Kelfor (The Orthomancers)

Chapter 8

The sand gets everywhere. In our eyes, inside our clothes and our shoes. It is windy and it feels as though each gust of sand battering against us is removing another layer of cells.

Coughing and blustering, we stagger on through. Our eyes stream at first and then become dry and grime-ridden as we dehydrate gradually during the day. The first night we hide under the carricks and try to drink enough to enable us to go on the following morning.

We have split into groups. Ammeline and Koban keep themselves to themselves. They rarely speak to us now. Koban usually stalks along, bringing up the rear, watching over Ammeline like a wolf might watch a sheep. Ammeline is in her element. She looks over at us from time to time with triumph in her eyes. I am beginning to change my mind about her. Now I think she is just stupid. She flirts with Koban continually. I suppose she does it just because she can. Her eyes often slide to the rest of us. She wants to know if we notice. If we care.

Vannis has taken to walking next to Linnith. He glances every so often in Doven's direction, and his black eyes also glitter. He still appears to be amused.

Doven has stopped speaking to most of us and seems absent. I can't tell what he is feeling, though I walk alongside him most of the time. He paces with his gaze firmly on the ground. He doesn't want to see what is happening around him. Perhaps he is regretting joining us.

Karith, our pathfinder, is leading. Zivan keeps pace with her, although she is walking a little to one side. Neither woman seeks the company of the other. They are content to walk on individually. Karith has had words with her daughter, but Linnith has taken scant notice of her mother. She is enjoying the attention Vannis is giving her. She keeps twisting her hair around her ear. She is beginning to annoy me too. I am pulled closer and closer to Zivan, even though she would probably laugh at the thought.

Furian is usually to be found next to me, though he always has an eye on Koban. He carries the last of the guns. All but three were damaged and have been abandoned. We left the other two that were still in working order with Jethran and Fimbrian, back at the Karstik Gap. When we stop, he signals to me with his head. We are to continue the kappaltu training. He takes me to one side, behind a small dune of sand, and we practice moves. Over and over again. He too, has become quiet. I mourn my mother, but I am beginning to realize that the others have lost everything, too. None of us can ever go back.

Why did they all do this for me? How could Fimbrian ever bring his granddaughter on such a journey? Kalyka is only eight years old. How can an old man like Fimbrian protect her? It seems such a huge step for all these people. Because, like it or not, they did it for me. Because I am the last orthomancer. Because it is the last chance for our people to escape from the Raths.

I breathe out slowly. From the moment my mother fell from the spar in the dome, life has become inexplicable. And cheap. I see how easy it is to die now. Even though I was a slave, working every day in a job which cripples people, my mother was protecting me, giving me the illusion of continuity. That is what mothers do, after all. Being a slave was normal for me. Leaving the pseudo-security of that life was not a decision I had to make. I don't think I would have. All the rest of the people here did.

There is no continuity now. Each day only takes us closer to our own deaths. Furian knows it. I know it. Only stupid Ammeline and vain Vannis are too short-sighted to see it. I hear myself think and begin to laugh. I used to want to be like them. Now I can see them as mere pawns in somebody else's game. Now I want to be different. I want to be as strong as a Rath. I want to be as comfortingly supportive as Furian. I want to question the status quo just like Fimbrian does. I want to meet life with my eyes wide open like Kalyka. And I want to find happiness in the open air, like Torch has.