Part 5: The Great Desert

Eric sat down heavily on a tree-stump. "I don't know how many more surprises I can take. Sheila's gone, Sheila's married, Sheila's pregnant--I can't wait to hear how she's really a space alien."

"Hey, watch your mouth about Sheila," Bobby advised, mock-threatening.

"Simmer down, both of you," Hank interrupted. "We still have to figure out what this has to do with the gateway between the two worlds."

"You really don't know, do you?" Everyone looked at Presto, and saw that he was trembling. The color had drained out of his face. "You--you really don't know what could happen?" Presto was very close to panic.

Diana put a hand on his shoulder. "Looks like you know something the rest of us don't. Whatever it is, we can deal with it, but you've got to tell us what to expect."

Presto took a deep breath and steadied himself. "The way I see it, we are who we are because of where we're born. In our world we have science and physics; in the Realm, there's magic. At some point in our history, we decided there wasn't room for both, and we chose science. The Realm stayed with magic. So the two worlds grew even further apart.

"In the old legends you'd sometimes hear about a human baby being taken to the fairy kingdom, or whatever you want to call it, and they'd leave one of their own babies behind. That was called a changeling, because it didn't really belong in our world, and got there by an exchange."

"And you think this is what'll happen to Sheila's baby if it's born here?" Hank asked.

Presto shook his head. "It can't be born here; it wasn't supposed to be born here. Changelings started out where they were supposed to be, then got switched. But Sheila having the baby here would bring our world right into the middle of the Realm."

They all began to get a glimpse of what Presto was leading up to. "So what would happen if it were born here?" Hank asked, his mouth suddenly dry.

"Well, if there's a wall between the two worlds, and the portal is like a door in the wall, if the baby is born here, you can forget the portal--there won't be any more wall. Nothing to separate this world from ours."

"Okay," Bobby said, trying to hide his nervousness, "but how bad can that be?"

"I can tell you how bad," Hank said. "Whoever's strongest will try to take over the weakest, only with a whole new world to choose from, with weapons the earth doesn't know how to fight against. And I think you know who I mean."

"No way," Eric said, although he sounded like he was trying to convince himself. "The whole point of getting Venger into the Crystal Cavern was to trap him there. The crystals would just reflect all his powers back at him."

"And the cavern was all crystal, floor to ceiling," Diana added. "There was nowhere he could sneak out."

"Maybe something changed. Maybe it's somebody else just as bad as Venger. In any case, we've got to think Presto's right about what DungeonMaster said. We have to worry about finding Sheila first, whatever else is happening here."

"So we forget about Rahmoud ?"

"No, I think Sheila and Rahmoud are tied together somehow."

Diana stood up. "Then let's stop sitting around and get to the desert."

They started walking east through the forest, each lost in separate thoughts. Ten minutes passed this way before Presto, trying to change the mood, piped up. "So anyway, guys, I was telling you about the O'Neills and the red hand."

"Yeah, okay Presto, let's hear it," Hank said, as enthusiastically as he could. Which wasn't all that enthusiastic, but Presto went on regardless.

"The red hand goes back to the eleventh century, to when a bunch of Irish noblemen figured out there was a whole lot of land in north Scotland that they could claim. So they all got in a boat and set sail for Scotland. While they were on the boat, they got into an argument about who would get to claim how much land, and they settled it by saying that the first one of them to touch the beach would get first pick.

"Well, one of the old O'Neills, a prince named--what was it--Anrothan decides he's going to win the race to the beach. So, when the boat is getting close to shore, he pulls out his sword with one hand, cuts off the other hand, and throws it onto the beach." Bobby looked back smiling over his shoulder at Presto, proud of this little bit of family history. "Isn't that amazing, you guys? That's the most--" It took him that long to realize that the others weren't reacting the way he thought they should: Hank seemed confused, Eric was bored, and Diana's face had a look very close to disgust.

Presto shrugged and put his hand on Bobby's shoulder. "I guess you had to be there."

