by C. Night
Cazing dismounted and began stripping off his clothes. Rhyen looked away in embarrassment. His master laughed. “You have to as well, Rhyen, or else ride the rest of the day soaking wet.” Rhyen slid down from Cinnamon and pulled off his clothes. When the two men were down to their underwear, Cazing and Rhyen began checking the bags. “Make sure they’re tied down tight, Rhyen, and closed as well. These are good bags, and I wish we didn’t have to ruin some of the less water resistant leather, but this is the fastest route to Avernade, and we’re racing against winter.”
Cazing pulled his boots on before mounting and advised Rhyen to do the same.
“Why?”
“It’ll be hard to shove your feet into wet boots. Trust me, we’re not doing this for fashion.”
Rhyen shrugged and shook his head, but followed his master’s lead. He swung up into his saddle and turned briefly, making sure the rope for Lezo was tied securely to Cinnamon’s saddle. Tuprine was tied behind Brefen.
Cazing watched him with raised eyebrows. “Are you ready?”
Rhyen’s mouth felt dry, but resolutely he nodded his head. Cazing started to turn, but, unable to stop himself, Rhyen called, “You’re sure they can swim, Master?” He cursed his cowardice, but he had never spent much time around water, and was, he hated to admit, frightened.
Cazing didn’t laugh this time. His response was straight-faced and serious. “They can, son. And don’t worry. You won’t sink your horse. Just hold on tight and follow me.” With that the sorcerer tightened his heels in Brefen’s side, and they plunged into the river. Rhyen would have liked to hesitate, but Cinnamon promptly followed without signal.
Rhyen gasped. The water was colder than he had imagined, for all that it was late summer. The current threatened to pull him from the saddle, and he clung to the horn desperately. Cinnamon’s head was above water, as were Rhyen’s head and most of his chest, but all else was practically submerged. Rhyen could feel Cinnamon’s legs working beneath him, but it seemed like they were sinking. He squeezed shut his eyes and fervently muttered prayers to the goddesses of Water and Life. His words tumbled out chaotically, so terrified was he. He had never really thought the gods listened to the prayers of humans and so was not a praying man himself, nor a devout by any standard, but he hoped they were hearing him now.
After what seemed like an eternity, Rhyen bravely opened his eyes. The water had numbed him somewhat, and the sensation of water rushing around him had taken on a feeling of uncomfortable familiarity. So his fright subsided somewhat, and he was able to look around him, his mouth still dry. They were more than halfway across. He watched the approaching shoreline, all the while clinging to Cinnamon. Crossing the river definitely wasn’t pleasant, but it was not as bad as he’d expected.
Soon Rhyen was juggled a little as Cinnamon’s hooves struck ground and she staggered up the bank. When they were on level ground again, Rhyen hopped down and fumbled with the straps on his bag. The clothes on top were slightly damp, but he found dry trousers and a shirt near the bottom. Cazing was pulling on his clothes—Rhyen wondered if the magical bag kept everything dry, remembering that Cazing has said he carried books inside—and once they were dressed, the two men checked the horses, packs, and saddles. Most everything had come out reasonably dry, although, as Cazing predicted, some of the leather bags were ruined.
They mounted again and took off toward the wide-open plains of the south. Rhyen turned and took a last glimpse at the Waine and the peaks of the village Fayer, just visible over the distant treetops. When he had looked his fill, he gave Cinnamon a gentle kick and trotted after his master into the great unknown.
Part II
Avernade
Chapter 8
Rhyen licked his cracked lips. Was there no end to this heat? In Ikha, the summer was so humid and hot that moisture clung in never-ending droplets on the skin. Here the air was dry and scorching, and what little breeze there was offered no relief. It had been nearly a month since they had crossed the Waine. At first the land was fertile and lush, like Ikha and the surrounding areas. But gradually the trees had become scarce, and sand and scrubby, thorny bushes more and more frequent until at last they entered the waste of the Guntorien Desert. With no shade, and no humidity, both Rhyen’s and Cazing’s skin had boiled and blistered under the unforgiving desert sun.
