The Seeker

by Simon Hawke

  “This was the way shown us by a spell,” said Sorak “A spell released by the burning of a scroll that we obtained from the Veiled Alliance in Tyr.”

  “The burning of a scroll?” said Korahna, sitting up suddenly and leaning forward. “And was there a specific time and place at which you were to burn it?” Sorak frowned. “Yes. But how did you know that?”

  “Because that is how the Veiled Alliance receives communications from the Sage,” Korahna said excitedly. “I have never seen such a scroll myself, but I have heard that these scrolls appear by magic to certain individuals, and that they are useless unless burned in a certain place and at a certain time. And that knowledge is said to come in dreams or visions perceived within a crystal. But it is said that only the secret masters of the Veiled Alliance ever see such scrolls. I had never known whether to believe such tales or not, until today. Why did you not tell me you were members of the Veiled Alliance? Was it that you did not trust the daughter of a defiler king?”

  “No, it was because we are not members of the Veiled Alliance,” Sorak replied. “We had performed a service for them back in Tyr, and they had given us the scroll to aid us in our quest.”

  “What quest?”

  “To find the Sage,” said Sorak.

  Korhana simply stared at him—“But no one has ever found the Sage!”

  “Then I suppose we shall be the first,” said Sorak. He stood. “We had best be on our way.”

  The weary women mounted up, and they moved off once again as the sun slowly disappeared beyond the horizon. For a while, the desert was plunged into total darkness, and then the first of the twin moons rose, followed a short while later by the second, and the Stony Barrens were illuminated in a ghostly, bluish light.

  “I know now why you brought me with you,” said Korahna as they slowly rode along behind Sorak, who picked his way among the rocks ahead of them. “I thought that you had merely taken pity on a fellow preserver, but you needed me to make contact with the Veiled Alliance in Nibenay.”

  “That was Sorak’s idea,” said Ryana. “If you must know, I was against bringing you along. I knew the hardships you would face upon this journey, and I did not think you would survive it.”

  “I see,” Korahna said, softly. “And do you still believe so?”

  Ryana gave a small snort. “I am not yet convinced that any of us shall survive it. But you have shown more mettle than I gave you credit for. Who knows? We shall see.”

  “You do not sound very confident.”

  “Your spirit is strong, Korahna, but your body is weak,” Ryana replied. “I do not say that to condemn you, it merely happens to be the way things are. A strong spirit can often compensate for a body’s weakness, but we have been only one day on this journey, and already you are at the limits of your endurance. Do not mistake my meaning. I give you credit for your courage, but I do not know if it shall be enough to see you through this.”

  “Better to die out here in the barrens, attempting to control my fate, than live with Torian and be controlled,” Korahna said. “Thus far, my life has been of little worth, and the strength of my beliefs has not been truly tested. If I must die, then at least I shall die as a preserver and not some rich man’s trophy. Hand me your sword.”

  “Better you should save your strength,” Ryana said.

  “No, better I should build it,” said Korahna. “And holding it will give me something upon which to focus my mind.”

  “As you wish,” Ryana said, handing her the sword.

  “It does not feel quite so heavy now,” the princess said, holding it out away from her body.

  Ryana smiled. “Do not exhaust yourself,” she said. “There is more to learning how to use a sword than merely strengthening your arms. And even that does not come quickly.”

  “But at least this is a beginning,” said Korahna.

  “Yes, it is a beginning. But only a beginning. It takes many years of training to become proficient with a blade.”

  “I have the rest of my life to learn,” Korahna said.

  Indeed, Ryana thought to herself. Let us hope that the rest of your life lasts longer than the next few days.

  Chapter Six

  Five days, thought Torian with both fury and astonishment. Five miserable days they had traveled through this scorching, stony wasteland without a single night’s rest, and still they had not caught up with them. How the elfling and the priestess could keep up this relentless pace, encumbered as they were with the princess, was utterly beyond him. He had pushed his men as hard as it was possible to push them. The first day out, they had ridden hard and kept right on going through the night. He had been certain then that he would catch up with them the very next day, but the next day passed and still their quarry was not in sight Since then, they had paused only for short rest periods during the day and he allowed his men to sleep no more than three or four hours each night. He did not see how they could have failed to catch them by now. It simply defied belief.

  The elfling and the priestess had but one kank with them. His soldier kanks were faster, but then, most of their advantage in speed had been canceled out by the difficult terrain. Still, the elfling could not have been carrying much in the way of supplies. Surely, they must have run out by now. Torian knew that elves and halflings were both well adapted to travel in the desert. The elfling would doubtless have inherited those traits. The villichi priestess had her training to see her through, but Korahna? How could she possibly survive such an ordeal? He had half expected to come across her corpse by now. He would not have thought that she could have survived more than a few hours in the barrens, much less five days of traveling at a forced pace. It just did not seem possible.

  The sun’s rays, beating down relentlessly upon the rocks, heated them until it seemed as if the party were riding through a blacksmith’s furnace. From time to time as they rode, they would hear sharp, cracking reports, a sound that had mystified him and alarmed the mercenaries until they realized it was the sound of stones shattering from the intense heat. It seemed beyond belief that anyone could last so long in this sun-baked inferno.

