by C. M. Gray
'Horrible creature!' shouted Elisop as Pardigan reached down to haul the little spy up. 'I hate flying, and I hate large magical flying creatures, neither thing is natural.'
'What was that in its mouth?' Pardigan shaded his eyes trying to make it out. 'I'm sure I heard a shout as it passed.' The dragon was already some distance away, so it was impossible to see any detail. He glanced across to the Emperor and his group and saw they had apparently finished what they were doing and were now walking slowly towards the city. 'Oh Source… Quint!' He glanced over to see if Quint was watching. 'Quint, the Emperor's coming back.'
* * *
Bartholomew Bask was having a really bad day. It was true that days were rarely good for Bartholomew, however, today really had been especially bad. He tried to relax and cast his mind back, attempting to make some kind of sense to his predicament and why he was currently sprawled, baking in the heat of the hot sun, in a boat, in the middle of a desert.
The day hadn't started out right from the moment he had peeled his eyelids back. The night had been as cold and uncomfortable as the previous two nights of his desert journey, which was bad enough, but his temper had been especially piqued this particular dawn by having no proper morning meal with which to break his fast. To Bartholomew, this was an outrage and completely uncivilised and, to a man of his stature, he deemed it tantamount to torture. The Dhurbar's repeated claim that it was he who had eaten all their stores was blatantly insulting. Their lack of preparation for the journey was obviously none of his affair, and he told them so in no uncertain terms.
Three tortuous days of journeying across the Great Expanse of the desert on the back of a camel had been exhausting, extremely uncomfortable and unpardonably lacking in dignity for a merchant of his position. He still wasn't entirely sure how he had even come to be on this journey.
After breaking his fast with nothing more than hard biscuits and water, which was clearly scandalous and something he would be taking up at the earliest opportunity with the merchants guild in Dhurban, the caravan had emerged from the mountain pass for its final trek across open desert. With the end of this awful journey in sight, he had been preoccupied with the anticipation of soon finding some comforts and sustenance in the great city of Dhurban. Since before the sun had risen they had been leading their mounts through the pass on foot. Upon exiting the confines of the narrow rocks his first undertaking had been to negotiate the remounting of his camel, which was an evil foul tempered brute given to spitting at him whenever it could. Several giggling Dhurbars had aided him, jabbering on in their own incomprehensible language, they had heaved and pushed him in an extremely degrading and undignified way until he was finally seated and then they had then started out upon the last leg of the journey.
To improve his mood, he had taken to riding half asleep, dreaming of cream cakes, sweetmeats and chilled berry wine and barely noticed the storm blowing up in the distance. It was, however, just a short time later that his day took a really bad turn and the world around him had inexplicably gone insane. From being the same awful, dry, featureless expanse of sand he had come to loathe with an intensity, it had decided to defy all known laws of nature and turned into a thrashing ocean of shifting sand that seemed to think it was the sea, and he had started to question his grasp on his sanity.
The long line of camels, horses and people, along with the assortment of dogs and goats that accompanied every Dhurbar caravan, rapidly fell apart with everyone and everything screaming as they fought for stability where now there clearly was none. Bartholomew's camel had danced about, managed to run three spans and then sank into the sand as if it were soup. Bartholomew's cries for help had gone unnoticed, and he had been thrown to the ground, such as it was, and had gone under and then bobbed to the surface spluttering, spitting sand and cursing profusely. There was nothing much wrong with his sanity he surmised, it was the world in general that had clearly gone insane.
Rubbing sand from his eyes, he had cast around to try and make some sense of the situation, only to see the dunes around him rising and falling as if he were floating in an angry sea. He watched in alarm as his camel, bellowing in terror, lost its battle with the desert and sank below the surface leaving bubbles of sand rising to the surface in its wake, which Bartholomew found quite alarming. His mind fought for reason and survival, but decided there was no sanity to be found, so he had started to whimper.
