I'd carried ten bottles of water with me from the towns, making use of whatever spell Aquanaya put on the backpack to make it weigh the same no matter what I added to it. But I had powered through three in no time at all, and they would run out long before I made it to the other side. However, for how much the desert was fabled to be a burning wasteland of sand, a, vast, dry graveyard of silence, I found plants and animals accustomed to the climate everywhere. And there were plenty of cacti storing water in their hollow stems. The first day after I'd supposedly woken up to find two pinpricks in my shoulder passed without trouble.
On the second, though, I unzipped my pack to find that I only had two bottles of water left. Sweat poured off my skin even at nighttime. I drank and drank and drank, even though I tried to conserve the precious liquid.
The water ran out on the third day.
On the fourth day, I started to get hallucinations.
Even on the seemingly cooler days when I dared to walk in the daytime, the glaring rays of the sun often warped the air it shone on; making it look like there was campfire smoke in the distance. Twice I had started towards those visions—fires always meant people—instead of heading due east, when I blinked twice, and the mirage disappeared.
Dizzying headaches often tormented my sleeping hours, symptoms of heatstroke appearing and disappearing apparently as they pleased. On some days I would come across a whole grove of water—abundant cacti, and some days my throat burned with ravaging thirst.
Cresting yet another mound of sand, the wind blowing towards me prickled at my eyes. The sand stretched into the distance, endless. A reminder, that no matter how far I went, I might never reach the end. The sun shining behind me on its downwards path stared at me as I stood, its dimming rays like fire over the horizon. It would soon dip down below the mountains of sand, and the light would die out. Just like Mama, such a burning light, who had never dimmed over the years and still disappeared.
I thought of the sunflowers, the sun's sisters, who bowed their heads when the sun slept and were the first to herald its arrival. I was a sunflower, who wilted without the guiding light of my family.
Family. That word had always meant so much to me, the family that laughed with me and who I shared my fondest memories with. The thing that was treasured most, the blood I shared, the genes passed to me, the lineage. The stories, the memories, the inheritance of my culture.
Family. A thing that was lost to me.
It was time to accept that. There was no other option, no turning back. Mama crossed my mind too often, and I knew that while there was solace in remembering, a weak comfort in holding on, I had to let the memories go.
I lifted my hand, fingers pressed together, to my mouth and brushed my lips across it, not a kiss, but a marker of love, a whisper of the beyond. I stretched it out to the east, to where the sun would someday rise again, arm straight, in a salute. A salute unique to Chiefs, used for only the best leaders, the ones who deserved the utmost respect. A funeral gesture. An apology and yet in thanks.
Thanks for the life she had led, for the life she had given to me, for the lives she had changed. Because she was gone. She had met her end. I couldn't protect her anymore. I couldn't long for her protective embrace.
Goodbye.
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On the seventh day, my throat cracked with thirst, I glimpsed an oasis in the distance. I saw water, a whole pool of it, glittering, clear water like the colour of the sky, surrounded by cacti. It was a beautiful sight, and my heart practically leapt at the thought of washing my hair of the sand tangled in it and dipping my dry, sweaty feet in the cool waters. The wind stirred tauntingly, blowing a few stray strands of my hair towards the luscious oasis. Ignoring my compass, I raced towards it, eager to get there before the blistering heat of high noon made it impossible to move without feeling like I was about to collapse and relax for a few hours.
I noticed I'd been travelling almost ceaselessly when I stopped and looked around properly. I had been jogging for ten minutes, then I'd stopped and walked for an hour. I should've been past it already, in fact, if I looked back, it should be far in the distance. It wasn't there, only a grove of cacti that I'd already extracted water from earlier, now only a shapeless dot against the sand-blasted horizon.
It had been an illusion leading me south-east, created by the sky reflecting off the sun-warmed sand.
Of course, it had been a fake trick of my eyes, tired of seeing the same cloudless sky, the same sandy scenery day after day. I sighed and went to sit down in the valley between two sand dunes, but I found that my knees shook when I tried to bend them. Instead I swung my pack off, shaking each bottle inside, but there wasn't a drop of water left between them.
I was about to turn back when I saw little divots in the sand. They were only tiny imprints, but there were three sets of them. Desert hares…whose footprints would lead me straight to water.
I followed them eagerly, even though I was aware my poor compass was berating me for straying so far from the eastern course. Whatever. The desert couldn't go on forever…it had to end somewhere, somewhere that would be close to…somewhere. Somewhere that was civilised. Ugh. My brain…it was foggy, muddled and the heat made my every decision impulsive, not that I'd ever been one for calculating and planning. All I wanted right now was to collapse on the sand and sleep for a while. But I had to keep moving, otherwise the wind would blow away these tracks in no time.
I kept my eyes on them every step of the way, as if scared they would turn out to be another hallucination if I looked away. They led me west, north, back east until they stopped at a hole in the ground. The rabbits' burrow. Was there really no water?
The sand crunched under my feet, and the hollow caved in. I wobbled on my knees and slipped into the burrow. My legs were only halfway buried in the sand, but I could barely lift my feet past the height I needed to keep moving forward one step at a time. I decided to wait until nighttime when my head was clearer. I sank into the den, gratified when it hugged my curled-up body perfectly.
