City Under the Sand

VI Preparing to Embark

Because literacy was frowned upon by the Shadow King and his legions of templar wives—and by most sorcerer-kings, or that’s what Aric had heard—punishable by enslavement, time in the city’s dungeons, or worse, when Aric wanted to read he had to go to great lengths to find reading material. Sometimes books or scrolls could be had from the elven market, but even there, they were kept under the tables, and one had to know at which stalls to ask about them. They were expensive and had to be handled with discretion, tucked away under a cloak or in a satchel before anyone could spot the contraband.

Aric had no experience with adventuring, and he didn’t know many who did. So to find out what to expect, he went to the elven market and made some discreet inquiries. From there he was directed to a merchant in the Hill District, which he typically thought of as a place one went to acquire lethal poisons, banned weapons, and other dangerous objects. He suspected that he was being set up for robbery or murder, so he wore his bone dagger close to his hand, visible to one and all, and he took Ruhm along.

Ruhm refused to enter the abandoned building in which Aric had been told reading material might be available—he did not read, and wanted nothing to do with those who did. Aric went in alone, nose tickling at the thick dust covering every surface. A gaunt man whose tattered, filthy clothing made him look as if he and the building were separate parts of the same whole stepped out from an interior doorway and smiled at him, revealing a mouth with more gaps than teeth. “You’re here for what?” he asked.

Aric couldn’t help glancing about to make sure they were unobserved, even though he knew Ruhm stood guard outside. “Something to read,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. He hoped his hands weren’t visibly shaking. “Adventurer accounts, of the wastelands?”

“Adventurers, eh?” the man said. He scratched his voluminous beak of a nose. “I might have something like that.” He ticked his head toward the doorway through which he had just emerged. “Come in.”

He turned with smooth, practiced grace and flowed back through the door. Aric followed. A lantern hung on one of the walls of the windowless room, where the bedraggled man stood between tables and shelves of books, pamphlets, tabloids and scrolls. Aric had never seen so many words in one place in his life. Some were clearly handwritten but others were not—some of the works were present in multiple copies, each identical to the last in every way. “These are printed,” he said, struck with awe.

“That’s right. I know a man in Tyr with a press. Printed right under old Kalak’s nose, in fact, and smuggled out with caravans. Now, of course, he can operate freely, and will until some other tyrant solidifies his position there. But for the moment.… it’s a different world.”

“But not here in Nibenay.”

“Oh, not here,” the man agreed. “Here the tyrant hangs on.”

Aric didn’t like that sort of talk. Nibenay had a reputation as a tyrant, it was true. And it was his law that could punish Aric simply for knowing how to read. But the Shadow King had been pleasant with him, had invited him to share in an adventure that could even elevate Aric’s status in life, if all went well. He knew all the arguments—Nibenay maintained the barbaric practice of slavery, he ruled the city with a merciless hand, the rights of individuals were sacrificed to the whims of the state. And for the most part, he agreed with them. He just found it hard to reconcile them with his positive experience of the king himself, only the day before, and he didn’t want to be party to any treasonous discussion.

“And the adventurer logs?” he asked, changing the subject.

The man swept to the far wall. “Here,” he said, indicating a cabinet with a fluid gesture of his long-fingered hand. “What location interests you? Balic? The Ringing Mountains? Perhaps the Hinterlands?”

“Surely no one has visited the Hinterlands and returned to write about it!”

The man touched the side of his nose, nodding his agreement. “It could well be that this one is miscategorized,” he said. “It should, perhaps, be kept with stories and legends.”

“I expect so.”

“Still, you might be surprised. The yearning to adventure often seems to come with a desire to share the experience in writing.”

“These must be exceptional people,” Aric said. He could read passingly well, but writing was far more difficult for him. Although he would embark on a long journey, mere days hence, he did not expect to have the ability or inclination to write about what he saw. He would save his tales for the Blade and Barrel, or else to entertain customers while they waited for his services.

“Is there a particular place you want to read about?”

“Actually, I’m not certain what my destination is. Have you anything about a place called Akrankhot?”

