Chapter One

They had been walking for so long.

It had only been two weeks since they had come down from the plateau into the desert, but it felt like months, Tadala thought, squinting across the liquid glare of the shifting sand. The rocky canyons and ravines of the highland had been terrible enough. Often as the line of camels picked their way along the paths that followed the cliff faces, she had held her breath, sure that one of them would fall. But the unrelenting sameness of the sand was somehow more frightening yet.

And her feet hurt.

Hakim's continual irritation did not reassure Tadala at all. So far as he was concerned, her presence in the caravan meant his daughters ought to be doing something mannerly and agreeable whenever he bothered to look back at them. He didn't look back often; mostly he walked beside one of the lead camels and brooded. His wife had died bearing their first son six weeks prior, and his bitterness was boundless.

Tadala privately thought that keeping the twins occupied was a task for a contingent of soldiers and maybe also a minor god. The girls had started the journey into the desert distraught; now they were irritable and rambunctious. Tadala spent most of each day chasing them away from the camels, preventing them from bashing each other in the head with rocks, and glaring at the back of Hakim's head. Eight-year-old, coppery-skinned girls with sandstone curls, they spoke a northern dialect of her language as well as the desert's rolling tongue. This was their heritage from a mother who had, many years ago, left the shores of the great lake to follow her foreign husband over the sea.

Fifteen years old, Tadala was well-practiced in paternal resentment. Her own father had shown the remarkably bad grace to be lost with Hakim's ship a year before. (The loss of the ship was perhaps also responsible for some of Hakim's bitterness.) That Ababa had left her in a strange country with only the twins and Hakim's wife for conversation struck her as irresponsible, bordering on sadistic.

But her father was guilty of far worse. Ababa had been a reticent, even severe man. When he was young, he had been handsome, as dark as polished blackwood, but Tadala couldn't remember him with an expression other than worry or disapproval on his wide face. Sometimes, when she was feeling particularly cruel or frustrated, she wondered why her mother had married him. Her mother had been quick-witted and thoughtful, widely respected as a weaver and a steward and widely adored for her beauty. In her house, Tadala had been the most beloved of the village's children, a gangle of gazelle legs and long neck, the lineaments of her mother's loveliness already traced in her round face and luminous eyes. Her parents had grieved having only one child, but she had never doubted that she was a blessing on her mother's house.

Three years previous, shortly after they had celebrated the harvest, Ababa had taken her away from her mother’s farm, without ever asking if she wanted to leave or telling her where they were going.

He had fished on the great lake in a little sailboat, a craft he could handle alone or with one of her uncles. That night, he had pulled her out of her bedroll in darkness, hustled her into the boat, and steered it away from the shore. The boat had crossed a days' walking distance into the north before she was fully awake. He had not been amenable to questions then, or in the week of sailing that followed. She had not said good-bye to her mother. She had not known they were not going back.

As Tadala grappled with the twins each evening, forcing them to clean their teeth with miswak sticks and ministering to the blisters the sand had left on their feet, her mother's memory seemed closer than it had for a long time. Her chest ached like there was a hole in it.

They had left the boat on the north shore of the lake, near where the river came crashing down the cataracts to fill its depths. Two months of walking had followed, traipsing over grassland and wending their way through dense stands of trees. Tadala had realized after a week or two that her father was avoiding villages, but she hadn't known why.

Her impressions of the island city on the coast were few and confused. Ababa had found a room near the docks. She had not been allowed to go out by herself. In the night, cries and weeping echoed down the streets and crept in under the bolted shutters. When the wind changed, it had brought a strange, sickly sweet odor from the city. Sometimes she'd thought she recognized the smell, but her father would not answer questions.

They had not stayed long before he had hired onto a ship, a proper ocean-going one that would agree to take his daughter as a passenger as part-payment for his labor.

