“It does not matter. I did not understand. You gave no offence. I thought perhaps I had offended you.”
“No, no, of course not. I sometimes forget, that's all. I forget who you are and I forget to hold myself away from the world.”
“You fear the world would corrupt you?”
Hrangil looked at him, puzzled, then said, “No, I didn't mean that. I must hold my wicked nature in check. You are surprised. But I say little. I do only what I must do. I dare not do what I want, I might find it evil.”
Once again Azkun could think of no answer to Hrangil. It seemed an appalling view to hold. He had made mistakes himself, but the dragons would deliver him from the corruption of the world. The corruption was not part of him.
Yet it was part of Hrangil. Hrangil had to eat.
Beyond the Kruzan pool the plains became both colder and drier. Up until now they had crossed streams every few miles, but now the ground became stony and the tough, desert grass began to replace the lusher pastures. Two days after the Kruzan pool the flatness of the plains was broken by a distant line of brown hills that marched from the west towards them. The wind had changed by now from the damp east wind to a dry westerly.
Azkun did not get a close look at the hills until a day later when their road ran right past a great tongue of sand that reached towards it. The hills were sand dunes, piled there by the wind that blew forever across the plains. Tiny avalanches of sand spilled down their slopes. He had seen dunes before when they had sailed along the Relanese coast towards Atonir, but these were much larger. They were as high as the walls of the palace of Atonir.
“They shift closer to the road every year,” observed Menish as they passed the edge of the tongue. “One day they'll cover it.”
“Then we'll move the road,” said Althak.
“No doubt, but it makes me feel at the mercy of the desert. It decides where we can and cannot go. We can't easily cross those dunes.”
“We Vorthenki have a saying: ‘We are all in the hands of Kopth.’ Perhaps you would change it to Aton or Krith but the sentiment is the same. The point at which we imagine ourselves as a power over such things is the point at which they defeat us.”
“You're right,” said Menish. “We'll move the road.”
The line of dunes was the mid-point of the deep desert. Beyond them the dryness of the country diminished. The grass became taller and eventually flecked with green. Streams began to appear again. At first these were tiny, but on the third day beyond the sand dunes they had to cross a sizeable river. Two days beyond that lay Gildenthal.
The flat plain had turned to rolling hills with groups of trees dotted over it. There was even more wildlife here than they had seen in the south, but Menish still refused to allow them to hunt. They were making their way down a winding ridge when Menish halted and pointed to the valley floor below them. Azkun could see the white Anthorian tents surrounded by tilled fields. In their centre was what looked like a small palace with a high tower beside it, but there was something peculiar about the buildings. He could not see what it was from a distance.
Menish had Althak unfurl his standard. They did not want to be mistaken for raiders.
When they reached the valley floor their view of Gildenthal was blocked by trees so it was not until they were quite close, crossing the tilled fields, that Azkun was able to see the place clearly.
The town was almost exclusively made of tents. Two or three small, stone houses had been built among them, but the northerners clearly preferred their felt tents to cold stone. In the centre of the tents lay the palace and the tower, and Azkun was able to see what was odd about them.
They were ruined. There were wide cracks in the palace walls with creepers growing through them and the tower, which might once have been quite a size, was crumbling into rubble. Azkun was about to ask what had happened here when they were greeted by a group of people from Gildenthal.
“Sire, it's good to see you. We didn't look for you in the north at this time of year. I'm Vangrith of the Thonyar clan. I have five hundred yaks.” She smiled at them. The northerners were a direct folk, she said who she was and how rich she was. It simplified matters, thought Menish. In the south they liked to see if Menish would remember their names and standing and became annoyed if he was unable to. In fact he did remember Vangrith, she was one of the most important people in Gildenthal.
“My journeys have taken me far from home this year. I've heard there were floods in the north.”
“The pasture land near the river was flooded two months ago, it often is in summer.”
“Then the tale I heard grew in the telling.”
Vangrith, it transpired, was a distant relative of Grath’s. She offered them food and hospitality in her tents, she had several. They ate a light meal of tsamba, for there would be a feast tonight. Azkun steeled himself to feel death again. Menish had been thoughtful to spare him from it on their journey, but he could not forbid these folk to feast on their own cattle. Even so he took a moment to have a quiet word with Azkun.
“I hope you're not too distressed by this?”
“Nothing can be done. Not yet.”
When evening came a huge fire was lit before the dark walls of the ruined palace and the folk of Gildenthal gathered around it bringing freshly killed beasts. They proceeded to prepare the animals for roasting in the light of the flames. Azkun watched them with mounting horror. It had been days since he had tasted death so intimately, he had forgotten how much it appalled him.
To take his mind off the gore he turned to Althak.
“What are those buildings? Why are they so broken?”
“Grath can tell you better than I,” said Althak. “All I know is that they're very old.”
“Yes, they're old,” said Grath. “That's obvious, I suppose. But they are about the same age as the palace of Meyathal. This palace you can see was destroyed when the ground shook. That sometimes happens here in the north. The women say it is Kiveli, the earth goddess, angry at us men for worshipping Aton. There's a tale I can't remember of an old king who refused to leave the palace even though it was crumbling around him. I can't remember his name either, but it was his grandfather who built the palace.
“The fire tower was built much later, though it, too, is very old. Yes, it is a fire tower, or it was meant to be. I think it was never lit. The Gashans attacked Gildenthal and smashed it. That was hundreds of years ago.”
“The Gashans actually came here?”
“Oh yes. That was before one of the Relanese Emperors drove them back, Gilish III he was called, or was it Gilish II? I'm not sure. His name was Gilish anyway, but he wasn't the first Gilish.”
Azkun was about to ask more about the ruins when he heard Hrangil’s voice raised in indignation.
“What is this man doing in our midst? Begone, vermin! You have no place here.”
The man he spoke to crouched near the butchers picking at the scraps they threw away. His hands and mouth were red and slick with blood. He was not Anthorian. Even in the shifting firelight Azkun could see that. His hair was long and matted and he had a full beard like a Vorthenki. But he was not tall and his hair and beard were black. He wore rags that were torn and filthy.
When Hrangil spoke to him he winced like a kicked dog. He slithered away into the shadows with a leering scowl on his face. Hrangil spat onto the ground.
“What is it?” asked Menish, he had been talking with Vangrith and had not seen the man.
“Monnar filth,” said Hrangil. “They were letting him eat by the fire.”
“Oh, that's old One-ear. He does no harm,” said Vangrith.
“He's a Monnar! You allow him by your fires?”
“Well, we don't exactly allow him. But he manages to fight with the dogs for his share of the scraps.”