The Guardian

He sat alone with his thoughts.

They were his constant companion, and his constant torment.

He could have awakened Miranda, and she could have easily healed the slash on Dart's thigh with a poultice and a prayer. But that was not Dart's way. Master Tasman had often told him growing up that a true warrior bore his scars with pride.

Besides, the pain kept him alert and aware. It was a constant reminder that the price for the world was blood.

The words he had spoken to Rose had left an empty taste in his mouth, and he was left with a queer feeling of hollowness. Was this the price of revenge? A feeling of no purpose?

But was that right? He had a purpose, he knew that. But he'd been blind to it for years, his whole life. And yet, in these last few months, it had become clear to him, like crystal from Deningrad's palace. How had he been so ignorant?

Shana.

His purpose now lay somewhere in the vastness of the world, imprisoned, under the watchful eye of the man who sought to destroy the world. His father, whom he'd once revered, whom he'd thought dead, held his love in the palm of his bloody hand, and at any second he would clench his fist and squeeze the life out of her . . .

"Dart?"

Dart hastily dragged a hand over his eyes and looked. Haschel was there, propped up on one elbow, his dark eyes glittering in the sandy darkness like an old scarab's.

"M'fine," Dart mumbled, offering Haschel a smile that couldn't fool a child. "What are you doing awake?"

"Aw, you know how it is, these old joints o' mine…" Haschel flexed his fingers, then pushed himself up into a sitting position. "Can't hardly sleep in these conditions. I guess I'm gettin' too old."

Dart grunted. Haschel leaned forward, his voice low enough to be effectively masked under Kongol's snores.

"Dart, about you an' Rose..."

"Haschel..." Dart was in no mood for one of Haschel's jibes.

"No, hear me out." Haschel's usual smile was gone, and he put a hand on Dart's shoulder. "We all heard what that man-your father-said at Vellweb. About Shana and Rose."

"What about it?"

"We just need to know you're going to hold it together." The old man's weathered face held a tinged look of anxiety. "These are dark times, Dart, and we don't need to be waiting for you to go mad."

"You don't need to worry about that, Haschel," Dart said.

"I know I don't. But I saw you and Rose leave earlier. I hope you left what you had between you two out there in the desert. Because if you didn't . . ."

"No half measures," Dart said firmly. "You told me that, remember?"

Haschel remembered. It had been in the snowy wastes of Kashua, before they had reached Flanvel Tower, before they had caught up with Lloyd.

"What's done is done."

"I'm going back to sleep," said Haschel. "I suggest you do the same."

Dart shook his head. "I don't think I can," he mumbled, but Haschel seemed not to hear.

He felt a shiver of apprehension. What lay ahead seemed dark and shapeless, filled with threatening thunder. An ominous cloud that hung across the horizon. A cloud filled with the wrath of a god long dormant, mightier than all the armies of the world.

Yet despite his own words, he did sleep, after a few minutes lying on the hard ground of the sunken halls of Gloriano. He was too exhausted not to.

. . .

They breakfasted brutally early. They knew the winds would start to pick up, and though Rose said it was only a day's journey now, there was a sense of urgency now. They had all slept fitfully, plagued by dreams, and though they did not speak of them to each other, they would not have been surprised to know that all of them dreamed the same thing. A dark storm was on the way, and it promised a bloody rain.

They also saw but did not speak of something else. Dart was still moving with a brisk purpose, but his rancor seemed to have cooled overnight. He seemed not to be as annoyed with the rest of the group as he had been before, and once or twice he would even crack a weary grin at some of the quips Meru or Haschel bandied about to keep their spirits up. Yet he walked with a limp, and every now and then he would press his hand against his thigh. The blood flow had been staunched, but it still pulsed and quivered with every painful step.

That was not the only change in the group. Rose still brought up the rear, but she was no longer trailing far behind. She bore her own injuries-blood matted her left temple-but she seemed almost not to notice. Still, there was something oddly comforting about the look in her eyes. There was no longer the unsettling fear that seemed to shine in her eyes like a cornered beast. It was the old Rose, the Rose they had fought alongside these last several months, before the dark revelation of her bloody history had been unearthed. Still, there was something strange lingering there, and the rest of the group kept casting furtive glances back at her, trying to put their finger on it.

It turned out it was Meru. "Where's her sword?" she whispered.

That was true; her rapier, which was always sheathed at her side, was nowhere to be seen. That in itself was highly unusual-they all remembered when Rose refused to relinquish her blade, even for a banquet. But out here, in this endless desolation, it was quite alarming.

