The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [277]
“By her looks I think she favors me,” Fahir said proudly. “Why shouldn't I approach her?”
“Because by her al-Mama's looks, if you do, the old woman will put a va'ksha on you that will give you the private parts of a mouse.”
The young man's face blanched. “I'll get some rest. Come back soon.”
They set out before dawn the next day, riding on the swaying backs of two heavily laden camels as the domes of Qaradas faded like a mirage behind them. At first the air was cool, but once the sun rose into the sky heat radiated from the ground in dusty waves, parching their throats with every breath. Despite this, they drank sparingly. By all accounts it was a journey of six days to the village of Hadassa, where the rumors of the dervish had originated.
During the middle part of each day, when the sun grew too fierce to keep riding, they crouched in whatever shade they could find beneath a rock or cliff. They were always vigilant, and one would keep watch while the other dozed. Thieves were common on the roads between the city-states of Al-Amún.
Nor was it only thieves they kept watch for. Ever were the sorcerers of Scirath attracted to news of a dervish. While the Scirathi had suffered a great blow in the destruction of the Etherion more than three years before, where a great number of them were consumed by the demon, recently the Mournish had heard whispers that their old enemy had been gathering again, regaining its former strength. Even after two thousand years, the Scirathi still sought the secrets lost when Morindu the Dark was buried beneath the sands of the Morgolthi. Because the dervishes sought those same secrets, where one was found, the other could not be far off.
The days wore on, and water became a hardship. The first two springs they came to had offered some to drink, though less than Sareth had been led to believe. However, after that, every spring they reached was dry and they found no water, only white bones and withered trees. Doing their best to swallow the sand in their throats, they continued on.
Fahir and he never spoke of it, but by the fifth day of their journey Sareth knew they were in grave danger. There were but two swallows for each of them left in their flasks. It was said that Hadassa was built around a great oasis. However, if that was not so, if its spring had gone dry like the others, they would not make it back to Qaradas alive.
You could cast a spell, Sareth thought that night as he huddled beneath a blanket next to Fahir. Once the sun went down the desert air grew chill, and both men shuddered as with a fever. You could call the spirits and bid them to lead you to water.
Could he really? The working of blood sorcery was forbidden among the Morindai; only the dervishes broke that law. True, the elders of the clan had allowed Sareth to use the gate artifact to communicate with Vani when she journeyed across the Void to Earth. However, that had been a time of great need, and it was not a true act of blood sorcery. Sareth had spilled his blood to power the artifact, but he had not called the bodiless spirits, the morndari, to him as a true sorcerer would.
Besides, Sareth asked himself, what makes you believe you could control the spirits if they did answer your call? They would likely consume all your blood and unleash havoc.
Yet if he and Fahir did not find water tomorrow, what choice did he have but to try?
The next day dawned hotter than any that had come before. The white sun beat down on them, and the wind scoured any bit of exposed flesh with hard sand. They were on the very edge of habitable lands now. To the south stretched the endless wastes of the Morgolthi, the Thirsting Land, where no man had dwelled in eons, not since the land was broken and poisoned in the War of the Sorcerers.
The horizon wavered before Sareth. Shapes materialized amid the shimmering air. He fancied he could almost see them: the high towers of the first great cities of ancient Amún. Usyr. Scirath. And the onyx spires of Morindu the Dark . . .
A shout