The Heart of the Sands, Book 3 of The Gods Within (9 page)

To Baldrak he said, “This one will do.”

“Don’t you want to try the other
two before choosing that one?”

Morgin shook his head. “It wouldn’t
make any difference. And I didn’t choose this blade, it chose me. How
long have you had it?”

Baldrak frowned. “I don’t know. It’s
just an old blade. We all have a few lying around. Might have had it for years.
Couldn’t really say. You know this blade?”

Morgin nodded, looking at the nicked and scratched steel. It
hovered at the edge of his senses like an assassin waiting in the shadows. “Yes,
we’re old . . . acquaintances.” He’d
almost said something about knowing this blade for centuries, but Baldrak
wouldn’t understand.

“Well then,” Baldrak said
heartily, “let’s work up a little sweat.”

In pairs, the smiths had traced out sparring circles in
the sand, and the ring of steel echoed throughout the camp. A small crowd of
onlookers had gathered near the far edge to observe, and when they saw Baldrak
and
the Elhiyne
tracing out a circle, a few called
out cat-calls and derogatory comments about Morgin’s heritage.

“We’ll start easy,”
Baldrak said, “and warm up a little.”

Baldrak and Morgin squared off and traded a few blows,
nothing serious yet, more like two dancers at half speed. As Morgin’s
shoulders and arms loosened up, he and Baldrak, by unspoken mutual consent,
picked up the pace a bit, though the sand made footwork difficult.

Baldrak disengaged and stepped back a pace. “Not
used to the sand, eh?”

“No,” Morgin said, “I’m
not used to a lot of things.”

They squared off again, and Baldrak flicked the tip of his
blade toward Morgin’s face, not a real strike but a test to gauge
his reaction. Morgin merely sidestepped the half-hearted stroke and they
squared off again, though again, by unspoken mutual consent, they both knew
they’d get serious now.

Baldrak lunged with a cut to Morgin’s face. Morgin
parried it easily and they parted. Baldrak cut low, but somehow Morgin sensed
it was merely a feint, that the real strike would be a chest high thrust. Knowing
what to expect, he blocked the thrust easily and returned with a thrust of his
own, stopping the tip of his blade a finger’s width short of the
man’s chest.

They both froze for a moment, both quite surprised. Had
they not been sparring, had this been a real fight to the death, Baldrak would
have been a dead man with a sword thrust through his heart.

Someone shouted, “Stop playing with the fool
Elhiyne, Baldrak. Show him what it means to be Benesh’ere.”

Morgin, fearing Baldrak might react with hurt pride,
lowered his sword and pleaded, “It was luck. Pure luck.”

Baldrak shouted back at the heckler, “I
promised him I’d be easy on him. And I’m a man of me
word.”

He looked at Morgin and spoke without animosity, “Let’s
try her again, man. And this time I’ll come in a little faster,
see how much you can take.”

Baldrak cut and thrust at Morgin repeatedly, but as the
pace of the fight increased, Morgin held back. He feared what the sword might
do if he did go on the offensive. Would it take that as a signal to sate itself
on the blood of the entire Benesh’ere tribe?

As Baldrak thrust at him, Morgin seemed to know what
Baldrak’s blade would do before it did it, and that gave him just
the instant of foreknowledge he needed to deflected each strike. Baldrak picked
up the pace, and Morgin stayed with him, even as the whiteface approached the
legendary speed of a Benesh’ere swordsman. It was as if Morgin’s
magic had decided to return, but it didn’t feel like magic, more
like something unique to the sands, or the Benesh’ere, or the
steel. But, even if his magic had decided to return, he didn’t
think he could control the blade if he went on the attack. So he stayed on the
defensive, and he lost more matches than he won.

“Well done,” Baldrak said as
they returned to his tent, both dripping with sweat.

By the time they finished washing up in the lagoon, dusk
was not far off; Yim had a fire going and a meal waiting for them. Morgin had
learned she wore her debt collar because she’d been impudent to
her mother and father regarding a young warrior she admired a little too
brazenly, just as Tallik wore his for acting the bully. They both owed their
parents a debt of honor.

Baldrak told Morgin to join them, and at that Yim gave
Morgin a dubious look. The smiths all sat around an open fire in the midst of
their tents, and Yim served them a meal of roasted goat, and some sort of
cooked root vegetable. Yim gave Morgin his usual bowl of tasteless, boiled
something-or-other, sometimes boiled wheat, today boiled oats.

One of the seven smiths, a fellow named Surnarra, called
to Morgin across the fire. “You fought well, Elhiyne.”

Baldrak added, “But always on the defense. Never
went on the offense.”

Morgin couldn’t tell them why he’d
held back, so he grinned at Baldrak and made a joke of it. “I didn’t
want to hurt you.”

