Sareb gazed out over the dunes.
The sun beat down on the sand, heating it almost to sizzling—the dunes wavered in the heat as though steaming.
Endless sand, glittering under the hot blue sky. From so far up it seemed still as death.
Vast as it was, on this day, the desert pressed in on him. The heat felt heavier today, suffocating; the sun's rays sharper, blinding, as though they could light the desert itself on fire.
"God's balls." Why did this day always seem hotter? Was it just the memory of being cast out alone on the sand, the memory of fire?
Flames in the night, the camp burning.
He pushed down the memories, even pushed away the thought of how ironic it was that magic involving fire came so naturally to him...
He fingered the flower brooch at this neck, the mark of a shaman, which he'd just had time to receive from his father before it all ended. He didn't want to think about how long it had been (seven years). That he was a man now, had grown into one on his own, without his father, without his tribe. So what? Forget them. He didn't need them, clearly.
Didn't need anyone. Not even Teshem, who had ditched him, today of all days—skipped their early morning swim because he wanted to go on patrol with some Northern commander he was infatuated with.
Forget him, too. (Even though he depended on Teshem—and through him Clan Caran—to get enough to eat for a change.)
And that he was himself now connected to Clan Caran—helping or even allied with them. The very family who—
A dark wave washed through him, so strong he couldn't stop it. He was working for the very family that—
Well, so what? He had to survive, didn't he, and everyone else had turned their backs on him. Even his father. He just had to go and die, leaving eleven-year-old Sareb at the mercy of suspicious tribe members.
So no, it didn't matter what any of them thought. Would have thought.
He kicked some pebbles off the edge of the cliff; they skittered down the rock and disappeared noiselessly into the sand. His father would have scolded him—to a shaman, even the rocks and the sand were alive. Too bad his father wasn't here.
The wind lifted a spray of sand from the dunetops and pushed heat and dust into his face, grime sticking to sweat. He wiped his face with the corner of his capewrap, pulled the part over his head further out to shade his eyes. The voluminous red garment swallowed his gaunt figure, even if he was a good deal taller now than when he'd received it.
Smoke on the wind. His gut clenched.
But no, the Masunyi were long gone from these lands, and anyway, what did he care, after what they'd done? Let them burn.
He forced himself to relax—fists to open, jaw to unclench. Whatever it was, it was no business of his.
But what could it be? He'd seen no lightning. The dunes were bare of anything that could burn, and anyone who was out there, even those sand-blasted Gladiari, should know better than to light a fire on the open sand.
Teshem. What if Teshem was still out on patrol?
A different memory of fire, and that vision of Teshem—
It wasn't a vision.
He squinted, as much against the glare of the dunes as the grit on the wind. Nothing but sand as far as he could see, barely shadowed dune crests disappearing into the haze at the horizon.
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He focused on the dunes themselves, scanning methodically. Whatever it was, it wasn't good. He should just call Djusra and get going. It was past time to get out from under the Sky Master's eye, and Teshem would be waiting (well, let him wait, this time).
There. A flicker of movement against the sand.
"Teshem!" Sareb's heart beat harder a moment.
He murmured a spell to give him hawk's sight, a spell he'd invented himself to see more clearly at a distance; felt the spark inside him respond, and his vision sharpened.
It took a few moments of searching to find the spot again, the flames flickering on the crest of a dune, almost invisible against the red-gold sand.
Fire on the sand. Fire sweeping over the world— He felt sick a moment before he pushed it away. It was just a stupid dream.
As he stared, the flames seemed to creep along the dunetop. He examined the base of the fire. The flames weren't on top of the dune; they were behind it.
A fire large enough to be seen over a dune—and it was moving. Shabad-haer, the rolling fire. He'd never seen one before, even though he'd grown up in the desert.
Sareb nullified the hawk-sight spell, temporarily, so he'd be able to activate it again with a word, and whistled for Djusra.
Like any dracoraque, Djusra dropped out of the sun, so he couldn't see her until she was almost on top of him, enormous wings blocking the sky, beak and talons flashing. Although he'd raised her from a chick, Sareb's heart always skipped a beat when she dropped like this. He felt again the talons screaming into his flesh, the weight driving him to the sand, the burst of panic, the flash of darkness and fire—
And that was how Teshem had found him again, bleeding in the sand.
But now, Djusra's rake-like talons scraped against the rock instead of digging into his chest, and when she brought her head down, it was not to gouge him with the beak as long as his arm, but to butt him with the top of her head.
He stumbled backward and caught his balance just short of tumbling down the back side of the cliff, then stepped in to scratch Djusra's neck and rest his cheek against her sun-warmed feathers. "Hey, old girl."
She and Teshem were the only true things left in the world.
Djusra ruffled her feathers and shrugged her wings, as though a chill had gone down her spine. Perhaps she smelled the smoke, too.
"I know," Sareb said. "Let's go."
He climbed onto her back, and they soared into the sky.
In the air, he quickly found the fire again, a twisting pillar taller than the dunes that flanked it. It seemed to be reaching for something—something smaller, darker, Caran rust red and the glint of metal.
His heart leapt into his throat before he realized it wasn't Teshem. Long black hair swinging in a braid, not Teshem's shoulder-length wine-colored hair. He turned the hawk-sight back on, zoomed in on the figure.
A figure sheathed in glittering chainmail, now fallen back on the duneside, red cape caught under her. One of the haguq-aqhir, the soulless ones, the Gladiari. His stomach tightened again.
She's far away, you're on Djusra, and she hasn't seen you yet.
He focused on her face, trying to figure out if he had seen her at Castle Caran. Her bronzed complexion was close to that of Sareb's own people, golden like the sand; her hair and eyes the smooth, hard black of obsidian. Her expression made him shiver.
