15

At Rivoth’s insistence, they rested until sundown. The headman tried to offer them his own hut, but Gareth, seeing Rahelle shake her head, concocted an explanation that required them to remain with their horses. Within a short time, barely enough for Gareth to finish his excuses, the young people had constructed a shelter of sorts, open on two sides to admit the fitful breezes yet providing a modicum of shade. Their blankets had been unrolled at the other end, the gear stacked neatly at the foot of each. The horses were already tethered at one end and had clearly been watered and groomed. The mare’s coat gleamed, and every mote of sand and dust had been polished from her saddle and bridle, yet not a single article of tack had been misplaced. The saddlebags and blanket roll, even the case containing the lens samples, were exactly as Gareth had left them.

Although he was sure he would not be able to sleep, Gareth stretched out on his blanket. The horses lipped at the few remaining kernels of the fodder that the children had laid down for them. A fly buzzed, and the mare snapped at her flank.

Idly, he thought of the riders from Shainsa. Even now they might be pushing on toward Black Ridge. He should not indulge this lassitude. Too much was at stake.

At his side, Rahelle murmured something and turned over without rousing. She was weary; he would let her sleep just a little longer.

Beneath the blanket, the earth radiated heat like the bricks of an oven. It seeped, gentle and relentless, into Gareth’s muscles. His eyes closed. One of the horses blew softly through its nostrils, clearing the dust. In the distance, a baby cried until a woman began singing to comfort it.

“Garrin.”

He sat up so suddenly that his senses whirled for a sickening moment. His skin felt gritty with dust and dried sweat. But it was cooler than when he’d fallen asleep.

Rahelle squatted, tying her blanket with deft movements. She flashed him a grin before carrying it to her saddled horse. The brown mare was loaded, ready to go except for the blanket on which Gareth lay. And Gareth himself.

“You shouldn’t have let me sleep so long.” Grumbling, he got to his feet. A headache pulsed in one temple, and his mouth felt as if he’d been chewing on chalk.

“Might as well,” she said. “We weren’t going anywhere. And there were appearances to maintain,” meaning that she, as a mere apprentice, would be expected to prepare everything.

Outside, the crimson orb hung a hand’s width above the line of the western hills. The sky to the east bore a faint indigo cast. A vitality infused the village, the shouts of children at play, the lowing of hungry animals, the air redolent with the smells of onions frying, of grain simmered with garlic and dried meat, and something pungent as wine.

It seemed the entire village had gathered to see them off. One of the older women held out a dish, pale wood polished to a sheen like an ocean shell, with thin pancakes wrapped around a mixture of shredded meat and eye-wateringly hot peppers. Following Rahelle’s example, Gareth ate his portion and licked his fingers to demonstrate his enjoyment. The woman blushed, bowed, and scurried away.

Adahab had already saddled his own mount, a gray oudrakhi so gnarled and decrepit in appearance, it looked as if it could not walk from one end of the village to the other. He led a second beast on a rope halter, this one laden with cloth-wrapped bundles and leather sacks that bulged and sloshed.

Gareth accepted the brown mare’s reins from the small, tousle-haired boy who looked up at him with wondering cerulean eyes. An impulse stirred, the kind of spontaneous urge to action he was beginning to trust. He untied the lens case. As he peered inside, it occurred to him that its contents represented more than the worth of the entire village and all its herds and pastures. He selected two lenses of moderate quality, suitable for simple telescopes, the sort that might be useful in a place as remote as this, and handed the case to Rahelle to secure once more to his saddle. She flashed him a smile.

When Gareth placed the lenses in Rivoth’s hands, the older man stared at them. The children murmured among themselves. One or two ran to the women, who sent up a ripple of cries like birds penned and then set free all at once.

Rivoth’s stillness made Gareth feel uneasy. Had he erred in the gift? Were the lenses too costly or too paltry? Had he in his ignorance presumed that these unsophisticated people would have the slightest notion what to do with the bits of polished glass? He had no way to tell.

Yet Rahelle had smiled.

