Sands of the Soul s-5

by Voronica Whitney-Robinson

  "But you don't know for certain," Tazi argued. "I think it's worth investigating."

  "I do as well," Steorf said. "We could use some more water, as could the horses."

  "It isn't far," she said over her shoulder to Fannah. "We'll ride over to it and check it out, and if I'm wrong we won't have lost too much time."

  However, no matter how long Tazi and her friends tried to reach the shimmering blue, they never got any closer to the pool. Finally, Tazi had to admit her mistake.

  "We might as well stop," she told Steorf, rubbing the sweat from her eyes. "That has to be some kind of illusion created by the heat. We would have been there by now if it was real."

  Tazi hunched up her shoulders, fully expecting Fannah to tell her she should have trusted her friend's knowledge of the desert. Once again, Fannah surprised her.

  "It was worth the effort," she told Tazi.

  "But I was wrong," she admitted.

  "When you try for the right reasons, there is no wrong."

  Before Tazi could reply to that, both hers and Steorf's mounts suddenly reared up. Tazi struggled to keep her seat, as did Steorf, but Fannah was caught unaware. She tumbled backward and landed hard on the sand.

  As soon as Tazi got her horse under control, she dismounted and went to Fannah.

  "Are you all right?" she asked her blind friend.

  "As you can see," Fannah rose and swatted the dust from her robes, "I wasn't lying when I told you it had been some time since I had been on a horse."

  Tazi smiled in spite of everything.

  "How can you stay so cheerful?" she marveled.

  "Why should I be anything else? At this moment, I am together with my friends," Fannah stated simply.

  Steorf walked over with both horses' reins in hand.

  "I don't know what's got into these beasts," he said, the strain he was feeling apparent in his voice.

  "I don't know, either, but I'm going to take it as a sign that maybe we should walk a little," Tazi decided. "They could use the break of not carrying us for a while, and we can stretch our legs at the same time."

  Tazi and Fannah flanked their mount, and Steorf brought up the rear. When Tazi looked back to ask him a question, she could see he was deep in thought. She decided not to interrupt him, as she was certain that he was mentally reviewing Ciredor's writings and mulling over the words he had managed to translate.

  He's determined, she thought.

  Tazi faced forward and found it hard to see that they were making any kind of progress with no landmarks to provide a frame of reference.

  "The way the wind blows and shifts the sands, those dunes look like they're walking," she remarked to Fannah.

  "What wind?" Fannah asked gravely.

  Tazi realized that there was no wind around them, and she couldn't hear any sound nearby, either. The air was still, but the sands continued to alter their direction.

  "I don't understa-" she began then the dunes erupted around them.

  The horses reared and whinnied in fear, wrenching themselves free from the grip of their masters. Tazi grabbed Fannah's arm and hung on to her. She could see that Steorf was also turning about wildly. Everything began to slide into the sand.

  "It's like water," Tazi screamed to Steorf. "We're sinking at every turn."

  "Don't struggle," Fannah told her. "It only makes it worse"

  Tazi was close to panicking. She had sunk into the sand almost to her shins, but she realized that she was wrong. The ground wasn't like water. Instead of a constant sinking, the sands shifted and she would found herself immobilized completely as though it had solidified. Then the sands shifted again in opposing directions, and she could feel her feet pulled away from each other.

  The horses were screaming, and Tazi turned in time to see that her mount had sunk into the sand so deeply that only its head was still visible. The stallion's eyes rolled madly in its head when suddenly it fell silent.

  Horrified, Tazi could only watch as a fount of blood spewed out of its mouth, staining the sands black. As its head was pulled under the dune, one of its forelegs popped up a few feet's distance away, like a log tossed about on the open seas.

  "The dune ripped him apart," she yelled to Steorf, who had also been mesmerized by the animal's demise. "These things are alive somehow!"

  Her screams snapped him from his stupor, and he somehow managed to wade his way over to Tazi and Fannah.

  "We've got to get off these things," he shouted to her. He pointed about thirty feet to the north and said, "It turns back into salt flats over there. I think we might be safe if we can reach it."

