Twelve - Oracle 1 - Strength

He remembered a time when the warmth of the sun upon his face had been a blessing. He would stand upon the rise on the outskirts of the city, looking toward the rolling hills of pasture, watching animals graze on green tendrils that reached up from the earth toward the rosy fingers of dawn. The light had seemed like a beacon, drawing life from the earth, waking hearts and minds to the wonders of the world. He would drink in its heat, its light, watching with an open heart as the world awoke before him. Only when the light of golden rays caused spots to flash before his eyes would he turn and cast his gaze back upon the city, it too awakening from the dark night to shine white in the new day. It was his true beacon, a beacon of knowledge and wisdom that he treasured more than anything. The light of the sun made everything seem brighter, more potent, the sheer potential singing to him in a rising haze of possibility.

He remembered that feeling, but it was as distant to him now as was the city itself, almost a dream that he once had had rather than the memory that he continued to tell himself it was. Things were different here. The sun was no longer a blessing, it was a curse. The shifting sands beneath their feet seemed to drink in the heat, radiating up through their sandals to burn their soles and they trudged onward. Even the cloaks they wore did little to alleviate the burning rays that seared at their flesh day in and day out. The heat was endless, much as their journey seemed to be. A long line of footprints etched out their path over the dunes behind them, like the long trail of soldier ants trekking out from their nest into the unknown world beyond. It seemed vast, impossibly so, but he knew it was not. At first glance it seemed lifeless as well, but that was only to the uninitiated. There was life here, too much in fact. It was the threat of that life that drove them beyond the need for sleep to continue their march. As their leader, Sigonius knew they would not be safe until they had passed through the dunes to the land that lay beyond. He felt it then, like a stab between his shoulder blades, the same sensation as before. He found himself speaking before he’d even rationalized the words.

“We are being watched.”

Of the five in their party it was Baudoin who responded first, pulling back the hood of his cloak to reveal the red and parched skin of his face beneath. He was a tall man and proud, Sigonius found himself reflecting. Ordinarily quiet, out here in the dessert where all was quiet he seemed to have come into his own.

“How can you be sure?” Baudoin asked immediately, facing Sigonius squarely as he did. It was not a challenge Sigonius knew – the man simply wanted to understand. They all did. As he watched though he saw the rest of the party emulate the same action, pulling back the hoods of their cloaks, heads turning this way and that as they searched the nearby dunes for signs of life. Huges, the stocky scholar, bobbed this way and that, as if he expected he might catch a glimpse out of the corner of his eye. Anjou, Baudoin’s brother, normally laughing in good jest as he tried to keep their spirits uplifted, now had his hand resting upon the hilt of the sword at his side. Vespucci was worse, he had already drawn his blade and looked as though he meant to go charging off at any moment. Baudoin remained staring levelly at Sigonius, but it was he who Sigonius unleashed his anger upon.

“Fool!” he cried, grabbing him by the folds of his cloak and swinging him about. That got the attention of the others, turned their gaze back inward once more. How many times, Sigonius mused, how many times did I drill them on the need for secrecy, yet still they displayed every action and emotion like a flare. “Now they know we know!” he spat in Baudoin’s face. Baudoin continued to look at him stoically.

“There’s no one out there,” he stated flatly, but his eyes did not rove the dunes, instead they bored into the face of Sigonius, and this time Sigonius knew that it was a challenge. He pulled the man closer and glared at him with an intensity that made Baudoin flinch involuntarily.

“This place doesn’t exist in the way of our home,” Sigonius stated for what felt like the hundredth time, “there are different rules here.”

Baudoin began to turn but Sigonius pushed at his shoulder, forcing the man before him to stay in place.

“This is not some game, there are no second chances here. We will be tested and like those before us, we will do well to survive,” Sigonius stated, hoping that the words spoken here, in the desert, might finally be committed to the memory of his followers, words that he had often spoken in preparation for their journey.

Anjou stepped between the two. As a brother to Baudoin, he knew how close the two were and that conflict now would not drive a permanent wedge between Baudoin and Sigonius. But he also knew it would be hours before either one of them would speak to the other, an unnecessary danger.

“Sigonius,” began Anjou, “we’ve been out here for three days and none of us has seen a thing but sand and more sand.” Anjou paused as both Sigonius and Baudoin steeped away from him, the moments of anger washed away, vented frustrations had now given way to thoughts of how to understand the land that they now journeyed through. “How can you be sure?”

Sigonius’ green eyes looked hard at his peers, he wasn’t angry anymore, but they could feel his tension building again. Sigonius was aware of something, something beyond their senses.

“I can sense them now,” Sigonius solemnly spoke, pulling his hood back over his head. “All of you,” he added as he turned to continue their journey, “keep your swords at the ready.”

