Sanctuary

Chapter 11

Chanting to synchronize their efforts, a gang of elves hauled away on the ropes. A timber frame rose off the ground, wavered a bit, then climbed higher as the warriors continued to pull.

“Easy! Easy there!” Kerian called out. If they pulled too quickly, the frame would topple forward on them.

The early twilight had come to Inath-Wakenti. By torchlight the scene resembled a nightmarish dream. All the soldiers of the Lioness’s command were mustered around the hole that had opened up when they pushed the monolith over on the sand beast. Some were on horseback, others on foot, but every one was armed and ready. The reason for their increased wariness could be found in their dwindling numbers.

Two nights had passed since the vanishing of the sand beast. The Lioness’s original vow to leave the valley quickly was set aside after this event. She decided they would remain an extra day to search for the elusive monster. They hadn’t found it. Instead, several of her warriors had gone missing. All were sentries, riding guard duty alone on the perimeter of the camp. Then, just past noon on this day, five more elves had vanished. The five were on foot, foraging for roots and nuts, no more than twenty yards from the site of the overturned monolith. When they didn’t return, a search was conducted.

It turned up no signs of struggle, no torn ground, no dropped possessions. The elves were simply gone, together with everything they carried.

As Favaronas was the nearest thing to an expert on the valley, Kerian asked him what he thought was happening.

“I don’t know, General,” he said, shivering with the fear that had become his constant companion.

Glanthon said, “You’ve mentioned ‘strange forces’ at work in the valley. What do you mean?”

“Just that. Strange, unnatural things happen here. I myself have—” Favaronas broke off, coloring in embarrassment. Kerian had no time for niceties of feeling. She insisted he hold nothing back, and he admitted having seen apparitions himself, just the night before. He described them as white shapes, vaguely elven in form, drifting through the stone ruins.

“Patches of mist!” Glanthon scoffed.

“No, they moved against the wind,” the archivist insisted.

The Lioness cut the air with an imperative hand. “We’re not here to collect ghost stories, Favaronas! I want to know who’s taking my people!”

“I don’t know! Perhaps”—he gestured vaguely at the fallen monolith—“the same force that carried off the sand beast?”

After that discussion, with no other conjecture to test, Kerian decided to investigate the hole beneath the stone spire. Rocks dropped into it revealed the bottom to be at least twenty feet down. Their hollow-sounding impacts hinted at a chamber of some size.

As the sun lowered itself behind the western peaks, trees were felled, trimmed, and lashed into a frame to support ropes lowered into the hole. Kerian intended to descend herself, but her officers wouldn’t hear of it. None doubted she was prepared to do anything she might ask of her warriors, but Glanthon reminded her she did not have the luxury of taking such risks. As General of the Speaker’s Army, her life was too valuable to risk unnecessarily.

It finally was agreed that Glanthon would enter the hole. To Favaronas’s dismay, he was tapped to accompany Glanthon.

“Me? Why me?” the archivist said, his face pale even in the firelight.

Kerian said, “You’re the scholar. There may be things down there you can recognize.”

Her phrasing was unfortunate. Favaronas blanched even whiter at the notion of “things down there.” So, Kerian unbuckled her own sword and fastened the scabbard around his waist. “If you see any ghosts, give them steel. If they’re flesh and blood, they’ll feel it.” She smiled. “And if they’re not flesh and blood, they can’t hurt you.”

He did not look reassured.

A pair of stout ropes was tied to the handles of a small round shield that would serve as a platform. Glanthon and Favaronas climbed on, holding tight to the ropes. With the whole command looking on, they were lowered into the hole. The opening wasn’t much wider than the shield on which they stood.

As their feet sank into the black aperture, Favaronas said, “Tell me again why we’re doing this?”

“To find clues to our comrades’ disappearance,” said Glanthon stoutly. “And to carry out the Speaker’s command to learn all we can about this valley. Aren’t you curious?”

“Not any more.”

