The Shifting Sands

Lief crawled over the lip of the pit and stepped into empty space. He dangled, swinging gently to and fro, looking up at Barda’s and Jasmine’s worried faces and their hands, the knuckles white, gripping the rope.

“Slowly,” he mouthed. He saw them nod, and their hands move. Then, gently, he began to sink through the core of the cone.

Lief’s cloak was bound tightly around him and its hood was drawn closely around his head and face, covering all but his eyes. I must look like a big grub in a cocoon, he thought. But no grub would be so foolish as to invade a hive. If it did …

Shuddering, he turned his mind to other things.

Smoke from the dampened torch, well padded with wet rags, billowed around him. He was not certain it would help, but certainly no other weapon would be useful here. Besides, ever since his dream, Queen Bee’s words had kept coming back to him, and surely that was for a reason.

My guards do not like sudden movements, and are easily angered. Why, even I must use smoke to calm them when I take their honey from the Hive …

He could remember the words so clearly. Strangely, here, at the droning, swirling hub of the Sands, his mind had cleared and sharpened. Perhaps the Hive was no longer calling him, because it had no need. He was where it had wanted him to be all along.

He looked up. His friends’ faces were tiny now. He was hardly able to see them against the glare of the sky. And below, the seething mass that was the Hive was whirling, rising to meet him.

He braced himself, closed his eyes. Then he felt it, like a hot, rough wind, a stinging whirlwind, sucking him in. It spun savagely about him, whipping him, pressing in on him, with a sound like thunder.

It was too strong. Too strong!

He could not see. He could not breathe. Spun in a raging torrent of sound, he did not know which way was up, which down. He knew only one thing:

The Hive cared nothing for him. To the Hive he was not food, or a captive prize, or even a hated enemy to be defeated. To the Hive he was nothing but the carrier of the thing it desired. The Hive would suffocate him. It would rub the clothes from his flesh and the flesh from his bones. Then it would have what it wanted. What it had wanted from the beginning.

The Belt of Deltora.

Panic gripped Lief by the throat. He began to struggle, to scream —

Softly, boy, softly. Gently, gently!

The crabbed old voice was as clear in his mind as if it had spoken right beside his ear. It was like cold water splashed in his face.

The screams died in his throat. He opened his eyes. He forced himself to be still, to stop gasping for air, to breathe evenly.

He opened his eyes a fraction. Through the narrow slits he saw that the smoke pouring from the torch had at last begun mingling with the whirling red.

And the whirlwind was quieting. The Hive was slowing, and thinning. It was retreating to the darkness at the sides of the cone. And the thing that its fury had previously hidden was at last revealed — a glistening pyramid rising through the cone’s center.

Slowly, carefully, Lief reached up and tugged the rope once. His downward progress stopped with a slight jolt as, far above, Jasmine and Barda received the signal.

For a moment he simply swung in space, staring, fascinated, through the drifting smoke, at the astounding thing the living Sand had built, tended, and guarded for years without number.

It was a towering pyramid of cells made of gold, glass, gems, and bleached, white bones.

Lief told himself that he had expected this — or something like it. But the reality was beyond anything he could have imagined.

Anything that would not decay, or would decay so slowly that it would have to be replaced only after centuries, had been gathered and used for the building. Skulls and bones of every shape and size were packed side by side with glass bottles and jars, coins, crystals and gems, gold chains, rings and bracelets, and yet more bones. The individual parts, small and large, had been fitted together with such care that the tower glittered like an enormous jewel.

It was an awesome sight. And unbelievably horrible.

It was a pyramid of death. How many human beings had been stripped of life for its sake? And what was stored inside those secret cells? The Hive’s young, no doubt. Eggs, then tiny squirming things, packed in the thousands, nursed and cared for, fed on a disgusting brew of decayed red flies, dead lizards, and whatever else slipped beneath the sand. Till they grew into — what? Not insects of any kind he had ever known. Not insects at all, perhaps. Some other form of life he could not even imagine. Some tiny unit that would become part of the ancient thing that had lived on while all around it changed. The Hive.

Shaken with disgust, Lief ached to kick and tear at the tower, to see it fall and smash to pieces in the darkness below. In that darkness, no doubt, the giant Hive Queen lurked. He almost felt he could see her bloated shape, rippling in the depths, laying eggs, eggs without number.

But he knew that if he attacked the pyramid the Hive would be upon him. The smoke would not hold it back.

And the Belt was throbbing and burning. Somewhere in this gleaming tower lay the gem he was seeking. Was it the diamond? The amethyst? The emerald? He could see clear, purple, and green stones among those that sparkled in the pyramid. But which was the precious One?

He pulled his cloak and shirt aside to reveal the Belt, and looked down at it, peering through wreaths of smoke. He could hardly see the topaz and the ruby. But the opal shone, dancing with sparkling lights so that it seemed alive.

What did that mean? He struggled to see in his mind the words about the powers of the opal in The Belt of Deltora.

† The opal, symbol of hope, shines with all the colors of the rainbow. It has the power to give glimpses of the future, and to aid those with weak sight. The opal …

What came next? Lief screwed his eyes tightly closed to help him to think, but after a moment he opened them again, shaking his head desperately. He could not remember the end.