Baldrak frowned for a moment. Then Surnarra roared with
laughter. “Got you there, he did, Baldrak.”

Baldrak joined the other smiths in the laughter. “Still,
you fought better than I’d expect of a plainface.”

Morgin shrugged and said, “I’ve
had a lot of practice recently.”

One of the other smiths asked, “You mean at
Csairne Glen? We heard about that.”

“No,” Morgin said, and he
described the almost daily gladiatorial contest he’d fought during
his captivity in Durin.

“A Kull?” Surnarra asked. “One
each day?”

Morgin said, “Not every day. Sometimes they
skipped a few days if I had wounds that needed healing.”

A strange silence settled over the smiths as the other
smith asked, “And to the death, every time?”

Morgin just nodded.

Surnarra asked, “How many Kulls have you
killed?”

Morgin thought about that carefully for a moment. “I’m
not sure. I never kept count.” He tried to recall all his many
fights over the past few years. “The first two were in Elhiyne
when the Tulalane and Valso held the castle through treachery. Then there were
six or seven in the sanctum, and a couple more in the castle yard. Then on the
Gods Road, maybe ten or twenty.”

He recalled the day he’d broken up the ambush
the Kulls had prepared for Tulellcoe and the small company of Elhiyne warriors.
And there was the day he killed twelve twelves with the wall of water at
Gilguard’s Ford. But he didn’t think these Benesh’ere
would count that, because he’d done it with magic. “Maybe
fifty, sixty, I don’t know. I’ve never kept count.”

Chagarin looked at him carefully and said, “You’re
not telling us something. I watched you consider it, and then decide not to say
it.”

Morgin grimaced. “There was one other time,
but it was done with magic.” Morgin described the wall of water he’d
created with his magic, and how it had swept away twelve twelves. “But
I didn’t think you’d count that because of the magic.”

For the longest moment the only sound that broke the
silence was the crackling of the open fire. Then Baldrak reached out and calmly
took Morgin’s bowl of boiled oats. He handed it to Yim and said, “No
man who’s killed that many Kulls eats this kind of fare. Get this
man some real food.”

Chapter 7: Without a True Name

The blade haunted Rhianne’s dreams. Always and
ever it haunted them. She awoke that morning exhausted and spent, even though
she’d slept through an entire night. She decided to remain in bed
for a few moments with her eyes closed, and collect her thoughts.

She didn’t understand the sword and its desires.
It hungered for freedom, and it constantly pressed her to release it, but she
couldn’t allow it the independence it sought. Like a petulant
child, it constantly hammered at her; tell an undisciplined child no, and it
would wait only a few heartbeats to make the same request again: free me—free
me—free me. Remaining vigilant through all hours of the day and
night left her exhausted.

The sword demanded everything of her, as it had demanded
everything of Morgin before his death. At that thought she despaired; she could
not defeat the malevolence in the blade without Morgin. He was meant to defeat
it, and she merely to assist him.

She recalled the moment when she’d entered
the Hall of Wills after the sword had gone berserk, stepping through the vast
doors into a room filled with a fog of stone dust. Morgin had knelt on the
floor in the center of the room, both hands wrapped about the sword’s
hilt in a white-knuckled grip, the sword buried in the stone of the floor, his
head bowed. Oddly, she now recalled that his head and shoulders had been
covered in a fine sheen of that stone dust, something she hadn’t
noticed at the time.

And she recalled the glimpse she’d had of
Morgin’s power, compressed into a white-hot spark to contain the
malevolence of the blade. She’d never had a chance to tell him he’d
not lost his power, that it was instead consumed by the need to control the
hatred within that talisman. She’d never told him, and he’d
died thinking himself powerless.

There remained one thing she didn’t
understand: now that he was dead, what held the talisman’s power
at bay? Certainly, a piece of her was always devoted to that effort, but she
alone could not contain such evil. And yet, with Morgin dead, the blade had not
devastated the countryside. Perhaps Morgin had left his power behind somehow,
left it in the blade as a counterbalance.

“Lady Mistress,” Braunye said. “We
have a busy day ahead of us.”

