Desert Road

Julifer sat in the sand, sobbing. Just the other day, she had wandered these sands, searching for her brother, Lifer. Now, after months of searching, she gave him up for lost. Two years ago, he had entered the desert to explore, promising to return, yet he never showed up. As her seventh tear trickled down her cheek and plopped into the hot sand, a voice questioned her, “Why dost thou cry, child of another land?”

“Who goes there?” Julifer snapped, grabbing her sword from its sheath, and turning around. Seeing a jinn, sitting cross legged on nothing, she dropped to her knees, saying, “Almighty jinn, forgive me for intruding in your lands, but I seek my brother, a tree person like myself.”

“Jinn, that’s a strange name, why dost thou callst a ghost by a name such as ‘jinn’?” the ghostly figure asked, looking puzzled.

“You are a jinn in my land and, forgive me if I sound rude, but have you been a jinn long?”

“No,” the jinn said with a sigh. “I guess I don’t have the accent right, do I? But then, I am the youngest ever Seventh Ghost of the Sands.”

“That’s as clear as mud on a pig’s back,” Julifer said sarcastically, standing up.

“I know, sorry, and, well, you see ghosts are supposed to have this accent, and I am one of the most powerful ghosts. The two most powerful ghosts are the third and seventh and I have the honor of being the youngest ever Seventh Ghost!” The Ghost looked so excited with her twin braids knocked out of their pins and falling down to the steaming sand. Julifer, in contrast, was tall and thin with pale skin, big pine green eyes and a nose that looked as if it had been broken before. Her hair, shoulder length, cascading dark brown ringlets, was shoved up under a cowboy hat and her clothes were not ones to go tramping through a desert in: a woven green long-sleeved tunic, loose light green leggings and unusual high black boots that one could climb trees in.

“So what does this missing sibling look like?” the ghost asked, her turban flopping to one side. The loose flowing blouse she was wearing was on backwards and her loose silken pants that gathered at the ankle were in disarray.

“Well,” Julifer said trying hard not to stare, “he is about an inch shorter than I, looks basically like I do, and normally carries a quiver slung over his shoulder and a long bow in his hand. By the way, what should I call you?”

“So that’s what he looks like! I saw him pass through here several months back. You can call me Eshetwo.”

“All right, so where did you see him?” Julifer asked, hardly daring to hope.

“Well, we’ll just have to go there, won’t we?” Eshetwo said, snapping her fingers and making a magic carpet appear. “Climb on, this shouldn’t take long.” They took to the air, soaring off in the distance. Soon they came to an old pyramid, long deserted, nearly in ruins.

“Lifer’s there!” Julifer said, aghast.

“If he’s who I think he is, he is,” the ghost said. The carpet brought them down near the entrance. Julifer leapt from it, the ghost closely following. Julifer stooped to enter, noting that at some point, cobwebs had been brushed aside. She bent again to look for footprints; faintly she saw some there.

“Esheto, hand me a torch, lit, please,” Julifer asked her, reaching back.

“Eshetwo,” the ghost muttered rebelliously as she pressed a lit torch into Julifer’s hand. Julifer took the torch and entered, her footsteps echoing loudly. She stopped, startled by the echoes; she bent to check the footprints. Deciding that they had to have been left by the last human visitor, she followed them, desperately willing them to lead them to Lifer. After she had gone about ten yards, she realized someone or something, besides Eshetwo, was following her through this maze; she heard slithering, muffled by distance, across the damp dusty floor.

“Eshetwo, catch up! I don’t think we’re alone,” Julifer called back to her companion. The ghost soon caught up with her, but Julifer would take no chances; she drew her sword, the Sword of Truth, as she had that mighty sword, Lifer had the Bow of Hope. Soon they came to the center of the maze they had entered in the pyramid; in front of them was a locked door.

“What now?” Eshetwo said disgustedly.

“Move aside,” Julifer said gruffly, taking her sword and hacking through the door.

“See,” she said, moving aside to present a gaping doorway.

“I see, but which way?”

“Whatever way the footprints point, they led us this far, why shouldn’t they lead farther?” Julifer said as she bent to find the right path. “Ah-ha, left, come on.” They soon came to a series of runes on the wall.

