Dave Smeds - The Sorcery Within

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.

THESNAKEBACKHILLS HAD EARNEDtheir name. They twisted with serpentine abruptness, jagged S curves as rugged as the Ahrahikte Mountains hanging over them in the west. The T'lil seldom ranged so far, but Joren and his clan needed the pasturage to be found on their slopes. Furthermore, Setan was nearby, and Joren reasoned that it was an auspicious place to be with the child due.

By his calculation, she was in labor already.

Alone, he climbed over a precarious section of scree toward firmer ground near the ridgeline. So far he had crossed the back of the snake three times, though it was early in the day, and would probably continue his destinationless trek until the light failed. Here, it was said, an ordinary man could be closer to God than any spot in all Zyraii. From any high point, God's Peak could be seen challenging the sky, so near that the glow of the moons could be seen on its snowfields in winter.

Would God consider his prayers? Was he worthy?

As he stopped at the crest to view the mountain again, his foot dislodged a large stone, sending it crashing down the grade he had just vanquished, into the scree. It created a small but noisy avalanche.

"Help! Help!"

Joren barely heard the voice as the din of the slide diminished. "Where are you?" he yelled.

"This way! In the hole!"

Joren searched the hilltop. Guided by continuing cries, he finally located an opening in the ground a short way down the other side of the hill.

"Don't get near! It crumbles!"

The warning came just in time. Though the earth appeared to be granite, near the hole it had cracked, and some pieces at the lip were loose. Two chunks fell. Dust billowed up out of the pit.

"Thanks."

"Sorry. How did you get in there?"