“Where I was born,” murmured Klamath. “Three days on horseback from the Hand. Farmers, most of them. Horse farms. Wheat and barley. Less prosperous than it was. There was a healer.
“I never heard his name. He called himself a healer, nothing else, but he did not mend broken bones or mangled limbs. He did not touch cuts unless they festered. Men who fell from wild stallions with their heads cracked, he ignored. He insisted he could not treat most pains. Still he was a healer. Fevers faded when he laid hands on them. Chills. Rashes. Infections. Instances of plague. Any affliction with no obvious cause—any except madness and idiocy. They all left when he made them go.
“I knew a man. A friend of my father’s. He had a swelling in his belly on one side. Hard and hot to the touch. The pain twisted him until he leaned like a drunkard when he walked. The healer spent an hour with him, stroking his belly. An hour every four days, or five. Only that. In a fortnight, he was able to walk upright. In two, the pain and swelling were gone. Just—gone.
“Or a woman. I only knew her by sight. The whole town knew her by sight. She had an ugly tumor on her throat. It grew until she could only swallow water. Not food. Not even gruel. The healer offered his touch, but she refused. She thought—” Klamath was silent for a time. Then he admitted, “I do not know what she thought. But she lost weight until her skin hung loose, and her strength was gone. She changed her mind.
“She sat on the porch of her house. Any passerby could see the healer did not molest her. He only rested his palm on her tumor, and bowed his head, and hummed to himself. He did this for an hour daily until she could take soup. After that, he visited her every other day. Every third. Every fourth. Finally, the tumor was gone, like my father’s friend’s swelling.
“He was a healer. We thought he was our healer, nothing more. Only when the King summoned him to war—” Klamath sighed. “Then we learned he was a Magister. His gift was the Decimate of pestilence.”
Without lifting his head from the sand, Elgart looked at Prince Bifalt.
“A healer, was he?” rasped the Prince. “That changes nothing. Sorcery is sorcery.”
He was whispering. His throat was too dry for vehemence. He had forgotten he spoke to Klamath. He was remembering what Slack had told him. With every sentence, he heard an echo of Slack’s explanation. Slack’s confession.
“It is abhorrent. Unnatural. And cruel.” If you imagine a man, any man, as a house of several chambers, then I have been locked out of the brightest and most desirable of mine. “When your healer went to war, he slaughtered men and beasts by the dozens. They died in terrible pain.” The needs of king and realm and home cannot be set aside. “And he did it without peril to himself.” A man is not a man at all if he cannot enter and enjoy every chamber of himself. “If he fought for Belleger, that was his only virtue.”
Despite his certainty, however, Prince Bifalt found himself thinking that Slack may not have been the only Magister who had felt a need to make amends.
But Slack’s “amends” had led him to treachery. When he spoke of The needs of king and realm and home, he was speaking of Amika.
That the Prince still did not understand. What did Amika have to fear? Its Magisters had not lost their power. And Belleger did not have Hexin Marrow’s book.
Klamath said nothing. He did not seem to hear.
While the shade deepened, and the first faint sprinkling of stars showed overhead, Elgart propped himself up on one elbow. Peering through the gloom, he ventured, “A question, Highness. Curiosity.”
The Prince nodded, saving his strength.
“You said,” began Elgart, “you would end all sorcery if you could. But Belleger has depended on it since the first Magisters showed themselves”—he waved a hand vaguely—“oh, centuries and centuries ago. We would be hard-pressed to live without it, even if we did not have to fight Amika. We are hard-pressed. You have seen it. We have all seen it.
“What would you do if you had a gifted son? Would you end his power as well?”
Like Klamath, Prince Bifalt sighed. He had not considered his abhorrence in those terms. But he had an answer.
“I will not have sons. Or daughters. I will not wed. If my enemy sorcerers will not let me die, they also will not let me live. They will attempt to use me. They will succeed or fail. If they succeed, I will be lost to myself. And if they fail, they will not permit me to escape them.”
