The other lands

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Kelis kept thinking he should dig for knuckle root. His eyes scanned the dry land for the tiny shrubs that marked them. Surely, they needed to suck the moisture from knuckle root. How else could they survive? He stood in the mornings, sniffing the moving air for moisture, for any indication that water lay more in one direction than another. Nor could he help but tilt his head and listen to any animal sound, a call at night, a scurrying nearby. Several times, he caught mice with his hand net. Only as he looked into their trembling, frantic eyes, did he realize he had no desire, no need, to eat them. Once, he went so far as to skin a sand snake, dry the meat with the heat of the sun. And then he sat disgusted by it, knowing that neither he, Naamen, nor Benabe could stomach such fare.

This must be Santoth magic, he thought. Nothing else explains it.

Almost four weeks since Shen and Leeka had disappeared. He knew because he had counted the days. He had, right? He had scratched the growing number on the dry skin of the back of his hand. Twenty-eight days, but it felt much longer. It might have been an entire lifetime. He might be ancient now. Everything in the Known World might have changed, be unrecognizable. Or, for that matter, he and the two souls with him might be the only people left on the curve of creation. Everything else seemed so distant and clouded by time and blurred, unreal. Even events he knew himself to have been a part of struck him as mythic. Hunting foulthings with Princess Mena Akaran? Watching Aliver Akaran dance to his death with Maeander Mein? Standing in awe as sorcerers screamed rents into the land, dropped worms from the sky, and blasted men into vapor?

"Kelis?" A hand gripped his shoulder and shook him. Naamen leaning down before him, looking close into his face, his kindly eyes so tired now. "Are you with us?" He did not wait for an answer. "We should not let Benabe sit alone too long. She speaks to herself."

"Ah…" She speaks to herself. He had heard those words before. Naamen had said them before this, and he had responded to them in a certain way. It was a game between them, a way to keep sane by joking about insanity. What had he said? "So do you."

Naamen smiled. That was what he wanted to hear. "No, I speak to the winged goat and the boy with cat eyes and my long-dead mother. That's different."

"Of course," Kelis said, rising to his feet. "My error." He draped an arm around the other man's shoulder and together they walked toward the woman who had become the center of their lives.

Right after Shen disappeared, Benabe had been frantic. Her wail became a scream of rage and loss. She ran into the space that the swirling shapes had occupied, her arms flailing as if she had hooks on them that she was desperate to sink into flesh. For a moment, as she lashed the air, Kelis almost believed the power of her fury could tear through into whatever realm the shapes had escaped to. But she did not, and the moment passed, and eventually Benabe lowered her arms and stood panting.

Kelis called her. Her eyes, when she looked at him, were burning with anger. The hatred she had just directed at the air she turned on him. She battered him back and then down to one knee, asking him over and over why he had brought them here? Why hadn't he protected Shen? Why had he let that madman take her daughter? Why? She would have hurt him if Naamen had not gripped her-with strong and weak arm both-and pulled her away.

By the next day, however, Benabe made use of her anger. Instead of directing it at Kelis, she organized the manner in which they were to search for Shen. The first week they took turns marching in daylong treks. One of them always stayed at the exact site from which Shen had disappeared, while the other two walked out in different directions, calling her name into the dead, silent expanse around them. Though Kelis had lived in Talay almost all his life and had explored much of the dry expanse of the continent, he had never seen a land so empty of life before. Yes, there were beings out there, hiding, like the few small animals he caught, but the effect of the place was to highlight how vast-and how vastly empty-it was.

He knew that there was an end to the southern reaches of Talay. Of course there was. Ships sailed the turbulent waters below it and came back north. Dariel had done that; league vessels made the journey regularly. He knew this, but standing on the flat expanse, staring south, Kelis saw nothing, nothing, nothing, but a parched skin stretching to the horizon and promising more of the same beyond. If the Santoth had her, they had taken her to a place he could not see or hear or reach. He tried to remember the things Aliver had told him of the ancient sorcerers, but he could recall so little.

Sometime in the second week Benabe's grief shifted form. Instead of driving her to action, it exhausted her. She sat still throughout much of the day, staring into the empty space before her with glazed eyes. On occasion she shot to her feet, casting about, asking whoever was with her if he had heard Shen. Had they heard her? She ran out in one direction, calling Shen, only to turn back a moment later and run the other way, tracing loop after loop until Kelis or Naamen grabbed her. Then she dropped back to the ground, sobbing, mumbling that she had heard her daughter's voice.

