And about whatever was buried beneath it, along with all that metal.
With those items gathered into a cloth purse, she started for the door again. When she put her hand on it, she felt a sharp pain between her ears, where that headache had been building. Siemhouk, tapping me? She paused, opening herself to such a communication. But Siemhouk was not there. Nobody was.
Still, she was sure there had been something … some unseen entity reaching into her mind.
She should find out who or what it was, block it, even destroy it.
Instead, she found that she welcomed it. Her headache vanished, and a feeling of power—of liberation, from some near-eternal bondage—filled her. She threw open the argosy’s door and stepped out again into the light, sucking in a great lungful of fresh desert air.
“Let’s go,” she said. “There’s much to do, and not much daylight left to do it in.”
The guards fell in around her, and together the three of them walked back into Akrankhot. And this time, Kadya felt, she owned everything she surveyed.
The slaves worked day and night, hauling metal up the staircases—a second one had been discovered, at the cavern’s far end—and loading it into the wagons. Soldiers, too, were pressed into service, causing Ruhm to joke that Damaric would have been glad he’d been killed, since he never would have wanted to perform such menial labor.
Aric and Ruhm, however, found themselves at loose ends. A couple of times Ruhm lent his muscles to the cause, for lack of anything better to do. Aric, however, didn’t want to go back into that cavern if he didn’t have to. Metal or no, the place made him uneasy.
On the second day after their discovery, he and Ruhm explored the city’s farther reaches. They had walked more than an hour to get to this point. Here, the desert still covered vast swaths of Akrankhot, and sand surged down other streets as if it meant to reclaim those as well.
The roads were narrower and more tightly packed than the ones nearer the wall. Instead of being laid out on a strict grid, they curled and wound about one another, like those in Nibenay. Sometimes one was blocked, a building constructed across it, as if the builder had been oblivious to the fact that there had been a thoroughfare there first.
“This part of the city follows no plan at all,” Aric complained, after they had, once again, followed a serpentine path only to find that it led nowhere of interest.
“Old part,” Ruhm observed.
“Probably. These buildings look much older than the first ones we found.” The architecture was even more unadorned than the elegantly simple lines of the structures lining the grand avenue. These had been thrown together out of wood, mud and straw. Most of them were two stories tall, but some were only one. Others had been added onto gradually, over what seemed to be a period of decades, if not centuries. Their exploration was made interesting by the things people had left behind, and which the sand had then preserved: cooking and dining utensils, furniture, even what seemed to be children’s toys.
They spoke in low tones, their gazes roving constantly. The dune reapers hadn’t been spotted since their first attack, but unless they had left the area, the queen would still be in the underground nest, possibly surrounded by drones and plotting another assault. And there could easily be other threats about. To fail to consider that possibility, anywhere on Athas, was suicidal.
They were just coming out of a house, apparently built in stages, one room at a time, with ladders and makeshift staircases connecting the different levels, when they heard the sound.
Even at this end of town, where space seemed to be at a premium, the upper levels of many houses had been made inaccessible. Aric had told Ruhm about the vision he saw in the cavern, and suggested that perhaps the great conflict sweeping across Athas had frightened Akrankhot’s populace, causing them to concentrate on their downstairs and subterranean space and leaving the heights as a buffer against some potential threat from above. In this house the rooms had been so small and the ceiling so low that Ruhm had been able to see into the abandoned upstairs sections from the level below. “Nothing there,” he had said. “Sand, dust.”
“No furniture?” Aric asked. The downstairs had been crammed full of tables and chairs and benches and beds.
“Nothing.”
“All right. Let’s keep going.”
In truth, he was beginning to lose interest in these explorations. The only thing spurring him on was the knowledge that there was nothing better to do back at camp, and always the possibility that he and Ruhm would be put to work if they went back there. At the rate they were going, the hauling and loading would take at least another two or three days before the argosies were full.
As they emerged from that house’s doorway, its door long since crumbled to dust, they heard a distinct intake of breath, the kind of sound someone makes when they’re caught off guard. Aric and Ruhm glanced at each other. Aric drew his new antique broadsword from the makeshift scabbard he had cobbled together. Ruhm, as always, had his club in hand.
Aric looked an unvoiced question at Ruhm. The half-giant shrugged. Ruhm had both been stepping out the door, Aric right behind him, and neither knew precisely where the sound had come from.
Aric breathed quietly, through his mouth. His muscles were coiled, prepared to react to any threat. Ruhm’s posture was more casual but he was always ready for a fight. Aric almost hoped for one, because he wanted to see what he could do with this huge steel sword.
“It’s you!” a female voice cried. Then the speaker emerged from around a curve in the road. A little younger than Aric, he guessed, she was lovely, with night-black hair and a fresh, open face. She walked with a limp and carried a staff. Beside her was a battle-scarred veteran holding two bone swords in a way that gave the impression he was good with both. Suddenly Aric didn’t hope for a fight, after all.
“It’s who?” Aric replied. “Who are you?”
“Myrana Ligurto,” the young woman said. “Of House Ligurto?”
“Never heard of it,” Aric said. “I have,” Ruhm said.
“I am Sellis,” the swordsman said. “Employed by House Ligurto to defend and protect the girl.”
“My name is Aric.” He nodded his head toward Ruhm. “And my companion is Ruhm. Both of Nibenay.”
The young woman came forward, the end of her staff touching the ground with each step. “What did you mean by that?” Aric demanded, halting her progress. “You said, ‘It’s you.’ ”
Sellis remained alert, every bit as tense as Aric was. But Myrana appeared relaxed, even comfortable in their presence. It was a wonder she wasn’t dead yet, if this was her typical way of greeting strangers.
“It’s just—I saw you, in dreams. As soon as I spotted you in that doorway, I recognized you.”
“You saw me in dreams?”
“Yes. My dreams … they’re more than simple sleep stories. They mean something. Recently a series of them led us across the desert to this place. And for these past several nights, you’ve been part of them.”
Aric wasn’t sure how to take that. On the one hand, he was intrigued. She had dreamed about him—or more likely, dreamed about someone whom he resembled enough for her to think they were the same man. On the other, showing up in a stranger’s dreams was a little disturbing, as if he couldn’t keep track of himself after he went to sleep, and wandered about the world at will.
Plus, she hadn’t said what kind of dreams these were, or what his role in them had been. Were they romantic? Was he a villain? She had given no indication.
“You came here because of dreams?” he asked. “From far away?”
“Far enough,” Sellis answered. “Eleven days in the desert.”