Zachary Jernigan - No Return

“Vedas,” Berun said. “He’s only a fighter.”

“Appearances only. Is God a man?” Ortur Omali stretched elaborately, creaking like a dead tree in the wind. His fingertips were splinters, long and stiletto thin. Two pinpoints of light flared in each eye. “There is something odd about him, child. Something troubling, or possibly even encouraging. It is tough to tell the difference, sometimes. I may need him destroyed. You must avoid attachment.”

“Why? How will you decide?” Berun had so many questions, yet his mind struggled through the confused logic of dream. His brows knitted in frustration. He brought his fist up and discovered that he could not open his hand to drop the sword.

“I don’t need this to kill a man,” he said. They were not the words he had intended to say.

The great mage laughed: the rustle of fallen leaves. “It is not a weapon, Berun. It is a demonstration.”

The air wavered before Berun. It became a curtain of shifting darkness behind which the figure of his father shuddered and fell apart. The sound of twigs snapping came to Berun distantly, and the earth shuddered beneath him. A crack formed in the map drawn on the ground. A rent opened, its crumbling edge racing toward Berun. He tried to pick up his feet, but found them rooted in place.

He tipped sideways into the black chasm.

Abruptly, the vision ended.

Berun stood over Vedas’s sleeping form. Churls curled in her sleeping bag a few feet to his left. Her sword belt lay on the ground next to her, empty.

The weapon was weightless in Berun’s hand.

‡

They continued south in a straight line. The air grew colder, the wind stronger. Powerful gusts kicked up fine salt crystals embedded in the thin soil and flung them against exposed skin. Vedas covered his face. During the heaviest gusts he walked half blind, the suit material grown to cover his eyes. Churls pulled leather chaps and jacket from her pack and wrapped her head with the scarf she used as a pillow. Berun barely felt the wind or the abrading sand, but the going was slow for the other two.

They stopped just before the sun set. Instead of pounding down a fire pit, Berun concentrated to form a pick at the end of his arms and then tore a shallow depression in the hard-packed earth. He lined the windward side with excavated rocks to shield Churls and Vedas from the wind, which became even more ferocious after dark, ushered in from the ocean that lay only a handful of miles away.

It was time to broach the subject of Churls’s route.

“Why aren’t we headed west?” he asked after his companions had finished dinner.

Vedas looked up from the fire, turned his head to regard Churls.

She shifted, obviously uncomfortable. “I hoped I wouldn’t have to talk about it.” She sighed in response to Berun and Vedas’s silence. “Really, I thought it was obvious. I thought maybe you’d seen the error in your plan.”

“What error?” Vedas asked. “Why would we travel south?”

“Because of you,” she said. Her eyebrows rose suggestively. “Don’t you get it?”

“Me?” He frowned. “Are you mad?”

She sighed again. “Would you consent to travel with a cloak? Wear it at all times?”

Berun had discerned her meaning, but remained unconvinced. Before Vedas could answer, he spoke. “Casta is neutral and Stol is moderate Adrashi. There’s no reason for Vedas to cover his suit.”

Churls laughed. “Oh, yeah? Then I must be misinformed. I’ve waylaid us unnecessarily and I apologize.” Her smile disappeared. “There are three tribes living in southern Casta. The Aumarveda, the Quinum, and the Lor, all three of which are devoutly Adrashi. They wouldn’t hesitate to attack a heathen like Vedas. Fortunately for us, they do not venture near the ocean. Who would if they could avoid it?

“As for the moderate Adrashi of Stol, in general I’ve found them far less accepting to foreigners—Anadrashi foreigners in particular—than eastern lore has it. Even if Vedas is not attacked outright, he’ll be a target for thieves and men eager for a fight in every hamlet. Added to this, Ulomi immigrants are common to the central valleys of Stol. Someone would undoubtedly recognize you, Berun. And unlike Casta, Stol is a land of magic users. Even you could get hurt. In all cases, a confrontation would hold us back. Our best option is to travel the Steps, where by all accounts the populous is sparse and peaceable, more concerned with living than fighting about religion.”

Berun considered. The idea possessed a certain appeal. He had always wanted to see the Steps. “How far out of the way is your route?” he asked.

She licked her lips. “About five hundred miles.”

“Out of the question,” Vedas said. He appeared to calculate quickly. “That will put us in Danoor with less than a week to spare. It’s possible we’d miss the entire tournament. We need time to settle in. There are training sessions, events in preparation for the tournament that I’ve promised to attend. My order must be properly represented.” He looked at Berun. “Why didn’t you tell me we were going the wrong way?”

Berun shrugged. “She’s our guide. I trust her.”

Vedas’s expression did not change. “You trust her? Your master and mine gave us the route. Instead of heeding them, you’re going to simply trust her?” He turned away. “I agreed to her company. I’ll listen to her advice. I won’t agree to this.”

“Is that how you operate then, Vedas?” Churls asked, eyes fixed on the fire. “They tell you to jump and you jump? Well, their route is fucked. Neither of you have been in this area before. Nor, I doubt, have your masters, otherwise they wouldn’t have told you to travel through the middle of Stol. The ground is fertile, and there are people everywhere. We couldn’t avoid them. You’re lucky I’m here to set you off course.”

She kicked at the fire. Sparks flew and streaked away with the wind. “Listen, I want to get to Danoor as badly as you do. I have money riding there—money I need. My route is your—our—best chance to get there in one piece. So you’ll miss the events leading up to the tournament. At least you’ll be alive to fight!”

She shook her head. “I admit that I need you. The journey would be too dangerous for me alone. All I need you to do is trust that I know best.”

The wind howled over them. Vedas grimaced and stretched out on his bedroll.

How easy it would be to leave him , Berun reasoned.

The thought lingered in his mind. As one recalls a forgotten dream, he realized he had been playing with the idea of abandoning Vedas for quite some time. With less than a gallon of water and no navigation skills, being caught in this corner of the world would have been the man’s death.

In lockstep, a series of other memories came to Berun.

Yes, he had pictured Vedas Tezul’s death, on many occasions. He had enjoyed it. The recognition of this fact horrified him. To have one’s body bent to the task of murder was a horrible crime—to have one’s mind bent to hate, yet another.

He waited for Vedas’s breathing to change, signaling sleep.

“We’ll do what he says,” Berun rumbled softly. “He’ll see that this route is best. Still, I was wrong to keep this from him.”

Churls closed her eyes. “Fine.”

The fire died down to coals. “Why?” she finally asked.

“I’m not sure,” Berun answered. “There’s something about him. I think you see it, too.”

Churls scooped dirt and doused the coals. “No. I don’t see anything.”

CHURLI CASTA JONS

THE 17 thTO 19 thOF THE MONTH OF CLERGYMEN, 12499 MD

THE STEPS OF STOL, KINGDOM OF STOL

The Steps began in the fertile southern plains of Stol, extending some seventy miles to the coast and more than four hundred along it. From a hundred miles away in southern Casta, the Steps had looked to Churls like nothing more than a smooth mountain slope. Closer, the scale was even harder to conceive. Ascending to a height of twelve thousand feet in seventeen evenly spaced, gently sloping rises, the Steps stopped abruptly at the ocean, shorn clean by a giant knife blade.