by Shannah Jay
'No,' said Herra. 'You know we cannot return. We must follow our Brother's Quest.'
'Iss not a surprise. This one expected such an answer.'
'Narla said once that there was another colony of humans on the other side of the desert. May we not join them?' And then go on, somehow, Herra added mentally. Dear Brother, how far away from the Twelve Claims will that take us?
'Iss possible. Long walk. Much danger. Better to return to Dsheresh Vale. Not all who set out arrive at other side of desert. Iss a dangerous crossing.'
'We must go on.'
'Then you need supplies. Giver of Words not wish harm to anyone.' A dark bundle fell from the platform, and other bundles followed it.
'Way lies in direction of first conjunction of moons. Iss walk of ten days to the Sandrims. Iss much danger.
And iss no peace there, either.'
'I thank you for your warning. Thank you, Elder SS'Habi,' said Herra. 'And thank the Giver of Words for me.'
'Giver of Words watches your progress with great interest. Will look forward to arrival of babies.'
The platform winked out of sight and Cheral pounced on the bundles. She unrolled long cloaks with hoods, sighed with satisfaction at the sight of small insulated tents, and shook containers that made a gurgling liquid sound. 'Ah! These things will certainly help!'
Jonner started forward. 'Is that water you've got there?' He snatched at the nearest container.
Cheral slapped his hand away. 'The Elder SS'Habi said it took ten days to cross the desert to - what did she call it? - the Sandrims? An interesting name. We'll have to work out how much water we can allow ourselves per day, so just sit down again and wait until I've checked everything, Jonner!'
He sighed and moved a step backwards. 'Well, hurry up then, Cheral! I'm dying of thirst! Why do you Sisters always have to make things so complicated?'
'Because we wish to survive!'
* * *
Robler stood in the com-room and stared in fury at the faint image of Davred and his companions.
'Where did you get that equipment from?' he demanded.
Davred raised his head. 'Robler! How nice to speak to you again! I trust you're well?'
'Answer my question, damn you!'
'Is Soo there with you?'
'Irrelevant!'
'Not to me.' Davred stared thoughtfully at the tracer in his hand. No need to see Robler's face; you could hear the anger in his voice. 'I shan't speak to you or answer any questions unless Soo is there as well. In fact, I think she should ask any questions to which you require answers. Otherwise, I might not pay attention.'
There was no answer. It was a full hour before Robler made any further attempt to communicate with them, but suddenly, just as they were making their final preparations for departure, Soo's voice interrupted them.
'Davred! Are you all right?'
'Yes. We've been given supplies of food and water, as well as protective clothing and tents. We slept through most of the day and we're just about to leave. What about you, Soo?'
'We're - all right.'
Davred did not miss her brief hesitation, but guessed that she dared say nothing else with Robler breathing down her neck, so didn’t pursue the matter.
'Davred, where did you get the equipment from?' Soo glanced nervously at Robler, who was standing beside her, grasping her arm so hard it hurt.
'From the deleff. Where else?'
There was a snort of disbelieving laughter from Robler.
'But - I thought you were trying to escape from them! Why should they now help you?'
'Because they abhor violence. To kill us would upset them. And in any case, they're not helping us return to the Twelve Claims, just to cross the desert in the other direction.'
'Oh, Davred, I - '
Robler clamped his hand over her mouth.
When she didn’t finish what she’d started to say, Davred exchanged worried glances with Katia.
'Soo? Are you all right?'
It was Robler who answered. 'She's fine, but she has nothing more to say to you at the moment.'
Soo attempted to bite his hand and received a blow to the side of her face that knocked her against the equipment and made her head ring. Her cry of pain made Davred glare at the tracer, but there was nothing he could do to help her.
'We may or may not be in touch again,' Robler told Davred, 'but you can be sure I’ll watch your progress with great interest. But remember this - things might get very uncomfortable for Soo if you were to abandon that tracer.'
