Chapter 5

The Fire

The howling intensified with every second. Had the clinic not been made of its heat-resistant clay, Terrill was sure it would have been set ablaze, right down to cinders. As it were, he started to wonder if they would bake instead. He considered tossing his shirt off like Floyd, but a cry from the outside took precedence.

“Help! I’m trapped! Help!” It was a familiar voice, belonging to the helmsman. Terrill crept around the burning door, its heat forcing his eyes to squint. The fire pillar roared, making the air shimmer and impossible to pierce through. Those yet remaining outside were running frantically from the spout. It was a panic, but Terrill tried to find the sailor through that same haze.

“Krysta, you have to try to cool down. What’s wrong with her?” Torry asked, trembling with the unknown. The glow from her hands indicated that she was trying to cool her down with what magic she could. “She won’t cool. My magic isn’t good enough for this. I feel like the very air is draining my magic away.”

“Just focus, Torry. You can do this. You know you’re a better mage than anyone else out there.” Floyd’s encouragement bolstered her, leaving Terrill to continue his search. This time, his eyes found his target, the sailor trapped under what looked like a burning cart that had been tossed in the air from the eruption of the fire. He wouldn’t last long. “I’ll slow time down around her body by lowering the temperature. I can’t promise much, but it might help.”

“Together, then, Floyd.” The couple took hands, working ever in sync, and Terrill knew Krysta was in good hands. He glanced to her sweaty, delirious face and wished her the best. Trusting the duo was all he could do. To that, Terrill kicked off, bashing his way past the doors and out to the plaza. “Terrill, what are you-?”

“Leave him, Torry. We need to-”

Their voices were replaced by the crackling and popping of the flames all around him. They were the only thing Terrill heard or saw, and he covered his eyes against the assault of heat and ash that licked at him. Was Krysta feeling all of this inside her body? Terrill couldn’t say, but the red, angry glow on all of the buildings told him that if she felt even a fraction, it was most unpleasant.

Palm trees burned, and the fire began to spread from them. Screams elsewhere in the resort indicated a retreat, though no one appeared to be approaching. The staff and residents seemed woefully unequipped for such a disaster. Terrill knew he was, too, coughing as he trudged through the sand that was liquefying at his very feet. Cinders choked at his lungs, and Terrill nearly lost sight of the sailor. The flames licked at him, burning with the same intensity he had felt while fighting LeBrandon, confirming his worst fears on what was causing this. Still, he inched closer to the pillar of flame and the cart where the helmsman was trapped.

As if it sensed his presence, a tongue of flame snapped out, shaped like a beast’s giant maw to consume him. Terrill slammed his foot, muttering out the name of his spell that conjured a stone shield directly in front of him. The fires collided and exploded, raining rubble on him. That provided the small cover he needed to reach the sailor, and with another spell, lifted the cart off him without injury.

Well, further injury. The sailor’s leg had been damaged, and Terrill was forced to pick him up. Both grimaced at the thought of the return journey to the clinic being that much more difficult.

“We won’t make it…” the man said, tears coming down his face, but drying up before they reached his cheeks. Terrill didn’t listen to his naysaying, hitching him higher and beginning to drag him forward. His throat was parched, and his legs were moving through virtual sludge, but he wouldn’t quit, not until the man was safe, no matter the amount of burns on his figure.

So reckless…The flame’s whisper in his ear made Terrill turn back to the column, now beginning to diminish. It will be the death of you… You cannot save them… They must be cleansed…

Terrill found it hard to not talk back to this apparition of flame, defying the horrors it was whispering. He moved forward, nearly upon the clinic. The flame was shortening, replaced by the wisps of a deadly shadow that threatened to drag him down. He carried the sailor over the threshold.

You cannot save them. Like you can’t save anyone.

The words gnawed at Terrill and he turned back, his face dripping with sweat while a nervous grin bloomed on his face at this voice in his head. “The hell are you…?”

It waited to respond, until the last of the pillar had nearly vanished, the shadows with it. The shadows of fate, Hero.

That was the confirmation. A Fiend.

Then it winked out of existence, and everything in the Turtle Stone Resort stilled. As if the will that had manifested those flames bid them so, even that which burned at the doors, trees and other wooden objects vanished, leaving only the burned husks behind. The heat disappeared. Terrill fell against the door frame, huffing out from exertion and catching his breath until he remembered someone in a far worse state than himself.

