Demon of the Black Gate

Cerra wasn’t sure how she felt about the plains. There was a sense of vastness about them that she had not felt anywhere else. The capriciousness of the wind could be heard as it swept the grasses, its approach announced before the zephyr even reached her. But the air was not alive with birds as it was with the open meadows of her cabin, or the closeness of the forest. The distances felt unsure. There were no walls to judge things by. A sound would simply disappear.

The demon walked ahead of her in silence, leaving her to her thoughts. Kamir nestled in his customary place across the saddle and her lap. She still had little idea as to how she could possibly lend assistance, though part of her felt that the time would present itself. For now, she was absorbing all she could of the strangeness of the world she was in.

By the second day, they had reached the lands bordering the Assai desert. She could feel the dryness of the grass, and even sense the aridity of the desert which still lay some leagues distant. The occasional cast of wind would bear the heat in its wake, the smell of arid, lifeless sand. It reminded her of the kiln of Sedgelin the potter, and as she gazed blindly out to the flat horizon, clay pots of all sizes shapes littered the landscape in her mind.

The demon stopped at the last well that sat nestled in the watercourse that they had followed. True to Jadan’s word, none had attempted to waylay them. There had been no riders in evidence, though the demon had proclaimed their whereabouts on occasion when they had be observed from nearby rises. She filled her water bags, and carried them back to her horse, tying them on.

She felt her way to the blanket she had laid out and sat back, staring sightlessly at the sky. The cooler breezes of evening were starting to course across the vast open fields. Even so, just the flaxen robe and light trousers she had received from the plains women was enough for her comfort. She appreciated the feeling of the clothes, and thought the women wise for their choice of garment in these comfortable airs. The robe was light of weight but sturdy, though she imaged the light of day showing through them. No doubt they would be scandalous in Amberland Gap, she smiled to herself. She wondered again what had happened to her skirt and shawl. She had not taken the time to recover them in her haste to leave. The demon was standing near. Silent. She could see the blue flame of his form. He was facing to the South.

“I cannot smell the sands yet, but I feel the heat of it in the air that passes.” Cerra followed his gaze, turning south. “The women of the Cherros spoke of the desert. And even I have heard of the Great Sands of the Assai. What are they like?”

The demon took a moment before answering. As before, it took him awhile to assimilate what he saw and form into words, a communication long denied him. But he knew the desert. It was bleak and inhospitable ... like himself.

“Dry. Life is fire in the days. Water has fled from there. Even rain will shun its surface. The desert is an ocean of sand. In some places it towers like the mountains. In others, it is pebble and stone that thirsts for water.”

The stilted words were spoken in a slow cadence, though they came to her as poetry. Cerra envisioned the space she was in, but denuded of the waving grains that carpeted the earth here. The temperature of the plains was plenty warm enough by day. The sands must be hot indeed. Her capricious turn of imagination saw the earth on fire, devoid of life.

“We will cross under the dark of night.” continued the demon. “Where we are, the desert is not too wide, the end of its sands lie near. But the sand lies flat where we will cross, and salts crust the surface in white. You ... none ... would live there during the day. Again Cerra thought of the furnace of the potter.

“That is near enough.” came the demon’s thought to her own.

She lay back, letting her sight extend into the evening sky. There were no stars to count, save those she remembered as a child. Still, those were enough, and her imagination added to the cluster until that was all she saw. She lay for awhile, letting her vision play with the night sky. Painted faces of Charros passed among the stars. She slept.

The demon watched her. Silent and unmoving. A stone sentinal.

The next day, they didn’t travel far. By mid-day they had reached the edge of the desert, where the sand lapped at the grasses of the prairie. There was no cover or shade. The grasses here were perennially brown, their colors leached by the ocean of bleached sands that pushed against their shores.

If Cerra had sniffed the heat the evening before from the well, now the baked scent of earth and air permeated everything. She never knew she could smell raw heat, not flavored from the baking or burning. As though iron had no substance and the forge was the air. It reminded her of the demon, his hot dry scent.

“You should be right at home here.” she said with a laugh. “It feels like a place where nothing lives except those that can abide a furnace.”

“There are worse places.” said the demon.

