The party had left the margins of the Shest foothills more than two hours before, and the sun hung at an angle of forty degrees or so to the ground. Firm rock had long since given way to deep sand, and progress was slow.
Drex, in particular, seemed to find the going difficult; she wore a long, heavy, velvet dress and thin pumps more suited to a dancehall than a desert.
She was not the only person with problems; although the sun was nowhere near its zenith, Tordun was breathing heavily. He carried a heavy haversack, dragged a well-laden barrow, and he was covered from head to foot to shield his pale, sensitive skin from the vicious rays of the desert sun. In addition to the albino's all-encompassing robes, Grimm knew that Tordun still wore his heavy leather armour underneath.
Only Foster seemed to be wearing clothing suitable for the oppressive terrain. The pilot had fashioned a burnoose from what appeared to be white silk. The sheer material was fastened around his brow with twine, and it hung over the back of his neck. He had stripped off his heavy pilot's outfit, and he had fashioned more of the light material into a flowing robe cinched at the waist. His heavy, durable leather boots also seemed the most suitable footwear for the demanding terrain. With the black spectacles completing his ensemble, Foster appeared almost comfortable in the morning sun.
The Haven man seemed to have given no thought to the plight of the rest of the group, and Grimm felt moved to remonstrate. He knew Xylox would be too proud to admit to any weakness or incapacity, even if it might mean his death.
"Foster, I understood that, in desert regions, it is best to travel at night and rest during the day," he said.
"Well, on a long journey, with no end in sight, that's true enough," the pilot replied. "But we have no more than five days' walk ahead of us, at worst. We have a reasonable amount of water with us, and we need to use the sun to navigate. If you walk at night in the desert, it's easy enough to find yourself walking in circles, since most people have one leg slightly longer than the other. There's always the Pole Star, assuming there's no cloud, but it's not accurate enough in a blank landscape with no reference points.
"The Pole Star is almost half a degree away from true north. If the General's compound were only a few miles away, that wouldn't be a problem, but a positional error of half a degree or so would see us lost in the desert. With the aid of the sun and a couple of sticks, I can ascertain our heading with reasonable accuracy. As long as I check frequently, we should be able to find our way well enough"
"Have you no lodestone?" Grimm queried. What was all this talk about the sun and sticks? Had the Technologists lost the secret of one of the oldest methods of navigation the human race possessed?
Foster looked blank for a moment, but his expression soon brightened. "Oh, you mean a compass. Yes, I've got one here."
The Haven man produced a transparent, rectangular device with what looked like a clock-face at its centre. There were two indicators: one was pale-green, the other, more slender, needle was red. "Which way do you think we're going?"
Grimm knew that a lodestone always orientated itself around a north-south axis. The letters N, S, E and W made the device's operation clear.
"North half East," he said.
Then his brow furrowed in confusion: he realised the rising sun was over his left shoulder, indicating that they were moving in a south-westerly direction.
"You see?" Foster said. "The mountains have a lot of iron in them, so the needle always points towards them, rather than to the north. A compass is useless here."
Grimm found the pilot's perennial cheerfulness irritating, but he swallowed his annoyance. "Can we not use the position of the mountains as a nocturnal referent?"
Foster shook his head. "It's too big, mage; too vague. In a few days, we'll have the General's compound in plain sight, and we'll be able to zero in on that easily enough-if we discipline ourselves. But we won't be able to see it at night.
"Cheer up; it'll be uncomfortable and difficult, but we'll be all right if we all exercise a little discipline!"
The Questor's felt his forbearance stretching to its limits.
"Look at Tordun!" he snapped, indicating the heavily-attired, red-faced albino.
"If he makes it through the day, I will be surprised; look at Drexelica's bleeding feet. You may be comfortable enough, but what of the rest of us?"
"Feel free to ignore me if you want to die, mage," the pilot said. "I've been through survival training, and I know what I'm talking about. If you want to strip off, go ahead, but don't say I never warned you. If you do that, I can guarantee you'll be down from heat prostration in just a few hours. Sweat soaking into clothes evaporates slowly, taking the heat from your body, but it just drips off naked skin. It's gone in an instant, and it's wasted. You can survive far longer in the desert if you're well-covered."
Grimm yearned to grab the self-assured, cocky little man around the throat and throttle him.
"In case you failed to notice, Foster," he snapped, "Tordun is an albino! The least touch of this sun on his skin hurts him, and he looks to be going through hell, even before we have even started our journey. Drexelica's arms are bare, and she only has slippers on her feet to protect her from the sand."
"They haven't complained," the pilot protested.
