Book Three of the Travelers (4 page)

T
he moon rose early, dusting the dunes with a dim silver light. It wasn't bright. But it was enough.

Loor ran without stopping. She'd run the Pizon on a flat surface, with shoes made for running. Now she was running on loose sand. Every stride took more effort. Climbing the face of a dune was a monumental struggle. Then once she started running down the other side of the dune, she had to be careful not to fall.

Above her, the stars were so bright that she could make out the black shape of the hindor as it blotted them out, one after another, in its slow path through the sky.

Soon Loor's world had narrowed to only a few things—the dark shape of the hindor, the silver-flecked sand, and the pain. Pain in her muscles. Pain in her lungs. Pain in her feet as her shoes blistered her heels and toes.

She ran on and on and on and on.

Eventually she grew thirsty. Even in the coolness of the night, running for hours on end drove the water from her pores as surely as the sun did.

Soon the thirst began to blot out the other pain, just as the hindor blotted out the stars. Still she willed herself on.

Follow the hindor
, she repeated.
Follow the hindor. Follow the hindor.

Soon it became a rhythm, merging with the sound of her footfalls in the sand, with the steady intake of her breath, with the beating of her heart.

And slowly, stride by stride, her strength began to ebb away.

Strangely, though, as her body began to fail, she felt an odd joy rising in her. It was as though she had separated from her body. Some part of her mind left the pain and exhaustion behind and floated up above her, light and buoyant as the hindor.

This was the way to die, she thought. Driven to the utmost extremity of pain and fear and weakness. No one could say she had failed! She had done everything she could.

As the sun began to paint the distant horizon with a wash of pink, she slowed to a walk. It wasn't a choice. There was no running left in her. Her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth. Her legs were chafed raw. Her feet were a ruin of blisters.

The sun began to rise. And still the hindor flew east. And still she staggered on.

There was no sign of Xhaxhu. Not a dried-up well. Not a fallen tree. Nothing but sand.

And then the hindor began to drift down from the sky. At first she thought it was her imagination. But it was not. The hindor was coming down, down. Eventually it landed.

Loor's vision had gotten blurry. It seemed as though the hindor was perched on something. A rock maybe, sticking up out of the sand. It seemed a very long way away.

She tripped and fell.

Maybe I should just lie here,
she thought.
Maybe I should just rest.

The hindor sat motionless on its perch, staring at her. Waiting.

Loor stared at the bird. The bird stared back. And then she came to a sudden realization. Hindors were scavengers. They fed off the carcasses of the dead.

She began to laugh.

Water? The hindor wasn't looking for water! It was just waiting for her to die. It had sensed the truth days ago: This odd creature, this human, was a stranger in the desert. This creature was doomed from the start.

Loor sat up. The laughter hurt her parched throat. But still she couldn't stop. All this time she'd been thinking this huge black bird was good luck. How wrong she'd been!

She forced herself to her feet. “You are not getting my bones.” She had intended it to be a yell, a war cry. But it came out as a hoarse, pathetic croak.

She fell, and began to crawl toward the bird. She would strangle it, she decided. Or beat its head against the oddly shaped rock on which it was perched.

“We will die together, bird,” she whispered. She crawled closer and closer, every inch a struggle. Still the bird didn't move.

She could feel the heat of the sun beating on her,
sucking the last moisture from her skin. She had stopped sweating a long time ago. A bad sign. But it didn't matter. She was going to take the bird with her.

And then, just as she reached the rock, the bird flapped its wings. Once. Twice. And then it rose lazily into the air.

She pressed her forehead against the rock. It was strangely cool. It had a strange smell, too. What was it? Then she remembered. It was the smell of the Lake of Peace. The smell of water.

There was a soft vibration in the stone. And she could hear something now—the sound of rushing water.

She frowned. It was a hallucination of course. There was no water here.

There was something odd about the stone, though. It seemed more like concrete than stone. She pushed herself to her feet and stared over the lip of the rock.

It was perfectly circular. Her heart jumped. Whatever this was, it wasn't natural. It was man-made. In fact, it looked like something made by the Rokador.

She heaved on the stone lid with the last of her strength. It slid off, revealing a hole. A hole that went down into darkness.

