"Thank God," I whisper, able to recognize the physical stature of my guys anywhere. I remain silent in the back of the cart, hoping to be forgotten in the chaos the sudden appearance of the Wanderers has churned up. Through the wooden hole I watch as the central rider raises his arm and along with it a wall of sand. Pointing toward the caravan the sand rolls forward like a wave, crashing down over the camp of men and animals, effectively crushing everything in its path.
Self-preservation is a strong reflex and it’s the only reason I manage to get my eyes closed before the sand blows through the wagon, ripping the tarp clean off. Dazed as I am I can still make out Kade's voice yelling in a foreign tongue. Moments later hands are forcefully lifting me from the cart and scared men begin to drag me through the sand, dropping me at Kade's feet.
He squats down next to me, his gentle hands holding me while someone cuts away my bonds. Fury to rival an avenging angel burns in his eyes and he pulls me to my feet, kissing me soundly in front of everyone. Cradling me in the crux of his arm he screams at my kidnappers in what I assume is Arabic. Cowering in the sand they quake, bowing to Kade and the other Wanderers, wailing some gibberish I don't understand.
Satisfied, Kade swings up into his saddle, clearly the master of this situation. Z lifts me carefully onto the horse’s back behind Kade. Wrapping my arms around him I rest against his mighty shoulders, too tired to keep my own head up. Safe but completely shaken my humor surfaces to make light of the uncomfortable turn of events.
"What happened to that rule about no public displays of power?" I tease.
"Please, the likelihood of this ending up on You Tube is nonexistent!" he barks out, heavy shoulders tense with anger.
Chapter 32
I've been sitting in a half-awake state for awhile. My body is ready to be awake but my mind wants to remain blissfully disconnected and asleep. Finally I give up, force my eyes to open and my mind to forgo its attempts to send me into another REM cycle.
Lifting my head I see desert. Everywhere. Hal is sitting behind the wheel following directions that must be ingrained from years of coming here because there are no road signs. Hell, there are no roads.
"I'm sorry," I squeak, throat dry, voice cracking. Hal hands me a bottle of water but continues his silent vigil. Thanking him I twist the cap off and chug the entire bottle, surprised to find I'm still thirsty when I finish. Reading the shock on my face Hal smiles.
"Get used to being thirsty," he tells me. "This place is the recipe for dehydration."
Staring at him across the cab I wait, sure that he has more than a few choice words for me. His eyes dart my direction and he sighs.
"I'm not going to yell at you if that's what you’re waiting for. I think you've more than learned your lesson."
Letting my shoulders slump, I settle back in my seat, trying to get comfortable. "How long have I been asleep?"
“A couple hours; not long considering.” Nodding I stare through the windshield. You know those questions you just have to ask despite the fact you might not really want to know the answer? Biting my lip I get ready to ask the one that's been plaguing me.
"How long did it take you to find me?"
"Gwen, don't torture yourself about it," the overly perceptive Hal tells me.
"Just answer the question," I snap rudely.
"It cost us half a day."
"Half a day," I whisper, knowing since we landed there are only two days left until the resealing.
"Gwen, unforeseen events like today’s are why we gather ahead of schedule. We have plenty of time, it’s fine." I have no response. I mean, really, what can I say, so we ride together in silence for a time.
The terrain: it’s a desert and pretty much looks the way National Geographic has always depicted.
The heat: well, the TV didn't do that justice, but the rest is pretty accurate.
Traveling in the truck is tedious and we make a lot of detours based on the landscape and the limitations of our vehicle. Thankfully the cavalry is scouting ahead for the safest route.
"Hal, did you fix my head? ‘Cause I don't feel a knot."
"No, Kade did that. You had a nasty bump, probably a concussion, but no internal damage as far as we could tell."
"If it wasn't serious, why didn't he just let me heal, the normal way I mean?"
“Ha!" Hal's short outburst surprises me. "That guy breaks a lot of rules when it comes to you." Not picking up on the tail end of his reply, I keep talking, questioning what I do remember, still trying to connect the dots.
