Page 8 - Microsoft Word - FANG EMPIRE - NOVEL.docx

yes, she lived.”

Raki persisted. “What did she become?”

“Enough!” Omar said, seeing Zuba’s despair. “What does your Kabbalah-Chron say? Can

you get a fix on Sygnosis?”

Zuba looked down at the dial face. The needle inside the Kabbalah-Chron spun then

pointed to a set of coordinates. “East by southeast. But she’s not moving,” Zuba said.

“Southeast . . . She shuns the desert heat, but likes the River Niger,” Omar said.

“Good hunting there, she knows the living must drink,” Raki said.

Omar looked up at the moon. It glowed mystically. But it was a dark mysticism, a

foreboding, a warning, not clouds. “No more can be done tonight,” he said. “It’s the Dead Moon.

We head north to Timbuktu, and home.”

“So soon?” Cane asked. “We’re on her trail now. She won’t get far.”

Omar chuckled. “We say that every time. She’s far too clever for us, my friend.” The

prince looked deep into the night with more than just his eyes. “And something doesn’t feel right,”

he said. “Listen . . .”

The riders were silent. They listened to the Sahara, trying to hear what their prince heard.

But the only sounds were the old familiar voices of insects and frogs mingled with the wind; the

language of the African night. And though they were her sons, it was a language they could never

speak, not even in their dreams.

Raki looked curiously at Omar. “I don’t hear anything I have not heard before. The night is

the night. She’s a crazy old woman who talks to herself.”

“Sometimes, Raki, the night sky whispers when the Earth is silent. More secrets are told by

the moon than the dunes.”

“And what does the moon say, my prince?” Raki asked with a tinge of sarcasm.

“It says, this hunt is over!” Omar said and then gave a sly smile. “For now.”

The riders surrendered a chuckle. They all seemed suddenly reminded of the hunt’s true

purpose . . . brotherhood and adventure, no more, no less.