Jedit

Chapter 4

Without a sound, Jedit Ojanen collapsed facefirst on the desert sand.

His muzzle banged gravel so hard that blood jetted from his black nose. Even slumped, he struggled to keep his green-gold eyes open to ward off danger, but his senses had fled under the scorching sun. He lay full-length like a toppled tree and didn't stir except for shallow breathing with blood bubbling in one nostril.

Johan stifled a curse. He cast about, but rolling dunes of sand and pebbles and nothing else filled this portion of the Sukurvia. High up, nine Osai vultures rode the air currents. Squinting against the searing sun, Johan mused on these wastes. A dead land, thought the dictator, and another barrier to his conquest of Jamuraa, for ordinary mortals couldn't cross it, unless he found some way for men to fly like vultures.

Grinding his teeth, Johan chafed at delay. He needed no rest. Hundreds of years old, sustained by arcane magics, Johan seldom slept or ate, having transcended bodily needs. Looking at the helpless tiger, with no way of moving him, Johan pondered slitting Jedit's throat and ripping off his skin or carving his skull from his hide, so later he might commune with his essence. If the cat man couldn't serve Johan alive, he'd serve dead.

"Cat warriors. Tigerfolk." Johan talked to the still desert air, venting his spleen. "Why do the gods punish me with these half-man half-cat bastards? Why must I endure when they buzz around like horseflies, distracting my purposes and contributing nothing?"

Johan knew why, if indeed any man could correctly interpret the whims of the gods. Because of None, One, and Two. Too many times in his campaign of conquest had Johan stubbed his toes on this prophecy. "When None and One clash, only Two shall remain to usher in a new age." The tigress shaman had unknowingly added a snippet to Johan's tiny understanding. Piffle, he thought, but he feared it rang true. He'd heard this ancient wisdom or curse before. It was as common as moonlight, spilling from Citanul Druids, from desert nomads, from Palmyran spies, from advisors, from tortured prisoners, from a dying cat man. Whispers from the past swirled around Johan and ensnared his schemes like spider webs. He had to grasp the prophecy's import like a handful of nettles. He had no choice.

Yet who was None? What was One? Which Two would survive and prosper? At first, Johan had taken the prophecy literally. None could be anything. One might be Tirras, his homeland, or himself. Two remaining might be his homeland and his empire ushering in a new age, the dynasty of Johan the First. Or None could be a cat man, a two-in-one creature, neither one race nor another. Yet half a tiger and half a man might make One. None, if they were freaks of nature not part of any grand scheme, too far outside humanity to affect its history. Yet shouldn't Johan be One, triumphant, inviolate?

"The eternal problem of prophecy," growled Johan. "What does it mean, and how do I bend it to my will?"

Who knew? Maybe None was this accursed desert, a not-land for no living thing. One cat man had clashed with it and collapsed. Predictably. Tigers were like humans in the desert. A jungle suited only if they could bathe in water during the sun's peak. This young idiot had lost his first battle. Johan should spike his spine and feed the vultures.

Yet even an emperor had to accept what the gods dished out, and they'd dumped this tiger in his lap. Somehow tigers were his personal demons. He must conquer them to conquer Jamuraa, or so he guessed. Johan damned the gods and himself and his own superstition. He would obey, for now, and someday push the very gods off their celestial thrones.

"Get up!" snarled the mage.

Jedit gasped.

"Get up, or I'll leave you for wurms!"

So far they'd seen no wurms. Jedit had guessed they simply walked softly and stretched their luck. Johan knew better. A magical combination of shielding aura and a deluding glyph that displaced their trail four feet in the air let them safely plod across the endless sands.

We should have brought water, thought Johan, and robes against the sun. Now, after six days with only a sip of water from a rain puddle, Jedit had crumpled like an empty water-skin. Johan admired his stamina and wondered how his father Jaeger had crossed the desert without sorcery.

