by William King
“I would prefer to come with you, sir,” Terves said.
“I know you would, sergeant, but I need someone I can trust to get the men back in one piece. We don’t have enough water or supplies to take them all into the deep desert.”
Terves looked as if he wanted to protest, but restrained himself. The habit of obeying Zamara held. “I will resupply there and follow you if I can,” he said.
“There will be no need for that,” Zamara said. “You’ll be too late to help us either way. If we’re not back in two weeks head down country and bring word of what happened to the King-Emperor and his agents. Although I suspect that if we fail, the world will know soon enough. That’s an order, sergeant.”
“As you say, sir.”
“Good man, Terves.”
They watched the soldiers march back to the southeast. It had taken an hour to split the supplies and prepare the wagons to move on. It was not going to be easy moving them across the rolling dunes. The beasts slipped and slithered on the sand face, and they needed to put wooden chocks under the wheels to give them enough purchase to get out of the cave.
Anders, Zamara, Rhiana and Kormak mounted on the wagon and began to roll through the desert in the long valleys between the dunes. After an hour, Anders climbed up the sand face and studied the horizon.
“What do you think?” Kormak asked when he returned.
“It all looks different after the storm, but I am pretty sure we’re moving the right way. We just need to keep going northwest until we hit the White Cliffs. They’re visible from a long way out. Once we see them I am sure I can find my way through.”
Ahexotl loped along beside them, and once Kormak explained the subject of the conversation, he said, “We are going towards the Place of Death. Your companion is right about that. We’ll get there soon enough.”
Chapter Eleven
Balthazar dismounted the sandray. Its flight had become increasingly erratic over the past few hours until it had struggled to bear him at all. Perhaps it was sick. Perhaps it was fatigued. He could not tell. He knew so little about the creatures. Over the course of the long day, it had slowed. For the past few hours, he would have made as much progress walking.
He felt odd himself. The flows of magic around him had diminished. There were times when he could barely sense the power within him.
Off to the northwest he could see mountains. They shone an odd white in the sunlight. Balthazar remembered Anders description of the peaks surrounding lost Xanadar. These must be them. He was close now. It was hard to judge distance in the desert but those mountains could not be more than a few days travel away now.
Sand crunched beneath his symb-armoured feet. Balthazar’s movements were slow and clumsy but at least he no longer felt hungry or thirsty save when he allowed himself to dwell on how long it had been since he had eaten or drank.
Nexali had told him that it was possible for him to go for weeks without food or water. His second skin allowed him to recycle what was already within him. Eventually, the system would fail and nutrients and fluids would need to be replaced but, for now, he could keep going.
He glanced back over his shoulder. So far, there was no sign of pursuit. The Blighted Ones had ridden as far as they could, until the sandrays had given out. It must be fatigue. They had pushed the creatures too hard. That was all. They just needed time to recover.
His vision was odd. The light seemed dimmer, as if the symb filtered it and muted the colours and brightness of his surroundings.
Footsteps crunched on the dune behind him. He swept his strange new vision around and saw a sand demon clambering up behind him. He recognised Nexali’s patterns on the symb. She trudged. That was understandable given the magnitude of the sorcery she had worked earlier. They had spent almost the whole night resting while she recovered from the effort. The storm smashing his enemies made that worthwhile.
There it is. The Place of Death. The words buzzed inside his head. He recognised the feel of her mind speech. It was not like the tone or timbre of different human voices, more like a sense of the person behind the thoughts. He was learning to distinguish the mindspeech of the different sandfolk.
“The Place of Death?” He had not yet got out of the habit of speaking his words aloud even though the cowl of the symb suit muffled them.
Down there, where the sands become white as a bleached skull
Balthazar caught the fear vibrating through her mindspeech. Clearly, the place down there made Nexali more than uneasy. Aside from the whiteness of the sand, it looked little different from the parched landscape they had passed through.
You are sure this is where we must go?
He tried to nod but the symb suit would not let him. Instead, he said, “Yes. We must pass this way to the west if we are to reach those mountains and Xanadar. Is there no way we can go around this Place of Death?”
It extends for scores of leagues in a vast circle.
Balthazar swiftly did some mental calculations. That would put the place they sought in the middle of it. He doubted that it was a coincidence.
“This is the place where your people cannot speak. Will the symbs work?”
They should. The symbs are not magical. They draw their energy from our bodies. But that is the least of our concerns.
“What do you mean?”
Down there no spell will work. Nothing can be summoned. The gods cannot speak to us.
Balthazar considered this for a moment. An awful suspicion entered his mind. He trudged down the far slope of the dune onto the white sand. As he did so, a feeling of loss entered his mind, as if a hollow had been scooped out of the centre of his being. He retracted his cowl and spoke the words of a spell. They were merely words. Nothing answered their call. He felt no pulse of power within him. Nexali slid down behind him. The cowl dropped away as she set her symb’s clawed feet upon the white sand.
