D & D - Red Sands

by Tonya R. Carter

  Elperex contributed his part by going ahead of the carts, using his keen night vision to keep the oxen on the proper track. He learned to ride the lead ox, perching on its neck with a goad. As he peered into the cold murk, he would tap one or the other of the beast's shoulders, guiding the stolid animal away from precipices and rock-falls.

  During the second night, snow began to fall. Jadira was dozing against Marix's shoulder when the first cold flakes settled on her face. She stirred.

  "Stop it," she murmured.

  "Stop what?" Marix replied.

  She sat up. Snow drifted through the air in gentle swirls. Jadira held out her hands to catch the white crys-

  tals. The delicate tracery of ice vanished as soon as it came to rest on her warm skin.

  "What is this?" she said. "Magic?"

  He laughed. "No, it's snow. You remember, I mentioned snow to you before."

  Jadira lifted her face into the falling flakes. A veil of white clung to her long eyelashes. "This is wonderful," she said. "Do you have snow in your country all the time?"

  "Only in winter, maybe four or five months of the year," said Marix. "And you wouldn't find it so wonderful when it's chest-deep to the well."

  Jadira wasn't discouraged. She watched flakes accumulate on the dark cloth of the blanket across her lap. With one puff of breath, all of them evaporated without a trace.

  Elperex rejoiced in the flurries, too. His blood, like a bird's, was hot and quick. He capered across the ox's back. "I am so happy to be with you," he said. "I feared my life was over!"

  "There's so much left to do," said Marix. He threw back his head. "Isn't that right, Nabul?"

  In the trailing cart, the thief, not enjoying the cold or the snow, was swathed in all the free blankets. He growled and cracked his switch in the air. ""Vbu see, we are a happy band," said Marix.

  Elperex skipped back to the ox's neck. He sat there, wings slightly spread, as the snow blew gently over him. Jadira slouched down in the seat again and drifted back into the arms of the god of sleep.

  The slant changed. From tilting back, the cart now tilted forward. Some time in the night, when everyone save Elperex was asleep, they had crossed the highest point of Mount Bakesh and were descending to the plains of Kaipur. Jadira jumped from the cart and waited for the second vehicle to lurch by. She grabbed the bench, stepped on the trace pole, and swung up beside Uramettu.

  "Good morning," Uramettu said. "Breakfast?" she added, offering Jadira an orange.

  "Thank you." She glanced at Nabul, who was curled up atop his beloved hoard of gold. "Any problems?" she asked.

  "Not any worth speaking of. Compared to our early days together, this is a pleasure ride, my sister."

  Jadira agreed. She split her orange in two and gave half to Uramettu. "It has been a remarkable journey," she said.

  "It is not over yet."

  "Oh, perhaps not in terms of time, but all the real obstacles have been overcome. What remains are merely leagues to cover in the allotted time," Jadira said.

  "I hope my sister is right." Uramettu bit into her orange.

  "You're very thoughtful this morning," Jadira said. "Does something trouble you?"

  "I was thinking of the season. In Fedush, this is the time of greening, when the rain stops and everything begins to grow. The impala have calved, the buffalo herds return to the savannah, and Ronta is abroad by night."

  "Your panther-god?"

  "Yes. It is in this season that we who know Ronta are guided in our selection of a mate."

  Jadira began to understand. "Do the panther-folk

  mate with each other?" she asked.

  "No, not ever. The men choose from the young maidens of the village. Then I am allowed a choice of men, something most women in Fedush do not get."

  Jadira said, "I know well what you mean. It is much the same with the Sudiin." She checked herself. "Was; was much the same ..."

  The trail flattened out to a small plateau. The mountain fell sharply away, so the view from the plateau was far-ranging. Marix halted the first cart. He and Tamakh got out. Uramettu stopped her ox, and she and Jadira hopped out of their cart.

  "There lies the domain of Capzan, lord of the city of Sivan," said Marix, sweeping his arm to the south. "Northward is the territory of Tedwin the Lame, master of Maridanta. In the center, nearer the sea, is the province of Lord Hurgold."

  "Will anyone contest our way?" said Tamakh.

