Aurian

28 Escape from Taibeth

As the afternoon progressed, the courtyard of Harihn’s palace turned into a scene of utter chaos. The entire household was mobilizing, ready for departure. Barrels and waterskins were hauled up from cellars and outbuildings and trundled down to the river to be filled, for the Prince would need them in crossing the desert. Light silken tents were rolled around their poles and stacked in a corner, ready to be loaded onto the mules that had been picketed in a long line down one side of the courtyard. Food for traveling was being prepared, along with fodder for the horses and pack animals. Soldiers of the Prince’s guard milled about the yard with their horses, adding to the general confusion.

Harihn had freed his slaves in accordance with Aurian’s edict. Some would be staying behind to search for long-lost friends and families, but many had chosen to follow their Prince into exile. He was moved by their loyalty, but the organization involved in crossing the desert with so many folk was a nightmare. The Khisal was constantly on the move, trying to be everywhere at once. All around, farewells were being said, freed slaves were celebrating, and people were sorting possessions, trying to make impossible choices, for everyone must travel light. A horse broke loose, panicked by the noise and confusion, and plunged across the courtyard, scattering people and goods alike.

Anvar, entering the courtyard, covered his ears against the din. This is ridiculous! he thought. To his annoyance, the Prince had summoned Aurian from her chambers, cutting short her much-needed rest, to help sort things out. She was talking to Harihn now, and he could hear her straining to be heard above the general racket. “Start ferrying the soldiers and horses across the river, and get them assembled on the other side. That will clear a space, at least. Then we’ll get the rest sorted out.” Harihn nodded gratefully and went off to speak to the captain of his guard. It took a while to get the fivescore troopers moving down to the river, but Aurian was right—it did clear a space. After that it was fasier to apportion tasks. The courtyard was cleared of those who would not be joining the exodus, and the mules were loaded and sent, one by one, down to the ferry. Now that it was easier to count heads, Harihn looked worried. Anvar strolled across with Bohan, to hear him talking again to the Mage.

“There are some three dozen folk coming with us from my household, and horses must be provided for them,” the Prince said. “With animals needed to carry the extra food and water, that leaves us few spare mounts, and a very small margin of safety. We must get through the desert before the food and water run out, yet we dare not push too hard and risk losing horses.”

“Is there no water in the desert at all?” Aurian asked.

“There are twelve oases, and we will need them all,” Harihn replied. “It is a journey of many days, even if we keep to the shortest route. We could not hope to carry enough water to last us right to the other side.”

Anvar approached them, shadowed by Bohan. His iron collar had been cut away and he walked taller now that it had gone, though its weight had been nothing compared with the heaviness that lay on his heart. The Prince turned to him. “And how does it feel to be free?” he asked.

Anvar heard the gibe in his voice, and knew that Harihn was deliberately taunting him with the reminder of his previous, lowly station. He looked at him coldly. “I find the change very welcome,” he said shortly, deliberately omitting Harihn’s title.

“Indeed, many things have changed in a short time,” Harihn replied smoothly, but Anvar was gratified to see his mocking smile replaced by a scowl. “In one day, you have ceased to be a slave, and I have ceased to be a prince. She is a great leveler of men, your Lady.”

“At least she won’t be forced to be your concubine now,”

Anvar snapped.

Harihn rounded on him, his face dark with rage. “How dare you speak to me like that! Guards! Take this churl and have him flogged!”

“No!” Aurian intervened quickly. “He meant no disrespect, Your Highness. I’m sure he’ll apologize.” She glared warningly at Anvar. Their eyes locked in a clash of wills, but Anvar discovered a new, unexpected stubbornness within himself. His mouth tightened in unconscious refusal. Aurian turned her head slightly, out of the Prince’s line of vision, and mouthed “Please?” She looked tired and upset, and he was suddenly ashamed, knowing that the last thing she needed today was more trouble. Anvar sighed. “I’m sorry, Your Highness,” he muttered.