"He made a sandstorm, Hal, threw it right down on top of the caravan. I've never seen anything like it, the destruction was out of this world. Ugh," I groan gripping my head.
"Are you hurt?!" Hal yells, voice full of concern.
"No, it's just so hard to remember. Hal, what happened?" Laughing with relief Hal visibly relaxes in his seat.
"Cut yourself some slack, you were hit pretty hard." I glare his direction, letting him know that his patronizing is not helping.
"Geez, if looks could kill ... I'll tell you what I know." Shaking his head, his face lights up with a lopsided grin that I'm sure has had many a girl turning into a puddle at his feet. His boyish charm and looks along with his wisdom and fatherly demeanor make Hal immensely intriguing. "Realize I stayed with the truck the entire time, so everything I'm about to tell you is second hand." Cocking his head to the side, eyebrows raised, he waits for my nod of understanding before continuing the tale.
"Z, who I might add seems attached to your hip, noticed you were missing."
Covering a chuckle with my hand, I say, "Yeah, I think that guy would follow me into the bathroom if he could," I tell him.
"You'd only been out of my sight for twenty minutes or so. Kade organized a search of the area immediately, bypassing Adil's authority to do so I might add."
Smiling to myself I admit to him, "Kade's always been my self-appointed hero." Looking at me like I must be stupid or something, Hal continues.
"One of the women selling dried fruits and nuts had seen where you'd gone. I got started driving while the others split up into three groups to search. Kade came riding in with you four or five hours later."
"I think you caught me when I got off the horse," I interject, the fuzzy recollection coming back to me.
"That's right. We patched you up and threw you in the cab."
As I drum my fingers on the armrest a memory teases me but I can't quite pull the details into focus ... something about swirling sand and being dragged.
"Oh my goodness!" I shout, surprising Hal, who swerves unnecessarily.
"Don't do that," he tells me, annoyed.
"He kissed me,” I blurt out.
"Well, it's about time."
"Everyone was yelling, somebody pulled me from the cart and dragged me through the sand. And then, and then ..." I pause, willing the rest of the memory to surface. "Kade was above me, eyes fierce, glowing like an avenging angel."
"Oh crap, don't let the guys hear you say that." Slapping Hal on the shoulder to get him to stop talking I continue before I lose my train of thought completely.
"Somehow the ropes binding me were gone, Kade pulled me up into his arms and kissed me." Whoa, I think to myself, did that really happen? Wracking my brain I second guess myself at first, but with every passing moment I can see that detail more and more clearly.
"What did you say?" I ask Hal, caught off guard by something.
"I said don't let the guys hear you comparing them to angels. They won't like it. To us angels are the bad guys, remember?"
"No, before that," I badger, searching for the important piece of information I thought I’d heard. "You said it's about time. Didn't you?"
No answer.
"Hal!" I bark, channeling my inner drill sergeant.
"Aye, I did," he confesses.
"What did you mean by that?"
"You're a smart girl, you know what I meant. The guy should have kissed you years ago."
&
nbsp; And there it was, the answer to one of those questions I might not want to know the answer to. Truth be told it was a question I didn't even realize I was asking until it was too late. Me and my big mouth.
It's amazing how quickly uncomfortable topics can kill a conversation, and Hal had just thrown up the mother of all roadblocks. Withdrawing into my own head I try to pretend the last few minutes didn't happen.
It’s absurd. Kade is one of my oldest friends, and well, I've got Ben. My Ben, who might be burnt to a crisp any moment in that forest fire, stupid hero. I cut that line of thinking short knowing thoughts of Ben will only bring on a completely different set of anxieties that I refuse to acknowledge right now.
Devoid of safe topics with which to occupy myself I return to attempting to unravel what happened during my captivity and rescue. Closing my eyes I take several deep breaths and try to relax. I replay through the memories I do have, trying to encourage new ones to surface and fill in the gaps. I've got nothing from the time I was knocked out until I woke up in the back of that wagon. Even the details of that ride are blurry as I faded in and out of consciousness several times.
