Zan-Gah: A Prehistoric Adventure by Allan Richard Shickman

all, he spied Rydl trailing behind. Rydl was avoiding being seen by dodging from one rock or tree to another,peeking out as if he were playing one of his games. What did he want, who had so long ignored his existence—to witness his murder?
    At length the group came to a crest roughly situated between two mountains, where a hot wind blew on them. As they rose to its brink, Zan felt sure that his time had come, and got ready to resist and flee. A sudden break away and he was running with all his might toward the woods with six tall men charging after him. Zan did not get far. The men split into two groups which flanked him on either side like a hunted deer, and swift of foot soon had him in hand, dragging him back to the crest. Zan prepared to die. He gazed in terror over the edge—but there was no cliff or deep pit at all. An entirely new scene opened before him. As far as his eyes could see there lay a gray and yellowish sickly land, ragged with rocks and scruffy brush. He turned his head around toward his captors and saw behind him the wasp men’s land of stately trees, water, and lush growth. He looked the other way again. There he saw not his death, but a dismal land of death. The mountains, like a great natural fence, made a sharp divide between two strikingly different landscapes, one green and one dry.
    â€œGo!” the gruesomely painted leader said, still sweating after his run, so that the red swirls dripped like blood around his eyes. “Go, and bring us no more misfortune.
There
is where we sent you,” and he pointed to the desert. “That is your land. This is ours. Do not come back again or we will surely kill you.” One of the men gave him a final kick which Zan did not return. He advanced towardthe parched land below, assured that Dael had been sent there and secretly wishing to go there to seek him. The wasp men, with a final gesture of wrath and anathema, turned to go home.
    No sooner had the wasp men left than Rydl came out of hiding, calling to him softly while carefully observing their departure. Rydl had somehow gotten hold of Zan’s possessions, saving them for a whole year. The spear with which Zan had killed the lion was there, along with his sack and some food Rydl had placed inside. Zan found the goat skin, the fire-making kit, and even the black blade that Chul had given him. Most important, his hollow gourd canteen was there, filled with water. “I have kept these for you, Zan, and have kept your secrets too. I knew you were no fool, but I never said so.” Rydl had grown during the year of Zan’s captivity, both in height and in maturity.
    â€œI thank you, Rydl, and will always remember you as a friend when I most needed one.” Rydl hugged Zan-Gah and they said goodbye.

 
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8
THE LAND
OF DEATH
    As Zan descended he remembered well what Aniah had told him: “Do not go where none can live.” But what choice had he? Dael was out there somewhere, sold to the Noi and probably made a slave, as he himself had been for the last year. Zan hoped it was so for he still clung to the belief that his brother was alive. The wasp warriors who had driven him away had pointed a little to the right rather than straight ahead, and Zan took that to be his proper direction. For all the barrenness of the land, he saw at some distance in the blazing region a meandering path of greenery, which told him that a stream might be found there. He had not gone far when he came across a flat, vertical slab of stone which had a curious emblem scratched into its surface. Zan examined the design with curiosity. It consisted of a wild-eyed woman flanked on either side by two men raising their spears. Perhaps she was a goddess or a demon. No doubt she and her attendants were meant to warn off intruders, but Zan was not much frightened by these geometric figures. At least they indicated that people sometimes came there without dying of thirst!
    The sun was