At one point, Rudd, who had been sitting cross-legged by the fire pit, watching their dinner roast, stood and climbed the rise himself, and Hanio left off his camel loading and went after him. After a few moments, Alaric followed, two dozen paces behind, and from the top he could see the phantom city on the southern horizon and Rudd descending the southern slope toward it, Hanio at his elbow. Hanio was saying something that Alaric could not make out, but his tone seemed soft and persuasive, and finally he caught Rudd’s arm and stopped him and looked to be urging him to turn back. Piros joined Alaric on the rise, but he made no attempt to go after his son. Hanio turned the youth around at last, and Piros gave a small nod before returning to the fire.
Alaric sang that night, of a long and perilous search for treasure. It was an old song he had learned far away, but it seemed appropriate. He carved his own serving of goat meat from the carcass, and it was delicious; at Piros’s small signal, he did not taste the organ meats, which smelled strongly of what might or might not have been thyme, and neither Piros nor Hanio ate any either. Whether Rudd did or not, Alaric did not see. After the meal, Piros set up a tent for his group, and they all crawled in to share warmth against the cool of the desert night. Alaric woke once, when one of the others—not Rudd, who slept nearest him—went out, presumably to answer nature’s call, but he had no need for it himself and so went back to sleep.
In the morning, they baked a little bread on fire-pit-heated stones and broke their fast with that and cold goat meat. Afterward, Hanio suggested that Alaric might want to see what he could of the gathering of the Powder, to satisfy some of the curiosity that had brought him to the desert.
“Is it allowed?” said Alaric.
“Yes, but there’s little to see,” said Piros.
Rudd, who had been bent over his food, looked up at that. “I’d like to see it.”
“You’ve seen it before,” said his father. “It is no different now.”
“I want to see it,” Rudd said loudly. He stood up and tossed his half-eaten meal aside, then he turned and began climbing the rise.
Piros looked to Hanio. “Go along with him, and don’t let him take too much of the fresh.”
“I may need a bit of help,” said Hanio.
Rudd looked over his shoulder at his father. “Don’t you want to come along, Father? To keep me under your eye?”
Piros glanced at Alaric but said nothing.
“I’ll go,” said the minstrel. He caught up with Rudd. “You can explain the harvesting to me.”
“Father understands it better,” Rudd said, and there was a sullen tone in his voice, and a sullen look on his face. “But he’s afraid of it. Aren’t you, Father?”
Piros looked at him with slitted eyes. “As you should be,” he said. “Look what it’s done to the harvesters.” To Alaric, he said, “They die before their time even though they don’t inhale the poison. So many years of exposure takes its toll.”
“Perhaps I don’t want to see it,” said Alaric, and he took a step back down the slope.
“Stand well away from the opening,” said Piros. “You’ll be safe there. The smell that emanates from it is enough to warn men from approaching too close.”
“Afraid of a smell,” said Rudd.
“What kind of smell?” said Alaric.
“You won’t mistake it for perfume,” said Piros. “Or for thyme.”
Alaric hesitated for another moment. Still, Hanio was going along, and he seemed healthy enough. Curiosity finally won out over doubt, and Alaric nodded to Rudd and Hanio, and the three of them climbed to the top of the rise. There, they followed the crests of the line of hillocks westward for a hundred paces, two hundred. To their right, the phantom city wavered on the southern horizon, and Rudd glanced at it often though he did not attempt to run toward it, Alaric thought because Hanio had a tight hold on his arm. A sheet of water—or something that looked like water—stretched outward from the city, and it looked real enough except that its margins shifted constantly, like liquid in a basin carried through a jostling tavern crowd.
“Tell me about the harvesting,” Alaric said.
Rudd made no reply, and finally Hanio said, “They hold their breath. There’s no more to it than that. No one would want to breathe that stench anyway.”
“They gather it while holding their breath?” said Alaric.
“There is no other way,” replied Hanio. “Through long practice, they become very good at holding their breath. Those who are less good at it are never selected for the work. Or they die.”
“This does not sound like a very attractive sort of work,” said the minstrel. “An early death or perhaps an even earlier one. What kind of man would choose it?”
“There is no choosing,” said Hanio. “The prince commands, and they obey. Of course, the harvesters use as much of the Powder as they like, so there are compensations.”
Alaric smelled his destination before he saw it, and it was as repellent as Piros had promised, a strong scent of rot, like offal left too long in the sun. He paused for a moment, letting Hanio and Rudd draw farther ahead and begin to scramble down the southern slope. He watched them turn and disappear under an overhanging shelf of rock. After a long moment, he took two more steps in that direction and then stopped again, uncertainty warring once more with his curiosity. A feeling of unease was building in him, and no matter how many times he told himself that if Hanio felt it was safe enough, he should, he still hesitated.
Then, one of the gaunt men was leaping up the slope toward him, and he heard Hanio shouting something, though he could not make out the words. He stepped sideways, and the gaunt man brushed past him, sprinting back the way they had come.
Hanio leaned out from under the rocky overhang and shouted again, waving urgently for Alaric to join him. The minstrel looked down the south-facing slope. What was happening, he wondered, that Hanio and the second gaunt man could not deal with? How did they think he could help?