After several minutes of focusing I begin to catch vague glimpses of the whole ordeal, but for the most part the details are lost, buried somewhere in my subconscious. What I recall with some clarity is being lowered off the horse into thickly muscled arms, while another set of hands burrowed through my hair examining my skull.
"There's no fracture, but she does have a nasty bump," I remember Kade saying, followed by a warm tingly sensation racing through my body like a current, lasting no more than a split second, before leaving me cold again, but my head hurt less. My body was loaded into the cab of the truck and I recall the rumble of the diesel engine as it came to life. That’s it.
"Alright, I give up," I say coming to life in my seat.
"Did I miss something?" Hal questions.
"I can't make myself remember what happened. Even the things I do remember feel like an out of body experience, like it was happening to someone else. I'm done forcing it to make sense." Hal smiles indulgently.
"I'm just glad you're speaking to me again. This is the worst commute imaginable."
Laughing I remind him, "You could be on a horse."
"Touché."
"And I never stopped talking to you, for the record." After executing a truly tricky maneuver between two sand dunes, Hal pauses to look at me.
"You must have blacked out there for the last twenty minutes then," he tells me.
"Har har," I bark sarcastically, letting him know he's not that funny.
"Ok so tell me about this place." I open up a new topic, hoping for answers to more of my questions.
"It's a sand pit."
"Not this," I whip my hand around indicating the current scenery. “Where we're going."
"Essam. It's where it all began." Hal has my attention now. I perk up at this new discovery and listen with rapt attention.
"It's the site of the original sealing, where the Wanderers were created, and has served as our headquarters ever since."
"Wait, I thought headquarters was in Utah."
"The Utah facility is fairly new." He smiles. "Essam was our original headquarters and home to the Sylph spheres we've collected over the millennium. I don't think any of us could truly abandon it—there are too many memories here." Lost in what I can only speculate is one of the said memories, I have to ask my next question twice to get Hal's attention.
"If all the spheres are here, how’d my boss get a hold of one?"
"I didn't say all the spheres were here, just the ones we've located."
"But if all the spheres aren't here, how do we seal them again?" I’m confused.
"Ahh, okay. A sphere doesn't have to be in the immediate presence of the spell for it to work, although proximity is important. Even together our power only extends so far, thus the further a sphere is from the location the spell is cast, the less effective the sealing is. That's why, over the years, we've had rogue Sylph to deal with." Absorbing this new information I ask the obvious.
"So if proximity is so important why do you always come out here for the resealing?"
"We don't. We alternate between here and the Utah facility. Moving the spheres is a time consuming, risky endeavor so we've limited the spell to just those two locations."
"Risky?" I inquire.
"At Essam, as well as in Utah, the spheres are protected but airtight security is almost impossible in transit."
"Oh," I reply seeing his meaning. "So, after the resealing, how long will it be before the Sylph we missed get out?" I ask, concerned.
"Don't fret,” Hal replies reading the distress underlying my words. “There aren't many Sylph out there these days. We've done our job well."
"Of that I have no doubt," I emphasize smiling at him.
"The spell isn't a finite thing either. It doesn't abruptly fail at the five hundred year mark, it wears off gradually. If it isn't reinforced it continues to wane, eventually weakening enough for the Sylph to overpower it and break free of the sphere. It's important to note that just like humans some Sylph are stronger than others; the weakest ones might never be able to escape."
"Good to know," I say, processing everything he’s said.
I find myself somewhat relieved by Hal's explanation, and glad to know two days from now a bunch of Sylph won't suddenly be flying around wrecking havoc. I contemplate the “what ifs” that still concern me.
