The Lone and Level Sands — 1
Shifting sands slid through the rib cage of the skeletal cow. It reminded Tarlos of his brother. He had sat to rest his tired legs on the small hillock when the loose earth fell away to reveal the dead animal. Small bits of fur clung to the bones on strips of dried leather. Its jaw gaped wide open, and its neck was bent backward. The legs reached out in a sort of running position, like a dog that dreams of running through a field while sleeping on its side. Its death must have been slow and painful. It most likely died of thirst.
Thirst.
I am thirsty.
He tipped his water bag to his mouth, using a bent elbow to lift it. He let the water only just past his lips before pulling back. He was not sure how much longer it would take him to reach the mountain, and the hide bag was almost empty. There was no water here in the middle of the desert.
Tarlos knelt beside the cow skull and stared into its empty eye sockets. He narrowed his own eyes, allowing the anger to well up inside him.
Hello Krastos.
He traced the cow’s jaw with a dry finger. He imagined the sticky saliva on its once full lips. He could see it standing. Walking. Breathing. It bellowed in the desert, letting its presence be known. Its heart beat, its tail swished the flies away, and sweat ran over its back and down its shoulders. One day it was alive. The next day it was dead.
How seamlessly life leads to death.
The ground beneath it was dry and hard with the perfect cow hide impression in the packed earth. Tarlos could count individual hairs. He had no way of knowing how long ago this cow died, but the image in the ground erased all sense of time between him and the living animal.
He shook his head. So much evidence of life, or the absence of life, right before his eyes. Would anyone or anything remember this cow? Tarlos doubted it. But he would.
The cow’s jaw was long and white, lined with thick square teeth that clung to the bone. Some of the teeth had loosened over time, yellowed, or disappeared entirely. Tarlos poked at them, feeling how loose or intact they were, and one fell freely from the jawbone. It was a larger tooth and oddly shaped. Instead of flat and smooth for grinding plants, this tooth was sharp with a deep chip in its side. Tarlos picked it up and felt the chipped tooth with his thumb, made a fist over it, and dropped it in his pocket.
He stood, and he clapped the dirt from his hands. The bleached white skeleton would always be a part of him so long as he kept the tooth. It was once a living, breathing animal. Now it was a fading memory. “My condolences,” said Tarlos.
The desert stretched out behind him and ahead of him, and in every direction where it met with the horizon, merging in the distance with the grey-blue sky. Tarlos grew up here, but his home had food and water, and this desert outside of Kesh was cursed and barren. It had not rained since he began his journey. He lost track of how many days that was. Possibly thirty.
He carried with him two skins of water. One had been empty for two decans. Each time he thought about taking a drink from the second bag, he forced himself to think about other things. The water must be saved for when he could not continue without it.
Tonight, when I bed down, I’ll have another drink.
Shar-shu-ma, Shar’s Mountain, rose in the distance. The air shimmered in the heat and played tricks on the mind. When Tarlos first saw the mountain, he thought it must have been a mirage. But there was no doubt about it, in the last few days the mountain had grown larger and its image had become clearer. He was getting closer.
Tarlos’s feet and legs ached, and sometimes he could barely walk at all. He was not used to having to walk such a distance. Being a Holder, he never had to. He fingered the tooth in his pocket and pulled it out, laying it flat in his hand. He was tired, and his mind needed focusing, but he managed to lift the tooth from his palm with a little effort. The tooth hovered a few inches above his hand, and it wriggled a bit before dropping back into his grip. It seemed so long ago that he was able to do that with his own body; when there were entire days that his feet never touched the ground. When was the last time he had flown? He could not remember. Before Krastos died, surely. Perhaps in the fight against Bawa.
Tarlos closed his eyes against a flash of violent memory, and his feet carried him farther.
I miss it. The wind in my eyes, screaming past my ears. Seeing the world so tiny below me.
He dropped the tooth into his pocket and looked ahead to the mountain. It resembled his tooth. What may have once been a triangular peak was now cracked down the middle, creating a V-shape. Every morning for the last several days, Tarlos had watched the sun rise, stretching forth from that V in the peak. It was Shar’s doorway into the living world from the dead country.
Tarlos was envious of those who lived beneath the mountain, in that country from which no man returns. At least they were at rest. They did not get thirsty or hungry. Here in the living world, there were only sore feet, sand, and skeletons.
A small dusty whirlwind passed in front of him, and he paused to watch it. It was beautiful in an odd way, twisting and silent. He saw them sometimes when the days were especially hot and dry. He wondered how many there were in the vast stretches of the desert that he missed every day.
The sun beat down on him as he made one step after another. All the while the mountain in the distance loomed over the desert. He would get to that mountain if it was the last thing he ever did.
His feet screamed in hot pain and his thighs cramped and called for rest. Tarlos thought about what awaited him if he could only make it through the Tunnel of the Sun and the dead country beyond.
As the day went on, Tarlos forgot about his promise to save his water for emergencies. Or maybe, this was an emergency. He touched his lips to the water twice more and made a silent prayer that there would be water on the mountain.
Why would there be? The mountain belongs to the gods, and the gods don’t drink water.
He hoped for it nevertheless. Hope was all he had, other than his ragged clothes, and his meager provisions.
And a tooth.
He must not forget his tooth.
