City Under the Sand

VIII Valley of Fire

The cistern fiend’s paralysis gripped Myrana for two days. The second day she was able to sit up on her own and eat but not walk. That night, it wore off, but she, Sellis, and Koyt didn’t want to leave the relative protection of the oasis. Instead, they waited until morning, filled their bellies and their water skins with fresh water, and started off once more across the desert. She had hated having muscles that refused her every command, and the urgency of her dreams had not let up, but even so, it was hard to leave a place with shade, shelter and plenty of fresh, clear water.

The contrast, by mid-afternoon, was remarkable. The sun bore down with pitiless intensity. On foot all day, Myrana’s leg and hip sent pain shooting through her entire body, making her grit her teeth and bite back groans. She wanted no pity from her companions, and most of all she didn’t want them to feel—as men so often did, in her experience—that they needed to fix things, make them better. This situation couldn’t be fixed, unless they came upon some wild kanks or erdlus to ride. She was thirsty, hot, and aching, and that was just the way things were.

Her dream-inspired route led them up a low rise. On the other side, the way was considerably steeper, a rock-strewn slope leading down into a wide, flat valley. The ups and downs were harder on her leg than flat stretches, so she looked forward to reaching that, but knew the descent would be difficult and painful.

Sellis pointed to the hillside on the valley’s far edge, where a patch of green might have indicated a natural spring. “We’ll make it there before we stop,” he suggested. “And if it’s safe we can make camp by that spring.”

“Water for three nights in a row?” Koyt asked. “Fortune smiles upon us, eh Myrana?”

Myrana grunted a meaningless response. She liked the idea of another night beside water, but the far side of the valley was a long way off.

Sellis touched her arm. “Shall we go down?” he asked. “Or would you rather rest first?”

“I’m ready,” she said. The statement wasn’t entirely true, or altogether false. She would have loved to rest—perhaps for a week or two—but to accept his suggestion would be to show weakness. She wouldn’t do it. She was the reason they were here, in danger every hour of every day because she refused to ignore her dreams. “Let’s go.”

She started down the slope first. Small rocks skidded out from beneath her feet. Every time she planted her left leg on the down slope, another twinge of pain traveled up her spine.

The men paused for a moment at the top of the slope. They didn’t think she could hear them, over her own scrabbling sounds, but her ears were keener than they knew. “She’s tough.” Sellis said.

“Aye, tough as they come. That leg …”

“You would never know that at this time yesterday she could hardly take a drink on her own.”

“When we’re falling down with exhaustion, she’ll be leaving us behind. Shaming us.”

“She’s leaving us already,” Sellis pointed out. “We should catch up. This loose slope could be treacherous, and if she should lose her balance …”

“Bad leg or no, she looks steady. If we fall trying to keep up with her, I’ll laugh.”

“Laugh through the pain, you mean.”

“Aye, for certain. It’s a long way to the bottom.”

Long way or not, they made it without incident. Hiking across the valley floor was indeed easier, and after the long, steep descent, she was ready for easy. The ground was firm and even, the rocks big enough to be seen and avoided but not so large that they required major detours to skirt. Between the rocks and scrubby brush, cactus, and occasional patches of tall, brownish grass, they could see about halfway across the valley.

They made steady progress. Here they wished again for kanks, as those huge insects could cover this sort of territory at a rapid pace. The sun pounded down upon them as it moved through the sky. On the hillside, cooling breezes had blown over them, but here in the valley no such relief presented itself. As they walked, even the shade seemed to dry up; at the valley’s fringes, runoff from the hills, during whatever infrequent rains came, nourished the plant life, but toward the valley’s center that tapered off until the plain became nothing but a hard, flaked crust of earth with rocks sitting on top.

A little more than three quarters of the way across, Sellis drew up short and pointed to what appeared to be a jumble of boulders off to the south. “I don’t like that,” he said.

“They’re just rocks, no?” Myrana asked.

“I’m not so certain.”

Koyt eyed the boulders, shielding his brow against the slanting sun. “There’s a fire pit in front,” he said. “Not burning now, but it’s there.”

Myrana narrowed her eyes and peered at it. Koyt was right. Beyond the pit, a slanted boulder leaned on two others, and a dark hole might have been an opening into a cleverly disguised home. “Do you think someone lives there?”

