LOOR

ONE

The sun was even stronger today.

Loor stood on the crest of the sand dune and looked into the distance. She had been following the thief for three days. She had never seen him though. The man she was following was a ghost, just a trail of indistinct footprints in the sand.

And when she had lost the trail, she had simply followed a huge bird—a hindor—that had been flying on the hot air currents above her since the moment she left Xhaxhu. A good luck charm or an actual guide—it was hard to say. But whatever the case, the great black bird had never steered her wrong.

But now she didn’t really need the hindor. She could tell she was gaining on the thief because his footprints were becoming clearer. When she had first started tracking him at the outskirts of Xhaxhu, the prints had sometimes been nearly invisible, wiped away by the wind. In the beginning sometimes she’d had to backtrack, searching for the faintest sign of his passing. And sometimes he had played tricks on her, doubling back, jumping from rock to rock so as not to leave prints, leaving false trails. Anything to trip her up.

But not now. Now there was no losing the trail. It was just a contest of will. She shook her canteen. Will…and water. She had enough for another day if she stretched it. Another few hours if she didn’t. Her lips were dry and cracked, and her feet were sore and blistered. Even with her dark, nearly black tone, the intensity of the sun had caused the skin on her shoulders and face to peel and burn.

Overhead the giant bird circled slowly, carried on the rising currents of hot air. The hindor was the only living creature she had seen in days. Not a snake, not a lizard, not a fly, or mosquito.

The desert was no place for people. The sky was a deep, clear blue, without even a hint of a cloud.

And then, for the first time, she saw him. There! The dunes rolled up and down in front of her. He was a small dark lump, three dunes away. He paused and looked back. He seemed to be in no hurry. She could tell that he saw her, though she couldn’t see him in any detail. He wore the robes of the cannibal tribes of the desert. Beyond that, she could make out nothing.

He was watching her. Studying her. Looking for weakness. Finally he lifted his arm and gave her a silent, unhurried wave, as though acknowledging that she had made it this far.

Then he turned and disappeared.

She smiled fiercely.

Three days ago the desert had been the last thing on Loor’s mind. It was the first day of Azhra, the biggest holiday of the year. Even hard-bitten warriors like Loor took time off from training during the weeklong festival. Everyone dressed in their finest clothes and ate their most delicious food. The streets of Xhaxhu were filled with color, and the city’s fountains ran, just as they had in the old days.

There had been a time, years ago, when Xhaxhu lay at the center of an immense and fertile plain. Even though there was not much rainfall in the plains, great rivers ran through the land, irrigating the fields, and making the arid land bloom with life. The Festival of Azhra celebrated King Azhra, who brought his people through the desert to the watery and fertile oasis of Xhaxhu.

But over the years something changed. At first it was just a subtle decrease of the flow during the summer. Over time it became clear that something profound was happening. Some vast change in the weather was causing the rains in the distant mountains of Elzhe’er to cease for much of the year. And so the rivers dwindled and dried up.

Finally a neighboring people, the Rokador, created vast underground tunnels and aquifers, which would channel and store what little rain still fell in the distant mountains. The tunnels of the Rokador made it possible for farming to continue in much of the plains around Xhaxhu. But each year the Rokador reported sparser rains, fewer active streams, less water coming from the mountains of Elzehe’er.

And so, one after another, farms fell into ruin, orchards withered, fields were abandoned…and the sand blew ever closer to Xhaxhu.

But during the Festival of Azhra, all these things were forgotten. Loor’s people, the Batu, forgot about the drought, and water flowed everywhere. Long ago the festival had signaled the beginning of the rainy season. The culmination of the festival was a great public ceremony in the central stadium of the city. There were speeches and dances and singing. Warriors paraded, showing off their skills and their finest uniforms.

And then, finally, a huge vessel of water was hoisted above the crowd. Each year a warrior took the ancient golden ax of Azhra and struck the vessel. It broke, dousing the crowd in water—symbolic of the life-giving rain that sustained the city.

This year Loor had been chosen for the honor of using the golden ax.

But on the first day of Azhra, an urgent message had summoned her to the Supreme Council, the body that advised King Khalek a Zinj, the king of Xhaxhu. Khalek had been in poor health lately, so his young son, Pelle a Zinj, was officially presiding. But because Pelle was still relatively inexperienced, he left most of the talking to his councillors. Loor’s mother, Osa, was among those councillors, so Loor was not unfamiliar with the proceedings. But to have been called here, not as an observer, but as a participant—it was a great honor.

The news from the council had been grim. According to Chief Councillor Erran, the golden ax, which had been used for generations, had been stolen.

“Why would someone do that?” Loor said as she stood before the council.

One of the king’s oldest councillors, Shakar, stood and pointed his finger across the room. “It is the Rokador!” he shouted. “Those traitors know the importance of Azhra to our people. They seek to humiliate us! We must strike against them now.”

But Erran, the head of the council, rose and said, “Silence, Shakar! We do not know that it was the Rokador.”

“Who else could it be?” Loor asked.

“We do not know, Loor.” Loor’s mother, Osa, stood and spoke. She looked much like Loor—tall, dark-skinned, strong. But her face was softer, and she smiled more easily. Today, however, she wasn’t smiling. “Very likely the thief was a Zafir.” The Zafir were fierce tribesmen who inhabited the deserts that surrounded Xhaxhu. “A man wearing the robes of a tribesman was spotted near the temple where the golden ax is stored.”

“It could have been a Rokador dressed in desert robes!” shouted Shakar.

“Yes!” shouted another councillor. A loud hubbub erupted.

Erran raised his hands and silenced the room. “Let us not prematurely blame the Rokador,” he said. “I have called Loor before us for a reason.”

“What is that?” Loor said.

“The man in the robe was spotted in the outskirts of Xhaxhu not an hour ago. You are ordered to follow him into the desert. Follow him and retrieve the ax.”

Loor turned to look at her mother. Osa looked back at her impassively. “Who should I take with me? Do I get to choose my team?”

Erran shook his head. “You will take no one. You will go alone.”

Loor tried not to appear confused. Why would they send only her? Why not someone older? She studied her mother’s face again. But Osa was showing nothing. An outside observer wouldn’t have known from Osa’s expression that she and Loor were even related.

For the first time Crown Prince Pelle a Zinj spoke. “If we send a large group, the group will go at the speed of its slowest member. No, Loor, your determination and resilience were well demonstrated in the games this year. You will go alone. You will find the thief. And you will take back what is rightfully ours.”

When a Ghee warrior was given a direct order by a royal authority, there was no debate, no questioning. Ghee warriors simply did as they were told.

Loor knelt and pressed her forehead to the floor.

After the audience with the council, Osa accompanied her daughter back to her room.

“Why me?” Loor said finally. “There are many more experienced warriors in Xhaxhu. Did you get them to pick me?”

Osa shook her head. “You know I would not do that, Loor. It was Erran who suggested that you be the one. He felt your youth and vigor would be useful to the mission.”

“Good,” Loor said. “I would not want anyone to think I got the mission just because I was the great Osa’s daughter.”

Osa smiled. She put her hand on Loor’s arm. “You earned the right to the assignment. Just do your duty and someday people will stop describing you as ‘Osa’s daughter.’ In fact, they will probably be describing me as ‘the great Loor’s mother.’”

Loor almost laughed. But she didn’t. Laughter was unbecoming of a serious warrior.

 

Thirty minutes later Loor’s colorful holiday outfit lay in a pile on the floor of her room, and she was jogging into the western outskirts of the city, a heavy pack on her back, her war staff in her hand.

By midday she had found the thief’s footprints. They wound through abandoned farms, and past dried out wells and twisted and leafless trees. And by the end of the day, she was into the sand. The thief’s footprints were measured and unhurried. He showed no sign of fear, no sign of haste.

As she finally lay down on the sand, the stars twinkling above her, she was sure: This was no Rokador trick. There wasn’t a Rokador in all of Zadaa who would march calmly into the desert like this. The Rokador word for the great desert was “shu-roka-nak.” Loosely translated, it meant “the place where Rokador die.”

No, the thief was a child of the desert.

She permitted herself a brief smile. The desert was unforgiving, and the tribesmen were tough and vicious. This would be a true test.

 

By the time the sun had neared the horizon, Loor had gained significantly on the thief. She had been pushing herself relentlessly. Even with all her arduous training, the desert was taking its toll on her. She had been forced to drink more water than she planned.

But it didn’t matter. When she had first seen him, he was three dunes away. Now each time she crested a dune, she saw him struggling up the next dune.

