“I beg your pardon most humbly, Great Sultan!” cried the servant as he fell to his knees before Trobuk and Nioba. “Desert wind is rising....”
“So I see,” said Trobuk.
To Cribblon he nodded and said, “Your foreseeing is already coming to pass, Aeromancer.”
“This is just the beginning, sir. I would spread a warning, if I may advise you on the matter. This storm bids fair to blow all night and half of tomorrow.”
“Issue a storm warning!” Trobuk called to one of his attendants. “Sound the storm alarms at once! And somebody cover the windows!”
The servant sent to fetch Myrn entered and fell to his knees before the divan, an action evidently required, Marbleheart decided, of one bearing bad news.
“Sire! Majesties! I am unable to find the Lady Myrn!”
“What do you say?” cried Nioba sharply. “I myself left her at the hareem gate not two hours past, sirrah.”
“Your Guards say she never returned to the seraglio, Highness,” gulped the servant, wringing his hands. “And the hostlers never saw her at all, they say.”
“Myrn missing,” Nioba gasped to Douglas, laying her hand on his arm.
The Pyromancer narrowed his eyes thoughtfully and hummed a bit of a tune to himself.
“I feel no call from my wife, nor detect any magical danger,” he said slowly. “Wherever she’s gone, she went willingly.”
“She went to the stable to visit the filly who came to this place with her,” the Sultana remembered. “My husband, we must search for her.”
“At once,” agreed the Sultan. “Anyone can become lost in my grandsire’s vast palace, of course.”
Before the Sultan could order a search, however, a tremendous gust of hot wind rattled the heavy shutters which had been drawn over the windows. Heavy doors shook on their hinges, open windows banged, and shouts of servants startled by tumbling potted plants and cries of surprised Guards came from all sides.
“Storm has arrived,” announced Cribblon.
****
At the first strong gust of sand-laden wind, the three High Desert horsemen who’d carried Myrn off angled away from their path into the lee of a steep-sided dune.
The wind and sand hissed across the dune-top, making an eerie sound akin to one made by blowing steadily across the top of an empty bottle, but much louder, Myrn thought. The rumble of rushing sand increased in volume until it became a booming roar.
Goodness, thought the Journeyman Aquamancer. A sandstorm!
But she soon realized that her captors, familiar with such sudden storms here on the desert, had headed their horses into the wind-shadow of the tall dunes and laid the beasts down, wrapping loose cloths about their heads to filter the blown sand.
The men themselves withdrew into the deepest shadow of the tall dune, taking the Aquamancer, still wrapped in her covering blanket, with them.
“Stay down,” one shouted in her ear. “This will pass after a time.”
Myrn nodded, not sure her captors even saw the gesture, and wedged herself between the leader of the captors and his horse.
A murmured spell or two ensured her comfort and safety through the rest of the long, loud night on the roaring desert.
After a time, she slept.
Nameless, following traces of the three kidnappers by flying across the desert some distance behind them, was forced to land and seek shelter also. Skirting a series of low, sandy hills being blown to sharp, flying fragments, grain by grain, she came suddenly upon a solid wall of dressed white stones.
A low, wide door in the wall gaped, inviting the flying horse inside a black hole without windows.
Any port in a storm, she thought, entering the corridor beyond the doorway. This is somewhat better!
The wind didn’t blow here at all and, as the horseling trotted a few paces down a broad corridor, even the shrilling of the wind and the rushing-rumbling of flying sand faded to a murmur.
A number of other fugitives had taken refuge in the stone building, which otherwise appeared to be empty of Men or their devices.
A family of gray-and-white rabbits passed Nameless, heading for the innermost parts. The father paused politely to beg Nameless’s pardon for going on ahead.
“Plenty of room for us all here,” he said.
When the horse merely nodded, he waved his family on—five half-grown baby rabbits and their blonde-furred doe-mother.