Anjou looked around, danger aplenty he could see, heat and thirst would be their killers. The group had moved on without him; his brother Baudin turned and motioned for him to keep up. Pulling the hood over his head Anjou forced himself to concentrate, hoping to sense what Sigonius did, but to no avail. Anjou, like the other three followers would have no choice but to trust their leader.

***

The sun sat at its high point, unmoving and unwavering, never rising, never setting, no peace did it give. Huges kept track of the time, checking his hour glass and noting down the time that had passed. The task forced him to remain focused while the group trudged on through the sand. Quickly checking the hourglass, Huges saw the last few grains of sand within it fall to the bottom; another hour had passed. Huges took his knife out and made another stroke on his sword’s scabbard.

“Sigonius” he called out.

Sigonius turned to acknowledge Huges, knowing that another hour had passed, but staying faithful to the ritual.

“Yes,” he replied, watching as Huges held up his scabbard in response. He nodded and the scabbard was lowered as the group continued trudging on once more. Time, Sigonius thought, you never even noticed it until it was taken away. Here there were no seasons, there was no night, there was not even morning or afternoon, just the sun riding high, constantly burning all who struggled by in the world below. They had not been broken yet, and the hourglass and scabbard ritual allowed them to at least mark the fact that time marched silently on beside them, but it was starting to grate and it would only get worse. Sigonius found himself wishing that something would happen to break to endless monotony of their journey. When a geyser of sand suddenly erupted upward in a forceful explosion he cursed himself – sometimes there was nothing worse than getting what you wanted.

“To arms,” he cried loudly, drawing his own sword as he did so, “to arms!” Within moments all five of them stood in a line, swords drawn, hoods lowered, staring intently as the sand continued to explode upward in a great flood from the hot desert sands below. It looked like golden water cascading upwards, but as the sands fell back down to earth they flowed into a new shape, shifting sands molding into the outline of feet and legs, a body swiftly growing upward as the shape was fed by the flowing specks of gold death. When the shape was done the geyser stopped and all was still once more.

It stood before them, more than twice the size of Baudoin, the tallest of their group. The shape was that of a man in all the important ways, two arms, two legs, one head – but the face was like the shifting dunes they trod upon, constantly melting and reforming as they looked on. Only the hollow eyes were constant, staring at the five of them as they stared back at it. Sigonius looked back levelly, determined to wait until it made the first move. He was not forced to wait too long.

“Why have you entered our domain?” the creature asked in a voice that sounded like Autumn leaves burning. Sigonius took a step forward, his sword outstretched toward the creature. The sand man seemed to swell as he did so, growing even taller to loom imposingly before him.

“We are on a holy mission,” he stated. Best he thought to keep it simple – who knew what method a beast composed of sand used to think. What thoughts could it think? Back home the words “holy mission” would have seen them given safe lodgings, food and news in any town they came to. Here he felt he might just as well ask for understanding on the hourglass that dangled from Huges’ neck. The sand man seemed to weigh the words with due consideration before it gave answer.

“Then today,” it responded quietly, “you die.”

A blast of sand fired furiously from the creature’s hand as it raised its arm up to the level of Sigonius’ head, but Sigonius had started moving before the hand had raised itself more than a few inches and was already well out of range, dodging quickly around behind the creature.

“Attack, my companions,” he found himself screaming, unable to see what the others were doing as he blinked furiously, trying to clear grains of sand from his eyes as the drifts swirled about him, growing ever closer with each passing second. “Attack now,” he cried, swinging his sword through the air before him, “or our quest is over before it has truly begun.”

As Sigonius raced past the creature’s arm he saw that Huges was by his side and wasted a moment indulging in a brief smile. It seemed that all his drills had not been in vain after all. They were following the divide and conquer strategy he had proposed. Two dashed to one side, two to the other while one drove home through the middle. It might be an impossible beast, Sigonius mused, but it still had only two arms to fire its sand blasts from, not to mention only one head to direct them. He and Huges were both eager as they raced to the far side of the creature, ready to go on the attack. It then that they watched in horror as another face grew out of the back of its head and two more arms sprouted from the centre of the thing’s back. Sigonius realized that his earlier words were filled with even more truth that he himself had suspected. “There are different rules here,” he whispered to himself, but Huges was already pulling him down to roll across the rough sand at their feet as a fiery hot blast scorched above their heads.

“Unity,” Sigonius shouted wildly as he rolled to his feet, and around him he heard four other voices echo the cry. They all knew the meaning – five bodies fighting as one. The movements came so naturally now after all these years that Sigonius didn’t even need to think about them. “Flow like the river,” he remembered their old teacher saying, “move like the stream.”

