After three days of rowing (in both pronunciations, if you count the continual bickering between Kos and Rothgar), we found somewhere it was possible to land. There was nothing but desert, with no towns or even an oasis or a spring within sight, but Sam leapt out of the boat as soon as it bumped against the sand, splashed through the shallow water to the shore, fell on his face and kissed the sand. By this stage, I wasn't sure whether he was more terrified of the voyage or of us. (Strictly speaking, I should be able to make those around me immune from fear, too – but in Sam's case, I suppose his firm grasp on reality overrode anything I might be able to do to encourage him.)

It was about 6pm by now, and the sun was just coming down the sky. 'Walking from here isn't going to do much good,' said Kriv, after a short look around. 'We could get back in the boat and row on for a few more hours before it gets dark.'

We were all starting to agree that yes, that wasn't a bad idea when there was another odd flicker, like the one in the boat earlier. We shrugged it off as a trick of the light, walked back to the boat and prepared to climb in (except Rothgar, who had stayed to guard the boat anyway), when we noticed that the boat had holes in it – not the wreckage that the kraken's tentacles might have dealt, splitting the boat asunder, but holes that looked as if someone had poked fingers through the wood. I noticed Rothgar gazing at his long, slender fingers and comparing them with the holes in the boat – holes too small for my sturdy fingers, let alone a dragonborn's talons, and too big to be the work of Bobbynock's little hands, but just right for a half-elf's fingers. He examined his fingertips, established that they weren't torn or splintered, and looked back at the holes again, frowning.

'Rothgar,' I said quietly, trying not to let the others overhear, 'I know you wouldn't sabotage our own boat deliberately – any more than I brought a blizzard on Nyth intentionally. But do you think someone could have been using you to damage the boat, without your knowing?'

'What? No, I'm sure it isn't that,' said Rothgar distractedly. 'It might've been my double, I suppose.'

If there was a curse on Rothgar, I'm not convinced that my attempts to remove it worked.

'Does anyone have any idea how far it is to the nearest town?' I asked. 'Is anyone good at geography?'

Bobbynock shrugged. 'Kriv, do you know?'

'He should do!' said Kos, laughing. 'He's a pirate, after all.'

'I was an honest sea-captain!' retorted Kriv indignantly. 'It's – hmmm – about two weeks' walk through the desert, to get to Quaffy. Or we can walk three or four days back to Nyth.'

'I feel bad about abandoning Nyth,' I said. 'I was sent there to do some good, after all.'

Kriv snorted with annoyance at himself. 'I was wrong – I wasn't thinking straight, in this heat. It may have taken us only three days to come here by boat, but it'll be about two weeks' walk back to Nyth or to Quaffy, over terrain like this.'

'Heat doesn't bother me,' said Kos smugly. 'I'm descended from a white ice dragon.' So, even though Kos's ancestors would have preferred to live in the Arctic or on frozen mountaintops, he seems to be able to keep himself cool wherever he goes. Ice dragons also tend to be evil, which explains a lot about Kos, really – I ought to be impressed that he's managed to overcome heredity as far as he has, instead of blaming him for not being better. Kriv, who is descended from a bronze dragon (who are traditionally honourable and law-abiding), was drooping in the desert heat, so Kos blew a cold breath to relieve him. Mr Who was flapping his wings to fan Bobbynock, and I didn't mind the heat – I'm still just glad to be able to be warm after my encounter with the ice ring.

'Two weeks?' moaned Sam. 'What are we going to do about food? Can we eat the gnome? Where are we going to find water? Can we turn the gnome into water?'

'We'd better send the familiars to search for food,' said Bobbynock. 'Mr Who and the dragon can fly, and Diefenbaker's a pretty good hunter. If there are any lizards or anything around, he can find them.'

'I can see something circling in the distance,' said Rothgar. 'Vultures, I think.'

'So there must be something living in the desert, if there's prey for vultures,' said Bobbynock.

