Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman - Rose of the Prophet 01 - The Will of the Wanderer

The Will of the Wanderer

The Rose of the Prophet Volume One

by Margaret Weis And Tracy Hickman

Foreword

Look where you will, bold adventurer, for as far as the eye can see, there is nothing.

You stand near the Well of Akhran, a large oasis located in the center of the great Pagrah

desert. This is the last water you will find between here and the Kurdin Sea, which lies to the

east. The rest of the party, delighting in the first signs of life they have seen after two days of

travel through rolling, empty dunes, revels in the shady greenness, lounging beneath the date

palms, dabbling their feet and hands in the cool water that bubbles up from somewhere

underground. You, however—by nature restless and wandering—are already tired of this

place and pace about, eager to leave and continue your journey. The sun is dipping down in

the west and your guide has decreed that you must spend the night riding, for no one crosses

the stretch of desert to the east, known as the Sun's Anvil, during the hours of daylight.

You look to the south. The landscape unfolds before you, an endless expanse of windswept

granite whose broad, brownish, reddish monotony is occasionally relieved by touches of

green: the feathery-limbed tamarisk, the tall acacia, man-shaped cacti, scrub pine, thorn

trees, and clumps of a silvery-green grass (which your camels love to eat) that springs up in

odd and unexpected places. Continue traveling to the southwest and you will enter the land of

Bas—a land of contrast, a land of huge cities of vast wealth and primitive tribes, skulking on

the plains.

Glancing to the north, you see more of the same monotonous windswept land. But

well-traveled as you are, you know that if you journey several hundred miles north, you will

eventually leave the desert behind. Entering into the foothills of the Idrith mountains, you

follow a pass between the Idrith and the Kich ranges and arrive at a well-traveled highway

built of wood over which rolls innumerable wagons and carts, all heading still farther north

for the magnificent Kasbah of Khandar, the once-great capital city of the land known as

Tara-kan.

Irritably slapping your camel stick against your leg, you glance about to see that your guides

are loading the girba, the waterskins, onto the camels. It is nearly time to leave. Turning to the

east, you look in the direction you are to travel. The patches of green grow less and less, for

that way lies the eerily singing, shifting white sands, known appropriately as the Sun's Anvil.

Beyond those dunes to the east, so it is told, is a vast and locked ocean—the Kurdin Sea.

Your guide has informed you that it has another name. Among the desert nomads it was

once known scornfully as the Water of the Kafir—the unbeliever—since they had never seen

it and therefore assumed that it existed only in the minds of the city-dwellers. Any statement

made within the hearing of a nomad that he believes to be a lie is received with the caustic

remark, "No doubt you drink the Water of the Kafir as well!"

You are sorry not to have seen any of these fierce spahi— the nomadic desert horse

riders—for you have heard many tales of their daring and courage. When you mention this

to your guide, he coolly replies that though you do not see them, they see you, for this is their

oasis and they know who comes to its banks and who goes.

"You have paid well for the privilege of using their water, Effendi." Your guide gestures to

where the servants are spreading out a fine blanket upon the sand near the banks of the lake,

heaping it with gold and semiprecious gems, baskets of dates and melons brought from the

cool lands to the north. "There," he says in a low voice, pointing. "You see?"

You turn swiftly. A tall sand dune to the east marks the beginning of the Sun's Anvil.

Standing upon that dune, silhouetted against the emptiness of the sky behind them, are four

figures. They ride horses—even from this distance you can appreciate the magnificence of

their animals. Theü haiks—or head cloths—are black, their faces are shrouded ir black masks.

You wave to them, but they neither move nor respond.

"What would have happened had we not paid their tribute?" you ask.

"Ah, Effendi, instead of you drinking the blood of the desert, it is the desert who would be

drinking your blood."

Nodding, you look back, only to see the dune is once more barren and empty. The nomads

have vanished.

Your guide hurries off, shouting at the servants, the sight obviously having disquieted him.

Your eyes—aching from the glare of the sun off the sand—turn westward to find rest.

Here a line of red rock hills thrusts abruptly out of the desert, looking as if some gigantic

hand had reached down and dragged them up out of the ground. This is country you left two

days ago and you think back on it fondly. Icy-cold streams meander through the hills, to

finally lose their way in the hot sand. Grass grows in abundance on the hillsides, as do juniper

trees, tall pines, cedar, willows, and bushes and shrubs of all description. Entering the hills

was, at first, a welcome relief after traversing the desert land that lies between these foothills

and the mountains of Kich. But you soon found that the hills are—in their way—every bit as

eerie and forbidding as the desert.

