by P R Glazier
Chapter 19. Travel Inland
It took two days for JDC to complete his arrangements. The company did not see much of him in that time. Nar’Allia could be found either on board the Ocean Belle or on the Pnook battleship. JDC had ensured safe accommodation in another part of the great battleship. Not only did it house the port authority offices, but it also provided accommodation for the few civil servants that held positions for the Pnook government in Port Town including JDC. So it was with some surprise that Nar’Allia, Amndo and Jonas found themselves languishing in some luxury in cabins within the old ironclad ship. It had been decided that those travelling the desert would be these three alone, other than JDC of course. She felt it good to move out of the Ocean Belle for two reasons, firstly it allowed Tear’E to sleep in comfort in the captain’s quarters on board and to stay with his crew. Secondly it got everyone used to the idea that the three would not be returning to Dahl’Ambronis, but would be going out into the Rust desert with JDC.
The rest of the Ocean Belle’s company were to return to R’ealto’Noac’Trado. With some relief Nar’Allia found that persuading Tear’E was easier than she thought. He feared keeping the crew away from their wives and families any longer than necessary and he wanted to return to U’Sule and return their three sons back to her. So an agreement was made. Tear’E would return immediately and thus hopefully sail back across the Trad Ocean before any of the winter storms set in. The following spring he would return to either pick them all up and take them back home, or to try and find out what had happened to them. So it was on the third day that the three companions waved farewell to the Ocean Belle as her crew hauled up anchor and raised a full complement of sail. The winds took up the challenge and with gathering speed Nar’Allia last viewed the Ocean Belle sailing into the east back across the Trad Ocean. She wistfully thought of a time long ago when this same sight must have been seen to those there to witness such a thing but under totally differing circumstances all together.
Then the day of their own departure came. JDC boarded the battleship and announced all was ready. The company of four gathered all the supplies and other belongings they wanted to take with them and were led by JDC though Port Town to the western outskirts and to the edge of the great Rust Desert itself.
Not even Minervar’s stories could have prepared Nar’Allia for the view she now looked out upon as she stood there on the outskirts of Port Town with Jonas and Amndo at her side. In every direction red sands stretched to the horizon. Flat for the most part, but here and there high dunes rose out of the desert as if some giant hand had scooped up the dust and sand and piled it high.
JDC asked them to wait whilst he went off to tend to something. When he reappeared, he wore a full length leather coat that covered him to the ground; a large voluminous hood lay over his shoulders and down his back. Upon his head he wore a close fitting leather cap and perched on top of his head were two round disks connected by a metal and leather strap, each disk had set within it a heavy looking piece of thick glass.
Nar’Allia still gazed out over the desert that lay in front of her. The dunes looked quite close and she asked about them.
JDC smiled and said, “they are not dunes you see miss Nar’Allia, but mountains. Also they are not close at all, but are in fact many hundreds of miles away in the deep desert. It is a trick of the desert that you can see them, for in reality they are far beyond the horizon. The heat and dry air cause many such illusions, some physical like this one you are witnessing – a natural phenomenon. But also tricks on the mind, the desert has nasty ways of playing with your head, if you are not careful it will trick you at every opportunity,” then with a faraway expression on his face he said, “even unto madness and to death.”
JDC indicated towards the cloak that Nar’Allia held, I would put that on milady if I were you, protection in the desert is a wise precaution. Even though it is hotter than hot out there during the daytime you will need to keep your skin covered or it will burn.” Then at a sound made behind them he turned and pointed and said, “aha, here we are. Our transport has arrived.”