The ship brought them to a city with air so dry it snapped. The narrow streets were shaded by awnings and prickled under the watch of carved wooden screens in windows high above. She had wished she could stay on the sea, where she could pretend they were heading home. For the first month she had gawked at the people of the city: light-skinned, mostly with straight, shiny black hair, narrow noses that stood out away from their faces, and thin lips. They didn't look like anyone she had ever seen at home or in the island city.

Her father was a good sailor, and the captain had been so beholden to his knowledge of rope and cloth and stars that he had taken him on three more voyages. Kadir had introduced her father to Hakim, whose wife spoke their language, and Tadala had lived in their household during Ababa's absences.

Chikondi had not been an unkind woman, she thought, shading her eyes with her hand and tugging fiercely at one truculent twin's arm. Annoying, but not unkind. Today Tadala and the twins were the last into camp. The larger of the two children, Ntembwa, had cut her foot on a rock and needed to be piggy-backed over a mile and a half until it stopped bleeding. The smaller, Nyoma, started howling when it became clear that she would not also be given a turn at piggy-back.

Tadala contemplated the relative moral merits of an open-handed slap. Firstly, did spirits or ancestors exist who had any interest in smiting her?; secondly, if they did exist, what was the relative likelihood that they were observing this exact square of the desert at this exact moment?; thirdly, if they did exist and they were watching, would she be considered a parental figure who had the right to slap her children, or were the twins were just on loan, theologically speaking? By the time she had considered the cosmic impact of each alternative, Nyoma had stopped sobbing, and they were half a league behind the rest of the caravan. Hakim did not seem to have noticed.

Her heart dipped.

“I’m hot,” Ntembwa said, pulling at Tadala’s hand.

“I’m thirsty,” Nyoma said, tugging at the other.

She considered the great spirit necessary to still bemoan one’s outraged condition so soon after losing one's mother. She considered how quickly she had lost interest in her own discomfort while walking over the grasslands north of home. She considered what her mother would say to two such lively children as these. She considered what disorders would cause them both to lose their voices instantly and simultaneously. They were not done complaining when she was done contemplating.

“I need shade,” Ntembwa said.

“I need water,” Nyoma said.

“That’s unfortunate,” Tadala said, wishing she could set Hakim's hair on fire with her eyeballs. “What do you think about elephants?”

“I think an elephant would make a lot of shade,” Ntembwa said.

This sparked a fierce argument about which thing elephants were more unlikely to do, live in the sand or sit still so children could climb on them. Tadala lifted the edge of her shawl to her forehead and examined the landscape for a likely-looking rock. The last rock they had seen, well along into the process of being enveloped or worn away by the sand, had been yesterday. The rock before that had been three days ago. Or four.

But there was shadow on the northern horizon, she realized with a jerk like trying to step onto a nonexistent stair. And not just an indeterminate smudge, either, but a proper, dark square with hard edges. It didn’t look like the dozens of heat mirages they had seen, which spidered up into the sky like trees or mist or walking figures.

What was it?

Was this their destination?

Hakim came originally from an oasis deep in the desert, where his father kept goats and sheep and his mother made cheese and cloth. When his wife had died, going back to his family had been the only thing he could speak of, though he spoke very little. Tadala had nowhere to go but with Hakim and the twins into the forsaken sand.

Truth be told, she wasn't sad to leave the city of eyes hidden behind carved screens. In her mother's house, she had been beautiful and beloved; in this city, trapped between saltwater and rock, she was suddenly dark, strange, and unwanted. There were few other dark-skinned people here, and many of them were servants. They could not stop to chat with a lonely child, and even if they did, few knew the language of the big lake anyway. It had taken her a long time to learn their way of speaking, and when she did, people still assumed she couldn't understand them.