She was close. Very close. But she had to catch him by nightfall. The thief almost certainly had more water than she did. If he slipped away during the night, she would run out of water once the sun began blazing on her the next morning. And without water, all her training, all her skill, all her will and determination were useless. She would die. It was that simple. She didn’t have enough water to make it back to Xhaxhu.

She had dropped her pack hours earlier in order to make better time. Either she caught the thief, retrieved the ax, and took his water…

Or she died.

She was moving in a fog of pain now. Her feet burned, her lungs ached, her body was sore. And the lack of water was making her lose her edge. She began to entertain thoughts that she might die out here.

Her legs constantly threatened to give out under her.

And yet somehow she managed to go on. Still, relentlessly, she closed the gap.

As she crested the next dune, she saw that the landscape had changed. The dunes trailed off into a rocky, barren wasteland. Boulders and eerie rock formations thrust upward into the sky. She had heard of this place before. It was the high plateau that led to the mountains.

She could see the Elzehe’er range, white capped even at this time of year, rising in the distance.

Below her on the face of the last dune, she could see the man. For the first time he was hurrying, as though at long last he acknowledged her as a real threat. He looked back over his shoulder. He was slipping and sliding on the loose sand, trying to reach the sounder footing of the rocky plateau above them.

He was no more than a hundred yards away.

Loor felt a surge of pleasure. Yes. She was going to make it.

She paused, drained the last mouthful of water, tossed her canteen into the sand, then let out the shrill war cry of the Batu.

The echoes came back to her off the massive rock formations before her. In the distance the sun touched the top of one of the tall boulders. Then she saw the hindor pass in front of the red disk of the sun, its long black wings outstretched.

Loor raised her fighting staff and charged.

TWO

Until this moment Loor had been unable to tell anything about the tribesman. Was he tall, short, pale, dark, muscular? There was no way to tell, given the massive scale of the dunes and the all-concealing folds of his robe.

But as she closed the gap, she saw that he was smaller than she’d expected. As a result he couldn’t begin to match her speed. And, for the first time since she’d entered the desert, she was glad to be wearing the tiny outfit of a Ghee warrior instead of the bulky robe of the tribesman.

The thief didn’t look back, though. He simply charged into the thicket of boulders, dodging this way and that. Loor was faster but the man was quick. Loor’s legs were burning and her chest was on fire.

When she was only about fifty paces away, the man ducked between two stone pillars. She followed and found that he had entered a sort of stone chamber—a dead end surrounded by high walls of pale rock. Throughout the chamber were oddly shaped piles of rock, dozens of them, made from pieces about the size of her fist. They must have been man-made, though she couldn’t think what they were for. Was it some sort of tribal burial ground? A religious site for the desert people?

The thief, still running, glanced back at her. He had nearly reached the end of the chamber. As he looked back, he tripped, sprawling on the hard rock.

Loor ran toward him. The thief lay with his back against the wall. As she approached, he looked up at her. Now she was able to clearly see his face. She was shocked at what she saw.

It wasn’t a man at all.

It was just a boy, not more than eleven or twelve years old.

She halted and stared down at him. “Give me the ax,” she said.

The boy said nothing.

“You led me on a good chase, boy,” she said. “I applaud you. You are strong and brave. But I’m more than you can handle. Give me the ax and enough water for three days’ journey through the sands, and I won’t hurt you.” To punctuate her demand, she lifted her stick, ready to strike the boy if he attempted to fight.

Still the boy said nothing. But a small grin ran across his face.

Suddenly Loor felt the hair stand up on the back of her neck. Her warrior instincts told her something was wrong. But it wasn’t until she heard the sound that she knew what it was. The sound of rock scraping on rock.

A flood of anger ran through her.

She whipped around. Throughout the chamber the strange piles of rock began to move. Men rose from piles, like mythical creatures growing from the living rock.

But they weren’t mythical creatures. They were desert tribesmen, carrying the distinctive short recurved bows of their people. Every bow was strung with an arrow.

Finally the last of them appeared, and the last rock fell away, clattering to the ground. For a moment there was no sound but the hot desert wind whistling softly across the top of the canyon.

Loor knew she had no chance against them. There must have been close to twenty men, hoods up, faces invisible. Every bow was trained on her. It was known that the desert tribesmen were masters of the bow. Having no crops in the desert, they sometimes had to survive for months on end on just the animals they shot.

But Loor had no intention of surrendering. She had been sent on a special mission by the crown prince himself. The only thing that would redeem her failure would be to die a good death.

“Give me the ax,” she said again to the boy.

The boy pulled the ax from a fold beneath his robe. Loor felt a tug of excitement at the sight of it. The ancient wooden handle was intricately carved, displaying an artistic skill that she knew had been lost by her people long ago. The ax head itself was pure gold. Unlike the highly decorated handle, the ax head was simple—a battered wedge of metal, unmarked by anything other than the many blows it had struck over the years during the Festival of Azhra.

The boy threw it negligently on the ground.

As he did, a man detached himself from the group of archers and walked haughtily toward her. “You think we care about such things?” he said.

“That ax is of great value,” Loor said.

“It is dull and useless. A toy. If I wanted such a thing, it would be made of steel.”

“Then I will take it,” Loor said. “Just give me some water and I’ll be on my—”

Before her hand could reach the ax, an arrow zinged through the air, hitting the ground only inches from the blade.

“If you want the ax,” the man said, “you must take it from us.”

With that, Loor sprang into action. She grabbed the ax and hurled it at the man who had been speaking. The man ducked fluidly, and the ax thudded into the head of one of the men behind him.

The man who had been talking slid the hood of his robe back smoothly. He was fair skinned—though not as fair as a Rokador—and dark haired. A thick scar split his face from one side to the other, and his left eye was just a puckered socket surrounded by scar tissue.

Loor charged him.

She expected a volley of arrows to follow. But instead the tribesmen simply followed her with their bows.

Before she could reach him, the one-eyed man had drawn a long, thin stick from beneath his robe. It was made from some kind of wood that she didn’t recognize—gleaming, dense, and black. By the time she got to him, he was in a ready stance.

She didn’t give him a chance to compose himself though. She simply attacked. The man’s stick was much thinner than her own staff, so it moved more quickly. Loor had practiced stick fighting since she was old enough to hold a staff, but the man’s techniques were unexpected. She was stronger and faster…but he seemed to have an answer for every attack she made.

“Son!” he called out to the boy on the ground. “What is our first rule of combat?”

“Never make the first move,” the boy called back.

Loor tried to use the man’s conversation to find an opening. But instead the man parried and hit her on her biceps. It wasn’t enough to break her arm. But for a moment her limb went numb, and she thought she might lose the stick.

“You charged into this canyon without adequately studying it,” the man said.

Loor felt sure that under normal circumstances she could have beaten the man fairly quickly. But she was feeling light-headed from exhaustion, heat, and dehydration. Each time she saw an opening in the man’s guard, her limbs were too slow to exploit it.

Again the man hit her. His thin stick didn’t seem to be intended to break bones, but only to cause pain. This made Loor mad. It wasn’t even a real weapon. One blow from her stick could have ended the fight. But she just couldn’t seem to land it!

Still, she relentlessly attacked, driving the man from one side of the canyon to the other. And still the arrows of the tribesmen followed her. Finally she saw another opening. Without breaking the rhythm of her attack, she dove forward.

Just at the moment she believed her stick would impact with the man’s head, though, he slipped to the side. His thin black stick whistled through the air, snaking between her legs. Using her own momentum against her, the man deftly levered her right leg out from under her and she crashed to the ground. She felt the skin tear on her knees.

But the pain was nothing. She had long ago ceased to think about pain.

“Never make the first move,” the man said again, a broad smile briefly crossing his face.

Insults, on the other hand, still had the power to hurt her. She had been the finest stick fighter in Xhaxhu, her face put on posters, her skills talked about after every game. But this man was making a mockery of her.

With a scream she exploded to her feet. I will not lose! she thought. And this time, as she powered forward, the man fell back before her onslaught. With a surge of joy, she realized that she had started to understand his game. All his little feints and weight shifts and sly little darting movements wouldn’t save him now. She understood him.

The man dodged and parried her hail of blows. From somewhere deep inside she summoned up the strength to make one last attack. But, she decided, it wasn’t enough simply to win. She had to humiliate him.

Feigning just slightly more fatigue than she actually felt, she dropped her stick a few inches. It was a subtle thing…but it gave the man an opening. He took it, darting forward and attempting to slam her in the face with his stick. Using exactly the same move he had used against her, she slipped to the side, thrust her stick between his knees, and levered his legs out from under him.