“Krysta…” Terrill pushed off, past the sailor, to where Krysta was resting on an undamaged carpet. She was taking short, shallow breaths, but the sweat had vanished, and she looked cooler. He breathed in relief, collapsing on the carpet next to Torry and Floyd. They weren’t the only ones collapsed, with all of those who had experienced the intense heat passed out from exertion. “Nice job, guys. She looks better.”

“Can’t say the same for yourself,” Floyd said. He sounded angry, a voice that Terrill had only heard once, at the Luster Mines. “I can’t believe you ran right out there again.”

“I wasn’t going to leave him to die.”

“And what if you died, huh?”

“I had no plans to.”

“Both of you, calm down. This is no time to argue.” Torry had inserted herself, pushing the two apart as they’d gotten closer in their argument. She was flushed, and had the same shallow breathing as Krysta, but managed to stay conscious. “There are bigger problems than Terrill running into a fire. We don’t know what caused this.”

“We do. A Fiend.” Terrill pushed up from the carpet, and he looked at the burns he had sustained. They were hardly bad, merely a few singes here and there, but the intensity of them and that shadow could only have been made possible by such a being. “More than that, a Fiend at a Lifeblood.”

“You think it’s using one of those corridors that Krysta mentioned?” Torry said. She, too, tried to stand, but fell over on top of Floyd. Terrill gave a curt nod to indicate that was exactly what he thought. “If that’s the case, the Lifeblood could be in danger. With that kind of force, the very element of fire could go out of whack and spell disaster for everyone.”

“Now, just slow down there, Torry,” Floyd said. He was stern, both in voice and in keeping her down before she could do anything more foolish. “We’re working off speculation.”

“Not speculation.” Krysta’s voice was groggy, in desperate need of water to speak any further. Terrill wasn’t sure if there was any nearby until he noticed their discarded packs and clothes, undamaged from the fire. He dove for them, taking out his own water and making his way to Krysta so he could tip the liquid down her throat. Once she’d swallowed, she turned her head, regaining her energy quicker than anticipated. “There’s a shadow on the Lifeblood, like on Silicias. It’s choking it, forcing it to go out of control. It…it attacked me when I sensed it there, and tried to immolate me from within. Thank you, Torry.”

Krysta gripped Torry’s hand, squeezing it in thanks for saving her life with her quick action. The action made Torry fling her arms around Krysta, looking ready to bawl. “Don’t ever scare me like that again! I thought we’d lose you! No Lifeblood is worth that.”

“I don’t think I had much of a choice.” Krysta’s gaze was far away while she said that, stroking at Torry’s hair. That aloofness soon sharpened on Floyd. “You should be careful, too. There’s no telling what it could do to a fire mage.”

“Are you saying I could have ended up the same? Scary…”

It wasn’t as scary as what it could all mean. Had this been an attack by a very irate Fiend? A warning or taunt sent by Atrum? Or was it a symptom of something worse going on with the Lifeblood? Terrill put his hand to his chin, remembering how the Lifeblood of Earth could barely speak due to the corroding darkness. Was it the same here?

“Terrill, I’m fine. You don’t need to look like that.” Krysta dragged him out of his musings, and winked at him when he finally saw her. It appeared to be an attempt to cheer him up after all that occurred, but he couldn’t find it inside himself to be cheerful.

“Long as you’re okay,” he said, managing to creak out a smile. It didn’t last long. The heaviness settled on the others, sharing in the same thoughts Terrill had, though without the burden of the voice from the flames. He looked up, noticing that the sky was now clear, with not a single trail of smoke remaining. “I think we have a course correction.”

The three said nothing. There was nothing to be said. They were all thinking it, and Terrill had just been the first to voice it.

They needed to go to the Lifeblood of Fire.

“Guess vacation time is over, then,” Floyd agreed, standing with a smirk and stretch. Krysta was the next to follow, eager to display how fine she was. Terrill could see that more rested on her mind, but her determination to visit the Lifeblood was matched only by Torry’s now grim enthusiasm.

“Was it ever really vacation time to begin with?”

“Good point.” Floyd was soon hit by Terrill tossing his bag to him. The message was received loud and clear, and both boys headed off to one of the rooms to change out of the formerly white clothing into their usual garb. When they stepped out, the girls were already waiting, their packs slung over their shoulders.

