by Jean Johnson
Zudu shook her head, awestruck eyes watching those wisps darting off into the shadows of the cleft. “This is beyond anything I can do. Anything I have ever heard of anyone doing. Not only are they changing the slowest and most difficult of the elements faster than water can pour out of a skin . . . They are generating anima while using anima to make changes! This is . . . Whoever doing this must . . . They must be anima, to have such control over it!”
It wasn’t until they realized the ground also changed that Zudu and Halek moved back. They watched in awe while the stones continued to exchange themselves at a dizzying rate.
“Animadj,” her second-ranked acolyte, Keppa, murmured. “Could it be that . . . that we have found the center of all anima? The place where it is born, fresh and young and fast? Or . . . or perhaps the place where the first animadjet came into being? If their lineage is this long, their training must be beyond belief . . . and this is beyond all belief.”
“I do not know,” Zudu admitted.
Eruk, a scarred but strong hunter-warrior, spoke up. His tone lay somewhere between disappointed and scathing. “What good are you if you do not know these things?”
Zudu turned swiftly to face him, Halek less gracefully. She spoke before Halek could, her dark brown eyes gleaming with righteous ire. “It is far wiser for one to admit ignorance, and thereby open the ears and the mind to the chance to learn something new, than to speak without thought, act without caution, and assert without learning anything.”
“Eruk,” Halek stated in the silence following her words, a silence broken only by an odd hissing sound, like sand being poured across stone—the sound of sandstone being exchanged for granite. “Find five others, split into two groups of three, and investigate the other ravines carefully. See how far this . . . stone exchange has spread.”
“Do not let anyone get near the edge,” Zudu added. She turned back and lifted her chin warily at the blurred boundary. “For all we know, the rock has been softened, and it could suck someone down like quicksand, drowning them in stone.”
That made several of the others move back even farther. Parents herded their children completely away, returning to the tasks across the wide canyon, over by the shade tree in the distance. Eruk eyed them, studied the wall, then picked up a stone and flung it. His aim was good; it struck the boundary—and stuck. Stuck, and tumbled. Tumbled and spun, trapped between sandstone flowing down and granite flowing up. Anima-wisps started to glow around it, and the boundary ejected the stone like a child spitting out a seed from a mouthful of fruit.
The rock rolled over the uneven, sandy ground. The chunk the warrior had tossed at the barrier had been just that, an uneven oblong with rough edges here and there, though at least half of it had been smoothed by some force, either water or sandstorm. Now, however, it was rounded and smooth, as if some great stone bird had laid it as an egg.
Frowning, Eruk moved forward. He scooped up the rock and hissed, tossing it from hand to hand before letting it drop again. “It’s hot! As hot as a boiling-stone . . .”
Zudu nodded. “I wondered if it would be, given how much anima was being formed. Thank you for testing the boundary. I suggest we all move away and keep a wary eye on it.”
“I agree,” Taje Halek said. Turning on his crutches, he gestured at the others. “Everyone, move back. And fill your waterskins, all of them. Eruk, pick out those observers, and go looking to see how far the boundary extends. If we have to move to avoid being sucked in and burned, or drowned, I want everyone to be able to move quickly. I do not want anyone endangered by this . . . this animadjic.”
No one commented on the irony that he would be among the slowest to move, and thus among the most in danger, if they indeed were forced to leave this otherwise tranquil, sheltered, nearly perfect-for-settling spot.
***
Animadj Koro came out of his trance with a shake of his head. Blinking, he looked away from the bowl of water he had been using for scrying at a distance. “This place is too strange. Very little water for a day’s walk around, though it has known the touch of many a flash flood, and cisterns and channels could be dug by the brave and clever. There is some greenery, enough to graze a few herds . . . but they would have to be scattered for hours in every direction to keep from eating the plants to useless nubs. It would be a hard life for one hundred to live here until those water reservoirs are made, and that would take months of hard work.”
“Can it sustain the White Sands Tribe?” Kuruk pressed. “Who number over two hundred?”
Koro shrugged. “With enough anima, if they can conjure it. We know they have at least a few animadjet. But I cannot sense the anima in these ravines. Not as a lingering presence. It all . . . slips from my attention like sand through my fingers. Only it is more like sand that is being pulled away somehow, not just sand that falls down to the ground of its own weight.”
Pak, tending a flat pottery pan which he was baking flatbread for their meal, looked up at his master’s words. “That sounds like they may have a powerful animadj in their group. A very powerful one. I, too, have felt the anima being pulled away from my attention in the distance, though thankfully not nearby. It is a disturbingly strong pull.”
Koro shook his head, his gray-streaked braids swinging hard enough to clack together the beads strung on a few of them. “That would take an animadj of such power . . . They claimed they had been pushed out of their lands by another tribe. If they had one who could suck the anima from the very land like this, how could anyone have removed them from their land?”
“Unless the other tribe was even more powerful,” Charag grunted. He poked at a pot next to the flat pan. Tureg had shot a lizard, and Charag had found and dug up some edible roots in one of the wadijt they had crossed, but it was Pak who did all the cooking for the group. “Is it food yet?”