The man fell hard, his face twisting in a grimace of pain as he thudded to the ground. His stick flew from his hand.

Loor leaped onto him, standing on his right arm, her staff poised for a final strike. “Fall back!” she shouted. “Fall back—or he dies!”

But the men didn’t move.

Loor glanced back down at the man on the ground. She expected to see his face full of fear and pain. But instead he was smiling. “Perfect!” he said.

Then two fingers on his right hand rose and fell. There was something practiced about it, as though it were a signal.

With that, every one of the tribesmen released their arrows. The air around her literally whistled as the shafts came at her from all sides.

I have failed, she thought. But at least I have died honorably.

And then the arrows hit.

THREE

Loor expected pain.

But instead she felt only an odd sensation of constriction. And then she realized what had happened. The arrows they had fired had missed. All of them.

But it didn’t matter. In a flash she knew the men hadn’t meant to hit her in the first place. Every arrow they fired trailed a fine piece of rope. She was now surrounded by a web of rope. Around her the men were grabbing at the string and running in circles. She tried to struggle.

But by the time she had figured out what was going on, it was too late. Half the men ran in one direction, half in the other, their arms weaving rapidly as they passed one another. It was clear from the smoothness and coordination of their attack that this was a tactic they had practiced thousands of times before.

Within seconds she was completely enmeshed, circled from head to toe. The one-eyed man leaped deftly to his feet. Unable to move, she couldn’t even resist as he pushed her to the ground and slid his long stick underneath the encircling mesh that bound her.

He studied her face. “Perfect,” he said again. “Look at her. Even after three days in the desert, without enough water, she would have killed me.” He smiled at his men. “You have done well, my men! King Allon will reward you greatly!” He snapped his fingers at two of the hooded men. “Take her.”

The two men jumped forward and lifted the ends of the stick, hoisting Loor up onto their shoulders so that her head dangled above ground. With a feeling of horror Loor realized what must be happening. There were stories about the tribesmen. Stories of human sacrifice. Stories of cannibalism.

The only consolation she could find was that no one would ever know. Imagine the shame her mother would feel if she knew that Loor had been eaten by cannibals. A thing like that would stain the honor of a family for generations! She felt nauseated. Even the thought of her own death didn’t sicken her as much as that.

“Before you have a chance to eat me,” she said, “I’ll starve myself. I’ll make myself sick. I’ll be foul tasting and diseased.”

The one-eyed man laughed loudly. “Eat you!” he said. “You Batu are such idiots. I cannot believe you still tell those ridiculous stories. Our people have not eaten Batu in centuries.”

“Then what do you want?” she said.

The man made a signal to his follows, a big circle in the air. Then he pointed to the entrance to the canyon. The men began walking single file. They carried her in front, like a trophy. Behind her she saw that the tribesmen had simply left the ax, the centuries-old treasure of her people, lying on the ground like discarded trash.

“The ax!” she said.

“It is of no consequence,” the one-eyed man said. “It is just a useless bauble. In the desert everything must have a use. The desert is too unforgiving to allow for such frivolity.”

Loor watched the ax disappear as the men slowly filed out of the canyon. Loor had always thought of herself as coming from the least frivolous people in the world. But she had to admit she could see the man’s point. Out here, if you couldn’t drink it or eat it or use it to keep the heat and cold from killing you, a thing was only going to drag you down.

“Where are we going?” she said.

“This is a great honor, you know,” the man said.

Loor spit on the ground. Honor? This was the most demeaning thing that had ever happened to her in her life.

“We are a small, isolated people,” the man said. “We need fresh blood to keep our people strong.”

Loor blinked. What was he talking about?

“We knew that if we stole the ax, your king would send someone to recover it. A female warrior. Your men are strong, but Batu women can go farther and longer in the desert. So we knew that eventually a woman of unusual courage and fortitude would come to us.” He smiled. “And here you are. Not only vital and strong…but young and beautiful.”

“And you sent a ten-year-old boy to do this? Your own son? What if we had captured him? What if we had killed him? What if he had died in the desert?”

“Surely you understand the concept of honor,” the man said, clapping his son gently on the shoulder. “And he is eleven.”

The boy looked so proud that he was about to burst.

Loor had to admire these people. They were not quite what she expected.

The one-eyed man smiled fondly at his son. “What a story he will have to tell his grandchildren! ‘At the age of eleven, I broke into the great city of Xhaxhu and stole their greatest treasure.’ A price cannot be put on a thing like that.”

“You still have not answered my question,” Loor said. “What precisely do you want from me?”

“King Allon,” he said, “has reached a certain point in his life. The time has come to have an heir to the throne.”

“What are you talking about?” she demanded.

The line of men finished filing out of the rocks and started up the face of the first dune. They were heading back into the desert. In the distance she could see that the sun had slipped behind the horizon. The sky was a wash of brilliant pink. Already the air had begun to cool. Soon, she knew from experience, it would be quite cold.

“Quiet,” he said softly. “We do not speak in the desert. Every time you open your mouth to speak, your breath exhales moisture. To speak in this place is to squander precious water on the lifeless sand.”

“I will stop talking when you answer my question!” Loor howled. “What are you doing with me?”

The one-eyed man studied her as though considering whether he should waste any of his body’s precious water on her.

“Congratulations,” he said finally. “In three days you will marry the king of the Zafir.”

Then the one-eyed man put up his hood, and his face disappeared into the darkness.

FOUR

For the next day and a half not a single man spoke. They walked slowly through the sand, not wasting a single step or a single motion.

Around midday the next day, they left the shifting sands again and began winding through a series of barren foothills in the shadow of the Elzehe’er range, slowly climbing higher and higher. The air began to cool somewhat, but the land was still parched and arid.

Late in the day they crested a small rocky outcrop. And suddenly, spread out in a small valley below them was an astonishing sight.

Water.

Not just a little water, but a vast lake of it. Surrounding the lake was a green valley. Flocks of sheep gamboled across the grass. And in the distance, perhaps a mile away on the shore of the lake, lay a broad colorful maze of tents. There were red tents, yellow tents, white tents, orange tents, tents made from several colors, tents painted with designs. It was a riot of color.

As they crested the hill and spotted the tent city below them, the men all dropped their hoods and cheered. Then they placed Loor on the ground and cut her free from the web that secured her to the stick.

Loor’s first instinct was to try to escape. But after being tied to a pole and fed almost nothing for a solid day, she could barely stand. Her feet were asleep, her muscles felt rubbery, and she felt dizzy and slow witted.

The men sat in a circle around her and laid out a meal. Loor hated to admit it, but it smelled better than any food she’d ever experienced. There were smoked meats and fish, dried fruits, spiced pickles.

Loor considered not eating for a moment, just to spite them. But then she realized that if she was going to escape, she needed to get her strength back. She ate slowly, resisting the impulse to shove all the food into her mouth.

When they were done, the one-eyed man put his hand over his heart—the standard greeting of the desert people—and said, “I am Heshar. I am proud to know you.”

Loor glared at him. “Loor,” she said, patting her own chest. “I will be proud to kill you one day.”

Heshar smiled as though she had just given him a high compliment. “Come,” he said. “Let us take you to the king.”

As she stood, a shadow slid across the grass in front of her. She looked up. High above her the hindor circled slowly on the breeze.

She was amazed that it had followed her this far.

Good luck is still with me, she thought. Perhaps I can still complete my mission.

 

In Xhaxhu important people lived in large stone buildings that oozed a sense of power and authority. But the king of the Zafir lived little differently from his people. His tent was a bit larger and had a brilliant red pennant hanging from its high center pole. But otherwise it was distinguishable from the living quarters of others only by the hard-faced guards who stood outside the entry flap, eyes restlessly scanning the horizon.

As they approached, the guards put their hands over their hearts and greeted Heshar solemnly. He seemed to be a respected man here.

“Is this her?” a white-haired man with a large mustache asked.

Heshar nodded. The guards studied her with undisguised interest. All the women in the camp were clothed from head to toe in robes. By comparison Loor seemed nearly naked. But Loor felt that she was being studied more the way one would study a livestock specimen than a woman.

The white-haired man nodded. “You have done well, Heshar.”

Then he snapped his fingers at one of the guards. The guard disappeared into the tent. Finally he returned with a carefully folded robe of fine silk. Loor could smell the perfume wafting off of it.

“Cover yourself,” the white-haired man said.

Loor threw the beautiful robe on the ground. “I am Batu,” she said. “Robes slow you down, weaken your ability to fight.”