Jagged cliffs of red rock, whose very redness is enhanced by the contrasting green of the trees,

soar into the overcast skies. Gray-white clouds hang over them, trailing long wisps of rain

that drag across the hilltops. The wind howls among the crags and crevices, the chill streams

rush wildly over smooth rocks as though they know their destination is the desert and are

trying in vain to escape their destiny. Occasionally, upon a hillside, you can see a patch of

white that moves across the green grass in an odd, undulating, flowing motion—a flock of

sheep being driven to new pasture by the sheepherding nomads who dwell in this region;

nomads who— you understand—are distantly related to those you have just seen.

Your guide hastens back with word that all is ready. You cast a final look about your

surroundings and notice—not for the first time—the most unusual phenomenon in this

strange landscape. Immediately behind you stands a small hill. It has no business being in the

desert; it is sadly out of place and appears to have been left behind when the bigger hills ran

off to play in the west. As if to further emphasize the hill's incongruity, your guide has told

you that a plant growing on this hill grows nowhere else in the desert, or in the world for that

matter.

Before you leave, you walk over to examine the plant. It is an ugly, lethal-looking species of

cactus. Squat, with fat, bulbous, pointed-tip leaves, it sprouts slender needles that must leap

out at their victim, for you swear that you do not go near the plant, yet you find—when you

look down—the wicked-looking thorns sticking in the tops of your boots.

"What is the name of this abhorrent cactus?" you ask, plucking out thorns.

"It is called the Rose of the Prophet, Effendi."

"What a beautiful name for something so hideous!" you remark, astonished.

Your guide shrugs and says nothing. He is a city-dweller, uncomfortable in this place and

impatient to leave. You look again at the strange hill in the middle of the desert and at the

even stranger plant growing on the hill—the ugly plant with the beautiful, romantic name.

The Rose of the Prophet.

There must be a story here, you think as you rejoin the waiting caravan.

There is, fellow wanderer, and I—the meddah—will tell it to you.

The Book Of The Gods

The universe, as everyone knows, is a huge twenty-faceted jewel that revolves around Sul,

Truth, the center. The Jewel rotates on an axis that has Good at the top and Evil at the bottom.

The twenty facets of the Jewel are made up of connecting triangles, each triangle sharing sides

with four other triangles. The nexus of their sides—the points on the Jewel—number twelve

and represent the twelve philosophies of Sul. The positive philosophies—Good (at the top),

Mercy, Faith, Charity, Patience and Law—are balanced by the negative—Evil (at the

bottom), Intolerance, Reality, Greed, Impatience, and Chaos. Each of the twenty Gods

combines three of these philosophies to make up one facet of Sul. Thus each God reflects a

different facet of the Center's Truth.

Five Gods at the top touch the axis of Good. These are the Gods of Light. Five Gods at the

bottom touch the axis of Evil. These are the Gods of Darkness. Ten Gods exist in the middle,

touching both Light and Darkness. These are the Neutral Gods.

When the world of Sularin was first created, it glowed brightly in the universe because each

God remained joined to his fellows and Truth's Jewel shone as a single, brilliant planet in the

heavens. Man worshiped all the Gods equally, speaking to them directly, and there was peace

in the world and in the universe.

But as time went by, each God began to focus only on his or her facet of the Truth, coming to

see that particular facet as The Truth and pulling away from the others. The light of the Jewel

became fragmented, starting to shift and vary among the Gods as they fought with each

other.

In order to increase his power, each God sought to outdo the others by showering blessings

down upon his mortal worshipers. As mortals will, the more blessings they received, the more

they sought. Men began to call upon the Gods day and night, demanding favors, boons,

gifts, long life, wealth, fair daughters, strong sons, fast horses, more rain, less rain, and so

forth and so on.

The Gods became deeply involved in the petty, day-to-day affairs of mortal men on Sularin,

and the universe began to suffer, for it is written in Sul that the Gods must look not upon the

light of one sun as it rises and the darkness of one night as it falls but must see the rise of an

eternity of suns and the fall of an eternity of nights. Because the Gods looked increasingly at

the world and less at the heavens, the Jewel of Truth began to totter and wobble.

