Sahle was in the dark, in a version of the Dead Man's Drink that went on forever in every direction. The lights were off, leaving little visible, but Sahle couldn't escape the feeling that he was totally alone. Then he heard singing. The voice was that of Aaliyah: the girlfriend he thought he had lost. "[i]It's no good[/i]." He recognized that line. It was from a simple cabaret bit they often did at the beginning of any given night in Sevan, usually as an introduction. "[i]Doing as you should[/i]." the spotlight appeared on her then. She looked like a ghost, with grey-tan skin and a flowing robe that seemed to melt into the stage. "[i]It's no fun. Being on the run.[/i]" her voice was high and sweet. It made him feel a pain in his chest for the better times. "[i]It's not nice. Living vice to vice[/i]." At the abrupt sound of a cymbal crash, and the rise of a ghostly band, she became many. The stage stretched into forever on either side, and infinite versions of singing Aaliyahs were lined along it like chorus girls. Sahle felt drunk on the chaos. He sunk into his chair and tried to fathom what was happening. "[i]But we're alive![/i]" her voice leapt to hold a note that Sahle never knew Aaliyah to hold. "[i]We always survive. We are grand. We are the baaand.[/i]" And then Sahle was not alone. Swanky music filled the room. Though he was the only person at his table, the other tables were occupied by skeletal bands as infinite as the Aaliyahs. There were skeletons wrapped in shammas, with wiry beards and bushy afros growing from bleached bones. There were skeletons in loose fitting Armenian clothes, and some with military uniforms. And there were some dressed in the warms clothes he had seen in Russia. All of them played instruments. They played hard and violent, like bones driven by devils. And they were good. Holy shit could they play. The music was perfect. They did not miss a beat. Sahle felt an urge to jam with them, but they were still skeletons, and the whole scene was just too bizarre for him to do anything but stay freaked out and glued to his chair. Until a hand grabbed his shoulder. He jumped. "Emperor friend" he heard Vasily's voice "What is wrong with you?" - [u][b]Astrakhan, The Volgograd Confederation[/b][/u] Sahle woke up in the passenger's seat of Vasily's dented old truck surrounded by an unfamiliar city. He felt cold and slimy from his own sweat. He wanted some[i]thing[/i] - anything - and he had a compulsion to seek out Marc for a fix. "I think you are not well." Vasily told him, looking at him like a mother worrying over a feverish child. He wasn't well. His skin felt unnatural, as if it were rejecting his body, and he had a compulsion to itch. His mind was gone - lost in a fog, somewhere between the windshield and the city. He shivered like a corpse on a frozen block. Everything outside seemed to leer at him unwelcoming. There were some houses with rotten roofs, and scraps of wood siding hanging from the walls. Others had crisp paint-jobs and lively windows. Though the occasional person outdoors showed that these neighborhoods were inhabited, there was something static and unhappy about those houses. They stared lifelessly across the cracks and potholes of the beaten street like tombs waiting for bodies. Clammy fear slithered over Sahle's skin. Were the houses waiting for his corpse? What did those walls hide? He crumpled up like an old newspaper in his seat. "What is this place?" Sahle muttered. He glared at the Russian, catching his uncertain glances. Did Vasily know something Sahle didn't? "Astrakhan" Vasily replied. "We are still in the Volgograd territories. The commander of the military garrison here is my boss." "Military? You belong to the military? I thought... you are a gangster or something?" Vasily smiled. "I think that these rules are not as important as you Emperors think, my oh Imperial Magistrate. Armies, gangs, and governments, and businesses, it's all just words until you find out who has control" "Who's that?" Sahle asked. He felt like there was some overwhelming secret in Vasily's words, like the Russian was hinting at something that would put him in grave danger. Vasily shrugged. "Who knows." What was going on here? Sahle did not know why, by he was certain that something evil was hanging over him, like a gun strung up by its trigger. He looked at his right hand and held it to his face. He was trembling. Was he sick? Had he been poisoned? He wanted to flee, but he didn't have the strength. He wanted to puke. What was this place really? The truth was somewhere out there, hiding in the unholy corners of Astrakhan. A tower loomed above, several blocks in front of them. It wasn't evil or dark in any way, or even warlike. Like a church spire, it climbed white and beautiful into the sky. At first, he thought it was the bell tower to the bulging, curving white-walled church that stood nearby it, which had several stunted towers constructed in a similar style. But, as they got closer, he saw that the tallest tower was a gate, with wings that stretched so far from either side