Land of the Burning Sands

by Rachel Neumeier

  Amnachudran gave Gereint a sharp look. “Will he succeed? What is this weakness? Or did I mistake what I thought I saw?”

  That took a moment. At last Gereint said carefully, “It’s an intrinsic weakness, I believe, but exacerbated by the close presence of griffins. And possibly by the desert itself. I don’t quite… I expect going out to look at the desert might have brought it on, or maybe working to keep the edge where it is and the griffins from pressing into our country… He doesn’t like people to notice it.”

  Amnachudran nodded. “I could see that, too. He hid it… fairly well, I suppose.”

  “He does, usually. He says physical strength will matter little in the conflict he means to provoke.”

  “Really.”

  “And he reminds me that he will not face the fire mages alone.”

  Amnachudran looked down at his clasped hands. Then he said, “Ensemarichtan Temand disagrees with Warichteier and Anweierchen about the fundamental distinction between magecraft and ordinary magic. I gather that Beguchren Teshrichten agrees with Temand.”

  “He went into my mind,” Gereint said slowly. “Right after he… after the Arobern gave me to him. And then he said I would suit his purposes and… began to set me tests, though I don’t… I didn’t understand at once what he was doing. I suppose I must have passed them. Enough of them. I haven’t read Temand. But I know Beguchren means to make me into a mage. Or, no. He means me to do that to myself.”

  “Yes.” Amnachudran tapped his fingers restlessly on the arms of his chair. He rose again, went to his shelves, and came back with a heavy volume bound in plain leather. He brought this back to his chair, absently propped a foot on the upholstered seat, rested the volume on his knee, and flipped it open, not quite at random. “Magecraft… mages… magic and the gift. Yes. Temand says, The making of a mage thus depends on a definition of the self and on the power to bend that definition; magecraft does not blend with the ordinary gift, but in that definition can lie the link between mage and ordinary man, for every man defines himself… And then he goes on about, hmm, this and that.” The scholar closed the book, his shrewd eyes meeting Gereint’s.

  “Yes. The lord mage said that about definition of the self. Or the making of the self, which I gather is the same thing.”

  “Yes, did he? Gereint, he will make you into a mage, but for what? What help can a brand-new, utterly inexperienced, entirely untrained mage possibly be to the king’s own mage? He means to betray you: bring you into power and then rob you of that power. That is how he will find the strength to overcome this weakness of his, defeat the griffin mage who is his enemy, and destroy this human fire mage he so greatly fears.”

  Gereint was silent for a moment. Then he asked, “Is it betrayal if you see it coming?”

  Amnachudran’s eyebrows rose.

  “He told me, I will do anything. Before you made your guess, I made mine, and with a good deal more evidence. He told me flatly he means to sacrifice me in this. But what am I to do, knowing that?” Gereint went to the window, looked out into the dark. Nodded toward the north where the desert lay hardly a spear throw from the house. He said, “He will sacrifice me, and those men you’ll call up, and himself. Well, what else is he to do?”

  Amnachudran began to speak.

  Gereint shook his head, stopping him. “I could let him drag me to the edge of the desert, but clench my eyes shut and refuse to look at it, like a child refusing to look at something that frightens him. Let the griffins’ fire burn the rivers dry and plunge Casmantium into disaster: Beguchren would try to stop them by himself, I expect. He would die. Then I would be truly free.” He stopped, lifted an eyebrow at Amnachudran.

  The scholar looked very sober. “You won’t do that.”

  “No. How could I?”

  The pause spun out in the room to meet the greater silence waiting outside the house.

  “Three days,” Amnachudran said softly.

  “They say waiting’s the hardest part.”

  “They do say that. I’m sure it’s sometimes true.”

  Gereint smiled, a touch grimly.

  “Well.” Amnachudran smiled in return, with some evident effort. “I’m sure supper is waiting for us, and Emre hates waiting supper. Come down with me. You can tell us about Breidechboden, and about the things Tehre’s been working on, if you understood them.” And not about fire or the desert or anything to do with griffins, he did not say. But Gereint understood that, too.

