Land of the Burning Sands (4 page)

There was no reason to deny it. Gereint shrugged. “Feierabiand, yes. But the desert was much worse than I’d expected. But why were you…?” He cut the question off short, bowing his head.

But the man did not seem to notice the impudence. “Collecting some things from a private residence. I see you brought a few books out with you, too.” He gestured at Gereint’s small pack, lying beside his own. Then he shook his head, apparently in wonder at Gereint’s folly. Or maybe at his own. Said, with obvious pain and grief, “A few hours in, it was supposed to be; a few hours out. How difficult could that be?”

Gereint would have offered fervent agreement, only it wasn’t his place.

The man sighed and glanced around at the woods, green and dripping even though the mist had cleared. Then he looked sharply at Gereint. “What’s your name? How do you feel? You should be quite recovered. Are you?”

“Gereint,” Gereint said. “Yes… master. I think so.”

A second sharp look, this one distinctly uncomfortable. “I’m Eben Amnachudran. Call me by my name, please.” He glanced around once more. “There’s plenty of time left in the day. Put your boots on. Have another mug of soup. There’s some cracker in a pouch by the fire. Have some of that if you like.” He walked away, began putting things away in a good-quality traveler’s pack.

Gereint put his boots on, binding the steel rings flat against his ankles with strips of cloth so they wouldn’t chafe. He had another mug of soup and some of the hard cracker. He felt… well. Amazingly well. Too well. He wanted to ask the man… his master… he wanted to ask if he had done something, what he had done. But those questions might be dangerous, and anyway the answers were tolerably obvious. So his new master was a mage of some sort, and with at least a little skill in healing. Likely he would not care to have Gereint asking about such things. Better to test his new master’s temper with simpler questions.

Along with the ordinary pack, there were saddlebags. Four of them. Heavy, as though they’d been loaded with bricks. Gereint tried to picture the plump, soft-handed Amnachudran carrying even two of them for any distance, and failed. No wonder he’d brought a burro. And a companion. A friend, from the grief in his voice when he spoke of the man. Killed by the desert. That was certainly believable. The desert was visible from the woods: a straight line that cut across the hills. Behind that line was brilliant furnace heat blazing down on red sand and stone. On this side, trees dripping with moisture and a rain-fed stream racing its way down the mountainside across gray rocks. The stream ran straight into the desert and vanished; even the old streambed was barely discernable on the other side of the line. A long dimple in the sand, and then nothing.

“I think I can manage the pack and one of the saddlebags,” Amnachudran said, coming briskly over to Gereint. “Do you think you can carry the other three?”

Gereint gave him a sidelong glance. “What if I said no?”

“I would tell you to try.”

“I could probably carry all four.”

“Try three for now.” The plump man hefted the fourth, grunting, along with the two light packs. He glanced at the sky, heaved a resigned breath, and plodded away, east and south. Toward the Teschanken River, Gereint surmised. And then south along the river, toward Metichteran? Or across the river toward Tashen? He didn’t ask. That was a good example of a question that patience would answer.

Three saddlebags, none of them made to sling properly from a man’s back, were an awkward load. On the other hand, compared to walking unburdened through the griffins’ terrible desert… there was no comparison. Even carrying three bags to Amnachudran’s one, Gereint found he had to slow his stride to match his… master’s. At first, he followed the other man. Then, seeing it made Amnachudran uncomfortable to have him at his back, he came up unbidden to walk beside him. The man gave him a grunt of acknowledgment and for a time they walked in silence. The woods dripped. Birds sang. Somewhere high overhead, a hawk cried. Gnats whined, but fortunately did not seem inclined to bite.

Amnachudran called a halt after about two hours. He dropped his saddlebag and the packs heavily to the ground beside another of the many little streams and stood for a moment with his hands braced on his knees. At last he straightened slowly, with a groan. He looked older now. The plump softness gave him a young sort of face, but Gereint revised his estimate of the man’s true age upward.

