Karim wanted this to be the final stop. Why had he come here, he thought, a similar vein that had been repeating in a mantra for weeks. The Eabarath was evil, dangerous, a deadly artifact of a different time. He had been moved to aid Varden by its very potential for misuse, by the strong thud of his conscience, by the soothing voice of his goddess. But here, in the back of a swaying, creaking wagon, Karim didn't know how much more he could take. He tapped the quill against his hide-bound journal. He needed to document the death of Ysabel, the madness of Jatau. His mind faltered at the words. In his eyes Jatau's red teeth dripping viscera was still visible. The ichor dribbling from Ysabel's eyes.<br/><br/>He turned the eagle feather and dipped it in the ink pot. The heat was oppressive, but that was true of Hasar as well. Karim grew up in a trading city edging a desert, attending the universities and the mosques of the mother.<br/><br/>The dribbling ichor. The red-stained human teeth. A drop of ink fell on the page and was soaked into the vellum. He wiped the quill clean and packed it all up. Another day, if they lived, he'd finish Ysabel's story.<br/><br/>Karim sighed, itching at his neat beard, then rubbing his eyes. He ached for sleep, for tasty food without sand. He was working as the cook, apothecary, scholar, chronicler, he wore many hats on this trip.<br/><br/>But how he longed for it to be over.<br/><br/>He entered the position of worship, his legs crossing, his hands interlocking, bowing his head. He began calling on the Goddess to reveal the path to the place they sought, though he knew they went in the right direction.<br/><br/>He was still working on his breath when an oxen lowed in agony, thrashing against the bonds. Its yoke cracked, Karim could hear it. The softest twang of a bow hit the edges of his hearing.<i>An attack.</i><br/><br/>He sucked on his teeth and took the breath in anyway, but now it was a different preparation.<br/><br/>He chanted the ancient words, asking the sand to hold the enemy, to sink beneath them, to labor their movements. His voice rose and fell in the cadence, knowing Eabarath would be drawing those it could in around them, and enemies could come from every side.