The Nomad (6 page)

It was a venture that benefitted both parties, and Salt View had become a rowdy, boisterous little village of itinerant players, acrobats, jugglers and musicians, with the occasional visiting bard thrown in for good measure. The marauders now often came as welcome visitors instead of raiders. And travelers, in search of stimulation with an edge of danger, often made a detour to the village of Salt View, where they could indulge in gaming to their heart’s content, attend elaborate theatrical productions, drink their fill, and take their pick of willing wenches. Usually, they would depart without so much as a ceramic in their purses. And yet that never seemed to stop the flow of eager new arrivals.

Salt View had to be their destination, then. Was it possible this king they sought to raise was residing in Salt View, so close to Nibenay? Valsavis frowned. He disliked the thought of the game ending so quickly.

But surely, he thought, if there were a powerful wizard in the village of Salt View, the Shadow King would have been made aware of it. The people of Salt View would sell their own mothers for a profit. No, thought Valsavis, it seemed unlikely. What then?

There was, apparently, some connection between the elfling and the Veiled Alliance. Was there a chapter of the Veiled Alliance in Salt View? If so, he had never heard any mention of it. The members of the Veiled Alliance were all preservers in active opposition to defilers, and there were no defilers in Salt View. Magic-users were unwelcome there, whether preservers or defilers. So the probability was that the elfling and the priestess were seeking someone or something else. Valsavis could not imagine who or what that could be.

It was a puzzle. Valsavis was intrigued by puzzles, especially when they were posed by those he stalked. He mounted his kank as the dark sun began to set on the horizon. He checked his waterskins to make certain they were full. It was going to be a long, hard journey, but he was sure to find something of interest at its end. An elfling Master of the Way with a priceless magic sword, assuming it really was the legendary blade called Galdra. A beautiful, young villichi priestess well schooled in the arts of combat and survival. And a mysterious wizard king to be, powerful enough to excite the caution of Nibenay himself.

Yes, worthy adversaries, all.

Valsavis urged the kank forward, down the slope to the Great Ivory Plain. And so the chase begins, he thought with satisfaction.

Sorak knew the marauders had their base on the western slopes of the Mekillot Mountains. Those foothills were near the caravan route from Altaruk to Gulg so, to give the marauders a wide berth, he headed on a diagonal, southeasterly course, rather than going straight south. It added at least another day to their journey across the Great Ivory Plain, which was not an attractive proposition, but on the other hand, it reduced their chances of encountering marauder scouts.

It also brought them closer to the village of Salt View, which was located just beyond the mountains, near the eastern tip of the range. According to
The Wanderer’s Journal,
there was a pass roughly at the middle of the range, which was the normal route that one would take to reach Salt View, but Sorak intended to give that a wide berth, as well. It would be a logical place for the marauders to post lookouts. What better place to ambush unwary travelers than in a desolate mountain pass?

They reached the northern slopes of the foothills just before daybreak on the seventh day of their journey. According to the rough map in
The Wanderer’s Journal,
the distance across the Great Ivory Plain from Nibenay to the mountains was approximately forty or fifty miles. The actual distance they had traveled had been easily twice that. In his days as the Wanderer, thought Sorak, the Sage was obviously not a very accurate cartographer. Either that, or errors had crept in over the years as the journal had been copied numerous times for distribution. Sorak hoped the former was the case, for if errors had crept into the journal, then he had no way of knowing how far he could trust its contents. It was an unsettling notion, especially since the journal was supposed to contain clues that would guide them on their quest.

They had been as sparing with their water as possible, but they had still run out. For Sorak, with his elfling powers of endurance, going without water was not as much a hardship as for Ryana, whose human constitution had greater need of it, especially on the Great Ivory Plain. It was much cooler traveling at night, but when they stopped to rest during the day, the heat was so intense that moisture had to be replaced. Ryana’s lips were parched and cracked, and it had been all she could do to put one foot before the other. Sorak had offered to carry her, but she refused to burden him. Exhausted and at the utter limit of her resources, she still had her stubborn pride.