He couldn’t see them as they converged on the creature from five separate directions, but he felt them, all moving the same way, flowing in the same stream. More arms sprouted from the beast, and more again, each new appendage bursting out like rotten fruit on a decomposing vine, spraying scalding sands at the warriors as they ducked and wove their way forward. Swords slashed at sand again and again as more arms sprouted forth. By the time they were closing on the creature it no longer looked like a man, more like a punctured cactus leaking in the sun. With a fierce cry Sigonius plunged his sword into the heart of the beast, four other swords mirroring his movement simultaneously. There was the sound of metal ringing against metal as all five swords connected at the centre. Silence reigned for a moment, then the creature dissolved, hissing sands sliding downward in a golden avalanche. In mere moments the silence had returned and Sigonius found himself facing his four companions, all arranged together in a circle, swords outstretched, smiles on their faces as they looked down at a pile of sand at their feet. Vespucci was the first to speak.

“Where has he gone?” he asked, and Sigonius was glad that none of them bothered deluding themselves that this battle had seen their enemy destroyed. Victory was sweet, but there was no point in letting complacency let them lose the battle yet to come.

“He has returned to where he came from.”

Sigonius looked to see where their own tracks had come from, turned in the opposite direction, pulling his hood around his head as he moved off.

“He will return,” he warned.

Huges quickened his pace to walk to the side of Sigonius.

“How can he return?” asked Huges, his tone almost pleading, his efforts in battle for naught.

Sigonius paused, looked into Huges’ eyes.

“We did not kill him.”

Sigonius turned to his companions, met them all with his eyes.

“Your cuts, though mighty, did him no harm for he was a creature of sand. Punch sand for long enough it grows stronger and just as immovable as a mountain, whilst your own hands will be bloodied stumps.” He let the words sink in, watching as realisation dawned on his followers; at last they were beginning to understand. “The creature of sand will return to finish us off,” said Sigonius.

***

Ships had arrived in the morning and the city was in a heightened sense of excitement. Weeks of storms had battered their city, but the light of spring had come upon them, and the wonders of the countryside and of the ship’s stores were now for sale in the Agora.

Sigonius led his four companions through the Agora. Fruit was in abundance and oils and pots and wine too. Women and men quickly stocked up on items, loading them onto donkeys or carts or onto their own backs, to return these treasures to their homes. The companions had little time to shop and as they came to the end of the Agora they could make out the colonnade leading to the Temple of Discourite Oracle.

Sitting at the top of the steps was the old man. Sigonius and his friends had spent a great deal of time with the old man and never had they learnt his name. Despite their best efforts, the boys had never tricked him into revealing his name, nor found anyone in the city who knew it.

The truth was that even if anyone knew it, they would not have uttered it, for they feared him. They feared him because he could turn a greeting into an insult, turn their words and lives upside down with little more than a look. It was the way of him, he knew something they didn’t, and whilst that maybe should have made him someone to respect, it didn’t. Fear was the only emotion.

The people also feared Sigonius and his companions as a result, they too had access to the terrible knowledge that the people feared. But that did not matter to Sigonius and his friends, their mission consumed their time, not the superstitious fears of the city.

The old man sat, neither acknowledging the young men in front of him nor taking pause to even look at them. His eyes were set in the distance, a far-off place that only he could see and which Sigonius dearly wished he too could experience.

“The quest you have been selected to undertake is perilous.”

The five companions looked intently upon the old man, wondering if he had more to say, or if this was going to be the start of some debate, hence his postulation on the future. But he wasn’t just speaking to the group before him, but rather to all who were in earshot, and even to those beyond the realm of men.

Huges looked to Sigonius, who motioned for him to speak.

“In what way?” asked Huges.

“Tell them Sigonius,” instructed the old man, his eyes now glazed over.

“Because no one…” began Sigonius, pausing, letting his words be heard, “no one has ever managed it before.”

Sigonius took his place by the old man, who took his hand into his own, never breaking his stare.

“Since each of you were born, we have taught you all that we know, so that one day you could undertake this task. None of us know what frontiers you will have to pass to reach the Oracle, but in doing so you will have to live by your wits, to be brave in the face of danger.” The old man paused and turned to Sigonius. “You will have to look into your very souls to find the strength of will to go on. It is told that even then, the Oracle may very well deny you an audience…”

***

Baudin sank to his knees. Here in the bottom of the dunes they could sometimes find water, must needed with their own supplies dwindling. Reaching for his water sack, Baudin grew despondent as the sands soaked up the small trickle of water he had unearthed. His fingers sank into the sand again, hoping to just touch the moisture, but it all came to nothing. Even as he shoveled the sand away with his hands, the chance even to just feel a momentary cool had eluded him. Running his hands over his parched, blistered lips, Baudin could feel the roughness of his fingers and the encrusted layer of sand that he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to wash off. Finally, Baudin said what all his companions had been thinking as they had watched his burst of enthusiasm give way to lament.

