The Wanderer

by Wilder, Cherry;

  No one could speak; they stood in darkness. The desert night had come down, and pandemonium still raged beyond the dune. It lasted only a short time, then there was an uneasy silence broken by a series of thunderclaps. A voice whispered at Gael’s elbow:

  “That is the Afreet moving away!”

  She peered and saw it was Ali, the camel boy. Her eyes became accustomed to the darkness; she saw Blayn, unharmed, and his white horse, clearly visible in the night. She saw a crowd of fugitives, most of them men and women of the Southland. They began asking questions and Ali answered them as best he could in the common speech. The Afreet was an evil spirit that attacked caravans. An Afreet could buffet human beings in this way, could lift things up, like the whirlwind. An Afreet could be called up by a magician, and it could be put down if one knew the right words.

  One of the guardsmen had torches, which were lit with a tinderbox.

  Captain-General Florus said uneasily:

  “Hem Blayn, I must go back and see what damage has been done.”

  “Go along,” said Blayn. “You, boy, will the demon come back?”

  “Afreet sometimes come back,” said Ali. “Stay here, lord. Make camp here. Go back in daylight. The caravan will halt.”

  Florus and two other guardsmen still had their horses; he numbered off five more to follow him. Gael thought of Jazeel, parted from her between one word and the next. A pair of Eildon kedran, an archer of the Sarcassir, an old servant woman, all followed the guardsmen to return to the caravan. The rest made camp where they were, sharing their cloaks and eating cold lamb and oranges.

  Gael remained standing by the white horse and a second horse that had come by riderless. She thought guiltily of her good mare Azarel that she had left in order to find her lord. It had been her duty to bring him to safety. Perhaps for this sad loss, the Goddess had come to her aid. At last she moved up the dune a little and settled down to sleep.

  On the western slope where they had made camp, the rising sun blinded them when they woke. None of the guards Blayn had sent out during the night were returned. Gael, almost the first to wake, took a head count: seventeen Southlanders, including Blayn and herself. Three were guardsmen, one of them an older sergeant; there were twelve young kedran from the first household regiment, Kingfisher Company. Then the camel boy, Ali. Two horses. The sergeant was waking the kedran round about him. Blayn stood at the top of the eastern dune, looking back toward the road.

  “Maddoc!” he called. “Come up! Bring the boy!”

  She struggled up through the loose sand calling for Ali to follow her. Between the place where they had slept and the dim shapes that must be the caravan, there were tall, twisting funnels of sand, filling earth and sky. Ali turned to run, and she caught his arm.

  “Run!” he said. “Go … we must go!”

  “Is it the demon come again?” cried the sergeant.

  “Sandstorm!”

  The boy twisted from her grasp and fled down the dune. He paused only to point down a long shallow slope to a distant stunted palm and a short crumbled wall of masonry.

  “We must go there, we must run! It will take us!”

  The sand had begun to lift in a stinging curtain. Everyone ran. Blayn dragged his horse. Gael took the riderless roan. They ran through loose sand, came to a firmer footing and kept running. The air became thick. The risen sun was red; by the time they came to the tree and the edge of the ruined wall, the sun’s orb was almost blotted out. The party of Southlanders clambered over the wall and took shelter, urging the frightened horses farther down into a deeper curve of the wall.

  The sandstorm held them fast in the lee of the ruined wall for two days and two nights. They crouched under their cloaks, and sand crept, burning, into their boots, into their mouths, into the crevices of their bodies. Sandy morsels of food changed hands in the darkness, and their water bottles were contaminated with sand.

  Gael Maddoc smoothed her magic ring and prayed for help. She crept close to Blayn and spoke into his ear, urging him to use the sword Ishkar to summon the Swordmaker. He shied away from her as if he hated to be touched and ate the last orange.