The sounds of running made him turn. Piros and all five of the remaining gaunt men were rushing across the ridge of hillocks.
“What has the stupid boy done?” shouted Piros. But he pounded past Alaric without waiting for an answer.
The last two gaunt men clutched at Alaric’s arms and dragged him along with them, and he stumbled, half losing his footing as the three of them plunged down the slope.
Under the overhang, at the back of the shallow space created by that shelf of rock, the slope of the hillside was nearly vertical, forming a wall a little more than the height of a man, and set into that wall was a massive wooden door. Rudd lay almost at the foot of that door, and Hanio knelt beside him, cradling him like a child.
“What’s happened?” said Piros, bending over his son.
And suddenly, all in a few quick heartbeats, one of the gaunt men flung the wooden door open, revealing the darkness of a cave beyond, and as the odor of rot rushed out, ten times more powerful than before, and as Alaric stopped his own breath against it, three of the gaunt men laid hands on Piros, lifted him high, and heaved him through the doorway while the others swept the minstrel off his feet with strength he could not counter and threw him in as well. What breath Alaric had was knocked away as he fell hard on Piros. And then the wooden door slammed shut and daylight vanished.
In the pitch-blackness, Alaric clutched the caravan master’s body against his own, and in one more heartbeat they were both in the North, and the stench of rot was blowing away on the crisp, clean Northern wind.
Alaric let go of Piros and rolled to his knees, coughing and taking great gasping breaths. The air was cold, and he shivered at the contrast to the heat of the desert, though for the North, at this time of year, the day was mild. He was almost afraid to look at Piros. He hadn’t given any real thought—any real will—to the use of his power; there hadn’t been time. Had he taken Piros’s entire body with him, or would there just be a piece of him, like part of a butchered carcass?
A soft moan drew his eyes. Piros
propped himself up on his elbows and coughed. He was whole, and not only that, but he and Alaric were lying on a broad pallet of rock. Alaric realized that his power had taken not just Piros but also a goodly chunk of the cave floor. And on that floor lay an age-discolored human skeleton, ribs cracked, limb bones scattered—Alaric thought he and Piros must have struck it when they fell—and among those bones were incrustations of something that might have been tiny crystals or might have been mold, blue-gray in color. There were smears of that blue-gray on one of Alaric’s sleeves, and as he climbed to his feet he dusted them off against the other sleeve, careful not to let any of it touch his skin, careful not to inhale any of it. He guessed at what it must be.
Piros was sitting up and looking around with wide-eyed wariness at the hardy Northern grass that spread outward from the rock pallet beneath him, at the bushes and stunted trees scattered across the rolling landscape, and the distant, white-capped mountains beyond. He frowned up at Alaric. “Is this the land of the dead?”
Alaric shook his head. “No, we’ve evaded that. This is just the North.”
The caravan master rolled to his knees and crawled to the edge of the rock slab, laying his hands on the chill Northern soil and digging his fingers into it for just a moment. Then he pushed himself to his feet. “How did we come here?” he whispered. He looked at Alaric again. “You did this.”
Alaric said nothing.
Piros turned entirely about. “This is far,” he murmured, and he clutched his desert robes close against the chill. Then he bowed deeply to Alaric. “What would you have of me, my lord?”
Alaric caught his breath sharply. That was not a reaction he had expected. Fear of his witch’s power, yes, and its likely cousin hate. But reverence? “I want nothing, good Piros, except your friendship.”
“I owe you my life,” said Piros. “That is not a debt easily repaid.”
Alaric shook his head. “I saved myself. It was just as easy to take you along.”
“You could have left me to die.”
“I am not that kind of man,” said Alaric.
Piros’s eyes narrowed. “Are you a man? Or are you some sort of magical spirit?”
“A man.”
“And yet …”
“It’s an ability I was born with. I try not to use it where others can observe. It frightens them.” He looked hard at Piros. “But you are not frightened.”
“I have seen many things in my life,” said Piros, “and I have never found fear to be useful. Can you take me back? Not to the cave, but outside.”
“I can take you back to the gaunt men’s camp or to the village by the pond or to your brother’s inn.”
“To the hill above the cave?”
“Yes, that, too.”
“I must know who commanded this. And I must see to my son and Hanio if they aren’t dead already.”
“The harvesters outnumber us,” said Alaric.
“They do,” said Piros, “but we have the advantage of surprise this time.” He shook his head. “This is not their doing alone. Their prince would never allow them to kill me unless someone else was ready to take over the trade, and with a more advantageous offer. The question is … who?”
“You suspect … ?”
Piros’s mouth made a tight, grim line. “Someone who came with us to the source of the Powder, to make sure the deed was done. And to kill you, as well, to leave no credible witness.”
“Two possibilities,” murmured Alaric.
“Indeed,” said Piros. “Take me back, minstrel. I need the truth.”
“A little distance from the cave,” said Alaric. “Just out of sight.”
Piros nodded.
“Very well,” said the minstrel. “Come into the circle of my arms.”