Their heads disappeared below the surface. They entered a square shaft lined with stone. The air cooled rapidly. Only eight feet below the surface, their breath streamed out as white vapor.

“All right?” the Lioness called, sounding very far away.

“We could use a light!” Favaronas said, his voice rising.

Glanthon assured him torches would be dropped down the hole after they reached bottom.

“Seems backward to me.”

“No sense announcing our coming.”

“Announcing? Announcing to whom?” Favaronas’s voice was a squeak now.

Their shield footrest, which had been lightly scraping the sides of the shaft, entered open air. They swung back and forth a few times, then bumped into a solid floor.

“Step back,” Glanthon said. Cupping a hand to his mouth, he shouted, “Torch!”

A flaming brand crackled down the shaft. Where it caromed off the walls, showers of sparks fell on them. Favaronas yelped and leaped backward, but Glanthon caught the falling torch deftly in one hand. A second followed it. Favaronas didn’t attempt to copy the warrior’s action; the second torch hit the ground and went out.

The floor was ankle-deep in thick white mist. It was cold and damp, but caused them no apparent harm. Glanthon retrieved the second torch, lit it from his own, and handed it to the archivist.

“Merciful ancestors,” Favaronas breathed, holding the brand high. “What is this place?”

Ahead and behind them stretched a tunnel, arrowing straight northwest and southeast. The ceiling had a slight arch to it and was high enough for both elves to stand erect. Favaronas’s awed comment had been inspired by the walls of the passage.

The tunnel was covered, floor to ceiling, with the most beautiful painting either elf had ever seen. It depicted a landscape in such exquisite detail and realistic color they almost expected the trees to sway in the breeze, could almost smell the scent of the flowers, and hear the splash of the silvery river winding through the scene. The ceiling was a serene blue, with wispy white clouds. Who had painted this lovely vista? And why bury it under the ground?

Glanthon reached out to touch the wall, but Favaronas caught his arm…

“Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t touch anything!” Glanthon nodded in solemn agreement.

They walked slowly down the tunnel, the movement of their feet stirring the viscous fog. The hem of Favaronas’s robe grew dark with damp. Dew glistened on Glanthon’s boots.

As they marveled at the unfolding work of art, Glanthon noted an oddity. There were no living creatures depicted. The scenery was beautiful and varied, but contained no people, nor any animals.

“Like the valley above,” Favaronas said. He frowned, staring at the right-hand wall. “It seems familiar somehow.”

Not to Glanthon. Born and raised in Qualinesti, he knew its towns, forests, and farmlands well. This painted landscape resembled no place he’d ever seen.

“It looks older than Qualinesti somehow, and more.. Glanthon searched for the right word. “More formal. Like a lord’s garden.”

Favaronas stopped abruptly. “Are there any Silvanesti in our company?”

“Yes. Why?”

He pointed to the silver-blue river that serpentined through the landscape on the right-hand wall. “They should see this. I think that’s the Thon-Thalas.”

“Are you certain?”

“Not certain, no; I’ve never been to Silvanesti. But it matches descriptions I’ve read.”

“Could this place have been made by ancient Silvanesti?”

Favaronas wasn’t sure. The ruins above were without any identifying marks, yet they had none of the air of refinement associated with Silvanesti sites. The stonework was monumental but rather crude, much more reminiscent of human handiwork than elven. Yet if he was right, then whoever had painted this scene had at least visited the Silvanesti heartland.

Glanthon suddenly grabbed his companion’s arm in a painful grip. Startled, the archivist yelped loudly. “What? Is there danger? Where?” He tried to draw the Lioness’s sword with one hand.

The warrior’s grip tightened further. “Quiet!” he hissed. “Look!”

Far down the tunnel, in the darkness beyond the reach of the torchlight, something stirred. Vaguely upright, it was coming toward them.

Glanthon’s sword was already in his hand. Favaronas managed to free his borrowed blade from its scabbard, but Glanthon whispered, “Do nothing unless I say so.”

Nodding vigorously, Favaronas stepped closer to the warrior.