Terrill paused, taking in the fullness of all that had occurred by the state of the clinic. Many people were recovering, though most weren’t hurt. They looked frazzled, on the verge of screaming, but holding it together for as long as they could. Terrill yearned to do more for them in that immediate moment, but the larger task and threat convinced him instead to walk out of the clinic, to the deserted streets of the resort.

“This is horrible…” Torry commented upon first seeing the scorched land. She looked to take it the hardest, the closest experience to such devastation having been the burning of Devil’s Haven. Soon, her hands tightened around her bag straps. “Is this what those Fiends want to cause with war? Is this what Serotin would look like?”

“Careful not to mention the ‘w’ word here, Torry.” Floyd’s voice suggested he was joking, but the twitching of his lips said he was anything but. “That said, this isn’t something I’d want to see repeated anywhere else. So, if they’re connected, we need to get a move on.”

Terrill could not agree more, but the resort had other plans.

No sooner had they turned in the direction of where smoke had once poured from Tarkinder, than a caucus of voices replaced the eerie silence. It was closer than Terrill expected, just outside the radius of where the flame had devastated the town. A flow of people could be seen heading in that direction, the yelling growing louder. He couldn’t tell exactly what was going on, but each of his instincts insisted he drop by to find out. With that temporary destination in mind, Terrill faced Floyd and Torry.

“Both of you, head for the vault and confirm our weapons are there. Get them out, too. We’ll need them for the road ahead.”

“Sure, but uh…where are you going, Terrill?”

“Getting some info.” Terrill jerked his thumb in the direction of the gathering crowd, all while his feet carried him in that same direction. Floyd offered a sagely “ah…” and said no more. He hooked Torry by the arm and dragged her off towards the vault. “And focus on that, Floyd. Don’t waste time on anything stupid.”

“When do I ever, Terrill? Come on!”

Terrill and Krysta’s skeptically narrowed eyes conveyed all they thought about that protest, but neither said any more. Once Floyd and Torry had disappeared down a side street, the remaining two picked up the pace to join the crowd of people heading for the band platform in the square.

It wasn’t a band this time, but Chief Micah, who stood upon the stage.

“I understand you’re all concerned, but there is no reason to be alarmed.”

“No reason to be alarmed?! I was nearly singed out there!” Whatever Chief Micah’s intentions, he was no match for the mob of visitors that had besieged him. Though the chief was protected by a number of guards (not wielding any weapons, of course), he was pushed to the center of the stage as he tried to placate the irate populace.

“Fire, man! That was a geyser of fire!”

“Is the volcano erupting upon us?”

Terrill folded his arms, watching the angry mob grow in further discontent and volume. They were close to snapping, if they hadn’t already, but Terrill’s continued watching taught him one thing. “They really have no idea what’s at Tarkinder, do they?”

“I’d be surprised if they did,” Krysta panted out. Her exhaustion from earlier was peaking, and though she looked better, it was clear she needed a longer rest. “It’s a volcano, after all. Not an easy terrain to get near.”

She had a point, he supposed, but the longer he listened, the more the people didn’t seem to want to hear anything from Micah other than what he’d do to prevent a further fire. It was something he had no answer to. The opposing countries just served to make things worse.

“If I had to guess, this whole situation is Invaria’s fault! We all know your country turned its conquering gaze southward to get at natural powers! I wouldn’t be surprised if you and your ilk have crafted some manner of fire weapon and decided this was the place to test it out!”

“Preposterous!” shot back the ambassador of Invaria. The two that Terrill had seen earlier, keeping their distance from one another, were no longer doing so, their puffed-up chests bumping up against one another. If they weren’t wearing crests that signified their individual nations, Terrill would never have realized they were even from those nations, though he didn’t know which was which. “Valorda is the one amassing weapons and an army! If anyone caused this, it’s your fetid nation!”

“We are only gathering for a war your country caused!” The Valordan ambassador pushed at the one from Invaria. He pushed back. Micah broke the ranks of his guards.

“Now, ambassadors, please calm yourselves.” He tried to keep his serenity, but the ambassadors looked more likely to kill one another than to listen. “This is no weapon. It is but a test of the goddess.”

“To hell with the goddess!” As if from nowhere, a piece of fruit was flung at the chief, missing him and splatting on the stage. “Is she so fickle she would burn the entire resort down.”

