"You are drained and exhausted, brother mage; do not seek to deny it. I am willing to confess, without the slightest hesitation, to feeling weaker than any stripling Student." Grimm's tone was firm and confrontational, even contemptuous, but, for once, Xylox did not bristle or remonstrate with his junior.
"How are we to put up an effective magical presence in the face of an army aided by Guild mages?" the young sorcerer continued, remorseless and stern. "There will be few, if any, opportunities for sleep in the desert, and we cannot risk facing the General in our present condition."
Xylox cast his gaze around him in a furtive manner. The two warriors and Drexelica were engaged in dismantling the tents, and Foster was busy within the bowels of the wrecked vehicle. It was plain that Xylox was not about to confess to the least incapacity or weakness within earshot of four Seculars.
"Foster is motivated to move on," the stocky thaumaturge said. "I dare not risk trying to compel him to wait longer; I am ready to admit that I may lack sufficient resources to cast another Compulsion spell, at this juncture."
This, from Xylox, constituted an admission of major weakness. The situation was as serious as Grimm had feared.
"In any case, we have no food, and inanition poses a risk to all of us, not just you and I. We have two competent warriors with us, and we should move while they, at least, retain their strength and agility. What else can we do?"
It seemed a knotty problem, and Grimm considered his colleague's argument with care; the junior Questor disliked the older man with a passion, but he felt unable to refute his logic.
"I concur with your reasoning, Questor Xylox," he sighed, "although I must confess to some trepidation."
Xylox frowned. "I have one stipulation, Questor Grimm: I feel no inclination to treat with an avowed Technologist. Since you seem to have a certain amount of… sympathy for this art, I will trust you to see that the man, Foster, remains true to the spell I have laid upon him, and that he takes us to our goal in good order."
The senior Questor turned his back as Foster returned from the wreck, bearing a few packages and knapsacks, borne on a small, wheeled cart equipped with a yoke. The broken-down tents were loaded onto the cart, and Foster distributed a knapsack to Tordun, Crest and a disdainful Xylox, keeping one for himself. The muscular albino, covering himself as best he could from the destructive rays of the sun, put the yoke around his ample shoulders, and the Haven man donned a pair of dark spectacles.
"If we're all ready, folks, I'd suggest that we start while the sun's low in the sky," Foster said.
Grimm found the pilot's jocularity irritating, but he said nothing, acknowledging the man's words with a silent nod.
"All set? Good; let's get moving, people."
The party began the trek into the unforgiving, burning, golden wasteland that lay ahead.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter 17: The Heat of the Day
The party had left the margins of the Shest foothills more than two hours before, and the sun hung at an angle of forty degrees or so to the ground. Firm rock had long since given way to deep sand, and progress was slow.
Drex, in particular, seemed to find the going difficult; she wore a long, heavy, velvet dress and thin pumps more suited to a dancehall than a desert.
She was not the only person with problems; although the sun was nowhere near its zenith, Tordun was breathing heavily. He carried a heavy haversack, dragged a well-laden barrow, and he was covered from head to foot to shield his pale, sensitive skin from the vicious rays of the desert sun. In addition to the albino's all-encompassing robes, Grimm knew that Tordun still wore his heavy leather armour underneath.
Only Foster seemed to be wearing clothing suitable for the oppressive terrain. The pilot had fashioned a burnoose from what appeared to be white silk. The sheer material was fastened around his brow with twine, and it hung over the back of his neck. He had stripped off his heavy pilot's outfit, and he had fashioned more of the light material into a flowing robe cinched at the waist. His heavy, durable leather boots also seemed the most suitable footwear for the demanding terrain. With the black spectacles completing his ensemble, Foster appeared almost comfortable in the morning sun.
The Haven man seemed to have given no thought to the plight of the rest of the group, and Grimm felt moved to remonstrate. He knew Xylox would be too proud to admit to any weakness or incapacity, even if it might mean his death.
"Foster, I understood that, in desert regions, it is best to travel at night and rest during the day," he said.
"Well, on a long journey, with no end in sight, that's true enough," the pilot replied. "But we have no more than five days' walk ahead of us, at worst. We have a reasonable amount of water with us, and we need to use the sun to navigate. If you walk at night in the desert, it's easy enough to find yourself walking in circles, since most people have one leg slightly longer than the other. There's always the Pole Star, assuming there's no cloud, but it's not accurate enough in a blank landscape with no reference points.
"The Pole Star is almost half a degree away from true north. If the General's compound were only a few miles away, that wouldn't be a problem, but a positional error of half a degree or so would see us lost in the desert. With the aid of the sun and a couple of sticks, I can ascertain our heading with reasonable accuracy. As long as I check frequently, we should be able to find our way well enough"
"Have you no lodestone?" Grimm queried. What was all this talk about the sun and sticks? Had the Technologists lost the secret of one of the oldest methods of navigation the human race possessed?
Foster looked blank for a moment, but his expression soon brightened. "Oh, you mean a compass. Yes, I've got one here."
The Haven man produced a transparent, rectangular device with what looked like a clock-face at its centre. There were two indicators: one was pale-green, the other, more slender, needle was red. "Which way do you think we're going?"
Grimm knew that a lodestone always orientated itself around a north-south axis. The letters N, S, E and W made the device's operation clear.
"North half East," he said.
Then his brow furrowed in confusion: he realised the rising sun was over his left shoulder, indicating that they were moving in a south-westerly direction.
"You see?" Foster said. "The mountains have a lot of iron in them, so the needle always points towards them, rather than to the north. A compass is useless here."
Grimm found the pilot's perennial cheerfulness irritating, but he swallowed his annoyance. "Can we not use the position of the mountains as a nocturnal referent?"
Foster shook his head. "It's too big, mage; too vague. In a few days, we'll have the General's compound in plain sight, and we'll be able to zero in on that easily enough-if we discipline ourselves. But we won't be able to see it at night.
"Cheer up; it'll be uncomfortable and difficult, but we'll be all right if we all exercise a little discipline!"
The Questor's felt his forbearance stretching to its limits.
"Look at Tordun!" he snapped, indicating the heavily-attired, red-faced albino.
"If he makes it through the day, I will be surprised; look at Drexelica's bleeding feet. You may be comfortable enough, but what of the rest of us?"
"Feel free to ignore me if you want to die, mage," the pilot said. "I've been through survival training, and I know what I'm talking about. If you want to strip off, go ahead, but don't say I never warned you. If you do that, I can guarantee you'll be down from heat prostration in just a few hours. Sweat soaking into clothes evaporates slowly, taking the heat from your body, but it just drips off naked skin. It's gone in an instant, and it's wasted. You can survive far longer in the desert if you're well-covered."