Sunji led us on a course that wound through a series of low, rocky hills. In the near dark, we moved slowly lest one of the horses bruise a hoof and draw up lame. If a horse grew too lame, we would have kill it, and so come that much closer to killing our chances of success — as well as ourselves.
Just before dawn Flick made one of his mysterious appearances. Our four Avari companions marveled at his twinkling lights, and we explained as much as we knew of this luminous being. Maidro took this as a good omen, saying, 'Look — Valaysu brings the veil stars with him!'
An hour later the sun rose, and cast long shadows ahead of us against the gritty, hardpacked earth. Here, in the country near the hadrah, many things lived: ursage and bitterbroom, spike grass and soap grass, all glazed with a sticky, whitish alkali. Ostrakats ran across the desert on their two powerful legs chasing lizards and snakes, and even rabbits. We heard the roar of the distant lions who sometimes chased them. Other birds — the smaller sandrunners and rock sparrows — hunted beetles, grasshoppers and other insects. I was curious to lay eyes upon a strange creature that supposedly lived in these hills. Maidro called it a baboon, and said that the males protected their harems and young from the hyenas by the mere display of their hideous blue and red faces.
As we made our way west, the desert grew drier. The ursage and rockgrass thinned out, leaving the horses little forage. Soon they would have to subsist on the grain that the packhorses carried, along with the water. It was not good for the horses to go without grass, but there was no help for it. I prayed that in the Tar Harath, they wouldn't grow so hungry and maddened by thirst that they tried to eat sand.
After only a few hours into this leg of our journey, I noticed that Maram was having a very hard time of things. Every lurch and jolt against his saddle tormented him; he bit his own lip against the pain of his sores to keep from making complaint. Only the barbark nuts that he chewed, I thought, and some fierce inner fire kept him going.
He did not want to arise from our midday break; I felt him almost flogging himself to drive his great, afflicted body forward. That night, with the wind driving fine particles of grit into our mouths and eyes, he dismounted and collapsed down onto the warm ground. He ate the food that Liljana prepared for him with little enthusiasm. I knew that he was close to giving up hope.
Seeing this, I took Master Juwain aside and said to him, 'Maram is failing.'
'I'm afraid he is,' Master Juwain said to me. 'I don't know how to help him. All my ointments and medicines have availed not at all.'
'There is one medicine we might try.'
Master Juwain cast me a knowing and censorious look, and said, 'Do you mean the brandy? It would do nothing to heal him.'
'It wouldn't heal his body,' I admitted. 'But if we can strengthen his spirit, it might help him bear the grievances to his body.'
Master Juwain thought about this and smiled sadly. 'Why else would brandy be called "spirits"?'
'Just so,' I said, smiling too.
'I don't know,' Master Juwain said. 'If Maram had fallen into an icy river, and we had pulled him out and sat him by a fire, well, yes — then a tot of brandy might warm him. But I'm afraid that here in the desert it would serve only to parch him even more.'
'Only a tot, sir. And if that is too much, then just a taste. It can't parch him any more than this damn, dry wind.'
Master Juwain finally agreed to my proposal. He himself dug out one of the- brandy bottles and measured a few drams of it into Maram's cup. When he approached Maram with it, Maram sat up and brightened like a boy on his birthday. As his hand closed around the cup, he cried out to Master Juwain, 'Oh, Lord! Oh, my Lord! Thank you, sir — may your breath be blessed for taking pity upon a poor pilgrim!'
In a blink of an eye, Maram tossed down the brandy. It instantly excited his thirst for more. When he understood that no more rations would be forthcoming that night, he seemed crestfallen. But only for a moment for it occurred to him that if Master Juwain had consented to giving him this 'medicine' once, he might again.
'Tomorrow night, then?' Maram said to Master Juwain. 'I can't promise you that,' Master Juwain told him. 'It will depend on the need.'
'Oh, there'll be need enough,' Maram said, picking up his potsherd to scratch at his sores. 'I can promise you that.'
'We'll see. After another day's journey and thirty or forty miles of heat and dust, you might want only water to drink.'
