A Sword From Red Ice (18 page)

A doom had been laid upon this place. Life had
been destroyed. Time had been broken and now leaked. Space and
distance had been stretched and folded, worn so thin in parts that
you could see things on the horizon—mountains, hills,
cities—that were thousands of leagues away, and so thickly
gathered in others that you could spend all day walking and then turn
to see your starting point less than a hundred feet behind you. Raif
could not begin to imagine the magnitude of catastrophe that could
break the bones of a continent, crush it so completely that its
relation to nature and the heavens changed.

He could not imagine it, but standing here, bare
feet sinking into soft pumice as he watched the wind carve the dunes,
he had the sense that its aftermath could be seen. Forces of heat and
pressure had left scars. Angus had once told him that pumice was
formed when mountains exploded and molten rock gushed up from the
center of the earth. Was that what had happened here? Or something
worse?

Raif headed back to the tent. The hooded men had
finished eating and were now sipping hot liquid from glass cups. One
man held the cup beneath his chin and let the steam roll over his
face. No one spoke. Raif guessed the temperature to be just below
freezing, yet they did not appear to feel it. Again, they noted him
as he passed but did not halt him. They knew the Want then. Knew that
the phrases "free to go" and "you cannot leave"
had no meaning here.

As soon as he was inside the tent, Raif felt his
strength drain away. His body was tired and achy, and it seemed
difficult to think. Turning, he spied a copper jug filled with ice
melt. A hot stone from the fire had been dropped in the jug to thaw
the ice, and the water tasted burned. After he had drunk his fill,
Raif lay on the bed and slept.

He did not dream. At some point during the night
he awoke. The lamps had burned out and it was wholly dark. A strange
note, low and plaintive, rose outside the tent. At first Raif thought
it was the moan of the wind over the dunes, but then other notes
sounded. Slow and mournful, they joined the first note in harmony
before glancing away. The song created was like nothing Raif had ever
heard before, hollow and deeply resonant, and he was reminded of a
story Angus had once told him about the great blue whales that swam
beneath the frozen ledges of Endsea. "They travel the coldest,
deepest currents where the water is heavy enough to crush men. Alone,
they call out in the darkness, searching for more of their kind."

That was what the song of the hooded men sounded
like to Raif: a cry in the dark. Who is there?

The song continued, solemn and questing. Raif
listened for a while and then slept. When he awoke in the morning the
memory of the hooded men's song had gone.

Dawn light, silvery and diffused by mist, shone
through the tent's clarified hide walls. Inside all was cold and
still. Raif lay and watched his breath crystallize in the frigid air.
His body felt better. Rested. The pain in his shoulder was still
there, but other things seemed more important. He was thirsty and
hungry, and he wanted some answers.

Finding his belongings piled against the tent
wall, he dressed himself against the cold. The Orrl cloak had been
treated with some care, brushed and properly folded. No one in the
clanholds could made cloaks like Orrl, cloaks that shifted color
along with the landscape. They took months to prepare, the master
furrier laying down countless layers of light-reflecting varnish on
specially softened hides. Only white winter warriors were allowed to
wear them, and Raif imagined the hooded men had never seen such a
cloak before. He thought a moment and then drew his on. Unarmed, he
went outside.

A shallow sea of mist washed across the dunes. The
sky was pale and featureless, filled with haze. Two of the four
hooded men were standing by the cookfire, gazing out through the
tent circle toward the Want. They turned to watch as he approached.
When he could see their eyes clearly, Raif greeted them.

"I am Raif Sevrance. Tell me who is owed my
thanks."

Two pairs of brown eyes regarded him. Neither man
spoke. After a moment the younger of the two turned to the elder, who
nodded. The younger man headed away toward the tents.

Raif waited. The older man crouched by the
cookfire and began turning over embers with a stick. From the little
Raif could see of the skin around his eyes, Raif decided he was not
the one who had first tended him in the tent. Over the bridge of his
nose, he had five black dots, not three. Hooking the kettle handle
with his stick, the man pulled the copper vessel from the fire.
Flames crackled in the mist as he poured hot liquid into a cup and
offered it to Raif.

Steam pungent with licorice and wormwood condensed
on Raif's face as he accepted the glass cup. He did not drink.
Wormwood was considered poison in the clanholds, yet he did not think
this man meant to harm him.