The approaching figure was small, under five feet in height, and of indistinct shape. It resembled a person draped in diaphanous gray. Carrying no light, it came on assuredly, at a steady pace. A very faint glow, more attenuated than foxfire, radiated from the figure and the pale aura was reflected by the mist, which remained undisturbed by its passage.

Sweat trickled down Favaronas’s neck. He was shaking so hard he couldn’t hold the sword steady. Never again, he vowed silently; never again would he leave his archive. Not even for the Speaker of the Sun and Stars would he abandon his beloved manuscripts again—if he lived to get back to them!

The apparition seemed heedless of the two elves. As it passed between them, head lowered, it brushed Glanthon’s leg. He felt nothing. There was no sign of feet or legs; the apparition merged with the fog lining the tunnel.

A sound like a sigh rasped down the stone-lined passage. Alarmed, Glanthon thrust his torch at the specter. The flaming pine knot passed through it without resistance, but the ghost appeared to lift its head and turn, it looked back at the elves.

Both cried out in shock. Favaronas dropped his torch, and it went out. With that, the ghost disappeared.

“Extraordinary!” Favaronas exclaimed, as Glanthon relit his torch. “A cat! Or an ocelot perhaps, or—”

“What are you babbling about?”

“That thing! A long neck, pricked ears, white whiskers—yet feminine somehow! Unbelievable!”

Glanthon stared at the archivist with mouth agape for a few seconds then said flatly, “You’re hallucinating. It looked nothing like that.”

The warrior had seen a slight figure in loose robes, cowl hanging down its back. The head was wide and round like a human’s, without the delicate bone structure of an elf. He had an impression of pale hair, a blank, unfinished face, and empty black eye sockets.

Despite his terror, Favaronas’s scholarly instincts were engaged, and he seemed disposed to stand in the cold, dim tunnel, comparing and discussing their very different impressions of the ghost. Glanthon put a stop to this by taking his arm and hauling him forward.

“Wait! We’re going on?” said Favaronas, wide-eyed.

“Not far. Fifty more steps, then we’ll go back and report what we’ve seen.”

Favaronas complained at the arbitrariness of his decision. “Why fifty? Why not twenty? Why not just turn around now? It isn’t logical. What’s the point?”

Glanthon ignored the mumbled commentary, deciding it was only Favaronas’s method of coping with his fear. Although he kept muttering, the archivist also kept moving forward, sword held up, albeit in a very shaky hand.

They’d gone no more than thirty paces before the tunnel brought them to a chamber. About three times as wide as the tunnel and twice as high, its walls were barren of the painted reliefs. Along one side were a multitude of stone cylinders, each about a yard long and four or five inches thick, stacked on their sides like cordwood. The opposite wall was covered with peeling white plaster.

The strange cylinders drew Favaronas like a magnet. He lifted one. It was heavy, made of a soft, slippery stone like talc or gypsum. A hole was bored through its long axis.

The object looked for all the world like—“A scroll?” asked Glanthon, holding his torch close.

“No one ever made books of stone,” countered the archivist. Still, the resemblance was uncanny.

At his suggestion, they decided to take some of the cylinders back with them. Favaronas discarded his torch and laid two scrolls in the crook of each arm. Glanthon also took four, but bore all in one strong arm so he could keep his torch.

The elves were walking back down the long tunnel to the entrance when they heard alarm trumpets on the surface. Struggling under the burden they carried, warrior and scholar hastened to the waiting rope lift. The warriors above shouted for them to hurry. They stepped onto the shield platform and were hoisted back up. More horns sounded as they neared the surface.

Glanthon dumped his four cylinders on the ground as soon as he cleared the opening. “Where’s the trouble?”

“We saw lights among the ruins, over there!” A Wilder elf pointed northeast. “The Lioness has gone to investigate.”

She had left behind only enough elves to watch the hole and pull the two explorers out. The rest of her shrinking command had galloped off with her. Once Favaronas was safely out of the hole, Glanthon left a warrior behind with him and ordered the rest to horse.

