SandRider (29 page)

The
Wiz
led the way with the
Beetle
close behind. Both sleds traveled along the tightly packed sand of the road as though they had never known a day's snow. Tod thought the
Wiz
ran even better on sand. She felt more in control and the
Wiz
had a sense of power that she had not been aware of before. It was as though the sled knew that a great expanse of sand was waiting and it longed to run free. For a sled that had always been constrained either by tunnels or tracks, this was heady stuff.

Behind the
Wiz
ran the
Beetle
, edgy and energetic. Oskar felt exhilarated. He loved sand dunes in the same way that Tod loved the sea, and suddenly he was able to travel across
them at a speed he had only dreamed of. But Oskar knew that for now Tod must lead the way, so he contented himself with daydreaming about arriving at the very moment when the Orm Egg was hatching. He imagined drawing up on the
Beetle
in a shower of sand just in time to see the tiny creature—which he knew looked like a dragon—come fluttering out of the Egg and land on his hand. He thought how they would gaze into each other's eyes and be together forever. And then, Oskar thought, he would take his Orm for breathtaking rides through the desert and—

“Hey!” Tod yelled. “Stop!”

Oskar's dreams came to an abrupt halt. In front the
Wiz
had stopped and he was about to crash into it. He slewed the
Beetle
out of the way and skidded to a halt. “What's up?” he asked anxiously.

In answer Tod pointed to a fork in the road. Kaznim got off the
Wiz
and stood looking up at the sky.

“Kaznim's not sure which way to go,” Tod said. “She's working it out from the stars.”

But Kaznim had no need to look at the stars—she knew exactly which road led to the star tent. She was in fact struggling with her conscience. Kaznim was well aware that she
had promised to take Tod, Oskar and Ferdie to the Orm Egg—and she would honor that promise. What she had not said was
when
they would get there. Kaznim knew she could not risk going home until she was sure that the Egg had hatched. Only then would the sorcerer return her baby sister to her mother. Kaznim sneaked the
Egg Timer
from her pocket, hoping that maybe another grain had gone through. Then she need not deceive anyone anymore and could lead them straight to the tent along the right-hand fork. They would arrive in about four hours' time, and by then the Orm would have already hatched and
Imprinted
the sorcerer, but that would not be her fault. To Kaznim's disappointment there were still three grains of silver left.

“Kaznim?” Tod called across. “Which way?”

Kaznim delayed her answer for just a little while longer. The right-hand road led straight home. They would be back at the star tent in under four hours. The left went deep into the Dunes of Kuniun—sand lion territory. Kaznim fought down her desire to go home and also to be honest with three people she had come to like. But she could not. If she wished her baby sister to still be alive when she finally returned, she had no choice.

“Left,” Kaznim replied with a heavy heart. “We take the left.”

The
Wiz
and the
Beetle
traveled side by side along the wide, smooth road. All were silent as they headed toward the Dunes of Kuniun, each occupied with their own thoughts. Tod and Ferdie were focused on the task ahead, Oskar still daydreaming about “his” Orm. Kaznim was scared: for her sister and of her companions working out what she had done. But her most pressing terror was of sand lions.

The sleds were going beautifully. They ran smooth and fast, and although they were now beginning to climb up into the dunes, the soft
shish-shish-shish
of sand beneath the sleds' runners felt so right that Tod found it strange to think that the
Wiz
also ran on snow.

As they climbed higher the cold night air began to bite, and they took turns to lead so that one was always sheltered. On the back of Oskar's sled, Ferdie found her eyes closing with weariness, but on the back of the
Wiz
, Kaznim was
wide-awake and very nervous. Once she thought she heard a distant roar. Tod heard it too. She slowed down and said to Oskar, “Did you hear that?”

“No,” said Oskar. He was lying. He knew how scared Ferdie was of strange creatures and he saw no reason to panic her. And so they traveled on beneath the canopy of stars, steadily up into the wide expanse of the Dunes of Kuniun.

