As they rode, the wind blew hotter, a fine grit lashing at them. They drew thin scarves across their eyes, seeing out through the mesh. Even so, now and then a tiny grain would penetrate, seeking out an eye.
Faeril, blinking and squinting, tears washing away one of these grains, asked, “What about the camels, Aravan? Won’t they get sand in their eyes, too?”
Aravan smiled. “Nay, wee one. Thou hast seen their thick lashes, thick enough to stop most sand. Yet couldst thou get close enough without risk of being bitten or spat upon, thou wouldst see that even should granules get through, each eye has an inner lid to protect it and push out the grit.”
“I am relieved, Aravan, for I would not relish being the one to bind an ill-tempered camel’s eyes against the blowing sand.”
Aravan barked a laugh, and onward they rode into the rising wind.
They camped that night in the lee of a stony, rock-laden hill, the wind yet warm upon them, blowing harder still.
* * *
An hour before dawn, Urus came down from the hilltop and awoke all. Wind moaned past, and he had to shout to be heard. “A black wall comes, blotting out the stars.”
“Shlûk! Sandstorm,” cried Aravan.
While Aravan and Urus pulled the camels into the shelter of boulders, the others gathered up all the belongings at the campsite and stowed them behind the rocks as well.
Aravan just had time to call to each of them to cover their faces, when the blast was upon them. Faeril leaned her head against Gwylly’s and shouted, “Oh, Gwylly, I do hope that Halíd doesn’t get caught in this, too.” Gwylly reached out and squeezed her hand, and they hunkered down behind their boulder, black wind shrieking past.
* * *
For ten hours the roaring wind hammered at them, but even so, both Gwylly and Faeril dozed in fits and starts. So too did the others, the shlûk howling them to sleep. But as suddenly as it had come, just as suddenly did it go, leavings behind a silence that seemed almost deafening in its utter stillness.
Aravan was the first to his feet, and he trudged toward the hilltop, his boots scrutching loudly upon the grit. Urus hauled Riatha to her feet, and together they followed, casting long shadows down the slope behind them, the afternoon Sun shining in a clear sky above. Gwylly and Faeril busied themselves with shaking sand from all of the belongings. “I’m hungry,” said Gwylly. “What say we break out something to eat?”
* * *
It was late on the night of the fourth day of travel that they came to the oasis, the camels sensing the water first, surging forward.
As they pitched camp, Aravan said, “Here we should stay this night and the next as well, for the camels need to graze, and we could do with a respite. The next watering hole is some one hundred leagues hence, and though we may find suitable forage along the way, we should give them some time to feed before moving on.”
* * *
“The circle of Elves can only grow smaller on Mithgar.” Riatha stirred the embers of the fire, though the full Moon sliding down the western sky shed enough light to see far and wide. Faeril sat with the Elfess and they spoke softly so as not to wake the others. “With each one slain, we are diminished. With each that returns to Adonar, the circle here is diminished again, for the way back to Mithgar is sundered.” Riatha looked at the damman. “And as thou dost know, we cannot bear young here on this world.” Riatha’s eyes glittered, and Faeril reached out and took her hand.
“Someday you will have a child, Riatha.”
Riatha’s gaze flew to Urus, the Man asleep. “But I would have the child of Urus, Faeril, and that can never be. He is mortal and of Mithgar; I am immortal and of Adonar. I cannot have a child here, and he cannot go there…and even should he somehow find his way to the High World, still we could not have a child together, for love between mortals and Elves is ever barren of offspring.”
Faeril started to reply, but ere she could say a single word, Riatha’s hand flew to her throat. “Swift!” hissed the Elfess, casting sand on the fire, smothering it, “wake the others. The warding stone grows cold.”
Faeril awakened Gwylly and Aravan, while Riatha raised up Urus.
Long they waited in the night, a circle facing outward, peering through the moonlight. In the distance beyond the oasis, Faeril thought she saw dark shapes running across the dunes, yet when she called for the others to see, the shapes were gone.
Slowly the chill went from the blue stone amulet, the danger fading away.
After the stone returned to normal, Faeril, Gwylly, and Aravan took to their bedrolls, Riatha and Urus remaining on guard.