The city spilled down a hill to the sea, and on the top of the hill a very rich man had built a tall house, seven stories high, with a blue-tiled fountain in its courtyard. The first four months Tadala had lived in the city, she had walked every day up the hill, climbed up on the wall, and watched the water arc from its thin pipe and splash into the blue basin. Date trees grew around the courtyard, and sometimes she had picked the fruits and eaten them. In the fifth month, the wealthy man had caught her on top of the wall and knocked her down with a stick.

When her father had been home, she could usually badger him into talking about sailing, or fish, or the ports down the coast he had visited. Then he had disappeared, and she had been stuck with Chikondi, who mostly wanted to give her unending advice and criticism about how she wrapped her veil, how she combed her hair, how she ate her food …

Tadala would not miss the city. But she didn't particularly look forward to whatever waited for her in the oasis.

When the girls finally stumbled into the camp, the men of the caravan had already pulled their camels down and erected small shade-shelters where they would wait out the afternoon. They would start walking again at sunset, continuing until the moon disappeared behind the horizon.

Hakim had pulled his headcloth loose and was wiping the back of his neck when they found him. He didn't speak but silently untied the waterskins from his camel's packs and poured a drink for each of them in a metal cup.

It was a small caravan, only six other men and ten camels, and the others were profoundly uninterested in the children. One of them had leered at Tadala and said something disgusting on their second day walking. She had a thrown a rock at his face, making him curse. Later Hakim had had a quiet, forceful conversation with that man, his knife in his hand where everyone could see it. No one said anything more to Tadala.

The twins squabbled for a bit before lying down on either side of their father, who leaned back against the side of his pack animal. Tadala wondered if his sunburnt, aquiline face would take on the same permanently rigid countenance that her own ababa's had. She, after exchanging hostile eye contact with the camel, lay down at a little distance from them and pulled her veil over her face. She hated camels. Why couldn't the desert be crossed on a cow? Cows were much nicer.

It took her a long time to fall asleep. Hot, dry breezelets rubbed sand along her skin and into her hair. When she thought of what life waited for them in the oasis, her stomach tried to sink into her backbone. She wondered what the shadow on the horizon was. She wondered if her Ababa was on the bottom of the ocean. She wondered if her mother had stopped thinking about her.

 

When Tadala opened her eyes in the fading light of the evening, something was wrong.

In the desert, the night usually draped itself over the landscape as a clear blue darkness that muffled the sun cleanly and sharply. But the light all around them now was dull red, smeared with dust. When she looked to the west she saw only a massive, roiling cloud where the sun ought to be. The men of the caravan had pulled their camels together and were shouting at each other to be heard over the whine of the wind.

Hakim stood by himself, a short ways away from the others, staring with clenched jaw into the west. A brief panic took Tadala as her eyes roved over the camp, searching for the twins. Then Hakim shifted and she realized that both girls stood with their faces pressed against him, his hands cradling the backs of their heads.

Tadala took a deep breath, trying to force hot, sandy air into her suddenly reluctant lungs. Whatever the cloud was, it was very, very bad.

The words “storm” and “escape” and “too fast” floated over them on the wind. Tadala blinked back tears from the sand scraping her cheeks and felt her heart pound harder.

“Hakim?” she shouted. He did not turn or speak. Tadala grabbed Ntembwa by the shoulder and pulled her away from her father's robe. “What's happening?”

“There's a sandstorm,” she said tearfully. “Mustafa—” the caravan leader “—says it's coming up too fast.”

Tadala's eyes seemed to adjust to the dim light, and the cloud over the sun resolved itself into striations—currents of sand being whipped sideways by the wind, she realized after a minute. Her stomach sank further when it occurred to her that her eyes hadn't adjusted; the cliff of sand was pushing inexorably and rapidly closer.

Nyoma tugged on her father's robe and said something that Tadala couldn't hear.

“We can't outrun it,” said Hakim, his face stony. “There's no place to run to.”

Pulling her veil down over her mouth to keep out the increasing bluster of sand, Tadala spun in place, searching the landscape for what he said was not there.

Her eyes fell on the shadow on the northern horizon.

