The Phoenix Endangered (38 page)

So matters stood, and all but Zanattar were agreed that they must return to Telinchechitl to confess their failure. In their travels, the party had sometimes seen the signs of other searchers: the spark of a campfire miles away in the night; the scent of smoke carried on the wind. Sometimes they had seen the signs of recent grazing at an oasis, telling them that another group of searchers had stopped there recently. But just as Zanattar’s searchers had been the first group to depart the Barahileth, they would be the first to return and confess the truth of their shameful failure. They were returning to Kannanatha Well by a route they had not yet taken, and they would have crossed into the Barahileth within the next fortnight, had Luranda not found the body.

Luranda was of the Adanate, of Bisochim’s own tribe, though he had donned the Blue Robe and left their tents many years before she had been born, and she knew as little of him as anyone among them. Even so, she might have
claimed pride of place in their company had she chosen to, for all knew that the Adanate were favored by the Wild Magic because of Bisochim, but she did not. Zanattar had never seen her claim praise for anything save her own skills, and he had already had cause to note her ability as a tracker. Now he had cause to admire it.

As was only prudent in the desert, they had set their tents as the sun climbed toward midheaven, for unless need was dire, no one traveled during the hottest part of the day. As the sun slanted westward, they struck the tents again, and packed up their camp, and proceeded southward once more as the shadows stretched long across the sand. In a few hours, when twilight came, they would pause again to hunt and to eat—fresh game if they had been fortunate, supplies from their stores if they had not. The Isvaieni followed the rhythms of the desert, and the desert did not wake to hunt and feed until evening cooled the air. But they had barely gotten underway when Luranda signaled a halt.

“Something,” she said softly. “Something is there.”

Zanattar and the others peered into the distance where she pointed, but none of them could see anything, only the softly rolling line of dunes. No tracks, not even circling birds. Yet they followed at a respectful distance when she tapped at her
shotor’s
shoulder to make it kneel, dismounted, and walked slowly up over the top of the dune. At the top she dropped to her knees and began to dig. The sand was as fine as the finest driest flour, and it spilled away from her hands, cascading down the far side of the dune with a dangerous hissing sound.

Zanattar and the others stood well back from the edge, for all the desertborn knew that such soft loose sand was a danger—a man might lose his balance at the top of a dune and fall, going to his death, buried and smothered by the shifting sand. But Luranda was careful, deft, and quick.

The first thing she uncovered was a sight familiar to all, though none of them had looked to see it here: the skeleton of a
shotor.
As she dug further, sand spilling away from
her cautious clever fingers, more of the skeleton was revealed.

“It wears a saddle,” Zanattar said in surprise.

“We all knew that the Sandwind had scoured the Isvai since we were borne away to safety,” Luranda said quietly. “And—see? No other dune in this line is so high. I thought it might have built itself upon something.”

Zanattar nodded, and knelt beside her to dig. Soon the others joined him. With the added help, the top of the dune was quickly dug away, and as it was, its terrible secret was exposed.

The skeletons of three
shotors
, their bones scoured in a fashion familiar to all who had ever faced the Sandwind’s fury. The terrible desert wind did not stop with killing, but—did it go on long enough—could flense flesh from bones and leave them polished as cleanly as if they had lain in the desert for many seasons. The wooden remains of its saddle still clung to one of the
shotors
, and scraps of the light wooden pack-saddles lay tangled with the bones of the other two. And beneath the bodies of the
shotors
, their owner.

Kazat drew back with a cry when the figure was exposed, and Zanattar gripped the hilt of his
awardan
tightly. Luranda turned away, wrapping her sand-veil securely around her face, as if by doing so, she could unsee what she had seen.

The body beneath the
shotors
was as skeletal as they, but it had been sheltered enough so that some scraps of its clothing still clung to the scoured bones. Though faded by sun, they were still recognizably blue.

“So the False Balance claims its first victims,” Zanattar said harshly.

“What are you saying?” Larazir asked slowly.

