He’d awoken to find himself in a blasted wasteland of a desert. So alien did it appear he’d at first thought them cast into some other Realm, or some nether reach of the Paths of Hood himself. But that night the stars came out and he knew they were still in the world – and if he was reading the sky correctly, far to the south of Quon Tali.
A flat featureless plain of wind-blown dust, crusted salt pans, and outcroppings of barren crumbling rock lay in every direction. Here and there bits of broken and rusted metal poked out like wreckage. To his eye the fragments had the look of the mechanisms they’d encountered in the flying structures they had seen before.
By day the sun seared the ground like a forge – waves of heat shimmered like will-o’-the-wisps – while by night the winds snatched all heat away and left one shuddering.
Dancer had opted to travel by night. By day he levered up the ramshackle sledge as cover against the sun and they lay in its shade. By night he dragged it as far as he could before falling exhausted.
Faced with the choice of four directions he’d chosen east, and crossed his fingers that this land lay mostly north–south. Since then there had been four nights of endless trudging, with only the stars as evidence that he was making any headway at all.
A groan from behind brought him up short. He let the rope fall and turned to peer down at Kellanved. He’d have knelt to inspect him, but he suspected that if he knelt just then he’d not be able to straighten again.
He swallowed – or attempted to – to wet his throat, and croaked, ‘Back with us?’
The mage nodded, wincing, then raised his hands to his head with the tentativeness of someone expecting to find a wet mess. He felt at it gingerly, groaning anew. ‘The touch of whoever that was is particularly virulent.’
‘Where are we?’ Dancer asked.
Kellanved opened his eyes and peered about owlishly. ‘Haven’t the faintest.’ His head fell back down.
Dancer looked to the sky. ‘Not helpful.’
A quavering hand rose to wave. ‘I’ll work on it.’
‘Fine!’ He picked up the rope and returned to hauling.
When the first glimmerings of golden light brightened ahead, Dancer dropped the rope and started digging with his knives to create a trench for them to hide in from the sun’s blasting heat. This finished, he returned to stand over Kellanved. ‘Can you get up?’
‘’Fraid not.’
Dancer grunted, took hold of the fellow’s clothes at the shoulders, dragged him into the trench, and started working on levering up the sledge as a shading lean-to. That done, he lay down himself and, despite his ferocious gnawing hunger, immediately fell asleep.
The sun’s glaring light in his eyes stabbed him awake. Kellanved lay with an arm over his face. Dancer roused himself to shift the sledge to the opposite side of the trench then lay down once more, his face turned to the salty, ashen earth.
A nudge woke him; it was dusk. A purple light was gathering in the east. He staggered off and undid the front of his trousers but found he couldn’t urinate. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d relieved himself. Seemed the need had passed.
He returned to the trench, blinked down at Kellanved. ‘Can you stand?’
The mage twiddled his fingers at his chest. ‘Sorry. Can’t seem to feel my legs …’ And he laughed, a touch nervously.
Dancer merely grunted once more, readied the sledge, and dragged Kellanved back up on to it. Stooping, and fighting a wave of dizziness, he picked up the rope, tucked it under his armpits, and leaned forward until the damned contraption started moving. He kept it moving by leaning as far forward as he could.
While Dancer walked the endless leagues of the white salt pans, Kellanved started talking. Or babbling – depending upon how generous Dancer felt at any particular moment.
‘I do believe I have narrowed it down to one viable candidate for our location,’ he was saying. ‘Have you heard of Korel?’
Dancer managed a hoarse ‘No’.
‘No? Really? Well … how about the land of Fist?’
It took Dancer a while to say, ‘Yeah. Heard of that in stories. The Stormwall.’
‘Indeed. Korel is another name for the region. It lies south of Quon Tali.’
Dancer grunted to show he was still listening.
‘And south of this subcontinent lies yet another land – one I have only seen depicted on maps – named Stratem. Have you heard of that?’
‘No.’
‘Really? Your geographical education has been shockingly neglected, I must say.’
Dancer rolled his eyes.
‘In any case, even farther south than Stratem lies a long peninsula with no name. I myself have only come across one account of it. A traveller who passed its shores. No one has ever actually dared walk it.’
‘And?’ Dancer asked, as he knew the mage was aching to impart his knowledge.
‘Ah. It is described as a great flat monotonous wasteland of salt pans and blasted rocks where nothing can live as the soil is too poisoned.’
‘Sounds familiar.’
‘The legend I came across is of one of the most savage battles waged between the Elders. A clash of the K’Chain Che’Malle and the ones known as the Forkrul. So ferocious was the exchange that the very land was laid to waste, poisoned and seared to glass. Even the Warrens here are wrenched and tattered – like slashed cloth. I can attest to that. So, it is very possible that we were cast into the middle of that very wasteland to die.’
Dancer grunted again. ‘And?’
‘And? What do you mean, and? I proffer an amazing piece of deduction and that is the best you can do?’
‘In other words, this doesn’t help us at all.’
‘Well … if you must put it that way …’
Dancer just shook his head.
They endured another day of glaring heat. That night, with twilight coming on, Kellanved staggered to his feet. ‘I will try to walk,’ he told Dancer, who was so doubtful he pulled the sledge along in any case. And it was fortunate that he did so, for later that night he glanced back to see no sign of the mage. He had to backtrack a good distance to find the fellow lying face down in the dry crusted dirt.
He levered him back on to the sledge and turned round.
A short while later he too found himself face down in the dirt. Blinking, he pushed himself up, leaned forward, and plodded onwards. After the third time he came to in the dirt he lost track of where he was or what was going on. It all became rather dreamlike – or nightmarish. In this strange swirling nightscape he had to keep walking. He wasn’t really certain why, he just had to. And so he did, onwards again and again. Even, it seemed to him, crawling on all fours in the end.
Then he lay down – or thought he did – just for a short rest, as he was so very drained.
*
Moisture tickling his lips teased Dancer. He cracked one eye open a slit. He was inside some sort of crude dwelling. Water touched his lips with a sweet ecstasy that made him flinch and he blacked out again.
Some time later he woke once more. This time he blinked, rousing himself, trying to sit up. Then he flinched again, for facing him was a monster.
All in black it was – some sort of black-hued plated armour, complete with gauntlets and helmet. But it was holding out a seashell containing a few sips of water and this Dancer gingerly took, nodding. He drank it.
The monster sat back, echoed the nod.
Peering round, he could see no sign of Kellanved. Alarmed, he rose – or tried to – and would have fallen but for the creature taking his weight. He motioned that he wished to go outside, and the thing nodded again and walked him out of the enclosure.
They were at the coast. White sands sloped down to turquoise waters.
‘My friend,’ he asked hoarsely. ‘Where is he?’
But the creature just shook its armoured head.
Just up from the strand more of the black-armoured things were busy working on what could only be described as a large raft. Dancer spotted another rickety dwelling and pointed. His nursemaid nodded again and walked him over to it.