Fascinated by the question, Johan cast about the pebbly dunes. Eventually he'd need some way for his army to cross the desert. Legends spoke of mages who could shift themselves and any load across myriad planes and mystic realms, but Johan had not yet attained such a lofty level, nor had any mage in Jamuraa, to his knowledge. Right now, he just needed a way to get this half-cooked cat out of the desert.

For hours Johan searched in man-killing heat for a way out. He still wore his traveling disguise, appearing a bony, bald, tanned man in a brown robe. Once he'd adopted a disguise, it was easier to keep it rather than drop it momentarily and risk detection. In the shade of a curling dune like an ocean wave he found what he was looking for-a patch of sand smooth as if broomed. Gingerly Johan approached. A dozen feet away, he ran and jumped square on the patch.

Sand geysered in a cloud as the living patch rebelled. Wings curled at two corners as the creature fought to rise, but Johan pinned it to the ground with a spell. Helpless, the desert beast flailed and flopped but went nowhere, kicking off its sand covering. Cousins to manta rays of southern seas, desert rays not only skimmed the sands but could instantly burrow underneath, either to rest or to await prey. Big as a collapsed tent, the ray was a mottled tan that, even as Johan watched, changed hue to a dark rust-red. Perhaps the color startled predators.

No matter. Johan was master. He crept to the ray's head. Like a toad, its eyes could retract into the head or else bulge to see a complete circle. Some of Johan's cavalrymen and nomads had tamed and harnessed big rays, but the mage had never examined one. Given time, he would dissect one and wrench out its desert-dwelling secrets.

Wary of the mouth with tiny sharp teeth, Johan dug a long-nailed thumb into the ray's eye socket and hopped off. Goaded by pain, the ray flapped and flopped while towed across the burning sands. Johan hoped the tiger-man hadn't been plucked clean by vultures.

In a short while Johan had settled Jedit Ojanen facedown atop the captured ray. Johan sat astride the tiger's back to balance their weight and, borrowing Jedit's bronze dagger, pricked the ray's flesh. Instantly the creature hopped into the air. Another jab made it bank right, north-northwest. The ride was jerky, as much up and down as forward, but they soon attained a steady gait like a horse's canter. They'd cover miles in no time, Johan was sure.

Always curious, the mage wondered why the rays weren't consumed by sand wurms. He could only conclude they were too tough and unappetizing. He must experiment. Desert-ray blood smeared on chariot wheels might keep sand wurms at bay. Horse hooves might be wrapped in green ray hide.

A croak sounded above the creak of leather wings.

"You… saved my… life," Jedit gasped with eyes shut.

"Yes," said Johan. "It becomes a habit, our rescuing one another. We share a bond. Now, rest. We've much to do when we reach my homeland."

"Home…" whispered Jedit and sank into oblivion.

Jedit Ojanen splashed into water that closed over his head and threatened to drown him.

Floundering, clawing for air, the weakened tiger felt his head grabbed and tugged into the air. Snorting, the cat man caught a stone lip with his claws, then leaned back and soaked in delicious blissful coolness.

"Don't drown." Johan walked off to talk to some dun-robed herdsmen.

Recalled to life, Jedit slurped gallons and let his parched body soak. His watering trough had been laboriously carved from a single piece of dark gray stone. The well was the centerpiece of a low valley between shale outcroppings. The ground was littered with shale flakes like autumn leaves. Jittery sheep huddled under the protection of a boy shepherd. No doubt the flock was terrified by the scent of a giant cat and bleeding desert ray. Johan turned as nomads pointed northwest. The natives wore double folds of robes, for in early autumn the nights froze solid.

"We… we crossed the desert!" Amazed to have survived, Jedit clambered from the trough. His clumped fur streamed water.

Johan grunted. "Palmyra is another eight days' walk. There are wells along the way, say the erg dwellers."

"Fine." Jedit tossed his head and whiskers, whipping water on Johan's robe. "I can walk to the moons if I have water, but can we buy a sheep? It's been six or seven days since I ate."