Elgart held his gaze. “No doubt, Highness. I believe you. But I am still curious. Let me put my question another way. Is there any limit to your revulsion? Can you imagine a sorcerer you would not make impotent?”
Vexed now, the Prince retorted, “I have given my answer, but you did not heed it. I will state it another way. My abhorrence is limited because it is mine. Must I say again that I am only a man? Only one man? My desires are empty. I do not rule the world. I do not rule Belleger. And if by some strange quirk I became King after my father’s passing—if my enemies let me keep my life—we would still be at war with Amika. My desires would still be empty. I would still need Magisters—if I could get them.
“Have you forgotten our purpose? I wish Amika deprived of theurgy. Absolutely, I do. But that would not end the war. It would only make the war more equal. We have rifles. Amika has more men. The war would go on. We will not be done with it unless we can arrange matters so that Belleger has sorcery and Amika does not.”
To Prince Bifalt’s surprise, Elgart chuckled sourly. “Then I have misjudged you, Highness. You call sorcery dishonorable, but you do not shrink from it. You want to lift the dishonor of sorcery from Amika’s shoulders and place it on Belleger’s.”
The Prince felt a sting in his vitals. He had not said he wished dishonor on his homeland. How had his companion twisted his meaning this way? What manner of man did Elgart think he was?
He had been reared from birth to fight for Belleger. As he would on any field of battle, he met challenge with challenge.
“You insult me again,” he snapped. “Do you want me to doubt myself? Do you think I will falter? I will not. I will not abandon my quest, or refuse my father’s commands, merely because you choose to think ill of me.”
Elgart gave another of his humorless laughs. “Forgive me, Highness. I do not mean to insult you. I am only curious.
“But at times curiosity is like despair. Or anger. It burns hot. A soldier’s life is hard. You know that as well as any man. Training and more training, followed by battle and death. There are days when curiosity is all I have to keep me on my feet. It holds back my despair. I satisfy it when I can.
“I want to know what the stakes will be when you confront the Magisters who demand your ‘readiness.’”
The Prince turned away, disgusted as much by his own ignorance as by Elgart’s probing. “How can I answer?” he muttered to the coming night. “I cannot imagine what their purpose may be. They ask if I am ready, but they do not say what they want me ready for.
“We have spoken of this. Why was I chosen? Why was I chosen secretly? If I am preserved from death, why are the companions who keep me alive not protected as well? And you know my fear. I was chosen to do Belleger some fatal harm.” He shivered as he said, “They want to make me a traitor.
“For all their power, they do not know me.”
Despite Prince Bifalt’s impulse to ignore the man, Elgart’s reply reached him. “As long as they want you, Highness, you will learn the truth eventually. If they insist on preserving your life and asking if you are ready, and then do not tell you what they want you to do, they are insane.”
Clearly, they are insane, thought the Prince. Or I am. There are no other possibilities.
Even in darkness, the desert fostered hallucinations. The obscure shapes of the dunes appeared to squirm under the uncertain stars. Like Elgart’s questions, they made Prince Bifalt gnaw at himself.
PART THREE
For two day
s, the companions did what they could to endure the brutality of the wasteland, plodding up and down the dunes primarily at night, resting in the scant shelter of their shirts while the sun was overhead. From the highest of the dunes late in the afternoon of the second day, they caught their first glimpse of mountains, a jagged line across the east. But the range of peaks was still distant. Squinting at it, Prince Bifalt knew with the certainty of acute thirst and growing hunger that his men would not live to reach it. Their bodies would lie among the sands until the winds covered them, or the sun cooked their bones.
Now, he thought to the sorcerer or sorcerers who wanted him. If you mean to continue saving me, do it now.
He did not have more than another day in him.
Then the terrain changed. While the sun crested the line of mountains on the third day, the men stumbled down a last dune and found themselves on a bare plain. Beyond it, more dunes rose, blocking the peaks from view; but some strange trick of wind and weather had swept clean a swath of native rock wide enough to serve as a road for armies. It stretched far to both north and south, but it was not straight: its ends were hidden by gradual curves and sharper turns, as if the plain had been shaped to accommodate variations among the desert’s bones.