  Marix shrugged. "It has been so long since I was here, I know little of the local situation. Baron Capzan covets the grazing land owned by Lord Hurgold, just as Count Tedwin wishes to add my lord's watershed to his domain." He surveyed the ridge of mountains glowering above them. "The place where Sir Kannal's party was ambushed is north of here. We will need to enter Tedwin's realm."

  Clouds chased across the sky, throwing huge shadows on the plain below. Jadira admired the lush green grassland, but wondered in her heart if it was truly worth the lives of so many men.

  The trail down the plateau was even more precipitous than the track down the mountain. The donkeys managed well enough; Marix staked them in a thicket at the foot of the grade. Above, everyone studied the steep path before them.

  "The stupid gnoles built carts without brakes," said Nabul. "So how do we get them down there without crashing?"

  "Perhaps if we used both oxen to steady each cart?" lamakh offered.

  Uramettu shook her head. "The track is not wide enough for both beasts to go abreast. And placing them one behind the other won't do; the lead ox will drag the second in the dirt."

  " If the second doesn' t trample the leader first,'' Jadira added.

  "What, then, do we do?" asked Nabul.

  Marix appeared at the bottom of the hill. He practically had to go on his hands and knees to get up the incline. By the time he reached the carts, he was panting.

  "We'll have to put drag lines on the carts," he said. "Each of us will hold on and steady it on the way down."

  "And I?" asked Elperex from under his shading blanket.

  "You steer the bullock," Marix said. Uramettu picked up the 'strelli and placed him on the ox's neck. With his bony hands and long switch, Elperex looked like a minion of the demon-king Dutu, ready to steal the ox for his master.

  They tied ropes to the axles and traces. Everyone took a place on the ropes, even Tamakh. Jadira eyed him. "Are you well enough for this, Holy One?" she said.

  He touched his wounded side gingerly. "I can but try," he replied. "Too long have I lain fallow, letting my friends bear the burden alone." He grasped a length of coarse rope. "I am ready."

  "Elperex!" Marix called. "Keep the beast straight!"

  "That I will, walking friend." He cooed a soothing note in the ox's ear. "Good beast; gentle beast. Hold to the center of the path."

  "Do you think it understands?" muttered Nabul.

  "Pray that it does," replied Uramettu.

  "Go!"

  "Chee-ratata!" The 'strelli's voice chimed like a glass bell. The ox lumbered forward, swaying from side to side on its thick legs. The cart slipped, the leather straps of the harness bumping the ox's hindquarters. The companions leaned against the pull. With each turn of the wheels, their feet skidded in the dirt.

  "Someone should make a wagon that moves itself," said Nabul through gritted teeth.

  "Absurd," said Uramettu. Tendons stood out in her dark skin and a fierce determination clouded her face. "What would happen to all the draft animals?"

  "Eat 'em," grunted the thief.

  They wrestled the cart to the foot of the hill. After a short respite, they started back for the second cart. Elperex clung to Jadira's back until she stopped by the second ox's head, where he hopped off. When the ropes were in place, the same struggle began again.

  The cart crept forward a bit. The pull was so strong Nabul was snapped off his feet. He dropped the rope and stood up. "Did you feel that?" he said.

  "It's the treasure," said Marix. "There must be thrice-a-hun
dredweight in the bottom of that cart."

  "Let's take some out," saidjadira.

  "We're not leaving it behind!" objected Nabul.

  "No, certainly not; but it will be safer if we take some out before we go," said Marix.

  When he heard the word "go," Elperex urged the ox into motion. The cart moved, snatching the restraining ropes from their hands. As one, they cried "Stop!" but

  the momentum was too much for Elperex and the ox. The cart bore down on the plodding animal, shoving it out of the way. The ox turned, the trace poles snapped, and the gold-laden cart somersaulted end over end. Cascades of gold and jewels showered the road, spilling off the edges and ringing down the rocky slope. They watched open-mouthed as the wealth of a great king scattered like chaff. At the end, the tumbling cart rolled off the road and smashed to bits in the ravine below the trail.

  "Well," said Jadira at last, "at least it didn't strike the other cart."

