City Under the Sand

XVIII Magic

Three days later, the sword was done.

Aric had polished it with stones of ever-decreasing grit, and finally with a stiff cloth. He had cut fuller grooves most of the way down the blade, decreasing its weight and making it stiffer, and making it easier to withdraw after stabbing someone. The blade was two inches wide, with edges as keen as any he’d ever honed, and it tapered to a sharp point. The cross-guard was straight across the blade, then curled down at the inner end. At the outer, it curled up and joined the hand guard, forming a protective basket around Aric’s hand. The hilt was wrapped in soft leather, with fine wire twisted around it.

By this time, the steel had lost any traces of those who had handled it before. When Aric held it, his only psionic connection was to himself, a mental loop that allowed him to “communicate” with the sword. He knew where every inch of it was at every moment; however fast it sliced through the air, he was in absolute control. He had never before known a weapon so thoroughly, or had one so responsive to his will.

Myrana had bargained with a leather worker in the village and had a custom scabbard made, according to specifications Ruhm provided her, and when the sword was done so was its new home.

They had celebrated that night in the tavern—a celebration tempered with anxiety, because they knew they had to hurry back to Nibenay. Scouts had not reported any raider activity nearby for the last day, so they planned to leave in the morning.

In the morning, they packed up what little they owned. Aric hung the new scabbard from his belt and shoved the sword into it. Did wearing it truly make him taller, stronger, more handsome? Probably not. But harsh reality didn’t change the way it made him feel.

At the livery, they ran into Mazzax. He was dressed for travel, with a knapsack over his shoulders, and he stood among seven agitated kanks. “I’ve sold your erdlus,” he said.

“You did what?” Sellis asked.

“Sold ’em.”

“Why? They weren’t yours to sell.”

“Kank’s more comfortable for long trip. Plus they hold more.” He indicated one of the kanks, with bundles strapped to its back. “Plenty food on that one, more than a bird’ll tote.”

“But Mazzax,” Aric said, “Sellis is right, they were not yours in the first place. And we don’t own kanks.”

“Sure you do. Wasn’t my money bought these.”

The dwarf was a hard worker, and Aric appreciated his contributions to the sword he wore. But the dwarf was also as maddening as ever. Nothing he said made sense, or it did but only after you figured out all the parts he wasn’t saying. He already knew those parts, so he assumed everyone else did too. “You bought these kanks with our money? Without asking us? We don’t even need seven of them. What were you thinking?”

Mazzax pointed at each traveler, while he spoke their names. “Aric. Ruhm. Amoni. Myrana. Sellis. Mazzax.”

“That’s the five of us, and I suppose one to bear supplies, if we had any, but—”

“He’s going with us,” Myrana explained. “Or did you miss that part?”

“You’re coming?” Aric asked.

“Course I’m coming.”

“But …”

“Nothing here for me. Hotak’s gone. I’m apprentice, not master, not even journeyman, so can’t run smithy. What else keeps me here?”

“Friends?” Sellis asked. “Family?”

Aric already knew, from handling lots of iron that Mazzax had touched before, that he had no real friends in the village other than Hotak, and no family. “He’s alone here.”

“Aric is right. All alone.”

“Then you might as well come,” Myrana said.

The meaning of the supplies on the kank’s back sank in. “You bought all that?” Aric asked.

“Aye, food and water and shelter for long journey.”

“With our money?”

“Your money bought five kanks, no more.”

“So you purchased two kanks and all those supplies?”

“Aye.”

“Well then, I guess you’d better come with us.”

Aric thought Mazzax would be happy, but the dwarf simply shrugged. “I have been saying that.” As if that had been clear all along.

“Right,” Aric said. “It appears we’re ready, then. Let’s get out of here. On to Nibenay!”

“On to Nibenay!” Mazzax repeated.

“Oh, and Mazzax?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you. For all this, and everything else.”

The dwarf shrugged again, clambered onto a kank’s back, and started to ride.

The village was barely out of sight behind them when they saw a smudge of dust in the distance ahead. When they got closer, they could see riders, a small group of them. They didn’t look numerous enough to be a problem, so while they readied their weapons, they didn’t hide or change course.

Aric didn’t recognize the riders until they were almost right on top of them. Then familiar faces swam into view.

“Rieve!” he shouted as soon as he caught a glimpse of her coppery hair gleaming in the sun.

“Aric, is it really you?”

He jumped from the kank’s back and sprinted toward her. “It’s really me!” he cried. “You’re not a desert mirage?”

Rieve pinched her own cheek, leaving a red mark there, like a kiss. “I don’t think I’m a mirage.”

