After reaching the final gate of the port Kush stopped to take the view in. The last time he was at a much larger gate and saw the Chudan Vallam, the snake boat, carrying the ores in the sand. The awe he was struck with when seeing the ship took all his attention. But today… Today he saw the vast expanse of sand in the front of him, sand dune the height of 30 m every few kilometers, all directions seemed the same with no natural distinctions. Everything till the horizon was just golden red sand… correction, bronze… red… sand as Tara called it. Kush didn’t know which way to leave in. There wasn’t even a road or a foot path out of the sand, the security personnel explained it to be cause of the fact that any road would be covered with sand. Cause of this people in the locality learned a special trick to navigate the sands. The Roaring Camel, a special animal in Thar; 2 m wide 6 m long and standing 4 m high this quadruped desert animal is probably the most evolved animal for the dessert. With wide flat padded feet, that distributes its body weight over a large area giving it a firm footing the treacherous lands of the desert, it had two layers of eye lids, the opaque it uses when it slept and a translucent one above it which helps it continue its course in a sand storm. Its massive weight and size, make it so that not a lot of storms can really affect it and it has a hump on it back which reaches upto a height of half a meter above its back where it stores food and water as reserve post digestion helping with the arid, inhumane and tough climate of the desert and the lack of food. But there was one characteristic which was the most important of all, there homing sense!!

There were special animal rearing companies in Thar which trained the Raoring camels to navigate between two towns. What you would do was, hire a camel in say the port and then after reaching the next destination you hand over your camel. A camel is only trained for travel between two nearby cities meaning to move from A to C when there was an intermediate city B, one would have to travel to B using a camel from A and then hire a camel for C from B. It was a good business, even though the no. of people who traveled on foot intercity were less, the demand was always more than the supply. Kush would have had to wait atleast a couple of days if not for Ramya’s interference.

Since Kush had decided to travel on foot all the way to Udaipur, he held the camel’s reigns in his hands and decided to walk beside it while it led Kush in the direction of the next city of Barmer. It was going to be a 2 days of journey but Kush had other worries on his mind, control of mana emission enough to prevent himself from sinking in the sand. By now he was proficient enough that he could unconsciously emit enough mana to keep the fifty ton braces at 40 tons but the heat, the wind and the tricky footing might make him loose concentration and single moment was enough to kill him.

“sigh… this is going to be a tough journey” he said to himself.

As soon as he set foot out of the paved cemented floor of the port area, his foot sunk by about 2 inches and only then they stopped, digging them out in his wooden slippers with the ankle braces was an uphill task.

“Ungh…” he stressed as he pulled his first step out and put the next foot forward. Walking through swamp would have been easier, atleast the road would have been cooler. He then looked the camel on his left and saw it practically gliding on the surface of the sand.

The camel didn’t need to eat or drink in the entire journey, helping Kush eat and drink his full from his stored stock on the back of the camel. After each kilometer, the camel had to pause to allow for Kush to settle down for a couple of minutes. They couldn’t travel up the dunes since the footing was weaker still, making them walk 100s of meters around every dune which came their way. By the time it was evening the climate became more pleasant and the wind speed reduced into a pleasant cool breeze, the travelling became faster then. Kush’s endurance was high enough that he didn’t need to worry about the heat of the desert, things were simpler hence forth. The Roaring camel, named Chimpu temporarily by Kush, kept on treading along in the desert with no milestones to prove if it was walking in the right direction. As the night set in slowly you could see the stars in the sky since there was no artificial source of light, but anyone without a roof over his/ her head was not interested in the beautiful night sky, since the cold was so severe, every muscle fiber in your body froze, every tip of the neuron ached, each bone of the body shook to give some modicum of warmth and the lack of human company to share the ordeal just made you second guess your decision to make the travel on foot.

To Kush; his endurance took care of the cold initially, but as time passed he was starting to feel it. His teeth chattered in short intervals, the roaring camel next to him simply snickered and prodded along. He wasn’t really doing any physical work since all he had to do was maintain a constant mana emission and walk through the sand. He sometimes slipped in the sand and almost lost his concentration but he managed to keep his wits about the mana concentration. To the animal, Kush seemed like the worst person who ever decided to cross the desert on foot.

While Kush was trying to make his way across the desert to Barmer, Udaipur was getting ready to host probably one of the largest event in the past few decades. Known as the “City of Lakes” the picturesque location became a favorite tourist spot, location of destination weddings etc. As the capital of Thar it housed all the major lord manors and head offices of companies that head quartered in the state. The city also housed the palace of Marwaris, larger than the any estate in sight, it was a sight to behold. All the walls had beautiful carvings drawn on them, the doors three time the height of an average man. Gold linings on the various edges of the palace shined enough to reflect the light of the sun, at high noon when looking from certain places one could see the light split into its seven constituents. It was made of hundreds of rooms and housed 100s of servants, who had been serving the family for generations. The rulers of Thar and the largest trade troupe of the country the Marwaris were one of the most influential people in the Bharat, and in less than a couple of weeks their queen, the only living monarch was going to get married to a prince of the second largest trade troupe in the country.

Despite losing her parents at a young age, Tara never really let any of the anxiety of the running the troupe bind her, she was like a free bird and handed the reigns of the company to her people and left to help her friend. Though she did control the company remotely, but the daily activities of the company were taken care of by her able proxies.

Today she was standing on the balcony of her palace about 40 m above the ground, looking out in the direction of the southern gate of the city. Dressed in a silver one piece which went from a little below her shoulders to her ankles hugging her body at every bend and curve. The dress had a slit which ran from the ankle all the way up to the top of her waist. She was bent at her back resting her hands on the high balustrade of her balcony peering towards the southern gate of the city monitoring the comings and goings of people and goods from the gate.

“Sigh… you are better than this, don’t go back on your words. We have almost reached the finish line. This is something ‘he’ can’t solve even if he does come... Wish life were a bit simpler…”

From inside the chambers came the sound of a woman whose age seemed to be a bit younger than Tara “OOOOIIIIII… Tara!!! Your hand maiden is here with your meal!!! Why are you standing there with a sulky face?” She said informally without a hint of respect a maid would have for her master, speaking as casually as one would to a friend.

Tara didn’t seem to mind as she turned around and went back into her chambers and sat on the dining table with her friend, confidant and her maid Rupali.