At last the headman looked up. His eyes, that washed-out blue, seemed to have too much white in them. He lifted the lenses to his lips, his face once more falling into shadow. Then Gareth understood the magnitude of what he had given. The monetary value of the lenses was nothing compared to what they would bring to the life of the village—a way to see across distances, to receive advance warning of storms and raiders. A way to save precious lives.

They set off in the twilight, a climb into the darkening hills and then a brief descent as crumbling earth gave way to sand. Adahab took the lead, as confident as if it were full day. The horses followed, stepping in the hollows made by the broad padded feet of the oudrakhi. Here and there, rocks jutted upward, dark jagged prominences against the paler sand. A fanciful notion seized Gareth, that they were treading a thin and treacherous crust over a vast range of mountains, of which only the highest peaks could be seen. At any moment, the crust might give way, and they would plunge to their deaths.

He looked up, turning his face to the coolness of a stray breeze. A wash of multihued light, shading from mauve to silver, suffused the sky. As he watched, the light dimmed in the fall of night that had given Darkover its name. Piercing bright in the dry desert air, a thousand pinpoint stars flared. For an instant, Gareth saw them as individual stars, yet too numerous to count. Then they blurred into a vast milky veil. He understood intellectually that from Darkover’s position he was seeing the galactic arm side-on, but it seemed to him that the heavens teemed with light. Farther than any human eye could see, a thousand thousand suns filled the night with cold eternal fire. Even the two moons, one a slender crescent, could not outshine the mass of stars. The sight of them left him breathless. The stars glittered, but whether solely with their own light or as seen through his sudden tears, he could not tell. He thought, This will remain when I am dead.

“Garrin?” came Rahelle’s voice, sweet as starlight.

He tore his gaze from the glory overhead. “I’m well, just . . .” Where were the words to describe the moment of awe and humility? “. . . astonished.”

“I, too, never tire of the night sky. In Carthon, there is too much moisture in the air to see it properly.” She was quiet for a moment.

Around them, the glimmering sands stretched as far as Gareth could see. It muffled the sounds of the horses’ hooves.

“I suppose that the gods did not want us to weary of such a gift,” Rahelle said, “so they set it out here, where only the most hardy men venture.”

“Or the most desperate.” It was a facile comment, unworthy of the fading awe. “I might have lived my whole life without seeing it.”

“Every land has its own beauty. I have seen only a little of yours, just Thendara and the road to Carthon.”

She sounded wistful, and Gareth wondered what she longed to see: the never-melting glacial ice of the Hellers, the lush country around Lake Mariposa, the rich Plains of Valeron, the Temora sea coast, perhaps his own family’s home at Elhalyn Castle. He thought of all the places he had been and those he had never seen, and an unfamiliar pang shot through his breast.

Let me take you there! Let us explore those places together! Why would he even think such a thing, let alone offer it to a woman who by her own admission faced no future beyond a marriage in chains? If he survived this adventure, his own destiny was perhaps more luxurious but no less confined.

They continued at a pace the horses could sustain, more slowly than they had traveled on hard ground. Although Gareth discerned no landmarks, Adahab seemed to know exactly where he was going. Perhaps he used one or another of the constellations as guidance.

The temperature fell, and Gareth and Rahelle wrapped themselves in their cloaks. In the lead, Adahab and his oudrakhis formed dark, ungainly silhouettes against the star-studded horizon. They trudged on in near silence except for the hiss of dislodged sand and the occasional snort of the horses clearing their nostrils.

After some hours, Adahab halted in order to water the horses from the leather sacks. Gareth had not realized how thirsty he was until he smelled the water.

“Drink,” Adahab urged. “We ride through the night. Sleep in the day.”

Imperceptibly, the dimmer stars faded from the eastern sky until only the brightest remained. One of the smaller moons was setting. They had traveled all night through starlight and sand.

Adahab brought the oudrakhi to a standstill in a valley formed by dunes to either side. The horses halted, their heads low. Gareth sagged in the saddle. Behind him, Rahelle said nothing. The light was strong enough now that Gareth could make out Adahab’s expression, the lift and tilt of his head, the quick flare of his nostrils as if casting for a scent. Gareth smelled nothing beyond dry air, dust, and the bodies of the animals. Then their guide gestured, pointing off to one side. They kept to the lowest route, and within a short time they emerged from between the wind-heaped dunes into a grove of lace-branched trees.

