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The old woman tossed another shell, which struck the Djinn directly between the eyes.
“Oh, yes,” the crone growled. “Come and rob an old lady’s chest of drawers, eh? So easy to do, is it not? Her bones are chicken-brittle, they’ll snap so sweet it’s almost music.” She chuckled deep in her throat. “Only I am not such an easy mark, my beautiful peacocks, oh, no.”
She straightened her hunched back then, the mussels spilling out of her lap and skittering across the rocks. She stood up and threw her head back, and we saw with horror that the face beneath was not withered with age or strung with spittle—it was not even middle-aged, but a hale and grinning man whose eyes flashed black and silver. The mass of hair streamed back over his shoulders, tumbling past his knees. He fluffed his wings impressively—and slung over one feathered shoulder was a fat leather satchel, bulging like a wineskin.
“Is this what you want, then? A couple of girls playing pirates come to take it from old Ghassan, eh, weak and helpless as he is? Yes, you and many others before you. And I’ll give it to you, without even a fight, if you can match me drink for drink the whole night through. I’m a sporting man, after all.”
I considered for a moment, sure that he had more tricks than simply costumes. “You’ll swear to me that the purse is magical?” I asked.
“Oh, aye! It is at that. Now, are you coming in—and just you, mind you; I’ve no mind to go gambling with fire-demons—or are you going back to your ship to tell your crew you couldn’t contend with a meek old woman?” He waggled the satchel mockingly from one of his three-fingered claws and strode back into his hut.
Khaloud looked sidelong at me with those coal-eyes of hers, and pulled a tiny vial from her belt. “Heartsfire,” she whispered, her voice like the last wisps of smoke from a doused fire. “This very morning I bled it from my wrist. A drop in the drink and he’ll fall like a rock dropped from a Castle tower.”
I took the dusky orange liquid and slid it into my sleeve, sharing a familiar smirk. And, as full of folly as a maid who milks a bull, I followed Ghassan into his stinking house.
A low table was set with clay cups and a large pitcher the color of birds’ tongues. Ghassan sat on one side of it, his wings folded neatly at his sides, beaming at me.
“Well done! Have a seat, my girl, and try my best vintage. Brewed from mussel shells and li
vers—best the islands have to offer.”
I knelt and cast my eyes down in demure submission. “Among my people, it is customary for the female to serve. Will you allow me?”
For a moment he looked suspicious and I was sure he would refuse. But it is difficult for men to disbelieve a woman who insists that she wishes to serve them, and he nodded assent. I took the two glasses and filled them with the sickly liquor, which flowed out thickly, a viscous yellow slime. And, letting my sleeves droop ever so slightly over them, I let three drops from the vial drip into his drink. He took it with pleasure in his stunted hand and quaffed it in one gulp.
“My appetite is famed the world over,” he leered.
“As is the fact that you are an old woman with bad knees,” I countered, and quaffed my own mussel brew.
We had drunk only three times before Ghassan began to reel on the floor, his eyes rolling in his head. I had not even begun to feel dizzy, and he appeared to be ready to vomit, or faint, or both.
“You cheated!” he gasped, clutching his belly.
I stood and laughed at him. “Even pretty girls playing at pirates know how to play them well.”
Ghassan grunted, drooling a bit out of the side of his mouth, and lay down heavily, eyes drooping, his feathers crunching beneath him. “Take the satchel then, you lying wench. I hope you enjoy its fruits!” And with that, his body slackened and his great head with its crown of matted hair crashed to the floor. His snoring filled the little house like a storm beating at windows. I bent and slung the satchel from his body, pleased with myself—a simple ruse, quickly accomplished.
I knew nothing.
When I returned to the Maidenhead with Khaloud, the crew greeted us with cries of triumph. They crowded around, eager to see the purse perform its magic. I held it over my head for all to see, then thrust my hand inside the thick leather to bring out the first handful of gold.
But when I pulled my hand from the satchel, there was no coin in my fist. Instead, my hand was fouled by a thick white ooze; it clung to my skin, my fingers, like a snail’s body. A great clump of it had come away from the satchel, and now the leather sack was full of it, overflowing with pale sludge, splashing thickly onto the deck. I wiped my hand quickly on the wheel, disgusted by the stuff, which reeked of fish and salt. And then I saw—we all saw. The slime was hardening, wherever it fell, and spurting from the satchel like a fountain. It had already covered half the ship as thick as snowfall, bubbling into strange egglike shapes and stiffening into the familiar gray-white rocks of barnacles.
Of course I ordered the girls to get the decks clean of it, but nothing they did was of any help, even when they fell to hacking at it with their swords. We were halfway out of the bay by the time the red ship was red no more, and all of us in a panic. Halfway out of the bay when Ghassan woke—too strong, it seemed, to fall beneath Khaloud’s fire for long—and came screeching out of his hut.
“Go! Go! You stupid hens! Carry them as far as you can, carry my babies until they use your ship as a nursery and foul it with their first dung! Fools! Steal from an old woman and see what you get! Thieves! Villains! I hope they tear open your livers for their birthday breakfasts!”
Sick with dread, Khaloud and I stood at the bow of my once-beautiful ship, and stared after the bird-creature, who cawed and flapped his huge black wings, cackling in the stiff wind.
“IT WAS NOT LONG AFTER WE LEFT GHASSAN THAT we encountered the Echeneis—that is not a very interesting story, no story involving a sea-monster is. A ship meets the monster; it either escapes or is devoured. We were swallowed whole, and found ourselves on this strange sea. But somehow, time is stretched here, and it has been hundreds of years. Hundreds of years and the barnacles have not hatched, we have not aged much, nothing has changed. We have eaten the creatures the Echeneis eats, and you would be surprised how many seals and sharks it has swallowed. We have never wanted for food. And from time to time, there have been other ships. But none who sought us out, as you did.”
The shadowy woman sidled up to the Saint and kept her hand on the hilt of her sword. Snow knew her immediately by her fiery skin: Khaloud.
“Your timing,” she said throatily, in a voice like flames rippling, “could almost be called providential. Can you not see the creatures stirring in their eggs? The birth is coming; I would swear it by the lamp of Kashkash.”
“Indeed, it is. Within the day, I think—I do have some experience with hatching birds. The barnacles have never been so large, and we can see blackness fluttering within.” The Saint looked critically at the four strangers. “We have decided to attempt our escape. Will you help us or hinder us?”
Sigrid seemed to stifle the urge to fall to her knees. “Anything I can do, I will do, my lady.”
