John Marco - The Forever Knight

Curious, I went back to the spot where he’d drawn in the sand. Most of the picture was gone, except for a bit of the creature’s head. It was inanimate now, no better than something a child might draw. But I swear I saw nothing wondrous in it, and the word that gripped me wasn’t destiny.

It was death.

The worst part about crossing a desert isn’t the heat. It’s not the way the flies eat your skin or the fear of running out of water, either. The problem is how small it makes you feel. Anyone who’s done it knows what I mean. Once you’ve traveled for just a few hours, you look back and see nothing. And when you look ahead you see nothing, and you keep looking and looking and there’s nothing. There’s just sand and dunes and the horizon. There’s a fever that sets in when all you see is desert. If a man isn’t careful, it can madden him.

I had made the crossing more than once, and wasn’t afraid for myself. I knew how to guard against the desert’s bewitchments. We had our mounts and our mules loaded with everything we’d need, and I had my map. Still, I worried about Cricket. All that first day I watched her for signs of trouble, careful to measure the look in her eyes. We were just two people, infinitely small with an ocean of sand around us and nowhere to turn if trouble arose.

But Cricket was better than her word. She rode without complaint, quietly studying the dunes on the horizon, glancing up occasionally to marvel at the sun. She drank only sparingly and only when I said so, and she quickly adopted the habit of desert people of not speaking too often, a way of saving both strength and body moisture. I knew as I watched her that I’d made the right choice.

Our journey, though, would be a long one, because I had mapped out a route that looped south beneath Ganjor, avoiding it entirely. Almost everyone who came through the desert did so through Ganjor, especially if they were from the continent. We could have rested there for days, refreshed our animals and gotten new supplies, but only if I wasn’t recognized. King Baralosus might have given me Zephyr as a peace offering, but I doubted he’d be happy to see me.

So we rode south for one day then another and spent our nights beneath the stars. I took watch at night, afraid a rass might find us, and in the morning slept for just an hour. “Tomorrow night we’ll sleep somewhere special,” I promised Cricket.

“Where?” she insisted. She had taken off the cape of rass skin, deciding wisely to wear it only at night. Now we both wore clothing from the continent-good, plain shirts and trousers instead of gakas. We did, however, cover our heads with hoods. Cricket’s hood swallowed most of her face, but her eyes danced excitedly as she looked at me.

“A spring,” I told her. “A Seeker from Norvor told me about it. Said he came across this way himself. He told me right where to find it.”

“You sure he wasn’t lying, Lukien? No one from Norvor goes around Ganjor. . unless they’re criminals or something.”

“Norvor’s full of criminals,” I said, not really caring. Mostly the shanties around Jador were filled with decent folks, but some shady types had come across the desert, too. “No reason for him to lie. I know the desert well enough. What he described sounded right to me.”

“We’ll make it there by tomorrow night? You’re sure?”

“Tomorrow night we’ll be sleeping under palm trees, slurping up fruit. That sound all right to you?”

Cricket’s face turned dreamy. “Sure does. You know what I’m gonna do? I’m going to soak my feet in that spring.”

“We’ll take our time there, dawdle a bit the next morning. Can’t say we’re in a real hurry.”

As soon as I said it, I was sorry. Cricket grimaced and faced forward again. She was in a hurry. I didn’t apologize because there was no sense to it. We just kept on riding.

* * *

We did find the oasis the next day, right where the Norvan said it would be. By the time we reached it, dusk was settling over the desert. The wearying journey showed on Cricket’s face now, but when she saw the spring-surrounded by trees and grasses and tucked against a shading ridge-she beamed.

“Please, please, tell me that’s not a mirage, Lukien,” she said, and charged toward it on her pony. I let her go, laughing, understanding her almost delirious happiness. The Desert of Tears was blessed with very few spots like this one, a greenish island in an ocean of sand. Fruit hung heavily off the ancient trees, trees so worn and weather-beaten their roots erupted from the soil. I heard insects chirping in the grasses, felt a coolness strike my face. My parched mouth longed for water.

“Can I drink?” called Cricket. She quickly dismounted and eyed the spring, bubbling up into a river that stretched out into the desert, where it died.

“If it smells right, drink it,” I answered, watching her as I led Zephyr and the mules into the shade of the ridge. Cricket knelt down near the spring and cupped her hands full of water. She took one sniff and smiled.

“I don’t smell anything. That’s good, right?”

“Right,” I said and dropped down from Zephyr’s back. The water was just as the Norvan described it-clear as rain. Cricket poured it into her mouth, then splashed her whole face with it. Then she looked deep into the bubbling pool.

“There’s no end to it!” she crowed. “We can have as much as we want!”

I led Zephyr and the mules toward the water. “Get your mount. A squire always waters his horse first.”

Cricket looked chastened. “Sorry.” She got up quickly and retrieved her pony, letting it drink with the other animals. “There’s a lot to being a squire.”

“You’ll learn it,” I said. “Now, though. . we rest.”

* * *

It was easy to lose track of time at the oasis. We unburdened the animals, rolled out our sleeping blankets to flatten the tall grass, and soaked our feet in the spring water. Cricket was careful to pay attention to the mounts, making sure they were settled and comfortable. She even went through our supplies to give me an accounting of what we brought with us. But when she came to the case carrying my bronze armor, she paused.

I watched her as I leaned back, opening a fruit with my dagger. The leather case had traveled with me from Liiria to Norvor and then to Jador. It contained the only precious things I owned, save for the Sword of Angels. The case wasn’t locked, and I could tell Cricket wanted to look inside.

“Go on,” I told her. “You’re my squire. You should check it from time to time.”

Cricket knelt over the case like it was a treasure chest. As she opened it, the bronze armor reflected yellow on her face. Unlike my sword, there was nothing magical about my armor. Still, people who saw it always got a strange look in their eyes, like they were seeing something priceless. I pried open my fruit and drank its sweet nectar.

“Here,” I said, offering her the bigger half. “Sit with me and talk.”

Cricket softly closed the case. “Will you wear it when we get to Akyre?” she asked. “You should. You should announce to everyone that a hero has come.”

Her adoration made me uncomfortable. “That armor’s for fighting, not for showing off. I’ll wear it if I need to. Otherwise it stays in the box.”

“Oh, there’ll be fighting,” she said. She scraped her top teeth over the fruit meat. Her brown eyes darted up toward the moon.

“What makes you so certain?”

“’Cause we’re heading to the Bitter Kingdoms.”

“Are you remembering something, Cricket?”

She shook her head. “Nothing new. I just know it, is all. Trouble made me lose my memory. That I know for sure.”

I didn’t know much about the Bitter Kingdoms back then, but I knew Cricket was right. They were little kingdoms, ruled-if you could call it that-by blood-soaked barons. Mostly folks just passed on through the Bitter Kingdoms on their way east for spices. That made the Bitter Kingdoms poor, and that made them covetous. Cricket was lucky to have escaped.