The web of wizardry (24 page)

Xashe raised his eyebrows but did not argue. He helped Danaer pick up the merchant's son, and together they wrestled him onto Danaer's roan, the steadiest of their three mounts. While Xashe held his friend to keep him from toppling off, Danaer swung up behind his apprentice. "I will take him to the surgeons. Keep to the trail. If you have any suspicion that a mirage lies before you—stop. I will be back as soon as I can."

Nodding, Xashe offered him the reins of Rorluk's black. Danaer and Xashe looked at one another intently, then Xashe accepted that his Troop Leader was once more himself, and was reassured.

As Danaer rode back toward the wagons, Branra met him at the halfway point. "Another sunstroke?"

Danaer nodded, glancing over his shoulder to where Xashe slowly moved on into the Sink. The false Kandra was gone. She had never been here, in truth.

Branra felt Rorluk's reddened forehead and asked soUcitously, "Is it bad?"

"I pray not, my lord. But few of the men are used to this heat."

"Or to these storms." Branra had discarded his helmet, as was his habit. Wisely, he had adopted a Destre custom, wearing part of an old cloak to ward ojff the sun's rays. He rode beside Danaer. He made no reference to magic, though every man in the caravan now suspected the source of the rain and mirages.

At the surgeons' wagons, Danaer gave his apprentice into the physicians' care. Gentle hands bore the unconscious young soldier into the shade of a canvas and laved his burning face with precious water. Danaer peered into the wagon for a while, encouraged when Rorluk began to wake and beg for a drink. He had begun to feel some affection for his scouting companions and hoped the goddess would make this only a light blow of the sun for Rorluk, not a fatal one.

Branra had followed him, and now he cupped his hands over his brow and looked northward. A rising dust cloud marked the progress of Gordyan's men. Their billowing mantles flapped in the breeze. "Would that the army issued such cloaks," Branra muttered. "Rorluk is one of the first cavalrymen to drop. But the infantry is falling like slaughtered motge."

Danaer mopped his brow with the hem of his mantle, and brought it away nearly dry. The Sink leeched off a man's sweat before it could bead on his skin! "La! Could the quartermaster not concoct some makeshift to serve us as mantles, my lord? The route was known in advance. The climate of the Sink can be no secret, even in Kirvii."

Branra regarded him with sour amusement. "You have been too long with the army to dream such as that. It would ascribe forethought and intelligence to the king's ministers of war. Kirvii has no such weather as this—therefore we shall have none, and that is the end of it, they beUeve."

Danaer did not know how to reply to such sarcasm. To his surprise, Branra winked, then saluted and rode away. Though Branraediir was the famed killer of many a Destre and a kinsman of royalty, he behaved like a warrior, or a common soldier, knowing their feelings and sharing their disgust with senseless regulations. In spite of the man's record, more and more

Danaer had come to like him, willing to put aside old hatreds, as the alliance had bid them all to do.

Conditions did not improve much as the caravan crept toward the nadir of the Vrastre. Myth would have it that when the world was made, none of the divine ones would claim this place. Even Argan, bom in fire, scorned to occupy the Sink. The streams which would have fed grass and slaked thirst had been stolen for the bowels of the earth, and only Bogotana's demons enjoyed the waters of the Sink. The water was far below, whence sulfur and the pits of the cursed lay. Alone m the wasteland, the Wells of Ylami were pure and free-running. Ylami was Argan's sole stronghold, her sanctuary here in the midst of her immortal sire's realm.

Not even sand lizards lived in this part of the Sink. The only hfe was the soaring carrion seekers, sailing the hot wind and hovering above the waste, hoping for death. Nothing dared the Sink save man and his beasts, and those could not survive unless they brought with them water and provender. Yet the ancient Ryerdon-Y had crossed Bogotana's Sink and given it its name and reputation first. They had no choice, fleeing as they did from the might of Traecheus. Danaer had heard those tales of their epic journey since he was a babe. Now he fully appreciated the courage of Ryerdon. They had braved the Sink, not even sure there would be an ending to the burning death. How they must have celebrated their arrival at the oasis of VidikI

The Sky Lord's burden poured heat over animals and men. Yistar broke regulations and told the men they might shed tunics and wear only shirts. His orders saved many men from collapse. But Uttle could be done for the teams. Horses dropped in their harness and were dragged off the trail. There was no time to butcher the dead brutes. They must be left for carrion feeders. Only the sick and injured were allowed to ride in the wagons. Even the surgeons walked alongside, lightening the load for the overburdened horses. Danaer choked on past pride; he had thought his background and long years of service in Yistar's cam-

paigns had toughened him sufficiently to any duty. Such boyish beliefs seemed the silly dreams of an age ago.

