“Yes,” he said. “It will.” He walked past her and then turned back. “Do not worry, Iyana Ve’Ran. I may not seek out the Eastern Dark’s war, but it will find me, and I fear it will come to the same end. I’m on the same wheel he is. All that remains is to see which way it turns.”
He raised his chin, indicating the tree she sat beneath. “You come here seeking power and judging it, but you’ve already sent it out into the World. Your Everwood blades are out there even now, hunting the rest of my kind.” He regarded her, and now it was she who felt judged. “The Landkist may be a gift of the World, but there’s no way to know for sure. Power is power, Iyana, no matter its form.”
She thought of Linn and the power she carried. The old man turned to leave, but paused once more at the doorway. “You may take what time you like,” he said. “They won’t have noticed.”
“You underestimate their concern,” she said, feeling insulted.
“No,” he said. “I have enjoyed our talk. I would like to share as many days of conversation with you as I have with your captain. A bold man, but not without virtue.”
Iyana scoffed. “We’ve been here three days. How much could you know of him?”
A smile from the shadows. “Time is a power too, Iyana. Fickle and flowing like a stubborn stream.” He turned and raised a hand toward the Everwood tree, and his eyes went black. As she watched, the light that had dimmed from the alcove brightened. The Sage turned his hand over, and it brightened further still, and as she looked closer she saw the motes of dust slow and slow until they stopped. She stood and reached toward the beam. Her fingers passed through it, and the motes only moved when she brushed against them, like still drops.
The chamber seemed to release a breath she had not known it held, and the dust flowed freely. When she turned back, Pevah’s eyes had regained their color, though they were strained.
“A mighty gift,” she said, shaking her head. “A god’s gift.”
He did not deny it. “Gifts run out.”
With that, he left her with her thoughts, which swirled in the dust that would take a thousand years or more to bury the Everwood tree.
Karin gritted his teeth upon waking, tensing every muscle in anticipation of a pain that did not come. He exhaled, feeling the skin slide across the muscles of his back with only the slightest pull and no threat of tearing.
He sat up from his bedroll and examined his close surroundings. Despite the urgings of Iyana and Pevah to seek out a wider and less stifling chamber, he had grown used to his little alcove by the lake. He looked up, scanning the dark and sparkling stalactites overhead and the gap of filtered light that streamed in. It was a soft, white light. It was early, and Karin smiled, happy to be back to his usual self.
He rose and snatched his shirt—still damp from the night’s washing in the hot lake—and put it on as he stole out into the hall. There were no sounds but for the occasional sigh the water made against the black shoreline. Karin walked into the central cavern and smirked as he saw Iyana mixed in with the soldiers of the caravan, all of them strewn haphazardly about the charred stones below the spiral stair that served as a natural chimney stack. The merchants and the Faeykin had each chosen their own rooms farther in, away from the constant push and pull of the lake. For Iyana, it must have sounded like home. For the soldiers of the caravan, it was the largest and most defensible position.
There was no sign of Jes or Mial. They were likely up above, keeping watch for enemies—more likely getting away from the stale air of the lower caverns and the radiant heat that coated everything in mist. It was pleasant and cool in the first light of dawn, and the warm rocks beneath only seemed inviting when they were cooler than the high noon sun and warmer than the biting nip of frost that coated the dunes in the deep nights.
Of Captain Caru, there was no sign. Nor of Creyath. Nor of Pevah, their host, grudging or otherwise.
As he drew closer to the sleeping caravan, Karin saw Iyana’s brow furrowed, her lips forming a tight line. He sighed and cast about, looking for signs of the desert nomads and coming up wanting. A part of him knew it was strange to think of them like that. Still, comfortable and lived-in as this black complex was, it had none of the markings of home. There was no artwork. No permanent bedrolls or personal touches. No forgotten piles of tools, crates or supplies. This was a land of survival, and Karin knew that the people of the desert—dark and pale alike—were truly here to carry out some mythic purpose. The great charge they spoke of reverently without revealing what, exactly, it was.
