Trials (25 page)

“Maybe it’s just coincidence,” said Kayti, “but I’d say this is something more.”

The group remained silent, pondering, each wrapped in his own thoughts.

When the last of the camels of the long caravan had disappeared behind the dunes, Komir called them to assess their situation.

“The time has come to consult the medallions.”

The young healer nodded and got hers out, letting it hang from her neck. Komir brought his out in turn and prepared himself. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate in spite of the scorching sun. Drops of sweat ran down his cheeks from under the black cloth that covered his head and face. The rest of the group watched in silence. They were aware that Ilenian magic was going to manifest any moment, conjured once more by the two youngsters.

Komir felt the sweet, now-familiar tingle and concentrated on his inner energy. Recently he had seemed to connect with it more easily. He realized now that it had always been there, even if he had not been aware of it. This inner energy, his Gift had always been a part of him, and as such he understood it now and accepted it. From the moment that knowledge had sunk into his soul, the use of the medallion had turned into something far easier, more natural and harmonious. Komir opened his eyes and looked into Aliana’s. He saw that the healer was ready, and began what was coming to be their ritual:

He lowered his eyelids and murmured:

“Show me the way, the place I must go to.”

Aliana repeated the words.

He asked using both his voice and inner energy at the same time, and as he did so the medallion awoke from its lethargy. With a crystalline flash, it announced its awakening, and began to send strange Ilenian symbols into Komir’s mind. Aliana’s medallion flashed too, coming to life with a brown sparkle. A beam of light burst from both medallions and merged into one another. Komir guessed that similar symbols were dancing around the healer’s mind too. Both beams turned a bright gold and showed the path they must follow, crossing the dunes in front of them to the South. They all looked towards where the golden beam lost itself in the distance. They could just see desert, and more desert, as far as the very horizon.

Hartz shook his head. “I don’t like this at all,” he protested. “We’ll roast if we go on that way. We’ll end up turning into cockroaches or scorpions. They’re the only things that survive around here.”

Komir stopped the projection of the beam with the order “Enough”, which his mind sent to the medallion. This was something he had learnt to do recently. It gave him the false feeling he had some slight control over the Ilenian jewel, but he knew he was deluding himself. It was the medallion, once it was activated, which really controlled the situation.

“It’s pointing south, just as we’d expected,” said Kayti.

A lock of red hair was falling over her forehead, slipping out of the turban that covered it. Without her white armor, which she carried in the camel’s saddlebags, Kayti looked much younger.

“According to this map there’s nothing South but desert and desolation,” said Kendas as he looked in an old faded leather map with a worried expression. “I don’t put much trust in this map we got in Stambus either, but as the most important city in this area it should show any oases, temples and cities nearby pretty precisely, at least up to a point. To the North and West I can see two cities and three different oases marked. But there’s nothing to the South, at least not for many, many leagues. I don’t know where the medallions are leading us to, but I fear that if we continue into the desert it’s very likely we’ll never return. In the Army we always establish a route for withdrawal, and in this case I don’t see one. We’re gambling everything on just one card. If the medallions lead us to a shelter we’ll be saved, but if not we’ll all die swallowed up by this desert.”

Hartz was restless, pacing the sand slowly and heavily. He had taken the cloth off his face, and his sunburned features showed worry.

“We don’t know that the medallions will lead us anywhere,” he said with a frown. “We don’t even know what’s awaiting us wherever it is they want us to go. I’m sure it’s a damned trap, and we’ll find ourselves surrounded by that infernal golden magic which will bring us no good.”

“Me not like desert. No water, no trees, everything dead, only sand, no life…” said Asti, very upset as she looked around her.

“This endless sea of sand seems abandoned by the hand of Light,” said Kendas. He crouched to pick up a handful of sand and let it seep through his closed fingers.

Komir stared at his medallion, momentarily lost in thought, then said, slowly and very clearly:

“I understand your doubts, my friends. This endless desert fills me with fear as well, and I’m very much aware that death awaits us, whatever direction we choose to go. But now that we’re here in this faraway land, in the middle of this infernal desert, we can’t give up. We’re at the end of the road. I’m going on. I’ll find out what’s hidden in the place the medallions are leading us to. The risk is enormous, I know. I also know that I might even die in this inhuman sun, but I haven’t come this far just to turn around. Not now we’re so close. I have to know what answers are waiting at the end of this desert, and I’m going to find them.”

“But Komir…” Hartz began.

“I’m not going to ask you to come with me, because to go on is only madness, I know. But I just have to. Those of you who want to go back to the caravan are still in time to do just that and travel under their protection as far as the oasis. It won’t be difficult to find another caravan to take you back…”

“I’m going wherever you are,” Hartz said at once. He looked at Kayti out of the corner of his eye, as if he sought her approval, which did not come. She just gave a hostile glance at the big Norriel and her expression turned sour.

Aliana looked towards the dunes where the last of the camels had already disappeared. Then she turned south, protecting her eyes with her hand.

“I’ll go with you, Komir. I too need to know what’s behind these medallions and why they’re leading us into the depths of this desert. If we’ve been chosen to bear them, and I honestly believe we have, then we must find out why.”

Kendas stepped forward, sinking his riding boot in the sand, “I’ll go with Aliana. It’s my duty to keep her safe and bring her back to Rogdon. Prince Gerart would never forgive me if I left her and something happened to her. So, I’m coming too.”

A gust of wind lifted a layer of sand, which struck Asti in the face. She spit out the sand that had got into her mouth and said: “I go too, but hate desert.”

Komir looked at Kayti who was the last to speak.

“Wherever that half-wit goes, I’m going too,” she said at last, and gave Hartz a very unfriendly glance.

