An unadorned pewter bowl rested in the center of the table, containing what appeared to be fresh blood. The seated man's attention, like those of his companions, was riveted to it. At random intervals, a swirl or a ripple appeared on the surface of the liquid. Once, it geysered, and the woman sucked in a sudden breath.
As she bit her lip, the geyser subsided. In a moment, the blood resumed a glassy-smooth texture, affected only by the slight yaw of the ship. The man wiped off his balding head and sighed, but never took his gaze away from the bowl. Sweat dripped off his chin and had already stained the underarms of his garment down to the waist. His eyes were red.
"Come, milady," the other man said, "we're doing no good here."
Reluctantly the woman allowed herself to be led from the little cabin to her own stateroom, where she wandered across the chamber and stared out the broad grillworked windows at the ship's wake. Windless, the vessel's passage hardly disturbed the water's surface. Her escort waited just inside the portal.
"Will he live?" she asked, afraid to speak up.
The man strode to her, while she kept her glance away, and lifted hands as if to embrace her, but he stopped, close enough to have dreamed he felt the lace of her blouse.
"Obo is trying, Lady Nanth."
"Obo has been without food or sleep for two days. If Keron is so badly hurt as to require such an effort, how can it be possible that he will live?" She bowed her head, bringing out her tendency for a double chin, one of the slight flaws that chipped at her noble vanity.
"If we could find him…" she murmured. "How many men did you send?"
"Five from the ship. Another five of our agents near Garthmorron will be joining them."
"You could send ten – twenty…" She turned and paced, looking everywhere but at her listener, though his eyes never left her.
"I could not," he said firmly. "An army of ours in the vicinity would only antagonize the Cilendri, if not attract the Dragon's forces."
"You can't abandon him, Admiral Warnyre," she said.
The man's jaw tightened. "Lady Nanth, the only reason this ship remains near the coast is so Obo can manage to work his spell. And once he is done – whatever the outcome – we must sail south to open waters. I am doing all I can. Your husband would agree – he wouldn't endanger the fleet for one man."
She pressed a hand against the grillwork and knotted it into a fist. "I hate this sea," she said through tears.
Warnyre shifted uncomfortably, feeling the stiffness of muscles no longer honed to a military edge. "You should sleep."
Her fist uncoiled; her shoulders drooped. "No. Obo needs my attention. He endangers himself with this effort."
Out of her sight, he frowned. "I will send Lady Heormaphta and her maid to look after him, as will I myself when duties allow."
Nanth shook her head. "This is the critical time. I must stay with Obo. In fact, I shouldn't have left now. I took this upon myself when I married an ambitious man. We could have lived out our days at court, in safety. But Keron wanted the chance to distinguish himself, and I will be the first to know if he has failed. Thank you for your consideration, Admiral."
"Yes, milady. As you wish," Warnyre said tersely. He stood such that, when she passed by, he could catch the scent of her hair, then followed her out. As they parted ways, he muttered to himself.
Lady Nanth's thoughts were filled with visions of the civilized comforts of life in the capital, where feminine companionship consisted of more than a handful of other officers' wives and maids. Once, when she was single, a noted diplomat had asked for her hand – but she had wanted better. When she had caught Keron, she'd assumed, from his heritage, that she had obtained her goal.
Obo still stared at the bowl, eyelids half-closed. Small shudders coursed over his wizened body. Without disturbing the wizard's concentration, Nanth filled a dipper from the barrel near the hull and raised it to his lips. He gave no sign that he noticed her, other than to gradually suck up a mouthful.
After several sips, he seemed calmer. He spoke for the first time in days, though he did not seem to be speaking to her.
"Take off the belt, you idiot."
VIII
ALEMAR COUGHED AS A CLOUDof dust hit him in the face. He wished for dunes again; the sand slowed them down, but spared the lungs. He envied those at the front of the line. The caravan transformed the road to powder long before the twins and those in their position passed by.
It was a crepuscular existence – up and moving before dawn, resting for hours at midday, active well into the night. They moved slowly, the entire clan travelling as a group. The men rode oeikani, if they had them to spare. The women and children walked, carrying tent poles and whatever household goods that could not be loaded onto pack animals. Elder boys ranged to either side, allowing the livestock to graze. The pace never exceeded a common walk. When forage was abundant, it slowed or stopped altogether.
Elenya rode just ahead, and slightly apart, from her brother and "their" family. Though her face was cowled, her upper body was bare. She held her chest out, nipples forward, covering them only incidentally when she brushed the grit off her breasts and shoulders. She stared straight ahead and spoke to no one, not even Alemar.
Occasionally, one of the women in the caravan, but more often one of the small children, would stare in her direction, only to turn away suddenly if noticed. But no one spoke. Only once, when she had first opened her robes earlier that day, had Fumlok tried.
"Is there a law against it?" she had asked.
The scenery shifted gradually, but filled the senses. The region was high plateau. Though their road on average remained at one elevation, the terrain frequently dipped into sudden, severely eroded gullies, rose into scarred mesas thousands of feet above the valley floor, and in odd, unexpected places, supported life. A low-lying landmark could vanish behind them in less than an hour's walk, while ahead a particularly prominent rock formation had not changed during two days of travel. They followed wadis that opened out onto dry plains crusted with salts and minerals, but never to bodies of water.
The T'lil consisted of five clans – the T'krt, the T'lan, the Kol, the Ena, and the Hysic. At first it astonished Alemar to learn how much territory these five families owned, until he grasped what prodigious amounts of the sere land it took to support an individual. The T'krt numbered less than a thousand, the entire T'lil nation less than three thousand, counting in Zyraii fashion: adult males only. For the most part, they strung out over the land in small knots of immediate kin, often no more than three or four adults, only to such density as could support their animals. They gathered for migration and raids on neighbors. At the moment, the cause was the annual trek to the Ahloorm Basin, the long plain split by the only continuously running stream in the nation, the Ahloorm, which meant simply "the river." The Zyraii controlled its upper portion, while the city-states of Surudain and Nyriya held the coast to either side of its delta.
"Is it like this all the way to the Demon Mountains?" Alemar asked.
"One part of Zyraii is never the same as the rest," Fumlok said, avoiding the challenge of describing his country using the High Speech.
The twins had lived among the Zyraii for ten days, long enough that the curious no longer wandered in their direction. Already teachers had taken them through myriad lessons on history, geology, weather, theology, desertcraft, martial training, and, most of all, obedience. People had started to converse with Alemar, encouraging, in their taciturn way, his stumbling attempts to speak Zyraii. Knowledge threatened to ooze out of their pores. Yet they had only touched the surface. For the moment, the instructors concentrated upon the language.
Elenya noticed a tent-maker observing her, so she deliberately scratched the bottom of one of her breasts. The man looked away.