Chapter Thirteen

Crysania woke with her heart racing, her pulse pounding. Sweat rolled down her cheeks, tickling along her ribs. These things she felt only barely, for in her memory, in her mind, rang the echo of her own name cried aloud.

Crysania!

Again that voice in her mind. Without thinking, she reached for the Dragon Stones and found them safe in her pocket. She let their warmth wash through her. The sense of well-being and security she felt reassured her.

And yet there was that voice. Remembered or dreamed? Blessedly, her sleep had been free of dreams, or if it had not, those dreams had been the stuff of normal sleep, wisps of images floating, nothing bearing the weight of import or nightmare.

She frowned, sitting up. Tandar lay alongside her bedroll, head up, tail switching. She touched his shoulder tentatively.

Crysania, said the voice in her mind gently.

"Tandar?" she whispered.

He snorted, a sound like a harrumph of affirmation. At the same time, a feeling of reassurance formed in her mind, not in words but as abstract emotion. Was she dreaming? A moment ago she'd had the definite feeling that he'd been speaking her name when she woke.

Crickets chirped in the forest. From the direction of the little stream floated the sound of a frog croaking. Nearer, Lagan snored gently. Kela sighed in sleep, while Jeril hummed softly, some desert song to remind him of home as he tended the fire.

After a moment, feeling as foolish as a lonely old woman speaking to one of her dozens of cats, she whispered in her mind, Tandar, can you hear my thoughts?

He answered with words this time, ragged and straining, but real understandable words. Yes. When they're very loud.

She stroked the smooth fur on his shoulder, feeling somehow better connected to his answer when her fingers were touching him. She smiled in delight at the concept of loud thoughts.

And you can talk to me?

It seems I am learning to.

But why now? Why not before?

The tiger lay a long time silent. Then he answered, Perhaps Dalamar has done this. I—I kept my word to him, lady. I've spoken with him tonight.

Crysania put her hand on his head, absently scratching behind his ears. He stretched his neck in pleasure.

And does your vow to him demand that you keep from me what was said between you?

A tumbling delight ran through her mind—the tiger's laughter. Why, no, lady, my vow doesn't make any such demand. He had little to say, and I not much more. I told him of our journey, but not of what happened at the temple, the attempt at theft. I told him who are our companions, and he asked no more.

Crysania patted the tiger gently. Good night, my friend.

He sighed, a deep groaning satisfaction.

She lay back down and shifted until she was as comfortable as she was going to get lying on a blanket on the ground. She fell asleep to the sounds of Jeril tending the fire.

Too soon for her aching muscles, Crysania heard Jeril walking about the camp, stopping near each sleeper to wake him. Lagan came awake with a startled gasp, Kela with a sigh. At Crysania's side, Tandar sat, her guardian at watch.

"Early up, my lady," Jeril said, stepping wide around the tiger. "The sun's not yet risen, but the sky is past gray, and light is soon coming."

Her hand on Tandar's shoulder, Crysania rose. "How can I help with breakfast, Jeril?"

He made a soft sound. She imagined he was smiling. "By packing up all the food we have left over from last night. We're eating on the road, lady." He paused, and Crysania heard a soft whisking sound, as though someone were sweeping the ground. "That's Kela, wiping away our tracks with a branch. The fire is out, the campsite cleared, and soon there will be no sign that we've been here."

They had little time for waking, less for getting ready to ride again. Crysania, once the one to whom all would have looked for orders, heard the others going to Jeril for instructions. She set herself to work as willingly as Lagan saddling the horses and Kela breaking camp.

The heat rose, sweat breaking out upon the back of her neck, trickling. By these signs Crysania knew the sun had come up over the horizon. Lagan brought the horses, rested from the night and dancing with impatience to be on the way. Once the dwarf had mounted, Jeril lifted Crysania easily to sit behind him.

On the morning air, the ringing neighs of the horses sounded loud, like trumpets. The joyous song lifted Crysania's heart. The feel of her mount's muscles, powerful beneath her, gave her the feeling that the horse could run forever. Lagan didn't let that happen, though. He let the gelding stretch its legs, then kept it firmly in hand, conserving the beast's strength. They settled into a comfortable pace, the kind that lets a horse cover distance without tiring, and soon Crysania understood why Jeril hadn't wanted to attempt the pass through the mountains at night. A pass, they called it, but it seemed to her more like a very long, very narrow hallway than a canyon.

"Narrow as a widow's bed," Lagan said. "Who's to wonder why it's so little used!"

Behind them Tandar loped, and a wave of amusement washed over Crysania as the tiger heard that comment.

But listen, lady. He's right. I've never seen so narrow a space and still heard it called a canyon.

Crysania did listen, hearing the sound of their passage echo from stony walls stretching up hundreds of feet. Once she slipped an arm from round Lagan's waist and reached as far as she could. She touched a wall. She changed hands and touched the other, feeling stone and soft lichens, a plant growing right out of a crevice. She lifted her hand and smelled a light, musky fragrance. She'd touched the spent leaves of a columbine.