“You have lived between Sand and Star all your life, Larazir, as have I. When the Blue Robes come to us, it is to turn aside the Sandwind, not to die in it,” Zanattar answered gruffly. A knowledge that had been growing in him ever since he had heard Bisochim speak was taking form
upon his tongue at last. It was not enough to search for the Nalzindar. If they had not been found—if they had not heeded Bisochim’s call to join him in sanctuary—surely they no longer existed at all. Or if they did, they had rejected their part in the Isvaieni’s great birthright. They had become as Tainted as the city-dwellers and the people of the north. “You see before you, not the proof we did not need that Bisochim has spoken nothing but truth—as if any Wildmage could do otherwise—but proof that the war has begun. Our enemies have begun by reaching out to strip our defenders from us, those who would help us to protect the True Balance. Shall we now go crawling back to safety as if we were
ikulas
too timid to course prey and beg Bisochim to protect us as if we were not bold hunters, but children too young to tend goats?”

“How do we fight magic with
awardan
and spears, Zanattar?” Kazat asked.

“We do not.” Zanattar spat onto the sand in contempt. “It is plain that magic seeks out magic—how else would it be that it has slain the Blue Robes, yet allowed us to move across the face of the Isvai this past fortnight untouched? I admit, I wondered at the absence of the Blue Robes from our camp in the Barahileth, but now I understand. They were slain as they rode to join us and unite their power with Bisochim’s. Perhaps that which killed them would have slain us as well had we been here, but through Bisochim’s foresight we were saved, and now it has obviously withdrawn itself once more to prepare its great armies for the final battle. And we must do all we can to aid him before that day comes.”

“What is your plan?” Luranda asked. Her eyes burned with dark fire at the terrible crime she had uncovered. No one here doubted that having discovered one dead Wildmage proved that all were dead, for Zanattar was right in both the things he’d said to them: no Wildmage could be slain by an ordinary Sandwind, for their magic would easily protect them, and if the Wildmages of the Isvai had not been slain by unseen forces of greater power than they
possessed, they would surely have joined the tribes in the great gathering in the depths of the Barahileth.

“The soft dwellers in the
Iteru
-cities have forgotten the lessons of the Isvai, if ever they knew them,” Zanattar said. His teeth flashed white in his beard as he smiled a terrible smile. “The desert does not belong to them, but to us. We shall reclaim it, in Bisochim’s name, and cleanse it in the name of the True Balance.”

I
T WAS THE
work of only scant days to gather together several of the other roving bands of Isvaieni. They carried the bones of the dead Wildmage with them, so that all could see and know the truth. Once several of the bands of scouts had been gathered together, it became a simple thing to gather still more: they gathered at Sapthiruk Oasis and lit signal-fires at night. Such fires could be seen for miles across the desert, and all the roads that led through the Isvai crossed at Sapthiruk Oasis.

Kazat and Larazir went to Zanattar when he began his Ingathering, to ask him if word should be sent to Bisochim of this plan. Nor did Zanattar begrudge them their bold speaking, for it was only a coward or a fool who would not listen to all the voices in a council.

“You may go if you wish,” he said to them, nodding. “And I will not hold any here who wish to ride with you. But I say this: surely a Wildmage who commands a dragon must know already of what we plan? The Wild Magic has always sent the Blue Robes where they are most needed by the Isvaieni, for they have the art of seeing and knowing at a distance. Yet has Bisochim come among us to turn us from this course? The Lanzanur were among the first to pledge to his cause, and we know his sight is long and that the fire in his heart is pure. Were we in need of his warning to turn us from an evil course, I know well he would come to us. And never would I wish to make you act against your own hearts’ guidance, yet I say one thing more: those who
worship at the shrine of the False Balance are many, and we, even in our numbers, are few.”

Kazat and Larazir regarded each other silently, and Zanattar saw them take counsel of one another with their eyes. “Indeed, your words are wise,” Kazat said at last, and Larazir said: “It is as you say. Surely Bisochim knows of this already, and every
awardan
will be needed in aid of this holy task.”

Zanattar compelled no one to follow the course he was determined to follow himself, but all who had come to the Isvai upon the search for the Nalzindar were the young hunters of the tribe, men and women who had come seeking lost brethren or the enemy who had slain them. Now that they had discovered a greater enemy, and that the war that Bisochim had promised them all was already upon them, not one of them wished to turn aside from it, lest his or hers be the sword or the spear needed to claim the victory for the True Balance and avenge the death of the Blue Robes.

