The expression rapidly changed on Stoor’s face from amusement to shock, then quickly to acceptance. Sitting down on the bench next to Varian, Stoor looked quickly from Varian to the young woman, then back.
“It’s all right if she knows,” said Varian.
“Knows what?” said Tessa, grabbing his wrist.
“You tell me what you know,” said Stoor, his eyes boring into Varian with the intensity of a trapped animal.
“I shall tell you everything,” said Varian.
And he did.
Chapter Four
Needless to say, after listening to Varian’s tale, Stoor and Raim were convinced of several things: that Cartor Fillus and Kartaphilos were one and the same, that the robot’s story was consistent down to the smallest detail, and that it might be a good idea to set out in search of the mysterious Citadel.
There were, however, some “terms” which would have to be worked out.
Stoor’s primary objection was the presence of Tessa in the group, not because she was a woman—Stoor had always been a great admirer of women—but rather her lack of any skills that might assist their expedition. Her facility for language was her saving grace, and Varian repeatedly used this in her defense. It was a valuable asset to have someone who could communicate with practically anyone they might encounter.
There was another reason, however, why Varian wanted to include Tessa on the expedition. He was falling in love with her. Varian Hamer—no stranger to women—was able to admit to himself that it was happening. He thought that perhaps the present situation forced the issue, but it did not matter. The idea of not being with Tessa, or leaving her behind in some strange and hostile city, was unthinkable. Therefore, it must be love. So be it.
If old Stoor suspected any such motive, he kept silent about it. Either he respected the sentiment, or he was afraid of offending a man such as Varian. No matter.
The other thing to be decided was the object of the entire mission. Stoor and Raim had been soldiers of fortune for many seasons, and they had difficulty in thinking in terms of anything but money and its attendant mercenary aspects. In the past, all their expeditions were financed by an outside party; their part in the plan, a given, a guarantee. But in this new plan, there was a total risk. To bring in yet another member to the expedition would divide the spoils, plus risk competition (or worse) from unknown parties.
All these things were discussed at length in the bars of Ques’ryad, in its courtyards and plazas, and its sumptuous inns and liveries.
It was decided that passage by ship would be a very bad idea. A sailing vessel is a microcosm in which secrets are hard to keep, especially when they are held by more than one person. As convenient and safe and quick as a ship might be, it was ruled out. The first mate of The Courtesan was thus notified that Varian and the galley helper, Tessa, would not be making the trip back to Mentor.
The prospect of covering the known World on foot, or even on horseback, was a dizzying one, however; and Stoor set about solving this problem by contacting a wealthy Zend Avestan merchant, who owed several “favors” to Stoor of Hadaan. It seems as if, in past years, Stoor had been employed to find First Age artifacts for the merchant’s collection and private museum, located on his villa overlooking the Grünewald Bight. There were many times when Stoor had been requested to bring back very specific items, and when he succeeded, the merchant offered to reward him with special bonuses; Stoor had always declined, knowing that someday he would be able to “collect” on the owed favors.
The time to collect had come.
Ten years previous, Stoor had uncovered a First Age machine under the shifting sands that lapped upon the barricades of the Maaradin Fortress. It was a personnel carrier: semiarmored, fully treaded, light armament, and completely functional. It had somehow escaped destruction long enough to be interred by the ever-changing landscape, thereby preserved in the ultradry climate. The carrier had been a momentous discovery and regarded as a marvel of the First Age. It was in excellent condition, although the moving and electronic parts of the engine and ancillary equipment were corroded, even deteriorated to some extent. In other words, it would not run.
But if it would ever run again, it would run in Zend Avesta. It was in that country where the mind was given the most freedom, and it was a place where change was not deterred by hidebound tradition. Zend Avestan scientists and inventors, upon invitation by the wealthy merchant, crawled all over the ancient machine. They learned greatly from its construction, from its basic principles of self-propulsion, and it was from this discovery that the tractors and simple vehicles now seen in Zend Avesta can be traced. The country’s inventors soon developed an engine that would function on the methane derived from feces, thus replacing the petrochem engine originally found in the carrier.
The time came when the carrier was only a curiosity, a prototype, from which far more practical machines were produced. And so it spent most of its days on the first floor of the merchant’s private museum, where attendants daily polished it.
Until, that is, the day Stoor of Hadaan paid the merchant an unexpected call.
That afternoon, Stoor and Varian sat in the front cab of the vehicle as it trundled across the open countryside east of the Bight. Tessa and Raim were busy in the rear compartment storing gear and supplies.
“I still can’t believe anyone could owe you such a favor,” said Varian.
Stoor threw back his head and laughed.
“No, really. I mean, this is incredible!” Varian looked over the vehicle like a little boy with a new plaything. It was a mechanical wonder! A marvel to which he doubted he would ever grow accustomed.
“Not really,” said Stoor. “Not when you figure my friend had no real use for it anymore. His folks can reproduce this one whenever he wishes it. What the world needs now is tractors, not personnel carriers! Besides, I promised him I’d bring him back somethin’ far more valuable than this damn machine!”
“Gods! What was that?”
