The Trackless Desert, Chapter 3: Wingboy

It had been almost two months since the planting, and it had not rained once. The summers were always hot and dry here in the forest, so close to the savannah, but it had never gone for so long without so much as a drop for as long as Ailin could remember. Even the stream was feeling the effects, less than half its usual depth remaining, its waters muddy and sluggish instead of the clear and swift torrent it so often was. Auntie Nem said that this meant the mountains, too, were not receiving their rains. Ailin wasn't sure if she believed her – the mountains were almost a hundred miles away, after all, and it seemed unthinkable that something so far away could affect their little stream, but the old woman was so wise and had never, as far as Ailin had ever known, been wrong.

So, she walked dozens of trips to and from the stream every day, the yoke and the buckets her constant companions. She had devised a way to fold a cloak to make a pad to keep the wood from rubbing her shoulders raw, and after several months she was hardly winded at all after each trip – though she did still need to stop after a half-dozen for some water and a snack, and perhaps if she was honest a few minutes of rest.

She looked over toward the garden from her seat on a small bench against the wall of the cottage, an awning shading her from the intense summer sun. Auntie Nem was kneeling between the rows, carefully pulling weeds and checking the plant-stems for health. As she worked, she was whispering a story to herself, a story Ailin knew well enough that she could hear it as clear as if she was saying it loud.

“The next morning, Arnd awoke, wrapped in the satin sheets of the bed in his chambers in the Palace, his head pounding with the last echoes of the force that had rendered him unconscious the previous evening...

The palm of his right hand was burned, the image of the Talisman of the Sun seared into it by the magic the Lion-Goddess had wrought upon him. He stared at it for a while, remembering every glimmer of the light upon the surface of the image She had conjured for him, and then he pushed the bedclothes back and slipped out of the bed. Gathering himself a simple breakfast from the banquet laid out upon the table in the sitting-room of his suite, he set about preparing himself for his mission – dressing in soft, dark leathers to protect himself from the minor dangers to be found in the tunnels while still leaving himself mobile enough to evade the greater hazards. He packed a small bag with food and water for the day ahead, with enough extra that he could survive for a few more with care and a little good fortune.

He took one last look around the quarters, at once knowing he would miss the decadence and that he was well free of it – such a thing can easily become a habit, and even a hero can be softened and weakened by indulgence, should he allow himself to give in to its temptation. With a final nod, he turned and left the rooms, the heavy door closing with a dull thud behind him. He passed quickly through the palace as the eyes of the servants and the petitioners followed him; strangers were quite unusual in the City of Sentinels, and strangers leaving the wing reserved for honored guests rarer still.

As he emerged into the bright light of the desert day, he shielded his eyes with a hand and gazed about at the bustling square before the Palace. He knew very little of the City, and knew that if he were to have any success in his mission he would need someone to guide him. Too, he knew that where he was going, the best guide would be one whose life kept them beneath the surface and away from casual notice; the market area was full of people and business, and it should not take him long to find what he was looking for.

Sure enough, little time had passed before he found his mark – a group of four urchins, orphans most likely, dressed in rags and smeared with dirt, moving through the crowd with the grace of fish swimming through the sea. Now and then one would jostle a merchant or a traveler, and he knew that these encounters were neither accidents nor the product of carelessness. These were the ones he sought, and he moved to follow them as they made their way to the edge of the square. It was not easy to pick out the leader of the four but this was not his first time tracking thieves, nor in gaining their help; indeed, often the best allies of a hero were those who committed petty crimes, because it was in their interests to keep society as safe and as happy as possible. It ensured their targets were ripe and their activities tolerated.

As soon as they were out of the crowd, the four took off running in various directions, scattering like desert rats at the approach of a predator. Arnd expected this, and gave chase to the one he thought the least likely to escape him – not the leader; these gangs were usually tight, and if he caught one, the leader almost always came back for them. It was quite a chase, too; the urchin was agile, and knew his territory well. Arnd had on him experience and stamina, but it was still close. The hero finally gained the upper hand when he noted that the line of roofs the child was fleeing across had only one inevitable escape and used all of his strength and speed to race through the roadways and get there first.