The white-haired man eyed her silently for a while. “As you wish,” he said. Then he pulled back the flap of the tent and motioned her to enter.

Loor was a little shocked. She was still wearing her dagger on her hip. No Batu guard would ever have allowed an armed stranger to approach a Batu leader.

She walked inside, followed by Heshar.

The tent was large and brightly lit, the sunlight entering through a series of cleverly designed vents in the roof. Three musicians sat near the door, playing quietly on stringed instruments. A light haze of smoke filled the room.

At the far end of the tent sat a man in a perfectly white robe. Flanking him were ten men, short spears cradled in their laps.

“Please,” the man said. “Sit.”

She walked up until she was about ten feet from the man. Was this the king? She wasn’t sure. He was slim, with a handsome face, and bright black eyes. Loor estimated that he was maybe five years older than she was—perhaps twenty. He wore no signs of rank—no crown, no jewelry, no fancy sword, no ornaments at all.

“I will not sit,” she said.

The man shrugged. “What is your name?”

“Loor.”

“I am Allon. It is my privilege to rule the Zafir.”

Loor crossed her arms over her chest and didn’t speak.

“Have you been mistreated?” King Allon said.

“If you mean have I been taken and dragged here against my will, yes. I was not beaten.”

The king laughed. “Oh, Heshar, Heshar,” he said to the one-eyed man. “I am well pleased with your work.” He turned to the men flanking him. “Look at her! Is she not magnificent? Such spirit! Such inner strength!”

The men nodded soberly. Everyone seemed relaxed and complacent.

Loor chose that moment to grab her dagger and hurl herself at the king. Before she could reach him, however, his men had grabbed their spears and leaped to their feet. They were blindingly fast.

One of the men grabbed her by the waist and wrestled her to the floor. He made a move as if to punch her in the face. But the king said, “No, no.” His voice was gentle. But there was authority beneath the soft tone. Loor had to admit she was impressed.

The man who’d tackled her raised his hands and stepped off her.

“I presume,” King Allon said, “that my friend Heshar has told you why you were brought here.”

She laughed. “I’ll die before I submit to you.”

The king raised one eyebrow. “You could have thrown yourself on that spear point,” he said. “But you didn’t.”

Loor gnashed her teeth. He had a point. As a rule, Loor disliked clever people. “The time was not right,” she said.

“Mm…” The king seemed unpersuaded. “Among my people pointless death is not considered honorable. If one is going to give one’s life, it ought to be for a purpose.”

Loor didn’t answer. One could talk all day about such things and never come to any conclusions. Battle was the only place where anything was really ever solved.

The king rose. “Come,” he said. “Join me.”

He walked toward the door. Having nothing better to do, Loor followed him. Clearly now was not the time to attack this man. She would bide her time, wait for the right moment. Then she would strike.

Like all the other Zafir she had seen so far, the king moved with a slow, graceful stride, not wasting any energy. It was quite different from Xhaxhu, where everyone was expected to move quickly and decisively at all times. To the Batu, slow movement was a sign of weakness.

As the king walked past his subjects, they placed their hands over their hearts. But there were no bowed heads, no obvious signs of subservience. And the king returned their greetings as though they were friends.

It didn’t take long to reach the outskirts of the tent city. As they did, King Allon turned to his guards and said, “Leave us.”

The men nodded. King Allon walked on, heading slowly toward the shore of the immense lake.

“You must have great confidence in your skills as a fighter,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Well, I am one of the most dangerous warriors in Xhaxhu. If you think you can best me in one-armed combat…” She shrugged.

The king smiled. “In the long run,” he said, “I cannot very well have a queen whom I fear. At a certain point, I simply have to trust you.”

Loor was astonished. She suspected a trick. Maybe he had some kind of dangerous weapon hidden in his robe. “Then you are a fool,” she snapped.

“Mm…” He trailed off.

“Each summer for a thousand generations my people have come to this lake to fatten our sheep. During fall, winter, and spring we are scattered like seeds across the whole desert. We are a fierce and warlike people. During the rest of the year, the various tribes that make up my nation are in constant war with one another. They engage in feuds that go back generations. But here? This is called the ‘Lake of Peace.’ For the three months we are here, there are no quarrels, no fights, no voices raised in anger. To break that law is to die on the spot. No matter what the cause or provocation.”

“Why?” Loor said.

“This.” The king stopped and made a sweeping gesture with his hands, encompassing the huge lake. Loor looked out at the water. It was impossibly blue. She had never seen so much water, not in her entire life. She amazed to find that she could actually smell it. “If we, as a people, are to survive the hot months,” King Allon said, “we must fatten our sheep. Our sheep are our lifeblood. We eat their flesh and weave out clothes and tents from their wool. This place is our source. If war and hatred and fear and vengeance are allowed to enter this valley, we all will suffer. In the end we all will starve, and our people will vanish from the earth. So…here peace reigns.”

“We have an arrangement much like that,” Loor said. “The Batu and the Rokador do not like each other very much. But they provide us with water. And we provide them with food and protection.”

The king surveyed the land. As he did, he spotted the hindor flying in the distance. “That is a great omen,” he said. “Among our people, the hindor is considered the greatest of birds.”

“Yes,” she said. “We too prize it for its fierceness and strength.”

“That is not why we revere it,” the king said. “We worship the hindor because it can smell water from miles and miles away. Follow a hindor’s flight, and eventually you will reach water.”

“That one followed me all the way here,” Loor said.

King Allon’s eyebrows went up. “All the way across the desert?”

She nodded.

“Astonishing.” He smiled. “You will bring us great fortune.”

Loor said nothing. The king picked up a rock, skipped it across the water. It must have skipped seven or eight times. “Try it,” he said.

She picked up a rock from the bank, threw it in the water. It went plooop! and sank immediately.

“No,” he said. “Like this.” He showed her the way he threw it.

She tried it. The stone skipped twice and sank. “Yes!” the king said. “You see!” He smiled, apparently happy as a child. “I used to do this all the time when we came here in the summer. I’d herd my father’s flock way off over there. Then I would throw stones for hours!”

He threw another one, then clapped his hands joyously. “Only six that time,” he said.

“I will beat you,” she said. She picked up a rock and hurled it as hard as she could. Two skips and a violent splash.

He laughed again. “Not so hard. Gently!” He searched for a stone until he found one he liked. On this throw it skipped so many times she couldn’t even count them. The king seemed to find this hilarious.

Loor tried to envision old King Khalek a Zinj doing something like this. It was impossible even to imagine. A thing like this was beneath his dignity.

She searched for a flat rock like the one he’d used. She tried her best to imitate the low arc he used in throwing his stones. This time her rock seemed to dance across the water. It only made about four skips. But still. “Yes!” she shouted, raising her hands above her head.

“Good! Good!” the king shouted. Then he put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a quick hug. It seemed a simple and genuine—almost brotherly—acknowledgment of her accomplishment in this little game. But she could feel his muscles beneath the robe. He was stronger than he looked.

Loor felt a strange glow spread through her. It took her a moment to realize what it was. She liked this man. A lot.

A terrible thought ran through her mind. She had no way of getting back across the desert. She had no friends here. And this man, whom she was beginning to like, wanted her to stay forever. A frightening notion—and it was only a notion—flitted through her mind. What if I just gave in? What if I just stayed?

Her entire life had been nothing but struggle. Training, fighting, striving, working—it was nothing but pain and sacrifice.

All along the banks of the great lake, she saw flocks of sheep munching peacefully on the grass. Shepherds sat around here and there, some by themselves, some laughing and joking in small groups. Small brooks babbled, pouring water into the lake.

In Batu mythology there was a paradise from which all humanity had originally come. In Loor’s mind it looked exactly like this.

King Allon stood beside her still, his arm draped across her shoulder.

Loor froze. What am I thinking? she asked herself.

The next moment her blade was in her hand.

The young king twisted sharply—but not before her knife had entered the folds of his robe. And then his powerful hands clamped around hers. She was unable to move.

“Just because I throw stones into a lake does not mean I am a fool,” he said softly. Then his face lit up with another mysterious smile. He pushed the knife back out of the fold of his robe. With a quick snap of his hands, he applied excruciating pain to her wrist. Her knife fell to the ground. He kicked it into the water.

Loor felt a torrent of shame run through her. He’d evaded her knife effortlessly. She’d punctured nothing but cloth. She was sure her aim had been perfect. It was not normal for Loor to feel helpless. But right now she felt completely helpless.