“It is a null.” Balthazar said.
“A what?” Her voice sounded hoarse and rusty. An expression of distaste flickered across her broad features. She clearly did not enjoy being here.
“A place where magic does not work,” Balthazar said. “There is no power to draw upon. The land has been drained of it.”
“That I know. I simply had not heard the word before.”
“The Solari sometimes created them to form barriers against the Old Ones. The Eldrim are creatures of magic. Without the Power to draw upon they became far less formidable.”
“You think this obscenity was created deliberately.”
He nodded. Excitement flooded into him. “I think this is a barrier, like a moat around a castle or a wall around a prison. It means we are on the right track.”
“I hope you are correct.”
Certainty twisted his lips into a smile. “I am correct. The place we seek is within. On the sandrays we can be there in less than a day.”
“The rays cannot fly there. Magic enables them to levitate. You can see the affect that the reduction of aether surrounding us has already had on them. We will need to go on foot.”
“Then the sooner we start the better,” said Balthazar. “It is Xothak’s will.”
More to the point, it was his will. He was so close to his goal now, he could taste it.
* * *
The Blighted Ones were uneasy. They lumbered through the desert, sometimes retracting their cowls, sniffing at the air, and standing in listening poses. Often a lost look appeared on their faces as they stared at the approaching mountains. Balthazar wondered if they were all potential mages or whether it was simply the loss of their mindspeech that disturbed them. He supposed that it would like being struck speechless would be for him.
Perhaps it was the ruins. The sight was enough to disturb anyone with the faintest hint of an imagination. They passed titanic stone and metal shells of burned-out buildings, partially buried by the shifting sands. They hinted at the presence of other structures hidden by the great dunes. Perhaps this whole place had once been a gigantic
city. Perhaps it was still there, rendered invisible by the tons of sand and ash layered over the ground.
The desert was not lifeless. Scavenger bird hovered on the thermals above them. A sand rat skittered away to burrow among rocks. A Blighted One sent a poisoned spine lancing towards it, but did not hit. Either the target was too quick or something about this place put the sandfolk off their aim. Balthazar would not have liked to place a bet on which it was.
He told himself not to worry. The absence of magic ensured more than his inability to cast a spell. It made it unlikely that there were any monsters or ghosts out there, no matter how haunted this land seemed. There simply was not the magical energy to support such beings.
It came to him that this was a presentiment of what a world without magic would be like. He hated it. He hated feeling as if he was simply the same as all the other mortals he despised. Magic made him what he was. It gave him power greater than wealth or skill at arms could buy. It would make him immortal. To be without it was worse than being speechless or blind. It was to lose the very core of his identity.
Nexali trudged along beside him. She had not said much since the entered the Place of Death. She seemed tightly wound up, as if preserving all her energy against some threat she feared would emerge to swallow them all up. He looked at her monstrous carbuncled form, and found it hard to picture the beautiful woman within. At least their symbs still worked.
He wondered again if he was really heading in the right direction. He had followed Anders directions implicitly but what did that mean? The man had every reason to lie to him. Perhaps there was nothing in the mountains. Perhaps this desert rolled on for hundreds of leagues; perhaps he would miss the lost city entirely and head out into the wastes until they reached the end of even the Blighted Ones ability to survive.
He tried to reassure himself. The city described by Anders would be hard to miss, a great golden citadel within a ring of white mountains. Those were certainly visible in the distance.
“What are you thinking?” Nexali asked.
He smiled at her, trying to project confidence. “That soon we shall reach our goal, and the world will lie at our feet.”
“I would never have guessed. You look more like a man contemplating where things went wrong in his life.”
“There is nothing to fear out here.”
“In that you are correct, Count Balthazar. Because out here there is nothing.”
“Someone lived here once. Think of the ruins we passed.”
“According to legend this place was cursed during the Elder Wars, at least that is what our former patron Xayal claimed. It was struck by gigantic fireballs the Angels of the Sun called out of the sky. They scorched the land, and sent a hot wind that brought death and disease with it.”
“I have heard they did similar things on the other continents, in the Southlands across the World Ocean.”
“What is an ocean?”
“It is a wilderness of water, larger than this desert.”
“Of water?” He heard the wonder in her voice, and he realised how constricted the Blighted Ones’ lives were. They did not leave their desert home. They did not interact with anyone except their own kind. That could be said of most of the people in this world. People were restricted by class, by lack of money, by lack of imagination. He supposed also that being so perfectly adapted to their environment the sand people felt no need to look elsewhere.
“Yes, of water. Would you like to see it someday?”
She appeared to consider this for a moment. “Perhaps. Once we have trampled upon our enemies and repaid them the slights of centuries.”
“Why do you fight?” Balthazar asked. He was genuinely curious. “Most people make war for land or gold. You do not seem to need farm land, and I have seen no evidence of coin among you.”
“Do you really need to ask?” There was an edge to her voice. He suspected he was skirting the edge of a very dangerous area without really knowing why.
