Chapter 41
Journey Across the Wasteland
The party had been traveling across a flat, scrubby wasteland for days. Though they were far north, winds from the southeast warmed the plain. This made the region quite temperate for its northern latitude. Along their way to the city of Ahzralar, they passed a few abandoned villages, their stone buildings partially buried and obscured by the shifting sands.
Snow had become concerned, for she had not been able to detect the presence of the bracelet, and the city was not where they had expected it to be. Rahl’s map, it seemed, had been inaccurate after all.
Water was also scarce in this area. After the water supply ran out, Connie resorted to using the water nodes to quench the thirst of the party members. One by one, the water nodes expired. Soon, she was down to a single, one-power Water node.
After the sixth day, the badlands had turned to sand dunes. Now they walked across a vast, arid, sandy bowl. At midday, making his way to the top of a large sand dune, the party gazed across the flat lands that stretched off into the distance. There was nothing in sight. Only a flat horizon of sand and sky. They made camp. Snow took several blankets and Levitated them above the party for shelter from the sun.
As the party relaxed beneath the levitated blankets, Theo transmuted himself into a sleek black bird native to Syzthedia called a shrell, which to Connie looked like a raven with talons of a hawk. This spell of transmutation was the spell he got from the Syzthedian mages in exchange for the language spell he gave to them. And Theo was delighted with the trade.
Connie loved to watch Theo cast the spell. When he did so, it appeared that he only jumped up while sweeping a black cloak over his body. Then a murky black haze would obscure him for a few seconds as he shrank to a quarter of his size. When the black haze cleared, he would be transformed into the shrell. All of this would happen without a sound. The effect was uncannily surreal, even in the broad daylight.
Theo flew to the north in search of any sign of the city. Connie watched him diminish into a black dot against the featureless green sky. Magic is beautiful and strange, she thought in awe as he vanished, no longer visible in the distance. When Connie looked back at the party, she saw that Tristana had also been watching Theo. To Connie’s surprise, Tristana’s expression appeared to be one of quiet admiration.
Connie took a seat next to the rest of the party, who sat in a circle around the maps and the sundial. Rahl shook his head in despondence as he compared his old maps to the sundial for the tenth time that day.
“Where is it?” Snow asked him as she held up one of her maps.
“Without a point of reference, I have no idea,” Rahl replied.
“Then what are we going to do? Walk around the desert until we perish of thirst?” Maltokken said, fanning himself.
“We are running low on fresh fruit,” Jalban said. “We cannot continue as we are.”
“I suppose we have no choice but to keep looking. It does not make sense that the city would disappear,” Rahl said.
“But if the city existed, then we should have found it by now,” Snow said.
Connie studied the maps that showed the location of the city in the sandy basin. To her surprise, all three, each drawn by a different cartographer, as evidenced by their style, indicated a different location for the city. One map indicated the city’s location twenty leagues to the west. Another showed it about three leagues to the northwest. The third showed the city to be located roughly where they were standing. Connie pointed this out to Rahl and Snow.
“Those maps were given to us by Calicus,” Snow stated. “I cannot vouch for their accuracy.”
Maltokken snorted a laugh. “Then it appears that your mentor is not so perfect after all.”
Snow glared at him. “Hold your tongue, fool, or I shall turn you to stone!”
Rahl patted on her knee. “Snow, please calm down.”
Connie grabbed a handful of sand and let it run through her fingers. “I think I know where the city is.”
All party members looked to Connie. “It’s below our feet,” she said. “The city has been covered by the sand. That is why we are unable to find it.”
“That is a possibility,” Rahl said. “But could this sand be so deep that it would obscure an entire city?”
“It’s happened in my world,” Connie said.
“Where?”
“There were many ancient civilizations on Earth. The Mesopotamians, for example, built great cities. The sands of the desert buried them after their civilization declined.”
Jalban spoke up. “So let’s say the city is buried. How will we retrieve the bracelet?”
“Where there’s a spell, there’s a way,” Snow said. “Just show me the city, and I will retrieve our bracelet.”