The man’s smile faded. It was only an illusion, surely, but it almost seemed like the flame in the lantern dimmed, giving the room a more somber aspect. “I’ve only ever seen one reference to it in writing,” he said. “And that the journal of a man looking for it. The journal was acquired posthumously—do you know what that means? After his death. I knew a noble who was interested, and paid plenty of gold pieces for it. Not from me—I saw it once, held it in my hands, read a few passages, but never owned it.”

“Pity,” Aric said. “That might have been just what I’m looking for. I suppose anything about journeying through the wastelands would do, since I don’t even know which direction we’ll be traveling in.”

The man flashed a smile, but it was more forced than his earlier ones. “I have a few like that. Not much. A diary or two, one printed account from about fifteen years ago. Perhaps an annotated map somewhere.”

Much of what he was saying passed over Aric’s head. “How about the printed account?” he asked. “Things couldn’t have changed that much in fifteen years. I’m only trying to get a sense of the things we might encounter, and to see how others survived them.”

“This is what you want, then.” The man put his hands on a slender volume, bound in reddish sygra leather. “That’ll be a cp.”

“An entire piece?” Aric asked, stunned. He could get a decent pair of boots for a ceramic piece, had expected a book to be more like three or four bits.

The man started to put it back on the shelf. “If you don’t want it …”

Aric’s purse was still heavy, however, from his sale to Tunsall. “No, I’ll take it!”

“Very well.” The man handed it over. It was heavier than Aric expected. He took out a ceramic piece and gave it to the man, who eyed it for a moment before it disappeared into his palm and then into a hidden pocket someplace. “Will there be anything else?”

The following day, Aric sat inside his shop, trying to read the book he had purchased. There were many words he didn’t know, and letters he didn’t recognize even though the thing was written in common.

Because he and Ruhm would both be gone on the expedition, he had hurried through the last bits of work he had promised, and had turned away more. This left him time to get through the book as best he could. As usual when Aric read, Ruhm removed himself from the scene, not wanting to be tarred with the “literate” brush if things went bad. He had once heard about a free commoner caught in the same room with a couple of books. Although the books didn’t belong to him and he claimed not to be able to read them, the templar who had found him there argued that even if he could read, he would pretend not to, so therefore he was guilty of the crime of literacy. According to the story, he was still alive, working as a menial slave in the Naggaramakam.

So Aric sat on the floor beside his workbench, where passers-by couldn’t see him from the doorway or the window, and struggled. He was so immersed in the effort that he didn’t hear soft footsteps on the floor, didn’t know he was observed until a sudden, startled “Oh!” alerted him.

“Who’s there?” Aric demanded, closing the book and shoving it into a cubby in the workbench. “What?” He grabbed the bench’s upper surface and hauled himself to his feet.

Rieve stood there, hands covering her mouth. A pink flush graced her fair cheeks. “I’m sorry, Aric,” she said.

“You—you won’t tell anyone, will you?” he pleaded. He was glad it had been her and not a templar, but he didn’t know her well enough to trust her. “I didn’t hear you.”

“I wasn’t certain you were even here. I saw the door open, so I came in, and then I thought I heard you breathing. She touched his arm, just a light, glancing brush. “You were so intent, it was cute. But I was surprised to see you there and couldn’t keep my mouth shut.”

Cute? As in attractive? he wondered. Or the way a baby animal or an infant is cute when it tries to do something obviously beyond its abilities?

“Well, you surprised me in return,” he said. He fidgeted with his coin medallion.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, Aric. I know this is terribly bold of me, but I wanted to see you. I didn’t just happen to pass by. I’ve been thinking about you.”

“And I you.” He doubted she had been thinking along the same lines he had. But he would never know unless she told him.

“Do you remember the other day, when my grandfather wanted you to teach me how to use my sword?”

“Of course.”

“Corlan has been trying. He’s quite skilled in it himself. But what he’s not so good at is imparting that skill to someone else. He thinks I should just be able to watch him do something and immediately master it. Perhaps that’s how he learned it, but it doesn’t work that way for me. Then he grows impatient, and we argue.”

