Jorax's crew departed the Whispering Cut back towards Qulomba. We headed northeast toward the Spartova. We had left the Qulombans with what they needed to survive. The water we had shared with them had come from the buffer between enough and perilous. It had felt noble. We saved a man and a desperate crew. But three days later, our nobility was beginning to feel like foolishness.
The caravan was silent from conservation not discipline. Every word spoken cost moisture.
The tuspaks, usually mountains of muscle, were wilted. Their tusks dragged in the sand.
I walked beside the lead wagon. My feet hit the ground with the dull thud of sandbags. I pulled my maps out of the pack. I didn't need to look at it; the image was burned in my mind.
"It's time for the rest, My Prince," Olen rasped. "The men... they are checking the skins every ten minutes. We are down to the dregs of the last barrel. Mud, mostly."
"If we stop, we burn more water," I said. "If we don't stop, we'll make the Twin Spires before dark."
"We are walking on faith," Olen said, avoiding my eyes. "And faith doesn't wet the tongue."
"It's not blind faith, Olen. It's a matter of geology." I tapped the rolled-up map against my leg. "The Twin Spires are basalt intrusions. When the water drops into porous sandstone, it hits the basalt and is forced up. It's a hydraulic inevitability. What's on the map is real. You can see the spires with the telescope if you want."
"You've never been this far," Olen said. It was just a statement of fact. "None of us have. Not even Elias came this deep into the Breaklands. You believe based on a view through a telescope of a mountain far away. You're gambling our lives that dead men's theories are correct."
"The principles hold," I said with a knot forming in my shoulder. "Physics here is the same as back home."
"Maps are paper," Olen wheezed. "Paper burns. Water is life. If the theory is wrong... we don't have enough to get back to the canyon. We shared too much with those Qulombans, Elyan. We're past the point of no return. If your theory is wrong..."
There was validity to his argument. The point of no return was two days behind us. I was betting all our lives on my ability to extrapolate underground hydrology from surface formations and an antique map. I looked back at the caravan. The men were stumbling, heads down, their heads layered in cloths, strip after strip. They were following me because I was their Prince, but that loyalty was fraying with every parching breath.
The hours dragged, each minute an eternity. Finally, shimmering in the heat haze were the black teeth of the Twin Spires. They had become undeniably visible to the naked eye. They were ugly things, stabbing the dark blue sky. Olen saw them too. His jaw loosened slightly.
I allowed our camp a rest while Bastien went scouting ahead, carrying the very last canteen of drinkable water. He should have signaled by now. A mirror flash, a flag, something.
All the men had left was what was in their personal skins and canteens. He should have signaled by now. I scanned the base of the rocks with my own telescope, my hands shaking so violently from dehydration that the horizon bounced as I imagined it would on a ship at sea.
Nothing but red sand banking up against the black rock.
Then, at last, Bastien himself appeared over a dune.
"He's back!" I shouted.
I made my way up to meet him along with most of the other men. He collapsed, his chest heaving and his eyes wide and hollow.
"It's dry," Bastien coughed out.
The men were stricken.
"What?" I scrambled to grab my canteen, pouring a precious capful of water into Bastien's mouth. "That's impossible. The geology... the basalt trap..."
"It's not there, Elyan," Bastien gasped, swallowing the water. "I checked the depression. I checked the shadow of the Spires. Any water there is long gone. It's bone dry."
"You went to the depression between the two spires?"
"I went exactly where you ordered!" Bastien snapped. "Nothing but sand."
Olen stepped forward, looking at the map tube in my hand, then at the endless red horizon. He took a slow, rattling breath.
"Turn them around," Olen ordered the men.
I heard the creak of leather. They were already turning the lead tuspak.
"Belay that order!" I shouted. My throat tore with the effort.
Olen turned to me. His eyes seemed to tear with a man accepting death. "My Prince," he said softly. "We followed your map. We followed your theories. But the desert does not care what you think. If we turn now... if we kill the animals for fluid... maybe some of us reach the last cache we left."
"If we turn back, we die!" I insisted. "The reserves are gone."
"And if we go forward to a dry hole, no one makes it," Olen countered. "We have to turn back."
The men were moving, listening to Olen.
Panic rose in me. I retreated to my canvas tarp. I needed to hide the terror in my face from the men. I unrolled the map. I rechecked the calculations. The slope, the rock density, the watershed area. Elias's equations were perfect. My projection was sound.
The water had to be there.
Unless I was an incompetent pretender. And my arrogance had just killed everyone.
I slipped my hand into my pocket and gripped the white Truth Stone.
I didn't want to use it. But I had to know if Bastien was lying. Was he sabotaging us again? Had his subconscious desire to return to his daughter twisted his perception? Had he seen a damp patch and ignored it, convincing himself it was nothing so we would have to turn back?
I squeezed the stone tight and asked the questions. "Did he see water? Does he intend us to go home?"
The stone responded instantly. There was just despair. No deception. No hidden agenda. Just the conviction of a man who looked at the dry ground and saw his own grave.
He wasn't lying. Which meant I was wrong. About the map, about the science, about all of it.
I looked at the black Justice Stone sitting next to the useless map.
"Its word is given to the human race."
"Stop!" I roared.
The men paused, looking back. The lead wagon was already angled halfway around.
"You doubt the science," I said, walking to the center of the circle. I held the black stone aloft. The sun caught its facets, swallowing the light. "You doubt me. Perfectly reasonable. But do not doubt this."
I pointed the stone at Bastien. He flinched, remembering the tendrils of black that incinerated Kraz.
"We will let the Stone judge," I announced. "If the cistern is truly lost, we turn back. But we ask the question first."
"Elyan, don't," Bastien whispered. "I saw what I saw."
"I know you believe that," I said. "With all your heart. But beliefs can be wrong. Including my own."
I had to frame the question perfectly. I explained the rules I had deduced while I thought of the wording. "White is innocence. Red is malice. The brighter the light, the more certain the verdict. Colors indicate mitigating factors."
I took a deep breath. "Is Captain Bastien guilty," I shouted, my voice cracking, "of the error of negligence in his survey of the site?"
The response was not instant. Nothing we'd seen so far. Not the white of innocence, nor the red of total guilt. It was Green.