The party broke out some rations, which consisted mainly of the scant remaining portion of the jule Rahl had trapped just before they left the Syzthedian mountains. Only Tristana touched her rations. She only stuffed them into a belt pouch. Connie noticed that Tristana had eaten almost nothing at all in the last three days. Nor did she drink much. Her lips were beginning to chap from dehydration. Theo didn’t seem to notice this. Connie offered Tristana some water in a tin cup, but she declined it with the shake of her head. She had no idea why Tristana was acting this way, but she didn’t want the conjuration to become ill with dehydration. While no one was watching, Connie furtively cast a low-power Quench spell on Tristana to give her body its daily requirement of water. She did not want anyone to see her cast the spell on Tristana, lest someone become jealous.
An hour and a half passed according to the sundial. Connie passed the time by meditating and accumulating celestial energy the way Snow taught her. The meditation also took Connie’s mind off the heat and constant thirst. A warm wind began blowing from the southeast. Snow dispelled the enchantments on their shelter blankets before they would blow away. Around this time, the party became worried about Theo. Snow said that an hour and a half was pushing it for the duration of that spell and that he had better return before it expired, especially if it happened in midair. Connie and Snow cast ten-minute Farsight spells on alternate members of the party to keep a lookout for him. Finally, Jalban, the latest recipient of the spell, jumped up and pointed to the northwestern sky.
“I see him! Here he comes!”
All gazed up at the deep green sky. No one but Jalban, with the Farsight on him, saw anything at all. Moments later, a tiny dot in the sky appeared where Jalban had pointed. After some time passed, Theo, as a shrell, alighted on the ground. With a black smear, he quickly transformed back into his normal form. Connie noticed that it took Theo half the time to transform into his original form than it did for him to turn into a shrell.
Theo panted heavily. He looked tired and bedraggled. Evidently, he had been flying hard. “I’m thirsty. I need water,” he said.
Connie quickly cast a Quench spell on him using the same node she used on Tristana. The water node expired. She cursed silently to herself.
“I think I found it,” he said, still panting.
“You found what? The city?” Snow asked.
Theo nodded. “At least that’s what I think it is. I saw the outlines of stone structures. They were mostly covered by the sand. Had I not seen them from above, I would not have recognized them from the ground. We probably came within a few leagues of them several times but did not see them.” Theo described their location as four or five leagues north by northwest past an area of broad sand dunes.
“Let us go now,” Rahl said.
The party began packing up their goods and began cramming them into Connie’s Threshibian bag. All except for Maltokken, who stared at Rahl with a scowl.
“We’ve been walking all day for the last six days,” Maltokken said in a vexed tone. “Can’t we take half a day’s break?”
“I agree with Maltokken,” Jalban chimed in. “My bones are weary from all of this walking.”
“Of course you are weary,” Snow said to Jalban. “I would be weary too if I was lugging around all that belly fat as you are.”
“We don’t have to go today, Snow,” he continued, disregarding her remark. “The ruins have been there for thousands of years. They aren’t going anywhere. Let us set up camp.”
“No, Jalban. We must go now,” Rahl said, gazing out across the sand. “The wind is blowing strongly. If we don’t leave now, the sand may cover up what little we can find of the ruins.”
Maltokken spoke up. “We should have gone back to Roggentine when we had the chance.”
“Yes. And you would be dead right now with the rest of them. Jalban, too.”
“Hush, Snow,” Connie said to the sorceress, seeing that Jalban and Maltokken were nearing their breaking points.
In her time, Connie had seen men break down before in the face of adversity, case in point, the first time she climbed Mount Everest. A freak autumn blizzard struck while they were camped for the night on the south side of the mountain at 12,000 feet. The night lasted four days. Connie and four others were stuck in a small 4 by 9 pup tent during this time. The cold was unbearable. The wind howled outside. During that time, two men panicked and ran into the blizzard. Their frozen bodies were found in the following spring.
Snow turned to Connie. “Why do you defend these weak fools?”
“Please, Snow.” Connie said in her most soothing voice. “Just let it go.”
“You’re so evil,” Maltokken told Snow as he finished stuffing the last blanket into the bag. “You think you are so fancy because you have magical power. But magical power does not bestow character. You are a prime example of this.”
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“How dare you address me that way, Maltokken, you sniveling coward!” Snow assumed a position to cast a celestial spell at the mercenary.
“Go back to the temple where you belong, Snow. The priests there need you to cast fertility spells.”