Gereint dropped his three heavy bags beside the one. He wondered what was in them. Nothing that rattled or clanked or chimed. Unless it was packed so as not to rattle or clank or chime. Maybe he would find a chance to look through a bag later. Maybe Amnachudran would catch him at it. Maybe the things in those bags were secret and important, mages’ things. Exactly the wrong kinds of things to be caught examining. He measured Amnachudran with a covert glance. Then he made a fire, found the small pot, filled it with water, and got out the packet of tea and a mug.

Amnachudran watched all this, frowning. “I didn’t tell you to do that.”

“I have to do everything you say.” Gereint measured out tea. “That doesn’t mean I can’t do anything without your command. Do you not want tea… master? Ah, forgive me. Amnachudran, sir.”

Amnachudran ignored this small provocation. He asked, “Why did you get out only one mug?”

Gereint was honestly surprised. He sat back on his heels, regarding the other man. “You expected me to get out two? That
would
be presumptuous.”

“But you seem—” The other man stopped.

“Ah.” Gereint felt a tug of reluctant amusement. He kept forgetting Amnachudran’s perceptiveness. Or wanting to trust his kindness. Or even both. Worse than foolish: dangerous. And surprising. He said after a moment, “Yes, but carefully. Nothing quite so blatant as… ah… getting out two mugs.”

“Get another out,” said Amnachudran. He sat down on a rock beside the stream.

Gereint found the mug with the broken handle and measured out more tea.

“How long have you been…?”

Gereint didn’t look up. “Nineteen years.”

A short pause. Then, “How old are you?”

Gereint brought his master a mug, kneeling to hand it to him so he wouldn’t loom over the smaller man. “Forty-two.”

“Almost half your life… What
did
you do?”

“Murdered the governor of Breidechboden.”

Amnachudran choked on a mouthful of tea, coughed, caught his breath, stared at Gereint, and at last laughed incredulously. “You didn’t!”

“Well, no, I didn’t,” agreed Gereint. He went back to the fire, folded his hands around the other mug. Sipped, watching Amnachudran carefully over the edge of the mug. “I was caught plotting to assassinate the king himself, which he should have expected after he forbade public houses to serve ale after midnight. What does he expect young louts to get up to if they’re thrown out on the streets while still sober enough to stagger?”

Amnachudran, undoubtedly remembering the uproar about that short-lived law, laughed again.

“No,” Gereint conceded. “Not that either. I told you, I didn’t do anything. I had the wrong enemies and not enough friends.” Not enough friends and too many cousins, and too many of those had turned out to be among his enemies… He hadn’t intended to speak truth to this man, and paused for a moment, hearing bitter truth echo unexpectedly in those last words.

Trying to shake off a sudden surge of bitterness—not a helpful emotion, for a slave—he said, just a little too harshly, “I’ll carry these bags wherever you require. Please… once I have, let me go. You don’t need to trust me. Do you think I’ll stay anywhere in Casmantium?” He traced the brand on his face with one thumb. “Believe me, honored sir, my whole ambition would be to avoid meeting anyone at all until I was well into Feierabiand.”

Amnachudran held up one finger. “You murdered someone.” Another finger. “Or you raped a girl.” He opened his hand again, shrugging. “Those are the two crimes for which a man is put under the
geas
. There aren’t any others. I don’t see how I can let you go. I don’t think girls in Feierabiand ought to be raped, any more than the ones here.”

Gereint said tightly, “I did not rape a girl.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Whom did you murder?”

“I told you—”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Neither did anyone else,” Gereint said tightly. “Why should you?” He swung away and stamped out the fire. He also picked up all four saddlebags, leaving only the two packs for Amnachudran.

“I can…” the other man began.

“Four balance better than three,” Gereint snapped. He strode away, south and east.

They did make better time with Gereint carrying all the bags. He was too proud to let the pace slacken; an odd vanity, for a man who ought to have had every vestige of pride beaten out of him years ago. But there it was. He let Amnachudran call the halts, which the other man did every few hours. But he was glad to have them. Ten years ago, even five, he would not have needed those breaks. He had hoped, briefly, that he might grow old a free man in Feierabiand. Now that seemed unlikely.

