The afternoon is worse.
The wind feels like fire. The sun glows with angry light. Even the clear turquoise sky seems lit with an inner flame, radiating down heat like the walls of a vast oven.
Nobody says anything. Speaking takes energy and makes you thirstier.
We walk and walk and walk. Every hour Jaruna shoots the wind astra behind us. Every hour the desert wind swallows our trail, bit by bit.
Over the course of the day, the astras form a kind of rhythm. This rhythm, I realize, is incredibly important in the slowed-down world of the desert. Aside from the astras, the only other way to demarcate the flow of time through the bright, burning hours is the sound of my own breathing and plodding footsteps.
The sun droops low. In the distance the sharuq glows dusky shimmering orange against the sky’s blue-violet gradient.
My dry lips crack when I open my mouth to talk, but I can’t stand the silence anymore. I sidle up closer to Kiddu.
“So what do you think that sandstorm is?” I say. “I’m sick of waiting to find out.”
She opens her mouth wide, as if to proclaim something momentous. Then she pauses. Squints her eyes.
“Well?” I say.
“Uh…”
She leans closer to me, at whispering distance, her mouth wide open.
“What?”
“Ah … ah …”
“AHH-CHOOO!”
Her snot comes out in a fine spray all over my neck and chin. She had neglected to hold up her hand.
She stands there grinning at me.
“You little piece of shit,” I say.
“Heh, heh, heh. You should see what your face looks like now.”
“That was over the line. You’re going to pay for that.”
“Ooooooooh.”
I wipe the mucus off on my robe.
In a way though, I’m sort of glad she instigated. It feels like we’re kids at the Temple orphanage again, which helps calm my nerves. And now I have something to occupy my mind as we walk—dreaming up a suitable revenge.
After the Evening Prayer the natives begin setting up their tents in a valley between two mountainous dunes. From a distance we watch the tan-robed men assemble the tents, sometimes clumsily, often shouting at each other, while the blue-robed women all keep clustered on one side of the camp.
Kripa and Hatvan eventually trudge up towards us. They carry a tent and a tentpole. Wordlessly they plunge the pole into the loose sand and drape the canvas around it.
“This should be far enough to keep their sin from polluting our camp, yes?” says Kripa to his companion.
Hatvan just shrugs.
Soon afterwards, Jaruna shows up with a couple of pieces of flatbread and a handful of half-dried figs. He ushers us into the tent, waving aside Kripa’s objections.
“Some food for you,” he says. “I apologize for not inviting you to pray with us. Ayan wished to, but I did not think it was a good idea. You are supposed to look like our prisoners, after all.”
Jaruna hands us the food and refills our water flasks with his own. He seems distracted, overwhelmed—I wonder how much experience he actually has as a leader of men.
“I must return to camp,” he says. “Hatvan and Kripa will guard you. But this is only to make sure none of the others bother you.”
Before I can object, the mystic jogs out of the tent and into the night.
A wind blows in from below the tentflaps, scattering sand onto our flatbread. I brush it off and take a bite. I can’t tell if the crispy texture comes from an intentional baking technique or from staleness. I put a fig in my mouth, mostly to provide some moisture.
“Stupid Kripa and Hatvan,” Kiddu says. “I don’t even care that they carried you out here on a stretcher while you were unconscious. Probably just following Jaruna’s orders.”
“Heym ammieddm mem mout mehre?”
“Don’t you have any manners? Chew with your damn mouth closed!”
I’m surprised to learn that Kripa and Hatvan had carried me, which is what I wanted to say. But as I chew my dry food into a mushy paste, I get a better idea.
“Mhmehm!”
“What? Are you choking or something?”
I flail my hands, motioning for her to come closer. She leans in—
“P’TOOUH!”
The bolus of mealy flatbread and half-chewed fig flies and plops squarely under her left eye. It sticks against the curve of her cheek for half a second before she swats it off.
“There,” I say. “Now we’re even.”
Kiddu grabs my robe and wipes her face with it, glaring.
“For sneezing on you? Even my ass. You escalated.”
“I did not escalate! That was a perfectly reasonable vengeance.”
“Ew!” she shrieks. “There’s dried snot on your robe!”
“Whose fault is that?”
She balls up the robe into her fist and then lightning-quick punches it into my stomach.
I gasp and cough but manage to grab her by the wrist. The two of us tumble to the ground.
It quickly turns into a fight. Winded and still coughing, I roll over onto my stomach and try to push myself up. But I’m too slow. Kiddu pounces on my back and wraps her arms around my neck.
The soft inside crook of her elbow squeezes my windpipe. I dig my fingers under her forearm and try to pry it off. But she shifts her weight suddenly and now both of us roll over on our sides. I don’t know what I’m thinking, fighting back—you can’t really win a fight with a girl. And even if you could, I’d still have a pretty bad track record winning fights against Kiddu.
In desperation, I flail out my elbow.
“AIIEEEE!”
She releases me and sinks back towards her side of the tent. I get to my knees and spin to face her. She’s clutching her chest.
“That HURTS!” She gasps like she’s out of breath, or about to cry.
“You started it!”
“You cheated! Do you have any idea how sensitive those are?”
I can’t help but start laughing. She starts to move towards me.
I hold up both my hands. “Truce!”
“Never!”
“WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE?”
I turn. Kripa is standing at the tent entrance, glowering, his oversized club raised and pointed at me.
“Boy!” the giant native says. “If you cannot control your sister, I will!”
Once again I get the odd feeling that we’re back at the orphanage.
“But we weren’t even doing anything,” I say.
“And also, we’re not brother and sister,” Kiddu says. “Why does everyone think that? We don’t even look anything alike.”
It’s hard to see Kripa’s face. The warrior’s hulking shadow blocks almost all the dim light from outside. He stands there for a few moments and then leaves us, flinging the tentflap down behind him.
I cough. Kiddu choked me pretty bad. We spread out on opposite sides of the tent as much as we can.
“Alright,” I say. “We’re even now. Seriously, truce?”
“Whatever you say, Gilly boy.”
Nevertheless, I force myself to stay awake until I hear her snoring.
I’m having a dream that I’m back in the Temple on Nabuk Street. Chasing Kiddu up the stairs.
With dream logic I realize the stairs aren’t quite right. They’re curved around but the real Temple’s stairs are straight.
Oh well. I follow her up and up. Not sure why I’m following, exactly. She’s wearing her short dress that shows off her legs. I look up and can see almost all the curve of her thigh…
I wake up, without waking up. The vagueness of the dream’s setting and experience slough away, and the world becomes real and solid.