by Kim Wedlock
Rathen tended to all of the tribal's wounds, staunching the bleeding and cleaning away any potential infections. Then a fevered debate had ensued, one in which even Garon participated. None of them - except Garon - felt right abandoning the painted girl in the stark and dry grassland, even if her home was close by, but more importantly, no one was at all comfortable with the idea of keeping her in their company. As a mage, she had the potential to release the same destructive power from her fingertips as Rathen could, even if she was surely no older than seventeen, and given the savagery of the tribes as a whole, let alone the remote groups, there was no telling how she might react when she regained consciousness. Combined, the two points almost promised disaster.
They argued for almost an hour, during which most of them had changed sides at least three times, and one had stormed off. Then insults started to fly. It was only after Aria had ordered them with embarrassing maturity to behave like grown ups that they finally and reluctantly came to an agreement, and it was also, shamefully, her suggestion that they might be looked upon favourably if they tended her wounds and returned her safely to her people that decided it. The tribal was coming with them.
Laid in a small, conjured cart lined with blankets, the five shared the task of dragging her along, a job Aria set to eagerly even if she struggled, while one remained at the back to keep an eye on her should she begin to wake.
Tensions cooled, and swapping turns proved to be the most eventful points of the day. The terrain didn't change and they encountered no one along their way, hostile or otherwise, and though they spotted buzzards circling nearer to the mountains, there was no clue to their quarry.
It was mid-afternoon when Anthis took his turn to pull the cart, sending wary glances behind him while Aria kept watch - another important task she relished in. She walked alongside it, staring in scrutinous fascination at the young woman while asking questions that none of them could answer - why she was painted, why her skin was metal, why she wasn't really wearing clothes, and so on - and so she was the first to notice when the girl's eyelids flickered open.
She gasped in excitement, then roughly whispered "she's awake," giving a last-minute thought to trying not to startle her - though she'd startled everyone else with her initial response - but as the young woman's frost-blue eyes turned drowsily upon her, they still flashed with alarm.
She was awake in an instant, her eyes darting frantically about herself as the cart clattered to a stop, and before anyone had the chance to react, she launched herself up to flee or to attack. Fortunately, she didn't make it off of the pallet.
Doubling over, her breath snatched and body stunned, she dropped back down with a hiss.
"Don't try to move," Rathen said slowly and clearly as he knelt beside the cart, his expression softening to become as friendly as possible - a look none but Aria had ever received from him, and Petra a trace in Edam. But though the girl shuffled away to the edge of the cart despite his effort, her eyes coloured in panic and hand pressed tightly to her side, she made no new attempt to try to escape.
Gently, he took her free hand, a gesture the others thought both brave and strangely affectionate, though it was nothing more than a preventative measure. She flinched at his touch, but she didn't struggle. Clearly she understood her position, and she must have felt the magic within him as he had in her. Her eyes remained wary, but he saw a distinct intelligence within them which seemed to read him deeply. Or perhaps it was just the depth of their icy colour.
"You were attacked," he continued slowly, "but not by us. I've cleaned and tied your wounds, so you will be all right."
She continued to stare.
His brow twitched doubtfully. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Still she said nothing.
He sighed, but had expected as much. With his free hand concealed from her sight, he flexed his fingers into a binding spell. Her eyes dropped immediately to her own hands in alarm, but when she looked back up at him, there was a hateful recognition in her suddenly hard gaze.
"Sorry," he said with a less concerned tone as he rose back to his feet, "but it's for our safety. We're taking you back to your tribe, so just stay put - and speak up if we start heading the wrong way. None of us want to get lost." He turned around and reassumed the head of the group, the fretful eyes of the others trailing him all the way. "Let's go."
"What if she tries to cast a spell?" Petra asked in a hushed but frantic voice as she hurried up next to him.
"Well she's welcome to try, but I've numbed and bound her hands. She won't be casting a thing until I remove it - which I won't do until I'm sure she understands that we mean her no harm."
"Taking away her only means of defence may not have been the best way to do that..."
He cast her a doubtful glance. "You would rather I left it in tact?" He looked back to their flat and desolate heading and sighed glumly to himself. "Looks like this is going to be harder than we thought."
The grass had become even sparser over the course of the afternoon, and still not a cloud graced the sky. But even more disconcerting were the growing traces of sand beneath their boots and the fact that they'd almost reached the horizon. By the time they made camp that eternal evening, the drop in the land beyond was surely little more than an hour away, and there was no doubt that once they reached the crest, the desert would be sprawling out ahead of them. They could already feel its heat, the air warmer and drier with the passing of the mountains. No one dared a look to find out for certain.
But though their feet hurt and their minds were humming with boredom, no one was comfortable with stopping for the night. Even as they ate they sent doubtful, frequent glances towards their new travelling companion, and she had yet to make a peep.
"All she's done all day is watch us," Petra noted quietly as Rathen headed over to check her wounds. "She probably sees us as her captors - maybe even the reason she's hurt."
"She's not tried to run off yet, though," Anthis reminded her, watching the girl thoughtfully as he tore away a piece of bread.