But the damman found sleep eluding her, her mind shuttling between sadness at Riatha’s plight and apprehension at what could have caused the stone to grow cold. After an hour or so of restless tossing, she moved over to Gwylly and curled up against him; the buccan snuggled closely and held her tightly…and in moments slumber reached out to clasp her as well.
* * *
In the early morning light, Gwylly climbed up a long, sandy slope to look for tracks, Faeril accompanying him. As they stood at the crest, the damman pointed at a nearby dune. “What’s that, Gwylly? Looks like a…a toppled pillar.”
“It does at that, my dammia. Let’s go see.” Gwylly turned and whistled at the others in the distance below, and with a series of piping signals he told them of the find.
As they trudged toward the object, they came across sets of impressions dimpling the sand, running east and west. “Well, something was here, all right,” said Faeril, “but what it or they might be, I cannot say, for too much sand has trickled down into these prints.”
Gwylly squatted beside the trail. “More than one something, love. Several, from the looks of it.”
Urus, Riatha, and Aravan caught up to them, but none could say what made the impressions, though Urus hazarded a guess. “Four-legged, I deem. Running east, I would think. Smallish.”
After a moment, onward they went, toward the slope of sand ahead. When they reached the dune, they found a huge, partially buried obelisk lying on its side, some forty feet or so visible before it disappeared under the sand, strange pictographic carvings in the stone. Gwylly asked, “Can anyone read this? What does it say, I wonder.”
None knew the language, though Aravan said, “’Tis my guess that it was placed here by some Human King, seeking a kind of immortality.”
They brushed off additional sand, revealing more pictographs but no more knowledge. Birds, dogs, horses, camels, other beasts were carven thereupon. Shocks of wheat, boats, Humans, pottery, wheels, chariots, bows, arrows, and the like, all manner of people and items could be discerned, though no Elves, Dwarves, Warrows, or Folk other than Humankind appeared.
Aravan said, “In Khem, south and east of here, Men have erected great stone pyramids, burial chambers, memorials to their eminence, as well as stone monoliths and other structures to last for all time, conferring immortality unto their names.”
Gwylly shuddered. “Ooo, immortality or not, I would not like to be shut up forever in hard, cold stone. Instead, bury me in soil…or better yet, offer my soul up to Adon on the golden wings of fire.”
Faeril reached over and squeezed her buccaran’s hand.
Aravan made a vague gesture easterly. “Pyramids, monoliths, monuments: all intended to confer everlasting fame, but most are as this obelisk—bearing inscriptions that no longer have any meaning unto the living.”
Urus rumbled, “Immortality they may have, yet recognition they have not.”
* * *
“What if Mankind were immortal, thou dost ask?” Riatha looked down at the damman. “Aro! With his lack of discipline, he would soon o’erburden the world and drag it down unto destruction with him.”
Faeril rinsed the clothes she washed in the oasis waterhole. “Like lemmings? Aravan told Gwylly and me about lemmings and their rush to destruction.”
“Worse than lemmings, Faeril. Much worse. Lemmings have not the intellect, the power, the ability to de
stroy the world. Mankind has.”
Faeril handed the brussa to the Elfess. As Riatha hung the shirt over the line tied between trees, Faeril took up a pair of pantaloons and plunged them into the water. “Will Man ever change? I mean, will he ever see that he is part of the world, and what he harms, harms him in return?”
Riatha shook her head. “I know not, wee one. I know not. But this I do know: Man is clever, inventive, and can he extend his life, he will. Yet, adding years without also adding a sensitivity to his effects upon the world can only lead to a disastrous ending. Can Man overcome his insatiable appetites, then there is hope for Mithgar. Yet should he retain his greedy grasp, then this world will not last.”
“Yah hoi!” came Gwylly’s cry. “Fruit for each and all!”
To the waterhole came Gwylly and Aravan and Urus, a cloth bag filled with clusters of ripe dates. Gwylly’s mouth was stained brown. “Watch for the seeds, love, they are like long, skinny peach pits and are as hard as rocks.”
