There were nods, and expressions of relief among the men. Xylina did not blame them; she was not looking forward to walking, with or without a pack.
There seemed nothing else to say, so without another word, Xylina led them off, her mule pushing through the grass as if he were swimming.
• Chapter 15
The wagons made slow progress through the tall grass, but it was progress, and Xylina saw no reason to abandon them yet. Nothing interfered with them during the day except omnipresent clouds of stinging insects. But Xylina thought she saw shiny glints of something, like gleams of metal, on the horizon now and again. That could have been nothing more than the sun shining on a bit of water-or it could have been a reflection off armor or weapons. There was no way of telling, really. Ware had a distance-viewer, but it was useless here, for something in the air kept distant things hazy and indistinct. Whatever it was that made those glints of sunlight kept its distance-or else they passed it by.
Faro said once that the creatures that were circling over them like curious vultures were like no birds he had ever seen. Sunlight glinted from them, too, as if they wore some bright bits of metal about them, or were even metallic constructs themselves. Still, there was nothing to be made of any of that; Ware had told them that the people here would be hostile, and it made sense that they would keep a watch for intruders. Creatures of the air would make good spies for such a purpose. Xylina hoped that her party appeared too small for a threat but too large to trifle with.
Night came slowly, here; the sun descended through a golden haze, and the enormous clouds on the horizon turned red, yellow-orange, and gilded as it sank behind them. There was no particular place that seemed better than any other for a camp, so Xylina arbitrarily chose a hill and decreed that they would stop for the night. They trampled the grass flat for a camping-place, and Xylina conjured a huge, flat stone to put the cook-fire on, a stone covering an area as large as her tent. Horn, who had been on many a campaign before, cautioned her about setting fire to the grass accidentally. He swore that such a wildfire was as dangerous as any enemy, and Xylina was prepared to take his word about it. The stone was his suggestion, and it seemed a good one to her.
She conjured the tent-materials, and while the men assembled the camp, she debated setting up a stone palisade as she had done before. Her magic power had returned during the respite of the tentacle plants and now seemed stronger than ever, but she remained cautious. The lessons of the spiders had shown her that such a "defense" was not necessarily the best idea. While it was true that such a palisade would protect them from some things, the spider-creatures had already shown that such a defensive ring was not proof against creatures that could climb or fly over it. Only luck, and her forethought in creating the fire-ring inside the palisade, had kept them from being trapped in there, and had enabled them to trap some of the spiders in turn and keep the others at bay. And if they were confined within a high stone ring, they would not be able to see what was coming up upon them from the grasslands in the night. They could, in fact, wake to find themselves surrounded.
Ware cautioned against such a defense; when Faro came to see what they were discussing, he argued for it. Finally, she decided to compromise.
She set up a ring of stones with gaps in them, gaps at which she stationed a guard for the watch. If an entire army came marching up to confront them, she would have time to conjure stones to fill those gaps. And if something that was able to pass over or through the stones attacked them, they would at least not be trapped inside their own protections. This would be no harder to guard than any other perimeter, and it had the added advantage of requiring only four guards on any one watch.
The air felt overly warm, heavy, and thick. Every little exertion made her sweat uncomfortably. Her temples began to throb, but she saw no point in complaining. She conjured wood for the fire, torches, and oil for the lamps as usual, but by the time full dark fell, she was suffering from an inexplicable headache, and one which no amount of headache-powder would cure. Although since they had first hosted the Pacha she had made a point of taking meals with the men and sharing their camaraderie, tonight she excused herself, ate sparingly, and took to her bed. When Faro came to see how she was, the pain was sufficient to ask him to substitute someone for her on night-watch.
This was unusual enough to prompt Faro to return several times to find out how she was doing, and for Horn to appear with a special sweet posset and a solicitous inquiry on behalf of the men. Finally Ware arrived, as she endured a throbbing in the front of her face that nauseated her, and asked if he could help.
"Only if you can magic away this pain," she said crossly, the dull ache making her short of temper. "I am afraid to take any more drugs for it-if something attacks us, I dare not have my senses blunted, and pain-drugs often interfere with conjuration. But if I do not, I am not certain I could hold my concentration long enough to be effective. I can't imagine what has caused this. I do not feel feverish or ill, and I have not eaten anything that the rest have not also eaten."
"I cannot magic it away," he replied, keeping his voice soft and soothing, for which she was grateful, "but perhaps I can entrance you so that you may sleep. I can make certain that the trance is a light one, and any disturbance in the camp will awaken you. I can if you will trust me, that is. I should not blame you if you did not. I know the Mazonites claim that an incubus can do whatever he wills with an entranced victim, and I would not be offended if, in the present circumstances, you would rather not take the chance that I might exceed the bounds I promised."
It was the sad resignation in his voice that decided her in his favor as much as anything else. That, and the fact that she knew now that he was far more honorable than many of the Mazonites who told those tales about dishonorable demons. "Of course I trust you," she replied, the pain making her voice sharper than she had intended. "You are honorable, Ware; you made me certain promises, and you will not violate them. If I know nothing else about you, I know that, for a certainty, as certain as the sun will rise."
"Well, at least the sun is beyond the vagaries of wild magic," he replied, some of the humor coming back into his voice. "And I do not think anything is likely to change that at any time soon. Well then, if you will permit me-you must look deeply into my eyes, and try to relax."
She nodded, and fixed her eyes on his. The flame of the lamp he had brought with him reflected a metallic scarlet in the center of his pupils; the many colors of the irises seemed to swirl, and swirling, pull her whirlpool-like into those orbs-further, deeper, away from her body, until the pain was nothing, a thing remote and far from her and no longer a part of her. She relaxed further; now that the ache in her head was no longer the center of her thoughts and she emptied her mind as the soft voice told her, and in a moment, there were no thoughts at all to distract her.
She woke all at once in a spasm of pure terror, her heart pounding and her ears echoing. She was so very overcome with fear that there was no room for anything rational, only animal fear and paralysis in the darkness.
A heartbeat later she knew what had awakened her-as a lightning-bolt lashed down somewhere near the camp and thunder flattened her to her bed. The first one must have hit right on top of the camp-
One moment, the air was still; the next, a blast of cold wind slammed into the wall of the tent, bringing with it the storm. A torrential rain lashed at the tent-walls, and lightning flashed so constantly that there was no true darkness.