The Waters of Eternity by Howard Andrew Jones Read Free Book Online

thoughtful man, Azzam.” Dabir’s voice was heavy with sarcasm, to which the scholar only grunted. “How does it live?” Dabir asked.
    “Live? What is life? It moves. It hears. It obeys. It needs no further magic, if that’s what you mean.”
    I could no longer contain my own anger. “So you told him to kill Sabih?” I demanded.
    “He protects,” Azzam said. “He protects me and mine.” His head turned to his child. “My daughter has…a special bond with Butrus.”
    Dabir considered the girl. “Did you tell it to kill Sabih?”
    “He…he has a mind of his own. He knew the soldier had upset me.”
    “Golems are supposed to be servants,” Dabir said to Azzam. “Stone slaves.”
    “A minor flaw in the spell, I think,” Azzam said. “He is mostly obedient.”
    “Murder is a troublesome flaw,” Dabir said dryly. “Where is it now?”
    “Somewhere close.”
    “Summon it here.”
    Azzam licked his lips and turned to his daughter. She glanced furtively at Dabir and myself, then at her father.
    “Butrus is close,” she said. “He will be here as soon as he can.”
    “You are not its master,” Dabir said to Azzam.
    “No. I used Rabi’s blood in the mixture…I thought that since her blood was mine, he would attend us both. It answers only to her, but I am final controller, for I wield the tablet that gives it life. And Rabi is mine to command.”
    “You shed your own daughter’s blood for magic,” I said, my voice rising, “but did not risk your own?”
    “Do not question me.” His voice was like a whip. “I had been sick. If I had grown weak, she would have had no one to care for her.”
    “Asim, let us speak. Your pardon, Azzam, Rabi.”
    Dabir rose and we stepped near the cave entrance. The rain pattered against the stone overhang.
    Dabir’s voice was a whisper. “It occurs to me that a man who wrote our vizier about his powers might write a Greek lord, seeking the best of two offers.”
    I blinked in astonishment. “You think that has passed?”
    “Consider how he dallied upon our arrival. Consider how polite the Greeks were when they came. Would not they have surrounded the place or come in the night if they planned mischief?”
    I had not considered that point. Sometimes Dabir’s intellect shamed me. Should not I, a military man, have noticed this? “You have surely seen the truth of the matter.”
    “If Azzam does not lie—and evidence suggests his golem is real—then he has fashioned a thing any ruler would prize. And his knowledge could fashion more. You saw what it did to men. Imagine an army of these things, Asim.”
    I tried, but could not. “It is a statue, brought to life?”
    “A man of fired stone, with the breath of life. What use would swords and arrows be against one? Look how a little rain holds up our own progress, how we must stop for food, and sleep, and prayers. An army of these things needs stop for nothing. Rain, mud, sandstorm—it is all one to them.”
    Now the matter had achieved clarity for me. “We cannot let the Greeks have it, or its maker.”
    “Yes. Azzam must be watched carefully, Asim. I think he would betray us if he could.”
    One of the horses nickered. I stepped before Dabir, pushing him behind me as I studied the darkness. Something moved beyond the horse shapes. A man?
    Lightning flared and my eyes fastened upon the golem as it walked. My view was brief, an impression only, yet my blood cooled. If you have never looked upon a thing that defies God’s plan for life, you cannot know the fear that clawed at me.
    The golem was the color of dull, red brick, and thick about the trunk. Lines inlaid upon its torso suggested the shape of armor. The wide legs drove it on through the mud, producing a relentless, rhythmic splatter. The motionless arms were only a little smaller than the legs, ending in thick fingers clasped tightly into fists. Above the trunk was the head—there was no neck—and of all the golem’s attributes this was the most