He broke contact, then bent to pull Soo up and subject her to another bruising kiss.
'Twenty-nine days,' he murmured hoarsely in her ear, 'and then you will become one of the team again, whether you wish it or not. I shall look forward to your company that first night. As Lizan is looking forward to Mak's company. An enterprising young woman, Lizan. We have become closer lately. I didn't appreciate her good points before. I'm sure with her skills she'll be able to tempt Mak away from the boredom of monogamy.'
His grip loosened and Soo took a step backwards, brushing her hand across her lips, as if to cleanse them.
She stared at him for a moment, eyes narrowed, then spoke very quietly, 'Are you sure, though, Robler, that you will feel quite safe - alone with me - at any time?'
Robler stood for a moment in frozen silence as her words sank in.
Soo tilted her head, ignoring its throbbing and smiled very slightly at Robler before she left the com-room.
He could only stand and stare after her.
CHAPTER 10 THE SANDRIMS
The desert stretched before them, immense and implacable in its barrenness. It yielded no sign, no hope of life. Worse, it seemed to suck the energy from the small group trying to traverse it. Sand whispered beneath their feet and sly breezes tugged at the clothing of one person but didn’t touch the next. Each stretch of ground resembled the last, so that the eye grew confused.
The Kindred followed the instructions of the Elder SS'Habi as to direction and once they’d started, Katia kept them on the right track. They’d been provided with exactly enough food and water for ten days, if they rationed themselves carefully. Cheral saw to that, and doled out each mouthful of life-sustaining liquid as if it were her own life blood. They walked by night and slept through the heat of the day, slowing down their metabolic rates to conserve energy. Fortunately, there were no darks due and there was always at least one moon to light their way.
Jonner enlivened the first two days with a variety of complaints and speculations. On the third day, he was much quieter. On the fourth, he spoke only when strictly necessary.
By the fifth day, the mountains seemed a little closer, their blueness taking on a greyish tinge and their summits becoming distinguishable one from the other. They seemed to be heading towards a circle of peaks upon which clouds often rested.
By the seventh day Jonner was so morose Herra insisted he walk next to her, and she devoted a lot of her energy to making him take an interest in their surroundings and encouraging him to speculate about what they would find at the edge of the desert. But if she turned her attention elsewhere, he fell back into his lethargy.
At one stage he even started to lag behind, dragging his feet in the soft sand as if he hadn’t the strength to lift them.
When they were preparing to start their next night's march, Herra clapped her hands and called for the Kindred's attention. 'My friends, this desert has a mysterious power, which seems to weaken us. I think, from now on, we should go in pairs, holding each other by the hand. Jonner, you shall come with me, as shall Narla. Benjan,' she allowed herself to smile, 'you may walk with Carryn. Fiana, walk with Davred, and Katia, you go with Cheral. I shall walk in the rear, with Jonner and Narla, to make sure no one falls behind.'
That roused them for a whole night's walking cycle, and they moved more briskly, chatting from time to time. Davred hadn’t spoken much to Fiana, who usually preferred to keep silent and listen to others. Now, to en
liven the tedium, he managed to get her to talk of her childhood in Beldrian, and the xeno-anthropologist in him found her account of life on the Belder Plain enthralling.
In return he told her of his own upbringing, and of the university planet where he’d lived from the age of eight. Many aspects of this puzzled or astounded Fiana and required careful explanation. By nightfall, he realised that they’d drawn closer together and he acknowledged Herra's wisdom in separating him from Katia.
He and his wife knew each other's feelings so well they’d have lapsed into silence too often for their own safety.
The next day, Herra insisted they change partners again and put Jonner and Carryn in Cheral's charge, Fiana with Narla and Katia with Benjan. She took Davred for her own partner and spent some time giving him further instruction on how to listen to the God within. After that she relaxed and made him laugh with tales of her marriage to Parrin and the children she’d borne.