As soon as they had reached the foothills, they stopped to rest, and Sorak dug a shallow depression in the ground. He used a druid spell to draw water up out of the sandy soil. Ryana could have done it, but she lacked the strength. It took a while for the liquid to percolate up through the soil, because the water table was far below the surface. Once it did, he watched to make sure that Ryana took only small sips.

She crouched on hands and knees to drink, then sat up and sighed, wearily and gratefully. “I never thought that dirty water could taste this good,” she said. “It was still a little salty, though.”

“We should be able to find better water once we get up into the mountains,” Sorak said.

“I think I could sleep for at least a week,” Ryana said, stretching out on her back and shading her eyes with her arm.

“Do not fall asleep yet,” Sorak told her. “We are still out in the open here. I will feel safer once we find some cover.”

She groaned. “Can’t we rest here for just a little while?”

“Of course,” he said, relenting. “But we must be moving on soon. We will make camp among those rocks up there, where we should find both shade and shelter.”

She looked in the direction that he indicated and sighed once more. “Sometimes I wish I were an elf,” she said.

Sorak smiled. “Elves are carnivorous, remember. And they have great, big, pointed ears.”

“Well, an elfling, then,” she said. “Then I could be like you, resist my flesh-eating impulses, and have ears with only little points.”

“On you, they would look most attractive,” Sorak said.

“That’s right, flatter me when I’m weak and have no strength to respond,” she said.

“It
is
safer that way,” he replied. “Ouch,” she said. “It hurts to smile. My face is so dried out it may crack.”

“I will find some cactus and pulp it so that you may spread it on your skin.”

“Ohhh, that would feel wonderful. Now if only we could find a small stream that I could wash in!”

“I shall do my best,” said Sorak.

“You remember that stream that ran down from the spring by the convent?” she said.

He smiled. “Yes, I remember. We all used to bathe there every day, after our weapons training sessions.”

“I remember the bracing, cold water of the pool, and the way the stream ran down over the rocks below,” she said. “I can almost feel it now. I took it all for granted. The stream, the forest, the cool and refreshing mountain breezes… I had never truly realized how dry and desolate our world is.”

“You miss the Ringing Mountains, don’t you?” he said.

“I shall always think of them as home,” she replied. And then she added, quickly, “But I am not sorry I came.”

Sorak remained silent.

“Do you wish I had remained there?” she asked softly after a moment.

Sorak did not reply at once, and she felt a sharp pang of anxiety. Finally, he said, “A part of me does, I suppose. And I am not referring to any of the tribe. I mean that part of me wishes you could have been spared all this.”

“I made the choice to follow you of my own free will,” she said.

“Yes, I know. And I cannot begin to tell you how glad I am to have you with me. But I also cannot help thinking sometimes of the life you could have led had it not been for me.”

“Had it not been for you, I do not think I would have had much of a life,” she replied, gazing at him earnestly.

“And I cannot imagine my life without you,” he said.

“But if the Elder Al’Kali had never brought me to the convent, we never would have met. You would have i grown up among the sisters, and by this time, doubtless you would have replaced Tamura as weapons and combat trainer. You would have had the love and respect of all your fellow sisters, and you would have continued to live in that verdant valley high in your beloved Ringing Mountains, a peaceful oasis of green tranquility in a parched and dying world. Instead, you met me and fell in love, a love I share with all my heart, but never can reciprocate the way love is meant to be, because of who and what I am. And when I consider all that you have gone through for my sake, and what still lies ahead…” He sighed and looked away. “It all seems monstrously unfair.”

She moved closer to him and took his hand in hers. “I am not complaining,” she said. “Without you, I never would have had a friend my own age back at the convent. And without you, I never would have truly known what it means to love someone. I would have grown up like all the other sisters, having little use for men and thinking even less of them. And chances are that if I ever had a man, I would have done it in the same way as the older sisters who go out on their pilgrimages and use the opportunity to indulge their curiosity about the pleasures of the flesh. It would have meant nothing to me, and I would most likely have reacted the same way they all did, wondering why people made so much of it if that was all there was to love. But now, I know that they are wrong, and there is so much more. I may wonder sometimes what it feels like to couple with a male, but since I have never done it, I do not really know what I am missing. In truth, I do not require a male to make me feel whole as a woman.”

