He sat on his haunches for long minutes, numb. The key was gone now. Only Vawdar knew what it was like, and he could never tell.
Flane buried him beneath a hillock of sand, with flat stones from a small mesa to mark the spot. Weary, Flane stood and stared at the grave, quiet with grief. He had buried the hope of all Klarn here in this lonely spot. Without Vawdar, the Klarnva were a lost race.
Light glimmered on the horizon. Flane stared at it uncomprehendingly, a still, lean figure leaning on a sword.
II
For many days, Flane rode across the desert. This was the Barrenland out here, uncharted, unexplored. For a thousand miles, the dun sands flung their sheathing blanket over the earth. Only here and there was anything other than this deadly sand: a rocky escarpment, or a stone plateau with dry weeds blowing in the breeze. And the rock was as dead as the sand.
A man could die easily out here, from thirst or hunger, or the terrible heat. When he was two days on an aimless trail, Flane found water bubbling under a lip of rock; that gave him strength to run down a sand-hare and spit it with his blade. After that it was much the same, for the hares abounded, and there was always Flane's deep spring.
The megathon ate the sparse weeds, and thrived. Flane shared the cool water with him, and rubbed him down nightly after stripping off the ornate saddle and blanket. Together, they roved the Barrenland, always learning. Affection born of the great still places of a world grew between them, as it will wherever there are planets that bear diverse forms of life.
On the roan's back, Flane ranged far and wide. He came to know the vermilion sunset coating the sand in blood and the sunrise tinting it with gold. In the saddle he stared at strange ruins poking above the hiding sands, puzzled and wondering. He discovered olden roads beneath scudding dust, and queer little beasts who scampered from his shining sword.
Mount and rider grew lean and hard. Flane lost track of the days, being too concerned with keeping soul fastened to his body to care much about anything else; though often he sat and brooded on the lost key to the Machine.