Moist air swept through Gareth’s senses. A moment past, he had been surrounded by the rolling dunes, without any clue this little oasis existed. Tucked between the dunes, it would surely be hidden from anyone who did not know its location. A man might ride by and not realize it was there.

At the heart of the grove, shade pooled around a stone well that was so broken and weathered, Gareth could not guess its age. Off to one side sat a shrine of similar antiquity. Gareth was not surprised to see the eroded emblem of Nebran. On the sand before the altar lay a tattered ribbon, bleached colorless, wrapped around a few withered stalks.

Adahab tapped the oudrakhi’s shoulder. When the great beast halted, grumbling a protest, he jumped lightly to the sand. He knelt before the shrine, touched his fingertips to his forehead, then to his lips and again to the emblem, leaving behind a smear of moisture. It was, Gareth realized, as much an act of faith as of reverence, faith that the precious water would be restored, that life would continue even through the most desperate times. Without thinking, he curled his fingers around the amulet Grandmother Linnea had given to him, the locket that enclosed the starstone that was like a second heart, the touchstone of his laran. Moved without understanding, he slipped from the mare’s saddle and repeated the ritual. When he straightened up, he saw Rahelle watching him intently.

Adahab clapped Gareth on the shoulder. “Now we drink. Horses first, then men, then,” with a sniff, “oudrakhi.” By his tone, he implied that the ill-tempered beasts required regular reminders of their place in the world. “Then eat. Then sleep.”

The water was cool and surprisingly good; the metallic edge added to its refreshing character. Gareth would have traded the finest firi imported from Vainwal for a single goblet from this well.

The hypnotic peace of the night journey faded with the coming of full sun. After the animals had been tended, Gareth sat hunched over a cup of Rahelle’s foul-smelling brew. He could not shake the feeling that across the expanse of sand, catastrophe loomed ever nearer. He should be doing something . . . planning an ambush for Dayan’s men, figuring out exactly how he would locate the Federation agents and what he would say to them, how he would convince them not to have anything to do with the Dry Towns . . .

“You are troubled.” Adahab softly interrupted Gareth’s rumination. With a jerk of his chin, he indicated the way they had come.

Gareth nodded and downed the last of the tisane, barely tasting it.

“Shainsa’imyn!” Adahab gestured with his left hand in a way Gareth gathered was extremely derogatory.

It took Gareth a moment to understand Adahab’s meaning, that just as there were conflicts and differences between Domains and between city and country folk, these villagers who lived under the harshest conditions scorned the city dwellers, or at least the great lords.

“They think themselves masters of the sand but know nothing of the true desert,” Adahab said.

“I would not dismiss them lightly,” Gareth said. “They may not be as wise as your people in the ways of these dry lands, but they have weapons and know how to use them.”

“Swords and whips, the tools of the kifurgh—what are they against sun and open sand? Can they force water from stone? Or friendship from the village tribes?”

“Yet your people helped us at the request of Cyrillon, and he is a man of Carthon.”

“Cyrillon is a trader, yes, but throughout the Sands of the Sun, he is also known as a man of honor and a true friend. He pays his debts, unlike the Shainsa’imyn, who take what is not for sale.” He lowered his voice, glancing surreptitiously at Rahelle, who had busied herself scouring the dishes with sand and then wiping them with a cloth. “Water, goats . . . children. Where do you think the slave markets in Ardcarran get them? My cousin,” meaning Korllen, “brings the money Cyrillon pays him. And we in turn pay off the raiders who would take our little ones.”

Gareth met Adahab’s fierce blue gaze. If Dayan’s men did arrive in the village, they would receive a polite welcome but not a hint that Rivoth had seen, let alone given aid to, two travelers. Nor, Gareth suspected, would any of the other villages on the border of the Sands of the Sun. They would take special pride in deceiving the intruders. He wondered if the Federation agents, whom he remembered as arrogant and closed-minded, would fare any better.