What does happen when a Sylph gets out? How would the Wanderers know if one has escaped? And, most importantly, what would they do about it? Preparing to barrage Hal with another round of questioning, I notice a lone rider on a black horse making his way toward the driver-side window. At this distance, with all the Wanderers covered in headdresses to protect them from the harsh elements of the desert, it’s hard to tell exactly who approaches. My breath catches in my throat as the unidentified man sidles up to Hal's window on his horse. Drawing aside the white fabric covering his face, Zafrir grins mischievously and my reflex to breathe kicks in, flooding my system with sweet oxygen.
Through the use of some sort of rudimentary sign language, Z communicates something to Hal who nods and flashes him the thumbs up sign. Trotting off, Z quickly becomes lost in the parade of horses lining the crest of a particularly small dune.
"We're almost there," Hal announces enthusiastically. As we slowly rumble to the top of the hill, the horses part, giving our vehicle a wide berth. A valley with a monstrous ravine breaks below us.
"There," Hal points, indicating our path into the heart of the ravine itself, but whatever splendor or fear I should feel at the site of Essam, where it all began, is temporarily lost on me. Unable to drag my gaze away from the proud pageantry of the majestic riders, my heart flies with them as they gallop across the sands, completely at ease, thundering through the terrain as if this is what they were bred to do.
“Essam means safeguard,” Hal says, pulling me from my reverie. Safegaurd, I can’t think of anything more fitting.
Chapter 33
You know you're missing a whole lot of something when the contingent of men you're traveling with gather reverently around the mouth of a cave, and that cave looks just like all the rest. We are the last to arrive given the slow speed necessary to negotiate the ravine by truck. Hal and I climb down and join the others at the mouth of the cave.
"Welcome to Essam," says Adil.
As I stare into the dark depths of the monstrous natural cavern, I pray for that awe-inspiring feeling everyone around me seems to be sharing, but despite all I know about this place it remains just a cave to me.
Slapping me on the back Z steps forward, reading my mind. "You were expecting something a little more sparkly, weren't you?" he laughs. Truth be told, I don't know what I was expecting but, no, this was not it.
"Alright, everyone. Get to work." Adil's booming voice resonates effectively, snapping everyone into action.
Leaning clos
e, Hal whispers in my ear, "This place has never looked like much—it’s what happened here that marks it as special."
Stepping aside to avoid being knocked over, I watch Bass and a pair of guys whose names I can't remember cart several portable generators into the cave. "I thought you said this place used to be your headquarters?" I ask Hal.
"It was," he replies, watching me eye the supplies being carted into the cavern. "We've preserved this place in its original form for thousands of years. No human inventions or modern renovations have been incorporated into it. We bring what few modern conveniences we need along with us when we happen to visit."
Great, I think to myself as Hal wanders back to the truck to help unload. Finding a semi-comfortable rock across from the entrance I sit and watch the guys’ progress, wondering where Kade has disappeared to. It doesn't take long to get the generators up and running, and soon the warm glow of fluorescent lighting spills from the mouth of the cave. With the lights comes a happy go lucky Z who beckons me to follow him inside. Sliding from my perch I stumble after the large Wanderer.
"The whole place is a natural tunnel system, linking a series of large caverns together," Z tells me as we walk. Sure enough the main passage dumps us into a huge rectangular room, a bit like a lava tube with many smaller passages breaking off from it. The bulk of our supplies are making it into the center of the main chamber, but Z drags me along, clearly having a different destination in mind for us.
"Okay, I'm coming!" I yell shaking my arm free of his grip. I laugh when the tall Wanderer has to duck in order to traverse our next passageway.
"Here are your sparkles," he tells me as we exit the short tunnel into another monstrous cave.
"Whoa," I exclaim straightening to my full height. This room is roundish and large shelves have been worn into the surrounding walls. Glistening mineral spheres of every size and color imaginable line these shelves, coating the cavern from top to bottom. Zafir raises his lantern and the whole room shimmers, the patterns covering the orbs coming to life as they catch the light. I glance about, dizzy. Never have I been in the presence of such terrible beauty.
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