Sinbad and The Eye of the Tiger, page 11
Zenobia frowned, still not raising her head to look at her son. For a moment there was only the sound of the oars and the passage of water along the sleek metal hull.
“No sign of a sail?” she asked at last, impatient at Rafi’s silence.
He cleared his throat. “Um, a moment ago, I thought I saw a ship ahead on the far horizon . . . but I cannot be certain.”
Zenobia did not move or speak. Then, in a gesture that made her son jerk in surprise, she snapped the gold chain. Holding the crystal she studied it closely. Within it was a liquid, the color of blood. “We must be certain,” she whispered.
Rafi stepped back in fear, raising his hand toward his mother. “But . . . not . . . not . . .”
Zenobia sat up in a smooth, sudden movement. Her slanted eyes darted to her son, pinning him against the polished panels of the cabin’s bulkhead. “We must,” she said harshly. She looked again at the locket. “I must . . .”
Rafi’s voice was choked. “Too dangerous . . .”
Zenobia pinned him again with her penetrating eyes. “And too dangerous not to!” Her lips thinned to a harsh line. “The Greek is old, but cunning. I must know what he means to do. I must see the scrolls.”
Rafi started to protest, but she held up the locket, the broken chain dangling. “This is the surest way,” she said, almost to herself. “It was powerful enough to charm Kassim. It will work for me.” Again her son started to protest but her hand came up, palm out, and stifled his objections.
“No argument, Rafi! I have decided.” Her voice changed and she seemed to be speaking to herself. “Should the Greek’s plan succeed, and Sinbad leads Kassim back to Charak in triumph, what becomes of us . . .?” Her feline eyes swung again to Rafi and he squirmed under her stare. “You know the answer. They would burn us both and feed our bodies to the vultures.”
Zenobia stood up, her long gown falling smoothly to the metal deck. “I must see the scrolls,” she insisted. “I must be first to the Shrine.” She held up the locket and the scarlet contents sloshed within. “This is the last of the secret potion left to me. The old alchemist of Alexandria swore that it was made from elements brought many years ago from the shores of Hyperborea.” She stared almost hatefully at the locket. “I have never been able to reproduce it. No amount of gold has ever been able to buy more.” She clutched the locket in her fist. “Perhaps in Hyperborea . . .”
Her hand opened and she stared at the locket intensely. “The only way . . .” She took a deep breath and her entire manner changed. The sorceress had made up her mind and now knew what to do. “Now, by Hecate and all the powers of darkness . . .”
Zenobia lifted the locket high, the gold chain trailing, swaying like a tail of some strange animal. “I summon all the force of Hell and Evil!” she commanded. “Help me!”
She flicked open the catch on the top of the locket and lifted the crystal object to her lips, pouring a third of the blood-red liquid into her mouth. Rafi watched, horrified, but also fascinated.
Zenobia’s head jerked back as if she were being garroted. Her whole body arched and she fell back upon the divan stiffly, then shuddered. Rafi could hear a heart pounding, but was not certain if it was his own or some strangely amplified sound from his mother.
The slanted-eyed woman groaned, her hands like claws upon the divan, tearing at the rich fabrics. Her body arched and her head went back, an odd, harsh cry coming from her throat. Rafi stared with wide-eyed horror as he watched his mother arched across the couch as if crucified to it.
Zenobia thrashed about, breaking her rigid posture, gasping and making harsh, dry cries. The locket in her hand was raised high, then slipped from her rigid fingers to fall into the disheveled coverings of the couch. She flipped over with a great cry and huddled into herself, then just as suddenly flipped back—and Rafi gasped.
The backs of his mother’s hands were feathered. She moaned, then the moan dissolved into a dry, hawking cough. Her fingers were like talons as she clutched at the draperies that hung along the cabin bulkhead behind the divan. With a cry of pain and rage Zenobia ripped the rich embroideries from the wall, sending them flying across the cabin. Rafi put up his hands, but was entangled in the cloth. He tripped and fell to the metal floor with a clang, and became further entangled.
