Treasures Within
By Stanley Wheeler
Copyright © 2024 Stanley Wheeler All Rights Reserved
Rashtan flung aside the flap and strode from the tent. The night breeze ruffled the edges of his wide beard and cooled his bald head. The twin lamps within cast his double shadow across the sand.
“What’s making that infernal susurration?”
The guards at the corners of the shelter offered puzzled looks.
“I hear nothing but the whisper of the wind,” said one.
The other leaned forward against his spear. “I hear nothing, Captain of Sorcery. The wind is soft; it gently stirs the fringes of the tent.”
Rashtan’s scimitar stabbed the air. “I hear something. Find it. The murmur hinders my interview with the new captive. The noise must be extinguished—or you will be.” He withdrew, dropping the tent flap.
A slender snake of light extended across the sand from the tent entrance, slithering in place as the breeze rippled the loose fabric.
The guards departed to investigate.
***
Khiban crept from the shadows. He moved with power and stealth, no longer the unclean, hunched, and crippled figure who had stumbled into the camp that morning, kept away with spears, refused food, and allowed to drink only from the dog’s basin. Clutching an obsidian dagger near his chest beneath the filthy cloak marked with the warning symbols of fatal disease, he raced to the tent of Rashtan. A steel knife stood ready in his belt.
He slipped out of the cloak and into the tent, the woven fabric caressing his brawny shoulders in passing.
Three spearpoints pricked Khiban’s bare flesh. Two more stopped his retreat as the flap behind him opened to reveal the returning guards. Rashtan loomed between Khiban and the hanging lamps, scimitar in hand. Ayara, clothed in a robe of red silk, knelt beside Rashtan.
“You betrayed me?” Khiban gasped.
Ayara raised her dark eyes, raven locks escaping a silk veil concealed the curve of her breasts. “You thought I loved you? What use has a daughter of the Khan of Randun for a warrior of no fortune?”
“Enough!” Rashtan snapped, extending the scimitar toward Khiban. “Drop the dagger and kneel before me.”
A fiery glow lit the sharp edge of the scimitar as it approached the tawny youth.
The breeze exploded with the fury of a thousand steeds. The tent flap whipped the faces of the guards behind Khiban, and the lamp flames died in the blast.
Khiban threw the obsidian dagger and dove beneath the spear on his right. The clank of stone against steel revealed the dagger had missed its target. His other knife pierced the guard’s heart as they fell.
A horde of insects on the whirlwind swarmed the tent. The guards outside screamed, writhing beneath the onslaught of stinging wasps.
“Stay down, Ayara,” Khiban shouted over the roar of wind and swarm.
He seized the dead man’s spear and hurled it at a guard visible against the doorway. That one fell with the point in his stomach, still fighting the stinging host. The last guard buried his face and blind eyes in the carpet.
The interior of the tent flashed bright. Rashtan stood with arm outstretched, a ball of emerald light hovering over his palm. Within the warped walls of the tent, the wasps formed an iridescent halo about Rashtan while Ayara scoured the silk pillows for the obsidian dagger.
Rashtan’s eyes found Khiban. His scimitar’s edge gleamed as he pointed it at the youth. The swarming halo became an arrow speeding toward Khiban. He rose, lifting a carpet edge with arms wide. The rug enfolded the angry mass, and Khiban smashed it to the floor.
Rashtan slashed at his rolling enemy, bright tendrils darting from the blade to tear the flesh on Khiban’s shoulder. Ayara plunged the obsidian dagger into Rashtan’s back. A beastly roar issued from the sorcerer’s throat. The flesh fled from the dark blade, splitting from heel to crown to reveal a flaming basilisk.
Ayara screamed and retreated.
“Now, I have you, Demon,” Khiban cried, leaping in with his knife.
The glowing orb fell to the carpet. The black dagger shattered, having fully drained the sorcerer of magic. The demon-lizard cut at Khiban, but the youth deflected the blade and grappled with the monster. Basilisk claws raked Khiban’s naked back as he stabbed again and again, flinging ichor with every stroke. The antagonists crashed into the center pole, snapping the support and bringing the tent down around them.
***
The wind raged as Ayara removed a dozen gems from the gash Khiban had carved into the stomach of the sorcerer-lizard. He slit the collapsed tent, and they crawled into the waning storm beneath an opulent carpet.
“Rashtan will eat no more gems to feed his magic,” Khiban said.
“And my father will pay you handsomely for my return.”
“Why should I return you? I have the gems and I have you.”
END