The Dark Queen Page 11

  Finally, the Istarian vanished entirely. At one moment he was the wraith, the shadow, and then … he was nothing, not even sand. The desolate, scrubby landscape stretched into darkness all around the pursuing elf. Stormlight found himself

  in an unknown, bleak terrain, where forked black tree trunks sprouted starkly out of the crusty earth.

  "I have followed him too far," he told himself, wrestling with a rising alarm. "I can see the foothills to the north, the mouth of the Central Pass. We're out on the plains somewhere, too close to Istar and its armies …"

  Then the horse brushed by one of the dark trees, which crumbled into powder, streaking the animal's flank with a long, black stain.

  Not trees. Crystals.

  A light wind chimed through the glittering forest.

  "The salt flats," Stormlight whispered. "The Tears of Mishakal."

  At once he turned his horse about, intent on riding out of the perilous region, out to the safety of the desert, out to the plains. Even the prospect of Istar-ian armies no longer daunted him, faced as he was with night and magic and the dangerous illusions of this crystalline maze.

  Slowly the horse weaved between the crystals, and Stormlight scanned the opaque horizon for signs of torchlight, of campfires, of a moon or a for shy;tunate star. He refused to think on the old legends of his people, on how the salt flats would open to swal shy;low the traveler, how they drew you toward their heart and toward your destruction by the serenade of the wind over the crystals-a cruel, cold wind that tumbled suddenly into song and language, against which, the legends said, the listener was powerless.

  Amid the mist and the high chiming, amid the shifting dark shapes and the crunch of his horse's hooves through the crusted layers of sand and salt, Stormlight rode in widening circles, looking for light, for clear ground. He breathed a string of memorized prayers-to Shinare and to his patron Branchala, to Gilean the Book for knowledge, and of course to Mishakal herself, the goddess of heal shy;ing whose tears, it was said, had created these flats.

  All of his efforts-both strategy and prayer- seemed for naught. As the night wore on, Stormlight found himself moving into a deeper and deeper darkness. Now, though the stars and planets scat shy;tered the flats with a mysterious half-light, the elf could see no more than ten feet ahead of his horse. The pocked and hoof-churned ground told him he had passed this way before.

  Instead of widening circles, his path had spiraled inward, turning toward the center of the salt flats, where the darkness was most dense, the country most confusing.

  "Stop," he whispered, and reined in the horse. With a rising sense of unease, he scanned the maze around him for some clue, some glimmering-some definable light to guide him anywhere.

  In seven hundred years of roaming the desert, it was as close as he had ever come to being lost.

  When he reached what appeared to be the center of the salt flats he dismounted slowly, testing the ground beneath his feet and carefully leading his horse toward the centermost crystals.

  It would be a long time-four, maybe five hours- until dawn. If the Tears of Mishakal were the leg shy;endary death trap, why, he was already dead. And yet, if they were only confusing and impassable ter shy;rain …

  If nothing else, the sunrise would show him reli shy;able east. Stormlight sat at the foot of the crystal, leaning back against the dark surface, which crumbled slightly against his weight. He sat, and waited, and watched for light.

  After a while-Stormlight was unsure whether it was an hour, three hours, five hours-the darkness began to lift, and the wind chiming through the crystals calmed in the anticipation of approaching dawn. Now he could make out his face reflected on the facets of crystal.

  It was distorted. In the nearest crystal, one eye was magnified, outsized, while in another not three feet away, his face was grotesquely narrowed, as though he had passed through a crack in a wall.

  Yet another facet showed him as squat, shorter than he ever remembered. Always sensitive about his height, Stormlight turned quickly away.

  And saw yet another, and another, each one bending, twisting, or otherwise translating his form into something bizarre and grotesque, some even reflecting those other reflections in an infinity of confusion.

  Like the visions and prophecies that milled through the rebel camp, he thought. Each was a way of looking at the world, of holding the light so that it reflected the beholder as much as what he beheld.

  "It is all too confusing," Stormlight murmured.

  He closed his eyes and prayed again to Mishakal, for insight and healing wisdom. After all, this land was named for her, and hers as well was the power of healing, to restore the fractured and distorted body to its natural health.