"Because Rathen cast a spell over her hands. She's probably waiting for him to break it." She sighed heavily, feeling the eyes drilling into her back, and she couldn't help glancing around for the seventeenth time in five minutes. The girl looked away as she did so, shifting her sharp attention onto Rathen instead as he knelt beside her, announced his intentions and began unwinding her bandages. She watched him very closely, but there was more thought to her eyes than there had been earlier, as if her own mistrust was being very slowly replaced by curiosity for the fact that they had yet to mistreat her. Or perhaps she was simply plotting something.
Petra turned away and sighed again, shaking her head as she raised her waterskin to her lips. "I don't like this at all. I won't be getting any sleep tonight."
"She's one girl, since the harpies, someone's always on watch. She won't have the chance to cause us any trouble. My concern, however, is that we won't manage to smooth things over before we run into her tribe. I don't think it'll help matters if it looks like we've taken her prisoner..."
"I don't want to run into them at all. She might be 'one girl', but they won't be."
"I'm sure you can defend yourself if things turn sour."
"Against an opponent with a familiar weapon on fair ground, yes, but tribes use poisons. One scratch and we'll be foaming at the mouth, having fits and turning blue! And then they will eat us."
Anthis nodded with as much composure as he could muster while the colour drained from his face, and his eyes dragged back towards the girl as he considered how unfortunately accurate her apparent overreaction was. "I hadn't thought of that..."
"She's not dangerous."
Both looked down at Aria, who they had forgotten was sat between them, picking the crumbs of bread from her skirt, but just as Anthis was about to ask how she could be so sure, a new voice rose behind them, one guarded but coloured by a musical tone that immediately snatched their attention.
Rat
hen's eyebrows rose as he looked away from the tribal's lacerated skin to her hard and expectant expression. "You can..." He brushed it off and answered her question instead. "I helped you because it was the right thing to do."
"You seek something in return. A reward of some kind." Her eyes were as sharp as a harpy's, and only enhanced by their sweep of black paint.
He frowned, guilty, and resumed redressing the wounds. "You're only partly right. We seek no reward, just help." He glanced back up when she didn't respond, aware of her steady gaze, but it didn't trouble him as much as it seemed to the others. "My name is Rathen. That's Anthis, Aria, Petra, and over there is Garon."
She peered over as they stared back, but shortly disregarded them and fixed her thoughtful gaze back onto him. She paused for a long moment, chewing over a thought, then seemed to end her silent debate. "Eyila."
He hesitated. "Ay-la?"
"Ay-yee-luh."
"Ay-yee-luh."
She nodded, and he thought he saw the slightest, briefest whisper of a smile. He was quite probably mistaken, but he nodded and smiled in return anyway, much more openly. "Nice to meet you, Eyila." He then finished tying off the bandages and left to find her something to eat, hoping as he did so that it wouldn't harm their supplies to the point of running out before the far edge of the desert. It was a matter of pride that he didn't repeat any of Garon's mistakes.
But when he returned not five minutes later, her steely, unreadable attention was no longer nailed upon the group as it had been throughout every second of the day, but on the sun which was just about to disappear beyond the near horizon. He noticed the yearning desperation in her eyes, but said nothing about it. Instead, he knelt back beside her, set the bread in her lap, and took her immobile hands in his. "Don't do anything." He warned her in the most friendly way he could while still implying that he could, and would, stop her by any means he had to if she disobeyed.
But his words and threat slipped by; she only glanced at him, her eyes golden in the sunset, gave a fleeting and distracted nod, then looked back into the depths of the fiery indigo sky.
He frowned and followed her gaze, searching fiercely through the encroaching twilight with his every sense in case she was aware of something - or someone - that he was not. But he found nothing. Nothing and no one. Uneasily, he released the spell.
Whatever her concern, she eagerly accepted the offer of food. She snatched the meat and ate it more ravenously than he'd expected for not knowing what it was, and she displayed far fewer manners than even Aria did when they were at home. He tried to quell the turning of his stomach at the thought of the young woman tearing into human flesh with the same vigour, and he knew the others were thinking exactly the same thing as they watched, haunted, from the camp.
"I must ask you for something," she said after a few mouthfuls, her gaze not once breaking from the horizon.
"What would that be?" He managed to suppress a heave.
"I need to feel the wind."
He blinked, certain he'd misheard but too wary of insulting a tribal to risk asking her to repeat it.
She looked back at him when he took too long to answer. "I cannot meditate if I can't feel the wind," she explained patiently. "I need to sit over there. There are no plateaus here, but a weak current flows that way. It is the only suitable place."
"Meditate..." he nodded, pretending to understand. "And you just need to sit over there?" He looked to where she had indicated but it seemed no different to anywhere else, and try as he might, he saw not even a blade of grass twitch in the dusk light. Suspicion edged in.
"You do not trust me," she informed him plainly, even resentfully, "just as I do not trust you. But I am your prisoner, so I must ask permission. Will you permit me?"
He regarded her carefully and saw the burning desire in her eyes. It was a need too great for her claims, but his doubt tore him equally in two directions, and there was only one option he could choose if he wanted to win her trust. His jaw soon tightened in decision, though he second-guessed it immediately. "Finish eating. Once I've bound your hands again, you can go over there."