“I cannot be your friend,” she said. “I cannot be your wife. I cannot be one of your people.”

The king waved his hand as though none of this was very important. “We have a saying, ‘There is much time in the desert.’”

“Which means what?”

“Things happen. Circumstances change. What seems right today may seem wrong tomorrow.” He looked at the sun, which was starting to sink toward the horizon. “Are you hungry, Loor?”

“I suppose so.”

“Let us go eat,” he said.

They began walking silently toward the crimson pennant over his distant tent.

“Where does all the water go?” she asked as they approached the cluster of brightly colored tents.

“From the lake, you mean?” he said.

She pointed around the margins of the lake. “I see all this water coming in. But there’s no river going out.”

“They say that once there was a river,” King Allon said. “But then one day it just stopped flowing. Like that.” He snapped his fingers, then shrugged. “The world is full of mysteries.”

They walked silently.

When they had finally reached their tent, the young king stopped and turned to her. “We are free people,” he said. “I will not keep you here against your will.”

“Then I will leave right now,” she said.

“I will not send anyone to escort you home, either,” he said. He pointed toward the mountains, their peaks a fiery red as they reflected the blaze of the setting sun. “Those peaks rise twenty thousand feet into the air. To the north and south lies a plateau where there is not a tree or leaf or blade of grass. To the east, between here and Xhaxhu, is only desert sand. There are no maps but the ones in our heads.” He tapped his temple. “If you leave this place, you will die.” He stroked the side of her face. “And I will be very sad for you.”

The king’s retainers spotted them and began walking briskly toward them. “Your Highness!” one of them said, pointing at the king’s midsection.

The king looked down at the large red stain that was spreading slowly down the front of his robe.

“It is nothing,” King Allon said. “Send word to my cook to bring out the food. Loor and I will eat by the lake.”

FIVE

It wasn’t nothing though. By the time that Loor had finished eating, the red stain had grown to cover much of King Allon’s lap. The young king’s face was pale and drawn. It was obvious that his men were alarmed at all the blood. But none of them said a word about it. So she had been correct, her aim had been true. But this man, this kind man, was strong of both body and will.

In fact, King Allon continued to talk with her as though nothing at all had happened. His conversation was lively and interesting—tough, realistic, yet generous and wise. She had an odd realization: Batu boys bored her. They seemed so obvious, so loud, so tedious. Batu boys were always telling you how great they were, how strong, how fearless. But Allon, he hadn’t talked about himself even for a second.

“Look,” she said finally, waving at all the blood, “you have to do something about that. You will die if you keep bleeding.”

“Is that not what you want?” he said.

Loor said nothing.

King Allon smiled his mysterious smile. “Well then, if you have eaten your fill, I think I might take a little rest.”

 

That night Loor was left all alone in the tent. A simple woolen mat lay in the center for her to sleep on. Next to it was a woolen robe, as white and pure as the king’s.

After the sun went down, Loor lay down on the mat and stared up at the tent roof. She could feel the robe lying there. The air had grown cold. She had nothing to wear but her Batu combat gear.

What if I just went ahead and put it on? she thought.

She couldn’t sleep. All she could think about was the king, sitting there talking with her as his blood slowly drained onto the floor.

“Never make the first move.” Wasn’t that what the one-eyed man’s son had said? She had made a move before she’d thought everything through. And now she was sorry.

Loor felt her eyes sting as she stared up into the air. She’d failed in her mission, failed in her attempt to kill her captor, failed in everything. Why hadn’t they picked someone else to come out here? I am too young, she thought. They should have chosen someone else.

And then, suddenly, she knew what she needed to do. It was time to stop feeling sorry for herself. She stood, pulled the robe over body, let it slip down over her bare skin. It was an odd sensation. She wasn’t used to wearing things like this.

Then she gathered what she would need and walked out of the tent, continuing past the other silent tents. A dog barked, then went quiet. She walked toward the lake. A thin wedge of moon illuminated it. The surface was still and black. Today it had looked beautiful. Now it looked terrifying, like some dark force that might suck her down and destroy her.

Hesitantly she approached the lake. Loor knelt and looked down. She could see her face reflected in the dark water. Only her eyes were visible.

Finally she leaned over and drank, drank until her belly was full. Then she stood and waded into the water.

It was so frigid that she gasped. She had never been in water before, nothing deeper than a two-inch-deep bath. She had heard the Rokador actually had pools that they swam in. But water was too precious in Xhaxhu for such frivolous use.

A band of fear closed around her chest. But she forced herself to walk out farther into the water. She could feel the pebbles shifting under her feet. Deeper and deeper she went, her heart pounding as the cold black water surrounded her. With each step she grew more frightened. She had not been frightened at all when she had been fighting for her life the other day. But this—this was terrifying.

She was up to her neck in the water. A few more strides and she would sink beneath the water and drown.

She took a deep breath. And waited.

“There is much time in the desert,” she said, speaking the words out loud. “There is much time in the desert. There is much time in the desert.”

And then she felt something strange around her, something moving inside her robe.

She smiled. Yes! It was working!

Every Zafir robe was constructed with tiny bladders of a substance that absorbed water. Any water that came in contact with it would be filtered and sucked into the bladders, where it would remain until you opened them to drink.

It was these ingeniously constructed robes that allowed the Zafir to move through the desert for days on end without dying of thirst.

Loor walked slowly out of the water. The robe was amazingly heavy now that it was full of water. No wonder the Zafir walk so slowly, she thought. This is heavy as lead!

 

An hour later she was walking into the dark, silent dunes.

SIX

Loor was not the sort of person to doubt herself. But now that she was out in the desert, she realized how foolish she had been. Xhaxhu was to the east of the Elzehe’er Mountains. But simply plodding toward the rising sun was no way to get through hundreds of miles of shifting sand. There were no landmarks, no roads, no signs—nothing to indicate precisely where to go. Compared to the massive desert, the mighty city of Xhaxhu was just a speck on the map. She could easily miss it and wander right on into the deserts to the west of the city.

Plus, the robe with its pockets full of water was heavy and hot. Even though she knew that it helped her conserve water and guarded her skin from the sun, it still felt constricting and awkward. She knew that her progress was much slower than it would have been without the robe.

By noon on the first day, she was feeling light-headed from the heat. With the heavy robe around her, her body built up heat unmercifully.

Loor was a strong girl. Years of grueling training had toughened her mind and body. But one of the things you learned through years of hard physical labor was that every body, no matter how hard it had been trained, had limits. When you crossed those limits, the machine broke down. The toll of three days in the desert had robbed her body of fluids and minerals that one evening of eating and drinking had not quite replenished.

It wasn’t her body that seemed to be taking it the hardest, though. She knew she could push her body further. She had water and a little food that she’d brought with her. But her mind just didn’t feel sharp.

She found herself fixating on things in the distance, imagining things on the horizon, staggering toward them without thinking. One time she realized she had gone for hours without thinking anything at all. And as she did so, her path had started curving off in the wrong direction. North. She looked back and saw her tracks in the sand. She’d been walking north instead of east for what might have been several miles. And she hadn’t even known it!

Concentrate! Loor told herself. But still, her mind felt fuzzy and weak.

She started seeing things that weren’t there. People on the horizon. Trees. An oasis. They were all mirages—just figments of her imagination. With nothing to see but sand and empty sky, her mind was putting things out there that didn’t exist.

And this was only the first day! What would it be like by the third or fourth day, when she started running low on water?

But there was nothing she could do now. She could only plod on and hope for the best.

Eventually the sun got so high in the sky that she couldn’t tell what was east and what was west based on the sun. She decided to stop, rest, and eat.

She pulled the rubber tube out of the neck of the robe and sucked on it. To her surprise the tube simply gurgled. No water came out. She knew the robe was capable of holding several days’ worth of water, so it was obviously a problem with the tube. She checked it for leaks. Nothing. She sat on the hot sand and squeezed the robe. This forced water up into the tube. She drank deeply. It was hot, but pure. She sighed with contentment and nibbled on the dried lamb she’d brought with her.

A wave of exhaustion poured over her as she sat. She knew that conserving her strength was as important as conserving her water. Deciding that a nap might be a good idea, Loor bunched up her hood to form a pillow, lay down in a ball, and fell asleep.

 

When she woke up, Loor felt much better. She was a little surprised at how long she’d slept, though. The sun was heading down toward the horizon.

She stretched and sighed. She felt a lot better! Stronger, lighter, cooler. She stood. Maybe it was her imagination, but the robe itself seemed lighter.