“There, that’s settled,” Aurian said hurriedly. By the look on Harihn’s face, it was anything but settled, but luckily they were interrupted by Yazour, who was escorting two people. The Mage’s face lit up with joy, as she ran to hug them. “Eliizar! Nereni!”

“Your Highness, these people have asked to see the sor— the Lady Aurian,” the captain reported.

“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” the Prince asked Eliizar, who bowed low.

“I am—was—Swordmaster of the Arena, Your Highness,” Eliizar said. “Now the Khisu has ordered the Arena closed, and the city is filled with rumor and unrest. We heard that Aur— that the Lady Aurian is traveling north with you. Once she offered to take us with her, so we have come to pledge ourselves to her, if she still wants us.”

“Of course I do! My dear friends, I’m so pleased to see you again! We can manage two more, surely, Harihn?” Aurian pleaded.

The Prince scowled. “You seem to be gathering a loyal entourage of your own, Lady. First my eunuch and that dangerous animal, then your mannerless husband, and now the Swordmaster of the Arena. If you remain here much longer, you may end up as Khisihn yourself!”

“I’m not remaining here, and neither are you,” Aurian retorted sharply, “and you should be glad of an extra sword, Harihn. We’re glad to have you, Eliizar, Nereni. I have not forgotten your kindness.”

“I have something for you,” Eliizar said. He handed over her precious staff, which had been left behind at the Arena, and forgotten during her illness and her subsequent worry over Anvar.

“By all the Gods!” Aurian exclaimed. “I really am grateful to have this back, Eliizar^

The Swordmaster looked at Anvar. “I see you got your husband back, too,” he said.

Nereni’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “He’s far too precious to her to be a mere husband!” She turned to Anvar. “You are a fortunate man. Do you know, she fretted herself sick about you all the time she was at the Arena? How glad I am that she found you again.”

Anvar was dumbstruck. Aurian had told these people that he was her husband, too? She had actually been that worried about him? He realized what it must have cost her, with Forral so recently dead. “I’m glad she found me, too,” Anvar said firmly, trying, without success, to catch the Mage’s eye. “And I agree with you—I am a very fortunate man.”

“It is time we were leaving,” Harihn said tightly. As he walked stiffly away, Anvar took hold of Aurian’s resisting elbow and drew her into an embrasure in the courtyard wall that overlooked the stunning view of the river, the city, and the dramatic cliffs opposite,

Aurian, scarlet with embarrassment, looked as though she wished the ground would swallow her up. “Anvar, I’m sorry,” she said hastily, looking anywhere but at him.

“No need. Lady, I’m grateful—and very honored.” She looked at him sharply. “Then you understand?” “Lady Aurian, the Khisal says that we must leave now. He seems rather annoyed.” Eliizar bowed his head in apology for interrupting them.

“All right,” Aurian sighed. “Bohan has horses for us Anvar wished he could have had a little more time alone with her, but there was no help for it, not now.

The Prince’s party were the last to be ferried across the river to join the soldiers and other members of his household. It looked like—as indeed it was—a small army, with Harihn s soldiers formed up around his retainers and the baggage-train of mules, whose burden consisted mostly of water. Of necessity, they would eat light during the desert crossing. Yazour, a veteran of desert travel, rode forward, acknowledging Aurian with a smile as he addressed his Prince. “Your Highness, we must go L now, while daylight remains. The cliff road is perilous in the 1 dark.”

They rode up from the river crossing, past the scattering of white houses that edged the city of Taibeth. There was no one else in sight. All the inhabitants, hearing the incredible rumors that were spreading like wildfire, had gone into the city itself to find out what was happening. The land swelled in a gentle rise up from the river. At the top the road divided, the right-hand fork leading to the capital, the left climbing gradually upward toward the looming cliffs. Soon the houses thinned; the deserted fields between them were tinged with red as the sun sank. Yazour looked worried. Time was pressing.