After many miles the track had petered out and the sleds were now traveling through unmarked dunes, guided entirely by Kaznim's directions. The waning full moon was dropping down toward the horizon, its light silvering the sand that rose and fell before them like waves, the sleds flowing up and down the slopes like boats riding the surf. As they crested yet another rise, Tod drew to a halt and surveyed the scene. She had expected by now to be able to see tents in the distance, but she could see nothing but empty, rolling dunes. A niggle of worry that had been growing ever since the track had petered out became impossible to ignore—
Where were they?

She turned around to Kaznim. “I thought you said when the road ended you could see your tent.”

Kaznim was flustered. “No, I didn't,” she said. “It goes to the dunes. And
then
you see the tent.”

“That's not what you said.” Oskar leaned across to the
Wiz
. “And anyway, we are in the dunes now and I can't see any tents at all.”

“Neither can I,” Ferdie added for good measure.

“So where
is
your tent?” Tod asked.

“It will very soon be under the Palm of Dora. Like I said,” Kaznim replied. She pointed to a constellation straight ahead of them. “Over there.”

“That's not the Palm of Dora,” Oskar said.

“Yes it is,” Kaznim insisted.

“No, it's not,” Oskar shot back. “I know where it is, and it's not there.”

Kaznim was trapped. There was nothing she could do but lie, and keep on lying. “Yes, it
is
,” she repeated.

Tod was getting a bad feeling about this. “Oskie,” she said, “do you know which constellation the Palm of Dora is?”

“Yep,” said Oskar. “It's over there.” He pointed to the west. “It's the one with five stars in a vertical row with a semicircle of stars above.”

“Oh, you mean the Anchor!”

“Yep,” Oskar said. “That is exactly what I mean.”

“Well, there is no way we are heading for that, is there?”
Tod turned to Kaznim. “We should have taken the right-hand fork,” she said. And then, as Kaznim refused to meet her eyes, Tod suddenly understood what had happened. “But you knew that, didn't you?”

“No, I didn't,” Kaznim countered. She had told so many lies now that another did not seem to matter.

“Are you saying that Kaznim has deliberately taken us the wrong way?” Ferdie asked anxiously.

“That's what it looks like to me,” Tod said stonily.

Everyone fell quiet—that was what it looked like to Oskar and Ferdie too. And then, the silence of the night was broken by a sound that no one wanted to hear: a long, low growl.

Sand lions
, Oskar mouthed rather unnecessarily.

Then came another growl—this from a different direction.

Oskar had a talent for reading the land and all creatures within it. Like a sand snake, he slipped from his sled and put his ear to the ground. He listened to the sound of the sand and the pad of paws, and he knew it was bad. Very slowly he moved back onto the sled. “We're surrounded,” he whispered. “But if we stay totally still I don't think they'll go for us. They need movement to judge their attack.”

Kaznim stared at Oskar in horror. This was her fault—and
she knew they knew it. Kaznim felt more alone than she ever had in her life, even more than when she had been waiting outside the Sick Bay. At least then she was only being ignored by strangers. Now she was surrounded by a pride of sand lions in the company of three people who had just realized that she had tricked them. A horrible thought came into Kaznim's mind. There was an easy way for the others to escape; all they had to do was to push her off the sled and leave her behind. The sand lions would find her and they wouldn't bother to go hunting anything else that night. Kaznim's fingers closed around her opal pebble
Charm
—she still had her
UnSeen
. But even as she tried to comfort herself with that, she knew it would be useless. Sand lions hunted by scent, not vision. It was then, in the darkness of Kaznim's pocket, that the penultimate grain of silver in the top of the
Egg Timer
wandered through to join its friends, leaving behind a lonely singleton to ponder what it had done to offend all the other grains. There were a mere three hours left until the Orm Egg hatched.

“Oskie,” Tod was whispering. “We have to make a break for it. Which way?”

Oskar knew there was only one way out. “Along the ridge. Toward the moon,” he whispered. “We go fast—
really
fast.
There are lions on either side, but I think they are too far down to get us at first pounce.”

“What about second pounce?” Ferdie whispered.

“We don't let that happen. Okay?”

