by LeRoy Clary
After telling my sister all I knew, she pointed to a small knoll off to our right and changed our direction slightly to head for it. Normally, when wishing to remain out of sight in flat lands such as the rocky desert we were crossing, we avoided the crests of hills. Anyone far away would see two riders at the top of a hill as moving figures. We called it sky-lighting. Only the ignorant were that careless.
We tied our horses to a low juniper and made our way to the top in a crouch. There we remained low and surveyed the entire area. There were no plumes of dust from soldier’s horses, no reflections off shiny armor or weapons, and no movement. We were alone in a brown land of emptiness and solitude.
Kendra said, “We need water.”
Our flasks were almost empty. I considered the options. To the best of our knowledge, there was no water ahead. The only water was where we’d been, at the river that had been dammed into the chain of lakes. The soldiers were also there—waiting for us.
We could kill a horse and drink the blood but had no way to carry it with us and walking didn’t appeal. I didn’t relish drinking it but would before going without and dying. Our only hope seemed to be sneaking back and avoiding capture. That choice seemed counter-productive and almost negated our narrow escape. Walking into the waiting hands of our enemies to get a drink of water almost made me want to laugh.
Almost, but not quite. It also made me want to cry out in frustration. I turned to look at Kendra. She was looking at me instead of out at the landscape—and she wore a smile. I said, “What?”
She motioned that we should go back to our horses. We moved in a crouch again, more for habit than need, but in the vast openness, there might be unseen watchers. We mounted and turned a little east and south. We were too far away for the army to chase us because they needed water as much as us, but to be safe, we allowed more distance.
Turning east would eventually take us to the sea. Now, all we required was water. Enough for the two of us and our horses, because they would grow as thirsty as us. Kendra rode with a smile, seemingly unworried.
As it grew dark, she pointed to a small cut in the ground where flowing water in the past had cut a swath of a rugged canyon. The sides were only as tall as the roof of a small house, but a fire built down there wouldn’t be seen. The bottom of the canyon was as dry as my mouth.
Kendra kept us moving until she finally pulled up and dismounted while humming a jaunty tune to herself. She didn’t speak. The horses were tethered and staked. Kendra made a dry camp, without a fire which surprised me. When we were settled in, and the darkness had closed over us, she used a blanket to sweep out a hollow in solid rock after removing limbs, leaves, and whatever else had collected there. The hollow was a few steps across and ten long.
“Okay, enough. What are you doing?” I asked.
She said mysteriously and playfully, “Well, I don’t want to drink dirty water, do you?”
I shook my remaining few swallows in the canteen and heard barely a splash. “Right now, dirty water wouldn’t bother me.”
“Well, it does me.”
I gave her a look that said she was losing her mind in the heat and dryness of the desert. She saw it and laughed as she patted the blanket she sat upon, telling me to sit beside her. I did.
She said, “We have to find water or go back to the lake and surrender if they catch us, which they probably will.”
“I know that.”
She pointed at me with an unwavering finger in the starlight while we sat beside the depression in the rock. “I want you to fill that with water.”
“What?”
“That hollow. Why do you think we cleaned it out?”
“No, I meant what do you want me to do?” I nearly shouted. She smiled, but in the darkness, I don’t think she knew I saw it.
She said, “Make it rain. I want rain to fill that hollow with water.”
“Rain? I can’t do that. Only mages can create storms.”
She ignored my protest and elevated voice. She spoke in a calm, reasonable manner, “I’m not asking for flashes of lightning and roaring thunder over the entire Brownlands. I want a little raincloud right over the top of us. Enough to fill that depression so we can drink, and the horses can too.”
“I’ve never made rain. You know that. My abilities are minuscule.”
A short time passed before she said as calmly as if she was speaking to royalty at Crestfallen, “I suppose your magic cannot uproot trees and fling them as if they are straw, either. I’ve seen you take water from the outside of a goblet and move it to the floor where someone slipped on it. That’s all I’m asking. Do that, only more of it.”
“A few drops are different than a storm,” I protested, losing some of my resistance.
She scooted closer and waved an arm to encompass the area around us. “There is water all over around here. Dew on the leaves, more in the soil just under the surface. Inside the plants. Water is everywhere when you think about it.”
I didn’t want to think about it but did. I reached out with my mind and felt around. She was right. But I was no mage. Still, the water was there, and I had concentrated it in one location in the past to form a puddle on a tile floor. A few spoons, at most. I had done that several times. It was the same as filling the rock pool in front of us, on a smaller scale.
I closed my eyes and pulled the water from the surface of the nearby leaves of a scrub oak tree. Not many, just two or three, then expanded the pull until I’d drawn all the water to us. It hovered in tiny droplets in the air, too fine to have the weight to fall, like a fog. A little shove by a puff of air spinning in a circle above us caused them to collide and combine and grow heavier.
I felt a few drops on my head. Not many, but a few and those encouraged me to reach farther away and pull more moisture into the air above us. More raindrops fell.
“You’re doing it,” she cooed.
