly he scuffled back around to bring the muzzle to bear on the man sitting across from him on the cave floor, but the man had not moved; and Hale shakily crossed his legs again, lowering the barrel and tucking the stock behind him. He was profoundly glad that the Bedu was coming up.
"I think you are only a man," the sitting man said. "I am A'ad bin Kin'ad, king of Wabar."
Hale automatically lifted another piece of the imaginary bread. "Are you a man?" he asked, then opened his mouth and pretended to chew.