that they seemed to be walls. It was as if a priest had designed a castle. Sahle, feeling like an ice-cube frying on a pan, watched helplessly while the truck crept through the gate. They were stopped by a man in pine-green fatigues and a stiff pine-green cap. In the middle of the cap was a gawdy eagle insignia. The guard's approach was passionless at first, with all the rigidity of a man doing his job, but when the guard recognized Vasily, the mood changed. They talked like old friends. "Vasily, why do you have a black person in your car?" the guard said. His voice was deep as a trumpet, and it sounded as if it were coming from some fleshy pocket at the bottom of his throat. "This is a person that Colonel Sorokin will want to meet." Vasily looked over at Sahle, and the worried look came back. "But I think he is coming down from all of the chemicals." "Chemicals?" the guard peeked in uncertain. "Oh, the chemicals. Drive on to the infirmary." "Yes. It is good to see you again." Vasily said. The guard went back to his post. Vasily slid the shift-knob forward, and they rolled into the central plaza. It was here Sahle realized that the wings spreading from the tower were, in fact, a wall enclosing the entire space. It was strange to Sahle that they would build their walls with shingled roofs. But, upon seeing them, it struck him that he was enclosed by these walls, and the only way out was guarded by one of Vasily's friends. He was helpless, and he began to despair completely. They came to a stop in front of a brick building. Sahle was weak, and when he realized that he was going to have to walk, he felt like he was rapidly deflating. When his mind wandered, he blinked in a vain attempt to focus. "Will you be fine to walk?" Vasily asked. Sahle attempted an anemic nod. The Russian's door opened with a rusty groan. Vasily came around and opened the passenger's side. Nausea wriggled worm-like from Sahle's stomach, reaching into the rest of his body and biting at his skin. He put his feet on the pavement. His joints felt like jelly, and his torso was as heavy as lead. He took one step, and then another. Vasily placed an arm around Sahle to keep him steady. But it was no use. As if the pressure in the air had doubled, his limbs gave out and he fell into the darkness. -- Consciousness and dreams melted into a chain of images that meant absolutely nothing. He saw himself suspended in a cardboard tree above an Armenian burlesque, where all of the actors and actresses read the lines of Shakespearean plays completely in the nude. The next moment, it was the nurse from the hospital where he and Marc had recovered from their crash, only she was clothed, and in a blue woolen dress. Each dream gave way to another, and every one degraded rapidly from his memory as soon as he moved to the next, so that his experience was a series of mismatched memories and outright hallucinations. He saw the cockless statue in Barnham's club, and the garden of the Wollo estate where he had grown up. He remembered his mother's whitest dress, the smell of gunpowder, and the night he made love to Aaliyah in the place where Jesus was born. His dreams, the pleasant and the sad, where interspersed by unnatural visions of demons, and ghosts, and colors that did not exist. There was a place his dreams kept bringing him back to; a cold brick room with an unfinished wooden floor, and cots along all the walls. These were the simplest dreams. He remembered drinking cold water, and being fed bland gruel. He remembered being asked to take pills from a nurse in a blue dress. But, as innocent as it all seemed, there were monsters behind the doors. He could sense them. Something sinister slithered under the floorboards. Sahle was afraid to look out the windows, because he knew that there was always something ready to stare back. And then the room would go away. He would be somewhere else again, carried away by the cold. He always seemed to be in danger of being sucked into some sort of hell hidden in the corner of his vision, and he fought it by swimming toward the best memories he could remember. He wanted the warmth of childhood, or the meaningfulness he felt in the arms of women. Those things were there, and he sometimes managed to take hold of them, but they always slipped from his grasp when the demons fingered at his heals. Time marched on, and the cold brick room became his most common destination. He came to realize that the room was reality. The face of the nurse became solid enough that he was beginning to remember it. She was a chubby woman in her middle years, with blue eyes and mousy brown hair, and a blue woolen dress that was impressed into his memory now. He had many short conversations with her that he couldn't remember a minute after the words were said. But the time he spent in reality grew longer, and with that came his memory. The nurse became more than a face he could remember. She became a person. The nurse brought him porridge, and sat the bowl next to him before she spoke. "When a child is born in China, there is an ancient tradition: a silver spoon is dropped onto the jade floor. The sound the spoon makes will be the name of the newborn." When she finished her joke, she giggled with a smile as big as her belly. Sahle grinned. "Where did you hear that?" "I hear these things when I am in town." she said joyfully. "Oh, from the travelers, and the cossacks drinking in the streets. I try to remember every one of them when I can. Here is another one. A Chukcha comes into a shop and asks: 'Do you have color TVs?' 