When she was finished, there was a moment of silence. “I cannot apologize for my miserable performance,” she said. “But I invite your harshest punishment for my failure. I do know where the ax is, however. I could not even hope to be entrusted with leading an expedition to find it after my failure here. But if I could just accompany—”
Erran cut her off with a sharp wave of his hand. “Silence.”
She stopped speaking. She wanted to bow her head in shame. But she couldn’t. She fixed her eyes on the very back of the chamber and clamped her jaw shut.
“Loor,” Erran said. “I have misled you. Your true mission was not to find the ax. Axes can be made again.”
Loor blinked. She looked from Erran to Osa. Osa looked away, a rare action for her.
“For years we Batu have needed to secure independent information about the sources of our water. Our dear friends, the Rokador, of course give us regular reports. But they do not allow us to inspect their works. We have sent many warriors into the desert to search the mountains for water.” He paused portentously. “None have returned.”
Loor swallowed. None of this made any sense at all.
“Finally we realized that without the support of the tribesmen, such a mission was impossible. And yet, never have we been able to secure their aid. So what were we to do?”
Heads nodded throughout the room. Loor remained frozen like a statue.
“Recently we had a stroke of good luck. The Ghee captured a raider from the desert, who told us that the ax would be stolen during the first day of Azhra. He told us—as you have explained—that the real goal of the theft was to draw an extraordinary woman from Xhaxhu so that she could be captured and taken by Zafir tribesmen as a bride for the king of their people. It was the unanimous opinion of everyone in this room that you were the right choice to be sent out.”
“We didn’t tell you because, had you known, you might have somehow given away your mission. If you had, the tribesmen would have killed you as a spy on the spot. So we deceived you.”
Loor’s head was spinning. She wanted more than anything else to sit down. But she remained rigidly at attention.
“Fellow councillors,” Erran said, “Loor has succeeded in her mission beyond even what we had hoped. Despite the self-incriminating tone of her astonishing report, it is clear that she has demonstrated every single one of the highest virtues of the Batu people: strength, courage, self-discipline, humility, fighting spirit, military skill, stamina….” He shook his head as though in amazement. “Because of her fortitude and determination, I move that this council award her Order of Supreme Merit and promote her forthwith to the rank of second level in the Ghee.”
Loor could not believe it. She had been convinced that she was on the verge of being severely and appropriately punished.
“If this girl has any flaw, it is that she—like most girls her age—retains a certain impulsiveness and rashness that time will surely temper.” He then turned and bowed toward the old king. Loor followed suit.
King Khalek rose slowly from his chair. As he did, Crown Prince Pelle handed him a gold armband. The king then placed it around Loor’s biceps. He was not a young man, but his grip was still strong.
As the king placed the symbol of the Order of Supreme Merit around her arm, the council rose in a body and applauded thunderously. The applause went on and on for minutes. Loor stared impassively at the floor, not even moving to wipe away the hot streams of moisture that ran from her eyes. When she looked up finally, she noticed that a tear was running down Osa’s face too. Loor was amazed. She had never seen her mother cry, not once.
“Never make the first move,” Erran whispered to Loor. “Never make the first move.” Then he led her to the chair and sat her down.
Loor blinked, confused to hear the same words from Erran that had so recently come from the man she had fought in the desert.
The applause ended. There was a long silence in the chamber.
Then one of the councillors at the rear of the chamber rose and said, “How large would you say the so-called Lake of Peace was, Loor?”
Loor shook her head. “I could not say exactly. But it might have been as broad as the entire city of Xhaxhu.”
There were shocked intakes of breath.
“You stated that the water does not flow out of the lake in a river.”
“Yes,” Loor said.
“Did it occur to you that perhaps it drains into the Rokador’s underground river that you found running beneath the sand?”
Loor shrugged. “I—I do not know that I am competent to answer that question.”
“Well, the water must go somewhere!” the councillor shouted.
“My friends, please,” Erran said, “this poor girl is in a weakened state. We have prevailed on her enough. More details will reveal themselves eventually.”
“This cannot wait!” shouted another councillor. “The Rokador are piping that water under the desert, and hiding it in some huge underground lake, while they let Xhaxhu wither up and die.”
“Yes!” shouted another councillor.
“Now hold on!” a representative of the Rokador shouted, leaping to his feet. “I resent your accusations. For generations our people have sacrificed everything to bring—”
Erran lifted his hands again. “Please, brothers and sisters. Our goal in sending this young woman was not to create discord between Rokador and Batu, but to aid our Rokador friends in finding additional water sources.”
“Do not be naive!” shouted a Batu counsillor. “Every time we bring up the subject of water, the Rokador give us this same speech about all of their terrible sacrifices and hard work, when in fact they are sitting around in their comfortable, cool underground palaces, while their hands are wrapped firmly around our throats. If we–”
For the first time King Khalek spoke. “Quiet!” he shouted. His voice was as strong and commanding as a parade-ground instructor. “There will be no more of this talk!”
Erran sighed. “I’m sorry, my dear,” he whispered to Loor. “I did not want you to hear this. I will have the Ghee take you back to your hospital bed.”