They all looked toward where he indicated, a number of people stood holding ropes, on the other ends of each rope were some strange looking beasts, Nar’Allia wrinkled her nose for she could smell the stench of them from here, a mixture of fermenting vegetable material, oily sweat and a tang of acid, possibly a scent gland of some kind or perhaps even stale urine. They were tall perhaps twice her height to the shoulder, the front shoulder that is, for their backs sloped down to shorter more muscular legs at the rear. The creature’s skin was dark and sprouted short wiry hairs. Their faces were slender with long snouts and high-set eyes; they sported two large nostrils through which they seemed to take slow deliberate breaths. She noticed that between the act of breathing in and breathing out there was a delay of perhaps two minutes, during this time the animal would close the nostrils with a close fitting flap of hairless skin. The creature’s eyes set high and on the sides of their heads were like that of a hunting cat, black with a coloured iris that varied from green to red, from white to blue, some animals had mismatched eyes of two different colours. But each pupil was a vertical slit giving the creatures a slightly mysterious even malevolent look about them. They had two ears set on top of their skulls, large ears with long wiry hairs to keep out the sand. These ears were continuously moving quite independently of each other as the creature picked up various sounds from differing directions. They had large splayed feet with three toes each, thick matted hair grew on the underside and curled up and around each toe and also from the heel at the back, it looked like someone had splayed a long haired broom upon the ground and held it there for a long time so that the bristles would no longer return to their natural position. Nar’Allia noticed that despite the obvious great weight of the beasts their feet didn’t sink very far at all into the fine red dust of the desert.
A leather saddle-like chair was strapped to each one, forward of the great hump that each creature had on its back, this saddle was mounted close to the base of the creature’s long neck so that if the creature stretched its neck around to look left or right the saddle would also move slightly around in the same direction. The saddle was quite obviously mounted here for this area of the beast’s upper regions was the only near horizontal part of the otherwise humped back and quite steeply sloping hind quarters.
“What in the Makers name are those,” asked Nar’Allia.
“These? Why these are Duagnuats milady, ‘dancers of the sands’ the nomads call them. They are fully adapted to life on the open desert; indeed that is where they come from. These are a domesticated variety of the beast, have been for many generations, for the wild version is ummmmm, well let’s say far less agreeable.” As if taking its cue, one of the Duagnuats obviously took some offence at its neighbour for it reached around and with a growling grunt bared long, sharp teeth and bit the poor unfortunate beast on the shoulder. Immediately a great din broke out and the two creatures started to jump around and generally upset the others in the party, it took the drovers a number of minutes to calm the beasts, and then only after one of their number was dragged thirty metres or so across the sands. JDC just said, “yes. Well, hmmph.”
With some trepidation they packed their belongings into the large saddle bags that hung either side of their Duagnuats. Then with some brief instruction on how to mount and dismount and how to guide the beast’s direction they set off. Nar’Allia’s beast was named Quinak and to her surprise the beast acknowledged her every time she said its name. She found it a little unnerving at first for when she called out its name the beast would look around at her, almost questioningly it seemed, but this became an endearing feature after a while for the creatures despite their looks were obviously quite intelligent. She asked the gender of Quinak, but surprisingly the drover could not say. He explained that it was very difficult to find out and only other Duagnuats seemed to know that. This amused Nar’Allia somewhat and she decided that she
would regard Quinak as female, the beast would not care anyways she assumed.
After the first day of travel Nar’Allia wished she was never to see another Duagnuats again. Although the saddle mounted on the top of the beast looked comfortable and did indeed have some soft padding, the odd walking gait of the beasts meant that her leg muscles burned like fire as she found herself subconsciously trying to compensate for the way the beast moved. The front end seemed to be pretty stable the long front legs just walked in a normal fashion; there was something even vaguely elegant about the way the beasts lifted each front foot and placed it slowly down to take the next step. But the rear end was completely different. The rear end swayed from side to side, the shorter stride of the legs at the rear of the beast was compensated with a swing of the hips that had a slight knock-on effect with the mounting of the saddle, for the beasts would sway their necks to and fro slightly to compensate for the shifting weight of their hind quarters. Nar’Allia assumed it was this rhythmical movement that gave the Duagnuats the nickname of dancers of the sands. She remarked as such to Amndo, he replied that yes, all they needed was a veil over their faces, a tiara on their heads and be draped in some thin shear material and they would be easy winners of any desert dancing competition.
Nar’Allia laughed.