They embraced each other, and a heartbeat later they were in the desert once more, on the north slope of the ridge they had followed to the cave. The ridge stood above their heads, but they both dropped to the ground anyway, and Piros crawled to the top, his head and body low. He peered over the rise and then signaled Alaric to join him.
The overhang that marked the cave was only a dozen long, slantwise strides away, and three of the gaunt men were visible around it.
“Do you have a knife?” whispered Piros.
Alaric shook his head. He did, but it was in his knapsack back at the gaunt men’s camp.
“Take this one.” Piros pulled a long blade from his sleeve and held it out, hilt first.
“I don’t kill people,” whispered the minstrel.
“All I want is the threat. Ghosts with knives. Do you think they’ll stand against that?”
Alaric took the knife. Piros pulled two others from his sleeves. Alaric wondered how many more he carried.
“Follow me,” said the caravan master, and he sprang to his feet, leaped over the rise, and sprinted down the other side, shouting, “Murderers! Murderers!”
Alaric gripped the knife tightly and ran after him.
The three gaunt men looked up and began to scream—sharp, high-pitched screams, like wounded dogs. They clutched each other like terrified children, and then the other three came out from the overhang and began to scream, too.
By then, Piros had reached them. “Down!” he shouted. “Down like the curs you are, with your faces to the ground! Pour dust and stones on your heads and beg me not to give you the justice you deserve!” He waved his knives, and Alaric stopped a few paces behind him and began to wave his own blade in a manner he hoped was menacing enough.
The gaunt men crouched low, scrabbling at the ground with clawed and shaking fingers and dashing what they scraped up over their heads, screaming all the while.
“Silence!” roared the caravan master.
The screaming fell abruptly to whimpers punctuated by choking coughs.
“Who gave the order?” demanded Piros, and he kicked the nearest bowed head once, twice. When there was no response, he slashed at the man’s shoulder with the tip of one knife, ripping both the cloth and the skin beneath, and blood began to stain the man’s robe. “Answer!” Piros shouted.
The wounded man clutched at his shoulder and groaned.
“Your man,” said one of the others. “It was your man.”
“Hanio,” said another. “He said if we did it, we could go back to the village. Back to our families!”
“He said they would welcome us,” said yet another. “Someone else would have to harvest the Powder!”
Piros strode past the crouching cluster of men, and they made no attempt to stop him; they only followed him with their eyes. Alaric gave them a wider berth, wondering how long their terror would keep them from guessing that he and Piros were not spirits.
Hanio was waiting under the overhang, his back against the door that sealed the cave. He, too, had a pair of knives, long, wicked blades. “So there’s another way out,” he said. “And the poison is a lie.”
Piros shook his head. “You killed us.”
“I think not,” said Hanio, and he kicked a stone toward Piros. It struck the caravan master’s soft boot where it showed beneath the hem of his robe. “You’re still flesh and blood.”
Piros frowned. “Where is my son?”
“Gone,” said Hanio. He gestured southward with the tip of one knife. “Where he always wanted to go.”
Piros did not take his eyes from the man. “Did he know what you were planning?”
“Of course he did. You think he liked the prison you made of his life?”
Alaric could see Piros’s grip on his knives tighten, the knuckles white with the strain. “I would have given it all to you someday,” he said. “Not to him.”
“Someday, twenty years from now,” said Hanio. “And till then I would have to endure his madness. I’ve had enough. I’ve long since had enough.”
Piros eased to one side of the rock shelter, till the wall was at his shoulder. “So this is where we are.”
“Two against one,” said Hanio.
“Seven aga
inst two,” said Piros. “You set the odds yourself.”
Hanio shook his head. “They think you’re dead. They’ve run away.”
Piros did not look back toward the cowering gaunt men, but Alaric could not help glancing that way. They were indeed gone. “We seem to be alone,” he said.
Piros nodded. “Tell me if they come back. Otherwise, this is between Hanio and me.” He took a single step toward Hanio. “Which of the others is for you?”
“All of them,” said Hanio, “when I return without you.” He raised one of his knives to waist height and kept the other at his hip.
Piros sprang, knocking Hanio’s knives aside with his own, and then both men were hard against the wooden door for a moment before they dropped to the ground in a tangle of desert robes, Hanio on top. Alaric realized he was holding his breath, ready to flee in his own way but uncertain enough to stay another moment, and another.
Then Piros pushed Hanio aside and staggered to his feet. The blade in his left hand was bloody to the hilt, and there was a spreading stain of the same color at Hanio’s belly. Piros wiped the bloody knife on the hem of Hanio’s robe and slipped both of his blades back into his sleeves. Silently, Alaric passed him the knife he had loaned out, and that, too, went into one of his sleeves. “We’ll let the villagers bury him,” said Piros. “Or perhaps they’ll just leave him out in the heat to dry. Now for my son.” He started back up the rise.
Alaric followed. “What will you do to him?” he said.
At the top, Piros turned and looked southward, and Alaric stood beside him and did the same. The phantom city was there, as so often before, and between it and them, barely visible against the pale desert floor, was a tiny figure topped by a dark headwrap.
Rogues Page 63