“There is nothing here. We need to find water elsewhere.”

Huges stood next to Baudin, offering him a hand. Baudin took the hand and lifted himself up from the ground. “We can’t,” spoke Huges to his friend. “The sand keeps soaking it up whenever we do find it.”

From atop the dune Sigonius spoke.

“It is their doing.”

Vespucci casually sat himself down, the dune to his back, and began scooping up handfuls of sand from the desert beneath his feet, staring deep into the flowing grains that slide between his fingers like a child at play. “Is all of this their doing?” asked Vespucci, almost regretting the words.

No response came from Sigonius, who instead looked out across the desert, reflecting, thinking about the question.

“We make camp here. I must deliberate on this.”

***

Sigonius sat and watched over his companions as they slept. All had their hoods over their heads to provide some escape from the continuous light. They were all asleep, but there was little chance that Sigonius himself would join them. The question still burned within him; could Vespucci have been right, was there something he and his companions had missed?

Standing, Sigonius left the camp and made his way up the dune, his hands and legs working in unison as went up the near vertical slope. Upon reaching the crest, he reached for his water sack, but then paused and pulled his hands away. Quenching his thirst would have to wait.

There was little to see now.

Except the sand.

No colour but yellow and brown.

But just as his companions were hidden from sight, so too were the secrets of this place, mused Sigonius.

Walking a little distance further away from their camp, Sigonious loosened his cloak and let it fall behind him. His satchel, water sack and everything other than his sword he shucked off and left behind. Sigonius looked at his hands and arms. These tools, once so strong with purpose, were blistered and red. He could only imagine what the rest of his body looked like. Taking the sword from the scabbard, Sigonius deftly threw it to the ground, the point driving in hard and honest, leaving the sword vibrating for a moment from the force before finally coming to a complete halt.

Sigonius glared around the empty desert, his gaze a challenging stare.

“We talk now,” he challenged.

Beneath his sandaled feet, Sigonius could feel the flow of the sand coming alive. Once when young he had marveled at how much movement could occur in something so seemingly inert. But water could move sand, and although there was no water here, the powers of this place had been challenged from their restive peace and Sigonius could feel the currents of their anger as surely as one could feel the sea battering the shore.

Figures of sand emerged all around Sigonius, who stood unmoved by the sight. Soon the whole desert had risen up, a wave of sand, surrounding him, ready to suffocate his voice, his very life, with their numbers. But still Sigonius stood. He understood now, he understood just how strong he could be.

Sigonius noted that the figures closest to him were in constant flux. Growing to a certain point, shedding sand and then beginning the process all over again. And yet they held no real features, nothing to denote that they themselves existed as individuals.

“My sword is sheathed in your keeping,” spoke Sigonius, turning to the group-minded creature all about him. “I am here under truce.”

The sand figures grew taller, doubling in size, the excess sand flowing to Sigonius’ feet. Showing no fear, Sigonius continued to confront them with his words.

“If you do not respect this truce then I will be forced to take action.”

The horde grew taller again. Sigonius almost laughed when he found himself in shadow; instead half a smile appeared on his face.

“We talk now or we do not talk at all,” shouted Sigonius, the sand horde’s movement reaching a crescendo. With fist raised in front of him, Sigonius continued his challenge. “The choice is yours.”

With the horde close to enveloping him, burying him in this forsaken place forever, Sigonius reached toward his sword.

“Very well.”

Sigonius took the sword’s hilt in his hand, the leather worn grooves fit perfectly in his grip. Yet, for some reason he could not determine, despite his best efforts, the sword would not come free from the ground. He strained at it once again, feeling his muscles pull along the length of his arm and up into his neck. A glance downwards and he suddenly realized what he was up against. Hands composed of sand were reaching upward from the ground, grasping the blade of the sword in their impossible grip, dragging its point back into the embrace of the desert sands below. Sigonius pulled upon his sword with all his strength, attempting to drag it upward, but to no avail. The hands of sand clung tenaciously to the sword until, finally, with a scream of pain at the sheer effort, Sigonius pulled his sword free, immediately swinging it at the closing horde around him. The horde fell back at his swift blows, but only for a moment, just until they renewed their forms and could assail Sigonius anew.