Sitting on the ground, Favaronas watched them gallop away. The single elf with him also stared after his departing comrades, the look on his face eloquent of his desire.

“Go with them,” Favaronas said, waving a hand. “I’ll be fine.”

The warrior shook his head. “You’d be alone.”

The archivist sighed. “The trouble, whatever it is, is out there, not here.”

With only a little more prompting, the elf rode away. By the light of the torches that ringed the hole, Favaronas studied one of the cylinders. Glyphs were incised into the soft stone. In the uncertain light, his sensitive fingertips gave him a better idea of their shape than his eyes could. The writing was Elvish, or at least the characters were Elvish, the old writing used in Silvanost on monuments, palaces, temples, and public buildings. He sounded out the syllables his fingers detected.

“Ba-Laf-Om-Thas, Hoc-Sem-Ath.”

It made no sense. Perhaps this was some ancient dialect. But it seemed to confirm the notion that Silvanesti elves had inhabited this valley long ago. What of the apparition in the tunnel below? What was it, and why had it appeared to him as a catlike, female creature, and to Glanthon as a faceless human?

Less than a mile away, the Lioness galloped through the tall monoliths and cedar trees. Ahead was her quarry—a pair of glimmering green lights, flying at saddle height above the ground. Some of her warriors were strung out behind her, trying to keep up. Others had split off in smaller bands to chase different lights.

She was convinced these lights were flesh and blood riders, carrying hooded lanterns to lure the elves into an ambush. That must have been what happened to her missing warriors. A local tribe of humans was playing a deadly game, and she intended to put a stop to it tonight.

The twin green lights slowed. She reined back, not wanting to rush into a prepared trap, and waited for the soldiers trailing her. Once they caught up, she directed them to ride out wide on either side, then sent her horse ambling forward.

The green glimmers retreated, keeping the distance between themselves and her always the same. As she emerged from a copse of juniper trees, she glimpsed dark shapes close to the two lights.

Triumph sang through the Lioness. She was right! There were people out there!

She secured the reins to the pommel of her saddle and braced her bow. In seconds, she’d sent an arrow speeding toward the right-hand light. The missile flew true. The light shook violently, then was still. The left-hand light moved off swiftly, leaving its comrade behind. Crowing with satisfaction, she loosed her reins and cantered forward.

Her arrow was embedded in the trunk of a thin tree and one of the lights was impaled on the shaft. The fist-sized green glow was fading fast. By the time she’d freed the arrow and brought it close enough to study, the light was gone. Her gloved hands felt nothing foreign on the shaft.

Shouts from flanking riders told her the other light had been found. She rode toward them. A curving expanse of gray wall loomed. A band of mounted elves waited beside it. Kerian spotted Glanthon in the group.

She hailed him. “How was your crawl underground?” she asked.

“Like a sorcerer’s nightmare, General, but right now, we seem to have an intruder trapped.”

He gestured at the wall behind them. Massively thick, its top was at eye level to the mounted elves. No structures showed beyond it.

Kerian shook her feet free of the stirrups. Crouching on her saddle, she sprang atop the wall. Glanthon and eight other elves joined her on the broad stone barrier.

The wall was a perfect circle, enclosing a paved area forty yards across. In the center of the pavement was a raised platform ten yards across and four feet high. Great wedges of gray stone had been fitted together to make the round platform. Drifting over it, like leaves wafting on an autumn breeze, were four glittering lights: one each of green, red, yellow, and blue.

Kerian dropped to the pavement inside the wall.

“Our quarry has slipped away and left these will-o’-the-wisps to keep us busy,” she said. “I intend to take one back to study.”

“Wait! We don’t know what they are!” Glanthon warned, gathering himself to leap down and follow her.

She told him to stay where he was, and kept going.

When she neared the center of the platform, the lights abandoned their aimless paths and began to circle her. Faster and faster, they whirled in ever-tightening circles. Remembering how the sand beast had disappeared when the lights touched it, Kerian didn’t wait for the inevitable. She threw herself flat on her stomach. The lights crashed together above her and vanished in a silent burst of greenish light.