“A hermit, perhaps,” Sellis said. “I would expect any living in this valley to be closer to that spring, but it’s less than an hour away, perhaps well less.”

“Should we hail him?” Myrana asked. Any member of a trading caravan had some experience with hermits, or good or for ill. Some of them sought out interaction with travelers passing through, while others guarded their solitude with fierce determination.

“If he’s there—or she, I’ve encountered more than one female hermit—then he knows we’re here.”

“Many I’ve seen are mad,” Myrana said. “And men are more likely than women to go mad, aren’t they?”

“I don’t know about that,” Koyt said.

“Maybe it has to do with how that madness is exhibited,” Sellis offered. “I’ve certainly run across some madwomen, too, but they seem to favor city life. It takes a special kind of insanity to make someone want to live alone like this, so far from everything.”

“I don’t like it,” Myrana said. “Let’s keep going.”

They moved on, uneasy now. The nape of Myrana’s neck tickled. Is someone watching us? she wondered. She, Sellis and Koyt marched forward, not talking, each lost in thoughts or worries.

“Kalipher warned you!” a voice screeched. The speaker stood atop a boulder just ahead of them and to the east, perhaps forty paces from the travelers. They stopped. Sellis whisked his swords from their scabbards and Koyt snatched his bow from his shoulder and an arrow from its quiver in one smooth motion.

“Warned us of what, old man?” Sellis demanded. “And who’s Kalipher? We’ve never seen you before, nor heard that name.”

“Kalipher stands before you, and Kalipher warned you to keep out of his valley!” The hermit wore a long, gray robe—although, Myrana noted, it might not always have been gray, as it appeared to have been patched from time to time but never washed—and a cap of the same color that fit snugly across his brow but hung down past his shoulder, its end resting on his chest. His thin arms were spread wide, as were his bare feet. He had a long beard that had, if anything, received even less care over the past decade than the robe. The distance was too great to see all the detail, but Myrana thought there were twigs snarled in its tangled mess, and perhaps insects and small rodents as well.

“You warned us of nothing,” she replied. “And we had no idea this was your valley. Why would you need all this land?”

“Never you mind that, girl. Mayhap t’were not you, after all. Kalipher would have remembered a cripple. But you are intruders, the lot of you, and Kalipher don’t like intruders. Not one bit.”

“We’re only passing through,” Koyt assured the hermit. “We’ll be gone in no time.”

“After you have made liberal use of his spring, Kalipher has no doubt!”

“We had thought to drink from it, but surely the three of us can’t deplete such a rich spring.”

“Lies gush from your mouth as blood from a split skull! You’ve no idea how rich it is, unless you have been here before!”

“We could see the band of greenery around it,” Sellis said. “From yon hills. To me that indicates a healthy flow.”

“We seek no trouble, Kalipher,” Myrana said. The hermit appeared every bit as mad as she had feared. “We want only to cross the valley in peace, perhaps taste of the spring’s fresh water, and leave you alone.”

“Mayhap you seek no trouble, cripple, but trouble you’ve found!” He clapped his hands together, performed a gesture, shouted some words Myrana didn’t understand. When he showed his palms again, a blast of intense heat blew toward the travelers.

A patch of sparse grass near Myrana’s feet burst into flames. So did the edge of her sarami. She slapped out the fire, but Kalipher was already sending another blast their way.

Koyt loosed his arrow at the hermit. Before it had covered half the distance, the hermit flicked his fingers at it and the arrow caught fire. It sailed on for another instant as a burning arrow, then charred into ash, lost its momentum, and drifted harmlessly to the ground.

“Take cover!” Sellis said.

Her pains and weariness forgotten, Myrana darted for the shelter of the nearest large rock. Kalipher shot another bolt of heat her way. It missed, and there wasn’t much around to burn, but a stray twig caught fire. Then she was behind the rock, breathing hard, wondering how to battle an opponent who couldn’t be touched.

Koyt ducked behind a different rock, and Sellis sought shelter behind a fallen length of tree that had been there so long it had petrified. Koyt drew three arrows from his quiver, nocked the first, and fired it. In less than a heartbeat, he fired the second and then the third, the bowstring twanging so quickly that one sound still lingered on the air when the next drowned it out.