The Gods were at a loss. They dared not offend their followers, or it would mean losing their

own existence. Yet they had to get back to the business of keeping the universe in motion. To

help with this problem, the Gods summoned forth the immortals. A gift from Sul to the Gods,

the immortals were beings created in the image of the Gods and given eternal life, but not

unlimited power. Divided up equally among the Gods, these immortal beings had originally

been performing the task of greeting the deceased after their departure from Sularin and

escorting them to the Realms of the Dead.

"From now on, however," said the Gods to the immortals, "you will be the ones who must

listen to the bleating and whining and incessant 'I want's of mortal man. You will deal with

those wants that are within your power to provide— gold, jewels, horses, assassinations, and

so forth. Other matters more difficult to arrange, such as marriages, babies, and rainfall, you

will continue to bring to us."

The immortals were delighted with this new service; the Realm of the Dead being, as one

might imagine, an extremely dull and boring place. The Gods, in vast relief, began to

distribute their share of immortals as each God thought best.

As the nature of the Gods differed, so did the nature of the immortals and their workings

among men. Some of the Gods feared that the immortals might become as great a nuisance

as man himself, while others desired to protect their immortals from the follies and vagaries of

man. These Gods established a hierarchy of immortals, assigning the lower echelon to act as

emissaries to ones above.

For example, the immortals of Promenthas—God of Goodness, Charity, and

Faith—instructed his immortals, whom he called angels, to speak to only the most holy and

pious of mankind. These men became—in time—priests of Promenthas.

The worshipers of Promenthas brought their wants and needs to the priests, who brought

them to the angels, who brought them to the archangels, who brought them to the cherubim,

who brought them to the seraphim, who brought them finally—if the wants and needs were

truly important—to the attention of the God. This arrangement proved a satisfactory one,

providing a well-ordered and structured society of humans who dwelt primarily in large cities

on the continent of Tirish Aranth. Promenthas's priests grew in power, religion became the

center of the lives of the people, and Promenthas himself became one of the most powerful of

the Gods.

Other Gods differed in their ways of utilizing the immortals, however, just as they differed in

their ways of looking at Truth. Akhran—the God of Faith, Chaos, and Impatience— was also

known as the Wandering God, for he could never stay in any one place for any length of time

but was constantly roaming the universe, seeking out new ideas, new scenes, new lands. His

followers, being like their God, were nomads who roamed the desert lands of Pagrah on the

continent of Sardish Jardan. Not wanting to be bothered with his faithful— who returned the

favor by not wanting to be much bothered with their God—Akhran turned over almost all his

power to his immortals, then handed out the immortals freely as gifts to his followers. Known

as djinn, these immortals lived among men and worked with them on a day-to-day basis.

Quar, God of Reality, Greed, and Law, took his time and studied the various methods of

deploying immortals—from Promenthas's hierarchy of angels to Akhran's jumble of djinn.

While Quar admired the firm grip Promenthas's priests kept on the people with their highly

structured system of rules and regulations, Quar found the bureaucratic stratification of the

angels cumbersome and unwieldy. Messages were often garbled in translation, it took endless

amounts of time to get anything done, and—as Quar watched closely—he saw that in small

matters mankind was starting to depend upon himself instead of bringing matters to the

attention of Promenthas.

Promenthas was, so Quar thought, unreasonably proud of this freedom of thought among

his followers. The God of Light enjoyed the philosophical and theological discussions carried

on among his people. A studious lot, the people of Tirish Aranth never tired of probing into

the mysteries of life, death, and the hereafter. They relied on themselves to find gold and

jewels and marry off their sons and daughters. Quar did not like to see man assuming such

responsibilities; it gave him grandiose ideas.

But neither did Quar ascribe to Akhran's heedless casting away of all responsibility into the

increasingly fat laps of the djinn, who were meddling in the mortal world with lively

enthusiasm.

Quar chose a middle ground. He established priests or Imams who ruled over the people of his

realm, Tara-kan, on the continent of Sardish Jardan. The Imams were each given djinn of a

lower nature who, in turn, reported to higher djinn known as 'efreets. Quar also distributed

djinn to certain people in power: Emperors, Empresses, Sultans, Sultanas, their viceroys—the

Wazirs—and the generals of the armies—the Amirs. Thus the Imams did not become too

powerful… and neither did the Emperors, the Sultans, the Wazirs, or the Amirs.