But Maram appeared not to hear him. He gazed out into the dark distances to the west and murmured to himself: 'Ah, forty miles, then — forty miles equals one cup of brandy. Do you think I don't have the strength to journey forty thousand miles?'
That evening the wind blew even harder and beat against the walls of the three large tents that the Avari had brought with them and quickly erected. Maidro didn't like this wind any more than he had the heat of the day, for it stole too much moisture from us and made us even more thirsty. Heat and wind, sweat and water, miles behind us and miles still to come — these were the equations that concerned the Avari. Neither Maidro nor Sunji, however, shared Kane's concern that we should stand watches in order to protect our encampment — at least not at first. As Sunji told us: 'The Zuri will not send more of their warriors into our land to be slaughtered so soon, and for the time, we are at peace with the Sudi. We have no other enemies, and even if we did, they would be unlikely to come across us here, so close to the Tar Harath.'
Kane, standing near one of the tents to survey the rocky terrain about us, squinted against the wind and said to Sunji: 'So, now that you've slaughtered four of Morjin's priests along with the Zuri, you've gained another enemy, and the worst one yet. Then, too, we've reason to suspect that Morjin will unleash another of his cursed droghuls upon us.'
At this, he glanced at Atara, who stood over by the horses brushing down her mare, Fire. I looked at her, too. According to her scryer's way, she said nothing about the third droghul that she had foretold, nor about any other vision. In truth, she had said nothing at all to me since our disagreement over the fate of the captured priest. Her coldness toward me cut as keenly as the chill of the desert night.
'Do you believe,' Sunji said to Kane, 'that this droghul is close?'
Kane glanced at me, and I shook my head. And Kane said to Sunji, 'We've no reason to think so. But then, we've no reason to think not.'
'Then perhaps you should remain awake to watch for him,' Sunji said with a yawn. 'But I would advise you to rest — in the desert, exhaustion can kill as surely as poison or swords.'
With that, he went inside his tent to take a few hours of sleep along with his three tribesmen. Atara, Liljana and Estrella shared the second tent, while I squeezed inside the third with Maram, Master Juwain and Daj. Kane, as stubborn as a stone, stood outside looking out at the darkened land around us and sniffing at the wind.
It blew incessantly all night, right through the tents' tightly woven wool, covering us with a fine powder, I found myself grateful for the shawl wrapped around my mouth and nose, though I hated feeling smothered by this mask of warm, moist wool almost as much as I did its itch and fusty stench. The Avari I thought, might have inured themselves to the desert and all of its insults, but I never would.
We roused ourselves three hours before dawn. The four Avari breakfasted on some bread, dried antelope and a handful of figs, and we did the same. We fed the horses their rations of grain, then rode on into the coldest part of the night.
It was strange, I thought, how we all welcomed the rising of the sun almost as much as we dreaded it. The hellish sun could be death but it was also life, even here in the desert. For a couple of hours, as the hills gave out and we rode across a gravel plain, the sun fell upon our dusty robes and warmed us. Then it grew too warm, and then hot. We sweated even more than did the horses, whose dusty coats turned into masses of muddy hair.
Later that morning we reached the last well before the Tar Harath. The Avari, hundreds of years ago, had dug a hole down through the bottom of an ol
d lake-bed and built a stone wall around it. While Sunji and his people pulled up the waterskins that Jovayl's warriors had dropped down into the well, Maram sprawled out beneath our hastily erected sun cloth. He was so tired that he could hardly move. Flies buzzed around him trying to get through his stained robes to his raw, oozing wounds beneath. Master Juwain brought him a cup a water, which he gulped down in two swallows. Then he looked up at Master Juwain with the sorrowful eyes of a dog and begged for a bit of brandy.
'No — no more,' Master Juwain said. 'At least not until day's end.'
'This is the end,' Maram moaned. 'I don't know if I can get back on my horse.'
'You can,' I said to him. 'You must.'
'How many more miles, then, until we break for the day? Fifteen? Twenty?'
'It doesn't matter,' I said, smiling down at him. 'It doesn't matter if it's twenty thousand miles — we must keep on going.'
