“I have noticed,” she said. “It has a strange effect on me, as well, though perhaps not the same effect it has on you.”
“What does it make you feel?” he asked.
Ryana thought a moment before replying. “It makes me feel very small,” she said at last. “Until we came here, I do not think it ever truly occurred to me how vast a place our world is and how insignificant we are by comparison. It is both an alarming feeling, in a way ... all this openness and distance . .. and yet, at the same time, it imparts a sense of one’s proper place in the scheme of things.”
Sorak nodded. “Back in Tyr, when I was working in the gaming house, desert herdsmen would often come in for some recreation after they had sold their beasts to the traders in the market. They had a saying about the tablelands. They would say, ‘The distance gets into your eye.’ I never quite knew what they meant until now. For all the diversions the city had to offer them, for all that it was a much more comfortable and convenient life, they never lingered very long. They were always anxious to get back to the desert.
“The city, they said, made them feel ‘closed in.’ I see now what they meant. The distance of the desert gets into your eye. You grow accustomed to the vastness of it, to the openness, and you come to feel that there is room for you to breathe. Cities are crowded, and one becomes merely a part of the throng. Here, one has a sharper sense of self.” He smiled. “Or selves, as in my case. One does not become caught up in the frenetic rhythms of the city. The soul finds its own pace. Out here, in the vast silence, with only the gentle sighing of the wind to break the stillness, one’s very spirit seems to open up. For all the hazards to be found here, the desert imparts a sense of clarity and peace.”
She glanced at him with surprise. “That was quite a speech,” she said. “You are always so sparing with your words and to the point. Yet that was actually ... poetic. A bard could not have sung it better.”
“Perhaps I have a bit of bard in me, as well,” said Sorak with a grin. “Or perhaps it is just my elfling blood warming in its natural environment.” He shrugged. “Who is to say? I only know that I feel strangely content here. The forests of the Ringing Mountains are my home, yet it feels somehow as if this is the place where I belong.”
“Perhaps it is,” she said.
“I do not really know that yet,” he replied. “I know that I feel an affinity for these open spaces, and for the quiet solitude they offer—which is not to say that I am not grateful for your company, of course—but at the same time, I shall never truly know where I belong until I learn the story of my past.”
They rode a while in silence after that, each of them preoccupied with inner thoughts. Ryana wondered if Sorak ever would learn the truth about his past, and if he did, how would it change him? Would he seek out the tribe that he had come from, the people who had cast him out? And if he found them, what would he do? When Sorak finally tracked down the mysterious adept known as the Sage—if he did—would the reclusive wizard grant his desire? And if so, what would be his price? And what if he was doomed to disappointment in his search? The defilers had sought for the mysterious preserver for as long as bards sang songs about him. Could Sorak, without magic to aid him in his quest, hope to succeed where powerful sorcerer-kings had failed?
How long, Ryana wondered, would Sorak search before he gave up on his quest? He had yearned to discover the truth of his origin for as long as she had known him, and he had never been one to discourage easily. She hoped they would succeed, for his sake, no matter how long their search would take. It was not the life that she had hoped for when she first realized she was in love with Sorak, but at least they were together, sharing as much as it was possible for them to share. She might have longed for more, but she was satisfied with what she had.
Sorak, on the other hand, never would be satisfied until he found the answers to the questions that had tormented him since childhood. Nibenay was still a long journey away, and it was but the next destination in their quest. There was no way of knowing where the path would lead from there. Or, for that matter, if it would lead anywhere. They were both sworn followers of the Path of the Preserver, and though Ryana had forsaken her oath as a villichi priestess, the vow she swore as a preserver was one that she would keep until the day she died. She and Sorak were two preservers headed for the domain of a defiler, the realm of the dreaded Shadow King. The gates of Nibenay would easily open to admit them, but getting out again might prove more difficult.
They made much better time riding on the kank than they would have on foot, and by midday, they had reached the point where the caravan route from Tyr came up from the southwest to intersect their path. The traveling was easier after that, following the wide, well-worn and hard-packed trail.
Lyric came out for a time and sang a song, one of the songs the sisters used to sing when they worked together back at the convent. Ryana joined him, taking pleasure in the singing for old times’ sake, and Lyric instantly shifted key to harmonize his voice with hers. Ryana knew she was, at best, merely an average singer, but Lyric’s voice was beautiful.
Sorak did not like to sing. His nature was too somber for it, and he felt his voice left much to be desired, but Lyric, using the same throat Sorak used, possessed no such inhibitions and allowed his voice to soar. He was adroit enough to harmonize with her in such a manner that they both sounded good, and Ryana found her spirits lightening as she sang. Even the kank seemed to respond, matching its gait to the rhythms of the song.
When they were finished, Ryana laughed with sheer exhilaration. The desert seemed a far less oppressive place now, and her worries had been banished, if only for the moment. At the beginning of the day, with the vastness of the desert stretching out before them, Ryana had felt intimidated by it—lonely, small, and insignificant. Now, having seen the desert through Sorak’s eyes and filled it with her song, she no longer felt diminished by it. She allowed herself to breathe in the dry desert wind and feel it filling her with its tranquility. She felt marvelously free and basked in the wide open spaces of the table-lands, no longer frightened by its endless vistas, but invigorated by them. Perhaps it was merely a delayed aftereffect of her battle with the thrax, of having faced her fear and conquered it; perhaps it was the gently rolling motion of their mount that had lulled her into a calm, receptive state; perhaps it was the joyfulness of song; or perhaps it was all of those things—or something else, something indefinable. But the desert had won her over. She felt at peace with it and with herself.
As the dark sun began to sink over the horizon, they saw an oasis in the distance, marked by tall and spindly desert palms and large, spreading pagafa trees, their wide, majestic crowns—lush and full in the presence of water—silhouetted black against the orange sky. They were approaching Silver Spring.
“We are going to have company at the oasis,” Sorak said.
She glanced at him, raising her eyebrows.
He smiled and pointed at the trail ahead of them. “You have been lost in reverie again, and were not paying attention. A caravan has passed by here recently The tracks are still fresh.”
“It is hardly fair for you to chide me for not noticing such things,” she said, “when you can drift with your thoughts as much as you like while the Watcher misses nothing.”
“True,” said Sorak. “That is, indeed, an unfair advantage. I apologize.”