Mankind fared well, all things considered, as each God— acting through his

immortals—sought to outdo the others in terms of blessings.

Thus began the Cycle of Faith that is set forth in the Book of the Gods:

"As a man waters a bed of flowers, so the Gods pour down streams of blessings from the

heavens. The immortals catch the streams in their hands. Walking upon the world, the

immortals let fall the blessings from their fingers like drops of gentle rain. Man drinks the

blessing of the Gods and gives the Gods his faithful following in return. As the numbers of the

faithful increase, their faith in one God becomes vast and wide as an ocean. The God drinks

from the water of the ocean and in turn grows stronger and stronger. Thus is the Cycle of

Faith."

The Gods were well-pleased with the Cycle, and once each God had his affairs in order, he

was able to return to performing Godlike works—that is, bickering and fighting with the

other Gods about the nature of Truth. Because of the Cycle of Faith, the Jewel of One and

Twenty became more or less stabilized and continued revolving through the centuries.

Until now the time had come for a meeting of the Gods of Sularin. The Cycle of Faith had

been broken. Two of their number were dying.

It was Quar who summoned the Twenty. During past centuries Quar had worked untiringly

to try to mend the rift between Evren, Goddess of Goodness, Charity, and Faith, and

Zhakrin, God of Evil, Intolerance, and Reality. It was the constant strife between these two

that had disrupted the Cycle of Faith.

Due to their strife, the blessings of the two Gods were falling on mortal man not as a steady

stream but as an intermittent drizzle. Their immortals, all vying for the meager drops of

blessings, were forced to resort to trickery and scheming—each immortal determined to grab

a cupful of blessing for his particular'master.

Such blessings, doled out in miserly portions like coppers to a beggar, did not satisfy the

wants and needs of mortal man, who turned from the immortals in anger. Those among

mortal men who remained loyal to their Gods withdrew into secret societies—living, working,

and meeting in secret places throughout the world; writing volumes of secret texts; fighting

bitter, secret, and deadly battles with their enemies. The oceans of faith of the £wo Gods

dwindled to a trickle, leaving Evren and Zhakrin nothing to drink. And so these two Gods

grew weaker, their blessings grew less, and now it was feared that their oceans of faith might

dry up completely.

All of the Gods and Goddesses were upset and naturally took steps to protect themselves. The

turmoil and strife spread quickly to the plane of the immortals. The djinn snubbed the angels,

whom the djinn considered a snobbish, prudish band of elitists. The angels, on the other

hand, looked upon the djinn as boorish, hedonistic barbarians and refused to have anything

to do with them. Two entire civilizations of humans— those on the continent of Sardish

Jardan and those on the continent of Tirish Aranth—eventually refused even to acknowledge

the other's existence.

To make matters worse, the rumor began to spread that the immortals of certain Gods were

disappearing.

At the urgent behest of Quar, therefore, the Twenty came together. Or perhaps we should say

nineteen came together.

Akhran the Wanderer—to the surprise of no one—did not make an appearance.

In order to facilitate matters during the meeting, each God assumed a mortal form and took

mortal voice for ease of communication—speaking mind-to-mind becoming a bit confused

when twenty minds are all endeavoring to talk at once as was usually the case when the Gods

came together.

The Gods met in the fabled Jewel Pavilion located on top of the highest mountain peak on the

very bottom of the world in a barren, snow-covered land that has no name. A mortal who

climbs that mountain would see nothing but snow and rock, for the Jewel Pavilion exists only

in the minds of the Gods. Its look varies, therefore, according to the mind of each God, just as

everything else varies according to the minds of the Gods on Sularin.

Quar viewed the Pavilion as a lush pleasure garden in one of his turreted palaces in one of his

walled cities. Promenthas saw it as a cathedral made of marble with spires and flying

buttresses, stained-glass windows, and gargoyles. Akhran, if he had been there, would have

ridden his white steed into a desert oasis, pitching his tent among the cedars and junipers.

Hurishta saw it as a grotto of coral beneath the sea where she dwelt. To Benario, God of Faith,

Chaos, and Greed (Thieves), it was a dark cavern filled with the possessions of all the other

Gods. Benario's opposite, Kharmani, God of Faith, Mercy and Greed (Wealth) viewed it as an

opulent palace filled with every material possession coveted by man.

