Shaking his head, the litah sent a shower of sparkling halite crystals flying in all directions. “What happened?” Wrinkling back his lips as only a big cat can do, he spat disgustedly to one side. “What have I been eating?”
Ehomba pointed out the places where the uncannily saiga-shaped lump of mineral salts showed claw and tooth marks. “Everyone likes a little salt with their meal, but there are limits. While you were trying to eat the salt, the salt was starting to eat you. It was not meat that was salted—it was your thoughts.” Steeling himself, he turned and gestured in the direction of the three sculpted figures of his family. Now that he was fully conscious of the slow, terrible death they symbolized, he was able to look at them more clearly and see them for what they really were. This time they looked less like Mirhanja and his children than they did like three small pillars of accumulated whiteness.
Revelation proved sanguinary for Ahlitah as well. “I can’t believe I was chewing so single-mindedly on that.” His snarl of antipathy and contempt echoing across the lake bed, he brought one massive paw around in a great arc and decapitated the nearest formation. Lumps of shattered salt went skittering across the hard, crusty ground.
“Bring your water.” Ehomba spun on one sandaled foot. “We have to free the others.” He stamped down heavily as he walked. “And keep moving. Do not linger too long in one place. As swiftly as the salt distorts and affects your mind, it also clutches at your feet.”