Dragons on the Sea of Night by Eric Van Lustbader Page B

up the slope of the dune. The two were reduced to crawling on all fours, but for every step up, the cascading rivers of sand took them down the equivalent of three.
    Moichi glanced over his shoulder, saw how appallingly close they were to the sucking, swirling base of the waad and redoubled his efforts. He was rewarded by a heavy cascade of sand in his face, and he and Aufeya tumbled further down the dune.
    The bottom of the bowl-shaped waad was sucked abruptly down, and from out of this hole rose a slithery thick shape, like a primeval serpent, huge and either covered by sand or made of sand itself. A beast. Could it be? Moichi wondered. A beast that lived below the surface of the Mu’ad.
    The shape arched – far too large for the bowl of the waad to contain – and then, with a great thrashing, plunged into the center of the waad. It was now very close, and abruptly they heard the rumbling again, but this time it seemed to resolve itself into a voice that echoed off the dunes and the distant, uncaring white sky high above.
    â€˜ FE’EDJINN! ’ In an eerie, hissing attempt at pronunciation. ‘ FE’EDJINN! ’
    Just above them, an avalanche of sand was forming, shaking itself from what once had been the crest of the dune. It was coming and Moichi knew there was nothing they could do to avoid it. But the rumbling echoed still in his brain and he fought for one last hope, to understand.
    Think! he berated himself. Think!
    The avalanche of sand now drowned out all sun. The blessed shade inundated them and for an instant it seemed utterly delicious. Then Moichi was scrabbling at his Fe’edjinn cowled robe, clawing at it to get it off.
    â€˜What are you doing?’ Aufeya screamed.
    â€˜Take off your d’alb!’ Moichi shouted, throwing his aside in a knot and pulling Aufeya’s over her head.
    â€˜Are you mad? You–’
    The avalanche took them, tumbling them down, down into the maw of the rumbling waad. Had he gotten the d’alb all the way off Aufeya? He couldn’t be certain. Then a huge fistful of clotted sand struck him full in the face and he began to suffocate. He struggled but a weight, growing heavier, lay upon his chest. The blood rushed to his head as he was flung upside down; the world went black and he lost consciousness.
    Blood was still on High Minister Ojime’s hands, metaphorically speaking, as he hurried through the city of Haneda. He could feel the lumped package of the Makkon’s tongue burning like a live coal against his lower belly.
    He could not mourn the Rosh’hi’s death because from the first he had seen Qaylinn as an enemy. Not that that was necessarily immutable. Over the years, by dint of bribe or other less savory coercion, Ojime had proselytized many enemies to his cause. But not Qaylinn. He was a stubborn man, some might say a righteous man, though that term left a bitter taste in Ojime’s mouth. Ojime’s father had thought of himself as righteous. He had beaten Ojime mercilessly when his ‘righteousness’ was in full flower. Ojime had no idea why his father beat him, and the fact he was never given the reason made it all the more terrifying. The randomness, the pure irrationality of it, scarred Ojime more deeply than any laying on of the chain his father had used on him.
    As a result, Ojime was properly skeptical of those who characterized themselves as righteous, divining in their strict rectitude the bud of evil and twisted psychosis.
    And yet there was another reason, just as compelling, why he could not mourn the Rosh’hi’s passing: he had enjoyed plunging the blade into Qaylinn’s breast. This vertiginous rapture was what made him stab the Rosh’hi over and over. He could not stop, did not want to stop.
    Deep down, his delight in death appalled him, turned his belly to ice, but it had also turned his heart to stone and, these days, he found it ever more difficult to understand what