He was right, and as the boy jumped down from the tiles with one backward glance up to see if he had gotten away clean, the hero stepped out of the shadows of a merchant stall and caught him in a neat basket-hold, impervious to his struggling and his begging and his threats. Finally, the child calmed, and Arnd set him on his feet again. “I intend you no harm, boy, and I will not see you put in prison for your thieving – I know how hard survival can be for one so young with no one but his peers to look out for him. I need your help.”

The boy watched him warily, looking around with the quick, jerky motions of a bird looking to flee, but he could see that there was no escaping the powerful warrior at the moment. He would need a distraction, or some interference, to cover for his flight. He knew that help would come when he did not make his rendezvous, and so he settled to wait. “So whatchoo want then, big man? You ain't no law 'round here, you ain't no priest, and you ain't no Lifetaker.”

Arnd's smile flickered at the last, as he caught the import of the title through the urchin's thick street-slang. Lifetaker? He resolved to look into that further. “You're right. My name is Arnd. I am not any of those things. I am here with a quest, and I need the help of you and your friends to complete it. And if I am not wrong, your gang-boss should be here just about,” and then he was cut off when a stone struck the back of his head, hard, sending stars through his vision. The boy in front of him giggled and took off, using the distraction to climb back up onto the rooftop, but he called out to his friends there and told them to wait.

The leader walked to the edge of the roof, hefting another stone in his hand, and grinned down at the hero. “So? I be Wingboy, my friends call me, on account I fly over the roofs and dive like a falcon. I lead the streetboys. He say you a hero, not a lawman or a priest or a Lifetaker. Whatchoo want? How Wingboy can help you, and why?”

“There is something I need to find, and it was stolen from the palace and taken into the under-tunnels. I thought you boys would know where I should start looking. It looks like this.” He held up his hand, palm out, so that they could see the burn on his palm, left by the image of the Talisman, and at his words the boys all gasped and drew back, except for Wingboy, who readied his rock and looked angry.

“Why we help you get that back? Since it been taken the Lifetakers ain't been seen, no boys gone missing, no trouble down in the under. Why we tell you where that is, even if we know? Life been better since it been gone.”

Arnd took a step closer to the building, looking up at them, lowering his hand. “I mean no harm to anyone, Wingboy. If what you say is true, there is more happening than any of us know. I will find out what it is, and I will make certain that you and your friends are safe – safer than before, and even safer than now. But not knowing is never better than knowing. That was a lesson I learned from the Master of the East Wind, once. It has never proven wrong.”

The boys circled, whispering in a fast, complicated patter that was nearly impossible for the hero to follow as they discussed amongst themselves. Finally they all nodded together and turned to face him again. Wingboy spoke up. “You right. Ain't no good with the Lifetakers, ain't no good waitin' for them to come back. We help you. Take you to go see the Prince.”

Ailin finished her hauling for the day as the sun was getting low to the horizon, and as she looked up at it under her shading hand she smiled. It was at least an hour earlier than it had been the first time she had finished watering the garden. She had gotten so much stronger, and faster, in just that little time. She shrugged off the yoke, setting it in its place in the shed beside the cottage, and wrapped the padding-cloak around it protectively. She walked back out and paced the rows, looking over each plant and plucking a weed or two which Auntie Nem had missed (or which had grown since she finished her weeding, perhaps.)

From the cottage, the old woman smiled proudly as she saw the girl – now a young woman, not just a girl, and she should stop thinking of her that way – inspecting their work. Taking ownership and pride in it. She was so much like herself, but better. She hoped better. She hoped that her experience had not tainted her, that she was passing on the good and the strength with none of the pain and the sadness, that her stories of great heroes and hope and triumph were leading her in the ways that her father and her mother would have been, had they not been taken.

The girl came back into the cottage and hugged her, giggling. “The peas are looking beautiful, Auntie. We should put up the trellises soon.” She kisses each of the old woman's cheeks and then moves automatically to help her with the dinner preparations, and Nem heaved a soft sigh of relief, her dark thoughts dispelled by Ailin's sunlight and happiness. Yes, she had done right.