Sands of the Soul s-5

by Voronica Whitney-Robinson

  Tazi wasn't sure if Fannah was speaking or chanting because her melodic voice was so low. She didn't recognize the language though she believed it to be Alzhedo.

  Tazi watched as Fannah started to throw handfuls of the herbs into the water between breaks in her chant. Tazi merely stood in the water and slowly swirled her arms back and forth, finally starting to relax her limbs in the intense heat, waiting for whatever came next. When her basket was empty, Fannah set it back in the niche and entered the water as well.

  When she was only a few feet from Tazi, Fannah stared hard at her with her ice-white eyes.

  Finally, she said, "You are about to face your greatest evil. If you are to succeed, you must be purified for the coming battle. You must come to understand the various faces you have worn in your life. You must unite all of your selves and become whole if you are to defeat him and emerge triumphant."

  With that, Fannah fell silent.

  Tazi wasn't quiet sure what Fannah expected her to do. She noticed that the steam was growing and Tazi wasn't even able to see Fannah anymore through the heavy vapors. Tazi knew her friend was within arm's reach but the entire chamber was clouded by great billows of steam. Sweat started to pour into her eyes, and she blinked at its salty sting. The more she blinked, however, the more Tazi thought that the warm haze was lifting somewhat. She was even able to make out Fannah's outline again in the mist. As Fannah's shape grew sharper, Tazi jerked back in surprise.

  The face in the mist was not that of her friend, but her own staring back at her.

  It was not entirely a mirror image, it was the face she had worn at the age of six. There was a glint in her younger self's eye that the older Tazi recognized. It meant she had just pilfered something and was immensely pleased with herself, with her jet black hair in soft curls, tongue peaking out, and her young face screwed up with determination. The older Tazi felt like giggling at the sight before her, but she wasn't sure if the giggles she felt welling within her were because of the vision her younger self presented, or because that was how she had felt at that precise moment in her young life.

  "I'm going to make you pay for that, you little rat," a voice threatened the girl-child.

  The older Tazi suddenly found herself standing in the same hallway as the girl and she turned just like her younger self at the sound of the voice. The older Tazi recognized the owner of that voice. It belonged to her older brother, Tamlin, and she could see him storming down the hallway. Obviously, her younger self had done something to aggravate him.

  And he surely deserved it, Tazi thought, but he'll make me pay for it. He always did.

  Aloud, she shouted, "Run!" to her six-year-old version.

  As though the girl-child could hear her, she tore down the hallway. The older Tazi found her heart pounding and a wicked grin spreading across her face.

  "That's not right, Thazienne," Cale chided her.

  Tazi turned to see herself when she was thirteen or fourteen. Teenage Thazienne was bent over a chest with a finer set of lockpicks in her delicate hand than the set she had first owned. Cale was standing beside her in his pantry, scrutinizing her actions carefully.

  The older Tazi watched in fascination as Cale reached over and covered her young hand with his long fingers. Tazi could feel her heart skip a beat as though he was touching her hand now.

  "There is a certain finesse to what you are doing," he told her in his deep voice. "You must trust your feelings."

  Tazi watched as the teenager gazed up at Cale with admiration and the beginnings of something more. Tazi swallowed hard at the scene that was played out in front of her.

  "I'll show her," Tazi heard herself say.

  She turned and found herself in her bedroom in Stormweather Towers. The version in front of her now was from only a few years back. She watched as the young woman stomped around before sitting in front of her dressing table. Tazi pursed her lips together angrily and knew what her other self was about to do.

  "You show her," she egged the younger Tazi on.

  The young woman grabbed a pair of shears from her collection of bottles and sundries on the dressing table and stared at herself in the mirror.

  "Try to explain your daughter's latest shenanigans to that circle of hens you call 'friends,' Mother," she spat.

  She gathered up a handful of her waist-length hair in one hand and held the shears in the other. In one snip, the tresses fell to the floor. After only a few moments of hacking, the young Thazienne sported the hairstyle Tazi wore ever since, highly unfashionable in the ever fashion-conscious Selgaunt.

