Her stomach rumbled but she winced. "Not hungry?" said Gyaidun. "I'm starving." "Then eat." "My family raises horses. Some of the finest in Cormyr-the finest anywhere. Horses are for riding, not eating." In the distance, Amira heard the sudden scream of the horses followed by the sound of galloping hooves. "Not in the Wastes," said Gyaidun. At first, she thought he was mocking her "outlander ways" again, but his voice held no scorn as he continued. "Even the Tuigan, who care for their horses more than any people I've ever known, eat horseflesh.
There is no shame in it." "Would you eat Durja?" The raven looked at her, his head twisting sideways, and cawed at her as if he understood.
"Durja is a friend," said Gyaidun. "When I was a little girl, horses were my friends." "You're not a little girl anymore." The breeze slackened, and as the boughs and dry leaves settled, Amira heard another distant whinny, harsh and terrified, almost like the scream of a woman, and behind it she thought she caught the sound of growling.
She shuddered. Amira took a deep breath and looked to Gyaidun. The gloom of evening was deepening, and seated as he was under the tree, she could not tell if he was looking at her or not. "Gyaidun?" she said. "Yes?" "Tonight when I… seek the oracle, you know I am trying to help my son?" "Yes." His voice was flat. "But if… if there is anything I can do to help your son, I will." He said nothing for a long time. She was about to decide she'd offended him again, trespassed on some fragment of eastern manners that she didn't know, when he spoke again. "It's been twelve years since Erun was stolen."
"Then you've given up hope?" Gyaidun said nothing. Durja set to cawing again, and at the sound a sudden image, a memory, filled Amira's mind.
The field after battle. The sun gone in the west but an angry light still burning in the sky. The air thick with the buzzing of flies and the call of ravens. The stench was the worst. Blood she could handle.
But in dying, stomachs were cut open, skulls split, bowels emptied, and spells burned both grass and flesh. For once Amira did not push the image away. "Despair is for the dead," Amira said. "You are still alive, Yastehanye." "As is your son," said Gyaidun, though there was no offer of comfort in his voice. Only bitterness. "What of my son?"
"I don't know. But if there is no hope for him, there is always vengeance."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Endless Wastes
No dreams-good or bad-troubled Jalan's sleep the night of the massacre of the Tuigan nomads. He slept beside the fire, but with no one to tend it, the fire was nothing but cold ashes by morning. And still Jalan slept. His mind and body wrung out by fear and exhaustion, he did not even turn in his sleep as the thing in the ash-gray cloak fled the coming dawn and buried itself under blankets and hides inside one of the Tuigan yurts. Most of the pale northerners and their wolf mounts slept, scattered throughout the carnage. Around midday the high slate-colored canopy of clouds fell lower and thickened, deepening to the color of charcoal. The guard pacing near Jalan stopped and, smelling snow in the air, smiled. Behind the tapestry of clouds, the first edge of the sun was setting in the west when the first spark of awareness stirred within Jalan. Not wakefulness, for his body still slept, his breath even, and his heart beating slow. But something deep within Jalan, something buried far beneath conscious thought, was waking up. Shadows deepened in the camp, the last of the day's light gathering to a colorless glow in the west. Both wolves and their riders began to stir, the beasts blinking and yawning, the pale northerners kicking their blankets away and setting to packing.
Disturbed by the activity around him, Jalan moaned and woke, though he did not open his eyes. Why bother? He could feel the damp cold in the air, and even with his eyes closed he knew the day was over and they would soon be leaving. More than anything, he wished to fall back into the oblivion of sleep. Lying there hoping for sleep only strengthened his wakefulness, but with it his awareness sharpened and he noticed something. Still he felt hollow, as if the horror of the past few days and the crushed hope of being rescued only to be taken again had scraped his insides clean, but now… now floating in that emptiness was… something. He couldn't put a name to it. Not light exactly, nor warmth. But there was something very much alive inside him, both a part of him and separate. Be not afraid. He remembered the words from the dream, the voice amidst the song. Jalan focused his thought on that something within him and formed a single thought. Vyaidelon?
