“You can tell that to your grandmother,” growled Ireheart.
Rodario beamed. “I did. She believed me.”
“Well it’s nonsense! The only mountains in Girdlegard are our own. The only genuine mountains.”
“Isn’t it amazing what they can find to quarrel about?” Coira remarked to Mallenia, passing her the salami. “About mountains.”
“I know men who’ll start a fight about the dimensions of their own little man,” replied the girl from Ido, and the other woman laughed.
“You see? They’re laughing at us,” Slin complained to Rodario. “There’s some kind of conspiracy going on. It started that night we were in the burned-out farmhouse.”
The actor stroked his chin in thought. “Yes, you’re right. The fine ladies choose to make us the butt of their jokes.” He winked at Coira, who smiled back before glancing quickly at Mallenia. The Ido girl nodded to her, which Rodario found surprising. He was pretty sure he had missed something.
“What else do you know about the desert?” Balyndar urged. “I don’t want fairy tales. I want the truth.”
“Then you’d better ask the Scholar,” said Ireheart. “He always used to know that kind of stuff.”
“And we’ve got Franek.” Coira waved the famulus over. “We were just talking about the desert; what can we expect, apart from heat and sandstorms?” she asked him. “You must have crossed the desert when you escaped from Lot-Ionan?”
He sat down on the green moss and scooped up some water from the stream to drink and to cool his face. “May Samusin be by our sides…”
“May Vraccas continue to stand by us,” Ireheart corrected sharply. “I want nothing to do with that other god. And I certainly don’t want to owe him any favors.” Slin and Balyndar were of the same opinion. Ireheart filled his pipe indignantly. That’ll be the day…
Franek started again. “Whoever is protecting us we’re going to need his help on the final miles through to the Blue Mountains. Bumina has gone to ground in the desert. She always planned to give eternal life to dead things.”
“Hey, undeads! We know all about them, don’t we?” Ireheart called to Tungdil, who was sitting talking to Barskalin. “I’m not afraid of them. In the time of the Perished Land we cut them down, whole ranks of them, one, two, three, fast as you like!” He accompanied his words with appropriate arm movements, losing odd bits of tobacco.
“That’s not what I meant…” replied Franek.
“Then you weren’t expressing yourself clearly,” Slin interjected, grinning. He enjoyed being able to play out his distrust of the famulus. “Why don’t you come to the point?” Humans and dwarves laughed in response.
Franek didn’t rise to their bait. Rodario admired his cool. “Bumina found places in the desert where she released some magic and she sealed it in,” he explained slowly. “She wanted the magic to find itself something to embody, to incorporate itself. At first the experiments failed and the magic capacities dissipated. But, with time, she discovered the formula to enforce her will on the magic to do what she wanted by employing runes. She was assiduous and persevered until circumstances conspired…”
Ireheart thumped his crow’s beak handle on the ground. “Tell it properly, wizardling. Say it so we can understand.” The audience laughed again.
Now Franek grew impatient. “So it’s not just your stature that’s diminutive. Your brain must be the same,” he hissed venomously.
“Ooh, a hit!” Rodario commented.
Ireheart’s chest and arm muscles jerked dangerously. “Have a care, little wizardling. Or my hand will slip and I’m not sure my tiny brain will be able to hold me back.” He pointed to Coira. “We already have a maga and we can find the way without you.”
Franek made an obscene gesture-and in a flash Ireheart was beside him, grabbing his little finger and snapping the top joint; it cracked and the famulus shrieked with pain.
“Sorry, it’s the fault of my tiny brain,” said the dwarf in a dangerously quiet voice. “If I were brighter, of course, I’m sure I wouldn’t have done that. And just think what else I might be stupid enough to do to you?” He played with the crow’s beak. “Having a hole in your foot is probably quite painful, my little sorcerer’s apprentice.”
“Stop it, Ireheart,” Tungdil ordered, looking up from his study of the maps. “Leave him be. He is on our side.”
“But he insulted me!” the old warrior fumed, pointing with his pipe. “It was him that started it!”
“Then that’s an end to it now. Sit down and let me get on with my work.” Tungdil pored over the map again.
Franek clutched his damaged finger and showered his assailant with ferocious looks. Ireheart was sitting now next to Slin. “Well at least he can’t do any magic now, even if he gets to bathe in the source,” he whispered to the fourthling, who burst out laughing.
“I hope the sand creatures gobble you up,” the famulus spat out between clenched teeth.
“Ah,” said Balyndar. “So that’s what the magic does. It makes creatures of sand.”
“Sand creatures. Beings made of stone, made of… made of everything that is dead and that is in the magic places,” Franek summed up, staring at his hand. He did not dare straighten the fractured finger.
“How can we best deal with them?” Rodario did not relish the idea of having to contend with a wall of stone or rubble.
“Us? We can’t do anything.” Franek pointed to Coira. “This is a test for her. Only counter-magic can destroy these fiends. Conventional weapons will be worse than useless.”
“We’ll see about that.” Ireheart tested his crow’s beak for sharpness and puffed away furiously at his pipe until his head disappeared behind a cloud of smoke. Neither he, Balyndar, Slin or Franek saw how pale Coira had gone.
Tungdil gave the order for them to set off. “The sun is low enough now. We can make a start. It’s better if we can adapt slowly to the changes in temperature.” He got the Zhadar to put white cloaks over their dark armor, to deflect the sun’s rays. This should help them avoid heatstroke; Tungdil and the others protected themselves in a similar way, putting on wide white tunics.
“I look like an icicle,” joked Slin.
“An icicle with a beard?” Rodario grinned.
Barskalin and Tungdil took the lead, then came several Zhadar, then the dwarves and the humans; the rest of the Invisibles brought up the rear.
Even a march of four miles, after coming out of the shelter of the trees and heading toward the dunes, had them breaking out in a sweat, in spite of the spring weather and the advanced hour. When they climbed up the soft sand, walking became much more onerous.
Their heavy armor quickly caused the dwarves to get out of breath, however grateful they normally were for its reliable protection in a fight-Tungdil was the only one who seemed to have no difficulty in coping with the heat. He stomped off ahead as if he were a machine and not a creature made of flesh and blood.
Neither Ireheart nor the other dwarves wanted to show they were struggling. Not until the night stars shone above their heads and it had grown extremely cold did Tungdil tell them to settle down, in sight of a rock formation. But he was not going to let them rest for long, it seemed. Slin sank down onto the sand and took off his helmet; he was exhausted.
“We have crossed the first belt of sand,” their leader announced. “We’ll camp over there by the rocks. They’ll afford enough shelter if a storm comes up.”
“That’s another three miles,” Slin said. It was obvious he was not willing to take one more step. “It’s just as good here.”
Tungdil shot him a look. “We march. If you can’t take it, sit and wait for dawn. We’ll collect you when the horizon is pale blue.” Without giving the rebellious dwarf another thought, he set off.
“Come on, fourthling.” Surprisingly, it was Balyndar who spoke. “Let’s show our high king what you are made of.”