Vial of Tears, page 9
“But I am in a position to bargain.” Sam regained her breath, steadied her voice. She held up the empty vial. “You said Eshmun’s tears are hidden in Sidon.”
Zayin narrowed her eyes. “Yes.”
“What if I can offer you more than one vial’s worth?” Sam asked. “What if I find the rest?”
Zayin grinned, clapping her hands together. “Clever, clever girl.” She tipped her head back to laugh, her silken hair cascading around her. “You impress me. In that case, yes, I will help you.”
“You’ll tell me everything you know about how to leave this world and get back to Earth? You’ll tell me where the portal in Baalbek is?”
Zayin winked, pressing her luxuriant eyelashes against her cheek. “Of course. I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Sam was making a deal with the devil, she knew. The hawk angled its beak toward her.
“I’ll do it.”
Zayin smiled and gave her a curt nod of agreement. Then she and her mount lifted into the air and were gone.
8
The weight of Zayin’s bargain was heavier than the bag of supplies Sam carried. She shifted the deal she’d just made back and forth in her mind, trying to judge what was really inside it.
Why did Zayin want Eshmun’s tears? She should have pressed, but she suspected Zayin wouldn’t have told her anyway. And how could she possibly fill a vial with them or find where they were hidden in Sidon? Would Zayin actually help her in return? Was she being naïve?
What other choice did she have?
She tucked the vial beneath her fur belt, navigating the narrow path with small, careful steps until she caught up with Eshmun and Rima. They were resting on a bluff, wide and safe; over their heads a precipice jutted out, sheltering them underneath. There was a sea in the distance, a blanket of dark blue. Before the sea, though, there was a forest and what might have been a village, a cluster of buildings.
Sam’s entire body ached with fatigue. What she would give for her soft bed at home, or even their thin sofa with its springs poking through.
“Where are we?” Rima asked, exhausted.
“In between,” Teth said, joining them. “Neither light nor dark. Neither paradise nor hell, šmayyà nor gihannā. This is the realm of both the living and the dead.”
“Drink,” Eshmun said, handing Sam a jug.
As she gulped the water down, Teth produced the fish from his bag. “We must eat, too!”
Sam sat next to Rima on the ground, taking her hand and squeezing. “You okay?”
Rima nodded. Her sandals were off, and she rubbed her chafed feet.
“We’re going to have to run again,” Sam whispered. “To get back to Baalbek.”
“Why, though? Does that even make sense?” Rima asked. She glanced toward Eshmun. “He’s the one who brought us here. What if we need him to get home?”
Sam let out a troubled breath. She thought of what Zayin had told her. “What if he won’t let us leave?”
The funnel, the coin, Eshmun and his tears, Zayin, Baalbek. Which led to freedom? Which did they need?
Rima’s lower lip trembled. She leaned against Sam, and Sam could practically feel the heaviness of her sister’s heart. “It was the cream cheese,” Rima said.
“The what?” Sam asked, blinking up at her sister. She’d been taller than Sam for about a year now, though there was no mistaking who was older. Rima still had the face of a child, heart-shaped and tender. She had freckles on her cheeks. “What are you talking about?”
“You know,” Rima said, “what we ate for breakfast? When we were home, right before this all happened?”
“The caramel-flavored cream cheese?”
“Yeah, it was bad. We got, like, mad cow disease, or something? Some weird food infection. It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Rima said, sniffling. She wiped a hand across her nose.
“I think you are totally right,” Sam said. She put an arm around Rima’s waist.
Teth had retrieved the frying pan from the bag Sam carried. “Forged by Sarepta’s best blacksmith,” he said, unsheathing a highly polished blade with a handle of bone. Dusting off a flat rock with his hand, he placed the trout on top and began sawing into it.
Sam couldn’t help herself. “Stop!” she said, throwing her hands in the air. “You’re butchering it.” She was hungry, and he would waste half the meat.
Teth considered the fish. “I would prefer to eat it raw and whole,” he admitted.
“You think you can do better?” Eshmun asked Sam.
“I know I can.”
