The Blasted Lands (21 page)

The older of the two children eyed Andover suspiciously. The younger stared as well, but without any seeming hostility.

Drask spoke up. “You are wondering why they are pink. They are wondering why you are pink.”

Tusk spoke at the same time and the man nodded. He and his children climbed into the baths as well.

“I’ve worked metal for a few years. My skin has not changed color because of that. It’s changing because of the hands, I think.”

“There are differences in working metal for your people and ours, Andover.” Drask spoke casually enough. “I watched you when you forged your weapon. Your metal is taken from the ground, yes? And heated by fires until it is molten.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Our metal is a gift from the Daxar Taalor, heated just as these waters are heated.” His silver hand splashed slowly through the water, making a small wave but nothing more. “Our metal is the lifeblood of the mountains, the lifeblood of the gods themselves. They give to us, and when they give to us, and we accept, we are changed.”

Drask reached down under the waters and Andover nearly jumped when he felt the warm silver fingers touch his leg. “Look at your scar, Andover.”

Andover looked down at the place where silver metal had healed him before. There was indeed a thick scar there, but looking at it under the water something seemed wrong. He raised his leg for a better view and let out a small gasp when he saw the flesh properly. The skin was tinted there, much as scars can be, but the tint was gray and looked almost dead in comparison to the pink flesh elsewhere.

There was a harsh ringing noise in his ears for several moments. Andover’d had enough surprises in his life to know that noise was not real, merely in his head. “Am I becoming one of you?” The words were spoken softly enough that he wasn't sure anyone heard him.

Tusk looked at him and answered just as softly: “Would that be a bad thing for you, Andover Lashk of the Iron Hands?”

***

An hour after he’d settled for sleep Andover sat up and took in a deep breath. He’d been having a pleasant dream about Tega and the thought of her in his dream was enough to startle him awake.

He rose from his simple bed and looked around. A few beds were occupied, but many were not. After listening in the darkness for a few moments he heard the sounds of people talking and followed them.

Just beyond the doorway, outside in the night, Drask Silver Hand was speaking in low tones with another man Andover had never seen before. The man was smaller than Drask, but not by much. His elbows rested on his knees and he squatted next to a small fire. The air had grown much colder since the sun went down and the fire was a necessity. One half of the man’s face was a ruin of scar tissue. His left ear was nothing but a hole amid the pitted mess of ruined flesh. If he had an eye on the side of his face, Andover could not see it in the light from the fire.

Andover coughed into his hand and both men looked in his direction. He did not need to cough, but suspected that startling any of the Sa’ba Taalor would be foolish in the extreme.

Neither of the men looked at all startled by his presence and he wondered if they’d already known he was there.

Drask tilted his head a bit. His hair was down and fell around his shoulders, across his back. “You are awake? I thought you had gone to sleep, Andover.”

“I was wondering if you’d heard about Tega or the rest of my people? We’ve been so busy I forgot about the travelers who passed us on the way here.”

“The soldiers.” Drask stared at him for a long time. “They are dead. Tega, the girl, I think went home.”

“The soldiers are dead?” There was no moisture left in his throat.

Drask answered calmly enough. “Your Emperor died. He was killed, to be precise. The soldiers tried to accuse Tusk of killing him.” Dry mouth, yes. But now there was the problem with his knees feeling weak, too. Drask continued, “Tusk and the rest of the people with him killed the soldiers. The girl, Tega, was with Tusk at the time and under his protection, but she lifted into the air like a bird and soared away.”

“Oh. I. Oh. Um.” There were words he wanted to say, but they were hiding themselves very well.

“Nothing more has happened yet, Andover. The kings have met to discuss matters, but that does not change your position here. You were invited by the Daxar Taalor themselves. No one here will blame you for the actions of the soldiers.”

He nodded his head, swallowed the dryness and desperately wished he had a drink.

“You have questions?”

