D & D - Red Sands (19 page)

"Love? You're not even human!"

"Is that a barrier to the heat of the heart? The beasts of the field love, as do the gods on high. Is Jii less than a beast or more than a god?"

"You've known me only a few hours," Marix said. "How can you love me?"

"For ninety and nine seasons have I dwelled alone, unseen and unloved. My spring is hidden so deeply that few come here. So cold has my heart become, at times I felt I might fade from this plane. Then I sensed the living warmth of the one called Jadira. In her mind I found lier love for you." Tears of brilliant green appeared injii's eyes. "My heart beats again to feel this. Stay with me, beautiful one, and I will teach you the secrets of the water, woods, and mountain. I will shelter you and feed you, and make you the happiest of mortal men."

Marix turned helplessly to Tamakh. "What can I do? I don't wish to hurt this creature, but I don't love her. I want Jadira back, hale and safe."

"I agree," said Tamakh. Tojii, he said, "Guardian, you ask for what cannot be yours. Please, if you care for Marix, let him go."

"You ask for my life. If I go on alone, my torment will be endless."

Tamakh nodded solemnly. "We understand, but if Marix fails to complete his mission, thousands of men, women, and children will die, and thousands more will have to endure the rule of a grievous tyrant."

"The lives of your distant mortals are like stars; if a thousand fall from the sky, are the heavens lessened?"

Tamakh gave up. He took Marix aside and whispered, "You're the only one who can influence her. She must renounce you, else she'll never let us go."

Marix studied Jii's tear-streaked face. In a loud voice, he said to Tamakh, "Leave us, Holy One. Take Nabul and go back to camp." Tamakh helped the surprisingly speechless thief to his feet and ushered him away. When the priest and the thief were gone, Marix said sternly, "Take me to Jadira."

Jii wiped her smooth cheeks. She said, "What do you

wish of her?"

"I need to see her."

Jii did not fear to grant his wish. She gave her hand to Marix. He took it uncertainly. Her hard green flesh was cold, and she smelled of damp and dew. Marix would not meet her eyes, so Jii gripped his hand tightly and led him away.

They came to the stream. In the ferns by the pool, Jadira lay, lost in slumber.

"Waken her," said Marix.

"That 1 will not do."

"You must!"

"Will you stay with me?"

"Would you coerce me into love?" he said desperately. "How could you ever believe any sweet words or caresses I might give you, knowing I am kept against my will?"

"You will grow to love me."

"Never!" he snarled, knotting his hands into fists. "Never!" he cried again, drawing his sword. "Yield Jadira and my freedom, or I will slay you where you stand!"

Jii waved a hand. The hardened Omerabad steel blade shattered like cheap glass. Marix threw the useless hilt into the pool. He fell to his knees by the sleeping Jadira and gathered her into his arms.

"Stubborn, willful woman," he said, weeping. "Now you'll never get to visit my country, never share my house. . . . If I had been more a man and less a fool, I might have won you. Now it's too late." Laying his cheek next to hers, Marix held Jadira's limp body to him. Jii stared impassively down at them. The spirit inhaled sharply. A ripple of subtle force passed from her to Jadira. Marix felt it.

Jadira stirred. She coughed and opened her eyes. "I never said you were a fool," she said thickly.

"you can hear me!"

"Of course I can, you silly foreigner. . . . Where am

I ?"

"Where you must be," said Jii, now standing calf-deep in the pool. "I see that you two are destined for each other. I will not hold you, beautiful one."

Jadira started when she saw who spoke. "Who in Dutu's name is that?"

"The keeper of this place," said Marix.

They got to their feet, never losing sight of Jii. Marix half-expected some trick, but the guardian let them go without hindrance.

Jadira and Marix hurried away from the pool. Halfway up the hill, they heard Jii's light footfall behind them. Not daring to look back, they hurried on. Jii followed them, knowing it meant her destruction. When the bond between Jii and the spring to which she was bound was severed by distance, Jadira and Marix heard a high, wavering cry: the final lament of a lonely, dying spirit. The mournful sound dispersed among the dark evergreens and ultimate silence replaced it.