'Yes, we do.' says the shopkeeper, so the Chukcha says 'Give me a green one.'" When she was done with the second joke, she giggled just as much as with the first. Sahle made an effort to look entertained, but he did not understand what [i]Chukcha[/i] meant, so he didn't know what the joke was about at all, though the idea of a green-colored TV was funny enough. "Well... where am I?" he asked. "Ohhh" her mouth and eyes took the shape of three O's. "You have asked that many times already. You are in the Kremlin of Astrakhan. Your friend brought you here because you were sick." "Where is Vasily?" Sahle asked. "He has work." the Nurse said. Sahle had gained his composure enough to realize he might have made more trouble for himself. Would this Colonel of Vasily's be willing to take him in now it was known that Sahle had a 'Chemical' problem? Had he made an irredeemable ass of himself? Then a third voice joined in the conversation, spoken from the doorway. "I think his work has found his friend." Vasily said. He appeared from the darkness beyond the room, as if summoned by the conversation. He was the same Vasily, with the grin that had carried him in Armenia, but his clothes were different now. He was wearing the same military uniform that the guard at the gate had been wearing, with the gaudy eagle on his cap. "Do you think you can walk now?" Vasily entered the room as he spoke, and his boots echoed on the raw wood planks that made up the floor. "I haven't tried." Sahle looked down where his legs were covered by a blanket. "But I think so. I still feel wrong though... I feel cold." The nurse spoke up. "That will linger, but you should walk. You will get better if you get your blood moving." Sahle nodded. He tried to stand up, but his legs felt wet and weak, and his flesh stung as if pricked by needles. The effort made him suddenly tired, and he wanted to lay down and sleep. "You are better!" Vasily patted Sahle on the back. "See, it is the Russian weather. This is good weather to be alive in!" "I got sick in Russian weather." Sahle retorted. With Vasily encouraging him, Sahle felt like the time to lay back down was passed. He would have to face whatever was here, though the world outside the infirmary walls made him feel persecuted and unwanted. Vasily led the way. He had grown comfortable with the cot in the infirmary, but when they left that familiar room, all of the anxiety that had been haunting Sahle came back, as if emanated from the old walls that closed in on him from either side. "I have told Colonel Sorokin who you are. He is the only one that knows." Vasily said. "Are you going to sell me?" Sahle asked. "No! He has a very interesting place for you. I do not think you will believe it, but I know you will like it." Sahle was trying to work out what place he might have among the Russians, but he could not imagine it. The only skill a foreign ex-Emperor brought to the table was the ability to be sold, or maybe play some part in some intrigue. But the Russians had no reason to get tangled up in Ethiopian politics. What else was he but a piece of valuable property? The corridor was rounded off at the top like a bullet. They passed by doors which opened up into larger rooms, and closed doors guarded by soldiers in the same outfit as Vasily. Sahle felt like a captive in the bowels of an old sailing ship, being brought to the deck to be tossed overboard into an ocean grave. Everything around him was foreign, and all of it made him unhappy. "This is it." Vasily said when they came to another guarded door. "The Colonel is on the other side. When we go in there, do not have any freak outs. I think you want the colonel to like you." Sahle did not have any time to reply before the door opened. The bricks in the office had been painted with one thin layer of white. There was an oak desk standing dominant on one side, joined by no other furniture aside from humble wooden chairs. Several figures dominated the room; three men in military fatigues, and a little girl wearing a starched dress uniform. There was in the air a hint of alcohol stench. "Ah!" the shortest of the three men snapped his fingers rapidly six or seven times, and the other two men left. The small man wore a short brown beard with a shaggy mustache, and he was balding on top. "I am immensely happy to know you, Emperor Sahle." the Russian said with a short bow. Sahle's eyes immediately shot toward the little girl, who was still playing in the corner. He reckoned that she must be nine or ten; old enough to know what she was hearing. And it was at that moment that something struck