D & D - Red Sands (13 page)

"She was stung. The strike was not a deep one, but with a scorpion of that size death is an unhappy possibility," Tamakh said. "Did you get the pack donkey?"

"No, I lost that one."

"Have we any food at all?" Uramettu asked.

"Just what each animal was carrying. The water was well divided, but the bread, dates, and cheese were lost."

Marix staggered into view. "Have you been drinking?" asked Nabul.

"Fool, he sucked the poison from Jadira's body," said Uramettu.

Nabul looked from one to another and back again. He went to Marix, who was tottering on his heels. The thief

grasped the nobleman about the waist and brought him to where the others sat. The four companions stayed there the rest of the night, keeping very close and holding Jadira between them.

The Eye of God

Heaven to the nomads is a place of cool air and rain. There the righteous have honey and cheese to eat, and clean, sweet water flows out of the ground at a command. Jadira could taste the water. It kissed her dry lips and moistened her arid tongue.

She opened her eyes and saw a dark shape above her. "Mitaali?" she murmured.

"Alas, my godhood is still a long time off."

"Who? Marix?" The dark shape laughed gently. "I can't see you," she said.

"It is not a wonder. Until recently, the venom had you deaf, dumb, and blind."

Jadira moved her arms experimentally. Inhaling deeply, she felt a sharp stab in her stomach. She touched the hurt and through her robe felt the cut Uramettu had made.

"Never mind," said Marix, pushing her hand away. Something cold touched her cheek, and water flowed into her lips again. "How is that?"

"Divine," she said.

A second blur joined the first. "She is awake. How do you feel, my sister?"

"Sore. As if I fought twenty of the sultan's soldiers." She put out a hand. Uramettu closed her long fingers over it. "How long have I been unfeeling?" Jadira asked.

"A day and a night," said Marix. He was a bit clearer now.

"And the scorpion?"

"Dead. Uramettu gutted it like a trout."

"I thought I was dead, too."

"So you would have been had Uramettu not known what to do for you."

The black woman responded, "My brother Marix hides his own light. It was he who risked his own life to draw the vile poison from your body."

"Thank you both, my friends." Jadira looked into Marix's blue eyes. She felt his cool hand on her brow and slipped into a gray haze again. The shadows that were her friends merged into the darkness.

When next she knew, the world was blue sky and hot wind pouring over her. She seemed to be swaying in some steady rhythm, side to side. She sat up. The others had rigged a carrier out of blankets and slung it between two donkeys. Jadira grasped the stiff gray hair on the donkey's back and turned her head as far as her aching body would permit.

They were in the high desert. Unlike the lower Red Sands, between Omerabad andjulli, the high desert was completely flat. No dunes of fine, blown sand. No gullies in which to hide from the incessant east wind or the heavy lash of the sun. Her companions strode with leaden deliberation across the hard-packed earth. Uramettu limped. The cleric led the third donkey. Nabul and

Marix walked some paces ahead, their burnooses billowing out to the left in perfect sympathy.

"Hello," Jadira called. "Why doesn't someone else tide for a while?"

The others stopped and came back to surround her. "You're awake!" "You're awake!" "You're speaking!" they exclaimed together.

"Stop the donkeys, will you? I want to stand." Tamakh caught the right animal's bridle. Jadira slid off the blanket and let her feet touch the Red Sands again. A twinge ran through her, but she straightened and smiled.

"As right as new," she said. "Where are we?"

"About six leagues north of the scorpion rock," said Tamakh. "Another day's journey north, and we'll turn west for the mountains."

"Why are there only three donkeys?"

"They ran from the scorpion, but Nabul was quick enough to retake these three," said Marix.

"And the supplies?"

"Two-thirds were lost," said Nabul flatly.

Jadira moved around the donkeys' tails and stood alongside the left one. "What are you doing?" Marix asked.

"I will walk. There's no sense burdening the poor beasts any more than necessary."

"Are you strong enough?"

She pressed her palm to her wound and inhaled. "I am." The others regarded her skeptically. "Any sign of the Bershak?" Jadira asked Uramettu.

"Nothing direct. Our delay at the rock confused them, but finding the fly-infested carcass of the scorpion answered their questions, I'm sure."

They resumed the march. From time to time,

Jadira spied Marix watching her with concern. His attention pleased her for reasons she didn't fully understand.

There was more life visible in the high desert. Wisps of brown wiregrass grew out of the bricklike soil. Flies buzzed, and high above, black vultures wheeled through the cloudless sky. Nabul spotted a cobra once in time for them to give it wide berth. Two injuries were enough.

After reading the stars, Tamakh decided it was time to head west. They walked for two days with the sun rising at their backs and setting in their faces. On the morning of the third day, the incessant wind vanished.

"Wait," Jadira said sharply. "Wait for the wind." It did not resume.

"What does it mean?" asked Marix.

"A severe change, I fear. We must wait to see from what direction the wind returns. If from the north, there will be thunder, lightning, and rain such as mortals seldom see. If from the south, the dust of the low desert will rise to fill the air."

"What about the east?" said Nabul.

She shuddered. "Pestilence. Fever, boils, and death." There were no more questions.

Just before noon, the air stirred. It swirled around from all points, finally settling into a pulsing flow from the south. Hot and dry as a furnace, it made the travelers' ears hum and their skins crack.

"We must find some shelter," Jadira shouted above the rising whistle of the wind.

"Jadira's right," said Tamakh. "We'll wither like dried apples out here if we don't find cover."

"Where?" cried Nabul, gesturing toward the flat land. "Shall we burrow into the earth?" He kicked the baked dirt. "Iron mattocks could not penetrate this!" he declared.