When Aurian got her first glimpse of the cliff road, she gasped with dismay. Looking hardly wide enough even for one rider, it snaked perilously back and forth, literally carved into the soaring curtains of red stone. It was so steep that it had been cut in a series of shallow steps. In some places it actually seemed to hang out over the dizzying drop, while in others it vanished into the cliff, tunneling through the striated columns of rock and emerging from the other side. Yazour had sent up the first contingent of soldiers, and already they looked like crawling ants against the vastness of this giant work of nature. The captain rode up to Harihn. “If you will lead the way, Highness . . .” “No,”

Yazour frowned, “But you must go up now, Sire, while there is still some measure of daylight, If the Khisu should—” “Yazour, there are women and children here. Should I go ahead in safety, leaving them to pick’their way in darkness? These are my people. Get them up first, and this lady. The Khisu will not try anything, if he knows what’s good for him.” He glanced at Aurian.

“But Highness—” the captain protested. “Obey my orders, Yazour, Now!”

Yazour rode off, dismay written all over his face. Since he had fallen in with the sorceress, the Prince had grown ever more rash. Had she enchanted him? But that was nonsense. In the brief time they had fought together he had discovered respect for her. In fact, Yazour admitted, he liked her. It was simply that at long last, Harihn was acting like a prince and a man. It would take some getting used to.

Aurian drew hep~horse close to Harihn’s black mount,

“Well said, Highness—with one exception. I’m going to wait with you.”

“But Lady—”

“Don’t argue, Harihn.” She looked up once more at the precipitous road, her hands clammy on the reins of the bay horse that Harihn had given her. The thought of climbing all the way up there made her feel physically ill. “When I go up there, the last thing I want to see is that bloody drop. In fact, I’m not sure I can do it at all . . .” She made a wry face at her own irrational fear.

“Aurian!” the Prince protested.

“It’ll be all right.” The quiet, familiar voice at her shoulder was full of understanding. “At least that’s what you told me,” Anvar went on. “Remember the beach?”

Aurian remembered Anvar’s swimming lesson, and his terror of the water. And her so angry with him that she could have cheerfully drowned him on the spot.

“If I could do that, then you can do this,” he assured her, “I’ll be close, if you need me.”

Aurian’s turn to begin the ascent came all too soon, it seemed to her, although while they waited the sun had gone down and the valley bottom was shrouded in deep purple shadow, and the red rocks of the clifftop glowed crimson with sunset light. They dismounted at the bottom of the narrow track and Yazour handed each of them a torch to light their way. The Mage took her flaming brand reluctantly. “One hand for the torch and one to fead the horse,” she moaned. “What on earth am I going to hold on with?”

“The path is wider than it looks, my Lady,” Yazour told her. “Stay away from the edge and all will be well.”

Aurian gave him a sour look. “Fine,” she said faintly.

“Don’t worry, Lady,” Anvar said. “Look—I’ll go first, and you can follow me. Just don’t look down, and you’ll be all right,”

Biting her lip, Aurian began her ascent. The path was fairly smooth and the torches brought the dusk down around them so that the bottom of the abyss was lost in darkness. Nonetheless, she kept her eyes resolutely averted from the drop, fixing them on the ground at her feet and trying not to think of the plunge into empty air that waited just to her left. The real difficulty lay in turning the sharp corners where the path zigzagged. Suddenly the hindquarters of Anvar’s horse vanished from sight around the bend, and there was nothing ahead of her but the vast, dark gulf below. One slip going round there . . . She stepped back, reeling, pressing her back against the comforting solidity of the cliff face, unable to move. Her horse, impatient to follow its vanished companion, nudged her with its nose, pushing her nearer to the brink and almost making her drop the torch. “Stop that!” Aurian, shaking with shock, her heart in her mouth, smacked him hard on the nose, and the animal backed up a step, his eyes wide with astonishment,

“What’s happening up there? Why the delay?” Harihn’s voice came from farther down the path.

