Glenda Larke: Stormlord rising

Russet thought for a moment. "Best we pass Samphire by, no?"

"How do we do that?"

"Cross Whiteout."

"The Whiteout? I've heard of that. It's a salt plain."

"Flat. Easy ride. No Reduners be finding us on Whiteout. Cross straight to salt marshes. That be the border to Khromatis."

"I've heard stories about the pans. Trackless, they say. Just heat and salt and nothing else in all directions. I heard the white sends folk mad. How will we find our way?"

"I crossed it once. Can be doing it again." Russet stood abruptly and walked to the doorway. He pointed across the courtyard to the open gateway. "Look! See that white line bordering the sky? Those be the clouds over Variega mountains in land of Watergivers. That be where we be heading. Keep clouds in sight, can never lose selves."

She squinted. The caravansary was high on the range dividing the southern quarters of the Gibber and the Scarpen from the northern two-the White and the Red-and the view to the east and northeast was extensive. The plain far below stretched without interruption to the distant line of pinkish white, illuminated by the last long rays of the setting sun. "Why can't we see the mountains themselves?" she asked, doubtful.

"Far, far away. Later ye see the white tops."

"White? Are they made of salt then?"

"Be topped with snow," he said, and she heard his familiar mockery of her ignorance.

"Snow? What's that?"

"A form of water. Like-like shavings of white ice."

She tried to imagine a world where there was so much water it coated the hilltops with ice shavings, and failed.

"That family leaving much food behind. Pack it all," he said. "And all water pede can carry. Make sure it drinks well too, before we be leaving." He already sounded invigorated, as if the hint of his homeland had infused him with energy.

Terelle did as he suggested, stripping the bab palms of their ripe fruit the next morning in the washed-out light of predawn and cutting them into strips so they would dry easily. She filled every water skin they had to the brim, sealing them with candle grease after stoppering them tightly. Russet found some extra dayjars, and she placed those in the side panniers of the pede as well. When they'd finished, Terelle regarded the loaded pede dubiously.

"That's a heavy load for a myriapede," she said.

"Downhill," Russet said. "Then flat, mile after mile. Each day weight less as we drink and eat, no?"

"The pede will need to drink a lot, and often, out there. How many days will it take to cross the Whiteout?"

"Less time than be taking to finish the water," he replied.

Unsettled, she wondered if he really knew. In the snuggery, she had heard tales of the White Quarter, of travelers dying on the salt, their bodies found years later, mummified and dried solid. Pickled. What kind of people were they, these Alabasters, who apparently did not have red blood in their veins? Who could live in a land where the very ground beneath one's feet was made of salt?

In the first few miles after Fourcross Tell, the land was not all that different from the areas they had already crossed: stunted trees dug into the soil with grotesquely twisted roots, gullies scarred the land in memory of long-ago streams. Even the dust felt the same. Later in the day, though, as they descended to the plains, the vegetation changed and she felt as if she was leaving everything sure and familiar behind. The trees disappeared, replaced by low bushes and creepers snaking over the ochre-colored earth. When they stopped to rest, Terelle fingered the leaves of one plant and found it dusted with salt.

It was hot by then, stifling. The air hung so still it felt heavy on her shoulders, and thick to breathe. When she licked her lips, she tasted salt. When she touched her hair, it was stickily coated.

"We stay here while sun high," Russet said. They dismounted and he sat in the shadow cast by the pede. Wearily, he pulled his embroidered head-wrap loose and drank from his water skin. His earlier vigor seemed to have been vanquished by the heat. "We go on later; be cooler."

Terelle nodded and strung up bab matting for shade by tying it to the pede on one side and a single saltbush on the other. She sat down next to Russet, using the pede as a backrest. Even under the cover, the heat was intense enough to shrivel the skin. Carefully she smoothed some of the pede ointment onto her face; Vivie would have approved. The pede flicked one of its feelers backward and touched her cheek in a tentative gesture.

"What is it, girl?" she asked. "You can't be thirsty already." Gently, she prodded the belly between the segments; the moisture-saturated tissues were soft. She gazed into its myopic compound eyes, and wondered whether it had a name or not. The liveryman had called it Number Twelve-indeed, it had the number etched into its rear segment. It wasn't a handsome creature, all carved and polished and sewn with embroidery, like a lord's animal. It was just a plain, working hack. Still, she tried to do what was best for it. Russet had said pedemen kept the crevices between carapace and skin cleaned of grains of sand and such, so every evening she groomed the pede carefully and checked every segment groove for sand-ticks, every one of its eighteen pairs of feet for injury. When she found abraded spots on its skin, she smeared on the lanolin supplied by the livery.

Encouraged by Terelle's words, the beast curved its front end around, poked its head into the shade cast by the cloth, then rested the base of its head on the ground at her feet. If a pede could look soulful, then that was what it did. Terelle chuckled. "Oh, I see-you're just hot too, eh? Fine, Number Twelve, you stay right where you are. We can share the shade." The creature settled its first segment mantle down over its eyes-the only way it had of closing them-and dozed. Next to her, Russet was already sleeping.

Terelle glanced around. Nothing moved in the midday heat, so she, too, closed her eyes. She was awoken by a scream.

She leaped up, whirling around to find the danger. The pede raised its head and flicked its feelers. Russet was clutching his leg and moaning.

"What is it?" Terelle asked, trying to slow the thumping of her heart.

"Something be stinging me." Hurriedly, he pulled the cloth of his wrap back from his calf. A single spot of blood oozed just above the ankle.

"Snake?" She cast around where he had been lying, but nothing moved.

"Only one hole."

"Sand-leech?"

"More painful. Scorpion."

"That-that's not-not so very serious, is it?"

"Not if ye be treating it," he replied between gritted teeth. "Reduners use herbal concoction."

"We can go back to the caravansary-"

"Don't be stupid. We be going on. Get the water skin. Must be washing leg." He took the water and waved her away, indicating with further gesturing that she should dismantle the shade cloth and reload the pede. She did as he asked; she knew better than to argue.

They set off once more, in silence, and she concentrated on persuading the pede to whatever speed it was capable of-which never seemed to be as much as she had seen other pedes do. Whenever she looked behind at Russet, he was staring straight ahead, expressionless.

When she slowed their mount some hours later, thinking to stop for the night because the sun had almost set, he spoke again. "No," he said, "go on."

"I won't know what direction. I can't even see the ground properly." And I'm tired. And you are sick.

"See well enough once star river shines. Go on."

She did as he asked. A little later he brusquely pointed out a particularly bright star in the sky and said, "Be keeping that on your left."

He was silent for a long time as they continued. Every now and then she turned her head to check if he was still there, to find him hunched up and motionless behind her. In the silver-blue light she could not tell if the bite was bothering him. She felt a pang of guilt at her lack of compassion, but he was forcing her on this journey, sunblast it! He had no right to expect anything of her except rage.