By evening, Xashe was leaning on his horse's neck unashamedly, and Danaer himself feared that with every step of his roan he might tumble off and give the lie to the tale that a Destre could keep to his mount even when he was dead. A hundred lengths, and a hundred lengths more, and then greenery shone brightly in the dying rays of the sun. Ahead now, very close—grass! And trees!

Horses raised their heads, their nostrils flaring, and drivers sawed at the reins. Weakened though they were, the teams fought to get to the water. Men pitied them, but feared bloat if the beasts stampeded and drank their fill too quickly. Infantrymen helped cavalrymen, roping back the panting brutes, moving slowly toward the long-sought Wells of Ylami. With care, knowing the beasts still must take them far, they let the teams and cavalry mounts drink, and soldiers dropped down beside them, plunging their heads deep into the soothing pool.

Danaer had sent Xashe back to their units and said he would report for them both. He wended his way through the column as it straggled through the groves of sturdy desert trees clustering around the pure wells. If he, a seasoned horseman and campaigner, was so drained as this after a sober and unwenched night at Vidik, how must other men feel? He wondered that so few of them had succumbed to the assaults that nature and wizardry had hurled at them. This was becoming an army in truth, tempered in a forge fiercer than any drill field could offer.

Yistar and Branra and their hardier aides were looking over some royal documents as Danaer neared them. He overheard their conversation. "I cannot comprehend why the Commander tolerates this," Branra was saying. "There are quick, efficient ways of deahng with treachery, if he will only use them."

"But perhaps Diilbok, too, has his acolytes who would—" Yistar broke off whatever he had been about to say and returned Danaer's salute. With his

eyes, he begged the scout to say nothing of what he had heard. Then he spoke brusquely, treating only the matters of the route and tomorrow's business. "Good time made, all things considered. We will soon be in Deki, if we press on. Most well."

"Captain? I beg permission to leave camp for a while."

The officer frowned a moment, then understood, his expression softening. "Nine-day? Ai, it must be. I keep not the count of your goddess and her worships, lad. Do you actually think Gordyan's bandits will find a priest out here?"

"He told me it was so, earlier today. They have come out from Deki and awaited the Destre at the farthest wells."

"Of course you have permission. When have I ever denied a man his piety? But be cautious. I need your eyes to lead us safe to Deki."

As the Captain returned to reading his dispatches, Branra stepped close to Danaer and said, "May .1 ask a favor. Troop Leader?"

"My lord?"

"If you have a devotion to spare, speak to your goddess for me, if you will. If ever a man was destined to fall by Destre lance, it was myself. Now I would strike a truce with Destre-Y, and with their holy lady."

Indeed, Branra was not what he appeared! With much feeling, Danaer said, "My lord, I am Azsed, and I hold you no hatred for performing your sworn duty against my people. I will pray that Argan grant you long Mfe, and that henceforth Destre and Inner Kjantin may be as friends."

"Yes, as the Commander hopes. If not, we will die together, at least." Branra's ferocity was oddly mixed with a fatalism that unnerved Danaer. He was glad when the young officer and Yistar went into a just erected staff tent and left him alone.

He walked his lathered roan before letting the animal drink, then went seeking Lira. Weariness made his thoughts a jumble, running this way, then another. Now he envisioned Lira, clad in a silken piece of flimsy cloth, her hps inviting him. Now he remembered what

it was to be caught by her wizard web and to be swept by icy cold. And then he wondered if he could find a good remount for the ride to Gordyan's Zsed. His scouting roans would fare better than most, though. How many of the army's blacks, bred for The Interior, would be able to bear a man's weight or pull a wagon come tomorrow?

Nine-day. Argan called the true Azsed. Staggering or not, he must find the strength to make his obeisance. There would be no sleep, not yet.

