Storm Warning

They had to stop this wave. They had to be in place in time.

When we have done all we can, then it is time to add prayer to the rest. That was one of Master Ulrich's favorite proverbs. Well, they had done all they could; Karal shut his eyes, trusted to Trenor to follow Florian, and sent up fervent prayers.

Whenever Karal sensed that Trenor was tiring, they stopped for a brief rest, water, and food; other than those stops, they rode right on through the night and on into the next day. This country was all former farmland, now gone to weeds and desolation; Karal didn't really want to ask why it had been left like this. He had an idea that the answer would involve the war with Hardorn, and the little he had learned about Ancar from An'desha did not make him eager to hear more.

Hurry, hurry, hurry. There isn't much time.

The countryside was desolate in other ways, too; there didn't seem to be a lot of wildlife. Birds were few, and mostly oddly silent. Although it was late fall and frost soon crusted every dried, dead leaf and twig, there should have been night sounds; owls, the bark of a fox, or the bay of a wolf. The only sounds were the noises they themselves made, and that very silence was more than enough to put up the hair on Karal's neck. An'desha slept in the saddle, as he had since they left the area of the Gate; Altra was not disposed to conversation, and Florian had his mind on finding their way. That left him with nothing to do but half-doze, worry, and try another prayer or two.

When dawn came, it brought a thin gray light to the gray landscape, and matters did not improve much. Trenor was tiring sooner, now, and it hurt Karal to force him on, but he knew there was no choice. They only had until two marks after dawn tomorrow to get into place.

But not long after the sun rose, An'desha actually shook himself awake, and looked around.

'I remember this,' he said quietly. 'This was land that Ancar held briefly, and he drained it while he held it. It has made a remarkable recovery.'

'This?' Karal replied incredulously. 'Recovered?'

'You did not see it before,' the Adept told him grimly, turning in the saddle to face him. 'Nothing would grow; nothing. By next year this may be back to the kind of land it once was.' His eyes were shadowed by other memories than of this place, and finally he voiced one of them. 'Ma'ar made places as desolate as this. The truly terrible thing is that he thought he was doing right in creating them.'

'Because in creating them he served some kind of purpose?' Karal hazarded.

An'desha nodded. 'He served his own people very well; he made them into a great and powerful nation. The only problem is that in doing so, he turned other nations into stretches of desolation that are still scarred by his wars today. For him, nothing mattered except himself and his own people—who were extensions of himself. He did horrible things in the name of patriotism, and thought that he was in the right. I do not like Ma'ar, but I understand him. Perhaps I understand him too well.'

Karal heard the self-doubt creep into An'desha's voice again, and answered it. 'Understanding is the essence of not making the same mistakes, An'desha,' he replied. 'I rather doubt that Ma'ar ever understood himself, for instance.'

An'desha actually laughed. 'Well, now that is true enough,' he said cheerfully. 'So, once again you unseat my problems before they can dig spurs into me. How far to the key-point?'

:Most of the day, if we are not delayed,: Florian replied—

—just as they topped a hill to find themselves staring down at a gorge many hundreds of hands below. The gorge held a river—a river so full of Whitewater rapids that it would be insane to try and cross it.

:This should not be here!: Florian exclaimed.

They all stared down at the river below, all but Trenor, who took the occasion to snatch a few mouthfuls of dried weeds.

:And here, right on schedule, is our delay,: Altra said finally.

'Not necessarily,' Karal pointed out quickly. 'There may be a bridge. Do we go upstream or down to try and find it?'

'Upstream, I think,' An'desha said, after a moment of consideration. 'It takes us nearer the Iftel side that way.'

In the end, they did find a bridge—a narrow, shaky affair of old logs and rough planks. Karal had to blindfold Trenor to get him across, after Altra tried the footing by carefully padding over first. But that put them several marks behind schedule, and it was nearly dawn before they finally reached their goal.