It may well have been his bulk that saved him or the mass of packed tents and provisions that he saw bobbing past and clung to, but while he survived, all around him both men and beasts floundered and were swallowed screaming and terrified down into the depths of the desert sand. Bartholomew Bask had hugged his raft, spitting sand and cursing his ill luck as he bobbed about being burnt steadily by the hot desert sun.
Several turns of the glass later, with the sun now high in the sky and the skin of his exposed face blistered and painful, he was still alive, gasping for water and generally out of sorts. He hadn't thought his predicament could get any worse when, without warning, the sand stopped moving and everything about him set in place as if suddenly remembering how a desert was supposed to behave.
At first he had thrown up his hands and thanked the Source that the desert was once again behaving as nature intended, but then realised he was now stuck up to his chest and couldn't move. After waiting a short while for someone to come and help, he had tried to dig himself out, pushing the sand away with his arms, but he was not used to such exertion. In actual fact, he wasn't used to doing anything much for himself. There was always someone else to call on, to shout at if things weren't just so… but now there wasn't. It was all so unfair.
'Damn it, damn and damn it a third time,' he shouted. After what seemed an age, he was still stuck and was so hot and weakened by the whole experience that he had simply given up, lain with his face in his hands and began to sob dry sandy tears.
The next strange event to take place had happened some time later. Upon reflection, he now surmised that he must surely have been delirious and hallucinating at the time. He reasoned it had all been some strange nightmare descended upon his poor exhausted mind while he lay dying, encased in sand, baking like a Sunday lunch piglet - all that had been missing being the apple in his mouth and possibly some nice apple sauce. In this tortured dream, a boat had come alongside; the seamen had dug him out and with the help of ropes and tackle managed to haul him on board like a large hooked fish. From there he had flopped onto the deck, unable to move and slipped in and out of consciousness, listening in his delirious state as the crew had cast off and sailed on through the sea of dunes like characters from a child's crib story. Obviously it was all utter nonsense, he wisely concluded he was dead and decided to drift away into a blissful sleep sure that he was being carried away to become one with the Source, to be rewarded for his lifetime of good works and kindness.
* * *
'Get that smelly monkey away from me.' Princess Fajira swiped Nhasic from the table and the little demon scurried away then up and out of the hatch to find a safer place to sit with less irritable company. 'Why do we have that fat man on the deck, why was he buried in the sand? Loras… Loras?' She turned to see Loras climbing hurriedly up the stairway, following after Nhasic. 'Loras, come back to me my Loras, I need you here.'
Closing the hatch behind him, Loras joined Tarent at the wheel. The Griffin was sailing through the sand dunes as easily as if it were crossing the sea between Sterling and Minster. The ship's bow rising and falling with the flow of the desert, the billowing sails being driven by a breeze that neither boy could feel, yet it drove the boat on with a spray of sand washing back over the deck each time it came crashing down, ready to ride up the next dune. Nhasic was now balanced on the bowsprit taking Quint's favourite position, the little demon screeching its own mixture of insults and defiance at the sea of sand ahead of them.
'This has to be some of your best magic, Loras,' Tarent grinned across at his friend. 'I thought she was dead… gone, but she
's back and we haven't lost her after all. I could sort of understand it when the boat came back together and that we sailed when the sand thought it was water, but its sand again and we're still sailing!'
Loras grinned happily. 'I love magic, it's amazing isn't it. The Griffin was never really gone, she had just been changed, which is what happens when she shifts between boat and creature. This change was a bit more drastic than normal but she was still there, I just had to figure out how to explain that to her. And she can sail because the sand dunes look like waves, so all I needed to do was show this to the essence of the boat and… well, we are sailing. When it all went strange like a real sea, I don't think it actually needed my magic at all, not really.' He thought about it for a moment. 'I think the Emperor is up to some pretty big magic himself. Whatever he's doing I don't think the sand moving was actually intended, it was a consequence of that magical storm we saw.' He shaded his eyes and looked towards the distant city. 'I wonder what's happening over there…'
'Loras, my love…' the Princess had poked her head out through the hatch and was squinting up at them. 'Loras, my darling, please come back and make the air cool again. It is a little too warm for me down here, you know how I like it to be cool.' She pulled her head back in without waiting for an answer and slammed the hatchway closed.
