The Sorcery Within

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The sun was kind, though it was midafternoon. The twins did as they were told, abandoning the erection of their tent. Around them, the tribe prepared to settle in for a day or more. Good forage had been found.

The war-leader followed the track of the sheep out of the camp, occasionally glancing ahead where the preemptive whistles of the shepherds originated, as the latter endeavored to keep their animals orderly. Soon Lonal diverged, leading them into open desert, which in this region abounded in short shrubs and cacti, crisscrossed by snake tracks or the spoor of small mammals. When they approached a stand of spiny plants that stood like trees, columns often as high as a man, he stopped and faced them.

"I trust you are both feeling miserable?"

Alemar and Elenya looked worse than they had when they had first arrived. Crimson webs filled the whites of their eyes, dark lines beneath, and their hair was matted and disarrayed. Elenya had to endure the sting of her sunburn, as well as the exhaustion of her battle with the wights. She now wore her full complement of clothing. They had not been permitted to rest all day, as the tribe had been setting out as they returned that morning. Lonal was only a little better off.

"You don't like life among the T'lil?" the war-leader asked.

"Would you?" Elenya replied coldly. "In my position?"

"It is not often that God sees fit to change someone's gender," he answered. "But if I guess correctly, you would not have been happy in our land as a woman. The solution of the ken saved us both."

"Thanks."

"But the solution is only a first step. The tribe can't continue to coddle the two of you."

"Why bother?" Elenya asked, and threw up her arms. "Why not let us go our way?"

"I have my responsibilities," Lonal said firmly. "In this instance, I must act to protect the holy relic, to which you will go should I set you free, and there is the matter of Am and Roel's family. Do not forget the duties you have assumed. For the moment, they give you your only worth among the T'lil."

"I am honored," Elenya said sarcastically.

"It is time you realized the seriousness of your position. You, Yetem, have mocked the lessons our Ah-no-ken have tried to teach you."

"Oh, really?"

He gestured at the landscape. "Ho koso quell ka kem?"

She pursed her lips. Lonal sighed. "Well? What's the answer?"

She didn't speak.

"Tebec?" Lonal asked. "Can you answer the question?"

Alemar glanced at his sister. Abruptly, irritably, he said,"Quell ka rhyme koso."

"Your brother at least learns out of politeness. Yes. This is flat country. Not a difficult question, Yetem. But no – we're barbarians, and our tongue is beneath you. I see it in your upturned nose."

She pointed her face toward one of the mesas in the west. "Will I lose my soul if I don't learn to speak God's language?"

"Perhaps. You will certainly lose your life. It is not normally my duty, but I'm going to give you three lessons before we walk back to the camp. For your sake, pay attention." He stepped over to the stand of cacti and drew his dagger, with which he tapped the thick mesh of bristles covering the closest specimen.

"This is theboro. It is very common to this region. Its name means succor."

Theboro in front of Lonal stood as high as his waist. The war-leader plunged the dagger into the crown and efficiently carved out a circular piece. Using the blade as a skewer, he lifted the section out, exposing a rind similar to the melons of the twins' homeland, but much thicker. Alemar and Elenya peered in. The core of the plant was filled with liquid.

Lonal produced a stiff, hollow reed from his scabbard, inserted it into theboro, and sucked. Swallowing, he handed the reed to Elenya. She and Alemar each sipped some of the juice.

"It's very good," Alemar said.

"Given the choice between water andboro-ra, I would drinkboro-ra," Lonal said. "But one must not abuse God's small charities." He pointed to the wound he had created. "This plant is endangered." He replaced the plug in the exact position it had formerly occupied.

"Theboro 's skin is virtually impregnable to its native enemies. But once breached, parasites may attack it, or the sun evaporate its cache, and kill it from dehydration. This individual, hopefully, will seal its damage and survive."

He then removed a small cloth pouch from the goatskin satchel he carried and poured the chalkish meal it contained in a continuous circle around the base of the boro. "This meal poisonspicteor beetles, the worst parasite."

He cinched the drawstrings of the sack. "This is the first lesson, which you have perhaps guessed already: Water is never to be taken for granted. Learn its sources, and do all within your power to see that they are preserved against future need."

For once, Elenya was not irreverent.

They continued deeper into the wasteland. Lonal wandered in no specific direction, or so it seemed to them. Eventually they realized he was following a peculiar type of mark in the sand.

He stopped next to a mound of earth pocked with holes, each about the diameter of a human wrist. Motioning them to stay, he tiptoed up to the site. Leaning close to several of the holes, he examined the traces left in the loose soil surrounding each opening. He nodded to himself and reached within his satchel once more. He withdrew a mouse.

