by Simon Hawke
Yes, worthy adversaries, all.
Valsavis urged the kank forward, down the slope to the Great Ivory Plain. And so the chase begins, he thought with satisfaction.
Chapter Two
Sorak knew the marauders had their base on the western slopes of the Mekillot Mountains. Those foothills were near the caravan route from Altaruk to Gulg so, to give the marauders a wide berth, he headed on a diagonal, southeasterly course, rather than going straight south. It added at least another day to their journey across the Great Ivory Plain, which was not an attractive proposition, but on the other hand, it reduced their chances of encountering marauder scouts.
It also brought them closer to the village of Salt View, which was located just beyond the mountains, near the eastern tip of the range. According to The Wanderer’s Journal, there was a pass roughly at the middle of the range, which was the normal route that one would take to reach Salt View, but Sorak intended to give that a wide berth, as well. It would be a logical place for the marauders to post lookouts. What better place to ambush unwary travelers than in a desolate mountain pass?
They reached the northern slopes of the foothills just before daybreak on the seventh day of their journey. According to the rough map in The Wanderer’s Journal, the distance across the Great Ivory Plain from Nibenay to the mountains was approximately forty or fifty miles. The actual distance they had traveled had been easily twice that. In his days as the Wanderer, thought Sorak, the Sage was obviously not a very accurate cartographer. Either that, or errors had crept in over the years as the journal had been copied numerous times for distribution. Sorak hoped the former was the case, for if errors had crept into the journal, then he had no way of knowing how far he could trust its contents. It was an unsettling notion, especially since the journal was supposed to contain clues that would guide them on their quest.
They had been as sparing with their water as possible, but they had still run out. For Sorak, with his elfling powers of endurance, going without water was not as much a hardship as for Ryana, whose human constitution had greater need of it, especially on the Great Ivory Plain. It was much cooler traveling at night, but when they stopped to rest during the day, the heat was so intense that moisture had to be replaced. Ryana’s lips were parched and cracked, and it had been all she could do to put one foot before the other. Sorak had offered to carry her, but she refused to burden him. Exhausted and at the utter limit of her resources, she still had her stubborn pride.
As soon as they had reached the foothills, they stopped to rest, and Sorak dug a shallow depression in the ground. He used a druid spell to draw water up out of the sandy soil. Ryana could have done it, but she lacked the strength. It took a while for the liquid to percolate up through the soil, because the water table was far below the surface. Once it did, he watched to make sure that Ryana took only small sips.
She crouched on hands and knees to drink, then sat up and sighed, wearily and gratefully. “I never thought that dirty water could taste this good,” she said. “It was still a little salty, though.”
“We should be able to find better water once we get up into the mountains,” Sorak said.
“I think I could sleep for at least a week,” Ryana said, stretching out on her back and shading her eyes with her arm.
“Do not fall asleep yet,” Sorak told her. “We are still out in the open here. I will feel safer once we find some cover.”
She groaned. “Can’t we rest here for just a little while?”
“Of course,” he said, relenting. “But we must be moving on soon. We will make camp among those rocks up there, where we should find both shade and shelter.”
She looked in the direction that he indicated and sighed once more. “Sometimes I wish I were an elf,” she said.
Sorak smiled. “Elves are carnivorous, remember. And they have great, big, pointed ears.”
“Well, an elfling, then,” she said. “Then I could be like you, resist my flesh-eating impulses, and have ears with only little points.”
“On you, they would look most attractive,” Sorak said.
“That’s right, flatter me when I’m weak and have no strength to respond,” she said.
“It is safer that way,” he replied. “Ouch,” she said. “It hurts to smile. My face is so dried out it may crack.”
“I will find some cactus and pulp it so that you may spread it on your skin.”
“Ohhh, that would feel wonderful. Now if only we could find a small stream that I could wash in!”
“I shall do my best,” said Sorak.
“You remember that stream that ran down from the spring by the convent?” she said.
He smiled. “Yes, I remember. We all used to bathe there every day, after our weapons training sessions.”
“I remember the bracing, cold water of the pool, and the way the stream ran down over the rocks below,” she said. “I can almost feel it now. I took it all for granted. The stream, the forest, the cool and refreshing mountain breezes… I had never truly realized how dry and desolate our world is.”
“You miss the Ringing Mountains, don’t you?” he said.
“I shall always think of them as home,” she replied. And then she added, quickly, “But I am not sorry I came.”
Sorak remained silent.
“Do you wish I had remained there?” she asked softly after a moment.
Sorak did not reply at once, and she felt a sharp pang of anxiety. Finally, he said, “A part of me does, I suppose. And I am not referring to any of the tribe. I mean that part of me wishes you could have been spared all this.”
“I made the choice to follow you of my own free will,” she said.
“Yes, I know. And I cannot begin to tell you how glad I am to have you with me. But I also cannot help thinking sometimes of the life you could have led had it not been for me.”
“Had it not been for you, I do not think I would have had much of a life,” she replied, gazing at him earnestly.
“And I cannot imagine my life without you,” he said.
