That, thought Jame, was a good question. Hers was supposedly a sentient god, yet his actions seemed mindless. All of this destruction—to what end? A temple had come to life, and in the process had slaughtered an innocent population. Where was the justice in that? Never mind that he might be said to have saved his own people through her actions. But honor didn’t only apply within the Kencyrath, whatever some Kencyr like Caldane believed—did it? Not to her understanding. Was such an action any worse than what Perimal Darkling had done to the previous world, through the agency of the Master and the Dream-weaver? Were they also only tools, and if so, of whom? What difference was there, after all, between the Shadows and the Three-Faced God? Did her own people also worship a monster?
“There,” she said, dragging herself upright and pointing at the tower.
The Tishooo breathed deep, and the air flexed with him, in and out of her own lungs until her head spun.
Then he was gone.
Jame couldn’t see his progress directly, but the clouds around the base of the tower recoiled. Something buffeted them, then drove them back round and around the temple’s black shaft, higher and higher. The embedded dead seemed to rise with the blast as if they were storming their destroyer. The wind drew tighter and grew faster, dispersing the clouds of god-power. The tower cracked. Massive shards toppled off of it, plummeting into the chaos below. Then it shattered and fell.
“Good,” said Jame, and collapsed.
Jame woke to a still night, broken only by the dip and splash of oars. She still lay on the foredeck, but now under an assortment of cadet jackets with one rolled up under her head. Trinity, how long had she been asleep? The moon had set and the stars were obscured by haze. Glassy water stretched out on all sides of the boat to a featureless horizon.
Brier stood nearby, at the prow. At least they had managed to turn the vessel around. The Kendar gave her a stiff nod as Jame joined her, clutching a coat around her shoulders. It wasn’t cold, but she couldn’t stop shivering.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Somewhere in the Great Salt Sea, north of Langadine.”
“Oh. Helpful. Where’s our seeker?”
Brier glanced toward the waist. Kalan huddled at the mast’s foot between the rowers with Lanek clutched in her arms, having at last cried herself to sleep over her four lost sons.
“Don’t worry,” said Brier. “We’re on course.”
Following her gaze, Jame peered down into the water before the prow. Something pale swam there, the barest glimmer under the smooth water.
“Is that . . .”
“I think so.”
The boat’s side rose too far above the water to reach down into it, as Tori had done.
“Will you join her?”
“Should I leave you? Besides, you know that I can’t swim. Go back to sleep. You need it.”
Jame yawned, wide enough to hear her jaws crack. “You’re right. Wake me when we get there.”
“Yes, lady.”
Back in her nest of jackets, still shivering, she burrowed down to the wooden deck. Oars splashed. The boat glided forward. In the morning, she would think about what she had done, or not. Whatever.
It seemed that all but Brier eventually slept, even the cadets at their oars. At dawn, laughter woke them. The child Lanek capered about the deck, stomping on it, but it gave back no more echo than a stone, for stone it had become. They were on the petrified remains of a boat in the middle of a dry salt waste.
“Is this what Tori saw, after Rose drew him to the far shore?” Jame asked Brier.
“Probably.”
The Kendar’s eyes were bloodshot from her sleepless watch, her movements stiff as she turned to stare back at what had been a sea and the memory of what it might have held.
“I’m sorry,” said Jame.
Brier shrugged, dismissing old grief. “My mother died a long time ago. Now, where are we?”
Kalan hobbled up onto the foredeck, cramped from her night’s sleep on hard planks and still red-eyed with weeping.
“Kothifir lies that way,” she said, pointing north-northwest, “and your camp there.” Her finger swung straight ahead, in line with the prow. Wherever she had come from, wherever she had gone, Rose Iron-thorn had aimed them true.
They unloaded the sleepy moas and set out, four birds short. Kalan and Lanek led the procession, the little boy in high glee, his mother rigid in the saddle as if sure that at any minute her feathered mount would bolt. This, of course, made it more likely to do so, until Brier took its reins in a firm hand and led it. The rest followed, trading off who walked and who rode to accommodate Ean and Byrne.
At first they saw nothing, and wondered how far from the ancient shore they were. Gorbel had had the foresight to bring sacks of fresh water, but not enough for a long trek. Hours passed. It was so hot that sweat dried on the brow and gave no relief. The sun rose, beat blindingly down against the white salt plain, then tilted toward the horizon. In its wavering glare, the mirage of mountains appeared to the northeast and to the west—hopefully the curving Tenebrae and Urak ranges. A dot appeared on the horizon ahead. Bit by bit, it grew into the single, bedraggled palm that overlooked the tiny oasis.
“We wondered if we would ever see you again,” said Onyx-eyed as they limped into camp at dusk.
Jame kicked her bird’s shoulder, obliging it to kneel. “How long were we gone?” she asked, swinging stiffly down.
“Only two days, as it turns out. I see that you found the seeker.”
“Yes, and she found you. I’m afraid she and these other two are all that’s left of the caravan. The rest drowned. Also, Langadine has been destroyed.”
The randon eyed her askance. “You’ve been busy.”
“It wasn’t my fault, dammit—or at least not most of it. Anyway, that establishes where we are now. As to when . . .”
“Back in our own present, I assume. The east wind blew through last night, and this morning the sea was gone again. We’ll only know for sure when we return to Kothifir. In the meantime, eat. Sleep. Tomorrow—if we’re still here—we have a long trek home.”
XII
A Season of Discontent
The trip back to Kothifir proved blessedly uneventful if strenuous. All the lambas had gone with the caravan and subsequently had drowned, so the moas were pressed into service as draft animals, to their loud disgust. Rations consisted largely of rhi-sar meat preserved in salt and water from the ancient sea while it had remained fresh. Since both flesh and fluid came from the past, there was no telling how long either would stay in the present. It was a gamble whether they would be consumed before they disappeared, and what that disappearance would do to the host bodies.
The white rhi-sar hide was hitched raw side down to a team of protesting birds to serve as a sledge, onto which more provisions were piled.
“A good scrape will start the tanning process,” Gorbel told Jame. “One thing about rhi-sar leather: it doesn’t stain. White is an unlikely color for armor only because it’s so rare. You’ll need to get King Krothen’s blessing on it, though, before it’s worked.”
At Sashwar they exchanged the moas for their horses and Gorbel parted, grumbling, with more golden coins to pay for the lost lambas.
Nine days later they came to the Apollynes and climbed them. The Mountain Station sent ahead a heliograph message to announce their return as they passed. Thus they found a considerable crowd waiting on the training field outside the camp to greet them. Jame had been dreading this sparse homecoming. No one would believe at first that they were all that remained of that huge caravan sent out thirty days before with such high hopes. Then the wailing began, but not from all.
Kalan cuddled the baby daughter whom she had left behind so long ago as the child cooed with delight.