“Not yet,” Pak asserted, flicking his fingers to make the warrior move away. Charag ignored him and tried to snag a bit of flatbread. Pak slapped his hand down, making the bigger man’s knuckles brush the hot ceramic pan. With a yelp, Charag moved back, sucking on the little red spots to soothe them. “Do not interrupt the cook, or you will find ashes and cinders baked into your bread.”
“Behave, both of you,” Kuruk ordered. He squinted at the cliffs and boulders, the crags and ravines ducking down out of sight, then shook his head. “This is at the very edge of how far we can go. I doubt the other tribe, that . . . what did they call it . . . Spider Something Tribe. I doubt they were that strong, or we’d have heard of them taking over everything by now. Koro, is it possible this . . . sand-pulling feeling is something natural, however peculiar?”
“I am not completely certain, but it could be,” the animadj offered. He frowned in thought, scratching at the stubble on his chin. It would need scraping with a bronze knife soon; high summer was coming, and the heat would be unbearable combined with a beard. “I have heard of natural sand devils, and quick-mud that sucks you under to drown, a mix of earth and water. Places where fires rage from cracks in the ground, surrounded by foul scents and strange gushing liquids that burn with hot flames . . .
“Such things usually spew anima . . . but if there is anything natural in the world, then where one thing gives, some other thing must take. These ravines could be one of those places that takes,” Koro said, shrugging. “If so . . . the White Sands would be even more weakened, unable to use the anima needed to survive. But I cannot swear to this. I cannot scry deep enough into the tangle of canyons and cliffs, because when I extend myself that far . . . the anima is pulled from my grasp.”
Worried by that news, Kuruk paced. He kept his shoulder to the crags and valleys to the north, first the left for several steps, then the right. He kept his gaze on those distant rocks and clefts, too. Finally, he turned and stared at Pak, and the bundle of twigs and such at his side. There were just enough supplies to head back home. Going deeper into the ravines ran the ris
k of being found and swarmed. There were only five of the Circle Fire Tribe scouting this situation, and over two hundred of the White Sands.
The air around them, dry and dusty, hurt Kuruk’s desert-accustomed nostrils. Grunting, rubbing at his nose, he made up his mind. “After we eat, we head south again.”
“Why?” Charag asked, frowning. “Shouldn’t we scout closer?”
“We are few, and though they are weak, they are still many. We are at the edge of the range that Taje Barrek said was an acceptable distance to consider raiding and seizing them, should they have found a place to settle. They may have done this, or they may have chosen to move on . . . but right now, that does not matter. There is something draining the anima, which would weaken our ability to fight and survive. It is wiser to head back for now.”
A scowl creased Charag’s face. He settled back on the rock serving as his seat and sulked. “I want war slaves.”
“If they cannot survive here, then they will move on and will travel well beyond the range of our war bands,” Kuruk pointed out. “If they can . . . then they will settle here, making improvements, and thus will still be here when we come scouting again. Right now, we have enough provisions to return safely and report to the taje on what we saw, but not much more than that. This anima-draining must be considered carefully before we risk our own animadjet. Let White Sands take all the risks, not us.”
“I cannot draw the water as well as Koro can,” Pak added in warning, stirring the pot of lizard meat and roots frying in the beast’s own grease. With the help of a few herbs added earlier, the combination was starting to smell good. He pulled the current batch of flatbread off the pan, shifting them to a rock to cook, and added more rounds of flattened dough to the pottery griddle. “I am certainly not strong enough to resist whatever is draining these energies. To explore safely, even I know that it would be wise to have several animadjet here, with ones held in reserve to see to the safety of the others while the scouts among them investigate.”
“Exactly,” Kuruk agreed. “So we will return, report what we know, and see if the taje wishes to send a bigger expedition, or if he wishes to wait.”
“Wait? Why wait?” Tureg asked. Then he answered his own question, raising his eyes to the sky. “High summer. Of course. We would have only a narrow window to come investigate before the heat descends and the desert becomes impassable without great numbers of animadjet for water summoning and shade crafting.”
“That’s another reason to return later, rather than try to attack them now. If they can survive high summer in this place, being over two hundred in number,” Kuruk reminded them, “then it is an oasis, however oddly formed, that would serve the Circle Fire equally well. If they die or are forced to move on, we will find out when it is safe for us to return.”
“Which will be after the season of high rains,” Koro stated. At Kuruk’s frown, he lifted his chin at the ravines. “That place is nothing but wadijt. We do not know the flood patterns, and there are steep walls, places where you cannot climb or get out of the way of floodwaters. We certainly cannot see the clouds save for directly overhead in a place like that.”
“The animadj has a point,” Tureg confirmed. “I do not like such narrow confines in uncertain weather.”
“I will not advise sending anyone of the tribe into those canyons just to have them drown,” Koro continued. “Either they will be gone, and far beyond our reach, or they will still be there and will have found ways to live through high summer and high rain alike. Better that they suffer from both if they can survive, so that we can learn from their mistakes.”
“Those are good enough reasons for me,” Kuruk agreed. “And another proof. If the White Sands can survive high heat and hard floods, then we will find out when we come back, and we will take this land from them . . . and yes, Charag, you will have your war slaves then.”
