The Shifting Sands

Sand. Nothing at all but deep, dry sand. As far as the eye could see, high red dunes rolled away under a low, brooding ceiling of murky yellow cloud. There was no sign of any living thing, but the low droning sound filled the place, as though the very air was alive.

Lief slithered down the last few rocks and his feet sank into the grainy softness beneath. A feeling of dread had settled over him — a feeling as strong and real as any taste or smell.

I have been here before.

This was the place he had seen in the vision of the future the opal had given him on the Plain of the Rats. The terror that had haunted his dreams was about to become reality. When? In an hour? A day? A week?

Through his fear, he heard Jasmine speaking. “It is impossible,” she was saying, as she jumped down beside him. “If the gem is hidden here, we will never find it!”

“The Belt will grow warm when the gem is near,” Barda reminded her. He, too, was plainly sobered by the size of the task ahead, but refused to admit it. “We will mark the sand into sections and search it, square by square.”

“That could take months!” Jasmine exclaimed. “Months — or even years!”

“No.” Lief had spoken quietly, but they both turned to him. He struggled to keep his voice steady. “This gem is like the others. It has a terrible Guardian,” he said, staring out at the still and secret dunes. “And the Guardian is already aware of us. I feel it.”

Or is it the Belt that feels it? he thought, as he moved out into the sand, like someone in a dream. Is it the Belt that feels the danger?

But he dared not put his hands on the Belt of Deltora. He knew that if he touched the opal — if he saw the future again — he would turn and run.

He closed his eyes to shut out the sight of the barren land, the glowering sky. But beneath his lids he still saw red sand. And the hungry, jealous will that was drawing him to itself, as it drew everything, everything in this place to itself, was stronger than ever.

He began climbing the first dune. His feet sank deeply into the rippled sand, making every step an effort. He struggled on.

“Lief!” he heard Jasmine cry. Her voice penetrated his dream, and he opened his eyes. But he did not stop.

“We have only to move on,” he called, without looking back. “The Guardian is very near. We will not have to search for it. It will find us.”

In a very short time they were surrounded by high dunes and had lost sight of the rocks. But their trail showed clearly behind them, so they were not afraid of becoming lost.

They had discovered that the dunes were not as empty of life as they had supposed. Red flies crawled from the sand as they passed and flew up to settle on their hands, faces, arms, and necks, biting and stinging. Scarlet lizards with long blue tongues wriggled out of unseen holes and preyed in turn upon the flies.

“But what eats the lizards?” asked Jasmine, and drew her dagger.

Shortly after that they passed a strange object lying on the sand. It was round, leathery, flat, and wrinkled — like an empty bag, or a gigantic, flattened grape that had been split along one side.

“Is it some sort of seed pod?” wondered Barda, looking at it.

“Like no seed pod I have ever seen,” Jasmine muttered. Filli chattered nervously into her ear and Kree, riding on her shoulder, made a worried, clucking sound.

Lief’s scalp was prickling. He was haunted by the feeling that they were being watched. Yet nothing moved but the flies and the lizards. There was no sound but the low, faint droning, which he had decided must be wind moaning around the dunes, though he could feel no breeze and the sand was still.

They had reached the bottom of one dune, and had just begun to climb another, when Jasmine, who was now in the lead, stiffened and held up her hand.

Barda and Lief stopped. At first they could hear nothing. And then, floating on the still air, there was a voice, growing louder by the moment.

“Carn 2! Never mind the flies. Keep moving!”

Lief looked frantically behind him. Their trail showed clearly in the sand. Their footprints were like arrows, pointing to their position. There was nowhere to hide. No escape.

The droning sound seemed to become a little louder, as though, Lief thought, the wind was excited by their fear. And just at that moment he remembered a trick he used to play back in Del. A trick that had fooled Grey Guards before, and, perhaps, could fool them again.

Gesturing to Barda and Jasmine to follow his lead, he began to step backwards, carefully fitting his feet into his own footprints. When he had reached the bottom of the dune, he leaped to one side to lie motionless in its faint shadow.

His companions copied his every movement. When they were all huddled together, Lief covered them with his cloak, which blended quickly with the sand.

They waited, still as stones.

The Guards appeared, struggling in their heavy boots. They ran down the side of their dune, and began following the tracks up the next.

