The Sands whisper to me.

They always have. Constantly in the back of my mind. Familiar like an old friend. Usually it’s unnoticeable but at times it becomes louder, often when I’ve snuck out in the early morning hours to watch the dunes shift in the dawning light.

Once, when I mentioned the whispers to Mentor as we sat in our cave hiding from the melting heat of the day, he simply looked at me with that calculating look in his gray eyes and then asked, “What do they say?”

But I only shook my head. I never understood the whispers. Understanding flitted like a gnat just beyond the edge of my consciousness. Mentor had just nodded to my silence and turned back to sharpening his knife.

“Keep listening,” he said shortly, and that was that. Watching Mentor work, I had briefly wondered if he might know something more about it, but soon let it rest. If he thought it important he would explain.

Living in the Sands I was used to the quiet. Mentor taught me many things of our history. That there had been a time before the Sands, long ago. But eventually the greed of men grew and with it came the Calamities: War, heat, and plague. In the aftermath, all that was left was desolation, mutation and isolation.

Aside from Mentor, I had never seen another living being all my life but for the sand beasts and the pictures I found in my books. I suppose it might’ve been...lonely, but I never minded. It was peaceful. But I suppose it was all I knew. I believed there must have been others out there, somewhere. But it never interested me to look. At least, before everything changed.

In reality it was foolish to search too deep into the Sands without care. Standing atop the tallest stony outcrop of our small sandstone oasis—fondly bequeathed Highperch during one peculiar naming obsession of my childhood—all you saw in every direction was sand. Miles and miles of golden, windblown, empty sand. To be caught out there during Burning Hour with no reliable cover would be death. 

But something had been different lately. A whispering in the Sands that I hadn’t felt before. I was sitting atop Highperch when I heard it again. A silky rustling that started behind my ears and trickled down to swirl warmly in my chest. I let out a breath as I pressed my gloved hand over the point as if to relieve the light pressure that built there. I raised my gaze to the east horizon that was just beginning to lighten. A hazy blood orange glow softly outlined the sloping dunes cast in murky brown shadow.

The whispers grew louder, and I cocked my ear as if to listen better. They were saying something. It felt like something important but I couldn't—it sounded like—it was—

“Boy!”

I jerked my head around at the shout. Mentor was the size of a sun lizard where he stood far below me at the stone base. When he saw he had my attention he motioned for me to come. I took one last glance across the desert expanse, but the whispers had faded again to a muted hum.

Sighing, I slid myself off the precarious sandstone shelf and plummeted several feet to the next crag. Landing in a crouch I pushed off and leaped across a crevice, caught a gritty ledge with my fingertips, then slid down the inclined wall before ricocheting off a couple more outcrops to the ground before Mentor’s critical eye.

“Like a burreth flea,” I heard him mumble in that grumpy absent-mindedness he’d adopted more and more frequently. I endearingly and privately referred to it as ‘old man muttering’.

“It’s time to hunt,” he said to me. Nodding, I followed him back into our cave to help gather equipment and supplies. 

===000===

The sweetly stale stench of the dusty ground was tossed in our faces by the bullying wind. It chapped my skin and stung my nose as we rode on our burreths, so I positioned my scarf more protectively. Reining my shaggy steed to a stop, I slid my goggles up and raised a pair of scopes to my eyes.

The sun had climbed a third of the way in the east sky and heat was rippling across the horizon with vengeance. Dawn or dusk was my preferred time of the day. Right now, the high angle of the smoldering sun made everything look flat and two-dimensional.

In the distance, my eye spotted a small herd of snuffers and I relayed as much to Mentor.

“Hip!”

Digging in our heels, our burreths set off at a brisk trot in the herd’s direction. When the short, squat animals saw us coming they scattered with sharp squeals. Their rough armored hides gleamed dully, a protection from the sun and predators. But if able to get them flipped upon their backs, their soft underbellies would be easy enough to pierce with our crossbolts.

In short order we caught and killed two of the beasts and lashed them to our packs. Then, taking a detour in our path, we stopped by another mapped cave system to collect some local flora and fungi that grew on the brim of its underground pools. With our packs full we headed back to Highperch. 

There was a time of day, when the sun became the bringer of death. We called this portion of the day Burning Hour. It occurs rapidly when the sun has reached its peak in the sky. For the space of an hour, the sun’s rays literally sear the very air. Anything biological that has the misfortune of being caught out in the open, first, boils alive from their superheated body fluid, then spontaneously combusts, eventually leaving only a charcoaled carcass behind. Very early I learned Burning Hour was not something to disregard. A close call left me with nasty, festering, welts for weeks.

