Roland Green: Knights of the Rose

He had not, however, even thought his death song, let alone sung it. He had no intention of dying tonight.

For that matter, Hawkbrother’s voice was such that anyone who heard him singing would seek his life, to return a decent and wholesome silence to the desert night.

Pirvan had intended to make camp so that the people and the mounts were hard beside each other, inside a single ring of sentries. But, close to the canyon rim, there was no level spot large enough.

The knight chose the next best solution-one spot for the people, another for the animals, and the animals closer to the canyon rim than the people. This put the people, sentries and sleepers alike, between the animals and the desert. Raiders might get in, but they would be hard put to get out safely.

“Of course, they might think to drive the animals over the edge of the cliff to make us stay here, until their friends came,” Gerik said.

He barely even whispered. Sound carried far in the windless desert night. Doubtless anyone within miles had seen them, but there was no need to cry their presence all night, like a seller of hot nuts in the streets of Istar.

Both knights and Tarothin nodded approvingly at Gerik’s words. Pirvan’s son had all the wits needed to make a good knight, as well as the skill in arms. He even had the firm notions of honor.

All he lacked was the wish.

“True,” Darin said. “But we have left the beasts hobbled or tethered. Cutting that many leather thongs would attract the sentries. The desert folk are shrewd and cunning, but they are not shadow mastiffs.”

A gloom passed across Tarothin’s face. It was not the square face of old times, nor was it set on the same broad, level shoulders that had allowed the wizard to keep order in his father’s inn as a young man. Tarothin had seen more years than Pirvan, and weathered them less well. The wounds from working potent spells-whether his native magely magic or the clerical spells he’d learned for healing-left no scars showing outside; all the hurts lay within. But they were real enough, and took something out of a wizard that no healer could put back.

Pirvan recognized that look. “Let’s go see if any of the beasts need your services, my friend,” he said, taking Tarothin by the arm. It was not the best pretext, as the Red Robe’s healing spells were potent only for humans.

“The horses and mules looked healthier than most of us,” Tarothin muttered, but followed Pirvan’s lead. In moments, they were out of easy hearing of the others.

“I feel magic close at hand,” the Red Robe said.

“What kind?”

“It’s so weak that I can barely sense it at all, let alone tell what kind.”

Pirvan declined to rejoice. Though weak spells could mean a weak mage, unable to harm a fly even if he wished it, they could also be the probings of someone exceedingly skilled and quite deadly. The shadow mastiffs that Darin had mentioned could be utterly silent as they followed a trail-then give voice as they leapt to surround the prey and rip its throat out.

Pirvan felt sweat prickle around his own throat. The sensation made him still more uneasy. This was hardly the first time he had made himself and Haimya into bait to draw an enemy from his lair, even into a trap.

But it was the first time Gerik and Eskaia had been part of the bait.

One more change, to add to all the others that come with being a father, he thought, even for parents of children in whom anyone can take pride? What was it like for those who must endure all the changes and yet see their children falter and fail?

So far, the True Gods had kept Pirvan from finding out. He hoped and prayed they would continue to do so.

Meanwhile, there was the mysterious weak magic Tarothin had discovered, the kind of problem Pirvan and Tarothin had solved more times than they could count on both hands.

A falling star flashed across the sky, for a moment outshining even the brightest of the fixed stars. Pirvan studied the constellations. All were in their places; no disorders in the heavens portended disorders on Krynn. Lunitari was also well risen; the red moon would strengthen a Red Robe like Tarothin.

“Can you listen-forgive me if that’s not the best word-for the source of the magic?” Pirvan asked. “Can you try to locate it?”

Tarothin’s wrinkled face acquired yet more furrows as he frowned. He ran his fingers over his bare and parchment-hued scalp, as if hunting for the hair the years had taken.

“I can try, but not without danger or with certainty of success.” Tarothin had grown more modest about his powers of late, but they were not declining. The Red Robe would be the first to tell Pirvan, if it were so. “Danger, if the source is living, detects me, and strikes back-by magic or by common means. Failure, if the source no longer lives or is not in a single place.”

“Old magic?” The chill of the desert night seemed to strike deeper into Pirvan. He reined in his imagination.

Tarothin nodded. “No one knows what lies beneath this desert now. Oh, we know who lived here in the ages before it was desert-mostly elves and ogres. But even the elves know little of the magic of their distant ancestors. Only the gods know who wrought what, how long ago, and how much might have outlasted the living spellcasters.”

The chill would not ease, but Pirvan chose to ignore it. “The Desert-the Free Riders-”

Tarothin laughed softly. “You’re doing better each day.”

“I should hope so,” Pirvan said testily. “The last thing I want is to be mistaken for an Istarian who repeats the kingpriests’ lies about ‘the lesser folk.’ ”

“Especially to be mistaken by one of those folk,” Tarothin added.

Pirvan gave something between a sigh and a grunt of impatience. “Those who roam the desert survive well enough.”

“We hear only of those who do survive,” Tarothin said. “Who knows what might befall whole tribes, of whom word never reaches the outside world? Perhaps the Silvanesti know, but they might as well be on Nuitari for all they tell humans these days.”

“All of which is why we are blistering our aging arses riding across this trash heap of the gods,” a voice rumbled from just behind Pirvan. He turned to see Grimsoar, and put a finger to his lips.

Pirvan’s old comrade muttered something in the tongue of the sea barbarians, and frowned before going on more quietly. “All right, all right. But we are here, and Tarothin is only pointing out new problems that the rest of us might never have worried about if he’d kept quiet. What can he do to get us safely out of the desert, besides what he’s said?”

“Nothing,” Tarothin said with a grin.

Grimsoar started a roar of laughter, then strangled it at birth, and clapped Tarothin on the shoulder so hard that the wizard staggered. “Still honest as ever, friend Red Robe. Well, I’ll sleep no worse tonight for this mystery magic, at least, even if you can’t tell me the wizard’s name, color, teacher, and what his staff looks like.”

“If I could do that from what I have sensed,” Tarothin said, “I could probably fly us to the borderlands. Being what I am-well, it grows late. I will keep vigil for a trifle longer, then bind my staff with a light spell to make it wake me if danger threatens. Best put the sentries in pairs, too, if you have not already done so.”

“The day I need a Red Robe to tell me how to guard a camp-” Grimsoar began.

“ ‘-is the day Serafina bears three sons at one birth,’ ” Tarothin and Pirvan finished for him.

“Don’t say that too often,” the wizard added. “Words like that have a way of turning around when you least expect it and biting you like a serpent.”

“For serpents I have a good stick,” Grimsoar said. He turned, and threw a final word over his shoulder. “Also for wizards who give unasked-for advice.”