Elvenbane

plain that stretched on for leagues, followed by a featureless expanse of sand and small stones worn smooth by the constant wind, then a stretch of sand where nothing grew but cactus, and not too much of that.

Here, at least, sajus dotted the landscape, and there were some projecting rocks with a cluster of brush around them; enough to give her shelter from the sun for the rest of the day. She was wilderness-wise enough to know that she could not possibly endure the full glare of the sun for long, and that she would have to travel by night...

If she could find somewhere to go...

She choked down the tears that threatened to break out of her control, and calmed herself. That clump of brush and rock was too inviting; undoubtedly there were other creatures in there using it for shelter. Some of those would share it with her without contesting it; others would not.

And the only way to find out who was 'home' was to 'look.'

First things first; she had to have some shade, before she fell over with heatstroke. Already the sun felt like a claw pressing her into the earth, and she regretted every tear she had shed in the caves as lost water. She went to her hands and knees and crawled carefully into the bare bit of shade provided by the closest sajus-bush. Scanty though that shade was, there was a vast difference in temperature between the shadowed sand beneath its branches and the open ground a few footsteps away.

Shana lay on her stomach, stretched out with bits of the sajus-twigs tangled in her hair, and rested her chin on her folded hands in front of her. There was just enough shade beneath the sajus for her to fit all of herself beneath it. She used the methods to calm herself that Alara had taught her, taking slow, deep breaths, forcing herself to relax. The discipline Alara had made a part of her worked as effectively as ever, despite her strain, her fears, and all the myriad of problems facing her. In a moment more she was able to drop into a light trance and begin searching the area around her for life.

A kestrel in a hollowed-out place in the stone was the first sign of life. That was good; his presence meant no mice, and not a lot of big bugs. A runner-bird rested at the foot of the stone...that was even better! No snakes were ever around runner-birds, unless they were in his stomach...

She searched further, sending her mind deeper, looking for even tinier forms of life. She found them, and identified where they were, exactly, marking them in a little mental map to remember when she came out of trance.

There were plenty of scorpions, though the only spiders were ordinary hunting spiders that would leave her alone. Lots of lizards, mostly small ones the size of her longest finger. A nest of ants, and those were to be avoided at all cost. No wasps, though, which probably explained the healthy population of hunting spiders, since desert wasps preyed on spiders, laying their eggs inside them before walling the paralyzed body into a nest-cavity.

And that comprised the entire population of this arid little bit of vegetation. There was nothing living here that needed to drink water, no mammals at all, and the two birds received all the moisture they needed from their prey. That meant there was no water Shana could dig to.

No water...she fought a surge of fear, but it broke her out of her trance. She opened her eyes on the same view of sand and barren branches, and licked dry lips. She knew she would be all right for now...knew intellectually, that is. Convincing the unreasoning part of her was another question altogether.

First things first, she told herself. She needed shelter and rest, and soon.

Now that she knew where every creature down to the ant colony was, she could avoid a potentially fatal mistake...like putting her hand right down on top of a scorpion. She resumed her hands-and-knees crawl under the branches of the sajus, working her way into the cluster of rocks at the middle, and projecting calm at the runner- bird as hard as she could manage while still moving. The closer she could get to that bird, the better off she would be. Not only would its presence ensure that there would be no snakes, but it would probably keep scorpions away too. She'd never seen one actually eat a scorpion, but she had seen them kill the venomous insects.

As she neared the base of the rock she saw the bird, resting quietly, its bright black eyes watching her as she crawled nearer. It had chosen to bed down right against the bottom of the boulders in the deepest shadow, and its mottled gray-and-brown feathers blended right in with the sand and the stone. It blinked at her and tilted its head to one side to get a better look at her, but didn't seem in the least alarmed at her approach.

She wriggled her way in past the last of the branches and to within an arm's length of the bird, hardly able to believe her luck. The bird continued to stare, but its crest was down, and its posture relaxed. She curled up next to it, putting her back up against the rock...the rough stone was cool, or at least, cooler than the earth beneath the sajus had been. The bird tilted its head the other way, and she reached out to it, greatly daring, and began to scratch the crest feathers gently. This was the closest she had ever been to a runner-bird; the long, sharp beak was at least as long as her hand, and quite dangerous-looking...but if she could make friends with it, she wouldn't need to fear falling asleep beside it.

The bird leaned into her hand, closing its eyes in pleasure. She continued to scratch until it pulled away; she took her hand back, and it gave her another of those bright-eyed, measuring looks. It fluffed its feathers a little, and raised its crest for a moment, then settled back down with every appearance of content.

She lay down beside it, and pillowed her head on her arms, closing her tired, burning eyes for a moment.

Or at least, she only intended to close them for a moment.

But sometime between resolving to close them, and deciding to open them again, she fell asleep.

When Shana woke, the runner-bird was gone, and she came very close to crying. That bird was the nearest thing she had to a friend here in this empty wilderness of sand and stone.

Night had fallen while she slept; a desert night, full of sound and scent. Insects chirred, sand hissed as the breezes moved it. And off in the distance, a pack of loupers howled...not a hunting howl, but a pack-howl, undertaken just for the sake of community.

Shana wished they were closer; she had grown to like the loupers Keman kept, and they would have been company, however simpleminded. If she could find and be accepted by a louper-pack, she wouldn't need to worry about finding food or water.

Keman...she hadn't even gotten to say good-bye to him, or to Alara. Her last memory of him was of seeing him limping away in the custody of some of the adults, his shoulder and wing-muscles marked by bleeding punctures. She remembered him looking back over his shoulder and trying to say something, but being hurried away. Her throat closed, and once again, tears threatened.

But now crying was something worse than merely futile...crying meant loss of precious moisture. She fought the tears back and carefully wiped the two that did escape onto her finger and licked it dry. The salty liquid only made her thirstier.

She looked up through the branches of the sajus at the brilliance of the stars, and made a guess as to the time. Probably not too long after sunset; she hadn't lost much traveling time to sleep.

She set her back against the rock, and entered her trance again...necessary, since it was likely that everything she had pinpointed except the ant nest had moved since she'd fallen asleep. Scorpions were just as much a danger after dark as in daylight. More, actually; they tended to be nocturnal.

But most of them had converged on the remains of a kill the runner-bird must have made; a half-eaten snake on the other side of the rock. They were busy nipping off tiny bits with their pincers, and quarreling over choice positions on the carcass.

That was an unlooked-for blessing...and Shana wondered for a moment if the runner-bird had dropped the thing there deliberately, to lure the poisonous insects away from her.

Then she decided that it had probably been an accident; although it was hard to tell the actual size of the dead snake from the tiny minds of the scorpions, it appeared to be a real monster. Very likely the runner-bird had found it couldn't eat it all, and had left the remains where they wouldn't lure scavengers too near its chosen resting place.

But no matter what the cause, the result was that Shana could crawl out of the brush to the open ground in relative safety, and she was deeply grateful for that result.

But once out of her temporary shelter and on her feet again, she looked around with a growing sense of despair. North, south, east or west, the landscape was the same. Silver sand under the brilliant moonlight, dotted with dark clumps of sajus or rocks. There was no hint of anything different on the breeze; just the ever-present