What terrible business would require the First to use his own hands?

CHAPTER SIX: VISION'S FUGITIVE

Sun struck the sand like a mallet on a drum, continuous and thundering. Wind roamed the dunes, tearing apart anything it found.

It found Ixidor. As he trudged, grit gnawed his sandals to strips and heat blistered his feet until the water within boiled. His burnt brow was scaled with salt, and his muscles were so dry they rasped in his skin. Instead of eyes, he had dead hunks of glass in his skull.

He had lost the one thing worth looking at: Nivea.

She appeared as she had throughout a day and a night and a day-white and gleaming, with arms wide open. She was not in that burning desert. Nivea stood beyond the sands, her feet grounded amid grass. She stood in a beautiful place, and she invited him to join her.

Ixidor clambered toward the vision, but she retreated, her eyes clouding.

Don't weep, my sweet, he said, though his breath made no sound in his dry throat. Don't weep for me. I will join you. I will run across this desert and catch you and join you.

There was only one way to join her. His body could not pass that shimmering portal. Only when it was torn away could he be with her. Sand and sun were his allies, picking at his flesh with small hands, the fingers of Phage.

Phage. She stalked the comers of Ixidor's mind, pursuing his visions. She closed in on her quarry and leapt. Her hands took hold of Nivea. Light turned to darkness and life to rot. Once again, Nivea dissolved to nothing.

She had died a thousand times during the day and night and day. Each time, grief ripped into Ixidor anew. He watched his only hope dissolve into blinding tan below and blinding blue above.

Eyes of glass reflected the razor horizon.

Ixidor trudged. He would die; it was a certainty. The Cabal was very efficient. He would die and join Nivea, but only after every tissue flaked away and every hope fled into the killing sky. He would die by degrees, a penance for letting Nivea die in an instant.

In truth, he would die slowly because he could not give up life. The survival instinct was stronger than the blazing sun and the winnowing grit. Even without hope, he walked on.

And then, hope: a green spot in all that gray. Water, plants, life.

It was a mirage, of course, like the others. Still, false hope was better than no hope. It drew Ixidor, and he strode toward it.

If this oasis were a mirage, why need it be a small, mean place? Why not something grand? Ixidor squinted. Why not date palms and coconut trees? Those slender slips of tan along the edge-why shouldn't they be gazelles? What about a wide pool-pure, clean, and charged with fish?

Ixidor tried to take a deep breath, though his lungs felt fused. He walked faster. His legs crackled like stilts. Closing his eyes, he imagined the oasis, willing it on the world.

Why not paradise? Why not life?

He opened his eyes. It was gone-not only his vision of palms and pools, but even the green wedge. It all had been but a fold in the air, a trick of the heat.

Ixidor shuffled to a halt. There was no reason to go on. He wondered how far he had come and looked back across the ridges of sand. His footprints stretched away over two dunes. A breeze had followed him, erasing his steps as he made them. Even now, a dozen tracks drifted in a brown ghost on the wind. It was as if he had gone no distance at all. The desert was an endless scroll, rolling out before him and rolling up behind.

Ixidor dropped down to sit on the sand. It burned his backside. He didn't care, waiting for the pain to ease. He needn't march himself to death. He could simply sit himself to death.

How long he remained there, he wasn't sure. He might have slept. Orange sand and blue sky began to tumble over each other. Shapes appeared in the heavens-leviathans swimming amid faint stars. They dived toward Ixidor. He did not cower away. A pod of kraken flew past his ears. Their tentacles spread and closed to propel them over the sand. They left snaking trails of dust in their wakes but were not fast enough. The leviathans jabbed down. They bit, caught, killed, ate, and swam back to the stars. Only thin red trails told of their passing.

When Ixidor awoke, one side of the world had turned dark. A wall of black cloud boiled up out of thin air: a desert thunderstorm. It held the promise of rain and shade and cool. It would wash him, slake his thirst, would fill hidden wadis and lead him where the water went. Salvation was coming from the brutal skies.

Ixidor sat and waited. He smiled, knowing it would all be over soon.

The storm galloped across the desert, darkening as it ate ground. In its heights, leviathans sported and swam. Kraken and jellyfish twirled their helpless tentacles in the eddies while schools of silvery fish churned the squall nearer to Ixidor. It was very close. He heard it-moaning wind and rumbling thunder-though sound only barely outpaced the i racing thing. Droplets came down with dry, crackling reports.

Then Ixidor knew: This was no rain cloud but a dust storm. The only promise it held was death.

Still, he sat. It would be over soon.

The storm billowed like a brown curtain across the dunes. It rushed upon him. The last of his footprints were snuffed out. The wall struck him.

He could not keep his eyes open. Lids and lips clenched. Head curled down. Even though he knew he would die and meant to die, the survival instinct was strong. He lifted his collar up over the bridge of his nose, and his breath felt cold against his chest.

The storm roared until it filled his ears with sand. The wind battered him numb. He tried to shift, but already his legs were buried. It wouldn't be long now. He was dying by the slow murder of particles.

Nivea, you came to me while I fought to live. Come to me now as I fight to die. Bring your brilliant vision and wide-open arms. Ixidor's voice made no sound in the sandy space between his shirt and his chest. Still, she should hear. He spoke the words beside his very heart. The dust eats me as Phage ate you, and we will be together.

She did not come. No light pierced the dust. No voice came except the roaring wind. The only hand that clasped his was a hand of sand.

He was buried to the waist.

I don't want to die. Why not live?

Ixidor struggled to rise. The sand held him down. He dragged his arms from the entombing ground and dug around his sides. Each handful he scooped only slid back. His legs trembled to escape. The sky poured more grains atop him, inches piling up every moment. He desperately fought to break free, but the storm was equally desperate to kill him. His collar slipped down off his nose, and the breath he took clawed through his lungs.

That was it. He had to stop digging to pull his shirt up, and then coughed blood while the sand filled in around him. From chest downward, it clutched him in a giant hand. Sand rose like flood waters and swallowed him to the shoulders. It poured down until only the crown of his head remained, then that too was gone.

All grew strangely quiet except for the fast panting of his breath. The air in his shirt was stale. How deeply would he be buried?

Nivea, listen. I will join you, yes, but not now, not yet. Save me. Dig me free. Come, my angel, and save me.

He willed light into darkness, life into death. He willed Nivea into being and made her come and save him. If it was all a dream, it might as well be a grand one.

Nivea came to him with angel wings that sang as she flew.

She glowed last in his mind before nothing glowed there again.

Ixidor awoke beneath a sky riddled with stars. The air was cold, but the sand breathed heat all around him. He sighed. He could breathe. The sand was gone from lips, ears, and eyes. He lay cradled in the lap of the desert.