'Oh, Val, I don't know!' Maram said as he beat his fist at the flies attacking his eyes. 'I don't know, I don't know!'
I walked off near the well to confer with Master Juwain — and with Kane, Atara and Liljana. To Master Juwain, I said, 'It is too much for him. Perhaps you should use your gelstei to try to heal him.'
Master Juwain brought out his green stone, which gleamed like an emerald in the strong sunlight. He said, 'No — we've agreed that it's too dangerous to use, now.'
'And dangerous if you don't use it. Maram might die.'
Master Juwain rubbed the back of his head, now swaddled in dusty white wool. He stared at his sparkling crystal and said, 'I'm afraid that the Red Dragon can feel me contemplating using this, even across deserts and mountains.'
'Perhaps he can,' I said as I drew my sword. I nodded at Kane and then Liljana. 'Perhaps we can confuse him then. If Liljana were to put her mind to her gelstei at the same moment that Kane used his, then — '
'Then they both might die even before Maram does.'
These ominous words came from Atara. She stood beneath the blazing sun rolling her scryer's sphere between her hands. I bowed my head because I knew that she was right. And she said to me, 'If any of us should try to distract Morjin, it should be me.'
'No,' I told her, squinting against my sword's brilliant silustria. 'It should be me. Of all of us, Morjin has yet to find his way into my gelstei.'
'And that is precisely why your use of it won't distract him.'
As Sunji and the other Avari warriors looked on and Daj and Estrella watered the horses, I swung Alkaladur in a bright arc against the sky. 'If I could make Morjin feel the true power that I have sensed within this sword, then I might do more than distract him.'
'Yes, you might die,' Atara said to me coldly.
'And you?' I said to her, looking at her diamond-clear crystal. 'Would not using your gelstei be just as dangerous?'
'No, I don't think so. Morjin might try to show me the worst of torments, but what is that against what he has already taken from me?'
I remembered how Atara had once shared with me one of her terrible visions, and I said, 'He might trap you inside a world from which there would be no escape.'
Atara tapped her fingers against her blindfold. With the shawl wrapped over her nose and mouth, the whole of her face was now lost beneath coverings of cloth. 'The world is all darkness now, and what could be a worse trap than that?'
'No,' I said, resting my hand on her arm. I can't let you.'
She pulled away from me and gripped her sphere more tightly as she told me, 'You can't stop me. And you mustn't.'
We all finally agreed that Master Juwain should try to heal Maram, with Atara's help. When we put our proposal to him, he quickly consented, for he did not want to live another day scratching at his sores, or so he said. We helped him strip off his robes. I gritted my teeth against the sight of the bites marking nearly every part of his body. Some had grown scabs but many remained raw and open. Estrella and Daj came over and used cloths to shoo away the flies that buzzed around these ugly wounds. Master Juwain knelt next to Maram; he held his varistei over the cavities that Jezi Yaga had bitten out of Maram's chest. Atara stood ready with her clear crystal cupped in her hands. Sunji and the other Avari looked on in fascination and dread.
Master Juwain closed his eyes in meditation. Atara stood as still as a pinnacle of rock. After a while. Master Juwain looked down upon Maram with intense concentration. He gazed at his green gelstei, which he rotated slightly as if feeling for currents of life inside Maram that only he could perceive. We all remembered how the healing light from this crystal had made whole the arrow wound in Atara's lung and saved her from death.
'Hurry!' Maram said to Master Juwain. Despite the children's best efforts, the flies moved more quickly than their hands, and several flies had already found their way to wounds along Maram's legs and were busy sucking up the fluids that leaked out of him. 'Please, please — hurry!'
In a flash of light, soft green flames streaked out of both ends of Master Juwain's crystal. They bent downward and joined together in a glowing emerald ball. Then, like a fountain, this radiance fell down and filled the whole of one of Maram's wounds. I could almost feel the cool, healing light working its magic on Maram's tortured flesh.
'Oh, the pain!' Maram murmured out. 'The pain is going away!'
I looked over at Atara, all wrapped up in cloth like a mummy. She didn't move; it seemed that she didn't breathe.