  "How can we do that?" Tazi asked.

  "Don't fight the sands," Fannah told them. "It's in the timing. You've got to move between the shifts."

  Steorf's mount gave a plaintive shriek, and Tazi turned to see it thrashing about in the dune. It dawned on her that Ciredor's writings were still in the sack strapped to the surviving horse. They couldn't afford to lose the only potential weapon they had against the necromancer.

  Rolling about as though in an earthquake, Tazi literally placed Fannah in Steorf's hands.

  "Get her out of here," she said.

  "What?" Steorf screamed with an uncomprehending look on his face.

  Tazi didn't waste any time in explanation. Judging by the animal's plaintive gurgle, Steorf's horse didn't have much time. She trusted Steorf to get Fannah to the relative safety of the flats. Trying Fannah's suggested technique, Tazi slipped between the shifting grains and reached the horse just in time to see it sink.

  "No," she cried in frustration and madly searched with her hands, trying to locate the sack.

  She lowered herself deeper into the sand but kept her chin above the surface. Swinging her arms back and forth, she thought one of her fingers hooked onto the sack, but it pulled just out of her reach. She had no choice. Tazi took a deep breath and dived into the dune.

  She kept her eyes and mouth squeezed shut, but she could feel the sand fill her nostrils and her ears. She tried hard not to think about that and kept reaching forward with her hands, diving deeper into the dune. She didn't even contemplate what would happen if she didn't find it-her left hand slapped the leather strap of the sack, and she closed her fingers around it.

  All that was left was for her to figure out how to get out.

  She turned around as best she could, but realized she was only guessing at which way was up. Her lungs were burning, and the weight of the shifting sand was crushing her. Like a swimmer, Tazi tried to kick her legs and stroke her arms in large, sweeping motions but she had no way of knowing if she was even making progress. Instead of panicking, as the horses did, she tried not to resist the dune, but flow with it. She wanted badly to take in a breath of air, but she knew that if she tried, her mouth, throat, and lungs would clog instantly with sand.

  Without warning, Tazi felt something grip the back of her aba. She felt herself pulled forcefully in the opposite direction from which she'd been traveling, and she fought against the pull as best she could, forgetting her strategy of a moment before. Vague images of some monster dwelling in the sand came to mind, but she was too weak to resist, and she felt herself pulled even harder. Tazi gave in.

  She no longer felt the abrasive scratch of sand on her face and risked opening an eye. She was partly free of the dune, and she took in a deep breath that ended in a coughing fit.

  "What were you thinking?" Steorf shouted at her, maintaining a firm grip on her shredded robe.

  Not expecting an answer, he scooped her up and maneuvered them out of the deadly dune onto the salt flats where Fannah was waiting. Tazi took in deep drafts of air, Steorf's traveling sack still clutched in her fingers.

  "How did you find me?" Tazi finally asked as she tried to empty her ears of the caked sand.

  "Luck," Steorf told her. "I reached in after you disappeared from sight and managed to grab a corner of your robe."

  "How did you get out there so quickly?" Tazi demanded.

&n
bsp; "I tried to levitate across, but without a constant surface, I couldn't maintain the spell very well," he explained with a touch of bitterness. "But it did enable me to sort of walk to you."

  The three of them fell silent as they watched the hypnotic movement of the dune. Sated from the meal of horseflesh and perhaps realizing that was the only meal it was going to eat there, the dune slowly deflated. Eventually, it rippled away from the flats back southward in gentle waves.

  Tazi stood up, shrugged off the tattered remains of her robe, and took inventory of what remained. Her head cloth was long gone, and while her small dagger was still stashed safely in her boot, one of her guardblades was missing.

  Steorf still had all of his weapons though his outerwear hung in shreds as well. Fannah was somewhat shaken but uninjured. Moreover, all that was left of their provisions was the sack that Tazi risked her life to retrieve. Ciredor's manuscript was still inside, but that was all. They had not packed anything else in that bag for fear of inadvertently damaging the pages.

  "I guess we keep moving," Tazi finally announced.

