A sand wave crashed against stone. The walls rumbled, and for a moment daylight vanished behind the wall of sand. A rush of air blew through the tunnel, and the party paused.
In the silent tongue, Grug said to Caleb, Please, my lord, instruct them now. Marul will be slow.
Grug, Caleb replied, this place you have in your heart for the witch will be your demise.
Grug stared at Caleb. You may be right, my lord, Grug said. But it’s not a choice.
Caleb said aloud, “There are always choices, Grug.” He turned to face his human companions. “Rana, Daniel, Marul, listen to me! The sand recedes as I speak. Soon it will reach its trough. Things will appear calm as we reach the cave mouth. Do not let the serenity deceive you. We have nine minutes to reach the far side of the break, a thousand paces away. You must run. If you don’t reach the far side in time, the next wave will swallow you alive. There is no margin for error.”
The humans eyed him gravely.
“Wait until Grug gives the word,” Caleb said. “If you venture out too soon the undertow will suck you under.”
They approached the opening. The bright daylight split into three shades. Blue sky, orange sand, and the brown shadow of the DanBaer.
Marul stared at her freedom. “Oh my,” she said. “Oh my.”
They waited at the cave mouth. Below them a steep hill of dark stone sloped down to the sand. Sharp, thin columns spiked up from the rock like stony swords. The sand hissed as it receded down the slope, leaving behind remnant puddles of orange dust.
“Seconds, my lord,” Grug said.
“Prepare yourselves!” Caleb shouted.
“Wait.” Grug said. “Wait . . . Now!”
They burst from the cave mouth and leaped onto the black stone as sand slithered down its steep bank. Marul, Rana and Daniel slipped and stumbled as they weaved between the knife-edged columns, while the Mikulalim, laden with cargo, descended easily over the terrain.
“Hurry!” Grug shouted as he reached the sandbank. Caleb followed close behind, but the humans were timid and lagging.
“Ignore the damned rocks!” Caleb shouted. “What’s a small cut if you’re buried under sand?” Marul stared at the sky, mouth agape. “Marul, you witch! Enjoy the fucking view later!”
She nodded and shuffled down, while Daniel and Rana helped her descend.
“Marul is too slow,” Grug said. “Always too slow. I’m going back for her.”
“Do it,” Caleb said, “and hurry!”
Grug ran up the steep cliff, while the other Mikulalim dropped the heavy containers to the sand and began tugging them forward with heavy straps. The trunks left deep furrows behind them as they went. Grug shoved Rana and Daniel out of the way and hoisted Marul onto his shoulder. The witch shouted as Grug leaped with her down the black slope.
“Leap over the sandbank!” Grug shouted to Rana and Daniel. “It will suck you under if you step on it!”
Timidly, Rana and Daniel jumped over the slowly rising bank.
Grug, Marul on his shoulders, stopped when he reached Caleb. “We’re too slow!” he said.
Caleb shouted to the Mikulalim dragging trunks, “You two! Go fetch the stragglers!”
“But what of the trunks?” one of them said.
“Leave them!”
Obeying, the two Mikulalim abandoned their cargo. Rana yelped as they hoisted her up. Daniel seemed no happier.
“You two!” Caleb shouted. “Grab the trunks!”
Two other Mikulalim, already pulling trunks of their own, paused beside the abandoned cargo and doubled their load. Their pace slowed dramatically with the added weight.
They all pressed on toward the dune at varying speeds. Time was not in their favor, but the fresh air brought new life to Caleb. The warm sun kissed his skin. The dune’s crest rose into the sky, a massing tidal wave of orange sand. The ground groaned like rending metal.
Grug ran beside Caleb, Marul on his shoulder. She was gazing up at the sky.
“How long?” Caleb said.
Grug’s face was hidden under his cloak as he looked first at the mountain and then at the rising dune. “Three minutes,” he said.
The first Mikulal crested the dune and vanished over the far side. The sand shook as it pushed them skyward. A second Mikulal crested the dune, then a third. They vanished on the other side. The two carrying Rana and Daniel leaped over the edge to safety.
“Marul!” Rana shouted, her voice muffled by the wall of sand.