Nothing. No answer, no music, no voice. Still, it did not go away.
Night fell around him. Though he still lay with his eyes closed, Jalan sensed its coming-not the night, but the one who came with it. He was always there, that dark, cold thing, aware of him. Watching. Studying.
But in the daylight, the awareness spread out, still there but stretched thin. With the coming of night it pressed upon him again, sharp as new frost. Jalan, knowing he was coming, squeezed his eyes shut as tight as he could. He heard the flap of the nearby yurt torn away, wrenched off its wood-frame hinge. Either by dread curiosity or reflex, Jalan started and his eyes opened. The thing in the ash-gray cloak stepped out and straightened to his full height. The air seemed to thicken and become brittle, and Jalan could sense the thing's anger. The leader paced round the immediate area, moving from space to space in quick bursts of speed then standing still as the shadows themselves. He sniffed at the air, opened his mouth wide, inhaled, then flinched as if bitten. He looked down at Jalan. "What are you doing?" Jalan said nothing. He squeezed his eyes shut and huddled inside his cloak. The something, that odd presence inside of him, trembled, but it was not from fear. It was as if a bell had been struck, and the more the thing in the ash-gray cloak exerted his will, the stronger the chime sang within Jalan. "Stop that," said the leader. "I… I…" "I said stop!" The leader wrenched Jalan up and pulled him close. "I sense what you are doing. I hear it in your heart's beating. Stop now or I'll bleed it out of you." Jalan heard the rustle of robes and the soft whisk of a blade being drawn. He opened his eyes and tears streamed out. Jalan gasped for air and almost gagged at the stench of the thing holding him. "Heed me, whelp," said the leader, and he pressed the edge of his knife against Jalan's cheek. The metal was so cold it burned. "I need you alive. Not unscathed. Stop what you are doing now." "I… can't," Jalan said.
"I-" The knife shifted, the point coming toward Jalan's left eye. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to pull away, but the thing holding him was too strong. He could feel the point of the blade resting against his clenched eyelid, but he could pull away no further.
"Stop," said the leader, almost a whisper. "I will not say so again."
Jalan's fear had so filled his thoughts that he'd almost forgotten about the thing inside him, that indefinable livingness stirring within. The terror emptied his mind of all else, and in that instant the thing within him resounded, growing from a rhythmic hum to a battle cry. Almost of their own accord his eyes opened. The blade filled his vision, as if all the world had funneled into the knife hovering just beyond his tears. Jalan took the great thing inside of him and focused it there. The blade blazed. A pure orange light glowed outward, but the blade itself was white as the center of the sun. The thing in the ash-gray cloak shrieked and hurled Jalan and the knife away. Jalan rolled into the cold ashes of the fire, and the knife, still blazing like the noonday sun, tumbled into the grass. The howling and frightened whines of wolves filled Jalan's ears as he pushed himself to his hands and knees. He saw a pale blur coming at him-one of the northern barbarians-but he was too stunned to move. The boot caught him in the side, and he went down. Darkness and light and a hundred dancing colors filled his eyes, and his body seemed to squeeze in on itself, craving air but finding only pain. He took deep, choking breaths, his side clenching. When he could hear and see again, the camp was in turmoil. The huge wolves were running around, many growling and snapping at their fellows. The pale northerners rushed to calm them, and their cloaked leader sat in the grass, huddling away from the light and barking orders in a language that Jalan could not understand. His voice sounded stretched and thin. Desperate. One of the pale men ripped the outer felt covering off a yurt. He dragged it to where the dagger still blazed like a piece of the sun fallen to earth and threw the thick felt over it. The glow winked out, and darkness fell on the camp again. The cloaked leader stood, his robes falling around him like tides of night, and bore down on Jalan. Jalan raised his hands before his face, fearing another dagger or a blast of cold-or worst of all that sharp awareness boring into his mind.