Stoor laughed again. “Does it matter? If we find what we’re lookin’ for, that merchant will be the least of our worries.”
Where do we go first?”
“Logically, we look for all the great deserts and similar barren territories. We both got the same clues—it’s in a sandy place, right?”
“Suppose it’s not anywhere in the known World?” “You mean somewhere beyond. . . ?”
Varian nodded.
“Then we go there too,” said Stoor. “I’ve been out pretty far in the Manteg. Seems to go on forever, though. Don’t know any man that’s ever been across the whole thing. Same for the Slagland.”
“But we might have to do it. Right?”
“It’s possible. Anything’s possible. Get me that map.”
Stoor pointed to a small steel box on the floor of the cab. Varian opened it and pulled out a map of the World inked on a folded piece of oilskin. Its folds were deep creases and the edges were worn with use. It was a silent testament to the lifetime of Stoor’s travels.
“Now, I figure we work south a bit and cut into the Samarkesh Burn. Hell of a place that is!”
“You been there?”
“Only when I had to. Raiders chased me through there years ago. Before the Interdict on them animals. Before I met Raim. It was tough, but I made it.” Stoor threw in the throttle and gunned the methane engine, which whined as it revved up to traverse a steep rise they had just reached.
Varian let the conversation pause for a moment. If he pressed the old man too much, he would be launched into another highly detailed story, and he wasn’t in the mood for it. Varian was interested in the adventure at hand, in the types of equipment they had, in the techniques necessary for desert survival.
“Tell me about the Finder,” he said finally, pointing to a set of controls on the dash console.
“Ain’t much to tell. I don’t know much about how it works. Just that it does, that’s all.”
“There were sailors in Elahim who were
experimenting with radio things something like this. They said they would be able to detect ships beyond the horizon, out of visual range. Is it like that?”
“Better than that. Them First Agers were a slick bunch, I keep telling you. This thing here lights up whenever we come within range of any large metal or stone object, and this panel here will print out information which will tell us the location.”
“What’s the range of the thing?”
“Pretty far. About four hundred kays.”
Varian shood his head. The technology which produced such a thing bordered upon magic. In fact, as far as he was concerned it might as well be magic. “Is it always turned on?”
Stoor nodded. “It’ll start beepin’ if anything comes into range. Then we got the choice of either trackin’ it down and checkin’ it out, or passin’ it by. With my map and knowledge of the areas, we can bypass lots of crap, ‘cause I’ll know what’s supposed to be there.”
He pointed to the map. “Like right there. There’s a bombed-out monastery right around there. If we keep on this course, it’ll show up on the Finder.”
“And we’ll go past without having to check it, right?” Varian studied the screen, which glowed with a bright yellow-green light.
“But wait a minute . . .” said Varian. “Suppose the Guardian is located somewhere in the ruins. Beneath the monastery, perhaps? And we went by. . . ?”
“Then we wouldn’t find it, would we?” Stoor laughed. Varian said nothing. He didn’t understand.
“Listen, boy,” said the old man. “That monastery’s been there a long time and everybody knows it’s there. I’ve crawled over every stone in the place and so have a lot of schoolboys by this time. If the Guardian’s there, well, he’s hidden so well that nobody’s going to find him!”
“I see . . .” said Varian, reaching for his pouch and pipe.
“The way I figure it,” said Stoor. “This Citadel . . . this place where the Guardian lays out . . . is in some god-awful place where no men ever go. Else it would’ve been turned up by this time. See what I mean? It wants to be found, or it wouldn’t send that robot around to keep tellin’ its story. See what I mean?” Stoor looked over at Varian for a moment then continued to wrestle with the controls, navigating along the edge of a wide arroyo.
“Then we’re going to be traveling through some territory that you’ve never seen before. Possibly that no man has ever seen before. . . .”
“You have a funny way of makin’ the obvious sound kind of profound,” said Stoor, laughing at his own wit.
It was funny, the way he said it, and Varian couldn’t help but smile himself.
“How far are we from the Burn?”
“About three hours before we hit the first part of it. I figure to swing south and avoid most of the Behistar Republic. There’s no sense in tanglin’ horns with any of that wild bunch there. We’ll check out the Burn, then if we come up short, head east to the Hesen River. From there, it’s only a little bit to the Ironfields.”
“You been there many times?”
“Ironfields? Yeah, sure. But I ain’t seen it all. Ain’t no man alive that’s seen it all. It goes on and on. It’s the biggest single thing I’ve ever seen in the World except for maybe the Slaglands. Don’t know which is bigger ‘cause they both seem to just go on forever.”
“I’ve never seen it. It must be awesome.”
“Awesome? Maybe that’s the word, I don’t know. You see all them wrecks, all the bones . . . you think: What the hell ever happened here? Who could’ve been so powerful?” Stoor shook his head. “It makes you think that whoever they were—the men of the First Age—they were a far better bunch than us. Than we’ll ever be. Yeah, I’ve never been to the Ironfields without havin’ a scary feelin’ come over me. . . .”
The Finder alarm on the control panel beeped into life. The screen indicated a larger mass south of their current position.