Grug and Caleb paused at the dune crest. Grug let Marul down and she stumbled down the slope toward Rana.
Behind them, the rising sands had almost obscured the mountainside. “Under a minute, my lord,” Grug said. The ground beneath them heaved ever upward. Soon the dune would break. But the two Mikulalim carrying double trunk loads were hundreds of paces from safety. One was ahead of the second, but not by much. The furthest one suddenly dropped his straps and began sprinting for the dune.
“What in Abbadon is that creature doing?” Caleb said.
“My lord,” Grug said, “if he doesn’t run, he’ll die!”
“Stop!” Caleb shouted to the man. “Go back and fetch those trunks!” The desert air muffled Caleb’s voice, but the Mikulal had heard him, because he stopped running and looked back at the trunks.
“My lord,” Grug said. “Please!”
“We need those supplies, Grug.”
“Do we, my lord?”
“Go!” Caleb shouted. “I gave you an order!”
The Mikulal bowed to Caleb, to all of them. It was slow and deliberate. Then he turned and ran for the two trunks. The dune crest rose so quickly that Caleb grew dizzy.
“My lord, let me help him!” Grug said.
“No, Grug. You stay here.”
“But my lord, Yig is my—”
“Shut up, Grug!”
The Mikulal reached the trunks, picked up the straps, and began dragging them.
“Pull! Puuuuuull!” Grug shouted, his voice desperate, despairing.
The dune surged beneath them. They had to move. “Forget him,” Caleb said. “He’s lost.”
Grug hesitated. The dune was about to overtake them, so Caleb yanked Grug toward the safe side of the break. They fell down the slope and came to rest on their backs. Behind them, a monstrous wave of sand lurched toward the mountain. It smashed against the rocks with a great clamor, sending up a huge spray of dust. And when the noise abated, and the sands receded, there was no sign of Yig or his cargo.
“Why, my lord?” Grug said. “Why did you order Yig to die?”
“He abandoned his cargo,” Caleb said. “His one and only task.” To the other Mikulalim Caleb said, “Let Yig’s sin be remembered by all. Such shall be the punishment for anyone who abandons his duties.”
Grug turned his hooded face toward Caleb. Perhaps it was a reflection, but the light in Grug’s eyes was as bright as a bonfire. “My lord,” he said, “Yig was my brother.”
Caleb wiped sand from his robe. “Then let it be known that my judgment is not biased toward those who believe their proximity to me incurs special favor.”
Marul bounded toward him. In the full light of the sun her wild gray hair glistened with a half-decade of grease. “The demon shows his true colors!” she spat. “You sent that man needlessly to his death!”
“Is this how you thank me for your freedom?” Caleb said.
“Freedom?” she said. “I would have remained in that cave forever if I knew it would have spared Yig’s life!”
Caleb laughed. “What a joke! Is this little show of compassion for Rana’s behalf? You can stop your sanctimony, witch. I know who you really are.”
“You’re a beast!”
“Not the worst that I’ve been called.” The sun beat on his face, hotter by the second. “Grug, have your men hand out water bladders to everyone. Make sure the humans drink often. Now, tell me, which way to the Bedu?”
Grug stared at Caleb for a long moment. If there was malice in the
gaze, he hid it well. Grug glanced up at the sun, then at the DanBaer. Another sand wave rose to shield the mountain, crashed into it, and threw up sheets of sand. Quietly, Grug said, “The Bedu use the tides as birds use wind. In this season, the tides flow to the northwest.” He pointed deep into the desert.
Caleb strode past Marul, past Rana and Daniel, past the Mikulalim and their trunks, and began walking northwest. “Let’s move,” he said. “We’ve a long trip ahead of us.”
“You’re forgetting our deal,” Marul said. “We take Rana back to Azru first.”
Caleb turned to face Grug, and in the silent tongue, he said, Rana cannot leave me, Grug. I need her. You mustn’t let her out of your sight. Do whatever it takes to keep her here.
Yes, my lord, Grug responded.
“She cannot get to Azru from here,” Grug said.
“Why the hell not?” Rana said. “Azru’s just on the other side of the DanBaer. I can see the city’s dust beyond the western peaks.”