  No voice of the goddess did he hear, whistling through the crystal fields with revelation. And yet-

  The solution came to him softly and slowly-it was so simple that his laughter rang through the Tears in recognition.

  He would need eyes, of course, to guide him out of the salt flats. And his own eyes were subject to the mirror maze of the crystals, the distraction and dis shy;tortion and misdirection.

  Still chuckling to himself, Stormlight mounted and, leaning back in the saddle, laid the reins gently over the animal's withers. He closed his eyes, brought down the lucerna, and surrendered to the horse. The animal serenely wandered through the crystals, bent toward the edge of the salt flats, toward open country, and toward his breakfast.

  Stormlight let himself be carried homeward, his thoughts on cool water-if water indeed had been found-and the morning's quith-pa and bread. A sudden lurch from the horse snapped him back to alertness. Instantly wary, Stormlight opened his eyes and sat upright.

  Dark shapes lay ahead of him, gray lines and imprints on the surface of the black salt. Stormlight took up the reins and guided the horse toward them.

  One of the crystals-once a very large one, he guessed-lay in powder and rubble, a forlorn heap in the middle of a wasteland. Half out of idleness, half out of curiosity, Stormlight dismounted to examine it more closely.

  The facets of the crystals caught the first pink light, and for a moment they shone softly, warmly, like freshly mined gems. Was it this that had prompted his people to go underground years ago? Had they mistaken something like this black glim shy;mering for the stone more rare, for the glain opals their priests and Namers had told them lay deep beneath the Khalkist and Vingaard Mountains?

  It was a story older than his own memories-how, adopted, he had come to reside with the Que-Nara.

  Stormlight had little recollection of his people. He recalled a face half-revealed by firelight, the smell of buckskin and pine, the touch of a soft hand …

  Memories from childhood, or from a hundred years of wandering. He could not distinguish which.

  But he remembered well the ambush at the desert's edge. The red armor and white banners of Istar, the knives of the slavers and the white-hot pain in his side.

  He shrugged, pushing away the memory. Alone then, he was even more alone now in the Tears of Mishakal. That was the past, and to dwell on it was foolish, especially here in the deceptive salt flats, where a despairing thought could be your last.

  Idly, the elf shifted his foot through the odd rubble.

  Then the new light shone on a track-a single deep footprint in the black salt.

  Stormlight crouched in the rubble, peering more closely.

  A woman's print. Two days old, maybe three. Narrow and graceful, and incredibly deep.

  As though she had sunk to her knees in the packed sand.

  Yet the print was strangely delicate. The soft whorls of the heel marked the fine-grained, com shy;pressed salt, and the foot was clearly defined and free of callus and scar.

  She did not walk much. At least not barefoot. Even a child among trackers would know that.

  With a rough, leathery finger, Stormlight traced the graceful instep of the print.

  He should know something more. The footprint taunted him with a myste
ry, with a secret in its spi shy;rals and simple, deep lines …

  Lines. Like the foot of an infant.

  Stormlight rested on his heels. Slowly, with a judi shy;cious sweep of his hand, he blew the drifted black salt from another print, and another. Then risingto his feet, he mounted the horse and followed the trail of the woman out of the Tears-a trail that seemed to rise out of nothingness, out of the blank center of the flats.

  It could be a trap, he cautioned himself. The gods know there is danger in this . . . there is danger . . .

  Yet he followed with a strange, fascination as the path weaved sinuously through the standing crys shy;tals. Leaning low, face pressed against the horse's withers, he read the dark sand with a skill born of centuries in the hunt. When the slowly rising sun gave him direction, it revealed the footprints again, a thin path stalking over the salt flats, the steps wider and wider apart.

  Had he looked up from this close, intent scrutiny, he might have seen the Plainsman's form reflected in the mirroring crystal-the wounded man lying in the salt flats, his ruddy beard matted with the last swallow from his now-empty waterskin.

  He might have found Fordus, helped the Prophet to safety.

  But in his oblivion, Stormlight passed near the wounded commander, who stared at him blearily, resentfully, through the maze of crystals.

