“She isn’t a demon,” Neriya protested as two giants grabbed his arms. “I am no sorcerer—”
“Look at the mark on his face! He is cursed by the gods!” shouted one of his captors.
Oh no! Neriya thought. Even in his father’s kingdom a peasant man with such a mark could be killed lest he curse others. Here and now, his royal birth would not help him. He struggled desperately as the two giants lifted him off the ground. The leader unsheathed a short curved blade.
“Let us see what omens are in his guts!” the massive bandit shouted to his men. They let out a cheer.
A breath of wind brushed Neriya’s cheek. Then, suddenly, there came the scream of a gale. A tremendous blast of wind threw the bandit leader across the narrow pass, slamming him against the rock wall. The wind gave another howl—and turned to whirl the other way! Robbers yelled and roared as the very air became suddenly powerful and hostile, flinging them this way and that.
One of the huge bandits, the one clinging to Neriya’s right arm, let go and tried to run, only to be thrown after his fellows. The other hung on determinedly, his hands shaking. “Sorcerer!” he screamed. “Curse you, sorcerer!” With his free hand he pulled out his knife, ready to kill Neriya and thus end his supposed magic.
“Don’t!”
The wind stole the breath from Neriya’s lungs, and his feet left the ground. He and the last of the bandits tumbled, falling up into the sky. Cloud and land whirled before their eyes. With a gasp the bandit let go of the prince, only to drop like a stone. Neriya snatched at him reflexively but couldn’t reach him before he himself was propelled still higher, before the ground was hidden by a haze of thin cloud.
“Little dove, little dove!” Neriya cried, too dizzy to be properly frightened.
“Not a dove, but the Mother of All Horses,” came a warm, grass-scented voice. “Put your arms around my neck, and I will carry you toward Gubla—for the sake of the child who saved my child long ago.”
Neriya could see nothing but air; but he closed his eyes, reached out his arms, and found that they wrapped around something. It was neither fur nor air nor sunlight but felt rather like all three under his fingers. He held tight. He almost felt as if he were astride a mare, with the long hairs of her mane whipping past him.
“Don’t be afraid. I will not drop you.” Air screamed past his ears as the mare of wind galloped over and around the jagged mountains.
After a while he opened his eyes, only to laugh in delight. So quick, so high! The speed might steal his breath, but the sight of the rocky hills with their patches of green, their twisted trees, and their flocks of goats, filled him with joy. It was a beautiful country, even if it was full of bandits.
The Mother of All Horses carried him a long way, until the mountains shrank and the foothills settled into miles and miles of deserted wilderness. Heat rose off the rocks; parched-looking plants made sparse shade, as still as death with no breeze to stir them. The wind-mare grew slower and slower, and sank lower and lower, until she set him gently on the ground. “The wind does not travel here at this season,” she told him. “Now you must make your own way.”
He stood on top of an anchor-shaped rock and watched her gallop away, tearing up the clouds in her wake. Then he turned back to the wilderness. The sun is sinking now. She must have carried me for most of the day, he decided. It sets in the west, so if I walk toward the sunset, I will be walking toward the sea.
Pleased with his reasoning, the prince set off through the desert.
When Palli woke into a dream again, it took her some time to find Prince Neriya. He was far from where she had left him. He looked ragged and dirty, and he talked quietly to himself as he stumbled over the ground.
Neriya, she whispered, worried. Neriya, can you hear me?
“Peace to you, little dove,” he said cheerfully, although his eyes did not quite focus on her. “Am I still going in the right direction?”
Have you been wandering long?
“A few days, I think,” he answered calmly. “I find that one gets used to being hungry. It wasn’t something I ever had occasion to learn before. I don’t feel hungry now.”
Palli was sure that there were things to eat in the wilderness; people lived here, after all. But she, like Neriya, had never learned the ways of the wilderness folk. She hovered anxiously over him. Have you found water?
“Hmm?”