'Such dear little things, they were. I never saw them grown. It wasn’t wise to maintain any links. But I knew when they died, for they were a part of me. They're all dead, now,' she concluded, 'and their children's children also. I've outlived everyone I knew when I was younger, and even the friends of my middle years.'
'Does that make you sad?'
'Not exactly - wistful perhaps. One must accept one's fate. It's a great comfort to me that Cheral also has the Gift of Longevity. We can share a few memories of long ago.'
He was surprised. 'Is Longevity also a Gift?'
'In a sense.'
'It must be a heavy burden to bear.'
'Sometimes. At other times, it's a most precious jewel.' She refrained from telling him that he and Katia also showed signs of bearing that Gift. They were both young for their age, for all their innate commonsense.
Those gifted with Longevity usually took longer to mature. It was one Gift which no one could enhance by training, but had to be bred in people. It was better for the realisation that one possessed it to come little by little, so that people grew accustomed gradually to the idea of outliving all their friends and relatives.
On the ninth day they all changed partners again, but it was very noticeable that Jonner would hardly talk at all and Narla too was withdrawing into herself.
The Great Desert weighed down everyone's spirits. However, the mountains were close enough now for them to distinguish the individual crags and ravines on their slopes, and they had some hope of reaching them before they began to suffer too badly from hunger and thirst.
'Why did the SS'Habi not give us more supplies?' Cheral asked Herra. 'It'd have made little difference to them, for they're not short of food in Dsheresh Vale, quite the contrary. Don't they want us to succeed?'
'I don't know. I wonder sometimes if I know anything any more.'
On the tenth evening, when the group started to get ready for their night's walking, Jonner huddled down on the sand and refused point-blank to move. Narla sat apart from everyone, weeping bitterly and refusing to be comforted. Carryn, who was packing up her things moodily, took offence at something Fiana said to her.
After a furious exchange of words she turned and ran away across the sand. Benjan set off instantly after her, but before he could catch her, she had fallen heavily down a slope and twisted her ankle. Even so, he had to force her to return and she screamed abuse at him as he carried her.
Naturally, they all turned to Herra, and she stood frowning at the three who were preventing them from starting their night's journey. She refused to allow them to form a healing circle.
'It would be dangerous,' she said curtly. 'Nor dare I heal them myself. Like you, I'm affected by this place, so I cannot risk depleting my energies. I think the wisest course would be for me to continue on alone and try to find help. I thought yesterday, and today I'm quite sure that there's life over there.' She gestured towards the foothills which were now so temptingly close. 'The rest of you should wait here. Set up the shelters again and slow down your bodies.'
'I must come too, Elder Sister,' said Katia, 'or how will you find your way back to us?'
'There's no need for that this time, Katia. You're carrying two babies, and you're beginning to show the strain of this walk. We must think of their safety as well as our own.'
'But what if you get lost?'
'I haven't your Gift of Location, but I shall know the general direction because I can sense life emanations.
When I return, I shall sense where you are quite easily, as there will be with no other life forms out here to distract me.' She held Katia's hand briefly. 'Don't worry about me, child. Concentrate on yourself. Conserve your energy and protect those you carry within you, as well as those of our Kindred who are weaker than you.'
Katia reluctantly agreed, but couldn’t help adding, 'Be careful, Herra!'
'I will, child, believe me I will.'
Cheral handed Herra the final container of water. 'You'll take this with you and no arguments, Elder Sister!'
'Yes, Cheral, my old friend. And I shall rely upon you to look after everyone!'
'I’ll do my best. No one can do more. May our Brother lend us both his aid!'
'A light in the darkness,' murmured Herra in response, finding comfort in the old ritual phrases. She left immediately, but Jonner, Narla and Carryn didn’t even turn their heads to watch her go.
Herra set her sights on one particular crag in the foothills. She maintained a steady pace, not attempting to hurry, but not allowing anything to slow her down, either. After a while she became puzzled, for the texture of the sand was changing. It seemed almost to have acquired a life of its own, a spiteful life. It blew upwards in little clouds, making her face sting and her eyes water. It slipped away from beneath her feet for no reason, even when the ground was quite level, making each step twice as difficult as those of the previous day.
