Dennis McKiernan - Once upon a Spring morn

Celeste sighed in exasperation, but then she smiled and said, “And just what should I do if it is you who comes running out?”

Roel grinned and said, “Flee!”

“If so, perhaps I’ll leave you a horse, but then again, maybe not.”

Roel laughed and dismounted and handed Celeste his reins. As Celeste looped the lead about the forebow of her saddle and nocked an arrow, Roel took a lantern from one of the packs and struck the striker and opened the hood wide, and with his crossbow in hand, in through one of the great crevices he cautiously stepped.

Moments later, the horses flinched and snorted in startlement and Celeste jerked up her bow as, in a thunder of wings, birds fled the jumble, desert crows crying and doves whistling as they hammered away. Off to the right a jackal ran out from the rocks and through the scrub, yipping in its flight.

“Roel!” called Celeste. “Are you well?”

“Oui,” came a faint cry. “There is water herein. . and scorpions.”

Celeste took in a deep breath and muttered, “Oh, my love, take care.”

Finally, Roel emerged. “A deep pool, not a spring.

Likely from rain.”

“Rain?”

“Oui, Celeste. Mayhap monsoons bring it, or perhaps the winter. The rocks protect the mere from the sun.” He gestured back the way they had come. “Out there the water is sucked up by the sand, but here in this basin I think there must be a good layer of stone below, forming a wide catchment.” Roel smiled and said, “There are some boulders in the pool, and that is where the birds roost, protected as if by a moat from the scorpions.”

“Can we safely water the horses?”

“I believe so. Those poisonous creatures scuttled away from my footfalls. We cannot camp here, though, for sleeping among scorpions would be most painful if not fatal.”

Celeste glanced at the sun, now on the verge of setting. Dismounting, she said, “Then let us water the animals and go, for I would find a camp ere the light completely fails.”

Leading the mares, the geldings following, into the crevice they went, the horses balking somewhat at the narrow confines, but eventually the smell of water overcame their fears.

That night Roel and Celeste camped on the rim of the basin, a safe distance from the scorpion den.

The next morning, once more they let the horses drink their fill, and they made certain that their waterskins were full to the stoppers, and then they set out, again riding due duskwise.

Across barren ground and past clusters of sere vegetation they fared, and now and then they crossed down and through rock-laden wadis, ancient tracks of fierce water flow, now dry under the desert sun. On they rode and on, and in early morn a warm breeze began to blow at their backs, growing hotter with every league, and they cast their cloak hoods over their heads against the glare of the day. And once again they came to long, rolling dunes, and into the sand they passed.

With a now-torrid wind from behind and as the sun reached halfway to the zenith, they topped a dune and a league or so distant down a long slope of sand and across a flat lay a walled city, with tall pylons standing beside a wide gateway, past which a long row of massive columns led into the metropolis beyond. The buildings within were made of stone, or so it seemed, and some bore flat roofs with massive cornices, though others seemed to have collapsed.

Roel shaded his eyes and above the lash of wind he called, “I see no movement.”

Celeste frowned. “Perhaps it is abandoned,” she said, raising her voice to be heard.

“Oui, so it seems.”

“Mayhap this is where we’ll find the gray arrow,” said Celeste.

“We can only hope,” replied Roel, “as well as hope we find water therein. Come, let us ride.” With their cloaks whipping about, they started down the long run of sand, and Celeste said, “Think you this is the place marked Spx on the chart?” Roel grunted and shrugged, and on they fared.

They had covered perhaps half the distance when the day about them darkened. “What th-?” Roel looked up toward the sun and then back. “Celeste, we must fly!”

The princess glanced ’round; behind and hurtling toward them came a great dark roiling wall looming miles up into the sky and blotting out the very sun.

“Ride, Celeste, ride!” cried Roel, spurring forward.

Celeste whipped her mare into a gallop, the gelding running after, and down the slope and toward the city she and Roel and the horses fled. And rushing after roared a boiling wall of sand that would flay them alive should it catch them.

“Yah! Yah!” cried Celeste, driving her mare to even greater speed, and over the barren ground they now flew. Yet the storm was even faster, and for every stride they took it gained three.

Celeste drew even with Roel, and he called out,

“Shelter behind the stone ramparts.” And on they careered, the horses now running flat out, and Celeste, with her lighter weight, slowly drew ahead of Roel.

Oh, Mithras, I can’t leave him.

But Roel, as if he were reading her thoughts, cried,

“Ride on, Celeste, ride on!”

And so on she rode, as the great black wall of the storm hurtled after, now but mere heartbeats arear, now but mere moments ere it would roar o’er all.

Before her lay the gateway, flanked by two tall stone statues, a king and a queen, perhaps, their feet buried in drift, sitting on stone thrones beside the massive pylons; and as she flashed past and through the opening, she thought she saw the figures turn their heads toward her, but in that moment the stygian wall slammed into the gateway even as she veered leftward out of the slot to take refuge behind the high rampart; and the blast of sand screamed past and above and shrieked in rage at missing her, or so it seemed.

Celeste sprang down from her mare, and pulling the horses after, she headed for the base of the wall for better shelter. Finally she reached the stone bulwark, and there she stopped.

In the darkness she looked about.

Of Roel there was no sign.

Celeste called out, but the black storm ripped her words to shreds and flung the remnants away.

Oh, Mithras, Mithras, please let him be safe.

But only the howl of the tearing wind came in answer to her prayer.

Abulhol

The storm roared among the pillars and buildings and steles and pylons and statues and ruins, sand hammering against stone as if to obliterate this anomaly within the pristine desert. And behind the protection of the wall where Celeste had taken shelter, dust swirled and tried to choke these interlopers, woman and horses both. Celeste tied a cloth across her mouth and nose, and she put a ration of oats into two feed bags and, with difficulty, she slipped them onto her mare and gelding, for they were affrighted, agitated by the ceaseless howl.

And she soothed them, and food seemed to help. And when they settled somewhat, she loosely draped cloth

’round the brims of the feed bags to fend dust from their breathing as well. She tethered them to one of the slender pillars bracing an overhanging walkway; she unladed the gelding and unsaddled the mare, and then she sat down, her back to the stone of the wall, and waited.

Oh, my Roel, are you safe? Out of the wind, out of the storm? Or are you trapped within its clutches? Please, Mithras, let him not be in harm’s way.

And the furious storm raved, the shrieking wind clawing at anything and everything in its path, yet in spite of the thundering blow, Celeste fell into slumber.

And she dreamed. .

. . At one and the same time she sat on a cushion and watched herself dance, and she was naked, but for a small strip of cloth about her loins and the garlands of blue lotuses gracing her form. Her skin was dusky, and her hair raven black, and her eyes a brown so deep as to seem ebon. A man sat beside her and watched her dance as well, his enormous erection jutting out from his loincloth. And she was jealous of herself and enraged, and she felt exhilaration that as she spun and gyred she provoked such desire in this powerful man.