When Burning Hour came, I began my studies. Mentor took my training and education very seriously. He had a good number of books that he taught out of over the years. From numbers and old-world diplomacy, to language and various forms of combat and survival, Mentor made sure I was prepared. For what exactly, I couldn’t fathom and he didn’t say. When younger there were times it all seemed a pointless pursuit, but as I matured I eventually did develop a genuine love for new knowledge. 

Today it was astronavigation. I was midway through the finer details of mirror refraction of a sextant when the ground suddenly quivered with an almost imperceptible tremor.

I paused in my reading from where I lay on the ground, a spread hide separating me from the sand dusted stone. It was silent in the study alcove apart from a distant drip of water near our aquifer well. Orange flickers from the nearby lamp decorated the wall. Nothing seemed amiss.

A moment later Mentor entered with a jangle of harnesses and I forgot about the strange occurrence as we settled down for the evening.

The next morning began with my usual ritual atop Highperch watching the sun rise, before Mentor called me down for combat exercises. We practiced using staves before moving onto hand-to-hand sparring. The match was close, always best two-out-of-three. Mentor took the first as usual, but I couldn’t help the swell of confidence when I managed to take the second round.

“Should we break, Mentor?” I teased. The salty tang of sweat met my tongue as it dripped down my face. I felt my jerkin soaked through the back as we circled for the final bout.

Mentor only huffed in response, wrapped hands poised to strike. Quick as a glidersnake one hand shot toward my head. Just as quick I blocked the advance with my forearm and retaliated with my own thrust.

Mentor parried, grabbed my arm and spun inward to the left, invading my personal space and hooking his leg around mine to trip me up. Instead of fighting against the attack, I went with the momentum, whirling into a crouch beneath his guard to throw him off balance, until I was in a position to slam my elbow into his gut. The breath left Mentor’s lungs in a surprised woosh. Before he had recovered, I’d spun back to my feet, twisting his arm and kicking out his knee along the way, until I clamped his neck in a tight hold from behind.

“Yield.”

“Aye,” came Mentor’s strained reply.

Victory rushed my chest as I released him to gingerly rub his sore appendages.

“Well?” I asked, working to hide my smug satisfaction as I knew Mentor worked to hide his damaged pride.

“Delivered a bit sloppy...but well strategized,” Mentor conceded. His face was as grim as ever but there seemed a pleased tone in his voice.

Before I could preen more, Mentor tossed a smelly rag in my face.

“Clean up. You have studies until after Burning Hour. Then we leave to scout,” he said briskly.

Wiping the sweat off my brow could still not wipe away the pleased grin.

===000===

We explored southeast after Burning Hour. The Sands there were mostly uncharted on the maps we kept in the cave. Five years ago when Mentor finally allowed me to venture further than a league into the Sands, we’d begun charting outward from Highperch. It was slow going with how much ground we could cover at half days at a time, but with using other caves as waypoints, our current maps reached about a two hundred mile radius.

Drawing my burreth to a halt along a dune crest, I swapped my goggles for scopes and scanned the horizon for any irregularity. A jagged golden mass that broke the sloping landscape caught my eye.

“Mentor!” I called pulling down the scarf that covered my lower face protecting it from the dry, gritty sand swirling from the hot breeze. He maneuvered his own beast closer.

“Sandrock,” I gestured. “About four miles ahead. It looks large enough to be a good layover point.”

Mentor shielded his own eyes against the bearing sun and gazed in the direction I indicated. After a moment’s consideration, he clicked at his burreth, urging it onward at a shambling trot. It was nearly an hour before we reached the sandstone oasis in the ocean of drifting dunes.

Great rolling hills of baked and hardened sand burst out of the monotonous terrain, something like those mythical-like whales I’d seen in my books, berthing from even more fantastical watery seas.

Other pillars of sandstone shot into the air like jagged teeth of a prehistoric fossil, casting long shadows across the sand. This sandrock was quite large. It was a good find. Its height gave a good vantage point and it likely hid caves that would be adequate cover during Burning Hour.

“Head up and tell me what you see,” Mentor instructed.

With a nod I drew my steed close to the nearest sandrock and nimbly leapt atop. With a bit of practiced climbing I ascended another thirty feet or so up the narrow ridge before pausing to catch a view. The sandrock outcrop wasn’t as tall as Highperch, but its multiple hills sprawled over a wider distance like long fingers half buried in the sand. I raised my scopes and cast another look, turning completely about to view all directions. There wasn’t much else to see, to my disappointment.