“This was a tomb, is a tomb,” Eshetwo said, tracing a finger across the lines.

“What do they say, and whose tomb?” Julifer asked.

“Escape is possible,
Only through,
The Gateway to the Sky.
Take The Boat and Fly,
Far, Far Away,”

Eshetwo read.

“How, er, informative,” Julifer said timidly.

The two continued, holding the message from the past deep in their hearts. Soon they came to what was apparently a dead end.

“This is it,” Julifer said, annoyed. “The only way is up apparently, pity there isn’t a door.”

“But there is, look up,” Eshetwo corrected her, pointing.

“Brilliant,” Julifer said, then she reached up to pull the door down and heard something hissing, “Silvara, Ssssilvara,” over and over again.

“What was that?” Julifer asked, scared.

“I truly don’t know,” Eshetwo replied, plainly terrified. Julifer pulled herself up and then watched as Eshetwo floated up. When they were both up above, Julifer pulled the trap door shut. She looked around. Across the room was her brother, chained to the wall and with a haunted look in his eyes, yet he still maintained his quiver, slung over one shoulder despite the chains.

“Lifer!” she cried and ran across the room towards him, dropping her sword with a clatter. At the noise, a growl erupted from the floor on which they were standing, stones flew, one sealing the entrance behind them. A giant serpent, an adder, appeared there, hissing, “Silvara, Sssilllvarra.”

“I’m no good at this type of thing,” Eshetwo muttered as she bent and picked up the sword and silently closed in on the adder as it closed in on the siblings.

“For the Eighty-third Ghost who doesn’t exist!” Eshetwo cried as she stabbed the serpent in the back. It hissed again, before flopping over, dead.

“Thank you, Eshetwo; may I have my sword back?” Julifer said quietly.

“Yes, you can, take the bloody thing!” Eshetwo cried, handing it to Julifer, who took the sword and cut her brother’s bonds. As his limp form fell, Julifer leapt to catch him. Holding him in her arms, she turned to Eshetwo and said, “I guess we had better find this ‘Gateway to the Sky’ and then sprout wings.”

“Yes,” Eshetwo said. “Yes, we had better do so.”

So the two, Julifer carrying her brother, entered the next chamber through a cracked stairway in the corner. In the entryway to the next room, Julifer stopped short. Another ghost was in that room and it wasn’t Eshetwo. He turned, saw the three of them under the arched doorway to the chamber, and smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile, more the sort of smile one gives people when they have fallen into a trap set for them.

“It’s a pity you killed Silvara, she was a faithful servant, but then, I have others. Oh, and by the way, m’dear,” the man said, at the last turning to face Eshetwo. “The Eighty Third Ghost very much exists, but it is nice I am still remembered.” He clapped his hands together twice. Lifer stood up and walked toward the man.

“I have all sorts of allies, everywhere,” the Eighty Third Ghost said cruelly, as Lifer turned and faced his sister. Julifer looked straight into her brother’s eyes yearning for him to tell her this wasn’t true. In his eyes, she could see fear and helplessness.

“You lie, he is not your ally, you have hypnotized him!” Julifer said, disgusted.

“Don’t you like him better this way, though, he behaves so much nicer.”

“Let him go.’’ Eshetwo said softly, yet commandingly.

“I think not, Miss 7th Ghost; I need him and his sister to sacrifice, before I can summon the great snake,” the Eighty Third Ghost said with a sneer, before starting to laugh wickedly. “Once summoned, the beast will devour the world and nothing will stop it. I just need to sacrifice two of the same blood who are not of the sands.”

Another snake, not quite as big as the first, but still very big, appeared behind the ghost. “Go, Silverfangs, and take your revenge upon these infidels for killing your mother.”

“SSSSSSSSilllllllllllverfangssssssssssssssssssssss, Silverfangs,” the snake hissed as it lunged forward to strike. Instantly Julifer drew her sword and stabbed the snake through its neck. Again a snake flopped dead with a cry, “SSilverfangss”. As the snake fell dead the Ghost gave a snarl of disgust and grabbed a sword and a bow from a nearby shelf. The bow gleamed with hope as he handed it to Lifer; the sword he held in his hand.