him. In the girl's arms was a stuffed horse doll, with a head that was just as big as the body. But that was not what struck him. The head of the horse - a ragged thing, with evil empty eyes - looked like those horrible horse-headed men he had seen on the Georgian border, when he had still been Samel so many eons ago. The specter of the horse-headed men had hung over him for some time, and the return of that specter revived all the horror he had felt after arriving in Astrakhan. "Your majesty." the short man said again. "Do not worry about Regina. She is my daughter, and an honest girl." "I think that is what he is afraid of." Vasily giggled. The girl looked up from the terrifying horse doll. She was a pale girl, with smooth brown hair that hung over her shoulder in a thick braid, and blue eyes that seemed older than her body. "I am pleased to meet an Emperor." she said, echoing her father. "Don't worry about me, I will keep your secrets." The short man looked at her with a sense of glowing pride that almost surpassed typical fatherhood. "I am Colonel Sorokin, Volgograd Confederational Guard. Vasily has been telling me about your exploits in Sevan." he paused to glower, and shook his head. "It is too bad you have been driven to that." "My choices... I did not have many of those." Sahle answered. His head was swimming. He did not know what to trust, or what he should say. "When the stars fall to the earth, they cannot traipse into town and get a job." Sorokin chuckled. "Sit down. Can I get you a drink? We have much to talk about." Sahle was struck offguard. This man, this stern army officer, didn't care that Sahle had arrived suffering some serious withdrawal? Before Sahle could answer, Sorokin was already finding glasses and pouring the vodka. Sahle and Vasily found places to sit. "I am sure you have many questions." Sorokin said. He passed the glasses across the table and took a quick, greedy quaff for himself. Sahle was afraid to ask the single question on his mind. He was distracted by the ugly vibe, and completely convinced that something horrible was on the horizon. He wanted to ask what would happen to him, but he imagined Sorokin giving him one thousand different horrifying answers, and he didn't want to say anything that might earn him one of those answers. "Who is Vasily?" Sahle finally choked. He turned to his friend, who seemed amused to be his first question. "Are you... uh... a soldier?" "An old soldier." Sorokin answered. "I trust my oldest soldiers." "Not that old." Vasily rose in his seat, grinning wide. "Oh no... not that old." Sorokin bristled uncomfortably. A weak smile came over his face. "We have known each other a long time. Difficult times. The people who fought and survived the Five Year Chaos are heroes in my reckoning." The Colonel had already finished his vodka, leaving his hands with nothing to do. He fidgeted with the half-empty bottle resting on his desk. "Why would you want to know these things?" Vasily looked quizzical. "You want to know other things. I know this." Sahle nodded slowly, trying to stall for as much time as he could. He felt an urge to run; to run far away and find a womb where he could crawl in and hide. At least until he did not feel so... unnatural. "What.." he stuttered, hoping to think of something else to say. "What... what happens now?" Sorokin stopped fingering at the bottle and leaned back in his chair. "Vasily told me that you have concerns, and I understand. You must take my word for it that I have no interest in hurting you. I cannot tell you what is happening right now, but you will know when you need to know." "Why won't I know now? It does not seem right here. I want to know why." There was a pause, just long enough for Sahle's anxiety to rise to the point of popping. The other two men didn't make a sound. They just sort of... stared. "Yes. I have things I must tell you, but I cannot tell you now because I do not know you." "You know who I am. Nobody else does." "I know a story." Sorokin said. "I believe the story, but that does not mean that I [i]know[/i] you. I have survived in this command through the worst times in Russia because I do not jump into the fire until the ashes are cold. You must understand that I cannot do things so quickly that it puts my responsibility in danger." "Well, I have no other questions." Sahle was exhausted from the pressure. He wanted to sleep. "Right." Sorokin leaned forward. His hand went straight to fondle the bottle. "So, your majesty, do you know how to shoot a gun?" "Vasily taught me." Sorokin smiled. "Yes, yes. He is good with weapons. That is why I have kept him around so long." "I know some secrets too." Vasily added. Sorokin's smile faded. It was slight, something Sahle wouldn't have noticed if he wasn't on his guard. "Yes, yes. We all have secrets, don't we." the Colonel said. He fidgeted for a moment before continuing. "Ah! ah! We have been teaching Regina how to shoot." "I shot a tank cannon a week ago." the little girl jumped into the conversation. Sahle had nearly forgotten about her. Now he remembered; the