“Oh, yes.” Andover nodded vigorously. “Many questions.”

“You may ask them of Tusk in the morning. He is sleeping and I would not awaken him without good cause.” Both of the men offered smiles at that comment. He suspected there was a story behind those smiles, but just then could not make himself ask after what that tale might be.

He was alone among the most violent fighters he had ever met, and apparently his nation had attacked them.

Andover had no possible idea how to respond.

“Would you drink with us, Andover?” Drask held a skin that sloshed with fluids.

He nodded and the man tossed the skin to him. A moment later he took a deep drink of the cool, sweet wine within it. He had not consumed many wines but rather liked the taste.

A moment later a pleasant warmth ran down his throat and into his stomach. Within a dozen heartbeats that warmth was moving through his entire body.

He nodded his thanks and tossed the wine skin back. The man with Drask caught it and offered a ruined smile from the ruined face.

Andover smiled back though he felt like screaming in fear, and then waved his good nights.

He moved back to his bed and settled in, but he did not sleep. Instead he found himself lost in thoughts of Tega flying like a bird and armies clashing over the body of a dead Emperor.

***

The following morning the entire group, excepting only Trumdt, his two children and anyone else tending to the place, rode and walked up the steep slope of Durhallem, scaling the mountain at a steady pace. After the time spent in the Blasted Lands the trek was easy enough for Andover. He did not complain and felt no reason to, instead he enjoyed the view as he climbed.

Tuskandru was well ahead of him in the procession and he contemplated how to approach the man about the attacks and the deaths he’d heard of. How to find out what the king knew of Tega.

There was an odd sense of guilt lingering in his mind. When he’d left the city she had been on his mind constantly. Now? The girl he’d adored from afar for so long was almost gone from his mind.

That was for the best, perhaps but still he felt as if he might somehow be betraying her.

The valley below was lush with greens and other hues. He had not expected that. He wasn't sure what he would expect after walking through the desolation outside of the mountain range, but truly the notion of farmlands never seemed a possibility.

“Who tends the farms, Delil?” He couldn’t imagine a farmer among the Sa’ba Taalor.

“Mostly the children.”

He looked at her to see if she was having a jest at his expense, but the girl seemed completely sincere.

Andover stopped to look long and hard at the distant fields, and Delil stopped with him. “How?”

“How does anyone tend a farm, Andover? They plant the seeds, they grow the crops, and they cut them down and harvest them. It is different for each kingdom, of course, but Tusk’s people teach the children to farm so that they will always be prepared to grow whatever foods they need.”

“I have never seen a farm before.” The words were out before he knew what he was saying.

She looked at him for a moment and her eyes smiled behind the veil. “Then we shall have to take you to see one.”

By the time the sun was on its way down, they had stopped at a wall of buildings. That was the only way he could think of it.

According to the stories he heard, the people in the area had once lived in stone huts they built themselves, but after the Mound Crawler came, that great and terrible beast that Tusk killed when he became king, Tusk ordered his people to change their ways and change they did. The people lived in the mountainside, in homes that they carved from the rock themselves, though it had taken years to accomplish the task.

Stairwells cut into the rock of the mountain itself led to openings at different heights, some of them only a few feet from the ground and others that required climbing nearly a hundred feet from the flat plateau where the odd town was settled.

There were rooms and they were solid, as they should have been, seeing they were hacked from the side of the mountain. The work was not primitive as he’d first imagined it might be. Instead the rooms were smooth walled and even floored and as squared and balanced as any he had ever been in. Some were simple in design and others far more complex. It seemed to depend entirely on who lived there and what they did to complete their dwellings.

He was given a room in the same structure as Drask and Delil and Bromt. None of them lived in the area and so all of them were hosted in places set aside for visitors. The rooms were comfortable and functional, with little or no decoration.

