Ramizail raised herself on her elbows and stared out across the sands. "They are! We stopped atop a dune, now we're in a valley." She spat. "If this isn't the messiest miracle ever worked, and the dirtiest, and the foulest, then I am not the mistress of the djinn!"
"What'll we do?" moaned Godwin. "How can you fight a shifting desert? How can you make it lie down and be good?"
El Sareuk stood up. Strong though he was, strong as so much whip-thong and steel encased in leather, he could fight this nausea no more effectively than a puppy might engage in warfare with an active volcano. "Allah punishes me for sinful pride," he said, gagging. "Pride in my horsemanship. I, who have been to Mecca, still to harbor pride!" He shaded his eyes from the blazing sun, which was the only stable object in sight. "The magic cannot stretch from edge to edge of the desert, for such a thing is beyond the power of even the djinn."
"Speaking of which, have you found that ring, Godwin?" queried Ramizail with weak petulance.
"No, let me be," said the tallow-faced Godwin.
"I was going to say," continued El Sareuk, "that if we manage to survive for the few miles, I think we will pass these rolling sands. Can you stick on your horses?"
"While I'm alive, I can ride," said Godwin, but without much conviction.
"If you two can stand it, I can," nodded the girl.
Yellow-eyes, huddled on the cantle of her master's saddle, croaked out something that sounded like a blasphemy. The horses drooped their heads, and the camel bubbled and wailed. They made a pitiful group. But the humans mounted, and the falcon flew up, and the beasts staggered forward. They would start to plow up a dune, and slowly like a wave in slow motion, it would shift until they were heading down into a valley. The horizon before them was a shifting, mutable line. Never had any of them been so ill. They had all lost their breakfasts, and seemed to be trying to recall the supper from night before last. Not a one of them but would have been happy to lie down, could he have been sure that he would die. But they pressed on, taking a weak courage from each other.
And at last El Sareuk, who in his way was stronger even than the champion Godwin, blinked watery eyes and said, "We've passed it!"