  "Good work," she complimented the young Thazienne, and the two women wore the same expression in the mirror.

  When Tazi turned away from herself and the dressing table, she watched as a still older version was by the window, dressed entirely in black leathers. Tazi could see down through the window a younger Steorf anxiously waiting for Tazi to join him. He was also suitably dressed for a late night wilding, and Tazi could feel her heartbeat quicken in anticipation of the night's events. She could see that her younger self felt the same way.

  A scream tore through the room. When Tazi turned again, she found herself in the cellar of Ciredor's tallhouse. Her blood turned to ice. She saw her other self hammered to her knees by Ciredor's magic. As she watched herself struggle with Ciredor, Tazi ran her hands through her hair, momentarily surprised that it wasn't waist-length again. When she fought Ciredor then, he had toyed mercilessly with her. One of the things he had done was to restore her hair to its former length. The process had been excruciatingly painful, as Ciredor had meant it to be, and Tazi rubbed her scalp as she watched those horrible moments from two years in the past once again unfold.

  Her past self gazed from the view of the young boy Ciredor had disemboweled to feed his dark magic to Steorf manacled to the cellar wall. Tazi's heart was pounding, and her mouth was devoid of moisture as her other self whispered the word inscribed on the emerald ring that Durlan had given her.

  She gasped as Ciredor's bolt was deflected by the gray shield that had formed around her other self. Tazi, near to tears observing the old battle, realized that she didn't feel the resolve that she had felt in that moment. As she watched herself pull a small dagger hidden in her boot and expertly strike Ciredor just below his heart with it, she was not able to remember what her other self so obviously possessed: courage.

  "No!" Tazi yelled, absolutely terrified.

  She hoisted herself out of the sacred pool and stood shivering at its edge. Someone placed a calming hand on her shoulder, and Tazi wheeled around, breathing hard.

  Not knowing what to expect, Tazi had to calm her beating heart. It was only Fannah who stood behind her, holding out a large, white towel. Tazi accepted it and wrapped the towel around herself with shaking fingers. Fannah motioned for her to sit on one of the benches and joined her there.

  Tazi blotted at her face and tried to control the wild beating of her heart, not saying a word.

  Fannah smiled at her and said, "It is always shocking to truly see yourself."

  She patted Tazi's hand.

  "As long as you encountered these ghosts of yourself bravely," she continued, "then you will be ready for what lies ahead. Just as a desert is not comprised of only a single grain of sand, you are not merely one facet, but thousands."

  The steam had almost evaporated, and Tazi thought carefully before she answered, "I believe you're right, Fannah."

  "Rest for a few minutes," she told Tazi, "and we will go up to Steorf and see what he has uncovered."

  Tazi leaned her head back against the cool tiles and closed her eyes.

  I didn't remember what it was like to know I possessed the ability to defeat Ciredor, she thought to herself. If I can't remember what it was like, how can I possibly beat him now?

  She absently rubbed her bare finger. I'm not the woman I was, she thought. There was no one in the room who could argue otherwise.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE CALIM DESERT
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  "I think I've got a little more figured out," Steorf informed Tazi and Fannah.

  Tazi nudged her mount with her knees and moved closer to Steorf's horse.

  "Is that why you've been so silent these last few hours?" she asked.

  "I've been trying to conserve energy," he told her. "And, yes, I've been mulling over those writings. I wish we'd had a little more time to go over them in Calimport. It was more conducive to study, and it was more comfortable there."

  He shifted in his saddle, and Tazi smiled at his last remark. The three of them had been in the desert for two days, and comfort was no longer an option. When they had left Malikhan Gate in the Trade Ward and first glimpsed the massive expanse of the Calim desert, Tazi had been dumbstruck. Calimport had been fantastical enough for her, but in the end, it was still a city.