“If you’re to be wed, arguing seems bad,” Aric said.

Rieve laughed. The pink had gone out of her cheeks, but her laughter brought it back. Aric envied the color, lying as easily upon her soft skin as sunlight on polished steel. She had always been lovely, but at that moment her beauty snatched his breath away. “My parents argue frequently,” she said. “You’d be surprised at the screaming. I believe some married people elevate arguing from a passing interest to an obsession. But I don’t like it. I have known Corlan since we were children, and been betrothed to him almost as long. He’s a dear friend. None of that makes it easier to be snapped or shouted at.”

Aric couldn’t think of a diplomatic way to ask his next question. “Why tell me this?”

Instead of answering directly, she wandered about the shop, scrutinizing his tools, his small store of metal, even peeking through the doorway into his bedroom. “You have no woman?”

“There have been women,” he admitted. “None who mattered much.”

“I’m surprised, you’re such a handsome fellow.”

He noted that she hadn’t used the word man, which some refused to apply to anyone who wasn’t fully human. “Thank you.”

She spun around to face him again, looking right into his eyes. “Would you teach me? Help me with the parts that Corlan can’t? No one ever has to know. I just want to learn enough that I can convince Corlan he’s actually teaching me something. I can pay you.”

Aric considered this. It would mean spending time with Rieve, a certain amount of close physical contact. Both would be payment enough. “I don’t need your coins—” he began.

She cut him off before he could finish. “When I happened upon you, before I startled you, it looked like you were having some difficulty reading. Your forehead was all wrinkled up like old clothes.”

“I can read a bit,” he admitted. “But that book—parts of it I can’t make out at all.”

“I could help you. You teach me the use of the sword, I teach you how to read better.”

“That’s most generous,” he said. “And I would truly love to accept your offer. But I’m leaving the city shortly. A day, two, perhaps three, I don’t know yet. The journey will be a long one, and I don’t know when I’ll return.”

Her eyes brightened and she put a hand on his arm again. He liked it when she did that. “Where are you going?”

“I wish I knew. Nibenay has asked me to accompany an expedition he’s sending to a lost city somewhere, to look for a trove of metals that might be there.”

“The Shadow King himself asked you?”

“That’s right.” Aric couldn’t help letting pride swell his chest a little. “He said your grandfather told him about me.”

“I am impressed.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial level. “He has been generous with some of the noble houses, including ours.”

“He was pleasant enough with me, and generous as well,” Aric said. “But since I’ll be leaving, I can’t promise to teach you.”

“I understand.” Her voice sounded bright, but her expression was crestfallen. “I wish you well on your voyage.”

“Thank you, Rieve.”

She leaned forward, raising herself up on her toes, steadying herself with both hands on his arms. He wouldn’t have minded her staying in just that position for a very long time. Then she pressed her lips to her cheek. The kiss burned there, as if those lips had been made of fired steel. “For your courage,” she said. “And for luck.”

He didn’t know what to say. He wanted to touch the spot she had kissed, but didn’t want her to think he was trying to rub away the trace of her lips.

While he was still searching for some sort of meaningful response, she met his gaze, then turned and hurried from the shop without looking back.

He had driven her away. She had taken the liberty of kissing him, and he had stood there like an absolute fool, saying and doing nothing. And she had realized her mistake and raced out of his presence.

He couldn’t blame her.

He stood looking at the empty doorway, knowing that the best thing that might ever have entered his life had just fled it again, because he had not known how to respond.

Suddenly, he couldn’t wait to get out of Nibenay.

Ruhm went drinking with friends again that evening, but Aric couldn’t bring himself to join them. Instead he walked around the city—his city, the only one he had ever known. The one he would soon leave behind. Perhaps he would return, perhaps not. Every traveler told tales of the dangers waiting in the wide world, and the book Aric had tried to read described a landscape full of perils and plagues.