Sigonius did not give into despair, his sword heaved and cleaved at the horde, his feet kicked and his free arm punched outward. Ducking and weaving, he was a storm within the horde, holding it at bay. In the still of that self-created storm, Sigonius took pause, a simple moment created by his own ferocity. A simple moment that gave way to stark and unrelenting clarity. Sigonius reached into his cloak and pulled his water bottle from it. He tossed it high into the air above him, before again attacking the endless horde about him.

In one steady sweep of his sword Sigonius beheaded a sand figure. Light penetrated the circle about him, into which a shadow fell. Sigonius continued the sweep of his arm, cutting his water bottle in half. Its contents spilled out in an arc over the horde before him, far more water than could conceivably have been held within the flask. The water hit them, reacting with them, not a mere drop in the sand to be soaked away, but a flood. The will of Sigonius hit them, their forms quickly became wet and solidified. Solidified and without motion or intent, Sigonius made easy work of them, hacking and slashing with his sword until he had broken their circle and reentered the light of day.

On the malformed faces of those that Sigonius had not crushed, he saw the expression of the one who would be called master of this place. All the faces were different, but the emotion was the same, disbelief filling it with shock. Sigonius stared grimly into one face as it desperately tried to move and morph, stared intently into the hollow sand sockets where eyes would have been on any creature that was truly alive.

“There will be no further chance to parley,” he stated quietly, then sliced the creature’s head clean from its shoulders. He paced across the twisted desert with sand sculptures of the broken, twisted forms all around him. He walked until he was past them, standing on solid ground once more, the winds shifting hot sand in swirls about him. Then he turned back to watch. It did not take long. Soon the water dried up and the frozen forms broke and shifted. It was only moments before the sand people before him begin to fold in upon themselves, forming a great mound of sand. Sigonius looked on unimpressed.

“I came here in good faith,” he shouted as the great sand mound shifted before him, forming the shape of one giant screaming face, looming up and over Sigonius like some ancient edifice come to life. The mouth of that impossible face twisted and sneered and a hissing sound steamed from its mouth, words formed in the sound of cascading sand drifts.

“Your faith is not welcome here,” the words spat in hot roils. “Leave the desert or be destroyed.”

Sigonius narrowed his eyes as he glared back at the face of sand before him. The words the creature spoke were like a declaration of war to him. His faith was sacred, his religion the path that steered his course. To deny it was to deny him – and Sigonius would not be denied, not by anyone or anything.

“Our faith cannot be denied, nor can our crusade,” he stated in a fierce whisper. Then, to drive home his denial, he turned his back on the spitting, shrieking creature and began, slowly and calmly, to walk away. Behind him the sand beast screamed with rage. “You may not welcome us, but you cannot stop us either,” Sigonius stated. He spoke in a soft voice but he knew that his words would be heard. Wherever he was, the desert was all around him, and the shifting sands would always hear. He let them listen to his patient footsteps as he walked away. He may have been swallowed into the hot belly of a beast, but he was not afraid.

“Whether you approve or not, we will find the Oracle,” he whispered. He spared a single glance back over his shoulder and was rewarded by the sight of the vast sand face dissolving, sinking into sand once more, resolving back into the dunes of the desert.

***

It was an earlier time when the five companions were still young and their training was still a work in progress. They walked through the temple, their hands full of offerings to the gods. Two of them led a bull, two carried wine in huge earthen jugs, but Sigonius carried gold. In his hands it shone, like water under a desert sun, precious and beguiling. As they walked forward in ritual procession a priest came racing towards the five, his face contorted with anger. He was a young priest with dark hair and strong features, features now contorted with rage that looked ready to brim over into violence. Sigonius regarded him impassively as he shouted directly into his face, spittle flecked off his lips to spatter across Sigonius’ cheek.

“Abominations are not welcome here!” the priest shouted with unrestrained vehemence.

“Abominations?” Sigonius queried calmly, the slight raising of one eyebrow the only indication of emotion that showed upon his face. As he and his companions stood watching, men began to appear from behind the columns of the dimly lit temple. The five companions casually put down the offerings they had brought and reached instead for the hilts of their swords. Slowly, calmly, they shifted their feet, forming into a circle to protect their backs, eyes always upon the men around them. The sacrificial bull, seeming to sense the tension, trotted to the opposite side of the room.

“When have men of the temple ever stopped anyone with sacrifices and the gold to pay for the honour of appeasing the gods?” Sigonius asked quietly. None of them had drawn their swords, but all held the hilts firmly, ready to do so at a moment’s notice.

“When they are abominations to truth,” the priest hissed harshly.

“What you are doing,” Sigonius replied with a sudden cold venom in his voice, “that is an abomination of all that the gods stand for.”

