by Pedro Urvi
“According to this map there’s nothing South but desert and desolation,” said Kendas as he looked in an old faded leather map with a worried expression. “I don’t put much trust in this map we got in Stambus either, but as the most important city in this area it should show any oases, temples and cities nearby pretty precisely, at least up to a point. To the North and West I can see two cities and three different oases marked. But there’s nothing to the South, at least not for many, many leagues. I don’t know where the medallions are leading us to, but I fear that if we continue into the desert it’s very likely we’ll never return. In the Army we always establish a route for withdrawal, and in this case I don’t see one. We’re gambling everything on just one card. If the medallions lead us to a shelter we’ll be saved, but if not we’ll all die swallowed up by this desert.”
Hartz was restless, pacing the sand slowly and heavily. He had taken the cloth off his face, and his sunburned features showed worry.
“We don’t know that the medallions will lead us anywhere,” he said with a frown. “We don’t even know what’s awaiting us wherever it is they want us to go. I’m sure it’s a damned trap, and we’ll find ourselves surrounded by that infernal golden magic which will bring us no good.”
“Me not like desert. No water, no trees, everything dead, only sand, no life…” said Asti, very upset as she looked around her.
“This endless sea of sand seems abandoned by the hand of Light,” said Kendas. He crouched to pick up a handful of sand and let it seep through his closed fingers.
Komir stared at his medallion, momentarily lost in thought, then said, slowly and very clearly:
“I understand your doubts, my friends. This endless desert fills me with fear as well, and I’m very much aware that death awaits us, whatever direction we choose to go. But now that we’re here in this faraway land, in the middle of this infernal desert, we can’t give up. We’re at the end of the road. I’m going on. I’ll find out what’s hidden in the place the medallions are leading us to. The risk is enormous, I know. I also know that I might even die in this inhuman sun, but I haven’t come this far just to turn around. Not now we’re so close. I have to know what answers are waiting at the end of this desert, and I’m going to find them.”
“But Komir…” Hartz began.
“I’m not going to ask you to come with me, because to go on is only madness, I know. But I just have to. Those of you who want to go back to the caravan are still in time to do just that and travel under their protection as far as the oasis. It won’t be difficult to find another caravan to take you back…”
“I’m going wherever you are,” Hartz said at once. He looked at Kayti out of the corner of his eye, as if he sought her approval, which did not come. She just gave a hostile glance at the big Norriel and her expression turned sour.
Aliana looked towards the dunes where the last of the camels had already disappeared. Then she turned south, protecting her eyes with her hand.
“I’ll go with you, Komir. I too need to know what’s behind these medallions and why they’re leading us into the depths of this desert. If we’ve been chosen to bear them, and I honestly believe we have, then we must find out why.”
Kendas stepped forward, sinking his riding boot in the sand, “I’ll go with Aliana. It’s my duty to keep her safe and bring her back to Rogdon. Prince Gerart would never forgive me if I left her and something happened to her. So, I’m coming too.”
A gust of wind lifted a layer of sand, which struck Asti in the face. She spit out the sand that had got into her mouth and said: “I go too, but hate desert.”
Komir looked at Kayti who was the last to speak.
“Wherever that half-wit goes, I’m going too,” she said at last, and gave Hartz a very unfriendly glance.
Komir nodded in acceptance.
So they marched on, they went on for days, towards the south through the impressive dunes, which rose like waves in a stormy sea: an infinite sea of heat and sand. The camels carried them, swaying in their characteristic amble. The temperature during the day was like a furnace, and their bodies suffered from the extreme rigor of the climate. They covered every inch of skin, aware that the sun-rays robbed them of their pallor as if they were being slowly cooked over live coals on a huge grill. Then at night the temperature fell dramatically, so that they had to shelter close to the camels and wrapped in woolen blankets not to get sick.