By the time Glanthon and the others arrived, she was sitting up. “Well, that’s one mystery solved,” she said, accepting Glanthon’s hand to help her stand.

The Lioness thought it likely the lights were responsible for the mysterious disappearances among her warriors. Where the elves had been taken, and why, remained unknown, however, and she couldn’t risk searching any further.

“We’re getting out of this valley. Now.”

The ride to Khuri-Khan would become legend. After Prince Shobbat’s messenger departed, Adala’s people hurriedly broke camp and began the journey south to the city of the Great Khan. Clouds, rarely seen over the high desert, blew in from the sea, piling up like brilliant white dunes in the sky. The heat of the wasteland caused the clouds to writhe and twist, forming fantastic patterns of light and shadow on the ground below. Shade was an experience few nomads ever had while crossing the burning sands. They rode with faces turned skyward, watching the spectacle with a mixture of fascination, awe, and not a little fear.

Adala swayed across the wind-driven wastes on the back of stolid, faithful Little Thorn, dozing when the glare of the sun became too intense. The frowning clouds were to her a portent of things to come. She saw in them the boiling anger and pride of the laddad, rising from their squatters’ camp to try to frighten the children of the desert and turn them away from their holy purpose. Like the masses of clouds, the bluster of the laddad was impressive to behold but without substance.

Two days away from the Valley of the Blue Sands, just after sunrise, scouts brought word that a large mounted force was approaching from the west. Alarmed, the desert warriors unslung their bows and shields, forming themselves to receive an attack. Adala’s warmasters and clan chiefs gathered around her, drawn swords resting on their shoulders.

Wapah, seated behind Bilath, speculated that the laddad had heard of the Weya-Lu approach and come out from Khuri-Khan to meet them, away from their vulnerable camp.

“Ten thousand pardons, O Weyadan!” said one of the scouts. “Those coming toward us are not laddad, but men.”

Bilath shifted in his saddle. “Soldiers of Sahim-Khan?”

“They bear the banner of a scorpion on a field of yellow, with three notches in the wind’s edge.”

“The standard of the Mikku,” Wapah supplied. He was widely traveled and knew the standard of every tribe and clan. The Mikku were far from their usual range, but they were nomads, too, brothers of the Weya-Lu, the Khur, the Tondoon, and the rest.

Zaralan, chief of the Black Horse Clan, voiced the prevailing opinion when he said, “They’re invading our territory.”

“We’ll stand them off!” vowed Bindas, young and hot-tempered.

“No. We are not here to shed the blood of our own,” said Adala. She addressed the scouts. “How far away are they?”

“Four miles when we first saw them. Less by now, Maita.”

She lifted a mostly empty waterskin and wrung a warm trickle into her mouth. Their time at the Valley of the Blue Sands had left the Weya-Lu short of water, Adala most of all.

“I will meet them,” she said.

The chiefs protested vigorously. If the Mikku had come to fight, the Weyadan could be captured or killed before the rest of her host could defend her. She shrugged off all their arguments.

“Brothers or enemies, the Mikku will not raise a hand I against me.”

Out of respect they did not contradict her. Zaralan suggested she take an escort, for protection. Even a small escort would be better than none.

Adala smiled a little. “I choose Wapah.”

The garrulous philosopher, who even then was explaining in hushed tones the habits of dress and dining of the Mikku tribe to the clan chiefs beside him, heard his name and broke off his monologue.

“Weyadan? You want me?”

“Yes, cousin. Ride with me to meet the Mikku.”

This was not what Zaralan had in mind. He said as much, assuring Wapah he meant no disrespect.

“No need to abase yourself,” said Wapah as he guided his horse through the ranks of clan chiefs and warmasters. “I pledge my life to protect the Weyadan’s.”

He positioned his horse alongside Little Thorn. Adala noted the tears in his hat brim, made by laddad arrows, and frowned. Poor Wapah, unmarried and without mother or sisters, had no one to mend his clothes.