Tamakh and Nabul were amazed when they walked into camp unharmed. Marix gruffly brushed off their anxious questions. He went to the fire and sat with his back to them. Nabul moved to join him, but Jadira warned him off.

She slipped in beside him. Marix told her in short, tired words the story of Jii. When he was done, she put an arm across his shoulders and held him.

"Is all that true?" she asked.

"Every word."

"You risked the wrath of a spirit for me?" He nodded a silent affirmative. "Then you were twice wrong."

"Oh? How so?"

"You are a man, and no fool."

A dark shape cut through the bushes, looming in the swaying shadows. Jadira and Marix looked up fearfully. A pair of dead rabbits hit the ground, and Uramettu stepped into the circle of firelight.

"Greetings, my sister and friend. I bring you meat," she said. When neither moved, she added, "Do I have to skin them as well?"

Nabul darted in. "No, indeed! That's one chore I'll enjoy!" He whetted his dagger on a smooth stone and set to work.

"Well," Uramettu said cheerfully, lowering herself to a stone seat. "What did you do today?"

Nabul opened his mouth, but Jadira forestalled him. "What we always do," she said, easing her hand into Marix's. "Survive."

Part II:

SHAMMAT

Pass
by Night

As the mountains rose higher, the weather cooled by day and night. The loose robes the companions had found indispensable in the Red Sands now were too light. Marix, experienced in cold climes, showed them how to convert their clothing to the new conditions. He tied lengths of cord or thong about their wrists and waists, drawing their robes close to their bodies. With that, and scarves wound around their legs, they were warm.

Signs of humanity began to appear again: a mountain deer, dropped by a heavy crossbow quarrel, lay skinned and quartered of its best meat on a ledge below the trail. Uramettu sniffed the carcass and said it had been killed less than four days before. She fetched back the quarrel.

"I don't like this," said Marix, turning the short arrow over in his hands. "Steel heads and goose fletching are the work of soldiers. No mountain artisan made this bolt."

"Could it be Faziri?" asked Tamakh.

"Could be, but I doubt it. The Shammat is free terri-

tory. There's nothing here the Faziris could want."

"We're here," said Jadira.

Nabul took the quarrel. "Western, I'd say. Bowmen from the Brazen Ring cities use leather fletching."

Other signs appeared. They found tracks of boot-shod feet, wide horseshoes, and two-wheel carts. A party of equipped men had been through this pass not long before.

Nabul was nervous. He scanned the high ground for lurking archers. He expected at any moment to see a two-span hardwood quarrel sprout from one of their backs. Fear is more contagious than the deadliest plague. The companions took to wearing their weapons, something they had not done since leaving Julli.

They camped on an easily defensible pinnacle that night. Marix watched the empty sky and worried. It was the time of the new moon. He had only fourteen days to find his liege lord's seal and get it to Tantuffa.

Uramettu, too, watched the sky. After passing supper in silence, she fretted and paced around the fire. Jadira tried to speak to her, but the Fedushite snatched up her spear, and stalked off into the night.

"What troubles her?" Jadira wondered aloud.

"Her lime of change," Tamakh said. "I imagine every time the moon renews our friend is tormented by the forces at work inside her. In effect, her conversion from a mortal woman to a werepanther begins again with each new moon."

"Is there anything we can do?"

"Stay quiet and distant. That is best."

The quiet soon put them all to sleep. The fire sank into a bed of coals and went out.

Rock clattered on rock, snapping Marix to wakefulness. He reached for his sword—the one Jii had destroyed. Filth! All he had was the efreet bow, and it wasn't strung. In any case, he was afraid to use it.

He fumbled at the neck of his robe. The bowstring was looped around his neck. Before he could get it, a hand closed over his mouth from behind. He yelled into the phantom palm. Nabul hissed in his ear: "Be still, you silly foreigner!"

