The Reluctant Champion

5. Madoc

Galen woke with a splitting headache. His face was half-buried in a dune. Sand gritted against his eyelid, his ear, down his neck and under his shirt. The other side of his face felt like it was starting on a truly momentous sunburn. He groaned and pushed himself to a sitting position, squinting at the sun. It was already high in the sky.

He was half-way down the face of a dune. The desert stretched around him in every direction, tawny and indifferent. The sprites had dropped him in the middle of nowhere, with no shelter, no water, and no hint of the direction to travel. At this rate his road would be marked with death a great deal sooner than he planned.

Galen groaned again and pushed himself to his feet, feeling dizzy and sick. The sand shifted and he found himself face-down in it again, with no clear idea how he got there. He pushed his head free of the sand, then froze. A scorpion stood before his face, rocking on its legs. Its tail was no more than five inches from his eyes.

Not a scorpion. Where a scorpion has a collection of eyes and mandibles, this creature had something resembling a face. It looked at Galen dispassionately. It did not speak—could he have heard so small a voice?—and yet it communicated somehow.

I am the fast road to death, it might have said.

Galen didn't dare breathe to respond. He articulated the words without quite speaking.

Those who take your road are carried against their will, he said. I would go at my own choosing.

Fool! The creature seemed amused. Do any choose their death? Fate chooses for you, and I am fate's agent. I will be your road.

No, said Galen. Not yet. I have a longer road to walk. I may yet make your choice.

Indeed. And when the time comes will you be able to choose the downward path, knowing you may not return? Will your purpose hold you so fast?

Yes, said Galen. My purpose will hold.

The creature rocked in silence for a time. Then: So confident. That is half what you need. For the rest—we shall see. As death's agent, I give you leave to try.

Faster than the eye could follow, its tail flicked out and scored the air before his nose. Galen jumped back on his heels. The creature had turned and was scuttling away across the sand, heading in a straight line toward the horizon. In moments, it was gone.

Galen wiped a hand across his clammy forehead. At least the encounter had driven the dizziness and nausea out of his mind. He hoisted himself to his feet and looked about.

All directions seemed the same. To stay was death. To travel—to travel might be death too. At least he would be moving. For a while. Galen collected his fragmenting thoughts and staggered across the face of the dune in a direction as nearly as possible opposite to that taken by the desert creature.

#

The sun tracked him across the sky as he walked. At first there was no change in the landscape. Then he found that there was firm ground underfoot—rocks and desiccated earth—with dunes laid across it like waves caught halfway up a beach. Ahead, the land rose up and broke in strange, angular shapes. It wasn't until he could see figures moving that Galen allowed himself to accept that this was a town.

Approaching the town from the desert as he was, all the gates were on the far side of the town. No trails led across the desert. Galen had to follow the walls around, looking for a way in. The town was quite large, considering its location, and it took him a while to reach the first gate, facing south along a road that was no more than a faint trail across the wilderness. People—people!—milled around at the gate. They wore coarse white robes for the most part, covering their whole bodies and their heads too. A ragged caravan had just arrived, or was just setting out, and the confusion of traders, onlookers, and beggars blocked the entrance thoroughly.