The Malmillard Codex (19 page)

Val rubbed a hand over his gritty face and
wondered if he dared splash a bit of their precious water on it
before they went in search of their wandering mounts. For they had
merely wandered off in the nighttime, he knew; he dared not allow
himself to contemplate any other scenario.

"And if you'd care to bathe," continued the
boy as if he'd read Val's mind, "although I for one consider the
custom unhealthy and overrated, there's hot water as well." Garet
set his burden down with tender care.

Val felt his mouth drop open in amazement as
Garet opened his bundle, removing the cloth in which it was wrapped
and spreading it out as if it were the finest of embroidered table
linens.

Dates, their sticky wrinkled skins as dark
as burnished midnight, tumbled forth in a raucous mass. Almonds
followed them more sedately, shaped like a beautiful woman's eyes.
A thick round of brown bread, still steaming in the cool morning
air, sent out succulent odors that filled Val's mouth with sweet,
hot juices. A leather jug, plugged tight with a bit of twisted rag,
sloshed in invitation.

"I've gone mad at last," Val whispered.

"Oh, do not worry your poor head on that
matter, Master. Indeed, it happened years and years ago, if I may
be so bold," said Garet tartly; he tore the loaf in chunks and
began methodically stuffing his mouth full. He offered a hunk to
Val with dirty fingers that were almost the same color as the
loaf.

"Tell me quickly, boy, where these riches
came from. We have no time to dawdle; we must find our mounts and
be on our way, before the trail grows any colder." Val—his mind
chanting 'hurry, hurry' even as his belly growled—seized bread and
took a bite, glaring down at the hungry boy.

"Oh, the horses, Master? They're just over
that dune, to be sure, sir. Where breakfast came from, don't you
know?" said Garet as he pulled the rag stopper from the mouth of
the jug. The boy gave an absent nod toward the sandy height down
which he'd just slithered.

Val twisted around to peer up the steep
expanse, then turned back to Garet with a snarl of disbelief on his
face.

Garet eyed the jug and then Val, as if
wondering whether his master deserved, in his present snappish
condition, any of the contents. Reaching a decision at last, he
reluctantly offered the first drink to Val.

"What's there, an oasis or such?" Val
snapped. He grabbed the jug and turned it up, guzzling fully half
its contents. "Hurry, boy. We must find our horses, pack up and be
away."

Garet took the jug and sipped the contents
delicately. "We've plenty of time, Master," he said airily as he
examined the dates. "The sun is only just up, after all. And the
horses are still having their breakfasts; I'm sure they'll travel
much better on full stomachs too."

His patience exhausted, Val shouted, "Have
you forgotten why we're here, you little fool?"

A hurt look spreading across his grimy
features, Garet sat back on his haunches. "How little you know me
if you think that, Master Val," he mumbled around a mouthful of
dates. He chewed them methodically and spit the stones into a neat
pile, before resuming, "I have forgotten nothing at all. When I was
offered this booty in the small camp just over that dune, I thought
it only right that they share it with me…and I with you, naturally.
We have to eat, you know, to keep up our strength; we'll need it
for our journey, won't we?"

Val started towards the dune. "Camp," he
said, his voice low. "The bandit camp?"

"Oh, I hardly think so, indeed, Master," the
boy shook his head. "Thieves and bandits they are, no doubt, but
they're not our bandits, if you take my meaning, sir. These folk
are really quite pleasant, I must say. Of course, they and I do
have a great deal in common, so it's not surprising that we'd hit
it off so well from…."

Ignoring the boy's ceaseless chattering, Val
raced up the hill, his sword free in one hand. Just before he
reached the top, he fell to his knees and peeked a cautious head
over the summit.

A green oasis, as Val suspected, its small
central water hole hardly bigger than one of the wagons in the
caravan. The tiny pool shone like a jewel in the fresh morning
light. A handful of palms clustered around the pool's ragged shore,
their thirsty roots digging deep into the sandy soil.

A small encampment circled the oasis, no
more than half a dozen tents flapping in the breeze. Horses and
camels, perhaps a score of them, were imprisoned in a small corral
made of the briery bushes that tumbled across the sands with every
wind.