  In the few days she spent there, Tazi began to catch the rhythm of the wards. Commerce was as much a part of life in Calimport as it was in Selgaunt.

  The city was easy enough to understand, but she had no words to describe the barren wasteland that stretched before her eyes as she and her friends left the city behind. The Calim desert extended nearly two hundred miles to the north, east, and west of the city.

  "How can this desert even exist?" she asked Fannah. "It's surrounded by the ocean."

  "Many millennia ago, two powerful djinn, Calim and Memnon, battled for control of this area," Fannah replied. "They were finally bound by elven spells, and their captors felt the damage they did to their personal battleground was nothing compared to what they could have done if left free."

  Fannah spread her arm to point at the desert.

  "This," she told Tazi, "is the price of their confinement."

  Tazi stared at the lifeless dunes of sand and the miles of salt flats. The golden-white vastness was something she had never seen. Her youth had consisted of towers and streets packed with nobles and the grimiest of urchins. Parks and forests, all things green and lush, were as much of nature as Tazi had ever seen until then, until she was faced with a sea of white. It was almost incomprehensible.

  And she and her friends were going to have to cross it. Somewhere in the middle of the deadly wasteland, Ciredor was hiding.

  They decided that using any type of magical means of travel in the desert would shine like a beacon and tip Ciredor to their location. None of them were too eager to trust other sorcerous types in Calimport after their tragic encounter with the followers of Ibrandul, anyway.

  So they purchased horses and plenty of supplies to take with them into the desert. Fannah had warned them that they would probably find little water and even less food so they had to be very careful with their provisions. They needed to pack every conceivable item they might need, and special clothing must be purchased as well, to protect them all from the harsh glare of the desert sun. They all sported light cotton abas and cotton head cloths.

  Two days later, as Tazi also shifted in her saddle and winced at the ache in her muscles, she thought back longingly to the fleet of flying carpets tethered in a stall they'd passed. She placed one hand on the small of her back and attempted to ease the knot that had formed after two nights of sleeping in the saddle. Even she had to reluctantly agree that this was wearing on her.

  "So tell us what you've figured out," she told Steorf. "Anything to get my mind off my aching bones."

  Steorf knew her statement was only half jest. He took a sip of water from his flask and wiped his mouth with the back of his dry hand.

  "As far as I can tell," he began, "we're still heading in the right direction."

  "I would certainly hope so," Fannah chimed in, and both she and Tazi giggled.

  Her horse was loosely tied to Tazi's mount. She had admitted that it had been quite some time since she had ridden and wanted to be close to one of her sighted companions. For the first time in their friendship, Tazi actually thought of Fannah as blind.

  "I know now that Ciredor plans to complete his ritual tomorrow night," he told them.

  "The first night of the new moon," Fannah remarked.

  "Yes," Steorf answered, "when everything is shrouded in darkness. Ciredor's most recent addition in his sacred book reveals that this particular night has been declared a 'Kiss of the Lady' by the Temple of Old Night."

  " 'Kiss of the Lady?' " Tazi asked.

  "As best I can tell, that appears to be the most important holy day for those who worship Shar," Steorf explained. "It is supposed to be a night of horrific deeds done in Shar's name and ends with a feast at dawn."

  "Have you deciphered where, exactly, this event is going to occur?" Fannah wondered.

  "I am fairly sure he is going to conduct this dark ceremony in a specific set of minarets that are near the heart of the desert."

  Steorf paused and scanned the horizon.

  "I don't know which exact ones yet," he finished.

  Tazi knew he was frustrated at what he perceived to be slow progress translating Ciredor's writings.

  "You're working as fast as you can," she said, trying to console him. "I can only imagine the frustration, though. Every page you translate causes the next page's code to change, and you have to start anew."

  Steorf merely grumbled. Tazi realized he didn't want anyone else making excuses for his ability or lack thereof. She tactfully redirected the conversation.

  "Just how many towers could there be here in the Calim?" she asked Fannah. "How could anything survive?"

