23
Fareed was the only one of Hyam’s company who rode easy. Neither the heat nor the trek appeared to bother him at all. His animal also seemed more comfortable with its burden, and Hyam suspected it had nothing to do with the youth’s lighter weight. Hyam waited until there was a good distance between them and the caravan to say, “I suppose I’m doing a dozen things wrong with this animal.”
“A hundred, sahib,” Fareed replied cheerfully. “A thousand. More.”
“So why haven’t you taught me?”
“It is not the servant’s place to correct the master.”
“You are not the servant, and I am no—”
“You remain wrapped in a trouble we all share, sahib. I am here to serve. I and the others have waited for you to speak.”
“From now on, I am the student and you the teacher.”
Fareed sketched a salute with his quirt. “It shall be as you say.”
From behind came the tread of a racing camel. When Selim came within shouting range, he demanded, “You dare order my caravan to halt?”
“So it’s your caravan now.”
Selim lashed the space between them with his whip. “We hold to our pace for a reason. That reason is life. If we halt upon your whims, we die.”
Meda said softly, “Ho, the bird.”
Hyam watched the eagle settle to the earth between them and the ancient hills. “Dismount. Tether the beasts. We proceed on foot. You too, Selim.”
The bird ducked and weaved as they walked, clearly disliking the approach of so many humans. Selim’s constant muttering did not help things. Hyam stopped a good dozen paces away from the bird and said, “Shona, Fareed, make lights. Not too bright, mind.”
The bird weaved a bit faster. Standing on the ground it looked oddly vulnerable, despite the vicious beak and its size. The eagle’s russet coloring was turned the shade of simmering lava by the dusk and the magic torches. It stuttered, “Danger.”
Hyam pointed to Selim and replied, “This one says there is danger on all sides.”
“Then he knows the realm through which you travel.”
Hyam asked the question that had drawn him this far. “How is this helping my mate?”
“That is not the question.”
“That is precisely the question!” Hyam roared with all the rage and pain that had carried him this far. “That is the only question!”
The bird eek-eeked and unfolded its vast wings. “Insolent! Rude! Uncivil!”
“You told me you could help me save my woman!”
“Not I! Not I! The one I serve!”
“Then where is your master?”
The bird ack-acked and flapped its wings, but remained bound to the earth. “Go to the hills. There is a company who awaits you.”
But Hyam was not letting go so easily. “Tell your master this! Either I receive my answers this very night, or I and my brethren return to Emporis!”
“You disobey! You defy! You violate!”
“Eleven days and nights I’ve waited for word on how to save Joelle. Hear this. I go to the hills. I ask my questions. Either I receive answers, or I return to Emporis and hunt the enemy. Not one step more. Make sure your master—”
Hyam stopped speaking because the bird took flight, acking and eeking in fury as it swooped up into the moonlight and away.
They ate a cold meal brought to them by Fareed. Selim muttered angrily as they mounted up and started toward the hills. The strengthening moon did not make their destination any more appealing. The hills were shaped like a prehistoric beast, as empty and lifeless as the desert. Or so they thought.
When they approached the base, a fiery globe appeared on the summit. Then another. And more. Gradually a string of magical lights slipped down the slope toward them. They moved with an oddly weaving grace.
Then Selim muttered, “What manner of legend is this?”
Before Hyam turned around, he knew. Before he looked into the drover’s eyes, he was certain. The validation he had sought for eleven impossibly long days had been revealed.
Selim had spoken in Elven.
Hyam gestured to the others. “Dismount. We continue on foot.”
The company who descended the hillside did not dance, as Hyam had first supposed. The beings limped and staggered and stumbled down the steep slope. Their mage-lights remained poised directly above each head. As they lurched over the uneven terrain, the lights shifted and jerked and weaved.
The first of their company halted where the hillside met the desert floor. A querulous voice called out, “Which of you wears the healed diadem?”
Hyam’s hackles rose. Not from the question, which he did not understand. Rather, from the woman’s speech.
She addressed them in Milantian.
If the crone told Hyam she was five hundred years old, he would have accepted it as fact. An uglier woman, if indeed she could be called that, Hyam had never seen. Her skull was canted, such that her left eye was half a handbreadth higher than her right. Her hair sprouted in patches from a skull that appeared only partially covered by skin. Each clump of hair was a different shade, woven into a rope thick as Hyam’s wrist and worn about her neck like a noose. As he approached, Hyam realized the clasp at the base of her scrawny neck was fashioned from a skeletal hand.
The others who accompanied the woman gathered to either side, none taking the final step off the hillside. The woman’s voice was a scattering of sounds, a rush of wind over dry reeds and a bark from beyond the grave. She declared, “Before you stands the queen of what you cannot fathom. My realm was old before your forebears claimed the title, human. Do not dare to keep me waiting!”
Hyam said, “I am not certain that I understand your question. But I speak your language.”
“And do so with an appalling accent. Who taught you to butcher the most regal of tongues?”
“Mages. Human wizards. They spoke it worse than I do.”
She cackled, all rattles and dry coughs. “Who are these that accompany you?”
“Friends,” Hyam replied. “They share the yellow road.”
“There is no road where you go, strange one. There is no compass heading, nor safety. You and your friends will most likely perish.”
“I have tried to tell them as much. They have insisted upon coming just the same.”
She chewed on that for a time, her jaw muscles bunching beneath the parchment covering. “Well, I suppose it is not altogether bad to die in good company. I ask again. Do you wear the healed diadem?”
“I don’t . . . If you mean a jewel fashioned from an orb, yes.”
“I can’t. I lost my powers in the battle against one of your own.”
“Well, perhaps the era of humans has come to an end after all.” There was no room in that desiccated face for sympathy. She observed him for a moment, then shrugged as though it was none of her concern. “Who fashioned the diadem you claim to wear?”
“Elves.”
“Speak the word for reveal in their tongue, strange one. Then touch your middle finger to the orb’s healed remnant. I must see that you truly carry the sign.”
Hyam did as he was told. Instantly the center of his forehead burned with an intensity that was both pleasant and almost blinding.
Even the crone was taken aback. “Touch it again!” When Hyam had done so, she peered at him more closely still. “Truly, you have lost your powers?”
“I have.”
“Then this is another mystery added to this impossible night.” She waved it aside. “Will you come?”
“Where do we go?”
“What are words, strange one? You cannot fathom what awaits you. Either you come or you do not. I was commanded to invite. I was commanded to keep you safe. Nothing more.”
“Who commands the hidden queen?”
She liked that enough to cackle a second time. “Who indeed. Come and you will see. Though the seeing may cost you everything.”
“May I take a moment to speak with my allies?”
“The invitation is for you and whoever you select as your company.” She waved a scrawny hand. “Speak.”
Swiftly Hyam related what the woman had said. He finished with, “I cannot ask you to accompany me.”
Selim demanded, “What is the tongue you speak?”
“Milantian. The language of the crimson mage.”
“And yet I do not detect any danger,” Shona said. “I do not understand.”
“Nor I,” Hyam agreed. “Even so, this woman may take me to my doom.”
Meda replied, “If she takes you, she takes us all.”
“Meda, I am grateful—”
“Enough. We will not ever have this discussion again.” Meda’s gaze was fiercer than her voice. “We are your company. Finished.”
Hyam searched for a way to tell her what that meant but could come up with nothing adequate, so he remained silent. He glanced at each face in turn and found the same grim resolve. Even Selim.
He said to the crone, “We will come.”