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Raider pointed a little ahead to a large, slightly sunken, nominally darker patch of the same hard-packed earth that they had been traveling over since dawn.
“Whatever that is, it’s twenty feet ahead. You made me jump on purpose.”
Raider’s white teeth flashed in a grin. “Maybe. But you were so deep in thought I wasn’t sure how long it might take to reach you.”
“Don’t pretend there’s an emergency when there isn’t one.”
“Well, it would be an emergency if you set foot on that little patch of hell. But that’s why I’m here: to look out for you.”
Seth closed his eyes briefly, internally berating himself for his thoughts on the dullness of Raider’s silence. A few seconds of conversation, and Seth could already feel the familiar pressure in his chest that made him want to throttle the man.
Raider asked, “Do you get this wound up with everyone, or is it just me?”
“It’s just you.”
“Because you dislike me so very much?” Raider asked lightly.
“Just tell me what that ‘little patch of hell’ is.”
“Quicksand.”
“Really? It looks dry.”
“The top is. That’s why I walked across a patch like that once, trying to get to the govaa tree growing in the middle of it. It’s a soupy, nasty mess under that crust. Dislocated my knee getting out.”
“You could have died.” Seth’s hands tightened on the reins. The risks this man took were outrageous.
Raider shrugged. “I got out.”
“Reckless,” Seth muttered, shaking his head.
“I was starving.”
“Reckless to have been out there alone.”
“Have you already forgotten that you were planning to cross both this and the Kesh alone?”
Seth swung down from his horse. “If that’s quicksand, I can draw water from it with the alembic.”
“Did you just ignore my question?”
“Hold these reins please.” Seth thrust them in Raider’s direction.
Taking them, Raider grinned. “A please? You must be warming up to me.”
Seth dug into his saddlebag for the compact alembic. It was a sophisticated and valuable arcane device that looked a bit like a small hookah, though the canister was copper instead of glass, and it had two hoses.
Such a brilliant piece of artifice. Julian’s inventions had done so much for the College, so much for people. It was hard to imagine such a man murdering a colleague.
But then, Seth didn’t really know Julian. Seth had caught the young arcanist watching him from a distance a few times, but Julian had never engaged Seth in conversation. In fact, Seth had always felt like Julian avoided him. Once, passing the young arcanist in a hallway at the College, Seth had said, “Good morning,” and Julian had frozen like a hunted rabbit, clutching a stack of books to his chest.
Seth had always assumed that Julian was afraid of him, but what if Julian had actually been afraid of Seth discovering his activities? What had Julian secretly been involved in?
After all, he had apparently fled the murder scene with a book. When Catalus, head of the Department of Alchemy, had assigned Seth to this manhunt, Catalus had ordered him to bring Julian and that book back to the Arcanum for thorough examination.
For Seth to do that, however, he had to get across the Kesh, and that meant weeks of smaller concerns: sun, sand, food, and, above all, water.
While Raider kept the horses back, Seth made his way to the quicksand with the alembic and a leather bucket. When Seth was still two feet from the edge, Raider called, “That’s close enough.”
