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He saw nothing. Though the sun was bright overhead, it was as if he peered into a deep, dark cave.
Puzzled, he gathered up the rope and peered into the gloom, trying to make out any detail at all.
He could not. The blackness was impenetrable.
Cautiously, he freed his hook from its lodgment on the wall's i
After a moment's descent he heard it strike ground with a muffled thump; as he handed down more rope the line grew slack.
Something, he knew, was down there, something that seemed to support the iron hook without difficulty.
A shiver of apprehension ran through him, and he glanced back out at the surrounding streets.
He saw no one, but he knew that he was being watched. He would not, he swore silently to himself, show himself a coward so quickly as this!
He pulled up the hook, secured it solidly to the wall's outer edge, and then with a prayer and a gulp of air lowered himself down into the blackness.
His feet and legs vanished, yet he felt no different. Then his body was gone. And finally, as his head fell below the top of the wall, he was engulfed in darkness-but only for an instant, and then he was below the blackness and able to see a fine grassy sward just below him, no more than a man's height away, surrounded by flowering bushes.
He looked up, and saw the blue sky and bright sun, and he smiled.
"A conjuror's trick, no more!" he told himself quietly. He quickly pulled himself back up onto the wall, freed the hook, and then, gathering up the ropes once more, he dropped down inside. To the watchers in the alleys, he was gone, and did not return, and gradually, as the sun descended the western sky, they grew bored and drifted away.
Inside the wall, Abu landed catlike, crouched and ready for anything-or so he thought to himself.
When he saw his surroundings, however, his alert eyes glazed slightly. He was in a garden, a garden like none he had ever imagined. Raised in the streets, he had rarely seen any gardens save those scraggly patches of vegetables and herbs in back lots and on rooftops that some of the frugal citizens of Tahrir cultivated. Now he faced a garden like no other anywhere; even the late Court Gardener to Selim ibn Jafar would have been amazed. Blossoms were piled high on every side, a profusion, a myriad of flowers, all vividly colored, varied in size from tiny pinpricks of gold and scarlet to vast parasols of azure and white with petals each as broad as a man's height. All about the thief, save only behind him where the black marble wall stood, were flowers; it seemed as though he had landed in the only clear spot to be found, and that was only a tiny patch of grass scarce big enough for him to stand upon. He marveled that he had somehow not seen this fantastic beauty when he clambered down his rope, and could only guess that it somehow co
The lower portion of the stem did not end in a rooted stalk, but in a narrow green body with a whiplike tail, four short legs, and scaly feet, like those of a great lizard.
Shuddering, he wiped his blade on the lawn and looked about him.
Behind him was the marble wall; to either side was empty grass, and the dreadful gardens stood beyond. Abu realized that even these strange and magical flowers are delicate things. The death of one had frightened away the other plants.
He was sure he had nothing more to fear from the gardens if he kept his wits about him. He looked on to the next obstacle.
Ahead of him was another wall, a dozen paces away across the green, not the wall of the palace but another line of defense, this one only a little taller than his head, and surely no higher than his reach. It appeared to be made of ivory, though he could make out little detail from where he stood. The sun was very low in the west, and already the day's light was fading.
He looked down at the plant-creature he had slain, and kicked at the dead thing, wondering if perhaps he should dispose of it; a sharp pain in his foot informed him that a needlelike thorn as long as his index finger had passed right through his leather boots into his flesh. Upon pulling his foot away he saw that behind the petals the entire upper part of the plant was a ghastly mass of dull-green thorns, all razor sharp and strong as steel.
After removing his boot, bandaging the wound as best he could with a strip torn from the hem of his robe, and slipping the boot back carefully so as not to dislodge the cloth, he limped across the grass to the ivory barrier.
Beyond this i