  CHAPTER 12

  The three days swept by in a hurried blur, which was strange because every separate moment seemed to linger as it passed. Messengers arrived; the swift little Nerintsan River had gone dry as old bone, and in Meridanium Province the desert had come down the mountains almost to the northernmost town of Alend. All the people had fled the threatened town, pressing south to Manich or Raichboden. None of the refugees had gone west from Alend to Tashen, not merely because Tashen was not a Meridanian town but also because, the messengers said, everyone thought Tashen was too far north.

  “And what does that say about us?” Eben Amnachudran said wryly, meaning that they were well north of Tashen themselves. He had sent almost all the rest of his household south as well—not merely to Pamnarichtan or Raichboden, but all the way south to Breidechboden. “And lucky we have a house there to receive them,” Lady Emre said, no doubt thinking of the thousands of displaced northerners who did not have southern property or relatives.

  But the estate was far from deserted. Men gathered at Amnachudran’s home. A town of tents bloomed amid the orchards and pastures, red and blue, or orange and gold for the men from the Meridanian towns. Every governor had sent the required contingent, or near enough. They were not, in general, soldiers. Virtually all of the men carried spears and many had bows slung over their backs, but only about one in five had at their sides, in plain, worn scabbards, swords that had belonged to their fathers or grandfathers.

  Steel flashed in the sunlight as their officers tried, cursing, to shape men-at-arms from a dozen towns, mixed with a generous number of unpracticed tradesmen and farmers, into coherent companies. But Beguchren, looking down at them from a wide window, did not seem dismayed by their disorder.

  “Tashen is short,” Amnachudran commented. It was the morning of the third day. He had brought a wide map and pinned it open on the largest table in the house, which was in the library. There was plenty of room for it there, as nearly all the books had been sent to the greater safety of the Breidechboden townhouse.

  Amnachudran stood deferentially by Beguchren’s chair as the mage settled into it and leaned forward to examine the map. Gereint wondered whether the mage had guessed that the chair, the tallest in the house, was not a normal accoutrement of the library but had been provided especially so he would not have to stand. Lady Emre was, he suspected, the subtle force behind the tall chairs that always happened to be in any room frequented by the mage and the frequency with which girls came around to offer tea with honey and milk, or bread with sharp golden cheese and apple butter, or tarts made with tart apples or buttery pears. Eben Amnachudran had tried to send his wife south along with his library and the household. But she had refused to go.

  If Beguchren realized he was being cosseted, he did not object. Nor had his strength failed again during these days… so far as Gereint could tell. Now the mage turned a cool, neutral expression toward Amnachudran.

  “You can’t actually blame Tashen for sending a short count,” the scholar went on. “I’d be amazed if they had fifty sound men left in the whole city. Everyone with sense must have headed south days ago.”

  “One might say the same for Metichteran,” murmured Beguchren. “It’s half the size, if that, and yet the governor of Metichteran managed to find fifty. All men-at-arms, too, and I think a quarter or more of the men from Tashen are shopkeepers and farmers. I rather believe the governor of Tashen has kept his own personal men-at-arms for his own personal protection.”

  “Is this of practical impor
tance?” asked Lady Emre, her eyes dark with thought and worry. “There is still time to send a firmer command to Warach if we must.” Warach Beichtan was the governor of Tashen. “But it would be faster to fill out the count ourselves. We could do it, if we call up every man remaining to our household. As long as you don’t need them to do more than wave a spear right-end up. We, too, have few men left save the odd farmer and orchardist.”

  Beguchren slanted a warm look up at the woman. “Thank you, Emre, but I think that will not be necessary. But when Warach Beichtan disregards my command, he disregards the command of the king. And when he reserves his men for his own protection, he offends against the responsibility he holds to guard his people.” He paused, his gray eyes now cool and thoughtful. “Make a note of this,” he said to Amnachudran. “You are one of the Arobern’s judges, yes? If appropriate, later, you will send word in that capacity to the king of Beichtan’s dereliction.”