Kelis and Naamen took turns sitting with her as the other continued searching. Neither found any sign of the girl at all. Their own footprints crosshatched the sand for miles around them, testifying to their efforts. Never did they find a print of anyone else.

In the third week Benabe began speaking to herself. She had very little to say to her two companions, but she held long discourses. She spoke in words, yes, in sentences. But they did not add one on to another to form anything that he could make sense of.

About the only time he did understand her was when he stepped too close and she said, "Move your shadow," as she did on the morning that Naamen woke him from his own circular knot of thoughts.

Kelis, realizing he had broken one of the rules of their scant interaction, sidestepped so that his shadow did not fall across any part of her body. At least this had not changed. At least she remained aware enough of the world to notice the change in the light caused by his presence. That was something.

"Should we take her north?" Naamen asked a little later. The two men stood a short distance from her, whispering. "We can't stay here, can we? We'll die here. I want Shen back, too, but nothing that we've done shows that we can find her. We don't have the power. We should get Benabe back to Bocoum before she loses her mind completely."

"It's her decision to make," Kelis said. "We can't take her against her will. If she wishes, it's her right to die here."

The man rubbed his stunted arm with the palm of his normal one. "What of my rights?" he asked but then hurried to explain away anything callous in the question. "I don't wish her ill. I so badly want to have Shen back, to have Benabe back as she was. I would do anything to make that happen, but days and days pass and we're powerless."

"The Santoth would not have taken her without a reason."

"And what if that reason is evil? How can we know they didn't lure her here just to-"

"Don't," Kelis cautioned. "Say those words and Benabe will hear them." Both men looked at her, sitting as she had been before, mouth moving. "Naamen, there's no reason for you to stay. Go north. Tell Sangae what's happened."

Naamen wrinkled his lips and said, with a resignation touched by humor, "I don't think so. If you're staying, I'm staying. I want to make sure you get through this. You promised a good race after all this is over. I'm going to hold you to it."

So the two stayed on into a fourth week, passing the days much as before. They did not range quite so far anymore, but they waited and kept their shadows from falling on Benabe. And waited some more.

And then came the morning when Kelis's eyes fluttered open to take in a predawn sky. The heavens were a dark shade just the purple side of black, alive with stars to the west, slightly yellowed by the coming sun to the east. Lovely. And quiet. No hyenas cackling or lizards scurrying, no bird or insect calls, certainly not a sound from another human being. Just a sublime, forgiving stillness. He lay like that for some time, watching, feeling more relaxed than he had in days and days. Only very, very gradually did he realize that the touch of small hands on his was part of what was soothing him. And, after that realization, some moments more passed before it occurred to him to wonder how this could be. Who was holding his hand? He turned to look.

A young girl sat beside him, watching him, his hand clasped in her lap. "Hi," the girl said. She smiled. Shen.

"What's happening? Tell me I'm not dreaming."

"You're not dreaming," the girl said.

And, no, he wasn't. That became clear. He had not felt so clearheaded in weeks. He stared at the girl, studying her features. Her skin right there before him, her round face and thoughtful eyes. "It was kind of you to wait here," she said. Her words were alive in the air between them, clear as they ever had been during their long march down into the far south. He felt the breath of them on his face, as he felt the warmth of her hands, the moisture where their skin touched. "I thought we might have to search for you."

"Your mother would not leave," he heard himself say. "She said you would return, and if she was not here for you, she would not forgive herself."

Shen smiled again. "I tried to speak to her sometimes, but it didn't work well. I think I just made her upset. I didn't mean to, though. She's a good mother. I told the Santoth that, didn't I, Leeka?"

As soon as the name was out, Kelis saw a shape standing a little distance away, a lurking shadow that made him quickly sit up. It had not been there a second before. Shen stopped him from rising farther, and in the pause he realized it was Leeka Alain, clothed just as before, head cloaked and just as eerily still. Had she called him into existence just by saying his name?

The hooded figure nodded, his voice a whisper that came from the blackness where his face should be. "You did."

"Kelis, don't be frightened of him. It's just Leeka. He only looks scary." Shen patted his hand. "How long has it been? How long have you been waiting?"