  She returned to her place under the wall and tried to sleep. Her magic ring winked an eye, and she pried up a loose brick. In the small space underneath she found a leather pouch with six gold coins hung on a thong … the hoard of some priest of old time, she reckoned. Ali, the camel boy, had said this was an ancient temple. She fell into a dream of the Burnt Lands: she wandered with Jazeel by the Lakes of Dawn or reclined in a palace garden with fountains playing. Then, more puzzling, she dreamed she was flying high above all wide Hylor’s lands; more elevated even than the strongest flying bird, she saw the mountains, the lakes, the great inland sea, the Dannermere, and beyond it, the curving coast of the Western Sea, the dark forests, the yellow inland plains. Sparkling at the edge of her vision, beyond the western waters, was a green line she knew must be Eildon. At last, just before dawn, Ali woke her gently. The storm was over.

  “Mistress,” he said, “we must go to Negib’s Well.”

  “We must find the caravan again!”

  “Mistress,” he said, “behold!”

  Gael stood up, as the other kedran were doing, and in the grey light of morning she saw that the desert had changed completely. New dunes reared above them; there was no trace of the desert road or the first small dunes that had given them shelter.

  “The caravan is long gone,” said Ali. “The new road they are following could be two or three days further west.”

  Blayn of Pfolben was beside them now, in fine fettle.

  “What does he say, Maddoc?” he asked. “Will the rescuers soon find their way?”

  The kedran were muttering; a word came out of the sandy company, gathered in the light of dawn. Lost … lost … lost in the desert …

  Sergeant Freer cried out in a choked voice:

  “Check all water bottles! Whose duty with the horses?”

  Gael Maddoc walked along the line and came to the sergeant. He was sick, the breath rattled in his chest. He said:

  “It goes ill with me, Maddoc. What does the boy say?”

  “We must go south to an oasis,” said Gael. “It is a day, two days …”

  “The road?” he asked hoarsely.

  “Old road is gone,” said Ali. “The storm has found a new road.”

  He pointed and they saw the stone of an ancient causeway in the desert, leading south. Gael Maddoc sprang up on the wall and addressed the company.

  “We are the lord’s escort!” she said. “We must bring him to Negib’s Well on this new road!”

  Blayn came to her side and said:

  “I see you are all in good heart, kedran. Who has a drink for me?”

  She saw their faces, streaked with sand, brighten at his words and at his smile. Half a dozen water bottles were held up.

  Blayn mounted his white stallion. Gael set the Sergeant upon the roan horse and the two young kerns, Dirck and Hadrik, to bring up the rear. She walked beside the horses with the two ensigns, no older than herself.

  “Captain,” said the dark girl fearfully, “will we come to Aghiras?”

  “Better than that!” said Gael. “We will come to the Southland.”

  The way was hard, but everyone was in good heart. At night they sang songs of home around the campfire, and there was one kedran with a sweet voice who sang the old riding song “Pfolben Fields”:

  Through Pfolben fields we rode in summer,

  Rich golden fields, beside the river shore,

  Ride on, my soul …

  Ride on the wide world over!

  Bring me at last to Pfolben fields once more!

  When her singing echoed over the cold wastes, the kedran wept; Ali bade them save their tears. Gael sat a little apart from the rest and watched her lord. She did not trust his mood. She was glad when he took a liking to the best-looking girl—though the Kingfishers were all chosen for good looks—and let her ride a short way on his ho
rse. Blayn fretted at the water rationing; his boots gave trouble; he was badly sunburnt, as they all were, but he would not veil his face. The morale of the troop went steadily downhill; there were tussles over the last of the food.

  In three days they came to a smudge of green that was not another mirage: Negib’s Well. It was a disappointment to her; there was nothing but the well, two or three palm trees, some scrubby bushes, and a weathered palmwood framework, which Ali showed them how to cover with their cloaks, to make a tent. They drank deep, ate a few dates, and slept heavily.

  Toward morning, Gael was suddenly awake. Her ring winked urgently in the darkness of the tent. She knew the Swordmaker had come and that Blayn had gone out to meet him. She hastened out into the night and saw lights by the well.

  Zallibar the Swordmaker sat in shadow, dressed in the same black and gold robe in which she had first seen him in the bazaar. Blayn stood in the light of four torches, thrust into the sand. The Swordmaker seemed to be quite alone, without any retinue: no horses, no camels, only a small bale of woven stuff lying at his feet. She heard Blayn say:

  “ … and it will bear me to Aghiras?”

  “I swear it, Lord Blayn!” answered Zallibar.

  Gael strode up into the light.

