Son of the Sands (standard:fantasy, 3643 words)
Author: Gavin J. Carr	Added: Apr 03 2005	Views/Reads: 3473/2288	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A man persues a lone figure over the desert.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


Already it was bitter, the heat of the day bleeding into the cold canopy
of space.  He grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled them 
together, seeking warmth.  But there was no warmth to be had; he was 
frozen through, as though he were thin and insubstantial. 

A sudden bark sounded far-off in the night; the sound of a hunter on the
scent.  He shivered, and said a prayer that the scent was not his own. 

Above him the stars make their slow revolution; millions upon millions
of tiny suns, each harbouring the possibility, if not the actuality of 
life.  He had never felt so insignificant, so surplice to the needs of 
the universe as he did at that moment.  Perhaps, on one of those 
distant planets there was someone watching the light from his sun, he 
thought.  Perhaps, someone, not so different from himself, but safe; 
secure in the comfort of their environment and unaware of what he was 
enduring.  How he wished he could trade places with that someone.  Not 
only to spare his own suffering at the hands of the desert, but also to 
punish the onlooker; teach them that life was not all comfort and 
safety.  That chaos was always lurking malevolently in the fringes. 

He suddenly recalled the fragment of a poem.  He could not remember who
had written it, but the words rang now in his ears.  And they rang 
true. 

Turning and turning in the widening gyre 

The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. 

Things fall apart, he thought.  How true.  How utterly true. 

He tried to moisten his lips, but his mouth was totally dry.  His tongue
rasped impotently over the chapped and bleeding skin.  He sighed and 
lay back on the side of the wadi.  Sleep was drawing near and it was a 
blessing.  A panacea for his aching limbs and fevered mind.  He could 
feel himself going.  The world around him transforming, becoming 
diaphanous, as though reality itself was sleeping, dreaming. 

Gradually he began to fade... 

Damn Carrhae and damn Crassus.  I have been days in the desert and the
last of the water from my canteen is gone.  Thirst has descended upon 
me like a demon, plaguing my every thought. 

Hard to believe the battle was five days ago.  Already it seems I have
been walking for an eternity.  I have been worn-down by the elements – 
a shade, doomed to wander this underworld forever. 

I have abandoned sword and my armour.  There was a time I would never
have thought it possible.  When I joined the legions I vowed that I 
would never be parted from them, lest in death when an enemy would 
strip me of them.  But the desert is a harsh mistress.  I could no 
longer bear the weight or the stifling heat of my arms and so rid 
myself of them forever. How I wish now I had kept something – my sword, 
a dagger even.  Anything to give me comfort from the fear that hangs 
over my head like Damocles' sword. 

For I am not alone.  In the distance I can see a figure.  A solitary
pursuer perhaps?  A Parthian, determined to destroy the last of 
Crassus' army?  Or, something worse?  One of the spirits of the desert 
who our native guides talked of with fear, while we Romans scoffed at 
their words and called them children.  Dinjin – visions in the wavering 
heat, haunting the nomad and ill-equipped traveller.  Thirsty devils 
who follow the dying that they may devour their soul. 

I must continue.  I cannot pause.  I fear the pursuer.  Fear the icy
touch of the Dinjin that will mean death... 

The world flashed into brief existence.  He stirred, moved to his side
and once again faded...another desert...another traveler...everything 
different but the same...always the sun...that blazing eye in the 
heavens...and someone forever in the distance... 

Hopeless.  It is hopeless.  It would have been better if I had stayed
with the Caravan- murdered with the rest of them.  Death is coming 
anyway – better a quick finish at the end of a Tuareg spear than this 
death by inches, this desert demise. One week from the nearest oasis, 
three weeks from the nearest settlement – I know I will never make it, 
not on foot, not without food and water.  Already the vultures are 
gathering; circling like ill-omens. 

Yesterday I thought I saw someone else.  I waited, thinking it was
another survivor, I even retraced my steps in the hope of catching 
them, but it was no use.  They remained out of reach – untouchable and 
distant.  I fear it is the desert sickness.  The fever of the mind that 
can drive a man insane.  So I continue onwards, only occasionally 
giving in to temptation and glancing behind me.  They are still there, 
still following... 