Without the daytime sun blasting the city streets, they were more crowded than during the heat of afternoon. All around him were swindlers, thieves, thugs and killers; people did what they could to survive on Athas, and Aric knew that only a few lucky breaks had made the difference between him having a lawful career and joining Nibenay’s nighttime parade of criminality.

Bundled against the cold, Aric threaded the city’s narrow streets, alleyways and courtyards, passing between pedestrians and kanks and merchant stalls, couriers carrying messages or goods, bands of musicians and dancers, drunks weaving unsteadily between one tavern and the next. Everywhere the eye landed there was something to see: brightly colored clothing, members of every intelligent race known to Athas. Stone walls and cobblestone roadways were intricately carved to display the glorious history of the Shadow King, or else the family histories of those who built the individual structures. Sometimes buildings themselves were the sculptures—here a family home carved in the shape of a face, where one entered through a gaping mouth and looked out upstairs windows shaped like eyes—the “skin” carved still further, with scenes from that family’s past—there an entire block built to represent a cloud ray, its surface carvings representing past defeats of those huge monsters.

Above the streets, people stretched lines and hung clothing to dry, on those occasions when they had enough water to wash. Higher still, the buildings seemed to meet overhead, sometimes with other walkways far above the streets. There was layer upon layer of life in Nibenay; spires, minarets and turrets everywhere blotted out the stars. Sometimes Aric thought one could live a dozen lifetimes and never see it all.

Music rang from many corners, people singing and playing for their own amusement, small bands and even orchestras and choirs gathered here and there in more organized performances. And Nibenay had its own smell, comprised of blood and sweat and urine, animal dung and ale, the smoke from cooking fires and the oil from lanterns. All of it combined into a single odor that told Aric at every step that he was home.

Since he might never again see the place, he wanted to visit some spots that had been important to him over the years. He would stay far away from the elven market—that place had few pleasant associations, mostly memories of bitterness and strife.

His mother, the half-elf Keyasune, had never left the city either, as far as he knew. She had, in fact, rarely left the area right around the elven market. Her parents had a stall there, selling bolts of fabric obtained from other cities, and her human mother, she said, made blankets and articles of clothing that they also sold. When they were killed, as was often the fate of elves and those who wed them, Keyasune took over the stall. It was there she had met Aric’s father, a human.

“He came in one evening to buy some fine silk,” she told Aric once. He was nine years old, and had been pestering her with questions about his father. She had taken him on a walk, away from the Hill District, out the South Gate and into the desert beyond the city walls. “One of his family’s slaves was a fine seamstress, and his mother wanted silk to have some dresses made. I was alone in the stall, and your father saw my silks and had to have some. It was a wonderfully cool early evening, late in the season of Sun Descending. He tried to bargain the price down, but I held firm.

“While we bickered, though, we were also chatting. There was something about him—his face reminded me of the setting sun, and I smiled just to look at it. He seemed to like me as well. Even after he had paid me for the silk, he stayed and talked. Other merchants glared at us, of course—they are glad to see the coins of humans, but not so receptive to humans themselves.

“When I tried to sleep that night, I kept thinking about him. I later learned he was having the same problem, tossing about his bed thinking of me.

“The next evening, he came back. Same the evening after that. Soon, we were involved in a romance.”

“Yuck,” Aric said. He picked up a rock and hurled it at the city wall, but it fell short of its mark.

“I will spare you those details, Aric. The only reason I’m telling you this is so that you’ll know that once, your father was important to me. He wasn’t just some man I met, but someone I cared for deeply.

“He seemed to like me as well. But it was strange—he liked me, but he hated elves. Never had a good word to say about them. When he was with me, he seemed to loathe himself for being there. If I had been exactly the same person, but not a half-elf, I had no doubt that we’d be wed. But whenever we were together, it had to be in secret, where no one would see us. He stopped coming to the elven market altogether, instead sending me messages when he wanted to see me, and making me meet him elsewhere in the city.

