Paul Thompson - Destiny

“Careful, sir,” said one of the warriors, breaking the stunned silence. “The sand is alive.”

Something skittered over the surface of Taranath’s boots, and he looked down. Streams of turquoise colored dirt were flowing over his feet like water. With an oath, be shook free and stepped back. Fortunately, the creeping sand didn’t extend more than a few feet from the trapped elf.

The unknown elf was a Kagonesti, Taranath thought. From the look of him, he had dwelled among humans. If they didn’t free him soon, the sand would bury him completely. The presence of the bats was as inexplicable as the rest, but they must give way if the fellow was to be dug out.

He set the warriors to work. For foraging, they carried gear such as short-handled spades and vials for sampling any water they might find. Two riders got down and tried to drive the bats away by shouting and waving their spades. The bats chittered and squeaked, but stayed put. Only when Taranath probed among them with his saber did they take flight. As soon as they were gone, the sand they’d been shading ceased roiling and hardened with an audible creak. Wherever the sun touched it, the flowing soil went rigid as stone. The imprisoned elf groaned very weakly. The solidifying sand was squeezing the breath out of him.

“Break him out!” Taranath cried. “Hurry!”

The hardened sand was like glass-very hard but ultimately brittle. As they hacked at it with spades, the elves were cut by flying shards, but they kept at it. The flock of bats circled just above their heads, making a terrific din. Soon the elves had the hardened sand cleared away from the Kagonesti’s torso. His chest expanded with a great, shuddering breath, Immediately, the bats dispersed. They were gone from sight in seconds.

The warriors turned their attention to the glass encasing his legs. When they had freed his legs, two seized his arms, heaving him upward. The spell that had animated the soil was broken. The blue-green dirt lay quiet beneath their feet. To be safe, they carried the stranger a few yards away. Taranath splashed water on his ashen face.

The Kagonesti came to with a vengeance. Jerking free of the hands supporting him, he rolled away and was on his feet in a heartbeat. Elves are a dexterous and nimble race, but the Kagonesti’s quick recovery and terrific reflexes startled them all.

He didn’t reach for a weapon, only seated a pair of tinted spectacles on his nose. Peering at them through the yellow lenses, he said, “You’re not ghosts!”

Taranath folded his arms. “No, my friend, but you nearly were.”

Her dreams were filled with sky.

A strong breeze sang in her ears and played over her bare arms and legs. It was both pleasant and shockingly chilly. She walked along a narrow marble causeway surrounded on all sides by open blue sky. Neither end of the path was visible; the marble simply blended into the sky before and behind. On each side stone monuments reared up, each shaped vaguely like an elf. She amused herself by affixing identities to the amorphous blocks: Alhana, delicately slim, strong as steel; Samar, standing so rigidly at attention his back might snap from the strain; Porthios, lean and angular, turned slightly away from the causeway. The flowing figure with arms spread wide could only be Gilthas. But what of the gnomish shape at his side? As she studied it, the rounded block moved, the egg-shaped head turning. It had her face.

Kerian flinched awake. She was still surrounded by sky, but this was no dream. A chilly wind chapped her face. She was leaning forward against Eagle Eye’s neck. Below her dangling fingers the wastes of Khur whirled by, their pale brown color gone gray by starlight. After sunset, she had cinched her saddle straps tight and allowed herself to nap. Eagle Eye snorted and bobbed his head, sensing his rider was finally awake.

Clouds billowed around them, blue-white in the starlight.

Khur did not often play host to clouds, and she immediately wondered if Eagle Eye had veered off course. A check of the stars and the horizons fore and aft confirmed it. Without her watchful hand on the reins, the strong headwind had pushed Eagle Eye slightly eastward, toward the Gulf of Khur, the horn-shaped bay west of the Khurman Sea. Proximity to the sea accounted for the clouds.

Khuri-Khan near the west coast of the gulf. She loosened the reins from the saddle horn and turned Eagle Eye southwest. The griffon’s wings rose and fell in a smooth rhythm. His eye injury had slowed him only a short while. He had adapted quickly, although he continued to favor the injured side. They should reach Khuri-Khan well before midnight. Kerian was pleased. She had no time for diplomacy or combat. She intended to swoop into the night-cloaked city, locate Sa’ida, and wing away again as quickly as possible.

The coast appeared, lines of breakers foaming white under Eagle Eye’s left wing. Kerian followed the coastline until the sprawling, manmade mountain that was Khuri-Khan appeared. Gilthas had admired the city’s alien beauty the squat towers and encircling wall built of native stone, strengthened by a facing of tiles glazed in creamy shades or bold, primary hues. He had a taste for the exotic, even though he lived austerely. For her part, Kerian found the city gaudy, and crude. The fine Temple of Elir-Sana was the only structure she found at all attractive.

Her eye was drawn to the dark scar that marred the land west of the city-all that remained of Khurinost, the tent city that had been the elves’ home for five years. Burned and thoroughly looted, the makeshift city was only a field of ashes standing out starkly against the pallid desert sand.

She steered Eagle Eye down into the lowest layer of clouds. By remaining within their shelter for as long as possible she would be hidden from observers on the ground and from the sentinels on the city wall. When griffon and rider emerged from the cloud, they were well inside the city’s outer defenses.

The Khuri yl Nor, the “Palace of the Setting Sun’ frowned down on the city from atop its artificial hill. Markets, known as souks, were paved with terra cotta , making them stand out as pink patches against the dark sea of rooftops. All were empty at this hour. The Temple of Elir-Sana glowed like a pearl on a bed of coals. Its dome, thirty-five feet in diameter and made of a single piece of pale blue marble, was truly a marvel. None knew how the long-ago Khurs had managed to polish marble to the thickness of a fingernail then raise the delicate dome into place. Farther down the ceremonial street were the other temples of Khur’s gods. The spiky towers of the sanctuary of the fierce desert deity Torghan had been built to resemble upthrust spears. Sacred flames billowed from tower tops at several temples, but there were no people in sight on any of them.

At her command Eagle Eye spread his broad wings and glided in, silent as an owl descending on its prey. The low wall surrounding the Temple of Elir-Sana was decorated by brass chimes. The griffon’s rear claws missed the chimes by inches, and he alighted inside the temple enclosure, Kerian dismounted, a little dizzied by the sudden cessation of motion after such a long flight. She bent her knees and stretched her back, glad to be on firm ground again. She led Eagle Eye to a small pool of water in the courtyard and let him drink. When he finished, she fed him from the store of food in one saddlebag. He caught the skinned rabbit she tossed and bolted it down in a single gulp. She threw him another, the last. It was a lot of meat for the hungry elves in Inath-Wakenti to sacrifice, but it wouldn’t do for her mission to fail because of Eagle Eye’s hunger. Her own pangs she ignored.

Tying the griffon to a stanchion by the pool, Kerian headed for the temple’s entrance. As she did so, she heard a scuffling sound and saw movement on one of the buildings outside the wall. Something darted away into the shadows. She stared at the spot a long time. Was it an errant husband, a prowling cat, or a spy? Unable to discern more, Kerian hurried on.