Val could pick out their own mounts, dark
instead of sand colored, in the huddle of animals. A couple of cook
fires sent up thin spirals of smoke, silver gray against the dun
sand.

"They're really quite friendly, sir,"
whispered a tiny voice in Val's ear. Garet had slithered down
beside him, quiet as a mouse. "They gave me all this food and said
they'd like to talk to us after we eat."

"About what?" Val snapped.

"Why, our quest, naturally," huffed Garet.
He stuffed another date in his mouth from the handful he had
thoughtfully brought with him.

"I suppose you told them everything about
why we're here and what we're looking for?" Val snarled.

"Actually, they already know all about it,"
was the surprising reply.

A man dressed in flowing tan robes stepped
out of a tent and looked up toward the dune atop which Garet and
Val lay. The man waved his hand in a beckoning motion, then stooped
and disappeared back inside the tent.

Val shook his head, his eyes glued on the
scene below them. "This is madness," he said—his mind urging
'speed, speed'. "We must be on our way. The sun's up and we can't
waste any more time. The bandits who have Madryn—if she's not
here—are no doubt already on horseback, getting farther and farther
ahead of us by the instant."

"You'll never catch them on horseback," said
a voice.

But this was not Garet's squeak. Val turned
at the sound of the deep, harsh tones, his heart pounding in
surprise, his sword coming up in ready defense.

A tall man stood behind them, just below the
crest of the slippery dune. Draped in flowing robes the exact color
of the sands, he cast a quick wary eye at Val's sword and then
smiled down at him as if they were old acquaintances.

"Not on horseback," said the man. "Horses
can't survive where she's gone. But a man can, if he takes the
proper precautions."

***

"I don't understand," said Val. "Where have
they taken her?"

He looked around at the assembled bandit
band, their sunburned faces dark against their pale robes.

"They've gone through the portal," said
Aanakun, his voice grim. "Few who enter the portal ever return to
this world unchanged."

Aanakun had led Val and Garet down the slope
and into this tent. The other bandits, a dozen or so all told,
squatted or reclined on piles of threadbare blankets and rugs, as
they sipped fermented camel's milk from brass mugs.

"What portal is in the middle of the
desert?" Val scoffed. His frantic need to follow Madryn made his
hands tremble. "My friend was kidnapped by a horde of bandits
yesterday, a hundred or more. I helped fight off their attack."

"So did I," said Garet indistinctly, his
mouth full of dates and almonds.

"We followed their trail until dark. We need
to be after them now, before they disappear. We need our horses,
and we'll go on our way."

"You can't follow them on horseback, as I've
already told you," Aanakun repeated, stroking his bearded chin.
"And there was no horde of bandits."

"I saw more than a hundred of them," Val
said, in the slow and measured tone of a man who realized he was in
the presence of madness. He took a deep breath and tried to still
the trembling of his hands. His mind whispered 'hurry, hurry'. "I
killed three of them myself, saw many others die, and saw their
blood sink into the sands. We drove them away. They took Madryn
with them. I can still catch them if you'll let me have my horse so
I can be on my way."

Hurry, hurry,
Val's mind
whispered.

Aanakun sighed, but gave no sign that he
could see his burly guest was shaking to be gone. "There is no
horde," he repeated. "We are the only bandits in this stretch of
desert, the only ones between Rinidia and Lakazsh."

"But the caravan master said there were
hundreds of bandits. He hired us to—" Val said helplessly.

They're all mad
, his mind said
calmly.
And so am I.
He just managed to restrain a
hysterical cackle of laughter.

"We have an old agreement with Master
Aubry," interrupted Aanakun, his pitying eyes locked onto Val. "We
make sure that travelers believe in us enough to pay his exorbitant
fees; we appear, make a bit of bother, then ride off with a few
baubles. Aubry shares a portion of his fees with us at the end of
every passage. It's a simple plan that provides for both our needs
and his."

"But we were attacked," Val insisted—though
he remembered Master Aubry's surprise. "If you are the only bandits
in this part of the desert, then who attacked the caravan?"

