The night was pitch black when I emerged from my cramped space beneath the rock slab, for the twin moons had not yet arisen. One good thing about this desert was that the farther out you ventured, the fewer obstacles there were. Soon, there were no more rocks to stumble over, only more hills of more sand.
I trudged with dutiful zeal in the direction pointed out by my luminous parent, carrying only my leather bag and the ever-useful blanket. The wind was constant and had been since the day I set foot upon these sands. It had varied, from light to sandstorm intense, but it was ever-present. It was now all I heard, the insistent wind and nothing else. No life existed out here, not even those pitiful excuses for vegetation that had somehow managed to survive in this godforsaken place. Yet this is where a razok had interrupted an unfortunate animal on its way to somewhere, where that animal had wound up taking flight, and where my father insisted I must go.
I was betting my survival on a vision, and that might seem foolish, but belief in the value of visions was fundamental to our culture. I had witnessed my father conversing with incorporeal beings (most likely his spirit animal, the sartel) many times in the fulfillment of his shamanic duties. My personal experience with these types of sensory visions was not so grand. My most vivid previous encounter featured the can-rak, when it came as my animal spirit. Nevertheless, my lack of experience with the spiritual realm was understandable, as I was not a practicing medicine man.
It was natural for us to believe in visions, waking or otherwise, for that was the way we received answers to the vexing mysteries of our lives. Though some in our tribe had the occasional mystical encounter or rich dream, those were random and usually indecipherable. Specific questions directed to the shaman resulted in the clearest obtainable answers from spirit. By means of ritual, the shaman would contact his spirit animal and the spirit animal would then relay the message to the long dead ancestors of the petitioner. The ancestors would direct the answer back to the shaman’s animal spirit, which would then grant the shaman a vision. The shaman would interpret the vision for the one seeking answers, using its visual and auditory clues to decipher the message. Roundabout, to be sure, but that was the way it worked.
That my father could contact me in this way was thus no surprise, only he had skipped a few steps and had come directly to me, bypassing my spirit animal. I had performed no rituals to summon my father, and yet he had appeared in a vision rich with detail and clarity. It seemed my father and I had reconfigured the rules regarding communication between the physical and spiritual worlds, or perhaps this was how all shaman-to-shaman communication occurred. The method, old or new, did not matter to me, only that it allowed me the comfort of knowing my father still lived, even if in another world. My father apparently desired I continue living in this one, and I vowed I would yet find a way to do so.
As I walked the dark desert sands, Numa and Nima appeared above the horizon. Their combined light allowed my vision to expand, and as I crested yet another ridge, the sight ahead transfixed me. Before me was a vast plain, now brightly lit by the moons and extending to the next far-off ridge. On the eerie edges of this sand plain and beyond the rim of the distant ridge was blackness. The blackness was forbidding, as it hid the unknown, and its contrast with the luminous sand was acute. As I stepped down off the ridge, my shadow showed stark against the white powder. I was an intruder, not a natural presence, a foreign form to this landscape. The boundless emptiness of this world hit me, and I had a sense of dread. Loneliness would last forever in this place, this barren world of light and dark and silence. I was the only living thing in it, and as I moved with reverence out across the plain, the motion of my shadow seemed incongruous to the static eternity of this sterile environment. I sensed the sky eyes of Numa and Nima following me, seeking me out as if curious what creature had invaded, what being roamed the night in this land of nothing.
The hours passed. Numa and Nima ran their race and then the night was over. Ra-ta discreetly reclaimed the sky, just now peering above the eastern horizon. I had found no water or shelter. I felt my doom sealed, for I would not last the day. My throat was raw and constricting. I could not swallow, as I had no moisture left in me.
I climbed another ridge, more deliberate in my steps. I climbed another. My legs were dying and Ra-ta did not care, for he still rose higher and burned with increasing intensity. As I stumbled to the base of the next ridge, a faint odor wafted to me on the wind. Was I imagining it? No, there it was again. I sniffed the air in each direction, eager to recapture the scent—and again it was there. It was not my imagination!
I knew that smell. It was the smell of the sacred, the smell of a world I had left behind. Somewhere nearby was a wettle tree, for I had detected its unmistakable odor. And where there was a tree, there had to be water.
It was there, over that ridge.
I ran up the slope, stumbled, and then fell to the ground. My weak body ached from lack of nourishment and hydration. Unable to walk, I crawled. Clutching at the sand and pulling myself forward, I climbed the endless slope. My condition was desperate. I wanted—no, I needed to get to water. I needed to feel cold liquid filling my mouth and coursing down my throat. I needed to feel its coolness on my burning skin and itching scalp. I needed to slip my hot, sweaty, tired feet into its chill depths and splash its life-affirming essence onto my face.
