30: The Road To Saran

Vir was out the moment his head touched sand, and for the first few hours, he slept like a log. Then, as the sun rose, and the temperature went from pleasantly warm to unbearably hot, he began to toss and turn, as did Maiya.

It was the sweat that dripped into his eyes that forced him to wake up. His armpits had turned into a river, and his back was just as soaked. Thankfully, he’d removed his shirt prior to falling asleep, but that just meant granules of sand now stuck to his wet back.

“AAAAAH!! GET IT OFF GET IT OFFFF!!”

Vir jolted upright to Maiya’s screams. He immediately reached for his katar, ready to do battle with pirates.

How did they find—oh! Nevermind. With a sigh, he slowly put his weapon back down.

“Maiya, it’s just a little scorpion.”

“It’s icky and gross noooo!”

Uh, oh. She’s crying now. Better do something…

Maiya clutched at her hair, desperately trying to rid herself of the small creature that was undoubtedly panicking as much as she was.

“Just hold still,” Vir said, gently pulling the scorpion out of her hair and setting it down on the sand outside the tent. “You almost broke our tent, Maiya.”

“What was I supposed to do? Just lie still and hope it went away?” Maiya said, sitting with her knees drawn up to her face.

Vir rolled his eyes. “These scorpions can’t hurt you, Maiya. At worst, they’ll sting you, but their venom is useless against humans.”

This wasn’t the first time this kind of thing had happened. He was sure it wouldn’t be the last.

“You’re such a mess,” she said, commenting on his makeup.

“That’s rich, coming from you. Have you taken a look at yourself?” Vir countered. Maiya hadn’t taken off her top for obvious reasons, leaving her shirt sticky and soiled. “Good thing Riyan gave us another set of clothes.”

“Ugh,” was Maiya’s reply. Vir was used to being dirty. Maiya? Not so much.

“Bet you wish you had a Water affinity right about now!” He teased. “At least you wouldn’t have to worry about keeping clean.”

His friend frowned. “I guess… It sure would be nice to conjure water whenever I felt like it. Apex Fire and Greater Water would be nice. Rare combination, too. Yep, that’d be nice. Water affinity’s supposed to be rare, though.”

“True,” Vir replied. There were no utility orbs that could conjure water out of thin air, after all. Water was one of those unique affinities that had applications both in and out of combat.

Vir wondered whether ice affinity magic could conjure drinking water, but he didn’t know what spells that school of magic possessed. He supposed Maiya would find out soon enough once she began her mejai training.

Peeking outside, he saw the sun still high in the sky. He made a fist and sneaked an arm outside the tent, then held it straight out. Four fist widths from the horizon to the sun.

“Looks like four hours of daylight left,” he said. “See if you can get some more sleep. I’ll get food going.”

Maiya responded by flopping back onto the sand.

Vir crawled out of the tent, leaving its shaded protection. The sun blared down on his skin, but thanks to the makeup on his face and arms, he managed alright.

In this scorching heat, the last thing he wanted to do was to build a fire. But food had to be cooked, and he didn’t want to dip into their nonperishables just yet. Vir resigned himself to his fate and unstrapped the small bundle of firewood they’d strapped onto Bumpy.

To hide the flames, he dug a small ditch in the sand. Even during the day, the light of a fire was visible from afar. Thankfully, it was a lot easier digging into sand than dirt. But because of the heat, Vir soon found himself heaving from exertion, anyway.

The one area that had improved the least was his stamina. Vir was forced to sit down to recover his energy, and as he analyzed his black prana with Prana Vision, he suspected why.

He’d noticed before that his black prana was a tiny trickle compared to the prana inside Riyan or Maiya. Finally, he understood why: it leaked, continuously. The more effort he spent and the faster his blood pumped, the more it leaked. Both into the air, and through his feet into the ground.

He didn’t really understand what effects prana depletion had, but Riyan had said that it was the energy of life, so he doubted it was a good sign.