  His throat was parched and his lungs burned from breathing in the heated air. His lips were dry and cracked even though he moistened them constantly, and his skin seemed to feel as if it would crackle when he touched it, like the flesh of a well-roasted fowl. His men, seasoned mercenaries all, were barely able to remain astride their mounts. They were down to six, not counting himself.

  The second night out, they had lost one man to a fire drake. The creature had hidden itself among the rocks, its pebbly-grained hide camouflaging it from view, and as the unfortunate man passed,’the drake leapt, bringing him down from his mount and fastening its powerful fangs in his shoulder. The other kanks shied away from the creature, and crossbow bolts loosed by the other mercenaries merely glanced off the drake’s thick hide. The kanks bolted, and by the time they were able to bring the beasts back under control, the drake had disappeared, dragging its hapless victim away with it His frenzied screams faded into the distance until they were cut off abruptly.

  The next day, they lost another man to an agony beetle. The creature had flown up and landed gently on his back so that he had not felt it. It crawled lightly down his cloak and underneath it to the base of his spine, where it sent out the long, fine, tendril stinger from its snout to penetrate his skin and worm its way deep into his spinal column. The deadly stinger was coated with a substance that numbed the skin so that the victim could not feel the beetle’s bite until it was too late. Once the tendril stinger was firmly embedded and wrapped around the nerve endings in the spine, the agony beetle began to live up to its name.

  Its victim suddenly started to scream at the top of his lungs and claw at his back as waves of incandescent pain shot up his spine and into his brain. The creature fed on the psionic energy produced by pain, and once its stinger was inserted, removing it without killing the victim was almost impossible. The mercenary fell from his mount
to land, writhing and screaming like a banshee, on the rocky ground.

  The others simply stared, frightened and astonished, unable to see the source of their comrade’s torment. I was Torian who surmised what the cause must be, and he leapt down from his mount and ran over to the fallen man, drawing his knife. With one sweep of his blade, he cut away the thrashing mercenary’s cloak and saw the insect, its chitinous black shell gleaming in the sun as it clung to its victim’s spine, torturing him unimaginably. Torian and several of the others tried to hold the man down, but the pain-maddened mercenary flung them off and leapt to his feet.

  The pain had driven out all rationality. He threw himself repeatedly against the boulders in a futile effort to dislodge the insect, all the while screaming horribly, and then in a desperate effort to drive out the pain, he began smashing his head against a rock. The others could only watch in horror as the rock turned red with his blood. Several of them covered their ears in an effort to shut out the man’s screams and the dull, wet, smacking sounds made as he pounded his head against the rock.

  Torian snatched a crossbow from one of the other men and quickly fitted a bolt, but before he could shoot the pathetic wretch and put him out of his misery, the man fell silent and slumped to the ground, his head pounded to a gory pulp. He had beaten out his own brains rather than suffer the agonizing torment. As the beetle detached its tendril stinger, Torian picked up a rock and smashed it, pounding away until nothing was left of the loathsome insect but a wet spot on the rocky ground.

  The rest of the mercenaries had been badly unnerved by the gruesome spectacle of their comrade’s death. Coupled with the earlier death of the man killed by the drake, this loss had left them shaken. They had said nothing, but their faces had been sullen, and Torian did not need to be a mind reader to know what they were thinking. It could happen just as easily to any one of them, and the longer they remained in the barrens, the greater the odds were that none would make it back alive.

  Torian now chose to call a brief halt to rest their kanks and feed them. He had brought along two spare riderless kanks to carry their supplies. As the men pulled even with him, he suddenly noticed that two of them were missing, and along with them, the two pack beasts.

  “Where are Dankro and Livak?” Torian demanded.

  The others looked around, apparently noticing for the first time that two of them were missing.

  “They were bringing up the rear with the pack beasts,” one of the men said. And then his eyes grew wide as comprehension dawned. “The miserable bastards have turned back! And they have taken our supplies with them!”

  The other three exchanged alarmed glances. They all knew what that meant. All their food, all their fuel for fire, and all their spare water, save for the skins they carried with them, were now gone with the deserters.

  “When was the last time any of you saw them?” Torian asked.

  They exchanged glances again. “This morning, after our rest break,” one of them said.

  “They were right behind me when we started off,” another said. “But I never thought to turn around. After what happened with the others, we were all watching one another’s backs, and I had thought…” His voice trailed off as he realized that, probably for much of the day, he had been riding alone at the rear, with no one to watch his back.

  “We must turn around at once and go after them,” said Rovik, the new captain.

  “And lose more time?” said Torian grimly. “No. Let them fend for themselves. We will go on.”

  “But, my lord, they have taken all our food and water!” Rovik protested. “We have only our own water skins, and they shall not last out the day!”

  “I am aware of that,” said Torian. “My situation is no different than yours. We shall have to drink but sparingly, and make the water last as long as possible.”

  “And then what?” one of the others said. “At most, we can make the water last another day or two. Then we shall all die of thirst. We must turn back! Our only chance now is to catch Dankro and Livak!”