Annoyed and frightened, Rafi fought free of the fabric but the cabin was filling with a cloying green mist. He heard his mother threshing and the beating of what sounded like great wings, the rustling of feathers, and the cawing of some tortured bird. Rafi fought to his feet, but a swaying of the cabin threw him back. The green mist boiled and swirled at his fall and the entire room dimmed and swam to him.
His face running with sweat, Rafi flung the drapery clear and fought his way to his feet, clinging to the metal table desperately. A few feathers wafted downward on stirrings of the green mist and Rafi shrank back against the bulkhead, his mouth dry and his hand held protectively across his face. With wide eyes Rafi looked at the strange object on the divan.
It was hard to distinguish Zenobia within the odd shape on the divan. Rafi blinked, wiping the sweat away, causing another stirring of the billows of green mist. He was afraid, yet oddly excited, as if viewing a dangerous but important event.
The mist cleared, then billowed in again. Rafi’s brief glimpse of the bird shape on the divan was that of a smaller creature. He stumbled forward, through the mist and fear, to search with trembling hands blindly in the rich fabric of the couch. His fingers found the locket as the mist swirled away and began dissipating.
A seagull sat on the divan.
It squawked and Rafi’s fingers fumbled for the gold chain. Using a section of the broken gold chain he rehung the locket around the neck of the seagull. Then, very gently, he picked up the bird and carried it out of the cabin.
On deck he lifted his hands and opened them. The bird flapped its long white wings and flew upward into the sky. Rafi shielded his eyes against the sun and followed the flight until he could no longer see the seagull.
Sinbad stood with Melanthius as they examined one of the wooden sledges being constructed in the hold. Hassan looked up as the old Greek grunted. He raised his eyebrows and the two helping sailors stopped work as well.
Melanthius spoke with some irritation. “If you will study my designs,” he said, gesturing toward some parchment sheets, “you will see that there is more curve in the runners. The snow will be deep.”
Hassan looked bewildered. “I have never seen snow, Master.”
Sinbad nodded. “You may wish you never had.” He stepped forward and took the plane from Hassan’s hands. “Here, let me try it.”
The alchemist watched them for a few moments, then grunted and started up onto the deck. Sinbad called after him, “I will be up in a few minutes . . .”
The old man mumbled something and climbed up the ladder to the deck, where he almost immediately slipped as a wave came over the prow and went splashing along the tilted deck.
Melanthius swore in some mumbled language which neither Sinbad nor any of the sailors on deck understood. They watched with the amusement of those who seemed born to tilting decks and rolling floors. Melanthius glared at the smiling sailors and bustled below.
Sinbad tossed the plane to Hassan and stood up. “I think that’s the way.” Hassan eyed the recut angle dubiously, then shrugged.
“What do I know about water that freezes?” he grumbled and set to work.
Sinbad swung lithely up the ladder and stepped expertly across the wet deck. He found the old alchemist trying to negotiate the corridor, which was pitching now that they were beyond the Pillars of Hercules and heading north in the open sea.
The sea captain took the old scholar’s elbow and helped him through the door of the cabin. Princess Farah was sitting cross-legged on the bunk, sewing pieces of animal fur into a great coat. She looked up as Melanthius and Sinbad entered. She hid a small smile from the old Greek as she saw his annoyance at the pitching ship. Her eyes went to Sinbad and they exchanged amused glances.
The sea captain leaned nonchalantly in the doorway, watching as the old man found his seat. “Where is Dione?” he asked Farah.
“Getting more sailor’s thread from Maroof. It’s the only thing that’s strong enough to sew these furs with.”
Melanthius lurched into his chair, which had been fastened to the deck, as had been the table. He wrestled his sextant from the voluminous pocket of his clothing and put it on the table. He gave Sinbad a grumpy look, then swept around to glare at both Farah and the baboon. “The sea!” he complained with disgust. Then, ignoring everyone, he began to make his calculations, using scraps of parchment and a feather nib, with preliminary figurings on a wax tablet.
