“Why?” Mark asked.
Dukasti spat an oath in a different language. “It’s going to be dark as nightfall in a few moments.”
“Then we must find shelter,” Allta said.
Dukasti shook his head as if Pellin’s guard had gone mad. “There is no shelter here. There is nothing between us and Igesia except the dunes. When the storm hits, the wind will turn the sand into carpenter’s cloth.” He swallowed and coughed, turning to face east as he drew the intersecting arcs on his forehead. “I’m sorry, Eldest. Will you pray with me?” He darted a look at the storm. “We don’t have much time.”
Allta’s hand lashed out, grabbing the southerner by his arm. “How close are we to Igesia?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Pellin’s guard shook him like doll. “How close, curse you?”
Dukasti shook his head, his expression dark. “We’re going to die, you fool northerner. Let me say my prayers!”
Allta thrust Dukasti away. Gathering the reins of all their horses, he pulled his sword. At the last, he turned to Mark. “She shouldn’t see this. Keep her head down.”
Mark pulled Elieve into his embrace, sheltering her eyes and ears. The wind rose to a whine that swept all other sounds before it. Already, Pellin could barely see past the length of his arm. With strokes too fast to follow, Allta put the horses down, their screams merging with the wind. Straining with effort, Pellin’s guard worked to stack the bodies into position, creating a barrier to the wind.
The desert sun shrank to a pinpoint of white and disappeared.
Pellin fell toward the shelter, felt hands move him toward the bodies of the horses and cover him with a cloak. Someone—Mark, he thought—pressed against him on his left. Hands moved behind him, working to protect him.
Allta’s voice, right by his ear, sounded in the darkness. “How long will the storm last, Dukasti?”
When he answered, his voice held a hint of wonder. “They vary. Some only a few minutes—others may last for hours or even days. You’ve given me cause to wonder and hope, good Allta. It may be that Aer will see fit to deliver us from the storm.”
Their heads were no more than a couple of hands apart, and Pellin could smell their breakfast on Dukasti’s breath. Someone moved beneath the confines of their cloaks, and for a moment a bit of wind and sand swirled among them.
“Mark,” Allta said with grit in his voice, “be still.”
The boy quieted, but a moment later, a soft glow appeared in their midst, though it lacked the strength to illuminate. Indeed, Pellin could only make out the outline of Mark’s hand by it, but it cheered him, and darkness retreated from it, however slightly.
Pellin nodded in the darkness, but the gesture was for himself. “Thank you, Mark. Even a soft bit of light is welcome.”
“And I bid you welcome as well,” Elieve’s voice came to them from the darkness. “Welcome to my demesne.”
“Hold her!” Pellin’s voice rasped beneath their covering. The wind howled as Allta surged forward to bring Elieve into the circle of his arms. Flying sand stung Pellin’s skin as the storm howled and screamed.
“I have her,” Allta yelled over the sound of the storm. “Mark, anchor the blanket back over us.”
A semblance of order returned to their makeshift shelter and a portion of quiet as well once the thick blanket covered them again. Harsh breathing filled the space, and Pellin struggled to quiet the thunder of his heart. “Mark, check to ensure Elieve holds no weapon. Dukasti and I cannot risk touching her.”
“Risk?” Dukasti asked. “We’ve strayed into the Maveth. We have to leave!”
“You said yourself, the storm means death,” Allta said.
“Better death than the Maveth,” Dukasti said.
Mark’s voice, disembodied by the darkness, came to him. “She’s unarmed, Eldest.” He paused. “What’s happened to her?”
Pellin ignored the question—it would be answered soon enough. He tried to wet his lips, but dust caked them. “Can you hold her, Allta?”
“Yes, Eldest, but if she lashes out with her feet, she could injure or kill you before I have a chance to stop her.”
“I assure you, such precautions are unnecessary,” Elieve said.
Despite the heat, gooseflesh pebbled Pellin’s skin. While the voice was undeniably Elieve’s, the cadence and diction of the words were alien, had never had a part of the girl’s experience.
“Who are you?”
“So young.” Elieve’s voice carried a smile with it. “And so ignorant.”