A third man emerged from the farthest tent and
made his way toward the fire. The ewe bleated as he passed the
corral, begging for a milking. Raif set the cup on the ground. Within
seconds it was swallowed by the mist. Coming to a halt before the
fire, the third man nodded once to the elder. A dismissal. The elder
rose with the aid of his stick and walked toward the corral.

Watching the third man Raif decided two things.
One, it was the same man who had waited in the tent as he feigned
sleep. And two, he, Raif Sevrance, would not be the first to speak.

The third man's gaze pierced Raif, passed through
the holes in his eyes and saw inside. Raif felt known. There was a
moment where something hung in the balance, as if a cup standing on a
table had been knocked over and was rolling toward the edge. The cup
might stop before it reached the edge or fall and break. Raif did not
breathe. The brown-black gaze held him. And then withdrew.

"Sit." The man spoke softly, long brown
fingers uncurling to indicate the mist.

One word, yet Raif knew instantly several things.
Common was not the man's first language. His accent was long and
lilting, filled with smoke. Raif had the sense that he rarely used
any language, that he was speaking solely for the stranger's benefit.
Finally Raif knew that he had not been judged by this man. The cup
had come to rest on the edge.

Raif sank to the ground. It was like diving into
water; the coldness of the mist.

The man touched his chest. "Men once called
me Tallal." Holding the back of his robe against the back of his
knees, he dropped into a crouch. "If it pleases, you may use
that name."

"And the others?"

"They are my lamb brothers. Their names are
not mine to give." Absently, he made a slight stirring motion
with his index fingers, rousing the mist.

"I owe you thanks. For saving me."
Tallal thought for a moment and then nodded. "Perhaps." The
word troubled Raif. He felt out of his depth, and wished he could see
the whole of the man's face not just the slit containing his eyes.
"How many are you?"

"Eleven."

It took Raif a moment to realize Tallal was
including the animals in the count; six mules and the milk ewe. Four
then. Yet five tents.

Tallal had tracked Raif's gaze as it moved from
the corral to the tents. "In my homeland we have a saying: God
will only come if there is room in your house." He smiled; Raif
could tell by the crinkling around his eyes. "My lamb brothers
and I very much want God to come."

Raif became aware of a light pricking sensation
around the small of his back. The mist was receding. For some reason
he thought about the small gesture Tallal had made seconds earlier,
the finger rousing in the mist. "Are you and your brothers
lost?"

"No."

How can you be in the Want and not be lost? Raif
wanted to ask yet didn't. A sense of propriety stopped him. It was
too early in their acquaintance for such a question. "Where did
you find me?"

Tallal shrugged. Anyone who hadn't spent time in
the Want might take the gesture as a careless dismissal, but Raif
understood it. Anywhere. Nowhere. Who can say?

"And my horse?"

The wind pressed Tallal's facepiece against his
lips as he murmured. "The tide carried her away."

Raif nodded once. Now the mist had gone you could
see the pumice dunes clearly. The wind was whittling them down,
blowing streamers of dust from their crests. He let the icy particles
scour his face awhile before turning back to Tallal. "How long
have I been here?"

"Four nights as you and I count them."
Tallal's voice was quiet. As he spoke he fed pale, barkless driftwood
to the fire. "Much ailed you. My brothers and I did what we
could to heal your body. We gave you water and tonics so you might
sleep. I cleaned your wounds. If this breaks one of your holy laws I
ask pardon."

Raif knew nothing of religions that forbade
healing. "It does not."

Tallal nodded softly as if Raif were confirming
something he had already guessed. "Strong gods guide you. They
would not be petty, such gods."

A piece of driftwood hissed as moisture trapped
inside it turned to steam. Raif imagined for a moment he could be
anywhere: in a distant desert, a foreign shore, the face of the moon.
Unfamiliar territory, and it was becoming his domain. Sometimes it
seemed as if every step he'd taken since leaving clan had been a step
into the unknown.

It was in his mind to say to Tallal that he had no
gods, that he had broken an oath and abandoned his clan, and no gods
that he knew of would keep faith with such a man. Yet he didn't.
Instead he remembered the nightmare. It made him hope Tallal might
be right.

"Where do you head?" he asked.

Behind his face mask, Tallal's expression changed.
Raising his hand, he touched the dots on the bridge of his nose.
Three separate movements. "Where the Maker of Souls leads."