________________ 

The next day, as he pursued the shimmering figure on the horizon, he
looked down and was struck by something curious.  My feet, he thought, 
my feet are bare. 

Of course he had noticed it before, but somehow he hadn't thought it
strange.  In a way it had seemed natural, almost appropriate to the 
landscape and his predicament.  He wondered how it had happened, if 
perhaps he had discarded his boots or lost them to some misadventure.  
If he had deliberately cast them away then he was a fool.  His feet 
were badly cut and filthy with dust, the wounds slowly festering.  He 
had a sudden dread of stepping on something – a snake or scorpion – and 
feeling a fiery nip before the ice of poison creeped up his leg. 

Now that he thought of it, the absence of boots was just a minor puzzle
in a galaxy of puzzles.  What about a name, a home or loved ones?  How 
could he forget what surely must have been a consequential part of his 
life?  The only memories he had – impressions really – were of the 
aeroplane and the crash in the desert.  But those were shadows – 
half-formed and shallow, as though they did not belong to him at all, 
but were stolen from someone else.  The thought summoned the ghost of 
his dream: the people in the desert, stricken and in peril; the 
silhouette in the distance always following.  Only here, in the real 
world, it was he that was following.  That seemed significant somehow; 
heavy with meaning and consequence. But he could not grasp it.  It was 
too big, too all-encompassing and abstract a thought for his weary mind 
to hold on to.  Instead, his thoughts turned to the immediate present.  
The heat, the thirst, the pain in his cramped limbs – all this was the 
present, the one, inescapable reality of his life. 

On and onward, forever stumbling.  The landscape changed and yet stayed
the same.  Shadows, crisp and black, moved inexorably, lengthening and 
shortening with the passage of the sun.  The day was fevered, perhaps 
his last, and there was nothing to console him, no memories of good 
times or images of hope. 

It was almost noon when he heard the shout in the distance.  He had
reached the foot of a gently sloping hill and had momentarily lost 
sight of the man over the brow. 

He froze, and with a supreme effort straightened himself, cocking his
ear to listen.  There was the gentle rasp of sand shifting in the 
breeze and the sound of his racing heart, but nothing else.  He rubbed 
his face with his hands.  Perhaps he had imagined it, yet it seemed so 
real - a cry redolent with pain and misery.  Suddenly he heard it 
again.  A shout.  Real and coming from the other side of the hill.  The 
man.  It had to be the man! 

He flailed up the side of the hill, using his hands for purchase,
kicking up dust and loose pebbles.  Somehow he made it to the top, and 
fighting for breath, his vision dappled with stars, surveyed the scene. 


Below him the land leveled-out into a featureless plane.  The sands ran
seemingly infinitely, ending only with the hazy outline of a mountain 
range in the vast distance.  However, what drew his eyes now was not 
the landscape, but the beached corpse of an aeroplane, winking in the 
sunlight.  Beside the wreckage the man could clearly be distinguished, 
on his knees, cradling his face in his hands. 

He stood, fixed rigidly to the spot and watched the man.  He had pursued
him so long – for what felt like an eternity – that to have him now, 
clearly in his sights was a shock to his system.  He was a bare two 
hundred yards away from him; a scramble down the slope of the hill and 
a short walk and he would be within touching distance.  And yet he 
could not move.  He willed himself to approach, rallying what little 
strength he had to initiate the momentum.  But it was no use.  He was 
transfixed, as though some massive and invisible force had seized him 
in a stony grip.  Instead he stared, filled in equal measure with 
excitement and trepidation. 

The man was largely made; big boned and expansive.  His hair was blond,
almost white in the strong light, and – even in the distance that 
separated them – he could see the red, purplish sheen of sunburn on the 
man's forehead and neck.  He would be suffering, a man like that.  The 
desert would be as alien to him as the surface of another planet. 