Maltokken’s open anger toward Snow surprised Connie. Normally, the two did not interact out of mutual dislike, with Maltokken being the more reticent of the two. Connie thought that possibly the heat was bringing out the worst in everyone. Snow looked ready to cast a spell on Maltokken. Rahl seemed to notice this. He quickly grabbed Snow by the arm to prevent her from beginning her incantation. Maltokken stood defiantly before them.
“Relax, Snow,” Rahl said to the sorceress.
“You shouldn’t allow him to speak to me this way. I outrank him on this quest. Calicus did not choose him. He chose me. Oh, Rahl! Let me cast one spell on him. Please allow me to cast one spell. Just a little spell that causes enormous pain but will not kill him.”
On hearing Snow say that, Rahl reaffirmed his grasp on the sorceress. “No. Let us go now. The ruins and the bracelet await us.”
The swordbearer stared into his sorceress’s eyes. Hers blazed back into his. Finally, some of the tension fell out of her body. He released her grasp on her, and then she relaxed altogether.
“Get your staff,” he said roughly to her.
During all of this, Jalban remained on the sand with his hands covering his face. Connie patted him affectionately on the shoulder in an attempt to ease his suffering. She knelt next to him and whispered in his ear. “If you can make it to the ruin, I’ll cast an extra Quench spell on you. What do you say to that?”
He looked over at her. “Would you do that?”
Connie nodded.
Jalban managed a slight smile. He placed a kiss on the back of her hand. “That is a kind thing; something Alyndia would do.”
“I’ve met the woman, Jalban. I don’t consider it a compliment to be associated with her,” Connie said with a smirk as she helped Jalban to his feet.
They started across the desert again in the direction Theo described. Then, in the distance, they saw the dunes just as Theo said they would. They made their way over the dunes. The going was tough, as their feet kept sinking into the slippery sand in this area. They traversed several dunes. Jalban kept falling behind and calling out for breaks.
They stopped at the top of a particularly large dune while they waited for Jalban to catch up. Here, they had an excellent vista where they could make out portions of some buildings poking out from the sand. These earthen, rectangular stone squares appeared more as foundations than the roofless tops of buildings. It also seemed that sand dunes covered most of the city, which was not as large as they had thought it would be. Indeed, it was prescient of Rahl to go to the city now, as a modest sandstorm could easily cover the faint trace of the ruins from view.
Snow waved the staff a few times in the direction of the rectangles. Finally, she shook her head. “I sense—nothing,” she said.
“What do you mean, nothing?” Theo asked.
Connie understood why Theo asked this. The range on the staff was one league. The absence of a detectable dweomer meant the ruins probably didn’t contain the bracelet as they had hoped.
“Maybe this isn’t the ruin we are looking for,” Snow said.
Rahl sighed and shook his head, seemingly reluctant to complain. “What now?” he asked himself aloud.
“One of the maps indicated that the city could be located west of here,” Theo said. “We can go there.”
“How far is it?” Jalban asked.
“Another day’s travel. Maybe two.”
“I can’t make it another day.”
“What if the map is wrong and there’s no ruin?” Maltokken asked. “Or what if it’s covered by sand?”
“Then we’re doomed,” Jalban answered before Theo could reply.
Snow waved the staff in all directions. “No. It’s not here,” she said, a hint of despair in her voice.
“Maybe it’s located in a sink-well,” Theo said.
“In that case, the staff will never detect it.”
“You might if you get really close to it.”
“But this city is so big. It could be anywhere.”
Connie thought about the bracelet she had put on at Elise Layton’s bedside. Evidently, with the help of the professor’s invention, Alyndia had somehow brought it to Earth. Connie wondered if the converse was possible, and the bracelet could be returned to Cerinya by a similar method. Connie kept these thoughts at the back of her mind in case they could not locate the bracelet.
“Perhaps we can walk around the ruins,” Snow said to Rahl. “Maybe then I’ll be able to pick up on the enchantment.”
“Yes. We should try.”