“We'll go on the count of three,” Tod said. She turned to Kaznim. “Hold on really tight,” she told her. “This is going to be
fast
. If you fall off I won't be able to come back to pick you up, do you understand?”

“Yes, Tod,” Kaznim meekly replied. “I understand.”

Tod began the countdown: “One . . . two . . . three!”

The standing-start practices for the sled race stood them in good stead. The
Wiz
and the
Beetle
shot along the ridge in a shower of sand that flew into the air and landed on the lions lying in wait on either side. The animals were so shocked that they did not get a chance for a first pounce—let alone, as Ferdie had feared, a second. She risked a glance back and saw not the lions themselves—who were perfectly camouflaged—but their moon shadows, long and dark, loping effortlessly after them. “They're coming after us!” Ferdie shouted in dismay.

Oskar had hoped that the shock of their escape would confuse the pride and they would not bother to follow. But he did not know that the pride had not eaten for days and the heady
smell of human cut through all confusion. One thing Oskar did know was that, unlike their cousins, the great lions of the plains, sand lions had tremendous stamina. They were small, lithe creatures, built for traveling long distances to find prey in the emptiness of the desert. There was no hope of them tiring fast and giving up the chase. Oskar knew they must outrun them. “We have to go faster!” he yelled. “
Much
faster!”

Tod could feel the reserves of power within the
Wiz
; she knew the sled could easily go faster, but she was not sure that the
Beetle
could. And there was no way she was going to leave Oskar and Ferdie behind. “You go first, Oskie!” she called back. “Go as fast as you can. We'll follow!”

The
Beetle
drew ahead and once more the two riders were in a race—but this time it was for something a little more important than the Apprentices' Cup.

Oraton-Marr stood on the rooftop of the Hospitable Gard looking at his
Egg Timer
. With a sense of excitement he saw that now there was only one remaining grain of silver.
His Orm Egg would hatch in three hours' time. He put his
Enlarging Glass
to his eye and scanned the sky. He was searching for the Palm of Dora.

In the courtyard below, a camel from the Red Queen's stables, accompanied by the Red Queen's spy authentically swathed in smelly camel-driver robes, waited impatiently. Oraton-Marr was not quite as stupid as Marissa had assumed. He had no intention whatsoever of taking the camel to the Orm Egg. The Red Queen's heavy hints at the banquet that she knew of his “buried treasure” in the desert had put him on guard. He had had no choice but to accept her offer of a camel and guide, but he had no intention of using them.

While the spy irritably scratched her camel-flea bites and the camel dribbled down her neck, Oraton-Marr located the Palm of Dora. He moved the
Glass
down the vertical line of stars and beneath he saw the tiny but unmistakable shape of the star-strewn tent. He fixed the position in his mind and put the
Enlarging Glass
away.

Right now, he thought, his sister would be making the long trek from their ship to the Egg tent. With her would be the Mitza woman and the hostage toddler brat. Oraton-Marr smiled to himself. He liked to think he was a man of his word,
and he would prove it by returning the child as promised—but only if all went as he wished it and he got his Orm. If the Orm did not hatch successfully or the creature did not
Imprint
him, he would at least have the pleasure of drowning the child in the pool beside her mother's tent. The child was his guarantee that one way or another, there would be something he would enjoy about the coming day.

With these happy thoughts, Oraton-Marr began his
Magyk
. He narrowed his dark green eyes and fixed his gaze on the exact point on the horizon just below the Palm of Dora and prepared himself. While it was not strictly necessary to see the place to which he was planning to
Transport
, on such an important occasion the sorcerer was taking no chances. He focused his mind on the flat rock beside the pool. Thirty seconds later all that remained of the sorcerer on the rooftop was a lingering purple haze and an unsettling aura of smugness.

The average speed of a sand lion in for the long chase is thirty-five miles an hour, although it is perfectly possible for it to top
fifty miles an hour in a quick spurt. The lions now settled into their hunting rhythm, each leader dropping back after some minutes to allow a fresher lion to take its place and keep the pride's pace steady.