"Of course they have not!" Grimm snapped. "We Northlanders regard admissions of inability or discomfort as signs of weakness. I declare you to be a selfish, self-possessed, smug bastard, Foster! You are comfortable enough, so you assume everybody else is. Why do you not leave us here and go for help while we protect ourselves from the sun as best we may?"
Foster blinked; an expression of utter confusion on his face. Grimm guessed the pilot had never been in the desert, except in the company of others well-trained in survival techniques.
"I'm sorry you feel that way," the pilot said, his lower lip obtruding a little. "Nonetheless, consider the situation. If I leave you here, it will be five or six days at best before help arrives; five or six days without food, with little protection from the sun except thin tents. In any case, we'd be pretty lucky to find you here at all without some sort of navigational fix; this is a big place. We're better off moving on, believe me."
"You seem to have made yourself pretty comfortable," Grimm said. "I demand we stop here, and that you use your marvellous training to find a way for all of the party to travel with ease. None of us has been trained in desert survival, to my knowledge, so we may all be in danger."
Foster shrugged. "All right, troop, we'll be holding things up for a little while, courtesy of our good friend, Grimm. Let's get the tents up."
An hour passed and, even with the tents' welcome shelter, the temperature reached an almost unbearable pitch of severity. Foster grubbed among the various packs in the small cart, and did his best to outfit the members of the party with more suitable attire. At last, he found another pair of the darkened spectacles, which, by unanimous accord, Foster gave to the pink-eyed albino. With some misgivings, Tordun surrendered his leather armour and his sword to the cart, but he now wore similar attire to Foster's: a white burnoose now protected his head and neck, and a flowing, silk serape covered his sensitive skin, without restricting the free flow of air around his body.
Crest's loose, dark clothes seemed suitable enough for the desert, but he added a light hood, cut from the strange packages of silk and string Foster had found within the bowels of the shattered helicopter, and he had fashioned an eyeshade from stiff, thin pieces of white card he found in the packages.
After all the members of the party had been provided more suitable, if makeshift, clothing, Foster addressed the party.
"Since you're all inexperienced in desert survival, I'll make a few recommendations. Firstly, I recommend you to put a button, a stone or a similar object in your mouth to keep the saliva flowing. Secondly, if you're thirsty, drink enough to satisfy your thirst. Don't be tempted to sip and save the water; if you just take a small sip at long intervals, you'll stay thirsty, never reaching the optimal level. We should have enough water to last the trip, but, if we should start to run low, drink as much as you can at one sitting. It'll do you more good than a few small sips, believe me.
"Finally, I advise you to tell me if you start to feel faint, if you suffer incapacitating blisters or burns, or if you become confused. It'll be a little uncomfortable but, if we all pull together, we'll get through the desert in fine shape.
"It's getting on for noon, and it's going to get hotter until the sun sets, but we can cope, as long as we act as a team. Let's go!"
Tordun approached Grimm, looking far more comfortable and confident than he had in his heavy, cumbersome armour.
"Thank you, Questor," he muttered, just loud enough for the mage to hear; as Grimm had guessed, the fearsome warrior had been too proud to complain earlier.
"This is much easier. I may end up with a touch of sunburn, I suspect, but at least I'm not broiling in my own juice. I know you saw how uncomfortable I was, and guess that was why you stopped that smug bastard, Foster, in his tracks; I was just about ready to rip his spine out through his stomach. Thank you, Questor Grimm."
"Believe me, Tordun," Grimm replied, his lips dry and cracked. "I am more than happy to see you in such good humour."
"Foster told me that Haven had all sorts of wonderful unguents to save me from the sun; that seems to have slipped his mind. Thank you for reminding him that some of us are not as keen as others on catching a suntan."
Grimm smothered a smile at the welcome return of Tordun's proud combativeness. "He has a lot on his mind right now, Tordun," was all he said.
"Like my bloody fist round his ear," the warrior muttered.
A little while later, Drexelica approached him. In place of her velvet gown, she wore another of Foster's makeshift outfits, and her feet were bound with inelegant but functional strips of cloth.
"Grimm, I want to thank you for talking to that man, Foster; I feel much happier now in this heat. I'm sorry I spoke to you in such a nasty way earlier on," she said. "I don't really mind if you don't like girls; it's all right." She patted him on the shoulder, in the manner of a protective sister.
For some time now, Grimm had felt a slave to events, bouncing from circumstance to circumstance, but surviving the helicopter crash had somehow served to focus his mind. He had felt cowed by Xylox, ever since he had been threatened with dismissal from the Guild, and he had felt determined to placate the senior mage at all costs. However, he had to remind himself that he was no callow youth, but a Mage Questor of the Fifth Rank.