They had been here for several days that had blended together, and yet, somehow, it all felt a lot longer. Karin had seen it in the captain’s face—the haggard look he carried as his constant attempts to pry what he wanted from the old man weighed heavier than the bronze that hung from the cord on his neck. He kept it hidden, these days, Karin noticed. He did not want others to see his guilt manifest. To see the fears of the expedition laid bare.
The thought had Karin peering westward, back down the dim tunnel from which he’d come. What could possibly have one of the last remaining powers of the world—a Sage of some power, even if he had yet to show it—so bothered? What did the Blood Seers seek out at the Midnight Dunes? What did the Sage of the Red Waste not want them to find? To unleash, that would keep him otherwise engaged lest he become embroiled in the War he might’ve played no small part in starting?
Karin and Mial had explored deep into the cavernous network by the Sage’s leave. It was a land of untold depth and breadth, with crystal-lined columns more common in the lower tunnels. There were steaming pools and smoky trenches, though none wide enough to fall into without a true attempt or an excess of clumsiness. He had walked the obsidian bridges the receding lake left bare in the nights, passing under the arches and wading through the shallows as the moon and stars lit the translucent stones the land wore as armor. It was beautiful, but already Karin felt his thoughts turning back to the sands. He felt the pull that had earned him his name. The pull to move, to go where he had never been. To see.
“Karin.”
He looked down to see Iyana wiping the sleep from her eyes.
“What time—?”
“Early,” he said in a whisper. Ket stirred beside her and one of the female soldiers murmured in her sleep.
Iyana’s eyes, murky upon waking, now took on that faint green glow as she stared at the shore and the white pillar that still shined its night light on the surrounding slabs. They flicked to Karin. She looked concerned, with that same tired glaze that had set into the captain like a rot. Karin thought it might have to do with that Sen fellow and made a note to speak with him about it, that fatherly fire welling in his gut, though Iyana had never been his.
“Where is the captain?” she asked, coming to stand. Her hair seemed too light to be disheveled, spilling down around her shoulders until she tied it back. She rolled up her canvas and blankets and stuffed them into a rucksack that was larger than any the soldiers carried, and Karin heard the ting and scrape of stone as the mortar, pestles and various mashings shifted within. Things she had no true need of, given her gifts.
“Another meeting with the patron of the establishment, I would guess,” Karin said.
“Not so.”
They both turned toward the stair and saw Pevah coming down, his robes barely touching the stone underfoot as he moved. The soldiers shifted sharply at the sudden sound and woke in various states of distress, but the old man smiled in that devilish way that worked as an apology. They rolled their eyes at him and set to unmaking the ramshackle camp.
“Pevah,” Karin said, dipping a slight bow of greeting. The old man nodded back, but Karin saw that Iyana frowned at the exchange. She had met with him two days before—spoke with him in one of the lower chambers. She brought Karin there the next day, showing him the Everwood tree beneath which they had sat, she and the Sage. She did not tell him what they had discussed. Whatever it was, it had left her colder than before. She now looked at the
old man as if he were something else—perhaps exactly what he claimed to be.
“The venerable captain is busy refusing my requests again,” the old man laughed. “He is above, waiting for his next chance to corner me and wring from me whatever it is he wants.”
Karin smiled tightly as Iyana did nothing of the sort. The men and women of the caravan considered the old man with guarded expressions. Some had taken to him, but none had taken to the way he spoke of Talmir. Karin saw it as familiar, even teasing. They would not abide either, even if they liked the man otherwise. They were aimless, Karin knew—waiting on the edge of something they did not understand. And each day, the nights grew longer, the Dark Months approaching like a rolling and unerring tide. And they were far from home.
Seeing their looks, Pevah smiled wide enough to show his teeth and swept his hands out in a disarming motion.
“The caves are protecting,” he said, looking up at the uneven ceiling far above. “But you lot are used to the open air of the Valley bowl, yes? Good. Did you hear the thunder in the night?”