A few inches under the surface of the sand was far more moisture, and easier to gather. I pulled it free and brought it to the air in front of us, where it combined with what was already there, and suddenly, we were sitting in a rainstorm. The drops were large, splatting on us and pelting the depression in the rock.
Kendra was laughing. She punched me in my shoulder and called, “Enough! We’re getting soaked.”
I drew my mind back and opened my eyes. The rain already slowed, but still fell. In front of us was a puddle a few inches deep, wide enough to leap across, but too long to do the same. She grabbed our canteens as if the water would disappear if she didn’t fill them quickly enough. I numbly sat and watched.
Magic pulled strength from me, but it was not physical weariness that numbed me. It was mental. Not that it tired my mind in any manner, but the awareness that I’d created a storm. Kendra knelt and scooped water into her mouth, then called to me, “It is wonderful. Get over here.”
I went to her side and knelt. My fingers touched the water as if I still didn’t believe it existed. The water was cool and wet. I drank my fill. Wonder kept my mind from working properly. When I stood, I said, “I’m going for a walk.”
“To where?” she asked.
“To see how big the rainstorm was.”
She leaped to her feet. “Let’s do it.”
We walked perhaps ten steps in the sand that was damp, the water already seeping down into the ground. Then the sand was as dry as before, perhaps drier since I’d pulled moisture from below. We walked the perimeter of a crude circle that existed about ten steps from where we’d sat. A tiny circle of wetness any child could throw a stone across.
My mind was consumed with elation.
“You did it,” she said.
I released the horses and watched instinct move them to the puddle and begin drinking. With the fog above us dissipated, the stars returned. Still not fully believing, I went back to the puddle, across from the horses, and while ignoring them, I knelt and scooped more water into my mouth with a shaking hand.
“You are a mage,” Kendra sa
id with conviction.
We returned to our campsite to sit on wet blankets and laugh about it. Ordinary things seemed funny. We were happy and no longer thirsty. My mind kept wandering back to the idea that I’d filled a “lake” with water. A small one, but that was fine with me. I’d produced water in the desert. No matter what was said after that, we laughed.
Anna’s voice filled my mind like a crashing wave on rocks. *I was wrong.*
*About what? What were you wrong about, Anna?* I said the words out loud so Kendra would hear my side of the conversation.
*We are not in danger this moment, so calm down. It’s just that our plans have changed. We’re trying to sneak back to the fisherman’s shack. Well, the dock, anyway. They have a mast and sail stored there, and more oars. We’ve left the barge and everyone is in the rowboat.*
*I don’t understand.*
*It’s a big boat that has a place for a sail. Not big enough for horses, but we’re crammed in and heading for the dock. The boys will get the sail and extra oars, and we will row downriver instead of crossing to the other side. We’ll get Coffin on the way. Will thinks we can call softly and he’ll swim out to us. They have done something similar in the past.*
*What about the army coming after you with more boats?* I asked. *Isn’t Will worried about that?*
*No. The boys say the men in the army can’t row very fast because they aren’t used to boats, and with the sail to help move us, we can go faster. If we can steal it without being seen, we should be fine.*
*Okay, just keep us informed.*
*Will wants to know how you’re doing.*
*Tell him we are camped in the desert and a little rainstorm gave us enough water for a day or two. We plan to head to the coast now.*
*I should end this conversation. We’re almost to the shore beside the dock. There are guards on the shore. Hopefully none near the dock.*
I relayed all she’d told me. The fact that the dock had guards was not surprising but expected. They didn’t worry me too much. Will would have anticipated them and must have a plan. If the boat was spotted by one of the guards, they would probably row quickly to deeper water and escape in the darkness.
With the night in the Brownlands came cold. Our clothing and blankets were wet, and the night turned miserable as we shivered in wet clothing. Kendra said, “Next time, we’ll move our things before you make it rain. Can you dry our things?”
“I may be able to make them burn, I’m not sure. Want me to try?”
She tossed the last of our tiny store of firewood on the small fire we huddled near.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“That you could make rain? I didn’t, of course, but when you pushed that tree from the ground, I realized how much stronger your magic has grown. The thought of that increase is still amazing, but even more—is what else can you do?”
“Like what?”
“Like . . . do you need a bow to make an arrow fly through the air? Can you just make it fly?”
I started to object as if her suggestion was silly, then paused. If I pushed trees out of the ground and flung them a dozen paces, an arrow should be far easier. It was simply a matter of practice. Practice and control. The arrow would have to be handled delicately, not by brute force. However, it would need less magic than the tree to make it fly, and as it did, I could control where it flew. I’d actually done that before.
That line of thinking carried me to another. I reached out and pulled heat from the rocks lining the fire, some of it deep from inside of them, and drew it closer to us in a softly swirling circle of warmth. It was not a lot but helped.
“Is that you making it warmer?” Kendra asked.
“It is,” I told her while trying not to sound too proud of myself.
“Why not just use your magic to build a bigger campfire? Wouldn’t that be easier?”