As he watched, the man looked up at the sky and gave another piercing
shout.  It was an inarticulate cry and yet filled with eloquent 
meaning; a sound that said a million things without a word.  Pain.  
Horror.  Despair.  Anguish.  Loss of hope.  All this and more fused 
into a single cry that dared the angels themselves to pause and bare 
witness.  See me, it said.  Damn you, damn you all.  There is no God.  
No heaven and no mercy.  There is no hell beneath me, for I carry it 
within.  You cannot punish me.  I already burn. 

The man's cry petered out and he looked down and towards the hill. 
Shock transformed his features as he spotted the figure silently 
watching him.  He got to his feet and, for a moment, stood and regarded 
him.  It was a peculiar sensation.  Both of them, stranded and 
helpless, ragged wanderers in this no-man's land.  It was almost as 
though they were brothers.  Mirror images of suffering. 

The illusion was shattered by the man.  He groaned aloud and vented a
growl.  A wild animal sound that was made more disconcerting by a 
sudden lunge in his direction.  He held up a sunburned fist and shook 
it in defiance. 

‘Bastard!' he shouted.  ‘Leave me alone, you bastard!'  He seemed to
collapse within himself, his arm falling flaccidly, head bowed.  He 
turned and without looking back walked away, towards the mountains and 
back into the distance. 

_______________ 

Memories.  Like eddies in the sea, pulling at his mind, sweeping away
the flotsam of forgetfulness. 

He was looking at a symbol.  A great cross, black and broken, painted on
the fuselage of the aircraft.  So familiar, he thought.  I know this.  
I know what it means, what it's called. 

Swastika. 

The word rippled through his brain and he said it aloud.  ‘Swastika,' he
laughed and clapped his hands, delighted with his discovery.  
‘Swastika, swastika, swastika.' 

Reaching out, he traced his hand over it.  There was power there. 
Something ancient and universal.  Something which transcended culture, 
creed, time and space. 

It represented the sun, he realized.  A solar symbol that meant
everything good: healing warmth and light; the fertile abundance of the 
soil; the regenerative power of nature. 

But there was something else too.  Something dark.  Something
unwholesome and wrong. 

It was inverted, he realized.  A mirror image, a reversal of all that
the original symbol meant.  He suddenly felt sick.  He withdrew his 
hand and cradled it to his chest, hugging it as though it were a small 
animal that required comfort.  This was no solar symbol, but an icon of 
death; corruption and darkness.  He shivered at the thought of it.  
What mind could spawn such an emblem?  Who would seek to turn back the 
wheel?  Once again he was assailed by the fragment of a poem – the same 
poem as before, only from a different stanza. 

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, 

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? 

He stepped away from the fuselage and squinted into the distance.  He
could just make out the man through the heat haze.  He followed. 

_________________ 

Just past noon the wind picked up.  It blew from the West with a new
urgency, one which promised a storm.  The sand, which up to that point 
had been an annoyance, now became a menace.  Great grit-filled gusts 
blew into his face and clogged his nostrils, making breathing 
difficult. 

He put his head down and kept moving.  He didn't know what else to do;
it seemed so pointless, pointless from the start.  Why move?  Why 
continue stumbling through the desert?  Surely it would be better to 
stop, to find shady spot behind a rock and rest; let the elements 
finish the job they had begun. 

It was the man that kept him moving. Sometimes, with the sun beating on
his head like a drum roll, he believed he could hear the man.  Not his 
voice as such, but his thoughts – brief snatches of sentences and 
words.  Some were clear and obvious – ‘Thirsty', ‘Hell', ‘exhausted' – 
and others foreign to him – ‘Armee', ‘Heim', and ‘Gnade'.  Once he even 
picked up the haunting drifting of a song: ‘O Wandern, Wandern, meine 
Lust, O Wandern, Wandern, meine Lust, O Wandern! Herr Meister und Frau 
Meisterin...'  Over and over, the same lines, again and again, until he 
felt as though his mind would break or burst. 