“Crea resents the evil thoughts of others. The scriptures have taught us this, my friends.” Micah proved to be fearless, stepping off the stage in order to get in the middle of the arguing ambassadors. Not that they were doing much that their position would represent. Only Micah between them stopped them from throttling each other, and that was tenuous at best. Terrill’s mind begged him to intercede. “This is the reason we do not allow weapons here, just as Crea took away humanity’s deadliest weapon. The fire is a test, to cleanse those impure of the goddess. It spoke to me so.”

Now, Terrill just moved forward, caught by Krysta. Micah’s ravings continued to disseminate amidst the crowd. “Terrill, just what are you thinking of doing?”

“That’s no goddess talking. It’s a Fiend.”

“That’s not what I mean. How exactly do you think they’ll take you butting right in the middle of this?”

“I can’t worry about that. I’ll just improvise. Guardian stuff or something.” Krysta looked unconvinced, but let Terrill go as the tensions ramped up once again.

“That’s no test!” the Valordan ambassador shouted. “That fire could have destroyed all of our weapons. Us! You call this a place of peace, but you’re hiding behind the goddess. She would never burn even the sinners!”

“What kind of crock are you selling, chief! And our weapon stores better be safe!”

“I assure you, everything is as it should b-” As if Tarkinder rebelled against his words, the ground rumbled and shook again, sending tremors of fright through the panicked populace. Terrill pushed past some of them, their unintelligible mutterings flying past his ears. “No reason for concern. The goddess is just reacting to your discontent and warmongering.”

“Screw the goddess!” Terrill wasn’t sure who it was, but someone had struck Micah, flinging him to the ground near his stage. His presence now gone, the ambassadors were at each other’s throats again, grasping the other by their lapels.

“If this is really to do with the goddess fearing war, then perhaps a sacrifice will calm her down. I say we throw the ambassador from Invaria in the volcano.”

“I like the suggestion. Why doesn’t Valorda go first?”

“Why don’t you both take a nap?” The two ambassadors turned as Terrill finally reached them. Without any precision, he struck them both across the face with a fist. They sprawled to the ground.

“What do you think you’re doing, young man?! I am the ambassador of-”

“Yeah, pretty sure we’re all aware of that,” Terrill said, his icy glare causing the ambassador addressing him to clam up. His Valordan counterpart didn’t bother to push his luck. Expelling a soft sigh, Terrill bent down and helped pull Micah to his feet. “Everyone’s on edge here, but that’s no reason to go around suggesting to kill other people. Life’s more precious than that. Besides, I thought you two were here to negotiate peace.”

“We would have, if the Valordan army didn’t sic their dog on us.”

“I already told you, it wasn’t us!”

“You were the only ones to know the itinerary!”

“Shut up!” Krysta’s screech was deafening, and the barrier she threw between the two warring ambassadors pushed them both to the ground. She didn’t say anything else, and the crowd around them began to disperse, fearful of her display of magic. Some whispered about the “power of the goddess”, but many more no longer wanted involvement with the confrontation. Only the ambassadors and their entourages remained. Terrill found himself wishing he hadn’t sent Floyd on weapons retrieval.

Still, he had the people most pertinent with him, and Terrill decided now was the time to press for information. “Chief Micah, how often have these rumblings occurred? Given the reaction, I doubt this flame happened before.”

“It’s…” Micah seemed to be looking for a way to twist the information away from the truth, but at the daggers the two ambassadors were glaring, the chief sighed. “They’ve grown more common of late.”

“When did it start?”

A shifty glance to the two ambassadors gave Terrill every ounce of confirmation he needed without a word spoken. The arrival of the two ambassadors had prompted a more violent reaction, culminating in today’s disaster. It almost sounded like there was merit to their accusations against one another, after all, with tensions ratcheting up at every rumble. “At first, I believed it was the goddess communicating to us the coming of war to our shores, but then it kept getting worse.”

“And when did you two get here?”

“Al-almost three weeks ago.” The Valordan ambassador wasn’t taking chances on opposing Terrill, moreso when the Guardian began to frown.

Three weeks.

When he’d arrived in the otherworld.

“Atrum…” he said under his breath. The others didn’t know what he said, so Terrill continued on as if he’d said nothing. “Chief Micah, did you ever go to investigate the volcano?”