“Then came the day that I had to tell him about you—that I was with child. I feared his reaction, but it was even more explosive than I expected. We had taken a room at an inn, so we could have privacy. But when I told him, he ranted and paced and threw things. Finally the innkeeper knocked on the door to see why so much noise was coming from the room, and your father took advantage of the distraction to storm away.

“I never saw him again.”

“Did you go to his house?” Aric asked.

“He had never told me where he lived. I knew only his first name, but not what family he was from. He had to protect them, he said, from the stigma of having a son who loved a half-elf.”

“What’s a stigma, Mother?” Aric was young, but he understood that telling this story was hard for his mother, could see sadness playing about her lips and eyes, the lines it made in her forehead. He knew, also, that he had forced her to tell it—that asking about him so frequently, and more and more often in the market stall where other elves could overhear, had put her in a position where she had to give him the story. But just this once, she had insisted, and then they’d never speak of it again. He had agreed to her terms, although with a small boy’s uncertain grasp of what “never” might mean.

“It’s something that other people might judge someone for, without knowing the real story behind that fact. What it really meant was that he was ashamed of being with me and didn’t want his family to know about it. And when he learned that he had fathered a child, he wanted nothing more to do with me—with us, really. It was as if he had thought it was all just a game, and it wasn’t until that happened that he knew there could be consequences.

“Anyway, I never saw him again after he left the inn.”

“Really?”

“That’s right. I have no idea if he is alive or dead. Dead, I expect. He was a man of strange, dark moods, and I never expected him to have a long and happy life.”

“How odd.”

“In a way. And then again, not at all odd, but sadly all too common.” She took a path that would lead them back toward the city, and Aric stayed close to her side. “Because he made clear that he wanted nothing to do with our lives, I never told you about him, Aric. And as I told you at the start, I’ll never speak of him again, so don’t bother asking. I’ve given you all the details you need. Your father was a man who loved and hated me at the same time, hated all I was, and it’s for the best that you never knew him.”

After that, whenever Aric wandered the city streets and byways, he wondered if his father had truly died, or had simply avoided the elves. He stared at every older man he saw, those of an age to have been his father, searching for some sort of resemblance to himself. But he never saw any, and the man never returned to make any claims upon him.

He had never felt altogether comfortable in the elven district. His mother had barely been tolerated there, and when she took up with a human man, that tolerance was stretched even thinner. Aric grew up on its outskirts, not part of human or elf society, hated by both. His mother continued to work her stall, and brought young Aric with her, but from an early age he understand the glares and curses and epithets hurled his way.

The first time he touched a metal coin, it came from a human. That had been during Aric’s fourth year. A woman bought several bolts of cloth, planning to make dresses for several daughters, and paid with a metal coin. That was a rare enough event that Keyasune handed it to the boy, so he could see what it looked like. As soon as his tiny fingers touched it, he saw details, in his mind, of the life of the woman who had given it to his mother. He saw her moving with melancholic loneliness through a noble’s estate, thinking about a husband who was rarely at home. Servants cared for two children, both quite young, and she looked in on them, an expression of delight animated her face, but sorrow showed through her eyes. Keyasune, struck by the detail her young son offered, asked a slave she knew who worked for the family, and the slave confirmed Aric’s account.

After that, she tested her son often. He seemed able to do similar things with other metal objects, and in this way he developed his psionic connection to metals. He didn’t know until years later that she had kept the coin, although it represented a great deal of money to her. He had worn it ever since, as his medallion—though when she had presented it to him in that way, she had reminded him that if he was ever in desperate enough straits, it could still be used as currency.

Then, in his tenth year, his mother died. The elves, who had never truly embraced him, banished him from the market. On his own, frightened and hungry and dressed in rags, young Aric tried to make his way in the city, begging or stealing to keep himself fed, refusing to part with his coin medallion.

Aric went to the chaotic intersection where Cutpurse Lane intersected with Red Mark Alley and Finder’s Alley. The carvings on the walls there showed scenes of an ancient battle, with humanoid soldiers engaged in combat against creatures with reptilian features and long, forked tongues. One of the buildings had a niche cut out of it, at ground level, and for a time, that spot had been where Aric had curled up to sleep at night.

