the most wonderful coolness spread through him, banishing all memory of the desert.
There was a soft snuffling behind him and he turned to see the vast lizard settling down to sleep, curled around its tail, its wings folded tightly to its sides. Emuel put his hand on the creature’s flank and was surprised to find that its flesh was dry and cool.
Wrapping his cloak about himself, he lay next to his new companion and, feeling reassured by its presence, slept himself.
The fish that he managed to palm out of the shallow water the next day tasted foul, and Emuel doubted that cooking them would have made them any more palatable. Not that his companion was complaining; the creature wolfed down two of the spiny, dull-scaled things and then went sniffing around for more. Emuel wasn’t inclined to go fishing again, however. Instead, he sat looking out across the water, wondering what direction they should strike out in next.
The creature sat behind him, flexing its wings, creating a pleasing breeze that played across the back of Emuel’s neck, ruffling his hair. He closed his eyes and began to hum idly to himself, the creature soon picking up the tune and joining in.
“Hey,” Emuel said, turning around. The creature cocked its head and snapped its jaws. “How about we play a game? Remember this?”
And Emuel sang the song he had been singing when the creature had first come to him in the desert. When he stopped, the creature took over and, together, taking turns, they wove a complex, eerie melody. Emuel could taste the taint of magic in the air, and he looked down to see the tattoos that covered every inch of his flesh entwining around one another, moving to the rhythm of the song.
“What are you?” he wondered as the creature closed its eyes, seeming to move deeper into the music. He smiled and put his hand on the creature’s head. It nuzzled his hand and licked his palm. “I shall call you Calabash,” Emuel said, remembering the old choirmaster of his church in the Drakengrat range, whose legendary voice had attracted the praise of many a parishioner.
A high-pitched keening sounded from across the water and Emuel and Calabash raced to the water’s edge. On the far shore was a creature almost identical to Calabash, although this one’s flesh had a dark ochre hue.
The creature raced up and down the shore, calling out to Calabash, clearly desperate that they be united. However, it soon became obvious that this creature neither had the wisdom, or the intelligence to navigate the lake’s perimeter as, with a cry, it threw itself into the water.
At first it appeared to be a strong swimmer, its snout cutting through the water like the prow of a yacht. But its wings trailed behind it, weighing it down, and as it reached the centre of the lake, its strokes began to slow.
Emuel did nothing the first time the creature went under, sure that it would struggle on and reach them. The second time it went down, however, he could see the fear in its eyes. Without stopping to disrobe, Emuel threw himself into the lake.
The water was warm and he could feel the trailing fronds of weeds brushing against his ankles as he struck out. The only thing to mark where the creature had been was a stream of bubbles, rising slowly to the surface. When Emuel reached that spot he struck down blindly, his hands sweeping through the murk until they knocked against something that felt like a stick. Emuel grabbed hold and pulled, hauling the creature to the surface by the edge of one of its wings. It thrashed against him and cried out, but Emuel rolled onto his back and pinned the creature’s wings to its sides. The creature emitted plaintive cries as Emuel carried it back to shore.
Out of the water the creature shook vigorously, snapping its wings forward and spraying Calabash and Emuel. It reared on its hind legs as though to intimidate them, but when Calabash did nothing and Emuel merely patted its flank and smiled, it settled down and began to sniff around them both. Calabash darted away a few times and once nipped the creature on the nose, but the bite wasn’t intended to wound, merely warn, and soon both creatures were exploring each other, ending their examinations with querulous calls and flapping wings.
Emuel sang and was delighted that this new arrival joined in with as much gusto as its mate. Its voice was more delicate than Calabash’s, and he was reminded of another member of his choir. “Anania,” he said, recalling the slight woman who had used to sing the song of the sacraments so beautifully.
As though the memory of his choir had summoned them, they were suddenly surrounded by a host of voices, as more of the creatures clambered over the hills surrounding them, calling to one another as they came, singing out their joy at finding their brothers and sisters. Emuel found himself at the centre of a family of winged lizards, and as they stared at him with their brilliant eyes and flapped their wings and snorted their joy, he felt that amongst these strange beings, he had found a sort of home, a congregation with whom he could share his joy.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Now that they had been trekking across it for some time, Silus was beginning to appreciate the beauty of the desert. It wasn’t quite the arid, lifeless landscape that he had first thought. Instead, it seemed to be a living entity in itself, its moods changing with the hour of the day. Dawn would see it whisper into life, the wind finding its voice as it hissed across the dunes, gently rousing them from sleep. The pale sun would soon grow in intensity, however, and they would struggle against its glare, the heat mocking them by conjuring up mirages of cool, clear water that disappeared the moment they drew close. At the height of the day they would take sanctuary in tents and shelters, though even out of the sun the heat was incredible and they could do nothing but sit and watch the sand phantoms dance before them, too tired to even talk to one another. Once the sun began its slow trek down the sky, they would set off again, their journey becoming easier as the land gave up its heat and the soft wind cooled the sweat on their backs.
All this toil was worth it, Silus kept telling himself, for the sunsets.
He had never thought of sand as having any colour, but as the sun began to dip behind the dunes it revealed the full palette of the desert — from a fiery red to a deep midnight blue. Despite being drained from each day’s journey, he and Katya would sit and watch the display, apart from the rest of the camp, not talking but holding each other; and this, for now, was enough.
Lead by Illiun, the crew of the Llothriall and a selection of people from the settlement had set out several days earlier, having sufficiently provisioned themselves from the ship. Silus and his friends had got on peaceably enough with their new companions, though Kelos had a distrust of the three silver-eyed men who accompanied them. The silent servants talked to no one but Illiun, seemed to take no food or water and, at night, they didn’t sleep, but stood watch over the camp, unmoving as they stared into the desert. “I don’t like those things,” Kelos had confided in Silus. “They’re not natural.”
“What do you mean ‘not natural’?”
“They appear to be artificial, magical constructs of some kind, but there’s just no magic there.”
And this, Silus knew — and not the appearance of their strange alien companions — was what was really bothering Kelos. Each night the mage would sit and try and practise his art, but each night when he reached for the threads of magic he would find them absent.
“A world without sorcery, Silus. Before we came here, could you have even conceived of such a thing?”
“But didn’t sorcery bring us here, Kelos?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
Something had gone out of Kelos. Dunsany tried to cheer him with ribald songs and simple affection, but even though the mage would join in with the occasional verse or smile at his friend, his responses were empty.
Silus knew how he felt. He, too, was feeling lost on this dry and savage world. Before he had come here, he had been something special, unique. The Chadassa blood that ran in his veins linked him to the ocean, giving him extraordinary abilities: the ability to breathe water as easily as air, the ability to connect to any mind in the ocean no matter how alien, and a burgeoning preternatural strength. But he wasn’t on his world now. Here there was no ocean and no god, and Silus was just a man. Although he professed to Katya that was what he had wanted all along, he still felt the call of the sea, still dreamed of swimming through lightless deep-water trenches, communing with creatures that no human eye had ever seen. Here he felt impotent, unable to protect those he loved should they be threatened. It was true that he was proficient enough with a blade, but who knew what manner of creature