The creature tried to scurry between Lonal's fingers, but the war-leader thwarted it. He produced a coil of twine, a metal barb resembling a fish hook at one end. He plunged the point into the mouse's abdomen, made sure it had anchored firmly, and let the rodent free at the lip of the hole he had selected.

The mouse hobbled painfully, but swiftly, out of sight, trailing the twine. Lonal allowed the coil to unravel without resistance; soon it went slack.

They waited. Gradually, Lonal nurtured the strand back into a coil, finger by finger. It grew taut. Lonal jerked.

The twine shuddered, thrashed. The man pulled as fast as he could.

When it emerged, the end of the twine seemed to have grown thicker. Lonal stood, holding up a snake half as long as he, a narrow, delicate specimen with a swollen gullet, the point of the barb protruding entirely through its skin in the middle of the bulge.

He held the snake in front of Alemar. "Cut it in two," he ordered.

Alemar drew his saber and halved Lonal's catch. The hind section flopped to the ground, where it writhed.

Lonal cut off the end of his twine and flung the head of the snake, mouse and all, past the mound. The blood pouring from the severed end splattered the burrows. They could hear the muffled thrashing of its death throes through the sage for several seconds.

Lonal picked up the tail and held its markings up to the sunlight. "This is aniltrekal-hasha-sor, the moonsnake, the most venomous thing in all Zyraii. If one should bite you, you will die in less than an hour. Only once in our history has a man survived it – Umar, the greatest Hab-no-ken ever to have lived, who healed himself. Fortunately, they prefer to remain in animal burrows such as thishussa mound or other underground tunnels. They only come out at night, and they do not bother creatures as large as men, unless you bother them. Never pitch your tent in open desert without checking for their traces."

He shoved his supply of twine into the satchel. "This is the second lesson – the desert has a thousand ways to kill you, large and small. God did not place us here as a reward, but as a test. If you would challenge this land, know the magnitude of what you do."

As he spoke, Lonal's hands had drifted to his sides, to rest on his waist, just above the sword belt. Before either Alemar or Elenya could move, he had drawn demonblades from duplicate scabbards and flung them simultaneously at their chests. Both landed hard at midtorso level, butt first, and flopped to the ground even as the targets dodged.

Elenya drew her rapier. Lonal folded his arms and smiled. Alemar, winded from the impact to his solar plexus, merely dropped his jaw, literally breathless at the thought that anyone could control two throwing knives with either hand at the same time.

"What was that for?" Elenya demanded.

"May I?" Lonal asked, gesturing toward his knives. Two wary observers allowed him to retrieve them, wipe off the dirt, and slide them into their scabbards. Elenya sheathed her rapier only after he had looped the flaps shut over the handles.

"Lesson three," the war-leader observed calmly, "is that people must help each other. God gave us challenges, and he gave us the social qualities that bring us together to meet those hurdles. When one is offered help, one should take it. Don't tempt good fortune. I could have killed you just now, but I have hopes that you will be valuable to me, given time. Out there" – he swept his arms across the arid tracts of chaparral and ruptured stone – "are nigh twenty thousand other sons of Cadra, thirsty for foreign blood. We are not a tolerant people. If you are welcomed by us, consider it an advantage not to be wasted. I am the son of Joren, but even my father's fame and my own reputation will not protect you should you stray from the embrace of the T'lil."

Elenya seemed ready to retort, so he held up a hand. "You aren't reconciled to stay. Otherwise you would listen to your teachers, Yetem, and cooperate with them. Be like your brother, with his natural desire to study regardless of the conditions. Perhaps you will succeed in your escape next time, and it could be your ruin. The wights should serve as a warning. Those crypts are old, and they litter our landscape in odd places, away from the common routes. Lost children have been attracted to them from miles away. You were drawn to that particular site because you couldn't recognize the taint in the air. Any adult born in this land would have been in no danger."

"We didn't thank you for our rescue," Alemar said.

"No, you didn't. I am, in a sense, offering you the chance to show your gratitude. I won't ask how you ran so fast – your bedrolls still held warmth when we discovered you missing. Nor will I ask how you possessed the sorcery to destroy a wight and set its captive souls free. It is enough that we riders saw the aura of your magic and could locate you in time. You are more than you seem. So be it. Remember that you are in my debt."

The first bat of evening whisked overhead, though the sun hung clear of the horizon. Lonal turned and headed back toward camp. He let the twins follow as they might. The war-leader's confidence was overwhelming, Alemar thought. Soon he and his sister were trailing close behind, mulling over the war-leader's advice.

Only once did Lonal stop and speak to them again, just before they entered the camp. He seemed deeply intrigued.

"Do you believe in auguries?" he asked.