The rest of the family rode with her. Aric recognized her mother, her grandparents, her brother Pietrus. Another man Aric hadn’t seen before, but guessed he was Rieve’s father. Half a dozen soldiers accompanied them, armed and tense—two of them had started forward when Aric ran to Rieve, but relaxed their guard when it was obvious she knew him.

Rieve climbed down from her mount and met Aric, embracing him in a hug that took his breath away. Not just because it was firm, though it was, but because he had forgotten her scent and the way her orange ringlets tickled his nose, and the way her body swelled under her clothing. The depths of her light brown eyes, the warmth of her smile.

His sword bumped her hip as he held her. “Is that new?” she asked.

“Yes, I’ve just made it for myself.” They parted, took a step back, and he saw that she wore the sword he’d crafted for her. He drew his own—again, attracting the nervous interest of the soldiers—and showed it off. “How’s yours?”

“I’ve been practicing with it. It’s wonderful.”

“What are you doing so far from Nibenay?”

Rieve took his hand. Her grip pleasantly warm, the skin so soft he could hardly believe it. “Pietrus has been accused of a terrible crime,” she said. “He is innocent, of course. I know he’s not like other people, but he isn’t bad or vicious. He’s the most innocent person I know. Anyway, we had to flee Nibenay before the authorities arrested us all—him for the crime, and us for harboring him. Grandfather was convinced we would all be enslaved.”

“That’s terrible!” Aric said. He hardly knew Pietrus, and from their single encounter he had been left with the impression that the young man was sometimes gripped by sudden, inexplicable furies. But he didn’t know that Pietrus had ever actually hurt anybody, and at this moment, he would have believed Rieve if she had told him that the whole of Athas was under water, including where they stood. “Why would they—”

“We know not. Someone made an accusation, obviously false because Pietrus was home with us while this crime occurred. But there were so-called witnesses. There was amob. They stormed our gates and sacked our house. We were lucky to escape alive. Apparently there’s been a rash of these killings, of human men and elf women, and now they’re saying that Pietrus must have done them all. Djena has some grudge against grandfather, so he decided we were best served by fleeing while we could.”

“I am so sorry, Rieve. If there were anything I could do …”

“I’m sure there’s not, Aric, but thank you.”

“What of Corlan?”

“Corlan’s still in the city,” she said. Her tone had turned glacial, its meaning unmistakable. For an instant, Aric felt like singing. He tried to downplay his enthusiasm, and the knowledge that he still had to rush toward Nibenay, not away from it, made that sadly not hard to do.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve no idea. Grandfather has some destination in mind, or so he claims. But he won’t tell us. He says it’s safer that way.”

He might never see her again. The idea was almost too much to bear, especially since she was no longer betrothed to another. By the time he finished his business in Nibenay, she could be anywhere. “There have been raiders active ahead, so warn your family, and make sure those soldiers stay alert. But … if I should want to find you …”

She bit her lower lip and lowered her eyes. “I know, Aric.” Then she smiled and dug into a pouch hanging from her belt. “Wait, I have it.” She brought out a small, round pebble, almost as clear as glass. “Take this.”

Aric took it. Everything was slightly distorted, but he could see all the way through it. “Why?”

“Put it in a shallow bowl of water,” she told him. “It will show you an image of me, and tell you which direction to find me in. If I’m very far away, the image will be small, and it will grow bigger the nearer I am.”

Aric closed his fist around it. He had never heard of such a thing, but he was glad it existed. “But … you do magic?”

“Not myself,” Rieve said. “But grandmother … she does some preserving magic, when she needs to. It really is different from defiling, she has told me all about it. And if one has enough wealth—as we do—one can acquire all sorts of odd things. The clear stone is one of those. I had thought to leave it with Corlan, until he made clear that he wouldn’t be using it.”

“Well, I will. That I swear.”

“I hope you do, Aric.” She went up on her toes, pressed her hands against his chest, and planted a kiss on his lips. “I must go—my family’s patience wears thin. Find me.”

“I will, Rieve.”

“Soon as you can?”

“Soon as I can.”

“Good.” She broke away from him, ran back to her mount, and climbed on. The family and their soldiers were already moving by the time she was mounted, and she had to hurry to catch up.

“Who was that?” Myrana asked when Aric returned to his group.

“Rieve,” Ruhm answered.

“Yes,” Aric said. “Rieve, of the House of Thrace. I made her sword.”

“And more,” Myrana said, her words clipped, precise. Was she angry?

Well, of course she was. There had been a certain tension between Myrana and him since they had first met, an attraction that, for his part at least, had been immediate. No promises had been made, no declarations of love, but there had been something growing between them. The hand-tooled scabbard on his belt was only the most recent expression of it.

