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failings. As you know, we had our own black-spellers.
And even honest magicians were selfish, as all men are. Thus, we restricted
very tightly the fabrication and use of the white-energy generators, so that
our own geas-making would not be compromised. When the universal necromancers
made their assault, we were . . . we were too late in mending our ways."
Basdon nodded. "My other puzzle is this: The souls of each of the three of us
will be taken upon our deaths by They Who Own All, will they not?"
"Yes," said the magician.
"Then how will we hide that talisman you are carrying in your saddle-pack?"
Basdon demanded. "Can they not probe the truth out of our spirits, and
discover the hiding place?"
Jonker grinned. "Not if we do not know the place ourselves. Are you familiar
with the River Heralple?"
"I've heard of it, while in Nenkunal, but I have not seen it."
"It flows down swiftly from the Fogfather Mountains to the Eastern Ocean. But
before emptying, the main stream divides into thousands of rivulets that move
sluggishly through a vast swampy deltaland.
There the River Heralple's burden of mud and silt is dropped. I propose that
there, too, will the talisman of favoring destiny be dropped. I've thought
long on this matter, swordsman. If the talisman is thrown into the swift
portion of the river above the delta, no man nor magician will be able to
guess which of those thousands of rivulets will receive it, nor where along
their windings it will come to rest and be covered, as the centuries pass, by
layers of the earth of Nenkunal. It will be safe from everyone's knowing,
including our own."
Basdon could see no flaw in the plan. "Then all we need do is reach that
river," he remarked. "For that reason, I hope the storm over the Hif Hills
gentles before we reach them."
"Storm?" asked Jonker, peering suddenly ahead. "Yes . . . yes . . . I see. My
eyes are less sharp than they once were."
Eanna said, "I see it. Big black clouds, and lightning shooting out."
"It is most unseasonal," Jonker commented with a worried frown.
The clouds, hanging low over the hills ahead, roiled and twisted with a
velocity Basdon had never before observed in any storm. And their coloring was
a peculiar yellow-gray, rather than white, where sunlight struck their upper
edges. Below, they were an impenetrable purple-black.
The farmers the riders passed along the way were viewing the distant turmoil
with dumb alarm. If the storm moved down on them, now in early harvest season,
its havoc could leave them to starve in the months ahead.
However, the clouds seemed to be holding their position over the hills,
neither advancing nor retreating.
* * *
That night the travelers camped short of the hills, with gusts of wind
flapping their tents and making a fire impossible to maintain. The darkness
was filled with noise, loud even at a distance, of the roaring wind and
clashing thunder. Several times they felt the earth quiver beneath them.
With the dawn the fury abated somewhat. The horses were mounted and the
journey resumed. Soon the
Hif Hills were reached, and the riders stared about in shocked dismay.
It was plain to see that the storm had brought no rain. The clouds had been
dust and dirt, a pall of which still lingered in the fitful morning gusts. And
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the hills, desolate before, were now a tumbled ruin. Trees were splintered or
uprooted. Hardly a shrub had its roots in soil. In places the wind had
scrubbed away everything, down to bedrock. In other places, logs and brush
were piled in high, dusty drifts. Here and there, smoke rose from a
lightning-set fire.
"That was no natural storm," murmured Jonker.
"I can see that," replied Basdon.
Nothing more was said as they made their halting way over the broken land.
Going was slow and difficult, and kept them too busy watching their horses'
steps to brood over the question which, Basdon guessed, had occurred even to
Eanna:
If the hills bordering Nenkunal had been tormented thus, what had happened to
Nenkunal itself?
They learned the answer when they reached the highest crest.
Here the air was clear of dust and they could see ahead for tens of leagues
across the valleys of
Nenkunal . . . across, but not down into, because all was dust below.
The storm the travelers had seen over the Hif Hills, they now realized fully,
was only the blunted edge of destruction. All the wide land of Nenkunal had
been shaken, lashed, and scoured by awesome forces.
Indeed, the fury was now only partly abated. Cubic leagues of earth were still
windborne over what had been green and happy landscapes.
"Sand," muttered Jonker. "I knew it to be Nenkunal's destiny to lie its full
length under waterless dunes, but I never dreamt it would come so soon, so
suddenly."
"I suppose we know why," said Basdon.
"Yes . . . They Who Own All have struck."
"But why didn't they strike us instead?" asked Eanna her eyes wide with
horror.
"Because, being what they are, they assumed wrongly," said the magician. "They
guessed that we, like
Laestarp, wanted to use the talismans of Oliber that would give us power to
dominate talismans that I
found and destroyed as objects of more potential harm than good in the new
age. With those talismans we could have traveled more swiftly, and would have
been here in time to be included in this ruin. And to make doubly sure that
earth-magic would never rise against them, they destroyed the entire country
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