The Gems of Raga-Tor (Elemental Legends Book 1) (24 page)

“Here, take the reins and don’t look back until I tell you,” Raga warned as the red stone subtlety pulsed and shimmered as it lay in his palm.

Slowly, with deliberate purpose, Raga closed his fingers one by one around the gem. The red glow intensified until his hand appeared as a fiery coal. His bushy beard and eyebrows wavered on his face like tiny flames on a log. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped off his nose. His eyes were screwed shut in intense concentration.

Eris shivered and tired to deny that he felt Raga’s magical force rising around them. He tried not to look at Raga’s hand glowing brighter still. He knew without a doubt that the magic he had seen Raga work before was going to pale in comparison with what was about to happen. He tightened his grip on the reigns of both animals.

In the distance, the sound of a roaring wind, a storm, he didn’t know what, but it grew louder and rushed closer and closer. A tremendous heat built behind them, yet Eris shivered with cold for his uncontrollable fear of Raga’s enormous power. Closer still, the roaring heat approached, and like a monstrous smithy’s forge, sucked in enormous amounts of air. A great wind arose and the sand whirled violently on unpredictable eddy currents. Heat and fire increased in temperature and blasted across a vast expanse of sand. Red light flashed with a brilliance that made Eris squeeze his eyes tightly closed. Waves of intense heat washed over them and the horses screamed with fear. As quickly as it had come, the roar continued apace and rushed off into the distance until there was naught but a low, rolling thunder and the heat dissipated rapidly to mix with the heat of the rising desert sun.

The glow of Raga’s hand faded and the sorcerer began to topple from his saddle. Eris grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and struggled to keep the portly sorcerer in the saddle and the terrified horses running in the right direction.

Daring to look behind, Eris saw their pursuers still riding full-force out of a cloud of dust. Suddenly, the horses squealed and men and animals collapsed into a pile of flailing limbs and twisting bodies.

“By the gods, Raga, what did you do?” Eris’ voice was hushed in awe at the sight. The riders from the rear flanks spread wider in an attempt to avoid the wailing pile-up, but didn’t realize their plight until their mounts slid, faltered and their flailing bodies were added to the screaming, moaning chaos. It was a sight he didn’t pretend to understand. Gently, he gave Raga a shake. “What did you do?”

“Glass,” Raga answered in a voice Eris barely heard.

“Glass?” Eris repeated, puzzled. He watched as the last riders, unable to stop their charge, and with nowhere to go, went down in the same manner as the first. Neither man nor beast escaped unscathed from the pitfall of Raga’s sorcery.

“Sand and heat,” Raga explained, exhausted, and leaned heavily against Eris for support.

Eris understood. The cold he felt earlier intensified and a deep shiver shook him. Tiny bumps of fear, bordering on panic broke out along his forearms. At the sight of Raga’s flesh touching his, he felt a queasy sort of loathing, a sense of deeply buried terror twist deep in his stomach.

Raga’s words that echoed in his mind
, may not work
. The result exceeded an understatement. He hated to think what Raga could do when he knew his plan was going to work.

“Damn him,” Eris swore between gritted teeth and tore his gaze from the men behind them.

He let the horses run wild and full-out to expel their terror, and his. In that way, he put a respectable distance between them and the cavalry. Eventually, satisfied that the soldiers were too far behind, and likely too injured to give chase, he slowed the lathered horses to an easy trot.

He discovered to his surprise and annoyance that Raga had managed to fall asleep on a galloping horse and was snoring quite peacefully. The red jewel no longer glowed like a burning coal; nevertheless, it was clutched tightly in his hand.

Now that the horses were walking, Eris carefully balanced Raga by slumping him forward so he could sleep undisturbed. He twisted around to view the havoc Raga created.

From their higher position on the desert floor, he saw the enormous sheet of icy-smooth, Raga-forged glass. The bright sunlight shimmered on its surface making it appear as a cool, refreshing pond. Here and there the small shapes of men and horses still struggled.
Poor beasts,
Eris thought, and wondered how this incident would be explained to the Sultan
. Those soldiers will probably spend the rest of their lives in chains,
Eris smirked, but the humor faded fast. He hoped it would be a long time before he found himself in such a predicament again.