At last he found Lira, climbing down from a surgeon's wagon, where she had been nursing some of the sick. Her face was smudged with soil, or perhaps with some healing herb. There were dark lines under her pretty eyes, and Danaer saw his own deep fatigue mirrored in Lira. She saw him and drew near, beginning to smile. Then she sighed and chided him. "Danaer, go and get some rest."

"I must seek Gordyan. This night is holy to the goddess ..."

"But, qedra ..."

Her endearment drew him, and they stepped into the wagon's shadow, sharing a kiss. Lira's response was that of a weak and flight-worn little bird. Danaer's own fervor was not what he would have wished. Yet even so tired as this, she had the power to stir his blood. But she . . . there might still be evil magic, waiting to pounce. Danaer took one of her soft tresses between his fingers and said absently, "I saw Kandra today." She stared in bewilderment, thinking him mad. "It was an illusion, some sorcery, I think. When I touched your talisman, it vanished. But for a while, it was real. It was during the last of the rainstorms."

Lira sucked in her breath. "I felt it! But I did not know what ... I was busy, casting spells to chase oS the clouds."

"Then you succeeded," Danaer said with a weary smile. "She disappeared and so did the rain."

"We combined our magic." He could not tell if she joked or not. Lira said earnestly, "You are certain it was Kandra?"

"It shifted and became you, and then a figure

hidden in a cloak, and then was banished with the storm."

She nibbled a fingernail, trying to shake off her weariness and study this thing. "I will tell the Traech Sorkra. They seek to seduce you to their will now. Stand fast against them, qedra." Lira laid her hand upon his chest, on the talisman. She seemed much concerned.

"They shall not make me turn traitor. I refused the image when it bade me desert Yistar."

"They are dangerous. All of them. Stay here. I can summon my Web if they try to come at you again."

"I cannot. I must not neglect my faith, not so close to Deki and the battle that will come. Since I left Nyald, I have had no chance to seek out a priest."

Like Yistar, Lira was mystified. "But how can there be a priest here?"

"Lorzosh-Fila promised to send his holy people out from Deki to meet us on Nine-day, for the sake of Gordyan's warriors. I will join with them."

Lira submitted, though she grumbled. She went to the quartermaster's wagons and fetched a small packet of food and a skin of fresh water. These she forced on Danaer. "You are too tired to remember such things. K I did not see to your sustenance, you might forget these necessities, my Sharp Eyes."

"My only necessity is that you call me qedra." Danaer had never been glib with those pretty things women liked to hear. But this time the phrase came unbidden, sounding as it should, with truth behind it. Tonight there was no coldness and no wizardry about Lira. She was woman, not sorkra, and it was hard to part from her.

On a fresh roan, Danaer set out from the army encampment, heading along the line of weUs. The moon was rising with the sun now, and the stars were his main light. Here in Bogotana's Sink, when day ended, the wind turned sharp and very cool. Danaer rode into the evening, eating his frugal meal with Destre haste.

He detected the Zsed long before sight warned him. His mount nickered to other horses and there was an

undefinable quickening in the air, as if he sensed tens of hearts beating in time with his own. It was a feeling he had known often, though never so strongly, for Nyald Zsed had no such gathering of warriors as Gordyan commanded.

"Harshaa!" A Destre, leading his roan, came out of the night. Danaer answered and dismounted. There was fireUght ahead, enough to let the man see Danaer's eiphren and mantle. He grunted and knew him for an Azsed, and together they walked toward the glowing flames.

Soon Danaer was moving along with many others, Gordyan's men. They left their blankets and tiny tents, forming a river of humanity. They collected around a great smoky fire which threw back all night-wings and sleep-demons. One by one, the warriors loosened cinches and left their roans behind, without fear of theft. There would be none, on Nine-day.

A ritual fire had been fueled with scrub wood. This was altar enough, and a bed of embers had been raked out on the upwind side. A small pyramid of stones was heaped up, the symbol of Argan. Destre-Y surrounded the holy place, welcoming the flames and their heat.

A priest, clad in robes as bright as the fire, stood beside the altar. With him were two women. Their journey from Deki to the Wells of Ylami could not have been easy, though it would not cover the worst part of the Sink. Danaer marveled at their dedication and the kindness of Siim Lorzosh-Fila in risking his holy people abroad while his city was besieged.