“I have men,” the priest replied defiantly. The men of the temple now stood surrounding the five companions, easily outnumbering them four to one. Sigonius looked about himself, as if taking in his surroundings for the first time. Then he turned back to the priest, a smile playing dangerously upon his lips.

“Too few I fear,” he smiled. In a single swift motion he had drawn his sword and swung it in an arc before him. A look of utter surprise was writ upon the priest’s face as his head toppled from his shoulders and bounced unceremoniously across the temple floor. Even the men of the temple were surprised, standing frozen and unmoving, disbelieving at what they had just witnessed.

“May the gods pity you all!!” Sigonius screamed, but by then he was already cutting his way through the temple men, his companions following suit around him. They had brought a bull to sacrifice, but it was a higher class of blood that flowed upon the temple floors that day. It made Sigonius smile. When the work was done the five companions retrieved their gifts and made their way to the altar. All around them lay the bodies of their foes. The white tunics and young faces of the five were spattered with the blood of unwilling sacrifice.

Huges looked to the darkness beyond the columns and ventured to break the silence. “Should we not be leaving?”

Sigonius looked his peers over, one by one. “We have already made many sacrifices, but the gods must know they are from us and not these others.”

Sigonius had his sword at the bull’s neck, ready to draw across it as his companions stood close by, watching on.

“Gods of my father,” began Sigonius, “gods of my people, hear me, soon I will sit amongst you.” Then he drew the blade across the thick muscles of the bull’s neck. Blood splatter sprayed in an arc from the animal’s severed artery, spraying the temple’s altar.

“It is done,” Sigonius spoke, almost out of breath. “None shall ever defeat us.”

The companions made their way out into the night, the cool air of the dark letting them all know of their exertions as their sweat cooled.

“We had better be careful,” advised Vespucci. His eyes scanned the approaches to the temple.

“No. They fear us now,” Sigonius whispered, his gaze set straight ahead, his companions looking on down the path to see that all the windows and doors were shuttered; only the lines of light that peered out from behind poor workmanship remained to guide them. “They fear us because we cannot be stopped. Our cause is righteous.” He said it aloud, but it was less to his companions and more for the benefit of those individuals who were hiding behind the wicker-like strength of their flimsy doors.

***

“Where is he?” asked Huges, his amusement wearing thin as he shielded his eyes from the glaring sun.

Vespucci remained underneath his cloak, his muffled voice heard to say: “He could be gone for days, this is not the first time.”

Baudin looked about with unease. “This feels different…” he began, before moving to the bottom of the dune. “This feels wrong, we should find him.”

Huges looked at his now standing companions with great seriousness before speaking. “Do you all remember that night in the temple?”

“How could we forget?” questioned Anjou.

The four made their way up the dune, only to see that there were numerous dunes surrounding them, all empty of life. All of them were thinking back to that night now, remembering how their foes had come out against them from the shadows.

“Today they will come from the sand. They may have already surrounded us during our sleep,” warned Huges.

Anjou placed his hand upon his sword. “We must keep our swords ready.”

***

It was a younger Sigonius who sat before an ancient man. The old man’s face was wrinkled, hair mere wisps hanging on to blotched and saggy skin, his eyes barely open.

“What did you learn this night Sigonius?” asked the old man with greater lucidity than should have been possible from someone sitting between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

“That nothing can stop me,” responded Sigonius with great confidence.

The old man lifted his gnarled arms in frustration.

“No, that is not it. What did you learn?” he asked again, immediately defusing Sigonius’ over-confidence.

“I do not understand,” stated Sigonius, knowing now that he should never have been so brash in his talk. If anything he should have approached this whole situation with more caution. The old man turned his head to one side in resignation.

“We have failed you.”

Sigonius felt his stomach lurch, his mind began to race; all his efforts could come to naught. Taking control of his beating heart, the throbbing in his ears, his shortness of breath, Sigonius called upon all his courage to speak.

“No. You haven’t.”

The old man turned his head back and stared at Sigonius, his eyes committed to an autopsy of the words that had been spoken. He stared at Sigonius with a steely glare, while Sigonius looked outraged at his words.

“We have taught you many things and yet you have not learned. Those men at the temple, they did not need to die; that priest could still be serving. You could have avoided the whole situation without violence.”

Incensed, Sigonius replied: “IMPOSSIBLE!”

The old man reached forward, his bent and broken fingers reaching out to clasp Sigonius. The movement was almost hypnotic, but he himself looked only disappointed and sad.

“You could have sent a servant to pay the priest beforehand. He could have arranged for you to be alone. Instead you forced him into a confrontation that he could not back down from.” The old man took hold of Sigonius’ tunic and pulled him closer so that they were face to face, barely inches from each other. “If I had blood on my hands, I could not wash it away with all the vinegar in the world, but you, you thirst for it, so righteous you believe your cause to be.”