'Go cool her down Loras… my love,' Tarent tried hard not to grin, 'anything to keep her happy until we can give her back to her father, or are you planning on keeping her?'
'No Tarent, I don't think magic will even work on her. I'll cool her down and keep her happy, but she has more chance of getting Nhasic to be her husband than me.' He tottered over to the hatchway, balancing with the pitch and roll of the boat, sighed, and then went below to cool the air for the Princess.
* * *
The Emperor, Djinn Tsai, stopped walking. He stood some fifty spans from the city wall and stared up at the people who were watching him from the ramparts. They were all the souls he needed to gather, and now that the city's defences had been brought down, he could finish this task and move on. Slowly raising his arms he began to mutter the incantation, drawing in the air from all around, the first grains of sand skittering across the desert surface towards him. He began to swing his arms, his chanting growing louder until it became a deep bass-rumbling dirge. Eyes flashing red as the energy of Chaos flooded through him his arms became a blur as the storm began to build. It would take a little time to move the various elements, but this would be a storm that would bury the city, and this time it would kill everything living inside. The glorious anticipation of harvesting all those souls was so delicious that he was driven now to work his magic as fast as he possibly could – he reasoned there was nothing left that could stop him, there was no need for caution… it was time.
* * *
Controlling a dragon in flight was not as easy as Matheus Hawk had first believed. Upon leaving the mountain cave - he preferred to think back upon the event as a tactical withdrawal rather than fleeing for his life - he had finally believed himself to be the dragon's master. After a little hesitancy, he had found guiding the great beast appeared to work. The dragon had responded well to his first attempts at steering it to either side and later, once his confidence had grown, it had climbed high through the clouds and at his prompting, gently descended to skim the top of the dunes. It was all quite uplifting, coming at a time when he had so needed to be uplifted. Smiling in triumph, he had concluded that the creature's reliance on Nhasic was in the past and that it had accepted that he was now its new master. Which was all good until the desert shifted and became a boiling sea of churning sand. The creature had almost unseated him as it reared in alarm, turned back toward the distant mountains and climbed as high above the desert as it could, taking no notice of his ever-urgent commands.
Matheus Hawk was now very close to being frozen to the saddle. They were soaring at an impossible altitude, and he was unable to elicit any kind of response from the dragon as it headed out on an itinerary all of its own, it was ignoring him completely and he was now resigned to the fact that he was clearly not its master, but a passenger, frozen to its back.
* * *
Quint ducked under the flashing blade and slammed his elbow into the warrior's chest. He felt ribs crack and the warrior's breath expel in an 'Oomph' before pitching past him to the ground. He ran on, clashing swords with the next warrior that ran to meet him. Spinning the blade to the side, he swung his left fist to connect with the man's temple then brought his knee up, catching the warrior a heavy blow to the stomach as he went down. Around them, the storm sucked in the desert until almost nothing could be seen.
'Keep up… keep moving,' his voice was muffled by his headscarf as he shouted back to those coming in behind. Through the spinning dust and sand, he watched as Pardigan tripped a warrior who had tried to run him through with a spear and saw Elisop whack the falling man with his pan - the sound lost in the howling screech of the storm. More warriors were following, and he could just make out through the clouds of sand that others were dropping over the city wall. They had been left with no choice, the city had to bring the fight to the invaders.
As Pardigan caught up, Quint turned and moved on with several Dhurbar and some Realm soldiers by his side, all of them shouting and screaming challenges as they met the next wave of warriors head on, dodging spears, sidestepping slashing swords, dealing as best they could with the windswept sand that threatened to strip the skin from their bones and blind them as they squinted out through hastily wrapped headscarves.