They stumbled on. The press of wind forced them north, in order to keep the blast at their backs. Two notches past midday, Jadira felt a tug on her robe. She turned and saw Uramettu pointing into the wind.

A line of moving figures dotted the horizon. Uramettu's lips formed the word "Bershak!" but the rushing air stole the sound. It was clear what was driving the nomads into the open; several leagues behind them was a wall of brown reaching hundreds of paces up into the sky. Sandstorm. The boiling mass of airborne sand was rapidly overtaking the galloping Bershak. Jadira grabbed Nabul, who warned Marix and Tamakh.

"What can we do?" shouted the thief. The wind had risen from a shriek to a roar.

"There must be a place—somewhere—out of the wind!" called Marix.

Jadira shook her head. "I can't think of any, and we can't outrun a sandstorm!"

Tamakh put a hand in his toga and found the iron key. He shouted a prayer to Agma for help. As he did, they saw the rearmost riders in the Bershak band engulfed by the wall of sand. They disappeared.

"It's coming very fast!" Uramettu said. The little thief was plucked from his feet and blown ten paces like a rootless bush. Marix chased after him and caught the hem of his sleeve. He dragged Nabul back.

All at once, Tamakh flung his hand up and held the key over his head. Jadira blinked. She saw a bright orange halo form around the old key.

"Agma.! Nam at zan!"
Tamakh cried. Down came the key to eye level. Holding it stiffly ahead of him, Tamakh

began to walk.

"Where's he going?" Marix wanted to know.

"I don't know, but I think his god is helping us again!" Jadira replied.

They trailed after the priest, the four clinging tightly together and leading the donkeys. The priest marched with quick steps north by west. Nabul glanced over his shoulder. There was no sign of the Bershak, and the wall of sand blown by the storm was only half a league behind them.

Tamakh stopped moving forward, though his feet churned in place. The arm that held the key swung in a wide arc as if seeking a new direction. The orange aura dimmed until the key pointed north by northeast, then it flared brilliantly. Tamakh took off running as fast as his thick legs could carry him.

Suddenly, looming out of the amber haze, were stone columns and a tumbled-down wall. Some of the columns were so broad that Jadira and Uramettu would have been unable to join hands around them. They rose nine paces and their tops were lost in the flying sand. Their sides were polished smooth as glass. Tamakh dashed straight through the broken colonnade and vanished into the maze of ruined walls.

Marix tied the donkeys to a wall that offered shelter from the storm. The companions then set off along the covered corridor in search of Tamakh. The air thickened. Particles of dust and sand sang through gaps in the stones. Here, protected from the fury of the elements, the columns were fluted with deep grooves.

"Tamakh! Tamakh!" Jadira cried. All she got was a mouth full of dirt.

"Holy One! Where are you?" shouted Uramettu. She turned about. Taking Jadira by the shoulder, she said in the nomad woman's ear,
"I
've lost Marix and Nabul!"

"Where?"

"Somewhere since that last turn!"

"We'll have to go back."

They retraced their steps to an intersection of four walled corridors. The air was completely brown now, and visibility was less than arm's length. Jadira and Uramettu held hands as they moved through the murk. Neither saw the pit Jadira stepped into. All they knew was that the next second, Jadira was dangling in space at the end of Uramettu's strong arm.

Two hands spanned Jadira's waist, mindful of her injury. "It's all right," said Tamakh. "The drop is less than two paces." He dropped her gently to the ground.

Uramettu jumped into the hole after Jadira. ilveryone was there.

"I thought we'd lost you for good," exclaimed Marix, hurrying to Jadira's side.

"We believed the same of you," she replied. "What is this place, Tamakh?"

"In the distant past, this was a temple," said the priest. "Come; let us withdraw into the tunnel out of reach of the storm."

They felt their way about ten paces down a dark, stone-lined passage. The howl of the storm diminished. The choking dust was thinner, but the heat was still stifling.

"I can't see a thing," Nabul complained.

Something rattled on the wall. Uramettu, who could see quite well in the dark, said, "There are torch holders on the walls. If we had a flame, we could light them."

"Tamakh, can you make a fire?" asked Jadira.

Though depleted by his exertions in locating the temple, Tamakh managed to make a spark after several minutes of concentration. A small, smoky flame began in the ancient holder. Tamakh examined the device. It was bronze, and the cup held a black, tarry substance that burned with little heat.

They found more torches and lit them from the first.
The tunnel gradually came
into view as a long, straight passage with a rounded roof. The walls were made of gigantic blocks of native sandstone, notched at the corners and fitted without mortar.

"How old is this place, do you think?" wondered Marix.

"Oh, twenty centuries," Tamakh mused.

"Twenty!" Nabul exclaimed.

"Maybe twenty-five. No one since the time of Tarka the Vile has lived this deep in the desert." He touched the worn wall. "There are stories, legends. ... It is said that two thousand years ago the Red Sands were green and bountiful."

"I've heard that," saidjadira. "It was a beautiful, lush country until the gods fought over who would have dominion over the land and its people."

"And fire fell down from heaven and burned the Red Sands," finished Tamakh.

Air snapped at their torches. They closed together in a common impulse. Nabul said in a low voice, "How long do you think we'll have to stay here?"

"As long as the storm lasts," said Tamakh.

Jadira straightened her shoulders and squinted at the holy man. "How did you find this place?"

The priest smiled in a satisfied way. "I called upon Agma to shelter us from the storm. The key was my beacon. Through it, Agma drew me to this place." He put a hand out to touch the sandstone wall. "This is—or was—a sacred place."

"Well, I'm for exploring," said Marix. "Let's see what we can find."

"Not I," answered Nabul. "All you'll find here will be spiders, snakes, or worse."

"Worse?"