New Lands

I awoke as a spasm of pain coursed through my right leg. An earthquake was disturbing the realm of limbo, I thought. Was it to test the tenacity of the souls here?

I didn’t want to be tenacious anymore. My death needed to be as quick as it was embarrassing.

I opened my eyes as the earthquake passed. Limbo, the afterlife, whatever this was looked remarkably like the inside of a wagon. Wait. The inside of a wagon?

I suddenly realized I was lying on my back, and my swollen right thigh was splinted using two sanded wooden boards. I felt the squeeze of bandages, laden with oils and ointment, wrapped all around my limbs. Pain I didn’t recognize shot down my right shoulder as I shifted. The stiff wooden boards were placed all around and under my body.

I clenched my teeth as I turned my head to the left. Two lizards in loose linen robes sat near the front of the carriage, their smooth gray scales scintillating like sand. One lizard, with darker scales speckled with blond, drove the horses from beyond the entrance to the wagon; while a second one with solid scales chatted with Lotus. I suddenly noticed that Lotus had exchanged her leggings and leather boots for green linen culottes and bare feet. I wracked my brain for the name of the bipedal lizard species. Typhins, I remembered.

“And washing yourself on a regular basis doesn’t ruin your skin? Does it not strip away protective oils? Hairs? Do you not get any diseases from washing?” The typhin across from Lotus asked. Its lighter gray belly, exposed under its open shirt, rippled with every word.

“Nope, nothing. Washing too much will dry us out, but that’s all no big deal,” Lotus explained.

“Fascinating,” the typhin murmured. “While we must drink water as everyone else, a Typhin is incapable of having scales too dry. Dryness, for us, is movement. Dryness is crucial for regulating our body temperature and for staving off disease.”

“So the water you drink doesn’t go to your scales?” Lotus asked.

“It goes to the flesh beneath our scales, keeping it supple.”

The carriage went over another bump, and I groaned as another jolt of pain struck my leg.

Everyone in the carriage, including the driver, turned around. Lotus and the typhin expressed their relief together, resulting in a sacrilegious phrase that resembled “Thank the Julia of Gaia, you’re awake!”

“Where am I?” I gurgled. I realized then that my cheeks were stiff and puffy, and my mouth could hardly open with my taut, swollen skin.

“In the middle of the Aurum Desert, probably some 30 kilometers south-southeast of Mount Hyacinth,” the typhin said. I instinctively covered my left cheek with my left hand. It was covered by a large, oily rash.

“I’ll explain to him how we got here,” Lotus offered.

I floated in and out of consciousness as she clambered to a bare wooden bench attached to the carriage’s frame, across from where I laid, and began explaining. She ran into the cave, she said, and found me unconscious, but with no demon in sight. I heard something about being not sure if I was alive, but feeling my breath against her shoulder as she ran down the mountain.

Another bump jolted me back awake. “This caravan is called Moonlight,” I heard Lotus say. “They’re letting us travel with them and will protect us until you heal. In return we’ll be helping them establish a new trade partnership with a town called Ardesburg, far in the south.”

A caravan. That must be what the Typhins called their groups. I still had no idea what happened, but Lotus somehow carried me out of the cave. Was the silhouette that I saw her?

It sounded fake. Not only would she have needed to dodge the demon’s attacks while carrying me out, but she also would’ve needed to go down the whole mountain, all the way to the edge of the desert. But then again, Lotus carried dozens of kilos of wet wood in her backpack for multiple days, all while dealing with a missing fingertip. She never broke a sweat when scrambling up rocks on the unpaved trails.

“My sword?” I finally said.

Lotus looked at me quizzically.

“Do I still have my sword?”

“I didn’t see it in the cave, so no. I was only able to bring a few things here.”

“We also have swords, good hunter,” the typhin driving the carriage said, air like a hiss permeating every word.

I said nothing. My sword was good. The most famous blacksmith of all six villages made it for me when I graduated. She told me it would not shatter even against diamond, and remain smart over thousands of battles. The leather grip was also perfectly molded to my hand. My original plan to challenge the demon multiple times was all in shambles.

I felt the rash on my face begin to get itchy. “What happened to my face?”

“So uh, I didn't notice that I put you down in a patch of poison ivy when I was grabbing things from camp,” Lotus replied.

The rash suddenly became much itchier.

“Soon the noon sun will peak, humans,” the typhin inside the carriage cried. “To avoid severe dehydration and heat shock to the horses, and because we are largely nocturnal, we rest through the midday, until sunset. Then, we continue towards our midway point, Outpost 66, to replenish our resources before making full speed towards Ardesburg”

“Oh! Thanks for reminding me. Caramine said she wanted to talk to you once you were awake,” Lotus added.

“Caramine?” I asked.

“The leader of Moonlight. They told me that she makes all the major decisions for the group. She’ll probably explain to us what their business strategy is.”

Great. That probably meant that if Lotus and I couldn’t seal the deal, we’d be out for the wolves. Everyone knew typhins were the best merchants in the entire continent. Desert-dwelling and nomadic, they made their living as cross-continental traders, dealing in the natural resources buried under the sand. I heard rumors from travelers from towns closer to the desert, that typhins are cold and scheming, and had an uncanny ability to detect whether the humans making deals with them had unspoken intentions. Especially if you tried to stuff out anyone from an untrustworthy band, they would always be two steps ahead of you.

What if we reached Ardesburg tomorrow? Do we just say our canned lines, and then get tossed aside? Lotus said that we’d be protected until I “heal,” but I’m always healing, right? My leg’s going to be in better shape even half a day from now. If they tossed us out tomorrow, they would’ve still kept their promise.

The carriage reached the underside of a stark rocky ridge, rising from the landscape like a ghostly hull from the endless ocean of sand. Lotus leapt off the carriage alongside the typhins, and through the flaps of the carriage canvas I saw her run around with the typhins, carrying flasks and rolling around barrels. The darker-scaled typhin moved what looked like a trough to the horses, and two more people began pouring water into that trough. I learned from the conversation outside that the darker typhin driving the horse was named Tiana, and the monochrome one from inside the carriage was her brother, Merlum.

I blinked out of consciousness again before I felt someone shaking my shoulder.

“She’s here,” Lotus said.

“Who?” I asked.

A large typhin draped in purple regalia peered into the wagon, and I remembered what Lotus had said earlier that day. This lizard standing outside, staring directly at us, must be Caramine.

“Is now a good time?” She asked.