Then Rose stopped dead in her tracks. "Hold up," she shouted.

The group stumbled to a halt and looked at her in confusion. Rose was turned toward the west. Her ears were pricked up, and even through the sandy haze they could read the word in her expression: danger.

"Rose?" Meru whispered.

Rose said nothing. She only peered out into the desert. There was a sound growing out there, a familiar sound to her. She had known it would come-it always did. The last defense of Ulara.

"Rose?"

She turned eastward, where the quaking susurration seemed to emanate, and waited for the first glimpse of gray bulk to rise out of the sand. She had never feared the guardian set loose to roam in the poison wastes . . . but she had always been armed. Now she felt naked, exposed, and weak.

Now Kongol cocked his head. "Something coming," he rumbled. "Big."

"What is it?"

Then they felt it-a sudden jolt deep beneath their feet. The sand seemed to slip, like it was going to give way… but there was no underground cavern beneath them. No; this felt different, like the very earth was boiling over. Then Haschel and Meru shouted with alarm and pointed toward where Rose was looking. The sand seemed to heave-and a furrow erupted there, like some immense gopher was tunneling there. Only Rose knew what it was: the passage of one of the vast worms that inhabited the Death Frontier.

"Arm yourselves!" Dart bellowed as the sound grew louder. His voice was deep and grave, just as it had been when he'd condemned Lloyd for murdering Lavitz. The group took up sword and fist, hammer and lance, axe and bow. Only Rose stood weaponless, her eyes searing through the dusty air into the unstable dunes.

Oh dear Soa-

And then it exploded from the ground like a vast projectile: a huge sandworm, driven into a frenzy by the scent of these intruders. It reared itself from the depths in a titanic hissing of sand which obscured its flanks. Its gaping mouth looked like it could scoop up the Queen Fury in one gulp.

"Get back!" Dart roared, and then the worm lunged, its yawning maw filled with rock teeth.

There was a sudden burst of dizzying light, and then Dart sprang into the sky like a fiery red comet, his golden hair whipping about, his sword raised above his head. He hurtled toward the vast sandworm, slashing at the sand-crusted skin of its segments, exposing raw pink flesh beneath. The eyeless monster surged and writhed, hissing, blindly seeking new prey.

In a sinuous, whiplike movement, the worm struck Dart, knocking him out of the air. The worm plunged into the sand as Dart crashed. The dunes slumped, shifting beneath their feet as Meru and Miranda ran to Dart's aid. The other Dragoons held their stance as the vast beast surged toward them, its mouth stinking of all the toxic melange the Death Frontier had ever held. Then Rose stepped forward.

"Rose!" Albert screamed.

Rose understood it all now. She had done her best to fulfill the destiny Soa had laid at her feet, and she knew in her heart that no one else, not even Zieg, could have done it any differently.

The worm kept rising, kept coming forward.

As if entranced, she stepped forward. The rest of the Dragoons screamed at her, but she didn't hear them. She understood now was her time to die. Her time, the world's time. Better to face it now. She would take her last ride into eternity, down this monster's fiery gullet. That would be-

Rose.

The voice was in her head, hitting with all the force of a psychic battering ram, and she rocked back as though struck. And she saw the great worm had frozen before her, its vast tonnage held fast by some sort of inertia she didn't understand.

It is not your time now. You know this, Rosie.

Charle Frahma. Her voice was unmistakable. She tried to speak, but her voice wouldn't come.

We will speak soon. Now come to me.

And then the worm sank back into the arid abyss, and they all watched the ripples of its escape, slower now. And then the dunes once more drifted and rolled, as though they had never been disturbed.

. . .

Rose sank to her knees, and she heard faint calls from the others as they ran to her. She knelt there in the sands and waited until they had caught up with her. Albert and Haschel bent to help her up, but she shrugged them off and picked herself up.

Dart.

She raced out to where Miranda and Meru were huddled in the dunes, and as she did, she saw the crumpled form before them. Dart's Dragoon armor had vanished, and he lay unconscious in his regular garb.

"Is he all right?" Her voice was cracked and choked with sand.

Miranda nodded. "He's breathing, but he came down pretty hard."

Meru called for Kongol, and the Giganto stepped in. He bent down and plucked Dart from the sand like a wounded kitten.

"We're nearly there," Rose said. "Let's go."

She started moving, but Haschel grabbed her by the arm.

"Wait a moment," he grunted. "What was that monster?"

Rose shrugged. "The welcome wagon."