  “And how much of a head start do you think they have?” asked Torian. “None of you has seen them since this morning. They must have held back as we started off, then turned and bolted at the first opportunity. They will travel at full speed for fear of pursuit, and they shall not stop unless something out here stops them. Then the pack beasts will simply wander off, and we will be no better off than we are now. It is five days back, if we travel without rest. Our water will run out long before then.”

  “Then either way, we are all dead,” one of the mercenaries said.

  “Look there’” Torian said, turning and pointing toward the mountains, rising up ahead of them in the distance. “The Barrier Mountains are at most another three or four days ride. I grew up in those mountains, and know them like the back of my hand. Once there, we will find plenty of game and water. We must go forward. It is our only chance.”

  “What is the use?” said the mercenary who had just spoken. “We shall merely die within a day or two’s ride of the mountains, our salvation within sight, but out of reach. It is hopeless. We are finished, Torian Your pointless, mad pursuit has killed us all. We are dead men.”

  Torian drew his sword. “Dead men need no water” he said, and plunged his blade into the man’s chest. The mercenary cried out and stared at him, incredulous, then his eyes glazed over as he clutched at his wound and toppled from his mount.

  Torian turned his kank to face the others, still holding the bloody sword in his hand. “Does anyone else believe there is no hope?” The others simply stared at him in stony silence. “Good. Then we can divide his water among us,” Torian said. “If we are sparing with its use, it should extend our supply another day or two. From now on, I will carry all the water and ration it out as I see fit. Any objections?”

  No one spoke.

  “Then it is settled,” Torian said. “Pass me your water skins. From now on, we do not stop until we reach the Barrier Mountains.”

  On the fourth day of their trek across the barrens, they had run out of food. They had stretched their supply as far as possible, feeding most of it to the kank. The beast had a voracious appetite and could not survive on its honey alone. They had been eating the honey, and there were only several globules left. The kank needed to supplement its diet with forage, and there was none in the barrens. They had fed the remaining honey to the kank, but it was not enough. By the fifth day the beast was starting to grow weak. But that was not the worst of it. They had also run out of water.

  Ryana felt completely drained. She could only imagine how the princess must feel. Korahna had not spoken a word in hours. She merely clung weakly to Ryana, with her arms around her waist, her head lolling against her back. Ryana saw that even Sorak was showing the strain of their ordeal. At least she and Korahna had been able to sleep during their journey. They had taken turns, one of them holding the other to prevent a fall, while the kank had simply followed Sorak obediently.

  Sorak had been on foot throughout their journey, and though he had ducked under to sleep while the Ranger or Screech came to the fore, their body had neither slept nor rested, save for the brief stops they made. Ryana could see by Sorak’s bearing, each time he surfaced to take over his body once again, that he felt the physical effects of his exertions. His elfling body could take far more punishment than human bodies could, but even he was tired now.

  Ryana felt Korahna’s grip slipping and turned just in time to catch her as she started to fall. “Sorak!” she called out.

  He stopped and turned, looking at her wearily. “Korahna has swooned,” she said. He walked back to the kank. “Let her down,” he said.

  He took the princess in his arms as Ryana gently eased her off the back of the kank, then dismounted to stand beside him as he laid her out gently on the ground.

  “I never thought that she would even make it this far,” said Ryana. “I can barely stand myself.”

  Sorak nodded. “It was selfish of me to bring
her along,” he said. “She would have been better off with Torian.”

  “She said that she would rather die,” Ryana said.

  “I fear she will,” said Sorak. “She has no strength left. She has come this far on pluck alone. And that is no longer enough. She will be dead by nightfall.”

  Ryana looked over her shoulder toward the mountains. “Another three or four days’ ride and we would have reached the end of this wasteland.” She sighed with resignation. “If Torian has not long since turned back, he will find only our corpses.”

  “We are not dead yet,” said Sorak.

  “It will be night soon,” said Ryana, looking toward the mountains. “Up ’til now, Screech has kept us safe by communing with the creatures that approach us, but Screech cannot make water out of stone. And when our bodies fail us, we shall make a fine meal for some hungry beast. It seems the Sage has merely lured us to our deaths.”

  There was no reply from Sorak. She turned and saw him sitting cross-legged on the ground beside the princess who lay motionless, her chest barely moving as she breathed weakly. She looked as if the pallor of death was already stealing over her. Sorak had his eyes closed. He breathed slowly, deeply, and regularly. Then Ryana began to feel warm.

  It was a warmth that did not come from the sun, which was already sinking slowly over the horizon. It did not come from the sun-baked rocks, which still felt hot beneath her feet. It did not come from within her. It came from Sorak.

  As she watched, she could see heat waves shimmering around him, and his face took on a completely different expression. It was more than merely an apparent change. His mouth, which usually looked harsh and cruel and sensual, had softened, and his lips appeared more full. His normally dour expression became beatific and serene. And when he opened his eyes and looked at her, she saw that the color of his irises had changed from dark brown to an azure blue.

  “Kether,” Ryana said softly.