Rolling dark eyes, Johan dug in his pockets for a worn coin. After some ritual haggling, the nomads dragged out a balky ram with horns so curled they obscured its eyes. Jedit thanked the shepherds, raised a paw big as an axe, and slashed. One swipe severed the ram's head. Jedit lifted the carcass by its back legs to drink blood spurting from the gory neck. Nomads skittered away like a flock of starlings. Johan started walking. Northwest.

For days the odd couple trekked from well to well. They slept under the stars, awaking under frost thick as blankets. Jedit subsisted on jerboas, a big-eared fox, a dead vulture, a hyena, a covey of hedgehogs, dead sheep, snakes, and any other creature that crossed his path. Johan ate nothing but cactus pulp and water.

Once, topping a rise, Jedit saw long furrows of dark sand. Something had stirred the ground from below. Curious as ever about this new world, he asked, "Is there danger of sand wurms?"

"There may be." Johan walked steady and unhurried. "The wurms never ventured this far east before, for they can't burrow easily through the pebble desert. But in past months a titanic sandstorm smothered the region and gave the wurms new inlets. The wind blows, as always, so sand sifts back east and south, but some stretches linger. As must some wurms."

Once before dusk, as their shadows stretched like skinny giants, Johan mounted a pebbly hill with a short stone tower, obviously a lookout post, now deserted. At the summit, setting sun glared in their eyes. Johan nodded at distant cubes on a knoll. Silver winked and flashed as the sun dropped.

"Palmyra." Johan ground his teeth.

"Palmyra?" asked Jedit. "Ah, the village waystation! Didn't they oppose the army of your lord, Lance Truthseeker? And my father?"

"That's correct," lied Johan. "A city of degenerates, thieves, and traitors. But we must swim amid the sewage, for I need supplies."

"Supplies?" Jedit glanced at the bony mage who for weeks had subsisted in the desert with no more equipment than a tortoise.

"And other things," hedged Johan. "Come."

Jedit Ojanen tripped along, eager as a cub after weeks of boring desert. Even in an enemy city, he might learn about his father.

So dusk claimed the desert, and stars came to life while the odd couple marched on, over the cooling sands.

"Stand still. I must disguise you."

"Why?" asked Jedit.

The towering tiger and the bony mage stood in darkness behind rambling stone corrals on the outskirts of Palmyra. Midnight was past.

"How would townspeople react if a tiger strode into their midst?" Johan worked as he talked, pacing around the cat man and sketching in the air.

"Oh, yes. I forgot my father would have been a celebrity, always in the forefront of the battle against Palmyra. None of those goatherds feared me. Will you adopt a disguise?"

"My face is unremarkable." Johan didn't explain he already wore a guise and had for months. "Now hush."

Shapeshifting and transmutation were out of the question, for such drastic spells would warp the tiger's body cruelly and cause immense pain. Picturing what he wished to project, Johan laid bony hands on the tiger's tufted mane. Running his hands out and down, over rounded ears, then whiskers, then the thick neck and down the soft pelt, Johan chanted softly under his breath, "Dru-in-bolik, dru-in-va-te. Dru-in-bolik…"

Taking care to stroke every inch, Johan finished between the tiger's furry toes, making the cat dance from tickling. Carefully, as if poising an egg on end, Johan drew away his fingers.

He almost smiled.

Standing before him was not a tiger but a hulking barbarian from Jamuraa's far north. Ugly as a broken rock was the creature, but Johan was pleased. The clever disguise mimicked the tiger's natural height and weight, those hardest features to mask, leaving only skin to be cloaked. Barbarians even bore broad noses and short tusks that matched the tiger's snub muzzle and fangs. Standing under starlight, Jedit loomed like a suntanned giant of a man with red-blonde haystack hair and long dangling arms roped with muscle. Johan had even tricked the skimpy goathide loincloth to mimic a leather vest and kilt, though they were stretched tight over the massive frame.

"Twill do."