"A few weeks. No, a month. One month today."

The girl nodded, face grave suddenly. "We must hurry, then. Time is short. I should explain to you, so that you'll know and not be frightened, and so that you can help me explain to my mother, so that she won't be frightened. Naamen, too. He will come with us also. I want you to hear first, though. All right?"

Kelis nodded.

"Good. Are you ready? Don't be afraid. The Santoth are here with me. Look." She cocked her head just enough to indicate a vague area over her left shoulder.

Just as with Leeka, the beings she named snapped into existence. Kelis did not see them materialize: they were just there when they had not been a moment before. The figures stood bunched together: hooded, vague shapes that the rising sun cast in highlight and shadow. Seeing them, Kelis felt his heart pound. They looked like an army of assassins, standing immobile and yet shifting even in their stillness, not entirely of this world. He tried to number them, but he lost count each time. Numbers did not seem to stick to them. Not so many; not so few. Oh, why did they just stand there? He would have said they were waiting for something, but waiting was not the right word. They were eating each moment, impatient. They pulsed with energy contained through force of will. They were hungry, and-Kelis knew-they would not wait long.

"What do they want?" he asked.

Shen stared at them as well, though her expression was calm, lips puckered in an almost wistful expression. "They asked me to release them from exile," she said. "And I did."

"You… could do that?"

The girl smiled. "Yes, silly. They asked me the same thing. They thought I had to be a boy to do it, but they were wrong."

"Shen, what do they want? They are danger, Shen. They were exiled for horrible-"

"I know. They showed me. I saw it all. Those things that happened long ago-with Tinhadin-it wasn't like the old tales say. I saw it and it's… different." She frowned, exhaled through her nose, looking so very adult and so childlike at the same time. The words to continue seemed hard for her to find. Touching her fingers to her forehead, she said, "They put the knowledge in my head. I can't explain it all to you right now, but the important thing is that we need them back in the world. You know The Song of Elenet? The Santoth know when it's being read. They can feel it. For many, many lifetimes it went unread. It was silent to them. They feared it was lost. Even my father could not find it. But that was before. It's been found, Kelis. Someone has been reading it, studying it, for the last few years. For all the years of my life. You know who, yes? My aunt, Queen Corinn."

"I saw the canals she filled with water in Bocoum. Heard tales of the things."

"Yes, that's part of the problem. She is doing things without understanding the consequences."

"Consequences?" The word-and the yawning things it might mean-seemed too big for her small mouth. "What consequences? Like the foulthings?"

Looking slightly impatient, Shen glanced back at the Santoth, signed to them with her hands, then turned back to Kelis. "They want us to start moving. They know how slow we are. I can't tell it all to you. Some things I don't have words for. Yes, the foulthings are part of it. The Santoth made those themselves, and they regret it. But they say the beasts are nothing compared to the curses Corinn could unleash. Every time she takes from one place and puts in another place, she leaves a scar between the two. Others of the song can use those scars to enter the living world."

"Others of the song?"

"Kelis," Shen said, placing a hand on his shoulder like a mother might to a child, "the Santoth weren't the only sorcerers ever thrown down or banished. There were others. There were evil ones like the Five Disciples of Reelos. There were early mistakes of Elenet. There are sorcerers from other worlds the Giver created. Some of them-especially if they put their ears to the scars-can hear Corinn's singing, too. Some of them have already begun speaking to her, gaining strength from her. She may not even know it, but the Santoth believe she has opened doors. It is only a matter of time before things step through those doors into this world. That's why we must go to Acacia, speak to my aunt, let the Santoth study the book, and prepare to face whatever is coming."

Shen exhaled. "I think that's enough for now. Are you ready? It's a long walk."

Kelis could not imagine what to say. Better that he be practical. "We should wake your mother and Naamen."

"She's not going to like this," Shen said, speaking through a crooked grin. She pushed herself to her feet, looking over at her mother's form, wrapped tight in a blanket. "I'll wake her with a kiss. That will be nice, won't it?"

He nodded and watched the girl walk away, again revealing herself to be the child she was, light on her feet and small, so small. But what was in store for her?

A little distance away, Leeka stood immobile, face hidden, though his body turned to follow the child. And a little farther, when Kelis swung his gaze toward them, were the sorcerers, immobile and yet seething with motion, watching them all. Impatient.