He went back over the trail that Sorak and Ryana had left behind. They had been running. That much was clear. He could tell from the weight distribution. But why? To get to the grove? What was their hurry? Unless, Valsavis thought, they had been running to keep up with someone... or something. He crouched and carefully examined the trail. Yes, there it was. A rasclinn’s track. But what was a rasclinn doing here in the flatlands? This was not their normal habitat. On the other hand, he thought, perhaps this was no ordinary rasclinn. Maybe the Silent One really was a pyreen, a shapechanger.
He followed the rasclinn’s trail. It was harder to spot than the trail left behind by Sorak and Ryana, but there was no question about it. The trail led directly to the grove, then disappeared, just as Sorak and Ryana’s trail had disappeared. But where? And how?
Valsavis knew there had to be an answer. It had to be in the signs. Antloids working at some strange and unknown task, leaving behind evidence that was completely out of character for their natural behavior, a rasclinn leading Sorak and Ryana to the grove, and then vanishing without a trace. Sorak and Ryana also vanishing without a trace. And signs of a violent storm. A very intense and very localized storm. Or else...
“An elemental?” said Valsavis aloud. He swore softly. All the available evidence seemed to point to the same thing. The Silent One really was a pyreen, a shapechanger able to influence the behavior of beasts and raise air elementals. But to what purpose? And what had the antloids been working at?
He wandered around the scene some more. The ground had been disturbed, not only by the antloids moving back and forth, but by the churning of the storm, as if a small tornado had touched down. Or perhaps several small tornados. Several elementals? It | was possible. How many had she raised?
Something on the ground caught his eye, and he stooped to pick it up. It was a piece of dagger plant leaf, but it had been torn very carefully lengthwise, peeled to make a strand.... A strand, he thought. It would be a very strong strand. Something that could be used to bind together the branches the antloids had snipped off from the pagafa trees.... “A raft?” he said aloud.
And suddenly, it all came together. Sorak and Ryana had come to the grove, and there was no sign of a trail leaving it. It was as if they had simply disappeared into thin air. Or else flown up into it! Raised up by elementals conjured by the pyreen.
With disgust, Valsavis tossed the strand of dagger plant leaf back down onto the ground. Of course, he thought. Now it all made sense. So that was why they had left the kanks behind. They had not gone on foot, after all. They had a much faster means of travel, on a wooden raft constructed by the antloids at the pyreen’s direction and held up by the air elementals she had raised. And that also neatly solved the problem of taking all that time to circumvent the silt basins. They didn’t need to go around the basins. They would simply fly over them. There would be no catching them now, he realized bitterly. He had failed. And it was his own fault. He had underestimated them. He had grown overconfident. Now he would have to pay the price.
Well, he thought, never let it be said that Valsavis did not accept responsibility for his mistakes. He raised his hand, gazing at the gold ring on his ringer. For several moments, he stared at it, concentrating. Then his hand began to tingle and the golden eyelid opened.
“You have something to report?” the voice of the Shadow King asked within his mind.
“Yes, my lord. I fear that I have failed you.”
There was a momentary stillness in his mind. Then the voice spoke once more. “How?”
Valsavis quickly told the Shadow King what he had discovered, without omitting his responsibility in allowing them to get away. When he had finished, the Shadow King did not reply at once. The golden eye stared at him for a long moment, then blinked once.
“You have made a mistake, Valsavis,” Nibenay said. “Fortunately, it may not be irreparable. See that you do not make one again. Remain where you are. I shall send you a means to follow them.” The golden eyelid closed.
A means to follow them? Valsavis wondered what Nibenay had meant by that. How could he possibly follow them? Could the Shadow King bestow upon him the ability to fly? And at such a distance? Nibenay was a powerful sorcerer, but surely not even he could cast a spell clear across the Great Ivory Plain and the Mekillot Mountains! Obviously, however, he intended to do something. And he was apparently willing to forgive him for his mistake. That was no small thing. One thing was for certain. Nibenay would not forgive him twice.
Remain where you are, he had said. Well, he could do that. Especially since there did not seem to be anything else he could do. But how long was he to remain? Until Nibenay did whatever it was he was going to do, quite obviously. Valsavis had not had any breakfast yet. He went to his kank and took out some of his provisions, sat down on the ground and began to eat.
An hour later, he was still waiting. Most of a second hour lapsed. And then a shadow passed over Valsavis. He looked up. The shadow passed over him again. It was a roc. The huge bird was fifty feet long from head to tail feathers, with a wingspan of over one hundred feet. It circled, cried out once, and swooped down.
Valsavis grabbed for his sword. Then he realized that the creature was not stooping at him. It was gliding in for a landing. This was the means to follow them that Nibenay had sent, all the way from the Barrier Mountains. Valsavis grinned. The creature landed and stood there, cocking its huge, fearsome looking head at him.
“One moment, my feathered friend,” Valsavis said, as he removed some of the supplies from his kank and slung the pouches over his shoulders. He would have to leave the rest behind, along with the kank, of course, but he could only take what he could carry. It would suffice. He no longer had to cross the desert and go around the inland silt basins. He would fly over them, just like Sorak and Ryana and the pyreen.
He climbed up onto the massive roc’s back, straddling its thick neck with his legs. The huge bird cried out and beat its giant wings, lunging up into the air. The others would arrive in Bodach, thinking they had lost him, confident that he could never catch up to them in time.
Valsavis smiled. They would be wrong.
8
As they flew on the rushing wind, the moonlit desert spread out all around them, a wide and all-encompassing vista. The light of the twin moons, Ral and Guthay, sparkled on the salt below, giving the Ivory Plain a ghostly and ethereal appearance. It was much cooler at this higher altitude, and the wind rushed through their hair and clothing, making them shiver as they huddled together on the airborne raft.
“It’s so beautiful!” Ryana said, enchanted by the sight despite the cold. At first, she had been frightened as the ground had dropped away, receding farther and farther below them, and she could not resist the rising panic that they were going to fall. But the air elementals were strong, and with Kara there to hold them together and guide them, Ryana soon relaxed and gave herself completely to the experience.
Beside her, she heard a sudden burst of utterly joyous and completely unrestrained laughter, and she glanced at Sorak to see his face shining with delight. His lips were stretched wide in a grin of pleasure, his nostrils flaring, his entire face animated in way that told her this wasn’t Sorak anymore, but Kivara, his mischievous, childlike, female entity, whose personality was ruled by the thrill of novelty, the hunger for pleasure and stimulation of sensation.