Rhianne opened her eyes, lay for a moment and savored the
quiet of early morning.

~~~

Morgin and everyone in the camp bedded down right after
dinner. They’d get a few hours’ sleep, then rise in
the early evening and head out onto the sands.

Shebasha visited him in his dreams regardless of when he
slept. “When will you reveal yourself?” she asked
him.

“What do I have to reveal? That I’ve
been a fool; a fool about Rhianne, a fool about Olivia, a fool about Valso and
everyone else?”

Shebasha lifted a hind paw and scratched her chin. “All
you mortals are fools; it’s just that some of you are more foolish
than others. Give me your name, mortal. Give me your name and I’ll
give you a boon.”

Morgin had nothing to lose, so he opened his mouth to say
his name, but nothing happened. His tongue wouldn’t move, his lips
wouldn’t move.

Shebasha smiled and licked at a paw. “You can’t
speak a false name in this dream, mortal.”

Morgin understood now. Out of pure reflex he had tried to
tell her his name was
Morgin
. But that was not a
true name. The demon ElkenSkul had given him his true name, though now, after
listening to Toke, he doubted even that. As an experiment, he opened his mouth
to speak the name
AethonLaw
, but again his tongue
would not move, his lips would not move. He managed to utter only a crude
grunt, and that confirmed his suspicion.

Shebasha laughed and stood. “The only place
where you are truly a fool, mortal, is that you do not know your own name.”

A very young Aethon appeared beside her. “Lord
Mortal,” he said, greeting Morgin. He glanced at Shebasha. “I
told him to seek out The Unnamed King.”

“Hm!” she said. “That
would be wise.”

Morgin’s frustration grew with each word they
spoke. “I would gladly seek him out, but I don’t know
how.”

Shebasha looked at Aethon and said, “Sad, is
it not?”

Aethon agreed, and then both of them turned their backs on
him and walked away.

Morgin jumped to his feet and shouted after them. “Now
wait, damn you. I’ll go to the Unnamed King, but how do I find
him? How do I find a myth, a legend that doesn’t exist?”

He tried to follow them, but they ignored him and
continued walking, and slowly they dissipated into the oncoming night. He stood
there on the sands of his dreams pondering their words. To find the Unnamed
King, where would he go? Certainly not in any of the clan territories, nor in
Aud. Perhaps in Kathbeyanne, but that didn’t feel right either. And
then he suddenly realized what an idiot he’d been. The Unnamed
King was also known as the King of Dreams; he would not find such a king on the
planes of mortal men, nor on any of the twelve levels of existence. No, the
King of Dreams would only be found in a dream. But how could he search in his
dreams when he had no control over his dreams? He knew of no magic to give him
that control, and it frustrated him that all he could do was stumble along
hoping to somehow find the Unnamed King by pure luck.

He dreamt next of Aethon’s tomb, looked upon
the crypt and studied the tableau carefully as he remembered it: the skeleton
king seated upon his throne, one skeletal
arm resting casually on an armrest, the other on the hilt of the great sword. But
as before there was some flaw in that picture, and it took him some time to
realize exactly what. The first time he’d glimpsed the ancient
crypt he’d been lying in the enchanted alcove in Castle Elhiyne,
dying from a Kull crossbow bolt he’d taken in the chest. Then one
wall of the alcove had shimmered and opened into the tomb. The skeleton king
had been there on his throne with his magnificent sword, and all the arms and
armor and trappings of a great king. And there’d been the body of
a dead warrior lying on the floor of the tomb in front of the throne, a warrior
dressed in simple garb and still clutching a plain and unadorned sword, very
unlike the grand accouterments of such a king’s tomb. And because
Morgin had dropped his sword in the hall outside the alcove, the king had taken
that dead warrior’s sword and given it to him. But now, in his
dreams, no warrior lay at the feet of the skeleton king, and the floor in front
of the king’s throne remained empty.

Baldrak shook Morgin
out of his dream. “Come on, Elhiyne. We’re going out
onto the sands.”

The entire camp had
already shifted into frantic activity. In a very short time they broke
down the tents and packed everything onto strange little pack animals akin to
donkeys. The whitefaces called them chakarras. They were smaller than Benesh’ere
warhorses, but like them they had large,
broad hooves that didn’t sink far into the sand. Packed up and
ready to go, the entire camp moved out on the sands walking into the night.

~~~

The Benesh’ere had about one thousand horses
for mounted warriors, but only outriders and scouts who ventured out ahead of
the main column rode. Most of the warriors walked with their mounts as part of
a long, winding train of people and livestock. The moon hung in the sky at
three-quarters, approaching full, and out on the yellow-white sand it lit up
the night as if it were merely a shadow in the light of day.

Morgin trudged along with the smiths. Walking in the sand
was difficult and exhausting, but they set a pace for the weakest of the Benesh’ere—old
whitefaces and young children—so Morgin managed to keep up.

Chagarin joined him and walked beside him, some sort of
bundle tucked under his left arm. “You’ll develop the
right muscles for the sand, soon enough. But until then you’re
going to be mighty sore, come morning.”

Chagarin retrieved the bundle from under his arm, and by
its shape Morgin knew it must be a sword wrapped in oiled cloth. Chagarin
unwrapped the blade and held it out to Morgin. He took it, recognizing it
immediately, and as they walked he threw a questioning look at Chagarin.

“Baldrak told me you know this blade.”