“When the smoke started frightening the visitors, we sent some people, but they were all lost in the sandstorm that suddenly ripped across the desert. The furthest we got was about a week ago. Took a while for the sandstorm to get started, but we never saw them come back…”

“Terrill, you’re not thinking…?” He was. Winifred was involved.

Terrill once more sucked in a breath, and with steel in his gaze, he looked upon the pair of ambassadors. “You two need to relax and stop being at each other’s throats. Whatever war your countries are about to enter into, right here and now, you both need to make peace.”

“How can we trust-?”

“Don’t trust them. Trust me,” Terrill insisted. At the same time, he clapped a hand on Micah’s shoulder. “Trust the chief, as well. He created a safe haven for you, right?”

“Of course. Any and all countries!” The excessive nods were a little much, but the ambassadors appeared to get the message. For the moment, at least. They both looked at each other with doubt, but when they felt Terrill’s glare upon them, they relented in their aggressions. “But, wait, trust you?”

“Yes, who are you, exactly?”

Terrill tightened the straps of his bag at the question. “Someone with no affiliation to either of your countries. Think of me as a Guardian. I can head to Tarkinder, myself, and clear up this whole issue.”

“Guardian?” Both ambassadors were perplexed at what he was saying, but if it had made sense to anyone, it was Micah. The chief took comparatively little time to contemplate what Terrill was saying, as his brow knitted together and eventually changed his face to a smile. Micah reached forward and took Terrill’s hands.

“You’ll investigate Tarkinder for us, and prove what’s causing the volcanic activity.”

“I just said that.”

“Very well, then.” He was back to being composed and all business as he turned to the two representatives. Before they knew it, they were taken by both arms of the chief and being pulled away, their protective details following after. “Ambassadors, you can leave it to this man. His non-affiliation to any of our towns will make his unbiased judgment useful. Now, just relax, and fear not, my men will check on your cargo in the vault.”

The secondary assertion wasn’t lost when Micah looked back, a toothy grin gleaming. He was glad none of them had to sacrifice their own people to dive back into the Ardorisan Desert. Terrill huffed.

Yeah, well I have no plans of dying out there, so just sit tight.

“There you go again, Terrill.” Krysta’s criticism was noted, but Terrill wasn’t willing to listen to her gripes. Rather, he set off for where he sent Floyd and Torry. Krysta fell in lockstep right next to him. “Always offering to volunteer. Why didn’t we wait for Floyd? He is Serotin’s ambassador.”

“I got the feeling they wouldn’t listen to him. If he’s going to have any effect as an ambassador, we need to head straight for the source, and right now I’m thinking the only way off this continent is fixing this problem.”

“Mmhmm,” she vocalized, not convinced in the slightest. “I think you just want to play hero, Terrill Jacobs. Or is it that you want to see Winifred again?”

“You make it sound like we have a thing,” Terrill snarled out, his frown making Krysta laugh. They turned a corner, the vault located at the end of the street, while another road they passed by led to the sandy edges of town westward. Even from here, the billowing dust storm was becoming self-evident. “But no. I just have a feeling the tension this volcano has caused is all part of the war plan.”

She didn’t fight him on that.

Now that the two had entered a different part of the resort, the damage from the fire was less visible, and in some places non-existent. It hadn’t reached every part of the town, but some of the monks that followed Micah were taking damage assessments at the intersections and storefronts. The visitors, however, were sequestered away inside the buildings that served as their lodgings. It gave an almost eerie ghost town feel to what should have been a bustling and relaxing resort. Although, they weren’t baking from the sun anymore, so Terrill considered that a plus.

“There’s Torry,” Krysta pointed out, gesturing down the length of the street. Terrill saw she was on her own, leaning against one of the buildings near the vault as she tapped her foot. Her hair looked disheveled and her face sooty; if he hadn’t known, no one would have ever guessed she was Mayor Rainert’s daughter. The scowl on her face didn’t help, and brought to attention the one thing that was lacking.

“Where’s Floyd?” Terrill asked upon reaching her.

She expected the question. That much was obvious by the disgusted jerk of her head towards the vault. Terrill’s heartrate sped up at what she was saying. Floyd had entered the vault, himself. Ordinarily, that might not have concerned him, but the absence of the guards outside and the window open on an upper floor leading inside painted a very different picture for their resident ambassador.