Raif wondered what kind of god would lead his
followers here. The Stone Gods had no dealings with the Want; their
domain ended in the hard, fixed earth of the Badlands. "Your god
claims this territory?"

Tallal lifted his gaze to the Want. "My god
claims souls, not land. He commands us to search for souls in need of
peace."

A compulsion out of his control, like an
involuntary knee jerk made Raif ask, "Dead or alive?"

Tallal looked at him, his dark eyes filled with
knowledge. "We are lamb brothers. We care for the dead."

The wind moaned, skinning the dunes. Raif shivered
deeply, his neck bones clicking. For an instant he had an image of
himself as a carcass and the four hooded men as ravens picking at his
dead flesh. He shook himself. You had to guard yourself against the
distortions of the Want. All of them. Tallal and his lamb brothers
had nothing to do with him, and to imagine otherwise was some kind of
vain and crazy blasphemy. They were here to do the work of their
gods. He was here because he couldn't find a way out.

Observing Raif's disorientation, Tallal said, "The
buffalo women and the bird priests deal with ayah, the souls of the
living. Their numbers are many. It is said that there is a herd of
buffalo for every sheep." Tallal smiled gently; Raif could hear
it in his voice. "It is not wise to get in their way. They can
be fearsome when it comes to saving souls. When a man hears the
rumble of many hooves and turns to see the buffalo stampeding it is
not unlikely he will change his course."

Raif grinned. He was beginning to feel better, but
he had a hunch it wouldn't last. "And the souls of the dead?"

A smoke ring of breath blew from Tallal's mouth.
"Morah." The word had power. Raif felt it pump against his
eardrums. Slowly, rhythmically, Tallal began to rock back and forth
on the balls of his feet. "Morah is the flesh of God. Every man,
woman and child who passes through this mortal world grows a portion
of God within them. This we call the soul. When someone dies their
soul rises to the heavens and God claims it and sets it in place. The
Book of Trials foretells the day when the Maker's body is whole and
he will walk amongst us and we might look upon his face. We, the Sand
People, await that day with hope and deepest longing. Yet if as much
as a single soul is lost God's body will remain incomplete and he
will be forever unknowable.

"The Book of Trials commands the lamb
brothers to seek out the lost souls of the dead. All must be counted
and released. They are precious to us beyond reckoning, for they
contain the substance of God."

Raif stared into the flames whilst Tallal spoke.
The wood burned green and white and gave off the cold and empty smell
of high places.

Listening to the lamb brother made him feel sad.
Tallal had been set a task that would never be completed. His god
would never come. There were too many men and women out there who had
lost their way and died without peace or salvation. Generations of
bodies had disappeared; flesh eaten by maggots, bones dried to husks
then ground into sand. How could they be saved when there was no
record of their existence?

And who would save the souls of the Unmade?

Heritas Cant had said that every thousand years
the creatures of the Blind came forth to claim more men for their
armies. "When a man or woman is touched by them they become
Unmade. Not dead, never dead, but something different, cold and
craving. The shadows enter them snuffing the light from their eyes
and the warmth from their hearts. Everything is lost."

Without thinking, Raif raised his hand to his
shoulder. The wound had begun to sting. If Heritas Cant was right,
then countless people over thousands of centuries had been lost,
their souls claimed by the Endlords. Raif glanced at Tallal. Did he
know this? Was he aware of the impossibility of his task?

Tallal's gaze was level. "Once a year in the
hottest month of summer, when the sand snakes grow bold and even the
blister beetles search for shade, the storms come. Day falls dark as
night. Rain crashes from the sky and lightning strikes. Once in a
very long while when lightning touches sand it turns to glass. This
glass is very rare. A thousand thunderstorms may pass overhead yet
everything—the sand, the wind, the moons and the stars—must
be in accordance before lightning can transform sand into glass.
Stormglass is a powerful talisman. Kings and shamans covet it. It is
said that when you look into it you see other storms; storms that are
gathering and may come to be, storms of thunder and storms of men. My
people sweep the sands for it when we travel. Like gingerroot it lies
beneath the surface, out of sight, and we use acacia branches to comb
the dunes as we walk the cattle. We dream of finding the perfect
unbroken piece, long as a sword and clear as water. In my lifetime I
have never known anyone to find such a piece. Yet still we sweep."