Child of Flame (Page 171)

As the dragons rose, their brilliant figures dwindling, dusk came. Stars winked free of cloud. A cool wind swept in from the north. The dragons had driven the clouds away, and now the sorcerers could weave starlight in the loom.

Shaking, Alain clambered to his feet. His exposed skin hurt like fire.

Adica turned to examine him. “You should have waited until we called you.” The brush of her fingers stung his raw skin.

He flinched away. “I can go on,” he rasped. “You know I will never leave you.”

Her expression softened. She stepped past him and spoke in a low voice to Falling-down. Alain swayed, dizzy, still stunned by what he had seen. He had never imagined creatures of such vast power and terrible indifference. The life of the middle world, the fleeting span of human years, was as nothing to them, who could slumber for a hundred years as though it were one night. He sank down cross-legged onto the hard ground. Rage and Sorrow flopped down beside him. The eagle-cloaked woman bustled up beside him to rub a soothing ointment onto his stinging skin.

The mallet wielders ceased their hammering. Evidently their voluminous skin cloaks and hoods had protected them rather better than his traveling clothes had protected Alain, or else they, too, wore an invisible mantle of magic. Chattering in low voices, they lifted Spits-last’s litter from the center of the stone circle and carried him outside to a patch of ground covered with chalk.

Though his crippled body was weak, his spirit was strong. He was alert, and all at once he looked directly at Alain. His gaze was no less brilliant than the passage of the dragons. Alain met his gaze boldly. All Spits-last’s strength lay in his eyes. Even his arms were so withered that they were as thin as sticks. He had little compassion; perhaps he was too racked by pain all the time to feel sympathy for those whose pain was temporary. But he called to Alain with his expression. His eyes were a fathomless brown, set under thick eyebrows, the only robust thing about him. Secrets lay veiled in that face. It seemed to Alain that Spits-last could see all the way through him, all the things Alain had ever done right and all the things he had ever done wrong, a vision that pierced without passing judgment. Because the worst judgment is the one you pass on yourself.

Then Spits-last looked away. Alain sagged forward, all the breath knocked out of him.

With great effort, Spits-last lifted an obsidian mirror. His mirror was narrow, etched with triangles and circles to help guide his sight. He caught the yellowish light of the Guivre’s Eye, in the northeast, where she skated above the horizon, always watchful. He drew her gleaming thread across the warp of the stones to the southwest, to weave her in among the threads of the Serpent, who slides across the sands of the desert.

A brilliant portal plaited out of starlight wove into being.

“May fortune walk with you,” said Falling-down from far away.

The eagle-cloaked woman thrust a pack into Alain’s hand. Staggering, he got to his feet just as Laoina caught hold of his elbow to steady him. Where had she come from?

“Quick!” She dragged him forward until he got his feet under him.

Behind, Falling-down shouted after them. “Beware of the lion queens!”

“Where is Adica?” he gasped.

“I’m here!” she called behind him. The hounds’ nails clacked on the pebbly ground. The gateway of light arched before them. He shook free of Laoina’s supporting hand and stepped through into a heat as blasting as that of the dragons. The sun hit like a hammer. Everywhere lay desolation, nothing but sand.

The shock of the transition, the weight of uncounted days lost as they passed through the gateway, struck him as hard as the sun did. The world, the light, the heaving and endless hills of sand, all shuddered around him as though someone was shaking them. But perhaps it was only him, stumbling. He hit the ground hard, and where his palms slammed into the sand, he felt fire. Everything burned.

Laoina and Adica stumbled out of the stone circle. The glittering archway flashed, and vanished. Adica fell forward onto the hot sands in a faint. He caught hold of her and with an effort got her slung over his shoulders.

“Where are we?” he gasped. Around them lay desolation, nothing but a wasteland of sand, no sign of life except for the stone circle. Hills of featureless sand rose on all sides.

Laoina used her spear to measure an angle between two stones, seeking a direction. She pointed. “Come now.” Grabbing Adica’s pack, she started walking.

Alain groaned, but he followed her. It took an eternity to get to the top of the hill while the sun’s heat and light hammered them. Thank God the ground was hard-packed rather than drifts of sand. A boulder stood at the top of the rise, and by the time he reached it, sweat was pouring down his back, and his hands, trying to keep hold of Adica’s wrists, had gotten slick.