To hasten the ingathering, Zanattar sent out small swift parties to the other oases, bearing a simple message:
come.
If no one was there, it was easy enough to leave the message in desertsign, so that the next Isvaieni who saw it would see and heed.

First tens, then hundreds, of Isvaieni came to Sapthiruk to hear the words of Zanattar and Luranda, and to see the terrible relic, and when the band was already as large as the largest tribe, they began to march, knowing that others would find them as they rode, drawn by the sight of dozens of tents and cookfires in the night.

Their destination was Orinaisal’Iteru.

The String of Pearls formed a ragged crescent around the north and east of the Madiran, from Akazidas’Iteru, at the mouth of the Trade Road, to Orinaisal’Iteru, a city only by courtesy. Orinaisal’Iteru did not even have its own Consul, being governed from Ilukhan’Iteru, its nearest neighbor. But its
Iteru
was deep and pure, and it supplied the caravans that went into the deep desert to mine salt
and
ishnain
and harvest desert plum and spicebark and oilbush.

At Orinaisal’Iteru, Zanattar simply stood outside the gate and demanded that they open them, and though he stood at the head of two thousand Isvaieni, they did. He cut the throats of both the men on the gate before they could question him, and so he never had the opportunity to ask them why they had been so foolish.

In his wake, his new army poured into the town. They slaughtered everything that lived: man, woman, and child.

The Isvaieni were no strangers to death, and the people of Orinaisal’Iteru were neither of their many tribes, nor even Isvaieni. What was far worse, they were people who were already tainted by the False Balance, in league with those who had murdered the Wildmages who had protected the Isvaieni for generations. If they had not already taken up weapons to attack the Isvaieni, that day would soon come, and for that reason, it was far better for them to die now before they could become a true threat. Only a fool let the scorpion’s clutch hatch when he might grind the eggs underfoot.

The Isvaieni ran through the town on foot, for though the ancient story-songs spoke of battle-trained mounts who were as much warriors as their riders, the
shotors
of the Isvaieni were not such creatures.
Geschaks
and
awardan
ran red with the blood of those who had rejected the True Balance, and in the midst of the fray Zanattar saw Luranda, her eyes wild with rage, brandishing the severed head of an enemy.

When the slaughter was done, the Isvaieni searched what remained and took away anything that looked as if it might be useful. An army needed food and additional pack animals, and if the city-bred
shotors
were inferior to the desert-bred stock, they would serve.

When they had taken everything useful from Orinaisal’Iteru, there were two tasks remaining.

In the desert, water was a sacred thing. A man might meet his greatest enemy at an oasis, and he would not keep
him from drinking, nor slay him within the bounds of the oasis. And though there was no charity given among the desertfolk, no gifts of shelter or food or clothing, water was freely given. Even to a stranger. Even to an enemy.

So when Zanattar proposed to destroy the
Iteru
—the deep desert well from which Orinaisal’Iteru took its name and its life—it was a matter all must discuss.

For three days the Isvaieni considered the matter. Zanattar did not hurry them. He simply went from tent to tent, speaking the truth that was in his heart: if the
iteru
remained, it would be as if the city were never destroyed, for when the armies came down from the north seeking to slay them all, they would find sweet water in abundance here at the edge of the Madiran—enough, perhaps, to allow them to enter the Isvai.

In the end, his counsel was followed. The army drank deep from the
iteru
of Orinaisal’Iteru, and then they levered the great cover-stone off the cistern and packed the well with rotting bodies. When that was done, they set fire to all that remained. Much of the city was cloth and dry wood. It burned well.

Ilukhan’Iteru was only five days’ march away, but by the time they reached it, Zanattar’s army had nearly doubled in size. So many Isvaieni left a clear trail, one that any of the desertborn could follow, and at Orinaisal’Iteru Zanattar had made certain to leave a clear record of his purpose in desertsign that any Isvaieni could read. He had no doubt that all who had sworn the blood-oath to consider all Isvaieni as one tribe united under Bisochim would see, and follow.