Nameless shook her wings to dislodge the sand stuck in her feathers and carefully folded them over her back, tucking the tips under her tummy. At first the passage she followed was blacker than the night outside. She moved forward slowly, guided by the sounds of tiny desert animals and an occasional lizard or long-legged bird moving past her, deeper into the structure. Shortly she realized her eyes were becoming adjusted to the dark. She shied nervously when a sleek leopard bumped into her from behind, murmuring apologies as she passed.
The corridor changed direction suddenly, then jogged back in the original direction. Nameless walked more and more slowly now, with her right shoulder brushing the wall. She found the floor of the passage clear of debris and smoothly paved.
Another sharp turn. Suddenly the passageway became much lighter. A warm glow ahead, as of embers in a banked fire, showed her a wide, high room whose distant walls could be only dimly seen. The sounds of the storm were now but a quiet murmur, far behind.
She saw, in the middle of this vast room, a jumbled pile of faintly shining metallic plates that were somehow providing the dim lighting. A strange, not unpleasant, mélange of odors reached the horseling and she stopped, trying to pierce the gloom.
One end of the metallic pile reared suddenly upward and two huge, golden eyes regarded her sleepily, blinked twice, and widened.
“A flying horse, by Krupp,” said a rumbling voice.
Below the eyes a flicker of bluish-orange flame showed a mouth wide open in surprise.
“Now, now, little horse,” the voice boomed. “Come closer! It gets quite cold here during a sandy-wind like this. At the least I can keep you warm until it’s over.”
Fear clutched at the filly’s wildly beating heart, but she noticed that many of the animals who’d passed her in the corridor had taken refuge in the—whatever it was—a cave or a building cut from or built of solid stone?
The animals had gathered quietly about the huge beast she’d at first taken to be a loose pile of metal. They were settling down on the smooth sand drifted across the floor, showing no fear of their strange host and polite interest in the newcomer.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” said the voice from below the great yellow eyes. The beast emitted a spear of pale yellow flame. “I am known as Lesser Dragon. Who are you, then, my dear?”
The silent horse came closer, shaking her head and tossing her cream-colored mane.
“A flying horse, as I live long and breath fire,” exclaimed Lesser Dragon. “Don’t fear, dear filly. We won’t harm you. Sit here by my side until the storm falls off, and let me introduce you to my friends....”
The Dragon’s head turned and as he named the beasts about him, his words were delivered with short, pale flashes of pure flame and welcome warmth.
“Here’s an old friend: Riantor the Jackal. He lives in the heart of High Desert and raises his family on its hot sands.”
The striped, black-and-yellow doglike beast grinned broadly at the horse and nodded in greeting. Beyond him were his mate and a litter of lately bora puppies, gazing at the horse over their mother’s ruffled mane. They grinned and chuckled softly.
“By my right hind-leg is Oliver, Patriarch of all the High Desert Hares, and his six wives and twenty-seven kinder,” continued the Dragon, puffing pink, peppermint-scented smoke rings their way. “An old friend. And here is ...”
He introduced a dozen other animals, all of whom nodded and spoke to the little horse pleasantly, urging her to come close and settle down near the Dragon.
“Without young Lesser here,” explain
ed the mother of a large family of desert rats, “well, some of us would not survive these storms, and it’s so much more pleasant to be here with our friend, safe and warm.”
Nameless was soon satisfied the Dragon, for all his size and awesome fires, was friendly. She nodded pleasantly at each introduction and settled down between a pair of prong-horn antelopes and near three spotted ocelots who purred a welcome and snuggled cozily against the flying horse’s flank to share their warmth.
“Not too long to wait, actually, I should judge,” chatted Lesser Dragon to no one in particular. “Might as well snooze. I’ll wake you when the wind dies down in the morning.”
The strangely assorted group of antelopes, zebras, wild goats (they had a rather strong odor but were actually quite pleasant, Nameless found), and even an elderly, rather arthritic lion named Fidellio, along with assorted jackals, hyenas, several families of rabbits, and a brace of tiny, delicate dik-diks, settled down to sleep the storm away.