One night, he awoke there to find a bundle tucked up beside him, wrapped in cloth. When he opened it, he was astonished to find clothing in his size, meat and vegetables, and even a few coins. That was the first time he became aware of his mysterious benefactor, and since he knew of few people wealthy enough to give such treasures to a stranger, he decided it must have been a gift from Nibenay himself.

This expedition truly was a gift from Nibenay, although it remained to be seen whether gift was the right word. Assuming he survived it, though—and assuming there really was metal beneath the ruins of this city, because if they didn’t find any, Aric had a feeling he’d be blamed for that failure—it could be the best thing that ever happened to him. He might amass enough wealth to join the nobility. If nothing else, he could enlarge his shop, hire some hands, get work from the kingdom crafting all that new armor and weapons. In any case, it appeared that poverty was in his past now, that from now on he wouldn’t have to worry about how to take on every job that came his way because he could ill afford to turn down a single one.

No, he was certain that at journey’s end, his life would be irreversibly changed. And he was ready for change. He enjoyed working with steel, crafting swords especially. But they were always for someone else. His life was fulfilling, he supposed, in a limited way. Life on Athas was more a matter of survival than fulfillment anyway. But he had a passing acquaintance, through his readings and even the occasional night at Sage’s Square listening to the scholars ramble on, with the works of Athasian philosophers, and he had the sense that there should be more to life than that. There should be some sort of satisfaction with one’s lot, and acceptance that one had done everything he could to live his life to the utmost.

So far, Aric had not done that. A half-elf ordinarily couldn’t expect much more than basic survival, or so he had been told. But he wanted more from life than survival. Perhaps this was the curse of the literate, the knowledge that there was more to be had, and if this expedition gave him that, he would take it gladly.

Elsewhere in the city, the man was back at the fringes of the elven market. He had ventured into the market briefly, spent a few bits on spices, eyed some of the elf women, and then retreated into a dark alleyway from which he could watch the goings-on.

He had tried, once again, to resist the urge that compelled him here. But he could not do so. The memory of that last time, the slashing of his blade, the blood slicking its polished surface and spattering wetly on walls and road, the astonishment on the face of the elf as she watched the human with her dying, then realized the blade would bite her next … these things were too powerful to deny. They held him in an iron grip, their images seemingly more real than his daily life. His family members spoke to him with words that sounded distant, their faces ghostly, while the dying breaths of those he had killed were immediate and alive.

He realized that each time he did it, the compulsion to return and do it again gripped him sooner. If this kept up, if he could not forestall his own appetites, he would be here every night. That would never do—he would be seen, recognized, remembered. Already there were more foot patrols in the area, soldiers in the market, forcing him farther back into the alley, where he could lose himself in shadows.

Maybe tonight he should go home, lie in the arms of his wife, put all this from his mind. He was torn, not wanting to turn away from the market, but wishing he wanted to. Then he saw a human man strike up a conversation with one of the elf women. She didn’t look like a prostitute, but he couldn’t always tell. Anyway, elves were notorious for loose morals—prostitute or not, most of them would do anything for a few coins.

The elf and her human struck away from the market, toward the seedier end of the Hill District. Just as the last pair had done. These had a similar look about them, too, the man obviously of a high enough station to pay well for an hour’s pleasure, the elf fair-skinned, voluptuous, with hair so red that when he cut her, the blood would hardly show on it.

He hurried up the alley and saw them crossing the next street. He had to get ahead of them over the space of the next block, fast enough to make it around the corner. After that they would reach a busier area, one where women and men stood outside the buildings beckoning passersby inside to watch entertainment of the most depraved sort.

The man sprinted to the corner, then tore around it without looking first. A couple, both human, were dragging a cart laden with firewood, and the man crashed into them. The people released the two-handled cart when the man hit them, and the cart upended, tipped over by its own unbalanced load. Wood spilled into the street.

“Sorry!” the man said. He had to step over the firewood. The encounter slowed him down too much—his targets made it across the street, and within moments would be within view of the debauchery up ahead.

