“Hamaramis?” Taranath exclaimed.
“Yes indeed! And we’ve brought company!”
Taranath sent elves scurrying to ready the windlass. Others brought shielded torches closer to the hole. A harness was affixed to a second rope and lowered down the shaft. Vixona came up first, dusty, heavy-eyed with exhaustion, but beaming. The next person to appear was Hytanthas. As soon as the captain was free of the rope harness, Taranath clapped him on the back with such enthusiasm, he nearly went sprawling.
The three elf warriors were brought up, and the harness was lowered again, for the old general, Taranath assumed. When the person who appeared was not Hamaramis but a human, consternation bloomed on Taranath’s face. The human made no hostile moves, but the three warriors from the rescue party surrounded him quickly and made certain his hands were securely bound.
At last Hamaramis appeared. Before he had even shed the harness, he asked about the Speaker. Taranath was extremely grave.
“I’m afraid the Speaker’s condition has worsened,” he said quietly. He explained that Gilthas’s bearers had found him barely conscious in the center of the circular platform. The Speaker was back in his tent again, quite feverish.
“And Lady Kerianseray?” Hytanthas asked.
No good news greeted this question. The Lioness had not returned from her solo mission to Khuri-Khan.
“She went alone?” exclaimed Hytanthas. “How could the Speaker allow that?”
The two generals exchanged glances, then Hamaramis addressed Hytanthas, his habitual frown softening. “Lad, you’ll not serve our brave Speaker nor his valiant lady by standing out in the rain.” He gave Hytanthas a push to get him moving.
Hytanthas let himself be herded along. “I would greatly appreciate food and a bath, sir.”
The old general assured him that half his request could be provided.
Chapter 14
Sa’ida was sleeping slumped against Kerian’s back. Abruptly she flinched awake and slid sideways. Feeling herself falling, she grabbed wildly for Kerian. The sudden movement caused the elf woman to overbalance. Out of habit Kerian threw herself forward to hug Eagle Eye’s feathered neck.
“Peace, holy one! You are safe.” The restraining straps buckled around the priestess’s waist held her snugly in the griffon’s saddle.
“Forgive me!” Sa’ida rasped. The constant wind had dried her throat. “I thought I was falling.”
Kerian sympathized. Passing a leather-wrapped water bottle to the priestess she related the experience of her first overnight flight. She’d not secured the saddle rig properly and had tossed so hard in her sleep that she and the saddle ended up hanging underneath the flying griffon. When she opened her eyes, she found herself upside down in a thick cloudbank.
“I thought I had gone over into the next life!” she said. When a mountain peak rushed out of the fog, she nearly was knocked into eternity.
The priestess handed the bottle back. The white scarf covering her head had been knocked askew. She straightened the scarf, tightening the knot that secured it at the nape of her neck, but tendrils of hair still streamed across her eyes. As she worked to tuck them away, she found herself regarding the Lioness’s shorn head with envy.
They were still miles away from the elves’ camp, descending in gentle stages through cool night air. The range ringing Inath-Wakenti bulked large before them. Sa’ida peered over Kerian’s shoulder at the rugged pinnacles. She had never seen mountains before.
Suddenly she trembled down the length of her frame and inhaled sharply.
“Shall I land?” Kerian asked, thinking the priestess was in need of a respite from the unaccustomed constant motion.
Sa’ida shuddered harder. “This place is saturated with power!” she gasped.
“What sort of power?”
“Not godly magic.” That was Sa’ida’s stock in trade. “Something wilder, very old, and very dark! It’s horrible! What a troubled place!”
Kerian made silent note of that. Trust Gilthas to pin his hopes on a sanctuary awash in ancient dark sorcery. She’d make certain Sa’ida shared her impressions with him. Perhaps the priestess’s opinion of the peril would carry more weight than hers had so far.
Sa’ida was muttering. Leaning close to Kerian’s ear, she said more loudly, “One power balances the other, but both are deteriorating. A war has raged here for untold centuries. Both sides are fading, but their power is still potent.” She scanned the shadowy horizons as if she could see the magical forces mustered like armies on a battlefield.
“The lines are blurred. I cannot tell one from the other.” She bent forward, resting her forehead against Kerian’s back. “Just sensing them makes my soul ache.”
Sympathizing with her pain, Kerian nevertheless kept Eagle Eye flying straight on to the center of the valley and the camp. However, when the distance to the mountains declined to a few hundred yards, the priestess’s trembling and complaints gave way to something stronger. She gripped Kerian’s cloak in both fists and jerked hard.
“Turn away! Turn away now. I cannot bear it!”
Immediately Kerian steered Eagle Eye into a wide right turn. Sa’ida was hunched against her, fingers gripping Kerian’s waist so hard the elf woman was certain they would leave bruises. The priestess’s breath came in short, sharp gasps as if she could barely drag the air into her lungs. Her breathing didn’t ease until they’d put a mile of clear air between them and the entrance to the valley.
“There is an ancient ward on this place. It is very strong,” she said. She didn’t know who had cast the confining spell, but was certain her goddess, the Divine Healer, had had nothing to do with it.
Kerian set Eagle Eye to flying in a large, slow circle while she pondered how to get the priestess into the valley. Despite the nomads’ superstitious insistence that it was taboo, nothing had interfered with the elves’ various comings and goings by horse, on foot, or on griffons. Sa’ida asked whether their sages had experienced any difficulties. Kerian was forced to admit that none among the exiles had Sa’ida’s level of expertise and sensitivity.
Frustration rose like bile in Kerian’s throat. She could tell by the stars that midnight had come and gone. Her goal was in sight, and every minute’s delay propelled Gilthas that much closer to death. Truthanar had done his best but there was little more he could try against the strange human disease. Kerian had snatched Sa’ida from the clutches of Nerakan agents and Torghanist fanatics, overcome the woman’s own resistance, and brought them across the length of the Khurish desert. And they couldn’t enter the valley!
Sa’ida pondered the situation as well. She suggested they land. The magical barrier was strong, evoking distress and panic, but it was a ward of very long standing. Perhaps its coverage was thinning or there were gaps in it. It might be less dangerous nearer the ground, for example. The priestess could cite precedents.
She broke off in midsentence, yelping in surprise. Kerian had directed Eagle Eye to descend. He put his head down and they sank rapidly. A hundred feet up, he flared out, flapping strongly until they were almost hovering, while Kerian quickly studied the terrain. To the left, she spied a rocky spit of level ground between the peaks and guided Eagle Eye to it.
On the ground wind whistled, setting their cloaks to flapping. Around them were nothing but stone crags, broken boulders, and drifts of pale gravel. They’d landed at a high elevation, above the tree line, and stood exposed to a constant column of cold wind. Far below, beneath the cloudless night sky, the desert lay like a pale tan sea. It stretched from horizon to horizon, west, south, and east. Wide dunes, broken here and there by the dark lines of dry wadis, rolled south toward Khuri-Khan.