20ish

Zula opened her eyes slowly, and face herself lying on her bed, with the curtains drawn. She sat up slowly, and parted the tapestries. A serving woman that she had seen a few times in the villages sat near the bed, clumsily stitiching up a tear in a coarse robe. “Oh, you’re awake! Are you feeling better? They said that you would feel much better once the enchantment was broken…or don’t you remember any of that? I was never clear on how that worked, but it’s over now and your husband should be home today or tomorrow, or so they say in the village.”
The woman’s endless chatter echoed in her head, and Zula wished she would be still for a moment.

A ginger-haired woman sitting in the corner skillfully sewing a new chali

Light on skin that shone like alabaster

The hem of a robe sweeping along stones in a garden

Flowers blooming white, changing to blood-red blossoms

Zula bent over and was sick. The servant woman squawked, and ran to fetch rags and water, trailing an endless stream of chatter behind her. Zula lay back in the bed, and sobbed.
As the woman re-entered the room, Zula weakly reached out towards her.
“Please…my baby…where have they taken her?”
“Your baby was a hadji, mistress; the evil thing was switched with your child before it was even born.” She made disapproving clucking sounds, and made to pick up her sewing again, but Zu;la gripped her arm tightly, and would not let go. “What have they done with her? Where is Mado?”
The woman tried her best to pull away, saying, “I do not know, they took the hadji to the desert two days ago when they went to spread the witch’s bones over the sand, that is all I know! Please, mistress, you must rest, or you will be ill again! My master will not forgive if harm comes to you before he arrives.”
Zula staggered to her feet, and ran down the hallway before the stunned woman could react. She stumbled through her garden, and unlocked the gate that opened onto the open desert. She did not bother to close the gate; marauders could burn the entire house for all she cared. Her eyes scanned the horizon, seeking any sign of a small form, but it was empty.

The sun burned brightly overhead, and the sand scorched Zula’s bare feet, but she took no notice. She had stumbled across a faint trace of hoofprints; it looked as though several deshas might have passed this way recently, and having no better clues, she took that path deeper into the desert.

Zula forced her aching feet to carry her to the top of the next dune. She had taken several bad falls, and her ankles were weakened from walking in sand for so many hours. She finally reached the crest of the dune, and saw Lotha thrust the edge of her gleaming disc over the rim of the world. Everything for miles was bathed in cold blue light, and beside a rocky outcropping, Zula saw a flash of almost pure white.
With a hoarse cry, she stumbled forward, slipping and sliding down the far face of the dune; when she came to the rock, she saw little Mado; her tender lips were dry and cracked, and her forehead burned with fever, but she was still alive. Zula scooped her up and held her close, relishing every beat of her little heart. Whispering nonsense that she knew her daughter could not hear, Zula kissed her face again and again as she turned and headed back towards the village.

As dawn came, Zula could hear the first stirrings in the village. It took most of her willpower to continue to put one foot ahead of the other, but she slowly came to the edge of the village. There she met with a sight that sent chills into her very heart, despite the heat of the rising sun. The elders, and other younger men of the village, stood barring her entrance.

“You cannot bring the evil thing into Kemal. You are welcome to come home and take up your household again, but the hadji may not re-enter this gate.” The man who spoke was old enough to be her father; his grey beard fell halfway down his chest, and his voice rasped with the years.

“She is my child,” Zula whispered. “You would deny her entrance to her birth place? She is no evil spirit; you all know her, your children have played in the streets with her. Has any harm ever come to you through us?”

“Who knows what harm may come to us through her if she passes through these gates?”

“Please…” Zula begged, falling to her knees. “Please, she is just a child. I must save her, and there is still time, if she drinks some water and eats a little food. Her heartbeat flutters, but it is not yet stilled. There is still time..” Her eyes searched the line of men for some flicker of mercy, but there was none, save for herself: a poor deluded woman, clinging to an evil thing that had bewitched her.

A sudden anger welled up inside her, and she let out a shriek like a wildcat. She ran at the line of men, shielding Mado’s body with her arms, and tried to push through, but was thrown backwards onto the sand.

The sun rose, and still Zula plead. She wept, she begged, she kissed the very feet of the men who barred her way, but they would not move. She tried walking around the village, but they moved ahead of her and guarded every entrance before she reached it.

