Yern sank into the sand up to her neck with a squeak. It was very cute.

‘You shouldn’t try to sneak up on a mage, Yern,’ Wirrin said.

Night had fallen completely. Wirrin was sitting at the coals of her cooking fire, waiting for Yern to arrive. The girl had taken longer than Wirrin had expected, and she was struggling to keep her eyes open.

Wirrin turned. ‘I could have sworn I said you shouldn’t come with me,’ she said. ‘That I didn’t want you to die, which you probably will if you come with me. Does that sound right?’

Yern, with just her head poking out of the sand, pouted.

‘And yet, here we both are,’ Wirrin said. ‘I recall that you don’t want me to die. Are you less concerned about yourself?’

Yern took a deep breath, and looked like she’d just noticed how loose the sand was around her. ‘You know what you didn’t say, even once?’

Wirrin hadn’t been expecting that. ‘What did I not say?’

‘Not a single time did you say you didn’t want me to come with you,’ Yern declared. ‘Only that you thought it would be too dangerous. And you know what I got to thinking?’

‘You got to thinking “who’s this Wirrin person to decide what’s too dangerous for me”,’ Wirrin said. ‘Which is why you’re out here with your sword and bow, a water skin, and no supplies.’

Yern had the good sense to look embarrassed. ‘No one wanted me to go with you,’ Yern said. ‘I couldn’t get supplies or someone would have stopped me.’

‘Didn’t make you reconsider the decision?’ Wirrin smiled.

Yern erupted back out of the sand with a very similar little squeak. She immediately launched herself at Wirrin. ‘If you can promise not to die doing something foolish, so can I.’

Wirrin chuckled. ‘Fine. Just don’t slow me down.’

‘You can barely breathe, I’ll be fine.’

Yern was right, of course. Wirrin kept up the slow pace and frequent breaks and the girl had no trouble keeping up. Especially when Wirrin decided to stop early and do some hunting. Yern was in need of a pack, and Wirrin felt like it had been a while since she made anything.

‘You’re taking this much better than you said you would,’ Naertral burbled, as Wirrin and Yern dragged a dead antelope to the shade of some trees.

‘It’s her kind nature,’ Ulvaer cackled.

‘I told you I couldn’t think of any consequences,’ Wirrin thought. ‘What am I supposed to do? Sending her back won’t work, will it?’

‘You just need to be firmer,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘Keep her out of danger.’

‘You could actually tell her you don’t want her to travel with you, if you don’t want her to travel with you,’ Naertral shushed.

Wirrin didn’t say anything.

Yern knew a bit about butchering, but not as much as Wirrin. So Wirrin explained and gave directions as they skinned the antelope and mixed its brains with ash to spread on the hide.

Wirrin was a bit disappointed that no spotted dogs came looking for food, but they weren’t as common out here where the bigger predators hung out. No one wanted to get into a scuffle with a hippopotamus if they could avoid it.

Yern went to sleep on top of Wirrin again. She had a smile on her face. What was Wirrin supposed to do?

‘Yern, how old are you?’ Wirrin asked, over breakfast. She’d hadn’t bothered to ask yet, and it felt like a more pressing question than it had before.

‘A hundred and six,’ Yern glared.

Wirrin smiled. ‘I already know you’re too young,’ she said. ‘That’s not why I’m asking.’

Ready to return to glaring, Yern scrutinised. ‘Nearly fourteen.’

Wirrin nodded. ‘And in nearly fourteen years, you’ve not met anyone who you’d rather travel with than me? After what, a month?’

Yern glared, and shook her head exactly hard enough to send her corkscrew curls whipping around her head.

‘Not Osga, Taug, Herdok, Saush? No one?’ Wirrin asked.

Yern kept on shaking her head rhythmically, to keep her hair bouncing around her face. ‘Nope. They’re no good.’

‘But I’m good?’ Wirrin asked.

Yern stopped shaking her head, so that she could return to glaring. ‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You implied it strongly.’

‘What’s “implied”?’

Wirrin frowned, she didn’t know the word. ‘Hetshya vosvog?’ she tried. ‘Saying something that means something else.’

‘Voltya,’ Yern said. ‘I didn’t “implied” anything, you’re just different.’

‘Good different, though,’ Wirrin said. ‘A good enough sort of different that you want to abandon your whole life and risk dying to spend more time with me.’

Yern glared. ‘That’s one way to see it.’