“That’s the monastery. See, what’d I tell you? if you didn’t have me along, you might go down there and waste a lot of supplies and time.” The old man laughed again.
Varian looked at him closely, trying to figure him out. It might be difficult to spend an indefinite amount of time with him. His manner was abrupt and, although straightforward, hard to take in large doses. He was authoritative and was obviously used to being in charge of things. Varian usually did not get along well with men such as that, yet Stoor’s age and inestimable experience seemed to temper the personality differences.
But Varian wondered what motivated him. He seemed to have the wanderlust, the need to be moving and constantly discovering. Stoor would be seemingly just as happy off in the Manteg hunting sphinders or lizards. And yet though he wanted to find the Citadel, he did not seem to exhibit any of the urgency or excitement that such a quest should instill.
They sat in silence for a while as Varian continued to think about the group he had aligned himself with. Stoor was something of a mystery and would continue to be until time unwound his true nature. Raim, his inseparable companion, was quite a bit simpler to understand.
From what Varian had been able to pick up in bits of offhand reference to the small, muscular man, Raim had been a Maaradin courier for a company in Borat. His reliability and courage were renowned and he often drew the toughest assignments, transporting diplomatic pouches throughout the World. That is, until the time when his small frigate was overtaken by a Behistar Raider and he was taken prisoner rather than killed outright because one of the officers recognized him as an upper-echelon courier. Since he had dispatched his packet over the side at the first sign of the Raiders, there was no concrete information or evidence Raim could have given them. But they still took him back to their renegade headquarters and tortured him.
Raim, although he would have been faithful to the last and would not have divulged any information, knew nothing of value to the Raiders that they did not already know. As punishment for not cooperating, they cut out his tongue and banished him to a cruel death in the Samarkesh Burn. It was there that old Stoor had found him, the old man himself on the run from the barbaric Raiders. Stoor nursed him back to health and carried him out of the Burn, where they met a platoon of the Home Militia out of the Maaradin Fortress. Raim swore his life to Stoor and had served him unswervingly ever since. That had been almost twenty years ago, and it had proved to be a perfect marriage. That last thought made Varian wonder about the two men’s sexual preferences, and he let the possibilities dwindle out of mind without really caring what the true situation was.
Tessa also filled his thoughts. They were now locked into a journey which would keep them in close company twenty-four hours a day. It was going to be a test for them, for everyone. They would be traveling harsh, unknown territory, and there would be no place to go to be alone for any large amounts of time. Everyone would get to know everyone else intimately, and there would be the usual discoveries—the good ones and the bad ones about who did what, and how, to each other’s pleasure or distress. She was a special person to him. Varian found himself thinking of her at the oddest moments and he knew what that meant. His life had been a series of hellos and good-byes, and in the final analysis he had always known that he had lived for himself, that he had fought and killed and rambled along for his own survival only. He had never taken the time to think about anyone else, and yet he was doing it now.
Looking over at Stoor, who squinted against the glare, armwrestling the controls of the vehicle and bouncing in the padded seat, Varian snapped out of his thoughts. “I’m going in the back for a while. See if I can help out,” he said. Stoor nodded an okay; and Varian, easing out of his seat, headed for the rear compartment. When he got there, he told Raim to take his place in the front cab; the little man grinned and departed.
“What is it?” asked Tessa, who looked up from her work. “Did we find something already?” She smiled at her little joke.
Varian sat down beside and put his arm around her. “No, nothing yet. I just wanted to be wi
th you, that’s all.”
She put her head on his shoulder and he smelled the natural perfumes of her hair, felt her tensing against him, against her will. He knew some of the things about her life, which had wounded her so terribly, and he prayed that he would not fail her.
The vehicle bounced and rolled from side to side as it conquered the rugged hillsides. Varian held on to her, saying nothing, knowing that it was not necessary. At that moment, both of them knew, there was only one thing that was really important—that they were together.
Chapter Five
The Citadel did not lie within the Samarkesh Burn.
Stoor spent three methodical weeks crisscrossing the expansive, deadly sand. Thousands of square ems and nothing but the killing heat. The time spent had not been unbearable as one might expect, however. If anything, the group seemed to grow more comfortable with one another.
Varian thought that the utter hostility of the environment may have been an unsensed influence which forced the team to gravitate toward one another. Faced with the bleak, unrelenting cruelty of the Burn, everyone seemed to be seeking out the security that companionship and good cheer can bring.
The evenings were filled with storytelling sessions around an open fire which held the searing chill of the desert night at bay. Stoor was a wellspring of adventures, fables, and morality tales. If one could believe even half of his stories, one would have to believe in a far more interesting world than what actually existed.
“Adventure is where you find it” was one of Stoor’s favorite expressions.
Trite, to be sure. But also quite true if your name was Stoor of Hadaan.
While they were moving eastward, finally leaving the Samarkesh Burn, adventure found them. Sweeping down on horseback from a small range of dunes came a band of Behistarian Raiders. There were perhaps twenty in number and they advanced upon the personnel carrier with no more fear than had it been a sedan chair laden with an old woman. If one must give any credit at all to the Raiders, it must be said then that they are truly fearless.
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