by Kelley Grant
“I met them at the oasis where my sister . . .” He shook his head. “They were fleeing Illian ahead of Voras’s army. They are going home to Frubia after freeing some Forsaken slaves, and I said I would guide them. We had passed the second oasis when the sandstorm hit and I had to get everyone to cover.”
The Crone interrupted his excited replay. “Who is this, Kadar?” she asked. To Jonas’s ears, she sounded a little jealous.
Kadar turned to them. “My apologies. This is warrior Onyeka,” he said. “She is my beloved. And this is my suncat, Amber. It’s good fortune Onyeka’s here. She knows all the paths and shifting sources of water in these foothills. We’ll have no problem find our way back to the route.”
CHAPTER 21
Kadar sat at the fire, watching as the other Southerners welcomed the newcomers, and felt confused. Onyeka sat on one side of him, and the Crone, in her new form, sat on the other. Amber, for reasons of her own, had settled on Jonas’s lap and was purring as he uncertainly petted her. The Voices’ feli had disappeared before they reached the camp. He wondered if the Voices had sent them away to allay suspicions.
It was wonderful finding Onyeka when he thought he’d lost her. But when he thought back, he couldn’t remember where in the desert they had been when they parted. He didn’t think they’d been at Antajale. But if she had been with the Tigu warriors, why was she here, now? The Sepacu tribe was her life. And why did he feel like he should know something more when he looked at her? Something he’d forgotten? Kadar shook his head, knowing his thinking was foggy from the Crone’s attempt to geas him and his grief over his sister. He distracted himself by listening to the camp talk.
“It did not seem natural,” a Tigu woman said. She and her partner, the elderly man and his guide, and Onyeka were the five who had taken shelter at this camp before they’d arrived. “It blew up so suddenly, and after the normal summer winds had died down. Rohir and I were traveling home, so I can give birth, and were lucky to make it behind rocks before the sand hit.”
“It was not natural,” Onyeka said. “But it got out of control and became too large. I do not know if my father still lives or was killed by this folly.”
“What do you mean?” Jonas asked, his voice flat. Kadar could not get used to him like this. He looked like a normal, young Southerner, yet Kadar knew who was under the disguise.
“This was a defense against the invaders,” Onyeka said.
“Maybe we should not talk about this,” Kadar said, suddenly very aware that Onyeka could give away secrets of the desert to the deities.
She gave him a sidelong glance, and he was confused again. He wanted the deities to go to the Obsidian Temple, didn’t he? He wanted revenge on the warriors of the One. But he didn’t want to disappoint Onyeka. And he realized that leading the enemy to the temple might, unless he could convince her that it would create more peace in the end.
The Crone put a hand on his arm, sensing his confusion, and he felt calmer. Onyeka raised an eyebrow at the Crone’s familiarity, but shrugged.
“It does not matter now,” she said. “There is no secret any more. Weather is so hard to control. They wished for a small sandstorm. It was greater than they expected and rebounded on them. So, no Northern army—but no Southern army either. Once again, only we Tigus are left in the desert, because we have the sense not to try to control the winds.”
The elderly man shivered. “I felt when it went wrong,” he said. “There was too much energy in the air already. Never before has such a sandstorm hit this land. Hopefully never again.”
“No one survived?” Kadar choked out.
“Some,” Onyeka said. “Those who were close to shelter. Those who did not use energy.”
Kadar stood and walked away from the fire, feeling even more conflicted. Onyeka followed him. He turned and hugged her close.
“You are unsettled,” she said in the Tigu tongue. “Is it your sister? Were you unable to find her body?”
“It isn’t that, Onyeka,” Kadar said. “My mind feels confused. I have promised to lead these people, but I no longer know if it is the right thing to do.”
“You gave your word?” Onyeka asked.
Kadar nodded.
“Then it is the right thing. We will take them together.”
“But, Onyeka, you don’t know who . . .”
“Hush . . .” Onyeka put a finger to his lips. “I know more than you think. Do not question what you must do. It is the right path.”
Kadar shook his head. “You will be disappointed in me, when you really understand what I do.”
“Do you trust me, Kadar?” Onyeka asked.
“Yes.”
“Then know that I do understand and could not be more proud of you. Seeing that you survived the desert, that because of you they survived—we will get them to the Obsidian Temple safely.”
Kadar stared at her in shock over mention of the temple. “How . . . ?”
She shushed him as the Crone approached. Kadar frowned in irritation, but Onyeka gave her head a small shake and indicated that he should go with the disguised Voice.
“Kadar, I was worried about you,” the Crone said. She again put a hand on his arm, reasserting her will.
Kadar rolled his eyes at Onyeka before turning.
“We can’t have that,” he said, pretending to adjust his robe. “Onyeka was welcoming me back.”
“Oh.” A blush came to the Crone’s cheeks. “I am so sorry to interrupt.”
“It is fine. The meat should be about done and we all are hungry,” he said. “Onyeka will guide us to the oasis.”
“We should rest tonight, water the beasts,” Onyeka said. “We will leave at first light. I will search out a water source we will stop at. The day after next, we will reach the splitting of roads that will lead to the caravan path and the oasis. There are dried food stores here we can take, as long as Kadar and I return later to replenish them.”