None of the three found their mark; Kalipher crisped them all mid-flight.

“Stones!” Myrana cried. “He can’t burn stones!” She selected a good-sized one and hurled it at the hermit. It sailed true, but fell short. Sellis picked up a larger, flat stone and side-armed it as one might a discus. Kalipher tried to deter it with his fiery blast, but it hurtled through, striking him in the ribs. He lost his balance and toppled from the boulder.

While he was on the ground, Koyt fired another arrow. This one got closer before burning up.

“Save your shafts!” Sellis called. “We’ll doubtless need more before we’re home again!”

Myrana threw another stone, putting all her strength behind it. This one reached the hermit, but he batted it away, suffering, she hoped, a bruised hand in the doing. She ducked back behind her sheltering rock and cast about for another stone she could hurl that far. She needed another way. Casting stones would never hurt this wild hermit.

“No!” Kalipher shouted as a huge tangle of vines with dozens of closed white flowers rose in front of him. “Villainy most foul!” He blasted at the flowers, causing some of them to blacken, smoke curling up from them. But others swiveled toward him and opened their petals. Reflective sap coating those petals of the burnflower caught the sun’s light and shone it in concentrated form at the hermit. His gray robe smoldered in numerous places, then exploded in flames. The last she saw of him, he was running toward the shelter of his little rock home, smacking at the fire and screaming curses.

“Where did that burnflower come from?” Sellis asked as she limped toward them.

Myrana shrugged. “Perhaps he was somehow using its heat to attack us,” she speculated. “And caused it to manifest before him.”

“Good an explanation as any I can think of,” Sellis said. “Let’s get away before he returns.”

They started off once more, heading directly for the spring on the far wall. Before they had taken fifteen paces, Kalipher’s furious voice sounded behind them. “You haven’t seen the last of Kalipher!” he cried. “The next intruders in Kalipher’s valley will taste Kalipher’s true wrath, this Kalipher swears!”

“Let’s make sure it’s not us,” Myrana said. “I’d as soon never see Kalipher again.”

“I agree. There’s nothing here we’d need anyway,” Sellis said. He laughed—but he hurried his pace, just the same.

Siemhouk lounged on her pillows, chatting with three of her fellow—but lesser—templars, all as naked as she, when her brother came to the door. “Sister!” Dhojakt barked. “I would speak with you. Alone!”

Siemhouk lifted her eyebrows, and the templars took her meaning. They rose, bade hurried goodbyes, and departed, squeezing through the door to avoid any physical contact with the monstrous form that her father insisted was related to her. He shifted his cilops-like lower half, on its dozens of short, pointed legs, to let them pass.

He wanted something from her, otherwise he wouldn’t have pretended at politeness.

“Come in, then,” Siemhouk said, showing her impatience. The templars had been boring, their chatter inane, their machinations and the ambitions they served petty. But then, few in Nibenay were her intellectual equals. Dhojakt, perhaps. Still, she hated talking to him if it meant having to look at him. His centipede’s legs twitched as he skittered into the room, hooked claws clicking on the floor. He was more human from the waist up, but that insectlike lower section protruding from his sarami was too unpleasant to look at. At least had the good grace to spend most of his time in the shadows.

“You needn’t have snapped,” she told Dhojakt as he settled his ridiculous form. “My friends would have gone if you had asked me with the respect I deserve.”

“Were they offended?” Dhojakt asked. He scratched his muzzle with one hand, as human as hers, but that face—the flaring nostrils, the tiny ears flush with the bottom of his jaw, the bulging eyes, so like the single orb of a cilops but paired, and smaller—was decidedly not. “And is there some reason you believe I care?”

“I know you care not in the least,” Siemhouk said. “And honestly? It’s true, most of our father’s wives are insipid creatures who can’t formulate a thought more complex than to wonder if Father cares more for some other wife than he does them. But I’m human, after all.” She emphasized the word, jabbing him with it like a dagger. “I need company from time to time.”

“Not I,” Dhojakt said. His high voice had an unpleasant rasp to it, like a hinge rarely used. “I need only my studies to keep me company.”

Looking like you do, Siemhouk thought, then broke it off. It would be too easy for him to read her mind, and although she could block him just as easily, who knew what he might pick up in that initial probe?

“Is that what brings you here?” she asked. “Something you’ve learned?”