The muscular warrior perked up at that. He waited patiently a few minutes more, then sniffed the air and lifted his chin at the pot. “Is it food yet?”
“Yes, it is food. But you have to share,” Pak added tartly. “You will eat what I give you, and no more until the rest of us have had ours. We will not have a repeat of our second night on this trip.”
Charag went back to scowling but didn’t argue. Pak was short and wiry compared to Charag’s tall, broad, muscular frame, and Charag could probably snap his neck in a single blow, but as an animadj, Pak could just as easily boil Charag’s blood in his veins.
Off to the side, Tureg sighed and scanned the horizon, looking for signs of movement that might be a precursor to their next meal. Seeing nothing to the northeast, he paced a few lengths away to where he had a better view of the northwest, where there were signs of bushes and possible water. Birds flew and dipped, and branches rustled in the occasional breeze, but otherwise nothing stirred.
Had he still been looking off to the northeast, his sharp hunter’s eyes would have seen an odd ripple and shift in the colors of some of the cliff edges. By the time he thought to look that way again, Pak distracted him by calling out his name, offering a bowl of hash-topped flatbread to eat. When they were done, they were all too busy packing up their few things and working to erase the signs of their small camp to notice the pale, mottled grays of granite flowing into existence among the golden striations of sandstone in the distance.
Chapter Three
Year 0, Month 0, Day 4
Even the most skilled and powerful of Fae could not enchant forever, for all they were being fed by the strange energies of this world. Literally fed, Jintaya discovered when the quartet did not take a break to stop and eat. As the healer of the expedition, she knew exactly what to look for when someone was too absorbed in a task to notice their body began to starve, to dehydrate or worse. Magic was one such task, but she found no signs of weakened or thirsty flesh.
They were fine on the first day, so she did not press the matter. When she checked on them on the second day, and the third, Fali, Adan, Parren, and Kaife were all still doing fine. The sheer span of stone they had changed, reshaping the caverns into useful, flat-floored structures, should have left them exhausted at the end of their first full day. They should have been thirsty, starving even, yet their bodies were doing fine.
It was Éfan who broke into their work on the fourth day, insinuating himself into the meld and murmuring instructions to ease and cease the flow of their efforts. When they finally unfolded their bodies, Jintaya was amazed to see them moving easily, rather than stiffly. She envied them their energy and grace, until their chief mage came over to speak with her.
“I do not like how quickly and easily their bodies are absorbing these energies . . . this anima, the locals call it,” he told her under his breath. “I have watched the locals trying to manipulate it, and only with great effort do they succeed. This stuff . . . infuses our Fae flesh. Melds with it. Breathes with it, for we seem to be able to use it as easily as breathing. I am not certain what the long-term effects might be, other than that magic may be too easy for us in this realm.”
Jintaya was not slow to grasp the implications. While the Fae, and in particular the Fae Rii, those of their kind who traveled to other worlds to set up trading posts with the locals, preferred to ask rather than take, to trade rather than steal, a world wherein magic was so intimately absorbed into their bodies that they would not need to eat or drink, or even sleep, was a potential point of danger. Those whose willpower and sense of ethic were weak should not be allowed onto this world.
Still, that was the reason why an expedition like hers was always sent in first. It was always a risk to try living on a new world—the world where she had found Ban had forced her people to abandon it, as it had been too hostile to be interacted with for long, both in terms of environment and of the rather brutal local culture. Ban was the only thing worth salvaging from that world; he had been Shae even there, and certainly an outworlder to her homeworld of
Faelan.
“Keep them away from their shaping tasks for at least two days,” she instructed Éfan. “You and I will monitor them. This anima seems to be feeding them, but without it, they will grow hungry. Let us see how long that takes.”
He bowed his head, acquiescing, and moved off to rejoin the two couples. Jintaya frowned softly, then left the heart of their new, possibly temporary home. Sun crystals illuminated her path, a piece of magic picked up from a world visited by the Fae long ago. The mineral threaded through rock, leading from chamber to chamber up to a mass of crystal that absorbed sunlight all day long. It reflected some of that light down into the rooms below, and released the remaining stored light through the night, efficient and gentle.
There were spells to control how much glow each room and corridor received, particularly in the rooms she visited, but she didn’t bother brightening the dim light. Ban and Rua, having little to do with the shaping of their new home, had taken to occupying their time by selecting rooms for various uses and moving furnishings and supplies into each place. Each one of the pantean members now had a private suite with bedchamber, bath, a sitting room for guests, a workroom or three for personal projects, plus spare suites for guests, rooms for storage, and more.
Previous outposts had not been nearly so lavish, but apparently Kaife had decided that since they had an excess of magical energies to work with, he would craft an excess of chambers and passages. Most of those rooms were empty of all but a few furnishings and supplies. None of them held the tall, black-haired foreigner. Neither did she find Rua in her quarters. Guessing where the other woman was, Jintaya climbed one of the many winding sets of stairs, shallow and gracefully curved. It took her a few minutes to make her way to the chamber that, if their entry point was the heart, would correspond with the stomach of the stronghold.