Ryana did not answer for a moment, studying her companion. Then, after a pause, she replied simply and cooly, “Of course not.”
“You think I want to go back so that I may resume my former life?” Korahna said. “So that f may beg forgiveness from my mother and renounce the vow I took? No. I would rather die out here in the desert, which I yet may do. But if I survive this journey, I return to Nibenay not to resume my former life, but to begin a new one, not as a princess, but a preserver in the service of the Veiled Alliance. I know no magic, that is true, but i may yet be of some use to them is as a symbol, then so be it. i t is better than being of no use whatsoever.”
Again, Ryana did not respond immediately. In spite of herself, she was warming to the princess. “I may have misjudged you,” she said at last.
“I could not blame you if you did,” Korahna said “In truth, I do not know if anyone could truly judge her life as harshly as I have judged my own.”
“Perhaps not,” Ryana said. “But it is never too late to begin anew. One can always learn, if the desire is there.”
“I have that desire. Would you teach me?”
“Teach you what?”
“Everything! How to be more like you.”
Ryana had to smile. “That would take quite a bit of teaching.”
“Then teach me what you say I lack the most,” Korahna said. “Teach me how to take care of myself. Show me how to fight!”
Ryana laughed. “And this from a woman who moments earlier said she could not even lift a sword!”
“If you will show me how, then I shall make the effort,” said Korahna.
“You say that now,” Ryana said, “but when it comes time to make the effort, you may sing a different tune.”
“I won’t.”
“Truly?”
“Truly.”
Ryana drew her sword. “Very well,” she said. “Take this.” She handed it over her shoulder, to Korahna. “We will have our first lesson.”
“On the back of a kank?”
“It will serve as well as any other place. You said you wished to learn.”
“I do.”
“Fine, then. Hold the sword out away from your body, at arm’s length.”
She heard Korahna grunt softly as she complied, holding it in her right hand. “It is heavier than it appears.”
“It will grow heavier still.”
“Now what?”
“Just hold it there.”
“For how long?”
“Until I say that you can put it down.”
They rode awhile that way, with Korahna holding the sword out away from her body, and Ryana glancing over her shoulder every now and then to check on her. Little by little, the sword began to drop as Korahna’s arm wearied of the effort, but each time Ryana glanced at her, she gamely raised it once again, gritting her teeth with the effort. Finally, when her arm could take the strain no more, the sword began to waver in her grasp and it dropped lower and lower as her arm bent, unable to keep it up any longer. Ryana glanced over her shoulder to see Korahna’s eyes squeezed tightly shut, her lips compressed, her face turning red as she struggled to hold the sword up.
“All right, you may lower it,” she said.
Expelling her breath heavily, Korahna lowered the sword, resting it against the kank’s hard shell. She took a deep breath and exhaled heavily once more. “My arm feels as if it is on fire!” she said, with a soft moan.
“Sore?” asked Ryana.
“Exceedingly so.”
“Good. Now take the sword in your other hand and raise it with your left arm.”
“My... left arm?”
“The proper response is, ‘Yes, Sister,’” Ryana said. “Come, come.” She snapped her fingers sharply.
Korahna sighed heavily. “Yes, Sister,” she said, with resignation and raised the sword with her left arm.
Ryana smiled. Pampered, maybe, she thought. But spoiled? Perhaps not. Time would tell.
5
By midday, they were well into the barrens. The terrain was difficult, and the going slow. Though the kank was surefooted and able to negotiate the rocky ground, its distress was clearly evident to Sorak, if not to Ryana and the princess. The Stony Barrens had been aptly named. Nothing grew here. At first, they had seen the occasional clumps of scraggly vegetation, but by now, they were traveling over terrain that was completely bare, and the kank knew that it would find no forage. All they could see for miles and miles was broken rock.
Sorak picked his way among the larger boulders, but even where he found ground that wasn’t rocky, there was barely any soil visible at all. Where there wasn’t jagged rock, his feet crunched down on gravel. And as the day wore on, the merciless dark sun beat down upon the rocks until Sorak could feel the heat through his thick hide moccasins. He did not wish to overburden the kank, which was already carrying two riders. At the same time, he knew it would not be long before his footgear was completely shredded by the rocky ground. Though his feet were hard and callused, he did not relish the thought of going across the barrens barefoot. The temperature had climbed steadily throughout the morning until now, with the sun at its zenith, it seemed to Sorak as if his perspiration would boil away into steam as it dripped down his cheeks onto the ground. The heat was truly oppressive. Ryana rode the kank in silence, her body rocking slightly with the movements of the beast, while the princess leaned against her back, her head turned to one side, her eyes closed, her breathing slow and labored. Sorak had to give Korahna her due. She was clearly suffering in the sweltering heat, yet she had not uttered one word of complaint.
“It was foolish of us to come this way,” said Eyron. “There is no end in sight to this hellish field of broken rock. We should have gone around it.”
“The spell of the scroll indicated that we must follow this direction,” Sorak replied, speaking to Eyron internally.
“Why?” Eyron persisted. “What is to be served by it? What will be gained if we suffocate from heat and die out here in this desolate wasteland?”
“We shall not die,” Sorak replied. “The Sage would not have shown this way to us without a purpose. Perhaps that purpose was a test of our abilities and our resolve. We must not fail it.”
“Perhaps the Sage does not wish to be found,” said Eyron. “Have you ever thought of that? Perhaps this is merely his way of ensuring that you cannot seek him out. Perhaps he means for us to die here in these barrens.”
“I cannot believe that,” Sorak said. “If the Sage is unwilling to be found, then there seems little point to his discouraging our efforts in such a drastic manner. The defilers have been seeking the Sage for years, and yet they have never found him.”
“So then what makes you think you will succeed?” asked Eyron.
“We shall succeed because the Sage will want us to succeed” said Sorak. “He shall guide our way, as he is doing now.”
“But how do you know it is the Sage who is our guide?” said Eyron. “The scroll came from the Alliance. What proof have you that it is genuine? It may be some plan of theirs to mislead us.”
“I suppose that is possible,” admitted Sorak, “but I believe it most unlikely. If there was some reason why the Alliance did not wish us to succeed in our quest for the Sage, they needed only to claim ignorance. There was no need for them to give us the scroll.”
“Unless they wanted to dispose of us obligingly in the Stony Barrens,” Eyron said.
“Enough, Eyron,” said the Guardian. “You have made your point, and there is no need to belabor it. Besides, it is too late to turn back now.”