As Aravan squatted beside Faeril and took up clothes to wash, laughing, he said, “That buccaran of thine, Faeril, has monkey blood in his veins. Just like the one thou didst see entertaining for coins in the streets of Sabra.”
“Hah!” exclaimed Gwylly. “Urus alone boosted me more than halfway up.”
Riatha took up a date and bit into it, smiling at its sweetness. “Had we time, we would dry some of these to bear with us across the Karoo.”
* * *
As the full Moon rose above the horizon, Gwylly began humming a tune. Faeril cocked an eye at him, and he pointed at the rising yellow orb and broke into words.
“Fiddle-de-de, fiddle-de-di,
The cow jumped up so high in the sky,
Up through the air and over the Moon…
‘Oh, look there,’ said the dish to the spoon.
The spoon stood back and upward eyed
Then after a moment solemnly replied,
‘’Tis odd, I’ll agree, most unexpectedly at that,
As queer as if the dog were to dance with the calico cat.’
No sooner said that the fiddle sawed,
And the dog led the cat in a promenade,
And the cow fell down from above the Moon,
The frightened dish ran away with the spoon.
I laughed so hard that I cried,
The dog laughed, too, at my side,
The cat did wail loud and long,
As the fiddle screeched a different song…
…But the cow with a crash tumbled down on my head,
And that’s when I woke, falling out of my bed!—
Thud! Whump!”
Urus’s guffaws belled out into the night, completely drowning out Faeril’s giggles and the laughter of Riatha, Aravan, and Gwylly.
When a modicum of quiet returned to the oasis, Faeril asked, “Where did you learn such wonderful nonsense, Gwylly?”
“My father—my Human father, Orith—used to sing it to me to put me to sleep, though I laughed at it instead, and Nelda, my mother, would chide Dad for keeping me awake…though she was the one who sang it to me when Dad was away in Stonehill. It was my favorite.”
Suddenly, Aravan held up a warning hand and reached for his spear. “Ssst! The stone!”
Again they took up station in a circle facing outward, standing next to date palms.
Long moments passed, and once more Faeril saw silhouettes loping through the night. She gave a low whistle, and her companions turned to see. In that instant, clear in the moonlight, atop a dune a mottled, doglike animal appeared, pausing to look down at the comrades among the palm trees. Then it whirled and raced away, following the tracks of the others, disappearing beyond seeing among the dunes of the Erg.
“The stone grows warm,” said Aravan, “the peril wanes.”
Gwylly turned to the Elf. “What was it, Aravan? I mean, it had large round ears and its fur was splotched. Yet it wasn’t very big. Why would the stone grow cold at such a creature?”
“It was a wild dog of the desert, Gwylly. And in a pack they can bring down nearly any beast. The stone knows well the hazard of such.”
Faeril looked toward the scrub growth. “Oh my! What about the camels? Are they in danger?”
Aravan shook his head. “I think not. The stone should hold the pack at a distance.”
Riatha sat back down. “’Tis good we leave on the morrow, for I deem we keep the dogs from their water, and stone or not, they will come when thirst drives them so.”
Aravan nodded, agreeing. “Aye, Dara, thou hast the right of it. Some things are too virulent to be affected by the stone—Vulgs, Loka, Rucha, and other Spaunen, Drakes, monsters of the deep, to name a few—”
“The wyrm of the well,” interjected Gwylly.
“Aye, Gwylly, the wyrm, too.
“Other things are too desperate for the stone to hold at bay—creatures driven by hunger, thirst, a need to defend themselves or their get, a need to escape, to flee.
“The wild dogs are among these last, for they will come regardless, when their thirst grows great enough.”
Urus gazed out into the moonlit dunes. “Then I say we sleep this night away from water’s edge. If they do come, they will find the way open.”
* * *
Five days later, in the afternoon they camped alongside a oued where grew cacti and thorny shrubs, for again the camels had gone awhile without sustenance.
Gwylly and Faeril climbed up a long, stony slope to see the land about. “Hoy! Look at that!” cried Gwylly as they reached the crest, the buccan pointing at the horizon. “Ships! And an ocean!”
Faeril gasped, for there in the distance before her, two lateen-sailed boats, dhows, plied the sea. Then she shook her head. “No, Gwylly. Like the lakes we’ve been seeing this too is a mirage.”
