The Nomad (21 page)

He tried to imagine what it would be like, fighting the undead. No warrior could face a more dangerous or fearsome opponent. It would be the ultimate test of a man who had devoted his life to being tested. And it would mean a resolution, one way or the other. If Sorak found the talisman known as the Breastplate of Argentum, then Valsavis would have to take it from him. He would have to best a Master of the Way, an elfling with powers of endurance and strength rivaling those of the finest human warriors, an opponent with a magic sword capable of cleaving through any obstacle or weapon—and an enemy who had the one thing that Valsavis wanted most of all, the loyalty and affections of a villichi priestess who could hold her own with any man, and who was worth whatever pains it took to capture her devotion. Valsavis looked down at the beautiful young girl sleeping peacefully in his bed and decided that no substitute would ever do again. It had been pleasant, but the pleasure had been ephemeral and, ultimately, unsatisfying. There was only one woman he had ever met who was truly worthy of him, one woman who could challenge him on every level. There was only one woman worth winning, no matter what the cost. And her name was Ryana.

When the time came, Valsavis thought, he would kill the elfling. But the priestess he would claim as his own reward, as the Shadow King had promised. And if he could not have her, he decided, she would have to die. I
will
have you, Ryana, he thought, if it takes both my life and yours. One way or the other, he thought, you are going to be mine, either in bed or on the field of battle. Resign yourself. It is inevitable. He finished dressing and buckled on his sword belt.

It would not be long before they met the Silent One and departed on their journey across the Great Ivory Plain to the city of the undead. He decided that he would go to their room and invite them to join him for breakfast. They had much to talk about.

He was certain they suspected him, but he also knew that they could ill afford to dispense with his skills when it came to surviving what they would have to face in Bodach. Yes, indeed, he thought, regardless of whether they trusted him or not, they needed him. And so long as that was the case, he had the upper hand.

There was no answer when he knocked at their door. The image suddenly came to him of the two of them in bed together, and he felt his anger rise. With difficulty, he fought it down. No, he thought, not yet. Not yet. Now is not the time. But soon. He knocked once more. No answer. He placed his ear against the door. Could they have failed to hear? It seemed unlikely. Both were seasoned desert travelers, which meant they were light sleepers. In the desert, one had to come awake at once, alert and ready, if one wanted to survive.

He knocked again. “Sorak!” he called out. “Ryana! Open the door! It’s me, Valsavis!”

There was no response. He tried the door. It was unbolted. He swung it open. There was no one inside the room. He noticed that the window shutters were open. And then he noticed that their packs were gone and the beds had not been slept in. He hurried quickly to the dining room, but there was no sign of them there among the other patrons having breakfast. He ran back to the lobby.

“My two companions,” he said to the clerk, “the ones I paid you to keep a watch on… have you seen them?”

“No, sir,” the clerk replied. “Not since last night, when they came in with you.”

“They did not leave?”

“If they have, sir, they did not go by me, I assure you. But you could check with the gatekeeper.”

Valsavis did just that, but the man at the gate had not seen them, either. Valsavis recalled the open window shutters in their room and went back into the garden. He stepped off the path and moved among the plants until he came to the outside of Sorak and Ryana’s room. He checked the ground below the window, then swore softly. They had left by the window. Probably last night, while he had foolishly sported with the girl. He followed the trail to the wall. That explained why the gatekeeper had not seen them. He saw clearly where Ryana had stood to give Sorak a leg up, and then where she had scuffed her foot on the wall as he had helped her to climb over.

He immediately hurried back to his room and threw his things together, then left the inn, running down to the Avenue of Dreams. He ran past the bellaweed emporiums and through the plaza where they had fought the marauders. Nothing remained now to indicate the struggle except some dried bloodstains on the bricks. He came to the apothecary shop and threw open the door.

“Apothecary!” he called out. “Old man! Damn you, whatever your name is, where
are
you?”