Rahl and Snow led the party down the slope of the sand dunes. Rahl and the other party members scanned the area while Snow waved her staff around in a sweeping motion as if it were a metal detector. While Snow did this, Connie thought she saw something move in the sand about ten paces to the left of her. When she turned the look, the movement had stopped. She stared hard at the sand. She waited for the movement to come again. It did not. She scanned the party. Everyone was preoccupied with watching Snow and the staff. Evidently, no one else had seen anything unusual. Then Connie thought it might have only been an illusion caused by the heat and blowing sand, or maybe caused by the reflection of sunlight on Snow’s staff.
They walked along the loose outline of a city street tightly hemmed by buildings. About one hundred or so paces away ahead was a platform about knee height. The platform was most likely the top of some large building inundated with sand before its roof could collapse from age. For its size, Connie thought the building might be the remnant of a city hall or municipal center.
Snow stopped short. “Wait! I’m getting a reading!”
She waved the staff ahead of them. “This way.” The party picked up the pace as they followed Snow across the ruins. A few minutes later, Connie thought she saw the sand ripple momentarily. She stopped and looked again at the sand. This time, Tristana also stopped and was staring at the area where Connie had seen something move.
“Did you see something move in the sand?” Connie asked her.
Tristana gave an affirmative nod.
“What is wrong?” Theo asked Connie.
“I saw something move in the sand. Tristana saw it too.”
Theo looked over to where Connie pointed. “I don’t see anything,” he said after a fashion. “It is only the wind.”
“No, I saw something. I’m sure of it,” Connie said. “Check it out.”
Connie held out her Threshibian bag to Theo. Theo gave Connie a look of concern. Nevertheless, he gave her the benefit of the doubt and removed his staff from the bag.
Instantly upon touching the staff, he froze as still as a statue. His eyes widened in alarm. “Rahl, Snow, everyone! Stop moving!” he yelled to the party.
Connie did not like the undertone of fear in Theo’s voice.
“What is it?” Rahl asked.
“Don’t move anyone! Stay where you are.”
The party stopped in their tracks. They looked at Theo. Now Theo did as Snow; he waved his crooked staff in a wide arc along the ground. Then he raised it from the ground to the dunes that surrounded the low ruins of the city. His feet did not move while he did all this.
“We are being stalked,” Theo said finally.
“By what?” Snow said, staring out at the dunes.
“I do not know,” Theo said. “But they are large. And they are all around us.”
“I don’t see anything,” Maltokken said, stating the obvious that there really wasn’t any place to hide.”
Theo lowered his staff to the ground. “They are in the sand.” Theo looked to Rahl. “They are gathering to attack us. They are surrounding us as we speak.”
Rahl unsheathed his sword. The rest of the party did likewise.
“Which way do we go, Theo?”
“We need to find solid ground. We can’t stay on the sand. That’s how they move.”
“There, Rahl!” Connie pointed. “If we can make it to that stone platform, we should be safe.”
“That’s one hundred paces away,” Maltokken said.
“Do you have a better idea?” Snow asked.
Jalban spoke up. “Snow, can’t you do something?”
Snow scanned the motionless sand. “I cannot cast a spell on what I cannot see.”
“We had better go now,” Theo said, looking worried. “The longer we wait, the less our chances.”
“If we go, we will have to make a run for it,” Rahl said. “We will all run together to the platform. Run as fast as you can. Don’t look back until you reach it.”
Suddenly, the sand began to ripple and churn around them. All at once, five or six lumps beneath the sand headed rapidly toward the party.
“Run!” Rahl shouted.
The party broke out into an all-out run for their lives. Four more of the entities joined in the pursuit. Connie’s soft-soled shoes tread lightly on the sand. Soon, she had sprinted paces ahead of the rest. She was glad she never wore any more than padded leather armor and that she brought her new body into shape from the katas and calisthenics she performed every morning.
“The staff!” Snow said.
Connie turned around. Snow had dropped the Eselomic staff. She broke her stride and went back to pick it up. The swelling movement beneath the surface of the sand quickly homed in on her. Before they could reach her, Rahl grabbed Snow by the arm and yanked her away. A split later, the staff disappeared beneath the roiling sand.
Connie reached the platform first. She hopped onto its broad, flat surface. Next came Theo, then Tristana. Rahl pushed Snow onto the platform, then he followed her. The heavily armored Maltokken arrived next. Connie and Theo helped pull him up to the platform. Now only one party member was still pursued by the creatures—Jalban.