'Which direction? I can't tell in all this,' yelled Pardigan. He was pulling on Quint's sleeve to get his attention.
Quint cast about, seeing little through the swirling, howling fury of the storm. 'There are fewer warriors here, we must have passed to the side of him, over this way.' They took ten paces to the left and immediately came across the main force of the Emperor's guard. The warriors had formed up into a protective shield, crouching with their spears pointing outward hunkered down against the storm. They each had a heavy wrap of scarves about their faces as protection. Most weren't ready for anyone foolish enough to come attacking them. They were covered up, crouched protecting their eyes. Quint couldn't see the Emperor, but they must be close now, he lashed out, stabbing into the first warrior to notice them and rise up, catching the man in the throat before he could shout a warning. Downing the man next to him with a swift kick below the chin that sent the man flying backwards, Quint moved into the ring with Pardigan at his side and the small group of Dhurbar behind them.
Around them, the warriors began to realise that they were under attack and began emerging from under their wraps, some already hefting spears and drawing swords. The most ferocious battle either boy could remember erupted as the two groups clashed. The Emperor's guards were almost suicidal in their duty to protect their lord. Throwing themselves forward with a demented fervour they sought to kill and eradicate the threat without regard for their own lives. Behind them, just visible in the swirling gloom of the storm, the Emperor, Djinn Tsai, continued to build his Chaos magic, his arms whirling faster than any human could have moved. Surrounding him was a red, crackling helix of energy that swirled up above him in a dancing flashing multi-spiral.
Pardigan was having his own problems as enemy warriors appeared all around him from out of the swirling sand. Meeting the first, he stepped slightly to the side, accepted the thrust of the spear and calmly kicked forward at the warrior's knee. He just heard the gasp of pain from the man as he fell, before the sound was snatched by the wind. Seeing his chance open before him, he quickly drew back and threw one of his knives at the Emperor.
Time appeared to slow as the knife spun. Blades and spears seemed to move sluggishly past him, offering little threat, individual grains of swirling sand presented themselves before his eyes, yet his gaze never faltered from the spinning blade of his knife as it flew, closing upon the small glowing figure. The force of the wind caught the knife, snatching it to the sid
e but Pardigan had reckoned on this and the blade continued on until it struck and he saw the Emperor scream.
Turning slowly towards them, the Emperor slowed his magic long enough to wrench the blade from his side and toss it contemptuously to the ground. He glanced to Pardigan, eyes flashing an angry red and then it was past, and he returned, unharmed, to his spell. It was the briefest of moments, and it was all for nothing - the magic continued and for Pardigan time snapped back into its roaring howling place and he was assailed with the sounds of battle again – metal clashing, grunts of pain and exertion, cries of frustration and anger while all around them the storm wailed.
To Pardigan's left side, Quint's sword shattered under a heavy impact, the fighter dipped down and wrenched a spear from the fingers of a dying warrior and rose using the spear as a staff, spinning the weapon, both ends of the spear connecting again and again, blocking, thrusting and stabbing as around him, more warriors joined the battle from both sides.
'We have to get through,' Quint yelled, 'keep together.' His eyes were sore, his shoulders ached, and he wasn't sure, but he thought he had been stabbed in his side. Every time he moved sharp splinters of pain flashed through him, and he could feel a sticky wetness moving from just above his left hip and down his leg, he closed it all off in his mind and took another step forward, desperate to get close enough to make his own killing blow.
* * *
Chapter 28
Entering the Rift
The Griffin rose up a towering, churning wall of sand, a very real wind driving her now, blasting through her tattered sails, forcing the little boat up, up to break through the lip of the wave and then the deck dropped and they fell down into the great hole in the desert that the wave had created. As they hit the base, the bow dipped impossibly below the surface only to explode back upwards, sheets of dry, dusty sand washing back over her decks while her crew struggled to hold on.