For four nights they traversed the sands, arriving each dawn at a hidden oasis. One was nearly dry, another befouled by the twisted, desiccated carcass of a small wild oudrakhi, or what the desert kyorebni had left of it. They drank and watered the animals from the contents of their leather sacks and rested as best they could in the shade.

On the sixth day, the first light revealed the land rising into a series of ridges. Gareth was no geologist, but the stone looked as if it had once been a volcanic flow, rare on Darkover, that over uncounted millennia had bleached to the color of ashes. Along the base of the ridges, dark green clusters gathered like beads on a string. A haze blurred their outlines. He reckoned there to be a half dozen such oases, some no more than a few scrub bushes, others the size of villages.

“Nuriya.” Adahab pointed to one of the larger spots, filling a gap in the ridge. He clapped his heels to the sides of his oudrakhi. Without a protest, the decrepit-looking beast quickened its pace. The horses, too, seemed eager to press on, although they had traveled many miles that night. They must smell water and fresh forage ahead.

Gareth nodded to Rahelle as she reined her horse beside his. She gave him a tentative smile. “Nuriya, I take it, is the name of that village,” he said. “Do you know it?”

“Only by name. I’ve never been farther than Kharsalla. That’s as deep into the desert as my fa—as Cyrillon ventures, and then only for Korllen’s sake.”

“I think they owe a great deal to Cyrillon. He is an extraordinary man.”

“He has always revered the virtue of charity. We in the Dry Towns speak of the compassion of Nebran, but we do not practice it overmuch.” Absently, she transferred the reins to one hand and rubbed her wrist with the other. “Kihar is for men, so kindliness is left for the gods.”

“And justice? And compassion?”

“These things can be sought, but are they to be found in the world of men? Or is it folly to even try? My father believes we must, but what can he do? Give a little alms here and there, employ a desert man who sends his pay home to his family? Send bits of information, tales and half-truths, to Thendara? What good does that do?”

In her voice, Gareth heard the resonances of outrage, of desperation. What of the children taken from their homes to be scullions and playthings? she seemed to ask. What of the people left broken and starving so that great lords like Dayan or Evallar of Ardcarran can live in luxury?

And I, he asked himself, I who have never known anything but privilege and ease, I who have done nothing to earn it, what is my part in all this?

The answer lay before him, shimmering slightly as the risen sun heated the sand.

“Is justice to be had?” he said aloud. “I do not know, but if we do not try, it will not happen.”

“And you are the one to do it?”

For that, he had no answer.

As they neared Nuriya, Gareth noticed bright pennons rippling from poles and a team of men unloading lengths of milled wood from oudrakhi. They dismounted and led their beasts to a watering hole with a painted emblem indicating it was for animals only. A man, as weathered and wind-burned as any desert dweller, was watering a pair of oudrakhi, their saddles gleaming and clearly new, their halters bedecked with gaudy tassels and bits of faceted colored glass. He grinned at them in a friendly manner, revealing a gap between his discolored teeth.

When the oudrakhi drover led his beasts away, Rahelle edged up to Gareth, pretending to adjust the girth on the roan. “Where would villagers this far out get the money for saddles and banners, not to mention wood?”

“There’s new wealth here, that’s sure,” he murmured in reply.

Adahab’s gaze flickered over the same unusual details. “Come, my friends. If your horses have finished, let us go and drink. Then I will introduce you to the headman . . . if he still is headman here.”

Gareth and Rahelle followed him to the stone well designated for human use. A handful of children and a couple of women surrounded it, dipping out jars of water. The children were thin and round-bellied, clad in knee-length shirts worn to the color of mud. They darted away as Gareth and the others approached, eyes huge in their pinched faces. One of the women was gray haired and bent, and the cords attached to her wrists were so frayed, they looked as if the merest tug would snap them. The second woman, barely out of her teens, tossed her head and glared at the new arrivals. Her cheeks gleamed as if her face had been oiled. With insolent languor, she balanced her jar against one hip. Water sloshed over the copper-inlaid rim. As she strode away, her chains clashed as they slipped through the ring on her metal-link belt.