“Idiot.” Krysta’s single, scathing remark was proven true by the crashing that resulted as Floyd fell back on the street…through the front door. Terrill resisted the urge to groan that the boy couldn’t even exit the same way he’d sneaked in, making his presence all the more obvious.

“Oh, hey, guys, special delivery.” Floyd held up Terrill’s sword, his grin pretending that it washed away his act of monumental stupidity. Terrill still took his sword back, nonetheless, and glanced back down the street. If Micah’s words would be believed, his own guard would be coming to check on the vault soon.

“You couldn’t wait for someone to get the stuff for you?” Krysta asked, swiping her rapier and poking him with the tip of its sheath.

“There was no one here, and I wasn’t gonna wait around. Be grateful I found our stuff…and other stuff.” The redhead turned serious, tossing Torry’s bow back to her. With their weapons retrieved, Terrill followed the boy’s lead and dared to peek into the vault.

At first, it seemed ordinary, exactly what Micah had described. There were confiscated weapons, stores of food and money and everything that seemed to make the resort operational at all times. A deeper look, however, showed more than just confiscated weapons.

The only way to refer to what was inside the vault was shipments of weapons.

That alone would have been no cause for alarm, except for the fact that there were multiple country crests, from the ones he’d seen on the ambassadors, to one identified by Torry as belonging to Serotin.

“It’s like a cache of deadly weapons. We’re talking places that don’t even deal in weapons here. Valorda, Invaria, Serotin. Even saw some from Rotarin and that southern empire of Xactan. There’s a stockpile here to keep a war going for years!” The only assuaging detail was that there was nothing from Sayn, but Terrill didn’t take much comfort from that; otherworld or no, trade from Sayn was always restricted.

“So that’s what it is…” Terrill said, his breath turning to a growl. Tremors visited his feet, different from the ones that Tarkinder emanated. The guards would be coming close to check on the vault soon. They needed to depart. Without further ado, Terrill grabbed hold of the doors, ushering Floyd out and pulling them shut. There was no time for them to get to the window. “Let’s get out of here. I’d rather not be delayed like we were at Kirdon.”

“That was not a delay, that was a strategic retr-” Torry’s excuses sounded as lame as her boyfriend’s, and Terrill didn’t have time to deal with them. He grabbed her by the arm, whisking both her and Floyd around the corner and down the smallest alleyway he could find. The voices drew closer, alongside the footsteps. They weren’t the words Terrill wanted to hear.

“Hey, do you remember leaving the window open?”

“You don’t think somebody got into one of the shipments? Whichever country it was won’t like that…”

“Inform Micah, and keep those ambassadors placated. Until that Guardian can explore Tarkinder, we don’t want any part of war starting here.”

Floyd seemed to have something he wanted to say, but Terrill shushed him, the quartet beginning to shuffle down the sandy stretch. The further they went, the more the ground became sand as the desert approached them. It brought them further away from the disturbed guards, and Terrill hoped beyond hope that Floyd had left no evidence behind.

Once out of earshot, and facing the arid desert westward, Terrill rounded on the boy.

“Nice job, Floyd. Almost got us caught. Is there a reason you don’t think things through?”

“Says the guy who clearly volunteered us for a trip to Tarkinder?” Both males folded their arms, glaring at each other. “I don’t mind, because it was the obvious destination anyway, but you could do with a little more self-preservation.”

“You could do with a little more thought.”

“Both of you could do with a little more movement,” Krysta interjected, and Terrill tore away from Floyd to see the girls already stepping foot on the desert ahead. It looked hot, and Terrill wondered if they had the water necessary for such a journey. “This desert won’t cross itself.”

“Eugh…looks hot.”

“Looks long.”

“Then we better hurry, right?” Torry said, her enthusiasm hitting its peak. That made Floyd look more exhausted, while Terrill was bewildered at the energy reserves she was now displaying. “If the Lifeblood reacts again, it could expose more of those weapons or set something off, and the countries would blame each other and-”

“And you just want to see the Lifeblood,” Terrill finished for her. The sheepish smile confirmed as much. He let out a sigh, and with determined steps, Terrill brought himself into the hot desert sands, facing Tarkinder. “Well, time to stop a volcano. Onwards and forwards.”

The quartet began their journey across the desert.