Cerra didn’t need to see the void to know of what he spoke. “Yes there are.” she agreed silently.

“When shall we cross?” she spoke aloud.

“We have time yet. When the sun turns red … when it is low. Then we start.”

Cerra felt the vastness in front of her, and indeed the vision of the dead flatness that her mind allowed her rippled much the same as the heat rising from the ground erased the solidness of horizon.

“I think I’ll like the ocean better.” she mused.

“You will like it better.” the demon stated with a flat rumble.

“Off you go, Kamir. Though I think you’ll find little to hunt here. I have some fresh dried lamb. Don’t run off.” she said, stroking his ears before urging the cat from his perch.

She slid from her horse. The heat, even from this bordering fringe of withered grass, was intense and the sun was merciless. She knew a rash of freckles crossed her nose and cheeks, and she imagined them blooming in the sun. She was glad the rest of her fair skin was covered. She had sunburned before while laying naked on the rock by her little lake. She felt she’d burn even through the cloth.

“I’m going to get my face out of this sun for a little bit, or it shall be the same color as my hair.” Cerra grabbed her stick from the saddle gear and found a nice hollow to lie in. She slipped inside of her robe and used the stick to prop it like a small tent. She curled into a ball, anticipating a short nap. Kamir eased himself inside, tickled her nose as he put his muzzle to her face, then felt his weight settle in next to her.

She hadn’t expected to sleep, but she fell under right away, the heat a presence that waited just beyond her consciousness. It competed for her dreams.

It felt like mere moments later when Kamir nuzzled her. She could not have said how long she slept. A slight breeze manage to press the fabric of her robe, tented above her. It was cooler, though the air still had the fire of the day to expel with its breath.

“We can start now.” said the demon.

Cerra ventured nothing, but stood and stretched. She thanked the gods as was her practice, and particularly thanked the women of the rider’s camp for the robe. Her own clothes would have been woefully ill-suited for such a trip, hot and cumbersome. She mounted, the cat following quickly.

“We shall walk while the air is still warmed from the day. Then you will have to run the horse for a distance. We cannot cross at a walk. You would suffer if the sun rises and finds you still on the white sands.”

“I am in your hands.” she said.

The demon saw that she was ready and began leading the way. She urged the horse into motion, following the gleaming haze of the spirit that shone in her sightless eyes. The horse had only taken a dozen steps or so down a slight, barren embankment, when it stepped onto the salt pan of the bleak surface.

Cerra felt as though she were stepping onto the surface of another world than the one she knew. Before they had been even an hour out in the flat, Cerra knew that she did not like deserts very much, or at least this one. The flatness of the place defeated her senses. In her mind it felt like flat upon flat, with only the vague line of horizon defining them. Nothing on nothing. Even the wind chose not to blow here, for there was nothing to caress in its passing. She was thankful it was night, for she could feel baked air emanating from the crisp ground that sounded like the grinding of peppercorns under Sugar’s hooves. The rising heat was the only thing that moved out here. The moisture was likewise drawn from her breath, and when that wasn’t enough, her lips began to dry as well. She took a drink, and held a damp finger to Kamir, who licked it quickly before it could evaporate. As a cruel counterpoint, once the sun was well down, the night air tried to settle cold bones on the heat as it fought to escape the salted flats.

“It is time to run the horse.” said the demon.

Cerra nodded, and leant over Sugar’s neck to whisper in her ear. “We’re going to run, Sugar. Good girl, you are.”

She gave the horse a nudge with her heels. Sugar started reluctantly, then gathered speed and settled into what Cerra hoped would be a sustainable run for her. The demon ran ahead.

The demon set himself to emulate the horses shape, speed and gait. The sands gathered to create a steed, the mane and tail a trailing shower of fine particles and salts. The smashing hoofs dissolving like powder as they struck the hard pan, yet emerged entire as they strode, the muscle and sinew churning sands. The demon didn’t leave a trail. He never did.

