Grimm yearned to grab the self-assured, cocky little man around the throat and throttle him.
"In case you failed to notice, Foster," he snapped, "Tordun is an albino! The least touch of this sun on his skin hurts him, and he looks to be going through hell, even before we have even started our journey. Drexelica's arms are bare, and she only has slippers on her feet to protect her from the sand."
"They haven't complained," the pilot protested.
"Of course they have not!" Grimm snapped. "We Northlanders regard admissions of inability or discomfort as signs of weakness. I declare you to be a selfish, self-possessed, smug bastard, Foster! You are comfortable enough, so you assume everybody else is. Why do you not leave us here and go for help while we protect ourselves from the sun as best we may?"
Foster blinked; an expression of utter confusion on his face. Grimm guessed the pilot had never been in the desert, except in the company of others well-trained in survival techniques.
"I'm sorry you feel that way," the pilot said, his lower lip obtruding a little. "Nonetheless, consider the situation. If I leave you here, it will be five or six days at best before help arrives; five or six days without food, with little protection from the sun except thin tents. In any case, we'd be pretty lucky to find you here at all without some sort of navigational fix; this is a big place. We're better off moving on, believe me."
"You seem to have made yourself pretty comfortable," Grimm said. "I demand we stop here, and that you use your marvellous training to find a way for all of the party to travel with ease. None of us has been trained in desert survival, to my knowledge, so we may all be in danger."
Foster shrugged. "All right, troop, we'll be holding things up for a little while, courtesy of our good friend, Grimm. Let's get the tents up."
****
An hour passed and, even with the tents' welcome shelter, the temperature reached an almost unbearable pitch of severity. Foster grubbed among the various packs in the small cart, and did his best to outfit the members of the party with more suitable attire. At last, he found another pair of the darkened spectacles, which, by unanimous accord, Foster gave to the pink-eyed albino. With some misgivings, Tordun surrendered his leather armour and his sword to the cart, but he now wore similar attire to Foster's: a white burnoose now protected his head and neck, and a flowing, silk serape covered his sensitive skin, without restricting the free flow of air around his body.
Crest's loose, dark clothes seemed suitable enough for the desert, but he added a light hood, cut from the strange packages of silk and string Foster had found within the bowels of the shattered helicopter, and he had fashioned an eyeshade from stiff, thin pieces of white card he found in the packages.
After all the members of the party had been provided more suitable, if makeshift, clothing, Foster addressed the party.
"Since you're all inexperienced in desert survival, I'll make a few recommendations. Firstly, I recommend you to put a button, a stone or a similar object in your mouth to keep the saliva flowing. Secondly, if you're thirsty, drink enough to satisfy your thirst. Don't be tempted to sip and save the water; if you just take a small sip at long intervals, you'll stay thirsty, never reaching the optimal level. We should have enough water to last the trip, but, if we should start to run low, drink as much as you can at one sitting. It'll do you more good than a few small sips, believe me.
"Finally, I advise you to tell me if you start to feel faint, if you suffer incapacitating blisters or burns, or if you become confused. It'll be a little uncomfortable but, if we all pull together, we'll get through the desert in fine shape.
"It's getting on for noon, and it's going to get hotter until the sun sets, but we can cope, as long as we act as a team. Let's go!"
****
Tordun approached Grimm, looking far more comfortable and confident than he had in his heavy, cumbersome armour.
"Thank you, Questor," he muttered, just loud enough for the mage to hear; as Grimm had guessed, the fearsome warrior had been too proud to complain earlier.
"This is much easier. I may end up with a touch of sunburn, I suspect, but at least I'm not broiling in my own juice. I know you saw how uncomfortable I was, and guess that was why you stopped that smug bastard, Foster, in his tracks; I was just about ready to rip his spine out through his stomach. Thank you, Questor Grimm."
"Believe me, Tordun," Grimm replied, his lips dry and cracked. "I am more than happy to see you in such good humour."
"Foster told me that Haven had all sorts of wonderful unguents to save me from the sun; that seems to have slipped his mind. Thank you for reminding him that some of us are not as keen as others on catching a suntan."
Grimm smothered a smile at the welcome return of Tordun's proud combativeness. "He has a lot on his mind right now, Tordun," was all he said.
"Like my bloody fist round his ear," the warrior muttered.
A little while later, Drexelica approached him. In place of her velvet gown, she wore another of Foster's makeshift outfits, and her feet were bound with inelegant but functional strips of cloth.
"Grimm, I want to thank you for talking to that man, Foster; I feel much happier now in this heat. I'm sorry I spoke to you in such a nasty way earlier on," she said. "I don't really mind if you don't like girls; it's all right." She patted him on the shoulder, in the manner of a protective sister.
For some time now, Grimm had felt a slave to events, bouncing from circumstance to circumstance, but surviving the helicopter crash had somehow served to focus his mind. He had felt cowed by Xylox, ever since he had been threatened with dismissal from the Guild, and he had felt determined to placate the senior mage at all costs. However, he had to remind himself that he was no callow youth, but a Mage Questor of the Fifth Rank.
How many times had he been told 'power and presence complete the mage'? In recent days, he had been all power and no presence; he vowed that this would change.
Grimm knew now that, if all should go well, he would remain a Questor on his return from this Quest, and he felt determined to act like one. He felt ashamed at how he had felt so abashed and cowed by Xylox and how he had been so gauche and awkward around Drexelica.
Grimm looked Drex straight in the eye. "Drexelica, I wish to clarify something; I find you very attractive indeed, and I yearn to be closer to you. However, I regret that we must stay at arms' length from each other."
"But why?" the girl asked. "It's that nasty man, Xylox, isn't it? Why can't you just tell him to mind his own business?"
Grimm wiped sweat from his brow. "You must remember that I am still on a Guild Quest, Drex," he said in a soft voice. "I am not my own man until it is over."
The girl's expression brightened. "Perhaps we can get to know each other better when it's over? Then, you can drop that silly mage talk. It makes you sound just like him."
The young magic-user pondered for a moment. He had agreed to use the formal Mage Speech for the remainder of the Quest, but Xylox was out of earshot. How would the senior mage know if he lapsed into vernacular, just for a few moments?
No, he told himself, dismissing the temptation, a mage's word is his bond.
"It is not that simple," he said out loud. "I am nothing if not a Guild Questor. Of my seventeen years, I have spent nine years fighting to reach that goal, to win the right to bear this ring-" he showed her the blue and gold ornament on his wedding finger, "-and to bear this staff. I will not jeopardise that for anything."
"Nobody's asking you to, Grimm." Drexelica stumbled for a moment on the almost liquid sand, but soon found her footing again. "Even if we're together, you can still go on your Quests; I won't stand in your way."