Komir nodded in acceptance.

So they marched on, they went on for days, towards the south through the impressive dunes, which rose like waves in a stormy sea: an infinite sea of heat and sand. The camels carried them, swaying in their characteristic amble. The temperature during the day was like a furnace, and their bodies suffered from the extreme rigor of the climate. They covered every inch of skin, aware that the sun-rays robbed them of their pallor as if they were being slowly cooked over live coals on a huge grill. Then at night the temperature fell dramatically, so that they had to shelter close to the camels and wrapped in woolen blankets not to get sick.

The hostile weather was beginning to take its toll on the group. Even with Aliana’s careful nursing, Asti, Kayti and even Kendas were beginning to weaken. Hartz was not protesting as much as before, which was not a good sign. Komir identified the signs of exhaustion in his own body and he knew they were all going through the same hell. Aliana tried to give them some sort of respite when they stopped to rest, but Komir had ended up forbidding her, because she was the one who looked worst of all. The journey was hard enough without her having to heal everyone else when she was also at the end of her strength. Komir could not sleep, thinking about the healer’s sickening look. He feared for her life.

And then the dreaded moment arrived. They ran out of water. Nobody said anything, but they all knew what this meant. They looked at each other and went on. It was too late to go back now. Get there or die.

At sunset of the second day without water, fear began to take over the intrepid adventurers: without a miracle, they would surely die in that waterless inferno. Komir stopped when he saw the suffering and exhaustion in his friends’ faces. They could not go on without water, and all he could see around them was this sea of sand. Not the least sign of life which might bring some hope for their onward journey. They prepared their camp for the night: tired, thirsty, starving and hopeless.

Kendas came to sit beside Komir, who was trying to maintain his hope even in the knowledge that Death was close. He could almost smell her foul stench hovering above them.

“We can’t go on any more. Another day will kill us,” confessed Kendas, beaten.

“I know, but we have no choice, Kendas.” Said Komir, and shivered. “If we stop we’ll die of thirst. We won’t see another dawn.”

Night began to close around the group, and the temperature fell fast. Komir looked up at the sky. Above their heads was an infinite canvas with millions of welcoming bright stars. He was caught up in the beauty of the clear sky, filled with little diamond lights which pulsed to the music of a nocturnal melody as eternal as it was inaudible.

Kendas followed Komir’s gaze. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Just as beautiful as it is deadly,” Komir replied. “I can’t believe this place is an insufferable, cruel inferno during the day and then by night turns into this peaceful, quiet, incredible beauty.”

“Until the temperature drops so much it makes your teeth chatter,” said Hartz as he sat down beside Kendas. “Damn this place!”

Komir looked at him uneasily.

“Don’t be upset, my friend,” Hartz said hastily, seeing the concern in Komir’s face. “I’ve told Kayti to watch her carefully and not let her perform any more healing at all. She’s too weak. We nearly lost her today. She won’t survive tomorrow without water…”

Komir nodded, and helplessness grew inside him. Kendas was looking towards Aliana as she wrapped herself in a blanket and hid her ghastly face.

“What’s the plan?” asked Hartz.

“We’ll keep going in the direction the medallions have set, there’s nothing else we can do…” replied Komir, hanging his head.

“I see… We either find that damned place the medallions want us to go to or else we’ll die in the attempt. If we don’t find it before noon, I fear Aliana will die and Asti will follow.”

“And by nightfall the rest of us will fall…” said Kendas.

“We’ll find that place. We will survive” Komir said in an attempt to inject a little courage in them.

He could not allow his comrades to die on his account in that forsaken desert. He had dragged them there to find the answers which his soul craved. The responsibility was his, and only he would be to blame if they died there. It could all end the following day, tragically, for all of them.

“We’ll find it,” he repeated, looking up at the stars. “Don’t lose hope, I’m sure we’ll find shelter, and then everything will be all right.”

Shortly before dawn the group renewed their journey. The camels complained while Hartz and Kendas helped Aliana and Asti mount. Komir watched them in silence, feeling ashamed at the sorry state they were in. The two girls could barely stand. They were emaciated, and their faces looked cadaverous. Komir tried to calm himself and cheer his battered spirit, but concern and worry overcame him with pessimism and he felt as though a cage had closed about him. Kayti glared at him as she got onto her camel. She seemed better prepared for the hardships of the trip, which did not really surprise Komir. Kendas rode his camel skillfully while Hartz struggled with his, cursing colorfully. He managed to control his animal at last and climbed up, adjusting his big body between the camel’s humps.

And another infernal day commenced. It was a nightmare that repeated itself every day at dawn. But today it would come to an end, one way or another. Komir looked up and saw enormous dunes looming ahead. He tried to swallow, but there was no saliva left in his mouth. His throat was parched, his lips a mess of blisters and scabs.

“We’ll make it” he said to himself once more as he attacked the first dune on his camel. The group followed him in silence, like a caravan of wounded elephants going to their secret graveyard. When they crowned the last of the dunes, the sun was at its highest. Komir looked ahead from the back of the camel. The hope of finding salvation behind the dunes, which had kept him going all morning thinking
one more step, just one more, and we’ll reach our goal
died in an instant. Before their eyes was another sea of sand and dunes like an endless golden ocean. Nothing. No oases, no city, no temple, or help to succor them.

Nothing.

Only a murderous desert which stretched in all directions.

Komir’s soul sank into the deepest well of hopelessness.

He turned his head to check on the others with a heavy heart. Aliana had fallen off her camel and was lying on the sand. Kendas and Hartz rushed to help her. Asti tried to get off hers, but she also fell with a muffled moan. The sun shone with punishing strength. The two women were going to die, Komir knew it and his soul screamed in agony.