“But if the Elder Al’Kali had never brought me to the convent, we never would have met. You would have i grown up among the sisters, and by this time, doubtless you would have replaced Tamura as weapons and combat trainer. You would have had the love and respect of all your fellow sisters, and you would have continued to live in that verdant valley high in your beloved Ringing Mountains, a peaceful oasis of green tranquility in a parched and dying world. Instead, you met me and fell in love, a love I share with all my heart, but never can reciprocate the way love is meant to be, because of who and what I am. And when I consider all that you have gone through for my sake, and what still lies ahead…” He sighed and looked away. “It all seems monstrously unfair.”
She moved closer to him and took his hand in hers. “I am not complaining,” she said. “Without you, I never would have had a friend my own age back at the convent. And without you, I never would have truly known what it means to love someone. I would have grown up like all the other sisters, having little use for men and thinking even less of them. And chances are that if I ever had a man, I would have done it in the same way as the older sisters who go out on their pilgrimages and use the opportunity to indulge their curiosity about the pleasures of the flesh. It would have meant nothing to me, and I would most likely have reacted the same way they all did, wondering why people made so much of it if that was all there was to love. But now, I know that they are wrong, and there is so much more. I may wonder sometimes what it feels like to couple with a male, but since I have never done it, I do not really know what I am missing. In truth, I do not require a male to make me feel whole as a woman.”
“I often wonder if I shall ever feel complete as a male without having made love to a female,” Sorak said. “And not just any female,” he added, looking at her. “Only one would do.”
“I know,” she said, squeezing his hand gently. “But Mistress Varanna told me once that love can be all the more intense for bei
ng chaste.”
Sorak looked surprised. “Varanna said that?”
Ryana smiled. “Varanna is wise in the ways of the world, as well as the ways of the spirit.”
“Yes, I suppose she is,” Sorak replied. “It is just that I find it difficult to imagine her speaking of such things.”
“We had a long talk about you just before I left the convent,” said Ryana. “I had already made up my mind to leave and follow you. I did not think she suspected it, but now I am certain she knew. I thought I was being so clever, sneaking out at night the way I did. She knew, though, and she could have stopped me but didn’t.”
“I am certain she would take you back,” said Sorak.
“Yes, I think she would,” Ryana replied, “but though I miss the sisters and the Ringing Mountains, I really have no desire to return.”
“Because of me?”
“Yes, but there is much more to it than you and me. What we are doing is important, Sorak, much more important than anything I could have done back at the convent. The villichi are preservers, first and foremost, followers of the Druid Way. We are taught from childhood to dedicate ourselves to saving our world, and we all dream that, one day, Athas will be green again. Perhaps that is a dream that shall never come to pass, but at least we can work to prevent the world from being despoiled further by defiler magic. The Sage represents our one true hope for that. The avangion is the only power that can stand against the dragon sorcerers. We must help the Sage achieve that metamorphosis. For a true preserver, there can be no higher calling.”
“True,” said Sorak, “but it also means that we will be in active opposition to the sorcerer-kings and every defiler on the planet. And you know that they shall stop at nothing to prevent the Sage from achieving his goal. That means they shall stop at nothing to prevent us from helping him. I often think I should have undertaken this alone, the way I started out. What right have I to expose you to such risks?”
“What makes you think it was your decision?” she asked. “No one ever said the Path of the Preserver was an easy one. It is not enough merely to talk about the path as an ideal. To be a true preserver, one must also walk it.”
“Yes,” said Sorak. “And speaking of walking…”
“So soon?” Ryana said.
“Only a little farther,” he replied, “and then we can make camp.”
Wearily, she got to her feet. “Well, I came this far. I suppose I can walk a little farther. But I am going to sleep like the dead when we make camp.”
“I see no reason why we cannot call a halt and rest for one whole day once we reach the shelter of those rocks up there,” he said. “No one is chasing us.” He looked out across the Great Ivory Plain. “Who in his right mind would follow us across all that?”
* * *
Valsavis stopped and dismounted from his kank. He opened up his feed bag and set it down before the beast, pouring a little water in it to give the giant insect some moisture. Ranks were well adapted for travel in the desert, but the Great Ivory Plain offered them nothing in the way of forage, not even a cactus to chew on, and he had been driving the beast hard. As the beetle fed, Valsavis carefully examined it to see how it was holding up. The kank was tired, but he had not pushed it past its limits. So long as his supplies held out, he would have no difficulty maintaining this pace.
His mount seen to, Valsavis next examined the trail. Most trackers would have found no trail at all to follow, but Valsavis did. It was far more difficult to detect a trail on the hard salt than on the sandy desert, but here and there, he could see the faintest sign of a disturbance in the salt where his quarry had stopped to rest briefly or paused to shift their packs. Another day and the wind would have obliterated even those faint signs.
One of them was growing much more tired than the other. He guessed it would have to be the priestess. The elfling had a stronger constitution. Here and there, he could see a sign of where her foot had dragged as she had walked. They had altered their course slightly, from south to southeast. Valsavis looked up at the mountains, now no more than a day’s ride distant. The elfling and the priestess appeared to be headed on a diagonal course toward the northeastern tip of the range. It would have been easier for them to head straight south and take the pass through the Mekillots to the village of Salt View, but they had chosen a more prudent course.