“Sorry?” the woman who had been pulling the cart said. “I’ll show you sorry. There’s a patrol just down the block. Let’s see what they have to say about madmen running full tilt without watching.”

“I was careless,” the man argued, “not criminal. I’ve apologized.” He yanked a coin from the purse hanging at his waist and tossed it onto the ground. “That should make up for my error.”

The couple took their eyes off him as soon as the coin clinked against the ground. The man darted back around the corner, into the dark shelter of the alley. He was breathing heavily, his heart pounding.

That had been too close. He had let the targets get too far ahead of him, and he had taken foolish chances to catch up.

With one wistful look back at the market, he gave up and headed for his home, his family.

For tonight, he had to resist the impulse. He couldn’t afford to be caught. That would be humiliating, and potentially suicidal.

The farther he got from the market, the more his heart slowed, and his step. The urge told him to go back, try once more. But he didn’t; he still had the presence of mind to listen to reason, he told himself.

As long as he could do so, he wasn’t utterly lost.

In her sleep, Myrana thrashed and kicked so much that Lauriand punched out at her in the darkness of their tent. “Ow!” Myrana cried. She sat up, rubbing her forearm. “That hurt!”

“Sorry, but you were pummeling me. Were you dreaming again?”

“People always dream,” Myrana said.

Lauriand’s younger sister Krisanthe groaned. “Not me,” she said, “because I’m not asleep, and I’m not asleep because you two won’t shut up!”

“Sorry, Kri,” Myrana said. “Yes, Lau, I was dreaming. Go back to sleep, and I’ll try to stop flailing about so.”

“That sounds good to me,” Lauriand said.

“Me as well!” Krisanthe flopped back down onto her pillows—life on the road was hard, but she was a girl who loved her pillows and she always slept with several.

Myrana put her head down on her single pillow, but her eyes wouldn’t close. The dream had been so vivid, she didn’t want to accidentally find herself back inside it. But as she tried to think about it, to analyze it, the memory dissipated, like trying to hold onto a fistful of sand held underwater.

All she was left with was a grain of meaning, and she could hardly wait for sunrise to share it.

She didn’t have long to wait. Although inside the tent she wasn’t able to tell, the night was almost over when her cousin hit her. Soon she heard the caravan’s morning sounds, someone stoking the fires for cooking, someone else filling the trough the mekillots drank from, shouting at the beasts when they tried to breakfast on her, still another walking away from the camp to empty a bladder held throughout the night.

Myrana pushed aside her blanket and dressed quickly. She snatched up the staff that helped her walk and headed from the tent, looking for her brother.

Welton, in whom House Ligurto had entrusted the ultimate responsibility for this caravan, squatted beside the fire, holding a mug of tea. The sky was lightening, and soon enough the sun would roar over the horizon, bringing with it the punishing heat of the day, but for the moment the air was crisp and cold. Myrana limped to his side, her staff digging into the sand with every step.

“Good morning, sister,” Welton said when he heard her.

“And to you.” She put a hand on his shoulder and lowered herself carefully to crouch beside him.

“Tea?” he asked.

“I’ll have some in a moment,” she said. “I need to talk to you, Welton.”

He looked at her for the first time. His hair was as black as hers, his eyes almost black as well, burning with fierce intensity. He was lean and muscular, and would have been commandingly tall if not for his hunched posture. Myrana had never understood why he kept his shoulders curled in, instead of standing straight and letting their breadth show. “Yes?”

“I need to leave the caravan.”

“Why?”

“I have been having these dreams …”

He regarded her over the rim of his mug. “You’re not leaving because of some dreams.”

“They’re not regular dreams,” she said. “Special ones.”

“I know the kind you mean.”

“Then you know it’s best not to ignore them.”

“Usually.”

“These are urgent, Welton.”

“Telling you what? Just go? Walk away from your family, your responsibility?”

“It isn’t that … it’s just, what if my true responsibility lies elsewhere? I think that’s what the dreams are saying. They demand action.”