It promised easier walking. If the Bellegerins followed it, it might extend their strength for a while.
Down its center ran a track that must have been made by generations or centuries of wheeled wains and shod hooves. There were ruts, some deep; and everywhere around them, the rock held the scars of hundreds or thousands of iron horseshoes.
At the edge of the track, Prince Bifalt halted, wavering on his legs. For a time, he could not find words.
Elgart found them for him. “Now what?” asked the lean guardsman.
Now what, indeed. Blinking at the blur on his vision, the Prince peered along the track in both directions. He was too drained by thirst and thin rations to ask, Who made this? or, Why is it here? But “Now what?” he understood. The library of the sorcerers was said to be in the east, but this track did not go that way. True, it promised another day or two of life. If he refused it, he and his comrades would spend the last of themselves on more dunes. But if he accepted it, should he go north or south? Which heading would take him closer to the Repository?
Prince Bifalt solved the riddle by letting himself sag until he sat spread-legged on the stone.
Dropping their burdens, Elgart and Klamath joined him. Klamath bowed his head, holding his burned face in his hands. Elgart took up his waterskin, drank two quick swallows, then passed what was left to his companions. Klamath had already emptied his waterskin: he took more than the Prince. Prince Bifalt saved his small supply for his company’s last need.
After a time, he croaked, “Shelter.” Following his example, the riflemen pulled their spare shirts, sweat-stained and stiff, over their heads. Then the three men stretched out on their backs and tried to gather the dregs of their stamina.
The Prince could not think. The heat was ferocious. No breezes reached him, although the faint whisper of shifting sands suggested there was movement in the air high on the dunes. His lips were cracked and bleeding, his throat felt scraped raw, his blistered skin oozed fluids he could not afford to lose. In his sun-blasted state, he imagined that his quest—his search for Belleger’s future—had finally come to an end. From the first, he had feared failure more than death. Now his men were done. They were like the horses, like the teamsters and their oxen: he could not ask more of them. He had to trust or pray or dread that the sorcerers who wanted to make use of him would intervene. If they intended him to betray his homeland, he would find a way to disappoint them. But first he needed them to save him. Without help, Elgart and Klamath would die. Even he would die.
Lying dry-eyed in the sand, he wanted to weep for Vinsid, for Captain Swalish and Nowel and Camwish, for Bartin, Stolle, and Ardval. He wanted to weep for Hught, whose throat had been cut. They had all given their lives to help him accomplish nothing. But the wasteland did not permit tears.
When he imagined hearing hooves on stone, he wanted to weep for his favorite destrier. It had fallen with a thicket of arrows in its side. But while it lived— Ah, while it lived, he had found pleasure on its strong back, delight in its quick movements and willing heart. When the fighting became an embodiment of madness, it had shared his courage. The beat of its hooves still echoed in his mind—
—and in his ears.
He spent a time wondering whether mirages made sounds. Did they confuse all the senses, or only sight? Then, suddenly, he snatched the shirt from his face and sat up.
There to the south, between the ruts: a figure on horseback.
A hallucination. How could it not be? No one could travel this desert. Certainly not alone.
Nevertheless, the clack of shod hooves on stone was clear until the rider halted. The Prince imagined that the rider was staring at him. The clatter of galloping as the beast wheeled and raced away was too distinct to be imaginary.
In moments, both horse and rider disappeared around a bend in the track.
Klamath raised his head like a man struggling out of a deep sleep. Blinking his parched eyes, he murmured, “What? Highness?”
Elgart was already sitting; already squinting south. “A rider?” he panted hoarsely. “Was that a rider? Here?”
“Fled,” replied the Prince. He felt a deranged desire to laugh. “From us.” The sight of three dying men had filled the rider with terror. “From us.”
A preposterous notion. If he could have found the strength, he would have laughed aloud.