It’s almost like I’m being sucked dry, he thought. But why?

No matter how much he racked his brain, he couldn’t explain why only his prana leaked out. Was his body generating more prana all the time, only for it to be sapped away? The same leakage never once happened with Riyan or Maiya. And if prana really did support life, he wondered how the people in the Voidlands survived at all.

Did they also feel weak all the time? He wondered. Making a mental note to ask Riyan about that when they were back, Vir got the fire going. Since the man himself wasn’t around to say no, they’d borrowed one of Riyan’s luxury items—a magnifying glass.

Vir lifted the heavy lens and held it above the tinder pieces he’d arranged at the bottom of the pit he’d dug, creating a tiny spot of incredibly bright light on the wood.

He’d never used anything like this before, though Rudvik had told him stories about how they operated. All he really had to do was hold the lens long enough to heat the wood. Something about how it concentrated the sun’s light to fry whatever you pointed it at.

It sounded like magic to Vir when he’d first heard about it, but as it so often turned out, reality disappointed. His arms grew heavy from hefting the heavy object when a small sizzle finally showed that the lens was working.

Now it was a race against time: would Vir’s arms give out first? Or would the smoking tinder catch fire?

Challenge Accepted.

Perspiration flowed down his face like a river, but Vir endured. And after a short but fierce battle of mind against muscle, his persistence prevailed. The tinder lit—he had a fire, and meal prep was officially in progress.

Vir let the flames grow and then burn themselves out. Once they’d become embers, he placed some fresh vegetables directly on the bed of coals.

Led by her nose, Maiya crawled out of the tent, but immediately ducked back in as if she’d suffered an attack.

“How in Yuma’s name can you even cook out there? It’s so dang hot!”

Vir laughed. “Just stay inside. I’m almost done.”

As the veggies roasted and mushrooms sizzled, Vir thought back to the pirate encounter earlier. He realized he should’ve kept a better watch on the coastline for ships. Maybe he’d have seen them in time to avoid them entirely. If Riyan ever heard about this, he was sure the man would give them a long lecture about situational awareness.

But the bigger issue was his chakram’s crippling flaw. He’d hesitated to use the disks because he knew that each one he threw would be lost forever. If he did eventually buy nicer steel chakrams, would he be able to just throw them away like that?

If only they returned to me…

But alas, they were merely disks of steel, not Artifacts from the Age of Gods. They might float through the air better than a thrown knife, but they possessed no mystical powers whatsoever. Even if they did, Vir guessed they would require magic to use.

He shook his head. Thinking that way was dangerous and foolish. What was a piece of steel worth compared to his life, or the lives of his loved ones? Weapons were replaceable. Maiya was not.

Maybe I can get that guy to teach me archery instead…

But Vir loved his chakrams. Everyone had bows, but nobody used chakrams. At least, not that he’d heard of. They were rare, exotic weapons from the Age of Gods. He liked that about them.

Vir brought Maiya a bowl of the salted vegetable stir-fry, which they both gobbled up with relish.

“I never realized I was this hungry,” Maiya said between mouthfuls. Vir hardly heard her—he was too busy shoveling food into his mouth.

Once they’d wrapped up, Maiya dabbed away her marred makeup and reapplied it, then did the same for Vir.

“What do you think?” She asked once they had finished.

“It’s good… But maybe not as good as when you’d first applied it?” Vir said.

“Well, obviously. I’m not going to get the same results with a travel kit and a small mirror. But it should be good enough. I hope,” she said with a frown. “Anyway, what do you want to do now? Stay on a night schedule? Or should we push forward to Saran?”

Vir knew without a doubt which option Maiya preferred. “Saran,” he said. “I think we’re somewhat close to the Saran-Daha highway, and we’re close enough now that we shouldn’t encounter too many bandits. Not like blazing our own path did us much good, anyway.”

Maiya’s eyes lit up at his words. “Oh, I can’t wait to sleep in a proper bed tonight! Maybe they’ll even have a bath!”