She nodded her acceptance. "Thank you."
The others watched in confusion as the young woman rose to her feet and Rathen escorted her fifteen paces or so away from where she had been, only to stop, sit back down in the rough grass and stare out at the sky. They looked at him quizzically as he rejoined them.
"She's meditating." As their bewilderment only deepened, Rathen simply shrugged, then looked purposefully towards Anthis. "Watch her. I've bound her hands again, she can't cast a thing, but she could still try to run and get one of her own to counter it. And we need her."
Anthis nodded his understanding and left to see to it, taking his many papers with him. Again, Rathen didn't miss the haste and abruptness with which he'd done so, even if there had been no reason for him to linger. He sighed to himself, but pushed it away before finally sitting down to eat.
For a long while, the only sound was that of Aria's knife sliding expertly through soft wood. She'd begun to whittle for the first time in weeks, returning to work upon what Rathen was increasingly convinced was a ghostly woman, and her dexterity with the blade continued to astound and alarm everyone else as they watched. But between cringing glances, their attention was persistently occupied by the presence behind them. Vigilant even while purposely facing away, their ears strained to hear anything or anyone that might be approaching in the creeping darkness, or for any sign of deception on her own part.
Finally, a whisper broke the silence, and from Petra's indecision to voice it, it was clear that the question was burning her mind. "What do you think?"
Rathen needed no elaboration. "I don't know," he confessed very quietly. "I can't get a read on her. She doesn't trust us, but she said that much herself, and I can't say I'm willing to turn my back to her." His tone became grave. "She has an understanding of her magic - to what extent, I don't know, but I'm quite certain she knows how to wield it..."
Petra stared towards her from the corner of her eye. "I can't believe there are mages among them."
"I knew it wasn't impossible - they're human, too - but I admit I'm still surprised. There can't be many..."
"Enough to teach each other, it seems."
"Though I'd wager most go uninstructed."
"Do you think she knows anything about the ruin?"
He frowned and chewed the inside of his cheek. "Maybe...but it might not help us if the tribes have the wrong understanding of magic."
"What do you mean?"
"That they might view it theologically rather than biologically," Anthis replied in a barely audible whisper, having stopped ten feet from his charge, half way between her and them and well within earshot. "That it's gifted by their gods to a chosen few, or that it's dependant on the moon they were born under. Or, perhaps, that it's a curse, some kind of black mark on their soul."
"If they mistrust magic like everyone else does, it could have been her own people who attacked her..." It wasn't clear if Petra's concern was for the girl or for their delivering of her.
But Rathen was already shaking his head. "I've already told her we're taking her back. If it was a problem, she would have said something." His lips pursed in thought. "What are the odds they revere magic?"
"About as likely as our being welcomed," Anthis mumbled, and he began wandering around, pacing in thought as he managed somehow to split his attention between them, the tribal and the torn, scribbled papers in his hands. Despite his distraction, the girl hadn't once even twitched under his guard. "It doesn't really matter if they understand magic the way we do," he mused. "The elves built their temples and monuments on sites of magnetism by chance. There was something about each place that drew them and, they believed, put them in close touch with the gods; it was only after their construction that magic became a part of their lives. Even if these people consider their magic theologically, there's a reason they revere the site, too, and it could well be simi
lar to the elves. So whatever they believe, truth or not, it could be of help to us." He waved his papers imploringly. "It may not seem relevant, but perhaps a simplified outlook could be just what we need to get a better understanding of this rogue magic - and Kienza said we won't be able to use the Zi'veyn against it without it."
Rathen frowned to himself as Kienza's musical but matter-of-fact voice swept through his mind. "'Don't get bogged down in specifics'..."
"And," Anthis added, "making the effort to understand their culture rather than reject it could also help relations..."
"Assuming we're given the opportunity for such a civilised exchange."
"We're going to have to try. We won't get to the ruin without it."
"If you are speaking of Ut'hala, you would do well to keep away."
The young woman's voice was no less surprising than the first time they'd heard it, still melodic despite the additional abruptness that accompanied her defence. They spun around, startled, and found her on her feet, her blue eyes hard and full of warning as they stared steadily from one face to the next.
"Ut'hala," Anthis repeated slowly, grasping the word's subtleties as easily as had it been common tongue. "Is that what you call it?"
"It is an ancient shrine in the Singing Sands," she replied with little care for his interest. "It was built before my people, but whoever by, they no longer go there. It is the only structure not shaped by the winds where Aya'u will hear us."
"Aya'u." Anthis took a step towards her, his curiosity in his academic state of mind getting the better of him, but rather than back away, she raised her chin and met his gaze squarely. Her eyes were not cruel, nor were they angry. In fact, they seemed to him to bear only concern. He stopped after a second step so as not to upset her. "Aya'u is your god?"
"Aya'u is the Goddess of Wind. She rules the sands, and She is our charge."
"Your charge?" Anthis frowned, his intrigue only growing. "You look after your goddess?"
Rather than answer, her eyes flicked onto the others, dismissing both him and his prying. "You cannot go."