Simon Hawke - The Nomad

Ryana felt the platform lurch suddenly beneath her, and then it lifted and began to turn, slowly going around and around as the force of all that wind gathered beneath it. She somehow found the strength to close her eyes once more, squeezing them shut tightly, and she held onto Sorak’s hand with all the force that she could muster. If he said anything to her, she could not hear it for all the shrieking of the howling wind.

The platform was raised higher and higher, until it cleared the tops of the trees in. the pagafa grove and went up higher still, turning around and around as it rose twenty feet above the ground, then thirty, then forty, and higher still, until finally, Ryana forced herself to open her eyes once more and saw the desert spreading out far below her.

She saw the village of Salt View from a height of several hundred feet above the ground, the neatly whitewashed buildings, illuminated by torchlight and braziers in the streets, looking very small and not quite real. And then the wind beneath them shifted and they began to move forward, gathering speed as they were swept out across the white, salt desert far below them.

They were flying, buoyed up by the winds, the air elementals Kara had raised and joined with. The crudely woven mat they sat upon floated like a feather i on the strong winds, tilting forward slightly as they were blown away from Salt View and across the southern part of the Great Ivory Plain, toward the inland silt basins in the distance. All around them, the night sky was lit up with sheet lightning, illuminating their way, and thunder crashed with a deafening roar as the elemental storm swept across the desert with increasing speed.

Ryana suddenly let go of Sorak’s hand and threw her arms up into the air, crying out with sheer delight. Her fear was gone, replaced by an exhilaration the like of which she had never felt before. She threw back her head and laughed with an unrestrained joy that permeated every fiber of her being. She felt marvelously free. She turned toward Sorak and threw her arms around him. And he held her close, and she knew that whatever trials lay ahead of them, she would face them at his side, unafraid and filled with a sense of determination that came of knowing, without the faintest scintilla of a doubt, that the path she had chosen was the right one, the one she had been born to follow.

Unable to restrain herself, she shouted out over the shrieking wind, “I love you!”

And she felt his arms tighten around her, and heard him say into her ear, “I know. I love you, too.”

And that was all that mattered.

Valsavis awoke in the morning, shortly after sunrise. He sat up in bed and looked down at the curvaceous young woman lying beside him, who had come to massage his muscles with her strong and skillful hands when he came back from the fight with the marauders in the Avenue of Dreams. She had stayed to cater to his other needs, as well, and had done so eagerly and expertly.

She was just twenty years old, young enough to be his daughter-no, his granddaughter, actually-and her svelte and lean young body looked beautiful and inviting as she lay there in the early morning sunlight, the covers thrown back. For a moment, Valsavis simply stared at her as she slept, one leg straight, one slightly bent, the gentle curve of her hips accentuated by her position as she lay upon her side, a slight smile on her lips. He looked at the fullness of her shapely, young breasts, the firmness of her youthful body, and the clarity and smoothness of her skin, which had responded with a trembling eagerness to his caresses as they had made love throughout the night.

Valsavis recalled how she had moaned softly, her eyes closed, her lips parted as she had gasped for breath, saying his name over arid over again. And for all her beauty, for all the fierce passion of her youth, for all the tenderness that she had lavished on him, a tenderness the intensity of which had told him that this time it was much more than merely a service she performed for money, for all the kisses she had covered him with, kisses that had all the fervor of a young woman truly awakened for the first time to the joys of physical fulfillment with a man who knew, from long experience, how to bring out the full intensity of passion in a woman-for all that, as immediate and powerful as all those sensations had been-all Valsavis had been able to think about as he coupled with her was Ryana.

It was the villichi priestess he had imagined staring down at him, her expression filled with passion and longing. It was her body he had imagined pressed against his, her voice he had heard, saying his name over and over again. The beautiful young woman was, unknowingly, merely a surrogate for what he had really wanted and, to his immense frustration, knew he could not have.

And as he looked down at the young woman now- whose name he could not even recall-as he watched her lying there peacefully, the embodiment of youth and passion, a dream most men his age would sell their souls for, Valsavis felt a disappointment and a longing he had never known before. He tried to superimpose upon her sleeping features the face of the young villichi priestess and he knew that until he had the real object of his desires, he would never truly know what it meant to feel complete satisfaction. For the first time in his life, Valsavis felt a need for a woman. And only one would do.

Anything else was just a fantasy. This young woman, lovely as she was, had been no more than a substitute that left him feeling, for all her genuine emotion, loss and hunger that demanded satisfaction. And no mere substitute, no matter how young and beautiful and passionate, no matter now genuine her feelings and responses may have been, would answer to his need.

Valsavis quietly got out of bed and quickly started getting dressed. Tonight, he thought, they would leave for Bodach. They would go to meet the Silent One, who would guide them through the city of the undead. He still did not really believe that she was what she claimed to be, but either way, it didn’t really matter. The lure was Bodach, and both the riches and the terrors it contained. For most men, this would have represented a doom that would have frozen their blood in their veins. For Valsavis, it only meant a way to feel more stimulation, a challenge to all of his abilities and skills, an adventure to make his blood boil and make him feel alive. He was looking forward to it.

He tried to imagine what it would be like, fighting the undead. No warrior could face a more dangerous or fearsome opponent. It would be the ultimate test of a man who had devoted his life to being tested. And it would mean a resolution, one way or the other. If Sorak found the talisman known as the Breastplate of Argentum, then Valsavis would have to take it from him. He would have to best a Master of the Way, an elfling with powers of endurance and strength rivaling those of the finest human warriors, an opponent with a magic sword capable of cleaving through any obstacle or weapon-and an enemy who had the one thing that Valsavis wanted most of all, the loyalty and affections of a villichi priestess who could hold her own with any man, and who was worth whatever pains it took to capture her devotion. Valsavis looked down at the beautiful young girl sleeping peacefully in his bed and decided that no substitute would ever do again. It had been pleasant, but the pleasure had been ephemeral and, ultimately, unsatisfying. There was only one woman he had ever met who was truly worthy of him, one woman who could challenge him on every level. There was only one woman worth winning, no matter what the cost. And her name was Ryana.

When the time came, Valsavis thought, he would kill the elfling. But the priestess he would claim as his own reward, as the Shadow King had promised. And if he could not have her, he decided, she would have to die. I will have you, Ryana, he thought, if it takes both my life and yours. One way or the other, he thought, you are going to be mine, either in bed or on the field of battle. Resign yourself. It is inevitable. He finished dressing and buckled on his sword belt.