“But the oasis is just there!” she yelped, grabbing his sleeve. “We have to go now!”

He gave her a withering look. “The oasis is three more weeks east,” he said flatly.

“Then what is that?” she asked, throwing out a hand at the shadow.

“That's a mirage.”

“It isn't a mirage!” Tadala said, feeling close to tears herself. “It's been there all day! It hasn't moved!”

“We have to dig in,” he said, as though she hadn't spoken.

They had to run, she thought numbly, staring at the lashing waves of sand. A human being couldn't survive being buried under that.

Hakim suddenly pushed the girls away from him and walked toward the men, who were trying to construct a hurried windbreak by lining up the camels and making them lie down in an arc in the sand.

If the camels are smothered, who will carry the water? Tadala thought, beginning to shake.

She rushed after Hakim, but he yanked his sleeve out of her pleading hands and resolutely took his place among the men covering the camels' faces with canvas from the shade-shelters.

Even Ababa couldn't convince Hakim of something he didn't want to hear, Tadala remembered.

But she was equally sure that they could go now or not at all.

She ran back to the twins, who were now clinging to each other.

“Come on,” she said. “Your Ababa wants you to come with me.”

“But he said—” Nyoma started.

“He changed his mind. Let's go!” She grabbed both of the girls' hands and pulled them at a trot toward the shadow in the north.

“My foot hurts,” Ntembwa panted after a minute.

Tadala groaned and boosted Ntembwa up. Oh, all the ancestors and fishes, she thought, the child was going to break her back.

The heat of the wind dizzied her, and every few steps the strength of the air slamming into her made her stumble. In spite of herself, Tadala's mind buzzed on. What would they do after today, she wondered, if they survived? What would they do? Where could they find water? How far did the desert go on from here?

But the shadow kept getting larger. She couldn’t see what it was, but they were getting closer.

“I want my Baba,” Ntembwa's voice said in her ear.

“I want him too! I'm waiting for him!” Nyoma howled over the wind, trying to free her hand from Tadala's.

“He's just behind us,” Tadala lied, clenching the girl's hand so hard she thought she heard a bone crack. “We have to go. He's coming as fast as he can.”

“I don't see him!” Nyoma yelled.

“We have to go!” Tadala screamed back, catching her wrist and yanking.

The wind buffeted her suddenly and she fell, spilling Ntembwa to the ground. She forced her head up. She could still see the shadow in the muddy twilight. It wasn't a mirage. It couldn't be. Tadala got to her hands and knees and then, painfully, to her feet, before picking up Ntembwa again.

They ran and fell and ran and stumbled and got up and ran again. Any noise from the men and the camels had long since disappeared in the screaming of the wind. Tadala's hands ached from clutching the twins', crouching against the wind. When she lifted her head, sand lashed into her eyes and sliced across her cheeks, but she was afraid that if she didn't they would wander off-course.

Once she thought she heard a man's voice yelling behind them, but she didn't look back.

The light changed from the bloody red of sunset to the dull gray of barely-visible moonlight. The wind switched directions for a moment, pushing them back instead of sideways. Tadala looked up and gaped—and immediately regretted the mouthful of sand.

If she had not been in the process of fleeing for her life, she would have taken a moment to gawk as their steps brought them around to the eastern face of the great mass. Though difficult to see in the blowing sand, it seemed as tall as a dozen, maybe even two dozen camels stacked one on top of the other. More bizarre yet, the walls of the mass were perfectly flat and without openings.

She missed her footing again and stopped for a moment, letting Ntembwa slide down from her back. She tried to take a deep breath, to ease her burning lungs, and only inhaled sand. The muscles of her legs ached, and the skin of her face buzzed with a sharper, uglier pain. She pushed forward in a stumbling run, feeling behind her for a moment to take the girls' hands again.