Then they stopped, puzzled. For, halfway up the dune, the tracks appeared to stop dead.

“They have been taken!” growled Carn 2. “As I told you they would be, Carn 8. I told you it was needless to follow them into the Shifting Sands. We are putting ourselves in danger for —”

“Be silent!” snapped his companion. “Do you not understand, you fool? We have disgraced the Carn pod. We let a Champion and two finalists escape. Our lives are worth nothing — less than nothing — unless we get them back. They may not have been taken. They could have buried themselves in the sand. Dig! Dig!”

He began to burrow into the sand with both hands. Grumbling, Carn 2 crouched to join him.

Then, suddenly, the dune seemed to erupt beneath them and, with shocking speed, a huge, hideous creature sprang from the collapsing sand and seized them, lifting them off their feet.

The Guards shrieked in terror. Paralyzed with shock, hardly able to believe their eyes, Lief, Barda, and Jasmine lay rigid beneath the concealing cloak. The monster had been perfectly hidden in the dune. Waiting. One more step, and they, instead of their enemies, would have been its prey.

Lief stared in fascinated horror. The creature was eight-legged, with a tiny head that seemed all mirrored eyes. Dozens of leathery bags, like the one they had seen lying on the ground, hung from its body. Sand still poured from its joints and crevices. It regarded its captives without curiosity as they struggled and swung in its terrifying grip. Then it opened its mouth, leaned forward … and abruptly, mercifully, the screaming and the struggling stopped.

It had all happened in seconds. Sickened by what they had seen, Lief, Barda, and Jasmine remained huddled under the cloak, not daring to move.

Delicately, using its pincers, the monster picked the clothes from the dead bodies of its prey, like a bird shelling snails. The companions watched as clothes, boots, money bags, Jasmine’s medallion, metal canisters of blisters, slings, clubs, and water bottles thudded onto the sand. Then the creature sat back on its spiny haunches and began to eat, taking its time. Lizards and flies crawled out of the sand in the thousands to feast on the scraps that fell from its mouth.

Lief buried his face in his arms. He had no love for Grey Guards. But he could not watch this.

The lowering yellow cloud blotted out the sun so completely that Lief lost all sense of time. For what seemed like hours he, Barda, and Jasmine lay motionless while the creature ate its fill and slowly the bags hanging from its body swelled till they looked like gigantic grapes hanging from a stalk.

“They are stomachs!” breathed Barda in disgust. Lief shuddered. And even Jasmine, familiar with so many weird creatures in the Forests of Silence, wrinkled her nose with distaste.

At last, the flies and lizards scattered and the beast stood upright. One of the swollen stomachs, bigger than all the rest, tore away from its body and rolled to rest in the sand, leaving only a ragged stump behind. Seemingly unconcerned, the creature crawled forward and settled on top of it.

“What is it doing?” breathed Lief, unable to keep silent.

“I think it is piercing the stomach and laying an egg inside,” Jasmine whispered back. “That way, the hatchling will have food while it grows.”

Barda turned his head away.

But the sand beast had already finished its egg-laying and was moving again. Sluggishly, it ambled through the ruined dune in which it had hidden and climbed the next, soon disappearing over the top. The companions waited a moment to be sure it would not return, then climbed stiffly to their feet.

Without hesitation, but still gripping her dagger, Jasmine hurried over to where lizards and flies still swarmed over the Guards’ bones and the bloodstained tatters of their clothes. Beating away the scavengers, she began rapidly sorting through the rags, putting aside in a small pile things that would be of use: the Guards’ slings and blisters, their clubs and water bottles, the money bags. After a moment she looked up, startled.

“The money bags burst as they fell,” she called in a low voice. “Most of the coins spilled out. But they are not here any longer. They are gone! And so has my medallion.”

“That is impossible!” Barda strode towards her and himself began searching. Lief followed more slowly. His attention had been caught by a flat patch of sand just beyond where his friends were crouching. What he saw there made his flesh creep.

“The creature was blocking our view for hours as it fed,” Jasmine was insisting. “Something or someone crawled in unseen and took —”

“It cannot be!” Barda was growing impatient as he fruitlessly searched the tumbled sand.

“Look!” Lief’s voice sounded choked, even to himself. He cleared his throat, and pointed.

The smooth patch of sand was covered with hundreds of strange, circular marks. Marks that had not been there before.