  “Ah, Maddoc!” said Blayn. “The Swordmaker has come to take me back!”

  “How will he do that, my lord?” she asked warily.

  Then Zallibar gave her a darting glance from his deep-set eyes and extended a hand toward the bundle at his feet. It unrolled and she saw that it was a carpet, a good-sized, oblong carpet, with a design of leaves and flowers. In its center was a peacock spreading its tail: the colors, jewel bright, shimmered in the torches’ light.

  The Swordmaker gestured again, and the carpet rose up, floated upon the air a handsbreadth above the sand, then higher still, waist high, high as the torches. It circled about and Blayn, laughing, struck at it as it passed before his face. It came back slowly to its place and settled on the sand again.

  “The carpet will bear Lord Blayn safely to the palace of the Dhey at Aghiras,” said Zallibar, soft as velvet. “He can take ship to the coast of southern Mel’Nir.”

  “And the escort?” asked Gael Maddoc, looking at Blayn.

  “I must come out of this!” he said. “We’ve been in the desert for five days.”

  She stared at Blayn of Pfolben and saw him plainly at last. She was the one who had changed in this instant; he had always been the same, and she had been blind.

  “Gael Maddoc,” said Blayn, “there is not much time. The carpet must take me before sunrise. Of course it will take us both. Zallibar has said as much.”

  She looked at the Swordmaker and saw how he smiled at her.

  “Life is uncertain,” the Swordmaker said. “Many were lost in the sandstorm and the attack of the Afreet. In Aghiras there is a guard officer, Jazeel, who waits for you.”

  “I am glad he is safe,” she said. “Master Zallibar, is it possible to march from this place, Negib’s Well, to Aghiras or to the sea?”

  “Of course,” he replied, “but it is a harsh journey.”

  “My lord, do not leave your escort in this way!” said Gael Maddoc. She met his eyes; she was not begging.

  Blayn said nothing in reply; his face worked angrily. The Swordmaker spoke to him in a low voice, he stepped onto the magic carpet and steadied himself as it rose. When it hovered about four feet above the ground, he settled comfortably, cross-legged, with his sword Ishkar resting at his side. Gael ran forward and laid her hands on the carpet’s edge.

  “Hem Blayn,” she said, “for your honor, do not do this thing. Do not abandon these poor souls here in the desert. In the name of the Goddess …”

  “Don’t be a fool, Maddoc!” Blayn said tersely. “I must be saved. I am the Heir of Pfolben.”

  She could only shake her head and step back. There was a cry from the tent; Ali came out, and a few of the kedran came stumbling after him. The carpet rose higher, and they cried out and rushed up toward the torches. Blayn was whirled about the oasis and carried away to the northwest, far above their heads. Gael saw that it took a certain sort of courage to ride on a magic carpet. Now it was no more than a black dot in the dark blue sky of morning.

  “This is your doing!” she cried to the Swordmaker. “You would have him dishonored!”

  “You are very bold, Gael Maddoc,” said Zallibar, smiling. “The Lord Blayn has chosen his destiny, just as you have chosen yours.”

  Then he was gone. He made no movement, he simply vanished away and the torches were extinguished, leaving four smoking brands. The whole troop was awake now, crying out and questioning. The sergeant dragged himself from the tent, supported by the kern Hadrik.

  “Quiet!” shouted Gael Maddoc.

  She looked at them, rubbing sleep from their eyes. She looked to the north, and it was very dark. The endless waste spread out about them on all sides, and overhead the sky was just getting light.

  “Hem Blayn has left us!” she said. “He will be brought home by the magic of the Swordmaker of Aghiras.”

  They grumbled and a few wept. Lost, left alone … the lord taken by magic. One voice rose, angry and harsh: “The little bastard has left us all to die.”

  “I am still here!” said Gael Maddoc. “I am your captain. I am here to lead you on a harsh journey. I am here to bring us all home to the Southland. I swear by the Goddess that it can be done, and we will do it! Now, get more sleep. We will rest here for at least a day. Dismiss!”

  She turned and sat by the well, where the Swordmaker had been. The sergeant had himself brought to her side, and she beckoned Ali, the camel boy.

