Faerie Lord

Fifty-Five

It occurred to Blue eventually that she might have made a bad mistake. Despite the southward-pointing carriage she had the uncomfortable feeling that she might as well be lost. The device was a small, one-person self-propelled chariot with an adjustable canopy for shade. In deference to the way the citizens of Buthner felt about magic, its motive power was clockwork: fifteen minutes’ hard work with the crank handle each morning and it would trundle along happily for the rest of the day: not fast, but with a steady pace that ate up miles. But its most impressive aspect was the life-size figure at the back. By means of ingenious gearing Blue couldn’t even begin to understand, its outstretched arm always pointed southwards, as a guide to the way home.

With crumbling slabs of compressed food and a vast supply of dehydrated water tablets, she could survive in the desert for months, but it remained a problem nonetheless. The wilderness was, quite simply, immense, far larger than she’d ever imagined for all the Arcond’s talk of it taking up four-fifths of the country’s land surface. Worse still, it was absolutely featureless. She’d been travelling for almost three days now and every single moment of the journey was the same as every other. Around her stretched the plain of sand, a waterless ocean that reached the horizon in every direction, a mind-numbing expanse of eternal dunes. If the Arcond was right about his ancient ruins, she had spotted none of them. Worse, there was not the slightest sign of nomads.

What if she never found them? What of Henry then?

So far she had been travelling directly north, deep into the heart of the desert. But that had been an arbitrary decision. Madame Cynthia could tell her no more than she had already done. Mr Fogarty was dead: no new visions would be forthcoming, nor any half-forgotten details of his old ones. She was alone, without guidance, and nothing was working out!

The thought was tinged with guilt, something that had been growing in her for days. Perhaps Pyrgus and Madame Cardui had been right all along. Perhaps if she hadn’t interfered, they would have rescued Henry by now and saved the Realm from the plague. Perhaps the future she’d propelled them into held no hope of happy endings. Perhaps she should have minded her own business!

On impulse, she pulled the carriage round so that it was no longer heading due north, but northwest. One direction was as good as any other and so long as the figure pointed, she would be able to find her way out of the desert eventually.

The impulse made no difference. For close on half an hour, she travelled through the endless sands. Blue jerked the carriage round again, more sharply this time. It was a random movement, but a glance at her pointing figure showed she was now travelling due west, towards the setting sun. Travelling west through an unbroken sea of sand.

She thought of stopping to eat something, although she was far from hungry. Madame Cardui had warned her she must eat and, more importantly, drink at regular intervals to ensure she maintained her strength. The trouble was, her compressed food tasted musty and her dehydrated water tablets, while they maintained the fluid balance of her body, did almost nothing for the dry mouth and constant thirst. She decided to eat when the sun finally set, then perhaps press on just a little further before it grew fully dark. She pushed the handle of the carriage listlessly, then caught sight of something on the eastern horizon.

Blue halted the carriage at once. She’d already discovered that mind and eyes played tricks on this cursed wilderness, especially at this time of day when the light was just beginning to fade. All the same, there was something out there and she was fairly sure it wasn’t just another dune. She rummaged in her equipment until she found a glass. (What wouldn’t she have given for a decently spell-driven travelling eye!) The heat haze and the low angle of the sun wouldn’t permit any real resolution, even with optical help, but what she was looking at might have been a low building of some sort, or possibly some temporary structure. Was this one of the ruins the Arcond had talked about? Or could it be a pavilion erected by the nomads? For the first time, she realised she knew almost nothing about these mysterious nomads: how they lived, how they travelled… nothing. Did they have tents and pack animals?

Questions were useless. The only thing she knew was that they avoided contact. But if this really was one of their structures, perhaps she could reach them before they spotted her and ran away. Then, a mischievous voice murmured in her head, she would find out the truth about the cannibalism business.

Blue gently manoeuvred the carriage around, then started it off, slowly, in the direction of the thing on the horizon. She was very aware of the need for caution. If these really were the nomads, she couldn’t just come storming in – she’d have to gain their trust. She had gifts – Madame Cardui had seen to that – but she was aware that gifts alone would never be enough. She was seriously considering abandoning the carriage before she got too close and making the rest of her way on foot. With luck and care, she might even be able to observe the nomads for a little while before committing herself to contact. The more she learned about them the better.

She had scarcely driven for more than ten minutes when a brutal sense of disappointment swept over her. The shape on the horizon, which had looked so like an artificial structure even when examined through the glass, suddenly resolved itself as a well-worn peak, part of a low mountain chain, hardly more than high hills, really, but beyond doubt natural formations.

For a moment she considered swinging away and heading back into the deep desert – her carriage was fine for relatively flat terrain, but there was no way it could tackle a mountain – then something else caught her eye, nestling in the foothills. This time she was close enough for the glass to show it as a series of squat stone buildings.

Once again Blue stopped the carriage. With her eye to the glass, she examined the structures carefully. This was ancient architecture for sure, but no ruin. Someone lived here, or at least had lived here until recent times. But not the nomads. These were permanent structures, built to last by settled people.

What to do? Madame Cardui had said their best hope was for Blue to make contact with the nomads, but that hadn’t happened so far, and she’d no idea how to make it happen. But if people did live here in the shadow of the mountains, they might have some idea where the nomads could be found, perhaps even advise on how best to approach them.

Blue set the carriage going, aware of the lengthening shadows. Even if no one lived here any more, it would still be a place to stay. Since coming to the desert, she’d slept in the carriage, sheltered from the night wind by the canopy. Each night she’d listened to the sounds of creatures moving after dark – there seemed to be far more life in the desert at night than there ever was during the day. Nothing had attacked her, nothing had even seriously disturbed her, but the sounds made her nervous and vulnerable. She would welcome a solid stone-built wall around her.

But as she drew closer, it became obvious the place was inhabited. Distant figures moved unhurriedly outside and she could see a small strip of cultivated land close to the buildings, someone must have set up an irrigation system to reclaim it from the desert.

Closer still, the figures resolved themselves into green-robed, tonsured individuals, all, without exception, male. She was approaching a monastic community. It occurred to her then that she might not be entirely welcome. There were all-male monasteries in her own country, where the mere glimpse of a woman sent the monks running for cover. But by the time the thought struck her, it was too late. Her clockwork carriage was rolling over an area of stony ground that gave way to a crudely paved road. One of the green-robed figures, a thin, almost wasted, monk whose skin had turned to leather in the desert sun, broke away from his companions to walk towards her.

‘You are welcome, young man,’ he told her gravely. Blue blinked, then remembered she was travelling in disguise.