The Nomad - By Simon Hawke Page 0,76
said. “The undead will be at rest.”
“Yes,” said Sorak. “If we are fortunate, we may complete our task in time and leave Bodach before nightfall. But we must not count on that. We cannot afford to assume anything. You really must try to get some rest. At least for several hours.”
She glanced around uncertainly. “Sleep on a tiny wooden raft hundreds of feet above the ground, buffeted by the wind?” She shook her head. “Well, I can try, but in truth, I do not think that it will do any good at all.”
“Here,” he said. “I will hold you. Try to get some sleep.”
She snuggled into his strong arms. It felt good to be there.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
She took a deep breath and shut her eyes. Suddenly, she heard a gentle humming in her mind, very low at first, then rising slowly, until the voice of Lyric, singing beautifully, not aloud, but in her mind, filled her with his song. She held her breath for a moment in amazement and delight. She had never known that he could do that. Then she sighed and settled into Sorak’s arms, secure in their embrace as Lyric sang to her, a gently soothing, haunting melody for her and her alone. The rocking motion of the raft upon the wind seemed almost like the rocking of a cradle. She smiled as she lay in Sorak’s arms, her mind filled with Lyric’s song, and soon she drifted off to sleep and dreamt of the verdant valleys and forests high in the Ringing Mountains. And the winds continued to blow them toward the city of the undead.
* * *
“Ryana,” Sorak said, squeezing her gently. “Wake up.”
Her eyelids fluttered open, and for a brief moment, she did not remember where she was. She had gone to sleep with Lyric’s beautiful voice singing in her mind and had dreamt of her young girlhood at the villichi convent in the Ringing Mountains.
In her dream, she had been no more than seven or eight years old, her body still awkward and coltish, her sense of wonder at the world she lived in still undiminished and untainted by its harsher realities. She had dreamt of running down the forest trails around the convent, her long hair streaming behind her in the breeze as her feet pounded on the sun-dappled ground. She had run with all the exuberance and joy of youth, trying to keep up with Sorak, who even then could outsprint her easily with his elvish speed and endurance. It had seemed, then, that they would live out their whole lives that way, studying and training at the convent, nurtured by the loving bond of the villichi sisterhood, bathing in the bracing cold waters of the small lagoon fed by the stream running down from the mountains, running through the peaceful, green valley with its sheltering canopy of trees, sharing simple pleasures and true contentment. It had been a happy and uncomplicated time. And as she awoke, she realized that it was gone forever, faded just like her dream.
“We have arrived,” said Sorak.
She sat up and followed his gaze. They were being blown across the inland silt basins and, ahead of them, now clearly visible, was the ancient, ruined city of Bodach.
It was shortly after sunrise. From the height at which they flew upon their wooden raft, Ryana could see the peninsula jutting out into the silt basins from the north bank of the Estuary of the Forked Tongue, where it met the Sea of Silt. Near the tip of the peninsula, the spires of Bodach rose high above the surrounding countryside. Ryana caught her breath.
At one time, it must have been a truly magnificent city, testimony to the accomplishments of the ancients. But as they approached, they could see that it now possessed merely a shadow of its former glory. Many of the buildings were crumbling into ruin, and the once sparkling edifices were now scarred and worn by blowing sand. There were ancient, rotting wooden docks extending out into the silt basins, where boats had once been moored when the basins and the sea were water instead of slowly shifting sand and dust. At one time, during an earlier age, a time that no one now living on Athas could remember, the city had stood almost completely surrounded by water, a bastion of commerce and flourishing culture. Part of the spit of land now extending to the east must once have been submerged, forming a protected bay