“I often wonder if I shall ever feel complete as a male without having made love to a female,” Sorak said. “And not just any female,” he added, looking at her. “Only one would do.”

“I know,” she said, squeezing his hand gently. “But Mistress Varanna told me once that love can be all the more intense for being chaste.”

Sorak looked surprised. “Varanna said that?”

Ryana smiled. “Varanna is wise in the ways of the world, as well as the ways of the spirit.”

“Yes, I suppose she is,” Sorak replied. “It is just that I find it difficult to imagine her speaking of such things.”

“We had a long talk about you just before I left the convent,” said Ryana. “I had already made up my mind to leave and follow you. I did not think she suspected it, but now I am certain she knew. I thought I was being so clever, sneaking out at night the way I did. She knew, though, and she could have stopped me but didn’t.”

“I am certain she would take you back,” said Sorak.

“Yes, I think she would,” Ryana replied, “but though I miss the sisters and the Ringing Mountains, I really have no desire to return.”

“Because of me?”

“Yes, but there is much more to it than you and me. What we are doing is important, Sorak, much more important than anything I could have done back at the convent. The villichi are preservers, first and foremost, followers of the Druid Way. We are taught from childhood to dedicate ourselves to saving our world, and we all dream that, one day, Athas will be green again. Perhaps that is a dream that shall never come to pass, but at least we can work to prevent the world from being despoiled further by defiler magic. The Sage represents our one true hope for that. The avangion is the only power that can stand against the dragon sorcerers. We must help the Sage achieve that metamorphosis. For a true preserver, there can be no higher calling.”

“True,” said Sorak, “but it also means that we will be in active opposition to the sorcerer-kings and every defiler on the planet. And you know that they shall stop at nothing to prevent the Sage from achieving his goal. That means they shall stop at nothing to prevent us from helping him. I often think I should have undertaken this alone, the way I started out. What right have I to expose you to such risks?”

“What makes you think it was your decision?” she asked. “No one ever said the Path of the Preserver was an easy one. It is not enough merely to talk about the path as an ideal. To be a true preserver, one must also walk it.”

“Yes,” said Sorak. “And speaking of walking…”

“So soon?” Ryana said.

“Only a little farther,” he replied, “and then we can make camp.”

Wearily, she got to her feet. “Well, I came this far. I suppose I can walk a little farther. But I am going to sleep like the dead when we make camp.”

“I see no reason why we cannot call a halt and rest for one whole day once we reach the shelter of those rocks up there,” he said. “No one is chasing us.” He looked out across the Great Ivory Plain. “Who in his right mind would follow us across all that?”

* * *

Valsavis stopped and dismounted from his kank. He opened up his feed bag and set it down before the beast, pouring a little water in it to give the giant insect some moisture. Ranks were well adapted for travel in the desert, but the Great Ivory Plain offered them nothing in the way of forage, not even a cactus to chew on, and he had been driving the beast hard. As the beetle fed, Valsavis carefully examined it to see how it was holding up. The kank was tired, but he had not pushed it past its limits. So long as his supplies held out, he would have no difficulty maintaining this pace.

His mount seen to, Valsavis next examined the trail. Most trackers would have found no trail at all to follow, but Valsavis did. It was far more difficult to detect a trail on the hard salt than on the sandy desert, but here and there, he could see the faintest sign of a disturbance in the salt where his quarry had stopped to rest briefly or paused to shift their packs. Another day and the wind would have obliterated even those faint signs.

One of them was growing much more tired than the other. He guessed it would have to be the priestess. The elfling had a stronger constitution. Here and there, he could see a sign of where her foot had dragged as she had walked. They had altered their course slightly, from south to southeast. Valsavis looked up at the mountains, now no more than a day’s ride distant. The elfling and the priestess appeared to be headed on a diagonal course toward the northeastern tip of the range. It would have been easier for them to head straight south and take the pass through the Mekillots to the village of Salt View, but they had chosen a more prudent course.