girl, and that creepy fucking horse. "It is one of the perks of my command. When I want to use the equipment, who is here to stop me, eh?" "Save that ammo for China." Vasily said. "China." Sahle grabbed on to that word. He thought of the innkeepers he had met on their way from Georgia. "Why are you here? I thought there was a war." "The Russian Republic is at war. Volgograd does not accept the Republic." "China is trying to take all of Russia, isn't it? That is what I have been hearing. Aren't you worried?" Sorokin's face became grave. "Yes. We are worried. If the Chinese cross the Volga, the Republic will disintegrate over night. But the Republic will not accept the Confederation as an ally, only as a supplicant, so we do nothing to help them." "Then what do you do?" "We protect our assets. We sit on what we have, the precious things that we have, and we preserve them." The rest of the meeting was a dull affair. Sorokin insisted that Sahle stay and watch his daughter recite music on the violin. The little girl was good, but her song was low and slow, like the wailing of a lonely old woman in the quiet of her hut. It seemed so out of place here - not only the music, but the girl herself. She was like the idealized child: wide eyed, and truly happy. Happiness has no place in this desperate country, where no happiness had been reported since the death of the Tsar. But there it was, playing the violin, a braid hanging across it's shoulder. While she played, a woman came in and served them dinner. They had veal cutlets covered in a smooth cheese sauce, served with pickled cabbage. The Colonel eagerly poured everybody another round of vodka. Sahle was starting to feel calm now, but he was not hungry. He nibbled at his food to be polite. He hardly ate half before it was time to go back to the infirmary and sleep. -- Sahle was back in the Dead Man's drink again, in the version where the stage and the room extended infinitely into the dark. The stage-lights turned on, with the sound of the switch echoing heavy in the long emptiness. Three harsh circles of yellow light landed at the center of the stage. Colonel Sorokin and his daughter materialized in the light. Both wore ruffled military fatigues and polished top hats, and they had the psychotic smiles of greenhorn showmen. A jazz band mocked the sound of a calliope from somewhere off stage, among the black that consumed the rest of the world. "Friends, Brothers, Mother's Uncles!" Sorokin chimed. His voice was his own, but his words recalled all of the half-baked performances Sahle had seen choke it out at the real Dead Man's Drink. "We have a show for you tonight like a candied dessert! I am The Colonelious Sorokin, master of twelve million African mysteries, and this is my resplendent assistant, the regal Regina!" The little girl smiled wider than should be possible and waved to a nonexistent crowd. Both of them paused for an applause that was not there. "For our first act of fearful fantasy, we will make a man disappear!" It was weird to watch the next part go on without a crowd to react. Regina pulled a squeaking man-sized cabinet across the stage, while the jazzy calliope played just low enough to make the entire thing seem awkward. "To provide this entertaining entertainment, we will need a volunteer." Sorokin acted like he was scanning the non-existent audience, and for a moment Sahle was afraid he would be the only option, seeing as he was the only figure actually present in the audience. But, as Sorokin held his hand above his eyes in another overacted performance, a platform was being slowly lowered from somewhere above the stage. Sahle saw this mysterious volunteer emerge gradually from the darkness, starting with their feet, and crawling up so they were like a body slowly falling from a ceiling of viscous pitch. Anxiety grew in Sahle's heart as the person descended. His heart throbbed so loud he could hear it in his ears. When the face was revealed, a fearful confusion struck Sahle. The volunteer was himself - a doppelganger, or an out-of-body apparition. He was watching himself become part of this nightmarish performance. "What is your name, fine-faced friend?" Sorokin asked. "Samel." the doppelganger said in Sahle's own voice. "Samel, friends and gentlefriends. Samel is our man." "It rhymes with camel." the doppelganger added, sounding like a fool. There was a drum roll, and a pause for laughter that never came. "Well then, Samel Camel, if you would be so kind as to follow Regina's lead into the mystical box of disappearance, I will tell a story. Many many years ago, when I traveled to the mysterious islands of Hawaii to learn the secret art of their volcano gods, an old and clever coconut carver stopped me along the road. He told me 'The Gods of the old fires what that are in the earth, they commune in spaces unseen, and a wise man can learn to travel into their netherworld if he is willing to know the way.' So I spent a year living in the old man's coconut hut, and he taught me how to make a box that would allow a man to transport to and from the