Pau draws a distress glyph on the vermillion waves, lost in the unforgiving sands, damned under the unrelenting sun.
He has no time to bury the dead, no energy to spare for those who fell with him when the sandstorm ripped their caravan from the skies. Yet here he kneels, closing the eyes of his companions, fellow pilgrims searching for home, the paradise the chants promised.
“Glow in Her embrace,
Warmer lands and ripened fruit,
Risen from the ash.”
Pau sings to the winds upon covering the faces of those he called friends with a final layer of sand. “May you find home in the next life.” A final whisper to the expanse.
It whispers back.
He is not alone.
The looming creature crawls over the debris. Billowing cloth covers its head and most of its body. Five scaly fingers bearing dark claws move swiftly on the sands.
Pau scuttles back, clutching a knapsack containing what little he collected from the remains of the caravan. Precious water. Meager food.
The strange creature hisses and tilts its head, raising itself onto two limbs. Towering. Glaring. Humanoid.
Dry winds perturb the red sands. The distress glyph he spent precious minutes on vanishes with the incoming sandstorm, darkening Pau’s already obscured vision.
The creature advances, unhurried, towards him.
I won’t die here!
Pau scrambles away, into the desert, desperate for a path to the promised paradise. He leaves behind sounds of the scavenging creature, which soon transform into shifting sands.
It follows.
Pau has no moment of rest.
He wanders endlessly across crimson dunes. His sun-kissed face aches with every gust grating sand against his skin. Whatever moisture is left in his throat he guards with cracked lips. The day is too long. His water skin is too empty. Yet he cannot stop. The creature follows.
It’s hunting me.
Pau cannot shudder in this heat.
When night falls, he does. His clothes rest too thin on his shoulders. The scorching torture becomes gelid agony.
The sands shift again.
Pau spends counted heartbeats tensing, fatigued muscles primed for an impossible effort.
The creature looms. Hisses. Prowls. In the moonlit cloudy darkness only its towering silhouette and undulating cape remain. In two sweeping moves it removes the cloth and burrows itself in the sands.
The dunes still.
And Pau can finally breathe.
He rests, kneels to fatigue, drinking and eating with agonizing parsimony.
And the skies open.
The starry expanse reveals its secrets. Concentric constellations glimmer against the domed vastness of eternity, faraway suns painting the music of the universe that washes fear away with wonder. Pau’s awe and ache throb in his eyes.
“And when all seems lost,
Gaze upon the eternal,
The stars show the way.”
Pau sings, shedding tears. Moisture lost. Hope rekindled. Her constellation dips in the horizon, flaming phoenix kissing the reflective surface of the faraway sea. The edge of paradise.
“Fire and water,
Two lovers intersecting,
The cradle of life.”
The path is laid, within reach. He must only follow where her stars lead.
He cannot. The cold air seeps into his pores, consuming the warmth vermillion waves instilled before. The weight of comforting night and stolen day crush whatever willpower he conserves. His body stills, resting on the cool dune. Sands rumble. Searching. Hissing. Towards him.
I’m going to die.
#
Pau awakes in the warm desertic embrace. Sands engulf his limbs without impediment. His supplies are intact. His throat is moist. His body groans. And the strange creature stares from above with two topaz snaky eyes.
Pau coughs sand and crawls away.
The creature crouches. Hissing. Waiting. Watching.
Pau slowly stands, limbs trembling as he holds its gaze. “What do you want?”
It hisses, bobbing its head, forked tongue slipping between jagged fangs. Its tail coils, hiding beneath the cape.
Pau bites his lip. “I can’t understand you. If you’re not hunting me, why do you follow?”
It hisses again. A short sound. Then longer. And a final short hiss. It stands taller. A scaly hand gestures to the vermillion expanse, to the largest dunes west. Then it beckons, reptilian tail and hands curling.
Pau shakes his head. His own hand points to the opposite direction, to the sea, the eastern cerulean line barely cutting through scorching heat. “Paradise is that way.”
The stranger huffs through its snake-like nostrils and stomps. Their claws clutch Pau’s wrist.
He pulls away and raises both fists. “Don’t touch me.”