‘Autholtya?’ Wirrin suggested.

‘Autholtya,’ Yern agreed.

Wirrin finished cooking in silence. She didn’t know if she’d expected that to be more fruitful, but she shouldn’t have.

‘Ishget said you don’t really like people,’ Yern said, accepting a bowl of rice and cooked antelope. ‘That’s why you didn’t want me to come with you.’

‘She’s so rude about me,’ Wirrin said.

Yern gestured with the bowl, very nearly spilling it. ‘That’s what I said. I said you cared too much, so you were putting my safety above your own desires.’

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

‘Autholtya,’ Wirrin said. ‘That doesn’t sound right.’

‘Tell me you don’t want me here and I’ll go home,’ Yern demanded.

‘No you won’t.’

‘Because you want me here,’ Yern declared. ‘And you’re just too nice to say so.’

‘Didn’t I tell you?’ Naertral burbled.

‘You keep out of it,’ Wirrin said.

Yern leaned over the little cooking fire. ‘Which one was that? What did it say?’

‘That was Naertral, and it’s none of your business what it said.’

Yern pouted. She was very good at pouting.

Wirrin ate her breakfast.

Travelling with Yern was not strange, and it was a bit strange. After a month of Yern being mostly attached to Wirrin’s hip, it wasn’t strange for her to be there. But it reminded Wirrin a little of some of the adventurers she’d travelled with in her time.

Yern was doing her best, she wanted to be helpful and fend for herself, but she just didn’t quite know how to do it. And, of course, she hadn’t brought any supplies with her from the hetavatok.

Wirrin had to keep an eye on her, to make sure she wasn’t about to fall in a hole because she wasn’t paying attention, and had to hunt for extra food and dig for extra water.

Despite the shortness of Wirrin’s breath, she was continuing to find using magic easier and easier. Pulling water out of the ground wasn’t much of a struggle anymore, and she was sure that sense of vibrations in the sand was continuing to expand.

And yet she still couldn’t walk at her normal pace, or go more than half an hour without stopping to take in the views. It was frustrating.

‘Maybe you should look for Hogoll Tesholg first,’ Yern said.

Wirrin hadn’t mentioned it. ‘That would be… Iltavaer,’ Wirrin said. ‘That’s one of the Thausholg.’

Yern frowned to herself. ‘You don’t think you could make it do what you want? Like the Tesholg already in your head?’

‘You don’t make us do anything,’ Mkaer rumbled

Naertral and Ulvaer laughed like a pond full of frogs being tortured to death.

Wirrin smiled. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But I think if it’s already awake, it can refuse to join them.’

Yern nodded. ‘Hogettok Tesholg maybe,’ she said, then frowned. ‘That would be in the Tertic Swamp, wouldn’t it? If you already can’t breathe you don’t want to get sick.’

‘Which is why I need to get Haerst,’ Wirrin said. ‘So I can blow all the sickness away or something.’

Yern nodded. ‘I figured you had a plan.’

‘You’re giving me too much credit.’

It took eight days from leaving the hetavatok to reach the divergence of the Boclas, Hekaulget, and Epatlok rivers. Wirrin was fairly sure it had been more like four and a half last time she’d made this trip. But she supposed she wasn’t in a hurry.

Wirrin was feeling a bit better for the travelling. She wasn’t trying to push herself, but she was starting to find the going a little easier. She didn’t need to stop as often to admire the absolute roundness of the barrel cacti.

‘You know,’ Yern said. ‘This is the first time I’ve been away from home.’

Wirrin nodded.

Yern stood there and stared at the river divergence for a while. ‘It’s pretty.’

Wirrin nodded again.

‘Vonaer and I made that river, did you know,’ Naertral burbled. ‘Same as we made the Hekaulseg river.’

‘Why?’ Wirrin thought. ‘Not that I don’t think it’s a nice river.’

‘People wanted to live deeper into the desert,’ Naertral burbled.

‘People already lived deep in the desert,’ Ulvaer rattled.

‘When you say the two of you made the river, you mean that some of your mages made it, correct?’ Wirrin thought. ‘Like when Naertral said the Mountain made that bridge in the swamp.’

‘Correct,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘It is the way we have always talked about it.’

‘A feature of being worshipped, is it?’ Wirrin thought. ‘People give you credit for their deeds.’

Ulvaer laughed like a wildebeest drowning in a mud pit.

Yern was glaring at Wirrin. ‘What are you all talking about?’