“Attack!” the Ghost commanded of Lifer. Automatically, he reached back and drew an arrow from his quiver. His bow was already strung. The now notched arrow was pointed at his sister. Julifer now read in his eyes rage at his own helplessness.

“Lifer,” she cried, “remember the days when we herded the deer towards the hunters? Remember the days when we ran free under the trees? Remember when we raced through the glades? Remember, my brother?” Recognition shined in Lifer’s eyes.

“Silence,” snarled the Ghost. “Destroy her now.” Lifer turned, of his own free will, and buried his arrow deep in the Ghost’s heart. “So you are free of my spell, yet you are still voiceless. Ghosts do not die.”

“I’m afraid you are wrong. I heard that the Eighty Third died long ago, apparently I heard wrong, but you must have forgotten our lore in your banishment. ‘A Ghost may slay a Ghost,’ as the saying goes,” Eshetwo said softly as she raised her arms above her head, apparently drawing power from the air above her.

The Eighty Third Ghost swiftly called on power from someplace else as well. He directed his glowing hands at Eshetwo as she turned her glowing hands upon him.

“Go, run while you still can, the gateway cannot be far. Leave me to deal with this rebel Ghost,” she said, slightly turning her head from the two toned globe of light that was beginning to encase the two Ghosts.

Julifer nodded, and turning to her brother said, “Lifer, we have to get out of here. You must follow me.” He nodded mutely in reply, before starting across the room. The siblings crossed the chamber swiftly, pausing briefly at the next stairwell to catch their breath and look back.

The twain traveled swiftly in silence until they reached the pyramid’s peak. In the small chamber just under the towering top of the pyramid was a small ship, not a dinghy or a rowboat, but a ship, a beautiful majestic sailing ship. “Alright, we’re here, now where’s the Gateway to the Sky?” Julifer asked. Lifer shrugged, scanned the room before pointing at the ship. “The ship? What about it?” she asked. As his sister spoke, Lifer had been moving towards the beautifully crafted vessel. Now poised next to the small craft, he beckoned to Julifer. “What is it? Do you think this is the boat from the verse? If it is, it is much too small for us, I mean, look at it; it’s scarcely taller than you are.” Lifer beckoned again, this time more urgently. “Oh, all right, I’ll come,” Julifer came, obviously displeased. Lifer began to clamber into the ship, Julifer sighed and followed. Once the two of them were on board the craft, the vessel began to grow, be

coming larger and larger. Once the ship reached its full length, a glowing, shimmering arch appeared, revealing the night sky beyond.

“‘The Gateway to the Sky,’” Julifer breathed, utterly shocked at how it had appeared. The ship began to rise and it sailed out through the arch and into the night sky of the north.

Day saw them seated by the vessel in the sand surrounding the oasis in which the craft had landed. This oasis was close enough to their forest homelands that one could make out the swaying branches far away. Lifer stood, and, shading his eyes, gazed south, off into the desert, off in the direction of the pyramid; suddenly there was a flash of light followed by a crack of thunder. The desert sky was dimmer to their eyes after the flash, so they did not see the person who had appeared before them for a moment.

The person spoke to them, saying, “I see you got out unscathed.”

“Eshetwo?” Julifer said finally.

“Of course, who else would it be?” she replied.

“What happened there?”

“To tell all now would be tiresome, yet in truth, we battled ferociously for a long while, until I finally called upon the ancient powers of the sands and the sand spirits rose to destroy him; that was the flash of light, and the thunder was the sound of the pyramid destroying itself.”

“It’s gone?”

“Yes. Oh,” she added in an undertone glancing at Lifer, who was looking for some prey from a vantage point atop of a dune. “About his voice, it will come back in about a week, no sooner, possibly later.”

“Thank you,” Julifer replied, her voice equally soft.

Two days later they were standing under the trees at the very edge of the desert. Julifer and Lifer stood beneath a tall hemlock, while Eshetwo stood on the sand. This was the end, the siblings were returning, at long last, to their forest homeland. They all knew it, yet Eshetwo could not keep the tears from her eyes as they stood silently.

“Farewell,” Julifer called as Lifer waved, then the two turned and raced off into the depths of the forest.

The End