his green-gold eyes open to ward off danger, but his senses had fled under the scorching sun. He lay full-length like a toppled tree and didn't stir except for shallow breathing with blood bubbling in one nostril.
Johan stifled a curse. He cast about, but rolling dunes of sand and pebbles and nothing else filled this portion of the Sukurvia. High up, nine Osai vultures rode the air currents. Squinting against the searing sun, Johan mused on these wastes. A dead land, thought the dictator, and another barrier to his conquest of Jamuraa, for ordinary mortals couldn't cross it, unless he found some way for men to fly like vultures.
Grinding his teeth, Johan chafed at delay. He needed no rest. Hundreds of years old, sustained by arcane magics, Johan seldom slept or ate, having transcended bodily needs. Looking at the helpless tiger, with no way of moving him, Johan pondered slitting Jedit's throat and ripping off his skin or carving his skull from his hide, so later he might commune with his essence. If the cat man couldn't serve Johan alive, he'd serve dead.
'Cat warriors. Tigerfolk.' Johan talked to the still desert air, venting his spleen. 'Why do the gods punish me with these half-man half-cat bastards? Why must I endure when they buzz around like horseflies, distracting my purposes and contributing nothing?'
Johan knew why, if indeed any man could correctly interpret the whims of the gods. Because of None, One, and Two. Too many times in his campaign of conquest had Johan stubbed his toes on this prophecy. 'When None and One clash, only Two shall remain to usher in a new age.' The tigress shaman had unknowingly added a snippet to Johan's tiny understanding. Piffle, he thought, but he feared it rang true. He'd heard this ancient wisdom or curse before. It was as common as moonlight, spilling from Citanul Druids, from desert nomads, from Palmyran spies, from advisors, from tortured prisoners, from a dying cat man. Whispers from the past swirled around Johan and ensnared his schemes like spider webs. He had to grasp the prophecy's import like a handful of nettles. He had no choice.
Yet who was None? What was One? Which Two would survive and prosper? At first, Johan had taken the prophecy literally. None could be anything. One might be Tirras, his homeland, or himself. Two remaining might be his homeland and his empire ushering in a new age, the dynasty of Johan the First. Or None could be a cat man, a two-in-one creature, neither one race nor another. Yet half a tiger and half a man might make One. None, if they were freaks of nature not part of any grand scheme, too far outside humanity to affect its history. Yet shouldn't Johan be One, triumphant, inviolate?
'The eternal problem of prophecy,' growled Johan. 'What does it mean, and how do I bend it to my will?'
Who knew? Maybe None was this accursed desert, a not-land for no living thing. One cat man had clashed with it and collapsed. Predictably. Tigers were like humans in the desert. A jungle suited only if they could bathe in water during the sun's peak. This young idiot had lost his first battle. Johan should spike his spine and feed the vultures.
Yet even an emperor had to accept what the gods dished out, and they'd dumped this tiger in his lap. Somehow tigers were his personal demons. He must conquer them to conquer Jamuraa, or so he guessed. Johan damned the gods and himself and his own superstition. He would obey, for now, and someday push the very gods off their celestial thrones.
'Get up!' snarled the mage.
Jedit gasped.
'Get up, or I'll leave you for wurms!'
So far they'd seen no wurms. Jedit had guessed they simply walked softly and stretched their luck. Johan knew better. A magical combination of shielding aura and a deluding glyph that displaced their trail four feet in the air let them safely plod across the endless sands.
We should have brought water, thought Johan, and robes against the sun. Now, after six days with only a sip of water from a rain puddle, Jedit had crumpled like an empty water-skin. Johan admired his stamina and wondered how his father Jaeger had crossed the desert without sorcery.
Fascinated by the question, Johan cast about the pebbly dunes. Eventually he'd need some way for his army to cross the desert. Legends spoke of mages who could shift themselves and any load across myriad planes and mystic realms, but Johan had not yet attained such a lofty level, nor had any mage in Jamuraa, to his knowledge. Right now, he just needed a way to get this half-cooked cat out of the desert.
