Chapter the Tenth,
The Night Before the Last,
In which light swims in a round.
I. Sucked Back In
Dunes surrounded the river for endless tails in every direction. Further east, jet black mountains loomed large in stark contrast to the crimson desert. Sitting side by side, Jai and Ceder rowed in silence until they were beyond sight of the sea.
“Do you hear that?” asked Why, putting one hand to his ear. “Someone is singing.”
“No one would be singing in this wasteland,” said Jai. “It’s probably just the wind.”
As they made progress inland the mounds of sand to either side of the river were each one larger than the last, forming an ever-deeper, snaking valley for the pink boat to navigate. The wind funneled between the dunes like a screeching hawk. Time slowed to a crawl, tracked only by the setting sun.
“I can’t keep this up forever,” said Ceder, rubbing her shoulders.
Jai had spent his entire life hauling an iron wheelbarrow back and forth; rowing was not fatiguing him as rapidly as it was Ceder. “Take a break,” he told her, grabbing her oar, “have a drink.”
Ceder scooped a handful from the river—despite the Coralute’s warning, the water was not too hot to touch. While she rested, her eyes fell on Astray, as they so often did, and she noticed something about him that she had not seen before. There was a small patch of white hair at the nape of the cub’s neck. It was no larger than a scale or two and would have been impossible to discern in the fading light but that it seemed faintly to glow.
“It’s getting louder,” said Why, cupping a hand to his ear, listening to the wind wash over the desert. “Someone is chanting. Slow, like a drum. I’m sure of it.” The butterfly shook his head as if coming out of a trance and glanced up at Jai and Ceder. “Why, that’s really rather frightening, isn’t it? Perhaps I should go investigate.”
“If you leave the boat,” said Ceder, “I have a feeling it will be the last time we see you. Stay here, where it’s safe.”
“Not to worry you, my lady, but here on this river, in the middle of this desert, why, safe is the last word I would use.”
Ceder took her oar back from Jai and they rowed together for a time. Astray sat between the children giving the occasional growl of encouragement whenever it seemed that the comet above was getting too far ahead of the boat. Ceder pointed out the white patch on the cub’s back to Jai. Covered in sweat from the exertion of his double-duty with the oars, he grunted once, indicating that he had not noticed the white fur before, that he had no thoughts on it, and that if she had any questions, he did not have the answers.
The red glow of the landscape faded to a dull claret as the sun sank below the dunes. A rasping chorus emerged from the howling wind and a toneless, seething voice kept the beat, like thunder underneath a pounding rain:
Feel the air grow hotter!
Dry you out as dry the land!
“You must have heard it that time!” exclaimed Why, greatly alarmed.
The tattoo on Jai’s forehead flared like an ember. He collapsed forward off the bench, dropping his oar into the river.
“Jai!” cried Ceder. She pulled her own oar into the boat and knelt beside him. The boat jerked as the current reclaimed them, rushing back toward the sea. The glyphs on Jai’s forehead were no longer aglow—that flash had lasted only an instant—but his breathing was scathed and ragged.
The droning voice drew closer:
Feel the air grow hotter!
Dry you out as dry the land,
Peel your skin away with sand!
Ceder reached a hand into the river to scoop water up for Jai. She withdrew her arm with a sharp hiss—the river was scalding hot. Hesitantly, as if it might burn her hand the same as the river, she pulled out one of the enchanted eggs and lifted Jai’s head so he could drink. When the water hit his lips the dark symbols on his forehead flared again, bright as red coals, and he spat the water out of his mouth like a fountain.
Ceder watched in horror as the rainbow of spitwater flew over the river to the sandy shore and sizzled into a tendril of steam; the Coralute had warned them not to give the desert a drink, but he had not told them what would happen if they did.
The Sands of Syn became deathly silent.
A voice the children knew all too well rolled low across the dunes, over and over, as if Sorid himself was marching across the desert with a thousand war drums at his back:
Feel the air grow hotter!
Dry you out as dry the land,
Peel your skin away with sand,
And steal your blood for water!
The wind above the river funneled into a frenzied cyclone with the boat at its center. Endless tons of sand were lifted into the air, creating a tornado of red ash. Ceder clamped her hands over her ears and huddled protectively over Jai’s body.
The river reverberated in the din like a plucked string. The red tornado swelled in size and speed until it began to suck up the water below, forming a whirlwind of scarlet ash and boiling steam. The current was thrown into a loop, rising into the swirling storm, and the boat rose with it. The voice of Sorid was all around them, chanting from inside of the tempest: