In the Earth Abides the Flame (68 page)

The leader of the tribesmen had not moved to defend himself.

Kurr spun around on the Arkhos of Nemohaim. 'I hope that wasn't your idea!' he shouted, but he read deception and murder in the pig-eyes and thus received his answer.

The white-robed leader faced Te Tuahangata, who remained poised on the rock. 'I would release you all,' he said in a heavily accented version of the common tongue, 'but because of this man's cowardice I will not.' He kicked the corpse lying at his feet.

The desert warrior turned to the rest of his captives. 'We watched you drink from the sacred springs. For that crime your lives are forfeit. How dare you take water from the source of our Lifeblood? We heard your telling of the legend of Haputa, him whom we name a-Hamiag-sheikh, Desert-maker and Water-bearer, Father of Life. In reverence to the legend, we will allow the taleteller to go free.' He turned and raised his palms to his forehead, then spread them wide in a gesture of respect. 'We would have released you all, after telling you never to drink from these springs again, but our anger is rekindled by the craven blow struck by your companion. Apart from the tale-teller, you will be bound and taken to Ghadir Massab, where you will be sold as slaves.'

'While my friends are bound, I will not remain free,' Te Tuahangata declared hotly. 'And what right do you have to command us? We are free men in the service of our own chiefs. Who are you that you should hinder us?'

Behind the tribal leader his men grumbled angrily. 'Silence!' the man commanded as he wound his veil about his head. 'This is our land, and you may not desecrate the source of Lifeblood. Ever since the days the fools from Tabul polluted the river in their search for gold, we have claimed sovereignty over this river, from Thousand Springs in the west to Namakhzar in the east, nigh the borders of Sarista. This is our land, Hamadabat and Badiyat, and we say what happens here! Once you descended the Timmis-zao, you came into our land and will be judged by our laws. You should be put to death. Remember our mercy.'

But Tua would not be silenced. 'Then put us to death!' he challenged. 'You've decided to make money from selling us. I would rather die than be a slave!'

The tribesman nodded to one of his fellows, who pulled from his back a long whip. Quicker than any of the Arkhimm could credit, he flicked it at Te Tuahangata, who collapsed with a yell of pain and an open wound across his back.

'All right,' Kurr conceded. 'No more. We'll come quietly.'

The tribesmen produced ropes and trussed the captives tightly. From a dry watercourse a number of tribesmen led tall, load-bearing animals similar to horses but with much longer necks and a large bulge in the centre of their backs. Each captive was placed on an animal, just in front of the bulge. They slung Belladonna across the back of another, her head bleeding heavily. Then they led the beasts forward, and made their way into the desert with their booty.

By the end of the second day they had left all recognisable features behind them. The escarpment was gone, having sunk beyond the horizon some time ago. Foothills radiating from the escarpment had given way to scattered mounds, then disappeared altogether. Behind, below and ahead the captives could see nothing but black gravel. No vegetation, no sign of life. No rock, nothing at all to raise itself more than a few inches above the uniform surface.

Nothing except themselves. Even the horizons had vanished in the heat, obscured by a shimmering whiteness so much like water more than one of the captives leaned longingly towards it. A hot wind blew intermittently from the north, and the tribesmen aimed themselves into it as though they had no other means of navigation. When the wind faded there was absolutely no sound apart from the soft padding of the beasts. It was a land to daunt the stoutest heart.

Motion lost its meaning. There was no fast, no slow, just the desert drifting slowly past them.

The heat ceased to be hot, so dry was it, a desiccating wind that bit grimly at any exposed flesh. The captives were covered with veils, but still their skin began to blacken. They knew no time apart from night and day. At irregular intervals an acacia tree might hover above the hidden horizon, or perhaps it was just a vain imagination. Above them the only feature in the blueness was the angry white sun, which sank far too slowly to the western horizon. As it finally set it swelled in size, turning yellow then a brilliant red, pulled into an egg-shape by the ground below it, then disappeared, swallowed by the hungry earth. With surprising speed darkness spread over the plains, and finally the immensity of the reg desert was reduced to human proportions. Kurr sagged from sudden relief.

