Allan Cole - Wolves of the Gods

Everyone said they understood. Then, to avoid suspicion by getting up and leaving en-masse, they drifted away one-by-one, until only Leiria remained. She stared at him, eyes narrowed with sudden suspicion.

"What's going on, Safar?" she asked

"Going on?" Safar said, all innocence. "Why, what ever do you mean?"

She kept staring, eyes ferreting for some sign beneath Safar's bland features. Finally she sighed. "Never mind," she said. "I'm sorry I asked."

And then she was gone. Safar caught a serving wench by the elbow and ordered up another jug of wine.

His assignment was to investigate the city's central arena where the sporting matches were going on-and to get a close look at the Naadanian king. At least that's what Leiria thought. Actually, Safar's mission was much more difficult.

Asper had bade him to go to Naadan. For what purpose, he hadn't said. Safar grimaced, wishing the master wizard had given him the smallest hint of what he was supposed to accomplish in Naadan. All Safar could think to do was go about his thieving business and pray for a sign.

Then the wench came with the jug and he set about the impromptu task of restoring his confidence. He settled back in his chair and let the warm sounds of the tavern flow over him. It had been a long time since he'd been in such easy company. When he was a student in Walaria his happiest hours had been spent at the Foolsmire, a tavern catering to the student trade that was known for its cheap wine and even cheaper books.

Safar took a big gulp of wine, enjoying the feel and taste of it going down. Strange thing-he remembered liking wine in those days, sometimes in excess if truth be known. But he didn't remember needing it. This wine he definitely needed.

And with good reason, he thought. At one time, the odds against him ever reaching Naadan had seemed insurmountable.

He drank his wine, remembering…

It was an epic flight, an odyssey of terror. Panic lurking like cliff edges on every side as Safar used all his tricks, plus inventing scores more, to keep himself and his charges alive and out of Iraj's clutches.

The first days were so desperate that Safar didn't have much memory of them. Everything was a blur of hysterical people and animals and badly packed baggage trains careening from one mountain pass to another. Safar had a vague route in mind to confuse their pursuers, but it was all Leiria and her scouts could do to keep the Kyranians on the right track.

The journey might have been made easier if Safar could have commanded the leading party-his presence alone tended to calm people. But out of necessity he had taken up position well in the rear with Renor and his friend, Sinch, to assist him. He peppered the trail with magical spells and traps to confound the enemy. He also triggered a whole series of avalanches, blocking not only the passes they'd pushed through, but all others as well so Iraj's scouts couldn't tell which way they'd taken.

Luck was also with them. As they were coming out of the mountains into the northern wastelands an unseasonable storm roared in from the Great Sea, hammering the ranges with icy blizzards and bringing all of Iraj's forces to a miserable halt. Meanwhile, the Kyranians were safely in the rocky foothills and Safar and Leiria only needed to keep the villagers moving through the heavy rainstorm.

When the rains stopped they found themselves in a bleak landscape of blasted stone. Oddly formed peaks burst out of blackened ground that was cut by hundreds of ravines and gullies, many so deep and broad and filled with storm-swollen creeks and rivers it took days to negotiate them.

It was in these badlands that Safar performed the greatest non-magical tricks of his life. Food was scarce and water came only in amounts that were treacherous-swift moving streams that could sweep away a wagon and its contents, or tracks that remained waterless for day after throat-parching day. To shake off Iraj he relied on Coralean's maps of all the secret caravan routes that crept through the north country from the Gods Divide all the way to Caspan and the Great Sea. All the main trade centers were also well-documented, including routes meant to avoid the clusters of bandits that prowled the outskirts of civilization.

The sheer number of Kyranians, plus their lack of experience on the road, nearly defeated Safar at the start. Fortunately they had reached the relative safety of the badlands, with all its switchbacks and secret trails, before Safar was overwhelmed by the sheer logistics of the expedition.

When they'd abandoned and burned their village, the Kyranians had fled with little thought of what they ought to carry away with them. Some households tried to transport all their worldly goods-from kitchen stoves to festival dinner service. Others only snatched icons off the wall, cats from the hearth seat and lucky cicada cages made of dried reeds that buzzed like supportive orchestras when the insects sang their songs of romantic longing. The Kyranians pressed everything into service that could carry weight for their flight-from lumbering ox-powered freight wagons down to sledges drawn by goats. They also tried to take all their animals-goats by the hundreds, oxen by the score and llamas and camels by the dozens.

Even favorite horses long retired from toil were brought along. The consequence of this chaos was an enormous unwieldy mass of people and animals spread all over the landscape. Heavily-ladened wagons broke down, animals scattered and were lost, one pregnant woman and a several elders died of exhaustion.

But when all seemed lost, Safar dug keeper into his sack of leadership secrets to rally his people and put steel back into their spines. The villagers stripped themselves down to the barest necessities, burying tons of abandoned goods and household items in places where Iraj's scouts couldn't find them. When they set out again they were a disciplined force that got better with each passing day. Thanks to Leiria and Sergeant Dario, most of the young men were being turned into a skilled fighting unit, so they had little to fear from bandits and rogue soldiers.

When supplies ran low Safar used Coralean's maps to find secret routes to the richest towns and cities and after he'd raided them the Kyranians were able to vanish with ease into hidden passes and deep ravines.

To keep his people going, Safar dangled the vision of Syrapis before them-a paradise to replace the one they'd lost. Meanwhile, he kept edging them toward Naadan. The city was to the north, as was the Great Sea, so no one guessed his intentions.

It didn't hurt that Safar wasn't that sure of them himself. However, after worrying on that bone until it was splinters, he gave up. Frustrating as it was, he had to let the winds of fate carry him where they would-as long as they headed north. To keep his will focused he reduced everything to a simple mantra: Naadan, Caluz, Syrapis. Naadan, Caluz, Syrapis. Naadan, Caluz…

…Syrapis!

He wondered what waited for him there. Prayed that whatever it was, it would at long last answer the two questions that had haunted and driven him his entire adult life: What was killing the world?

And how could he stop it?

Safar downed his wine and poured another. At the rate he'd been traveling, he thought, he'd die of old age before he reached that fabled isle.

What was Asper's line? Oh, yes, "…All who dwell 'neath Heaven's vaults … live in dread … of that monster, Time…"

Monster, indeed.

He got up to leave, nearly stumbling over a skinny little crone who had been leaning, unnoticed, against his table.

"Pardon, Granny," he said politely. But as he spoke he felt a sudden prickle of magic sniffing along his skin.

The crone grinned a toothless grin, saying, "Alms, master. Alms for a poor old woman."