Sinbad could see he was working on his navigational calculations, comparing his figures to those in the cuneiform script on the ancient scrolls. With a grunt, Melanthius smoothed away the figures on the wax tablet, and started again with the stylus. Satisfied, he transferred the figures to parchment, then tested everything against the old scrolls, using a primitive compass.
“Sixty-three by two hundred forty-seven,” he muttered. “Twenty-one with eight hundred fifty, um, fifty-four.” He frowned. “Wind force, um . . . distance covered . . . seventy-two added to, um, six hundred ninety-four, um, less eighty-nine . . .” The old scholar growled and smashed his fist into the wax tablet, smoothing out the calculations messily. “Not good,” he snapped. “Not good enough!”
“Your calculations?” asked Sinbad.
Melanthius looked around at him with a furrowed, angry expression. “You doubt their accuracy?”
Sinbad shrugged. “I don’t understand them.” He pointed at the brass-bound compass on the table, “Your machine for finding the north—”
“Used by the Chinese for many centuries,” Melanthius interrupted. “Absolutely reliable . . . as long as iron does not come close.”
“I prefer the North Star,” Sinbad replied.
“Where we are going you won’t always be able to see it!” snapped the bearded alchemist disagreeably. “I’d hoped to be further on by now. But your ship . . .” He indicated the whole vessel with a disparaging gesture.
“My ship can only sail as fast as the wind allows,” Sinbad reminded the Greek scholar.
Melanthius frowned down at the scrolls. “From now on, every day, every hour becomes precious . . . we must beat the ice.” He looked around at the sea captain in the door. “Is there nothing you can do to increase our speed?”
Sinbad raised his eyebrows and shrugged helplessly. “We’re carrying all the sail we can possibly rig.”
CHAPTER 14
The deck of Sinbad’s ship was crowded and cluttered with lashed stores and equipment fastened to the sledges. There was a fluttering of wings and a seagull flew onto the deck. It moved about on the worn and polished wood, making little stiff circles, tipping its head one way, then another, its bright eyes searching.
If any of the men on the poop deck noticed the bird they thought nothing of it. On their port side was the open sea, dark blue and crested with whitecaps. To the starboard the ship leaned under the wind that drove them northward. On the horizon was the distant, uneven dark line that was the coast of Europe.
The seagull stopped its pacing and the tiny locket swung on its gold chain, almost hidden under the thick, soft breast feathers. The bird moved close to a coil of rope, and seemed ready to move on, but there was the sound of a cabin door closing. The seagull hopped quickly behind the rope and all but disappeared. Sinbad came along the deck and passed the coil of rope without stopping, going on toward a group of sailors working in the lee of the poop deck.
A wisp of green smoke came from behind the coil of rope. It curled and twisted. More smoke drifted out, caught by the sea breezes, and turned, coiling, twisting, but not being carried away. Sinbad spoke to the sailors, then climbed the ladder to the afterdeck and stood there, his legs automatically shifting his balance with the bob and weave of the ship.
More smoke drifted out in a puff, and through the emerald mist appeared Zenobia . . . but a Zenobia shorter than a man’s forearm, a Zenobia only as tall as a short dagger. She peered quickly over her shoulder at Sinbad and the other sailors, fingering the crystal locket on its chain around her throat. She ran quickly across the wooden deck, a surface that now appeared to her to be something like a furrowed field, only hard. She darted to a bucket and hid behind it, until she had ascertained that no one had seen her.
The tiny sorceress started out, then threw herself back as a barefoot sailor came along the deck, carrying a bucket and a mop. She jumped into the shelter of a canvas covering over one of the sledges of equipment, and peeked out. The sailor was humming a ditty, oblivious to her presence. He leaned the mop against the railing and picked up the bucket, tying a line to it and throwing it over the side.
Zenobia started to ran toward the open door to the passage leading to the cabins. Then she threw herself back into the shadows under the canvas as she saw a sailor coming up the deck toward her.
“Aha, Ali, you have the deck to wash, eh?”
The sailor at the railing pulled up the bucket from the sea, grunting. “Aye, you know Sinbad—he likes a clean ship!”