The hand came off. "Filth to you!" Marix growled. "What are you playing at?"

"I heard something moving out there." "So did I."

"Are you armed?"

"I have the bow."

Nabul's grimace was visible even without moonlight or fire. "You go first," he said.

Marix stood and grabbed the bow. It was heavily recurved, and the force required to bend it for restring-ing made him grunt. Nabul poked him in the back. "Not so loud!" he whispered.

Marix gripped the bow and nocked an arrow. The string was so taut he wondered if he could draw it back to his nose. He looked at the unmoving humps that were Tamakh and jadira. Swallowing hard, he started toward where the scraping sound came from.

The pinnacle was only a few paces wide. Marix went right down the center of the path. He didn't want to stumble off the mountain—at least not before he shot himself with the efreet's gift. Nabul followed him, moving in Marix's footsteps so skillfully no one would have known that two men had passed this way.

Something darted out of the rocks below. Marix straightened his arm. Fear giving him strength, he drew the arrow back to his ear. Even more astonishing, the head of the arrow glowed blood-red.

A tall shape appeared on Marix's right. He swung and loosed the shaft. Even as his fingers let go, Marix realized that the shape was Uramettu.

"No!" he shouted. Uramettu froze, right in the arrow's path. The glowing missile flashed toward her. She ducked. The arrow rose, soaring well over her head to vanish in the rocks beyond. Marix closed his eyes and waited for it to circle around and strike him.

A hoarse/guttural cry rang out from the slope. Jadira and Tamakh sal up, roused by the cry. Uramettu turned and sprinted toward the sound. There was another noise, a rattle of metal on stone. Nabul darted past, his drawn dagger upraised like the scorpion's stinger.

Jadira found Marix standing with the efreet bow hanging limply from his hand. "What is it?" she said.

"I shot someone," he replied, astonishment in his voice.

"Who?"

"I don't know."

She grabbed his arm. "Come, let us see."

When they arrived, Nabul and Uramettu were standing over a body. The black woman put a toe under the corpse and rolled it over. Nabul recoiled. "That's not a man!" he said. Jadira bent to see.

It was not a man, but some sort of man-beast. The creature had a long, wolfish face covered with fur, yellow fangs, and high, pointed ears. It wore a heavy jerkin of leather, studded with circular plates. Woolen leggings covered its lower limbs. A short, thick-bladed sword was still sheathed in a shoulder scabbard. Just out of reach, as though flung there by its dying spasm, lay a steel sprung crossbow.

Nabul knelt and patted the beast-man's pockets. "What an ugly wretch," he said. He found a worn ring in the creature's belt pouch. "Smells bad, too."

Tamakh reached them, carrying a glowing brand. Its light showed them the efreet arrow buried deep in the creature's heart. It had punched through the jerkin as though the leather were soft butter.

"So that's it," said Tamakh. "Gnoles."

"Gnoles?" said Jadira.

"A squalid race, given to mercenary war and brigandage. Judging by this one's outfit and the previous signs we found, I'd say a band of gnoles was active in the mountains."

"How did it get here?" asked Marix.

"It was following me," said Uramettu. "I came across a trio of them down the valley. One had a wolf on a leash. They'd butchered a cow and were carrying haunches on their shoulders when the wolf smelled me. They gave chase, but I lost them all save this one."

"At least we know Kaurous's bow works," said jadira.

"I don't know that," Marix said. "It—I—aimed at Uramettu by mistake, but the arrow flew wild and hit this gnole-thing, which I hadn't even seen."

"Interesting. The efreet promised us that the weapon would never miss and always slay. But did it hit the gnole because it was an enemy? Or because you
aimed
at Uramettu? Or—"

"Must we bandy fine points of magic in the night over a stinking corpse?" grumbled Nabul. "It's so vile I can't bring myself to take anything save this ring."