  Steorf gauged their position by the sun, and they simply kept going.

  After what felt like an hour, they mutually decided to rest near a small outcropping of stones. Both Tazi and Steorf had burned their faces. Fannah, much darker skinned than her friends, managed to avoid the painful sunburn. However, that did not protect her from the thirst that infected all of them. Not even the setting sun gave them any relief from that.

  While Fannah described to Steorf some succulent plants that they might spot along the route, Tazi got up and wandered a little way from their camp. The night brought the double-edged sword of desert life: freezing darkness after a scorching day. She wrapped her arms around herself, hissing at the painful burns along her bare arms.

  This is my fault entirely, she thought morosely. Fannah was right. Without having completed that ritual properly, I have doomed this whole mission.

  "I think we should gather up what scrub we can find and build a fire soon," Steorf said from behind her.

  Tazi turned and came to a decision.

  "I can do that alone. What I need for you to do is take Fannah out of here right now."

  "What are you talking about?" Steorf asked.

  "This isn't working, and we can't afford to gamble with Fannah's life any longer. You were right," she admitted. "We should've stayed in Calimport, translated Ciredor's writings there, and above all else, kept Fannah safe."

  "I am safe," Fannah answered, moving to join Tazi and Steorf.

  "No, you're not," Tazi argued. "I couldn't have made you more vulnerable than if I dropped you off on Ciredor's doorstep, which is basically what we're doing right now."

  "That's right," Steorf growled. "We would've been much safer in a city where we didn't know anybody and had no way of knowing how many of Ciredor's minions were there. Hundreds, thousands, maybe more. That is exactly what Ciredor expected us to do: stay and hide, not root him out."

  "Look at us," Tazi implored them through cracked lips. "We're dehydrated, weakened, no food, no water, and we're on foot in the desert."

  "We're alive," Fannah pointed out quietly.

  "Who knows for how long?" Tazi muttered darkly. "You two need to return to Calimport. Please see the logic in that."

  "Tazi, we know where Ciredor is, or nearly so," Steorf told her. "The hard part is almost over."

  "I know," Tazi replied, "and that's why you can go back. I will face him alone."

  Both Steorf and Fannah flatly refused.

  "That is not an option," Fannah told her.

  "I think we're alive because we're together," Steorf added.

  Tazi turned away from her friends.

  "You won't go?" she finally asked. "Then I suppose we might as well collect what we can to get a fire going."

  She could see that her friends were relieved that she had changed her mind. Tazi still felt they were making a mistake, but she saw there was no way she was going to convince them otherwise.

  While their fire crackled cheerfully, Steorf was once again engrossed in translating Ciredor's text. Fannah had curled up near the warmth of the flames and had fallen asleep. Tazi sat with her knees drawn up against her chest and her arms wrapped around her shins. With the moon only the barest hint of a sliver like a scratch in the inky blackness, the stars were without competition and shone as brilliant points of light in the desert sky.

  Tazi thought that they looked like they were close enough to touch, if she would only stretch out her arm. She had never seen a more beautiful night. As she looked from Steorf to Fannah, she couldn't help but think that they would never share another night like this again.

  *****

  "Trouble in paradise, little Tazi?" Ciredor asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  He gazed into a scrying sphere he had created and held balanced just above his spread fingers. Within the miniature globe, he could see Tazi, Steorf, and Fannah struggle to reach their decision of unity.

  "I think you are correct, Thazienne," he said to the globe. "It is time for your numbers to dwindle. Rather than have Steorf escort Fannah out of the desert, I would prefer that you bring her to me. I do not think we need the boy-mage any longer. Who knows what else he might discover within those pages of mine?"

  He abruptly turned away from his scrying sphere. No longer suspended by his magic, it tumbled to the ground, disappearing before it could strike the stone floor.

  Ciredor stepped out onto the parapet of the minaret that was his personal temple. He walked to the edge and closed his eyes. With his head tilted back, he breathed in deeply of the warm smell of sand and dust. When he opened his eyes, he had reached a decision.

