It would be too hot to move soon, and the powders that sustained me and satiated my thirst were running low. The sun was cut by the sand and wind, tearing it into streams of red and pink. My camel had been scoured hairless by the sand and was cold as a stone on the bottom of the sea. When I opened my eyes, the storm still persisted, but less so. They stand beyond the dream fog in their burnooses and robes, conjuring djinn and ghuls to prod me with sharpened sticks.
I’ve seen them set fire to the dust devils and turn sand to glass just by squeezing it in their hands. They toasted and ground spices, tossing them to the winds. Sometime during the bitter cold night, I fell asleep and dreamed of them, as I had every night since I’d stolen the camel. I couldn’t stand to hear her tell her friends, “My father sells gourds,” even one more time. I shouldn’t have left, but I refused to let Sessina grow up like I did. I had my wife and daughter-Grenna and Sessina-to think of at home.
Only those with boiled brains made the steerage trip to Ars in search of the buried fortunes of the Five Cities. How had I gotten here again? My life and family were back on Dem. Neither boulders nor hovels were in sight, so I curled next to my camel’s cooling body. Maybe camels exist in geologic time, and the one I had stolen from the spice merchant had been around since the days when Ars and Dem were one lush continent before the Tragedy rent the land in two and sent the pieces to opposite ends of the great round world.
They seemed as much a part of the landscape as the dunes or the dry riverbeds. Until that moment, I did not know camels could die. My camel died in the middle of a sandstorm.
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