Then she had seen him completely lose his mind over some other woman, who was, to Myrana’s eye, an utter stranger. Even now, aware of Myrana’s discomfort, and knowing all he would see of Rieve was her swiftly departing back, it took all his will not to watch her go.

They set off again, following the Thrace party’s tracks. Aric hadn’t thought to ask her when they’d left, how far they had yet to travel. His belly would be full, for a change, but he still worried about beating Kadya to Nibenay.

Late that afternoon, a lone rider came toward them. Since this individual appeared even less threatening than the group of that morning, the companions again held fast to their route. When they got closer, Aric recognized Corlan, making speedy progress on an erdlu’s back.

Corlan recognized Aric moments later, and they drew near each other. “Aric! I’m surprised to see you.”

“And I you, Corlan. We’re on our way home. Where are you bound?”

Corlan shook his head sadly. “Rieve and I had … a misunderstanding. It’s complicated, but she’s left town. I should have gone with her, but I didn’t, and …”

Aric pointed the way, although doing it made his guts churn. “Follow our path,” he said. “You’re less than a day behind them.”

“Really?”

“And you’re traveling faster. You’ll catch up today. Tomorrow at the latest.”

“Thank you, Aric!”

“Ride fast, my friend, you’ll find her.”

“I’m grateful to you.” Corlan started to continue on his way, then halted again. “Oh, and Aric? You said you’re bound for Nibenay?”

“Yes.”

“You might want to pick a new destination.”

“Why?”

“Because the Shadow King has declared you an enemy of the state. I nearly forgot—I heard about it just before I left.”

“What? An enemy of the state, why?”

“There’s some story going around. That you’re a traitor, or something … a member of the Veiled Alliance.”

“Who’s saying that? Has the expedition returned?”

“No, not yet. I assumed they’d sent a messenger ahead to warn Nibenay. Or … you know, the sorcerer-king and his templars have their ways.”

“I’m sure they do.”

“There’s a bounty on your head, Aric. You’re to be captured or killed on sight. That’s what I’ve heard. So you would do well to steer clear of Nibenay.”

“But …”

“I’m only telling you what I heard before I left the city.”

“I know,” Aric said. “I’m not blaming you.” He wished he could. Instead, he could only believe that Kadya was behind the lies. The story would make his task more difficult … not that it had seemed easy to begin with.

“I should get after Rieve.”

“Go,” Aric said. “Thank you for the news, and the faith.”

“I’m glad I saw you, to warn you.”

“One more thing, Corlan. How long have you been riding, from Nibenay?”

“This is my fourth day,” Corlan said. “Does that mean you still mean to go there?”

“I’m not sure I have any choice.”

Corlan touched his own neck, gingerly. “Well, I hope you keep your head.” He kicked the erdlu, and it raced off across the desert.

“What do we do now, Aric?” Amoni asked after Corlan was gone. “You can’t go to Nibenay, right?”

“I don’t know. I meant to speak directly to the Shadow King, to warn him about Kadya and the demon Tallik. But now … that might not be possible.”

“Then perhaps we should do as he suggested,” Myrana said. “Give up on Nibenay and go someplace else. Someplace safe.”

“We can’t,” Aric said. “The demon possessing Kadya is too dangerous. Together, they won’t be satisfied with just Nibenay. If they’re not stopped, there will be no safe place. If there were a way to stop them ourselves, then maybe …”

He let the sentence trail off, conscious that the others were all watching him, waiting for him to come to some sort of conclusion.

He hadn’t. “Let’s keep riding,” he said. “It’s not that far now. Something will present itself, before we arrive.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Myrana asked.

“It has to.”

Sitting close to a fire that night, Aric had still reached no conclusions. But he had arrived at the beginning of an idea. After mulling it over for a while, he decided to give voice to it. “Magic,” he said.

“What?” Ruhm asked.

“We can’t defeat Kadya and Tallik ourselves. But if we could use magic …”

“We need to reach the Veiled Alliance,” Sellis said. “Do you Nibenese have any contacts in that organization?”

“I don’t.”

“No,” Ruhm said. “Not me,” Amoni said.

“But … Rieve might. Her grandmother, anyway.”

“Rieve?” Ruhm echoed.

“She told me her grandmother practices preserving magic. She gave me a magical pebble I can use to locate her.”

“She did?” Myrana said. Her tone hadn’t changed much over the last several hours. Aric had tried talking to her a few times, and been rebuffed more or less politely.

“Yes.”

“I don’t like magic,” Sellis said.

“Neither do I.”