‘Apparently Naertral and Vonaer made the rivers to Hekaulget and Hekaulseg,’ Wirrin said. ‘Except of course it was their mages who made the rivers.’

Yern nodded. ‘No mages without Tesholgtok,’ she shrugged.

‘That’s the deference phase of worship,’ Naertral burbled.

‘She’s right,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘That’s why people liked to worship us, after all.’

‘Goes both ways, doesn’t it?’ Wirrin said. ‘No Tesholgtok without mages.’

‘That’s what I always said,’ Naertral hissed. ‘People existed without us, we hardly exist without people.’

Yern nodded. ‘No Thaulgtok without Tesholgtok.’

‘Exactly,’ Wirrin said.

‘Rude,’ Mkaer rumbled.

Wirrin and Yern took the bridge over the Hekaulget river to the barge dock. It was barely more than a warehouse and a bunkhouse, but of course there was a Church there. Wirrin struggled to imagine more than five people fitting into the little, pentagonal stone building at once, probably they didn’t need to.

‘That’s a Church, is it?’ Yern asked, walking around the bland, grey building. ‘It’s smaller than I expected.’

‘Oh, of course,’ Wirrin said. ‘You’ve really never seen one before?’

Yern shook her head. ‘From what Herdok used to say, they’re supposed to be massive and intimidating. This is just…’ She waved vaguely at it.

‘Some of them are massive,’ Wirrin said. ‘It’s not that they’re intimidating, they’re just everywhere.’

‘How else will people remember to worship?’ Yern grinned.

‘I told you she was sensible,’ Ulvaer cackled.

‘If she was sensible, she’d still be at home,’ Wirrin thought.

The bunkhouse had a shared kitchen, a proprietor, and no guests. Like some of the other barge docks Wirrin had passed through repeatedly during her travels, the proprietor was a different person to the last time she’d been here.

‘Oh, at least a week,’ was the proprietor’s answer to how long it had been since the last barge. ‘Unless you count the one from Epatlok three days ago. Didn’t stop here, so I don’t count it.’

‘How are we supposed to get to Ahepvalt then?’ Yern whined.

The proprietor, a young man with prematurely greying hair and the typical dark skin and skinny frame of a local, smiled. ‘You’d have better luck going to Epatlok and taking a ship, I’m afraid.’

Yern’s eyes gleamed. ‘Oh, we could do that. I’ve never been on a ship, you know?’

‘Neither have I,’ the man smiled. ‘Only barges. Ships seem a bit scary for my taste, all that rocking and roiling.’

‘Wirrin, have you been on a ship?’ Yern demanded.

‘A few,’ Wirrin said. ‘Don’t much like the rocking and roiling myself.’

‘Smart woman, your big sister here,’ the proprietor grinned at Yern.

‘Not as smart as she looks,’ Yern grinned back.

‘Must run in the family,’ Wirrin said, eyebrows raised.

Yern pressed her hands to her heart. ‘Oh sister, you wound me.’

They stayed the night in a room with a big, soft bed, cooked breakfast for the proprietor in the morning, and left to walk up the Boclas toward Ahepvalt.

‘We could take a ship,’ Yern whined. ‘I bet ships aren’t anywhere near as scary as that man thought. It could be fun.’

Wirrin shook her head. ‘Ships aren’t fun,’ she said. ‘And it’s at least a week to Epatlok, then however long until the next ship to Ahepvalt, and then probably a week on the ship, maybe longer depending on the weather. At best it would only be a couple of days faster. And we’d have to go on a ship.’

‘You’re no fun,’ Yern pouted. She was swiftly distracted by the Boclas, which she had spent most of the morning gazing at, in between trying to talk Wirrin into going to Epatlok to get on a ship.

‘And there are mages in Epatlok, who would try to murder us,’ Wirrin added, the next time Yern asked.

‘No fun at all,’ Yern whined, one hand gripping the hilt of her sword. ‘You can take them.’

‘What if I can’t?’ Wirrin asked. ‘I can barely breathe, remember?’

Yern glared. ‘I’m not going home.’

‘Just promising not to die doing something foolish?’ Wirrin said.

‘Same as you,’ Yern glared. ‘If I was still at home, you’d still have promised me you’d be back.’

Wirrin hadn’t thought Yern would believe her. ‘In that case, since you’re here, I’m under no obligation to survive. No need to return to you, you understand.’

Yern glared as hard as she could glare.