  Marix's gaping mouth shut with a snap. Beside him, Nabul sagged to his knees. He bowed his face to the dirt and smote the ground with his fists. "Never, never, never! " he said with genuine anguish. "Am I never to have the riches I deserve? Curse you gods, who let me see such wealth but never let me possess it!"

  "Don't blaspheme!" said Tamakh, shocked.

  "I don't care! Let them strike me dead—it could hardly hurt more than this repeated torment by treasure!"

  Elperex herded the ox to them and stopped. He peeked cautiously out from under his hood. "You are angry with Elperex?" he said.

  "I'd like to wring your scrawny neck!" Nabul sobbed. The 'strelli closed'the blanket over his head.

  "Stop it," said Jadira. "Stop crying, Nabul, and get up." The thief rose disconsolately to his feet. "Elperex will pick up as much of the treasure as he can."

  "That could take days!" said Marix. She shot a warning glance at him.

  "Take one candle-notch," said Jadira. "Then we have to move on."

  Elperex hopped down from the ox and began filtering through handfuls of dirt for coins and gems. He dropped any he found in the bottom of his blanket. Nabul watched him wordlessly for a while, then also started searching. Marix joined him. Soon, Uramettu was using her long arms to comb the hillside above the road.

  Jadira looked at Tamakh. The priest tightened his sash and lowered himself carefully to his knees. "you, too, Holy One?" asked Jadira.

  " 'Even in the dross of the road shall you find treasure.' So said the holy Agopa, in his Fourth Admonition to the Neophytes." The twinkle had returned to his eyes for the first time since his wounding.

  "Wise man, this Agopa," said Jadira. She lifted the hem of her robe and knelt, filling her fingers with dirt.

  The plain was covered with chest-high grass that bowed and swayed in the lightest breeze. The party followed behind the ox cart, allowing it to break a path through the lush field. Elperex was in his daylight stupor in the back of the cart, so Nabul sat on the bench tending the ox. The beast insisted on stopping every few steps to sample the abundant provender. Nabul whacked its hide repeatedly, but the animal would proceed only when it had swallowed several mouthfuls of fodder.

  Jadira slogged along. The turf underfoot was spongy, and the grass roots were thick and clinging. More than once, she, Marix, and Tamakh went sprawling when the earth refused to release their feet.

  Uramettu strode ahead. This was her element; the plains of Fedush were oceans of grass. Her pleasure in this new country increased with every step she made. Finally, she raised her spear point high in the air and began to sing.

  The others perked up. Uramettu's speaking voice was a warm contralto, but her singing range was higher and lighter. She finished three verses of a Fedushite song. Jadira called out, "That's beautiful. What does it mean?"

  Uramettu paused and turned back. "That is the grain-gather song," she said. "The women of my country sing in the fields."

  "Your women tend the crops?" asked Marix.

  "They do. Men hunt the game, and our women grow barley."

  "What do the words mean?" Jadira asked again.

  Uramettu translated:

  Go to the fields, sisters, Go to the fields. Gather the grain, sisters. And bring it home.

  Trod down the stalks, sisters, Trod down the stalks. Gather the grain, sisters, And bring it home.

  Take up the heads, sisters, Take up the heads. Fill up your baskets, sisters, And bring them home.

  "There are many verses," she said, breaking off. "Clever singers make them up as they work."

  Jadira hummed the tune. "It has a good rhythm for working." She imagined the plain worked by women like Uramettu—tall, graceful black women cutting and picking to the steady beat of the grain-gather song.

  "Sing some more," said Tamakh.

  "Yes, please," saidjadira. "It will ease our task."

  Uramettu hummed through one verse, thinking. Then, she cleared her throat and sang

  Follow my steps, comrades, Follow my steps. We will be free, comrades, When we get home.

  The grassland was bordered by a wide, shallow stream running north to south. They decided to water the oxen and donkeys before going on. While the beasts dropped their muzzles in the cold stream, the companions spread out on the bank and the flat boulders that protruded from the water.

  "Cheer up, you old city rat," said Marix to Nabul. "We saved quite a lot of treasure, you know."

  "Barely half a hundredweight," said Nabul. He threw a stone in the water. "Not enough to live on in the splendor I was dreaming of."

