FIFTEEN The Mist Rivers of the Want

No man or woman can ever hope to navigate Mhaja Xaal, the Land of Unsettled Sands. Once he or she has accepted that as truth it is possible to find a way through. Sun and stars must be ignored. Instinct set aside. That which is considered by most to be wrong and foolish must be embraced. A man or woman wishing for passage must be like the kit fox, scarab beetle, and rattlesnake: they must travel solely at night.

"Only in darkness can we find our way through. What the light shows cannot be trusted and is therefore without value. We must learn to honor that which we touch, not see. Know that, and you have the secret of leaving Mhaja Xaal.

"On the darkest nights when there is no moon to light the way the mist rivers flow. The mist rises in the darkness, filling arroyos and canyons. To leave Mhaja Xaal you must find an arroyo large enough to stand in and walk against the current. All the mist rivers in the Land of Unsettled Sands flow inward toward its heart. Why this is so, the lamb brothers do not know. What lies at the heart of Mhaja Xaal is not a mystery we cultivate. We do know that it is not enough to judge the course of the mist rivers from their banks. What you see will deceive you. The surface currents may run contrary to that which lies beneath. To leave you must stand in the current and feel the pressure of the mist against your skin. Touch alone will lead you out."

Tallal's words ran through Raif's head as he walked. The lamb brother had spoken them earlier that day in his tent. It was evening now, crisply cold with a red sky fading to black. Raif had taken his leave of the lamb brothers an hour earlier and by now he could no longer look back and see the lights of their tents. This was it then. He was once more adrift in the Want.

He could not say that he liked it. It wasn't easy not to think about Bear. The hill pony had died, and if he had been a better, wiser person it would not have happened. He should never have taken her with him, that was his first and greatest mistake. When you go to the Want you go alone. It didn't matter to Raif that the lamb brothers came here in numbers. Let them do what they choose to do. He, Raif Sevrance, would never bring another living thing into this place.

Strange, but it was beautiful tonight. The remains of the sunset glowed on the horizon and the great open flatland spread wide in all directions. The pumice dunes had been replaced by baked rock and it looked to Raif as if he were walking on a dry inland sea. On impulse he bent down and scraped the pale, scaled rock with his thumb. When he brought it to his lips he tasted salt.

As he stood he noticed his shadow was fading. A band of hot white stars had emerged in the sky opposite the sunset, and Raif spun a full circle as he scanned for the moon. No moon. Not yet.

"Where is the nearest place to join the mist river?" Raid had asked Tallal, half a day ago at the camp. The lamb brother had begun shaking his head even before all the words were out.

"My memory is good and if you walk with me to the fire I can point out the direction from which the lamb brothers came. Your memory, however, is bad."

Raif had grinned wryly. Only five minutes earlier Tallal had told him directions could not be trusted. "I'm still learning."

"My people have a saying: There are two ways to learn. Listening is the easiest." Tallal smiled. "Come, let us find you some supplies."

They had been generous, and Raif had found himself touched. The fine, soft blanket he had slept with since the first night had been wait-ing for him, neatly folded, by the fire. Fresh sheep's curd, butter, honey, dried dates, almonds, unleavened panbread, preserved apricots, lentils and a packet of herbs for tea had also been set close to the fire. Raif had never asked how long the lamb brothers had been away from home—it had seemed an indelicate question—but he had imagined it was well over a year. By now supplies brought from their homeland must be sparse, yet they had given their food freely. With grace. For some reason Raif found himself thinking about the Hailsman Shor Gormalin. Shor had been the best longswordsman. in the clan, a scholar of clan history, and a friend to Tern and Dagro. Shor had taught Raif about grace. Looking at the neatly laid pile of supplies, given without fuss or show, Raif imagined that Shor Gormalin would approve. "Grace is a powerful force," Shor had saiqpme morning on the practice court as they were wrist-to-wrist on deadlocked hilts. "It lifts men."

That was how Raif felt receiving the gifts of the lamb brothers: lifted. During the brief time he had stayed with them he had forgotten one important thing. These men had saved his life. Gods knew how they had found him. Passed out on a ridge in the middle of the Want, lips black, tongue swollen, sword bloodied to the hilt, Bear slain beside him: it could not have been an appealing sight. Yet four men had judged him worth saving.

"Farli." Raif spoke the slain lamb brother's name out loud. The sound was small in such a big place, instantly sucked away by space and darkness. The question was there in the back of his mind, waiting to be asked. Could I have saved him? Raif knew he had been slow in his responses, slow in finding his target and letting the arrow fly. If he had ran across the dune with Farli and fought with him side by side would it have been different? Probably, yes.

Grow wide shoulders, Clansman. You'll need them for all of your burdens. Sadaluk's words blew through Raif's head as the weight of that «yes» settled on his shoulders.

For no good reason, he changed his course. He'd been heading into the sunset and veered off at a tangent, picking a distant boulder as his destination. The light was nearly gone now and the temperature was dropping fast. The big double-chambered waterskin given to him by the lamb brothers bounced against his back. Its heaviness was reassuring. There was no guarantee he would find the mist river tonight or any other night, and even if he did there was still the question of how long it would take to leave the Want once the river had been found. "It will take as long as it must," Tallal had said before they parted. And where it leads is something that cannot be known. Out, that must be enough."

Raif glanced at the sky; still no moon, but the stars were teeming. The seabed was lit by a dome of silver light, and he could clearly see the salt scale that covered every rock and piece of debris underfoot. It stopped hoarfrost from forming.

As he neared the boulder his perception of its shape changed; one side was rounded yet he saw now that the opposite side was curiously straight. Closer still he realized that the front of the boulder was projecting forward, the curve and straight line meeting at a point. It was a boat, he understood quite suddenly, fallen on its side and sunk partially into the seabed. A small fishing boat or rowboat with a simple hull that had once consisted of steamed planks. It was quartz now, petrified by ash and mud into flaky iron-colored plates. Raif knelt and ran his hand across the crumbling ridge that had once been its keel. Chips of quartz broke off and fell to the seabed without a sound. Inside, the seats and most of the gunwales had collapsed and lay like blocks of cut stone in the bottom of the boat.

Abruptly, Raif stood. It would be spring in the Hailhold now. The oaks would be budding in the Oldwood, the sword ferns uncurling above the snow, the first bluebells would be peeping up around the basswoods, and the air would be vibrating with the sound of bird calls: geese, ducks, pheasants, ptarmigan, chickadees, cardinals, horned owls. Life—not stony, desiccated deadness—and he wanted some of it for himself.

He walked for several hours, holding the setting that he'd picked with the aid of the boat. The seabed rolled out before him, flat and unchanging, a landscape of dry ghosts. As the night grew darker his vision was reduced to the shadowy pendulums of his feet. If the moon rose it did so behind the thick tide of clouds that had washed across the far edge of the sky. Raif scanned for ravines as he walked, but as long as he remained on the seabed he wasn't hopeful. Few cracks split the earth here. The entire seabed was one vast depression, easily deeper than most canyons. When he stopped to drink he knew that he wouldn't find the mist river that night. An almost imperceptible lightening of the sky in the left quarter told of the inevitability of dawn.