by Jean Johnson
She stared at him for a moment, until his meaning sank in: he wanted her to kiss him. Grinning, Arasa reached up, cupped his cheeks, and pulled his mouth down to hers. It had been quite a while since she’d last had the time to spare for such things, but she hadn’t forgotten how to kiss a man. He certainly didn’t have any problems returning it, either, wrapping his arms around her within moments and nibbling on her lower lip.
Unsure if it was just desire for the mage that flared through her veins or a combination of relief and desire, she pulled back after a moment. He let her go with a touch of reluctance, but didn’t try to cling. Well, not exactly; he left his hands resting on her waist. Licking her lips, Arasa hoped the light from the kitchen wasn’t bright enough to point out the flushing of her cheeks. “As I said…thank you.”
“May I at least know the problem I solved for you?”
Arasa cocked her head. “Are you trustworthy? Because otherwise, I’m not going to reveal any of my secrets. They’re my own business, after all.”
Releasing her so he could dig into his satchel, he fished out the Truth Stone again. “I am not inclined to give away secrets for gossip or money. Which means I’m mostly trustworthy. Provided the secret isn’t something that would threaten to harm me, of course.” A display of the stone showed that his words were true; conditional, but true. Elrik slipped the piece of marble back into his bag. “So, are you going to tell me?”
She did owe him for helping her solve the riddle. “I have a problem. I have to figure out who was born first, my twin sister or me, so that we can settle a family dispute. Our father said we had to come back with proof, otherwise he couldn’t assign our inheritance to the right daughter. She went off in one direction, and I went in another.”
“How so?” Elrik asked, leaning back against the wall again.
Arasa shrugged. “Her research led her into the laws of the Empire, mine into its customs and legends. I don’t know what she found, if anything, but I found a reference to a situation wherein the inheritor acquired the legacy by making a pilgrimage from ‘the Womb to the Heart,’ to quote the old text. I guessed ‘the Heart’ meant the Heart of the Empire, the capital city of Adanjé-nal, but the term Womb isn’t used in the Flame Sea to describe anything anymore. It might’ve been used back at the beginning, but the definition had been lost somewhere along the way. So I started traveling, hoping that I’d find a reference in records kept elsewhere…and that’s when I heard about a ‘Womb of Tarden,’ while I was traveling through the Kumré region, here, albeit in a town lower down the slopes of the Frost Wall than this…place.”
“The edge of civilization?” the mage quipped, humor in his tone. “Yes, it would make sense for the Womb in question to be found in Ijesh, chief temple-city of the Empire, if it deals with a matter of Imperial custom and law. I’ve never been there, but I understand it’s a long way from here.”
“About three hundred sixty selijm from here, yes. That’s over a month’s journey on foot, though it’s only three or so weeks on horseback. I’m very glad I won’t have to walk all the way from the temple of Tarden, which would be even farther away,” she admitted candidly, relief in her voice. “As it is, Ijesh is a day’s walk from Adanjé-nal. Even to make that much of a pilgrimage is going to be a literal pain in the foot. I honestly didn’t know how I’d be able to walk across the whole length of the Inner Desert, but I knew I had to try.”
“You don’t look sedentary,” Elrik observed dryly. “How do you get around, if you don’t walk?”
“To make a pilgrimage,” Arasa enlightened him, “one must walk barefoot and weaponless. That much of the instructions were clear. For all the Heart of the Empire is in hard-desert, there are still patches of softer soil…and that means sand-demons.”
“Weaponless? In sand-demon territory?” he scoffed. “Who came up with that stupid rule? Barefoot is idiotic enough!”
“According to the legends, Djin-Taje-ul, Herself. Mother of Creation. Since it’s the only way I’ve found to resolve the issue, I’ll just have to figure a way around that part…so long as I do it barefoot and weaponlessly, of course,” she muttered.
“What about magic? If someone were to craft you a protective spell for your feet?” Elrik offered.
She considered it. “I don’t know. I’d have to double-check the legend, but given that I found the information for the pilgrimage in the record halls of Ijesh, it’s not out of my way to go and check, since I now have to go all the way back to the ‘Womb’ of the Empire for my starting point.”