“Remind me to sew those up for you,” she said, flicking a hand at his hat brim.

By her order, the nomad host was to remain hidden on the northern side of a high dune, so their great numbers would not startle the oncoming Mikku. Bowing to the wisdom of her logic, the warmasters rode back to their warriors. The clan chiefs remained.

“I don’t like this,” Bindas said. “The Mikku know the law of the desert. They should not enter our land unbidden.”

“Honored Chief, be of strong heart. Whatever their purpose, the Mikku are just like us. The desert lives in their souls, and Those on High speak to their hearts. Believe in my maita. It leads me to a more distant place than this.”

So saying, Adala tapped Little Thorn’s flank with a cane switch. Ears flapping, the donkey shuffled over the crest of the dune with Wapah riding close behind.

Bindas turned to Bilath, Zaralan, and the other chiefs who had known Adala longer. “Does this woman think she holds fate in her hands?” he said.

“Permit me to say, Chief Bindas, you have it backward. It is not Adala Weyadan who holds fate, but Fate which holds Adala.”

It was eloquence worthy of Wapah, but the words came from Bilath, brother of Adala’s slain husband.

Adala and Wapah soon saw lines of darkly dressed Mikku riding across the sun-baked plain. Unlike the northern nomads, who rode in loose, time-tested formations, the Mikku were deployed cavalry-fashion in four exact lines, each a double horse-length apart. They wore a great deal of metal armor, signs of the favor shown them by the Khan. Wapah watched their slow, steady progress through the shimmering morning haze, early sunlight flashing off their brass and iron equipment. He commented on how heavy and hot their armor must be.

“When we reach the city, you may wish you were so burdened,” Adala answered. She knew the laddad and Sahim-Khan’s soldiers wore even more armor as a matter of course.

Between the lonely pair and the several hundred horsemen was a long, flat expanse swept by hot wind from the south. Adala tightened Little Thorn’s reins, halting him on the lip of the sandy ridge above the plain. Wapah drew up beside her.

“Let’s wait here.”

Folding his hands across the pommel of his saddle, Wapah nodded, his pale eyes flicking skyward briefly.

“It is a good day,” he said.

Even this early, the heat was devastating. Both of them had pulled the loosely woven dust veils over their faces, to protect their eyes from the parched south wind. The strange clouds towered above the land, rising so high their undersides were gray from lack of sunlight, while their tops were tinted orange by the dawn. Yet Wapah wasn’t referring to the weather. He spoke of the feel of the day and his joy in their holy purpose. Adala’s maita was running high. The broader world soon would feel its power.

They had been seen. The Mikku halted, studied the two mounted figures poised above them on the ridge, then came on. Four lines of horsemen became two as the Mikku spread themselves wide. Fifty yards away they halted.

“So many swords to take one man, one horse, one woman, and a donkey,” Adala said. “What are they afraid of?”

The philosopher at her side said, “We all fear something. Those who wield swords are often the most frightened of all”

Nine riders from the center of the Mikku formation continued forward, while the remainder waited. The nine found their imposing display bedeviled by the loose sand on the face of the ridge. Horses sank up to their hocks, drawing their shod feet out with considerable effort. Wapah smiled, the expression hidden by the dust veil covering his face, as the full import of Adala’s logic became clear to him. Stopping here had given them the moral advantage of meeting the Mikku on higher ground, but she had foreseen a tactical purpose, too. The Mikku lost momentum and dignity as they labored up the shifting slope.

Twenty yards away, the nine riders halted. In the center was a nomad with the tallest, brightest helmet the Weya-Lu had ever seen. Golden horns sprouted from the polished steel brow, curving up and back like a desert antelope’s. From their tips fluttered squares of shiny gold silk. The sides and rear of the helmet were protected by heavy curtains of mail.

“I am Shaccan, warmaster of the Mikku,” said the warrior in the horned helmet. “Who are you?”