The saddle mounting did however have a swivel device underneath comprised of several pieces of twisted leather material that was coiled together, the coils allowed for a certain amount of twisting to and fro around a centre line, the whole purpose of this creaking device was in an effort to counter the strange movement of the Duagnuats walking. Nar’Allia did find some difficulty in coming to terms with the methods the rider needed to employ to get a comfortable ride. Initially she found herself being swivelled from left to right around the centre line of her spine above the swivel mounting of the saddle. This was not an agreeable movement, but Nar’Allia despite her best efforts to follow the advice given her by JDC to allow the saddle movement to go on about her found that her legs struggled at each alternate swing to keep her body straight and pointing forward. The result was a profound ache to her thigh muscles. This got progressively worse as the ride went on.
The first night out on the desert found her lying flat on her back in her bed roll trying not to think about her cramping muscles. Also adding to her discomfort was the fact that the sun’s intense heat beating down upon them relentlessly during the day time, was a stark contrast to the sun’s absence at night which caused the desert to cool dramatically and the nights were quite uncomfortably cold. Maybe much of this discomfort was due in main to the differential in temperature, rather than just the chill of the night, but Nar’Allia was glad of the warmth of the bed roll. Once her own body temperature had raised the trapped air inside the roll it seemed to ease the discomfort to her muscles and she became drowsy.
As she relaxed, she found her gaze looking up at the clear desert sky, trying to take her mind away from the dull ache. So many stars shone there. She remembered a similar sight from on board the Ocean belle. If Amndo’s stories were true the night sky hid unimaginable distances. The nearest star was so far away it would take numerous thousands of years of man to travel to. Yet she was looking at thousands of stars, tens of thousands of stars, how long would it take to travel from one side of the visible star system across the night sky to the other side? It wasn’t even worth thinking about.
She remembered the stories told to her by Minervar of the T’Iea belief in Eny’Nin’Rel the God of all, the Maker as she liked to call him as is common with the T’Iea peoples and the other elder races for that matter. How he had created the universe and everything in it. She had been brought up with these stories, it was second nature to her, yet she knew that it was only the stories that kept this belief alive, for none now lived that remembered any of them first hand, she knew it was her own thoughts, her own faith and belief that would decide her fate as far as the God of All was concerned. It was clearly a message of individual belief, an intimate relationship one-on-one, she knew that no other could come to her conclusions on her behalf. Yet she did believe there was some truth in it.
Her own race, the T’Iea as individuals lived for hundreds of years of man; change was slow for her people. The stories had lived on in their lives for countless overlapping generations and she could not close her mind to them, even if she couldn’t prove his existence, Eny’Nin’Rel remained a strong influence upon the lives of her people, guiding them and aiding them through all manner of things. She smiled as she thought how comforting to know that there was indeed a controlling force in the world, a force that loved his creation and would do anything to nurture it, to grow it, to offer its wonders to all who would by their own choice be willing to keep their eyes open to see the wonder of it all. Yet, she also knew that Eny’Nin’Rel loved his creation enough to allow all peoples free thought and the ability to control their own lives if they so wished. She knew what Minervar would say though, to love Eny’Nin’Rel, to understand him was like a revelation, for then out of personal choice life and mind would broaden tenfold, that which could not be seen in self-reliance, would freely be made plain to see. For faith in the Maker brought true freedom, release from the shackles of personal experience, it opened the mind to limitless possibility. She remembered that Minervar claimed this was why she was able to heal all ills so effectively and also that this was why the quiver that lay there amongst Nar’Allia’s belongings, could finally yield its arrows to her and one day she would be able to physically draw them forth.
The following morning saw the company packing up their belongings. After a brief breakfast and reloading everything back onto the backs and side saddlebags of their animals. JDC fed each beast with a handful of what looked like a tough cake of brown solid goo. He said that these where specially made from compressed vegetation and other plant material, sugar was added and the Duager Cakes as they were called left to ferment for a while, this gave them the property of being able to be kept and stored for long periods of time. Just the thing you needed here in the desert where food and water was sparse and needed to be transported with you.