Her run with the Cherros had been in the middle of a tempest, a roiling herd. There was a communication of power. Here, the flat pan of desert reduced the gallop to a race across an endless space. She felt no borders. Even the ground seemed oblivious and invisible by its very nondescript flatness. She could have been running in place, left with no end to the race in a world where there is nothing. There was no pleasure of sense to draw her on, so she let herself settle into the rhythm of the horse. The pace felt good, and Sugar could maintain it for awhile; but she’d listen to the horse carefully. She lay the side off her head against the pumping neck of the horse.

“You’re a champion.” she whispered.

The demon led, a steed of element pacing the mortal one who carried the woman, her robes billowing in a waving trail. They left a thin trail of fiery dust.

Cerra never let Sugar run for very long. She could hear the great bellows of the horses’ lungs and when they began to labor, gave the horse its ease. The demon would slow and swirl in his own wake, and resume the pace.

“I cannot run her much harder.” she proclaimed at last. “I would rather suffer the heat than suffer this horse.”

“The horse will fare worse than you if it is here when the sun rises. The sun alone is too much for you. White salt and sand mirror the sun. It is heat on heat. Fire on fire. You would not survive, nor the horse. The other side is within reach. There will be rest for your beast soon enough.”

There was little she could smell over the musky sweat of her lathered horse. She felt she had been without her own internal sights for hours. Nothing in her vision allowed for such a bleak and open flatness. But there was a faint whiff, from an artifice of a breeze. She smelled water far off. Her throat parched. Sugar smelled it too; sharper senses caused the horse to snort and shake her head and pick up her step, even willing for another galloping pace. Before the demon could even set a pace, Cerra had the horse in stride, leaning low over the neck. The demon swirled and resumed his flowing presence beside her. Cerra wanted nothing but to feel something other than this emptiness. She thought of the black void the demon had unwittingly shown her. Had she just been standing out in this alone, instead of with the company of horse and cat … and demon, she could not have felt less bereft of sense. She let the horse have her head.

The sun was barely cracking the horizon when they reached the edge of the salt flats. Cerra felt small changes to the sound of the hoofbeat when the salts were left behind and the dusty crunch of dried and forgotton earth returned. She slowed the horse. Rock and stone and stubborn scrub replaced the flat cracked sands. The moment the sun peaked from the horizon she could feel its heat. The warm glow was immediate and without pause or apology steadily rose in intensity. She was weary, and the heat was already beginning to bake the surface of the ground.

“It’s going to be a hot one today.” she said to herself. “Today. And every day.”

“Hmmph” The sound came as a short rumble from the demon walking beside her.

They were entering a low rise of hills. The faint smell of water that Cerra had managed to sniff out crossing the desert was now full in the air. The lands were still largely barren, but stubborn grasses and stunted trees clung to the dusty rocks. She could smell goat and what had to be the musk of a cat. A large one she would guess. She tried to occupy her exhaustion with what she knew of the great cats.There were the mountain cats of her home, she had sensed them in the mountains, but they were judged small compared to others whose pelts were more exotic. She painted a few giant cats in her mind. Kamir smelt the markings too, and she could feel the tension in him as he sat on his perch.

They were walking at a moderate pace. Cerra had salt crusted on her face. Her head hung with fatigue. The demon had led them to a spot well into the rocky slopes bordering the salt flats. There had not been water there, but the demon felt the close presence. He knew the woman was parched. He punched a hole into the red sandstone, from which the pent water gurgled. He carved a bowl from the flat rock, fire from his hands glazing the surface, creating a sink which the water quickly filled. The horse drank its fill and Cerra plunged in soon after, robes and all in the cool water, which felt like heaven to her. The parched air of the salt flats had sucked the very moisture from her skin and she could feel it being absorbed in her every pore.

The demon stood at the edge of the basin.

“I shall have to stand apart from you soon. There are people. Farms. A city is in the distance. You have given me shape, but I will not pass unnoticed.”

“I see.” she said. “I am glad that your thought can come to me. It was very reassuring when I was with the Cherros. I am not so brave as you might think. Actually the thought of the city terrifies me. But I have my horse. And cat. And you. You have guided me well. Thank you. You have given me far more than you can possibly know.”

The demon felt something. Nearly the same feeling that he felt when she caused laughter. He had no response that made sense to him.

“There is an ocean to cross.”