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” said Vir. “We can’t really splurge on accommodations, or we won’t have enough for all the supplies Riyan wants us to bring back.”

“Just a little’s okay, right? It’s just one night! Right?”

Vir laughed. “We’ll see, Maiya. No promises though!”

The two worked quickly to break up camp. Vir shoveled sand back over the fire, erasing any trace that it was there, while Maiya disassembled the tent and swept the sand to erase their tracks.

She’d found an innovative solution to her sunburn problem—she’d darkened her skin a bit with makeup this time around, and so she just applied the same makeup to her forearms and hands, which had the benefit of matching her facial skin tone and protecting her from the sun at the same time.

“Y’know, we make a good team,” Maiya remarked as they mounted Bumpy once again. “We packed that stuff up in record time!”

It was true. They’d taken only half an hour to get things packed away and ready for travel.

“We can probably do it even faster next time,” Vir said, scanning the horizon.

He led Bumpy in a vaguely easterly direction, using the sun’s position and his own mental map to guide him, while Maiya used some charcoal to scribble down additions to their papyrus map as they rode.

“There it is!” Vir said, spotting a snaking pathway through the desert in the distance. “Guess I was right. We weren’t far from the highway, after all.”

The cobblestone path that led from Saran to the Hiranyan capital of Daha was a delight to travel upon. Even though the stones were as hard as the rocks that had given them sore bottoms last night, the road was perfectly smooth and flat, making for a much smoother ride and a faster pace.

“We should’ve just taken the road in the first place,” Maiya said, grumbling.

For the first time during their journey, they saw other travelers, and they encountered more and more as they neared Saran. All rode Ash’va’s, without exception. Some were hitched to wagons or carriages towed by the beasts, but there wasn’t a single person on foot. Only a fool would cross a desert without a pack animal.

“They seem pretty friendly, huh?” Maiya said, nodding to another traveler.

“Seems like it. But keep your guard up. Never know what kinds of people you might run into here.”

“Ho there, travelers!” A tall man called out. He had short cropped black hair and was dressed in the flowing white robes of most of the desert travelers they encountered, apart from some gold and silver accents here and there. But the man’s most distinct feature was his enormous black handlebar mustache that looked like it was more wax than hair.

“Unusual to see two children on the road alone,” the man said, trotting his Ash’va up next to theirs. “Are you in need of assistance?”

“No—ahem,” Maiya said, remembering to lower her voice, “we’re bound for Saran. Thank you for the offer.”

The stranger chuckled. “If you’re headed this direction, you can only be bound for the port city. But are you alone?”

Maiya glanced at Vir, who responded. “We’re the sons of a merchant based out of Daha. We’ve made this trip several times. Thank you for your concern, but we do not require any aid at this time.”

Vir was surprised by his own confidence. The pirate encounter had left both of them rattled, so he wasn’t sure if he could pull it off.

“We’re on a trade run to buy Ranian textiles from Saran,” Maiya said, riffing off of Vir’s statement. “Better deals at the port, you see.”

“Oho?” the man said, twisting the ends of his absurd mustache. He leaned over and stared for an uncomfortable amount of time.

“Do you have any business with us?” Vir said, growing anxious.

Has he seen through our disguise?

“Not at all, young ones. I apologize for my intrusion. I pray to Adinat that your mission is profitable. Good day.”

He kicked his Ash’va and sped forward.

They both let out a breath. “Thought we’d been made!” Maiya said.

“Same. That was weird,” Vir replied, watching the man disappear into the distance, his beast’s hooves clacking against the cobblestone road.

“And how the heck is his Ash’va so fast!?” He said, gaping at the animal’s speed. It moved twice as fast as Bumpy did when he ran all out.

“Some Ash’va are bred for speed,” Maiya replied, “but they can’t travel as far. Of course, top tier animals can do both, but they cost a lot more.”

“Did Riyan teach you that too?”