That much she could do, Palli decided. With a twist and a sigh, she sent herself gliding over the ground, around hills, and through broken rocks until she found a spring—a tiny trickle of water seeping from the side of a hill. Now, quickly, quickly, back to Neriya . . .
This way, she coaxed him, fluttering around his shoulders.
“Little dove,” he murmured absently, and trudged obediently after her. It took much longer for her to guide him to the water than it had taken her to find it, but she got him there at last. He would not die of thirst, at least.
“Thank you,” he said, looking rather more alert. “I didn’t know how thirsty I was.”
Now you should rest, Palli told him. Unless you can carry water with you, you should always rest in the heat of the day.
“But don’t you need help? Is there time to rest?” he protested.
I would rather that you lived to reach Gubla instead of dying while trying to get there, Palli told him a little sharply. But you must have something to eat.
Neriya looked around him. “I fear I cannot eat rocks,” he said, sounding genuinely apologetic.
I will see if I can find help, Palli said, and whisked away.
“I wish you wouldn’t keep leaving me, little dove,” the prince whispered.
But Palli was already far away.
Dirigga! Dirigga! she called. One friend had come to save him from the bandits—perhaps another would help Palli get him to Gubla alive.
Neriya slept until late afternoon next to the little spring. He woke when a sudden gust of air washed across his shoulders. Mare of wind . . . ?
It was not the horse of air but a creature just as strange: a winged creature with the face of a cat. “Stormbird!” It was just like the ones painted on the walls of his great-grandfather’s palace, although the artists had gotten the colors wrong. This one was as black and gleaming as diorite.
The creature looked at him dubiously. “This one is too heavy for me to carry,” she told her gray, flitting companion.
But you can bring him food.
It sneered at him. “Men are troublesome. They shoot at us. Hunt us.”
Please. You did promise.
“Very well—a favor for a favor, food for food,” the Stormbird agreed grumpily.
“Thank you,” Neriya said, bowing deeply to her. She ignored him, but he wasn’t annoyed. He was too amazed to see a mythical creature roosting on his rock.
Dirigga continued to ignore him through the weeks that followed, although she brought him food almost every day. And every day he kept struggling westward over the hills, with his little gray bird hovering overhead and pointing out the way he should go next.
I must not sleep, I must not sleep, Palli told herself. Who knew how long it would be before she found him again? He might get lost. Dirigga might stop bringing him food if Palli were no longer there. So she struggled to stay in the dream. Tell me about the place where you live. Tell me about your family. Tell me about your life. His answers interested her and helped her to keep dreaming.
“But my life isn’t very interesting,” he would always say after a little while. “Tell me about what you have seen. Tell me about your life, about Gubla.”
Talking about Gubla was easy. She told him about the Litan, whom he hoped he would see. She told him about the gleaming blue-green ocean, about the Road to Far Horizon. She told him about Tsalat and about Tsalat’s stories. She told him about her parents. Last of all she told him about her naming day and the prophecy of the God Who Answers.
“I’m not much of a warlike shepherd,” Neriya said thoughtfull
y. “I have hunted lions and hippopotami, yet I have never been to war. But if all I must do is wake you up, I don’t suppose much war will be required.”
The kings of Gubla have always been warriors.
“Well, this Etlu-kashid fellow you told me about—you’ll wake up and finish your wedding, and Gubla will have a warrior king again.”
Palli had never wanted to marry Etlu-kashid; but she could see that Neriya hadn’t entirely understood her story, and telling him that she wasn’t planning to marry Etlu-kashid would have required some awkward explanations.
The prophecy means that I will marry you, she said quietly to herself. It was a pleasant idea. Neriya was a most unusual man, she thought, to set out on a long and dangerous journey just because a half-seen person asked for help.
They journeyed on until the wilderness grew green at last and they reached the more fertile areas of the coast. Dirigga flapped off for the last time, looking glad to be rid of her responsibility. The next day, Neriya got food at a village.