He looked up to the top of the pyramid. He knew that the gem was most likely to be there. It had been dropped into the Shifting Sands just before King Endon was overthrown. That was only a little over sixteen years ago, and the pyramid had been growing for many ages.

The first thing he saw was Jasmine’s dagger, fitted point downwards into the very tip of the tower. It had been the last thing taken, so was at the top. One day the metal would rust away. But the crystal cross would survive, and other finds would take the place of the metal parts.

Below the dagger, neatly arranged, were many gold coins, and the Champion medal from the Rithmere Games. They were locked in place with a mass of shining white bones.

Lief shuddered. Not a scrap of flesh still clung to the bones, but he knew that they were all that remained of Carn 2 and Carn 8, the Grey Guards. The Hive worked quickly.

He realized that the pyramid seemed clearer than it had before. For a moment he wondered why that was. Then he saw that the torch was smoking less. It was starting to die.

His stomach lurched. For how much longer would the Hive stay droning at the sides of the cone? As the smoke thinned …

He looked below the bones and saw some small glass pots, some bracelets, two rocks, and what looked like the jawbone of a horse. And below that —

His heart seemed to miss a beat. There, pinpoints of light piercing its smooth, dark blue surface, was a stone like a starry night sky.

The forgotten words from The Belt of Deltora flashed at last into his mind.

… The opal has a special relationship with the lapis lazuli, the heavenly stone, a powerful talisman.

The lapis lazuli! There it lay, carefully wedged into place, supporting the roof of an as yet empty cell. The fourth gem of the Belt of Deltora.

He reached for it, then abruptly drew back his hand. If he pulled the stone from its place, the things resting upon it would surely topple and fall. Then the Hive would attack. He would be dead before he could carry his prize to the surface, and the lapis lazuli, and the Belt itself, would be lost.

His only hope was to replace the gem with something else. Something of about the same size. Frantically, he felt in his pockets, though he knew he had nothing — nothing …

Then his fingers touched something in the top pocket of his shirt. Something small, hard, and oddly shaped. He pulled it out.

It was Jasmine’s little wooden bird. And it was just the right size.

The Hive droned with growing suspicion. It was waking, becoming active, as the smoke began to disappear. Holding his breath, Lief reached again for the lapis lazuli. But this time he grasped in his other hand the little wooden bird.

He eased the lapis lazuli from its place. It warmed in his fingers, and moved easily, more easily than he expected, as though it wanted to be free.

The opal is calling it, he thought, feeling the answering warmth at his waist. He felt the lapis lazuli slip into his hand, and quickly pushed the little wooden bird into its place.

Not quickly enough. The top of the tower trembled. The droning from the walls of the cone became louder, more alert. The red cloud swayed inward. Its outside edge just touched the bare skin of Lief’s chest, searing, burning. He smothered a scream of anguish.

Quietly, quietly …

Sweat dripping into his eyes, trying to screen out the pain, Lief lifted a hand and tugged at the rope. Once, twice … Beside him, the pyramid swayed. If it should fall. If anything should fall …

The dagger toppled from its place, turning in the air. Lief snatched at it one-handed, just managing to catch it by its tip as he rose beside it, the dying torch tucked under one arm.

With agonizing slowness, he was drawn to the surface. Below him, the droning sound was rumbling, rising, as the Hive closed in, circling the pyramid once more. The Hive did not yet know it had been robbed. It was still sleepy and distracted because smoke still drifted in the air. The smoke was faint now, so faint …

But it was still working its magic as Lief crawled into the fresh air above.

And as he stood up and turned joyously to Barda and Jasmine, as he opened his hand to show them the heavenly stone, the clouds that had covered the sky flew apart like torn rags. The stars and the moon beamed down again upon the dark earth like a blessing, and the lapis lazuli sparkled back at them like a tiny mirror.

It slipped into the Belt and glowed there, alive under the moon.

Lief turned to Jasmine. “I had to leave your little bird behind. But I brought you this in exchange,” he said softly, and gave her the dagger. Wordlessly she took it, slipped it inside her jacket, and held it close.

Lief swayed and Barda gripped his arm. “The lapis lazuli is a talisman, Barda,” Lief whispered. “We will be safe now. But let us leave this place.”

Lief said little else as the companions walked slowly down the smooth red of the peak. At the bottom he let Jasmine smooth healing balm over the raw patches on his chest. It eased the pain a little. It made the long journey back to the edge of the Sands bearable.

They had the stars to guide them now. They had the lapis lazuli to offer protection against the dangers of the night. But it was not until they had reached the rocks that edged the Sands, and had climbed out onto solid land, that Lief was able to speak of what he had seen.

“Thank the heavens that you and the Belt are safe,” murmured Barda when he had finished.

“And now,” said Jasmine more cheerfully, “we have the fourth stone. Only three more to go. And surely they will be easy, compared to this.”

Lief was silent. It was some moments before his friends realized that he was asleep.

“They will be easy, compared to this,” Jasmine insisted, turning to Barda.

Barda was looking down at Lief’s exhausted, sleeping face. He was thinking how much older the boy looked. He was thinking of all they had been through. What might yet be to come.

Jasmine would not be ignored. She tugged at his sleeve. “Barda! Do you not agree?” she demanded.

Barda was not wearing the Belt. The opal could not give him glimpses of the future. But a shadow crossed his face and his smile was grim as he answered.

“We shall see, Jasmine,” he said. “We shall see.”