Kallis came out through the beaded curtain. “Ah,” he said, on seeing Valsavis, “back so soon? I had heard there was some trouble last night. You were injured perhaps? You seek some healing salve?”

“Damn your salves and potions!” said Valsavis. “Where is the Silent One?”

The old man shook his head. “Gone,” he said.

“Gone where?”

“I do not know,” said Kallis. “She does not always confide in me, you understand.”

“I think I can guess where she has gone,” Valsavis said through gritted teeth. “When did she leave?”

“I really cannot say,” Kallis replied. “I have not seen her since last night, when you were here with your friends.”

“What about the others? The two that I was with last night. Did they return?”

“No,” said Kallis, shaking his head. “I have not seen them either. However, I can see that you are rather upset and agitated. That is not healthy for the constitution, you know. Are you quite certain I cannot interest you in some—”

But Valsavis was already going out the door. Cursing himself for a fool, he ran toward the stables by the east gate. The stablekeeper had not seen them, either. The kanks they had ridden were still there in their stalls. And none of the kanks they had sold were gone yet, either. Doubtless, the marauders had intended to claim them when they returned, but they had not been able to return. Valsavis quickly checked the other stables in the area, in case they had sought to trick him by obtaining mounts elsewhere. However, no one at any of the other stables had seen Sorak and Ryana, nor anyone answering to the description of the Silent One.

Was it possible? Valsavis wondered. Could they have actually proceeded on
foot?
They might have thought the kanks would leave an easier trail for him to follow, but then he already knew where they were going and, mounted, he could catch them quickly if they had gone on foot. Surely, they had to realize that, he thought. Why would they go on foot? It just did not make any sense.

He stepped outside the gate. With all the traffic going in and out, it was impossible to pick up their trail on the road leading up to the village gate. But at some point, he realized, they had to leave the road and head south, across the plain, toward Bodach. He went back to the stable to get his kank and the supplies that he stored there. It would take some time to replenish them and draw enough water from the well to fill all of his skins, but if they had gone on foot, as seemed to be the case, then catching up to them would pose no problem.

It was a much longer journey to Bodach from Salt View than it was to Salt View from Nibenay. They did not have quite as long a stretch of the Ivory Plain to cross as they headed south, but when they reached the inland silt basins that blocked their way, they would have to turn either to the east or to the west and go around them. It made no real difference which direction they chose, either way was about the same distance. They would have to go all the way around the silt basins and along the spit of land that separated the basins from the Estuary of the Forked Tongue, which meant they would have to make a wide, long sweep around to the peninsula that projected into the silt basins. At the tip of that peninsula lay Bodach. They would have to follow that route, going around one way or the other, unless, Valsavis thought, they had some means of crossing the silt basins. But he did not see how they could.

The silt basins were deep and wide, broken up by several desert islands in the center on which nothing could be found but sand. Nothing grew along their banks, not even the sparest desert vegetation. It was one of the most desolate and barren areas on Athas. There was no way they could construct a raft and pole their way across, because there would be nothing to construct it from. And there was no one there to ferry them. Not a soul lived around the silt basins, or anywhere else within miles of Bodach.

The only other possibility was for them to make their way to the small village of North Ledopolus, on the north bank of the estuary, and perhaps find a raft there that they could take across, but then they would have to drag the raft with them all the way to the silt basins, and making the detour to North Ledopolus would take them just as long as it would take to reach Bodach by land.

No, Valsavis thought, they would have to go around the silt basins, and on foot, the journey would be brutal and extremely time-consuming. What could they possibly be thinking? Unless, perhaps, there was something he simply did not know.

He replenished his supplies and drew more water, then mounted his kank and started out the gate. The road from the east gate of the village led back to the canyon pass through the Mekillots. They would have to leave the road sometime before they reached that pass. And they had not gone out the west gate. He had described them in detail to the gatekeeper at the east gate, and the man had remembered seeing them leave just after he began his shift the previous night. He insisted that they had gone out on foot.