“I do not want to go back there—”
“Nonsense! Look at you. You are about to collapse. You have earned a rest,” said Erran. He turned to the king.
King Khalek made a slight motion with his hand. Four Ghee jumped up and raised Loor on their shoulders. Within seconds she was being trundled away.
TEN
After she’d been taken back to the hospital, Loor had an argument with the nurse, tried to get up, and then collapsed back into the bed. As she was lying there, breathing heavily and fuming at her own weakness, the door opened and Erran entered.
The tall, distinguished councillor looked down at her. “The nurse tells me you have given her trouble,” he said with a grin.
Loor frowned.
“Do you have anything you want to say?” Erran asked.
Loor shrugged.
“I am sure you are angry,” he said. “We sent you into the desert under false pretenses.”
Loor was feeling blindsided and confused by the whole situation. “I just tried to accomplish my mission. I still feel like I failed.”
“What did you learn from the mission?” Erran said.
Loor thought of the instruction that both Erran himself and the one-eyed warrior had given her.
“Never make the first move,” she said.
“Meaning what?”
She frowned. “I am too quick to attack. I entered that canyon full of those rock piles without checking to see what they were. If I had not been in such a hurry to attack, I would have realized that it was an ambush.”
“So why does it serve you not to make the first move?”
“If you let the other person attack, they expose themselves. They reveal their strategy.”
Erran studied her for a long time. She noticed for the first time that there was something odd about his eyes. All Batu had dark eyes. But Err
an’s eyes seemed to have a flickering blue depth to them.
“Good,” he said finally. Then he stood, walked to the window, and looked out. “The thing one has to be aware of, of course, is that one’s enemy may not show his hand on the first attack. What if the first blow is a ruse designed to reveal a false strategy? Maybe the real strategy lies below that. Or maybe one ruse is concealed beneath another.”
Loor felt frustrated. This was too subtle for her. She interrupted him impatiently. “Then…how can you ever know?”
Erran turned and leaned against the window frame. “Well, that is the real problem. With the best strategy, no one ever really knows. Not until it’s too late.”
Loor sighed and leaned back in the bed. “This is making my head hurt,” she said.
Erran laughed loudly. “Good,” he said.
Loor didn’t really see what was so funny. Erran was an important man, and he seemed to have taken a lot of interest in her. Which was flattering. But she still wasn’t quite sure what he was thinking.
“The important thing is that ultimately you made all the right decisions on your mission. That indicates good judgment. You can teach a person how to fight. You can teach a person how to add and subtract. You can teach a person to read. But you can’t teach good judgment.”
“I wonder…,” she said.
“What?”
“Well…every time I had a choice to make…the truth is, I just followed that silly bird.”
Erran’s eyes widened slightly. Not as if he were shocked. More like he was interested.
“I followed the hindor,” she said. “That’s all I did.”
Erran raised one eyebrow, then shrugged lightly. “It brought you home, yes?” He smiled.
She rubbed her face. She felt like something was going on here, something underneath the surface. But she just couldn’t figure it out.
“Yes…but…something has been bothering me,” she said finally. Normally Loor felt certain about things. But right now she didn’t. Maybe it was just because she was so weak. Or maybe it was something else. “I feel like everything that I found out is creating problems between us and the Rokador. Maybe we were better off not knowing how much water they have.”
“Information is truth,” Erran said firmly. “You led us to the truth.”
“But are you sure that—”
Erran looked serious now. “I would never intentionally create discord between our people and the Rokador,” he said. “You must believe that.”
“Well, of course!” she said. “I would never even think a thing like that.”
“The Batu and the Rokador are like a brother and a sister.” He splayed his fingers out, then intertwined them. “Family. You see? We need each other. Family.”
After Erran was gone, though, she wondered. Erran had said that with the best strategy no one ever knows what you’re up to. Erran had deceived her once. What if underneath all his talk of Batu-and-Rokador-as-family, he had some other plan?
Loor couldn’t stop feeling that somehow she was being used. But how? She really couldn’t be sure. What possible good could come out of conflict between the Rokador and the Batu?
As she was lying in her bed, staring at the ceiling, a man dressed in a doctor’s garb appeared in the doorway. Strangely, he was not a dark-skinned Batu, but a pale-skinned Rokador. And yet there was something unusual looking about him. He was much darker than the normal pasty-faced Rokador. Dark like a desert tribesman, his skin tanned by the sun.
The odd-looking doctor glanced up and down the hallway, as though trying to make sure no one was watching him.
Loor sat up, alarmed. What if he were some desert tribesman sent here to kill her? What if…She let her fingers slide up to the knife that she kept hidden under her pillow.
But as soon as the stranger entered the room, a woman followed behind him. It was Loor’s mother. “I’ve brought a visitor, Loor,” Osa said.
“Hello, Loor,” the man said, taking a seat next to her. “I hear you’ve had quite a revelatory week.”
That was an odd way of describing almost dying in the middle of a desert. Loor nodded. “Maybe,” she said.