“There are times,” Myrana ventured, “when it can be helpful.”

“Do you really believe that?” Sellis asked.

“I know you don’t trust it, Sellis. And that’s why it’s hard for me to admit this, but … well, I’ve been using it to keep us safe ever since we left the House Ligurto caravan.”

He waved her off with his hands, as if she were an annoying insect. “That’s … that’s not possible.”

“But it’s true.”

“How? If you had done magic, I would have known.”

“Where do you think the burnflower came from, when that hermit was attacking us? How do you suppose I bested the cistern fiend? Or the rain paraelemental? I’ve used it several times.”

He still didn’t believe her; everything about his posture and voice dismissed her claims. “What kind of magic?”

“Magic when done right doesn’t have to defile the land.”

“I … I don’t know what to say, Myrana. It’s like you’ve been lying to me this whole time.”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Myrana said. “Those of us who use magic are taught early on not to reveal it. I shouldn’t be telling you now, but if we decide to act on Aric’s plan, you need to know.”

“Still …

“He’s right,” Amoni said.

“Amoni?” Aric asked, aware that he gawped at her. “You too?”

“No,” she said. “But I have known those who use magic without defiling the land.” Her cheeks went red and she held her palms to the fire, then rubbed them together. “And I lied, just now. I do know of a contact for the Veiled Alliance in Nibenay, a vendor on the Palm Court.”

“Magic is not bad, in and of itself,” Myrana said. “Not as destructive as people claim. It’s all in how it’s used.”

“And to what ends,” Amoni added. “Magic can be used for good, in good ways. Healing ways.”

Aric knew some believed that. But one couldn’t stand anywhere on Athas’s surface, during the scorching heat of day or the cruel cold of night, and not see the fruits of magic. So went the stories, anyway.

“I’ll have to think about this more,” Aric said. “I don’t want to rush back, join forces with the Veiled Alliance, and have things go bad. This is too important for that.”

“Think, then,” Sellis said. “But do it quickly. We’re running out of time, Aric.”

“I know. Believe me.”

“Good, then.”

“Good,” Mazzax said. He and Ruhm had kept quiet through the whole discussion. Aric already knew how Ruhm felt about magic—he liked to pretend it didn’t exist. And Aric couldn’t read the dwarf, who had been sitting there the whole time but acted as if had just joined the conversation at its very end.

Later, when everyone else was sleeping, he sat up on guard duty and kept turning over the day’s revelations in his mind. He longed for a simple answer, but there were none to be had.

He had his own doubts about magic, and he wasn’t sure it would defeat Tallik anyway. But he wasn’t sure anything else would.

If only he could talk to Rieve again.

Thinking of her, he felt for the pebble in his purse, and took up a bladder of water and a shallow clay bowl. Beside the fire, he poured some water into the bowl, then dropped the pebble into it. He tried to clear other thoughts from his mind. “Show me Rieve,” he said softly. “Where is Rieve?”

The pebble sat at the bottom of the bowl. Had he used too much water? Too shallow a bowl? She hadn’t been specific about that. He had never tried to do magic, but for all he knew those sorts of things had to be very precise.

He stared at the pebble, bringing an image of Rieve to the forefront of his mind—not hard to do, since he had thought of almost nothing else all day. As he did, the pebble skittered across the bottom of the bowl. Aric peered through the water and saw that the pebble’s surface had grown cloudy.

He plucked it from the water and held it close to his eye. At first he could see nothing, but as he turned it in his fingers, he moved it so the fire’s light shone through from behind it. Then, as surely as if Rieve herself was inside it, he saw her. He almost dropped it, but managed to hang on.

Bringing it close to his eye again, with the fire behind it, he saw Rieve once more.

He didn’t like what he saw.

Her hair was bedraggled. There was a large red mark on her face. Worse, blood trickled from her nose and mouth. Still worse, when he shifted the pebble’s position, the angle changed and he could see a rope tied around her neck. Firelight danced on her face, but Aric couldn’t tell if it was real, or caused by the fire glowing through the stone.

Rieve was in danger.

And in an instant, Aric’s priorities had changed. He put the pebble back into the water, and again it moved at once to the far side of the bowl. To the northwest, the direction they had just come from.

That had to be its way of showing in which direction to look for Rieve.

They could do nothing until morning. Even if he woke the others, convinced them, traveling at night was too dangerous.

But when the sun rose, he would have some persuading to do.

Rieve had passed on Aric’s warning about the raiders to the rest of her family and their guards.

In the end, it hadn’t helped.

