|| - Shifting Sand -I ||

“You love them because they sing a song only your heart can understand…”

- L.J. Smith

Even the berating desert sun could not expel the darkness that clung to him. The thought occurred to Kashi as she neared the towering man waiting for her underneath the skeleton of a dead tree. It might have been a giant of legends that provided shade for many travelers in the past, but remains of the tree looked creepy with its bony, bare branches scraping at the glaringly blue sky and its blackened bark. However, the tree served its purpose as an indication of their meeting place.

“Where is Andrew?” David asked her, stretching out a hand to take the reins from her hand. His gray eyes remained cold and distant as he pulled the horse she brought for him and started to pace forward.

“He asked me to apologize on his behalf, something urgent called him back.” Kashi replied as she dismounted her own horse and tailed behind him. David did not reply, instead his eyes narrowed. “What are Mr. Kent’s intentions towards Noor Banu?” Kashi questioned abruptly.

“He is keeping an eye on her,” David said impassively, his voice cut through the wind that was picking up. Instead of elaborating he focused on cutting through the desert wind that seemed to be the beginning of a sand storm, his head lowered against the stabbing wind. “So that we get to know before she stirs up more trouble.” He added after a pause as he stopped and turned to look at her over his shoulder.

“Are you sure you could keep up, Kashi Bai? It looks like a sandstorm is coming.”

Her turban had partially come undone revealing her face to the wind gracing her jaws like sandpaper. Kashi blinked, one of her hands protected her sight from being obscured by the mist of dusty wind. Unconsciously David reached out to take her hand. Grasping her fingers he stepped closer to fix her turban. As he tucked the dark cloth back in place behind her ear his fingertips graced on the top of her earlobe and their eyes met.

“It is dangerous to sympathize with one’s enemies,” Kashi declared. “I hope Mr. Kent knows that.”

David abruptly pulled back his hand. The harsh wind gave him an excuse to avert his eyes. He was sure Andrew knew the dangers of the waters he was treading in and David mused if the same could be said about him.

“The wind is slowing us down,” Kashi’s voice tugged at his wandering thoughts. “We better ride.”

He looked at her again, his initial turmoil forgotten as he sized her up.

“It is dangerous to ride through sandstorms,” he said slowly. “We could get lost and injure our horses.”

Kashi’s lips curled and a shimmer bounced between her eyes.

“Not if we are fast enough.”

She did not wait for his approval and swiftly mounted her beast. Looking up at her determined posture David reminded himself that Rajkumari Kashi took orders from none but her own stubborn mind. Shaking his head to himself he followed the suit. It was but a matter of little distance and as Kashi pointed out their speed could possibly bring them to their destination and shelter before the storm hits them. David wondered how she managed to make the risk of failing to outturn the storm sound rather tempting. But he quickly filed away the thought to reflect upon later as a cloud of dust told him Kashi’s horse had already kicked off.

They chased each other through the whipping wind that screamed in their ears, deafening them to the world around and rising to a crescendo. Sweat clung to their skins and breathe burned in their lungs as danger danced around in a heated mist of dust. The thrill made his heart pound and David felt strangely alive.

Kashi pulled at her turban, taking it off as dark waves of hair rippled in the wind. David swallowed the admonishing words at the tip of his tongue for he did not dare thwart her tasting the snatched freedom at last. Her laughter rang through the brash wind as she threw her head back and laughed ignoring the wind cutting into her skin or the sun that glared in her eyes.

A feeling that he had grown to hate coiled at the base of his throat as he watched her, the wild, unbound girl who was once a caged princess. David was glad when the structure of the hawk temple sprouted out of the skyline to cut their ride short and they had to dismount to take cover behind the caves that lead to the precipice upon which the temple perched itself.

The boulders had sharp edges and they raised skywards like monstrous teeth. At one point in time they might have been hills, now the sun beaten planes of rock were all that was left. Like a dragon’s spine the line of caves and boulders joined together to form a twisted line, ending in the precipice where the temple was. It was the highest boulder – the head of the giant rock dragon.

“Be careful where you step,” David said with a cautioning hand on her elbow. Kashi turned to look at him and he pointed out a thin string belonging to a trap that ran across one of the cave mouths. “It is temple only in the namesake. The people inside are hardly anyone’s well wishers.”

“How do you think Khan managed to gain their loyalty?” Kashi whispered as they neared the entrance of the temple. It was carved into the rock, impressive stone pillars on both sides. They leaned against a rock face that sheltered them from the view if one walks out from there and watched, waiting and analyzing the situation inside before entering.

“Loyalty or trust? Who do you think holds the upper hand of their equation?” David suggested.

