P. Hodgell - The Sea of Time

After dinner, they went to inspect the extensive animal pens. The horses would be left here tomorrow, giving way to beasts better suited to the deep desert. The selection was wide, ranging from giant armadillos to hyenas the size of ponies to burly, long-legged woms to web-footed birds at least eight feet high at the shoulder.

“Which are ours?” asked Byrne, poking at the hyenas with a stick. Brier snatched him back barely before the powerful snap of jaws.

“I don’t know,” said Jame. “Hopefully not those.”

Dawn came with a vivid smear of color across an endless horizon. To the southeast and southwest floated the mirages of distant mountains—the Tenebrae Range and the Uraks respectively.

Ean had unloaded his wagon the day before. Now the wheels and axles were removed, reducing it to a sledge. The goods were reloaded. Out of the growing light came two handlers leading a pair of huge beasts, some ten feet in length with correspondingly long legs and necks.

“Lambas,” said Ean, pleased. “Gaudaric reserved a team of them for us by courier.”

Jame noted their splayed, three-toed feet but even more their short, prehensile trunks. Fur-fringed, slit nostrils opened on either side of the latter, situated on the tops of their small heads. Their bodies, by contrast, seemed swollen.

“They have three stomachs,” she was told. “The biggest one stores up to thirty gallons of water.”

“So what do we ride?” asked Dar. “Oh no.”

Brier had appeared out of the growing light, leading a flock of reddish-brown birds that towered over her.

“Moas,” she said, “good to ride or to eat, if things get rough. Watch out for their teeth; they’re omnivores and have a nasty bite. And make sure the girths are tight.”

Each had a saddle on its back, secured around the rib cage before the long legs. Jame reached up to tug on a strap. The bird squawked in protest and snapped at her. She punched it in the beak.

“Now make them kneel.”

“How?”

“Kick them in the knee, of course.”

Jame gingerly nudged her bird. It folded with a glare and a whistling hiss, bringing the saddle within reach. She stepped on its leg and swung her own over its back. It rose with a forward jolt that nearly dislodged her.

“All right,” she murmured as its head bobbed high above her own on its long stalk of a neck. “Your name is Lurcher, and don’t you dare throw me off.”

The caravan set forth. First went the sledge, formerly the wagon, that carried the seekers. It dragged roughly to begin with, but when it hit the sand it began to slide. A skin of water formed under it where the fish oil met the sand and a remnant of the old sea returned. The next sledge deepened the effect and so on. When Ean’s vehicle joined the line, it skimmed forward behind the lambas who walked on either side of the shallow, watery pathway. The other traders followed, lumbering through the drifts, their laughter dying.

Riding a moas wasn’t too different than riding a horse, if one discounted the loss of two feet and the distance to the ground. Lurcher had a tendency to sway, perhaps because it had drunk half its own weight at the oasis and so was a bit top-heavy. Jame surged back and forth from stirrup to stirrup, glad (not for the first time) that she didn’t tend toward seasickness.

Jorin crouched and sprang up on the sledge where Byrne greeted him with a crow of delight. Trust a cat to spare its paws on the hot ground.

Soon they were deep in the rolling golden sand dunes under an achingly blue sky. For the most part, they tried to follow the dips that exposed the hard desert floor, but often they had to climb over the dunes’ shoulders. The lambas plodded steadily ahead, occasionally hooting companionably from team to team:

Are you still there? Yes, I am. Are you?

Other beasts were soon struggling and falling behind. Most caught up that night, but late and exhausted. Some had already turned back.

“Bet you only the sledges make it,” said Timmon. “We’re down to just over one hundred travelers already.”

They began to pass ruins, jutting out of the sand. Jame remembered that these worn walls were said to travel about beneath the sand, according to the wind. Some presented markets with bread that turned to dust at the touch. Others offered fruits and vegetables that looked whole but crumbled if breathed upon. The dust raised figures to wander about the stalls, in and out of sight. This must once have been a fertile realm, but its inhabitants had long since fled. Lizards watched the caravan go by from the stubs of walls, frilled collars flaring red, gold, and blue in the wind.

“Lesser rhi-sar,” said one of the Kendar. “Useful, but nothing compared to their ancestors.”

That night Jame walked among the tents to stretch her legs after a day of riding. Most traders had settled in the lee of dunes with a haze of sand whistling off the crests over them, but not so close as to be in danger of avalanches. The dunes, after all, were always in subtle motion, and drummed as they shifted slowly forward under the wind’s whip. A storm was building. The lambas’ tufted tails sparked and crackled with electricity. Moas crouched down, hiding their heads under their rudimentary wings. Neither stars nor moon shone, and in the distance thunder rumbled.

She came to a fire leaping high into the troubled night. Around it sat Kothifirans, listening to an old desert woman. Like her sisters in Sashwar, she wore a veil, but made no attempt to anchor it as the rising wind whipped it about her wizened face. When she saw Jame, she broke off her current story and gestured to her with a gap-toothed grin.

“Welcome, my friend, you who seek the truth! Sit with us and I will tell you of the desert gods.”

The others readily made way. Jame sank cross-legged onto the ribbed sand and gazed across the dancing campfire at her ragged hostess.

“Once everything for days in all directions belonged to the Sea of Time. Ah, consider how much of the present floats atop the past. When the Sea died, or seemed to, so did its attendants and all that lived in it. But something that large and powerful never completely goes away. Desert sledge still calls to the memory of water, as you have learned, have you not?”

Most of the carters murmured agreement. Those without sledges looked glum.

“Beneath the Sea is Stone. Stone remembers and endures. He seldom speaks but always tells the truth, because silence is never a lie. If you can get his attention, you will learn much. Take care, however, that you can bear the force of the answer.”

Someone offered her a goatskin of wine. She paused to drink, wrinkled throat bobbing. The fire flared sideways in a gust of wind, then leaped up straight again.

“On top of Stone creeps Dune. The cry of the jackal and the laugh of the hyena, the singing sand, the crash of ghostly wave on vanished shores and the rasp of Sandstorm are its voice. Dune reveals with one hand and covers with the other. It may lure you to your doom or tell you truths. Dune knows, but says both no and yes.

“And then there is Salt, the Eternal, the Spiritless, the Soulless. When the Sea died, that which could not be purified became Salt. It is a mystery even to the other Gods. It is not Earth or Air or Fire or Water. It is not That-Which-Creates or Preserves or Destroys—yes, girl, I know the attributes of your god and of the Four. The Gods of which I speak came after them but may well outlast them. Hah’rum! Salt is That-Which-Remains, the Sea Within us. That is why to this day salt merchants smuggle their wares throughout Rathillien and take their time at it. They know Salt will remain even if King Krothen will or won’t.

“Where Stone is honest and Dune equivocates, Mirage always lies and lies without purpose. If you are not careful, Mirage can kill you or steal your soul. She is a dancer and a shapeshifter. Do I worship Mirage? Certainly not! My lies carry truths that fact’s spindly legs cannot.