But the sound that came from the hole was unmistakable. It was the sound of rushing water.

Astonished and completely out of strength, Loor sagged over the side and reached down. The water was too far away.

Imagine, she thought vaguely, if she died here not more than an arm's length from water. She reached down farther and farther, until finally she was balanced
precariously on the edge. Her head was spinning and her ears rang. It was hard to maintain her balance.

Then she slipped.

Headfirst Loor plunged down into the darkness.

P
eople who live in the middle of deserts rarely know how to swim. Loor was no exception.

She fell headlong into a torrent of water that spun her and thrashed her like a doll. Water went up her nose, into her lungs, into her stomach. With what little energy she had, she flailed helplessly at the water as she was sucked along through the darkness. She tried to hold her breath.

Suddenly, as she started to lose consciousness, the water slowed a little, and she hit something hard. She pulled herself forward, found herself on a flat surface of rock. Her toes and fingers trailed in the water. She moved her head until her lips were touching the water, then took a few sips. And with that, she collapsed.

How long she lay in the cool darkness, she couldn't say. It seemed like a long time. Every now and then she gained enough strength to take a few more sips of water. Then she would lose consciousness again.

Eventually, though, the water revived her. She was able to sit up.
Bam!
Her head smacked into solid rock, and she saw stars.

Carefully she crawled along the rock. She found herself on a sort of ledge, just inches from the running water. As best she could tell, she was in some sort of giant pipe. It had to be the work of the Rokador. But where it came from or where it led, she had no idea. She couldn't see anything at all.

So she just kept crawling.

Eventually she saw a tiny point of dim light in the distance. She crawled toward it. Gradually it took the form of an arch at the far end of the pipe she was crawling through. Her knees were getting cut and bruised from all the crawling, but since she couldn't swim, there was no other way to reach the light.

Eventually she crawled out of the tunnel, through the stone arch, and into an immense chamber. It was more than just a room full of water. It was an underground lake.

The illumination came from a small artificial light source on the wall. It lit the area immediately around it, and then faded into a distant gloomy darkness. The chamber was so large she couldn't see where it ended.

“Hello!” Loor called. Her voice was only a soft croak. But it echoed and re-echoed again and again in the huge underground chamber. She cleared her throat. “Anybody here?” Her voice was stronger now.

There was no answer.

The ledge she was on had widened out at the tunnel's end. She stood and walked unsteadily until she was standing under the light. A small door was cut into the rock. On it was a sign that read
DO NOT PASS
.

She tried the door, but it was locked. She banged furiously. No one answered.

How far was she from Xhaxhu? For all she knew, she could still be fifty miles away. Even if she knew how to swim, it would be too far for her to swim in her weakened state. And since she did not know how to swim? There seemed no chance.

That was when she noticed the boat.

She had never actually
seen
a boat. But she had read about them. A boat was a thing that allowed you to float on water. This was a small wooden thing, not much longer than she was tall, tied to the edge of the ledge. It was dirty and looked as if it hadn't been used in years.

What choice did she have? She stepped into the boat.

To her surprise the boat moved rapidly from side to side when she put her weight on it, wobbling wildly. She fell hard, smacking into the bottom of the tiny craft.

When she finally managed to sit up, she saw that she had knocked the rope free. The little boat was drifting, slowly, slowly, slowly, away from the dock.

How do you make it move?
she wondered.
How do you control it?

She had no idea. She had seen in books that people used flat sticklike things with handles, dipping them in the water and pushing the boat around somehow. But this boat had no such device in it. In fact, it had nothing in it.

Loor felt a momentary stab of terror. The boat wobbled every time she moved. It was drifting out into the darkness, heading…where? She didn't know. And if the boat tipped over, she'd fall into the black water and drown.

So she lay down, reached into her pocket, and pulled out the last soggy piece of dried lamb. Just the effort of
chewing it made her feel tired. But the sweet taste of the lamb restored some of her determination. In a minute she'd figure out a way of moving the boat around, and then…

She noticed the boat was moving a little faster now. She was bobbing along, deep in the darkness of the underground lake, far from the small light. It seemed as if the boat were being sucked along now. Then she heard a distant rushing noise.