Raga slept through the rest of the morning and afternoon. Left solely to his thoughts, Eris brooded over the events in Reshan. Not even the good wine Raga had packed, which was probably magically contrived, made him feel better. Having come this far in his quest for the three gems, he wasn’t about to get besotted again, though the gods knew how he wanted to.

His right wrist suddenly throbbed as is rested against his thigh. He looked down. One of the cuts made by the iron bands had pulled open and was bleeding again. The wound was red and swollen, as were several of the other gashes on his other wrist. He carefully upended the wineskin and poured the liquid into the wounds. It stung as it ran into the deeper cuts, but it was preferable to the infection likely to set in if it hadn’t already. There was nothing to use as a bandage, so he rode for a while with his wrists turned up to the warm, desert sun. The awkward position of his hands only reminded him of what he wanted to forget and deepened his angry melancholy. Charra-Tir had a more complete revenge on him than ever she could have imagined.

Swallowing the last drop of wine in the skin he’d nursed for some time, he hurled the empty skin far out into the sand and turned to look back across the distance they had come. This time he saw no sign of pursuit and Ulna Karahm’s towering palms had disappeared from sight. A sense of relief came unexpectedly over him, yet at the same time, he felt that a part of him had been abandoned there. He didn’t know why, how, or what that could be, but it troubled him in an odd way nevertheless. Perhaps one day, in the far distant future, he would consider the feeling again, but for now he only wanted to forget.

Turning back around, his eyes rested on Raga’s sleeping form and he contemplated his options. How easy it would be to let his horse wander off and become lost in the vast desert. The waning of the sorcerer’s powers was more evident, and the morning’s escape seemed to have weakened him further. With limited use of his arcane abilities, Eris thought perhaps it would take the sorcerer quite a while to find him again. By then, it might be possible that he would be rid of the curse and more inclined to give Raga his stones back. At last, he frowned. There was no guarantee whatsoever that once the powerful sorcerer had possession of his gems, they wouldn’t be used against him.

He looked down at Raga’s hand and sighed. In spite of being sound asleep, the sorcerer tightly clutched the stone. He doubted he could take it from him without him waking. Besides, a small part of his conscience nagged at him, the man had saved his life and that required some acknowledgment on his part. His honor spoke louder and demanded it.

The afternoon drew to a close and the sun turned into a fiery, orange ball burning on the horizon, while streaks of pink and purple colored the darkening sky in the east. Without the blazing heat of the sun, the desert quickly lost its warmth and the chill of approaching night came on. Eris wondered if Raga had remembered to pack his clothing. He felt odd in the eunuch’s attire now that it had served its purpose, and even a little sunburned on his shoulders and back.

Carefully, he unfastened the gold chains from around his neck and placed them in his coin pouch, which was one of the first items he found in his pack. The pouch was much too empty for his liking, but the heavy chains would go a long way in filling it with coins.

Raga snorted suddenly and woke from his slumber. He shook his wooly head and rubbed a hand across his stiff neck. He sighed and groaned a bit as he straightened in the saddle trying to stretch the stiffness out of cramped muscles.

“By the gods! Have I slept all day?” he asked. He quickly scanned the sky above, and then looked out across the empty, arid plain.

“Obviously,” Eris commented dryly. He frowned, when he saw Raga absently slip the red gem into the pouch hanging from his belt. “Did you remember to bring my clothes?”

Raga gave him a sideways glance filled with annoyance and picked up the wineskin hanging from his saddle horn.

“Why, thank you, Eris. Yes, I do feel much better,” Raga said shortly and unstoppered the skin. He took a swallow, swished it in his mouth and spat it on the ground. “You could at least be a little thankful that you still have a back to cover.”

“My apologies,” Eris said and inclined his head toward Raga.

“I assume we haven’t been followed for the greater part of the day?”

Eris rummaged through his saddlebags. “No, I haven’t seen anyone, not even in the distance, since the cavalry fell to your trap.” He finally found his cloak and pulled it out. It would keep the chill away until they stopped for the night.

“I think some food would do us both good about now,” Raga suggested.