“Zula!” A voice roared, and she saw one of the men in the back of the crowd fall. Mushad came storming through, fighting like a lion. “They cannot do this!” The men turned to see what was happening, and Zula darted like a cat between them. She actually felt the pavement beneath her foot when she was knocked backwards into the sand. Wiping the sand from her eyes, she looked up to see the green eyes and black hair of Veren, the warrior priest.

Green eyes and back hair in the moonlit garden

A blaze of eyes in the shadows of the temple

The cracking sound of rock shattering a skull

Blood spilling on sand

Lights flickering over the polished stone.


This was her, he knew; her eyes shone brightly purple in the morning sun, and it only took a few moments of looking within to see that this was the soul that had escaped. Veren took a quick step forward, and raised his hands. Silver light flickered between his fingertips, and he touched her temples.
Then a burning pain shot deep into his side, and he fell to his knees. Gasping for breath, he felt a knife pull free from his ribs, and looked behind him to see Mushad pushing forward to clear a way for Zula and Mado. Veren could feel the blood seeping into his lung, and coughed violently. He spat blood onto the ground, and lunged for Mushad’s leg, grabbing the ankle and holding tight. With his other hand, he slipped the knife from his belt; when Mushad fell, Veren threw himself upon the larger man, and stabbed wildly. Mushad dodged the first blow, and struck Veren’s arm aside, knocking him back. Veren could feel the pressure building in his lungs as they filled with blood, and struck one final time.
The knife plunged deep into Mushad’s neck, and blood spurted hot onto the sand. Mushad clutched vainly at his throat as crimson streams slipped between his fingers. As his body began shaking, he stretched out a trembling hand to Zula; she clasped his rough fingers tightly, and kissed his hand. There was nothing to be said, and no time to say it in; his eyes grew glassy and his breath shuddered to a halt.
Veren collapsed into the sand, a hideous gurgling escaping from his throat. He rolled onto his back, gasping, and scanned the eyes of the crowd. There was no time to call for the other priests, and nothing that they could do. His eyes rolled back, and he choked out a final breath, and lay still.
Zula still knelt in the sand and the spilled blood, weeping. Mado’s heart was slowing, she could feel her life draining away, and still the elders would not move; they had regrouped quickly after Mushad’s doomed charge.
“Please…just give us water and we will go elsewhere. But do not let my daughter die! Please, we will never set foot here again, just give me water for her!” She wept copiously, and caught as many of the drops as possible on her fingertips, gently slipping them between her daughter’s lips, but still the heartbeat faded. Finally, as the sun hovered directly above, the small heart flickered, thumped one final time, and ceased.
Zula lay the little body on the sand without a word and stood. She scanned the faces of the men, and spoke quietly. “In my house there is a little jar of scented oil, in the chest by the foot of my bed. Bring it to me.” There was a short pause, then one of the younger man turned and went to fetch it. He returned a short time later, and carefully handed it to her. Zula took the painted jar without a word, and knelt beside her husband, anointing his thick black hair with the oil, and kissing his cold lips for the last time. Sh then turned to her daughter’s body. Singing softly, she rubbed the oil into the skin that was beginning to turn blue, and used her fingers to comb the scent through the white hair, brushing out the sand where possible. Then, she folded the tiny hands across the heart that had so recently ceased, and stood, still clutching the container of oil.
“Let her body remain as a reproach to all in this town. You see that she does not fade, as you said a spirit would. You would not welcome her in life, and you will never be rid of her in death.”
A few of the men stepped back so that she could enter the village, but she turned again towards the desert. She gently loosened the chali that held her hair back, and it tumbled down around her waist in thick black waves, which were tossed by the breeze that blew in from over the sands.

She did not look back as she crossed the dunes, and the last that was seen of Zula, wife of Mushad, mother of Mado, was a wavering silhouette against the pale sky as she stood at the top of a dune for a few moments.

“Keld and his men then saw a strange sight in the desert sands. There lay two skeletons, bleached pure white by the sun. One was laid out neatly though the skull had been severed from the spine; the hands were clasped over the breast, and a few wisps of pale hair still clung to the skull. The second skeleton was curled at the other’s feet, and the bony fingers clasped the shards of a painted jar.”
-----------------------Mysteries of the Kedonese Deserts, by Roshak Gela, YE 29876