That night Belladonna stirred, and the captives knew for certain she was not dead. The tribesmen offered her what healing they possessed, but it was obvious her head wound was serious. She breathed, she took in food and water, but that was all. The light in her eyes had gone out.

The second day out from the escarpment seemed worse than the first. Heat, thirst, fear, heat.

The captives began to hallucinate. Here, in the depths of Khersos, the Deep Desert, even the tribesmen did not easily travel. However, they seemed pressed by some need. Kurr could not understand their language, but he could sense their urgency. They travelled in a straight line, as if to have taken a longer route - perhaps following the Lifeblood, for example - would defeat their purpose.

None of the captives remembered anything beyond the third day.

When Kurr came to himself again the tribesmen were feeding their captives. It was near sunset, and the featureless reg had given way to scrub and sand. Ahead and to the left of them lay a vaster mirage than any seen in his hallucinations, a great golden lake. Its pure, stern beauty made his heart ache.

'Behold Bi'r Birkat, the Lake of Gold!' cried the leader of the tribesmen. 'Here lies the wealth of nations, and none may gather it. Below us is Ghadir Massab, the city of the Sanusi. We have arrived in time for Haj Kahal, the summer gathering of the Sanusi. You will fetch good prices at the slave market.'

Kurr rubbed his aching eyes to clear them. The lake lay there still, stubborn in its refusal to shift like the other mirages. Of all his dreams this was the most strange - except perhaps the hallucination that a rock followed them. Even now he could see it in his mind's eye ...

The captives were taken down to the city. Nestled against the southern shore of the golden lake, Ghadir Massab was at first impression little more than a collection of tents and other temporary structures. The traffic of beasts such as those that had borne the captives, along with mules, horses and people, raised a choking dust into the air. And here noise spoke of humans about their everyday business, deafening after the hallowed silence of the desert.

Phemanderac tried to talk to Kurr through cracked lips, but was nudged into silence with the butt end of a whip. They had all tasted the edge of the whip, around their legs, on their backs, but none suffered like Te Tuahangata, whose wound obviously pained him still. Kurr wanted to ask him how he fared, but the watchfulness of the guards defeated him.

Just after sunrise the next morning the captives were led from their tents on the fringes of Ghadir Massab and into the city. Even at this early hour there was much activity. People bought and sold their wares in animated, often argumentative voices; they sang and danced to the music of the imzad, a single-stringed violin according to Phemanderac; others prepared food or fed animals - cattle and sheep, as well as the pack-animals. And there were many dogs, which scavenged for food on the impromptu streets between the tents.

But in the centre of the city there were no tents. Ghadir Massab was more than a temporary village. Circling its heart was a stone

wall twice the height of a man, and within it were many buildings. However, what made this city different to all others was the material used in the construction of these buildings. They were all made of pure gold.

Two children and a man with a many-tailed whip stood on a golden platform. A large crowd of men gathered in front of the platform. After watching for a moment, Phemanderac realised that this was the slave market.

Without provocation, the whip came down on the back of one of the small figures. She cried out, then collapsed on to the stage. In disgust the man with the whip kicked at the squirming form, sending it falling from the stage. Ahead Hal gasped and began to struggle, obviously wanting to get to the prostrate figure. A blow with the butt of a whip stopped him.

With this much wealth, why do they need to sell slaves? the philosopher wondered. And what makes them so cruel?

From behind their veils men bid for the flesh of their less fortunate fellows, and when they bought what they needed they departed without a backward glance. As the morning wore on the crowd thinned, raising a vain hope in Phemanderac's breast that none would remain to bid for them, but such hope proved groundless. More than a hundred men remained when the strangers from beyond Timmis-zao were hauled up on to the platform, the men stripped to the waist and paraded to meet the judgment of potential buyers.