Bemused, Jedit held up his hands, staring with the dull eyes of a barbarian at human skin and fingernails. "It's foul ugly. How long must I wear this sham?"

Johan frowned. The voice was still a tiger's, a droning purr in a queer antique accent. "Don't talk. The spell will cling until I disenchant you. It shan't be for long. Now come."

Yet the new man's first step made Johan curse under his breath. Jedit's natural tread was the lithe loping glide of a tiger, not the brutish stumping of a barbarian. Still, night should cloak the flaw, and the tiger was just a tool to be used and discarded anyway. Though Johan was plagued by superstition, he nonetheless possessed the keen mind of a general who always planned conquests at two levels. Thus, while Johan hatched long-range plans with a thousand tiny components, he could still diverge from a plan to snap up promising opportunities that popped up.

He muttered, "He who thinks both longest and quickest prospers first and last."

"Eh?" The barbarian turned beady dark eyes on the mage.

"Nothing. Don't talk."

Leaving desert and corrals behind, the pair took the dusty road that led to twin watchtowers and the city wall of Palmyra.

For four centuries since the Ice Age glaciers vanished overnight, Palmyra had occupied an oxbow bend in the River Toloron. Originally tiny, the village clung to a shelf of bedrock the river could not erode so instead partly circled. The hostile Sukurvia resented permanent dwellings, but Palmyra stuck because the river protected and nourished it. It was the only real town within the vast desert. Far to the north, where the river rushed from the mountains, crouched a craggy city like a condor. Tirras was the dark heart of rich and fertile northlands where wealth and populace had exploded of late. Its iron-fisted ruler was Johan, Tyrant of Tirras and Emperor of the Northern Realms. Far to the south, where the river lost itself in the Sea of Serenity, sat the seaport Bryce. The River Toloron spanned the desert and linked the two cities, and it was down this river that Johan had launched his invasion of the southlands.

His invasion foundered on the rock called Palmyra. Adira Strongheart, erstwhile mayor of Palmyra and leader of the cutthroat Robaran Mercenaries, called Palmyra home and defended it tooth and nail. To Palmyra's defense had come an alliance of southern city-states led by the governor of Bryce, Hazezon Tamar. Johan's invasion ran square into a new-built dam blocking the river, then a newly fortified village, then a nimble and unflagging patchwork army, and finally hearty doses of magic. The river itself had been magically spirited away by merfolk. Weeks of thirsty fighting ground Johan's forces down. Finally had come phalanxes of ensorcelled sandmen and a withering sandstorm that smothered the invading army. Only remnants had escaped to crawl back to Tirras.

Thus Johan's face was slashed by a frown deep as a knife wound as he padded into Palmyra with a hulking barbarian alongside. Everything in Palmyra seemed calculated to gall the would-be conqueror. Palmyra's town wall was again strong, showing no traces of the Tirran siege. The twin towers were manned by militia soldiers with spears and horns ready to sound an alert. Guards demanded the strangers state their business, but Johan's powers of persuasion got them past. The town had never been much more than adobe huts, dusty wells, and a few scraggly trees, but the citizens had taken new pride in digging out from under the fabulous sandstorm six months past. Though some cellar holes were still choked with sand, many flat-roofed houses were freshly painted. Wells were dredged and dressed with stone, for suffering without water for weeks had reminded townsfolk of the precious commodity's worth.

Sleeping away the afternoon heat, Palmyra came awake at night. The swirling populace sang and laughed and called to friends. The town felt festive, the air still sweet with victory. A chain of giggling girls danced and wove through columns framing one street. A man played a flute, and his dog yipped along. Two women shared gossip and grapes leaning from the second stories of their homes. Young lovers cooed and kissed in shadows where starlight didn't fall.