“Are you the curse of the Maveth?” Dukasti asked.
Soft laughter, breathy and mocking, came from Elieve’s mouth. “So, your race is equipped with some knowledge after all. Over the centuries, the few who’ve stumbled into my domain have exhibited no awareness of me other than a child’s fear of the dark.” More laughter. “Tell me, what else do you know?”
Pellin considered not answering. The risks were unknown, but no less great for that. A chasm loomed at his feet. In the end, that same measure of risk demanded he seek guidance from the southern Vigil.
“Dukasti, has anyone ever returned from the Maveth and spoken with the Vigil?” he asked.
A stir shifted the blanket, as if Dukasti had shaken his head. “No, not in my experience or any of our writings.”
Pellin mused while the storm raged. The voice that had spoken through Elieve seemed content to wait. In the end, even with seven hundred years of experience, he was too short-lived to foresee the consequences of his decision. Even if Elieve’s vault offered access to the southern evil, Allta should be more than a physical match for the girl, but what the evil might learn of them and how it could be used were impossible to know.
What would Cesla have done? Pellin laughed, struck by the absurdity of the idea, and he rejected it.
What should I do? Guide me, Aer.
“You have been imprisoned for a very long time,” Pellin said finally, “with nothing but the rhythm of the desert to keep you company and the occasional stray man or woman to offer you an outlet for your vengeance.”
“Well laid,” the voice replied. “But perhaps that stroke landed by chance. Come, human, give me some token that you hold wisdom.”
“To what end?” Pellin asked. “What can a prisoner without hope of freedom or redemption have to offer me in exchange?”
Laughter wore the trappings of Elieve’s voice, coarse as the sand beneath them. “Perhaps our conversation is nothing more than the longing of the lonely seeking to relieve his solitude?”
“Then you could surely have engaged in such with the few who have wandered into your domain,” Pellin said, “instead of breaking their minds.”
“Would you deny the condemned interludes of distraction from their eternal imprisonment?”
Now, the voice from Elieve’s mouth spoke of itself in plural terms. How many prisoners were there? “Distraction?” Pellin asked quickly to cover his shock. “That is how you regard the images of Aer?”
Laughter shook their makeshift tent. “Images of Aer?” Elieve’s voice scaled upward in its mirth. “I thank you. By bringing this vessel to me, you offer a greater amusement than the simple breaking of—as you put it—images? You poor insects. You’ve lived with your fallen state for so long you no longer realize the height from which you descended.”
Pellin’s heart thundered within his chest with fear and the thrill of discovery. Beside him, Dukasti sat as still as if he’d become part of the desert. Pellin prayed his intuition was correct. If not, his next question might serve to end the conversation. “Were the Fayit so very lofty, then?”
“You are nothing,” Elieve answered. Pellin kept himself from exhaling in relief. “You grub like ants in the dirt, believing your hills of rock and stone to be accomplishments, all the while ignorant of the ones who preceded you. Fools!” The voice turned angry. “We were gods. The heavens and the engines of creation itself were within our grasp.”
“Until i
niquity was found in your hearts,” Dukasti said.
Elieve jerked as if she’d been struck. “Do you think your definitions or constraints could possibly apply to us?”
“Do they not?” Pellin asked, desperate to keep Elieve talking. “Even the Fayit must have lived by moral precepts—else how did you come to find yourself imprisoned?” He took a breath and exhaled it slowly, striving to seem casual. “What transgression placed you in your prison of aurium?”
Instead of responding in anger, the being using Elieve’s voice evinced a measure of surprise. “Ah? You come to me with words of power on your tongue, little one, though we knew it under a different name. I sense in you some measure of intelligence, something higher and nobler than those few pitiful gnats whose minds I’ve broken over the long centuries of my imprisonment. Your mind is inquisitive, and though it lacks the perfection of the Fayit, there is much I could teach you. The knowledge of the Fayit could be yours.”
