Many years ago, in the thirty-third year of the reign of the luckless Dhelrumun Rastullâh, there was a virtuous merchant among the sons of the Ben Shadif and because he traded with the finest jewelry from Shebah to Abrakhân, he was called Abdul Al'damacht - the glistening one.
Now it betook however that the rain was late and the sand more dry than ever before. Great storms befell the Ben Shadif, buried their prized horses and had their men and women lost to the desert. Later many saw in these events an omen that should warn of changing times and great suffering among the sons of Harad. But in those years and despite the tributes they paid to Mordor, the people were rich and felt fortunate, and they were blind for the warnings of the Raschidi.
Greater and greater became the damage that the storms and the dry season brought, until Abdul decided to seek out one of the Raschid himself.
For three days and nights he walked about alone over the dunes on his way to the oasis of Abdallah, the wise man, but he could not reach it.
On the fourth day and neigh death, Abdul perceived an eagle above him, whose shadow he followed. The powerful bird led him from water hole to water hole until he came upon his kinsmen on the half way to Hayâbeth. He told them of his encounter with the great eagle, spoke that the times are about to change and that he will go into the north, there where he had lost sight to the bird.
Abdul took with him the niece of his cousin, who was named Ishta and she had become a woman, a rose of the desert as her mother Taraneh, who was the first wife of Mehrdad ibn Nazir.
And to protect them on their dangerous road, Rahja, whom the Elves call Elbereth, guided the warrior Gamal to their path. Together they made way to the north, where they sought to find wisdom and opportunity for their people, but it was the will of Rahja, that Ishta was lost in one of the northmen's towns ...
Rays of light stung through the thick blanket of grey clouds that hung over the afternoon's sky, penetrated the cold haze that was over the town and gladdened the people for maybe the last time this year.
A sudden rain had swept the streets of the town empty. Men and beast alike had sought cover in their houses or the stables. No real life had yet returned to the usual so quickly living settlement of Bree. Even the merchants and traders of the market had abandoned their spots, the bazaars and kiosks lay dormant, the wares left to fend for themselves.
Tools, goods of leather, but mainly items of bronze, that caught the solitary rays of the sun and seemed to reflect them a thousand times. In the outlays was plain jewelry to be found. A ring or a necklace which carried a charm to ward off bad dreams or to bring luck. Vases, pitchers and jars, even as simple or lovely ornamented, here very thin, there wide.
Amidst the quietness, only the call of a donkey rang up.
The woman reached out her arm, bypassed the coverage of the small tent she had fled beneath. A few last drops running down the cloth of her refuge pearled unto the sleeve of her kaftan. Some were absorbed by the silk of the expensive cloth-piece that had seen better days, left small dark spot and some rolled over the fabric, falling to the earth.
It was albeit its slightly torn seam to her feet, still an expensively looking garb with white embroideries on a burgundy subsurface. Its wide fashion was hiding any apparent curves of the woman and yet she seemed delicate as the kaftan lay loosely about her shoulders. An equally valuable turban covered her hair, a half-transparent veil shielded everything below her eyes from the gazes of others.
Ishta was a canary bird among pigeons.
Her dress code had brought already numerous suspicious looks, but she wagered that even as many had looked at her more interested than defying.
To those with whom she had spoke, had reacted all different. Some of Bree's townsfolk were quite smitten with her, bombarded her with questions how it was in the lands of the desert, why she had come so far into the north. The worst were those who came to close and had began to touch her. Her clothes, the pieces of jewelry that hung from her turban.
Without hesitation, Ishta had turned on her heels and taken flight, hid in the alleys or between empty barrels and crates only to find herself lost and wandering for hours in the unnumbered streets of the town.
The more relieved she was that the rain had driven most of them off.
But the feeling of being at ease was not for long.
She remembered the reason why she was out here, in the cold streets of the early winter, the cloak wrapped around her as tight as she could and yet it availed her not. The wind cut through her garments like a khunchomer through light beggar's cloth.
Ishta was looking for Abdul - or Gamal, by now it was regardless to her, whom of the two she found, as long as Rahja would lead her to them.