For hours Johan searched in man-killing heat for a way out. He still wore his traveling disguise, appearing a bony, bald, tanned man in a brown robe. Once he'd adopted a disguise, it was easier to keep it rather than drop it momentarily and risk detection. In the shade of a curling dune like an ocean wave he found what he was looking for-a patch of sand smooth as if broomed. Gingerly Johan approached. A dozen feet away, he ran and jumped square on the patch.
Sand geysered in a cloud as the living patch rebelled. Wings curled at two corners as the creature fought to rise, but Johan pinned it to the ground with a spell. Helpless, the desert beast flailed and flopped but went nowhere, kicking off its sand covering. Cousins to manta rays of southern seas, desert rays not only skimmed the sands but could instantly burrow underneath, either to rest or to await prey. Big as a collapsed tent, the ray was a mottled tan that, even as Johan watched, changed hue to a dark rust-red. Perhaps the color startled predators.
No matter. Johan was master. He crept to the ray's head. Like a toad, its eyes could retract into the head or else bulge to see a complete circle. Some of Johan's cavalrymen and nomads had tamed and harnessed big rays, but the mage had never examined one. Given time, he would dissect one and wrench out its desert-dwelling secrets.
Wary of the mouth with tiny sharp teeth, Johan dug a long-nailed thumb into the ray's eye socket and hopped off. Goaded by pain, the ray flapped and flopped while towed across the burning sands. Johan hoped the tiger-man hadn't been plucked clean by vultures.
In a short while Johan had settled Jedit Ojanen facedown atop the captured ray. Johan sat astride the tiger's back to balance their weight and, borrowing Jedit's bronze dagger, pricked the ray's flesh. Instantly the creature hopped into the air. Another jab made it bank right, north-northwest. The ride was jerky, as much up and down as forward, but they soon attained a steady gait like a horse's canter. They'd cover miles in no time, Johan was sure.
Always curious, the mage wondered why the rays weren't consumed by sand wurms. He could only conclude they were too tough and unappetizing. He must experiment. Desert-ray blood smeared on chariot wheels might keep sand wurms at bay. Horse hooves might be wrapped in green ray hide.
A croak sounded above the creak of leather wings.
'You… saved my… life,' Jedit gasped with eyes shut.
'Yes,' said Johan. 'It becomes a habit, our rescuing one another. We share a bond. Now, rest. We've much to do when we reach my homeland.'
'Home…' whispered Jedit and sank into oblivion.
Jedit Ojanen splashed into water that closed over his head and threatened to drown him.
Floundering, clawing for air, the weakened tiger felt his head grabbed and tugged into the air. Snorting, the cat man caught a stone lip with his claws, then leaned back and soaked in delicious blissful coolness.
'Don't drown.' Johan walked off to talk to some dun-robed herdsmen.
Recalled to life, Jedit slurped gallons and let his parched body soak. His watering trough had been laboriously carved from a single piece of dark gray stone. The well was the centerpiece of a low valley between shale outcroppings. The ground was littered with shale flakes like autumn leaves. Jittery sheep huddled under the protection of a boy shepherd. No doubt the flock was terrified by the scent of a giant cat and bleeding desert ray. Johan turned as nomads pointed northwest. The natives wore double folds of robes, for in early autumn the nights froze solid.
'We… we crossed the desert!' Amazed to have survived, Jedit clambered from the trough. His clumped fur streamed water.
Johan grunted. 'Palmyra is another eight days' walk. There are wells along the way, say the erg dwellers.'
'Fine.' Jedit tossed his head and whiskers, whipping water on Johan's robe. 'I can walk to the moons if I have water, but can we buy a sheep? It's been six or seven days since I ate.'
Rolling dark eyes, Johan dug in his pockets for a worn coin. After some ritual haggling, the nomads dragged