The stranger hisses. Short. Long. Short. Pointing west. Insistent. Reaching for Pau again.
“No,” he punches the reptilian snout.
The stranger chokes and curls in the sands. Bleeding. Shuddering.
Pau looks away. “I’m going.”
And he does. To the edge of paradise. To the promised land. This is why he walks without pause. Until his waterskin empties. Until food is a distant memory. The stranger is the only shadow traversing the desert besides his own. The cerulean horizon has barely approached, and still he advances. Finally, he crests the dunes with the setting sun and beholds what lies past the sandy flames.
Pau stills.
He breathes.
Heavily.
Urgency grips him. Caution is lost. He slides down the dune. The stranger hisses acutely and lunges for his collar but Pau glides faster. Tumbling. Ingesting sand. Peeling skin. It does not matter. He crawls until his hands touch dampness. An edge of the world. A gentle wave laps against his fingertips. Salt permeates his nostrils. The song of the sea cradles his ears. And when he looks upon the shore stretching to his sides it’s the same unbelievable sight the dune revealed: giant barnacled cetacean bones jut in dangerous angles, spiked carapaces scuttle beneath tender barren wetness, water spurts from spots after the passing waves, and tangled algal growth ooze putrid fumes.
It’s a kind of paradise, for those who can survive it.
No…
Pau collapses.
Hope shattered.
There is nothing here for him but death.
He knows.
And he sobs.
Claws dig into his shoulder.
He winces.
A long shadow looms under the last rays of a day gone.
Pau regards the stranger standing beside him.
Dried blood cakes their snout. Their hand gestures west. A short singsong hiss. Then long. Then short.
He doesn’t understand. But the cadence of this strange language…
It’s a chant?
A small hope. So he trusts.
He lets the stranger guide him through the forsaken sands until his sanity slips into mirages of old friends, flying caravans, and a paradise lost.
He sleeps beneath the sands in the warm embrace of the reptilian stranger.
He drinks from the drops of his own bodily fluids.
He eats shared food he can barely digest.
He walks with barely a pause.
He hallucinates.
“I can’t…” Pau’s knees fail him. The timeless image of lush palm trees and giant flowers consumes him. The vast verdant garden hidden amongst the shadow of a rising cliff trickling water into a crystalline lake is too much for him to bear. The mirage of this oasis permeates his senses.
The stranger’s grip brings him back. They settle beneath a great shadow, next to the tricking melody of running water.
Pau blinks, struggling to see the truth.
They sit by the base of a great cliff. The lake is real. The palm trees are too. But the vegetation is meager, rough, and the vermillion tint washes over all. This is not the promised paradise.
But at least there is water.
The stranger stops him before he cradles his hands into the lake. They hiss, meeting Pau’s eyes, pointing to the water. A short hiss. A longer one. Then short again. They point to their chest. And to Pau’s, where the heart lies.
He gasps. And sings.
“Still waters gift life,
Succumb and your heart shall change,
A paradise lost.”
He meets the stranger’s topaz eyes.
They hiss with the same cadence, same melody of the song, bobbing their head excitedly. A scaly hand stays on Pau’s chest. They do not speak the same language but the message is unmistakable. “Will you drink?”
Pau gazes to the skies, where Her stars shine. The constellation signals east, beyond the sea, where the promise of true paradise lies. A home faraway, but still attainable, even if it kills him. Yet, if he drinks, if his heart changes, it will truly be beyond reach.
The stranger’s palm lingers on his chest, a light pressure betraying longing. Topaz eyes openly asking. Hoping.
Pau sighs. Pauses. And removes their hand.
The stranger lowers their eyes, a sad hiss.
He breathes, his hand closed in a fist, heart aching. And plunges his face on the water, drinking deeply.
His body convulses. The lake engulfs him. Bones crack. Skin peels. His morphology is made anew into reptilian shapes, scaly edges. And when he emerges, breathing through new nostrils, Pau hears her hissing worried voice.
“Honorable friend, are you well?” The former stranger holds him in a mutual embrace.
And he understands.
This is not the promised land.
But it will be home.