Land of the Burning Sands (6 page)

But there were grown children, too, he gathered. With children of their own, in and out of their grandparents’ house.
Geas
bound or not, Amnachudran or his wife might reasonably hesitate to bring a murderer into the house where their grandchildren played. Or a rapist.

Gereint’s thoughts tended darker and darker. He doubted he could persuade Amnachudran to release him, but the more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed that the man would keep him either. Even if he did not send him back to Fellesteden… If he sold him, what were the odds Gereint’s next master would be kind? Kind men did not buy
geas
slaves.

What were the odds, if he was sold, that it would be to someone from the city? The court nobles and the lesser nobles, the rich men angling for power and influence… Those were the men who liked to own
geas
-bound slaves. He might very well be sold and re-sold until he found himself in Breidechboden after all. If he were sold to anyone in the king’s city, Perech Fellesteden would almost certainly learn of it eventually.

Gereint was very silent by the time they reached the ford, about an hour past noon. The river was wider here, still fast but not deep. Rocks thrust up through the water. A man would not be able to walk from one bank to the other without getting his feet wet, but he might come closer to that than Gereint had expected. In the spring, the river might be impassable. But now, only one thirty-foot channel looked difficult, and even that did not look actually dangerous.

And on the other side, fewer than ten miles away, Amnachudran’s house. Perhaps forty miles from Melentser as the falcon flies. It seemed both infinitely farther than that and, at the same time, hardly any distance at all.

Amnachudran stared at the river and grunted. “Could be worse. I thought it would be worse, in fact. That’s lower than we’d usually see, even this time of year.”

Gereint, not very interested, nodded politely.

“I’ll make tea,” Amnachudran said, “if you’ll see what you can do about the saddlebags?”

Gereint got out two of the tallow candles and found Amnachudran’s jar of oil. And the broken mug, since his master was using the pan for the tea. He melted the candles with the oil over low flames, rubbed the hot tallow between his palms, and nodded toward the first of the saddlebags. “It would be easier if they were empty.”

Amnachudran opened the first bag without a word. It contained books. Maskeirien’s eclogues, Teirenchoden’s epic about the nineteenth war between Ceirinium and Feresdechodan. Histories and poetry, natural philosophy and political philosophy. Leather embossed with gold; fine heavy paper illuminated with dragons and griffins and storm eagles and slender sea creatures with the tails of fishes and the proud, fine-boned faces of men. Nothing common. Not a single volume that was not beautiful and rare and precious. They made the two books he’d stolen look almost common.

Gereint wondered why he had not guessed. Heavy and valuable, but not breakable; valuable for themselves and not merely for their market price. Exactly the sort of riches a man might risk the new desert to recover. Especially if he’d thought,
A few hours in and a few hours out, how difficult can it be?

No wonder Amnachudran was willing to wait in order to enhance the waterproofing on the bags before he carried those books across the river. Gereint rubbed the tallow across the leather. He gazed dreamily into the air while he rubbed it in, thinking about waterproof leather, about tight seams, about straps that closed tight and firm. He tried not to let himself be distracted by the books themselves, although he couldn’t resist a glance or two as Amnachudran unloaded the second bag.

“The oil won’t stain the books?” Amnachudran asked. He touched the first cautiously, inspected the tips of his fingers.

“It might if someone else did this,” Gereint answered. “Not when I do it.”

“A knack.”

“It’s a matter of knowing exactly what I want the oil to do and not do. And yes, it’s a knack.”

Amnachudran grunted and, finding his fingers clean and dry, began to replace the contents of the first bag and unload the third. “Just how waterproof can you make these?”

Gereint, massaging melted tallow into leather, shrugged. “It would probably be better not to actually drop a bag midriver.”

Amnachudran grunted again and went to get the fourth bag.

