"Within reason," Sarraya answered. "I couldn't move a mountain, but I can conjure up just about anything I want to eat."
"Even water?"
"Even water," she affirmed. "But it doesn't just appear. It's borrowed from where it used to be, and appears here. These fruits were all probably sitting on some tree or vine somewhere. When I conjure water, I take it from somewhere else. But don't worry, I'm careful to conjure a special type of water that doesn't exist in the desert," she said quickly. "That way I'm not depleting the wells of your people."
"There's lots of water here, Sarraya," Denai said dismissively. "You just have to know where to look for it, that's all." She motioned out towards the massive fallen rock pillar. "All those plants out there don't live on air, you know."
"I've been wondering about that," Tarrin said gruffly from where he was finishing tying down the leather, at the top of the fallen rock. "I've seen way too many plants and not nearly enough water."
"He does pay attention," Sarraya teased, then she laughed. "I've sensed several underground rivers here, but they're very deep. There's alot of water in the desert, but it's all deep underground. I'll bet those plants have roots that are a hundred spans long, to reach down into that groundwater."
"Those roots probably keep them from getting blown away in storms," Tarrin added.
"Root fiber is what we use to make ropes," Denai told them. "And some clothes. It's very tough."
"It would have to be," Tarrin said, dropping back down to the sand. "So, if we dug a well, we'd eventually hit water."
"Eventually," Sarraya agreed. "It would have to be a really deep well."
"Our clan-holdings have wells," Denai told them. "Some of them go down so far that you can't climb out. The ropes for the buckets could loop around buildings a couple of times."
"So, the Selani do know about the water," Tarrin mused. "Makes me wonder why they don't just dig deep wells and make permanent houses."
"Because our herds would eat all the plants," Denai told him. "We go where the foraging is best. There are oases out there, and our shaman can create water when the need is very great. But they won't do that unless there's no other choice. The Holy Mother forbids it, except in emergencies."
"That sounds a little mean," Sarraya said disapprovingly.
"Not at all," Denai said. "Our Holy Mother wants us to be strong, and be able to survive without her. She won't let us depend on her, but she will be there when we need her help. If we depended on the Holy Mother for water, we'd forget how to find it for ourselves."
"Well, I guess so," Sarraya said. "But I still think it's mean."
"Well, let's cook this," Denai said, pulling her dagger. " Umuni is horrible unless you cook it."
Tarrin looked into the fire as Denai spitted the large lizard and set it hanging over the flames, lost in thought. Time seemed to be crawling by, but in reality a great deal of it had passed. It had been three months since he left Dala Yar Arak. The summer was gone, autumn nearly so, and winter was probably taking hold in Aldreth right now. All the leaves were gone, and they'd probably had the season's first snow. The desert was the desert, uniformly hot, except in the northern reaches. It was hard to keep track of the seasons with as much travelling as they'd done, and most of it taking place in hot lattitudes. So much time gone by, time more or less wasted in travelling. They spent all that time to travelling to Dala Yar Arak, and they were there only for a few days. Now he was spending all this time travelling to Suld, and who knew how long he was going to stay there before moving on?
It seemed nearly surreal. He had no idea how long it was going to take him to get through the desert, so he had no idea what kind of climate would be waiting for him when he managed to cross the Sandshield. He had to cross in the north, where winter would be in full force if he came out at the wrong time. They'd been in the desert about a month so far, a little more than that, and had barely managed to get very far at all. The sandstorms kept slowing them down, kept forcing them to hide from them until they passed. Those days waiting were a blur of monotony, and it made him feel like they'd been in the desert much less time than they actually had.
He watched the fire dance a moment longer, his eyes lost in the wavering flames, then he blinked and looked up at the sky. The White Moon, Domammon, was just beginning to rise. The Red Moon, Vala, was hidden in its new phase, and would be so for the next few days, and the Twin Moons had yet to rise. The Skybands cut the starry sky with an uncharacteristic brilliance that night, their stripes of bright color battling with one another to hold his eyes. They had been steadily widening by barely perceptible degrees when they turned northerly, allowing them to see more and more of them as they moved away from the equator. They had been a razor's edge at Dala Yar Arak, but at home in Aldreth, they took up about an eighth of the sky on a cloudless night. His mother told him that they dominated the entire southern sky in Ungardt. The Skybands in the south, and the Gods' Curtain in the north made nights in Ungardt very bright.
From beyond the rocky pillar came a strange hollow sound, almost like a moan. Tarrin turned his ears in that direction as it sounded again, an eerie sound that made the fur on his arms stand up. It was a sound without feeling, without anything, like an anti-sound that sought to deaden his ears in a curious manner. A sound without feeling, almost as if the voice was meant to take all feeling from those that could hear it and leave them numb. The Cat in him seemed to respond to that sound instinctively, wanting to get away from it. But Tarrin's human mind realized that it was an animal's reaction to an unnatural entity, much as it had been when he'd been confronted by a Wraith. That reinforced Denai's description of them as ghosts.
"What is that sound?" Sarraya asked, shivering her wings.
"That's a Sandman," Denai replied to her, standing up with a sober expression. "It's very close. It's time for you to make more fuel for the fire, Sarraya, and we'll need to keep it bright all night. Sandmen don't make noise unless they know living beings are close to them."
"They won't come near us?" Sarraya asked.
"As long as we keep the fire up," she replied. "Sandmen don't like the light."
There was another moan, and another, and they began to sound… eager.
"Holy Mother," Denai said urgently. "That's not right. They must be chasing someone!" she said.
"How do you know that?"
"That's the sound they make when they try to kill," Denai told her. "The eagerness in the voice gives it away."
"Who would they be chasing out here?" Sarraya demanded. "We haven't seen anyone since we left your tribe."
"Maybe a Scout that didn't get back to a tribe in time," Denai told her.
It wasn't a scout. The object of the Sandmen's attentions came up and over the fallen rock spire a scant moment after Denai stood up, moving with tremendous urgency and haste. So much haste that the figure slipped trying to come down, and ended up flopped unceremoniously on its back just inside the perimeter of the campfire's light. The scent of the figure reached Tarrin's nose as he moved to rise, and much to his shock, he recognized it.
It was Var!
"Var!" Tarrin said sharply, coming up onto his feet as the Selani male sat up and looked up to the rock over his head.
"Tarrin!" Var said in surprise, then he laughed. "The Holy Mother must be guiding my steps to bring me so close to you at such a convenient time!"
"What are you doing here?" Tarrin demanded hotly in Selani, glaring at the man.
"Going to Gathering," he shrugged. "My tribe means to take this route, and I'm scouting it. I lost my fire-pack to an over-eager inu. It's good luck that you happened to be nearby."