  "Back during the Shoon Imperium, the Trade Way was constructed. Magic was combined with the stones used so that they would be almost impervious to some of the more natural problems associated with the desert," she told Tazi. "Every two miles, a pair of minarets was constructed. The towers are forty feet tall, and each one has what appears to be an open parapet at the top. There are elaborate arches that hold up the gilded roofs. Some say there is glass or other wards at the top that keep anyone or anything from reaching the braziers in the center."

  "So nothing can extinguish the lights within," Tazi guessed.

  "I have heard stories that when the braziers from each pair of minarets are lit with the blue crystals inside the minaret, something amazing occurs."

  "What?" Tazi asked as she rearranged her head covering to keep more of the desert glare from her eyes.

  "A blue glow encompasses both towers in a protective sphere that neither beast nor foul weather can penetrate."

  "But if that's the case," Steorf asked, "why is it so difficult to cross the Calim Desert? I mean, I understand why we can't march down the paved road to Ciredor and announce ourselves," he observed, "but wouldn't other travelers and traders find the route convenient and faster even than the sea?"

  "Many years ago, much of the road fell into disrepair as naturally occurring sinkholes broke many of the Way's enchantments," Fannah answered. "Some of the towers were partially or completely buried some time ago and the gems from many of the towers stolen away. Our syl-pasha would like to repair the road and has even made a tiny bit of progress, but the work is slow."

  Tazi glanced at both Fannah and Steorf. While Fannah was spared the terrible brilliance of the desert sun bouncing off the reflective sand into her eyes, the blind woman was not any more immune to the intense heat than she or Steorf. The three had been riding for hours without a break, and Tazi decided to call one.

  "I think we could use an hour to rest," she suggested.

  "Good idea," Steorf agreed. "This will give me another chance at those scrolls."

  They stopped the horses near an outcropping of rocks. The terrain varied slightly as they progressed deeper into the desert, but only slightly. They passed over miles and miles of rolling dunes only to have the terrain completely flatten out to salt flats with the occasional rock pile. The ground around the knoll was more salt flat than sand, and there was even a section between the rocks that was slightly marshy. The horses went immediately over to lick up what little moisture there was. Tazi gratefully slid out of her saddle and stretched her sor
e legs. It took a moment for her to move around any way other than bowlegged.

  When she'd loosened up some, she helped Steorf stake down a silk cloth and attach it to some of the rocks to fashion a makeshift lean-to. They spread another on the ground, and the three collapsed in the temporary shade.

  Tazi sipped greedily at her water skin. Though she had opted for a cotton aba to protect herself from the sun, she still wore her leathers underneath. She knew she was perspiring and had to keep up her water intake to prevent dehydration. There was no effective way to cover her hands that were exposed on the reins. They were turning a fiery red. She rubbed at them gingerly.

  "Perhaps you should have considered taking some of the lighter clothes we saw in the market," Fannah remarked after she heard Tazi take a deep drink.

  "It was a hard decision," Tazi agreed, "but I would rather sweat a little and have more protective gear than the reverse."

  Tazi refused to part with her leathers in the market, secretly fearing to lose anything else she had come to rely on, like the ring she no longer possessed.

  "We brought more than enough water, so you should be all right," Fannah said thoughtfully.

  Tazi turned to Steorf, wondering why he was so quiet. While she had been talking to Fannah, he had pulled out all the parchments they had of Ciredor's and spread a few across the salt flat. He was now lost in his studies. Tazi shook her head.

  He doesn't give up, she thought.

  She ran her hand through her short locks and was startled by how stiff they were. She studied her hand and saw that it was lightly sprinkled with sand.

  "This stuff is insidious," she said to no one in particular, and rubbed her hand against her leathers.

  She pulled off her boots and shook them out. To her dismay, a small amount of granules emptied out onto their ground cloth.

  "It's everywhere."

  While Fannah checked on their provisions and prepared a light snack for them, Steorf said, "I've got a better sense where those minarets are."