DREAMS OF THE COMPASS ROSE by Vera Nazarian

Author:Vera Nazarian
Language: eng
Format: epub

But then, instead of huddling closer with the women, Yaro dashed out of the tent like a madwoman, wind ripping at her poor clothing, and made her way toward one of the wagons.

“Yaro!” I cried. “Come back! Where are you going?”

“My mother!” she cried, without turning around. “She is in the wagon!”

I growled in anger, in sudden understanding of the inevitability of her actions, and then at the inevitability of my own actions that would follow. I was furious at myself that I had forgotten about the old woman even for a moment.

And so I went after her.

For the first time in these endless years, I was leaving the Princess in a moment of danger. That thought danced through my consciousness, flickering past the gale-level noise of the wind around us, as the edges of the storm came upon the caravan.

What am I doing?

But the answer did not come to me, not while my attention was upon the details of the wagon just ahead of me, only steps away past the backs of the huddled camels. The air had grown dark, obscuring the faint sky altogether, and wind saturated with sand whipped angrily into my squinting eyes as I tore forward, seeing nothing but the thin woman’s black limbs as she rummaged in the wagon, pulling up a lifeless bundle that looked like a sack but turned out to be the limp figure of an ancient woman.

Another second and I was at her side and taking over her light burden. I carried her mother back toward our tent, each step like quicksand through the thickness of wind, while Yaro came behind me and tried in her own way to help by holding a shawl against our faces as we walked. Seconds stretched like days, and then we had reached the grouping where the household had gathered in and around the small tent, making a mass of burlap and cotton and swaddled bodies against the sand and wind. My Princess Egiras was inside.

I dropped on my knees before the tent, and, since there was no place within because all the womenfolk had been piled there, I placed the old woman down against the canvas and cotton blankets just at the edge. The blankets were already half-buried with airborne sand, but they were better than nothing. I turned around and grabbed Yaro’s thin limbs and pulled her forcibly nearer to her mother, placing my great form against them both, shielding them like a wall. Yaro struggled for an instant in surprise, but almost immediately went limp, for I was a giant compared to her, and besides she knew I was helping. And then, because the storm was now fully on us, even I was barely able to move despite my strength as I pulled up and drew with both hands a flapping blanket around us. With it I covered our three heads tight, swaddling us up to the necks in protective darkness and leaving only a small pocket of air so that we could breathe.

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