There were many villages for a while; but as they got closer to Gubla, they began finding abandoned ones that were collapsing slowly back into the ground. “There was a city here in my great-grandmother’s time,” one of the villagers warned Neriya. “But it was cursed and lost! Don’t go there—no one who goes there ever comes back.”
“Is that true?” Neriya asked Palli later. “Is it really so dangerous?”
There is the wall of thorns, Palli said slowly. And the snakes and the scorpions. Some of the scorpions are very large. She had not paid attention to them for a long time; they could not touch her.
“Ah,” Neriya said thoughtfully. At the last inhabited village before Gubla, he traded the remnants of his fine clothes for a kilt, a short spear, and a bronze ax. He did not care to fight snakes with his bare hands.
On the last day of their journey, Palli grew more and more excited, fluttering around Neriya like his own personal whirlwind. Almost there, almost there! Neriya, caught up in her excitement, broke into a run and ran until he could run no more. He stopped to breathe, leaning on his spear, then balanced it on his shoulder and ran again, laughing.
There it is, Palli told him at last. My city! She spun so closely by his face that the wind of her passing was like a touch on his cheek.
Neriya looked across the plain at the city hidden under a dome of briars with the sea flashing green and gold beyond. “Well, little dove,” he panted cheerfully, “I think you will be awake again in time to go to sleep tonight!”
Chapter 6
AS NERIYA APPROACHED THE thorn-walled city, nothing moved on the plain of Gubla. No snakes and scorpions? Maybe this won’t be so hard, thought Neriya.
But as he came nearer, he changed his mind. The briars, which were covered in purple and yellow flowers, had been weaving themselves together for generations—the old branches dying, the new thorns wrapping themselves around the old. So closely were they woven together that Neriya could not see the smallest bit of light through the briar hedge. Getting through that would be like chopping a forest down! Still, as long as there was no danger, it would be only a matter of time before Neriya broke through to the city.
He drove the spear into the ground beside him, where it would be easy to grab if something happened, and lifted his axe.
Be careful, Palli told him, fluttering to and fro. These briars sprang from a curse. Don’t let them scratch you.
“Peace, don’t worry.” Neriya struck a thick spiky stem—once, twice.
Before he could strike a third time, there was a scuttling sound, and a flood of amber-colored scorpions rushed out from under the brambles. Neriya yelped and leaped into the air, coming down with a crunch on half a dozen brown-striped backs. As they died, they struck with their tails; some of them stung him, leaving burning spots on his skin. He kicked a few away, but hundreds more poured out from the shadow of the thorn wall.
Too many and too small to kill, he decided at once. As long as he didn’t let too many of them sting him, their stings should only be painful, not deadly. He jumped up, setting his foot on one of the trunks of the briar bushes, and struck again with his axe. Thrice.
A snake dropped down onto his head.
Neriya let out a yell and threw himself backward, sending the snake flying but landing in the middle of the scorpion army. “Ah! Ouch!” He rolled to his feet, dancing from foot to foot and shaking palm-sized scorpions off his tunic. “Aah!”
He heard a chorus of hisses and looked up to see serpents slithering toward him through the thorns: gleaming black vipers and brown-striped adders, all intently focused on him. They dropped gracefully to the ground and glided toward him, ignored by the yellow scorpions.
They’re poisonous! Look out, Neriya! Palli warned him. She darted at the snakes. They hissed and struck at her, but they could not touch her any more than she could touch them.
At least they’re bigger, Neriya thought grimly and went to work, trying to ignore the burning in his legs as the scorpions swarmed him. Snakes dropped; Neriya pinned them with his spear and cut off their heads, bending uncomfortably low. I should have gotten a bigger axe. He kicked wildly between snakes, shaking off their smaller brethren.
He leaped and struck and danced, gasping, but a tiny part of him sat back and thought, More of them came when I struck the thorns the third time.
My goal is to get into the city, not to kill these creatures. They are a distraction.
A very effective one, he had to admit. How he was going to chop through all those thorns with ten thousand scorpions scuttling around underfoot he didn’t know. But I can strike again now.
