Kellanved's Reach

After dinner he guided her back to her room, as was their routine. ‘Well,’ she said, at the door, ‘I will continue on my journey tomorrow.’

A long silence followed, and she tilted her head enquiringly.

‘About that,’ Gwynn began, slowly. ‘I am so very sorry, but Seth will not allow you to leave.’

At first she laughed. ‘Gwynn! That’s absurd. You can’t keep me prisoner here.’ He did not answer; she imagined him knitting his fingers in front of him. ‘I am not one of your company – I am a free woman. I can go when I choose!’

‘I’m sorry—’ he began.

‘Where is the commander? Where is Seth? I demand to speak to him!’

She imagined him shaking his head. ‘Speaking with him will make no difference. It is decided. You will stay.’

‘You will not keep me prisoner,’ she answered, and was surprised by the power in her voice.

‘In three months’ time our relief will arrive. A mule train out of New Seti. They will come by a much more circuitous route than the one you found. We will then escort you back to the lowlands. You can go anywhere you choose after that.’

‘Let me go,’ she fairly snarled. ‘I must go.’

‘Oddly enough we are in agreement in this, you and I. I argued against keeping you back. It seems to me that your arrival here was nothing short of a miracle. That it was almost as if you were being guided, or watched over – and that therefore we ought not interfere. Seth, however, believes that sending you on your way would be the equivalent of murder by negligence. And that we cannot do. Therefore, you must stay.’

She gaped, utterly at a loss. Imprisoned! How dare they! Yet there was nothing she could do. She bit her lip – mustn’t cry! ‘Leave me,’ she managed, all in a gasp.

‘Of course,’ he murmured, and the door groaned shut.

This time she heard it lock.

Chapter 17

It was night, and damned cold. How the blasting furnace heat of the day could be whipped away so quickly was a mystery to Dancer. The dark bowl of the sky was clear and glowing with stars. That at least was some consolation; he’d been given rudimentary training in how to tell direction by the stars and so he knew that at least they weren’t walking in circles.

He paused to catch his breath – something he found himself having to do more and more often – and adjusted the woven rope across his chest. The rope drew a tossed-together sledge of two branches as runners supporting broken lashed boughs as crosspieces. Upon this lay Kellanved.

It had been four days, or rather nights, of travel since their banishment by whoever – or whatever – that entity had been. He’d recovered first, while Kellanved was still having trouble. It seemed the entity had attacked him with particular vehemence – Dancer couldn’t imagine why.

He’d awoken to find himself in a blasted wasteland of a desert. So alien did it appear he’d at first thought them cast into some other Realm, or some nether reach of the Paths of Hood himself. But that night the stars came out and he knew they were still in the world – and if he was reading the sky correctly, far to the south of Quon Tali.

A flat featureless plain of wind-blown dust, crusted salt pans, and outcroppings of barren crumbling rock lay in every direction. Here and there bits of broken and rusted metal poked out like wreckage. To his eye the fragments had the look of the mechanisms they’d encountered in the flying structures they had seen before.

By day the sun seared the ground like a forge – waves of heat shimmered like will-o’-the-wisps – while by night the winds snatched all heat away and left one shuddering.

Dancer had opted to travel by night. By day he levered up the ramshackle sledge as cover against the sun and they lay in its shade. By night he dragged it as far as he could before falling exhausted.

Faced with the choice of four directions he’d chosen east, and crossed his fingers that this land lay mostly north–south. Since then there had been four nights of endless trudging, with only the stars as evidence that he was making any headway at all.

A groan from behind brought him up short. He let the rope fall and turned to peer down at Kellanved. He’d have knelt to inspect him, but he suspected that if he knelt just then he’d not be able to straighten again.

He swallowed – or attempted to – to wet his throat, and croaked, ‘Back with us?’

The mage nodded, wincing, then raised his hands to his head with the tentativeness of someone expecting to find a wet mess. He felt at it gingerly, groaning anew. ‘The touch of whoever that was is particularly virulent.’

‘Where are we?’ Dancer asked.

Kellanved opened his eyes and peered about owlishly. ‘Haven’t the faintest.’ His head fell back down.

Dancer looked to the sky. ‘Not helpful.’

A quavering hand rose to wave. ‘I’ll work on it.’

‘Fine!’ He picked up the rope and returned to hauling.