Teth’s eyebrows shot up. He looked for the response from Eshmun, who let the moment hang before answering. “Give her the fish, my friend. You start the fire.”
“Hmm,” Teth said, his huff of complaint playing out into a low growl. He reluctantly handed over his catch. It was heavy; Sam judged it to be an eight-pounder. “There is no river nearby to catch another,” he reminded her.
“I need your knife,” she said.
Teth’s eyebrows descended just as sharply as they had risen. The wrinkles on his forehead deepened. “I do not think so.”
“She knows now not to attempt anything foolish,” Eshmun said. “Let us see what she can do.”
“We have seen what she can do,” Teth cautioned.
“Give it to her,” Eshmun said, leveling a warning look at Sam.
She held out her hand and Teth placed the knife in her palm, still blistered from digging the hole in her backyard.
The knife was heavy and solid. She’d promised herself. She wouldn’t hesitate. Eshmun was a quick lunge away. If she stabbed him, would he cry tears of pain? Could she fill the vial with them?
But no—thanks to the deal she’d struck—one vial wouldn’t be enough. Besides, what would Teth do to her, to Rima?
Now was not the time. She would have to wait.
She steadied her hands and tried to concentrate on the fish. Piercing it just behind its head, near the dorsal fin, she made the first diagonal cut.
“You are an expert,” Teth admitted. His wild hair was a mane against the dusky sky as he started the fire. It began to crackle, and Sam realized that the smoke would create a beacon, if anything was still following them.
Eshmun must have been thinking the same thing. “Make haste.”
“Haste is the best way to cut yourself,” she said. “That’s what my father always said.” Dad had taught her how to scrape scales, pick pin bones out with tweezers, snip off catfish spines. She knew how to get a hook out of her own finger.
“Your father was a fisherman, then?” Teth asked.
She flipped the fish over, sliding the blade against its backbone until she reached the tail. “He was in the military,” she said, knowing they wouldn’t understand what a lance corporal in the Marines meant.
This produced a sound from Eshmun, a lilt in his voice. Approval. “He died while fighting,” he said, more a statement than a question.
“No.” Sam hesitated. She glanced at Rima, who was either asleep or feigning it. “He disappeared over an ocean.” He was a crew member on a V-22 Osprey on a disaster relief mission. No one knew what had happened to the plane, or anyone on board. It was a mystery.
But he could still come home. He could be serving out some secret mission, or surviving on a remote island, or trapped in a prison. Whenever she saw news of air strikes, she imagined the door of his cell blown off. He’d walk away with a few cuts on his face.
With every passing month, though, and each passing year, a thin layer of doubt accumulated. She would dust it off and polish her hope like a dutiful housekeeper. If she kept up with it, it never tarnished beyond repair. Not for Dad. Plenty of other things in her life had black lines in the details—no way of buffing those out—but when it came to her father, she was vigilant.
Teth finally spoke. “Blessings upon your father, a warrior who serves with honor.”
Sam felt her eyes go damp. She nodded.
Teth turned to speak to Eshmun, and while they had their heads pressed together, she carefully looked back the way they’d come. Through a gap in the mountain walls, she could see the fine line of a river—maybe the one they’d traversed earlier. From this vantage point, it looked like a gash through the belly of the earth. How long would it take them to hike back? Could they even cross it without Teth?
With a start, she realized she was still holding Teth’s knife. She had finished with the fish and no one had noticed. She gripped it close against her thigh, and as the men continued talking, she sidestepped toward Rima, pretending to check on her. Nerves blazing, she tucked it inside the bag she’d carried.
She returned to the fire just as Teth uncorked a glass vial. “Oil pressed from olives,” he said. He drizzled it into the pan, and when it began to pop, he added the fish fillets she had carved and sprinkled them with coarse sea salt. “Now it is ready to eat.”
Sam woke Rima to make sure she had her share of the food. Teth ate noisily, somehow managing to find his mouth through his beard, drinking from a bottle of liquor. As he chewed, a giant moth perched on his head, flexing its wings. He took it onto his finger and set it on his shoulder, whispering to it like it was his pet, until it took flight once again.
