CHAPTER 5THE HOLE
They climbed. The height was sheer and barren: neither moss nor mold nor lichen grew in the sharp gullies that furrowed the stone shaft from base to peak. It resembled nothing so much as the trunk of some colossal, cloud-touching tree, petrified over ages.
“If your band roams the waste, going from oasis to oasis,” panted Carthalla as they paused briefly to catch their breaths, “why did you not know of the peril that lurks in this oasis?” Shamad shrugged.
“Not since our grandsires’ time have we ventured this far into the west,” he explained. “We know of the oasis only because it is marked on the most ancient charts. True, there was some writing near the mark on the map, but this we disregarded in coming hither…”
Carthalla suppressed a smile; she was well aware that the
