Free The Waters of Eternity by Howard Andrew Jones Page A

did not wish to be unarmed, but let her proceed, uncertain as to how far I should carry Dabir’s ruse.
    “I wish you to be comfortable,” she said, making a show of removing her slippers, then setting the belt beneath a low table by the couch. She laid a palm across my chest. “Lie back. Take your ease.”
    It was a pleasure to accommodate a woman who demanded so little.
    The servant returned with a platter and set it on the table.
    “Leave us, Fahd.”
    He left through the back door, and it shut behind him. She poured a cup for me. “Drink.”
    “Sing for me,” I said, though I took the cup.
    “If it pleases you.”
    And thus she rose, though I did not truly wish her to depart my side, and stepped past a brass brazier. It had been sprinkled with perfumes, and pleasing scents curled in the smoke that rose from it.
    She sang me a song of love and I was well pleased with her performance, if not her voice. So pleased, in fact, that I found my fingers had set down the cup to clutch an almond cake near my lips, and I froze. I returned it to the platter.
    When the song was finished, she sank onto the couch. “Does the music please you?”
    “It does.”
    She lifted a cake. “Please, eat.”
    “I have already eaten.”
    “I insist.” Her fingers brushed across my lips and she presented the dessert to me.
    “I am not hungry for food,” I demurred.
    She stuck out her bottom lip in an exaggerated pout.
    “How may I please you, lord?”
    “Sing for me.”
    “That I will. But first you must try one of these fine cakes. Surely a lion of a man such as yourself has room for such a tiny thing. And it would please me.” Her fingers swept across my chin and into my beard. “It would please me greatly.” Down her fingers swept, across my chest and to my waist. And then, abruptly, she reached for the cake. She pushed it to my lips.
    I was nearly blind with desire, but I resisted. I grabbed her wrist. She struggled fruitlessly against me for a second, then saw something in my expression that she did not like, for her eyes narrowed.
    “Fahd!” she screamed.
    The servant flung open the door. A sword in his hand threw back the yellow and red gleam of candlelight.
    I flung the girl from me and grabbed for my sword, then realized she had moved it too far.
    Fahd cried out gutturally and charged.
    I sprang to the brazier and grabbed it in both hands. Smoking coals rained down on the floor, sizzling. I raised the brazier and his blade clanged into the brass. I swept the tripod at his head, then threw it at him and dived for my sword.
    I heard him curse in pain and smash back against the wall as the tripod clattered and banged on the floor planks. My hands found my pommel, and I cast down the sheath as Fahd scrambled to his feet. And then something passed over my head and fabric tightened around my neck.
    The girl meant to strangle me with a scarf.
    The attack bent me backward, off balance at just the wrong moment. Fahd charged. His was a butcher’s chop, but it was nearly the end of me. I knocked his cut aside with a wild swing.
    “Kill him, fool!” the girl hissed as I found a firmer stance that pulled her feet off the ground.
    The noose tightened about my throat. I gasped for air while parrying another poor thrust, then grasped the silk stretched behind my neck and jumped away from the couch. The girl was as tied to me as I to her. I could not see her, but I heard her shriek as she stumbled upon the hot coals. She had lost her grip, and the strain on my neck eased.
    I met the servant’s third thrust unencumbered, swung back. His scimitar and the hand that held it flew toward the door. Even as he cried out my blade licked up and found his heart.
    I spun on the girl, but she had flopped onto the couch and clutched at her singed foot, cursing. I heard the outer door open and looked over to find Dabir staring down at the scimitar still clutched by Fahd’s fingers.
    “I see you have things well in hand,” he said.
    I all but