Part 25 (2/2)

Oryn heard it very clearly: the creak of belt and boot leather, the sweet clink of sword hanger and buckle.

But no footstep had approached.

He opened his eyes, curious at the anomaly.

The outer flap of his tent was open in the vain hope of catching a breeze. Through the gauze inner curtain he saw the man clearly by the glow of the camp torches. It was Sergeant Zhenus. There was definitely no one and nothing in the darkness beyond.

Yet Zhenus looked around him, then back into the blackness of the tent. And then, to Oryn's indignant surprise, he simply walked away.

Now, see here! The king sat up, again cautiously, groped for the s.h.i.+rt he'd left across the foot of the bed. Enough is enough!

I should have had you whipped back in the nomad camp when you argued with me, my lad. My father always warned me: you let them argue with you over s.h.i.+ning bottles with curses on them one day, and by midnight that night they'll be running off and deserting you.

Pulling a dark cloak around him to cover the pale s.h.i.+rt, the king stepped to the tent door, soft footed and cautious as a cat. Looking out, he saw Sergeant Zhenus very definitely walking toward the edge of the camp.

And to the marrow of his bones he knew, the man was heading back to the nomad camp, where the iridescent bottle gleamed darkly in the blackness of the nomad tent. He knew because the image of it had returned to his own mind again and again through the sleepless hours.

Oryn pulled on boots, gathered up the dagger Bax insisted he carry with him at all times-one of these days I really MUST take the time to learn how to use it!-and followed his guard from the tent. Zhenus had disappeared into the darkness beyond the dim ambience of the fires and torches that dotted the camp, but Oryn had little trouble getting him in sight again. By the stars it was halfway between midnight and morning. Dear G.o.dS, where is Soth all this time? They shed a wan and tricky radiance in which it was nearly impossible to make out anything clearly. But Zhenus was making no effort at concealment. Nor, apparently, did he have any idea he was being followed as he headed east over the broken and uneven ground. He neither quickened his pace nor slowed it, nor made any attempt to seek the occasional cover of rocks or cactus clumps.

Merely followed the tracks of the horses, where they'd ridden to the nomad camp that afternoon.

Even Oryn, completely unversed in the lore of tracking, had no trouble following him. Yet to cross three miles of desert mounted, in full daylight, and surrounded by one's guards is a very different matter from walking those same three miles alone in the darkness. Jethan's account of teyn lying in wait all around the wizard Ahure's house returned to him, and his own fearful vision of those hairy hordes rising up out of the sagebrush near Three Wells village. Teyn attacking, moving in formation, directed by a single command.

The fact that that single command seemed to be far to the south, being trailed by the only academically trained Crafty woman in the known world, was a certain amount of comfort, but what if there was more than one nomad Raven sister? Shaldis had said, hadn't she, that the marks she'd found about the city had seemed inconsistent, as far as she could judge a magic that felt totally alien to her previous experience. Not to speak of the woman-another nomad, surely?-who called to her in her dreams.

Objects of accursed gla.s.s taken from Zali tombs, objects that seemed to have the effect of driving men mad.

A village and then a camp, both wiped out, their inhabitants either slaughtering one another or withering up-Dear G.o.ds!-into the horrible things he'd seen that afternoon. Maybe, in fact probably, none of the so-called mummies in Three Wells had come out of a tomb at all. All of them could easily have been inhabitants of the village.

But what had happened to them and to the an-Dhoki nomads of Sheikh Urah's family?

And why would nomad Crafties, with or without the services of ensorcelled teyn, want to steal objects so accursed?

Unless, of course, the nomads knew a way of using some magic that might still linger in those vessels of gla.s.s? Could that be true, with the spells of the ancient wizards turning to dust left and right? He'd heard it said that the nomads were descendants of the swarthy-skinned hunters who'd inhabited the forests west of the Great Lake and the Lake of the Sun during the time the Zali kings had reigned: had they preserved some tradition from those days that even the Sun Mages had forgotten? A tradition that let them handle such accursed objects without being sunk into a coma or driven mad?

Ahure evidently knew something, was seeking the same thing, either in concert with the still-hypothetical nomads or, likelier, in compet.i.tion.