'They might be eating people like us who've tried to walk through the desert and died,' I put in, starting to catch Sam's hysteria. 'Maybe we should try to get to the carrion and eat it before the vultures do? Maybe that'd be easier than trying to hunt something.'

'I'm a pretty good shot,' Kos pointed out. 'So are Bobbynock and Kriv. We shouldn't have any trouble shooting down a vulture.'

'That's a better idea,' I admitted, calming down. 'At least they'll be fresh.'

'And I don't want to write in my memoirs that I've eaten people,' added Bobbynock.

'Can't we eat the gnome?' repeated Sam.

'He's like a desert for me,' said Kos, his Draconic accent making him mispronounce the word before he corrected it to, 'I mean, a dessert.'

We argued for a bit longer, until Sam fell to the ground, unconscious with dehydration. I knelt beside him in the scorching sand and laid my hands on him to revive him, and Kriv held a waterskin to the man's parched lips. With me supporting his head so that he could drink, Sam gulped down about half the contents of the waterskin.

We tried foraging for whatever food and water might be around. Rothgar managed to find a nest of five small eggs, which there was no tactful way to split between six people and a wolf. Apart from these, we had some rations in reserve. If we lived on half-rations, it was barely enough to feed six people and a wolf for twelve days – and expecting to walk across the desert on half-rations sounded ambitious.

'What about the dragon and Mr Who?' I asked. 'Don't they need feeding, too?'

'No, they're magical creatures – we can just conjure them away,' explained Kos. 'The wolf is more of a nature-y thing.' I wonder whether Rothgar sometimes forgets to feed Diefenbaker, too, though, and whether this is why the wolf apparently keeps on dying and having to be summoned back from the afterlife.

Suddenly, Rothgar put a finger to his lips. 'Ssshh, everyone!' he hissed. 'Do you see those?' Looking across the desert, we could make out a series of craters, each around ten feet wide. 'The burrows of giant sandworms,' Rothgar explained in a whisper. 'We'll have to keep as quiet as we can. Those beasts are huge and dangerous, and they're also very sensitive. So don't go calling them names!' he added with a grin – but we could all see that the sandworms were no joke.

'Hey, Sam, you're worried about lack of food?' said Kos. 'Want to help us catch a sandworm? If you walk up to the entrance to lure it out, the rest of us can catch it, and we'll share the meat. Okay?'

'No!' whimpered Sam.

'Why should he have to be the bait?' I demanded angrily. 'How dare you treat him like this? He's our guest, for Lathander's sake! Why can't someone else go first? Who's best at hunting? Who's best at fighting? Why shouldn't someone who can defend himself go, instead of just pushing Sam into danger because he's not one of our gang?'

While I was berating Kos and the others, and Sam was sobbing in terror, nobody else paid much attention until their eyes suddenly focused on something just behind me. Turning, I saw a robed figure who seemed to be holding something small, concealed in his hand. He smiled at Kriv. 'Hello,' he said. 'It's been a while.'

'It has,' said Kriv, sounding bewildered. 'Uh – can you give me a name?'

The figure threw something down which landed in the sand beside Kriv, and then vanished. His disappearance reminded me of Mordenkainen, but his face and voice hadn't sounded particularly like the human wizard – though I suppose wizards can probably disguise themselves at will.

Diefenbaker sniffed at the object half-buried in the sand, and scraped aside the sand with his paw so that we could identify it. It was a ring, which didn't seem encouraging.

'Be careful!' I warned. 'Nobody put it on until we're sure what it does!'

'I'm trying to think who that man was,' said Kriv. 'He looks like the guy who gave me my sword.'

'I can't stand it any longer!' wailed Sam. 'Krakens and sandworms and magic rings – I'm getting out of here!'

'Look,' said Kriv, 'be rational about this. Come with us, and you've got rations, protection, a bunch of experienced guys. Leave, and you're stuck in the desert on your own.'

'No!' screamed Sam. 'I can't stay with you!'