It made sense, Valsavis thought. His analysis had proved correct. They were giving the marauders a wide berth and aiming to cross the mountains to reach Salt View rather than going through the pass. Smart, thought Valsavis. There was still a possibility they might encounter a small raiding or hunting party of marauders, but they had reduced those chances dramatically by choosing their present course, even though it meant that it would take longer for them to reach the mountains. They would arrive tired, or at least the priestess would, and they would probably stop to rest, perhaps for a full day, before they proceeded on their journey. That would give him time to close the distance between them.
However, he did not wish to reveal himself just yet. He wanted to get close enough to observe them without being observed, himself. He did not wish to force a confrontation. When the time came, he would allow them to discover they were being followed. And then the game would become more interesting.
His left hand suddenly began to tingle. He held it up before his face, gazing at the ring the Shadow King had given him before he left. It was a very old ring, made of solid gold, a commodity so rare on Athas that most people had never even seen it. It was much more than a gift, however, magnificent though it was. The face of the large ring was round and raised, molded into the shape of a human eye that was closed. As his hand began to tingle and he raised it up to see the ring, the golden eyelid opened, revealing the staring, yellow eye of Nibenay, the Shadow King.
“Have you picked up the trail of the elfling and the priestess?” asked the Shadow King’s voice within his mind.
“I am within a day’s ride of them, my lord,” Valsavis answered aloud. “They have crossed the Great Ivory Plain and should just now be reaching the northeastern foothills of the Mekillots. They are clearly bound for the village of Salt View, though what they hope to find there, I cannot say.”
“Salt View…” the dragon king said. The golden eye blinked once. “There is a preserver living in Salt View, a druid known only as the Silent One.”
“I had not thought that preservers would find a welcome in Salt View, my lord,” Valsavis replied.
“Under ordinary circumstances, they would not,” the dragon king replied. “But the Silent One is no ordinary preserver. The Silent One has been to Bodach and survived to tell the tale—except that the experience stole the Silent One’s voice, and so the tale of what the druid found there has never yet been told. There are those who believe the Silent One knows the secret of Bodach’s treasure, and hope to see it written down. Many have tried to find this reclusive druid, but there are also those who venerate the Silent One for surviving the ordeal, and grant the old druid their protection.”
“Then you believe the elfling seeks this Silent One, my lord?” Valsavis asked.
“The city of the undead lies to the southeast of Salt View, across the inland silt basins,” said the Shadow King as the golden eye blinked once more. “If they seek the Silent One, doubtless it is because they seek a guide to Bodach.”
“They seek the legendary treasure, then?” Valsavis said.
“It is no mere legend,” said the Shadow King. “The treasure horde of Bodach is real enough. But hidden somewhere among that fabulous horde is a treasure greater still—the Breastplate of Argentum.”
“I have never heard of it, my lord,” Valsavis said.
“Nor have most people,” said the Shadow King. “It is a relic of the ancients, made of finely linked silver chain mail and imbued with powerful preserver magic.”
“What is the nature of the talisman, my lord?”
“I must admit I do not know,” the Shadow King replied. “It is war
ded against spell detection by defilers, nor shall it serve them. But it must not be allowed to fall into the elfling’s hands. It would arm him while he wore it, and its magic would empower this king that he would make. You must find the Breastplate of Argentum and destroy it.”
“But… how would I know it, my lord?” Valsavis asked. “A breastplate of silver chain mail would be very rare, of course, but among the treasure of the ancients, there could easily be any number of such items. Can you not tell me anything that would distinguish it?”
“It is said to gleam with a peculiar light,” the Shadow King replied. “More than that, I cannot tell you.”
“I will find it if I can, my lord.”
“If you do not find it, see that the elfling does not, either,” said the Shadow King. “And if he finds it before you do, then he must not be allowed to keep it.”
“If he finds the breastplate first, my lord, do you wish him to be killed?” Valsavis asked.
“No,” the Shadow King replied. “He must lead us to the king that he would crown. If he finds the breastplate first, then you must devise some method whereby you can take it from him. How you manage that is no concern of mine. But the elfling must not die until he leads us to the one he serves. Remember that, Valsavis. That is your primary objective. The uncrowned king must be found and eliminated, at all costs.”
The golden eyelid closed, and the tingling sensation went away. Valsavis lowered his arm back to his side. He had wanted an interesting challenge. Well, he was certainly going to get his wish. He was stalking an apparently clever, resourceful and dangerous victim, and the trick was not to kill him until he had served his purpose in leading him to his master. Added to that, he had to find an ancient magic talisman before the elfling did, and to do that, he would have to search for it in Bodach, a city teeming with undead, while at the same time maintaining observation of the elfling and the priestess. And if the elfling managed to find the Breastplate of Argentum first, then he had somehow to devise a way of wresting it away from him—without killing the elfling. Last, but by no means least of all, he had to trail the elfling and the priestess to this uncrowned king and execute him, which would be no easy task. The elfling’s master was undoubtedly a powerful preserver if he was feared even by the Shadow King, and Valsavis had never before tried to kill a wizard.