The hostile weather was beginning to take its toll on the group. Even with Aliana’s careful nursing, Asti, Kayti and even Kendas were beginning to weaken. Hartz was not protesting as much as before, which was not a good sign. Komir identified the signs of exhaustion in his own body and he knew they were all going through the same hell. Aliana tried to give them some sort of respite when they stopped to rest, but Komir had ended up forbidding her, because she was the one who looked worst of all. The journey was hard enough without her having to heal everyone else when she was also at the end of her strength. Komir could not sleep, thinking about the healer’s sickening look. He feared for her life.
And then the dreaded moment arrived. They ran out of water. Nobody said anything, but they all knew what this meant. They looked at each other and went on. It was too late to go back now. Get there or die.
At sunset of the second day without water, fear began to take over the intrepid adventurers: without a miracle, they would surely die in that waterless inferno. Komir stopped when he saw the suffering and exhaustion in his friends’ faces. They could not go on without water, and all he could see around them was this sea of sand. Not the least sign of life which might bring some hope for their onward journey. They prepared their camp for the night: tired, thirsty, starving and hopeless.
Kendas came to sit beside Komir, who was trying to maintain his hope even in the knowledge that Death was close. He could almost smell her foul stench hovering above them.
“We can’t go on any more. Another day will kill us,” confessed Kendas, beaten.
“I know, but we have no choice, Kendas.” Said Komir, and shivered. “If we stop we’ll die of thirst. We won’t see another dawn.”
Night began to close around the group, and the temperature fell fast. Komir looked up at the sky. Above their heads was an infinite canvas with millions of welcoming bright stars. He was caught up in the beauty of the clear sky, filled with little diamond lights which pulsed to the music of a nocturnal melody as eternal as it was inaudible.
Kendas followed Komir’s gaze. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Just as beautiful as it is deadly,” Komir replied. “I can’t believe this place is an insufferable, cruel inferno during the day and then by night turns into this peaceful, quiet, incredible beauty.”
“Until the temperature drops so much it makes your teeth chatter,” said Hartz as he sat down beside Kendas. “Damn this place!”
Komir looked at him uneasily.
“Don’t be upset, my friend,” Hartz said hastily, seeing the concern in Komir’s face. “I’ve told Kayti to watch her carefully and not let her perform any more healing at all. She’s too weak. We nearly lost her today. She won’t survive tomorrow without water…”
Komir nodded, and helplessness grew inside him. Kendas was looking towards Aliana as she wrapped herself in a blanket and hid her ghastly face.
“What’s the plan?” asked Hartz.
“We’ll keep going in the direction the medallions have set, there’s nothing else we can do…” replied Komir, hanging his head.
“I see… We either find that damned place the medallions want us to go to or else we’ll die in the attempt. If we don’t find it before noon, I fear Aliana will die and Asti will follow.”
“And by nightfall the rest of us will fall…” said Kendas.
“We’ll find that place. We will survive” Komir said in an attempt to inject a little courage in them.
He could not allow his comrades to die on his account in that forsaken desert. He had dragged them there to f
ind the answers which his soul craved. The responsibility was his, and only he would be to blame if they died there. It could all end the following day, tragically, for all of them.
“We’ll find it,” he repeated, looking up at the stars. “Don’t lose hope, I’m sure we’ll find shelter, and then everything will be all right.”
Shortly before dawn the group renewed their journey. The camels complained while Hartz and Kendas helped Aliana and Asti mount. Komir watched them in silence, feeling ashamed at the sorry state they were in. The two girls could barely stand. They were emaciated, and their faces looked cadaverous. Komir tried to calm himself and cheer his battered spirit, but concern and worry overcame him with pessimism and he felt as though a cage had closed about him. Kayti glared at him as she got onto her camel. She seemed better prepared for the hardships of the trip, which did not really surprise Komir. Kendas rode his camel skillfully while Hartz struggled with his, cursing colorfully. He managed to control his animal at last and climbed up, adjusting his big body between the camel’s humps.
