"Or you can cast a spell," said Naji. "That's what I did."
"My way's better." I patted the camel's neck, and he huffed at me like he agreed. "Anybody can do it."
Naji didn't answer. It wasn't too hot yet, but already I had the scarf on over my head to protect me from the sun, and Naji made me put on a desert-mask even though it itched my nose. Plus I'd stolen one of those light-as-air dresses before we left, the fabric soft and cool against my skin, almost like sea spray, and thin enough that my tattoo peeked through the fabric. I'd heard how bad it gets once you're away from the ocean. Some of the crew on Papa's boat had told stories.
Still, all the stories in the world weren't enough to prepare me for that trip. The first few hours were alright, but the sun got higher and higher, arcing its way across the sky, and I kept wanting all that sand to turn into the ocean, blue-green and cold and frothed with white. Instead it stung my eyes. My skin poured sweat, and the fabric of my dress only stuck to me and didn't do nothing to cool me off. And my feet ached from walking alongside the camel – we'd saddled him up with our food and water, and Naji said we could take turns riding if we needed.
"And why aren't we walking at night?" I asked him, tottering along in the sand.
"It'll be too dark," Naji said. "I can't risk casting lanterns. Besides, we'll be fine. I usually travel during the day."
"Cause you're magic. I ain't."
Naji sighed. "You'll get used to the heat." And that apparently was enough to settle the matter.
We stopped to eat and rest a little during the middle of the day. Naji pitched a tent real quick and neat and told me to sit in the shade, which I did without protesting. Then he brought some water – he rationed it out to me, said we had just enough for the trip – and a handful of dried figs. The sight of 'em made my stomach turn.
"Don't drink too quickly," he said. He crawled into the tent beside me and tossed back one of the figs.
I didn't listen to him with regards to the waterdrinking and immediately my stomach roiled around, and I moaned and slumped up against the fabric of the tent. Naji pulled me up straight. "You'll knock the whole thing over," he muttered.
"I didn't know this kind of heat existed in the world."
"Have a fig."
I shook my head. Naji sighed. "There's energy in them," he said. "They'll help make the evening walk easier."
"What! This ain't us stopping for the night?"
"Does it look like night to you?"
I didn't bother to respond. The tent's shadow seemed to be shrinking, burning up in the sun. Sand blew across my feet, stuck to my legs.
When we set off again I did feel a bit better. I guess the air was cooler, but as the sun melted into the dunes, the heat still shimmered on the horizon like water, which set me to daydreaming about Papa's boat, first during calm weather and then during a typhoon, wind and rain splattering across the desk, drenching me to the bone. I would have given my sword hand to be stuck in a typhoon instead of creeping across the desert.
Naji finally let us stop for the night after it got too dark to see. He set up the tent again, making it wide enough that we could both lie down. I stripped off my scarf and bunched it up like a pillow.
Naji brought me some water.
"Two weeks from now, we'll be at the canyon," he said.
"Two weeks!" My mouth dropped open. "Two more weeks of almost dying?"
"You didn't almost die." He looked at me. "And surely you've gone on longer journeys? I understand that Qilar alone is almost a month's trip–"
"That's on a boat!" I wished I had something to throw at him. "You ain't walking the whole time and you got the shade from the masts and the spray from the sea – Kaol, have you ever even been at sea?"
He didn't answer.
"I can't believe this," I muttered, cradling the skein of water up close to my chest. "Two weeks in the desert all on account of some assassin who doesn't know how to look out for snakes."
"If you hadn't killed that snake," Naji said calmly, "I would have killed you."
"Oh, shut up." I took a long drink of water. "Are you going to tell me where we're going?"
"I told you, to a canyon."
"Anything else?"
"No." He looked over at me. "Stay here."
"I ain't moving. Gotta rest up for the next two damn weeks."
He disappeared out of the opening of the tent. I drank the skein dry and set it aside and lay back and listened to the wind howling around me and to the camel snuffling just outside the tent. At first I was thinking about how awful the next few weeks were gonna be, and how I was probably gonna dry out like a skeleton in the sun. Then Naji came back from wherever he went, his footsteps crunching over the sand, and then I smelled smoke, and I got kind of drifty and floaty, like I was in the sea. Best part of my whole day.
And then Naji was saying my name, over and over, and shaking me awake. It was completely dark save for a reddish-golden glow just outside the tent, and after a few bleary seconds I realized that Naji was sitting outside, tending to the fire and not touching me at all. My body was just shaking from the cold.
I sat up and pulled my scarf around me, trying to get warm.
"Ananna?" Naji stuck his head into the tent. "Oh good, you're awake. Come eat."
"Why in hell's it so cold?"
"It's night time," said Naji, like that answered it.
Now, I knew it got cooler in the desert at night. Lisirra certainly does. But I felt like I'd spent the night on the ice-islands. So I scrambled out of the tent and pressed my hands out to the fire, keeping my scarf drawn tight around my shoulders. Naji handed me a tin filled with salted fish and spinach cooked down to a sludge. The minute I smelled it my stomach grumbled and I scooped it up with one hand, slurping it off my fingers.
"Be careful," Naji said. "Don't eat too fast."