“To safely reach Azru,” Grug said, “You must approach via the traders’ route, a full parasa from here. Otherwise you’ll be swept into the desert.”
“Is this true?” Marul said to Rana.
“I don’t know,” Rana said. “Maybe. I don’t know the currents on this side of the DanBaer. I know there are strong currents on the other side.”
“Then take us to the traders’ route,” Marul said, squinting in the light.
“When we reach that corridor, mistress, I’ll inform you.”
“Will you, Grug?” Marul said.
Grug glanced at Caleb and said, “I will, Marul.”
Why do you love her, Grug? Caleb said in the silent tongue. She’ll betray you when it suits her, just as she betrayed the Cosmos.
You and I see things differently, my lord, Grug said.
You were just a blanket to keep her cunt warm in the dark. Now that she’s in the sun, watch how quickly she discards you.
You are my lord, Grug said, and I shall obey you. But you are not our rightful king. Our true master lies chained in Dudael, bound upside down beyond the Mountains of Darkness. You are only a placeholder king.
Grug’s words were meant to barb. They might have even been a death wish. Caleb—Ashmedai—and his brother Azazel hadn’t spoken in centuries. Caleb only ruled the Mikulalim now because Azazel had lost the throne in a bet a long time ago. One day, the Mikulalim secretly hoped, Azazel would command them again.
You’re angry, Grug, Caleb said, so I’ll forgive you your outburst. But I’ll have you know, I plan to liberate your bound king.
Grug gave him a surprised look.
Yes, Grug. With your help I plan to free the Mikulalim as well. If I succeed, one day soon you will walk in the sun without need of a cloak. You will become a whole man again.
And you, my lord? If you succeed, what will you become?
Caleb looked into the deep desert and smiled.
——
The sun was an oppressive yellow ball that taunted Daniel with every step. The sands smelled of baked cement, and every now and then, cinnamon. Was it from Yarrow? From Azru? Elsewhere? Daniel sipped water, knowing this bladder had to last days. The gnawing in his stomach had vanished, replaced by an impossible fatigue.
Yig, he thought. Poor, helpless Yig. Caleb was taking them deeper into the desert. Was he the only one who could save Earth? He hadn’t even given Grug time to mourn his dead brother. And still Grug walked steadfast beside his king. Was he even allowed to feel?
As they headed northwest over the shifting sands, the DanBaer plateau receded. Swirling smoke rose from an adjacent canyon, the one that burned beside the invisible stair. Specks of windblown ash tumbled in the air. In all other directions rolled an undulating sea of orange sand. Mammoth dunes lumbered across the desert, lifting the party up, dropping them stories. Daniel was always dizzy, and whenever he looked back, the mountains were not where he expected them to be.
Grug and Caleb led on, and Marul gazed at the sun, pausing often to sigh. The black-robed Mikulalim crept behind the party, hooded like a mass of grim reapers. The only sound was the slithering of the trunks across the sand, the occasional gust of wind.
The Mikulalim seemed to be watching him, though he couldn’t see their eyes under their hoods. He felt as if they had been walking straight, but the furrows behind the trunks weaved like a drunkard’s path.
“You’re wavering,” Rana said. She wore a curiously patterned scarf over her head, interwoven with lines of crimson, yellow, and blue in fractal-like complexity. Another one of her creations? “Have you drank?” she said.
“Buckets,” he said in English.
“Huh?” She sidled up to him. “Daniel, tell me about your Earth.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Are there cities?”
“Many.”
“What do they look like?”
“They’re all different.”
“What are the buildings made of?”
“Wood, concrete, and metal, mostly.”
“Which metals? Bronze? Copper? Hematite?”
“Steel, mostly.”
“Stee-ul?”
“An alloy of iron. Super strong. They use it to build towers over a hundred stories tall. The biggest cities are filled with them. We call them sky scrapers.”
“Because they scrape the sky.” She stared up at the cloudless blue.
“Yes.”
“Daniel,” she said, moving closer, “do you really think you’re going back to Earth?”
“I sure as hell hope I am.”
“I miss my parents, my sister so much. But I keep thinking, if I go home, I’ll never get to see your Earth. I’ll never get to see another world.”