Aurian took a deep, steadying breath. “Don’t be feeble,” she scolded herself. “If Anvar could overcome his fear of water, surely you can manage this!” For certain, no one could come to her aid. The path was blocked in front and behind with horses. “It’s all right,” she called back, wishing it really was. Keeping her back pressed firmly against the rock, she sidled, step by shuffling step, around the corner, followed at a respectful distance by the chastened horse. Once she was around, and the solid, sloping path was before her once more, Aurian could have collapsed with relief, but there was still a long climb ahead, and she was holding up progress. Her dry mouth set in a grim line, e lifted her torch and trudged on.

It was a grueling climb. All in all, there were nine of the terrifying bends to negotiate, before they reached the top, and the higher they climbed, the more tired and balky the horses became. Aurian’s back and legs began to ache until every step was torture and she was gasping for breath. The drop switched from her left side to her right, then back again as the trail twisted back and forth, and the only time she gained a brief respite from her fear was when the road plunged into the cliff, creating blessed, solid walls on either side. Twice during the ascent she heard a bloodcurdling scream from above, and men and horses plummeted past her, dangerously close. The dull, wet sound of their eventual impacts left her sick and shaking,

“Aurian! Are you all right?”

The Mage looked dazedly around. There was level ground in front and on either jide of her—she had reached the top!

Gently, Anvar pried her fingers away from the torch and the horse’s reins and handed both to Bohan. Then putting an arm around her shoulders, he led her away from the edge. In the shadow of the rocks that lined the clifftop trail she clung to him, flinging her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder. He held her until her breathing steadied and her trembling eased.

“There,” Anvar said softly, his breath tickling her ear, “I told you you could do it.”

Aurian raised her head to look at him, and made a face.

Harihn stood at the brink of the cliff, looking down for the last time at the land he would have ruled. They were celebrating in the city. Fireworks were arcing into the air on comet-tails of silver sparks, to blossom with a bang into giant flowers of red, gold, and green in the night sky. Their light was echoed on the ground by the flames from the burning slave markets.

“Regrets, Prince?” Aurian had come quietly up behind him, Anvar a shadow at her heels. “If you want to return, I’m sure the people would welcome you.”

He shook his head. “I have no stomach for a revolution. Besides, that place holds evil memories for me. My way lies onward now. Xiang will get himself a new heir, no doubt.” “Not with this queen, he won’t.” Harihn turned abruptly to face Anvar, “What do you mean?”

Anvar’s eyes smoldered. “I mean, Highness, that Sara—the Khisihn—is barren. She lied to your father as she lied to me. As things stand, you’re still the only royal heir. You can go back one day—if you wish.”

Harihn’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?” J

“Absolutely certain, Your Highness.”

“Aurian, did you know of this?”

The Mage shook her head, equally stunned by Anvar’s news.

The Prince threw back his head and roared with laughter “Balls of the Reaper!” he exclaimed in malicious delight, i “What a joke on my father! I wish I could be there when he finds out!”

Anvar’s thoughts had obviously been moving along the «imr lines. He looked sick, and Aurian finally understood the significance of his rejection of Sara. When Xiang found out that she was barren, she would be worthless to him—and her life might well be in danger. Anvar, though he had seen through her at last, felt guilty at leaving her to her fate. But does he still love her? Aurian wondered. Then she wondered why the idea bothered her so much.

The Prince’s caravan reassembled itself for the long trek ahead, and they set off once more. The track twisted and turned between tall rock formations that had been eroded into weird, contorted sculptures, like a frozen forest of stone. Holes of varying sizes had been worn right through some of them, and the light wind whistled and hooted eerily through these like the wailing of tortured souls, making the horses flinch and toss their heads uneasily.

After about an hour, the track appeared to end abruptly, simply dropping off into space between two tall stones, beyond which was a steep, boulder-littered slope that seemed to glitter strangely in the light of the rising moon. Below, the desert spread out. Aurian, riding at the head of the column with Harihn, Yazour, and Anvar, caught her breath in sheer disbelief. “Great Chathak!” she exclaimed in a strangled voice. “Is— is that what I think it is?”

