Vessel

peace too easily.”

“But you will.” Gracefully Pia rose and embraced Liyana. She smelled like honey. “If you try, you will find peace and understanding here. All you must do is look for it.”

“I don’t need to find peace,” Liyana said, pulling away. “I need to find Jarlath, and I need to find a way to take him back.”

“If finding him will grant you peace, then you will find him,” Pia said serenely.

“But you can’t take him back,” Raan said. “It is . . . too difficult to return to one’s body.” Liyana heard the pain in her voice. “Besides, his body must be dead by now. Don’t seek him for that reason. You’ll only break your heart.”

“I healed Sendar,” Liyana said. “I can heal him.” She strode away across the sands. She didn’t want to hear any more about peace or the glorious wonders of the Dreaming. She wasn’t finished with the real world yet. “Jarlath!”

Behind her, she heard Pia say, “Let her go. She will return soon enough.”

“Jarlath, appear!” She felt tears on her cheeks, and she didn’t wipe them away. He must be here, she thought. He’d dreamed of the lake.

She walked for miles. Above, the sun crossed the sky. Shadows blossomed over the sand dunes and then spread. The sand shifted in color from red to gold. She didn’t feel the heat or thirst or hunger.

Liyana stopped. She took a deep breath. “You aren’t real,” she said to the desert. She thought of Korbyn. He’d raced Sendar across this desert, and he’d won by moving the finish line.

Cresting a sand dune, a gray mare trotted toward her. She could have been a twin of Gray Luck. Her saddle and bridle were already in place. She slowed in front of Liyana and whickered in her hair. Liyana felt the horse’s hot breath on her ear and neck, and the tickle of the horse’s lips as Gray Luck’s twin nipped her shoulder. Liyana patted the horse’s neck, and then she swung herself into the saddle.

It felt so familiar to ride across the sands, and yet at the same time so foreign to ride alone. Ahead she saw an oasis—it shimmered into view as if the wind had blown it into existence. She saw a collection of tents, familiar tents in the style of the Goat Clan. Liyana kneed Gray Luck’s twin into a trot, and then she reined in.

“I want Jarlath,” she told the desert firmly. She would reunite with her clan in the real world. The oasis wavered as if it were a mirage, and then it vanished.

In its place she saw a solitary figure sitting with his back toward her. She nudged Gray Luck’s twin into a canter. Reaching the figure, Liyana dismounted. As she moved to care for the mare, the horse vanished. She spun around, afraid that Jarlath would have disappeared too. But he remained, unmoving.

He sat by a pool of water. The water was a perfect circle in the sand. Its surface reflected the sky. “Jarlath?” She placed her hand on his shoulder. “Can you hear me?”

He did not look up. “You’re dead. I had hoped you weren’t. Too many are.” Jarlath pointed to the water. Distorted, she saw the clans’ camp in its reflection.

Bodies were strewn between the tents. Sky serpents attacked the living from above. She couldn’t hear the screams, but she could see the faces twisted in pain and fear. Children were plucked from the ground, and warriors lay beside their elders in pools of blood and dust. Soldiers plunged into the mountains only to die at the talons and teeth of more sky serpents. But worst of all, as the serpents continued their relentless attack, squadrons of soldiers and desert warriors fought one another.

“What are they doing?” Liyana cried.

“Some in my army blame the clans for the fact that I haven’t returned. . . . Perhaps my guards remember my order: If you kill me, they slaughter.” His voice was wooden. Dead. “Others seek to find me, further enraging the sky serpents.”

“Come with me,” Liyana said. “We have to leave.”

“You cannot leave death.”

“Our souls have left before,” Liyana said. She put her hands on his shoulders, wanting to shake him into life again.

A sad smile ghosted across his face. “Always so brave and so stubborn. I am not a fool, though. I know what happens when a soul leaves a body. I have no living body to return to.” Then his eyes lit up. “But you do! Bayla is in your body, keeping it alive. You could return!” He grasped his arms. “Yes! You must stop my people from fighting yours. . . .” The light faded from his eyes. “Until the sky serpents kill them all.”

Both of them watched through the pool.

“The gods must stop this,” Liyana said.

He pointed at Maara. Sweat poured down her face. Deep in a trance, she deflected a sky serpent from above her. “Even they are not strong enough.”

“All the gods must stop this.” Liyana rose to her feet as an idea shaped within her. She scanned the desert around her. “We need an amphitheatre with stone steps. Cascades of flowers. And the sound of birds.” Closing her eyes, she visualized it exactly as Bayla had once described it—the gathering place of the deities. She placed the steps in a semicircle around them. She chose every desert flower she’d ever seen plus some from the valley, and she pictured them spilling down the sides of the steps. She imagined the trill of birds.

Hearing birds, she opened her eyes.

The amphitheatre was around her, rising out of the desert sands, exactly as she’d pictured it. But it was empty. Wind blew across the steps.

“Summon the gods,” Jarlath said. “Dance.”

Liyana spread her arms wide and imagined she was sending her voice across the sands. “Ebuci o nanda wadi. Ebuci o yenda. Vessa oenda nasa we.” She repeated it. And then she began to dance. Spinning, she heard bells—the silver bells were again in her hair. She twisted and twirled in silence.

Drums began. Steady as a heartbeat.

A syncopated rhythm joined it.

She danced faster, her arms swirling with the rhythm, her feet pounding to the heart drum. A melody soared above. Pia was singing, she realized. And Fennik and Raan were drumming. Jarlath spoke the words as Liyana danced. “Ebuci o nanda wadi. Ebuci o yenda. Vessa oenda nasa we!”

All of a sudden the drums fell silent, and the melody ceased. Liyana stopped dancing. Around her and Jarlath, the amphitheatre was filled with gods.

Some of the deities shone like soft moonlight. Others blazed. Above them the light shifted and waved like an aurora. Liyana saw that the sky had darkened to a deep blue.

One of the goddesses lifted her hand, and the birds fell silent. All eyes fixed on Liyana. She felt her throat go dry, as if it had never known moisture. The eyes of the deities burned her. Liyana tried to find the words, or perhaps a story. . . . Her mind felt blank.

Jarlath laid his hand on her shoulder. “Perhaps this is why I am here,” he said. He walked past her and stood in front of the gods and goddesses. His face was as calm as stone. He raised his voice. “Deities of the desert, children of the children of the turtle, I am not your enemy.”

He talked, and the words flowed out of him like water from a stream. He told them of families whose fields had died, whose children with hungry eyes were thin as sticks, whose parents had to choose who to save. He told of the desperation and the terrible hope that drove him with his army into the desert. And he told the story of his parents’ deaths. “We came to the desert to find life, not death. Yet now my people are killing and dying on the desert sands. Please, you must end this. Save us from the sky serpents and one another.”

One god rose. His eyes gleamed like stars against his night black skin. “Your words are eloquent, and we are not deaf to your plea. But we in the Dreaming cannot affect the world of the living no matter how much we may wish it. Indeed, that is the purpose of vessels. Only from within a vessel can our magic touch the world.”

A goddess whose hair wound in coils to her feet spoke next. “Already there are several deities with vessels in the desert, and they are ineffective to halt the slaughter. I do not know what you expect us to do without vessels.”

Others nodded in agreement.

Liyana touched Jarlath on the shoulder as he began to speak. “And this is why I am here,” she said. She raised her voice. “Once, there was a desert girl who saved her goddess. . . .” She told them how Bayla had entered her but Liyana hadn’t left. She told them how they had worked magic together—and how the power was amplified when conducted through a human mind. “And that was with only one deity inside. Add