She shook her head. “Nope, dad did.  So anyway, what do you think that was about?”

“Wish I knew.”

Yet something nagged at his mind as they rode on, like an itch he couldn’t quite scratch. Minutes later, it finally clicked. “Say,” he said. “Wasn’t that man going the other way when he bumped into us? Wasn’t he leaving Saran?”

Maiya tapped her chin. “Now that you mention it… Yeah. Yeah, he was. Wait,” she said, the color draining from her face. “You think…”

“I hope not,” Vir said, but he had a bad feeling about this. “Stay sharp, Maiya.”

City walls appeared on the horizon just as the sun set, painting the sky with its brilliant hues.

For Vir and Maiya, who’d never once laid eyes on a proper city before, the walls stood imposingly tall. Soldiers walked along its ramparts, and its many crenellations and arrow slits cued up tales of fantasy and myth in their minds.

Had they looked closer, they’d have noticed cracks in its foundation, gaps in the security patrols, and a myriad of other signs that told a different story entirely.

“Time to put our acting skills to the test, I guess,” Vir mumbled, seeing the line of wagons and carriages waiting to enter Saran. The guards were stopping everyone before allowing them to enter.

“Don’t worry, I got this,” Maiya said. “Let me do the talking. Riyan told me that businesses ordinarily need papers to get through, but Sawai don’t. And apparently, it’s a big deal if a commoner is rude to nobility, so we’ll play that to our advantage. Plus, we’re arriving during the day. He said the security checks get worse at night, since that’s when the shadier types try to get in.”

Vir wondered whether that was true, or whether it was just the less competent brigands who arrived at night. If he wanted to enter illegally, he’d do so during the day, just as they were doing now. He suspected others did the same, but since no one caught them, no one knew.

Vir’s nerves grew tauter and tauter as they crept closer to the gates. “We could’ve traveled another dozen miles in the time it’s taken for us to inch closer to the gate. This is so frustrating!” He ranted.

After what felt like an eternity to Vir, their turn finally arrived. As they’d discussed, he let Maiya do the talking.

“Papers, please,” the guard said. The man wore a full length gray gambeson with the Hiranyan coat of arms embroidered on his chest. His only weapon was a talwar, which hung from his waist, but the other handful of guards that loitered nearby all wielded polearms.

The mere sight of that infernal weapon drummed up terrible memories inside Vir, forcing him to look away.

Maiya feigned a look of shock. “You would ask a child of the Suvir family for their papers? Do you not see who I am, you fool?”

Vir could scarcely believe the words pouring out of Maiya’s mouth. Her swaggering, overconfident tone was unlike anything he’d ever heard before.

The guard jolted back at Maiya’s words. “No, ser, no, of course not. Just doing my job, ser. May I ask your lordship what business brings you to our city?”

Maiya gazed at her fingernails as if she were bored out of her mind and that being here was the worst thing in the world.

“Oh, it’s all very droll, you see. Father wants us to buy some of those new Ranian textiles everyone’s been talking about in the capital. Honestly, can you believe that? He tasked us to come out here to the arse-end of nowhere to do a servant’s bidding!” Maiya said, letting out a very long sigh. “But I suppose that we’ll peruse the wares, now that we’re here. You understand, don’t you?”

“Oh yes, ser. Absolutely. Please don’t let us keep you any longer. We hope you enjoy your stay in our city.”

“Oh, I am quite certain I won’t, but I appreciated the gesture,” Maiya said, tossing a small sack of Imperium coppers to the guard.

The man fumbled to catch the sack before hurriedly stuffing it into his gambeson. Vir wondered whether bribery was the norm here, or if it was something that fell under the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ category. From the way the guard hid the coins, he suspected the latter.

Vir guided Bumpy past the checkpoint and took a deep breath. His heart quickened and his palms tightened around Bumpy’s reins.

After all, it wasn’t every day that someone stepped foot into a city for the first time in their life.