She huddled in the bottom of the boat. Something was happening. And she was powerless to do anything about it.

Suddenly the craft was moving faster and faster. And then the rushing noise was all around her. She couldn't see, but she could tell by the compressed sound that she was inside a tunnel again.

The water grew rougher and faster. She clung to the boat with all her strength.

I
hate
water!
she thought.
I hate it!

The boat slammed and banged and thumped and rocked and bumped. It was about the most frightening thing she'd ever done, right up there with wading out into the Lake of Peace. Worse, actually, because she couldn't turn back, couldn't control the boat, couldn't do anything but hang on and try not to scream.

It seemed to go on for hours.

And then suddenly the rushing noise became a roar, and the roar became thunder, and the boat went faster and faster.

And then she was flying through the darkness.

When she hit, she lost consciousness.

H
ow long have I been here?” Loor asked, looking up from the bed where she was lying. Chief Councillor Erran stood over her. Loor saw her mother, Osa, seated at the foot of the bed.

“Four days,” Erran said. “We thought we were going to lose you. A farmer found you lying in an irrigation ditch on the outskirts of the city. Where have you been?”

Loor sighed loudly. “I failed,” she said.

Erran and Osa exchanged glances. Erran sat and put his hand on her arm. “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me everything.”

When she had gotten halfway through the story, Erran said, “Stop. I am going to take you before the council. Your story needs to be heard by more than just me.”

 

An hour later four strapping members of the Ghee, the revered guards of the Batu people, were bearing her on a makeshift stretcher into the huge pyramid that housed
the council. She was taken to the front of the council, through an utterly silent room, the eye of every councillor pinned to her.

When she reached the front of the chamber, she was seated on a gold chair reserved for honored speakers. To her horror she saw that both King Khalek and Prince Pelle were seated on a dias at the front of the room. To their left, Osa sat with the other councillors. Loor felt sick with self-disgust. She had been given a huge assignment. And she'd failed. Why were Erran and her mother putting Loor through this grotesque public humiliation? She'd have rather been taken out somewhere and flogged. But she had been trained never to show weakness. So despite her fatigue, her aching head, she kept her back straight, her chin high, her gaze imperious.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw King Khalek nod to the chief councillor.

“My friends,” Erran said, coming to the front of the chamber and standing next to her. “We entrusted this young warrior, barely more than a girl, on a mission of grave importance to our people just a little more than a week ago.” Then he turned to her. “Loor, please give His Majesty your report.”

Loor pushed herself to her feet. For a moment she thought she might faint. She tried to avoid her mother's eyes. But she couldn't. She expected her mother to look at her with contempt after hearing about Loor's failure. But instead, Osa's gaze was calm and reassuring. Loor shook off the urge to collapse.

Then she took a deep breath and began. Slowly at first, then gaining strength as she spoke, she told her
story. She made no attempt to glorify her own actions or to excuse her failure. She simply told what happened.

When she was finished, there was a moment of silence. “I cannot apologize for my miserable performance,” she said. “But I invite your harshest punishment for my failure. I do know where the ax is, however. I could not even hope to be entrusted with leading an expedition to find it after my failure here. But if I could just accompany—”

Erran cut her off with a sharp wave of his hand. “Silence.”

She stopped speaking. She wanted to bow her head in shame. But she couldn't. She fixed her eyes on the very back of the chamber and clamped her jaw shut.

“Loor,” Erran said. “I have misled you. Your true mission was not to find the ax. Axes can be made again.”

Loor blinked. She looked from Erran to Osa. Osa looked away, a rare action for her.

“For years we Batu have needed to secure independent information about the sources of our water. Our dear friends, the Rokador, of course give us regular reports. But they do not allow us to inspect their works. We have sent many warriors into the desert to search the mountains for water.” He paused portentously. “None have returned.”

Loor swallowed. None of this made any sense at all.

“Finally we realized that without the support of the tribesmen, such a mission was impossible. And yet, never have we been able to secure their aid. So what were we to do?”

Heads nodded throughout the room. Loor remained frozen like a statue.