They walked on for a few more minutes before noticing that the trees were thinning out, that the grass was giving way to tall stands of razor-grass, and especially that the soil was showing more and more sand. The same realization sank into all of them at once, and they quickened their pace, running the last few yards to the edge of the tree-line.

Beyond it to the east lay the Great Desert of the Realm; nothing but sand rolling in large and small dunes to the horizon and beyond, reflecting the heat of the Realm's multiple suns and intensifying it. Crossing the Great Desert was difficult at best; for the unprepared it was a death-trap.

Presto shook his head as he looked out over the Desert. "That's a lot of desert. And we're not even sure what to look for or where to find it. It'll maybe take hours, maybe even days, to find Rahmoud's palace, and we'll hit the boiling point in minutes."

"Maybe not," Diana said. "Got anything in the hat to help us out, Presto?"

Eric rolled his eyes. "This ought to be good."

"Don't mind him," Hank said. "You think you can whip up a camel or two?"

"Forget that," Bobby said. "We need a humvee."

"Whatever you come up with is okay, as long as it gets us there," Diana added.

Presto took off the hat, holding it upside-down. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and made a pass over the opening of the hat.

"We're crossing the desert for many a mile;
So give us something to cross it in style!"

At once the hat started pulsing like a beating heart; once, twice, then it suddenly ballooned up to a hundred times its normal size.

Two hours later, the five were walking across the Great Desert, up one dune and down another, with no shade and no sign of a road.

Presto's grownup but still-nasal voice cut through the silence. "I'm really sorry, guys."

Hank's answer was reassuring, but his voice showed exasperation, as if answering a toddler who had asked the same question ten times in a row. "Don't worry about it, Presto."

"No, really, I'm just rusty. I know I could have done better."

"You can say that again," muttered Eric.

"Oh, great," Diana muttered, "you got him started again."

"I still think we could have used it..." Presto began.

"For what? Even if there was gas in the tank--which there wasn't--it would have just flipped over or bottomed out at the first dune. Face it, when it comes to magic--"

"Eric, I think we can do without the negative approach."

"What, I was supposed to be positive? What was I supposed to say? 'Congratulations, Presto, you and that stupid hat of yours just conjured up the Van Halen tour bus'?!"

"Hey, at least it had a kitchen," Bobby said. He would know, having taken as many snacks and bottles of seltzer as could fit into the makeshift bundle of Sheila's cloak tied to the end of his club. "It'll help us get to the next town."

"Whenever that is," Eric muttered.

"Time flies," Diana, who was out in front of the group, said; "look there!"

Straight ahead, made almost invisible by the glare of the noonday suns, was a thin wisp of smoke, rising out of the windless desert. They put on extra speed to get to the top of the next dune, where they looked down on the ruins of a walled desert village. There was no noise at all; the desert was absolutely still.

"I don't like this," Presto said. "You ought to be able to hear something."

"Maybe it's just deserted--" Bobby guessed.

Eric interrupted. "That's stupid. Somebody's responsible for that smoke."

"So we'll find out who," Hank said. "Bobby, you and Mister Diplomacy check out that hole in the wall. The rest of us will go to the main gate."

They didn't need to take precautions; the complete stillness continued as they approached the city. When they were within a few yards of the main gate they could read the name of the town, inscribed there in several languages, including their own: el-Rabadh. Inside the city were traces of some sort of calamity that had shaken loose the stones of the city walls and knocked down many of the houses. Bobby started looking around on his own as Eric joined the others.

"Looks like they had themselves an earthquake," he said.

Hank shook his head, then walked to the center of the city, where the main fixture was a large well. "Look at this," he told the others, then held up his bow. Instead of drawing back the string, though, he held his position, and, in answer to his will, the shaft of golden energy began to grow outward in a straight line. It extended to what looked like a point of impact on the city wall. He turned and did the same at another point; the others watched the arrow pass straight through the middle of a hole in a building wall. Hank repeated this several times, showing that this was no earthquake; something had stood where he stood and unleashed large amounts of carefully directed power.

"Face it, guys, only one weapon I know of leaves this kind of trail behind: Rahmoud's scimitar." Hank ran his hand through his hair. "I hate to say it, but DungeonMaster was right; Rahmoud must have caused this."

