And so was she.
Tazi turned around and could only see growing darkness.
She shouted for her friends, but the wind had reached such a frenzied pitch, Tazi couldn't even hear her own voice. She cupped her hands around her mouth and tried again, but there was only the scream of the storm. She stood and swayed as the winds buffeted her body.
Curling her hands around her eyes, she desperately searched for any sign of Steorf and Fannah, but she saw nothing but ever-changing patterns of sand. It was dizzying. There was no end to the desert, no sky, and no ground below. There were only howls. She felt as though she was back within the gate. Her heart was pounding, and Tazi could taste her fear.
That won't do me any good, she told herself sternly. Fannah and Steorf need me.
Without budging an inch, Tazi tried hard to calm herself.
I'm sure I didn't go that far, and as soon as I gave up on the sack I turned sharply around. If I'm right, she reasoned, then I need only to keep walking in a straight line and I'll get back to Fannah and Steorf.
But if I'm wrong, she thought, I'll walk off into the storm.
With that in mind, Tazi started the tricky march back.
The wind continued to push her from side to side, so she tried walking as best she could heel to toe to keep a straight course. She dropped to her knees once and tried to see if she could still feel the paved Way, but the wind and the sand made it impossible for her to tell. She gave up on that and went back to her original plan.
Time lost all meaning to her, and Tazi knew she was close to panicking. It had taken her too long on the way back and she was certain she should have found her friends by now.
She stopped and tried to scan the distance. Having very nearly given in to despair, she thought she heard something just above the whine of the wind.
"Steorf!" she screamed back and listened.
The faint sound grew a little louder, and she cried out, "Keep calling!"
Tazi was certain it was her friends. She lowered her head against the gusts that buffeted her and walked like someone drunk, with great, staggering strides. She looked ahead, and two shadowy shapes remained constant while everything around them was chaos. Tazi marched harder and nearly collapsed into her friends' waiting arms. The three clung to each other for a moment.
"What were you thinking?" Steorf finally shouted into her face.
"Ciredor's book," she started to explain. "I had to try to retrieve it."
"Let the winds have it," he told her. "We could have lost you."
"Not a chance!" she shouted back, a crooked grin fixed on her face.
"We can't let go of each other," Fannah cried. "Not even for a second or all will be lost."
"How are we going to find the towers now?" Steorf asked.
Tazi was momentarily worried as well. She realized they were traveling blind in the storm-and there was her answer.
"Fannah, you're going to have to lead us the rest of the way," she cried.
In the near darkness of sunset, Tazi wasn't sure but thought Fannah nodded to her.
"Hold on," she told Steorf and Tazi.
The three leaned into the wind and lumbered forward. Tazi kept a tight grip on Steorf and Fannah. To her, the disorientation only grew worse the darker it got. There was no frame of reference anywhere, and Tazi turned over all responsibility to Fannah, hoping that her blind friend's sense of touch and hearing, much sharper than either hers or Steorf's would guide them through. Lost in a situation where she was simply passing through time, odd thoughts fluttered through Tazi's mind. Strangely enough, she couldn't seem to get a fable out of her mind.
When she was very young, her father had once told her a story of children lost in the woods. As a grown woman, Tazi could see the story for what it was-a cautionary tale meant to scare her into sensibility-but when she first heard the account, Tazi had wept uncontrollably, leaving her father very flustered with a teary three year old.
As Tazi recalled, her mother had been the only one who could console her by telling her that a guardian spirit looked out for all lost children. In the midst of the storm, Tazi smiled as she followed her spirit to safety.
"Can you see anything?" Steorf yelled to her, jarring her from her reverie.
"Nothing yet," Tazi called back to him. "But if anyone is going to be able to find this, it's Fannah."
"I hope so," he called out and clutched tighter to her arm.
Undaunted by the raging storm, Tazi watched how Fannah never hesitated in their course. She wanted to ask her just how she was guiding them but decided the fewer distractions Fannah had, the better off they'd all be.
The swirling grains and incessant howling were almost nauseating to Tazi. She tried closing her eyes, but it only made matters worse.
Maybe she can feel the pavement under her sandals, Tazi guessed, or maybe she's marching in the original direction we started in, since this tempest can't disorient her in the same way it does us.
Her curiosity got the better of her, and she tried to get Fannah's attention.
"Fannah," she called, and bumped into Steorf.
The mage had stopped walking.
"What happened?" she asked him.
"Look there," he replied, pointing ahead.
Barely discernible in the twilight was a large shape looming in the growing darkness.
"The east minaret," Fannah announced.
Tazi swallowed hard.
"You did it," she called to Fannah.
The three marched side by side up to the entrance. So close to the edifice, Tazi was able to make out some details, despite her reduced vision. The tower was about forty feet tall, as Fannah had said. Tazi reached out and brushed her hand against the surface, feeling stone and brick.
"I think we can let go of each other as long as we're touching the building," she told Steorf and Fannah. "But no one step away alone, understand? We need to find the entrance."
She laid both her hands on the wall and leaned her head against it, desperately needing the feeling of stability the minaret offered to stop her churning stomach.
When she felt better, Tazi joined Steorf and Fannah as they each slid around the building, feeling for a door.
Fannah called out, "It's over here!"
Steorf and Tazi felt their way over to her.
"We're lucky," Fannah shouted. "The doors aren't buried too deeply."
The three fell to their knees and used their hands and arms to rake away what little sand had piled up around the doors. When it was mostly cleared, Tazi tried to pull the doors open, but they refused to budge.
"I think they're locked," she called to her friends.
The wind was picking up in intensity.
Here's a test worthy of a lockpick, she thought, in the dark, in a storm, with that monster on the loose.
Before she could pull out the tools she had stashed inside her vest, Steorf asked, "Are you sure they're locked?"
"In this storm," Tazi admitted, "I'm not sure of a damn thing."
"Let me try something," he yelled.
Tazi placed her hand on his arm.
"Are you sure?" she asked but didn't hear his response.
When Steorf placed his hands on the latches, there was a flash of green so bright it pierced the gloom like a beacon. Steorf was knocked off of his feet as the doors swung open. Tazi knelt down to help him get up.
"Are you all right?" she shouted into his face.
She could see that Steorf was groggy.
"Fannah," she called to her other friend, "grab his arm."
They half dragged Steorf through the doors. Tazi lowered him to the ground, and both she and Fannah fought to close the tower doors, now flapping in the storm. They managed to pull them shut, and the scream of the storm was halved in intensity.
"Dark," Tazi shouted and realized how unnecessarily loud she was.
She checked on Steorf.
"You opened them," she told the dazed mage. "I don't think I would've been able to."