Hammerfall

It seemed to be a man in thick gauzy robes, in the colors of the sand.

No tribesman. The vision of the tower rose up, built itself in Marak’s eyes where the man stood.

And vanished.

Marak blinked the blowing dust into tears, resisted the impulse to wipe, that would abrade his eyes. The slack of the gust showed him the shape again.

Hati pointed. She saw the same. Norit stood close to him, held to him, pressed against his side, and all the while this vision came walking down the slope, and became clearer and clearer to their eyes.

“He is no tribe I know,” Hati said.

In an an’i Keran, that was remarkable enough. The Keran were masters of the Lakht, and there were means to tell one tribe from the other: to know those differences was life and death.

The stranger came ahead with confidence, and that also was remarkable, and ominous.

“We might be bandits,” Marak said. “We have no prosperous look. And we are no tribe.” The man was trusting… or there were more of them beyond that hall.

But as the man came, the voices clamored. East, east, east, became here. Now. This place. This man. Marak’s heart beat like a smith’s hammer.

Marak dropped his veil, a villager’s friendliness, despite the choking dust; he lifted a hand in token of peace, and the vision, or the man, whatever it might be, likewise lifted his right hand and walked into their camp.

The mad were all on their feet, and drew back from this visitor, not far back, but far enough.

“Togin, Kosul, Kofan, Ontori, Edan.” The visitor named their names for them, as if he had always known them. “Marak, Hati, Norit.” The incantation went on, inexplicable, accurate, and complete, as the veiled man faced them one by one.

“Tofi,” the man said, among the last. He even named the slaves. “Bosginde, and Mogar. Not least, the au’it.”

It was the only name that remained secret among them, as the au’it had never confessed one. She had waked, and reached for her kit, and her book, and, shocked out of her rest in a gale of sand by this vision, spat onto her ink-cake and began to write.

“Who are you?” Marak asked. Their visitor showed his power and his knowledge of them, but gave them nothing of his own nature. This was not necessarily the indication of a friend. “Where do you come from?”

“Ian is my name.” The visitor reached up and took down his veil. “As for where I come from, from the wind and the air is where I come from, and from the empty place behind the wind.”

That was to say, the land of ghosts, by the priests’ way of saying. No few of the villagers blessed themselves in fear, and nothing the man said comforted any of them, but Marak had no inclination to fall on his face to save his life, or to believe this man because he quoted the writings. He had come to the east, after so much, and so long, and was thishis answer, Marak asked himself, this arrogant man with clever riddles and an appeal to superstition?

And if he was the god himself, Marak asked himself, beyond that, then would he flinch from the dust and the blasts of wind?

And if he were a ghost or a god, would he have watering eyes?

Marak thought not.

And was this Ianthe end of his visions, and all the madness?

Was this all?

Marak drew in a deep breath and folded his arms, feet braced against any inclination to move. “What do you want?” he asked this Ian bluntly.

Not welcomely so, he thought, since Ian looked at him, looked at him long and hard, not pleased. He might have been a curiosity, a momentary obstacle, a piece of some passing and despised interest.

“ You,” Ian said. “ You. Marak Trin Tain.” Ian walked a little past him, and looked at him, and then looked curiously at Norit, and at Hati, one by one. “They are with you.”

“Yes,” Marak said.

“You three,” Ian said. “Come with me. The others, stay in camp. You’ll be supplied whatever you need.”

No, was Marak’s first impulse, defiantly no.

Marak, Marak, Marak, the voices cried, pleading with him. Come.

His madness acquired a direction, and leaned toward this man, this stranger. He could have run screaming at the sun, turned circles like Maol. Marak, Marak, Marak, they said, deafening him, showing him memories of riding in the hills, confronting his father, walking away from all he knew… recalling for him the acclamation of an army, and the straggling, ragged line of the mad.

Marak!

He would do nothing, nothingto conform to his madness. Pride prevented him. He trembled, he gathered his strength, knowing he could not walk away in disdain and resist the eastward tilting without falling down.

“Come,” Ian said to him more civilly. “Come.”

The tilting made him stagger, finally, rarely, it swayed him off his balance, and he feared it would fling him down in the dirt if he resisted. Besides, this Ianoffered him answers, offered him the courtesy of asking repeatedly. Reluctantly, grudgingly, he followed, Hati and Norit walking with him: at least he had them where he could watch over them.

But then he was aware of another presence, another soft tread on the sand. Ian turned and said, harshly, “ I said the three.”

Marak turned, too, and saw the au’it, who clutched her book to her chest and wide-eyed, thin-lipped, resisted the dismissal.

“She is the Ila’s au’it,” Marak said. “She has orders to go where I go.“

“Whose orders?”

“The Ila’s.”

“The Ila’s orders have no weight here,” Ian said.

“They have with me.” They had stopped on the exposed hill, where the wind battered them and the heavier sand stung bare skin, Ian’s scent came to them on that wind, too, a curious scent, like sun-heated cloth, like living plants. “We’re all mad here except the young master, the two slaves, and the au’it. We see visions and hear voices. Do you?”

Ian gazed at him a long, long moment, seeming to measure him twice and three times and perhaps not to like the sum he arrived at. He was a strange sort of man, strange in his smell, ta

Wealth, such cloth said. Power, that wealth said.

And that the Ila’s orders did not reach here did not persuade him to trust this Ian, no matter how the voices di

“Come,” Ian said then, shrugging off the matter of the au’it, ignoring her presence, and led them farther, over the low dune. After that they walked along Ian’s back trail—he left tracks like a man—on for some little distance toward a sandstone ridge, and along that for a considerable distance south.

Go with Ian, the voices said. Believe him. This is the place. This at last is the right place.

The desire and the voices grew, overwhelming better sense, and heat, and thirst. But limbs grew weary in walking. Feet ached, and rubbed raw in boots. The au’it lagged, carrying her heavy book, and Norit stumbled.

Still Ian walked at the same pace.

“If we were to trek all afternoon to get where we’re going, we might have saddled the beasts,” Marak said, vexed, helping Norit.

Ian turned and confronted him for another lengthy stare, a test of wills, perhaps.

Or perhaps Ian heard voices of his own. It occurred to Marak at that moment that such might be the case.