Adahab took out his cup and offered it to Gareth. The water was cool enough, but the now familiar acrid tinge rankled. Whatever was going on in this village did not lessen the plight of those most in need.

They passed into the open square at the heart of the village, where Adahab stopped in front of a hut. It was larger and looked to be of better construction than many of the others, although there were no signs of repairs.

“The headman here is Cuinn,” Adahab told Gareth. “He knew my father long ago, but they have not had any dealings since before I was born. Still, loyalty and mutual obligation endure long in the desert.”

A man emerged, spare in frame but with an air of authority. His hair had a dull sheen that suggested it had been bright as polished gold in his youth, before the years had darkened it. The skin around his eyes tightened when he spied the strangers.

Adahab presented greetings from his father. As the headman listened, his features relaxed, reflecting an innate good humor. “Yes, yes, by Lhupan the Compassionate, who walks the sands in a stranger’s guise, we open our guest dwelling to you.”

Gareth made a gesture of respect. “The generosity of your people is an ornament to the heavens.”

“Hospitality is ordained by the gods as a blessing to those who give as well as those who receive.”

They exchanged a few more salutations along those lines, and then Cuinn himself conducted Adahab and his party to the guest dwelling. This turned out to be a hut of sun-baked bricks much like the others, providing protection against sun and wind. Adjacent to it was a pen and shed for livestock, both quite dilapidated.

The interior of the hut consisted of a single room with a dirt floor. There was no means of heat or cooking, except for a circle of blackened stones outside the door. Once Gareth would have scorned such accommodations as being unworthy of even a donkey, but now, when he expressed his thanks to Cuinn, the depth of his own gratitude surprised him. Such a village, existing on the very margins of civilization, had devoted a portion of its scant resources to maintaining a shelter for the needs of strangers.

Once they had unloaded the horses and brought the blankets and saddlebags into the hut, Adahab turned to Gareth. “My friend, here I take my leave of you. I shall return in five days to guide you back across the Sands of the Sun, unless you send word to me at Duruhl-ya that I am needed later. Or sooner.”

Startled, Gareth returned the gesture of leave-taking. He could not mistake the glint of eagerness in Adahab’s eyes as the younger man swept from the hut. A moment later, Adahab mounted his decrepit gray oudrakhi and kicked the animal into a reluctant trot.

“I take it Duruhl-ya is a neighboring village,” Gareth asked Rahelle, who was arranging their bedding on either side of the hut.

“Yes. The name means ‘unfailing dew.’” Rahelle did not look up. “I think he is courting a woman there.”

The hut suddenly seemed too small. Although they had shared a campsite many times on the trail, sleeping within the same walls carried a new degree of intimacy. Anxious to break the tension, Gareth suggested that they begin their search by touring the village. Maybe they’d hear something about the water seller story.

Surrounded by a cortege of curious children, they strolled through the village. Women sat under awnings in front of their huts, weaving or pounding grain. Some had the same shy curiosity as the children, but others were narrow-eyed. All wore some form of chains.

They had almost completed a circuit of the village when a party of riders approached from the direction of the Sands of the Sun.

“Yi-yi-yi!” came their ululating cry.

The children ran up, shrieking with excitement. The leader rode a horse so scrubby and stunted, it was barely the size of a chervine. The carcass of an animal was slung across the horse’s withers. Gareth had seen that white and tan pattern, although from afar. This must be a desert antelope.

“No horse can catch them,” Rahelle had said.

The lead rider laughed, wheeling his horse to show off his prize. The legs of the antelope flopped against the horse’s shoulders. The sun gleamed on its hide, except for the swath across its forequarters, where the skin was raw and blackened.

Gareth had seen injuries like those, but never in real life. Tri-vid tapes from the Federation Headquarters, the ones Tío Danilo had insisted he watch, had pictured just such wounds.

The rider reached into his sash and held an object overhead—a short handle, a blunt but unmistakable barrel. Sun glinted on polished durasteel.

A blaster.