The first thing that happened was that Corlan caught up to them. They saw someone behind them, riding hard. Three of the guards dropped back, ready to deal with whatever threat pursued them. Fortunately, Rieve recognized him before anybody skewered him. His apology was so abject and heartfelt she had no choice but to forgive him. Once he was allowed to join the family, he apologized to Pietrus, and to the rest of them. Pietrus still wasn’t sure what the purpose of the whole voyage was; to him it was just an adventure, and the others were content to let him think that.

Once the reunion was accomplished, they continued on toward whatever Grandfather’s destination was. Perhaps the distraction of Corlan’s appearance caused the soldiers to let down their guard. Or perhaps they never had a chance.

They rode through an area thick with dark, jagged boulders, piled one on the other as if from some cataclysmic event. From the cover of those rocks, arrows flew, each one finding its target. Four of the six soldiers fell at once. The other two filled their hands with steel, but when a force of raiders rode out from a hidden canyon, the battle was brief and bloody. Corlan tried to fight, and the raiders mistook him for a member of the family and refused to engage him. They simply rode circles around him, isolating him from the rest of the family, then held steel to Mother’s throat and forced him to disarm.

When the bloodshed was over, a mul raider, copper-skinned and hairless, his naked torso plastered with tattoos, rode up to Rieve’s grandparents. “This is your family?” he asked. He regarded the others with a sneer on his face. “They look soft.” He took Grandfather’s hand and turned it over, touching the man’s palm. “Soft hands. Nobility.”

“You can do anything you want to me,” Grandfather said. “But let the women go.”

“Why would we do that?”

“To prove that you’re not completely heartless beasts!”

The mul laughed. “Oh, but we are.”

Other raiders rode around the family, examining their belongings. There were no pack animals or wagons, everyone carried what little they had brought.

“They’ve got nothing,” one reported.

“A noble family, traveling off the main roads, with only six guards and few possessions?” the mul asked. “Now you’ve got me curious. Where’s your treasure?”

“We have no treasure,” Grandfather said. “As your man said, we have nothing. So you might as well leave us alone.”

The mul sat back on his mount, gazing skyward, as if giving the idea serious consideration. “You know what I think? I think there are two possibilities here. We can hold you, and send a message back to wherever you come from—Nibenay, from the looks of you—instructing whoever controls your fortune that they need to send a large portion of it here to secure your safe release. On the other hand, you appear to be on the run from something—you packed quickly and left home with very few belongings. So I can hold you, and unless you arrange to have a ransom sent to me, I’ll report your whereabouts to the Nibenese authorities. Either way, the result’s the same for me. I have to feed you for a while, and then you pay me.”

“That will never happen,” Grandfather said.

“There is one more possibility, old man. I can start killing you one by one, beginning with little red there.” He indicated Rieve. “And keep killing you until you agree to pay me. Once again, same result, but this time I have fewer to feed.”

“You’re a monster!” Rieve shouted. “We’d never give you a thing.”

The mul calmly walked over to her, his eyes fixed on her as if trying to bore a hole through her. He reached up and slapped her across the face. The blow nearly knocked her off her kank, but she managed to hang on. She spat blood at the mul, who simply chuckled and wiped it off.

“Give me back my weapon,” Corlan insisted, “and I’ll make you regret you ever saw us!”

“On second thought,” the mul said, “maybe I’ll start with that one. He’s trouble, he is.”

“We’ve got to go home with something, Shen’ris,” another raider said. “It’s been a rough few days.”

“Indeed it has,” the mul said. “We’ve suffered major losses in battle,” he explained. “And with no treasure to show for it. I think, though, that when we ride back to the fort with you, noble friends, we’ll be greeted with enthusiasm.”

“There … there is a certain amount of wealth, back in Nibenay,” Grandfather allowed. “Harm a single one of us, and you’ll never see the first bit of it. But if we’re treated well, with respect and dignity, then we might be able to work out some sort of accommodation.”

“Tunsall, no!” Grandmother cried.

“We have no choice, Sheridia,” Grandfather said. “These people will kill us all if we don’t cooperate.”

“Now you’re making sense,” Shen’ris said. He scratched his chest with a big, blunt-fingered hand. “Come, let’s get away from these corpses. After we help ourselves to their weapons and armor, of course. We won’t make the fort tonight, I’m afraid, but we’ll be there tomorrow, and then we can see about getting that message composed to send back to Nibenay.”

A few hours later, they were camped around a roaring fire. Each of the captives had a length of stout rope looped around their necks, and they were all connected in a line. Their hands had been tied, their weapons confiscated. Rieve couldn’t sleep this way, so she sat up as well as she could, letting the fire ward off the night, and wishing there was something she could do.

So far, wishing had not brought tangible results.