A little before dusk, they came to the Teschanken. This far north, the river was narrow, quick, and cheerfully violent: It flung itself down from the great mountains and raced through the hills. Far below it would meet the Nerintsan and turn into the stately, broad river that watered the south.

“We’ll follow the river south tomorrow,” Amnachudran declared. He walked out onto the pebbly shore and stared downstream. “If we’re where I think we are, we should cross it about noon, be home before supper—” He stopped suddenly.

A griffin flew past not a spearcast away, fast and straight, flinging itself through the air northward along the path of the river. The late sunlight blazed off it, striking ruddy gold and bronze highlights from its pelt and feathers. The light seemed somehow a far more brilliant light than seemed to fall across the rest of the world. The griffin’s feathers seemed to slice the air like knives, its beak flashed like a blade, flickers of fire scattered from the wind of its wings. Gereint could not speak; Eben Amnachudran seemed struck as silent as he.

There was no time to be afraid, and, it appeared, no reason. The griffin did not seem to see them at all, though they stood so close to the path of its flight. Its eyes, fiery copper, were intent on its own course. Before they could breathe twice, it had flashed by and was gone. Though the sunset still painted the sky in carmine and violet, all the colors of sky and earth seemed somehow muted for its passing. The whole world seemed caught for a moment in a subdued quiet. Not a single bird rustled in the woods around them, and even the river seemed to run more quietly along its swift course.

At last, Amnachudran cleared his throat. “I believe that may have been one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen. Beautiful, but terrifying. But what was it doing on the wrong side of the border between fire and earth?”

“It was flying north,” Gereint said tentatively. “Maybe it was trying to get back to the desert before full dark. Doesn’t Beremnan Anweierchen write that griffins hate the dark and cling to the day, on the rare occasion that they venture into the country of earth?”

“But he doesn’t explain why they ever do so venture,” Amnachudran pointed out. “Besides, it would need to turn west of north to return to its desert. Though perhaps it intends to.” Then he hesitated, turning to study Gereint. “
You’ve
read Anweierchen?”

The question shook Gereint out of the memory of fire. He shrugged, said shortly, “My old master had a good library,” and set the saddlebags down in a row, then began to collect wood for a fire. The wood was drier here, at least. The swift-moving little river might yield something better than dried beef. He looked through Amnachudran’s pack for hooks and line, with a careful eye on his new master in case the man resented his rummaging.

But Amnachudran did not seem to care. He watched Gereint for a moment and then said, “There aren’t any hooks. We didn’t think there would be much opportunity to use them.”

Gereint nodded, picked up Amnachudran’s knife, selected a bit of wood, and began to make a hook. He turned over the question before he asked it, but guessed Amnachudran wanted to talk about simple things, nothing to do with griffins or fire. So he asked, “We?”

The man’s face tightened in grief, but he answered readily. “A friend. The man who owned the house that’s now in the desert. He was older than I, but neither of us thought… It was his heart, I think. The desert was worse than we’d… We had reached Brerich’s house, but I wasn’t in the same room when he was stricken. If I had been, perhaps…”

That was not simple, after all. And it recalled the desert far too vividly. But Amnachudran seemed to wish to speak of his friend. So perhaps it was as well Gereint had asked, after all. He set the hook aside, found a length of cord, and delicately unraveled it to make a finer thread. He rolled the thread between his fingers as he worked, coaxing it toward strength and lightness, feeling it become supple under his touch. “I’m sorry about your friend,” he said sincerely. “But how did you… If you don’t mind, how did you find me?”

“Ah. That was luck. And poor little Fearn. You had one of your waterskins open, did you know? I think she smelled the water.” Amnachudran, apparently not having much confidence in Gereint’s efforts, dipped water out of the river, put the pot over the fire, and began to cut up dried beef. But he didn’t order Gereint to stop making fishing line. Picking up where he’d left off, he added in a quiet voice, “But she couldn’t carry both you and the bags. Even with me carrying two of the bags, she didn’t quite…” His voice trailed off.