Karin frowned. The old man spoke to them as if they were children. To him, perhaps they were. Still, the effect of his tone was mixed on the company.
“There was no storm,” Iyana said, her voice flat. He regarded her with those deep red-brown eyes, but his smile was fast returning.
“Not a storm, Iyana,” he said with a cluck and an upturned finger. He pointed above. “A thunder of hooves in the shallow sand.” Come to think of it, Karin had heard something in the deep night. He had mistaken it for a dream, or perhaps for some rumble from the vents and fissures in the earth far below.
“A herd,” Karin reasoned. Iyana looked at him with a concerned expression. Judging by the way the rest reacted, they were all thinking along the same lines. Seeing it, Pevah frowned and tilted his chin.
“What disturbs you about a herd of hammerhorns?” he asked.
“We ran into some to the east,” Ket said. He glanced at the others. “They were driven by some magic—a Landkist of the Emerald Road. They tried to kill us.”
“And did they succeed?” the old man asked without missing a beat.
Ket looked unsure how to answer, so he settled for a shrug.
“It seems to me they did not,” Pevah answered himself.
“Killed one.”
The voice came from the back and they turned to see Stav the merchant walking while rubbing the sleep from his eye. He fetched a pail from one of the shelves and drank water that had been sitting overnight. He spat unceremoniously, and Karin glanced back at the old man and saw a glint to those eyes.
“My uncle went down beneath the wagons,” Stav said without looking in their direction. He set the pail down with a clatter. “Hardly a joking matter.” He sounded as despondent as the rest looked, and Karin remembered the image of the man going down beneath the black wings and talons of the crows Brega Cohr had sent against them. He felt a swell of pity for the nephew he had left behind and even regretted his own dismissive feeling toward the pair. The young man tossed a wave at his back and withdrew, going back to the room he shared with his partner.
“A shame,” Pevah said, though Karin did not sense much regret in his tone. “But the news I bring is not of the somber variety.”
Footsteps, and Karin turned back the way the merchant had gone. From the same direction came Sen and the two Faeykin. They moved with grace, and though they had only just emerged, Karin thought they had been awake for some time. He wondered what they did in their meditations as they filtered into the chamber and picked their places from which to observe affairs they rarely involved themselves in. He wondered why they did not associate with Iyana, who was like them, and thought that perhaps it was she who had recused herself from their company.
“What’s so special about a herd?” one of the men asked.
“The hammerhorn bulls rarely come this way,” he said. “We have stretched our provisions, being here so long. It is a blessing. And, since you lot are content—and welcome—to join us, perhaps you’d like to see the land. Perhaps the First Runner,” he nodded at Karin, “would like to run with the guardians and bring down tonight’s feast.”
“Guardians?” Ket asked.
“The foxes,” Karin answered for Pevah, and the old man nodded.
“What’s the occasion?” Iyana asked.
“The occasion,” Pevah said, “is Sharing. First in company and later, perhaps, in common cause.”
“The captain will not stop asking until you agree to help us,” Iyana said, the words sounding like thrown stones in the echoing chamber.
The old man’s look changed, then. It was only for a moment, but it made Iyana twitch and even caused Karin to take a step forward, remembering the knife at his belt. Pevah’s eyes flicked his way and Karin paused, and then that wide smile returned to the old man’s features.
“Too much has been asked for in private,” Pevah said, accusing yet soft. “Too much has been said in small company.” He nodded up toward the surface. “My people have questions of yours. You have questions of them. A coming together is a beautiful thing, and it is best done over meat, in my experience.”
Karin glanced at the Faeykin. The red-haired woman grimaced and paled, while Sen looked blank, considering the old man like a spider considers a fly. Iyana, for her part, looked more suspicious of the man asking than the task he asked for.
“No takers?” he asked, preparing to turn. “No matter. Ceth will be enough for the task.”
“I’ll go,” Iyana said, stepping forward. Karin half expected laughter to greet the proclamation, but it seemed the soldiers of the caravan had learned quickly not to doubt her. At least, not openly.