Elgart scowled. “I think not. Who would flee us here? He must be a scout. An outrider of some kind. He goes to warn his people. They will come in force.”
“To help us?” groaned Klamath. “They must help us.”
“Help us or kill us,” replied Elgart in a low snarl. “One or the other.”
Prince Bifalt had a different question. What were any riders doing in this wasteland? Were they a figment? Was their appearance caused by sorcery? Or had they simply been sent by sorcerers?
His hands shook as he took up his rifle. His whole body trembled as he opened the breech, made a weak attempt to blow grains of sand from the barrel, then set a loaded clip in place.
“Why, Highness?” asked Klamath plaintively. “What use are rifles now?”
“Help us or kill us,” echoed the Prince. “I do not want strangers to think we are defenseless.”
Why would any man or men travel here? What innocent purpose could they have?
Sighing, Klamath readied his rifle. Elgart did the same with less reluctance.
Together, Prince Bifalt and his companions watched the south. None of them made the effort to stand.
Soon the rattle of hoofbeats came again. They were too numerous to be made by a single animal. The sound was too crisp to be distant thunder.
Cantering, three horsemen rounded the bend and drew closer.
“Stay down,” commanded Prince Bifalt as he forced himself to his feet. “Do nothing they will see as a threat.” His rifle he held across his chest, its muzzle pointing nowhere.
The riders slowed as they approached. They had heavy cutlasses on their hips and bandoliers of throwing knives over their shoulders. On their heads were turbans hung with gauze they could use to cover their mouths and noses. They wore loose blouses, scarlet sashes, billowy pantaloons tucked at the ankle into dull black boots. And their bronze skin seemed to leach into their eyes, giving the orbs a yellow cast. The Prince had never seen men like them. Certainly, they were not Amikan. But he had no notion where they had come from, or where they were going.
One of them carried what appeared to be a cask. It might hold water. Prince Bifalt could hardly take his eyes off it.
The leading newcomer guided his mount a few steps closer. With a flourish of his arm, he began to speak. He sp
oke volubly, uttering a liquid stream of words that ran without apparent pause like a brook rushing over slick stones. Unfortunately, his speech was incomprehensible, a foreign tongue. The Prince did not understand any of it.
With an effort, he straightened his shoulders, raised his head. Through lips stiff with dried blood, he announced hoarsely, “I am Prince Bifalt, son of King Abbator of Belleger. We are lost. We need help.”
The spokesman’s eyes widened in surprise. “Ah!” he exclaimed. “That tongue. I know.” With obvious awkwardness, he said, “You stranger. From far. Wayfarer. I Suti al-Suri, caravan chief scout. You much need. Generousness gods command. Also caravan master. Travel perilous. Generousness make stranger friend.
“Behold!”
A second flourish indicated his companion with the cask. At once, that rider came closer. Dismounting, the man bowed his head to his knees—an act that Prince Bifalt would have considered nakedly obsequious in King Abbator’s court. Then the man offered the cask.
The Prince smelled water before he heard it sloshing.
Elgart and Klamath were at his sides, ignoring his command to remain seated. Elgart accepted the cask eagerly, unstopped it and drank until water spilled on his face. Then he passed it to Klamath.
The prospect of so much water made Prince Bifalt giddy. He tried to match the bow he had received. “You speak our tongue, Suti al-Suri,” he managed. “Your generosity saves us. We—”
“Drink!” ordered the spokesman, suddenly imperious. “Talk after. You think we heartless? We much generousness. Wait a time. Wait, see.”
In his fluid language, he poured out another speech, this time addressing his other companion. With a nod, the man turned his horse and trotted back the way he had come. After a moment, he urged his mount into a gallop and was gone.
The Prince did not need a second invitation. Taking the cask from Klamath, he tilted it and drank, swallowing water and life until he had to pause for breath. At once, sweat beaded on his forehead. Its sting in his healing cut and its coolness on his skin were blessings. He had forgotten such things existed.
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