  He meant, If we win the victory but I am dead. And he meant it for an order. Eben Amnachudran bent his head obediently, acknowledging the command.

  “No,” Beguchren continued, now speaking to them all. “We have nearly four hundred men in all. That will suffice. So long as, as you say, they all wave their spears right-end up.” He glanced up at Gereint. “We will go up toward the desert at… shall we say, at the fifth hour past noon? Our little army will brandish their spears and put on a show, but we shall hope they need not be put to the test of battle.”

  “If they are?” Amnachudran asked him. “We have no real general to lead them; they have barely had a chance to train; they are unfamiliar to one another and under officers they do not know. They will be slaughtered to a man…”

  “If it comes to battle,” Beguchren said softly, “then it will not matter whether they are slaughtered in these hills or die later in their own homes or on the road south or at the gates of a southern city that will not let them in.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then Amnachudran said steadily, “If you permit me, my lord, I will lead those men myself. I do not claim to be any kind of general. But at least I have studied military history, and most of those men know me.”

  Gereint, standing behind Beguchren, swallowed a sharp protest and watched Emre Tanshan do the same. Beguchren leaned back in his chair and regarded Amnachudran with close attention. He said at last, “Honored Amnachudran… I am willing to leave these men in your hands. You are clear on the role I mean for them to play?”

  “We must make a show. You intend the griffins to come down to do battle, so we must seem to offer them one. Then they will bring this fire-healer of theirs into your reach. Then you will do… what you will do, and all will fall out as it will.”

  “Just so.” Beguchren paused. Then he said decisively, “It would indeed be well to have those men led by a commander who understands clearly what I require. You may arrange matters in that regard as you see fit.” He tapped his hand gently on the widespread map. “I had hoped to avoid it, but I think we will need to enter the desert. We will go up here or here. Those are sensible lines of attack that suggest a reasonable objective. We will appear to wish to press the griffins away from the northern reaches of the river, perhaps freeing the waters to come down, if indeed Wanastich’s lake is still there and only the rivers dry.”

  “They will believe we might attempt such an ambitious objective?”

  “Desperation might reasonably drive us to this strategy. And then… I will be with you.”

  “Ah.” Amnachudran gazed down at the map, his expression thoughtful. Then he looked at the mage. “But we will not be able to depend on you. Yes?”

  “When fighting begins, if it begins, I will not be able to help you. Save by procuring a swift victory through, as it were, a back door. That will be my intention. Once their human fire mage has been destroyed, the griffins will—must—reconsider their aggressive intent.”

  The scholar nodded. He looked at his wife. Emre Tanshan gazed back at him, her face set and pale. She said, answering the question he had not asked aloud, “I will wait here. If you are victorious, you will probably need a place to bring the wounded, and people to care for them, and a strongly gifted healer. And… and if the day goes otherwise, you will need someone to organize a retreat.”

  Amnachudran looked as though he wanted to object, as though he longed to command his wife to flee for the south now, this moment. He also looked like a man who knows he can’t give any such order, or that if he does, it won’t be obeyed. He said nothing, but went to her and touched her face. She lifted her hand, covered his hand with her own. Neither of them spoke.

  Beguchren said merely, “Good.” And then, “The fifth hour past noon. So we must prepare for that.” It was a dismissal, and Amnachudran and his wife took it so. They went out together, her hand tucked in the crook of his arm.

  Gereint crossed his arms over his chest, leaned his hip against the edge of the table, glanced down at the map, and then looked up deliberately to meet the mage’s pale eyes. He said nothing.

  “You will stay close to me,” Beguchren told him. “We dare not act too quickly, and yet when we come to act, we must do so decisively. Sipiike Kairaithin must not be allowed to guess what we intend.”

  Gereint appreciated that “we,” delivered without a trace of irony. He nodded.

  “Gereint—”

  Gereint held up a hand. “Don’t say it. It’s not necessary, and I would take it as a slur.”