“I detest even the thought,” Teth said. He stopped eating and looked at Eshmun with utter seriousness. “I pray it isn’t so. But he must have a hand in this.”
“Without a doubt,” Eshmun said. He stabbed at the fire with a branch, the light casting shadows onto his face.
“Who?” Sam asked.
“Môt,” Teth replied.
The fire’s flames suddenly turned green. Sam skittered backward away from them. “What’s happening?” she asked.
“Douse the flames!” Eshmun told Teth. “Quickly!”
Teth growled, piling rocks onto the fire until it was smothered. Small green sparks sizzled along the edges, and Teth stomped them with his feet. “That madman!” he cried. “That plague!”
“What madman?” Sam asked. “What are you talking about?”
“My uncle,” Eshmun said, his jaw tight. “God of fire and death.”
“He is the rightful ruler of the underworld,” Teth added. “He is able to wield his power through fire—use it as a way of seeing. Flames are like windows for him. In this way, he can spy into the corners of the underworld.”
“You summoned him to this fire,” Eshmun said reprovingly.
Teth looked at Eshmun. “My lord, his name has been mentioned in the company of fire many times. I recall the green flames only once, long ago, when I was a boy.”
“He stirs again,” Eshmun said. “He is restless.”
“What does he want?” Sam asked. If Eshmun was related to Môt, mad ruler of the underworld, then the same plagued blood must run through his veins.
“Devotion,” Eshmun said. “The fervor he once enjoyed. Where once he was worshipped, now he is despised.”
“He has been simmering since Ba’alat Gebal left him,” Teth said, shaking his head. “A god with a broken heart is a dangerous thing. Though I will never understand why she ever poured her love into him. He simply drank it up and pissed it out.”
“They were ill-matched from the start,” Eshmun said.
“That is true, my lord,” Teth said with a heavy sigh. “One so precious might alight for a moment alongside an ogre, but she will not stay.”
Eshmun flashed a sad smile in Teth’s direction. “You are no ogre, my friend, and I will speak to Rabā on your behalf.”
“My lord,” Teth said sadly. “You have my unending gratitude, but it is a matter of wealth. My humble status does nothing to elevate Meem’s family name.”
“I will pay you handsomely for this journey,” Eshmun said. “If my suspicions serve me, your wages will be well earned.” He clapped Teth on the back. “I will be the first to dance at your wedding.”
At that, Teth grinned, but Sam felt no comfort. With the heat of the fire gone, she shivered. The sounds of the wilderness drifted up to them: a lonely call in the distance, an owl’s hooting, the whining of wind. No one suggested walking farther. There would be no nightfall, and somehow that comforted her—at least she wouldn’t have to be in this strange world in complete darkness. She and Rima lay down to sleep, but the men sat together, murmuring.
“What will you do with these two?” Teth asked. Even when he whispered, his voice rolled out of him like a low thundercloud. “My lord,” he pressed. “Forgive me if my tongue is loose from liquor, but I must speak.”
“Then speak.”
“You cannot afford to make the same mistake twice. Opportunity is revisiting you, against all odds.”
Eshmun said something terse in response. It was one angry word that Sam couldn’t make out. There was a stretch of silence, and then Teth tried again. “Perhaps it is your child who is meant to—”
“There was no missed opportunity!” Eshmun barked, cutting him off. “Helena had already birthed her one son. I made no mistake.”
Sam nestled close to Rima, her mind full of sharp, dangerous questions. They prodded at her harder than the rocks under her hips and spine. She didn’t understand what Teth and Eshmun were talking about—all she knew was that there was a god of death named Môt, that Eshmun was a kidnapper, and that Baalbek was increasingly far behind. This place seemed to become more treacherous with every breath. And there was a prophecy… one that she and Rima might have something to do with.
After a while, Teth started snoring, probably too drunk to keep his eyes open, although he was meant to keep watch. In the distance, Sam heard an animal howling—a wolf, maybe. Eshmun had quickly succumbed to sleep, too. His chin dipped into his chest, which rose and fell with his steady breath.