  “Brave words!” said Sergeant Freer.

  Gael Maddoc bent her head; she was close to weeping.

  “Mistress,” said Ali, “a caravan will come …”

  Far to the east, there was a tiny smudge of dust.

  “Is that good or bad?” she asked.

  “You will barter horses,” said Ali, “for camels and for food. Then we go …”

  “To Aghiras?”

  “To Seph-al-Ara,” he replied, “the town of the Zebbecks.”

  He flattened a place with the palm of his hand and began to draw a map.

  “First to the Fhadi Bakim, then to Four Palms, then to the Lion Rock, then by the Gulch of Souls, then to Rakhir …”

  There is a legend, one of the marvelous tales told in the courts of the Dhey of Aghiras, set down by the scribes from the story tellers of the market. It is the tale of Ali and the Blue Cohort. A camel boy fell in with a lost troop of warriors and guided them through the desert to Seph-al-Ara. These were tall women … pale skinned, as the story goes by Fhadi Bakim, though others at Rakhir will have it that the marchers were brown and well weathered. The leader was tall as an afreet, with flame-colored hair, and her name was Galmarduc. For many days they appeared, over the brow of a dune or in an oasis about sundown, all in blue tunics, outlandish cloaks, palm-leaf hats, and red boots. They had camels … or perhaps they had not … and at night they sang, weird songs echoing through the Gulch of Souls.

  It is certain in all versions of the tale that there was a whiff of magic about them and their journey. They found much treasure with the aid of a magic bracelet or a ring that housed a powerful genie. The desert took their image into itself: they may still be seen, and it is a sign of good fortune to glimpse them, coming wearily into Four Palms or threading the dry gulches east of Bakim. Sometimes the merchant caravans or a solitary traveler will find a scrap of blue cloth, a silver spur, or some other token of the Blue Cohort’s passing. By the Lion Rock there is a lonely grave with a strange inscription, where travelers leave offerings.

  A passing scholar once insisted it was the grave of a man, thus increasing the mystery, for these were female warriors, daughters of Ara, the Great Mother.

  At Four Palms, after roll-call (Brack, Chidderick, Dale, Dirck, she had the names by heart now … ) Gael Maddoc went prospecting with the m
agic ring, to cheer them up. Sure enough, it gave a sign by a certain bush. The dark ensign, Dale, scraped away the sand and found a coffer full of precious nutmeg and cinnamon. They waited. A caravan happened along, and they were able to purchase a third camel and more food.

  Long before the Lion Rock, it went very ill with Sergeant Freer (Dirck, Freer, Fildorn, Gruach), and they made a litter to carry him. His brave heart gave out halfway up the rock. He died in Gael Maddoc’s arms, having sent greetings to his wife and his comrades in Pfolben.

  “Go on, lass!” he whispered. “You are a true kedran. You will bring them home.”

  Dirck and Hadrik made his grave on the very top of the rock in an old carved hollow, perhaps the empty grave of some desert chief. They all set to work and brought great pieces of shaped stone to cover the grave, then carved the inscription with a broken knife: his name and rank, then Pfolben, Mel’Nir, and the year of the Farfaring, 354.

  On the long climb down the northern face of the rock, they came upon old dwellings set in the cliff and Ali would not enter them, for fear of ghosts. Gael Maddoc’s ring winked at a doorway and she went in with the Kerry sisters (Gruach, Hadrik, Kerry-Black, Kerry-Red). They dug down under the floor and found the greatest treasure.

  It was in an unpromising clay urn, and at first they thought it might contain bones … they did not wish to be grave robbers. Then a shard came loose at the base of the urn and they saw the glint of jewels.

  “Nothing ventured, Captain!” said Kerry-Black.

  She tapped the urn with the hilt of her sword and a mass of precious things spilled out upon the surface of the Lion Rock. Rings, bracelets, necklaces and chains … rubies, dim pearls that had lain so long in darkness, sapphires, jade, beryl, moonstones, a single diamond, larger than a pigeon’s egg. The troop came to gaze at the hoard.

  “We are all rich,” said Gael Maddoc, sadly. “We will carry the Sergeant’s share home to his widow and children. Let us go down and see how it goes with the camels.”