In Thy Name

Chapter 7 - The dune sea

Selengged hunchedover the horse's neck, unable to stay upright. Kuya walked beside her, an arm around her waist. She rested her elbow on his shoulder from time to time, when the swaying of the horse threatened to toss her onto the sand. The journey was a slow rising and falling as they ascended and descended the dunes; she saw only the horse's dark mane and the honey-colored sand, tilting and shifting under the horse's hooves.

They were headed deeper into the desert, perhaps into Masunyi land or the abandoned territory of Clan Lwellyn; none of them were quite sure. The desert became more arid the further north one went, and Castle Caran lay to the east, so they headed southwest. The mage had scanned the dunes from the back of his dracoraque, and seen a rock canyon dusted with greenery just beyond the horizon.

The mage walked in front, leading the horse. He walked too far ahead, practically pulling the horse along by the reins, and his nervousness made Selengged feel sick. He wasn't used to horses, apparently. She had heard that instead of horses, the desert-dwellers raised and rode ceregors, lumbering creatures with thick pebbly hide and one or two horns on their faces.

He was a desert-dweller. Kuya had said so. Yet he was also a mage.

It was a contradiction impossible to solve. Gladiari could do magic because their souls touched the sky through their soulswords, swords that had been touched by the Sword of Ithirien, the first Gladiar. A desert-dweller could never have undergone the swording ceremony, and yet Kuya was positive that the desert-dweller had done magic, used the Old Tongue.

It was a contradiction as unsolvable as her own. Her gladicifer, her soulsword, had been swallowed up by the fiery monster. She had felt its searing grip on her soul. Yet she was alive and not insane. She had seen what had happened to Tenzin. Why had it not happened to her? Where was her soul?

Without a soulsword, was she...human?

As every time since her sword was swallowed up, the thought summoned a mortal terror. So vulnerable to every little danger, so weak without magic. Like a candle burning down fast—or like the flame, waiting to be snuffed out.

But worse even than mortality was the dishonor. Without a sword, she was no longer worthy of her family's name, her title, her inheritance. No longer her father's heir and future ghan, but an outsider, a sinnomos, one of the nameless ones. The ones who were barely more than animals, made for toil and arrow fodder. Except she wouldn't die by arrow shot. If anyone found out about her dishonor, it would be the sword for her.

A mercy, perhaps, to be relieved of this terrifying mortal life. Perhaps the mage should have left her to the beast, or the others let her perish in the desert. Better that than live like this.

But while she still had her sanity, and a tenuous grip on her soul, perhaps there was hope.

Eventually she grew too tired to think about it anymore. She wished the journey would end, even if it meant sitting down in the sand and never making it to shelter or water. She didn't even feel thirsty anymore, just as she had long since lost the sensation of the sun's heat scorching her back.

Kuya said something, just buzzing in her ears. "Mage!" he called, and then the rest was muddled. The world suddenly slid backward, and she slumped forward. Something at once hard and yielding caught her stomach—Kuya's mailed arm, holding her up.

Most of his face was hidden by his helm, his eyes sunk deep in shadow, and his soul was worn down with weariness and worrying. "Don't worry about me," she said, or tried to. Her lips and tongue wouldn't obey. "I'm all right, brother."

This did not soothe him any. "You need to drink, sister." His other hand raised a canteen toward her face.

"I don't need it. You have it."