Allia set a murderous pace, but Tarrin felt she did so not to punish him, but to get her legs back. Two years of comparatively sedate inactivity had marked his sister, reduced some of her endurance, and he could tell that she meant to get it all back as quickly as possible. They moved across the windswept fields of stony rubble at a fair speed, up and down the rugged hills that surrounded the ancient Dwarven city. The heat of the day cooled into a somewhat pleasant afternoon, and as the sun crept closer and closer to the horizon, the winds began to pick up with greater and greater force. They blew in from behind them, rasing up a low cloud of sand and dust that dimmed the light of the sun and made the Skybands almost invisible.
They decided to camp for the night near a wide, broken rock spire, one that Tarrin remembered passing some months ago. He'd passed it in midmorning then, however. It was a quiet campsite, because Allia was a little tired from her running, and Sarraya was a little put out with him for brushing her off as he did. Tarrin didn't mind the silence, however, because it was a silence filled with the companionship of his sister, and that made him perfectly content. As they'd done the first time, Tarrin and Sarraya Conjured everything they would need for a campsite, including the food and water served at the fire, and the tents were left behind the next morning, still standing, waiting to be Conjured to the new campsite that night.
The pace the next day was just as hard as the first, as was the day after that. Those two days were nondescript, seeing no Selani and no major predators. They did pass a wild flock of sukk grazing in an isolated patch of tough desert scrub, which supplied them with a midmorning meal the first day, and they came across the stripped skeleton of a kusuk. Tarrin hadn't seen one of those on his first trip across the desert, but Allia had no trouble identifying the remains because of the large, heavy plates of what looked like bone that surrounded the skeleton. Kusuk meant "shielded," and the animal, a low, squat thing with short legs and overlapping ridges of heavy plating on its body, supposedly looked like a twelve-span high walking suit of living armor. Tarrin envisioned it as looking like a wide-headed armadillo. The thing had a huge bony club-like growth on the end of its tail, a very powerful and formidable weapon used to fight off predators like inu and kajat. Whatever had killed this one had had to literally tear off vast sections of bony plates to get to the flesh beneath.
The kusuk was strangely out of place. They were in a section of desert with very little vegetation. What was it doing way out here?
That would be a mystery forever unsolved, as they moved on, and the skeleton behind slowly faded from Tarrin's memory and care.
After stopping to rest in the midday heat, Tarrin took the opportunity to let Jenna know that he'd made it and was on his way. He did it through the Heart, going there and using her star to find his way back to her, then Whispering in her ear, so to speak, to deliver his message. It was a trick he'd learned from the expanded knowledge he'd gained from the Weave, one of the little things he'd forgotten to teach Jenna. The Goddess said to teach her spells, and that's what he did. But there were other aspects of Sorcery besides spellweaving, and he'd learned a few nifty tricks from the Weave when he'd been turned. He would have taught her if he'd had more time, but he'd been pretty pressed that day and night, between teaching Jenna and getting instruction from Triana. Tarrin Whispered in Jenna's ear that they were safely in the desert, Sapphire had already left, and they were basicly just taking things easy for now. He told her how safe he felt now that he was in the desert, and that he missed her. He asked her to let him know when Keritanima and the others got to Ungardt, and also to let him know after she went to go see Grandfather and ask him for his help.
He considered trying to Whisper to Keritanima, but he had the feeling that she was mad at him for not saying goodbye. If she wasn't, she would have projected out to see him by now-no, she couldn't do that. He forgot, she was on a ship, and as long as the ship was moving, she couldn't join with the Weave. So he took the time to find Keritanima and Whisper to her as well, repeating what he told Jenna, and also asking her to come see him as soon as they docked somewhere.
That done, he opened his eyes and reflected a little on what he'd said to them. He did feel safe here. In the desert, with the Selani and their fierce goddess protecting him, he truly felt safe. He knew that nobody would dare come in after him, if they even knew he was here at all. He hadn't realized before how calm that made him, how calm and relaxed and quite happy. It had been so long since he'd felt safe anywhere, so long since he'd truly let his guard down, but he could do it here. It a very liberating experience. He felt safe and secure, and he had good friends along in Sarraya and Allia, people to talk to, and people he would enjoy talking to. All in all, despite the pangs he felt at being separated from his children and Jesmind, not being there to take part in the progression of Kimmie's pregnancy, he was probably more happy at this time than he'd been in a very long time, even the time he spent in domestic bliss with Jesmind.
Strange. Since coming to the desert, thoughts of his mission had been very far away from him. It was almost like a vacation, him not having to worry about the Firestaff and who may try to take it from him every waking moment. He knew he was here on serious business, but it just didn't feel serious. It really did feel like a holiday, a vacation, an escape from the intensely nerve-wracking experience that was his daily life.
It wasn't freedom, but it was the closest thing he'd felt to freedom since the morning Dolanna and Faalken led him away from Aldreth, the day all this insanity began. And he wasn't about to squander the opportunity to enjoy his sense of freedom.
And so, when they got up to continue on, he started running with a renewed sense of peace with himself and with his situation. He was going to enjoy the two months in the desert, if only because for the first time in years, he truly felt like the crushing weight of the burden of his responsibility had been lifted from his shoulders.
When they made camp that night, Allia ghosted off and then returned moments later carrying an umuni by the neck. It was a big one, its tail dragging the ground, and to Tarrin's surprise, it was still alive. Allia hadn't killed it, she had caught it.
"How about this for dinner?" she asked him lightly, holding up the struggling lizard.
"Allia, are you crazy?" Sarraya challenged. "That thing's going to bite you the minute you let it go!"
"I'm immune to umuni venom," she told the Faerie calmly. That wasn't a big surprise. The years and years in the desert, surrounded by an absolute onslaught of venemous creatures, had bred a very strong resistance to poison into the Selani, and some were completely immune to some kinds of venom. Allia was one of them. "For that matter, I'm quite lucky. I seem to be immune to most venoms of the more common animals."
"What, did you go sticking your hands in burrows when you were a baby?" Sarraya teased.
"I was born with it," she shrugged. "Some Selani are blessed by the Holy Mother in that way. Others instill it into their children with time and careful work. Smart parents introduce the poison in very small amounts to their children when they're young, so they can build up a resistance to it. Well, deshida?"
"Let's see," Tarrin mused. "Eat a tough, tasteless lizard, or Conjure anything I want. Decisions, decisions."
Allia looked at him, then laughed heartily. "I get the message," she winked. "I'll go let this go."