that. I can feel the inhibition. I am no wizard, not in this place, not anywhere in all of the realms.' She stopped suddenly, then looked across the oasis at Kestrel. 'I am sorry, sorry that I made you come.'
Kestrel looked at Phoebe and saw her self-esteem begin to melt from her expression as he watched. It was her only real reason for the quest, he thought. She had wanted to prove herself the equal of the others above all else. He glanced at the litter of matchwood and shook his head. She alone would know the limits of her prowess. If she could not start a fire, what she said must be true. And now, despite the unknowns they were yet to face, even if he could protect her physically, what could he do to mend the way she suddenly had come to feel about herself?
Phoebe looked at Kestrel sadly. 'There is more than my shame, Kestrel,' she said. She lowered her eyes and sloped her shoulders, sighing deeply. 'Without a flame, we cannot get passage to any other realm-to that of men, of the skyskirr, or even back to the fey. Unless Nimbia can be aroused, we are marooned here-marooned forever.'
Kestrel pressed his hand against his stomach. Enough time had passed that he could be reasonably sure of no ill-effects from the fruit. Climbing the tree and tossing what he had picked across the oasis had been easy enough, although Nimbia ate little and seemed to doze in a deep lethargy when she was done.
Kestrel grimaced. The fruit had been sweet and tangy, but helped his mood little, if at all. He looked at Phoebe and frowned. Despite his most careful words, she refused to be consoled. In an almost mindless obsession, she had assembled specimens of every different type of material she could find in her proximity, blades of grass, a handful of sand, tree bark and fronds, even the skins of the fruit they had eaten. But using one of the water lenses from Astron's pack to focus the diffuse light, she had succeeded no better than with her first attempt. There was no hint of flame, not even the tiniest wisp of smoke.
And now, rather than lifting Phoebe's spirits, he felt the crushing reality of her words growing with each passing moment. The featureless plane that expanded to the horizon in all directions made the feeling of entrapment all the more intense. Perhaps there were great cities and enchanting delights just out of eyesight, but Kestrel thought it unlikely. The glimpse he had of this realm while still with the fey looked very much the same as what he saw now. Except for the presence of the fighting warriors, he recalled seeing only the same bleached straight-line paths radiating from a central point into the vast desert that was totally lacking in detail.
Kestrel kicked at the shiny metal protruding from the sand at his feet. He had not noticed at first, but at least three of the trees had some artifacts that appeared to have been hastily buried near their roots. The one where he sat was a filigree of wrought iron that terminated in a menacingly sharp point. No amount of simple tugging would free the ornate shaft from the ground. In front of where Nimbia dozed was what looked like the edge of a brass disk of substantial diameter, at least twice the height of a man. From the vacant node to Kestrel's left protruded a thin curved strip of steel that slowly oscillated in the gentle breeze.
But such things were properly only of interest to the demon, Kestrel thought. There were more important things about which to be concerned. He counted the fruit remaining in the branches of the trees and then the clear water of the pool. How long before they had eaten all that was here? he wondered. And if not great cities, would there be other oases like this one just beyond the horizon?
Kestrel stood to get a better view of a fruit cluster partially hidden by a branch. Suddenly he felt his left foot drag to the side and his entire body twist to follow. Phoebe gasped. He saw her reach suddenly to fling her arms around her tree, her legs sailing out nearly horizontal. In a flurry of sand and snapping capes, both Nimbia and Astron were tossed into heaps. Like tumbleweeds, they began to bounce out into the desert along one of the whitened paths.
'I surmise it is another symmetry,' Astron shouted backward as he tried to regain his balance. 'Something acting on everyone and pulling us away.'
Kestrel tried to turn and snatch the tree now at his back, but he was too late. The unseen force intensified. He was slammed earthward as if struck by a giant. He scrambled to his knees, but immediately was cast back into the ground a few feet farther from the pond. Kestrel spit out sand and clawed with his fingers, but he could tell that his efforts would be to no avail. He felt his body begin to drag across the coarse surface. The sand grated against his bare skin and then started to sting as his speed increased.