During these moments he found himself adopting a strange fancy: he and
the man were one.  Not simply linked, but different aspects of the same 
person.  How else could he know what the other was thinking?  Why else 
was he compelled to follow?  The fancy grew until it solidified, became 
an overwhelming belief.  They were lost, not in the desert, but within 
themselves.  If they were to escape then they must come together; two 
halves of the whole meeting, unifying.  They must find themselves 
before finding a way out.  He would redouble his efforts at these times 
and walk on as quickly as his tired body would allow.  Often he would 
make headway, growing closer until hope stirred in his breast like a 
living thing.  But then the man would glance behind him.  His face 
would tighten and he could almost taste the fear in the air.  Soon the 
man would be away, crying and mewing, once again opening the gulf 
between them.  It would be then that the fancy would leave him.  His 
belief would bleed away like a broken fever and he would be left 
hollow.  Aware that his mind was bending with the pressure he was 
under, making him foolish and desperate. 

He fell to his knees and looked up.  The storm was here, transforming
air to earth with a strange alchemy.  He could see only the sand-filled 
sky, smothering his senses like a blanket, blinding him.  He was 
scared.  More frightened than he had been since finding himself in the 
desert.  I am going to die, he thought, and they will never find my 
body.  My bones will bleach and crumble to nothing, until they become 
dust, become the desert.  But even through his fear he was aware of the 
man.  The storm raged around him, but still he followed.  Crawling on 
his hands and knees he moved forward.  Somehow he knew which way to go. 


_________________ 

Light.  Bright and tinged pink through his eyelids.   He was curiously
free from pain, bodiless, drifting like a zephyr.  He opened his eyes 
and let his senses soak in the accumulated information.  Sight – the 
pure blue sky, cloudless and infinite.  Smell – a dry, earthy scent 
intermingled with the musk of sweat.  Touch – the soft pillow of sand 
beneath his head, the caress of a desert breeze.  Taste – dust coating 
his tongue.  Sound – a gentle and distant rumbling.   Still he lay 
there, unwilling to move and break the spell.  If this is dying then it 
is bearable, he thought.  Dying isn't so bad – living is worse.  He 
began to drift off, when a resonant boom awoke him from his stupor. 

He forced himself to lift his head and look in the direction it had come
from.  He was lying on the side of a dune, looking down at a rough 
desert road.  An ominous pall of smoke and dust obscured the horizon as 
the rumble grew louder.  He managed lean on his elbows, and with 
arthritic slowness got to his feet, shaking off the dust from the 
storm. 

Down the dune, about three hundred meters away and standing by the road,
was the man.  He was bent double with exhaustion.  He had lost his 
shirt and his shoulders and back was as cracked as a dried river bed.  
He was a skeletal sight, a mummy risen from some long forgotten tomb.  
Yet he was far from dead.  As he watched, the man straightened and 
hopped on one foot, waving his arms in the air.  He whooped and 
coughed, forced by his condition to once again fold upon himself.  But 
he seemed unable to stay still and after a few deep breaths resumed his 
curious dance upon the sands. The smoke and dust increased and the man 
grew more excited.  Eventually, the rumble increased and was intersped 
by the squeaking of wheels and tracks on the hard packed road. 

A tank, swift and monstrous, thundered across the earth.   Its turret
swiveled and swung, probing the landscape like some cyclopedian eye.  
The man fell to his knees and offered a prayer.  His loss of faith was 
forgotten, his misery forgotten.  All that remained was thankfulness, 
an exhilarating gratitude at God's mercy. 

‘Thank you,' he shouted.  ‘Thank you, thank you.  Never doubt you again.
Thank God!' 

The tank came to a stop.  On top of the turret, the commander, his
goggles throwing daggers of light, climbed out and went to the man.  
Another soldier eased himself from the vehicle and went to his aid.  
They tried to lay him down, to unslinging their canteens and moisten 
the man's lips.  But he fought them off.  He was gibbering, incoherent. 
 He would not sit still, but insisted they look into the distance to a 
nearby dune. 

They looked.  But there was no one there.  The sands slipped silently in
the desert breeze. 

THE END. 


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