Perhaps now she had the opportunity for which she had been looking. "You know, my love, while if we still have time, I can cast another search spell for you. With the helmet, it wouldn't be—"
"No." As simple as that. His gaze leaving her, Malevolyn added, "No. That will not be necessary."
He did not see the shiver that coursed through her. With those few words, he had verified her deepest fears. The general had even been adamant about taking any opportunity they could to seek out with sorcery the rest of Bartuc's legendary garb. When the helmet had falleninto his hands in an act even she would have called providential, he had spared no effort in letting her use the artifact to aid in hunting for the suit. Even when they had discovered that this Norrec now walked the earth clad in Malevolyn's prize, he had insisted she still use the helmet at regular intervals to keep track of the wanderer's route.
Now he talked as if he hardly cared, as if he had become so certain of the inevitability of retrieving the armor that he no longer even needed to maintain a magical eye on it. This did not at all sound like the Augustus she had known so inside and out, and Galeona felt it did not entirely have to do with the influence of the helmet. Surely the enchanted artifact had already solidified its hold over him enough to survive a few moments' separation.
And that brought her back to Xazax.
"As you wish," Galeona finally replied. "How soon before we move on again, my love?"
He glanced up in the direction of the sun. "A quarter hour. No more. I will be ready to meet my destiny at the proper time."
She did not ask him to elaborate. Aquarter hour would suffice for her work. "I shall leave you to your thoughts, then, my general."
That he did not even nod in dismissal did not surprise her in the least. Yes, Xazax had definitely made his move, likely had even contacted the commander directly. By doing so, the demon had taken the first step toward not only severing his pact with the witch, but seeing her dead.
"We'll see whose head lies atop a pike," she muttered. With no shadows in which to hide, Xazax had to remain far from the column until the fall of night. That meant that Galeona could cast her spell with little worry that the treacherous mantis would know of it.
The sorceress found an ideal location behind a dune just beyond the column. She herself had no fear of sandmaggots and the like, protective measures cast by her before the journey's beginning still strong. It had been within the limits of her power to do the same for the rest of those in the column, but that would have left Galeona without any ability to cast other spells. She had seen no reason to be so magnanimous. A few less soldiers would not make a difference to her…
Dismounting, she took her water flask, then knelt on the hot sand. From the flask the witch poured several precious mouthfuls of the cool liquid onto the parched ground. The moment she felt satisfied with the amount, Galeona shut the flask, then quickly went to work.
Her slim, tapering fingers molded the damp sand into a vaguely human figure the size of a doll. As she refined the form, Galeona muttered the first portion of her spell, attuning her creation to what she desired. The sand figure took on a more male aspect, broad of shoulder with indentations along the torso showing it to be wearing armor.
Knowing that the moisture would not last long, Galeona quickly took out a tiny vial. Still whispering, the sorceress poured a few drops of its contents onto the chest of the sand doll. The vial contained a liquid most precious to her; a small bit of blood that she had sacrificed from her body, then preserved for certain, delicate spellwork.
A representation involving Bartuc's armor needed blood to mark it and, more important, to link Galeona to the figurine she had created. That, in turn, she hoped would enable her to reach out to this Norrec, touch him as she had on the ship. As distant as he had earlier been when she and Xazax had summoned the Dreamer, such a spell cast then would have required far too much of her life's fluids for her to survive the effort. The soldier sacrificed in the tent had served in her place the last time. Now, though, Galeona felt certain that what sheattempted here would succeed-and with minimal effect on her.
She drew a circle around the effigy, then placed her hands-palms down and fingers splayed-on the left and right sides of her creation. Leaning low, she stared at where the face would have been, whispering the final segment of her spell while intermittently muttering the soldier's name.
"Norrec… Norrec…"
The world around her receded. Galeona's view shifted, flew along the desert as if she had been transformed into an eagle who soared the skies with the swiftness of the wind. Faster and faster it raced, until she could no longer even see what landscape lay beneath her.
Her spell had worked. Through her own memories of her brief encounter with the fool, she further strengthened the magic by concentrating on his face, his form.
"Norrec… show me… show me where you are…"
Her view suddenly shifted, turned completely black. The abrupt change so caught Galeona by surprise that she nearly broke the spell. Only quick thinking enabled her to maintain the precious link; she would not have time to try again if she failed now. Even this long away from the column might make Augustus suspicious.
"Norrec… show me…"
His face appeared before her, eyes closed, mouth slack. For a moment, the witch wondered if he had somehow perished, but then she realized that her incantation could not have worked in the first place if that had been the case. The sand effigy demanded a living target.
If not dead, then what had happened? Galeona probed deeper, entered the frame in which Norrec existed. By doing so, she lost all but the thinnest thread of contact with the true world, but, by doing so, she also stood to gain so much more.
And at last, the sorceress saw where her quarry lay.
The knowledge so stunned her that this time she could not help but lose her link to him. His face pulled away, receded with such shocking speed that it gave her vertigo. The darkness reappeared, then Galeona found herself falling backwards across the desert, a complete reversal of her journey.
With a gasp, the exhausted witch fell back onto the burning sand.
She ignored the discomfort, ignored everything. The only thing that mattered to her was what she had just learned.
"So…" Galeona whispered. "I have you, my pretty puppet."
Fourteen
A harsh rumbling shook Kara Nightshadow, dragging her from the darkness enveloping her. She inhaled, only to quickly start choking. The necromancer tried to breathe, but her lungs would not work properly.
She coughed, suddenly expelling an ocean of water. Over and over, Kara coughed, each time trying to empty her lungs so that she could then fill them up with lifesaving air.
At last it became possible to breathe, albeit somewhat raggedly. The necromancer lay still, inhaling again and again in an attempt to regain some balance. Gradually, matters returned near enough to normal for her to begin to sense other things, such as the chill around her and the moisture saturating all her clothes. A gritty substance in her mouth forced her to spit, and she slowly realized that she lay face down on a sandy beach.
Again the world rumbled around her. Forcing her head up, Kara saw that the heavens above had begun to fill with storm clouds much like those of the tempest through which the King's Shield had sailed. In fact, she suspected the clouds above to be the precursor of the same storm, now ready to assail much of the eastern coast.