Faster and faster he flailed over the ground until even the wind whistled with his passage. A cloud of dust boiled up about him, forcing him to shut his eyes to keep out the bouncing grains of sand. The stinging on his forearms intensified from a mild irritation to a blistering pain. Kestrel raised his hands and arched his back to reduce his contact with the abrasive that surely would grind through his skin. With a gut-straining gasp, he managed to pull one leg forward under his chest and then savagely kick downward. He bounded from the desert floor and, in response to the reduction in friction, felt a rapid acceleration.
Kestrel fell back down earthward in a flat trajectory and then, like a stone hurled across a pond, skipped back into the air. This time his path straightened out parallel to the surface and he skimmed along in a straight line. As if he were a bead on an invisible wire, he hurled across the vast nothingness.
Kestrel cautiously opened one eye. When he saw that the cloud of dust had fallen away, he looked about. Phoebe and the others were also airborne on courses parallel to his own, all streaking across the plane above one of the white paths that had radiated from their oasis. He called out to Phoebe, but the whistle of the wind carried away his voice. He waved once and felt relieved when she shook her hand in reply.
Kestrel strained to look over his shoulder and saw that the oasis was already a mere speck in the distance. As he watched, it disappeared into a haze. He turned back to squint in the direction they were travelling and detected a similar blur of detail on the horizon up ahead.
Kestrel watched the features sharpen as he approached. He recognized the tall trees and the white lines of other paths converging from different directions. He scanned their lengths as far as he could see, expecting the same emptiness on them all. But on the one that ran out across the plane to the right he noticed a hint of motion. Others were also coming to this oasis-warriors like the ones he had seen fighting within the ring of djinns.
As the two groups merged, Kestrel saw the shine of armor. He heard the clink of hard metal, even over the whistling wind. He fingered the pommel of the copper dagger from the realm of the fey, but took little comfort from it. The odds would be greater than five to one, even if Astron and the two women brandished arms as well.
Far more rapidly than Kestrel could think of what to do, he arrived at the new oasis. As abruptly as the forces had torn him from the other, they died away. He tumbled in a heap and offered only token resistance to the waning push that rolled him into the trunk of the nearest tree.
The warriors came to an abrupt halt at approximately the same time. With the precision of dismounting horse riders, they steadied themselves and remained erect. Kestrel grabbed his dagger, fearing the worst; but the warriors, after a brief inspection, paid him and the others little attention. With a few bellowed grunts that Kestrel thought he could almost understand, they quickly dispersed to each of the six trees that ringed the small pond in their center.
In an instant Kestrel was surrounded by a half-dozen tall and lean men with chalky complexions, only a few shades different from the paths that seemed to run from oasis to oasis. The first two began immediately to set up a small table from spars and hinged planks they carried on their backs, while a third uncoiled thick parchments crisscrossed with brilliant red and blue inks.
One of the men spoke and Astron immediately answered. Again Kestrel could make out most of what was being said.
'Since all of this is Prydwin's creation it is no wonder that we can converse,' Astron explained. 'It is merely a small change from the normal speech in the realm of the fey.' The demon shrugged. 'It is perhaps a detail on which Prydwin did not spend much effort.'
'Your presence contributes to our freedom of movement,' one of the warriors repeated, 'and for that you have value. Though your appearance is different from either rotator or reflective, I do not suspect you of being chronoids, since your hands are empty of the foul artifacts they transport into our realm against the protocols.'
'Share in our celebration of victory,' another said. 'The reflectives never suspected the richness of our symmetry until it was thrust upon them-no less than fourteen, and now they have been expulsed from every one. They did not have a chance for an exchange of bodies, not a one.'
'From which did you come?' a third asked. 'One of the lesser triangles of the central pentagram, or perhaps an
