The Coming of Night
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.…
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The next morning took very long in coming.
They sky began to lighten to their right; shining with a pearly hue, so beautiful it took their breath away. Then, very slowly, the sun itself began to peek above the horizon, shooting cool golden rays across the rippled sand. At the top of the taller sand dunes, if they looked carefully, they could just see the edge of the sea glittering miles and miles away.
Behind them, gleaming like a jewel and very clear in the early morning coolness, Tashbaan stood, already far in the distance. And forever behind them, they saw the lonely hoof prints of the horses, marring the windswept sand. Ahead of them, Mount Pire began to glow purple and misty, the tallest peak in a range that seemed to touch the sky.
They stopped for about fifteen minutes, ate a few dates and poured water into the horses from the water skins. The skins still had four legs on them, tied securely at the ends.
They began again, still loping easily, their shadows very long and dark, the horses' mains rising and falling with each stride. Then it began to get warm. At first it was a pleasant warmness, just the sun touching them and softening the chill of the night. But then, as the sun moved across the sky the temperature soared. The air began to shimmer, the horses took hot breaths of air with gasps, sweat trickled down Aravis' face and she could see that Shasta's face was shiny too and not just with sunburn. The horses were sweating too, first with damp under the saddle blankets, then dark patches around their eyes. They had to stop for a few minutes so the saddles could be taken off and they could try to cool down. It was just worse when the saddles were put back on.
They continued on, only walking now, toward Mount Pire, which seemed to have shrouded itself under layers of shimmering heat. The snow that capped the mountain with white seemed to taunt them. Tashbaan behind them looked like nothing more than a mirage, as the bright sun beat down on them mercilessly. They squinted now, through half closed eyelids, then squeezed them shut to try to stop the throbbing headaches.
The horses seemed unbearably hot to Aravis and Shasta, and Aravis and Shasta felt unbearably hot to the horses. Aravis dismounted and walked in Bree's shadow, but Shasta could not because the sand burned his bare feet.
Shasta began to wonder if the horses' hooves would split in the hot sand.
"Thanks for the thought," Bree panted, "we're both shod, so we have some going left in us yet."
The water in the water skins began to get alarmingly low and yet the desert remained unbroken, sand softly blowing before them.
"Are you quite certain the Bat knew what he was talking about?" Aravis asked, "I'm sure there are remarkably silly talking beasts just as there are remarkably silly humans."
"This one wasn't," Shasta said shortly.
"Wasn't what?" Aravis inquired, "Silly or not silly?"
Shasta didn't bother to answer her, he felt too sunburned to say anything.
Aravis was burning much worse, though she didn't know it. The pink clothes she had on might have been the height of fashion, but they certainly did not protect her from the sun. Shasta at least had a turban and a white mental, Aravis had nothing, she had taken off her jacket and now she had just thin cloth over her back and in some places nothing at all.
It was with great relief that the travelers noticed that the sun was more in the west then the east. For a little while they were riding directly towards it, then, very slowly, the shadows grew long and longer until they could not see the ends of them. As the sun lowered, the sky looked washed with blood.
It was about that time that they rode from behind a rather larger sand dune and saw a wall of rock to their left, chiseled into fantastic shapes by years of harrowing by the windblown sand. Their path seemed to drop down until they were riding almost through a small canyon.
Then for the first time, they saw little scraggly bushes, almost the same color as the sand. It grew rocky, the horses slipped and fought for their footing as they walked down. Always down.
More thin, scraggly bushes were growing and ahead of them was a whole clump of them together. As they approached they saw that the earth was damp. The gorge twisted and for a moment they thought they heard the plash of water echoing off the stone walls; as they rounded the corner, they saw it.
It was a pool that had hollowed out a bowl for itself in the rocks, a small white waterfall cascaded into it with a musical gurgling.
Shasta hardly remembered untangling himself from Bree, running forward and diving headfirst into the water. He plunged down, there was just enough light to see the bottom, golden stone and murky, a fish flitted away from him. He twisted underwater, his feet hit the bottom, then he was shooting to the silver surface. His head broke the water and he was laughing.
Aravis was a few feet away from him, trying to push her wet hair out of her face. There was a tremendous splash to their right and they looked to see Bree, shrouded in flying foam, turned blood red by the setting sun.
Aravis for a moment thought that the saddles ought not get wet, but then she didn't care. She dunked her head under water again. Her skin felt like it was made of wax and when she looked at it, it seemed red. Just the sun, she thought.
She knew now why the water sounded like music. Every noise was magnified and bounced around the sheer, sculptured cliffs around them. The walls seemed to curve above them and the pool could almost be in a cavern. The only way to continue on this way, she saw, was by climbing the waterfall itself.
Suddenly very tired, she climbed out of the water and curled up in a smooth warm hollow in the rock. She would stay awake…she would stay awake…