And another infernal day commenced. It was a nightmare that repeated itself every day at dawn. But today it would come to an end, one way or another. Komir looked up and saw enormous dunes looming ahead. He tried to swallow, but there was no saliva left in his mouth. His throat was parched, his lips a mess of blisters and scabs.
“We’ll make it” he said to himself once more as he attacked the first dune on his camel. The group followed him in silence, like a caravan of wounded elephants going to their secret graveyard. When they crowned the last of the dunes, the sun was at its highest. Komir looked ahead from the back of the camel. The hope of finding salvation behind the dunes, which had kept him going all morning thinking one more step, just one more, and we’ll reach our goal died in an instant. Before their eyes was another sea of sand and dunes like an endless golden ocean. Nothing. No oases, no city, no temple, or help to succor them.
Nothing.
Only a murderous desert which stretched in all directions.
Komir’s soul sank into the deepest well of hopelessness.
He turned his head to check on the others with a heavy heart. Aliana had fallen off her camel and was lying on the sand. Kendas and Hartz rushed to help her. Asti tried to get off hers, but she also fell with a muffled moan. The sun shone with punishing strength. The two women were going to die, Komir knew it and his soul screamed in agony.
It’s my fault, it’s all my fault! Komir felt as if a mountain of guilt were crushing him.
“Sandstorm!” shouted Kendas.
“By the goddesses!” cried Hartz.
Komir could not believe their bad luck.
What else can the gods of this hell throw at us? Why bother if we’re already dead?
The darkness of the storm fell on the group.
Unexpected Event
Sonea and Lindaro were walking slowly through a wild forest which seemed to be seeking to dissuade them with every step. They were tired, but more than that, they were frightened. Lindaro looked at Sonea and put a finger to his lips. The exiled librarian-apprentice stood still and silent, like a statue. The breeze from the lake on the other end of the bushy hill brought them the sound of several voices. Instinctively, both scholars ducked under the shrubs.
“Zangrian soldiers on patrol,” whispered Sonea.
“Do you understand their language?” Lindaro asked in another barely audible murmur.
“Yes, I studied with the Master Archivist of Languages. I can speak more than twenty different languages from all over Tremia. It’s one of my favorite studies. Nothing thrills me like learning to communicate with others.”
“You are a prodigy,” said Lindaro with a smile. “I only speak four languages, the commonest ones.”
“But you’re a man of faith, you devote a lot of time to the works of Light. I’m a… was a… librarian. My mission was to learn and preserve knowledge. Languages in particular and the need to communicate have always fascinated me. Besides, the more languages you know the wider the knowledge you can acquire.”
Lindaro smiled at the little scholar’s seriousness.
“Your passion and knowledge leave me speechless,” he said in a muffled whisper.
“They’re going west, let’s wait for them to go by and then continue north. The lake can’t be far away.”
The Zangrian column of soldiers walked by following the forest’s edge, but luckily for Sonea and Lindaro, did not go into it. With a sigh of relief, they stood up and went on carefully.
After half a day of walking northwards they left the forest, going down a steep hill which made for a difficult descent.
Sonea opened her mouth in astonishment.
A sea as blue and infinite as the sky was before them, a mirror for the sky on earth.
“By the all-creating Light!” said Lindaro. “It’s absolutely magnificent!”
Sonea could not say a word for several moments. It was as if the ancient gods had placed an indigo sea in the middle of those woods, a sea whose horizon vanished in the distance.
“It’s… it’s wonderful…” she stammered.
“But is it a sea or a lake?” the man of faith asked himself aloud. “According to the maps of these lands it should be a lake, but it’s so incredibly big that the eye can’t see its end.”
“That’s easy to find out,” said Sonea. She crouched on the rocky edge, scooped up some water with her hand and tried it. “Fresh. It’s a lake,” she said with a roguish smile.
“Excellent empirical deduction, what was I thinking!” Lindaro blushed.
