Taking Flight

“No,” he said, “no, I guess I’m not going back to Shulara. Not yet, anyway.” He turned back to Irith. “Two days?”

“Less, really,” she said. “It’s three and a half leagues to the Castle of Dhwerra, which is right on the edge of the desert-after that we’re out of the Small Kingdoms entirely. There’s nothing but the Great Eastern Desert from there to Shan-it’s about another three and a half leagues. Seven in all. Most people make it two days because of the heat.”

“What heat?” Kelder asked.

“The heat of the desert, of course! But it isn’t bad this time of year, really.”

“Seven leagues,” Kelder said, considering.

Irith nodded. “I could fly it in a couple of hours,” she said.

“And we’ve come how far since we met?”

She shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe fifteen leagues?”

Kelder thought for a moment longer, then asked, “Do you really think we can do anything for Asha?”

Irith pursed her lips. “Well,” she said, “I don’t know about anything really, you know, long-term, or anything, but it shouldn’t be all that hard to get her brother’s head back and build him a pyre.”

Kelder mulled this over, and Irith added, “Besides, don’t you want to see Shan on the Desert? I mean, it’s a really interesting place. The market-they call it the Bazaar-is wonderful. They specialize in sorcery, or at least they used to.”

That did sound interesting-one of the great cities he had been promised.

Really, the prophecy was still holding up just fine. His bride, the cause he was to champion, a great city to be seen-it was all coming together, wasn’t it?

He couldn’t just give it all up and go back to being a boring old farmer, with no special destiny.

“All right,” he said, “let’s get going. We’ll all walk at first, and if you get too tired, Asha, we can stop, and maybe Irith can turn into a horse again…”

Irith glared at him.

Kelder glared back.

Asha ignored them both and started walking, and a moment later they followed.

Chapter Twelve

The Castle of Dhwerra, unlike most of the castles along the Great Highway, was not actually very near the road. Instead it was built atop a huge mass of rock that thrust up from the sandy earth, half a mile or more to the northwest of the highway’s closest approach.

The highway was no longer heading east. From Amramion to Sinodita it had run east by northeast; from Sinodita it had run due east for three leagues; now, though, it curved around and ran due north.

In doing so it described a quarter-circle around the Castle of Dhwerra, and around the great stone promontory upon which the fortress was built. Along that arc were located a dozen or so inns, but no real town.

And at the end of the arc the road arrived at the top of a long, steep escarpment.

Kelder had grown up among mountains-small ones, but mountains-and was not particularly bothered when land went up or down, but he had never seen anything quite like this particular feature of the landscape. The cliff seemed to extend endlessly in both directions, a dividing line across the world, as if something had long ago split the World in half and then put it back together without lining the pieces up properly. The higher portion, where he stood, was sandy, but still mostly green, and had various features of interest-the castle soaring up on his left, the inns behind him, the occasional bush.

The lower portion, at the foot of the slope, consisted of nothing but golden sand, shining so brightly in the midday sun that he could not look at it without squinting.

It was undoubtedly a vast plain-another phrase fulfilled, at least in part.

“The Great Eastern Desert,” Irith said. He turned, startled; a moment before she had been a horse, with Asha on her back. Now she stood on two feet again, instead of four, and Asha stood beside her.

“But it’s north,” Kelder said.

Irith glared at him. “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “The boundary isn’t perfectly straight, silly! There’s a piece of the desert that sort of sticks out to the west, and Shan’s in the middle of it, and we’re on the south edge of it, here.”

“Oh,” Kelder said, looking out over the gleaming sands again.

Far away, on the horizon, he thought he could see something glistening. He wondered if it were their destination, the fabulous city of Shan on the Desert.

Were they really going there? Was he really going to see someplace that exotic?

Vast plains, great cities, and beside him the bright and beautiful girl he intended to marry-even if the prophecy somehow didn’t all come true in every word, he was already sincerely grateful to Zindre. Her words had at least given him the impetus to make this journey, and despite his sore feet and empty purse, that was something he wouldn’t want to have missed.

Especially since meeting Irith had been a part of the journey.

“How big is the piece that sticks out to the west?” he asked. “It must be pretty big if we can’t see across it.”

Irith shrugged. “Oh, maybe ten leagues across,” she said. “Not all that big.”

“Ten leagues isn’t big?” Kelder threw her a startled glance.