“I want to hear it in your own words,” he said.
“We fight for vengeance, and to repay the insults and treachery heaped upon us in ancient times, by those who stayed loyal to our weak and sickly former master. We are the soldiers of Xothak. We keep the faith and have done for centuries.”
There was a savage vehemence behind her words. She was not just mouthing a cynical formula. This was a land where ancient hatreds were alive and feuds were fought by the distant descendants of those who had started them. It conjured up a startling vision of endless war fought in this alien landscape by nations of people who had drifted a long way from humanity. It was an example of how much impact the Old Ones had on those who came under their tutelage.
There was no so much to learn. The world was so vast and strange. When he had time, he would investigate such matters, and soon he would have time.
“Vengeance will be yours, this I swear in the name of the Lord of Skulls. Once we have found what I seek then your foes shall tremble.”
She nodded. He was saying exactly what she wanted to hear. He had always possessed a gift for such things.
They pushed on through the wastes. Soon now it would all be resolved, one way or another.
* * *
Rhiana shivered as the cart rumbled down the slope and hit the flat ground. Her translucent eye membranes slid into place. Her hand clutched the hilt of her cutlass. She glanced around like a trapped animal seeking a way out through a hunting pack.
“What is it?” Kormak asked. They had made far better time through the wastes than he had hoped. Teams of sandfolk had taken turns at pulling the wagon. A dozen of them had replaced the weary oxen. They were immensely strong and seemingly tireless, unlike the draft animals. They kept marching despite the time or the heat.
She glared at him, teeth pressed against each other, lips twisted in a snarl. “I don’t know. Something is wrong here. I can’t hear the sand dwellers. I can’t feel anything with my mind.”
“What do you mean?”
“Imagine everything all around had suddenly become totally and completely silent. No wind. No sand shifting. No wheels crunching. It just happened.”
“Your mindspeech has been cut off?” Zamara asked.
“Take off your elder sign,” she said. Zamara obeyed with visible reluctance.”
Rhiana frowned in utter concentration, glaring directly at the Admiral as if she could drive her thoughts into his by force of will. “Anything?” she said eventually.
Zamara shook his head. “Not a thing.”
Ahexotl marched alongside the wagon. His people had dismissed their sandrays hours ago. Their flight had become slower and slower until they could make better time marching. “We have entered the Place of Death. My people can no longer use mindspeech. We need to rely on hand sign and voice. That means losing moisture for we need to retract the cowls of our symbs. We prefer not to do that.”
“You can have some our water if you need it,” Kormak said. He wanted to keep the sand people on his side as much as possible.
“That should not prove necessary if we are careful.”
Zamara glanced at the white peaks that loomed in the distance. “You’re telling me you plan to cross leagues of desert without so much as a thimbleful of water.”
Ahexotl nodded. “Our symbs mean that we need far less of the stuff than you outlanders.”
“I’ll say,” said Zamara.
Rhiana dropped off the wagon and strode up the dunes. Kormak followed her until they reached a ridgeline far away from the others. “What’s wrong?”
“This place,” she said. She sounded afraid. “I thought it could not get any worse, but it has. It’s like I am suddenly deaf just at the time when I need to be most alert. I keep wondering what terrible thing is going to happen next. I know that sounds stupid but I can’t help it.”
“It does not sound stupid. I’ve been there, many times.”
“You?” Disbelief rang in her voice.
“The first time was after th
e Prince of Dragons wiped out my village. I followed along behind Malan wondering when he was going to erupt out of the undergrowth and kill us both.”
“You were eight years old. I am not.”
“There are mornings when I wake and I wonder what new horror I am going to see today. And I’ve seen many.”
“I thought I had too. How do you deal with it?”
“Sometimes I just try to live through it.”
“And the other times?”
“I remind myself of all the wonders I have seen. Or I look around me and breathe. It was one of the first things they taught me on Mount Aethelas. I try to remain in the present and not let my imagination carry me away.”
“You think this is just my imagination.”
“I think what you experience, the loss of your mindspeech, is real. I think your fears are just that, fears. At the moment, nothing threatens us.”
“You saw what Balthazar and his coven summoned back at Helgard.”
“And I am still here. So are you.”
“He’s going to do something worse.”
“And we will stop him.”
“And what about the time after that?”
“There won’t be one. This time I will kill him. We will kill him.”
“What if we don’t?”
“His luck has to run out some time.”
“What if our luck runs out instead?”
“Then we’ll be too dead to notice and my order will send more people to kill him.”
“But we will be beyond caring.”
“We’re not now,” he said. He felt helpless in the face of the hopelessness graven on her face. He reached out and touched her hand. “This moment is all there is. Now. We’re here. We’re together. We will get through this.”
“How can you be so certain?” she asked.
“Because I am,” he said, keeping his face calm and wishing that he really was. “I’ve known many terrors. Only some were real. The rest were in my imagination.”