Jonas came to Kadar as he was checking the humpbacks a final time before sleep.
“Do you trust these people?” he asked. “Parasu says every time he tries to read them, he sees nothing.”
“It is the Tigu desert magic,” Kadar said. “They truly are one with the Sands and can find water anywhere. Onyeka has pledged to help me fulfill my vow.”
“But what will she do when she realizes we are traveling to the sacred temple instead of the oasis?” Jonas urged. “What if she tries to stop us?”
“The Tigus do not have sacred places, so she does not feel a sense of protection toward the temple,” Kadar assured him, not telling him that Onyeka had spoken of the temple. “Even if she does object, she will step aside when I tell her it is part of my vow. They value honor over everything else. She will not try to stop us.”
Onyeka woke them in the predawn light and they walked away from the camp, leading the humpbacks. Amber was perched on Kadar’s shoulder, purring madly into his ear. The elderly man was sitting up, watching as they passed, and when Kadar looked at him, he touched the back of his hand to his forehead and mouthed “Suma.”
Kadar felt guilty about the trust the man showed to him. Instead of Suma, Kadar would probably soon be known as Darmi or “traitor of the people.”
“Stop thinking,” Onyeka said, reaching over to prod his ribs. “Leave that to those of us for whom it does not take so much effort.”
“Thinking is not hard for me,” he growled, trying to grab her hand.
She was too fast for him and giggled as he missed. “The smoke coming out of your ears says otherwise,” she teased. “All will be as intended.”
Kadar hoped she was right. Onyeka led them to a flatter area, where the hills met the sand. They mounted the humpbacks and rode, skirting the edges of the rocky foothills.
“We found a small spring the sandstorm uncovered when we passed through,” Onyeka said.
“We will reach it by nightfall.”
As they were making camp, a small tremor shook the ground under them. Kadar looked around, wondering if he’d really felt it, but found the Templar gazing raptly to the south.
“Did you feel something?” the Crone asked uncertainly. “It was like the stone shifted under me.”
The Templar snapped his gaze away. “A mountain erupted, east of here,” he said. “Probably caused by the energy the sandstorm put into the air.”
Onyeka looked questioningly at him and he hastened to continue. “I can sense things to do with fire,” he said.
“Ah, like we sense the water of the desert,” she said. “Do you work at a forge in Frubia?”
“Yes,” the Templar lied. “We work with metal craft.”
“That explains your fine sword,” she said, turning away. “I’d wondered where it was crafted.”
Kadar’s sleep was restless that night, with endless dreams of his grandmother’s and Sulis’s disapproval of his actions.
“I’m doing this for you,” he whispered. Amber yowled as he rolled over on her, and she flounced off to find a better bed companion.
“Kadar?” Onyeka sat beside him. “Can you not sleep?”
She stretched out beside him and took him in her arms. He fell into a dreamless sleep in her embrace.
They reached the caravan route not long after daybreak the next day and the crossroads early in the morning. Kadar halted his humpback.
“That goes to a big temple,” Onyeka said with a shrug. “The oasis is this way.”
“We had planned on going to the Obsidian Temple to make an offering before continuing on,” the Herald said.
Onyeka frowned, but Kadar could tell she was acting. “I thought only . . . what are they called . . . clerics? Priests? Went to the temple.”
“No, sometimes pilgrims who are giving thanks for something go and leave gifts of money and food,” Kadar lied. He wasn’t sure what her game was, but he was worried that she and the Templar would fight if she did not agree, and he did not know who would be the winner.
“That is fine,” Onyeka said. “I have not gone down this path before. Do you know the wards?”
Kadar nodded, and felt another flash of confusion. Somehow he did know the wards, even though he’d never traveled this route.
“Your uncle was a thorough teacher,” Onyeka said, before turning her mount down the path.
Kadar shook his head. He must have learned it last summer when Uncle Aaron showed him the other wards for the more traveled oases.
“I was warned that as we travel down this path, you will feel fear and want to turn back,” Kadar told the others. “But trust me. That is only a part of the wards.”
They rode down the path, but Kadar did not feel a growing fear like Sulis had described to him the first time she’d visited. He didn’t feel anything. He worried that he had led them down the wrong trail and they were heading into the mountains when Onyeka made a small noise of surprise.
Kadar looked down the path past her. A tall, pale man stood beside a waymarker. Behind him opened a deep chasm, with a path leading down one side.
“I am Amon, a Descendant of the Prophet,” the man said in the Northern tongue. “I felt you coming, just as my ancestors predicted. I greet you with gladness for you have come to bring balance back to our lives.”
Kadar watched the Voices exchange glances, hesitating, undecided if the man was a threat.
“How can we trust you?” the Templar asked.
“I have already released the wards hiding the path to the Obsidian Temple as a show of faith,” Amon said. “You could kill me and travel down on your own. But I have told the temple master that friends of mine, scholars, are coming. She will be suspicious if you arrive alone.”
The Templar looked around at the other Voices.
“What choice do we have?” the Herald said. “We will be cautious, but after all, we came to the desert on the word of the Descendants.”