In another minute, they’d be close enough to the mysterious cube to touch it. Was there anything inside? she wondered furiously. Was it just a big solid block of stone in the middle of nowhere? Where could they hide? If they slowed too much they’d be caught by the storm. Could they shelter in the lee of the east wall, or would they be smashed against the stones by the wind?

Tadala and the girls, who had been running alongside the east-facing surface of the mass, rounded a corner and followed along another, perfectly flat wall facing north. Ntembwa was already flagging, hopping and limping every few paces. The cut on her foot had probably opened again.

How far could she run? Tadala thought.

She couldn’t carry the child any farther—she was too spent herself—and the wind had risen so high—

—and there. There, on the north face of the wall, barely visible in the blowing sand, was a narrow line of a shadow. It could be an irregularity in the stone. Or it might be an opening into the cube.

“We’re almost there!” gasped Tadala, but she wasn’t sure if the girls heard her. Ntembwa slowed to a stop. Without speaking, Tadala grabbed her underneath the arms and dragged her, until the girl yelled and broke free from her grip to stumble forward.

The shadow was cast by a slab of stone as tall as the three of them standing on each other’s shoulders, sitting at a slight angle to the face of the cube. Sand was blowing up around the base of the intrusion, and they had to climb up a small hillock of grit to feel in the shadow and see if there was anything behind it.

Tadala’s arm pushed around the edge of the darkness into a void. There was a way in.

“Go,” she whispered to the girls.

Something like a shout caught Tadala's ears and she whirled, but she could see nothing but blowing sand.

Her heart pounding, she turned back and passed through the door after the twins.

The darkness swathed them like a watery cloak. Beneath their feet the floor was covered by an uneven and shifting layer of sand blown in through the door. They walked slowly, sliding from one foot to the next. Tadala told the girls to put their hands on the wall to their left.

“It’s dark,” a voice that was probably Ntembwa’s said.

“I know.”

“Ow! That hurt!”

“What is it?”

“It’s a stair. I want to sit down,” Ntembwa said. Her voice was hoarse. Tadala wondered if breathing in so much sand would make their mouths bleed and felt ill.

“We need to get away from the door,” she said nonsensically. “We can't sit down in the sand.” She pulled Ntembwa forward.

The sound of scrabbling and rustling answered her, then more scraping as Nyoma followed them. After a ways, the wall turned, and Tadala stubbed her toe. She yelped and reached down, finding steps in front of her. They were smooth and dipped in the center from long use. She told the girls to go up the stairs on their hands and knees so they didn't fall, as Tadala stumbled in front, feeling the way in the darkness.

The stairs ended in a door. Tadala set her hands against it. This was wood, smooth, light-feeling wood, still smelling faintly of forest. She found unexpectedly that she wanted to cry. Quietly, fiercely, she pressed both hands into its surface, and the door swung open.

Here at last was some grace: the hallway thus revealed was lit at the far end by a point of dull but clear light hanging from the ceiling. Tadala turned to close the door behind them. She noted that there was no latch. Hakim could follow them, she thought. If he lived through the storm … She forced her brain to cut off that thought.

The hallway ended in a cross: stairs up to the right and two more hallways ahead and to the left.

“Up the stairs,” Tadala said. She chanced a look up at the light source above the junction and saw that it seemed to be a … tube, of sorts, shards of mirror covering the interior surface, that twisted away before turning out of sight. Light glittered inside, like a whole constellation of stars had been fed down a pipe. She shook her head and ran after the twins.

“When can we stop?” Nyoma asked at the stop of the stairs. She sounded close to tears, her breath sobbing in her throat.

I don’t know, Tadala almost said aloud. Were there people here? Would they welcome three strangers?

“Just a little bit farther,” she said, swallowing, and taking each of them by the shoulder. “To the end of the hallway.”

At the end of the hallway, Tadala tripped and fell to her knees. She knew she ought to get up but found herself closing her eyes and falling the rest of the way to the floor.