He laughed and said on one occasion he was forced to share the Duager cakes with his Duagnuats as his food had run out, he tried to explain the gross sounds his stomach made and the effect on his daily ablutions. Nar’Allia had the distinct feeling she had been told too much. The Duagnuats always became very excited at the prospect of being given some of these Duager cakes, their eyes lit up and they always started to give a low clicking noise from somewhere, Nar’Allia initially assumed from their throats, but later found out it was caused by them quickly closing their nostril flaps. This was the only time the beasts showed any sign of anything other than a complete resignation of their lot, despite their seemingly quiet brooding intelligence. They would chew on their Duager cake for the best part of the morning, Nar’Allia could only guess at the horrid mess that must have been left in their mouths after swallowing their food. When they belched, which they always did, the stench was appalling. JDC had said that these Duager cakes gave the beasts all the nourishment and water that each Duagnuats required for the day. Certainly Quinak did seem to be satisfied and would plod on for the rest of the day’s journey uncomplaining and Nar’Allia assumed happy. Even though the sounds emanating from deep within the beasts suggested some violent chemical reactions were occurring and certainly the generation of some pretty volatile gasses.
On the fourth day of travel a great red cloud could be seen on the horizon, at first Nar’Allia had presumed that she was looking at another set of illusions of the distant mountains, but she grew a little more alarmed when JDC bid the company to halt and he retrieved a spy glass from his packs and looking through it for a few minutes. Eventually he reported that a great storm was to be seen ahead. “Thankfully it’s not coming this way, but it is right in our path, we should move forward cautiously, if I start to bellow orders, please do what I ask immediately without question for our very lives may depend on
all of our swift action.”
“But what is it?” Asked Amndo.
“A dust storm. The winds in these parts can be ferocious, and they can whip up tons and tons of the red sands, gathering it all up into the air and carrying it along for great distances before dumping it on a whim, burying anyone of anything that happens to be in the wrong place at the time. The dust despite its fine appearance can also be very abrasive at the speed it travels in such storms. I have heard stories of nomads being trapped in the storms and all that remained after hours of battering were white bleached bones, pitted and dry.”
“Nar’Allia shivered at the thought. “Let us hope that the winds remain on a course away from us then.” She made a silent prayer to the Maker that this should be so.
They made off again walking the same course as the wind, following behind keeping at a respectful distance of some ten kilometres or so. When they came to the place where they had first seen the wind they wondered at the patterns in the sands. Deep depressions had been carved out of the desert landscape, made to appear even deeper as some of the sand had been blown by the wind into tall dunes; they reminded Nar’Allia of massive waves stirred up by a storm at sea. the Duagnuats seemed to know to follow the upper edges of the dunes keeping to the highest places, this was no wonder for to keep a straight course would prematurely tire the animals as negotiating down the sides of the dunes and then trying to clamber back up would sap their energy considerably and no doubt lessen the progress that was possible each day.
They came round yet another curve in the high dune field and looked down upon yet another deep depression. They wondered at what they could see, for there in the bottom of the deep depression lay a weathered structure, obviously not natural, for it looked to be fashioned from long lengths of rusting metal in a criss-cross pattern, in places pieces of thick wire hung twisted from the metalwork, some of these wires had lumps of what looked like rock surrounding them. JDC started to explain about the ancient city beneath the sands and how these winds often exposed parts of the city or what remained of it. He was explaining about how he had long suspected that these metal skeletons were the tops of buildings, he didn’t know how far down beneath the sands the rest of the structure extended. Although he did explain that the red sands of the desert were reputed to be the eroded remains of the ancient cities upper levels.
