It had been quite a while since he'd felt anything through the bond, so long that he'd nearly forgotten about it. That was certainly an attention-grabbing way of being reminded of it.
They reached the Great Canyon at sunset. That surprised Tarrin, because Denai told them that it was three days away, but they had reached it in two. And he was very impressed. It wasn't a canyon, it was a massive rift in the earth itself, just like the Scar in Sulasia. It simply began, with no warning or change in the surrounding terrain, a cliff that descended a dizzying longspan at least, a cliff that dropped straight to the canyon floor so very far below. The canyon itself was a mind-boggling twenty longspans across, by his estimation, the far wall almost lost in the shimmering heat of the air. The walls of the canyon were rounded by the wind, showing many layers of rock of varying colors and textures, layers stacked one upon another as they descended down to the canyon floor. But those walls were almost arrow-straight, and though the wind had dug pits and hollows out of them, it was still easy to see that they had originally been straight. Almost as if they had been shaped by some titanic chisel.
"Wow," Sarraya breathed as they all stood at the edge of it, looking down. There was leafy vegetation at the bottom, and he could see large four-legged reptiles, larger than a horse, munching sedately on the plants. They were grayish-green and rather chubby in appearence, with boxed snouts and a long, meaty tail. They were called chisa, plant-eating cousins of the carniverous desert reptiles, and were most often the dinner of their cousins. Allia said they were rather dimwitted and slothful, uncaring of anything that wasn't dangerous to them, but they were very, very skittish. So long as they weren't spooked, they were gentle as lambs. Frighten them, and they would go on a stampede that would kill anything smaller in their path. That combination seemed a paradox to him, but many horses were the same way. They were gentle and playful, but if you frightened them, they could be very dangerous.
Tarrin knelt down and put a paw on the rock at the edge of the cliff. He felt something… odd. Putting his paw on the stone strengthened that feeling, a strange tingling. He closed his eyes and felt the stone through his paw, felt into it in ways he wasn't quite sure he understood, reached into it as if reaching into water to find what was at the bottom. The latent residue of it was still there, after all these years, a residue dating back more than five thousand years. An echo, a memory of what had happened here before, back when the Desert of Swirling Sands was a lush verdant belt of fertile farmland.
An echo of magic.
Magic the likes of which had not been seen since, the magic left behind when a god took direct action. This was Priest magic, of the highest order, a Priest beseeching a god to do something directly.
It only made sense. No magician, not even a circle of the most powerful Ancients, could have made this rift.
"What is it, Tarrin?" Sarraya asked.
"This canyon isn't natural," he replied in a distant tone. "It was made. The magic of its creation still echoes in the rock, after all this time."
"Truly?" Denai said in wonder. "What could have made something like this?"
"A god," Tarrin replied, standing back up. "Only a god could do this."
"Why would they make something like this?" Var asked curiously. "It serves no purpose."
"Not now," he replied. "But five thousand years ago, I'll bet that this made one terrific barrier."
"The Blood War!" Sarraya said in surprise.
Tarrin nodded. "It fits. This is from the Blood War. Probably a barrier to keep the Demons on one side of it. That side over there, if I remember my history right," he said, pointing to the far side.
"Huh," Var grunted. "My people always thought that it was shaped by the wind."
"It has been since it was made, but it would take wind a million years to eat out a rift this size," he replied. "You said there were plants, Denai. That looks like a jungle down there."
"The land below is below the water level," Var told him. "It seeps out of the rocks and pools up, so it can support plants. Most don't know that a verdant belt exists in the middle of the desert."
"Do your people try to go down there?" Sarraya asked.
Var shook his head. "The lands below are too dangerous," he replied. "There are a great many inu and kajat below, and the Cloudracers claim that area as their own. We respect their claim."
"Cloudracers? What are they?"
"Wait long enough, and you'll see one," Denai told the Farie. "Tall people with wings."
Tarrin raised an eyebrow and looked down at the Selani. "Tall? Thin? With feathered wings?"
Denai nodded.
"So that's why she flew north," Tarrin said, piecing it together.
"Who?" Sarraya asked.
"Ariana," he replied. "The Aeradalla. Remember her?"
"Oh!" Sarraya said in realization. "They live in the desert?"
"That would explain why nobody ever sees them," Tarrin reasoned, then he turned to Denai. "Do you know where they live?"
"Everyone knows," she replied. "They live at the top of the Cloud Spire. We'll begin to see them now, since we're moving into what's considered their territory."
"Allia never said anything," Sarraya said, a bit annoyed.
"We keep them a secret," Var told her. "It's part of our pact with them. No Selani will tell outsiders about the Cloudracers."
"She wouldn't even tell me," Tarrin grunted. "That must be a serious oath. Wait, why did you tell us?"
"Because it's something you would have found out on your own," he replied calmly.
That surprised him a little. Allia had kept a secret! It made him wonder what else she hadn't told him, what else her Selani honor would not allow her to reveal. He didn't really blame her, because he understood how she felt about oaths, but it made him a little curious. He wondered what else she knew, how many more mysterious secrets she kept locked up inside her.
Tarrin looked down again. The Aeradalla would wait until later. "Where do we cross this thing?" he asked.
"That way," Denai said, pointing northward.
"May as well camp here," Sarraya noted. "It's getting dark, and you definitely don't want to wander too far in the wrong direction around here."
"Truly," Denai said with a smile. "I'll find a good site for us."
"Not if I find it first," Var said in a swaggering tone.
"We'll see about that, Var," she said, and then they both turned and raced off in different directions.
Those two would turn absolutely anything into a competition.
"Heh," Sarraya grunted. "Want to wait, or find a site while they're busy trying to outdo each other?"
"There's a good place right there," Tarrin said, pointing to a slight depression in the sandy, barren soil that would serve well to capture the heat of the fire and keep the site warm.
"Boy, will they be disappointed," Sarraya grinned as the two of them moved to erect a campsite for the night.
They settled in for the night, but Tarrin found himself unable to sleep. He wandered away from the campsite, away from the protection of the fire, and found himself standing at the edge of the Great Canyon again, staring down into its black depths. The rift ate at him in a strange way, both its presence and how he had sensed the magic that created it. The land here had been a beautiful grassland when the rift was made, and in five thousand years, it had degenerated into this formidable desert. It made him wonder what had caused such a drastic change, what had turned the rain away from this area and turned it into a sandy wasteland. Could the rift itself had played a part in it? Had it altered the water table in the region so drastically that it changed the weather patterns? Anything was possible, but he knew that something outside of the natural order had to have a hand in changing this place.