'Good!' Maram murmured to Master Juwain. 'Ah, very good!'
I held my breath as the edges of the wound, touched with the fire's mysterious power, drew in and knitted together into a seamless expanse of hairy skin. I couldn't help smiling in triumph at this miracle.
Master Juwain repositioned his crystal above the wound torn out of the other half of Maram's chest. A fiery green light poured out of it. Maram smiled as this light fell upon him and suffused his flesh; then, without warning, his lips pulled back into a grimace. The light flared greener and brighter, deeper and hotter. And then, quickly, even hotter. It grew so hideous and hot that it seemed much more fire than light. Maram shouted to Master Juwain, 'Stop! Take it away! You're burning me, damn it!'
But Master Juwain, it seemed, could not take the crystal away. His fingers locked around it, and he stared down at Maram as a hideous light filled his gray eyes. And still the terrible fire poured out of his crystal and seared deeper into Maram's chest.
'Stop! Please! Stop, damn you! You're killing me!'
Maram, too, tried to move, but it seemed that some terrible thing had a hold of his nerves and muscles so that he could not roll out of the way. Kane and I dosed in on Master Juwain then. We each grabbed one of his elbows and lifted him away from Maram. We carried him ten feet out into the desert. This availed Maram not at all, however, for the fire still erupted from the varistei and now snaked through the air in a streak of green to find its way into Maram's wound.
'Stop! Stop! Stop!'
Almost without thinking, I held out my hand to try to stop this strange fire that might soon kill Maram. It passed right through my flesh without the slightest burn, leaving me entirely untouched. It continued flaring and twisting through the air, and sizzling into Maram's chest.
'Val, your sword!' Kane cried out to me.
I remembered that the silustria, along with its other powers, could act as a shield against various energies: vital, mental or even physical. I let go of Master Juwain and drew my sword again, I sliced it down through the green fire, then held it still, letting the fire rain against it. Like a mirror, its brilliant surface reflected the varistei's light back into the varistei. Master Juwain's crystal grew quiescent then. It took only a moment for the spell to be broken.
Master Juwain's eyes suddenly cleared, and he dropped his crystal down into the dirt. He ran back over to Maram, knelt down and rested his hand on Maram's chest. I expected to see the wound all black and charred; instead, it gaped raw and red as freshly flayed meat. It seemed that the evil fire had drilled deep into Maram's muscle, almost down to t
he bone. Strangely, the terrible wound bled only a little.
'I'm sorry,' Master Juwain said, brushing back the hair out of Maram's eyes. 'I'm sorry. Brother Maram!'
For a few moments, Maram could do nothing more than grimace and groan. And then he clasped Master Juwain's hand and said, 'It's all right — I forgive you. But please remember that I'm still Sar Maram.'
Master Juwain walked off to retrieve his crystal which he dropped into his deepest pocket as if he never wanted to see it again. He returned with a wad of cotton: he pressed it down into Maram's newly excavated wound and wrapped a long strip of cotton around Maram's chest and back to hold it in place. By way of explanation, he said to us, 'Never again. I nearly killed Maram, and the Lord of Lies nearly made me into a ghul.'
I stood near Atara, who remained motionless. I help up my sword toward the east as if to reflect back any illusions or evil visions that might emanate from that direction. I had no sense that my efforts aided Atara at all. But at last, the spell that had seized her, too, was broken.
Atara put away her scryer's crystal and called out, 'Is Maram all right?'
'Yes,' I told her, although this wasn't quite true. I grasped her arm, and wished that I could look into her eyes. 'Are you all right?'
She made no reply to this, directly. All she would say was: 'The world … is more than it seems. There are worse things than anything I ever imagined.'
Sunji and Maidro stepped closer then. Maidro looked from Master Juwain to Maram and said, 'If that wasn't sorcery, then I never hope to see such.'
Master Juwain explained more about the making and wielding of the gelstei crystals: what little had been passed down through the ages. Then he said, 'What once was called art is now wrongly called sorcery. Though if you wish to call the evil usage of these crystals sorcery, I won't dispute you.'
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