“We’ve reached our destination,” said Sonea with pride. “This is the lake we’re looking for. And we’re still in one piece! Not bad at all for two peaceful, unarmed adventurers in hostile territory.”
“So what now?” asked Lindaro, looking at the blue expanse before them.
“The grimoire showed me this landscape. I’m sure of that, so I suppose what we have to find is somewhere in the lake.”
“You mean in the lake itself?” Lindaro said, looking confused.
“I don’t know. But I can’t think of any other explanation.”
“I only see leagues and leagues of water. Let me look at the map.” He took it out of his bag and studied it closely. “The maps show this lake as a single huge body of water. There aren’t any islands in it, or at least they aren’t shown.”
“The vision took me right to the center of the lake, at least that’s the impression I had. It was the center… I think we should find a way to sail across this lake and see what’s at its center…”
“That’s a very risky idea, Sonea. We don’t know how to sail, and we don’t even have a boat.”
“It didn’t seem too complicated. I was paying attention to how Flint managed his fishing boat, and I think I could do it. I learn quickly.”
Unable to stop himself, Lindaro burst out laughing.
“You do learn quickly. Is there anything you can’t manage?”
“Authority,” said Sonea with a sardonic grin.
Lindaro laughed again, “let’s find ourselves a boat, then. It’s an enormous lake, there should be a quay somewhere on the shore…”
“The thing is it’ll probably be military…” said Sonea with disgust.
“Yes, that would be a problem…”
Iruki Wind of the Steppes was running for her life. Four Zangrian soldiers were close behind her. She was running as fast as her nimble legs would allow, and her lungs were about to burst. She ran downhill, leaping over rocks and brush, avoiding pines and firs at dizzying speed. She risked a brief look back and realized she was establishing a lead. She could not let herself be caught, not now that she had the Sky Weed, which meant salvation for her father and her tribe. She left the forest and came out on the edge of a new lake. Here she stopped, panting, trying to regain her breath. This place was a labyrinth of lakes and forests with no way out. She looked ahead and saw that this lake was enormous, like a sea, much bigger than the
others she had left behind in her search for the medicinal plant.
The lake was like an enormous tear of an immortal god.
Suddenly a blue flash made her start.
“By all the spirits of the prairie! What’s happening now?”
The flash came again, sharp, from her chest.
The Ilenian medallion! I don’t have time for this now! She shook her head. Where shall I go? she wondered anxiously. I came running from the south-east to the north, I must go north. If I go south I’ll get even further away from my steppes.
The medallion flashed in the form of a beam of blue light toward the center of the lake.
Iruki looked at it for a moment. I don’t know what it wants, but this isn’t the time and I can’t go into the lake, no matter how much I wish I could, she said to herself. She began to run north following the shore of that immense indigo expanse. She was breathing through her nose and exhaling as she ran as fast as she could. Behind her she heard the soldiers on her trail. But she was not wearing armor and she was a light daughter of the steppes. She would run like the prairie wind carried on invisible wings, and would put land between them and her. They would never catch her. Never.
And she ran and ran, without looking back. She rounded a bend and stopped in her tracks. She could not believe it! Her bad luck was unbelievable! The skunk spirit must have cursed her. Before her, less than five hundred paces away, was a small fort crowned with yellow and black flags. Protected by it was a small dock where half a dozen war barges rested in the water. The military building had been erected on top of a hill at the edge of the lake. It was made of rock and wood, not too big but sturdy. It surely housed a whole detachment of soldiers, more than one hundred for sure. She had come upon the Zangrian army’s military base for the area.
She turned round and saw that the four soldiers who were chasing her were not running any more but walking towards her, looking exhausted. She wondered which direction to turn in. She could neither go on or retrace her steps, and the lake beside her was suicide no matter how strongly the medallion indicated that way. The only thing to do was go into the forest. Without thinking twice, she began to climb the hill. With a little luck she would lose them among the brush, since after all she was quite a way ahead of them.