In the waxing moonlight, the desert glowed. The wind drifted skeins of glittering sand in luminous streams of mixed and muted color: red, blue, white, and green. The dune ridges caught the light and sparkled piercingly like frost on a winter’s dawn. Even now, with the moon just rising, the Mage was forced to shade her eyes with her hand.

“Indeed it is,” Yazour replied to the question she had already forgotten. “The entire desert is composed of gems and gem dust. See how bright it is? That is why we must travel by night. In sunlight, the glare would burn out your eyes. We must camp well before daylight, for once the sun rises, everyone must be safely under cover.”

He showed Aurian and Anvar how to veil their eyes with the long trailing ends of the desert headdresses they all wore, pulling the gauzy veils across their faces and attaching them to the headband at the other side, Aurian found that she could see quite clearly through the thin stuff, but it cut out the already increasing glare. The eyes of the horses and mules were bound with scarves of the same material, but Shia refused to have anything to do with such nonsense. She was still sulking at having had to bring up the rear during the cliff ascent, lest she frighten the horses. “I don’t need that man-stuff,” she told Aurian disdainfully. “I’m a cat. My eyes adjust!”

They rode out into the glimmering sea of gems, looking like wandering ghosts in their pale, veiled headdresses and flowing desert robes. The horses’ feet flicked up clouds of fine gem dust, leaving behind them a trail that glittered like cold fire, and covering themselves and their riders with a cloak of scintillating light. What gems were these, that could hold such dazzling luminosity? Aurian felt a lump in her throat. Like the joyous beauty of the leaping whales, the eerie beauty of this place was almost heartbreaking in its intensity. But it was deadly as well as beautiful, she learned from Yazour. In the proper season, great sandstorms could blow up in minutes, and the sharp edges of the windblown gems would strip a man’s flesh from his bones just as quickly. Furthermore, the sea of jewels was said to attract dragons.

“Dragons!” Aurian gasped. “There are dragons here?”

“Only in legend,” Yazour replied. “They were reputed to dwell in the desert where they could easily sustain themselves. You know that they fed on sunlight?”

“What a tale!” Anvar scoffed. “I’ll believe it when I see it, Yazour.”

“Pray that you never get the chance,” the young man told him seriously. “Dragons aTfc said to be unsociable and chancy creatures, easily angered, and best left alone.”

They rode on through the night, too tired now to talk. Aurian was relieved when at last Yazour, casting an eye over the seemingly changeless horizon, advised that they should stop and camp. She was weary beyond belief. Was it only yesterday morning that she had found Anvar and brought him back from the clutches of death? So much had happened since then, and seemingly without a moment’s respite. When she dismounted from her horse, she felt her knees buckle beneath her, but thankfully there was nothing for her to do. Bohan was instantly at her side to relieve her of her mount, and Harihn’s soldiers pitched the light, silken tents with great speed and efficiency. Even the horses and mules were picketed in shelters of their own, for no living creature could stay outside during the hours of daylight.

In the bustle of setting up camp, Aurian lost track of her friends, except for Shia, who stuck to her like a shadow. Collecting their slender ration of food and water, she went in search of Anvar. She found him sitting alone in the doorway of a small tent, a waterskin by his side, his food lying untouched as he stared blindly out at the torchlit camp. His mouth was turned down at the corners, his brooding face lined with sorrow. Aurian was about to creep away, unsure about intruding, but he turned toward her, seeming once again to sense her presence. “You know,” he said, without looking at her, “you’ve never once said ’I told you so.’ ”

“I’d sooner cut my tongue out!” Aurian protested. “Why should I want to add to your pain?”

Anvar sighed. “No, you wouldn’t. You’re too bloody fair! You warned me about Sara, but instead of listening to you, I drove you away. And look what happened!”