He was cut off by a choking noise, then realized that Bobby was nowhere to be seen. "Scatter, and keep your eyes open!" he ordered as the others set out to look for him. He wasn't hard to find; in a minute Hank saw the Barbarian kneeling by the ruins of a stone wall, loudly throwing up.

"You okay?" Diana asked, touching Bobby's shoulder. He shook his head, but didn't say a word.

"Probably too many of those bus snacks--" Eric started. Then something caught his eye, and he turned to look. So did the others; an instant later Presto also turned hastily away, looking sick. Diana put a hand over her eyes and muttered "Oh sweet Jesus."

The wall had once been part of a home. The collapse sent rocks down on the occupants; a woman and her two young chiildren. Parts of them were still visible between the stones.

"This is all wrong," Presto muttered, as if to himself. "Rahmoud would never be part of anything like this; not the Rahmoud we knew."

"Well, DungeonMaster said he'd changed.," Hank said. "But why would he do this?"

Bobby spoke up huskily, "Let's hunt him down, drive a stake through his heart, and then ask him."

"Bobby, stop that! You heard; he's under the influence of that Majnoun."

"Anyway, he's gone now," Presto said. "But where?"

"Maybe I can answer that," Diana said. She took a quick look around, and saw the tallest section of the outer wall that was still standing. Pulling out her staff and waiting until it had lengthened, she took a few running steps, vaulted onto a lower wall, then did a series of three somersaults, each taking her to a higher section until she ended up at the top. The others cheered her in spite of their surroundings. Diana smiled, took a small bow, then turned to look out over the desert, hand shielding her eyes from the glare of the multiple suns. After turning to survey all the horizons, she turned back to the east, pointed and said, "Over here!"

The others looked around and went to a gate in the east wall of the city. Diana stayed on top of the wall. "You see it?"

They could see a wide trail leading off to the eastern horizon. Certainly more than could be made by one person. "Rahmoud is supposed to be leading an army; looks like a good-sized one,"  Hank said.

"Seeing this makes me feel better," Presto added.

"What are you, nuts?" Eric blurted out. "You're glad we have to fight off a hundred guys?!"

"No, I'm glad Rahmoud didn't do this all by himself."

"You can see that from up here, too," Diana called out. "There's a lot of just pointless damage; furniture broken, dishes trashed. The scimitar didn't do that."

"Well, we can't stop now--"

"Let me guess," Eric sighed; "back in the oven."

"At least it won't be that long," Hank said.

"How do you know?"

"Diana!" Hank called up. "Is this the only trail leading to the city?"

"Just this one."

"Then they're not on a long march. They're just hitting cities within one day of the castle; then they turn around and go back the way they came. So we know that this trail--"

Presto finished the thought: "--leads right to Rahmoud's castle."

Bobby grimly fingered the handle of his club. "Sounds good to me."

Diana joined them back on the ground, and they set off again. Nobody said a word for the two hours it took them to follow the trail. It was wide and easy to read, as if whoever made it didn't care if they were followed. The suns were still high in the sky when Hank, about to reach the top of a dune, froze, fell to his stomach and motioned to the others to do the same. They all crawled to the edge of the dune and looked down.

Bobby pushed his horned helmet up on his head. "Gee, I was afraid this was gonna be too easy."

Rahmoud's palace was perhaps the most glorious building they had seen in the Realm, larger and more ornate than the Taj Mahal. It seemed to have been built over a period of decades; the exterior seemed to be made of differing colors of marble, from a sandy white to a pale pink to a light brown, yet all these colors blended so harmoniously that the shift in color seemed to be planned. So it was with the various wings and towers of the palace; some were added on after the central building was done, but fit so perfectly that they seemed part of the original plan. But the group didn't notice much about the palace. They were busy studying the encampment in front of the palace, a camp that was a temporary home to hundreds of soldiers, preparing their weapons for the next raid--

Hundreds of Orc soldiers.

Coming August 15 :

Part 6: The Palace of Rahmoud