A few days ago, she had lost them in the streets of the town and since then had been looking for them, but it was as if someone did not want that they meet. She got often enough a tip or two where one of the southerners was last seen, she even got a note from Gamal already, but sometimes Ishta wondered if the townsfolk who gave her the information were not playing their rude game with her.
»Oi, you!«
The call brought her back into reality as she wandered along the cobblestone pavement. Ishta turned around and her eyes fell on a scraggy man.
His bushy eyebrows were furrowed, the slightly oversized nose in the form of a hawk's beak he had drawn. »Ain't you that southron?«
»I am from the desert and of the righteous sons of the Shadif, if you mean that«, Ishta replied. She could perceive the smell of alcohol from the breath of the man even on the distance they stood apart from one another. His empty glare, the dull glimmering in his eyes were evident to her assumption.
He is not master of his own thoughts or actions. Gamal's warning returned to her conscious, her hand verifying that her knife was still hidden in the folds of her silken belt.
No one had yet tried to assault her, but Ishta was better prepared. Please, behave, northman.
»Don't quite care what you are, trull. But you better do not linger much longer here in our town. Not welcomed, you aren't«, the hawk-nose said and made a stumbling step forward at her.
»A northman with the courage of a sandhopper cannot insult me.«
»But I can fill your pertly mouth!«
He was about to step closer. Ishta made a quick prayer and was undecided if she should stand her ground as it her honor demanded of her, or if she should listen to her good sense. He is drunk. And if I struck him down I might get blamed or in big trouble. If I stand idle, trouble gets me too.
She knew how to fend off men like him. She had done so earlier on her travel with Abdul and Gamal. A man in a tavern had made motion to tear her veil down from her face after she had suffered his mockery. Ishta sent him unto the ground only to get to know later that Gamal severed the poor man's hand after Abdul and her had left. The grim warrior was not well versed when it was about touching his honor - or in that case the honor of his ward.
The last thing Ishta wished for was that this event would repeat itself.
But before she could make a final decision, a woman joined the scene, yanked the hawk-nose around, started almost immediately to scold him.
Ishta felt no need to explain herself to that situation, quickly she ran off and would have almost slipped on the wet cobblestone.
Her legs carried her as far as they could. catching her breath she leaned against the wall of a house. At least she did not freeze anymore, the running had brought her blood to warm up her body.
Thank you, Rahja, she thought. It was quite unlikely that the man followed her, let alone remember their encounter.
Her determination to find Abdul and Gamal had just increased. The sooner she would find them, the better. Ishta needed the protection of her two friends and now she realized what folly her thoughts were when she spoke of going on her own to the east at the end of six days.
But now she had said it and how would it make her look when she did not leave? They will deem me a wimp. She let herself in for that.
Ishta raised her gaze up to the still clouded sky. Wind came up, tore on her kaftan and her cloak, let the coins on her turban collide and ring up brightly. She felt suddenly helplessly delivered to powers she had no influence of. It was as if Rahja and her husband Hawa would test her especially.
Was that possible? Was that maybe her test to ascend to her next level of her becoming an Ahmad'sunni?
Ishta rose up and continued her way. With a look behind her she made sure that no one followed and drawing her cloak closer against the coldness she sunk back into her thoughts.
Occasionally she passed a few people who were shooting strange looks but she decided to punish them with indifference. Should they stare.
Already since morning there had been biting cold and a thick fog over the town, so that the slightest blow of the wind caused the young woman to shiver. Ishta noticed a strange tension in the air after she had been walking for another hour and finally the clouds released another flood upon the lands.
Quickly she sought cover beneath an archway and astonished did the daughter of the Shadif observe what unspeakable amount of water the sky was hurling against the town of Bree, just as if it intended to wash all dirt and all ill thought away. So thick the rain fell, that it seemed to Ishta as if a shimmering curtain would have been laid before the archway. Soon enough the steep alleys were turned into rushing streams and the ankle deep water was, to her anger, dampening her new boots entirely. Now she had to to go on wet feet.
Even as suddenly as it had began, it stopped.
There Ishta believed to see the outlines of a person that she knew. That kaftan! That is him, Abdul!
She wanted to call after him, but no loud emerged from her mouth.
Someone pressed a hand over her veil and her lips, suffocating any sound.