  Frost-pale eyebrows rose over eyes the color of a winter dawn. But the mage only bowed his head a little, accepting this.

  “And you?” Gereint saw the faint puzzlement in the mage’s eyes and elaborated, “You are well enough?”

  “I shall do very well,” Beguchren said, blandly unemphatic. He rose. If he was suffering now from any weakness, he concealed it with admirable thoroughness.

  The hills seemed steeper when one walked up them instead of rode. The mountains were not so far away; they rode through the foothills even now, close beside the Teschanken River. Or, more precisely, beside the bed where the Teschanken ought to have run. The riverbed was dust-dry now, the rounded stones exposed to view. Before them rose the sharp teeth of the mountains. Close at hand, three peaks rose hard against the sky, high granite faces shining in the late afternoon sun, dark forest cloaking their lower slopes. Two more mountains loomed to their left, on the other side of the river, seeming so close the company might walk between them by dusk.

  Only Beguchren and Eben Amnachudran rode: Amnachudran because he needed to ride from one end of the marching column to the other, and the cold mage putatively because of his rank but really, Gereint suspected, to spare his strength. But also, quite deliberately, to make a show.

  Beguchren was riding one of Amnachudran’s horses, a gray gelding with powerful quarters and an amenable nature. The cold mage did not carry bow or spear or any weapon more dangerous than a small belt knife, but, not much to Gereint’s surprise, he had somewhere found blue ribbons to braid into his horse’s mane and tail. He was sitting up very straight in the saddle, with his shoulders back and his head high. He wore fine white clothing that he must have brought all the way from Breidechboden for this exact purpose: Tiny white pearls gleamed on his belt and on the cuffs of his low boots, and there was a single blue ribbon braided into his white hair. With his pale coloring and silver eyes, he looked very much as though he had been sculpted out of ice. The whole intention was to make a show, and so he did: he might have been a parade all by himself.

  There were reasons to limit the number of horses. No one, not even Beguchren, would actually take a horse into the desert. This was not Feierabiand, where horse-callers might have held the animals docile and obedient even under a rain of fire. Horses would be nothing but a liability when—if—the griffins came down, and everyone knew it.

  The afternoon was a fine one, though unseasonably warm. But it seemed far grimmer when one walked in company with four hundred men who all thought they were marching to battle. The men
trusted Eben Amnachudran: Gereint saw how they looked to the scholar and saw that they all knew him, or knew of him, and that they were glad to have them lead them. He had not guessed that Amnachudran was so well known. He remembered him saying, Having to run down to Tashen every time we wanted a judge was so inconvenient. Everyone seems to prefer to simply come to me. Gereint had not, at the time, quite understood how broadly that “everyone” applied.

  And they trusted Beguchren. Not as they trusted Amnachudran, but they trusted his power and skill. The officers, Gereint suspected, probably mostly guessed that Beguchren meant to sacrifice their company—any who were not fools must at least wonder. But Amnachudran had at least persuaded them that the mage meant to do it to some purpose. Thus they went forward with purpose and faith.

  A sweet breeze came from the south, across the hills, smelling pleasantly of autumn grasses. The sun lay low in the west, but its light was an ordinary light and its warmth no more than pleasant in the afternoon. The hills might lie dry and golden with the too early autumn forced on them by the pressure of the griffins’ approaching desert, but they were beautiful and peaceful in the quiet, and there was not a trace of red dust in the air.

  Then they came over the crest of the hills and looked down upon the country of fire. To either side, the hills were sweet with autumnal gold; to either side, the mountains were still green with forest just beginning to turn red and gold; their high, wind-polished faces glittered with ice. But straight before them, running north and west, the desert shimmered with fire all the way out to the far horizon.

  All the men stopped, as though by shouted command. They halted high on the summit of the hills and gazed down at the burning sands. There were no griffins in sight, but the desert itself seemed threat enough, and there cannot have been a single man of their number who did not think of simply dropping his spear and walking away, south. They were not, after all, soldiers.