Suddenly she had the oddest sensation—as though she were not alone. She whipped around, assuming a fighting stance, ready for anything. Then she laughed.

The hindor.

The big black bird was perched at the top of the dune on which she was standing, looking down at her with its large yellow eyes.

“Hello, bird!” she called. “Are you going to bring me luck?”

The bird, of course, just stared at her.

Loor didn’t think of herself as the sort of person to talk to birds. But out here? It no longer seemed to matter. “Are you going to lead me home?” she called.

The bird stared at her for another moment or two, then disappeared over the dune. She was sorry to see it go. But then it glided smoothly back around in a slow arc, passing over her head and winging to the east.

She decided to follow.

Hindors led you to water—was that not what King Allon said? If the desert tribesmen believed it to be true, it probably was. Since the only water to the east was in Xhaxhu…well, that had to be where the hindor was heading.

As the hindor soared east, she began walking. Her legs felt stronger, she was cooler, and she felt as if she were twenty pounds lighter. Her mood brightened.

Even though she might not actually have the ax in her possession, she knew where it was. It would be easy enough to lead an expedition out and claim it, once she found her way back to Xhaxhu.

She kept her eyes pinned on the slow-flying hindor as she swiftly walked on. After a few minutes she pulled the rubber hose out of the robe and took another sip. Again it gurgled. She bunched the robe up again to push more water to the hose. But still it gurgled.

As she was standing there, she felt something on her leg. A tickling sensation, like an ant crawling on her skin.

But she knew there were no ants out here. She looked down curiously. It wasn’t an ant, but a bead of water running slowly down her leg. Sweat? Maybe.

Then she noticed something in the sand. A small round stain near her foot. A water drop. She snapped her head around and looked behind her. Parallel to her footprints in the sand were a series of little round stains.

The robe’s water-storage system had a leak in it. She had been dumping water, drip by drip by drip, for twelve solid hours. No wonder the robe felt so light! As she slept, she’d been draining all her water into the sand!

Had King Allon intentionally given her a leaky robe? Or had she punctured it somehow as she slept. There was no way to know.

But it didn’t matter. The fact was, she was almost out of water.

She looked back toward the mountains. She estimated that the sun would be setting in about an hour. Once the sun went down, water wouldn’t be a problem. She could easily keep walking all night without replenishing. But then once the sun rose, the heat would begin pulling the water out of her. She’d have a few hours, and then the well-tuned machine that was her body would fail.

And that would be that.

She had a decision to make. If she turned around right now and headed straight back toward the mountains, she might be able to find the valley where King Allon was. And she’d survive. She’d survive as the slave of a barbarian king.

Or she could press on. And probably die.

There was no time to waste. She had to decide.

She took a deep breath. Last year she had run in the Pizon, the great fifty-mile footrace that was run every three years in Xhaxhu, where all the best warriors competed to show off their endurance. She’d come in fourth, a great showing for a girl her age. Fifty miles in less than eight hours. Would fifty miles get her to Xhaxhu?

It might.

Of course, during the Pizon she’d had water breaks. How much water had she drunk during the race? Gallons probably.

Well. There was no choice was there? Not really. Not when you were a Ghee warrior. Death or slavery? That was easy.

She spent the next ten minutes squeezing every last drop out of the robe. She was amazed at how much was still there.

To the east the hindor was tracing a lazy circle in the air. As if it were waiting for her.

“Here I come!” she shouted.

She dropped the empty robe on the ground. And then she began to run.

SEVEN

The moon rose early, dusting the dunes with a dim silver light. It wasn’t bright. But it was enough.

Loor ran without stopping. She’d run the Pizon on a flat surface, with shoes made for running. Now she was running on loose sand. Every stride took more effort. Climbing the face of a dune was a monumental struggle. Then once she started running down the other side of the dune, she had to be careful not to fall.

Above her, the stars were so bright that she could make out the black shape of the hindor as it blotted them out, one after another, in its slow path through the sky.

Soon Loor’s world had narrowed to only a few things—the dark shape of the hindor, the silver-flecked sand, and the pain. Pain in her muscles. Pain in her lungs. Pain in her feet as her shoes blistered her heels and toes.

She ran on and on and on and on.

Eventually she grew thirsty. Even in the coolness of the night, running for hours on end drove the water from her pores as surely as the sun did.

Soon the thirst began to blot out the other pain, just as the hindor blotted out the stars. Still she willed herself on.

Follow the hindor, she repeated. Follow the hindor. Follow the hindor.

Soon it became a rhythm, merging with the sound of her footfalls in the sand, with the steady intake of her breath, with the beating of her heart.

And slowly, stride by stride, her strength began to ebb away.

Strangely, though, as her body began to fail, she felt an odd joy rising in her. It was as though she had separated from her body. Some part of her mind left the pain and exhaustion behind and floated up above her, light and buoyant as the hindor.

This was the way to die, she thought. Driven to the utmost extremity of pain and fear and weakness. No one could say she had failed! She had done everything she could.

As the sun began to paint the distant horizon with a wash of pink, she slowed to a walk. It wasn’t a choice. There was no running left in her. Her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth. Her legs were chafed raw. Her feet were a ruin of blisters.

The sun began to rise. And still the hindor flew east. And still she staggered on.

There was no sign of Xhaxhu. Not a dried-up well. Not a fallen tree. Nothing but sand.

And then the hindor began to drift down from the sky. At first she thought it was her imagination. But it was not. The hindor was coming down, down. Eventually it landed.

Loor’s vision had gotten blurry. It seemed as though the hindor was perched on something. A rock maybe, sticking up out of the sand. It seemed a very long way away.

She tripped and fell.

Maybe I should just lie here, she thought. Maybe I should just rest.

The hindor sat motionless on its perch, staring at her. Waiting.

Loor stared at the bird. The bird stared back. And then she came to a sudden realization. Hindors were scavengers. They fed off the carcasses of the dead.

She began to laugh.

Water? The hindor wasn’t looking for water! It was just waiting for her to die. It had sensed the truth days ago: This odd creature, this human, was a stranger in the desert. This creature was doomed from the start.

Loor sat up. The laughter hurt her parched throat. But still she couldn’t stop. All this time she’d been thinking this huge black bird was good luck. How wrong she’d been!

She forced herself to her feet. “You are not getting my bones.” She had intended it to be a yell, a war cry. But it came out as a hoarse, pathetic croak.

She fell, and began to crawl toward the bird. She would strangle it, she decided. Or beat its head against the oddly shaped rock on which it was perched.

“We will die together, bird,” she whispered. She crawled closer and closer, every inch a struggle. Still the bird didn’t move.

She could feel the heat of the sun beating on her, sucking the last moisture from her skin. She had stopped sweating a long time ago. A bad sign. But it didn’t matter. She was going to take the bird with her.

And then, just as she reached the rock, the bird flapped its wings. Once. Twice. And then it rose lazily into the air.

She pressed her forehead against the rock. It was strangely cool. It had a strange smell, too. What was it? Then she remembered. It was the smell of the Lake of Peace. The smell of water.

There was a soft vibration in the stone. And she could hear something now—the sound of rushing water.

She frowned. It was a hallucination of course. There was no water here.

There was something odd about the stone, though. It seemed more like concrete than stone. She pushed herself to her feet and stared over the lip of the rock.

It was perfectly circular. Her heart jumped. Whatever this was, it wasn’t natural. It was man-made. In fact, it looked like something made by the Rokador.

She heaved on the stone lid with the last of her strength. It slid off, revealing a hole. A hole that went down into darkness.

But the sound that came from the hole was unmistakable. It was the sound of rushing water.

Astonished and completely out of strength, Loor sagged over the side and reached down. The water was too far away.

Imagine, she thought vaguely, if she died here not more than an arm’s length from water. She reached down farther and farther, until finally she was balanced precariously on the edge. Her head was spinning and her ears rang. It was hard to maintain her balance.

Then she slipped.

Headfirst Loor plunged down into the darkness.

EIGHT

People who live in the middle of deserts rarely know how to swim. Loor was no exception.

She fell headlong into a torrent of water that spun her and thrashed her like a doll. Water went up her nose, into her lungs, into her stomach. With what little energy she had, she flailed helplessly at the water as she was sucked along through the darkness. She tried to hold her breath.

Suddenly, as she started to lose consciousness, the water slowed a little, and she hit something hard. She pulled herself forward, found herself on a flat surface of rock. Her toes and fingers trailed in the water. She moved her head until her lips were touching the water, then took a few sips. And with that, she collapsed.

