Джефф Мариотт - City Under the Sand

As the sun rose, they gathered in a fur-clad, chattering group to discuss their options. “Doubled-up on kanks,” Aric said, “we won’t be able to outrun those raiders for long.”

“We’re slowing you down,” Rieve’s mother said. Aric could only distinguish the members of the Thrace family by their relative heights, as they all wore thickly furred, hooded cloaks, and their faces were lost in shadow. “You didn’t intend to overburden your mounts so much. Perhaps you should give up on us.”

“You’re the reason we went to that fort!” Myrana said. “And we need you.” The night before, they had told Rieve and her family about Kadya and Tallik and the fact that they would need magical assistance to defeat the demon. The family discussed it, finally agreeing to return to Nibenay, just for long enough to help deal with the threat. Aric vowed to make every effort to keep them outside the city’s walls and beyond the reach of the authorities.

“Myrana’s right,” Amoni said. “Without you, we might have already been back in Nibenay by now. Much closer, certainly. It’s you, Sheridia, who we’ve the greatest need of. Among those Veiled Alliance members I know, your reputation is without peer.”

“Perhaps you should just take Sheridia, then,” Corlan suggested. “I can protect the others.”

“You’re very bold,” Rieve said. “And you fought well yesterday at the fort. But the six of us alone wouldn’t have a chance.”

“We stay together,” Aric said. “We should mount up and go, though. Already the sky lightens before the rising sun. We need every minute’s advantage we can gain.”

They doused their fires with sand, packed, and set off as soon as the sun cleared the horizon. After a few hours, they again caught a glimpse of their pursuers, closer than they’d been the day before. Myrana suggested that since they were already so far off their route, they make another detour.

They changed course abruptly, heading away from Nibenay instead of toward it. Myrana was correct, though—the trip to the raider’s fort had taken them far afield, and although time was certainly growing short, dying before they reached Nibenay would help no one. Myrana hadn’t explained exactly what she had in mind, but Sellis agreed with her plan, and that was good enough for Aric.

Around midday, they reached a broad, barren valley ringed by low mountains. Instead of cutting across the valley floor, Myrana and Sellis led them by what seemed a much slower route, circling it. When they reached the far side, they stopped to rest and to drink from a spring high up on the wall.

From there, looking across the valley, they could see the raiders on the valley’s far rim. The raiders spied them as well, but chose to cross the valley.

“They’ll catch us in no time, now!” Rieve’s grandfather said. “We lost hours by going around.”

“Just wait,” Myrana said.

“Wait?” Corlan asked. “The sooner we go, the better!”

“Wait,” Sellis echoed. “Watch. I think you’ll enjoy this.”

They waited and watched. When the party of raiders was halfway across the valley, someone emerged from an unseen shelter hidden among large rocks. From the valley’s rim, he looked tiny. But even at that distance they could tell he was angry. Miniature arms flailed with rage, miniature feet stamped.

And then he began blasting away at the raiders.

“Who is that?” Mazzax asked finally.

“That’s the hermit Kalipher,” Sellis said.

“He hates intruders,” Myrana added. “Last time we saw him, he swore he would kill any who entered his valley.”

“So you don’t mind using magic to kill,” Aric said. “As long as it’s not your magic.”

“He would have killed anyway,” Myrana said. “Or so he claimed, and I’d no reason to doubt him. I just thought it would be helpful if he killed the right people.”

“Some may yet escape,” Amoni said. “And we should take advantage of the opportunity to make some progress.”

Aric loaded some freshly filled water bladders on the pack kank. “Nibenay awaits!”

“So it does,” Tunsall said. “Or so we hope.”

They pushed on as hard as they could during the day, but stopped before sunset in order to make camp and start fires before the cold set in. Everybody was more relaxed than the night before, when they had made camp after dark and they’d scrambled to get things ready. At any rate, everyone was exhausted from fighting and running, none more so than Aric, who had not been riding like the others.

Once camp was ready, he sat on the ground chewing on dried meat Mazzax had brought, watching the others settle in. There seemed an odd distance between Rieve and Corlan, a coolness that had not existed before. At the same time, Corlan and Myrana spoke together several times, sometimes laughing. Aric wondered what had transpired, on the backs of those kanks for so long.

He’d never had a chance to really look at Rieve’s father, who he hadn’t met at the Thrace estate. The man had only spoken a dozen words since they had met; none of them, now that he thought of it, directed to Aric. They had been running so much, and the man had been so bundled up during the night and morning, that he hadn’t even had a good view of him. Myklan of Thrace was a handsome enough fellow, he decided. His hair was black and thick, with a few strands of gray near the temples. His features were even and pleasant, as befitted the father of someone as lovely as Rieve. He was fit, a little thick around the middle, but not nearly so much as many nobles. The only thing remarkable about him was a bright red mark on his left cheek, like a sunburst. A birthmark, Aric guessed.

As he watched Myklan, he found himself staring at that birthmark. It reminded him of something. He sat with his back against a rough-edged rock, racking through his memory.

An hour later, after he had eaten dinner and was thinking about other things entirely he picked up a metal dagger Myklan had removed from his belt and it came to him like a lightening flash.

“His face always reminded me of the rising sun,” Aric’s mother had told him, describing his human father. He had never understood what she meant.

Until now. It was impossible to look at Myklan’s face without thinking of Athas’s red sun, bursting over the horizon. Could it be true? Could Rieve’s father also be his own? Mother had thought he was dead, but she hadn’t known that, had only assumed it when he’d stopped coming to see her.

“He never seemed to like elves,” she’d also said. “He didn’t even like himself, when he was with me. It was like he couldn’t stay away, but then when he was there, he loathed himself for it. When I told him I was with child, he was mortified. I never saw him again.”

Another thought was nagging at Aric, but he couldn’t bring it to the surface. He left it alone, listened to a conversation Mazzax and Tunsall were having.

He almost didn’t want to say anything. Rieve would hate it. Sheridia might refuse to help them against Kadya and Tallik. But he couldn’t let it go. He tried to tell himself that it couldn’t be true, that if he voiced his suspicions, Rieve might never speak to him again.

But that red mark glowed in the firelight like it was a sun, blazing away, taunting him.

He couldn’t ignore it.

Whatever the risk, he had to say something.

“That mark on your face, sir. You’ve always had it?”

Myklan’s hand drifted to the red spot. “All my life. I suppose I’ve forgotten about it. Except when someone reminds me.”

Rieve stared at Aric as if he’d lost his mind. Perhaps he had. He avoided her gaze and pressed on. “I don’t mean to be rude,” he said. “When I noticed it, it reminded me of something. Something my mother told me, about my father.”