"The horde was not from our world. They were
conjured by a most powerful pair of mages, who reside on the other
side of the portal," began Aanakun.

Val recognized the pity in the man's
eyes.

"We were gathering together with our north
camp brethren," Aanakun continued, using his hands to describe the
two bands joining. "We'd arranged with Master Aubry to stage a mock
attack just before the caravan reached Rinidia, then conveniently
be driven off before any of our number could be hurt."

"They are Llar Zhan," chirped Garet, as if
that explained everything—which to his mind, Val realized, it
did."

"We are," agreed Aanakun, smiling at the
boy.

"But I thought Llar Zhan were children led
by old teachers," said Val helplessly.

"Yes, but we don't stay children forever, do
we?" asked Garet, his hands on his bony hips. "We grow up, as all
folk do, of course. Some of us farther than others, it seems." The
boy eyed Val's bulk with a disapproving eye. "Then we are forced to
go into other lines of business to keep ourselves fed. Some lucky
few retire on their acquired wealth. Some study to become adepts,
some hire out for mercenaries. Some even become
politicians—although those of us who still retain our dignity never
acknowledge them after that. And some…become bandits in the
desert."

"This is all very interesting," Val sighed,
"but I really must be on my way after Madryn. If you'll give me my
horse back, I'll be on my way."

"But that's just what he's been telling you,
Master Val," Garet said as if explaining a simple fact to a
backward child. "Mistress Madryn has been taken through a magical
portal by some demons conjured by powerful adepts. We can't ride
our horses there. We must go on foot."

"Listen," Val growled, his eyes full of
uncanny light. "I have not had a very good journey thus far. Madryn
is missing. I've got to find her. Are you going to help me, or must
I kill all of you and then take my horse and go?"

"Can you find the portal without our help,
think you?" asked Aanakun, not appearing frightened by Val in the
least.

"I don't know anything about a portal!" Val
shouted, springing to his feet and grabbing for his sword. "All I
want to do is ride out and find Madryn!"

"Why?" Aanakun asked, the pity clear on his
bearded face. "So you can die with her?"

***

A strange, monotonous hum filled the dry,
dusty air, a sound almost palpable in its intensity. It emanated
from an odd stone construct that sat at the bottom of the crevice,
on the edge of which lay Garet, Aanakun and Val.

The portal—if that indeed was what the thing
was, thought Val—rested at the bottom of a deep arroyo in the
deserts sands, no doubt the site of a long-vanished river. The
ancient rushing waters had gnawed deep into the shifting sands and
into the underlying bedrock before they had disappeared into the
mists of the past. Their disappearance had left only a narrow
ravine that could not be seen unless—or until—one fell into it, so
well hidden was it from prying eyes.

The trail that Val and Garet had followed
all the previous day, as faint and unclear now as if it had been
made months ago, ended at the very edge of the ravine.

"What happened to the horses they rode, if
horses cannot live on the other side of that thing?" whispered Val.
He was not sure why he was whispering, but it seemed to be the
proper thing to do when faced with the humming construct below. And
he was far from sure that he believed Aanakun, even faced with this
extraordinary bit of evidence.

"They weren't riding horses at all, though
they made them appear so to us," replied Aanakun in similarly
hushed tones. "We've watched this portal for years, ever since it
first appeared down there. The Malmillard pay very well for
information on what goes in and out that thing, as well as
when."

"Malmillard?" Val had heard the odd name
before, he knew. An image of Garet clinging behind him on his
horse, chattering about some nonsense, rose up in his mind.
"They're some sort of magic workers?"

"They are," agreed Aanakun. The desert nomad
seized Val's robe and dragged him away from the edge of the ravine
and behind a sandy dune, out of sight of the strange construct—but
not away from that eerie hum, which followed them and surrounded
them.

But the sound did lessen to some degree,
save for a tiny irritating whimper of teeth-grating noise.

"The Malmillard have been curious about that
portal ever since it appeared, what, nearly thirty years ago. Some
of the adepts believe that it has some similarity with the Great
Rift that appeared in the northern wastes at about the same time,"
Aanakun explained.