Before speaking, Wapah glanced at his leader. Adala had shifted her dust veil, exposing her fiery eyes to the Mikku. She nodded slightly at Wapah.

“Greetings, brothers of the desert! Peace to you, and all your kin!” he called, then introduced himself and Adala.

“Are you alone, Weya-Lu?” Shaccan asked.

“Those who believe are never alone,” Adala replied. “Is this not so?”

The warmaster plainly did not like having his question answered with a question. Gruffly, he said, “We were told the Weya-Lu had left their range. Is that so?”

“We went to the Valley of the Blue Sands, but we have returned. Why are you here?”

“With the Weya-Lu gone, we ride for Kortal, to hire as caravan escorts.”

“You cannot.”

Wapah flinched at the impoliteness of Adala’s abrupt command. Shaccan’s thick eyebrows rose.

“By what right do you stop us, woman?”

Adala lifted her eyes to the sky. “I claim the right of divine maita. Those on High have chosen me to lead all the people of the desert to Khuri-Khan, to cleanse our land of foreign corruption. You may join us.”

After a moment of stunned silence, Shaccan put back his head and laughed. He laughed so long and hard, tears streaked his cheeks.

“You’re either mad or the greatest woman in Khur,” he said, dabbing at his eyes. “I like you! Are you married?”

For the first time in many years, Adala was nonplussed. As she regained her composure and admitted being a widow, six of Shaccan’s men surrounded her and Wapah, and the other two rode off to confirm the presence of the rest of the Weya-Lu tribe.

Shaccan grinned. “I thought this was going to be a dull journey. When I heard the Weya-Lu had gone, I thought it must be because of plague or war. Now you speak of gods and corruption and maita. You’ve been out in the sun too long. Stand aside. It would be bad luck for me to harm one so insane.”

Adala didn’t move. “We’re bound for Khuri-Khan. Join us, or share in the infamy of betraying your nation.”

His affable manner evaporated. “You’re in our hands now. Don’t make trouble, or there will be bloodshed. The whole of the Mikku are at my back.”

“You would take up arms against your sisters and brothers of the desert?”

“Anyone who threatens the Mikku is no brother—or sister—of mine.”

A peal of thunder, startled the horses. Wapah looked up. The clouds had become heavy and dark. Lightning flickered among them. He was past fifty, and had seen rain only once before in his life, during a visit to Delphon twenty-two years ago.

Adala paid no heed to the gathering storm. “I am chosen by Those on High to do what must be done, Shaccan of the Mikku. I cannot refuse, nor can you oppose me without risking the wrath of the gods. This is my maita.”

“You’re mad as a mouse.”

Shaccan ordered his warriors to take Adala in hand. Hardly had the words left his lips than a tremendously loud burst of thunder broke over them. Horses shied and bucked, and the men struggled to keep their animals calm. Only Little Thorn, his eyes protected from sand and sun by an embroidered cowl, stood placidly.

Rain began to fall, the fat droplets sending up tiny puffs of dust when they hit the ground. The Mikku, young men all, had never seen rain before. They began muttering among themselves. When he heard them use the word “maita,” Shaccan angrily drew his sword.

“Idiots! Does a madwoman make the rain? Seize her! Immediately!”

Wind swept over them, driving warm rain into their faces. Wapah turned his horse’s head away from the gusts.

Mikku, thinking he was trying to flee, thrust his sword at Wapah. It would have pierced his side, had not Adala intervened. She caught the blade in her hand and shoved. Angry at being thwarted, the Mikku jerked his sword back, laying open Adala’s palm. She hissed in pain.

Outraged, Wapah yelled. He pulled out a scarf and tied it tightly around her injured hand.

The rain fell even more heavily. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed directly overhead, blinding flash and earsplitting noise coming almost simultaneously. This was too much for the Mikku’s horses. The animals reared and fled, taking their riders back down the slope to the main body of warriors. Only Shaccan remained, his horned helmet gleaming dully in the gray light filtering through the thick clouds. He glared at the pair before him.

