Stasheff, Christopher - Wizard in Rhyme 08 - The Feline Wizard by Stasheff Christopher

Author:Stasheff, Christopher [Stasheff, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307556073
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2000-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

The trail of honey came not from a hive, but from the mouth of a man lying on his belly, chin propped on his fists and mouth open with his tongue out—and that tongue was three feet long and fragrant with the sweet aroma!

Well, food was food. The ant started toward the man. Obviously he had set his mouth as a trap for ants. Well, he had caught one.

The man looked just as surprised as the ant felt, but he grinned with hunger and his tongue leaped into the air, swinging sideways at the ant. It glittered as it came.

The ant danced aside and the tongue smacked the ground, then rose again with a dozen pebbles sticking to it. The ant realized it would have stuck just as firmly to itself, possibly even with its legs in the air, helpless, waiting to be dashed against a rock. But it dodged the tongue again and, before it could swing a third time, dashed in to counterattack. Startled, the anteater man rolled up on his side, swinging a fist—but the insect leaped onto the arm and scuttled up to the shoulder, remembering how it had dealt with the uniped. All these humans were built alike, after all, and the neck was always on top of the shoulders.

Under the circumstances, perhaps it was justifiable that the ant ate the anteater.

As they walked northward the land grew daily more arid; grass gave way to rock, and trees to low thornbushes, though there was still the occasional small, tortured pine tree—usually dead and dry. Finally, when they had been traveling a week, they topped a rise and saw, stretching away before them, a rolling beige wasteland where nothing grew and nothing moved, except dust-devils and blowing tendrils of sand.

Balkis stared. “How beautiful—and how terrible! What is this place, Panyat?”

“It is called the Sea of Sand, Balkis—and it is a sea indeed, though one without water.”

“A dry sea?” asked Anthony, who had never seen a body of water larger than a pond. “How can that be?”

“It seems still now,” Panyat said, “but look at it again tomorrow from this same place and you will see a completely different picture. Each dune will have moved a dozen feet or so; some will have changed their shapes, and others will have disappeared completely. The sand is always moving, though far slower than water. It swells into waves like the sea and is never still, always slipping, remounding, and being blown about like salt spray—or as the traders tell me seawater is blown.” He smiled sheepishly.

“It is beautiful.” Anthony stared, dazed. “But it is terrible, too. So vast, and without moisture! How are we to cross it? Even our feet will sink in with every step!”

“That much we can cure with the aid of yonder tree.” Panyat pointed to one of the dead pines. “We must cut wood, split it into planks, and tie them to our feet.”

“Of course!” Anthony cried. “If it is like the water of a

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