  She's running now, Stormlight thought, rising in the saddle, his thoughts focused on the strange, fem shy;inine tracks.

  But running to what? Or from what?

  Now it seemed that the woman's foot had expanded, widened, kept changing, the toes fusing and splaying.

  Stormlight leaned against the warm neck of the horse and let forth a slow, uneasy breath. It was a clawed creature he followed now, an enormous thing that had trampled a path over the salt flats, crushing rock and crystal in its heedless journey. All of his instincts told him to leave well enough alone, that the danger he had only suspected when he took up the trail was close to him now, a rumbling just at the edge of his hearing, an acrid smell beneath the smoke of a distant campfire.

  The fires of the rebels. The monster was headed toward the Red Plateau, toward his drowsing, battle-dazed people.

  With a click of his tongue and a shrill whistle, Stormlight spurred his horse through the black flats, longing for Fordus's speed, for the speed of the wind or a comet.

  You are too late, a deep, denying voice told him, its cold, resonant words mingling with his thoughts until Stormlight could not tell whether it was the voice he heard or the bleak suggestions of his own worst imaginings.

  "No!" Stormlight shouted. Suddenly the trail ended before him, the monstrous tracks vanished into unruffled black salt. Alarmed, confused, the elf wheeled the horse in a wide frantic circle and retraced his path. In the heart of the last track, in the very center of the enormous, splayed claw, a man's booted footprint lay in the dark sand as though he had stepped in that spot only, dropped from the sky or born from the swirling earth.

  Stormlight reined in his horse. The human print was like a deep embedded thought of the clawed thing, like a glyph drawn in a time of dreams and dragons. Out of the monstrous print, boot prints led-the heavy steps of a man walking resolutely toward the rebel camps.

  Cautiously, with his horse slowed to a walk, the Plainsman followed.

  * * * * *

  Tired and dirty, Larken watched the last of the flames lick the black rubble of the pyre.

  Children, the old, and the flower of Plainsmen manhood had been put to the Istarian swords. Inno shy;cent and defenseless or ill-prepared and rash, they had fallen before the enemy like sacrificial offerings. Their deaths were even more monstrous because of the dishonor involved-the cavalry ambush that savaged graybeard and infant alike.

  In the brilliant dawn, there was no way to mask the night's slaughter. The Istarian cavalry had left over a hundred rebels dead. Now, as the funeral fires themselves died and smoldered, it was the bard's duty to sing the Song of Passing, a farewell to all the departed, from the youngest to the wizened old. Each of the dead would be remembered in a verse, a line, a phrase of the song, so that none left the world unheralded. Larken's song would proba shy;bly continue through the next night.

  And longer still, if the augurers found no water.

  Already miserably fatigued, Larken struck the drum once, twice, and waited for words and music to come to mind. The drumhead mottled and dark shy;ened in her hand, as though it, too, was mourning.

  When no song came, Northstar sat down beside Larken, draping his arm consolingly over his cousin's shoulders.

  Tamex approached them, smoke curling over the black silk of his robe.

  Larken gave the dark stranger a sidelong glance. Though she had nothing for the dead, words that would attend Tamex's deeds and the music that would exalt his glory suddenly flooded her mind.

  The bard felt unsettled, troubled by the strange, unbidden music. The melody was simple-a Plains shy;man ballad from her deepest childhood-with the first lines about the dark man and the mystery and the desert night. Still, some part of her refused to give voice to them.

  Her drumming was soft and tentative as she hov shy;ered like a hawk between singing and silence.

  Then a cry arose from the Plainsmen, and a dozen or so ragged children rushed toward a solitary rider emerging from the Tears of Mishakal.

  It took Larken a moment to realize that the rider was Stormlight.

  The elf leapt from the saddle and, with a swift and relentless stride, made his way through the group of children and past the smoldering campfires, brush shy;ing by Gormion and Aeleth as though the bandits were mist or high grass. Taking Larken's drum hand firmly and gently in his grasp, he guided her away from the fireside, away from her startled listeners, and when the two of them had passed out of earshot from the rest of the rebels, he spoke to her fervently, whispering through clenched teeth.