They went single file and Crysania knew they rode in a shallow riverbed. Sometimes she heard the sucking sound of hooves in mud; other times she smelled water, clean and fresh. All the while the sounds got closer and closer as the canyon walls narrowed in.

"Watch your knees," Lagan said.

Stone snagged her skirts, scraped through to her flesh. Soon the riverbed grew so narrow that the water reached almost three hands up her horse's legs. Ahead, Tandar stopped and shook himself, no doubt deeper into the water than the horses.

"It's not safe to travel this route in wet weather," Jeril said, his voice echoing back to her. "A heavy rain will send a rush of water along the canyon. That's why the walls are so jagged, from being washed out."

High up, a raven called. Another answered. Crysania shivered and imagined a wall of water rushing down that narrow passage and no way to get out of its path.

"I hope it doesn't rain," she said to Lagan.

The dwarf laughed grimly, saying he hadn't heard anyone voice that wish in a while.

Up ahead, Tandar snorted, shaking himself vigorously. They came, at last, out of the water and turned sharply right, onto a dry, stony path.

"We're within sight of the mountains," Jeril said, his horse beside Crysania's. "But we can make better time if we ride in the sand. It won't be comfortable, but—"

"No matter," she said, steeling herself. "We will follow, Jeril. Lead."

The heat, as they came out of the stony canyon, hit like a wall. It poured down from above, then radiated off the sand so that it seemed to be coming at her from all directions. Wind moaned, then shrilled, then dropped low again, like the sound of ghosts. Crysania shivered, an unwonted thought striking her. That wind sounded like the voices of Shoikan Grove, the moaning, the sobbing, the shrieking of tormented souls forever trapped.

The sand whipped at her face, crept into the folds of her gown, beneath the fabric, scratching. It clawed at her eyes, coating her lashes until she had to ride with her eyes closed.

"Lagan, are you all right?" she asked. "Can you see?"

"Barely, lady. I'm following Tandar, and glad enough he's white-pelted or I'd never be able to see him."

Jeril still rode ahead. She assumed Kela was yet at the rear. The sounds of them riding were all muffled by the sand, torn away by a rising wind.

She coughed and spat sand from her mouth. Clinging one-armed to Lagan, she wiped her face, and the moment she breathed, her mouth and nose filled with grit again.

"Lady. Here." Kela came alongside, murmured a word to Lagan, and the gray gelding halted. "Turn your head toward me."

Ahead, Tandar stopped. She sensed curiosity and caution from him. The feelings came faintly, though, as if he tried to keep his thoughts to himself.

The mage's strong fingers touched her face, her chin, brushing the coating of sand away. Then she slipped Crysania's hood down and rearranged her scarf, wrapping it around her head so it sat securely. The hem draped down over her eyes, brushing her lashes. The bottom wrapped across her mouth and nose, but comfortably. Then Kela pulled the hood back up over all of it.

"There. That should feel better."

Crysania moved her head experimentally. It did feel better. "Thank you," she said, expecting the folds of cloth to slip from her face. They stayed securely in place.

"You look like a desert woman now, lady," Kela said approvingly.

"I suppose I do. If only I could manage the affection for heat and sand you desert folk seem to have."

Only cool silence answered, and the woman dropped back to take her place at the rear of the party.

"Where's Tandar?" Crysania asked.

"Just ahead of us, lady," Jeril answered. By the sound of his voice, he wasn't far ahead. "That's a strange pet you have."

She laughed. "Pet? No, he isn't that. Tandar belongs to himself. He is more of a friend."

"And a good thing for us all that he is." Jeril's horse fell in beside hers. Lagan whispered encouragement as the gray gelding sidled away. "I can't imagine you'll come to any harm with that great beast near. How did you come by him, lady?"

"He was a… gift."

The gift stopped still where he was. Horses snorted, picking up some scent that startled, then frightened them.

Lagan cursed a very unclerical curse, managing to rein in their mount, but barely.

Crysania sniffed at the air, but all she smelled was sand and sun and her own sweat.

A moment later Lagan cried, "Jeril! What's that?"

His voice was tight, and Crysania had her arms around him so she could feel him tensing. Fear, unspoken, ran through him and into her.

Like thunder across the sky, Jeril's voice tore into the silence.

"Ride!" he yelled. "Ride for the hills!"

Crysania had time to cry out, "What is it?" before Lagan whipped the gray with the reins, drumming the beast's ribs with his heels.

Ahead, Tandar roared, the sound of rage.

"Lagan! What is it?" She clung to him, off guard, offbalance, and afraid every moment of falling to her death beneath the horse's hooves. "What's happening?"

Lagan whipped the horse again, urging all speed.

"Barbarians, lady. The blue-skinned barbarians of Ariakan's army!"