“Oh yes. I can smell it in the air. It must be large indeed, the Sultan Sea then. I’ve heard tales from the sailors. Oh not how you might think.” she laughed.

That made no sense to the demon, but he found that he liked the sound of her laughter. There was a soothing quality that calmed the rage that lay just beneath his surface.

“It is large. We will cross it. To go around is too long.”

“Another first for me then. A boat. Shall I put that on the ‘list of terrifying things’ right behind ‘city’?

“I shall be close by.”

Cerra rose from the pool. The light robes clung wetly to her skin, but the linen would dry quickly in the hot air.

“Surely the boat shall cost me. I have no more than a few coppers.” she replied. “I can always barter my medicines, but I fear that will take too long. I sense urgency. I shall have to board the horse too.”

He thought about the fears she had expressed. “And fear not the people of the city. They have not the skill and spirit of you.”

She actually blushed when he said that. “Oh bless you. I fear the din, not the people. But I shall find out shan’t I.”

She stepped up to him, pressed her hand to his stomach, and kissed him on the cheek.

“Thank you.” she said.

The demon did something unusual. He smiled.

Sinjin had no trouble following the trail of the witch. As he had hoped, she was taking no more than a walking pace. He ran his horse as much as he dared and he was still light-headed from his bout with the infection and fever. His leg had a deep ache to it, but it no longer burned, and the heat of the fever had passed him. He could hold onto a horse. He had been worse after a battle. He could hold on now.

He reached the caravan road, and was surprised when he saw that her trail merely crossed the heavily used trade route and continued south, directly for the city of Ishkara. That would put her in a direct line to cross the Hellesmere, the arm of the desert known for its desolate and deadly conditions. He had no idea why she should ignore the safer route, except should she survive the crossing she would save perhaps three days of travel. She was far braver than he thought, or else immensely foolish.

He reached the edge of the salt crusted hook of earth that flanked the Assai Desert at noon. He could barely look out across its expanse. The heat of the direct sun was mirrored on the hard salt pan. There was nothing but glare in front of him. He dare not try to cross at this time of day. The woman would also cross at night. To do otherwise was suicidal. He reckoned that he had gained a day on her in his ride across the prairie. He felt another days ride would put her within sight. He had to move away from the edge of the flats. It seemed like the waves of heat emanating from the bright flat salts would singe his very brow.

Much like Cerra had done the day before, Sinjin withdrew from the fringes of the salt pan, sat on the browned and dry grass, and drew his caftan over his head like a tent. He sat under the protection of the cloth. In spite of the physical ache of recuperation, he was still feeling enormously vibrant. He had crossed the plains before, but they had never seemed so lush and inviting. The witch had given him something. The words slipped past his memory as he saw the fevered glimpse of her hovering over him. “You’ll remember this.”

He let the reflections take hold of his thoughts.

He didn’t stir for most of the afternoon. He came out of his reverie in the late afternoon. The sun here sets at nearly the same time each day. By his reckoning, he still had an hour, but he was overcome with impatience. He drank as much water as he could hold, and poured the rest into his horse. The first part of the ride would be hot, but he’d suffer it. He wanted to catch her before she reached Ishkara. He had plenty of resources there should he need them.

Sinjin kicked his horse into a trot, a pace he knew the horse could keep. The Cherros chief had been as good as his word. The horse was a good one, stout and well conditioned. Right now, it was worth the money he had given up for it. Running out on to the salt was like charging into a furnace, even at this late hour in the day. The horse was reluctant, but he spurred it on, squinting into the brightness and heat as he rode.

“From fever to furnace.” He thought. “And a witch to catch.”

Killing would be so much easier.

PART THREE

Come child and give me all that you are.

I am not afraid of your strength and darkness,

of your fear and pain.

Give me your tears. They will be my rivers and oceans.

Give me your rage. It will erupt into my volcanoes and thunders.

Give me your spent soul. I will lay it to rest in my soft bed.

Give me your dreams. I will arch rainbows in the sky.

You are not too much for me.

My arms and heart welcome you.

There is room in my world for all that you are.

Release your deepest hurt.

You are not alone and you have never been alone.

- Jessann of the Meadows