How many times had he been told 'power and presence complete the mage'? In recent days, he had been all power and no presence; he vowed that this would change.
Grimm knew now that, if all should go well, he would remain a Questor on his return from this Quest, and he felt determined to act like one. He felt ashamed at how he had felt so abashed and cowed by Xylox and how he had been so gauche and awkward around Drexelica.
Grimm looked Drex straight in the eye. "Drexelica, I wish to clarify something; I find you very attractive indeed, and I yearn to be closer to you. However, I regret that we must stay at arms' length from each other."
"But why?" the girl asked. "It's that nasty man, Xylox, isn't it? Why can't you just tell him to mind his own business?"
Grimm wiped sweat from his brow. "You must remember that I am still on a Guild Quest, Drex," he said in a soft voice. "I am not my own man until it is over."
The girl's expression brightened. "Perhaps we can get to know each other better when it's over? Then, you can drop that silly mage talk. It makes you sound just like him."
The young magic-user pondered for a moment. He had agreed to use the formal Mage Speech for the remainder of the Quest, but Xylox was out of earshot. How would the senior mage know if he lapsed into vernacular, just for a few moments?
No, he told himself, dismissing the temptation, a mage's word is his bond.
"It is not that simple," he said out loud. "I am nothing if not a Guild Questor. Of my seventeen years, I have spent nine years fighting to reach that goal, to win the right to bear this ring-" he showed her the blue and gold ornament on his wedding finger, "-and to bear this staff. I will not jeopardise that for anything."
"Nobody's asking you to, Grimm." Drexelica stumbled for a moment on the almost liquid sand, but soon found her footing again. "Even if we're together, you can still go on your Quests; I won't stand in your way."
"If only that were all that I had to take into consideration, I should be a happy man." Grimm sighed. "However, Drex, there is a more basic impediment to our ever sharing an intimate relationship; it could deprive me of all my magic. I nearly threw it all away when I was ensorcelled by a girl at High Lodge. Since then, I have sworn to be on my guard at all times."
Drexelica laughed. "Surely you don't believe that fairy-tale? I'll bet your High Lodge only puts that about to keep your mind on the job!"
"I cannot take the risk," Grimm declared. "Can we not just be friends, Drex? I am sure you will find the right boy, given time."
The girl stamped, almost losing her balance again. "I don't want anybody else! You've been the only person who's been kind or good to me since my parents died, and I owe you my life. I want to give that life to you. Don't you see?"
Despite the young sorcerer's intention to re-assert himself, as befitted a mage, he felt a lump growing in his throat. He had forgone any normal semblance of childhood, and he saw a long, lonely road ahead of him; a world bereft of love and passion, a world of cold duty and responsibility.
Will the bluff camaraderie of the Guild be my sole comfort for the rest of my life? He wanted to take the girl in his arms and drink in the sweet, heady wine of her kisses, to run his fingers through her hair, to…
He stopped his thoughts from wandering any further. It was not just for his own sake that he pursued this course; he had sworn to redeem his sullied, reviled family name at all costs, and he could not, must not, forget that.
"I'm… I am so sorry, Drex," he said, in a husky voice. "This is the way it must be between us. I wish it were not so, but I have others to consider: people who are very dear to me. I gave you your freedom, and I beg you to take it. We cannot have any future together. You are young and beautiful, and any number of more suitable young men would give their eye teeth to be yours; as would I, if I were free.
"Unfortunately for both of us, I am wedded to my sworn Oath. It hurts me, more than you can ever imagine, to ignore you this way, but it will become easier in time for both of us, I promise you."
He stopped in his tracks and bent to kiss the top of Drexelica's head, to drink in her perfume for the last time. Then, with a shuddering sigh, he began to walk on, turning his back on the beautiful girl.
It will get easier, Grimm told himself, gritting his teeth, but he did not feel convinced by this facile phrase. For the next ten minutes, Grimm fought tears as he pushed on, until he thought his heart would burst; he heard soft, choked sobs behind him, but he forced himself not to look back, fighting the pain within him.
After a while, the sun reached its zenith, and the unrelenting toll of the journey began to make its mark upon him. The sand had looked so flat and easy to negotiate as the party had begun its trek, but the golden surface was treacherous and strength-sapping. All conversation stopped, and Grimm wondered how he would face even another day of this purgatory.
As the last rays of light faded from the sky, Foster called a halt. "That'll be all for today, people. You see? It wasn't so bad, was it?"
Grimm saw Tordun cast the Haven man a look of pure hatred as he shrugged off his heavy pack. The tents went up in silence and, this time, Grimm was not deterred from sleep by Xylox's snoring.
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