“But I haven’t!” Dennys expostulated.
“You persuaded Noah to go to his father, when he would listen to no one else.”
“I didn’t really say all that much,” Dennys said. “I sort of just listened to the stars. So I wasn’t really the one—“
“I am not here to accuse you,” Alarid said. “We are full of joy that Lamech and Noah are speaking again, and it may well be that it was necessary for your brother to pre-pare the old man for reconciliation.” He indicated the other seraph, who had been standing quietly listening. “This is Admael.”
The seraph did not extend his hand. Seraphim evidently did not shake hands. Admael bowed, and Dennys returned the bow.
Together, the two seraphim carefully examined Dennys. “Yalith and Oholibamah have taken excellent care of you,” Aland said.
Admael nodded in quiet approval.
“They’ve been marvelous,” Dennys agreed. “I think I’d be dead it they hadn’t.” The scabs were long gone from his skin. He could run across the desert without tiring. He knew that it was time.
He looked at Alarid. “And you, too. Thank you.” He bowed to the seraph.
“Admael will carry you to Grandfather Lamech’s tent,” Alarid said.
Admaei’s moonstone eyes beamed toward Dennys. “I will wait outside.” With a grave look, the seraph left.
“I should thank everybody.” Dennys hesitated. He was eager to be with Sandy again, yes, and yet he was not at all eager to leave Yalith. And, of course, Oholibamah and Japheth. If he went to Grandfather Lamech’s tent, would he ever see Yalith again? Would her delicate fingers slide confidingly into his hand the way they did when she took him out at night to listen to the stars, or when they danced under the desert sky?
“Fear not,” Alarid said. “I have thanked them for you, all of them, Noah and Matred, Shem and Elisheba, Ham and Anah, Japheth and Oholibamah, and oh, yes, Yalith, too. In any event, you will be seeing them frequently. Now that Grandfather Lamech and Noah are reconciled, there will be much coming and going between the two tents. Are you ready?”
“Ready.” He would see Yalith again. Surely she would come to Grandfather Lamech’s tent to visit him. Surely he would feel the touch of her delicate fingers.
He followed Alarid out of the tent. Night had fallen, and the sky was crusted with stars. He was getting used to the pattern of early rising, the long afternoon nap, and going late to sleep when the fiery sands had cooled down and the very air had lost its burning quality.
He looked for Admael, but there was no seraph. Instead, a white camel stood in the dim shadow of the tent.
Noah was waiting for him, standing by the camel, leaning on a stick, his foot bound in a clean skin. “This is not goodbye, my son. We are all eager to see you and the Sand together. Then maybe we will believe that you really are two. The seraphim has looked at my foot and says that I will be able to walk on it safely in a couple of days.” He held out his hand, palm up. “Put your foot there, and I will help you up onto the camel’s back. Even for a young giant like you, a camel’s back is a long way up.”
The camel had no real saddle, but heavy skins were spread on its back. Dennys was not at all sure how easy it was going to be for him to stay seated. There was nothing for him to hold on to, no reins, no pommel. But Admael in his camel form seemed to be a real flesh-and-blood camel, not nebulous, like the virtual unicorns. He did not think the camel would lose its tendency to life.
Matred came hurrying out of the tent, carrying a bundle, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Here are your clothes. Perhaps, sometime, you will need them. Goodbye, our dear twin. We will miss you.”
And suddenly he was surrounded by the entire family, weeping, laughing, reaching up to the camel’s flanks to hug Dennys’s feet, which was as close to him as they could reach, even on tiptoe.
Japheth had his arm around Oholibamah, and Yalith was standing with them. They blew him kisses, which he blew back, and then, without warning, the camel took off, and everybody called after them, “Goodbye, twin Den, goodbye, and we’ll see you soon!”
“Goodbyel” he called in return, trying to wave at them without falling off.
The camel turned off the oasis onto the desert as the calls faded into the distance. Dennys clutched the bundle of clothes Matred had given him—what remained of his clothes after he had thrown away the ones fouled in the garbage pit. He could not imagine ever needing winter clothes again. He could not imagine going farther than Lamech’s tent, where he and Sandy would be reunited.
He remembered reading somewhere that to ride a camel was like being on a small ship rolling in rough seas, and that seemed to him to be a very good description. He bent over and clutched the white hair on the camel’s neck, trying to let his body swing with the camel’s odd rhythm. A soft night breeze only faintly gritty with sand touched his cheeks. Above them, the desert stars gave out a cooling light. In the distance the mountain smoked, and the horizon burned red. Dennys was glad the oasis was as far away as it was from the still active volcano.
The camel lurched swiftly across the desert. Dennys found that the more he leaned into the animal’s syncopated rhythm the less tendency he had to slither off. The camel was going with such speed that it would be halfway across the desert before it realized that Dennys had fallen, so he’d better hang on.
He tried to breathe in time with the arhythmic ride. He would be incredibly sore in the morning. This was far harder on the muscles than riding a horse. He noticed a shift in pace, a quickening of rhythm. He clutched at the camel’s neck, barely managing to hold on. Barely. He began to slip to one side, with the skins under him sliding with him.
The white camel was racing across the desert. Suddenly Dennys realized that the sound of camel’s hooves on sand, on stone under sand, was echoed by another sound.
A voice from close behind them roared, “Hungry!” and Dennys felt a breath so hot that it seared. He felt himself slipping farther and farther off the camel, until he was clinging to the side, and then he realized that the camel had turned, so that it was between Dennys and whatever it was that was roaring. He found himself sliding so that he was head down, peering under the camel’s belly.
Something was peering at him from the other side of the camel. A face. Whiskers. A bulbous nose. Bleary eyes. Horns which curved down, with sharp, wicked points. Dennys looked for the body that belonged to the face and saw, instead, a lion’s body. Looked along the lion’s body to where the tail should be and saw, instead, a scorpion’s tail, its sting rattling. He had never seen anything like it before. He did not want to see it now. Clutching the camel’s white hair, he tried to struggle up onto its back again.
The camel whickered, and continued to race across the desert.
“Hungry!” the creature roared.
Dennys felt very small. Very young. Very afraid. “Is it going to eat me?”
The camel glanced back at Dennys, the gentian eyes enigmatic.
“Hey!” he protested. “Aren’t you going to stop it?”
The huge face loomed over the camel’s back. “Hungry!” it roared again. The enormous lips opened, to reveal a double set of ugly, stumpy teeth, which looked as though they had been worn down from gnawing. The purplish lips opened.
Dennys pulled at the camel’s hair. “Hey. Help.” The ugly creature’s breath came closer. The bloodshot eyes were looking directly at Dennys’s grey ones. He tried to stare it down. The tongue, thick but long as a snake’s, flicked toward him. He drew back, shielding himself with the camel, but the man/lion/scorpion bounded over the camel’s back, landing on the sand beside Dennys.
“Camel!” he shouted. “Please be Admael!” He sidestepped away from the monster.
Again the camel agilely placed itself between Dennys and the creature. Gave Dennys a glance. Dennys remembered that seraphim did not like to interfere or change things.
“Hey!” he shouted. “If he eats me, won’t that change the course of things?”
With a flash of lightning almost like the unicorn’s, the camel stretched its whiteness up to the sky, seeming to brush against the stars, to catch blue fire, and then Admael stood beside Dennys. “Go, manticore, go quickly. And don’t go to any of the tents. And don’t even think of eating any of the mammoths. Do your hunting in the desert.”