Suddenly Nar’Allia’s attention was drawn elsewhere, for she felt her beast shift oddly beneath her, its back end seemed to slide around and she found herself leaning forward to compensate for the increased slope of its back. She looked round to see that unstable sand was now sliding down the slope, every second saw more and more of the sand moving beneath them and the affected area was widening rapidly. Quinak started to make regular clicking noises obviously in alarm; she struggled to keep upright as she lay her belly on the sand and started to paddle with her rear legs which were slipping down the slope with the movement of sand towards where the twisted metalwork was showing through at the bottom of the depression. Nar’Allia hung on not knowing what else to do, that metalwork looked like many spikes or daggers sticking out of the sand, she was sure that if they ended up down there they may very well find themselves impaled upon the spikes. She was thinking of alternatives, but if she jumped from the beast’s back she would risk landing in the mass of moving sand and be swept down the slope or even worse buried beneath it. Quinak continued to struggle but her wide feet and strong hind legs, along with the paddling movement kept her from sliding down the slope with the sand and after a few minutes she started to slowly make progress back up the slope after finding a rhythm that worked against the motion of the sand. Eventually she managed to right herself with a swift swimming motion and with increasing speed was able to move up the unstable dune and back onto the high point again.
Once on steady ground once more, Nar’Allia looked behind her and could see a river of sand running down the slope gathering speed, this river increased in size as she watched and became a torrent. Hundreds, possibly thousands of tons of sand was now running down the side of the dune, the hissing noise that the grains made was deafening, it reminded her of the noise the dust falls made as the sands poured out over the edge of the cliff into the Trad Ocean, the sound was identical. Nar’Allia was also reminded of an hour glass, how the sand from the top glass flowed through the tightly restricting glass tube into the glass bulb below. But this sand was not restricted, it flowed with terrifying speed. The area of flow was moving along the dune towards her, the crest of the dune was being eroded away at a rapid rate; it was becoming obvious that the whole dune would soon be affected and the movement of sand would probably end up filling the basin below. Quinac obviously became aware of this and she started to move more swiftly away from the on rush of moving sand that threatened to again drag it down to the bottom of the depression. JDC and Amndo were in front of her, their beasts had already responded in the same way and were also moving swiftly away from the sliding sand. She could hear the Duagnuats click-click-clicking to each other. But eventually this landslide slowed to a halt and the beasts slowed back to a walking pace now that the immediate danger had passed.
They all stopped and looked around. To Nar’Allia’s horror Jonas could not be seen, he was following her, wasn’t he? She let out a cry of concern as she thought he may have been dragged down by the sand and buried at the bottom of the depression. The metal structure at the bottom had already disappeared back beneath the red desert sands. She feared greatly that Jonas and his beast where now beneath tons of sand somewhere below them. But she heard a cry from behind. She turned as did the others and to her relief she saw Jonas some distance away, back around what remained of the upper rim of the dunes. To her dismay there lay a great gulf between him and where she sat with JDC and Amndo.
Jonas’s Duagnuats had obviously behaved in the same manner as its companions to escape the rushing sands, but had chosen to flee in the other direction along the top of the cascading dune. Between them there now lay a great depression where the sand had flowed down to bury the metal structure. As she watched Jonas’s beast carefully stepped forward onto the slope but immediately the sand shifted beneath its feet and both the beast and Jonas started to slide downwards, but the beast he was on had the sense to turn sharply, and using its powerful rear legs, just as Quinak had done eventually managed to reach stable ground once more.
They all stood there either side of the gulf between them, where more freshly disturbed sand continued to run down the steep slope. JDC shouted to Jonas that he must go the other way around, backtrack until he found a place where the sand was solid and be able to join them. So Jonas nodded and turned his beast to walk back the way they had come. Soon he had disappeared beyond the dunes and all they could do was move out of the unstable area of sands themselves and hope that Jonas would find a way back to join them once more.
The three of them that remained rode on and eventually found themselves back on the flat featureless desert. It was early afternoon, but they decided to make camp, not wanting to get too far ahead of Jonas. They brewed up some tea. Nar’Allia couldn’t help but look behind them at roughly the direction she thought that Jonas would appear from, thus she kept a vigil.
JDC tried to comfort her concerns. “Don’t worry milady. Master Jonas is in good hands, the Duagnuats that he rides knows the desert well and it will follow its natural instincts to return back to its fellows. Even if he falls asleep in the saddle his beast will return him safely to us. I am sure of it.”