“Silent one,” said the Dragon sleepily. “Can you speak? Or are you sorely enchanted?”
Nameless nodded into the half-darkness, then put her head down between her folded forelegs and fell asleep. Through the stone of the ancient structure that sheltered them, she could hear the storm wind roaring without cease.
Chapter Eleven
After the Storm
The wind thundered until well after time for sunrise. The graying of the sky in mid-morning at last provided some welcome visibility.
Myrn awoke to find soft sand piled smoothly about her and a new dune built behind them by sand blown from the crest of the older dune that had protected them.
“Breakfast time,” she called brightly, sitting up and throwing off sand and blanket. “Anyone hungry?”
The kidnappers sat up and looked at her in surprise. The wind had settled down to a chilly breeze.
“A fire ... in the manner of us Brightglades, good sirs,” Myrn announced, making a pass over a patch of smooth sand between them. A cheery fire sprang to life, filling the area between the tall dunes with the smell of fragrant wood smoke.
Myrn removed a package from her left sleeve (all Wizards use the voluminous sleeves of their robes to carry useful and important items) and unwrapped its waxed-linen covering.
A delicious scent, a bit like fresh-baked bread but rather more sugary and spicy, filled the air, and the desert riders drew closer to Myrn’s fire, despite their fear of magic.
Myrn quickly tore off half the loaf and neatly divided the Faerie waybread among them.
“This’ll fill your middles,” she told them, “and make you forget our missed dinner last night, too. There’s plenty more ... if you want it.”
The leader of the band introduced himself, quite politely, as Alabar the Mercenary, and his two fellows, Flicker and Salaman. The seven—men, Journeyman, and horses—sat or stood in the wind-shade of the thirty-foot dune, enjoying one of World’s most satisfying foods, Faerie waybread, which never spoiled nor ran out if it was willingly shared.
“May I ask where you’re taking me?” Myrn asked at last, folding the waybread packet carefully and resealing the waxed covering before slipping it back into her sleeve. Its bulk had hardly been diminished by their ample meal the men noticed with wonder. They exchanged uneasy glances but had to admit the waybread was most deliciously satisfying.
“We’re under orders to deliver you to Stone Trees,” revealed Alabar the Mercenary. “Once we start out now we’ll be there before dark.”
“I don’t suppose you’d care to give me the name of whoever contracted with you to carry me off?” Myrn asked sweetly. “I wasn’t aware of any enemies in this part of World.”
“Well... perhaps later, when you’re safely in charge of the Slavers,” said the leader.
“No harm telling her now, is there?” asked Flicker with a nervous laugh.
“No, I suppose not,” conceded Alabar, nodding his head reluctantly. “We’re too far out on the sand for escape. Still, I suspect his name is better left unsaid, even now, little mistress. We strongly advise you to submit to your fate and come along willingly. Even with a mount—which you don’t have—you’d soon become completely and hopelessly lost out here and perhaps die of thirst or hunger, or worse.”
“Maybe ... and maybe not,” replied the Journeyman. “Deserts hold little threat for an Aquamancer.”
With a quick gesture she produced an earthenware quart jug, from which she streamed clear, cool water for the horses and their riders. All drank thirstily and the men filled their clay water bottles, nodding to her in gratitude.
“I don’t intend to escape, I promise you ... at least not just yet, anyway,” Myrn told them.
“Do us all a great favor,” pleaded the bandit leader, “and don’t try to escape until we’ve turned you over to the Slave Dealers. Once we’ve their silver safely in hand, you can run away from them, if you want.”
“I was told slavery had been outlawed in Samarca,” Myrn commented as they prepared to mount, Myrn riding astride behind Alabar.
“That’s so, but our young Sultan is pledged to keep out of Desert Tribe business, you see. The Slavers don’t actually defy his will... or so they claim. I know the Sultan has banned involuntary slavery everywhere in the Sultanate.”
“Except for marriage,” put in Salaman with a dry chuckle. “You can still buy yourself a pretty, strong, hardworking young wife, if you have the ready cash or convenient credit... even in Balistan itself!”