“I have family back home too.” He thought of Gram, waiting for him. And Rebekah? She was still family too. “If I could go back this instant, I would.”
“Oh, I still want to go home,” Rana said. “Eventually.”
A train of wild camels, nearly the same orange shade as the desert, crested a dune. Hundreds of them sped past the party, stirring up a huge cloud of dust. Everyone stopped to watch, and the scene was breathtaking. And then, as fast as they’d come, the camels vanished over another dune. The dust settled, and all was quiet again, save for the whistling of the dunes as they crept across the desert, like wind over glass bottles.
“Yesterday, you were an ordinary man,” Rana said. “And today you’re a Lamed Vavnik.”
“It’s still hard to accept.”
“Yesterday, I was a mason,” Rana said. “And today . . .”
“What are you?”
“A Gu, they called me.”
“Your music,” Daniel said. “It was . . . intense.” The feelings had overwhelmed him, as if he had taken bad acid or had smoked weed laced with chemicals. His ego had shattered, and what was left was a conscious thing, aware but without will. And Rana’s voice—her energies—had stuffed that void. Daniel, in that moment, had ceased to be himself and had become part of something greater. The feeling was terrifying and wonderful. Total liberation, but also death. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to experience that again.
“Did you feel . . . my power?”
He shivered, trying to suppress the memory. A rush of emotions shuddered through him, pleasurable and terrible and total. With all this new knowledge, his sense of self was fragile enough as it was. But with Rana’s prodding, his psyche teetered toward dissolution.
She must have sensed this, because she said, “I’m sorry, Daniel. Don’t answer that. If it was anything like what I felt, it couldn’t have been pleasant.”
“No,” he said. “Parts of the experience were amazing. But it was like having my soul erased and replaced by, well, a tidal wave of emotion. I felt your spirit, Rana. It was a force emanating from you like . . . like heat from the sun. Intense and inescapable.”
Rana let slip a nervous laugh. “And to think that had I listened to my mother I’d be setting yet another row of stone
on the Ukne Tower at this moment, oblivious to all this.”
Marul was walking a distance ahead when she stopped and shouted, “Look, Rana! Look!”
Four narrow stone towers peeked up past the western edge of the DanBaer, their tops sparkling in the sun. Hazy with dust, a nest of jumbled buildings bulged from the mountain base. He recognized the view from when he and the dog had approached it.
“Azru!” Marul said. “Oh, beautiful, lovely Azru! How you’ve grown!”
“Do you see the three eastern-most towers?” Rana said. “The one with the minaret and the two with the connecting bridge?”
“I do!” said Marul.
“I built those,” Rana said. “Not alone, of course. But I added my own designs. The amethyst and quartz inlay was my idea.”
“Oh, they’re splendid! Marvelous and splendid, Rana!”
Though Azru had frightened him before, Daniel missed the comfort of its walls, the shade of its roofs, its edible fruits.
Rana sighed. “Mama’s probably setting Liu down for a nap right now. Papa’s probably sitting by the window watching the Ukne rise, cursing Jo’s ineptness. They’re probably worried about me. But I’ve gone off like this before. And I always come home.”
Daniel thought on what Rana had said. “Rana, there’s your home,” he said. “Go to it.”
The jeweled city flashed in the sunlight, wavering. When he squinted, Azru and its towers resembled a woman, in a vague way. The mountain became her curving bust. The jeweled domes became her shimmering hair. The woman swayed in the heat, a slow dancer gliding closer. He blinked his eyes, and the vision grew sharper.
The figure drifted closer, a pale-skinned goddess, naked, her long black hair almost blue in the sun. A pearlescent cape fluttered behind her, attached to a white band at her neck. A golden metal band wrapped her waist and shone with solar reflections. She reached for him, and the sky turned wine-dark, a night without stars. She glowed as bright as the moon as she approached, and he knew her.
Rebekah!
She drifted toward him. “Danny!” she moaned, her voice faint, torn into shreds of sound. Tears poured from her eyes, and they turned to shards that floated into the purple sky. “Where are you, Danny? Where have you gone, my love?” Her eyes searched but could not find him.
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