~*~
Mel kicks me awake again when dawn comes. She always wakes early: this is a habit taught to all nobles. Better to nap in the afternoon than in the morning, they told her. I am still tired, but of course all House Chinlar will be awake by now as well, and we must be far from Therwil before they catch us up. They can ride faster than we can walk.
I wonder why we have no steeds of our own, now that I think of it. I am sure Mel could have stolen some easily enough, for she must know where House Chinlar's steeds are kept. When I ask her, she laughs prettily and says:
“Steeds, in the Desert? Even if they survived the heat, their prints would lead my father's men straight to us! No, the Desert-folk use insects as steeds, and with reason. Besides,” she adds, “a missing steed might go noticed sooner than I.”
I shudder at the thought of the Desert's great insects. I have never liked insects of any sort – something my siblings always laughed about, on account of my nature sense – and from the first time I saw one of the great Desert-insects it filled me with a sharp and urgent fear, reasonless but deeper than any I had felt before. And I have feared often. The clan which found me and escorted me back toward the Mountains used one as a pack-animal, and I could not bear to be near it. If Mel truly intends to ride such an insect, I must follow her at some distance, and on foot, and perhaps her mission would be complete and she back home in Therwil by the time I reached Saluyah.
But for now we are on foot, and on foot we make our way down the mountainside. By afternoon it has flattened into a short stretch of rolling, rocky hills, with the gold-brown sands of the Desert beyond. Without the trees around us to spread their shade, the day quickly becomes very hot.
“Which way is Saluyah?” I ask.
She purses her lips. “I could find it easily enough following Mountain roads. Through the Desert – we shall have to cross to the River Saluyah, and follow that to the city.”
“How do we know if we find the River?”
“The Desert has only one river of any size,” she tells me shortly, and I nod, chastised.
When we leave the hills behind us I am almost overcome by the emptiness all around me: there is life in the Desert, but it is rare enough that each life is distinct and clear in my mind. Mel's burns like a candle, near and bright.
I am unused to walking on sand, and it is a long while before I find out how not to sink into the dunes with every step. The searing heat works through my poor boots, so that I soon long for the cool shelter of my underground room. Even the clothing I wear is welcome shade; where the cloth is ripped or worn through the sunlight burns as it touches me, leaving my skin reddened and sore. Mel's cloak, though it must be very warm, at least shelters her from the worst of the light.
The Desert is wide and open and bright, with the blinding sand below and the cloudless sky above. Every so often I glance backward, fearing that someone has already seen us at a distance. There is nothing here to hide us. There is nothing here at all.
I have been here once before, and then I was glad of it. It was strange and bright and open and it frightened me, but for all that it held food, and life, and living voices, and it meant that I was to live at least a while longer. But now I am afraid of this place, and I wish I was somewhere else, in cool darkness, where I might hide. Several times I must whistle to Snake for comfort, overcome by the fear of all this sun.
I feel a little safer when darkness falls, and also cooler. Now, we are hidden even here. I walk on with renewed vigor, although I am very tired by now, and my side aches with so much walking.
“Won't your servants tell your parents what they told you? Mightn't they guess whither you've gone?” I ask when the thought finally crosses my mind.
“No,” she says. “I made certain that those two servants will not gossip about my love again.”
For a moment I wonder how she did so, but I will not ask.
I have grown quite tired and hungry by now, and the night has quickly grown very cold, so that I am shivering in my thin clothing; but Mel urges me onward. “We must come away from the Mountains as fast as we can, Arri,” she tells me. “Else we shall be found, and stopped ere the mission is complete. Hurry on, now. You can walk for a while more.” And so we walk on, striking out straight across the Desert until we can walk no longer. Only then does she send me to call water.
She hunts a rabbit for our supper, using her dagger and her little blue spells – I try not to notice the feel of its life going out in my mind – and cooks it, inexpertly, over a fire. It tastes very plain and a little burnt. “Tomorrow we shall have to look for plants,” she says, “any sort at all, to give the meat some flavor – any sort at all.”
I nod, and scrub the pot clean, and we sleep. I lie across the remnants of the fire from Mel, curled close to the ashes for warmth, with my blind eye to the ground and the scent of sand in my nose.