I was just about to call down to Mentor, when a strange shudder ran through the sandstone beneath my feet. Not unlike the one I had felt back at the cave, but more intense. The sensation caused me to lose some footing that I only kept by pinwheeling my arms. I found balance and stood frozen as the tremor receded, my breath seized in my throat. 

What in the Calamities…? Confused, my eyes scoured the landscape around me.

Nothing.

I turned my attention towards Mentor, but he didn’t seem to have noticed anything amiss. A cold trickle slithered down my spine and coiled in my stomach despite the arid afternoon heat. Without really meaning to, I extended my consciousness to the Sands in concern. What I received in response did not reassure me. The whispers were as muddled as ever, but restless. It made me uneasy.

“Mentor,” I called. “I think we should—”

An explosion of sand at my back stopped the words in my mouth. Grit showered my body as I flung my hands up in vain effort to protect my eyes. Spinning about, horror and disbelief cascaded through my limbs as a behemoth of a creature, found in nightmares, reared its tubular head into the sky.

“Sandworm!” I bellowed. 

Before I could move the mutated monstrosity slammed its massive head into the outcropping before me. I barely evaded being crushed. Stumbling, I turned and sprinted across the sandstone ridge, looking for an escape from my precarious position. I vaguely heard Mentor shouting below as he spurred our screaming beasts away from the danger.

Recovering from its initial attack the sandworm lunged forward and dove over the ridge back into the ground, a wave of sand flung wide by the action. The ground rolled and bulged like a sickly vein as the creature slithered in and out on its murderous course.

My boots pummeled the crumbling rock as I raced for the edge of the ridge. Skipping over a chasm in the stone my attention was snapped up when I noticed where the mutated invertebrate’s trail was headed.

“Mentor!” I shouted in warning. Distracted, my foot caught on a sneaky ledge and I smacked into the sloped ground, momentum sending me skidding into open space. 

The wind slammed out of me as I collided with the ground below. It took gasping effort to roll onto my side. What caught my line of sight chilled my coursing blood. Mentor was barely ahead of the worm as it writhed like lightning along the sand behind him. Even as I watched, it took one more undulating leap into the ground before exploding forth with a volatile plume of sand. The force of the close impact sent Mentor and his burreth tumbling forward. Vulnerable. At the mercy of the looming creature. 

“No!” I spat into the sand, pushing to my hands and knees.

No! No! No! The sand skittered beneath my scrabbling fingers. My head was dizzy and throbbing. Too far. I was too far to act before it would be too late. The massive worm reared its gaping maw in impending strike.

“Stop!” The raw howl tore from my throat as I reached helplessly for Mentor.

The man who taught me.

The man who raised me.

The man, whom without, I would be utterly and desolately alone.

The worm—against all conceivable reason and sense—stopped.

My breath was loud and rasping in my ears. My chest heaved as my mind tried comprehending what my eyes were surely seeing. Finally finding my footing, I lurched forward. It only took a few strides to become overshadowed by the looming creature. Its vaguely translucent hide was like veiny leather. Its eyeless head lazily swayed in the day’s heat ridden breeze. Its massive size obscured the unending rays of the sun. With a drunk-like lumber the sandworm swung its attention toward me, causing me to pull up short.

A whisper shivered past my ear.

I had forgotten the Sands' presence in the adrenaline of the moment but as I stood head to head with the beast which had frozen in its attack, the whispers returned.

And I could hear them.

They grew to a rustling that swept around and through my body, sending thrills down my neck and soft messages flitting across my mind like the lightning we sometimes witnessed in dry summer storms. Calm. Fondness. Excitement. Power. And an overwhelming sense of claiming.

Yes! Ours. Tell them. Good. Good, now. Always ours. Tell them!

These feelings seemed to cocoon around me. Its center swirled warmly in my chest, and I forgot to be afraid. My breathing slowed and my heartbeat steadied. My fists relaxed at my side.

“Go,” came the murmur before I knew it had slipped past my tongue.

The worm slowly turned and sunk into the sand with a rumble, quickly disappearing until Mentor and I were left in silence.

Whispers of endearment and pride continued to softly nudge me even as they faded to a faint buzz once again. My other senses returned, with the prickle of disuse. I became aware of the breeze cooling the sweat off my back and the soft lowing of our terrified burreths a ways off.

I faced Mentor who still sprawled on the ground, only to find his piercing gaze locked on me. Not knowing what to say, and feeling inexplicably at fault for something, I stood rigidly before his unreadable expression for a long moment. Finally he spoke. 

“It is time to leave.”