“That it would. I’ve not eaten a decent meal since the one at the inn,” Eris agreed, hungry now that the suggestion was made.

Raga handed Eris a round ball of yellow cheese, some dried meat and an apple. Eris grabbed up another skin of wine and devoured the apple.

“So, what happened this morning, when I couldn’t hear you through the bond?” he asked and tossed the apple core onto the sand.

“Something I feared might happen. I’m losing more and more of my power as time passes. Making good our escape this morning severely taxed my abilities. I need to be careful from now on and use it only when absolutely necessary,” Raga said. He stretched up and yawned. “No wonder I feel so tired.”

“But I could still see the link as brightly as ever,” Eris said.

“That’s because you seem to have some strange propensity for the working of sorcery. Were it not for that, we might have been in greater trouble. But, I wish you’d stop doing things you aren’t supposed to do,” Raga said.

“Like what?”

“Like throwing that rock into my stream. That was a very dangerous thing for you to do, and before you say anything, let me explain. By doing that, untrained as you are, you risked accidentally melding our minds together. Forever,” Raga said with emphasis on the last word.

Eris was appalled. “Forever?” He swallowed hard.

“Yes. You can’t go into my mind, nor I into yours, and change the other’s ideas and impressions. By moving that stone, you changed my impression of the stream and forced your will upon it. You created something completely different.”

“By only moving one stone?”

“The stone is immaterial to the point. The important thing is that something was changed.” Raga pressed his fingers together into a weave pattern. “Think of our two minds as the weft and warp of a piece of fabric. The opposing threads weave together, flow together, to form a smooth piece of cloth. Our minds are like that. Two opposing forces flowing together and what you did was tie a knot into our fabric. If you make enough mental knots, we become knotted together in a sense and our individual thoughts are no longer our own, but ours together,” Raga explained.

He wrinkled his nose at his apple and tossed it to Eris. He chuckled at seeing the look of distress on Eris’ face and felt a sense of horror ripple through his thoughts.

“I knew you would understand,” Raga laughed. “Fortunately, this little knot you made isn’t very strong and will work itself out in time.”

“I should have known it would come to something like this,” Eris said, biting into the apple. “When I tossed that rock, I felt a queasy rolling somewhere in my own mind.”

“As I said, tying knots. Wrapping one piece of thread around another.”

“Believe me, I won’t ever do that again,” Eris said and thought a moment. “That leads me to believe that undoing this bond isn’t as easy as creating it.”

“True, but it wears off eventually if left unused. Fortunately for you, it will be sooner than later with the decline of my power,” Raga said, looking up at the stars and the silver sliver of the waning moon. “We should have enough light to travel for a while tonight.”

“You want to keep going after all we’ve been through? The horses are nearly spent as it is. They took a pretty good scare and have been moving all day,” Eris said.

“I know, but we can’t stop until we’ve crossed the border out of Reshan and into Briamithis, so we’ll head in a more westerly direction. Until we do, we run the risk of being captured by a patrol, or one of the nomadic tribes. Somehow, information travels fast in this desolate region and I want to be out of this desert as soon as possible,” Raga said.

“That makes two of us,” Eris said and reined in his horse.

“Why are you stopping?” Raga asked and halted his animal.

“Are you sure this is my saddle?”

“It’s the same one you left Rennas Baye with. Why?”

“For some reason it’s been damned uncomfortable,” Eris answered and dismounted. “All afternoon I’ve tried to get myself situated in it.”

Loosening a strap behind the saddle, Eris pulled out his boots and sat down in the warm sand to pull them on. That would at least allow him to feel a little more clothed and normal.

“That’s quite a costume you have on,” Raga commented, watching the crimson pantaloons billow out over the boot tops. “I’ve been meaning to ask how you came by it.”

“I was in a hurry. It was the best I could do under the circumstances.”

“What circum—” Raga froze mid-word. His eyes widened a bit as he stared down at Eris.

Eris glanced over his shoulder, when Raga failed to speak. “What now?” The way Raga was looking at him annoyed him.

“Eris! You’re a man!”

Eris let go a frustrated sigh as he twisted around to have a better look at Raga. The sun beating down on his head all day had affected brain.