Like most sisters, she had a way of pricking my accomplishments until they burst like soap bubbles. Pop. I had made it warmer, and she suggested an easier solution. I said while trying to sound confident, “Trying something new.”
She said without turning her head to look at me, “Sometimes the old ways are the best. I’ll gather some more firewood.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
As I sat beside the fire, sleep was heavy in my eyes when Anna contacted me again. *We did it.*
*Did what?*
*Will and the two fisherman-boys snuck up on the guards at the dock and tied them up. We pulled alongside and loaded the sail that was wrapped around the mast and extra oars. They even managed to snatch more arrows and some food before the alarm sounded.*
*Alarm?*
*A loud whistle. The guard-watch, Will said. We just pushed away from the dock and rowed into the darkness as easy as thieves, which I guess we were, come to think of it.* A mental giggle followed.
*What’s happening now?*
*They got the mast set up and the sail is out, but there isn’t much wind. Four of them are rowing, which is pretty funny. They need to do it all together, or the oars bang into each other, but they are so bad we’re laughing. Princess Elizabeth is a hopeless rower but won’t give up her oar.*
I told all of that to Kendra, and both of us laughed as we imagined her trying to row in step with the others—and failing. The oar she manned clashed with the rhythm of the others. It would anger her, and Elizabeth would try harder, which seemed to be the case from the little Anna told me.
We decided that by morning, Elizabeth would have mastered the skill, but there would have been several clashes of will before then. The idea of her ordering her subjects to row in step with her instead of her adjusting to their pace had us laughing far into the night. She wouldn’t match them, they would match her—or else. Neither of us believed she would allow others to do work she couldn’t. Our princess was not built that way. She worked as hard, or harder than any of her subjects, with the possible exception of me.
When I said that last part out loud, Kendra fell into another fit of laughter. Sisters. My assessment of how hard I worked didn’t seem at all funny to me.
I stopped talking since Kendra couldn’t remain serious, and almost instantly fell asleep. When I awoke in the morning, she had already packed and watered the horses in the shrinking puddle. I drank far more water than I wanted but had heard that you couldn’t drink too much in the desert.
My mind wanted to go back and think about the rainstorm, if a storm twenty paces across can be called that, I’d created one. I forced my thinking in other directions. There are times when direct thought is required—and others where it is not.
The mind is odd that way. Not thinking about something often produces better results than dwelling endlessly on the same thing. There was too much information to put in its proper place—and that didn’t leave room to consider what else I might do. I turned to my sister.
Kendra said, “That was good for me. Last night, I mean. I haven’t laughed so hard since we left Dire.”
“At my expense.”
She grinned and tried to placate me with false sincerity. “I know, you work harder than any of us.”
Before agreeing, I came to my senses and ignored the statement. It was true, nonetheless. Only a sister wouldn’t recognize my qualities and achievements.
We rode to the top of the same hill, or more precisely, mound. From there we surveyed the landscape searching for signs of life or movement, which might mean danger or that we were being followed. Strangers probably didn’t mean anything good for us and we’d avoid any. We found nothing out of place.
As we’d been taught during our military training at Crestfallen, we remained still and allowed our eyes to scan the far horizon and then work their way nearer, and from side to side. We focused on nothing. The eyes know what to do. The smallest movement would draw them, as would any color out of place.
Thinking or trying to find those things decreased the natural abilities we all have. After the broad search, we narrowed what we were after and reexamined
our entire surroundings. We found nothing to concern us. Water was no longer a consideration despite our travel in the driest part of the Brownlands.
Kendra said, “I’ll take the lead since we have plenty of water and I’m full of energy.”
“Enough water to last a day,” I cautioned her automatically.
She spurred her horse ahead before calling back over her shoulder in an amused tone, “When I need more, I’ll just have my big brother, the mage, create a little rainstorm over me.”
There was no proper answer. The jest held too much truth. I rode with my eyes piercing the back of her neck with my anger. She should have had the good manners to flinch.
The plants grew fewer and smaller. Only the hardiest survived, and most of them looked like another day without water would kill them. I was tempted to sprinkle a little water on each one we passed. The ground became rocky, a thin layer of coarse sand over black rock. The mountains to the west were hidden by rising waves of heat.
Not that it was hotter than nearer the lake. There was nothing to provide shade or absorb the sun, and despite the darker color of the sand, the waves of heat seemed to strike the ground and bounce directly up at us.
I climbed down to relieve myself beside a bush that looked like it could use a little water, and before climbing back into my saddle, the bottoms of my feet were burning from the heat of the sand. The horses had thick hooves to protect them, but well before midday, my little ugly horse stumbled for the first time.
I hoped it was an accident, an oddity. Not long after, it did so again. The ground didn’t appear any rougher. But it was a warning we couldn’t ignore.
“Kendra, we need a place to hold up until evening. My horse is worn out.”
Instead of arguing or questioning me, she nodded. We started following a thin trail where animals or men had gone before. Whatever had traveled our way may have done so years or generations ago. Without rain, deserts are slow to change or erase the passage of others.