The forests and hills I was accustomed to slowly gave way to a fertile plain, alive with groves of fruit bearing trees and crops of grains. From the descriptions Tova and Urel had given, I was still more than five nights travel from the city they had called Tadmor. The green plain gave way to sand and the long walk across a desert. It fascinated me, sand for miles with no water in site. I had only known sand on the shores of the sea.
None I had ever known, but Tova and Urel had been this far south. It frightened me to think how alone I was, but it comforted me as well. I was free of Crenoral, and had only my own desires to contend with. To the south, across the desert with its black expanse of nothing, Tadmor rose from the sand, a city where rich men built opulent homes and, to hear the s