“The practice is dying away, even so,” insisted his chief. “Along with the practice of having more than one wife.”
“I know ... the Sultan himself has only one wife. I’ve met her,” said Myrn.
“Yes, the Singular Sultana Nioba we calls her! They say he’ll hold to her and to her alone. And who’ll blame him? We lesser men, however, must content ourselves with lesser women.”
“An old argument among us,” admitted Flicker to Myrn, shaking his head. “Personally, I’m fully content with just my one wife. Begging your pardon, Mistress Brightglade, but one woman is more than enough for me.”
Talking thus they rode east and a bit to the north over the trackless sand until long past noon, up and down the marching lines of dunes, occasionally following dry wadis half-drifted full.
“Another two or three hours,” estimated Alabar when they stopped to rest and water their mounts from their waterjugs in the scant shade of another overbearing dune. At its foot Myrn examined a tiny patch of cacti and green-gray succulents growing among rounded stones.
“There is certainly water not far underfoot,” she told her captors. “And, see? Where it’s close to the surface it fosters greenery.”
“Who can eat cactus!” scoffed Alabar.
“Something is dining on these succulents, you can see,” Myrn pointed out. “Rabbits or such.”
“Desert hares! Food for starving slaves, only,” exclaimed Flicker.
“Why, not so,” cried his companion Salaman. “My mother makes a right tasty stew of them flop-eared desert hares, I knows well. People come from miles around to taste it.”
“As a Water Adept,” Myrn told them, “I believe much of this land could flower, given a little moisture.”
“If there was water to dig deep for,” Salaman said with a bitter laugh, “the farmers would push us wanderers into the stark Darkest, for sure.”
“You prefer desert land, Salaman, and no water to drink, then?” scoffed Alabar. “Not me! If I could grow a little barley, a little sorghum, and a coconut palm or three ... and had water left over for growing grass for grazing stock, I’d settle down at once. Rich as a sultan! Only total fools or hopeless dreamers prefer the desert life.”
“And give up being a marauder?” Myrn wondered, innocently.
“No doubt about it. Do you suppose I enjoy carrying off maidens into slavery? The pay ain’t that good, either, says I.”
“And if I point out that I’m no maiden? I’m the mother of two beautiful children … and th
e wife of a Fire Wizard, too.”
“All the more reason to get you quickly to Stone Trees Oasis,” muttered Alabar, frowning. “Then we can go back home to our tattered tents, whining wives and skinny children, and always-thirsty horses and camels and chickens.”
A few hours later they sighted the grove of Stone Trees and, among them, a group of gaudy orange-and-white-striped tents above which long green pennants snapped in the last of the southeasterly breezes.
“The Slavers ... or at least their tents,” announced Alabar, drawing on his reins. “Slavers are a secretive, dour lot, even for desert people.”
“Slavers anywhere are seldom fat and cheerful, I’ve heard,” observed Myrn. “Such men hide their faces and names.”
The desert riders nodded their heads, almost in unison.
“You’ll soon discover for yourself, Mistress Myrn,” their leader promised, touching his mount with his heel to send the horse down a long slope of sand to the edge of the grove of petrified trees. “Too soon, I should imagine, for your own liking.”
****
“Can’t you turn storm winds aside?” Douglas Brightglade had asked Cribblon late the night before.
They sat on a glassed-in balcony, looking out at the solid brown overcast of blowing sand.
“Could, I suppose,” replied the Journeyman Aeromancer after some thought. “But not a good idea! There are immense Powers of Air behind such storms, Douglas. Powers’d have to be channeled elsewhere, were I to force them to subside before-time hereabouts. Might do even more harm there than good here, you see.”
“Yes, of course; I realize that,” Douglas said with a weary nod. “We should get some sleep against the end of the storm, I guess. At least there are no warnings of danger to Myrn, at the moment.”
Marbleheart had already found a convenient pile of plump, silken cushions in which to nest, and he was fast asleep.
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