“Recently we had a stroke of good luck. The Ghee captured a raider from the desert, who told us that the ax would be stolen during the first day of Azhra. He told us—as you have explained—that the real goal of the theft was to draw an extraordinary woman from Xhaxhu so that she could be captured and taken by Zafir tribesmen as a bride for the king of their people. It was the unanimous opinion of everyone in this room that you were the right choice to be sent out.”

“We didn't tell you because, had you known, you might have somehow given away your mission. If you had, the tribesmen would have killed you as a spy on the spot. So we deceived you.”

Loor's head was spinning. She wanted more than anything else to sit down. But she remained rigidly at attention.

“Fellow councillors,” Erran said, “Loor has succeeded in her mission beyond even what we had hoped. Despite the self-incriminating tone of her astonishing report, it is clear that she has demonstrated every single one of the highest virtues of the Batu people: strength, courage, self-discipline, humility, fighting spirit, military skill, stamina….” He shook his head as though in amazement. “Because of her fortitude and determination, I move that this council award her Order of Supreme Merit and promote her forthwith to the rank of second level in the Ghee.”

Loor could not believe it. She had been convinced that
she was on the verge of being severely and appropriately punished.

“If this girl has any flaw, it is that she—like most girls her age—retains a certain impulsiveness and rashness that time will surely temper.” He then turned and bowed toward the old king. Loor followed suit.

King Khalek rose slowly from his chair. As he did, Crown Prince Pelle handed him a gold armband. The king then placed it around Loor's biceps. He was not a young man, but his grip was still strong.

As the king placed the symbol of the Order of Supreme Merit around her arm, the council rose in a body and applauded thunderously. The applause went on and on for minutes. Loor stared impassively at the floor, not even moving to wipe away the hot streams of moisture that ran from her eyes. When she looked up finally, she noticed that a tear was running down Osa's face too. Loor was amazed. She had never seen her mother cry, not once.

“Never make the first move,” Erran whispered to Loor. “Never make the first move.” Then he led her to the chair and sat her down.

Loor blinked, confused to hear the same words from Erran that had so recently come from the man she had fought in the desert.

The applause ended. There was a long silence in the chamber.

Then one of the councillors at the rear of the chamber rose and said, “How large would you say the so-called Lake of Peace was, Loor?”

Loor shook her head. “I could not say exactly. But it might have been as broad as the entire city of Xhaxhu.”

There were shocked intakes of breath.

“You stated that the water does not flow out of the lake in a river.”

“Yes,” Loor said.

“Did it occur to you that perhaps it drains into the Rokador's underground river that you found running beneath the sand?”

Loor shrugged. “I—I do not know that I am competent to answer that question.”

“Well, the water must go somewhere!” the councillor shouted.

“My friends, please,” Erran said, “this poor girl is in a weakened state. We have prevailed on her enough. More details will reveal themselves eventually.”

“This cannot wait!” shouted another councillor. “The Rokador are piping that water under the desert, and hiding it in some huge underground lake, while they let Xhaxhu wither up and die.”

“Yes!” shouted another councillor.

“Now hold on!” a representative of the Rokador shouted, leaping to his feet. “I resent your accusations. For generations our people have sacrificed everything to bring—”

Erran lifted his hands again. “Please, brothers and sisters. Our goal in sending this young woman was not to create discord between Rokador and Batu, but to aid our Rokador friends in finding additional water sources.”

“Do not be naive!” shouted a Batu counsillor. “Every time we bring up the subject of water, the Rokador give
us this same speech about all of their terrible sacrifices and hard work, when in fact they are sitting around in their comfortable, cool underground palaces, while their hands are wrapped firmly around our throats. If we–”

For the first time King Khalek spoke. “Quiet!” he shouted. His voice was as strong and commanding as a parade-ground instructor. “There will be no more of this talk!”

Erran sighed. “I'm sorry, my dear,” he whispered to Loor. “I did not want you to hear this. I will have the Ghee take you back to your hospital bed.”

“I do not want to go back there—”

“Nonsense! Look at you. You are about to collapse. You have earned a rest,” said Erran. He turned to the king.

King Khalek made a slight motion with his hand. Four Ghee jumped up and raised Loor on their shoulders. Within seconds she was being trundled away.