"I have dreams of the forest. I wake up, head and heart pounding, in a dark forest. Scattered showers of light escape the dense canopy, painting an endless twilight for the creatures that live on its floor. There is only night and distant light; it is the land of the eternal forest night. Vines cover the floor, twisting and twining around the trunks and branches of the trees. Hued with the lightest shade of blue, the elongated tendrils and leaves glow with a delightful display of nightlights; the stars are come down from the heavens. I pass out, from the pain.
I wake up. I don't know how long I have been lying on the forest floor. I hear voices. Whispers, discussions, arguments, reasons. They are talking about me. Hands tied behind back, I lift my head and look around.
I am not in the forest anymore. Not in the dark place with the blue lights. I am in the desert and the rock stands before me. I remember whispered words; 'I am a rock. I will stand forever.' I am the red sands, I have come to wash away the rock. The rock cracks, jagged lines crisscrossing its face, breaks and turns to sand. I hear screams and wails, hooves, thunder, metal and flesh. There are soft voices too, calling my name, telling me to stop. Please stop.
I wake. Sweating. I am in my tent. The sandstorm still rages without, it has four hours to run its course and be on its way. I hold up my hands, they are wet, crimson. I scream and then I wake up."
Sahl told his dream to the old man, his voice shaking as the dream had done him. The image was burned in his head. Bloody hands, cold skin, broken bones and limp limbs. Empty eyes staring at him, dead, empty eyes.
"Hmmm. How many times have you had this dream?" Gatuk asked?
"This one started two months ago. Every night. I close my eyes, telling myself to dream of dunes, beautiful white dunes but it always comes."
"Hmmm. Let me see your eyes. This one you said?"
"Two seasons ago, on the night of Rah, I had a dream. I was flying, high in the blue sky."
"You were flying?"
"Yes. No. Well, something was flying, carrying me with it. I could feel it in my head. I could hear its thoughts as though they were mine. I, it, we, flew high until we passed the blue sky. There is another sky you know, when you go up so high, you leave the blue behind and there is another sky. It has many colours and lights, red eyes and vast oceans of dust, balls of fire, rock and ice. There is nothing too, nothing that you can see but if you fly too close, you can feel it and you get sucked in, into nothing and there is you no more, not here anyway, maybe over there."
"That's the first time you remember dreaming?"
"When I was young, and my mother used to sing me to sleep, I dreamt of flowers and green grass then. She had a window that looked out into her homeworld. I saw strange places, my mother’s people, and the places they called home, the different places on her world. She told me the whole world was born in a garden, a long time ago, even this desert."
"Hmmm. You're not one to be taken with old wives' tales, are you now, Edin?"
"No. My father says the desert is master and I the subject but if I submit and learn the ways of the Sandwalkers, I will be master of my own trail. I will walk out of the desert."
"No one leaves the desert. It is all there is. You may travel far, son of Rah, but the desert marks its own and yours is the mark of the red sands. Go. I will speak with your father when the men gather."