I reached the top and peered over the edge.
Blessed Ra-ta! Blessed, blessed Ra-ta! It was all in front of me. There were trees and plants, flowers and grass—and water! I pulled myself over the hill and rolled down the other side.
The sand ridge I had just scaled was a monster, and viewed from its opposing side, I saw it extended both east and west, twisting on forever. The oasis I had stumbled upon followed the line of this large sand dune, but I could see the greenery did not continue too far either way. I was lying at the base of the ridge—and I was touching grass.
Stretching skyward in front of me were magnificent trees swaying in a moist breeze I could feel on my face. I savored the smells . . . delicious, sweet odors of wettle and bransa, and the delicate scent of persun flowers. I luxuriated in the colors . . . green and yellow and orange, nothing drab and nothing gray. And I absorbed the sounds . . . the chattering of the leaves, the rustling of the grass, the chirping and warbling of birds!
And, of course, the water. It was the sound that drove me forward, that had me on my feet and moving, drawn by an inexorable pull toward its beckoning call. I kicked off my sandals as an insect buzzed by my head. Wonderful!
I stumbled out of a thicket and fell into the spring. I gasped, for the water was cold. It was a shallow spring of surprising width, almost twenty paces across. I lay there shivering in the water, letting my body adjust to the luscious, cool liquid as it flowed over me. Then I drank and drank and my throat opened and wanted more. When I’d had my fill, I scrubbed. I scrubbed off days of grime and sweat and emerged feeling fresh and renewed.
I found a pleasant patch of grass nearby and collapsed onto it. I offered up a prayer of thanks to Ra-ta and to my father. I stared up at an empty sky through the branches of a wettle tree whose trunk rose from the fertile ground not far from my head. No clouds, not even a high wisp of one, and there hadn’t been any during my admittedly short time in this desert. I missed clouds. I missed the rain and Ra-ta’s battles with his son, Kaynar.
With my desert struggles behind me, I now let my mind and body relax. Images of the life I left behind began to creep into my consciousness. I thought about the hunt and my father’s tent and random things from a life I’d never know again. Lillatta’s freckled face appeared before me, lit up with laughter. I could almost smell the odor of roasting porse. I thought of Semral and wondered what he might be doing—hunting, most likely.
I was getting emotional. Tears welled up where no moisture should have survived. I fought them back down. I had no time for sentiment, much as I
wanted to wallow in it. I shook myself free of my daydream and though weak, rose to study my surroundings.
The trees were nearly all of a variety familiar to me, though some I had not encountered, and the plant life was much the same. It was humid. I attributed that to abundant water and a relentless sun, yet still it seemed irregular with no clouds. I stooped to the spring from a low sandbar and scooped up a few more handfuls of water to ease my thirst. I followed the waterway in the direction from which it flowed, discovering to my astonishment that it rose to the surface from underground, and in a robust manner. I had known that the river Raso flowed underground as it reached the western mountains, but I had never considered that it might rise to the surface again. This was not the Raso, of course, but I imagined it might be a small tributary separated from the mighty river deep beneath the ground.
Beyond where the spring gushed from the earth, there was more desert. I gathered from this that the lush growth bordering this waterway only extended so far on either side of it. This paradise was not limitless. Needing to discover the dimensions of my new home, I rested for a bit and then set out to explore its boundaries.
There wasn’t as much as I had thought. The spring carried on for only about a few hundred paces east from its source and then petered out. Beyond that, the desert reclaimed the landscape. North and south of the waterway the plant life extended about three hundred paces to either side. So this tiny strip of vibrant growth was but an anomaly, a single fist challenging an army of sand and holding it at bay. It was small, but I could not complain; I was grateful to have found anything out here at all.
Wettle trees abounded, but I soon tired of their bounty, with the sweet, nourishing fruit growing sour from sameness. After about a week, I was finding the food variety unsatisfactory to my tastes. I wanted meat. I had no means to cook, no means to start a fire, but I determined I would eat raw flesh if I must. There were no fish. Fish did not come from narrow, underground springs, apparently. I had explored the land strip end to end and found some signs of animal life. Small creatures, I gathered, but anything of any size would be preferable to another slice of wettle. Of course, there were edible flowers and some roots that wouldn’t force your stomach to rebellion, but filling they were not, and the flavors barely surpassed what chewing on my sandals might offer. I needed a weapon—anything—a sharp stick if nothing else, so I could pursue the local fauna.