  Ciredor moved past his unfinished business within the tower and started the walk down to the entrance. He reviewed his mental checklist.

  "So many things to do," he murmured, "and so little time left to finish them all. Of course, for some people, time has run out all together, so I suppose I shouldn't complain."

  Humming an obscene tune he had learned as a child, Ciredor threw open the doors to the Calim and smiled. As far as he was concerned, all was right with the world.

  "I'm afraid your sorcerous companion might throw a kink into things, little Tazi," he continued talking as though he could still see her through his sphere. "I cannot allow anything to disrupt my plans now that they have come together so perfectly. You, dear Thazienne, will be easy enough to deal with when the time comes.

  "While you have had your moments and given me some problems with your errant ways," he admitted to the wind, "in the end, you are merely a street brawler, albeit one pleasing to the eye. There might be some use I can put you to before I am finally done…

  "Now there is something delightful to contemplate," he added to himself.

  Ciredor stepped onto the sand and walked a few paces away from the doors to the minaret. He knelt, placed both of his palms flat on the hot sand, and closed his eyes. The necromancer lowered his head until his brow brushed the rough grains of the Calim and appeared to be lost in deep prayer. His lips moved soundlessly, and the slightest sheen of perspiration formed on his forehead. He passed several long minutes like this.

  A low rumbling began in the distance and shook the area. Ciredor lifted his head slowly at the onset of the vibrations. The shaking localized at the minaret. Several feet in front of him sand sprayed in all directions, and two purple desert worms erupted from the ground. They were both close to the same size, and Ciredor guessed they were probably litter-mates.

  "Very young," he said appraisingly, "judging by your size."

  Each one was about eleven feet long and two feet in diameter. A series of spikes, each half a foot long, rimmed their mouths, and with them, they were able to tunnel beneath the desert sands and rip apart their prey. Their tails ended in glistening spikes that Ciredor knew could inject a deadly poison.

  He was pleased with their prompt arrival, even if they were not yet a fraction of th
eir species' full size. The two worms reared and writhed in front of him, apparently uncomfortable, roused from the safety of their burrows and exposed as they were. Their eyes were almost non-existent, typical of creatures that were more accustomed to life underground. Soundlessly, they undulated as he marched around them like a drill instructor inspecting his troops.

  "You'll do," he finally approved.

  Without warning, the worm on the right lunged for Ciredor perhaps out of hunger or anger at the summons to this location against its will. The mage was momentarily startled by the unexpected disobedience, but his lightning reflexes saved him from the boring orifice of the creature he had called. He dodged to the left, and the worm smashed into the sand where the mage had been standing a moment before. Ciredor's smile disappeared, and he watched to see what the worm would do next.

  The renegade monster reared back and prepared to lunge again. The second worm continued to writhe in place but did nothing to help or hinder its sibling. It seemed to be waiting for the outcome.

  It didn't have to wait long. Ciredor stood his ground and did not flinch as the worm lunged a second time.

  Without using any magic at all, Ciredor caught the worm with both of his hands just below the monster's mouth.

  "I don't think so," he snarled as he strained to force the spinning row of teeth away from his face, enjoying the physical challenge.

  With a burst of strength, Ciredor wrenched the worm away and threw it to the ground. However, the monster had not yet given up.

  It reared up again and lunged a last time at Ciredor. The dark mage feinted to the right, and as the worm once again smashed into the sand, Ciredor jumped on the back of it. Like an unbroken stallion, the worm rose up in the air, bucking from side to side, but it could not shake Ciredor from its back. The mage held onto the worm's neck with his left arm and stabbed his right arm directly into the soft head of the desert dweller. With a triumphant snarl, Ciredor yanked out most of the worm's simple brain stem. The creature slumped limply to the sand.

  Ciredor climbed off the dead worm, right arm dripping a putrid slime. He regarded his soiled robes with a moue of distaste. With a practiced gesture, he waved his left hand first over his right arm and over every part of his stained silks. After his enspelled pass, the ebony material glistened in the starlight as though freshly spun. Then he turned to the second worm.