The undulations of the sandhills were so deep that she kept losing sight of the crag for which she was aiming. Twice she caught herself heading in the wrong direction and had to concentrate all her powers to get back on the right track. Once, she could have sworn she saw the High Council of the deleff faintly outlined against the top of a sand dune. She found herself shouting at them, accusing them of wishing her dead, shrieking insults into the wind that was slowly rising. And although she knew this was senseless, she couldn’t stop herself. Thirst scraped in her throat and she took a long gulp of the tepid water.
Whirling dervishes of sand now began to trouble her, enveloping her from time to time in a blur of grains as opaque as a blanket. She began to talk aloud and found that it helped, so spoke even more loudly.
Somehow, the illusions which beset her receded a little at the sound of her voice.
After a while, she decided to chant some of her beloved temple rituals, and the rhythm of the words made her start to dance. Why not? she told herself. 'Why not?' she shouted to the sand. If their Brother wished to call her to him, then he had that right and she would continue to honour him in any way possible as she died.
She didn’t fear death for herself, but felt regret that her young friends should perish, with their lives still unlived and their abilities undeveloped. And the Quest, oh, the Quest! Failing in that was something to mourn bitterly.
But deep down she wasn’t quite convinced that she was facing death; deep down a tiny spark of certainty still burned in her that now was not the time for her to leave this life cycle. She had the culmination of her life's work still to come. She’d led the Kindred along a path which showed the only promise in the dark years when the Serpent had spread its poison across the land and when nothing had seemed to slow them down.
They’d tried everything else they could think of. Perhaps the Kindred would succeed where the Sisters on their own had failed. Perhaps this great struggle would take the combined strength of all men and women of good will.
'The Quest is always with me, Brother,' she cried, 'part of my very being.' She danced on, pausing only to drink deeply. She couldn’t believe th
at her Brother would let them fail after all these years. She ached in every limb and could only see the mountains dimly through drifting veils of sand, but continued to move towards them, dancing slowly across the desert. When one ritual dance ended, she swayed immediately into the rhythms of another.
She was Herra, Elder Sister of Temple Tenebrak, and she would not give in!
Then without warning the whole desert around her erupted. Sand filled her eyes and clogged her nostrils, stinging viciously any part of her skin that was even slightly exposed. She could no longer see where she was going; the world was reduced to a dirty blur of whirling sand particles.
She lost her footing and rolled down a slope, lying still for a moment at the bottom, panting. For a moment she lay there limp and battered, feeling it was hopeless and all was lost. Then she shook her head and let the anger rise within her, rise to a white heat.
Filled once again with the power to continue, she sprang to her feet. 'No!' she screamed into the thick mist of sand granules. 'No, I shall not abandon my Quest! You are wrong, Giver of Words, wrong to allow me to be so sorely tried! I shall not give in! Never! Never! Never!' She took out the flask, for she was dreadfully thirsty, but the wind whirled it from her hands before she could drink from it.
"So be it!" she shouted and on she danced. She could hear temple bells in her ears and she turned her gaze inwards to her memories of temple ceremonies, to beauty and tranquillity, to a world she was fighting to re-establish. When she stumbled, she righted herself swiftly; when she fell, she rose at once. She had no idea in which direction she was heading, but it was enough to keep moving. Movement counteracted something evil which was snatching at her heels and tugging at her skirts; it kept her alive when anyone else would have lain down to die.
' I am Herra, Elder Sister of Temple Tenebrak, and I will not be stopped! ' she screamed again at the sandstorm.
There was a loud roar of thunder and the world grew still so abruptly that Herra continued her wild chanting for a moment or two before she realised her feet were on solid rock and everything had grown quiet around her. She opened her eyes and took a deep breath of triumph. She had done it! She had reached the edge of the desert.