It was still early in the morning. The gatekeeper was just getting ready to go off shift when Valsavis questioned him, which meant that they had left late last night. At most, they could have no more than six or seven hour’s head start. And they would be traveling without having had any sleep. Valsavis shook his head, bewildered. They must have lost their minds. It seemed unbelievable that they could be so foolish. What did they hope to accomplish by this? Did they really think that they could lose him this way?

He followed the road leading back to the pass, riding slowly, watching to either side to see where they had gone off. Logic dictated that they would have gone off to the left and headed straight south, but they might have tried going off to the right and doubling back, just to throw him off the trail. After he had ridden a short distance, Valsavis found the spot where they had left the road. And it was to the
right.
He grinned. Just as he had anticipated. They had doubled back. Did they really hope to fool him that way?

However, his grin soon faded when he saw that their trail led not back the way they came, on a course doubling back parallel to the road, but
north,
toward the slopes of the lower foothills. They were going in the exact opposite direction, toward the mountains!
Why?

After a while, he came to a pagafa grove, and there the trail simply ended. He dismounted and looked around, puzzled. He carefully checked the entire area. There were antloid tracks everywhere. Could they have fallen prey to antloids? Again, that did not seem to make sense. They were not inexperienced city dwellers. Far from it. They would not have simply stumbled upon a group of antloids. And antloids did not generally go out of their way to attack humans. Or elflings, for that matter. Workers did not attack at all, and soldier antloids attacked only if they felt their warren was being threatened, or if they had a queen with them. It was said that pyreens had an affinity with nature’s creatures, but then the trail he had followed showed only two sets of tracks—Sorak’s and Ryana’s. There was no sign of the Silent One. Valsavis looked around. The branches of the nearby trees were stripped, and some of the dagger plants had leaves removed, as well. The ground all around the area, and especially in the center of the pagafa grove, showed a great deal of activity. What had the antloids been doing? And why had Sorak and Ryana come here?

In addition to the branches that had been neatly stripped off by the antloids, there was also evidence of branches that had been torn off and broken by a violent storm, but it was a storm that appeared to have been extremely localized. Such things were known to happen in the desert, Valsavis realized, but it was curious that it should have happened here, with all these other curious signs. He frowned. Exactly what
had
happened here?

He went back over the trail that Sorak and Ryana had left behind. They had been running. That much was clear. He could tell from the weight distribution. But why? To get to the grove? What was their hurry? Unless, Valsavis thought, they had been running to keep up with someone… or
something.
He crouched and carefully examined the trail. Yes, there it was. A rasclinn’s track. But what was a rasclinn doing here in the flatlands? This was not their normal habitat. On the other hand, he thought, perhaps this was no ordinary rasclinn. Maybe the Silent One really
was
a pyreen, a shapechanger.

He followed the rasclinn’s trail. It was harder to spot than the trail left behind by Sorak and Ryana, but there was no question about it. The trail led directly to the grove, then disappeared, just as Sorak and Ryana’s trail had disappeared. But where? And
how?

Valsavis knew there had to be an answer. It had to be in the signs. Antloids working at some strange and unknown task, leaving behind evidence that was completely out of character for their natural behavior, a rasclinn leading Sorak and Ryana to the grove, and then vanishing without a trace. Sorak and Ryana also vanishing without a trace. And signs of a violent storm. A very intense and very localized storm. Or else…

“An elemental?” said Valsavis aloud. He swore softly. All the available evidence seemed to point to the same thing. The Silent One really
was
a pyreen, a shapechanger able to influence the behavior of beasts and raise air elementals. But to what purpose? And what had the antloids been working at?

He wandered around the scene some more. The ground had been disturbed, not only by the antloids moving back and forth, but by the churning of the storm, as if a small tornado had touched down. Or perhaps several small tornados. Several elementals? It was possible. How many had she raised?