Raven was chilled to the bone. It was an unfamiliar sensation and decidedly unpleasant, as well as frightening. Her ears and teeth ached from the wind’s bite, and her wings felt stiff and slow to respond. Even her mind was becoming sluggish and confused. How long had she been flying? Why was she all alone in this lethal storm? Where had she come from, and where was she going? How much longer could her aching wings keep her aloft?
Suddenly Raven’s left foot hit something hard and jagged, It was caught and wrenched, throwing her forward, off balance. She rolled helplessly head over heels in a tangle of flailing limbs and thrashing wings, bruising herself on icy rocks as she slithered to an undignified halt, upside down in a snowdrift. Too battered and shaken to do anything else, she burst into tears.
Hours later, Raven opened her eyes. For a moment fear obscured her thoughts, but she was not the daughter of a Queen for nothing. She breathed deeply, forcing herself to be calm, and took stock of her surroundings. There was little to see. Her aching body was crammed into a narrow crevice between some rocks, and a barrier of drifted snow obscured the opening. Gradually her mind returned to the previous night, and she shuddered at her narrow escape from death. She had crashed right into the mountain. Hesitantly she uncurled herself to examine her injured foot, afraid of what she might find. It was bad enough. The lacings of her sandal cut into the swollen flesh, and it was badly bruised and torn. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she melted snow in her hands to clean the abrasions.
Snow might reduce the swelling too, and she would not be helpless as long as she could fly ...
Raven gasped, remembering her fell among the rocks as she had landed. Her wings . . . There was no room to move them in the crevice. With frantic haste she began to dig her way out, scooping great chunks of deep-piled snow aside with her arms. Dimly now, she remembered crawling into the niche, instinctively seeking shelter from the storm. The way out seemed farther than she recalled, but at last the final inches of the snow wall collapsed beneath her determined assault, and she burst into the open.
Using the rocks for support Raven hauled herself up, wincing as her injured foot touched the ground. It would be of little use for a while, but her wings were her chief concern. Leaning on the rocks for balance, she extended the once glossy black spans. They were stiff, but there was no pain and seemingly little damage. She’d lost some feathers, her plumage was battered and bedraggled now, but the snow had broken the worst of her fall. “Well, there is only one way to find out!” Taking a deep breath she launched herself upward as best she could with one leg injured. She overbalanced and almost went sprawling, but to her relief, her wings took her weight and she began to beat steadily upward. Now that her main worry had been quelled, she would need to look around her and decide what to do next.
The sky was an absolute joy after looking so long at nothing but gray clouds. Raven reveled in the soft rose, the delicate green, the translucent blues and dazzling gold of the sunset. For a time she was too captivated by its beauty to look down, but when at last the colors faded from the sky, she was astounded to find them echoed on the earth beneath! For a moment her head whirled with disorientation, but when she looked directly below her, she could see the plateau from which she had taken off. Why, she had landed on the very last of the mountains. As its slopes descended, the snow cover thinned and eventually vanished, leaving dark tumbled rocks stretching down to a dark and sinister forest below. Beyond, the rippling sea of sunset hues extended as far as she could see. Raven caught her breath. She’d come south, then, and this was the legendary jeweled desert!
The winged girl returned to the plateau to rest. She tired easily after the night’s exertions, and she needed to think—and eat. Having no experience of journeying, she attacked the contents of her bag voraciously, with no thought of where her next meal might come from. As she ate, she considered her next step. Raven had left the palace with no idea of where she might go, or how she was to live.
For the first time, Raven was truly afraid. What if the folk out here were like Blacktalon or worse? But the thought of the High Priest and the fate that awaited her was enough to steel her resolve. She would have to find help, however. Raven was a pampered Princess, and she had sense enough to realize that she had no notion of how to survive alone. Besides, she told herself, if they threaten me, I can always fly away again. The question of where to go was easily decided. She could not return north. They would be hunting for her now. The thought of pursuit made her shudder. It was essential that she go immediately. South, away from the mountains of her birth. The sparkling sands seemed to provide enough light for her to travel by night. Taking a deep breath, Raven flexed her wings and launched into the air—heading south, across the glowing desert,
31
Dhiammara
“Behold, fair Dhiammara!”
“You’re joking!” Aurian turned to Yazour in patent disbelief. By the eighteenth night of the journey, the desert’s beauty had begun to pall. The gem dust got everywhere— in her hair, her throat, even inside her clothes—and because the oases they had visited were needed for vital drinking water, bathing had been forbidden. The Mage felt unspeakably filthy, and she itched. Her babe stole the nourishment from her slender rations, leaving her constantly ravenous, even though Bohan and Anvar always forced some of their food upon her. The intensive teaching sessions with Anvar had deprived them both of much-needed sleep and she felt tired and short-tempered, her eyes gritty and stinging from the dazzle of the sands. She was definitely not in the mood for jokes.
Aurian slowed her horse, lifting the veil from her eyes, and squinted against the glare. Silhouetted against the moon-bright sky, the solitary mountain loomed impossibly high. Its top was oddly truncated, as if it had been lopped off by some gargantuan sword, and the sheer sides gleamed with a mirror brightness, as though polished. The structure showed no signs of weathering, and that too, in this place of scouring sandstorms, was absolutely impossible.
“That can’t be a natural formation!” Aurian accused.
“I agree, though no one knows its history,” Yazour replied. “Close up, its scale is staggering. It may look enormous now, but distance is deceptive in the desert.”
He was right, Aurian discovered. It took several hours’ hard riding to reach the towering peak, and by the time they approached its sheer walls the horizon was growing pale. The mountain was immense, its size exaggerated further by the fact that the land did not rise gradually toward it. The slender cone erupted cleanly from the surrounding sands, like an island from the sea. For the last miles of the ride it had been impossible to take in the entire structure, and now they had reached its feet, all that could be seen was a vertical wall of darkly gleaming rock that stretched out of sight above them and for miles to either side. Yazour turned aside, parallel to the polished wall, and in a short time Aurian saw a darker shadow on the stone, a narrow opening just high enough to admit a horse.
One by one the riders led their animals through the entrance and into the cool darkness beyond, and torches, stacked to one side of the opening, were kindled and set into brackets on the walls. As the light grew, Aurian stared around her in disbelief. The cavern was huge, its ceiling lost high in the shadows above. To her left, half of the floor space was taken up by two pools, the higher set on a stony shelf, its waters trickling down in a small cascade to the lower. A sloping stone ramp led to the upper pool, where the horses and mules were being taken to drink. The floor of the cavern was level rock, drifted in places with glowing gem sand that had been blown inside by the wind. This, along with the reflections from the glassy walls, served to augment the torchlight.