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Troy Denning
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Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Troy Denning
The Parched sea
One
Ruha woke abruptly, unsure of what had disturbed her languorous nap. The young woman lay next to her sleeping husband, their bodies touching at the hip and shoulder. She turned to look at his weathered face. Ajaman had the rough skin and thick mustache of a mature man, but his hairless chest was young, lean, and muscular. He was the only man Ruha had ever seen undressed.
As the young wife gazed at her husband, her vision suddenly blurred. An instant later, it cleared and the face of another man appeared in place of Ajaman's. She gasped in astonishment, but did not cry out.
The stranger's visage was unlike any she had ever known. His skin was red and sun-blistered, with a creamy white underlayer showing through where he had peeled. A black patch covered his right eye, and his left eye was as blue as the desert sky. Though his features were drawn and haggard, they were not so careworn that he could have been more than twenty-five.
Any other bride would have run screaming from her new home, concluding that her father had married her to a djinn-but not Ruha. She had been suffering visions since before she could walk, so she recognized the image for what it was: a mirage from tomorrow. Sometime soon, the stranger would appear. What would happen then, Ruha could not say, though she knew it would be some mishap or catastrophe. She lacked the talent to interpret the mirages, but nothing good had ever followed one.
Her first vision had been of thousands of butterflies.
The butterflies had turned out to be moths, and within two months every yard of cloth in the tribe was full of holes. Another time, during a terrible drought, she had seen a vast green meadow to the south of the tribe. Her father, the sheikh, had taken the herds in search of the fresh pasturage. After a week of thirsty riding, they had finally found the meadow. It was on the edge of a contaminated pool, and half of their camels had died from drinking poisoned water.Not surprisingly, Ruha had come to regard her premonitions as more of an affliction than a gift. Without giving the vision further thought, the young wife shut her eyes tightly and hoped it would pass.
Ajaman stirred beside her. "Is something troubling you, my wife?"
The heat rose to Ruha's cheeks, for being addressed as "wife" gave her a capricious feeling that she found embarrassing.
Opening her eyes, she was relieved to see Ajaman instead of the one-eyed man. The young bride smiled and answered, "Nothing we should worry about. "
She said nothing of her vision, for she did not want Ajaman to blame her for whatever misfortune the one-eyed stranger was bringing. Besides, the desert tribes were wary of magic, and if her new husband suspected her of being a witch, he would cast her from his tent.
Abruptly Ajaman glanced at his nude body, then blushed. He reached for his