Zenobia stared with horror as the sailor grasped the sloshing bucket and threw its contents down the deck toward her. The bucket full of water came at her like a tidal wave. She bolted and leaped for the sledge above her, grasping the grainy edges of the raw wood, which still ran with sap, and pulled herself to safety as the flood waters passed below her.
The tide quickly thinned and passed, running this way and that as the ship swayed. She peeked out again and saw Ali mopping the deck in a desultory manner. She swung her feet to the wet deck and waited. When he had worked his way around, so that he was facing away from her and his left shoulder hid his face from her, she ran out from under the sledge and toward the hatchway door.
The door was swinging with the pitching of the ship and Zenobia paused, giving the afterdeck another quick look, then braced herself. As the door started its swing toward being fully open she bolted, grasping the worn sill and vaulting over. She threw herself to the scraped wood of the top step as the door swung back, narrowly missing her and slamming shut with a boom and a metallic click of the latch.
Zenobia got to her feet and dusted herself off. She sat on the edge of the step and jumped down. Each step was as high as her shoulders and while not difficult, it was a strenuous climb down. At last she stood in the small passage before the door to Sinbad’s cabin.
The door was closed and she examined it carefully. It was old and carved, with only fragments of its paint left, worn away by the years of seagoing life. The latch was higher than she could possibly reach, or even climb to. But a chance for her lay at the very bottom of the door. Once close-fitting and snug, the door had been warped by the years at sea, making it less than a perfect fit. There was a space just big enough for her to slide through at the bottom.
Lying down, Zenobia slithered under the thick wood and paused, her slanted eyes surveying the room in a quick arc. The old Greek, Melanthius, was hunched over the scrolls on the table, his wax tablet and stylus to hand, muttering to himself. Princess Farah sat cross-legged on the bunk, sewing the thick furs into sturdy, warm coats. She was partially turned away, to catch the light from the stern windows.
Dione was trying to coax the baboon into drawing on a wax tablet, but the baboon was nervous and short-tempered. The blonde beauty looked up at her father, past the odd set of “keys” that he had prized so much. She was about to ask her father’s advice on getting the baboon to cooperate when there was a clatter. She looked back to see that the hairy animal had thrown down the tablet and seemed to be looking at her challengingly.
Dione sighed. “Very well, Kassim, as you are so bad tempered . . . no more writing today.” Dione closed, the door of the cage and latched it. Sighing, Dione took up some sewing and was soon deeply involved with the heavy stitching the garment required.
Zenobia started to come out from the edge of the door and a noise made her freeze. It was a suspicious sniffing sound, as if someone or something had made an unpleasant discovery. Zenobia eased her way along the crack until she came to the cabin bulkhead, where she rose silently to her feet. From her new position Zenobia could see the baboon cage. Within it, the baboon was stirring restlessly, his head bobbing and turning, his thick nostrils twitching and sniffing.
Zenobia ducked down and moved quickly to hide behind a large sea chest. She edged to the side and watched the baboon with only one slanted fiery eye around the corner of the chest. When the animal was looking the other way the tiny sorceress ran to another hiding place, behind a crate of delicate measuring instruments. She tiptoed along through the narrow slit between the crate and another leather-covered box. She stuck her head out and peered first at the baboon, then up at Melanthius. Satisfied, the tiny woman darted across a narrow space between boxes, but a space into which the baboon could see. She slithered into a very tight spot between a hardwood coffer and a brass-bound chest, went quickly to the other side, and peeked out.
The baboon was still sniffing and looking around, but Zenobia was now almost directly behind the animal. She looked at the space ahead with a critical eye. The table itself now hid her from Melanthius, but there was a chance the baboon might turn. The diminutive figure took a deep breath, then ran toward the table leg.
She grasped it, a huge tree trunk of a shape, and found that the legs of the Casgar wise man hid her from the baboon. With more confidence she then surveyed the area beneath the table. To her, it was almost as vast as a cathedral, with the “roof” very high over her head. The floor beneath the table was covered with stacks of reference books and bundles of scrolls. Zenobia stepped out carefully, looking at each scroll as she passed, hoping to find the ones she wanted.