Whichever the case, wondered Oryn, how powerful was the magic he or she or they could extract, if it existed at all?

How much trouble are we in?

And will my successor-Barun or Mohrvine or whoever decides to risk civil war by breaking with the rituals of sanctification-be able to harness that magic? Or is this going to be the final blow that will shatter the united strength of the realm and condemn everyone to death from starvation and thirst?

He stubbed his toe on a boulder, the scrunch of his feet in the sand like a drumroll to his own ears. Zhenus did not turn. Oryn debated going back, calling his guards, seeing if by some chance Soth or Raeshaldis had come into the camp. But a glance back over his shoulder at the cl.u.s.tered pinpoints of amber in the unearthly blueness chased the thought from his mind. He knew he didn't dare. If Zhenus took the bottle-and in his heart Oryn knew it was the bottle-and disappeared, where would they be then? Particularly if Shaldis's grandfather also vanished?

Three days. In three days this will all be beyond my ability to help or hurt, and one of those days spent just journeying back to the city- STOP IT! You're not dead yet.

At least the all-pervasive quality of starlight illuminated the nomad camp evenly, if faintly. The tents were visible, not hidden in pockets of shadow. Oryn slithered down the side of the wadi a hundred feet from where Zhenus descended, and only the sergeant's almost somnambulistic preoccupation with his own quest kept him from seeing that he was pursued. When Zhenus stopped, Oryn halted, too. The guard unhooked something from his belt, and a moment later a spot of yellow flared into the world of cobalt and black.

He had brought a lamp with him.

Therefore, he was planning to come here from before the time he went on duty.

Was the nomad Raven sister-or a nomad Raven sister-waiting for him in the darkness of the tent?

Oryn s.h.i.+fted the dagger in his hand and edged forward as the guard ducked into the low black entrance of the tent.

No sound. No outcry. Through the coa.r.s.e brown goat hair he could see the lamp moving and Zhenus's bulky shadow.

If I'm going to perform feats of physical derring-do like the heroes in all the best ballads, I really must acquire a sword and take some lessons in its use from Bax.

Oryn lifted the tent flap and looked in.

No crowd of teyn armed with sharpened bones.

No nomad Raven sister.

Only Zhenus, on his knees now and holding the iridescent bottle in both hands. He pressed it to his face, eyes closed, expression rapt. Rolled it against his cheek, his throat, his breast. His head dropped back; he began to sway, and from his throat came thin wailing, soft but growing stronger, exactly the same tune-if it was a tune-that the madman in the supply tent had been singing all day and all night.

Through half-clenched teeth, the same unknown words.

Oryn stepped into the tent, said, ”Zhenus!”

The sergeant turned, and his lip lifted clear of his teeth in a snarl like a beast's.

”Put it down.”

Saliva glistened as it tracked down Zhenus's chin. The singing did not stop, but the eyes that watched Oryn were watchful, ready, and quite mad.

”Can you hear me? Put it down. I order you-”

Zhenus lunged. Oryn thought the sergeant would simply try to thrust past him and flee into the darkness with his treasure, but he didn't. Clutching the bottle in one hand he drew his sword and flung himself on the king as if he were flinging himself into the line of battle, voice raised in a howling cry. Oryn ducked, tripped on the blankets on the floor, and went down. Zhenus stooped to kill him on the ground, and Oryn caught the leg of the table, slammed it into his attacker's s.h.i.+ns. Zhenus fell, letting go of his sword as he clutched the bottle to keep it from breaking.

Oryn s.n.a.t.c.hed up the weapon, and, when Zhenus sprang up and threw himself at him again, screaming, swung the little table at the man's head with all the force of his arm. Zhenus fell, dazed, and Oryn smote him again, and this time the sergeant lay still.

He's truly unconscious, thought Oryn, kneeling beside him. He's let go of the bottle.

He used the sword to nudge the smooth, rounded vessel clear of the sergeant's hand and into the light of the lamp, which for a wonder hadn't gone out.

Why Oryn did this he wasn't afterward sure.

Just to see it more clearly.

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