“How did you end up in this question of who came first, anyway?” he asked her next. “I thought twins came out one at a time, the same as any other birthing.”
“Our mother died in childbirth,” Arasa told him quietly. “Midbirth. We weren’t cooperating and coming out quietly, and the Healers discovered she had torn and was bleeding on the inside. But they didn’t know that until after it was too late. They had to cut her open to extract us before it was too late for us, and lifted us out together, since our umbilical cords were tangled up together. Once they got us separated out, Father had us named one at a time…but there is some doubt as to whether a naming is what makes someone first born, or if it was being drawn out of our mother’s body and how to define that, or if it was the position of the one closest to coming out the correct way, had our mother survived.”
“It seems like a rather large fuss to go through, just to settle an inheritance. Can’t you just come to an agreement over who gets what, or flip a coin?” Elrik inquired.
She shook her head. “There’s magic tied up in the inheritance. It has to be the firstborn child. The legend I found said that that the firstborn must ‘walk from the Womb to the Heart in pilgrimage,’ and they would be known as the inheritor by the proof of their success. That means I have to return to the center of the Inner Sea, find my sister, and persuade her to take a barefooted walk with me, to see which one of us is worthy.
“I mean, if it were up to me, I’d have flipped a coin ages ago and saved us all the trouble,” she admitted with a rough sigh and a touch of her chest. “I could accept the inheritance as firstborn and try to do my best with it, or step back and let my twin handle the matter and be content to just advise her from time to time on how to manage it, should she seek any recommendations from me. I could be just as content finding a lesser niche for myself in the, ah, family business. A manager of some aspect of it.”
“Is that family, as in kin? Or Family, as in Am’n?” Elrik asked her shrewdly. “Not many Shijn-Clans have holdings large enough to need submanagers.”
“Not many, but some do,” Arasa returned calmly, hedging around the question without answering it definitively. She glanced at the doorway; only the sounds from the kitchen could be heard. “I think it’s safe for us to go back in again.”
“Tell me…if this inheritance is that important, and if you can get away with using magic to protect yourself…would you be interested in hiring me to do the job?”
Elrik’s question surprised her. She blinked at him. “Why? I’m headed back to the Heart of the Empire, which is a very long distance from your profitable niche, here.”
“There’s an Academy at Ijesh,” he said, his tone somewhat diffident and reserved. “It’s said to be the best of all the Mage Academies. I’ve never had a reason good enough to travel that far from the Frost Wall—as you say, my niche is profitable so far—but I would like to go there some day, to further my craft. It would be like a hire-sword wanting to go to the Imperial Salle in Adanjé-nal. I don’t even know if I’d be good enough for the teachers at Ijesh to bother with, but I’d like to try. And as your people say, when Djindji-Taje, Goddess of Luck, offers you Her Right Hand, only a fool wouldn’t grasp it.”
He had a point. Without his help, Arasa not only would have been a few coins poorer for that false map, but also would have found herself deep in barbarian lands without any clue of where to go. Lady Luck had touched her with that Right Hand, with this man
’s timely presence; it was best if she returned the favor, or risk a whap from the Left. Smiling, she offered her hand. “Why not? Traveling alone gets rather boring, anyway.”
Elrik didn’t take the offered palm. Instead, he cleared his throat. “Well, then…we need to discuss my fee. I have some funds set aside for traveling, but a little income to supplement the journey would be nice. Say, a retainer fee in advance for my services? Nothing much, in case there turns out to be a prohibition against magic…but if nothing else, I suppose I could walk beside you, and stab any sand-demons that burrowed too close to you. I’m not the one who has to make a barefoot, weaponless pilgrimage, after all. There’d be a small charge for that once we get there, if you don’t mind me being mercenary about it, but lessened by the cost of the retainer fee.”
