Chapter 3

Pity the atheist, for it's so very hard to blaspheme against something you refuse to believe in.
——Anon.

After stopping to get supplies, Ryan and Josie hit the road.

The edge between Forque and the desert was well-defined. Here, a marketplace, life, civilization. A foot beyond, howling emptiness. Ryan stopped on the edge and stood. Nothing could be seen on the horizon, which itself was flickering and dancing in the heat.

Ryan stepped into the desert.

At least there was a path to follow. Had there not been, it didn't matter how good your sense of direction was: the desert would swallow you.

Josie, though, had grown up in the desert. She knew the stories of the men who would disappear into the desert, seeking answers, and wouldn't be seen until years later. They would stumble into town, filthy, unkempt. They wouldn't be able to speak, but, after being given some of the precious water that each town safeguarded, they would begin to talk.

At first nobody would be able to understand them. The words and sounds blended together[1] into a tapestry of incomprehensible sound.

Eventually, though, the men would regain control of their tongues. And the first thing they would do is vow to never, ever go back into the desert.

Later, Josie told Ryan some of the stories.

They walked along the path. Conversation was rare and brief, as both were conserving their strength, and, more importantly, keeping the wind from coating the insides of their mouths with sand.

Peering at the horizon, Ryan thought he could actually see something protruding from the heat haze. Another few minutes of travel brought it into actual view.

It was a giant rock.

Ryan stared at it.

“What is it?” he asked Josie.

She shrugged. “It's a big rock. It's always been there. So?”

Ryan just stared. After a couple of seconds, he shook his head and suggested a break. Josie, glad to be off her feet, readily agreed.

While she sat out of the biting wind, sheltered by the rock, Ryan started climbing up the face of it. It was easily forty feet tall, with few footholds; the constant wind and sandstorms had smoothed and polished it far beyond anything any artisan could do.

Josie, watching him, thought he must be part gecko. He miraculously made it all the way to the top, where he stood and surveyed the panorama of desert.

After a minute Ryan spotted something. He gave an indistinct shout, and Josie saw him start running down the nearly vertical side of the rock.

“No!” she shouted, as she watched him start to tumble. Somehow, though, Ryan managed to make it nearly halfway down before making a desperate jump, turning it into a roll in the air, and hitting the sand with his shoulder.

Josie ran up to him. From the way he was cursing, he couldn't be seriously injured. She prodded him with her toe.

“Bloody fool,” she muttered.

Then she saw what had made him descend with such haste.

As it has been mentioned, Josie grew up in the desert. She had desert eyes; resistant to sun, long-eyelashed to keep sand out, with vision better than a hawk's. And she saw, through the practiced eye of survival, a man on horseback.

Josie dived behind the rock. By her estimate, the man was still at least a thousand feet away. He couldn't have seen her, could he?

Suddenly it didn't matter anymore whether she had been seen; Ryan was struggling to his feet, spitting sand out and blaspheming in a language she didn't know[2]. Bloody idiot!

Josie peeked around the rock. It looked like the man, or the horse at least, was faced in the opposite direction. She ran from behind the rock, dived, and hit Ryan so their bodies were perfectly perpendicular, cutting him off in the middle of a curse that would have turned most of the sand dune near them into glass.

Ryan fell heavily, with Josie on top of him. She slapped a hand over his mouth and holding up the finger of her other hand up to her mouth in the universal signal to be quiet. Once she was sure he'd gotten the message, she threw herself sideways and lay alongside him, pressing herself into the sand.

“Can you see him?” she hissed.

She saw Ryan's head turn at the same time she saw the shadow fall over them.

“Yes, I can,” came the definite answer.

Josie heard the crunch of sand being compressed. The rider must have swung himself off.

“Need some help there?” came the unknown voice, deep and rich.

She felt Ryan start to stand, using his sword to push himself up. For a second Josie wondered if he actually had gotten hurt.

“I don't believe so,” she heard Ryan say weakly.

“Very good. Your money or your life, then, if you please,” said the mystery voice.

Turning her head, Josie was just in time to see Ryan, so feeble seconds before, grab the hilt of his sword and draw it out, while launching himself forward at the unknown man.

She scrambled to her feet as the sounds of metal meeting metal began. Josie turned to see Ryan locked in mortal combat with a man dressed in the traditional robes of the wale[3], the deep-desert men.

Disbelieving, she saw Ryan knock the curved sword out of the man's grip. She saw the sword start to come down; it looked like the man was going to be cut in half. At the last second, though, Ryan turned it a little so only the hilt came thundering down on the man's head.

It all happened in about 10 seconds.

After the man was tied up, relieved the more valuable of his possessions (or what were now his possessions), Josie and Ryan continued along the path.

Josie turned her head to ask Ryan something, and decided not to. She gave him a fierce glare, then concentrated on the path again.

Eventually, to the man trying to gnaw through the gag placed around his mouth, it looked like the shimmering horizon of the desert itself swallowed them.

[1] This blending effect is where the phrase “He's gone smoothie” comes from.
[2] One might wonder how Josie could tell Ryan was blaspheming when she didn't know the language. It's just one of those things. However, the forked lightning coinciding with his rhythmic, syllabic curse-chant was something of a tip-off.
[3] The name “wale” comes from the marks left on their skin from the sandstorms of the western deserts.