121 - His Veil in Tatters

The sand blasted through the collapsing dome, bowling Ilax, Kyrus and the zon struggling to provide them shelter, over. They blew against their staggering, flailing birds like scraps of paper in the flaying sand fog that obliterated sight.   

Ky lay crouched on the ground, back against his cowering bird.  In that partial shelter, he could just see the edge of one of Hara’s boots and the flapping of one of her bird’s feathers.

Light help... no... we need dark... we need down.  Down underground. There’s no rocks here, no tsingy to break the wind.  DOWN. His forehead was on his hands, dug into the sand. He could feel the wind, full of mud, sand, and glass, tearing at his back, his clothing already torn and flailing at the skin below.

That's Hara’s hand, inching toward me along the ground, half buried.  I can’t breathe. Its getting into the veil.  Werfas’s is he tugging on my boot... we’re a team... we’re going DOWN. Werfas... is clining.  He’s taking the sand away. I and Hara... we can... In the midst of his tumbled thoughts, code grew, locked with his lover and his friend.

Slowly at first, walls grew around their hole. Another bird and a zon... Maya floundered in and added her hand to their work, suddenly there was enough still air that bees and dragonflies could work and fly and the wall and the hole expanded fast, both deeper and higher. 

He could breathe again and see... on the edges of his perception he could see the glittering trails of code that defined the edges of their shelter.  Great dumps of sand fell on them in gouts as the wall blocked the wind and let the orange muck fall out of it.   

Da’s code... it sparkled over there.  He coughed and held his arms over his head to keep off the rain of sand.  His bird was half buried already, hissing in distress.  He could more feel it than hear it, against his back, vibrating. That has to be Ilax there... yes.  They’re coming toward us... a tunnel? Underground? They were still moving closer.

We’re building a hide.  We’re doing it ... The wall fused together over their heads, plunging them into stillness and darkness. A faint glitter spread out on the inside of the sand dome, and grew stronger, enough to see Elemfias; whose glittering bugs were the source of the light.

Kyrus just sat, and panted in the sudden silence.  It was eerie.  The storm outside was just as loud but having a bubble of stillness instead of being immersed in it made it unreal.  He reached up slowly to pull off his sarband, particles driven into the fabric falling down his face, from his forehead and eyebrows, making him shake his head. His muscles were sore as if he'd been beaten all over, with a bird goad.  His gloves were in tatters and strands.

There was sand in his hair, despite the fabric.  His sarband was worn thin, his veil in strands.  He could feel grit falling off him as he moved, skin sore in a dozen places on his body where he’d been abraded.  Am I bleeding?  I’m not sure. He reached out shaking arms and found that Werfas and Hara were doing the same on either side of him. The light was barely there and greenish, turning everyone into strange, monsterous lumps crouched on the floor, with no features. He knew it was them, even if he couldn’t see them well.

Werfas, on his left, spat, trying to get sand out of his mouth as they clung in a gritty lump beside to the immobile bird.  It knew better than to move when a flensing wind clawed at its shelter.

Da and Ilax burst through the wall, below ground level, not bringing any of the storm with them.  They'd tunnelled over from where they'd encysted themselves.  They were both on all fours but didn’t try to stand up.  The roof over their heads was low and they’d hit their heads.  “Thank the ancestors you’re all right,” Ilax said. “Kyrus said that you were.  I couldn’t mander that far.”   

Everyone sat down, more like half fell down.  “Our birds are in that pocket where we were blown,” Kyrus said.  “We didn’t think we needed to bring them.”

“Maya and Kiru are doing the same,” Elemfias said. “It’s good.  We don’t need hissing, biting, shitting birds in here with us.  Or any more than we have.”

“We need to open a breathing hole,” Werfas said.  “I can do that, on the leeside.”

“Not entirely downwind.  That can suck all the air that we want out.  Two small airshafts please,” Kyrus said.  “Here and here, if you please.” Ky could feel Wer nod.  The noise grew suddenly louder but the air suddenly less stuffy.  “Set the holes to maintain their size, lad.  Or they’ll either blow-out or plug up.”

Ky relaxed finally, his sense of code still clear and bright.  I suppose this is what mandery is supposed to be, I’m not lifting that boulder uphill all the time... my work... is just sustaining.  That must be what it is to finish a complete set of code.  It begins running itself without my continually fiddling with it.

“How many people have we lost?” Ilax asked even as Kyrus said, “Was this storm natural?”