Each God sees the other nineteen entering his particular surroundings. Thus, the dark-eyed

Quar, attired in a burnoose and silk turban, looked barbaric and exotic to Promenthas in his

cathedral. The white-bearded Promenthas, dressed in his surplice and cassock, appeared

equally ridiculous, lounging beneath the eucalyptus in Quar's pleasure garden. Hammah, a

fierce warrior God who dressed in animal skins and wore a horned metal helm, stomped

about the cherry trees of a tea garden belonging to Shistar, the monk Chu-lin sat in a

cross-legged meditative pose on the freezing steppes of Hammah's home in Tara-kan.

Naturally this gave each God—comfortable in his own surroundings—good reason to feel

superior to the other nineteen.

At any other time a meeting of the Twenty would have been a forum of discussion and

argument that might have gone on for generations of mortal man had not the situation been

of such severity that—for once—petty differences were put aside. Each God, glancing about

the sea or the cavern or the garden or wherever he happened to be, noticed uneasily that in

addition to Akhran (whom no one counted) two other Gods were missing. These were two of

the major Gods— Evren, Goddess of Goodness, Charity, and Faith, and Zhakrin, God of Evil,

Intolerance, and Reality.

Promenthas was just about to question their whereabouts when he saw a decrepit and wasted

man enter the Pavilion. The steps of this man were feeble. His ragged clothes were falling off,

exposing his limbs, which were covered with sores and scabs; he seemed afflicted by every

disease known to mortal man. The Gods stared in shock as this wretched being crept down

the red-carpeted aisle of the cathedral or among the splashing fountains of the pleasure

garden, or through the waters of the sea, for the Gods recognized him as one of their

own—Zhakrin. And it was obvious, from his cadaverous face and emaciated body, that the

God was dying of starvation.

His eyes dull and glazed, Zhakrin looked around the assembled multitude, most of whom

could not hide the signs of appalled horror on their human faces. Zhakrin's feverish gaze

skipped over his fellows, however, obviously searching intently for one he did not, at first, see.

Then she entered—the Goddess, Evren.

The Gods of Light cried out in anger and pity, many averting their gaze from the ghastly

sight. The once beautiful face of the Goddess was wasted and skull-like. Her hair was white

and hung from her shriveled head in ragged wisps. Her teeth were gone, her limbs twisted,

her form bent. It seemed she could barely walk, and Quar hastened forward to catch hold of

the poor woman and aid her faltering steps.

At sight of her, Zhakrin sneered and spit out a curse.

Evren, with a strength unimaginable in her thin and wasted body, shoved Quar away from

her and threw herself at Zhakrin. Her clawlike hands closed around his neck. He grappled

with her, the two falling to the red carpet of the cathedral or to the mosaic tile of the garden or

the bottom of the ocean floor. Shrieking and howling in hatred, the battling Gods rolled and

writhed in what seemed a hideous parody of lovemaking—a bitter struggle to the death.

So frightful was this that the other Gods could do nothing but watch helplessly. Even Quar

appeared so sickened and stunned by the sight of these two dying Gods—each attempting

with his or her last strength to murder the other—that he stood staring at the twisting bodies

and did nothing.

And then, slowly, Zhakrin began to fade away.

Evren, screaming in triumph, scratched at his vanishing face with her nails. But she was too

weak to do him further injury. Falling backward, she lay gasping for breath. Quar, moved

by pity, knelt down beside her and took the Goddess in his arms. All could see that she, too,

was beginning to disappear.

"Evren!" Quar called to her. "Do not let this happen! You are strong! You have defeated your

enemy! Remain with us!"

But it was useless. As she shook her head feebly, the Goddess's image grew fainter and

fainter. Zhakrin could no longer be seen at all, and within moments Quar found himself

kneeling on the tile of his perfumed garden, holding nothing in his arms but the wind.

The other Gods cried out in anger and fear, wondering what would happen now that the

order of the universe was thrown completely out of balance. They began taking sides, the

Gods of Darkness blaming Evren; the Gods of Light blaming Zhakrin. Quar—one of the

Neutral Gods—ignored them all. He remained on his knees, his head bowed in profound

sorrow. Several of the other Neutral Gods moved to his side, offering condolences and adding

their praise for his unrelenting attempts to mediate between the two.

At that moment the air whispering through the eucalyptus, the silence of the cathedral, the

murmuring of ocean water was broken by a harsh sound, a shocking sound, a sound that

caused all argument and conversation to suddenly cease. It was the sound of hands clapping,

the sound of applause.