“I am who I am meant to be!”

***

The sand was flat and empty, as though a giant had swiped his palm across the world, smoothing it with his touch. Even the footprints of the man who had strode upon the sandy plain had been blown to the wind hours past. There was no sign of him here, no mark that he had ever been here. But he had been, he had walked, he had vanished into the great sandy sea. Yet still his thoughts floated upon the wind, the man who was not there. He felt that soft flat emptiness of the sands and wondered how it would be if his own heart were a desert. Could the winds blow the past away, smooth out the deeds and misdeeds of times gone and leave a pallet fresh and empty, waiting to be filled. He wondered if that would be better or worse. Every deed had its outcomes, some good, some bad, but if no lessons were ever learnt how could things ever improve? How could any man become more if he did not climb the ladder of life one rung at a time? It was dark, where he was now, but he did not feel darkness, he felt life and light and possibility.

“I am Sigonius,” he whispered in the confines of his own heart, “and by my own hand I will one day walk among the gods.”

The words stirred the power of belief within him and he felt the sands shift in a symphony around him, moving in time with the rhythms of his own heart, the sounds of his breathing, the flickering pulse of his enduring faith. He had taken a great risk in coming here, he knew that, had known even as he did it. There were other ways, other possibilities. You can always pay the priest, but is it better to corrupt the faith of another and lie to yourself simply to save the spilling of blood? What was the point of life if not to live? He had learnt his lessons well, but he was old enough now to ignore them when he chose to. This land was another man’s church and he was an outsider in its halls. Yet faith was a currency valid in any god’s hall, and he had excess coin to trade in that purse.

“My cause is just,” he reminded himself, “I am who I am meant to be.” Once again he flexed his muscles, both those of body and mind. Then he began to rise. The plain was flat and featureless, but all that changed as a lone figure ascended upward from beneath the sands. His head rose first, grains of yellow cascading from his hair, rolling down the curves of his closed eyes, tipping over nose and lips. Then his shoulders followed, arms and torso revealed next. Like some strange plant growing upward from the dead plain he continued to rise until he stood, poised with strength, upon the flat ground. As the sands fell away from his body his eyes slowly opened and he looked about himself, as if seeing the desert for the first time – as if seeing himself, truly, for the first time. Slowly, resolutely, he drew the sword from his side and held it aloft. Then he flexed his mind and before him the sands of the plain rushed and flowed and took shape. There before him it stood, the vast shape of a closed fist, and within its grasp a sword, a tableau formed from the desert sands. It had worked – he was ready. Sigonius smiled and stepped forward. All around, like an ocean, the desert flowed alongside him.

***

They saw him in the distance long before he was in hailing distance, just a speck on the horizon walking resolutely forward across the plain. The four companions pointed toward the distant figure of Sigonius as he walked toward them across the desert.

“There,” Huges stated, trying to restrain the relief in his voice.

“Good,” Anjou smiled, “now we will be ready for…” but the words died on his lips unspoken as the motion of his outstretched hand took in unexpected movement upon the horizon, the emergence of sand geysers exploding upward on the plain between them and the distant figure of Sigonius. As the four looked on horrified, hundreds of sand people burst up from beneath the ground all around them. Before they had looked humanoid, but they looked more feral now, more ferocious, like beasts composed of sand almost boiling with fury. They grabbed at the companions with claw like hands before they even had a chance to draw their swords, holding them tight in a razor sharp embrace. The companions looked about themselves in fear and shock, taken by surprise. Huges opened his mouth to cry out, only to feel hot tendrils of sand rammed down his throat. Choking and retching he struggled, looking wildly about to see that his companions were suffering the same cruel treatment. Then the sand was in his eyes and all was hot darkness and pain. “Sigonius,” he tried to call, “Sigonius – help us!” But in his heart he wondered if even their impossible leader could save them from this ambush. They were far from the temple now. Their cause was just, their faith true, but sometimes even that was not enough to stop the inevitable.

***

From a distance Sigonius looked toward his companions, watching in horror as hundreds of ferocious sand people held them aloft on whipping tendrils of sand. The monstrous creatures looked at Sigonius defiantly, their faces screaming in a challenging rage. Run, they seemed to say, you cannot save them, you cannot beat us, you cannot win. Run and never stop running and never look back. So Sigonius ran. He ran with all his strength and all his might. He ran toward them, and his face screamed of an anger and fury that dwarfed even that of the desert monsters and he saw their features turn to shock.