What little Andover carried was left in his room without fear of it being taken. The idea seemed insane for a moment. Back in Tyrne you kept your possessions close by and hid them away if you were going to leave them behind. Here the idea was as foreign as he was. The Sa’ba Taalor did not have much of a problem with theft, according to Drask. Thieves had to fight to keep what they might take, and especially where Durhallem ruled and mercy was not an option, it seemed one would only risk theft if one was willing to die for what was taken.

It was a very different place from what he was used to. Then again, he was a very different person. All he had to do was close his eyes and think back on the fights he had survived and he knew that.

After the sun had set there was a feast in a clearing before the wall of structures. A vast area had been cleared of all brush and artificially leveled. He could see the cut marks where stone had been meticulously chiseled away until the area was as flat as a well-planed board.

In that area there were four deep pits and in each of those was a fire. They proved necessary as the sun set and the chill of the night came across the mountain. From their height the people could see the entrance to Durhallem’s Pass and also see into the valley far below. Andover saw rivers and lakes that he had spotted when the sun was still up. They were a different shade of black in the darkness of the valley and from time to time he could spot fires along the edges of the water.

Drask Silver Hand joined him in observing the valley, as more and more of the people from the area came down from their homes and started gathering around the four fire pits.

Drask gestured with his hand. “The valley is larger than it looks from here.”

“It does not look small. How many days would it take to travel the length?”

Drask assessed him for a moment, his eyes once again catching whatever light was around and reflecting back a silvery glow. The more he stared, the more he suspected the light was internal somehow.

“To walk the Taalor valley would take you at least two weeks from end to end.”

“Impossible.” The word was out before he could stop himself and he dreaded the man would take offense.

Drask’s eyes smiled behind his veil. “As I said, it is larger than it seems. There are seven vast mountains, Andover. They are not neatly lined up. They are staggered. You cannot see the other end of the valley from here.”

“Which mountain do you call home, Drask?”

Drask shrugged his shoulders, a gesture he had picked up from the soldiers he traveled with a while back. Very few of the Sa’ba Taalor ever seemed to shrug now that he thought about it.

“I follow Ydramil and his King in Silver, Ganem. I have a home near the top of Ydramil, but I have not been there in over a year now. I have been busy.”

“A year?” Andover frowned at that. “Why so long?”

“Ydramil makes demands of his followers. We are told to study much of the world. I have been visiting each of the mountains, each of the kings and each of the gods.”

“Like I’m supposed to?”

“Just so.” Drask sighed, the thin veil fluttering with his breath.

“Why the veils, Drask? I have seen every one of you naked, but still you wear veils.”

“We do not question the Daxar Taalor. They have not yet said you are ready to see our faces and so we cover them.”

“What is so special about your faces?”

Drask chuckled. “What is so special about yours? To us they are just faces. We are who we are.”

“Does your face look like mine?”

“No more than my skin looks like yours or my hand looks like yours.”

He held out his silver hand and placed close to Andover’s right hand. Both were metal. Both moved through sorceries Andover did not even try to understand, but beyond that they looked like hands and had five fingers, there was little that they had in common.

“Your children do not wear veils?”

“The children have not yet met with gods.”

“Like I’m supposed to meet with them?” That thought was still too large to completely take in. It was easier to try to study the whole of the sky and count the stars than it was to comprehend meeting actual gods.

Drask looked away. “You ask many questions. I can only answer a few. You will meet the Daxar Taalor. They have reasons for wanting to meet you that they have not shared with me.” There was no anger in his comment, not even disappointment. Drask merely stated a fact. “I can tell you only this: no one stands before gods and remains unchanged by the encounter.”

They were silent for a while, lost in their own thoughts as the sounds of people gathering and preparing food came to them. At each of the fires, carcasses were skewed and set above the flames. There was a time when the notion of eating a Pra-Moresh would have been repellent, but having endured the Blasted Lands and eaten even stranger things – for strange things indeed lived in the wastelands – Andover found the idea had a certain appeal. His stomach rumbled agreement.