How long she lay in the cool darkness, she couldn’t say. It seemed like a long time. Every now and then she gained enough strength to take a few more sips of water. Then she would lose consciousness again.

Eventually, though, the water revived her. She was able to sit up. Bam! Her head smacked into solid rock, and she saw stars.

Carefully she crawled along the rock. She found herself on a sort of ledge, just inches from the running water. As best she could tell, she was in some sort of giant pipe. It had to be the work of the Rokador. But where it came from or where it led, she had no idea. She couldn’t see anything at all.

So she just kept crawling.

Eventually she saw a tiny point of dim light in the distance. She crawled toward it. Gradually it took the form of an arch at the far end of the pipe she was crawling through. Her knees were getting cut and bruised from all the crawling, but since she couldn’t swim, there was no other way to reach the light.

Eventually she crawled out of the tunnel, through the stone arch, and into an immense chamber. It was more than just a room full of water. It was an underground lake.

The illumination came from a small artificial light source on the wall. It lit the area immediately around it, and then faded into a distant gloomy darkness. The chamber was so large she couldn’t see where it ended.

“Hello!” Loor called. Her voice was only a soft croak. But it echoed and re-echoed again and again in the huge underground chamber. She cleared her throat. “Anybody here?” Her voice was stronger now.

There was no answer.

The ledge she was on had widened out at the tunnel’s end. She stood and walked unsteadily until she was standing under the light. A small door was cut into the rock. On it was a sign that read DO NOT PASS.

She tried the door, but it was locked. She banged furiously. No one answered.

How far was she from Xhaxhu? For all she knew, she could still be fifty miles away. Even if she knew how to swim, it would be too far for her to swim in her weakened state. And since she did not know how to swim? There seemed no chance.

That was when she noticed the boat.

She had never actually seen a boat. But she had read about them. A boat was a thing that allowed you to float on water. This was a small wooden thing, not much longer than she was tall, tied to the edge of the ledge. It was dirty and looked as if it hadn’t been used in years.

What choice did she have? She stepped into the boat.

To her surprise the boat moved rapidly from side to side when she put her weight on it, wobbling wildly. She fell hard, smacking into the bottom of the tiny craft.

When she finally managed to sit up, she saw that she had knocked the rope free. The little boat was drifting, slowly, slowly, slowly, away from the dock.

How do you make it move? she wondered. How do you control it?

She had no idea. She had seen in books that people used flat sticklike things with handles, dipping them in the water and pushing the boat around somehow. But this boat had no such device in it. In fact, it had nothing in it.

Loor felt a momentary stab of terror. The boat wobbled every time she moved. It was drifting out into the darkness, heading…where? She didn’t know. And if the boat tipped over, she’d fall into the black water and drown.

So she lay down, reached into her pocket, and pulled out the last soggy piece of dried lamb. Just the effort of chewing it made her feel tired. But the sweet taste of the lamb restored some of her determination. In a minute she’d figure out a way of moving the boat around, and then…

She noticed the boat was moving a little faster now. She was bobbing along, deep in the darkness of the underground lake, far from the small light. It seemed as if the boat were being sucked along now. Then she heard a distant rushing noise.

She huddled in the bottom of the boat. Something was happening. And she was powerless to do anything about it.

Suddenly the craft was moving faster and faster. And then the rushing noise was all around her. She couldn’t see, but she could tell by the compressed sound that she was inside a tunnel again.

The water grew rougher and faster. She clung to the boat with all her strength.

I hate water! she thought. I hate it!

The boat slammed and banged and thumped and rocked and bumped. It was about the most frightening thing she’d ever done, right up there with wading out into the Lake of Peace. Worse, actually, because she couldn’t turn back, couldn’t control the boat, couldn’t do anything but hang on and try not to scream.

It seemed to go on for hours.

And then suddenly the rushing noise became a roar, and the roar became thunder, and the boat went faster and faster.

And then she was flying through the darkness.

When she hit, she lost consciousness.

NINE

How long have I been here?” Loor asked, looking up from the bed where she was lying. Chief Councillor Erran stood over her. Loor saw her mother, Osa, seated at the foot of the bed.

“Four days,” Erran said. “We thought we were going to lose you. A farmer found you lying in an irrigation ditch on the outskirts of the city. Where have you been?”

Loor sighed loudly. “I failed,” she said.

Erran and Osa exchanged glances. Erran sat and put his hand on her arm. “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me everything.”

When she had gotten halfway through the story, Erran said, “Stop. I am going to take you before the council. Your story needs to be heard by more than just me.”

 

An hour later four strapping members of the Ghee, the revered guards of the Batu people, were bearing her on a makeshift stretcher into the huge pyramid that housed the council. She was taken to the front of the council, through an utterly silent room, the eye of every councillor pinned to her.

When she reached the front of the chamber, she was seated on a gold chair reserved for honored speakers. To her horror she saw that both King Khalek and Prince Pelle were seated on a dias at the front of the room. To their left, Osa sat with the other councillors. Loor felt sick with self-disgust. She had been given a huge assignment. And she’d failed. Why were Erran and her mother putting Loor through this grotesque public humiliation? She’d have rather been taken out somewhere and flogged. But she had been trained never to show weakness. So despite her fatigue, her aching head, she kept her back straight, her chin high, her gaze imperious.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw King Khalek nod to the chief councillor.

“My friends,” Erran said, coming to the front of the chamber and standing next to her. “We entrusted this young warrior, barely more than a girl, on a mission of grave importance to our people just a little more than a week ago.” Then he turned to her. “Loor, please give His Majesty your report.”

Loor pushed herself to her feet. For a moment she thought she might faint. She tried to avoid her mother’s eyes. But she couldn’t. She expected her mother to look at her with contempt after hearing about Loor’s failure. But instead, Osa’s gaze was calm and reassuring. Loor shook off the urge to collapse.

Then she took a deep breath and began. Slowly at first, then gaining strength as she spoke, she told her story. She made no attempt to glorify her own actions or to excuse her failure. She simply told what happened.

When she was finished, there was a moment of silence. “I cannot apologize for my miserable performance,” she said. “But I invite your harshest punishment for my failure. I do know where the ax is, however. I could not even hope to be entrusted with leading an expedition to find it after my failure here. But if I could just accompany—”

Erran cut her off with a sharp wave of his hand. “Silence.”

She stopped speaking. She wanted to bow her head in shame. But she couldn’t. She fixed her eyes on the very back of the chamber and clamped her jaw shut.

“Loor,” Erran said. “I have misled you. Your true mission was not to find the ax. Axes can be made again.”

Loor blinked. She looked from Erran to Osa. Osa looked away, a rare action for her.

“For years we Batu have needed to secure independent information about the sources of our water. Our dear friends, the Rokador, of course give us regular reports. But they do not allow us to inspect their works. We have sent many warriors into the desert to search the mountains for water.” He paused portentously. “None have returned.”

Loor swallowed. None of this made any sense at all.

“Finally we realized that without the support of the tribesmen, such a mission was impossible. And yet, never have we been able to secure their aid. So what were we to do?”

Heads nodded throughout the room. Loor remained frozen like a statue.

“Recently we had a stroke of good luck. The Ghee captured a raider from the desert, who told us that the ax would be stolen during the first day of Azhra. He told us—as you have explained—that the real goal of the theft was to draw an extraordinary woman from Xhaxhu so that she could be captured and taken by Zafir tribesmen as a bride for the king of their people. It was the unanimous opinion of everyone in this room that you were the right choice to be sent out.”

“We didn’t tell you because, had you known, you might have somehow given away your mission. If you had, the tribesmen would have killed you as a spy on the spot. So we deceived you.”

Loor’s head was spinning. She wanted more than anything else to sit down. But she remained rigidly at attention.

“Fellow councillors,” Erran said, “Loor has succeeded in her mission beyond even what we had hoped. Despite the self-incriminating tone of her astonishing report, it is clear that she has demonstrated every single one of the highest virtues of the Batu people: strength, courage, self-discipline, humility, fighting spirit, military skill, stamina….” He shook his head as though in amazement. “Because of her fortitude and determination, I move that this council award her Order of Supreme Merit and promote her forthwith to the rank of second level in the Ghee.”

Loor could not believe it. She had been convinced that she was on the verge of being severely and appropriately punished.

“If this girl has any flaw, it is that she—like most girls her age—retains a certain impulsiveness and rashness that time will surely temper.” He then turned and bowed toward the old king. Loor followed suit.

King Khalek rose slowly from his chair. As he did, Crown Prince Pelle handed him a gold armband. The king then placed it around Loor’s biceps. He was not a young man, but his grip was still strong.