Fuming, Johan strode along, the only busy man in the village, but time and again he had to catch Jedit's hand and tow him along. Wearing the barbarian mask, the tiger-man gawked at every sight and smell as they mounted ancient steps cut in stone. Palmyrans seemed as varied as birds in the jungle. As they reached the highest point, the town square where people drifted, the visitors saw dark-bearded nomads, gaudy pirates, soldiers from Yerkoy and Enez, plump Brycer merchants, lean desert elves like knives in black robes, Keepers of the Faith, red-rouged prostitutes, elephant handlers, Aisling leprechauns, and doughty dwarves clutching foaming tankards. Mixed in, Johan noted coldly, were many north-blood Tirrans, likely deserters from his shattered army.

The strangers slowed as the crowd piled up. Johan jerked to a halt, hooked like a trout by a hated name.

"Adira said this lad could join us?" bawled a lusty voice in mock horror. "What's the Circle of Seven sunk to that we need a beardless youth to keep us hale and hearty?"

"I told you, Badger," corrected a woman primly. "Murdoch was a sergeant in Yerkoy. That's a rank of responsibility-"

"He's rank, I'll warrant," interrupted the rogue named Badger. "His fighting style stinks-Avast!"

The towering Jedit pushed forward to see, and the crowd parted like tall grass. Johan slipped behind to peek, seeing but not seen.

Sword practice in the cool of evening had become a spectacle for townsfolk. One side of the square was formed by the town hall, a long adobe building that served as headquarters for Adira Strongheart when not at sea. Adira's personal bodyguard were the infamous Circle of Seven, the quickest, most canny, and most loyal fighters, thieves, and pirates culled from her three hundred-odd Robaran Mercenaries. Members of the Circle were popular and famous as the mayor herself, and their wild antics were often the talk of the tables. Tonight would add to their reputation.

Johan wished them all dead and rotten in their graves.

Inside a circle ringed by four torches on poles stood the older sailor named Badger for his white-striped hair and beard, and opposite him stood a new recruit to the Circle, a sturdy sergeant still in the green and gold tabard of Yerkoy. Watching were several of the Seven, especially Sister Wilemina in blonde braids and blue cowl, a Calerian archer, skinny but with arms like rawhide. Johan hissed, for her arrow had once nicked his ear.

Sister Wilemina chirped, "You must give Murdoch a chance! Please, Badger! It's only fair!"

"Fair's a funny word from a pirate, pretty thing." Playing to the crowd, Badger made them laugh. "Even a fair wind's nothing to bank on. Come on, Murdoch, pick up that pigsticker! A cask of Brycer stout goes to the winner, and it's thirsty work watching you fall down!"

Though Murdoch was in his prime, barely past twenty and sturdy as an ox, and Badger's best days had ended three decades back, it was the older man who skipped and dodged while the younger man charged like a blind bull, panting with his tongue out. Murdoch lugged a spear with a wicked barbed head. Badger had only a small round shield and a cutlass. The sergeant should have stabbed the sailor a dozen times, but Badger was only dusty while Murdoch was bloody.

Sucking wind, Murdoch lowered the spear and rushed. The old pirate seemed to stumble, and the crowd gasped, then Badger kicked backward with one foot. Suddenly he was side-on as Murdoch blundered past too fast to stop. Badger could have split his spine with the cutlass but settled for spanking the sergeant's bum. The crowd roared. Still game, Murdoch dropped the spear point to dig in dirt and whirl half-round. He whipped the spear butt back to ram Badger's gut. The pirate was gone. Gasping, Murdoch snapped his head to one side — and slammed his face flat into Badger's upright shield.

Stunned, Murdoch grabbed his aching forehead. Grinning, Badger blew a mighty puff and, with one finger, shoved the sergeant over. Murdoch raised dust when he flopped, and the crowd cheered with delight as he was dragged from the circle.

"Pitiful." Badger shook his salt-and-pepper head in mock sorrow. "If Johan fetches down another army, we'd best arm the children and our spryer dames. What say you, citizens of Palmyrans? Could our eldest crones send an army of Tirrans fleeing in terror with naught but brooms?"

"Aye!" laughed a hundred. "We'll spit Johan's head on a pike yet!"