The obese, tired Jalban had fallen a few times. Sand crystals stuck to his sweating skin. Now he huffed along while the sand plowed up at his heels.
“Run Jalban!” Connie yelled.
Jalban’s face bore an expression torment as he ran as fast as his stubby legs could carry him. At twenty paces from the platform, the ripples in the sand had girdled him.
It looked to Connie like he wasn’t going to make it. “Jalban!” she screamed.
Maltokken turned to Snow, who stood safely away from the edge of the platform. “Do something for him!” he pleaded with the sorceress.
“Give me a moment.”
“No! Do it now!”
Snow began the incantation of a spell. Before she could finish, Maltokken jumped off the platform and began running toward Jalban, his sword drawn.
Snow broke the casting of her spell to shout, “Maltokken! What are you doing?”
“Maltokken! No!” Rahl yelled. “Get back here!”
Maltokken ignored both of them. He ran toward struggling Jalban, sword in one hand, his other hand outstretched.
Jalban was only twenty paces from the platform. He held out his arms to Maltokken. Then suddenly, with quickness of a cobra, a giant, black scorpion-like stinger whipped out of the sand behind him. The black stinger impaled itself deep into his lower back. Jalban let out a scream of anguish as venom from the stinger pumped into his body.
“Jalban!” Connie screamed from the platform.
Jalban’s body became rigid in mid-stride. Then he stood up straight like a soldier at attention, every muscle as tight as wood. Except for the grim look of mortal agony on his face, it seemed like he may only have been stopping on the sand to correct his posture. Another stinger popped out of the sand. It impaled its black thorn into his belly. Jalban collapsed to his knees on the sand. The look of terror was frozen on his sand-covered face. Shiny, hooked appendages much like the legs of a giant spider gingerly pulled him beneath the sand.
“Jalban!” Connie cried out in pity and horror.
The ripples in the sand surrounded Maltokken in an instant. With his sword, he took a wild swing at the stinger and missed. Before he could recover his blow, another black stinger whipped out of the sand toward his throat. He screamed, fell to his knees, and held out his arm in a useless effort to parry the blow. At that moment, Connie felt the flux of powerful magic around her. Without a sound, Maltokken vanished from the sand and appeared next to her on the platform, crouched and screaming. The evil-looking stinger tail out in the sand flailed uselessly in the place where the fighter had crouched a split second before. Not finding its mark after a few swipes, the stinger quickly disappeared below the churning sand.
Maltokken looked up at Snow, who returned her gaze but said nothing. The unspoken truth was that Snow had just saved his life. Connie lowered her eyes to the spot where Jalban had disappeared. Nothing remained of him but a few odd ripples in the sand. She half expected Jalban to crawl out of the sand alive, but she knew this would never happen. He was dead before the creatures dragged him beneath the sand.
She looked down at Maltokken. He rose slowly to his feet, his eyes moist with tears.
“You saved me,” he said to the sorceress in reverence.
“Maybe I did,” Snow said to him.
“And by saving you, we lost Jalban,” Theo told him. “Snow broke off casting her spell to save him when you jumped off the platform.”
Connie cast a spell on herself so that she could view Snow’s aura. Just as she suspected, she discovered that Snow’s power was almost depleted. From this, she realized that by saving the fighter, she had expended a great deal of celestial energy.
“You’ve lost a lot of energy,” Connie said to Snow.
She sighed. “Yes, such a pity. I had hoped to conserve my power in case the creatures crawled after us onto this platform. And here I squandered most of it to save one man—one I didn’t even like.” Then she said something that surprised Connie. “I failed Fandia, but by the gods, I shall not fail you.”
This utterance startled Connie. She saw by the look in the sorceress’s eyes that the matter with Fandia still troubled her to no end.
“I don’t understand. How does your saving Maltokken not fail me?”
“Maybe he will save you in the future. He very well can’t do that if he’s dead, can he? As your master, I have an obligation to protect you in any way I see possible.”
“Even at your own expense?”
“Connie, let there be no doubt—if that had been you out there, I would have done the same.”
“What if the day ever came you didn’t have enough energy to protect yourself after saving me?”
“I would make use of Rahl’s enchanted sword,” she replied.
“To fight a dozen things like that?”
“No—to fall upon for the blessing of a quick, merciful death.”