“Anvar, I should never have left you. Me and my stupid temper! I’ll never forgive myself.”

“Then that makes two of us,” Anvar said grimly. “Why did I not see which of you could be trusted? I’ve done a lot of thinking, coming across the desert. Of how you defied Miathan for me at the Academy, and how kind you were when I was your servant. How you went out in the snow on Solstice morn to get me a guitar. And what did I do?” His voice rose in self-derision. “I said hurtful things to you-T-drove you away—because I was defending Sara. And what did you do then? You saved me from death in the slave camp. You claimed me as your husband, while she only wanted me dead so that she could be a queen! Gods, I’m such a fool, Aurian. A blind, wretched fool!” He was shaking with anguish.

Aurian put an arm around him, comforting him as he had comforted her on the clifftop. He leaned against her shoulder as she stroked his fine, tawny-blond hair. “You know what I would do if we were back in Nexis?” she said softly. “I’d take you round every tavern in the city and get you more drunk than you’ve ever been in your life. Forral always said that that’s the only medicine for a broken heart.”

The eastern horizon was beginning to lighten, and already the rising glare was enough to force them back into the tent. Aurian dropped the flap behind them, shutting out the dazzling light. Anvar grinned at her sheepishly. “When next we reach a city, I’ll take up your offer with pleasure—but I must confess that I’m not so much heartbroken as disappointed, humiliated, and plain bloody furious with myself for being so gullible!” His mouth twisted oddly. “I blame myself for letting you down . . .”

Aurian squeezed his hand. “Don’t punish yourself for that, Anvar—it’s all over now! Sara was your childhood sweetheart— you loved her! You didn’t know how much she had changed! Why don’t you get some sleep now? Maybe things won’t seem so bad once you’ve rested.”

He smiled ruefully. “Looking after me again, huh? I thought it was supposed to be the other way around.”

“Don’t worry, you do your share. Now go to sleep—or else!”

“Or else you’ll set that monster on me?” Anvar eyed Shia warily. She looked awfully big in the cramped confines of the tent.

“Don’t worry about Shia. She’s a good friend. She’ll look after us both.” Aurian stretched out a hand to stroke Shia’s sleek head, and was rewarded by drowsy purring. “I like him,” the cat said.

“Do you?” Aurian was surprised. Shia had never volunteered such information about anyone else, not even Bohan. “I like him, too,” the Magrxonfided.

She turned back to Anvar, who was curled on the cushions, asleep already. Through the glittering dust that coated his face, he looked drawn and vulnerable, weighed down with sorrow. On impulse, Aurian put out her hand and gently touched his sleeping face. And then, as it had done in the slave compound, her heart seemed to turn over within her—a pattern shifted and clicked suddenly into place. Aurian snatched her hand back as though she had been burned, aware, in that instant, that the surge—whatever it had been—was the same force that had unlocked the power of the bracelets. She sat very still for a moment, cradling her hand and waiting for her breathing to steady and her heart to stop trying to fight its way out of her breast. “Did you feel that?” she asked Shia experimentally.

“Feel what?” The cat’s thoughts were drowsy.

“Never mind.” Aurian tried to organize her shaky thoughts, but for some reason, the only thing that would come into her mind was the image of Forral’s face, tender and glowing as it had been on the day they had first made love. Grief and loneliness pierced her—a pain so acute that she gave a stifled cry. Confused and wretched, Aurian gave in to her tears for once, and cried herself to sleep.

Sometime during the long, bright day, Anvar tossed and moaned, in the grip of some nightmare. Then his seeking hand found that of the Mage, and in her sleep she clasped it tightly, and his restlessness stilled. And that was how Harihn found them at nightfall, lying close together, hand in hand. He looked at them for a long moment, frowning, until Shia opened a sleepy eye. The Prince ducked swiftly and silently away, dropping the flap of the tent behind him. Since the man had gone without any attempt at harming them, Shia forbore to mention his visit to Aurian.