They stumbled along slowly. Cazing was trying to save the horses, but foam frothed from their mouths regardless, and on their skin lay a sheen of sweat. The heat was rising in shimmering waves from the endless sandy ground, and if Cazing had not told Rhyen that there were mountains in the distance, he would have passed them off as a mere mirage.
The earth was strewn with thorny shrubs and rock and cactus. Cazing could detect the rattle of the poisonous desert snake as it shook its tail in warning at the passing horses. Otherwise, there was silence. Nothing else was living in this land. At that moment, the horses passed a gleam that stabbed the eyes. Cazing squinted and looked around at the skeleton of a horse or some other large animal, picked clean by buzzards and bleached by the sun.
Cazing raised his eyebrows. “Well, that’s ominous,” he murmured. He raised his hand to shield his eyes so he could take a better look, but his burned skin pulled and prickled painfully. Cazing inhaled sharply.
Cursing under his breath, Cazing drew his cloak from the small bag he wore on his hip and donned it, pulling the hood as far over his head and eyes as possible. He glanced back at his apprentice. Rhyen looked like he was ready to fall off his brown mare, he eyes delirious with dehydration, his reddened skin peeling. He was wearing his cloak, but it was forgotten and limp across his back. Rhyen, in an attempt to cool off, had rolled his shirtsleeves up and unbuttoned his top, and the result was a lobster-colored chest and arms.
“Drink this,” Cazing said, pulling Brefen back to reign in beside Rhyen. He handed over his water skin.
Rhyen shook his head. “Thanks,” he croaked, “but I still have some.”
“Then you need to remember to drink it,” Cazing snapped. “In this land, forgetting to drink means death. It is too easy to become dehydrated.”
Rhyen fumbled at his side for his bottle. He uncorked it and took a swig. The water had been heated by the sun and was hot in his mouth. Still, he let it trickle down his throat slowly, trying to enjoy it, but it burned his parched throat, and Rhyen found no satisfaction.
Cazing was glaring at him, squinting against the sunlight, only his eyes visible underneath his hood.
“More,” he ordered. Rhyen shuddered but obeyed. After several more sips, Cazing leaned over and jerked Rhyen’s hood over his head. Rhyen opened his mouth to protest that he was much too overheated to wear a woolen hood, but his cloak became a barrier against the sun, and it provided almost instant balm to his burned skin. Rhyen rolled down his shirtsleeves, and under the pain of having cloth make contact with his sunburned arms, he could feel his skin rejoicing at the buffer from the sun. His fingers slipped over his buttons as he tried to do them up, but they were so sunburned that they were as stiff as sausages and almost as useless.
The water, though far from pleasant, seemed to have a positive effect. Rhyen came to himself more clearly than he had been all day. He slunk back farther into his hood, hiding from the sun, trying to ignore the heat rising in prickling bursts from his skin.
He looked at Cazing, who was studying him with concern. Rhyen smiled to reassure him, but cracked his already chapped lips even more. He winced and licked his lips again, tasting the tang of blood.
“I’m ready, Master,” he said hoarsely when Cazing still watched him.
Cazing dug his heels gently into Brefen’s sides, and they started off again. Rhyen fell into place behind his master. Refreshed somewhat by the water, Rhyen took in his surroundings with renewed interest. They had been in this desert for four days. It felt like a lifetime—the days seemed to be never-ending as the sun sat high in the sky
for hours upon hours. The days burned with heat, but the nights were freezing. In Ikha, Rhyen had seen snow every winter, and it was the same back in his home city, Yla. He was used to the stinging, wet, icy cold of the deep winter days, where the sun rose so late and set so early that there was light only for a few hours. Rhyen had felt the blustery wind that brought sleet streaming down the inside of his coat, seeming to blow right through him. He had experienced a chill so complete that his hands and feet had been numb, and his lungs had closed sharply against the winter air.