After a while, the torpidity of being so still seeped into my muscles. My cloak clung uncomfortably to my arms, and I patted the walls of the warren.
The sand was damp in spite of the torrid heat. I gasped, but no sound came out of my throat. Water! Maybe it was a groundwater source that the hares dug into rather than one they slept in during the day. I untangled my cloak and draped it over my pack. Then I knelt down and dug.
And dug.
And dug. I dug with my fingers until they were covered with wet muck, until my knees were sore and damp from digging into the wet sand, until my back and shoulder felt like they were being charred black under the sun's radiance.
I found no creatures alive down there, but there were occasional tufts of fur that I found caught in the sand. Finally, I stepped back, almost toppling onto the sand dune behind me. I'd dug a whole tunnel, so deep that I was surprised it hadn't caved in. I scooped the top of the tunnel away. There was a tiny puddle of brownish water at the end. I sighed. Deeper, then.
I kept digging until I found a whole pool of water in the hole and victory was almost close enough to taste on my blistering tongue.
I scooped up a handful of it. It was cool and refreshing to the touch, but the sand grains mixed in with wouldn't be pleasant to ingest. I wondered if I could use my magic to draw out the dirt from it and make it clean.
I could try that. After all, earth meant sand as well. I didn't know how to purify water, but this was too precious to pass up just because of that. I could make a solar still somehow, but I didn't have that kind of time. I was already getting symptoms of sunstroke. One more day—or night—without water, and I thought the heat would claim me.
I used my hands to harden the sand around the hole so that it wouldn't cave in, pressing it into itself to form the wall of a well. When I was sure it wouldn't collapse and make my job a whole lot harder, I retreated a step. I wasn't sure how I was going to do this. Should I make the sand stick to the walls underneath, or rise up and fall elsewhere? I decided to just wing it.
I concentrated on the hole, biting my lip. The only time I had ever used my Earth Gift successfully to any extent was during that escape from Laverrene, when I had blasted an earthen shield into Jack's face, and when I'd left Elgalesi Duër. Even then, I was sure that was only a result of the fear and anger and need radiating from me then, the adrenaline coursing through my system. Only magic fuelled by the desire to not die.
I concentrated as hard as I could. Sometimes I swore I could feel each grain of sand somewhere in my magical consciousness, but then I would lose control and they would sneak from my mind. I concentrated again, the grains like glowing beads in the area I was focusing on.
Up, I commanded the pool of lights. They lifted up; just for a second, just into the air for a few millimetres.
Up!
Faster than I could register, they all shot up into the air and hung there like a granular, coffee-coloured cloud.
Left. The cloud didn't move, but at least it didn't fall down again.
Left. No response.
Perhaps I could make do with this. If I got the sand-cloud to stay there, I could still scoop up the water with my empty bottles.
Careful not to nudge the cloud, I twisted under it and leaned down to fill my bottle. My dry hands cried out in happiness as they touched the revitalising liquid. One bottle done.
The water was as clear as crystal. The cloud remained where it was.
Ten bottles done. Mission accomplished!
I stashed the ten dripping bottles into my backpack. I couldn't believe how well my experiment had gone—the water was as cloudless as the sky above. I submerged my face in the pool and drank until I couldn't anymore. Before I left, I doused my cloak in the puddle and wrapped it around my head and shoulders, every inch of which was blazing with heat.
One palm placed on top of the cloud sent it dissipating back down into the ground, like sand mist that fell slowly to the floor.
I stood up, and my legs burned. Not with the devouring heat of the desert, but with the pain of developing and knowing I would come out stronger on the other side. I relished in that knowledge, that I was growing with every step I took under the smouldering desert sun.
I checked my compass. I knew our navigation equipment was effective, but when I looked at it, I realised I had no idea what the extent of those hidden utilities was. Then I wished to not know the details. I needed to cross a little more than 600 kilometres of desert to get to the other side. The Nogard was even a small desert, one in Lydaea thrice its size, another to the west of Eidamaine dwarfing it. And I'd almost died many times trying to cross it. According to the built-in cartographer in the compass, I had walked about half the way east from Laverrene before veering sharply southwest towards Northern Timeya, then back in a short squiggly line snaking north. I'd have to walk northward the rest of the day to get back on track to Orinm. Walk eastward through the night for another week and I'd be at its western borders. Then a week manoeuvring through the prominent country, and I'd be at the base of the Calbron Mountains. The thought set the tips of my fingers tingling in excitement and apprehension. I'd faced so many dangers, and now, in only a weeks, I'd be there. I clenched my hand to stop my fingers trembling. I wouldn't rest until I'd made it. Until the end.
At my destination.
Safe. Finally. Forever.
Once I'd settled there, would I ever go back to the life I had lost, however briefly? Would I really return to Kaleveh, to find my mama and see my father and family, or would I stay and forget about the shredded family I'd left behind? Would I look back, or would I painstakingly fix my sights only on what lay ahead?
I hoped I would.
I hoped.