"Well done, Quar!" boomed a loud baritone voice. "Well done! By Sul, I have been standing

here weeping until it is a wonder my eyes didn't run from my head."

"What irreverence is this?" Promenthas said severely. His long white beard falling in shining

waves over his gold-embroidered surplice, the hem of his cassock rustling around his ankles,

the God strode down the cathedral aisle to confront the figure who had entered. "Be off with

you, Akhran the Wanderer! This is a serious matter. You are not needed here."

Folding his arms across his chest, Akhran gazed around him loftily, not at all disconcerted by

this distinct lack of welcome. He was not attired in robes of honor as were the other Gods.

Akhran the Wanderer wore the traditional dress of the spahi, a desert rider—a tunic of white

over white woolen trousers, cut full for comfort and tucked into the tops of shiny black leather

riding boots. Over the tunic and trousers he wore long black robes that brushed the floor,

their flowing sleeves covering his arms to the elbow. A white woolen sash girdled his waist.

When he gracefully tossed the folds of his robes over his arm, the blade of the scimitar and

the jeweled hilt of a dagger could be seen, flashing in the light of Sul.

As he stared coldly at Promenthas, Akhran's bearded upper lip—barely visible above his

black face mask worn with the black turbanlike haik—curled in a sneer, his teeth showing

gleaming white against his brown, weather-lined skin.

"What is the meaning of this outburst?" Promenthas demanded sternly. "Did you not witness

the tragedy that has occurred here this terrible day?"

"I witnessed it," Akhran said grimly. His smoldering black eyes went from Promenthas to

Quar, who—with the help of his fellows—was rising slowly to his feet, his pious face drawn

with grief and sorrow. Lifting a brown, weathered hand, Akhran pointed at the pallid,

slender, and elegant Quar. "I have seen it and I see the cause of it!"

"Fie! What are you saying?" Indignation rustled among all the Gods, many of whom

gathered about Quar, reaching out to touch him in respect and regard (Benario managing at

the same time to acquire a fine ruby pendant).

At Akhran's speech, Promenthas's beard quivered with suppressed anger, his stern face grew

sterner still. "For many, many decades," he began, his low voice sounding magnificently

through the cathedral, less magnificendy in the pleasure garden, where it was competing

with the shrill screams of peacocks and the splashing of the fountains. In the oasis, where

Akhran stood, regarding the Gods with cynical amusement, the white-bearded Promenthas's

sonorous tones could barely be heard at all above the clicking of the palm fronds, the bleating

of sheep, the neighing of horses, and the grumbling of camels.

"For many decades, we have watched the untiring efforts of Quar the Lawful"—Promenthas

nodded respectfully to the God, who received the accolade with a humble bow—"to end this

bitter fight between two of our number. He has failed"—Promenthas shook his head—"and

now we are left in a state of turmoil and chaos—''

"—That is of his making," Akhran said succinctly. "Oh, I know all about Quar's 'peace

efforts.' How many times have you seen Evren and Zhakrin on the verge of burying their

differences when our friend Quar here brought the skeletons of their past grievances dancing

out of the tombs again. How many times have you heard Quar the Lawful say, 'Let us forget

the time when Evren did such and such to Zhakrin, who in turn did so and so to Evren.' Fresh

wood tossed on dying coals. The fire always flamed up again while friend Quar stood looking

on, biding his time.

"Quar the Lawful!" Akhran spit upon the floor. Then, amid outraged silence, the Wandering

God pointed at the place where Evren and Zhakrin had breathed their last. "Mark my words,

for I speak them over the bodies of the dead. Trust this Quar the Lawful and the rest of you

will suffer the same fate as Evren and Zhakrin. You have heard the rumors. You have heard

of the disappearance of the immortals of Evren and Zhakrin. Some of you others have lost

immortals as well." The accusatory finger rose again, pointing at Quar. "Ask this God! Ask

him where your immortals are!"

"Alas, Akhran the Wanderer," Quar said in his soft, gentle voice, spreading his delicate hands.

"I am grieved beyond telling at this misunderstanding between us. It is through no fault of

my own. It takes two to make a quarrel, and I, for my part, have never been angered with

you, my Brother of the Desert. As for the disappearance of the immortals, I wish with all my

heart I could solve this mystery, especially"—Quar added sadly—"as mine are among those

Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman - Rose of the Prophet 01 - The Will of the Wanderer

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