“It cannot be helped,” said Lief. He climbed over the fence and jumped gratefully to the ground on the other side, flexing his cramped fingers. “Besides, we have been very careful. The Guards have surely lost our trail by now.”
“I would not count on that,” muttered Barda. But he also climbed to the ground and after a moment Jasmine jumped down to join them. They set off, almost running over the bare ground, glancing often behind them. Despite his hopeful words, Lief looked back as often as his companions did. The idea of Grey Guards silently following, the idea of a deadly blister flying unseen towards him to explode on his back, made his skin crawl.
It became warmer as the sun climbed steadily behind its veil of cloud, and steam began to rise from the wet ground. The grey hills ahead were also quickly shrouded in mist. So it was only when the companions actually reached them that they realized that these were not ordinary hills at all, but thousands of huge boulders heaped together to make a high, natural wall — the “rocky wall” of the verse.
They began to climb and soon lost all sight of the ground below. Everything around them was white. The air grew thick and all sound was dulled. Cautiously, one step at a time, they clambered to the top of the rock pile, then, even more cautiously, began to edge down the other side.
As they neared the ground, a sound met their ears — a low droning, so faint that at first Lief thought he was imagining it. And the next moment, without warning, he was below the cloud.
Slowly he turned away from the rocks to look at what was beyond. The breath caught in his throat. Sweat broke out on his forehead.
They had arrived at 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.