“Well, buckle yourself in, kid,” the odd-looking Rokador man said. “Things are about to get even stranger.”
Buckle yourself in? What did that even mean?
Osa must have seen the skeptical look in Loor’s eyes. “Loor,” Osa said in her soft, firm voice, “I’m going to leave you two together. But understand that as strange as everything he says will be, it is all true.” She stood. “Now I will leave you together.”
Loor watched her go. For some reason she wanted her mother to stay. “Listen,” the man said, leaning toward her. “Listen carefully….”
As the man spoke, a shadow fell on his shoulder. Loor looked behind him. Perched on the ledge outside her window was a massive black bird. The hindor.
From a distance the hindor had always looked noble and regal, soaring slowly on the breeze. But now that she had a chance to study it, hunched there on the ledge, there was something about it that she didn’t like, something coiled and hidden and savage. Maybe it was the eyes. They were like Erran’s, now that she thought about it. At first glance they looked dark brown. But when you looked closer, you saw that they had a flickering blue depth. Strange. For a moment she thought—
But of course that was ridiculous. A man cannot change into a bird!
Loor shivered.
“I apologize,” she said. “What were you saying? Something about a traveler?”
SIRY REMUDI
ONE
Sea trash. Siry Remudi had always been interested in things that rolled in from the sea. Strange things. Unusual things. Things which hinted that outside the comfortable, small village where he lived lay a vast and very different world.
So when the wave boiled in and smashed on the beach, and the odd-shaped thing rolled once and came to rest on the sand, Siry walked toward it.
It was about the size of a man, but it was made of strange, raglike material. He was several hundred feet away, so it was a little hard to tell. Maybe an odd bundle of seaweed? A log covered with algae or kelp? He started walking rapidly toward it. There was something intriguing about it.
Then the next wave crashed and another odd-looking object washed in. And another. And another.
He’d gotten within a hundred feet of it or so when the first object moved. It sat up. That’s no log! Siry thought. That’s a man!
Which was when he realized that the rags were clothes. Which meant—
He turned and began to run.
“Flighters!” he screamed. “Flighters! It’s a raid!”
The Flighters were cut to pieces. There had been nine of them. They’d fought like demons. But they were no match—either in numbers or in skill—for the guards who’d come flocking out of the village of Rayne. One had drowned in the surf, two had fallen under the cudgels of the guards, five had escaped into the sea.
And one was captured.
After it was over, Siry caught a glimpse of the captive. He’d expected the Flighter to be a man. But it wasn’t. It was a woman. Well, not even a woman. A girl.
She had struggled like an animal, scratching and shrieking as the guards dragged her off the beach and up toward the village. She had barely seemed human. Her clothes were wretched and falling apart. Her hair was matted. Her skin was streaked with dirt.
And yet there was something about her. As she was dragged off the beach, she passed within a few feet of Siry. Their eyes met briefly. She had brilliant green eyes, wide set, over a freckled, triangular face. Her hair was an astonishing red color unlike anything he’d ever seen before.
“Ahhhh!” she screamed, lunging at him. When Siry jerked backward in surprise, she spit on the ground and laughed at him.
The guards yanked her off her feet. “We’ll see how funny you think that is after a couple of days in the hole!” one of them shouted. The girl kicked and wriggled, still laughing in a high, wi
ld voice.
As they hauled her around the corner of a small hut, Siry’s father, Jen Remudi, came around the corner. He had a gash on his arm and carried a club.
“There you are!” Siry’s father said. “I was worried. I didn’t see you anywhere.”
“I’m fine,” Siry said. He pointed in the direction that the girl had disappeared. “What are they doing with the prisoner?”
Jen sighed. “We’ll have to put her on trial.”
“For what?”
Jen frowned. “I forgot, you were barely five or six when the last wave of Flighter attacks happened. When we capture a prisoner, they’re tried by the tribunal.”
“And then what?”
Jen looked off toward the sea. “Best not to think of that, Son,” he said.
Siry shrugged off his father’s hand. “I’m not a kid anymore!” he said. He was tired of being treated as if he were five instead of fourteen. “Tell me what will happen to her.”
Siry’s father looked at him soberly. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. Then he sighed sadly. “They’ll put her to death,” he said finally.
“They?” Siry said. “Don’t you mean you? You’re a member of the tribunal.”
Jen Remudi cocked his head. “What’s gotten into you lately, Siry?”
Siry shrugged. He didn’t know what his father was talking about.
Jen clapped his son on the shoulder and smiled. “Anyway, good work today. If you hadn’t spotted those animals, there’s no telling what might have happened. I’m really proud of you.”
Siry looked out at the water. He wondered how they had gotten this far. Had they made a boat? It was common knowledge that Flighters were subhuman. A Flighter couldn’t figure out how to make a boat. Maybe they’d stolen one.
He kept thinking of the strange girl. Only she could tell him the answer. He wanted to talk to her, find out what she knew. Everything she knew. Too bad Flighters couldn’t talk.
“I gotta go, Dad,” Siry said.
“Look, Siry,” Jen said, “there’s something I need to talk to you about.”