Declare

fire-worshippers,” said one of the guides grimly. “Bird eggs are anathema to djinn, and the fire-worshippers curry favor.”
    Hale was reminded of the story “Aleiddin and the Enchanted Lamp,” a late and enigmatic addition to the text of the Thousand Nights and One Night. In the story, Aleiddin was at one point tricked into asking an obligated djinn for a roc’s egg to serve as a dome for his palace; and in reply the djinn angrily refused to kill the Queen of the Djinn. Hale had never understood why the fetching of the roc egg should involve the death of a powerful djinn, and he sensed that he had found a clue to the explanation here, in this Bedu’s remark—but the Bedu refused to say more, and Hale was too exhausted to press him. He thought of distributing the ankhs, but decided that it might now seem too much like the fire-worshippers currying favor, and he decided to hand them out tomorrow, before approaching Wabar.
    The wind that had buffeted their backs for twelve days died to stillness during the night. Hale awoke when it stopped, and he lay there in his blankets on the sand for several seconds, staring up at the crescent of the new moon, wondering what sound had awakened him, before he concluded that the change had been the total cessation of the wind.
    Only when he next awoke, shortly before dawn, did he notice that the ’Al-Murra guides had stolen away with four of the camels during the night.
    Choking back a curse, he threw off his warm blankets and got to his feet to assess the supplies they had left; and they seemed to have divided the food and water evenly.
    At least they had not taken the sand sled.
    Salim bin Jalawi was at his dawn prayers, kneeling at a half-circle he had scored in the sand, bowing toward the west and Mecca. Hale looked around and did not see another line in the sand; the ’Al-Murrah must have left before prayer time, and were probably kneeling at a traced half-circle in the Tara’iz sands right now. Certainly they would not neglect it.
    At last bin Jalawi stood up from the line in the sand and stared impassively at Hale. The sky in the east was pale blue and pink, though the sun had not yet appeared over the rim of the basin, and the still air was cold enough to make steam of both men’s breath.
    “If we ride hard,” said bin Jalawi, “we could catch up with them.”
    “No,” said Hale in a hoarse, tired voice. He scratched his bristly beard and yawned. “No, we will go on and get the egg—I mean, the big piece of iron. I hope four camels will be enough to haul it on the sled.”
    “The devil take your sled,” said bin Jalawi mildly. He looked around at the sand basin they had camped in, clearly replaying in his mind the previous evening’s search for fuel; and he must have concluded that it had been thorough, for he shrugged and said, “Allah gives and Allah is pleased to take away. Coffee must wait until we find wood at Wabar.” He cocked his head then, listening, and he said, “They… return… ?”
    Soon Hale could hear it too, the almost liquid sound of camel hooves in sand. He crouched by his saddle and pulled the Mannlicher carbine out of the oiled-wool scabbard, then scrambled on all fours up the northwest sand slope; he slid the rifle barrel up to the crest of the slope, and then with his hand on the stock near the trigger guard he slowly raised his head to peer over the basin edge.
    The four returning camels in head-on view were the only figures out in the lunar dawn landscape—and though saddlebags flopped at their sides as they plodded this way, there was no rider on any of the saddles.
    “Fida’ at al Allah!” whispered bin Jalawi, who was now prone beside him. The phrase was one of farewell, meaning In the custody of God.
    Clutching the carbine, Hale got to his feet and stepped slowly out across the still, icy sand to meet the camels. The beasts were walking normally, bobbing their big heads, and the saddlebags and water-skins didn’t appear to have been touched.
    The guides might have been shot by bandits or a hostile tribe— but he and bin Jalawi would have heard shots in this stilled air, and the assailants would have taken the camels; and Hale couldn’t think of any other explanation… besides djinn. He was bleakly sure that he should have distributed the ankhs to the men last night.
    The cold sky was a weight on his shoulders as he clucked his tongue at the camels and caught the reins of the leader. The beast lowered its head,