As the king placed the symbol of the Order of Supreme Merit around her arm, the council rose in a body and applauded thunderously. The applause went on and on for minutes. Loor stared impassively at the floor, not even moving to wipe away the hot streams of moisture that ran from her eyes. When she looked up finally, she noticed that a tear was running down Osa’s face too. Loor was amazed. She had never seen her mother cry, not once.

“Never make the first move,” Erran whispered to Loor. “Never make the first move.” Then he led her to the chair and sat her down.

Loor blinked, confused to hear the same words from Erran that had so recently come from the man she had fought in the desert.

The applause ended. There was a long silence in the chamber.

Then one of the councillors at the rear of the chamber rose and said, “How large would you say the so-called Lake of Peace was, Loor?”

Loor shook her head. “I could not say exactly. But it might have been as broad as the entire city of Xhaxhu.”

There were shocked intakes of breath.

“You stated that the water does not flow out of the lake in a river.”

“Yes,” Loor said.

“Did it occur to you that perhaps it drains into the Rokador’s underground river that you found running beneath the sand?”

Loor shrugged. “I—I do not know that I am competent to answer that question.”

“Well, the water must go somewhere!” the councillor shouted.

“My friends, please,” Erran said, “this poor girl is in a weakened state. We have prevailed on her enough. More details will reveal themselves eventually.”

“This cannot wait!” shouted another councillor. “The Rokador are piping that water under the desert, and hiding it in some huge underground lake, while they let Xhaxhu wither up and die.”

“Yes!” shouted another councillor.

“Now hold on!” a representative of the Rokador shouted, leaping to his feet. “I resent your accusations. For generations our people have sacrificed everything to bring—”

Erran lifted his hands again. “Please, brothers and sisters. Our goal in sending this young woman was not to create discord between Rokador and Batu, but to aid our Rokador friends in finding additional water sources.”

“Do not be naive!” shouted a Batu counsillor. “Every time we bring up the subject of water, the Rokador give us this same speech about all of their terrible sacrifices and hard work, when in fact they are sitting around in their comfortable, cool underground palaces, while their hands are wrapped firmly around our throats. If we–”

For the first time King Khalek spoke. “Quiet!” he shouted. His voice was as strong and commanding as a parade-ground instructor. “There will be no more of this talk!”

Erran sighed. “I’m sorry, my dear,” he whispered to Loor. “I did not want you to hear this. I will have the Ghee take you back to your hospital bed.”

“I do not want to go back there—”

“Nonsense! Look at you. You are about to collapse. You have earned a rest,” said Erran. He turned to the king.

King Khalek made a slight motion with his hand. Four Ghee jumped up and raised Loor on their shoulders. Within seconds she was being trundled away.

TEN

After she’d been taken back to the hospital, Loor had an argument with the nurse, tried to get up, and then collapsed back into the bed. As she was lying there, breathing heavily and fuming at her own weakness, the door opened and Erran entered.

The tall, distinguished councillor looked down at her. “The nurse tells me you have given her trouble,” he said with a grin.

Loor frowned.

“Do you have anything you want to say?” Erran asked.

Loor shrugged.

“I am sure you are angry,” he said. “We sent you into the desert under false pretenses.”

Loor was feeling blindsided and confused by the whole situation. “I just tried to accomplish my mission. I still feel like I failed.”

“What did you learn from the mission?” Erran said.

Loor thought of the instruction that both Erran himself and the one-eyed warrior had given her.

“Never make the first move,” she said.

“Meaning what?”

She frowned. “I am too quick to attack. I entered that canyon full of those rock piles without checking to see what they were. If I had not been in such a hurry to attack, I would have realized that it was an ambush.”

“So why does it serve you not to make the first move?”

“If you let the other person attack, they expose themselves. They reveal their strategy.”

Erran studied her for a long time. She noticed for the first time that there was something odd about his eyes. All Batu had dark eyes. But Erran’s eyes seemed to have a flickering blue depth to them.

“Good,” he said finally. Then he stood, walked to the window, and looked out. “The thing one has to be aware of, of course, is that one’s enemy may not show his hand on the first attack. What if the first blow is a ruse designed to reveal a false strategy? Maybe the real strategy lies below that. Or maybe one ruse is concealed beneath another.”

Loor felt frustrated. This was too subtle for her. She interrupted him impatiently. “Then…how can you ever know?”

Erran turned and leaned against the window frame. “Well, that is the real problem. With the best strategy, no one ever really knows. Not until it’s too late.”

Loor sighed and leaned back in the bed. “This is making my head hurt,” she said.

Erran laughed loudly. “Good,” he said.

Loor didn’t really see what was so funny. Erran was an important man, and he seemed to have taken a lot of interest in her. Which was flattering. But she still wasn’t quite sure what he was thinking.

“The important thing is that ultimately you made all the right decisions on your mission. That indicates good judgment. You can teach a person how to fight. You can teach a person how to add and subtract. You can teach a person to read. But you can’t teach good judgment.”

“I wonder…,” she said.

“What?”

“Well…every time I had a choice to make…the truth is, I just followed that silly bird.”

Erran’s eyes widened slightly. Not as if he were shocked. More like he was interested.

“I followed the hindor,” she said. “That’s all I did.”

Erran raised one eyebrow, then shrugged lightly. “It brought you home, yes?” He smiled.

She rubbed her face. She felt like something was going on here, something underneath the surface. But she just couldn’t figure it out.

“Yes…but…something has been bothering me,” she said finally. Normally Loor felt certain about things. But right now she didn’t. Maybe it was just because she was so weak. Or maybe it was something else. “I feel like everything that I found out is creating problems between us and the Rokador. Maybe we were better off not knowing how much water they have.”

“Information is truth,” Erran said firmly. “You led us to the truth.”

“But are you sure that—”

Erran looked serious now. “I would never intentionally create discord between our people and the Rokador,” he said. “You must believe that.”

“Well, of course!” she said. “I would never even think a thing like that.”

“The Batu and the Rokador are like a brother and a sister.” He splayed his fingers out, then intertwined them. “Family. You see? We need each other. Family.”

 

After Erran was gone, though, she wondered. Erran had said that with the best strategy no one ever knows what you’re up to. Erran had deceived her once. What if underneath all his talk of Batu-and-Rokador-as-family, he had some other plan?

Loor couldn’t stop feeling that somehow she was being used. But how? She really couldn’t be sure. What possible good could come out of conflict between the Rokador and the Batu?

As she was lying in her bed, staring at the ceiling, a man dressed in a doctor’s garb appeared in the doorway. Strangely, he was not a dark-skinned Batu, but a pale-skinned Rokador. And yet there was something unusual looking about him. He was much darker than the normal pasty-faced Rokador. Dark like a desert tribesman, his skin tanned by the sun.

The odd-looking doctor glanced up and down the hallway, as though trying to make sure no one was watching him.

Loor sat up, alarmed. What if he were some desert tribesman sent here to kill her? What if…She let her fingers slide up to the knife that she kept hidden under her pillow.

But as soon as the stranger entered the room, a woman followed behind him. It was Loor’s mother. “I’ve brought a visitor, Loor,” Osa said.

“Hello, Loor,” the man said, taking a seat next to her. “I hear you’ve had quite a revelatory week.”

That was an odd way of describing almost dying in the middle of a desert. Loor nodded. “Maybe,” she said.

“Well, buckle yourself in, kid,” the odd-looking Rokador man said. “Things are about to get even stranger.”

Buckle yourself in? What did that even mean?

Osa must have seen the skeptical look in Loor’s eyes. “Loor,” Osa said in her soft, firm voice, “I’m going to leave you two together. But understand that as strange as everything he says will be, it is all true.” She stood. “Now I will leave you together.”

Loor watched her go. For some reason she wanted her mother to stay. “Listen,” the man said, leaning toward her. “Listen carefully….”

As the man spoke, a shadow fell on his shoulder. Loor looked behind him. Perched on the ledge outside her window was a massive black bird. The hindor.

From a distance the hindor had always looked noble and regal, soaring slowly on the breeze. But now that she had a chance to study it, hunched there on the ledge, there was something about it that she didn’t like, something coiled and hidden and savage. Maybe it was the eyes. They were like Erran’s, now that she thought about it. At first glance they looked dark brown. But when you looked closer, you saw that they had a flickering blue depth. Strange. For a moment she thought—

But of course that was ridiculous. A man cannot change into a bird!

Loor shivered.

“I apologize,” she said. “What were you saying? Something about a traveler?”