His audacity made her laugh. “No, I don’t mind. You have a right to make a living. And I didn’t read anything against there being any companions on the pilgrimage, though I should double-check that as well. Would a Moon a day on the journey there be sufficient to retain your services? Plus a bonus for any services rendered at the end of the journey, proportioned to the deed in question.”
Wrinkling his freckled nose, Elrik considered the offer. “I suppose that’ll do. It’s a field-laborer’s wage, and not befitting the complex, costly services of a mage…but it would get me to the Academy. And to the fabled city of Adanjé-nal. If you’ve been to Ijesh, did you also visit the capital? I’ve heard stories about its wonders. Buildings as tall as cliffs, waterfalls cascading everywhere, the Great Dome of the Imperial Hall…”
“I’ve been there. You’ll have a chance to see it for yourself, since that’s where my kin live. In fact, if you can help me resolve my family’s dilemma, one way or another, I’m sure they’d be happy to host you while you were in the area, as a thank-you for your assistance.” She flashed him a mischievous smile. “That’ll help save on the cost of an inn, which can be rather expensive in the capital. Deal?”
“Deal.” Now he clasped hands with her, accepting the bargain. “Shall we go inside and risk a meal together? I’m afraid all I have otherwise is journey bread.”
“So long as it’s been cooked thoroughly, I think we could risk it,” she agreed, smiling. “You can tell me about your adventures in Aben-hul while we eat. I’ve never gone there personally, but my twin has.”
Returning to the tavern, they commandeered a table in a corner and started talking. It was the dirty looks and grumbles from the sleepy patrons who were staying in the common room overnight, wrapped up in their cloaks wherever they could stretch out, that finally broke off their conversation some time later. Arasa found herself reluctant to stop talking with Elrik; he was both intelligent and widely educated, yet not full of his own self-importance. Barbarian or Imperial, that was a rare quality in a man. His politeness was also appreciated, for when she reluctantly rose, he gestured at the table they had been using.
“Why don’t you sleep up here? I can take one of the benches nearby.”
She smiled at the offer. “Actually, I’m sleeping out in the stables, tonight.”
His coppery brows rose at that. “Now, why didn’t I think of that? Do you think they’d rent me room in the hayloft, too?”
“I’m sleeping with my horses, not in the hayloft. But I’ll meet you back here for whatever passes for breakfast.”
“Ah. Then I’ll walk you to the stables,” he offered, rising to join her. One of the nearby travelers grumbled a little louder before resettling on his own table. Holding a finger to his lips, Elrik escorted her outside without further protest. The stable-yard was in some ways larger than the tavern, since it was designed for modest-sized caravans of goods being transported over the passes. Like most of the local buildings, the barn was built of wood, not brick or stone. It made Arasa nervous about the possibility of fire, but the two lanterns providing a soft light were carefully enclosed within panes of glass.
It was easy to pick out even in low light which horses were hers; none of the others’ backs topped the sides of the stalls, but hers did. Their pale palomino backs stood out against the darker browns of the boards, too. Elrik stared at them, green eyes wide, then stared at her as she opened one of the stall doors, slipping inside to join her chief mount, who had been placed in the one loose-box in the barn. There was plenty of hay heaped in the corner for her to sleep upon, and tall enough that, even accidentally, her steed wouldn’t be likely to step on her.
“Those mountains are yours? How do you even get up onto one?”
“With lots of practice,” she chuckled, rubbing the mare’s flank. “This one is Thunder; that one is Cloud, and the one on the other side is Lake.”
“They all look alike to me,” Elrik muttered. “You’re rather brave, sharing a stall with one of them. Aren’t you afraid of being stepped on?”
“They’re very well trained. And sleeping with them on hand to protect me is good self defense for a woman traveling on her own. Even if I do get tired of the smell of hay and horse at night,” she quipped dryly. Thunder nudged her with a long golden nose, whuffling horse-breath down her chest. Arasa scratched around her crest.
“Ah,” Elrik pointed at a dark brown mare off to one side. “My horse—singular—is in that stall over there. Juniper. She’s half mountain pony, so her legs are short, but she’s sturdy and friendly. So long as we don’t go too fast, she should be able to keep up with your ladies.” Elrik wanted to linger, but knew he shouldn’t impose too much. “I’ll, ah, bid you good night, and see you at breakfast, then.”