Deep within Pellin a part of him leapt, frantic at the offer. Before Cesla had undertaken to break the first commandment, before his brother had delved the Darkwater, Pellin had spent his time in the libraries of the world, but here was an offer of knowledge beyond expectation or imagining. The air, thick within the closeness of their space, became even more difficult to breathe.
He was not young, but he had avoided the profligate use of his gift that had aged Elwin to the point of death in the last ten years. If he husbanded his efforts, he would live for another two or three hundred years. What might he learn in that time? What wonders could he glimpse? He leaned forward.
“Merchants always put the best side of the melons forward,” Mark said softly.
The spell broke, and the temptation passed, but Pellin grieved the emptiness it left behind. Still, the conversation had to be played out. “In our diminishment,” he said, “we have a saying that ‘knowledge is grief, but wisdom is power.’ What price would you exact for this gift?”
Elieve laughed once more, but within the confines of their improvised tent, it sounded forced, desperate. “None,” she said. “You have only to come to me here, with this one or one like her. As recompense for relieving my solitude, I will tell you whatever you wish to know.”
Again, temptation clutched at Pellin, but he knew himself too well. Then the sound of the storm faded, and he felt himself freed. “Perhaps we will talk again,” Pellin said. With one hand, he whipped the blanket away and a shock of sunlight blinded them. Elieve wailed where she sat enclosed within the grip of Allta’s arms, her voice keening the loss of darkness until it faded entirely.
“It’s bright,” she said in her own voice. She covered her eyes with her hands.
“Thank Aer for that,” Pellin said. He put his hand on her head in blessing.
Dukasti nodded, standing against the weight of sand that had accumulated around them during the storm. “Perhaps, if Aer wills it, we will survive the march to Igesia.” The sun, no longer blocked by the sand and dust, beat at them with the force of a smith’s hammer.
Chapter 40
Thick smoke ascended from Dukasti’s pitch-covered torch to paint a black smear against the sky, like a forewarning of disease. Collectively, they scanned the horizon in all directions, searching for Igesia’s response.
“The longer it takes him to see our signal, the farther away the sanctuary of Oasi is,” Dukasti said.
Pellin nodded. What Dukasti hadn’t said was what they would do if they were still too distant from Oasi for Igesia to see their signal at all. There was no need to say it, of course. If they couldn’t attain Oasi in what remained of the day, they would die.
“I see dust,” Elieve said, pointing.
“That’s good,” Mark encouraged, “but we’re looking for smoke.”
“Dust?” Dukasti asked. “The storm should have scoured the air.”
“There,” Elieve said.
Pellin shifted to look, scattering droplets of sweat into the sand at his feet. Dukasti sighted along her arm, squinting against the glare. “It’s faint.”
Allta nodded. “And it’s headed our way. Horses.”
The plume continued to approach and a few moments later two riders crested the dune to the southwest of them—leading a train of horses. “I know these men,” Dukasti said. “They are the yaqiza, the guards for the Honored One.”
“Were they expecting us?” Pellin asked.
“No,” Dukasti shook his head. “I mean, yes, they knew we were coming to Oasi, but that doesn’t explain the horses.” He looked at Pellin, his expression inscrutable. “There are too many.”
Within minutes the guards had covered the distance and stood before them. “Greetings, friends and strangers alike,” the man in front said. Except for his coloring, he could have been Allta’s twin. “We are commanded to see you to Igesia.” The guard nodded toward the mounts. “With haste.”
They mounted and headed back over the dunes. The other guard, only slightly less imposing than the leader, rode close to Pellin, offering water. Pellin unstopped the leather skin and poured, though the bouncing stride of his horse caused him to spill half of it down his shirt. The spots of fatigue swimming at the edges of his vision receded.
“Thank you,” he said.
The guard accepted the skin with a smile. “The desert is a beautiful, but cruel companion, even for those accustomed to the southern sun.”
Pellin nodded. “Sometimes such a companion is necessary company for a time. In the far north, they say the same of the bitter snows of winter.”
The guard’s eyes, an azure that spoke of water rather than the sky, widened. “Truly? I have heard of such a thing, though it is difficult to credit.” He smiled. “I am Rafiq, Eldest One.”