“I was in Father’s private library,” he said. She knew it well: corridor upon corridor lined with shelves, from the floor to a ceiling so high up it took tall ladders to reach the upper sections, and one had to carry a candle or lantern aloft because the light from the wall lamps didn’t reach that high. If there was a larger collection of knowledge anywhere on Athas, she didn’t know of it.

“And?”

“And I discovered some interesting information.”

“About what?”

“About Akrankhot.”

“That city that Kadya is looking for?”

“Don’t feign ignorance, dear sister, it isn’t becoming. I know that you campaigned to have Kadya lead the expedition to Akrankhot. I know that a dead man promised huge stores of metal could be found there, and I understand as well as you the strategic significance of that metal to Nibenay, as well as the benefit to whoever is responsible for fetching it back here.”

“Little escapes you, my brother.”

“Precious little indeed. But I believe I have learned something about Akrankhot that escaped you.”

“Hardly surprising, since I know nothing of the city save what the undead mercenary told us.” Siemhouk shifted her position on the silk pillows. She was growing bored again, and wanted her brother to get to the point. “Will you share what you’ve learned?”

“I suppose.” Of course he would; that was the reason he had come here. Just telling her that he knew something wasn’t nearly satisfaction enough for him.

Dhojakt shifted his many feet again, and picked up a pillow in the claws of a couple. As he spoke, he tore the pillow apart, scattering shreds here and there. “Eons ago, in a time that some scholars call the Gray Age, a war between gods and primordials had ended, but left Athas in a troubled way. Arcane magics had become prevalent, although not nearly to the extent that defiling magic later savaged the world.”

“Defiling magic you’re happy to use, when it suits you,” she pointed out.

“I never said otherwise. At any rate, the primordials, in their battle against the gods, ripped the very fabric of the world. Who knows what they let in, during that time, from the Gray or the Astral Sea? And who knows what the primitive but powerful magics being employed here did to whatever dared enter? At any rate, according to these histories I found, one being that became troublesome in those days was a demon known as Tallik. Perhaps this demon was summoned by some fledgling sorcerer, who then proved unable to control it. There were others about, however, with power enough to intercede, and one of them, or several, imprisoned Tallik beneath what was, at the time, a major city.”

“Let me guess,” Siemhouk said. The story had entertained her, momentarily, but the ending was too easily grasped. And she had already glimpsed the demon’s work, in the undead man who had journeyed all the way to Nibenay to tell the Shadow King about the discovery. “Under Akrankhot.”

“That’s right. So at your suggestion, a templar loyal to you is about to disturb the prison of a demon—one not powerful to stand against the primordials who slew gods, but quite possibly more than powerful enough to threaten all of Athas as we know it.”

“Sounds exciting,” Siemhouk said. “If it brings some color to our lives, then—”

Dhojakt interrupted his sister. “If it’s excitement you want, I can tell Father. His reaction should offer quite a large respite from boredom.”

Now Siemhouk was intrigued. She had to think fast, to strategize. Dhojakt wouldn’t threaten to tell Father unless there was something in it for him—he had to think that Father would be pleased enough by this knowledge to reward him in some way. Why would it please Father? Because if the demon were to become a threat, better to know about it in advance, to be able to prepare for its coming? Or because the possibility existed that the demon, more than the metal, might become a weapon Nibenay could wield against his foes?

If he thought that freeing it from its prison was a dangerous idea, then might he not blame Siemhouk for pursuing the undead mercenary’s story with such fervor? Better, perhaps, to wait until the city was found, and they knew if the demon yet lived, before taking steps either way.

“Why would you tell him?” she asked, the very picture of naive innocence.

“Because it’s something he should know. But I don’t have to. I know you have a reason for sending Kadya on the expedition. I even understand it. All I want is for you to share the rewards, be they gold or good feelings.”

“And if I don’t, you’ll tell Father about this Tallik?”

“That’s correct,” Dhojakt said.

“Go ahead. Let me know what he says.” She had made the calculation that, with permission granted, Dhojakt would never tell their father. He would think that she wasn’t concerned about Nibenay finding out, so there was a better angle for him in keeping it quiet.

Dhojakt rubbed his shaved head with one of those oddly human hands. “I think I’ll wait,” he said. “Perhaps there’s no need for Father to know just yet.”