Nar’Allia nodded.
As they ate a simple meal Nar’Allia had the chance to ask JDC about this metal structure that had been uncovered by the wind. She had missed a lot of what he had said in her panic and also wanted to take her mind off worrying about Jonas.
“Ah well milady, the story goes that once instead of the great Rust Desert there was a vast city of man on this continent. The city spread from the Trad Ocean in the East, right across to the Sea of Beadreas in the west. Some catastrophic
disaster befell this city in ancient times, in a time long before any recorded history in fact. Some say there was a war, so ferocious that the vast city was completely destroyed. The rust desert is reputed to be the oxidised remains of the metals and other materials that made up the greater part of the ancient city. It is also said that the human nomads that roam the sands are in fact the descendants of what remains of that population of the city, the last remaining surviving remnants of the race of man that had once lived here.”
“So that structure was part of the city?”
“Aye milady, as I said before, the winds quite often uncover such things, mainly just such metalwork as you saw, but sometimes other things are uncovered, entrances into the city itself, or vast courtyards and roadways that were once upon the surface of the world. I have spent many years trying to uncover and explore such areas, but I feel I have only glimpsed what lies below the sands. I’m sure that much lies down there, deep beneath our feet, treasures of great wealth and knowledge, wonders of science and technology long lost in the ancient past. I have sort these things, in fact made a living out of them. Scavenging across the desert is what I did, before I lost the Land Train and became ummm a respectable citizen of the Kings employ once again. I miss that nomadic life in many ways; I can only hope that Citac has carried on that work, maybe I will meet up with him again who knows.”
“Once again? You were in the King’s employ before then?”
JDC said, “What?” But Nar’Allia could see he had a strange look upon his face.
“You said you became a respectable citizen of the King’s employ once again?”
“Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t mean it like that, no.”
Nar’Allia waited for more of an explanation but none came. She felt that she should not press JDC further, so she decided to change the subject. “So who is Citac then?” Nar’Allia asked. “What is his story?”
JDC shot her a glance that looked slightly annoyed, but his expression changed to disguise his obvious anger at being asked such a question, he smiled and said, “Milady, I don’t rightly know. I believe he is a nomad, there are groups of Pnook that live outside the city of Scienocropolis. They live in the desert like the human nomads that we seek. Some say they are outlaws of the city, criminals, murderous, even Pnook that decided long ago that the city life was not for them. Some say they are a disparate group of Pnook that had travelled across the rust desert in the old times when my race fled the wars and wanton destruction that the Ognods brought into Dahl’Ambronis. But instead of helping to build the city they decided to go and live in the desert, try and find an alternative existence. As for Citac well he kind of came with the land train and he remains with it I hope.”
“So what’s your story then, you are such a nomad I assume, a Pnook that lives outside the city?”
But JDC said nothing more, and no amount of asking would get him to say anything further. He just told her that his was another story, one that he may decide to tell her in future, but it became obvious he would divulge nothing more.
It was starting to get dark and the company was starting to worry more about Jonas. At night the desert took on a different guise, one fraught with dangers that did not necessarily exist in quite the same manner as during the day. It was far better to make camp and stay put during the night, to keep warm and to reduce the risk of stumbling into some hidden danger in the dark. But as if in answer to their prayers quite suddenly the Duagnuats as one, lifted their heads high and all stood looking in a single direction, they again emitted low clicking noises but this time louder, as if they were calling to something. Before long a similar clicking noise could be heard from a distance away in response, soon Nar’Allia saw with great relief, coming through the gathering gloom, rode Jonas on the back of his Duagnuats and soon he was back amongst the company. He slid off his mount as soon as he got close and patting it upon the neck was full of praise for his Duagnuats, he said that the beast had found them for he had no clue in which way to travel to successfully return to his companions. All their attitudes warmed towards these strange, remarkable and surprising beasts of burden, for as they watched the three beasts walked up to their returning lost companion and started to muzzle him or her, she couldn’t help but smile at the warm low clicking noises of recognition and welcome they made to each other.