  "What do you want, a palace? Slaves to feed you, sycophants to praise you, harem-girls to—?"

  "Yes, that's exactly what I want!"

  "He wants to be sultan," said Tamakh.

  "I can think of worse things to be," said Nabul. "Poor, for one."

  Uramettu swirled her bare toe in the water. "I saw Sultan Julmet several times. He would stroll through the Garden of Beasts now and then, trailed by advisors and favor-seekers, attended by concubines, doctors, soldiers, and priests of the official cults. I doubt he ever had a moment to himself, and he looked strained and sick all the time."

  "Good," said Jadira. "I wish him boils and a flux to burn his entrails."

  Her bad wishes, expressed with such firm conviction, stifled the flow of talk. The sighing grass and effervescent water wrapped around them like soft raiments, comforting each of them as no words could.

  Jadira would not be comforted. She jumped to her feet. "Your song was wrong, Uramettu," she said. "I'll never be free, for I have no home to return to."

  She skipped from the rock to the sandy bank and slashed off into the high grass. Marix scrambled up the bank after her.

  "Let her go," advised Tamakh. "Let her expend her fury on the uncomplaining air."

  "No, Holy One," said Marix. "Jadira is mine, as I am hers. If she has bile to vent, let it be on me." He disappeared on the trail she had crushed in the grass.

  "Love," snorted Nabul. He threw another pebble in the water.

  The Unseen Hand

  "Jadira!" Marix cuppcd his hands around his mouth and shouted again: "Jadira! Where are you?" He could hear her stomping somewhere ahead. It was easy enough to follow her, but she set such a pace he had to run to catch up. He found her flat on her face, for she had tripped on the soft webbing of roots.

  "Let me help you," said Marix, taking her arm.

  "Leave me alone!"

  "Why should I?"

  She shrugged off his helping hand and got up. "Maybe I don't want soothing, from you or anyone else. Did you consider that, my lord?"

  He frowned. All sympathy left his face. "Don't call me that," he said.

  '"&u are a noble, aren't you? And I am a nomad, a landless, tribeless woman without a name or place to claim as home."

  "Not that again! I love you!"

  "Do you? I wonder. If Tamakh were a comely female with milk-white skin, would you care so much for me? If

  Uramettu were nearer your height, would I stand so high in your e
stimation?"

  Marix made a fist and raised it to his chest. Jadira watched impassively. He struggled with himself and lost. He struck himself smartly on the forehead.

  "I don't understand," he said. "In the crater—I thought you loved me in return."

  Her dark eyes searched over him, and her countenance lost its harsh lines. "I do," she said. "That's the curse of it. And the nearer we get to Tantuffa, the more frightened I grow."

  He took her in his arms. "What frightens you?"

  "The knowledge that you have a place and position to return to, a place that has no room for me."

  "I will make room."

  "No!" she said, drawing away. "Can't you see? Even among the Sudiin, I was not willing to take what was given to me, no matter how much love was in the giving." Jadira clutched the front of her robe. "I can't explain this feeling except to say that I would rather die than be any man's servant."

  "Shall I renounce my name, then? Is that what you want?"

  Jadira stopped resisting and returned his fervent grip. "I am not to be won, Marix. Join me; be my equal, not my lord or my slave."

  "A strange doctrine, this. I'm not sure the world could spin in its proper course if every man and woman were each other's equal."

  "Just begin with me," she replied, "and let the world follow its own course."

  They walked back to the stream hand in hand. Marix called out to Tamakh and the others, but heard no answer. He and Jadira had been gone half a notch, and when they emerged on the creek bank, there was no sign of their companions. The cart was gone. So were the tethered ox and three donkeys.

  "What the—?" Jadira splashed out to the middle of the stream. From tbere, she could see a long way up and down both banks, yet not another human being was in sight. No gap in the wall of grass betrayed where their friends might have gone. They seemed to have vanished completely.

  "Perplexing, isn't it?"

  Jadira and Marix whirled. Standing behind them, where no one had been an instant earlier, was a man on horseback. He wore a three-quarter suit of mail and a banded surcoat of black and white. His horse was similarly trapped in quilted cloth. He spoke in lightly accented Faziri.