“Do you think he bought their trust?”

David did not reply immediately instead his brows frowned.

“Outcast monks hardly fell for riches. I know their ways are hardly moral but some principles and teachings are embedded in such a way that they cling to them even if they have strayed from the path.”

“You know an awful lot about immoral people,” Kashi commented darkly and David shrugged. “Anyway, there are no monks in there anymore. They might have started the order of assassins some long time back but now they are just a band of people picked out from streets and trained to kill.”

“But the teachings of their founders pass on,” David reminded. “Khan might have made a sufficient sacrifice to be accepted into their folds.”

Silence dawned upon them, stretching as they watched the entrance for any sign of movement.

“Something is wrong,” Kashi said after a while. “It seems as if they are lying in ambush.”

The words had hardly left her mouth when a cold blade was pressed against her throat. Kashi made a jerk preparing to sprint around but another blade pressed itself to her back. She did not want to turn around to know that the same fate had befallen her companion.

“Wise words,” said the owner of the sword at her throat. The man had his features obscured by the weathered brown cloth of his turban. “Unfortunately they would also be your last words.”

**

Behind the cloth that covered his face Bhadra sneered at their captors. To think they could break into the tiger’s den and run away with its prey, these foreigners must have lost the grip over their senses. He knew they were foreigners in spite of the illusion of their dark skin. He had eyes and ears in Chandranagara who brought back stories of the foreign guests the Nawab was currently entertaining.

The men had them tied up as they pushed them inside the darkened hall which had once been the temple’s prayer chamber. The two struggling figures were unwillingly brought to their knees before him and he sneered again, using the pad of his thumb to brush away the blood that trickled down his brow. The intruder had left him with a cut over his brow during their last fight.

“Where is she?” His tone was a loud growl and the two strangers exchanged a look. “Where did your accomplice take her?”

He stepped down from the stone altar where he had perched himself to tower over them and walked closer. The gray eyed young man returned his glare, his head raised in defiance and chin jutted out. Bhadra fiddled with the knife in his hand imagining ways he could use it to peel the skin off that haughty face.

“So which one of them are you – the painter or the scholarly sidekick?” He asked playfully. “Ah – the gray eyed one – you must be the painter. How interested the Nawab will be when I tell him his painter is a wolf underneath sheep skin.” He continued tracing the point of the knife over the man’s sharp jaw line.

“Unless the Nawab already knows the hounds he feed lost his prey to a random intruder, I don’t think he will be interested.” The woman dressed like a man accompanying the gray eyed man had the nerve to point out. He knew she was a woman as soon as the words left her mouth – a woman of their lands nonetheless. The young painter closed his eyes for a moment as if masking his disappointment at the turn of events when Bhadra suddenly turned his gaze on his companion.

“And who must you be?” He mused loud softly, reaching out to pull away the cloth that covered half her face. The woman turned her head to the side, but without the aid of her arms she could hardly avoid his persistent fingers.

“Shouldn’t you worry more about the person you kept hidden for so long?” David cut in. “The one you think we have stolen?” He let the silence trail after watching the effect of his words in Bhadra’s eyes.

He squinted at them releasing a harsh breath.

“Admit it,” David concluded. “You do not wish Nawab to know you lost that person.”

“Confidence is lethal at times,” Bhadra refuse to let his prisoners see through his façade of indifferent arrogance.

“But not this time,” David pressed on. “Or would you bet on that, leader of hawks – is that what you call yourself? Would you bet your secret on ours and see what tempts Nawab’s fury the most?”

“I do not think Nawab would enjoy realizing he has been dangling in the end of your hook all these times waiting to be baited to a larger fish.” The woman’s words returned with their cutting edge. The veil on her face fell off as she shook her head already loosened by his previous attempt to unveil her, revealing the smirk that curled the corner of her mouth. “Shouldn’t you chase after those who ran away with your worm – hawk?”  

“You filthy little -!” Bhadra growled provoked in to backhanding her. She caught his eye with a look so cold that his hand froze in the mid air.

“Unhand me and then attack – if you have courage to hawk!” Her voice thundered although she did not raise her pitch. “Let me see what your claws are made of.”

Bhadra inhaled shakily. The woman in front of him was not as simple as he had presumed. “Who are you?” He asked her.

Her eyes burned at his question.

“Someone who could remind you of your reality very quickly…”

“Kashi-“ in the painter’s voice there was a warning and Bhadra stilled on his tracks.

“Kashi? Kashi Bai? Rajkumari Kashi?”

Instead of the earlier confusion mixed with fear and awe, his eyes shown with a flash of greed.

“Well well, perhaps I haven’t lost as much as I predicted then.”

**
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