  "Whatever you do, singer, whatever the magic you wield by drum and song, I command your silence now!"

  Command? Larken signed, bristling at the elf's rough words. Take your hand from me, Stormlight!

  Her gestures snapped sharp and final in the air between them. Slipping his grasp, the bard stalked off toward the Red Plateau.

  Stormlight caught up with her. Overhead, Lucas soared out of the black salt flats.

  "I know the power of your song," the elf insisted.

  "How it raises up and it casts down …"

  "Stop!" Larken shouted, but Stormlight contin shy;ued, never hearing her.

  "You were set to sing the glories of Tamex-this new and sudden hero. I could see it. But think of this before you sing. Whose bard have you been through the long months of exile and wandering and rebel shy;lion? And who is it you love?"

  I know, Larken admitted, this time signing more evenly. Fordus is still our commander.

  "And Tamex," Stormlight added, "is not who he seems to be!"

  Larken shot the elf a searching glance. Something deeper than knowing, deeper even than song, told her that Stormlight spoke the truth, and that she knew it too well.

  Tell me who he is, Stormlight, she gestured.

  Then the hawk screamed above her, and all eyes lifted to the Red Plateau.

  Fordus stood on the great height, overlooking the campsite and the ruin it had become.

  * * * * *

  He had climbed out of the salt flats and made the arduous ascent of the Red Plateau, his swollen foot still throbbing and aflame with the springjaw's poi shy;son. Twice more he had stumbled, his strong fingers scrabbling on the plateau's heights, as the desert reeled below him, a breathtaking distance into a black, crystalline void.

  Let it go . . . let it go . . . you are weary, the desert seemed to say. The hard rock and the razored crystal beckoned to him-and for a brief, dizzy moment he listened, leaning out into the silent air, his iron grip slackening.

  But he thought he heard a drum, distant and faint in the blurred encampment, and despite his groggi-ness and the deafening pulse of his blood,
he had kept his balance.

  Now he raised his arms to the heavens and shouted to the sunstruck sky, to the solitary reeling hawk, to the sea of uplifted faces now gathered in the black rubble below.

  "I have returned from the desert. From the heart of the desert I have returned."

  A dark man-someone new to the camp, and menacing-sneered at him. "Where were you when Istar returned?"

  An approving murmur rose from the assembled rebels, loudest among the milling bandits.

  Heedless of the noise and growing strife, Larken rushed by Tamex toward the staggering Fordus, humming a quick healing song.

  "Your departure was . . . singularly convenient, Water Prophet," Tamex continued, folding his pale arms and glaring at Fordus with cold, reptilian eyes. "I trust that you at least have water to show for such a costly absence?"

  Climbing the slow incline to the top of the plateau, Larken sang more loudly, her ragged voice trans shy;formed by concern for the wounded man. The tune was an ancient one, but in her voice it renewed and empowered, gaining depth and strength. Even the battle-wounded, lying on the blankets about the campfires, felt some stirrings of healing.

  Suddenly Fordus's fever broke, and as the sweat rushed over his body, the glyphs returned to his shocked and dazzled memory.

  "I have brought you this," he shouted, pointing at the pooling liquid on his skin, "as a foretaste of the water we shall find elsewhere. For the glyphs are the sign of the Tine, the Third Day of Solinari, and No Wind."

  Though exhausted and bleary, he knew to keep the sign of the Springjaw from them-the ominous glyph that foretold danger-at least for now.

  And he hid the other glyphs, too-the Tower and Chair. The signs that Fordus Firesoul was the King-priest of Istar.

  He hid much and said little, but Stormlight lis shy;tened intently to what he said. Suddenly, as it always did, the interpretation came to him.

  "At the Tine!" he shouted. "Water three feet, four feet under! Hail the Water Prophet!"

  "Who brings us the water!" Northstar chimed exultantly. He spun about, looking for Tamex.

  But Tamex was nowhere to be found. On the bit of ' rock where he had stood only moments before, between Gormion and Rann, a dark dust wavered and dispelled.