Welton tried to treat every family member the same, but whether he realized it or not, Myrana saw that he sometimes babied her, as if her youthful injury made her less capable than others. She watched his gaze flicker toward her bad leg, and then back to her face. “Where do they want you to go?”

“I’m not sure. Into the desert. From there I’ll just have to let them guide me.”

“What if they don’t, Myrana?”

“There isn’t much in this life I can put my faith in, brother. You, our family, and my dreams, they’re all I have. If I don’t trust them …” She left the statement unfinished. She didn’t know how to finish it—it was rare for her dreams to steer her wrong, and when they were this persistent she knew there was meaning behind them. She didn’t always know where they would lead, but if she remained open to their message she was generally rewarded. Sometimes the whole family was—her dreams had led them to a new, previously unknown oasis when one they had used for generations had become poisoned, and had warned of ambushes, and of suppliers trying to cheat them.

So if her dreams wanted to take her into the wilderness, without the family, who was she to ignore them?

“I don’t like it. It’s dangerous out there.”

“Danger is everywhere, Welton. Two of us died not ten days ago, and they hadn’t even left the caravan. None of us will live forever.”

Welton took her hand. “I want you to, though.”

“I know, Welton. And I want the same for you. But we can only do what we can do.”

His face tore into a wide grin. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard truer words. Nonsensical ones, perhaps, but true.”

“I will miss you terribly, brother. But I have to do this.”

“I know what you’re like when you get this way, Myrana, trust me. I won’t try to stop you. But I won’t let you go without protection.”

“What sort of protection do you have in mind?”

He tapped his fingers against his mug for a moment, considering. “Two of our best,” he said. “How about Sellis and Koyt?”

“Can you spare them?”

“I can’t spare you. It’s worth it to do without them if it means you’ll do whatever it is your dreams want you to accomplish out there and then return to us quickly.”

“Very well,” she said. “Will you tell them, or shall I? I’d like to leave today.”

“I’ll tell them,” Welton said. He rose to his feet, drawing her up with him, and wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace. “You be careful out there. This family needs you.”

“Not as much as it needs you,” she said. “I’ll take no unnecessary chances, and with Sellis and Koyt along, I should be as safe as if I were right here with you.”

Having procured her brother’s unwilling but necessary consent, she kissed his stubbled cheek and then roamed off to empty her own bladder, her staff chunking into the earth beside her as she walked unevenly up the slope of a low dune. She appreciated his concern for her, and his belief that the caravan needed her. She had spent most of her life believing she needed it, but the truth was for more than a year she had found herself hating the unceasing travel, the uncertainty of life and location, the fact that every beautiful view or delicious sip of water from an oasis or spring would be nothing but a memory in a day’s time.

Myrana wanted nothing more from life than to find someplace she could stay, somewhere to become rooted. She’d been born into he nomadic life, but did that mean she could never try any other?

She didn’t know if these dreams had anything to do with that goal—if at the end of whatever trail they sent her down, she would find her spot to stay in—but sticking with the caravan would only guarantee that she would never have it.

It wasn’t Myrana’s intention to desert her brother. She said she would try to return, and she meant it. But intentions were only that. Dreams or no dreams, no one knew what the day after tomorrow would bring.

Today, though, would be a busy one. She had to pack, had to say her goodbyes, and had to set off early enough to put some distance between herself and the caravan by nightfall. Sellis and Koyt were not family but they were loyal, and they would go where she led them, without complaint. They would die to keep her safe, if need be.

She honestly hoped it would not come to that. But since she didn’t know her destination, or what would be expected of her once she found it, she knew it was a possibility. They might all die.

That and the heat of the sun were two of the surest constants on all of Athas—on any day, anyone might die.

She hurried back to her tent, anxious to tell her sister and cousins before they heard the news from someone else. They would fuss, but they would not dissuade her. Myrana had made up her mind, and once she did that, as even Welton would admit, changing her course was no simple task.

She couldn’t help wondering where that course might take her this time.