It was much wounded. Ibn Saran told me the beast had been killed. It had not been. This is he. This is that Kur. I know him, Hassan. He is, if only for this moment, my ally. I think, Hassan, strange though it may seem, that we hold a cause in common.”
“A man and a Kur!” protested Hassan. “It is impossible!”
The Kur pointed to the dune country.
I turned to Hassan. “I wish you well, Hassan,” I said.
“It is madness to enter the dune country again,” he said. “The water is almost gone.”
“Try to reach Four Palms,” I said. “Your first business lies with your tribe.
There is soon to be war in the Tahari. When the Kavars ride, you must ride with them.”
“It is a hard choice you impose upon me,” said Hassan, “to choose between my brother and my tribe.” Then he said, “I am of the Tahari. I must choose my brother.”
“The water decides it,” I said. “Your tribe awaits.”
Hassan looked at the Kur. Then he looked at me. “I wish you well, my brother,” he said. He smiled. “May your water bags be never empty. May you always have water.”
“May your water bags be never empty,” I said. “May you have always water.”
Hassan turned away. I wished him well. It was my hope that he would reach Four Palms.
Already, loping, then turning back, then moving ahead again, the Kur moved before me, back toward the long, ragged edge of dunes which lay on our left.
I followed him.
21 What Occurred in the Dune Country
The Kur was an incredible animal. Without it I would not have survived.
The next day the water was gone.
To my surprise, though the Kur had pointed to the dune country, he led me in a path parallel to the dunes, through more normal Tahari terrain. I realized then that he had been pointing to his destination, whatever it might be, which lay within the dune country, as though I might know what it was, but that the route which he wisely selected would parallel the dune country, until he reached a given point, at which point he would strike out overland, into the forbidding dunes, to reach whatever objective it was within them which might concern him, or us.
“The water is gone,” I told him. I held the bag in such a way as to show him that no fluid remained within it. After his first drink, near the shelter trench, he had not had water.
The Kur watched the flight of birds. He followed them, for a day. He found their water. It was foul. We gratefully drank. I submerged the water bag I carried. We killed four birds and ate them raw. The Kur caught small rock tharlarion, and on this plenty, too, we feasted. Then we continued our journey. I drank much for the Kur seemed hurried. Surely he knew that one should move only at night, and yet the beast seemed tireless, and would press me on, as though I needed neither food nor sleep. Did he not know I was not a Kur? He, shielded by the fur, was less exposed to the sun. He would move day and night, but I could not.
Impatiently, he would crouch near me, when I fell to the sand, to sleep. He would, in an Ahn, awaken me, and point to the sun. Yet I did not think he wished to tell me the hour of the day, but call my attention to the passage of time. He seemed hurried. Surely even for his mighty body the heat, the sun, the scarcity of water, the scarcity of food, must have taken dreadful toll. At times his wounds must have tormented him. Twice I saw him lick bloody crusts from their eruptions. Yet, slowly, as though by force of will, he moved on. I was sure he would kill us both. One does not tease the desert. It is implacable, like a stone or furnace.
“I need water,” I told him. It had been gone, for more than a day.
The Kur held up eight fingers, and pointed to the sun.
I did not understand his meaning.
We continued our journey. An Ahn later, nostrils distended, head to the ground, he became excited. He pointed to the ground. He looked at me, as though I must understand. I did not, of course, understand. He looked at the sun, and at me, as though weighing the values of alternative courses of action. Then he swiftly departed from his original direction. I realized, several Ahn later, that he was following an animal trail, the odors of which my senses were not keen enough to detect. We fell on our bellies before the foul water, stinking with excrement, and drank, and again I filled the bag. There was a half-eaten tabuk by the water hole. The Kur warned me from certain pieces of the meat, smelling it. Other pieces, farther from the eaten areas, more exposed to the sun, he gave me. He himself broke free a haunch and, with swift motions, with his teeth, holding it, ripped the dry meat from the bone.
The Kur motioned me to my feet. We must again proceed. Fed, watered, I followed him, though each step because of my exhaustion, was torture.
He returned to his original trail, from which he made his detour, and continued his march.
The next morning he pointed to the sun, and held up seven fingers before me. But be let me sleep, in the shelter of a rock, while he watched. That night we again began the trek. The rest did me much good. The next morning he pointed to the sun, and held up six fingers before me. His rendezvous, I gathered, whatever it might be, must be accomplished within six days. It was for that reason that he had been driving us both.
Water became more scarce.
The Kur began to move more slowly, and drank more. I think its wounds had begun to tell upon it. No longer did it seem willing to risk leaving the trail to hunt for water. It was becoming a desperate beast. It feared, I gathered, missing its rendezvous. It had not counted on its own weakness. The leather I wore about my feet was in tatters, but in the footprints of the Kur there was blood. It moved on, indomitably.
Then the water was gone.
That morning the Kur had pointed to the sun and held up four fingers.
We went a day without water.
In a place, on the next day, we found flies, swarming, over parched earth.
There, with his great paws, slowly, painfully, the Kur dug. More than four feet below the surface be found mud. We strained this through the silk I had had tied to my wrist, into his cupped paws. He gave me almost all of this water. He licked from his moistened palms only what I had left, In another place, that night, we found a narrow channel of baked mud, the dried bed of a tiny, vanished stream, of the sort which in the winter, should it rain, carries water for a few days. We followed this to a shallow, dried pool. Digging here we found dormant snails. In the moonlight we cracked, the shells, sucking out the fluid. It stank. Only at first did I vomit. Again the Kur gave me almost the entire bounty of this find. Then we could find no more.
We retraced our steps to the point at which we had left the trail, and continued our journey.
The next morning the Kur pointed to the sun, and held up three fingers.
The water bag, in my hands, hung limp, dry.
“Let us rest,” I said to the Kur.
He pressed on. I followed the footprints. There was blood in them. I shut my eyes against the glare of the terrain.
I put one foot in front of the other, again and again. The Kur began to limp.
I felt weak, sleepy. I was not much interested in eating. I began to feel strangely hot. I felt my forehead. It was dry, and seemed unnaturally warm. I felt sick to my stomach, nauseous. That is strange, I thought. I have had little to cat. “We must rest,” I told the Kur. But he continued to press ahead. I tumbled after him, the water bag in my hand. I looked at it. It had cracked in the sun. I clung to it, irrationally. I would not release it. When the sun was high, I fell. The Kur waited until I regained my feet and then he limped on, ahead of me. “I’m dizzy,” I told him. “Wait!” I stood still, and waited for the dizziness to pass. The Kur waited. Then we went on again. I had a headache. I shook my head. The pain was severe. I put one foot before the other, continuing to follow the Kur. I began to itch. I scratched at my arms and body. I stumbled.
The Kur moved on ahead of me. It was odd to feel no saliva in one’s mouth. My eyes were dry. Bits of sand seemed to lie between the eye and the lid; I felt, too, the grit of sand in my mouth, I could not spit it out; my eyes would not form tears. My lips became sore and began to ache. My tongue felt large. I felt skin on my tongue peeling. I began to feel cramps in my stomach, and in my arms and legs. I looked about. There seemed much water here and there, in flat places, in the distance, rippling, stirring. Sometimes our path took us toward it, but when we reached it, it was sand, the air above it rippling and troubled in the desert’s heat.