Amon nodded. “I have a midmeal waiting for you before we head into the chasm. Please dismount. Once you are done we will proceed. We will be at the temple before nightfall.”
The party dismounted.
“Who is this man? What is he saying?” Onyeka asked, unable to understand the Northern tongue.
“It is not for you to worry about,” Amon told Onyeka in her tongue. “You can eat and return to your people if you wish. We can guide them from here.”
“Maybe that would be better,” Kadar said, not wanting her to get hurt. “I will meet up with you when I finish here.”
“Where you go, I go,” she said simply. “Is this part of your promise to them?”
Kadar nodded.
“Then we will eat and go to this temple and see what happens,” she said.
While they ate, Amon spoke to the Voices in Northern tongue, leaving Onyeka out of the conversation.
“The statues are in the temple, filled with your powers,” he said. “But I hope you know what to do with them.”
“I cannot feel anything in the chasm,” Parasu said through Jonas. “It is shielded.”
Amon nodded. “Hundreds of feli make the chasm their home,” he said. “In the fall they travel here and use the temple as a den to raise their young. They are natural shields.”
“That must be how the One hid this place for so long,” the Templar said. “Will they act against us?”
“They are not bonded with any humans,” Amon said. “I have come and gone and they have not harmed me. You will not have to hide your feli; they will blend in with the other felines.”
“Who is down at the temple?” the Herald asked. “Will we need to fight our way through?”
“The people are scholars and clerics, not fighters, and will not see through your disguises,” Amon said. “They burn incense in the temple and chant scriptures. The Southerners sent all their fighters to meet your army. It was a very clever ruse on your part to use the army as a feint as you came in from the foothills. They were not expecting that.”
“Neither were we,” the Crone muttered to Kadar as she ate another fig.
“They might resist,” Amon said. “But we can enthrall them to give you time to gain back your deities’ true powers. The Obsidian Guards will be the only real struggle, but Voras easily disabled them this past spring. Your coming heralds a new era of harmony and wholeness the world has needed. When our gods are sundered, nothing can ever be whole. When our gods are whole, the world knows peace and harmony.”
“And those supposed ‘Chosen people’ of the prophecy?” the Templar asked. “Where are they?”
Amon smiled smugly. “They were with the warriors of the One who died. I convinced the warriors of the One that their prophecy was incomplete and they were needed against the army, not here.”
Kadar’s anger flared. This was the man who convinced his grandmother and Sulis that they were important only for their sacrifices.
“You killed my sister,” he said, “and my grandmother with your lies. I should never have led these people here. You are all liars.”
He started to rise, and Amon grabbed his arm. His body sat itself down, suddenly devoid of will. He struggled against Amon, but he was too powerful. Kadar’s body was not his own.
Onyeka rose, her hand on her sword. “What are you doing?” she snarled.
Amon held up a hand. “He grew upset over his sister’s death,” he said. “I have simply calmed him.”
“Kadar,” Onyeka asked in Tigu, “what is wrong? What have they done?”
The three guards put their hands on their hilts, and the Templar and Herald were ready to draw as well. Onyeka was outmatched, and Kadar was trapped and could not help her. He could not bear to see her cut down in front of him as Farrah had been.
“I am fine,” he choked out. “They mention
ed Sulis and I became upset. There is nothing to worry about.”
Onyeka nodded shortly and sat beside him, still glancing worriedly at him.
Kadar realized his body was trapped, but not his mind. He reached out quickly with his mind and found another farspeaker below in the chasm.
Beware, he shouted at the other mind. The Voices are at the top of the chasm, coming down! The Descendant has betrayed you!
We know, a strange voice replied. The trap is set. Amon is ours. Do not call again; they will hear you.
Kadar was utterly confused now. He climbed onto his humpback. Amber chose to ride in front of him, but the feli of the Voices flowed down the path in front of them, disappearing quickly out of sight as the humpbacks picked their way down the rocky slope.
“They will meet us in the temple,” the Herald said.
As they wound down the side of the chasm, Kadar struggled to understand what was happening, who was the enemy. Kadar expected an attack at any moment on the narrow ridge. He hunched his shoulders, expecting arrows to skewer them as they rode.
The top of a large building came into view as they snaked down the winding gorge, and Kadar realized this must be the Obsidian Temple.
The path ended at the bottom of the great circular gorge. The floor of the gorge was a pitted black slag of solidified molten rock. In the center of the gorge was the temple, hewn out of the same black rock that surrounded them. Even though it was several hours before dusk, the sunlight made it down to the bottom in only a sliver of light. Kadar’s eyes adjusted to the dimness of the courtyard, lighted by torches set up all around. Instead of an army waiting at the bottom, people were seated on benches, casually talking or meditating. No one was alarmed by the group’s arrival. No one took up arms to attack them.
A tall woman in elaborately patterned robes walked over and greeted them as they dismounted. Amber escaped his arms and trotted away, disappearing into the temple after the deities’ feli.
“Greetings, pilgrims. I am Sari, the temple master,” she said. “Are these the scholars you’ve been waiting for, Amon?”
