Read Online The Waterless Sea by Kate Constable - Free Book Online Page B

calm. But outside that circle, nothing was still. The suffocating sand whirled and stung and moaned. How long would it go on? Did these storms blow through a whole night? Already it seemed that she and Mica had been singing for half a day, and the wind that beat against their magic was as strong as ever.
    And then, more suddenly than it had come upon them, the wind passed. The fine grains of sand floated, a choking cloud suspended in the hard light, and then, slowly as drifting snow, the sands settled. The white sun beat down on them again. The blurred haze that was the storm diminished, moving toward the horizon. The inquisitive face of the little nadu poked out of its hole. Its nose twitched once, then it bounded away. Calwyn nodded to Mica, and they let their song drop into silence.
    Heben unfolded himself, and extended his hands to help Calwyn and Mica up. ‘Let us go on,’ he said, as if they’ d stopped for a meal, and he clucked the hegesi to their feet. But Calwyn thought that after the storm, he spoke to her differently: with less courtesy, and more respect.
    They stopped just before dusk, while there was still enough light for Heben to mend Mica’ s waterskin. They had come to the edge of the dunes. A flat, rocky plain stretched before them, pocked with stones and stunted vegetation, grey-green against the burnt hue of the rocks. There were no more rolling waves of golden sand; that was all behind them. Ahead lay just this red, flat, stony plain.
    â€˜Let me sing up some water for the hegesi ,’ said Calwyn, eager to make amends for their carelessness.
    Heben looked up from his neat stitching. ‘Thank you, but they don’ t need it,’ he said. ‘So long as they eat enough arbec leaves, they will have all the moisture they need.’
    The hegesi were already tearing at the juicy leaves of the low-growing arbec .
    Calwyn squatted beside Heben. ‘So, if we ran out of water, could we chew the arbec too?’
    â€˜No,’ said Heben briefly. ‘It is poison to men.’
    And women? Calwyn bit her tongue. ‘All the same, wouldn’ t the hegesi enjoy some cool water?’
    â€˜My lady is more than kind, to think of the comfort of the hegesi before her own,’ said Heben, and bit off his thread.
    It took her several attempts to get it right. At first she sang up a thin sheet of ice that melted quickly on the warm ground, but it vanished into the dirt before the hegesi could come near it. Then she sang a solid block of ice that Heben eyed with astonishment. But the hegesi didn’ t know what it was, and wouldn’ t lick it. At last she found a hollow in the top of a rock, and sang up a handful of snow that melted into a little crystal pool that the hegesi lapped at eagerly. When Mica’ s waterskin was mended, she filled it with the same swift-melting snow, and filled the waterskins of the others, too. ‘There,’ she said, proud of her efforts. ‘You need never go thirsty in the desert with a chanter of ice in your company!’
    Torn between admiration and suspicion, Heben dipped his finger in the pool and tasted the water. ‘How can it be? How can you make water out of nothing?’
    â€˜Not from nothing. Out of the air. There’ s water in the air, even here, all around us, always. All chantment does is wring it out.’ Calwyn pressed her hands together as if she were squeezing a sponge. ‘We can’ t make something out of nothing. Even the illusions of the Power of Seeming only draw out what’ s already in the mind.’
    â€˜What is this Power of Seeming?’ asked Heben.
    â€˜Chanters of seeming create illusions. They can make you believe you see and feel things that aren’ t real.’
    â€˜Samis once made himself look like Darrow, and even Cal couldn’ t tell no difference,’ put in Mica.
    â€˜Only at first!’ said Calwyn, slightly stung.
    All life, everything that is, is the river.