Morgin shrugged. “Or one very much like it. But
I left it back in Durin.” And then he recalled that while he had
left it in Durin, Rat had brought it to him that night out on the sands with
Shebasha. “No,” he said, “that’s
wrong. I forgot. I lost it out on the sands the night the sand cat attacked us.”
He wasn’t about to try to explain how Rat had brought it to him in
a dream. Let Chagarin think he’d carried it out onto the sands.

“That explains it,” Chagarin
said, nodding. “One of our outriders must have found it in the
sand. They always turn derelict blades like that over to us smiths.”

Chagarin held his hand out palm up. Morgin hesitated,
wanted nothing more than to be done with the cursed blade, wanted to give it to
Chagarin and never see it again. But he couldn’t abdicate his
responsibilities that way, for the burden of its power was his and his alone.

At his moment of hesitation, Chagarin’s eyes
narrowed. Morgin had no choice but to give up the blade at that moment, so he
reversed it and handed it to the smith. But in his soul he made sure it knew
that as long as it haunted the Mortal Plane, it would not be free of him.

Chagarin looked at it thoughtfully as they trudged through
the sand. “Baldrak also told me you said this blade chose you, not
you it.”

Silence hung between them for a long moment, then Morgin
said, “I was just speaking gibberish. I really don’t
know what I meant by that.”

Chagarin continued to look at the blade. “It’s
unusual for a blade to make such a choice. But it’s been known to
happen.”

He wrapped the blade again in the oiled cloth, all the
while looking only at Morgin. “But I wonder how you knew it chose
you. Most men are not close enough to the steel to sense such things.”

With that, he turned and drifted off into the moon-lit night.

~~~

At dawn the Benesh’ere stopped and set up
their tents. They didn’t circle together into one large defensive
perimeter, but grouped into smaller encampments that stretched into the
distance among the dunes. Several thousand whitefaces strung out in a long line
over the distance of more than a league would take too long to reassemble each
night.

The smiths didn’t set up shop. Baldrak told
Morgin the worst they might expect would be the occasional thrown shoe, or
broken piece of tack, nothing that couldn’t wait for them to get
to the lake. They’d spend another night on the sands, and when
they reached the Plains of Quam they’d shift back to sleeping at
night and marching by day. Two days on the plains, then two days of travel
through the forests just south of SavinCourt would bring them to their
traditional camp on the east shore of the Lake of Sorrows.

Morgin could barely stand, and walked like an old man. Walking
in the deep sand used his muscles differently than walking on hard ground. Baldrak
laughed and said, “It’s a shame you’ll
get your sand legs just as we’re leaving the sands. When we return
to Aelldie from the lake, we all suffer like that after a full season on hard
ground.”

With the reversal of their days the smiths had their hour
of sword practice in the early morning, just after setting up their tents and
before dinner. Morgin again participated, this time paired off with Surnarra
who had a distinctively different fighting style from that of Baldrak. Surnarra
waded in with heavy blows, where Baldrak had been more surgical with his
strikes.

Again, as their blades clashed, Morgin sensed where
Surnarra’s blade would strike an instant before it did so, and he fared
rather well. It wasn’t prescience; of that he was certain, for he’d
been trained in sword magic, trained to use his power to strengthen his arm,
but most importantly to speed up his reflexes and his perception of his
opponent’s moves. Such quickness of perception often felt like
prescience, but any experienced wizard knew the fallacy of that. Again, he lost
more than he won, but the exercise renewed his hope that his magic had decided
to return.

That night, as he trudged through the sand in the long column
of the Benesh’ere, he sensed something arcane approaching. He
turned about and saw Toke headed his way, with ElkenSkul hovering just over his
shoulder. When Toke caught up with him he matched Morgin’s pace,
and merely walked beside him in silence.

Morgin didn’t wait for Toke to spout his
riddles. He simply asked, “What do the extra marks in my name
mean?”

“Ah,” Toke said, looking up at
the moon above. “A good question, that.”

Morgin looked at the faint shimmer hovering just over the
old man’s shoulder. “Surely, the
namegiver
knows the answer.”

“No, young man, I wouldn’t
assume that.”

“You can’t mean the
namegiver
doesn’t know the meaning of the
symbols he scratches?”

Toke shrugged. “It is but a demon spirit,
Elhiyne. I don’t think it understands the concept of a name in the
same way we do.”

“Why is it also called
soul taker
? My grandmother called it
soul taker
.”

“Now that, I do know. You see, without a
name, do you truly have a soul?”

Morgin shook his head sadly. “Riddles! You
and that damned sand cat give me nothing but riddles.”

“Sand cat? Is it Shebasha you speak of?”

“She haunts my dreams just as you haunt my
waking hours, and both of you haunt me with riddles.”

Toke rubbed at the whiskers on his jaw. “Interesting!
I’ll have to ponder that.”

Toke turned and walked away into the night.