“Widow or not, your life is over!” he cried. “Here is your maita!”

He raised his blade high, to cleave the impassive Adala from head to waist. No sooner had the sword reached its apex than another bolt of lightning sliced down from the sky. It struck the Mikku’s sword, searing down the steel blade and the warmaster’s arm.

The blast knocked everyone down. Adala hit the sand and rolled to avoid being crushed by her falling donkey. When her head cleared, she crawled up the slope to Wapah. He was dazed but uninjured.

Where Shaccan had been was now a smoking pit in the sand. Adala crawled to its edge and looked down. What she found was ghastly. Horse and man were dead, horribly burned. Most of Shaccan’s sword had melted and run down his arm like candle wax. His flesh, inside his armor, was charred black. His helmet was gone, for which Adala was profoundly sorry as it left bare the unbelievable ruin that had been his face.

She looked away from the grotesque visage and noticed the sand around Shaccan had changed. No longer filled with loose pale grains, the crater in which he lay resembled a bowl of crude glass, blue-green in color. Adala immediately was reminded of the hidden valley. Did its soil’s blue-green tint come from the same source, the fire from heaven?

Raindrops sizzled and hissed into steam when they hit the blasted corpse and glassy crater. The other Mikku gathered slowly, dismounting and staring down into the crater. So great was the terror on their faces as they regarded Adala, Wapah was certain they would slay her forthwith. Disregarding the deeply ingrained stricture against touching the Weyadan, he crawled frantically to her and flung his body over hers.

“Away with all of you, lest Those on High strike you down as well!” he shouted at the sword-wielding Mikku.

Wapah had misread the warriors. They had no intention of lifting their weapons against Adala. Instead, all fell on their knees, calling to her to forgive them, pledging to serve her, affirming their belief in the power of Those on High.

Adala tried to rise. As she shifted beneath him, Wapah flushed in embarrassment and moved swiftly off. She sat up, straightening her black robes.

On her feet again, she looked around at the kneeling Mikku. “Will you believe in my maita?” she asked them. “Will you follow where I lead and fight only for the purity of Khur?”

To a man, they vowed they would.

Wapah went to round up his mount and Adala’s donkey. The rain was easing, and as Wapah returned, it ceased altogether. He brought with him more than their mounts, Shaccan’s helmet was cradled in his arm. The tall golden-horned helm had been flung many yards away. It appeared completely untouched by the lightning that had so utterly destroyed its owner.

While Wapah was marveling over this, and admiring the shining craftsmanship of the helmet, the scouts Shaccan had dispatched over the ridge came galloping back. They were pursued by Weya-Lu riders. Adala, leading Little Thorn, went to intercede. Mikku and Weya-Lu drew apart as the Weyadan stood between them.

“Judgment has been rendered upon Shaccan,” she declared. “The Mikku have chosen to join us.”

The warriors who already had pledged themselves to Adala’s cause related the momentous events to their brethren. The scouts could hardly credit the tale, but the steaming crater and their dead warmaster brooked no argument.

The Weya-Lu raised a cheer, and the Mikku joined in. Adala acknowledged their support with a nod, then asked Wapah for his arm. He aided her in climbing back onto Little Thorn. Her face and hands were pink with flash burn, while her eyebrows and eyelashes were completely gone. Concerned, he asked if she was well.

The clouds had broken, allowing shafts of morning sunlight to slice through. The southern plain was dappled with these columns of golden light. Steam rose from the drying sand. Adala stared out at the view and said only, “Your hat is in sad shape, cousin. Take it off and I’ll sew the tears quickly, before the sun returns.”

And she did. A healer salved and bandaged her injured hand, then Adala worked steadily on the torn hat as she and Wapah rode down the ridge. The Weya-Lu streamed after them. The Mikku watched in awe until they fell in at the rear of the formation. Word of Shaccan’s demise spread, and more and more of the Mikku joined the procession. The ranks of Adala’s band had swelled from five hundred to more than five thousand.