Yet, none of that seemed to compare to the desert nights. The cold was so absolute here in the desert that, once the sun set, it became as though a suffocating sheet of ice lay on top of Rhyen while he tossed and turned in his blankets. Every night he shivered and trembled, and while his lungs and feet and hands never succumbed to numbness, the cold was inescapable and complete.
Rhyen had asked Cazing how it was possible that it was so hot in the day and yet so cold at night. Cazing had shrugged and mentioned the lack of humidity. But he also said, “You feel so cold because of your sunburns. They steam with heat in the day, but that heat continues to stream out of you at night. The desert can be very cold at night, but it is your burns that chill you so.”
Rhyen remembered this now as he sat astraddle Cinnamon, sweltering in the heat. He almost welcomed the night, almost preferred the heavy cold to the damned sun that fried his skin and blinded his eyes. But after traveling in this forsaken land for four days, Rhyen had come to fear both night and day equally, and cursed the desert.
He wanted nothing more than to leave this place, leave it and never look back. Why couldn’t Avernade have been in the northern mountains? As he glanced around at the sand, scrubs, cactus, rocks, and bones, Rhyen grimaced. “I hate this place,” he spat angrily.
Cazing continue to plod forward, indifferent to Rhyen’s words. Rhyen scowled and recoiled farther under his hood, trying to escape the sun. “I wish we had taken the long way, and gone farther west. Then we could have avoided this horrible desert.”
Cazing continued to ignore him. Rhyen felt anger rise upward from his stomach to his throat. He hated this place, hated it with a fiery passion equal to the evil sun overhead. If his throat hadn’t been so dry, he would have screamed. He glared at Cazing’s covered back. He knew that Cazing was just as miserable as he, and it bothered him that his master took their suffering in stride. He wanted Cazing to chime in, and curse the desert as well. Although very fond of his master, Rhyen was lonely and miserable, and his misery wanted company. So when Cazing continued to say nothing, Rhyen blew out his breath in frustration. “This place is hell,” he called furiously.
“It builds character,” Cazing called back unsympathetically, finally responding to his apprentice. He kept his eyes forward. “And if all you’re going to do is whine, do it silently. I’m trying to remember the words to an old song, and I could do it better without your mutterings.”
Rhyen glowered at Cazing’s back. The sun was maddening, and he felt quite mad with rage. But dehydration began to creep up on him again, and his mind fell quiet as he contented himself by watching the slow stepping hooves of Brefen ahead of him.
When the sun set that night and was no longer blinding, Rhyen saw the mountains looming above them. They were practically at the foothills! Rhyen had had no idea they were so close. During the day, when the light glared off the sand and rocks and pierced his eyes, Rhyen could hardly see Cazing in front of him, let alone the mountains in the distance.
Rhyen turned to Cazing excitedly, shivering and pulling his blankets close about him as he inched toward the fire. It was a smoky blaze, fueled by the scrubby bush that grew so prosperously in the dry sand. Rhyen bleared through the smoke at his master. “We’re so close! We’ll probably make the mountains before lunch tomorrow.” He grinned over his cactus rind. His master had taught him how to chew the spiky desert flowers and suck the moisture from the green prickly skin.
Cazing smiled. “Not quite, Rhyen. We are close, but distances are deceiving in the desert.”
Rhyen’s heart sank a little. “But they’re right there! I could probably throw this rock and hit them!”
Cazing blew a puff of tobacco smoke. Strangely, the small desert bush gave a sweet odor unlike anything else Rhyen had ever smelled before. When the tobacco mixed with it, the result was actually quite alluring. Rhyen grudgingly inhaled, not wanting to enjoy any part of the desert, although even he had to admit a fondness for the smell of the smoky brush fire.
Cazing shook his head. “The dry, clear air and open sky make things seem closer. We’re actually still two, maybe three, days away.”
“Three days?” he whispered, crestfallen. Three more days of this hellish desert? Rhyen didn’t think he could stand it. He winced as his wool blanket itched his raw, burned skin.
Cazing, though his skin looked identical to Rhyen’s, didn’t seem as terrified by the prospect of three more days in the desert as Rhyen did. Rhyen thought about this. “Why doesn’t the desert affect you like it does me?” he asked finally.