Behind Jedit Ojanen, the disguised emperor's eyes flashed so bright he expected sparks to set fire to the tiger's fur.

"Badger, you spout wind like a split spinnaker!" called a voice. It was Simone the Siren, a buxom black woman lounging against the wall, another Sevener. "If you're done dancing with dainty Murdoch, 'haps you'd care to fight Wilemina! I've a double-eagle crown from Kalin says she dumps you!"

"Yes, yes!" shouted the crowd. "Fight! Fight!"

Always ready to show off, Badger laughed agreement. Sister Wilemina shook her twin braids but consented. Accepting an oblong shield, she drew a leaf-blade archer's sword and saluted.

People cheered and hooted and hissed in good fun as the fighters circled. Simone accepted a quick bet from a grizzled man with an unshaven jaw.

Badger and Wilemina scuffed, skipped, tagged shields, clashed cutlass and sword, all while pacing a circle like two gamecocks.

Badger, puffing now, finally waved his blade and asked, "Here, daughter, did you come to dance or-"

Quick as a cobra, Sister Wilemina threw her sword. Not at the man, but straight down between his feet. The blade bit dirt and vibrated, and Badger's eyes flew wide.

The oldest trick in the book. As the pirate was distracted, the archer coiled an arm like an oak branch. Her knotty fist slammed Badger's broad brisket and nearly dented his spine. He lost all his wind in a tremendous "Oooof!" Sister Wilemina ducked and snagged his ankle. Badger flipped over backward and banged dirt so hard his belt buckle broke.

"That'll teach you to bash a friend of mine!" snapped Sister Wilemina. No one heard for the cheering.

"Come," ordered Johan and towed the disguised tiger away. The emperor's revenge couldn't start soon enough.

Crossing the small town, the odd duo descended worn steps cut into stone to finally stand where the town's west wall overlooked the docks. Johan gazed at the silver-gleaming water, which rippled a mere thirty feet across.

Jedit murmured, "Quite a river for so parched a place."

"This puddle? Barely enough water to let a man spit."

Johan stroked his pointed chin and glared as if the river were also his enemy. As expected, the River Toloron had returned. The mighty river rolled from the watershed of the northern mountains, so it couldn't be extinguished. Flushing along its old bed, scouring away smothering sand grain by grain, the Toloron glittered in the light of a crescent moon as it again snaked around the bedrock supporting the village. The narrow channel would swell as spring snowmelt rushed down, but for now, Palmyra's docks stood high and dry fifty feet shy of the water. It might be years before the river was navigable by barges again, thought Johan. He had an army to move-or would have soon.

Turning his back on the traitorous river, Johan gazed at Palmyra under starlight, his ears aching at gay laughter. Venom dripped in his voice.

"You'd think an invasion never occurred. What are you doing?"

Still cloaked as a barbarian, Jedit descended the town wall and walked to the river's edge. He knelt and lapped water like a house cat stealing cream. Johan jerked as a pair of lovers laughed at the country bumpkin.

"Wait!" Johan's bark made the lovers freeze. "You two! Tell me! Is Adira Strongheart in town? And what of Hazezon Tamar? Where stands he?"

"Sir?" The girl's eyes were large and dark in dim starlight. "Uh, yes, sir. Adira still limps from a broken leg, but she surveys the rebuilding from a sedan chair. Lord Hazezon Tamar visits her. To advise, they say." She giggled the last, for Hazezon and Adira were ex-spouses, the two most notorious on-off lovers in all the Sukurvia.

"Hazezon too…" mused Johan. "Very good. You may go."

Bemused, but not daring to tease the ragged madman, the couple sidled away into shadows.

"Yes. Oh, yes! We'll strike a treble blow and sink the windswept ship of Palmyra forever!"

"We'll what?" Silently on masked cat feet, the towering Jedit startled Johan.

"Never mind," snapped the mage. "We must see someone who lives here. Someone who knows things worth knowing."