Midchannel, the river was chest deep. And very fast. Gereint took his boots off and waded out cautiously, leaving the books behind while he tested the footing and the strength of the current. He came out shaking his head. “I don’t like it… It’s not too bad when you’ve got your hands free and no weight to carry…”

“I have rope,” Amnachudran offered.

They slung the rope from shore to shore; it just reached. Then Gereint took the packs and his boots, and Amnachudran’s boots, across first. The technique seemed sound. He could brace an awkward weight on his shoulder with one hand and cling to the rope with his other. He took three bags across, one after another, while Amnachudran watched anxiously. Then he came back for the last, standing back to allow Amnachudran to precede him into the water.

“Be careful,” Gereint warned him as they came to the deepest part of the channel. “Chest deep on me is—”

“Just about over my head. Yes, I know. Even so, it’s the nearest thing to an easy crossing anywhere above the bridge at Metichteran. I admit, it looks easier when you’re ahorse than it does when you’re on foot.”

Gereint shrugged. “Keep hold of the rope. I’ll be right behind you.”

Amnachudran went ahead of Gereint, hand over hand along the rope, gasping with cold and sputtering as the racing water dashed into his face. He made it to the first of the broad stones on the other side of the channel and began to pull himself out of the water.

Gereint, ten feet behind the older man, saw the log come spinning down the river just too late to shout a warning. It hit Amnachudran’s legs with a
thud
Gereint could hear even from that distance, tearing the man away from the rope. He cried out, falling, but the cry was choked off as the water closed over his head; Gereint, appalled, saw him come back to the surface in time to smash against one stone and then another and then go under once more.

Gereint heaved the last saddlebag toward the rocks without watching to see where it landed and flung himself into the current. He fended off a rock with his hands, followed the rushing current by instinct and luck, glimpsed the log, hurled himself after it, found himself in a great sucking undertow, went down. Found cloth under his hands. An arm. Stone beneath: He kicked hard and broke into the air, rolled to drag Amnachudran up as well, slammed back first into stone. Cried out with pain and at the same time clutched for any handhold he could find. The current pinned them against the stone. Gereint got an arm around the other man’s chest, dashed water out of his own face, and found pebbles rolling under his toes. The river was fierce, here, but not much more than shoulder deep. And he could see where another stone offered support against the current.

Amnachudran was limp. Gereint tightened his hold, got his feet against the rock that supported them, and lunged for the other stone. Made it, and now the water was only chest deep. He dug his toes into the river’s rough bed, heaved Amnachudran up onto the stone, made his way around it to where the water was still shallower, grabbed the man’s arm, dragged him across his shoulder, and slogged for the shore. Dropped him—not as gently as he’d meant—on a shallow shelf of pebbles and sand. Fell to his knees beside him and felt for a pulse in his throat. Found one. Rolled him over and pressed to get the water out of his lungs; made sure he was breathing on his own. And only then realized what he’d done.

Gereint climbed to his feet. Everything had happened so fast; too fast. He felt dizzy and ill. His back and hip hurt, his knee hurt with a deep ache that told him it was at least wrenched, maybe sprained. The palms of his hands were raw—how had that happened?

But Amnachudran had suffered much worse. But he was still breathing, though the sound had a rattle to it that suggested water in the lungs. His pulse was rapid and thready with shock. There was a lump the size of a small egg above and behind his ear. Gereint thought one of his legs was probably broken.

Letting the other man drown hadn’t occurred to Gereint fast enough. But now… an unconscious man could not command his help. Without care now, Amnachudran would probably die. Gereint stared down at him. He could not kick the man back into the river; even without the
geas
he didn’t think he could have done that. But… he wouldn’t have to do anything so active, would he?

The situation at this moment was too uncertain for the
geas
to bite hard. His master was too near death, maybe. Too deathly. Interesting word, “deathly.” The
geas
seemed to accept it as nearly the same as “dead.” Gereint was fairly certain he could simply walk away. His hip hurt; his knee hurt like fire. But it didn’t seem to be sprained. He could walk well enough. He didn’t even need a stick.