“Good night,” Arasa agreed. She watched him leave, then settled down into the hay. Disappointment at seeing him go was tempered by the thought of seeing him again in the morning…and for the next month or so, on the journey back to Ijesh. That thought pleased her. Not only was he intelligent, funny, and good at both speaking and listening, she found his pale, freckled skin and coppery-red curls exotic.
Most everyone in the Flame Sea was a heavily tanned blond, their hair and skin matching the color of their homeland. There were darker-haired people, which was somewhat exotic, but not terribly uncommon. Usually, they were foreigners, or descendants of foreigners. Redheads, though, were rare, and freckled redheads even more unusual. Such skin tended to burn easily, or so she had heard.
She hoped he had some spell or ointment to protect his pale skin from the desert sun. It might be early autumn and thus not the worst time of the year to be crossing the expanse of sun-broiled sand known as the Inner Sea—so-named for its slowly shifting dunes and shimmering heat waves—but it wasn’t the best time, either. Summer anywhere in the Empire, other than the cooler climate of the hills of Kumré, the region bordering the Frost Wall, was not the best time to travel. At least not during the daytime. There was a very sound reason for calling her homeland the Flame Sea.
Two
Three weeks. Elrik had been traveling with Arasa for three weeks now, enduring the thankfully lessening heat of midday as autumn progressed, though it meant the nights were correspondingly colder. The air around them was warm enough to cause heat shimmers and trickles of sweat, but whenever he thought about the chance of being with her intimately, shivers of anticipation, fear, and desire prickled down his spine. Three weeks was enough time to become fascinated with the woman, even infatuated. Ever respectful, since she hadn’t behaved with anything above a warm sort of friendship so far, but he was drawn to her all the same.
He hadn’t noticed her eyes at first, since they had initially met in a lamp-lit tavern. They were taupe, a light grayish-beige, bland, yet undeniably unusual. He’d heard that some Imperials had odd, desert-hued eyes, but this was the first time he had actually seen such a thing. Her hair was pale even for a desert-dweller, platinum-blond and almost white. Most of the time she wore it wrapped up in her turban, but she unbound it each night and morning so she could unbraid and brush out her rib-length locks, then replait them again to keep them tidy while riding or sleeping.
Her soft wa
ves were very different from his own vigorous, crinkly, coppery curls, though the lengths were about the same. If one didn’t stretch out one of his locks, that was. Stretched out, his hair would fall below his backside. She had touched his hair a couple of times and blushed, muttering something about just being curious, but it gave him hope that she was interested in him. But he didn’t press beyond a few touches, a hug, and an occasional, brief kiss.
Elrik wanted more, much more, but for one, she seemed the reserved type. For another, they were now firmly in the desert. The hot, dusty, gritty desert. Except for at night, when it became the cold, dusty, gritty desert.
Even if there weren’t a threat of sand grains getting everywhere, should they engage in further intimacies, there were sand-demons to worry about, which meant taking turns resting and guarding against the beasts. The scaly creatures literally swam through the sand and their sting was quite toxic, inducing paralysis. Regular steel wouldn’t kill them, either; it would hurt them, but their wounds healed unbelievably fast.
Rumor had it they were the remnants of a terrible, ancient magical war, and thus had been enchanted to be difficult to slay. Only silver could leave lasting harm, and only a silvered blade could dispatch the tough little beasts. Most everyone in the Flame Sea carried a silvered knife at the very least for that reason, while others carried silvered swords, or silver-tipped spears that could double as walking staffs.
He didn’t carry a sword, but he did have a mage-staff with a recessed silvered steel spike that could be spring-triggered at one end. But neither swords nor staves were easy to use when engaged in amorous activities. And when they did pass through a city on their journey north, she continued to sleep in the stables with her horses. He didn’t want to offend her by pressing the matter too much, but it was rather frustrating not to be able to find either time or opportunity to coax her into a decent bed.