netherspace." Sorokin leaned against the box, in which the uncaring doppelganger stood like a dope. "This is the very box which I constructed. Since those days in the old jungles of Ukulele, I have learned how to transport the unlearned into the netherworld and back using this very same box. I will demonstrate now." Regina closed the curtain to the box so suddenly that it made the real Sahle jump. He watched as Sorokin circled the box, tapping at it from time to time. "Moodle poodle boodle boo, chooger, hooger, googer goo. Open up and take him too!" After Sorokin was done chanting, he knocked once on the side of the cabinet, and a puff of pink smoke came up behind the cabinet. In a dramatic swoop, Regina reached for the curtain and pulled it. What was standing there wasn't Sahle's doppelganger any longer, and it was not the emptiness that was promised by the magician Sorokin. It was one of the horse-headed men, with the time-worn face of the horse doll. Sahle tried to scream, but nothing came out. -- Sahle woke up in a frenzy, and the frenzy was not his own. Vasily was standing over him, with a thick-shouldered blonde woman just behind. He could hear a clatter in the hallways. It sounded like dozens of footsteps, and boxes being thrown about, and metal clanging against metal. "Get out of that bed, my Imperial friend. We are moving." "What?" "Moving." Vasily pulled him by the arm. "Follow." He hardly had time to get dressed before he was nudged into the hustle in the hall. The barrack was full of armed soldiers moving with a casual haste. All of the paranoia Sahle had been suppressing started to come back. He was like a prisoner on his way to execution. "Where are you taking me?" he choked on the words as he said them. "Do not be a dramatic Emperor. We are going on a journey." "Where?" "You will know. You will know when you are told." "Why won't you tell me?" Vasily's only reply was an ornery chuckle. They left the building into the morning air, where the courtyard was as active as the halls of the barracks. The summer sun was beginning to warm the humidity. A grey, wet mist obscured the horizon, and made the walls of the Kremlin a hazy line on the edge of vision. There was an armored truck, like a half-track tank. It had an open auto-cannon turret on top that was just large enough for one person to sit in it. A couple of unarmored trucks accompanied it. It was the kick of their engines, and the rugged chatter of motorcycles, that overwhelmed all other sounds in that morning courtyard. But sound was not what caught Sahle's attention. He was most interested in the ten-something men on horseback. The men looked like soldiers, with pine-green fatigues and a mixture of similar colored caps, fur ushkanka's, and hats like furry cakes. Most grew facial hair, so that there were great wiry beards, and stubbly beards with thick mustaches, and the poor facial growth of youth, all represented by the group. The blonde woman climbed into the top of the truck and manned the turret. From out of a nearby door, Colonel Sorokin and his daughter left the barracks with a formidable guard surrounding them. Sorokin and Regina both wore starched pine-green dress uniforms. "Colonel." Vasily saluted. "It smells like horse shit and petrol, sir." Sorokin did not look pleased. He had something on his mind; Sahle could see it in his eyes, and in the creases on his forehead. "The smell is uncomfortable. So is this visit. I do not like it." "I think you have to get out more. Astrakhan is a hot place. It has made you lethargic, sir." "It is not that." Sorokin sniffed. He looked at Sahle and smiled weakly. "I am sorry for waking you." "What is happening?" Sahle strained to maintain his decorum. "We are going to the city of Volgograd, a council has been called." "About me?" Sorokin shook his head. "No. Nobody will know about you. Only a trifling number of people here know your identity, so do not go blurting it out. I have no interest in returning you to your brother, but not everybody in Russia is so honorable. Now come, ride with me. We will go in the big truck." And so they climbed in. The door screeched, heavy metal struggling at its hinges. Sahle sat in front with Vasily, while Sorokin and Regina found a place in the bowel of the truck along with their guards. A windshield of fat glass protected them in the front. They started to move. Their convoy plodded out of the gates, flanked by the horses and the motorcycles, and they crossed through silent Astrakhan with its worn-out wooden houses and churches like brooding watchtowers above crumbled streets. They crossed the Volga, as thick as a lake, and entered into the flatland on the western end. They were heading northwest. Sahle tried to memorize this land, but there were no landmarks for him to focus on. It was as flat as the Danakil in his homeland. With nothing to keep his attention, and the sun coming out from the mists, Sahle became drowsy. His eyes grew heavy. Somewhere, between one forgettable expanse of dry nothingness and another flat expanse of dry nothingness, Sahle began to nap.