“Because you have blue eyes, and I have brown.” Cazing replied easily.
Rhyen blinked confusedly. “What do eyes have to do with it?”
“Blue eyes are more susceptible to changes in light than brown eyes. So, the brightness of the sun glinting off the whiteness of the ground makes your eyes hurt far more than mine. And eyes are the direct link to the brain. So, that is why the sun hurts you more than it does me. My eyes are so dark that they can deal with the sun easier than yours can.”
“Huh.” Rhyen said. “That actually makes sense.”
Cazing snorted. “You sound surprised.”
Rhyen half grinned apologetically. He dug a small indent in the sand with his blistered fingers. Cazing had shown him, during their first night camping in the sand, how to collect water from the desert: Line a hole with a bit of waterproof cloth so that during the night droplets would cling to the fabric. Rhyen was using a slim skin of leather that the Academy had provided for them. Though both continually drank throughout the day, their water skins never seemed to go empty. Nevertheless, Cazing demanded that they both fill them with the small puddles of water they collected during the night. A surprising amount of water could be amassed during the short dark hours in the desert. After he finished excavating the sand, Rhyen gingerly molded the leather around the hole. After that he sighed, shivering from both the prospect of the sun, which would rise in only a few hours, and the dry, bitter cold.
As Cazing predicted, they continued through the desert for the next three days, and by early afternoon on the third day, when the sun was at it worst, they gratefully slunk underneath the first scraggily trees that dotted the foothills. After their conversation about the eyes, Rhyen had used his knife to cut a small strip off his cloak and had tied it about his head so his eyes were doubly shielded by both his hood and the blindfold. The amount of relief it gave him surprised him immensely. He hadn’t realized that the reason he was so affected was the correspondence between the sunlight and his eyes. But after discovering this, he gladly covered them, and his trustworthy Cinnamon followed Brefen resolutely and without his guidance.
Rhyen’s spirits were very high when they reached the shade of the trees. He removed the blindfold and enthusiastically patted his horse. “You did it, Cinnamon,” he murmured, and her ears flicked back at the sound of his voice. “Good girl.”
They stopped only briefly, then continued working their way up the foothills. “I want to get as far up as possible today,” Cazing said breathlessly as he walked Brefen over a particularly steep spot.
“Why is that?” asked Rhyen curiously.
Cazing jerked his chin southward. “There’s going to be a storm tonight. I don’t want to get flooded, and if we stay in the low part, that’s exactly what will happen.”
A storm? Rhyen looked at the southern sky. It was i
ndeed black and rumbling. He actually laughed out loud. “Now, why couldn’t we have had a storm when we were stuck in the desert?”
“That would have been too easy,” Cazing grinned back at him.
It was after they had made camp on the top of the smallest foothill that the rain began. Unfortunately, the scanty trees didn’t provide enough cover to shield their fire, so they were forced to dine on cold things. It was better than the desert, but not by much, because it was still bitterly cold and on top of that equally wet. Still, Rhyen’s spirits were unhampered, so glad was he to be away from the desert. For months afterwards, he would have a recurring nightmare about wandering endlessly in the desert, only to abruptly wake, shaking and drenched in cold sweat. But he slept very little that first night in the mountains because the rains were so heavy.
Cazing and Rhyen counted the rain as a blessing, and they put out all their cooking pots and pans to collect the drops. Rhyen felt so rich when he was able to drink without counting his sips and rationing his water—he drank three pots of the precious liquid by himself during the first few hours of the rain. Cazing copied him. They grinned at each other between gulps, both were feeling pleased despite the cold dinner and the freezing temperatures. It was good to be hydrated again.
The rain continued well into the afternoon of the following day. The water was freezing cold and soaking. Rhyen’s hands were shaking as he led Cinnamon over a steep, stone-strewn patch of hill. His breath came out in foggy puffs. He looked over at his master.
Cazing blinked back the water that ran down his forehead as he led Brefen up the path. His face was almost purple with cold. “Kind of makes you miss the desert, doesn’t it?”