Sam sat up. She counted to one hundred, and with every second she thought of a reason to do it, or not.
Her heart pounded out question after question. What about the tears? What will Zayin do if she finds me again and I don’t have them? Maybe we don’t need her to get home. Maybe we should just run.
But Eshmun would chase them. She was sure of that. And she couldn’t let him hurt Rima again.
She pulled the knife from the bag and held it firmly in her hand.
Teth was smiling in his sleep. He let out a small chuckle as she crept toward Eshmun and stooped over him, her shin brushing against the velvety fur of his collar.
She wanted to touch him, to make sure that the knife wouldn’t slide right through him, but she knew by now that he wasn’t made of smoke. He was muscle and veins, and she could hear his breathing: soft and even, while Sam’s heartbeat hammered down to the bone. He smelled like lemons, and then she remembered that he’d packed two in his satchel. He was talking in his sleep. “Cadmus, brother in arms,” he murmured. “Hanno the Navigator. Ithtobaal, eyes purple as plums. Sor, heart of rock…”
She pulled the knife up, ready to strike. Her stomach churned and she tasted acid in her throat, the fish she’d just eaten. There was another howl in the distance. She glanced at Rima and wished she could scoop her up and fly away, the way Zayin had done with her hawk.
You promised yourself. You wouldn’t hesitate. It would be like the knife going into the tannîyn. Like a knife flicked into a tree. That was all.
But… if she killed Eshmun, she would have to kill Teth, too. Maybe hit him over the head with the frying pan first, then plunge a knife into his chest. The thought made her shake.
Dad would do it, she thought. He would do it to protect them.
Coursing with adrenaline, she thrust the knife toward Eshmun’s closed eye.
But she stopped short, a breath away from his skin. Her palms were slick with sweat.
Do it!
Instead she groaned and sat back on her haunches, cursing herself. She couldn’t. She would wake up Rima instead. They would run while the men were sleeping.
And then Eshmun’s eyelids snapped open. He sat up and snatched her by the wrist.
“No!” she cried. She dropped the knife and held up her other hand in surrender.
His pupil flared red. He stood and forced her up with him, backing her toward the edge of the precipice. “What were you doing?” he growled.
“I… I… thought…,” she stuttered. “I heard… howling.”
“Lies,” he said. “Where is my coin?”
“I don’t have it,” she said, looking over her shoulder at the drop-off.
“Why do you want to return to Baalbek? Did you hide my obol in the temple?”
“No,” she said, and then regretted her honesty. If he thought the coin was there, they might turn back. “I mean yes.”
He scowled at her and took another step forward, forcing her to retreat, her heels inches from the edge.
“Stop,” she gasped.
And then, with a swift yank, he pulled her back onto the ledge and released her. She stumbled to the ground, her elbows and knees scraping against the rock, her bracelets biting into her wrist.
“Use your eyes,” Eshmun said smugly. He raised his hands to the sky and its cloud streaks. “Do you see a way home? Where is the road you traveled? Where is the funnel? It is not here, nor is it waiting for you in Baalbek.”
She would be bruised tomorrow, if there was such a thing as tomorrow in this godforsaken place. Today, yesterday, forever. It was all one continuous strand. I hate you. I hate you for bringing me here.
“I will find a way home,” she said, her voice turning savage. Angry tears burned her eyes.
He shook his head. “People have come into this world before,” he said. “And they will likely come again. But they do not go back.”
She pulled herself to her feet and pointed a finger at his chest. “You call yourself a healer?” She let out a bitter laugh. “All you do is break things. I’m sure your mother would be proud of you.”
To her surprise, Eshmun’s face went pale. “What did you dare say to me?” he asked.
Sam thought of the word Teth had used when he bound her hands in Baalbek. Tyābutā, he’d said: shame, repentance, regret. At first she thought Teth had meant it for himself, because he felt guilty for tying her hands. Or that he’d meant it for her, that she should feel ashamed for taking Eshmun’s coin.