“Very good,” Pevah said.
“Why would they be out here?” the old Faeykin, Courlis, asked. “The hammerhorn bulls. There is no grass here. No shrubbery. All I have seen is desert flowers, and hardly enough to support a group.”
Iyana winced as he said it and Karin frowned in confusion.
“It is the rut,” Pevah said. “There are no cows and no calves among them. These are the warriors of the tribe. The stoutest and the strongest. They come here once in a cycle to do battle, with the land more than each other.” He looked up, seeming wistful. “You can clear your conscience of the killing. The bulls are here for death. They welcome it. They seek it, and those too strong to find it will produce the next.”
Karin imagined the great gray beasts with their gnarled horns and scarred flanks. He imagined them and tried to look past the poisoned memory from the open road, and tried to see the majesty in it.
“Only a few should go,” Karin said. “I’ll join you, Iyana.” She smiled at him, her first such look of the day.
“Good, good,” Pevah said. “I must prepare things here. And to any staying behind, the children are already off gathering the wine in the southern tunnels, beyond the lake.”
“The wine?” Iyana asked.
“I saw no fruit in the caverns,” Karin said, frowning.
“You were not looking in the right places,” Pevah said. “There are many gems more than the moonlight, here.” He nodded toward the lake. “A trick of the Northmen. The fruit in the deserts is sweeter than the bitter roots they used at the top of the World. It is quite the nectar.”
A land of surprises, indeed. “And what of the rest?” Karin asked, thinking it strange the old man would permit the children to explore the reaches themselves. Then again, he knew better, as would their parents. “What do you require of us?”
Pevah smiled, delighted to be asked. He swept his gaze out to touch each of the Valley caravan.
“Above, my folk prepare for the Sharing,” he said, and Karin realized this was to be more than a simple feast. There was something of ritual in the act. A ceremony, of sorts. Perhaps the captain would get his answers in it. “They have the paint and the sashes. They prepare. Find them and speak with them until they speak back. It is good to make connections before the Sharing.”
>
The soldiers of the caravan looked to Karin, deferring to the First Runner in the absence of Talmir and Creyath.
Pevah sighed and shook his head. “Make friends,” he said, waving toward the stair. “Or wallow by stale ashes.” He indicated the black stain between the ring of stones they slept around. Then, to Karin: “The herd is not far. Ceth and his hunters will lead you. You should be back before nightfall.” He winked. “There should be some wine left.”
The soldiers dispersed, some quicker than others. Karin doubted if all would seek out the nomads on Pevah’s command. But some would. He could not count that anything but a victory, and thought that was the Sage’s intent. A part of him wondered if this ‘Sharing’ was a thing at all, or some recent invention of the old man his people would play along with.
Pevah moved past Karin and Iyana and past the Faeykin sitting on the shelves. He seemed to sag a bit as he did, his form shrinking, and Karin was reminded how tall he had appeared. He must be going to take what rest Captain Talmir would not afford him. Karin felt a strange swell of pity for the man, then turned his attention to Iyana.
“Now, then, huntress,” Karin said. “What weapon shall you choose for your first hunt?” The Faeykin moved toward the stair, following the departing soldiers. Sen tossed a blank look back at the pair and Karin met it, causing it to flit away like one of the birds in the nests above.
“Hmm,” Iyana said, tapping a finger to her chin. She glanced about dramatically, her eyes passing over spears, swords and a pair of bows that leaned against the arches. She spun back toward Karin, who was checking the blade at his belt and strapping his boots tighter. “I choose you as my weapon,” she said.
“I am no Everwood blade,” he confessed, feeling a pang as he said it that Iyana seemed to mirror. He placed a fist over his heart and swept a bow. “But I shall do my best … to find the herd, or to follow those who know it better. To fell one of the great gray beasts, or else to point out someone who can.” She laughed at him. “Come to think of it, I believe there is an Ember above. A good man to have on a hunt, I think.”
The Midnight Dunes Page 16