“I could tell him …” Siemhouk offered.

“That surely will not be necessary,” her brother said. “When the time is right, I’ll let him know. Until then … well, why trouble him? We don’t even know if this Tallik is alive or dead. And if alive, if he yet possesses any power whatsoever. No, let’s hold off, for now.”

“As you wish, brother.”

Dhojakt started to turn around, a process that took his ungainly body a considerable amount of space and time. “As always, dear sister, visiting with you has been a pleasure and an enlightenment.”

“And the same to you, Dhojakt,” Siemhouk said, inordinately pleased to see the last of him. “Do come back whenever you’ve a mind to.”

Djena paced about the Council Chambers at the Temple of the King’s Law, running her hands through her gray hair, aggravated beyond belief at some of her templar wives. Wives loyal to her sat in thronelike chairs similar to the ones high consorts used at Council meetings.

“Of course we have spies in the caravan!” she said, at a level barely below a scream. “I’m positive every high consort has spies in the caravan. What I haven’t seen is any useful information.”

“What is it you need to know?” Lijana asked. She was one of Djena’s oldest allies, a woman who had become a wife just a couple of years after Djena and understood early on that Djena’s route to power in the king’s court could not be denied. She had been right—Djena had walked over the bodies of dozens of other wives to get where she was. Some of those bodies had been figurative, others quite literal. The High Consort of the King’s Law was the most powerful person in the city-state, second only to their husband himself, and so that position became Djena’s goal.

At the time, Siemhouk had not yet been born. No one could have known the king’s daughter would overturn his rigidly organized hierarchy.

“I need to know what Kadya has in mind. I’m certain she’s talking with Siemhouk. But Siemhouk is already more powerful than me, so what does she stand to gain? And what has she promised Kadya? My position?”

“She couldn’t possibly,” Pasumi said. Pasumi was young, beautiful, and Djena knew that to underestimate her ruthlessness would be a disastrous error. She had drawn Pasumi into her confidence because she recognized in the stunning new wife a kindred spirit, someone she wanted to keep a close eye on. Of all the templar wives brought into the family in the past five years, this was the one she most expected to make a play for her spot.

She never would have expected such a move from Kadya. From Siemhouk, though, anything was possible. If Siemhouk could replace her with Kadya, that would cement her control over the two most important temples, and therefore over most of the city-state. Her power would be almost on a level with Nibenay’s.

That was what she feared, and why she wanted a better conduit into the communication between Siemhouk and Kadya.

“She might, Pasumi,” Djena said. She stopped pacing, and shook out her hair. She must have looked a sight, like someone on the verge of a mental breakdown. She blew out a breath. “Don’t put anything past Siemhouk. She is my sister, my husband’s daughter, and I love her as I love life itself. But she is as ambitious a templar as has ever lived. I have achieved my goal, and attained a position from which I can help our land and its inhabitants. Someday I’ll be asked to stand down in favor of someone with new ideas. But that time is not now, and that person should not be Kadya. If we can’t find out what those two are saying to each other, though, then Kadya it may be. We need to know what Kadya reports to Siemhouk, and without waiting for Siemhouk herself to give us what are certainly very unfaithful adaptations of those reports.”

“What would you have us do, sister?” Lijana asked.

“Each of you knows someone on that expedition, I’d wager,” Djena said. “Make sure they’re sparing no effort at intercepting any communication between our beloved sisters Siemhouk and Kadya. And make sure that your allies here in Nibenay with experience in the Way are trying to glean the contents of those conversations on this end. We must know the truth about what they find, what they would do with it, and when it will return to Nibenay, and we must know it as soon as Siemhouk herself does. If we can’t, then I fear that all is lost.”

Djena plopped down into her usual seat, satisfied for the moment with her diatribe. She had overstated the case. There would still be time to react to whatever the expedition brought back, even after its arrival. But it would be more difficult then, the results of that reaction less certain. Forewarning was the best defense she could hope for. She had needed to throw a scare into her allies, to make sure they and their loyalists weren’t being lazy or duplicitous.

If Djena went down, they all did. That was the most important fact they had to bear in mind. Those who had tied themselves to Djena were all in trouble, if Siemhouk and Kadya were successful.

That couldn’t be allowed to happen.