'All right, how about this for a deal?' suggested Rothgar, and he drew his sword and held it to Sam's throat. 'Come with us or die!'

At this point, Sam's nerve failed, and so did his bowels. Rothgar, wrinkling his delicate elven nose at the smell, took out a piece of rope to try to tie Sam up (the same rope that Rothgar himself had been restrained with earlier), but Sam swung at Rothgar with his bare hands, and, amazingly, managed to knock Rothgar's sword out of his hand. Rothgar punched at Sam, and they both went down, rolling over each other and pummelling each other frantically. They were rolling towards the sandworms' holes, kicking and yelling and making so much noise that even the deafest of sandworms couldn't have failed to notice them.

'I hate you!' Kos shouted at Rothgar. 'I hate you most from this group!'

'Wow – he doesn't hate me the most!' exclaimed Bobbynock happily.

'You're just annoying,' growled Kos.

'Shouldn't I run and help them fight the sandworm?' I suggested. 'It could take all of us to defeat it.'

'And more!' said Kriv. 'The whole team of us wouldn't stand a chance.'

I didn't care. I raced towards the sandworm tunnels, colliding as I did so with Rothgar, who was running back to the group after abandoning Sam. Before I had a chance to get near, a huge purple worm reared its head out of its tunnel and swallowed Sam before retreating inside to digest its meal. There was nothing I could do now – and after all, I took oath to protect the vulnerable, not to take revenge (whether on the sandworm or on my companions). Now that Sam was dead, I needed to get back to the group – which wasn't easy, as the sand around me was already sliding down towards the sandworm's pit. I managed to haul myself onto firmer ground, and ran back to the rest of the group.

It was starting to grow dark by now, but at least it was cooler, and walking was easier. It wasn't easy moving stealthily around the wormholes with the little light afforded by the moon and stars, but with Rothgar's and Bobbynock's good night vision, and Kos using magic to fly above us and look out for holes, we made a good few miles before it grew too cold to walk any more. We put up our tent, which was surprisingly warm and cosy.

'I cast a warming spell on it,' Bobbynock explained. 'We need to travel in the morning and evening, when the temperature's comfortable. When it gets too hot, we'll put up the tent again and I'll cast a cooling spell. And it's sand-coloured, too, for camouflage.'

'Wouldn't colouring it black be more help, at night?' grumbled Kos.

'Why should it?' I said. 'If it's sand-coloured, it's camouflaged in the daytime when we need it, and at night, it'll be as dark as everything else in the desert.'

'Do you know what the ring is?' Kriv asked.

Bobbynock examined it, and his face lit up with pleasure. 'It's a spell-storage ring,' he announced. 'And one of the spells stored on it is one to teleport up to six beings to the place where it came from, which is – yes! – Elventower.'

'No. And I don't remember most of it anyway. My memory keeps getting wiped.'

A ring to transport six of us – so if Sam had survived, one of us would have needed to stay behind (not counting the magical familiars, who didn't need the ring's powers). Probably we should have left Rothgar's wolf behind and hoped he could fend for himself, but I'd have felt strongly tempted to leave Rothgar or Kos. Then again, they probably feel the same way about me.

'So, should we get some sleep first, or go there straight away?' I asked. 'You know more about Elventower than I do – are we safer here in the desert, or there?'

Kos laughed. 'With them,' (he waved his talons at the rest of the group) 'there's no such thing as "safe"!'

'It certainly wasn't safe for Sam!' I said indignantly. 'If Rothgar hadn't intimidated him until he fled…'

'We all have free will,' said Kos smugly. 'He decided to stay in the desert rather than come with us.'

'Yes, and what about our free will?' I demanded. 'We could have chosen to treat him decently, and then he wouldn't have run away!'

'He made that decision of his own free will…' Kos repeated, and winced. He rubbed at his mark of Lathander as if it was stinging.

Everyone else is asleep now, and it's time I got some sleep, too. At least we don't have to be up early tomorrow.