Dave Smeds - The Sorcery Within

"You have come far among the Zyraii," he said. "Don't lose your honor now. I would have kept my promise, in no more than another few weeks."

"There's no time to waste. Something has happened. I can't risk the wait."

"By law, I am required to stop you."

She nodded. "I know that. Will you?"

"Yes," he whispered.

She sighed and slid her rapier out of its sheath.

He drew his scimitar.

Elenya's head ached from the previous night's drinking. She hadn't slept all night. Lonal, however, was probably in the same state, and he wasn't as rested. She weighed each factor, one by one, trying to take each advantage and disadvantage into account. Too much thinking. She needed to clear her mind and concentrate on the task of defending herself.

They closed the gap slowly. They had both seen each other's mettle at Xurosh. They circled, just out of range, testing the ground. Elenya tucked back a stray lock of hair. She kept her rapier point out of reach of his weapon, peripherally aware of the roadway underneath her and the hills on either side. Her oeikani nibbled noisily at the feed she had set out for it.

They lunged.

She bit her lip, stifling the pain in her thigh. He jumped back, transferring his scimitar effortlessly into the other hand. A small spot of blood stained the upper arm of his garment.

She should have died. She had left her lower body open. Just as he had exposed his heart.

He lowered his scimitar.

She sheathed her rapier.

"This is pointless," he said. "I'll give you a day's lead. When you reach the Ahloorm, ride upriver. When a large stream merges from the west, follow it to its source. You will come to Setan. I'll be behind you, with a party of Po-no-pha. They may be able to do what I cannot."

"Lonal?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

He met her gaze, pretending to be stern but failing. "I don't know why I put up with so much trouble from you. Bind that wound and get moving. I want to know myself what you've come so far to find."

So do I, she thought as he turned and rode back toward Xurosh.

Alemar and the healer stood on the crest of a foothill overlooking the upper Ahloorm Valley. A single rider had appeared out of the plain on a lathered oeikani. Alemar lifted the amulet out of his collar. The jewel was so bright it flickered visibly even in the sunlight.

An answering glint of emerald came from the rider's chest.

"She's pursued," Alemar said matter-of-factly, "but she has a good lead."

"It tells you all that?"

All activity from the amulet ceased. The jewel once more looked like a dull green, semiprecious stone of no great rarity. Alemar stuffed it back out of view. "Sheis telling me that. It never used to be so clear from a distance. Maybe now that we're older, or now that I've been trained as a Hab-no-ken…"

"Why did you stop?"

"It's been a long time, master. It's a bit overwhelming to communicate with her so strongly."

Gast caught the huskiness of his apprentice's voice. Abruptly he said, "I'll wait for you downslope. There's a spring there. We need water."

Alemar nodded, not bothering to watch the healer. He never shifted his sight from his sister's approach. It seemed like no time at all after his teacher's hoofbeats had faded away before he was smelling the dust of her arrival.

They listened to her oeikani wheeze. It was a proud, sleek animal and had travelled near the limit of its endurance. She patted its neck, murmuring gratitude, and flipped back her cowl and dropped the veil. Alemar removed his hat.

"You look good in green," she said.

"You look good, period." Maturity had taken the severity from her features. Her breasts were fuller and her hips flared, a belated womanly blossoming that had dissolved the tinge of boyishness she had still possessed two years earlier. Her tan was deep, her hair unbound.

But such ferocity. No Zyraii had ever exuded it as strongly as she did. Perhaps he was overly sensitive to it, by virtue of their twinness, or the amulets, but there was no question that she had become the kind of warrior the desert itself would admire.

He didn't dwell on it. In the same instant, they had rolled out of their saddles and into each other's embrace.

They stayed that way for a long time. Finally Alemar said solemnly, "The Dragon flies."

She stiffened. "Tell me everything."

He told her what he knew. Her lips pursed tighter and tighter as he spoke. "I feared as much, when I felt your summons," she said.

Alemar became aware of a familiar sensation. "You're hurt," he said.

"It's only a scratch," she said. "It's old. I didn't think it showed."

"It didn't. Let's go down to the spring and I'll take a look."

The next day, Elenya removed the poultice and examined the slice along her vastus muscles. In slightly over twenty-four hours, all that remained of the damage was a section of pink tissue and a slight stiffness when she stretched.

"It's amazing," she said. "It doesn't even look like there will be a scar."

"There won't be," Alemar said.

"Obo would be proud. He could never prevent scars."

"Obo can still do things I can't. This was easy, because of our attunement."

He glanced up the slope they had been climbing. "Let's see what Gast has found out," he said.

They had ridden through the night, conversation filled with their lives of the past year, ending always with the topic of the Dragon. They left unsaid their worries that their effort now might be too late.

The final leg of their journey had been over jagged escarpments and grades not meant for travel. It had cost them time, but they agreed that it was worth avoiding being sighted by anyone from Setan. It would have been too easy to have established a guard around the citadel to thwart their objective. They had abandoned their oeikani a few minutes back, near a water hole.

The healer lay on a smooth rock slab at the ridgeline, lifting only cranium and eyes above the horizon. The twins wormed their way up to either side of him and peered over.

A circular valley opened in front of them, totally unlike the desolate landscape to be found everywhere else in the eastern Ahrahikte. Steep hills ringed it on every side, the only easy way in being the narrow defile that carried a small tributary to the Ahloorm. The far wall was almost a sheer cliff, its lower face decorated with carved columns, gargoyles, and geometric designs, vestiges of herculean construction long past.

But the relic astonished them not half as much as the verdant orchards, vineyard, and hayfields. A small lake lay up against the cliff; it emptied via canals into furrows, ditches, and smaller reservoirs. The cultivated land formed a broad horseshoe around the relic, the ground immediately in front of the cliff swept bare. The road from the pass led ostensibly straight to the ruins, but the route showing the most wear veered off to the right, to a cluster of buildings.

The village bustled with activity, people standing in the avenues in conversation, individuals striding from door to door on various missions, boys being instructed by blue-robed Ah-no-ken, maintaining their neat rows and proper posture even out in the indolent shade of date palms. Young acolytes of the Zee-no-ken, Bo-no-ken, or Hab-no-ken could be distinguished by their colors as they engaged in menial tasks such as raking, sweeping, or harvesting dates. A few individuals were working out in the fields. A bent old man was carrying a bundle of scrolls from one building to another. The twins could see occasional tents, but for the most part the structures were substantial, of clay or of stone quarried from nearby slopes – many remarkably fitted with doors or trim of actual wood.