“I know, love, but isn’t it marvelous? Oh my, the other need to see this as well.” Gwylly turned and whistled down the slope, signalling to those below.
* * *
That evening, Aravan said, “Once when my crew and I were tramping across a desert in the land to the west, from a high ridge we saw a mighty forest. Down from the ridge we marched, aiming to reach the sanctuary of the trees by nightfall. When we got to where we thought the forest stood, all we discovered were fallen logs lying in the sand. We made camp, and lo! when one of the Drimm warriors took an axe to a log for firewood, the blade chipped! The log was solid stone! All the logs lying in the sand were stone!
“‘Mayhap,’ said the warrior whose axe was broken ‘mayhap a Kötha did this.’
“When I asked what a Kötha might be, he replied that it was a dire creature whose gaze could turn living things to stone.
“We left the next day, marching onward, to the great relief of all the Drimma in the company, for though most thought the Kötha nought but fable, they were not willing to test the truth of it.
“Yet the fallen forest of stone is not the strangest part of my tale, nor even the legend of the Kötha. Nay! The strangest thing of all was that when we came back through that territory, returning overland unto the Eroean, to ease the minds of the Drimma, we skirted ’round the region where lay the trees of stone. But when we climbed back up the distant ridge where first we sighted the forest and looked hindward along our track, once again we saw green and growing a mighty woodland afar, there where we had found nought but a field of stone.”
* * *
Days and days they travelled across the endless waste, stopping to let the camels forage whenever they came upon desert grass and cacti and thorn bushes, small stands of twisted trees and other plants.
Ten days it took to travel from the oasis to the watering hole, some three hundred miles in all. And another five days were spent to reach the well one hundred nine miles beyond.
As they left that well and headed for the next, there came a torrential rain, and dry oueds filled to overflowing, the thundering water rampaging down into the flats below.
The desert burst into bloom, plants risi
ng where it seemed nought but dry weeds stood, the whole world aflower. And wonder of wonders, they came to a small, shallow lake teeming with tiny fish!
“How can it be,” asked Faeril, “that fish swim in the desert?”
“Adon knows, wee one” was the Elf’s answer. “The world is filled with strange things, and this is but one of them.”
Faeril twisted about in her saddle. “Strange things? Such as…”
Aravan smiled down at her. “Such as sea shells embedded in stone atop mountains.”
Faeril cocked her head. “How can that be, Aravan?”
“I know not, Faeril. Some say that the mountains were once at the bottom of the sea, rising up long past, bringing the shells with them.”
Faeril faced front once more. “Oh, you mean that just as Atala sank, so, too, could somewhere else rise?”
“Just so, Faeril…yet that is not the only explanation. There are other tales as to how shells of the ocean got to the mountaintops. Hear me:
“There is a small desert Kingdom to the east of the Avagon Sea. There the priests say that once long past their god, Rakka, became exceedingly wroth over his errant people and caused endless rains that flooded the world entire, the oceans rising up to cover all, their waves rolling above the inundated peaks. And during this time were the sea shells deposited upon the mountaintops, and Rakka locked them in stone as a reminder to all that his word was law.
“When I first heard this tale, there was with me a Drimm who asked several pithy questions of the priests. First he pointed out that there were some mountains that were over two leagues high, six or seven miles. He then remarked that to cover the earth over with water to that depth, it would take more water than was in all the oceans of all the world.
“His first question was, ‘Whence came this volume of water?’
“His second question was, ‘Where went the water after?’
“His third question was, ‘Would not a god who is vengeful, wrathful, who slays old Men and Women and children, the halt and the lame, the newborn and the aged, the strength of the Nation’s manhood, the flower of its womanhood, who would drown not only the people of that desert Kingdom but all the peoples of all the world, and all the animals of all the lands, and all the land birds as well—for what would they eat?—and all the freshwater fish and other water dwellers of streams and rivers and lakes, and all the trees and flowers and plants, who would kill all the life of all the world except for the creatures of the sea, and who would poison all lands with the salt of the oceans, would not such a god be evil?’
The Eye of the Hunter Page 47