"How wide is it where we're crossing?"

"About a morning's run," she replied.

"A morning run?" Sarraya asked in shock. "It has to be longspans across!"

"I don't know exactly, but it's pretty wide," she replied. "Wider there than most other places. My father thinks that the width of the canyon there has to do with the fact that its walls aren't so steep."

Now he was getting curious. But it was a curiosity that would be satisfied in two days, when they got there.

"Come on, I'm hungry," Sarraya said. "Those cakes are getting cold."

"What a strange thing to say," Denai chuckled as they left Tarrin.

After the meal, they started out again. Tarrin again instructed Sarraya in the Sha'Kar language, and Denai paced him step for step. They moved from the sparsely vegetated area into a thickly grown region, the plants half-buried in deep sand and dust. A sandstorm had passed through in recent days, leaving the area nearly submerged in sand.

"How do the plants survive?" Sarraya asked as the other two ran.

"They're used to being buried," Denai replied from behind her. "They go dormant until the winds blow away the sand."

"Makes sense," Sarraya shrugged.

The afternoon wind kicked up as the sun began to set, and it was particularly fierce. Tarrin and Denai had to turn their backs to it as it assaulted them in the face, but Sarraya used her Druidic magic to repel the blowing sand and dust.

"This is almost as bad as a sandstorm!" Tarrin said in annoyance.

"It's just the evening wind," Denai told him. "It'll die down after sunset."

"Then let's find some shelter. I don't think a tent will stand up in this," Sarraya called.

They found something that was almost a cave in a broken spire, a hollowed-out niche protected from the winds by the fallen top half of the rock column, forming an isolated courtyard of sorts covered by soft sand. Sarraya conjured up wood for a fire as Tarrin hung up a leather sheet at the narrow side of the enclosure to break up the wind funneling through it. Denai had left them to find something to eat, but returned moments after Tarrin got the fire going with an umuni dangling from her hand. It had a small puncture wound in the top of its head, probably from Denai's dagger. He'd seen that she was deadly accurate when she threw it.

"I didn't think those things were edible," Tarrin said to her. "They don't smell like they are."

"Smell? They're edible, so long as you don't eat the head," she told him. "Why wouldn't they smell edible?"

"Remember what I told you, Denai?" Sarraya reminded her.

"Oh, yes. Well, they're edible. Not very tasty, but the sandstorm that buried the plants made all the animals I'd rather eat move on until the sand blows off. I could use a chisa right now. Even a sukk or a goat."

"You can keep it," Sarraya said as she used her Druidic magic. Several large apples, a pile of berries, and a few tomatos appeared on the sand in front of her. "I conjured up extra for you two. It'll stretch out that lizard meat in a meal."

"What are these?" Denai asked, picking up a tomato. "And where did they come from?"

That Denai wasn't too surprised to see them wasn't itself a surprise. She had seen Sarraya-and even Tarrin-Conjure more than once since she joined them, and he had the feeling that Sarraya explained that to her while he was sleeping. Denai knew that they were both shaman.

"They're called tomatos," Sarraya answered. "And they're from wherever they were when my magic picked them up. Try it, you might like it."

Denai bit into the tomato, and was a bit startled when its juices dribbled down her chin. Then she laughed. "It has its own water!" she said in delight. "It's good. Tangy. My people like food with tang." She took another bite. "You can make anything you want appear?"

"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.