After unwinding his turban and handing the sleeping Azrea over to Salif, Hadjar followed his friend. Approaching the edge of the lake, Hadjar looked at the sand cloud. He felt tense, but he wasn’t afraid. His first step was quickly followed by the second and, finding himself waist deep in the water, Hadjar ducked down. After the stuffiness of the desert and the humidity of the jungle, the lake’s coolness was pleasant.
After swimming for about fifty yards, Hadjar understood why the boy hadn’t been able to clearly explain what was waiting for them inside the lake. First of all, the lake was unusual: it had no algae, no fish, no other living creatures at all. Only absolutely smooth, gentle slopes that looked like they’d been carved out of white marble.
Its bottom was sandy at first, but then turned into a huge circle of yellow light. The rest of the squad members looked like black dots floating over this gigantic ‘frying pan’. Swimming closer, Hadjar barely held back the cry of surprise that would’ve filled his lungs with water. The bottom really looked like the boy had described. It was like the other surface of the lake. Behind it, or perhaps under it, there was a desert with mountains and dunes. It was as if Hadjar wasn’t actually in the lake, but frozen in the sky about a hundred yards above the desert and ten yards above the nearest dune.
Hadjar looked at Einen, and the islander gestured for him to go ahead. With a nod, Hadjar was the first to dive in, or maybe jump down, or was it up? One way or another, the silence of the lake gave way to the whistling of the wind, and the underwater dusk was replaced by the midday desert sun.
Curling up, Hadjar landed on the very edge of the dune and slipped on it, then jumped and rolled down. Unable to control his inertia, Hadjar rolled for a few more yards, then stopped and lay on the sand.
He looked at the place from which he’d fallen, or emerged, but saw nothing besides the blue sky. The remaining members of the squad emerging in the desert simply appeared in midair and also ended up gliding along the dune.
Five minutes later, they all gathered at the foot of it.
Chapter 382
“Damn,” Glen rubbed his neck and looked up, “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
“Of course!” Tilis snapped.
Karissa looked reproachfully at the witch, but didn’t reprimand her. Instead, she said to the Baliumian:
“This is the land of the ancient civilization that was destroyed by the gods for violating the laws of the Heavens and Earth. I think we’re going to see a lot of things here than you’ve never seen before, Glen.”
“Thank you for explaining things to me, light of my eyes,” Glen said, bowing to Karissa in his usual manner.
“Let’s go.” Ramukhan got up and looked around.
“But where do we go?” Einen asked.
It was a good question. The landscape was the same as in the Sea of Sand. Except for the unfamiliar, brown stones sticking out of the dunes.
“Besides,” Tilis reminded him, “we’re still under the influence of the poison. Going anywhere right now would be suicide.”
“Tilis is right,” Ramukhan nodded. “We’ll wait until the poison wears off, and we’ll make a plan in the meanwhile. Don’t forget, we have three days before the comets converge in the sky and all the other searchers rush here.”
Hadjar and Einen exchanged glances and agreed not to break their seals using hand gestures. The Underworld citizens didn’t need to know that there were Inheritors among them. Still, both of them thought that the witches and sorcerer probably knew who they were regardless. Besides, Hadjar was sure that they had only gotten a small head start and that Sankesh would soon find one of the other entrances to this place. Hadjar presumed there were several of them, anyway.
During the twenty minutes before the potion’s effects wore off, they discussed their plan. It was difficult to come up with anything useful. There was no map of the region. All the legends Salif had told them had had only some fragmentary information, which had been hidden behind allegories, embellishments, and metaphors.
By the time the poison wore off, they decided to head toward the mountains. If they were lucky, they would find the city gates (unfortunately, they didn’t know how to open them without Serra) along the way. If not, they would at least get to observe the territory from the high vantage point.
“I don’t trust them,” Einen whispered as they marched at the rear of their formation. Glen was at the front, as usual.
They moved so slowly that the friends were now bored rather than hot. The witches and sorcerer could barely endure their exhaustion and the heat. By the Evening Stars, something was rotten about this true path of cultivation if a person on the edge of becoming a true cultivator was unable to withstand the scorching sun.
“We already know not to trust the magic users,” Hadjar said.
The islander shook his head. He was dressed all in white, like a mummy. He had brought the battle attire of his people with him. “I don’t trust any of them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think the witches and the sorcerer are all united, and your countryman is part of their group as well.”
Einen didn’t say their names. No matter what languages a person did or didn’t speak, they would still be able to pick up on their own name being used.
“Why do they need us, then?”
“I don’t know,” Einen sighed and gripped his spear-staff tighter. “Maybe they want to use us as sacrifices or something else disgusting. I don’t trust them.”
Hadjar looked at the backs of the other squad members in front of them. On the one hand, the islander didn’t even trust his own reflection sometimes. On the other hand, there was always a grain of truth in his words. Einen’s suspicions had been proven true in one way or another every time.
“What are you suggesting?” Hadjar asked.
Einen made sure no one was looking at them and then held out his right hand. At first, Hadjar didn’t understand why he did so, but when he did, he lamented the fact that he couldn’t curse and mention the demons and gods. There was no scar on the islander’s skin.
“But I saw you take the oath with my own eyes!”
“It’s an old smugglers’ trick,” Einen said. Hadjar could’ve sworn he saw a smirk on his friend’s face, even though the islander’s face was always stony and expressionless. “You just need a little glue and a special combustible mixture.”
Hadjar remembered Einen mixing something up and going into the jungle to gather ingredients.
“Does the Stone Trees oasis look like your homeland?”
Einen said nothing, and Hadjar felt the urge to slap himself. Now it was clear why Einen had seemed so at ease in the oasis. It was as if he’d gone home.
“If I have to, I’ll be able to neutralize Glen,” the islander said. “Dealing with the rest of them will prove more difficult.”
They both looked at the shimmering blue bracelets on their arms. They’d had plenty of chances to see how quickly and effectively these amulets could stop any attempts to harm the citizens.
“Let’s deal with the problems as they come up,” Hadjar said. “Even if Glen isn’t a problem, we’re still in a two-against-three situation. The advantage is clearly not on our side.”