The response to these strangers was perhaps predictable: much laughter, but few bids. Even when Belladonna's still form was laid out at the front of the platform, interest was difficult to generate. The leader of the tribesmen, who acted as auctioneer, tried his best, but the buyers were obviously suspicious of the work capacity and hardiness of his goods. Belladonna's stillness seemed to confirm their suspicions. Phemanderac ached to go to her side, to salve her wound which would undoubtedly be infected, but ropes held him fast.

From the back of the assembled crowd came a bid which got the tribesman's attention. The bidder was a big man in a dark blue robe; his black veil obscured his desert features.

Phemanderac had seen a few men with such raiment. From what little he could gather, they came from somewhere a long way away.

His suspicion was confirmed when bargaining began. The two men had to use the common tongue, so the captives could follow most of the negotiations.

'Six nentachki?' the man in the blue robe said incredulously. 'I want twelve slaves, not fifty.

One nentachki and two bars of salt.'

The tribesman spat extravagantly on the ground in front of the golden platform. 'One?' he said, his voice rising. 'One? Do you think we want for wealth? Look around you! Do you see any lack?'

'You cannot deceive me,' came the patient reply. 'I know you are allowed to take from Bi'r Birkat only as much gold as your marabout allows. And I have heard your holy man is frugal.

One nentachki and four bars of salt.'

'I have eleven workers here, not twelve, and I would not part with them for less than four nentachki. Eight days we have borne them across the desert. Would you have us make no profit at all?'

'They do not look like Sanusi,' said the man in the blue robe warily. 'You Falthans all look the same. How do I know they can work? Two nentachki.'

'Just look at them!' pleaded the tribesman. 'Look at this one!' He pointed to Prince Wiusago.

'If you know about such flesh, you will know an unmarked one is rare. It shows an obedient and hardworking slave. We have had much profit from this one. Three nentachki and six bars of salt.'

From somewhere behind them music swirled on the gathering desert wind. New arrivals swelled the Hamadabat carnival, which by evening would be a riot of colour and sound.

'If they are so good, why do you sell them? I am not sure I believe you, but my master wishes me to conclude business quickly. Give me those eleven and one other - that girl will do - and I will be on my way. Three nentachki.'

'We sell them because we must,' said the tribesman, shrugging his shoulders in a worldly gesture of hopelessness. 'When the dessica wind comes, bringing drought with it, what can a man do except draw the strings of his tent closer? Three nentachki it is. But why do you want the girl?' He pointed to the child who had fallen from the stage some time earlier, now sitting alone and crying nearby.

'My master said twelve, including three women who could bear children. She will do as well as any other.' The voice was flat, hard, callous. Phemanderac quailed inwardly at the sound.

How long would he last as a slave? A week? A day?

Business was concluded with a touching of fingers to palms, then to the chest. Then the captives, numbering eight Arkhimm, the Arkhos of Nemohaim and his two remaining soldiers, and the crying child, were roped together and led away to meet their new owner.

Behind them another Sanusi climbed on to the platform and offered his chattel for sale. None of the captives looked back on that fearful place.

The blue-robed man dragged them at a cruel speed out through the walls of the City of Gold, through the dusty streets of Ghadir Massab, passing through markets where water-sellers and salt merchants plied their wares, then out into the desert and the midday sun, taking them to the place by three large rocks where his master waited with a train of the hump-backed beasts.

The new slaves were forced to mount them, and preparations were made for their departure.

Servants watered the beasts first, then themselves. The slaves got a sip of what was left.

The master, also wearing a blue robe, congratulated his servant on his purchase in a voice that to Phemanderac sounded strange, yet not so strange. Then he came over and looked up at the philosopher, and for a moment Phemanderac's heart stopped.

It was Achtal the Bhrudwan, and he had a twinkle in his eye.

DARKNESS SWIRLED INTO LIGHT. Dull red light, brutal white light. Leith screwed his eyes tightly shut. But the red light did not go away, so he opened them again, and found himself staring into the concerned face of Maendraga.

'Have you seen her?' he said in a hoarse voice. 'Have you seen my daughter?'

It was all the youth could do to raise himself to a sitting position. 'The last I saw Belladonna, she had escaped the guard who had captured her,' he said carefully. 'She was helping to rescue my companions.'