“I do not turn in fear from the task that is mine to perform,” Sigonius said to himself. “I do not turn in fear from who I am and what I believe.” And he twisted his hands and beneath him felt the desert twist in unison with his will. A great wave of sand swept him upward and he rode its crest, screaming as he drew his sword and crashed down upon the swarm. They toppled like boulders beneath lightning and Sigonius swung his blade once, twice, thrice. Four times and the tendrils that had held his companions were severed.

“My strength is unfailing,” Sigonius screamed, “my determination unbreakable.” He looked about as his companions retched sand up from their ravaged lungs, pulling themselves to their feet. More for their benefit than his own he raised his sword high, letting it catch the lights of the suns overheard. “My faith is a physical force,” he screamed, slashing again and again at the sand people around him. “I am unstoppable, unconquerable.” And they were screaming now too, but it was a scream of fear and pain while his was one of fury and fire – a new power, unrestrained.

“That is the essence of all power - faith and the strength to wield it,” Sigonius smiled as Huges, Baudoin, Vespucci and Anjou all drew their own swords and joined him in the fray. All around them the sand people reformed themselves, their sand hands forming into savage claws, their faces no more than screaming masks of fury. The ferocious sand people approached in a circle around Sigonius and his companions, but they stood ready, swords drawn. At the center of it all, Sigonius stood quiet and serene, eyes closed.

“My belief gives me power,” Sigonius explained to his companions as their enemy closed about them, “even here, it gives me power, stronger even than the sands themselves. I did not think I could do this, but I can.” He smiled as the monsters closed. “And I will,” he said simply, “I will.”

Sigonius held his hands wide and all around him the army of sand people was shredded. It was as though a great wind radiated out from him in every direction, tearing them to pieces. His companions looked on in shock as the screaming faces of the sand people were torn apart before their very eyes. In moments it was over and the five stood on a flat plain, the dunes swept clean, nothing around them now but for the endless flat plain of the shifting desert sands.

Anjou looked to Sigonius and asked the questions that were on all their lips. “What happened? What did you…?”

Sigonius crouched down on all fours. “Their power was easily found, easily understood,” he said, scooping sand between his fingers, watching it run through them. “I sank down into the heart of the desert and made their strength my own.”

The sand suddenly exploded upward like a geyser before the group. Sigonius lifted himself up to his feet, his words apparently having caused the eruption of sand, billowing upward in a volcanic plume. The companions looked on in shock but Sigonius continued to stare at the sand trailing out between his now outstretched fingers, a look of contempt upon his face.

The explosion of sand resolved into a giant mountain, slowly forming into the shape of a human, vast and twisted. It dwarfed them all by its immerse size, towering over them, its face screaming. Sigonius looked upon it, unimpressed.

The sand giant punched the ground near them, causing a great crater to form, sand flying out from it in all directions. The companions tumbled to the ground, hit by the shockwaves, but Sigonius alone remained standing, still looking at the sand giant, unimpressed.

“You are not welcome here!!” thundered the creature’s words, rolling like a storm from the gaping maw in its head.

‘No,” Sigonius replied as he stepped forward, inviting the beast to lay another blow in the earth. “But here we are.”

Sigonius raised his arms, his hands shaping the air between them, causing tornados made of sand to spiral up out of the desert, spinning towards the sand giant. The spinning plumes of sand roped themselves around the sand giant. The sand tornados moved and slithered, but despite the great giant’s struggling it remained subdued in its tentacled embrace.

Turning from the display of will and power, Sigonius looked at his companions, his face impassive. Behind him the sand giant continued to struggle against the sand tornados that pulled at its immense body.

“This desert no longer has any power over us.”

Huges took to his knees. “It has no power over you.” The other three companions quickly took to their knees as well.

Sigonius barely acknowledged the display of honour, perhaps embarrassed by his companions’ actions. “It is time we were on our way once more.”

Gathering their few processions, Sigonius watched as his companions began to march forward on their crusade. Sigonius turned back to the trapped sand giant as his companions moved on ahead of him.

“You will not endure in this land. Others will crush your crusade,” roared the beast, towering over the diminutive figure of Sigonius. “These sands will endure long after you are dust.”

Sigonius looked up at the screaming sand giant, tied by the tendrils of the tornados he controlled.

“Your faith will die and your bones will be bleached beneath the sun of…” continued the great sand giant, but with a wave of Sigonius’ hands the tornados whipped into action and ripped the creature savagely apart. The beast’s face appeared momentarily on the clumps of shredded sand, its words undecipherable as the tornadoes completed their task.

The body of the shattered giant melted back into the sand from which it had been born. Sigonius’ face was impassive, but his will had proven to be triumphant over this place. He turned to rejoin his companions, knowing that there was still so much more that they would see and conquer before their quest came to an end…