Beyond the mainmast there was nothing; the Llothriall had been shorn in half as neatly as if it had been struck by an enormous blade.
“Katya?”
“Mummy!” Zac cried, his fists bunching in Silus’s shirt.
There was movement from somewhere within the ship; a sheet fluttered down, followed by a shoe. Silus heard a shriek and looked up to see his wife clinging to a doorframe, beyond which was nothing but a drop to the hot sand.
“Katya, thank the gods. Don’t move.”
He looked about him for any means to help her down, but the only thing nearby was a torn section of sail and it wasn’t long enough to fashion into a rope.
“Heads up!” came a shout, and a length of rope coiled down from the deck.
“Dunsany? Is that you?” Katya called.
“It is! Now, grab hold and climb down.”
Katya shinned down the rope, followed by Dunsany, Kelos and Bestion. It wasn’t just their ship that had been torn asunder; they were also missing some of their crew.
“Where’s Emuel and Ignacio?”
“I don’t know,” Dunsany said. “I haven’t seen them since the… since-”
“Since what?”
“What did happen? What’s the last thing you remember?”
They looked at each other blankly. A hot wind picked up, whipping sand about the ruins of the ship, singing through holes in the vessel.
“There was the song,” Kelos said. “Emuel said that he could hear the song. So, it was certainly sorcery of some kind. Nothing else could have brought the Llothriall here.”
“And here is?” Katya said.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen a landscape quite like this.”
Silus looked up at the cloudless sky and the one thing that had been staring them directly in the face — or, rather, hadn’t — finally hit him.
“Kelos, where has Kerberos gone?”
“I… but that’s impossible.”
All their lives the deity had looked down upon them; the vast azure sphere a permanent reminder of His watchful gaze. Without Kerberos, Silus felt lost, strangely bereft. Although it was Bestion who looked the most alarmed.
“He is gone. The Allfather is gone. This is the end.” The priest wailed.
“Don’t worry, Bestion, there’ll be a way to get back, you’ll see.” The mage turned in a circle, scanning the horizon, but everywhere looked much the same.
“Let’s gather supplies,” Dunsany said, at last giving them some purpose. “We’ll strike out and find… somewhere. This can’t be all there is.”
With half the Llothriall gone, their supplies were somewhat depleted. The galley had been cut in half, so food was scarce, though they had enough water to last several days. The remains of the sails were cut up to provide them with the makings of shelter, and bundles of broken planks would suffice as firewood should the temperature drop. There seemed little likelihood of that happening, however; as they struck away from the ruins of the ship, the sand beneath their feet burned as hot as coals.
Silus kept expecting to see Kerberos rising over the horizon as they crested dune after dune. But as the sun set, throwing their shadows far ahead of them, there was no sign of the god.
None of them slept well that night. The cold that rose from the ground was like winter come early and a vicious wind howled over the dunes, the mournful sound finding its way into their broken dreams.
The next day was very much like the one before. The same cruel sun, the same blank dunes.
Silus was beginning to wish they had stayed with the ship, when they heard a sound coming towards them from over the next rise.
With a high-pitched wheezing and an avalanche of sand, a small, rotund creature tumbled towards them, its many legs failing to give it purchase on the dune. It came to a stop on its back, its legs still frantically scrabbling.
Dunsany and Silus put away the swords they had half-drawn. It was clear that this thing was no threat, though as Bestion knelt down and reached towards it, Silus batted his hand away.
“No! Don’t touch it. You don’t know what it is.”
“Come on Silus, it’s just some strange… dog thing. I’m sure that it’s perfectly amiable, aren’t you fellah?”
Bestion helped the creature to its feet and it looked up at him with big wet mournful eyes. A long, thin tongue flickered briefly across its lips. There was a foul smell coming from it; its flesh was cracked and weeping in places.
“He seems even less suited to the terrain than us,” Katya said. “Do you think he was caught up in whatever sorcery brought us here?”
“Possibly,” Kelos said. “Though I can’t imagine where it may have come from. Although it does bear a certain resemblance to a thing I once saw in the Drakengrat Mountains.”
“It’s not getting up that dune again without our help,” Bestion said.
“Well, I’m not touching it,” Dunsany said. “Have you smelt it? It could have any kind of disease.”
“I say we leave it,” Silus said, though Zac clearly disagreed with him as he squirmed in Katya’s arms, determined to get closer to the creature.
The dog thing stopped whining and shuffled round to look back up the dune, its head cocked as though it was listening to something. Then they all heard it: a call. It came again, closer, and the creature responded with a yip, its feet scrabbling as it tried to race towards the voice.
“Come on,” Bestion said, picking up the creature and starting up the dune. He glanced back to see the rest of the crew looking at him with bemused expressions. “Stop worrying. It’s just a… dog, I think. Whoever owns him may be able to help us get where we’re going.”
Silus thought that Bestion’s line of thinking was perhaps a little naive, though as they crested the dune there was indeed someone coming towards them and the creature responded to its calls with a delighted yip.
The sun was behind the figure, making it difficult to make out its features, though it was about the size of a young child with a long, shaggy head of hair.
Bestion put the dog-thing down and it raced towards his master, who lifted him up, speaking to the creature in a sing-song voice.
The sex of the person now coming towards them was difficult to ascertain, though if Silus had to guess he’d say that it was a girl. Her skin was smooth. She had no fingernails, and when she smiled her teeth were all exactly alike. The girl’s eyes were disturbingly pale and Silus wondered whether she might be blind, though as she regarded them with interest, it became clear that this wasn’t the case.
“Hello,” Katya said. “Is that your dog?”
“We’re friends,” Dunsany said. “ Friends. Do you live somewhere nearby?”
“Whoever this child is,” Silus said. “I don’t think that she speaks our language.”
“And how do you know it’s a child?” Kelos said.
“Well, I mean… I… I don’t know.”
“Indeed. Never make assumptions.”
“You mean like Bestion did with that dog thing?”
“I mean never make assumptions that turn out be incorrect.”
“Thanks. That’s useful.”
The girl smiled at them and laughed. She said something before reaching out, tapping Silus’s hand and racing away.
“What did that mean?” Silus said.
“I believe,” Bestion said, “that you are ‘it.’ Come on.”
They hurried after the girl and her pet, losing sight of them several times and once going in the wrong direction entirely before they spotted her again, waiting for them atop a dune and gesturing for them to catch up.
Just before they reached her, the girl threw herself down the other side of the sandy slope, rolling over and over with the dog creature still in her arms, giggling hysterically. They were about to follow when what they saw beyond the dune arrested their descent.
There was a vast settlement in the middle of the desert.
As they watched, the girl reached its outskirts, dropped her pet and called out. Soon she was surrounded by a crowd of people, their gazes following the direction of her excited gestures towards where the strangers stood. They stared in silence for a moment before rushing towards them, calling out to others as they came, until there was a veritable tide of people flowing across the sand.