Then the stone itself began to bristle and swell. Vaananen watched in horrified fascination as the thing sprouted eight white, rootlike legs, which sud shy;denly began to twitch and wave …
Like the funnel trap of a springjaw, the druid thought, and felt the hair on his arms rise. Peace. Tis but a vision.
Yet despite himself, Vaananen shrank from the image. A human form appeared at the edge of the whirlpool, a wavering translucent shape like a mirage on the desert horizon. The apparition scrambled vainly.toward the top of the sandy whirlpool, the springjaw clambering after it, its smaller set of fangs clacking hungrily.
"Fordus!" Vaananen whispered, stepping forward in alarm. He knew that somewhere this was actually happening. The rebel was fighting with a monster. Here in his chamber, powerless to help, the druid could only watch and hope.
And breathe the warding over the distant tore.
At the edge of the eddying sand, the ghostly man clutched, grappled, slid back. The springjaw scrambled toward him, a dull light shining in its great green eye. Huge, sand-colored, and insectlike, it scrabbled at the bottom of a funneling pit, its ragged jaws opening like a crab's claw, like a Ner-akan mantrap.
Fordus lurched toward the lip of the pit and safety as the creature reared and plunged, its huge mandibles encircling his ankle, widening, arching …
"Watch the other eyes . . ." Vaananen muttered, staring at the dull black orbs resting behind the false, brilliant eyes of the springjaw. The black eyes, the true ones, would signal the attack.
He breathed a prayer that Fordus would know this as well.
The great jaws hinged and wavered over the Plainsman's leg. Sliding down the sandy incline, Fordus snatched an axe from his belt, pivoted, and hurled the weapon solidly into the thorax of the attacking monster. The springjaw roared, staggered back, its black eyes rolling swiftly beneath the chiti-nous exoskeleton of the head.
"Now!" the druid cried, and thirty miles away, in the heart of the desert, the Prophet felt the tore at his neck quiver and draw him up. With a last burst of furious energy, Fordus set his other foot on the springjaw's head and pushed. Crying out as the swiftly closing jaw flayed the skin of his ankle, the Plainsman rolled clear of the trap, pulling himself onto level ground as the springjaw slid back into crumbling darkness. He sat on the edge of the sand funnel, thankful to be alive, clutching his wounded foot.
Which already was beginning to swell with the monster's poison.
Vaananen leaned forward, trying vainly to judge the severity of the wound. But the white sand whirled in the other direction, and slowly the stone rose to the surface of the garden. Innocent and mute, it lay where the druid had placed it, next to the red stone, where its shadow formed a soothing pattern on the manicured sand.
Vaananen exhaled. The vision was over. The sand was smooth, featureless again. He was alone and safe in his sparely appointed room, the shadows on the walls lengthening and deepening as the colored lamplight dwindled.
Vaananen raised his head at the soft sound on the windowsill. Vincus gracefully lowered himself into the room.
"What did you bring me?" the druid asked, smil shy;ing and turning to face his visitor.
The young man's dark hands flashed quickly, rac shy;ing through an array of ancient hand-signs.
"Of course you may sit," Vaananen said, chuck shy;ling as he detected the smell of sour hay. "And the pitcher of lemon-water on the table is for you."
Vincus drank eagerly, then seated himself on the druid's cot. Swiftly his hands moved from sign to sign, like a mage's gestures before some momentous conjury.
"So they all mention this dissent among the rebels," Vaananen mused. "Mercenary, augurer, salt seller-same story."
Vincus nodded.
Vaananen turned slowly back to the sand. "But no more than a passing word?"
Vincus shook his head, then noticed the druid's back was to him. He shrugged and took another drink of the water.
"And what do you make of it, Vincus?" Vaananen asked, glancing over his shoulder.
The young man flashed three quick, dramatic signs in the lamplit air, and the druid laughed softly.
"Nor do I. But you have done your job. Now I must do mine."
Vincus gestured at the water pitcher.
"Of course," the druid replied. "Have all you like. Then you should leave quickly, the same way, I think. Prayers are short in these times, and your master will expect you in his quarters."
A scowl passed over the open face of the young man. Balandar, Vincus's master, was not unkind, and his library boasted the best collections among the Istarian clergy. But servitude was servitude, and it went hard to trade the freedom of the streets and the night for confinement and the slave collar-even if the collar was made of shining silver.
Vaananen turned away uncomfortably. In a moment Vincus would climb back through the win shy;dow and into the garden. He would reach Balan-dar's quarters in plenty of time to make the fire, pour wine from a rare and valuable stock for the ancient cleric, then set out his robes for the next morning. In an hour, old Balandar would be snor shy;ing, and Vincus would recover the time-for reading, for sleeping or eating.
For anything but freedom. Vaananen did not like to think about it.
Vincus's father had died in servitude, and the Kingpriest had visited the man's punishment on the next generation, but unlike the elves miles below them, digging into rock and oblivion, Vincus could have his freedom eventually. Someday, he vowed silently, Vincus will go free.
Carefully, the druid traced the glyphs once more in the pristine sand. Fordus would live. He had to.
And he would need water and tactics at once.
The Tine. The sign that would take him to the ancient dried fork of the river. There was water underground. Easy enough.
Third day of Solinari was more complex. The com shy;pressed, multiple meaning of the glyph. Water three feet below the surface, Istarian forces three days away…
Blanking his mind, Vaananen looked at the third symbol.
No Wind. Favorable weather, favorable strategy. The principal Istarian force lay miles and miles away, regrouped in defensive positions.
Good news on all fronts-news to be sent to For shy;dus over the miles.
But there was also this unsettling news Vincus had brought to him.
Rocking back on his heels, the druid inspected his handiwork. He needed a fourth glyph, to show warning.
He drew the chitinous exoskeleton, the antennae, the wide, hinged mandibles.
Springjaw. It would be fresh in Fordus's mind.
Beware. The ground is unsteady.
Chapter 7
Three days into Fordus's absence, the rebel camp grew more and more uneasy. They were nomads, and three days in one place was too long. The livestock had grazed the scrub completely to the cracked and stony ground, and the last water was nearly gone. All the while, the camp was abuzz with new arrivals, as Plainsmen from all over the region came and went in Fordus's itinerant quarters.
It was not unusual for Fordus to be gone a day, perhaps even overnight. The rebels were accus shy;tomed to their commander's retreats into the desert fastness: Fordus leaving Stormlight in charge and departing for the kanaji, to the level lands beyond, in search of water or, sometimes, enlightenment. Fre shy;quently, after a night alone in the wasteland, fasting and meditating, he returned to the encampment exhausted but strangely alert, speaking cryptically of his desert visions.
The elf would give them words of direction, settle poetry into policy, oracle into tactics. Then the battles would follow, and the victories. It had been that way since Fordus became the War Prophet.