“Do not make the mistake of underestimating Pendragon,” she said firmly. “You do not know him as I do.”
I was kind of thinking Saangi was right. I wasn’t a warrior. If anybody was expecting me to go all “warrior” and protect Loor if things got nasty, they were counting on the wrong guy. When things got rough, it was usually Loor who pulledmybutt out of the fire. Saangi whirled and shot me an icy look. She may have only been fourteen, but she was definitely not lacking in the self-confidence department.
“It is my job to serve Loor, as her aide and as her acolyte,” Saangi said with authority. “I respect your mission. Please respect mine as well.”
“Saangi!” Loor shouted angrily. “Do you realize who you are speaking to?”
“It’s okay,” I said to Loor. I looked to Saangi and smiled. “I can’t tell you not to worry, Saangi, but we’re all on the same side here.”
Saangi didn’t back down. She stared at me a moment more, then stepped out of the way to let me pass.
“I will expect you both back here by nightfall,” she said.
I walked past her to join Loor at the door and said, “Yes, ma’am.” I then said to Loor, “Yikes, she’s bossier than you are.”
Loor didn’t think that was funny. She held out the heavy, dark cloak I had worn to the zhou battle. “Put this on,” she said sharply. I think she was trying to prove that nobody could beat her in the “bossy” department.
“You’re killing me with this, you know?” I said, taking the cloak. I was already wearing the soft, white clothes of the Rokador-a lightweight jacket that crossed over at the waist and tied with a sash, along with simple white pants. And sandals. I hate sandals. To me sandals are for old guys who still think they’re hippies, or girls who wear plaid flannel shirts. But I didn’t have a choice. As bad as it would have been for a Batu to see a light-skinned guy like me hanging around the city, it would have been worse if I had been wearing Batu clothing. Then they could have accused me of being a spy or something. And for the record, I had my Second Earth boxer shorts on. After I had to go boxerless while wearing the disgusting, rotten rags of Eelong, it felt all sorts of good to be back in boxers and wearing the soft cotton clothing of the Rokador. I would have been nice and comfy… if I hadn’t had to wear the heavy, hot cloak as disguise.
Did I mention how hot it was on Zadaa?
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To see what we are up against,” Loor answered.
We left Saangi looking teed off, and walked out of the apartment and across the large, central courtyard of the Ghee-warrior compound.
“She’s tough,” I said.
“She takes her duties seriously,” Loor said. “She wishes to be a warrior, but I fear she is too impulsive.”
“She had pretty good impulses when she bailed you out of that zhou fight,” I teased.
Loor didn’t even acknowledge this with a look. All she said was, “I told you. I would have found another way to defeat the zhou.”
“Right,” I said.
“You doubt me?” Loor asked.
“Me? Never!” I said with a chuckle. I liked needling Loor, but the truth was, I didn’t doubt for a second that she would have found a way to beat that beastie without Saangi’s help.
Loor led me across the compound, where we passed several Ghee warriors. Some were exercising, others were in small groups in deep conversation. Though the Ghee were divided, they all still lived in this same compound. I wondered how long this could last. If the conflict got worse, having all these macho types living together could get tense. Or violent. I kept hidden in the cloak. I must have looked like an idiot, walking around in this heat dressed like an Eskimo. But nobody stopped us. I guess nobody wanted to mess with Loor. Or an Eskimo.
She brought me to a horse stable that held some of the most beautiful, powerful horses I had ever seen. These were regular old horses, not like the zenzens of Eelong with their extra leg joint. Loor saddled up two with heavy, leather saddles that were very much like Western saddles at home. We both mounted up and were soon trotting through the streets of Xhaxhu. I was becoming pretty comfortable on horseback. Uncle Press taught me to ride when I was younger back on Second Earth, and I’d had many chances to ride on various territories. I really liked it. Somewhere in the back of my head I felt that when this was all over, if I had the chance to go home, I would get myself a horse.
“You’ve seen Xhaxhu at its finest,” Loor said as we rode side by side. “Now you are seeing the horror of what it has become.”
As I mentioned before, the city was dry. But man, “dry” didn’t cover it. Some water troughs still had a trickle of precious water running through, but it wasn’t near enough to quench the thirst of the hundreds of Batu citizens who knelt by the stone troughs, desperate for the slightest bit of moisture. Some even had their entire bodies inside the troughs to lick at the pathetic trickle. It was pretty sad.
The people of Xhaxhu wore simple, one-piece, short outfits in vibrant colors. There were pinks and bright blues, yellows and oranges, with fancy beadwork around the neck and sleeves. On my first trip here, everything had appeared bright and lively. But now that they didn’t have enough water to wash themselves, let alone their clothes, the bright colors had become muted and dingy. That pretty much described the city itself. Dingy. The lush, green palm trees that lined the streets now looked like a fence of dead poles. No music played. There was little conversation or socializing of any kind. The whole city, including its people, seemed as if it was drying up and turning into sand.
“What’s the deal?” I asked Loor. “Has it totally stopped raining?”
“That is part of it,” she answered. “But we do not rely on rain here in Xhaxhu. We are nourished by the underground rivers of Zadaa. That is where the true problem lies.”
“What’s happened to them?” I asked.
“That is the question.” Loor answered. “The only question that matters. The answer will determine the future of Xhaxhu, and of Zadaa.”
“And Halla?” I asked.
Loor shrugged. There still was no proof that Saint Dane had anything to do with any of this, but when you found a territory in trouble, with people suffering and ready for war, chances are Saint Dane was lurking around somewhere.
“So then why did this happen?” I asked. “I do not know,” Loor said. “That is what we must find out.”
We trotted to the outer border of Xhaxhu, where there was an immense, stone wall that circled the entire city. I’m talking huge. This wall must have been five or six stories high and made out of giant, truck-size boulders. I didn’t want to imagine how much backbreaking work had gone into building it.
“The wall is for protection against invasion,” Loor said, reading my mind. “The Batu and Rokador are not the only tribes of Zadaa, but we are the most civilized. There are many tribes in the desert who live like animals and feed on one another.”
“You mean they steal stuff from each other to survive?” I asked.
“No, I mean they feed on one another. Many of the tribes of Zadaa…are cannibals.” Oh. Nice.
“The Ghee are trained to protect Xhaxhu, which in turn protects the underground of the Rokador. This wall is our first line of defense. It is also protection against the elements. A windstorm could rise up with no warning and pelt the city with sand for hours.”
As we trotted through a break in the wall-there was no door-I saw that there were giant sand drifts rising up against the outside of the wall.
“How often does a storm come up?” I asked.
“Often enough,” Loor answered. “It can be devastating. I hate to think of how Xhaxhu would handle a storm now, when we are so weak.”
I briefly wondered if Saint Dane could possibly cook up a storm, but decided that as powerful as this guy was, he did have his limits. I didn’t think he could change the weather. At least, I hoped he couldn’t.
Loor led us a few hundred yards away from the walled city to another, smaller wall. It wasn’t as tall as the protective wall around Xhaxhu, but it was long. We were at a corner. The wall stretched out for what might have been a mile on either side.
“This is what I want to show you,” Loor said. “This is one of the farms where food is grown for the people of