In a lone grove of bennawood, I found what I needed, a sturdy, straight branch I could fashion into a spear. With painstaking effort I cut through the limb using the sharpest-edged bone from my bracelet. The bone also served to trim smaller branches and bark from the limb, and for shaving one end into a sharp point.
Later that day, I spotted an unknown creature about fifty paces from the opening of a small clearing. It sat on the trunk of a fallen tree. The animal had a short, thin tail, and light-brown fur. Its head seemed able to swivel in almost a complete circle. Its eyes were narrow and small and it had a pointed nose, face, and ears. Its front legs were short and its hind ones slightly longer, with those folded beneath it. I inched closer, careful to avoid stepping on dry twigs that might crunch and give me away. The creature chewed with intense concentration on something I could not make out, and it seemed unaware of the approaching peril.
SNAP! A branch, hidden by a cover of moss, had broken beneath my foot. Oh, fuld! The sound alerted the animal and I had no time. I let fly my rough spear and again felt that strange power, that familiar surge that had allowed my rik-ta to sail and pin the starfen to the tree and to hit Semral’s distant target in the woods. This strength I should not possess, and yet it was real. Even now it propelled a missile of death to its target.
The creature shifted as if prepared to bolt, but the point of the spear arrived in swift order and caught it as it turned, striking the back of its neck and propelling it from its perch. I raced over to inspect the limp form. My crude spear had cleanly severed its spine, just as my rik-ta had done to the starfen years before. A quick death is a good death. I hoped the creature didn’t have any starfen blood in it, for I was craving something tasty. I pulled my spear from the creature and proceeded to use my sharp bone to remove the head, guts, and internal organs, then skin the animal.
I reconsidered my intent to eat the creature raw. There had to be a way to start a fire without using flint and metal. We normally carried a small kit of those items to strike the sparks needed to ignite tinder, which was usually a collection of dried grass or wood shavings. My father once showed me an old method to start a fire that involved rubbing dry sticks together to generate friction. The heat produced would ignite tinder placed nearby. Then, by adding small, dry twigs, and eventually larger pieces, the fire expanded.
I gathered dry twigs and found a smooth one to use as a motion piece. I spun it back and forth in my hands as the tip rested in a small hollow gouged out of another branch. Around the cavity I had placed ground up dried leaves. As my foot held the branch that contained the hole steady, I twirled the motion piece back and forth. This was not easy. It generated warmth, but not enough to ignite anything. I rotated the stick faster and faster and suddenly felt that identical surge of power I had felt when tossing the spear. An enormous burst of energy seemed to propel the turns of the wood in my hands. Wisps of smoke rose, so I stopped to blow on the dry tinder. It glowed, and then ignited. I hurried to add small twigs as the flames licked and grew. Soon, I had a crackling, spark-spitting fire. An hour later two forked sticks supported a spit on which an unknown creature roasted over hot embers. I separated meat from bone and tasted. Could have used some salt. Otherwise, it was delicious.
Three months later, I was still surviving on this small slice of green in a world of bland. My tunic had tears and its fabric was deteriorating. Its once-bright yellow had faded to an off-white shade. My sandal straps needed constant repair and my animal food supply was growing thin. My fraying blanket had shrunk in size. My nails grew and I cut them down with the sharp bone. I hacked at my long hair, turning it into a mangled mess.
I grew restive with the boredom of my restricted life. I had taken to practicing the combat moves I felt were in decline since my banishment. I fashioned from wood a blunt facsimile of a rik-ta, and with that and my previously acquired spear, spent hours upon hours drilling, repeating every thrust, swipe, and cut until weariness forced me to stop. Without the discipline of these workouts, and the opportunity they gave me to put aside my growing anxiety, I felt I would go insane.
I often went out into the desert, just for something to do and for a change of scenery, though it still had little to offer in that regard. I tested myself, inching farther and farther from the safety of my refuge, sometimes with careless forethought. One time I lost my bearings and panicked, unsure in which direction to travel to return to my home base. A steady, strong wind blew and sand had filled up my tracks behind me. My habit was to wander in a meandering fashion and then follow the tracks back. With the tracks washed away, I didn’t know where I was, for the oasis was out of sight. Lucky for me, I remembered the sun position and was able to deduce the direction traveled.
I passed the days not knowing if the next would bring the same as the last or, ultimately, a release from the drudgery. I had not had a visit from my father since the last vision. I knew I could have performed a ritual and sought answers, but chose not to. Maybe I was afraid. Maybe I was afraid I’d see something I might not want to see. In the end, it didn’t matter, because my path was about to reveal itself.
**
~~ELEVEN~~