Emily Rodda - The Shifting Sands

Without another word, he disappeared into the dripping bushes, and was gone.

“How dare he threaten us!” hissed Jasmine.

“He is angry.” Lief felt very low-spirited. His head ached, he was cold, and he was sorry to have parted with Doom on bad terms. “I think he is a man who rarely trusts. Yet he trusted us. Now he fears that he was foolish to do so, for we would not trust him in return.”

Barda nodded slowly. “I wish it could have been otherwise,” he said. “He would have been a valuable ally. But we could not risk it. Doom would not be content to let us keep our secret. And there are spies everywhere — even his band may not be safe. Later, if we succeed in our quest —”

Kree squawked impatiently.

“We will not live to succeed in anything if we do not move on,” Jasmine said. “It is nearly dawn.”

“But which way do we go?” Lief looked around him in frustration. “We have no idea where we are, and we do not even have the stars to guide us.”

“You are forgetting Kree,” Jasmine smiled. “He followed us. He knows exactly where we are.”

They began to walk, Kree fluttering ahead of them. Soon they found a tiny stream which had been swelled by the rain. They plunged into it and splashed along its bed for as long as they could, hoping that the water would disguise their scent.

All of them felt bruised and ill and longed to rest. But the thought of the Grey Guards following them like evil tracking dogs drove them on.

Dawn came, and with it the sun, struggling feebly through the clouds. Soon afterwards they reached a narrow road heavily marked by puddled cart tracks. On the other side of the road was a wooden fence and beyond that a stretch of stony land ending at a row of low grey hills. Kree flew to a fence post and flapped his wings impatiently, hopping to the left.

“If we walk along the fence, we will at least leave no tracks,” murmured Jasmine. “Hurry!”

Gathering themselves for the effort, they leaped across the road, climbed the fence, and began moving along it, Jasmine balancing on the top, and Barda and Lief edging uncomfortably along with their feet on the middle rail.

After a short time they reached a crossroads. The fence continued around the corner and on into the distance where it was lost in the grey hills. And right beside the corner post stood a huge, weathered stone. It was as tall as Lief. Words had been carved on it, but so long ago that many of the letters had disappeared.

“The Shifting Sands. Danger!” Barda squinted at the stone. “That much I can make out, but what the smaller writing says I cannot say. Too many of the letters have been worn away by wind and weather.”

“I think the first word is ‘Death,’” said Lief in a low voice. He leaned out from the fence and touched the stone, tracing the letters with the tips of his fingers. Hesitantly, using touch as well as sight, he began to read.

“Death swarms within its rocky wall,

Where all are one, one will rules all …”

“Go on, Lief!” Jasmine urged, as he paused.

Lief shook his head, frowning. “The next two lines are more worn than the others. They seem to say something like: ‘Be now the dead, the living strive … With mindless will to survive.’ But that does not really make sense.”

“It makes enough sense to tell us that the Sands are not going to be pleasant,” said Barda dryly. “But we knew that, I think.”

Jasmine’s mind was busy with practical matters. “Since the verse talks of a ‘rocky wall’ I would guess that the Sands are just beyond the hills. But we will have to cross the plain to reach them. The stones may hide our tracks, but there will be no way to disguise our scent.”

“It cannot be helped,” said Lief. He climbed over the fence and jumped gratefully to the ground on the other side, flexing his cramped fingers. “Besides, we have been very careful. The Guards have surely lost our trail by now.”

“I would not count on that,” muttered Barda. But he also climbed to the ground and after a moment Jasmine jumped down to join them. They set off, almost running over the bare ground, glancing often behind them. Despite his hopeful words, Lief looked back as often as his companions did. The idea of Grey Guards silently following, the idea of a deadly blister flying unseen towards him to explode on his back, made his skin crawl.

It became warmer as the sun climbed steadily behind its veil of cloud, and steam began to rise from the wet ground. The grey hills ahead were also quickly shrouded in mist. So it was only when the companions actually reached them that they realized that these were not ordinary hills at all, but thousands of huge boulders heaped together to make a high, natural wall — the “rocky wall” of the verse.

They began to climb and soon lost all sight of the ground below. Everything around them was white. The air grew thick and all sound was dulled. Cautiously, one step at a time, they clambered to the top of the rock pile, then, even more cautiously, began to edge down the other side.

As they neared the ground, a sound met their ears — a low droning, so faint that at first Lief thought he was imagining it. And the next moment, without warning, he was below the cloud.

Slowly he turned away from the rocks to look at what was beyond. The breath caught in his throat. Sweat broke out on his forehead.

They had arrived at the Shifting Sands.

Sand. Nothing at all but deep, dry sand. As far as the eye could see, high red dunes rolled away under a low, brooding ceiling of murky yellow cloud. There was no sign of any living thing, but the low droning sound filled the place, as though the very air was alive.

Lief slithered down the last few rocks and his feet sank into the grainy softness beneath. A feeling of dread had settled over him — a feeling as strong and real as any taste or smell.

I have been here before.

This was the place he had seen in the vision of the future the opal had given him on the Plain of the Rats. The terror that had haunted his dreams was about to become reality. When? In an hour? A day? A week?

Through his fear, he heard Jasmine speaking. “It is impossible,” she was saying, as she jumped down beside him. “If the gem is hidden here, we will never find it!”

“The Belt will grow warm when the gem is near,” Barda reminded her. He, too, was plainly sobered by the size of the task ahead, but refused to admit it. “We will mark the sand into sections and search it, square by square.”

“That could take months!” Jasmine exclaimed. “Months — or even years!”

“No.” Lief had spoken quietly, but they both turned to him. He struggled to keep his voice steady. “This gem is like the others. It has a terrible Guardian,” he said, staring out at the still and secret dunes. “And the Guardian is already aware of us. I feel it.”

Or is it the Belt that feels it? he thought, as he moved out into the sand, like someone in a dream. Is it the Belt that feels the danger?

But he dared not put his hands on the Belt of Deltora. He knew that if he touched the opal — if he saw the future again — he would turn and run.

He closed his eyes to shut out the sight of the barren land, the glowering sky. But beneath his lids he still saw red sand. And the hungry, jealous will that was drawing him to itself, as it drew everything, everything in this place to itself, was stronger than ever.