They crested a dune that stood a bit higher than the rest and came in sight of Oasi. It was smaller than Pellin had expected, but in its midst, he could see a thick clump of palm trees that signaled the presence of water. He could just make out a small building shrouded by their foliage, its walls as white as effort could make them. Men, dressed in clothes that matched those of their guards, worked to remove thick hides from the grates covering the windows.
They descended, the horses quickening their pace at the sight of water and rest. When they dismounted, Igesia’s guards posted at their sides, weapons drawn.
“What is the meaning of this?” Dukasti asked. “Do you not recognize me, Rafiq?”
He nodded from his place beside Pellin, but the weapon remained in his hand with the point still tilted toward Pellin’s midsection. “Of a surety, Watchful One. The Honored One will explain.”
In the aftermath of the storm, a breeze wafted through the main room of the building. The center of the floor cradled a man whose appearance served to make Pellin seem almost young by comparison. Wrinkles and fissures had contrived to turn his face into a living parody of withered fruit, and bits of stubble, white as snow, littered the creases of his chin, struggling into view from beneath the thick cloth that served as his head covering.
But his voice cackled with glee when Pellin entered, and he motioned them all forward with a trembling wave of his hand. “Come. Come, my friend. You have tidings for me—yes?”
Pellin nodded and took a place on the carpet opposite Igesia. “And questions, Honored One.”
“Ah,” Igesia laughed. “And you’ve brought my heir with you,” he said with a nod toward Dukasti.
“Me?” Dukasti shook his head in denial. “I am the youngest of us, Honored One.”
“Yes, yes, and still impetuous,” Igesia said, “but Aer and circumstance do not bow to the traditions or dictates of men.” Without bothering to explain further, he motioned for Mark and Elieve to sit next to Pellin. “Let me look at you, young ones. Ha. The fig desires to view the apples.” He smiled. “This one is a bit green yet,” he said as he looked at Mark. He turned to Elieve, growing serious though his voice remained light. “And this one has a spot.”
The guards moved toward Elieve with the blurring speed of
the gifted, and thin cries came from her as she clutched Mark’s arm.
“Did I tell any of you to move?” Igesia snapped in his old man’s cackle. “Withdraw. Now!”
“Honored One,” Rafiq demurred, “your life and safety are in our care.”
“If you think so,” Igesia said, “then you know nothing of Aer. Perhaps He does not want me to be safe, Rafiq.” His head shook on the end of his neck. “Look outside if you still doubt. There is still an hour of light left to us. You’re frightening the girl.”
When they withdrew, he motioned to Elieve. “Come, my child. Come here.”
Pellin thought she might refuse. Frightened, she would hardly concede to leave the protective circle of Mark’s arms, but with hesitant movements she inched forward until she came within Igesia’s reach. Gently, as though she might bound away, he brought her into his embrace, his hands resting upon her head.
Pellin leaned forward in expectation. Igesia’s delving would only take a few seconds. Most of Elieve’s memories had been destroyed twice over, and the black scroll of her vault lay near the surface of her mind. But a minute went by with Igesia making no move to break the embrace, and Elieve seemed as content in his arms as in Mark’s.
Finally, at the moment alarm dictated that Pellin order Allta to pull her loose, Igesia’s hands slid from her head to rest on the cloth of her shirt, breaking the delve. “Such a story deserves to be heard more than once,” he said.
“Go to your companion,” he told her, “before he becomes jealous of an old man.” He bussed Elieve on the cheek with a cackle and shooed her away. “Her presence explains much, but not all, my friend. In my contemplation of the desert I have seen hints of the evil power entombed there, the corruption beneath the sand and wind that takes any who let darkness fall upon them. There is knowledge to be gleaned from the absence of life, and my reveries have allowed me to find the edge of its virulence. For years, it has not shifted by so much as a grain of sand. Yet during the storm I beheld a change, like the tiger coiling for the kill, as if the evil in the desert had cause to hope.” He nodded toward Elieve. “There are traces of it in her mind, a suggestion of the deep places of the desert a woman of the north should not have.”
The Wounded Shadow Page 30