Judging from his previous experience, when Fellesteden had left him behind in Melentser, distance alone would suffice to keep the
geas
quiet. And now Gereint knew, as he hadn’t then, that if he could step into direct desert sunlight, it would break the
geas
—and he could step back out immediately. He’d made a slight detour, yes. But the mountains still waited, and Feierabiand, and final freedom from the
geas
.

If Gereint walked away and, against all likelihood, Amnachudran did wake… well, then, he would be hurt and cold, with the chill of the night coming and no fire. It would not take wolves to kill a man left hurt and alone in the dark. He would die… alone and abandoned… fewer than ten miles from his home… Gereint cursed.

Then he heaved the smaller man up into his arms, grunting as his back and hip flared with pain. He limped back to clear ground near the saddlebags and put the man down there. Found out the blankets, and laid one out on the ground for a bed. Stripped away the wet clothing. A great spreading black bruise showed where ribs were probably broken. The leg was gashed as well as broken, but there wasn’t much blood. Gereint bound up the gash and covered the injured man with the other blanket. Made a fire, afraid all the time that Amnachudran might wake after all. But he did not stir. Gereint glanced at the sun. Hours yet till dusk. And Amnachudran’s breathing already sounded better. The pulse in his throat beat more strongly. If Gereint left him now, he might be all right. Though the leg… But surely his family was waiting for him. They must surely expect him to be on his way home. Someone would come down to the river soon to look for him.

Gereint went back to where he’d left the bags and packs. Absently collected the fourth saddlebag from the shallow water where it had fallen and put it with the others. The books it held were dry, he found. Then he looked at the book he held blankly, wondering why he’d bothered to check. He put it back and did up the straps.

He changed into dry clothing. Found his boots and put them on. Did not look back at Amnachudran. Most carefully did not look. If he looked, he might find himself compelled to go back to him. If he didn’t look… If he fixed his mind firmly on the sky and the river and the sound the wind made in the leaves… why, then, he could swing a pack over his shoulder and walk away, upriver. He didn’t look back.

The
geas
didn’t stop him. He’d thought it might, at this last moment of abandonment: an act of defiance more active than merely letting Perech Fellesteden walk away from him had been. But the
geas
did not stop him. It wasn’t gone. He knew by this that Amnachudran still lived. But it did not bite hard. An unconscious master, a master who was dying, was not something, perhaps, that the
geas
magic understood very well. He walked on.

Amnachudran was already too far away to call him back.

But Gereint hadn’t even gone a mile when he saw the griffins. This time, there were three of them: one bronze and brown, one copper and gold, and one—the one leading—a hard, pure white, like the flames at the very heart of a fire. The air surrounding them was dense with light, so that Gereint had to squint against it to see them. It smelled of fire and hot brass; the air shimmered with heat.

As the other griffin had done, these were flying along the river—only these were heading south, downriver. Unlike that other griffin, these very clearly knew he was present: The white one tilted its head and looked down at him as it passed, a flashing sapphire glance of such hot contempt that Gereint swayed and took an involuntary step back. But they did not hesitate in their course or drop toward him, for which he was fervently grateful.

The griffins flew low, so low that their wingtips nearly brushed the topmost branches of the trees, so low that Gereint was gripped by a compelling illusion, as the last one soared past, that he might have touched its feathers if he’d reached out his hand. He wondered if those feathers could be as sharp edged and metallic as they seemed—probably not. But the light flashed off their beaks, and off talons as long as his fingers and as sharp as knives. It came to him, vividly, what those talons might do to a man… to a defenseless man, say, who had been left abandoned and injured on the riverbank… He shut his eyes, trying to close out the images his imagination suggested to him, as well as the too-brilliant light.

When he opened them again, the griffins were past, out of sight. The light was only ordinary sunlight, and the river and woodlands seemingly untroubled by any memory of fire.