He made a standing leap and hit the briars a fourth time. Their flowers shuddered, dropping petals and tiny snakes in all directions.
Neriya!
The prince spun to find yet more scorpions curling their tails to attack. But these scorpions were a little different. For one thing, each stood as high as his waist, its tail curling at shoulder height.
“You didn’t say they were this large, little dove!” Neriya gasped, stumbling back. But there was no time for fear. The nearest struck at him; he whacked its tail away with his axe and warned it off with a stab to the head. It fell a half step back then sidled toward him again. He watched it carefully. As it struck again, he leaped aside and parried its tail with the shaft of the spear even as he brought the axe down on its head. It stumbled. He hit it again, and it collapsed to the ground. At least they’re not as quick as lions, he thought.
A second giant scorpion went the way of the first. Then two decided to rush him at once. He ran quickly to one side, so that only one could attack him at a time; he was faster than they, but they had far more reach. He caught up a snake on the end of his spear and threw it at them. The closer one struck at it reflexively, and he stomped on its tail as the barb hit the ground. But he only managed a glancing blow before it pulled its tail loose, sending him sprawling.
The city, he told himself. Don’t forget! To think that he had complained about having to chop through fifty feet of briars . . . He rolled and scrambled away from the approaching scorpions.
His little dove was flitting around before their eyes, distracting them from attacking him. He ran around them to strike the thorns again. Five, six.
There was a horrible scream. It came from far away, yet it was deafening. Neriya started to put his hands over his ears and whacked himself in the head with his own spear. Even the scorpions stopped short, curling their tails aggressively.
A black cloud rose from the sea. Boiling angrily, it swirled toward Gubla and dropped down before Neriya. The darkness faded, leaving behind the skinniest, oldest man he had ever seen. The man was bent nearly double, his wispy beard full of lichen, his cloak rotting on his shoulders, his eyes full of hate. “No one enters my city! No one!”
Kashap, Palli whispered in the prince’s ear.
“It has been six sixes of years since I had to kill a stranger here myself,” Kashap rasped, reaching into his p
ouch with contorted fingers. “But no one can survive my incantations! A man, a young man, a warrior of the Wall, who has travelled far—may his joints be weak, may his eyes be dim, may his hand grow slack, may his breath stop. Six times I will say it, seven times I have said it: let it be for his destruction!” the sorcerer chanted, his voice gaining strength with every phrase. At the last word, he pulled a clay figure of a man out of his belt pouch, threw it to the ground, and stamped on it.
Palli gasped. Neriya felt a moment of intense pain, but it passed, leaving him weak but still standing. Where is this kingdom of the Wall that everyone keeps talking about, and why do they all think I come from there? he wondered. Then his mind caught up with his heart, and he realized that the sorcerer had misnamed him. That was why the incantation hadn’t worked. He had to hurry before the old man realized his mistake.
“Stop your lips! You see that you haven’t hurt me,” Neriya said, raising his chin. “Haven’t you done enough harm with your curse? Let it go now.”
Kashap went white around the lips. “How? How are you alive?” he screamed. “My magic always works! How—what’s that?” He jerked, his eyes fixed on Palli’s hovering shape. “What is that? A demon? You have magic of your own!” He rounded on Neriya, pointing an accusing finger. “I see that mark on your face! You are gods-cursed! Get out! This is my city! Find your own place!”
“I’ve come to set this city free!”
“If an incantation won’t kill you, I’ll use another way!” Kashap howled, flecks of spit flying from his shrunken lips. He raised his arms, and darkness boiled up from the ground. Neriya felt it like a cold breath and stepped back, not wanting it to touch him.
When it vanished again, Kashap had changed.
This is worse than giant scorpions, Neriya thought in disbelief.
Hardly a spear length in front of him was a tannin dragon. Its head and body and tail were shaped like those of a lion, but covered in gleaming green and black scales. Its neck was long like that of a snake, ringed by thick folds of scaly skin. It blinked mad eyes, Kashap’s eyes, at him, then threw back its head and roared.
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