Chapter 20
The White Desert
They had hoped to make their camp for the night at Bi'r Abu Minqar, where the
track that they would follow to the west met Route 341. However, progress after
leaving Bawati had been nightmarishly slow. So slow, in fact, that they had not even
made it to the next oasis, Farafra, less than two hundred kilometers south.
The Mercedes truck had overheated as they had crawled out of the Bahariya
depression through multicolored Rainbow Canyon. A checkpoint at the top of the
escarpment had been stopping all vehicles for a cursory inspection. They had all held
their breaths as the officials sluggishly went about their business. Although they had
all the prerequisite paperwork for the equipment and weapons, a local bureaucrat could
have caused considerable inconvenience over the guns if he so chose, and baksheesh
wasn't what he had in mind.
Afterwards, it had seemed, at times, that the road had disintegrated to nothing
more than a washed out goat track littered with fragments of blacktop. Finally, as the
sun dropped low in the west, the old army truck blew a tire... the last straw for the day.
* * *
"Where's Derek?" Kym asked.
Johnny sighed, then looked up from the pot of soup he was simmering over the
fire. "He said he was going for a walk."
"Probably got himself lost... just like my knife," grumbled Sloan.
The major looked at Kym and shrugged. "Did our native friends want any
soup?" he asked Kym, who had been sent to make the offer of hospitality at the
neighboring campfire.
"They said 'a thousand thanks, and Allah's blessing be upon you,' but they have
their own and don't wish to see it go to waste. Perhaps, tomorrow."
Under the light of a full moon, Kym climbed to the crest of a small ridge west
of their camp. It was the only way she thought her husband would go. From the top,
the vista before her was spectacular... white on white, against a black sky. It could
have been the Arctic, or the moon. Below, she saw Derek's black silhouette perched
on a low flat rock, debris from when the road had been built. Carefully she sidestepped
down the embankment.
"Derek?" she said quietly.
"Hmmm?" he murmured without looking around.
"Are you all right?" she asked. She knew the ongoing battle with William,
interspersed by icy silences was beginning to grate on his nerves.
"I'm fine," he replied. "Isn't this magnificent... it's called the White Desert?"
he said, gesturing toward the vast barrenness before them. "So empty... so pure."
Kym's urban awareness saw only a wasteland... harsh and void of life. "Yes...
it's lovely," she agreed.
"Sit with me," Derek said. He reached up for her hand and pulled her down
beside him. "Can you feel it?" he absently asked.
"Feel what?" Kym sensed a mood in her husband that she had never before felt.
What was it? She couldn't put a name to it.
"It's almost like I can put my hand out and feel life," he explained, "...the
energies... the quivering molecules of the universe." He stretched his hand out to the
air, caressing it as he often touched his wife's hair. "It's like I can feel God," he said.
Though she couldn't see them, Kym knew that his eyes had taken on a look as
distant as his voice. She gazed out at the sands and saw only sand. "It feels magical,"
she whispered.
"It is magical... mystical." Suddenly, his mind was back with her. "Kym," he
said, looking into her eyes, "I've never spoken about this to anyone but my sister... I
don't know how much alike our 'abilities' are... yours and mine, but do you ever feel
as though there is always something like a 'background noise'... like the low murmur
of a crowd... or a radio that is always on, but not quite tuned in... but you don't hear
it with your ears?" He chuckled, a little self-conscious at his comparison.
Kym thought for a moment. "Yes... I suppose... sometimes," she said with
uncertainty.
Derek continued, "With me... it's always there... except in places like this.
Usually I can shut the noises out... the way you tune out Muzak in an elevator... or I
can focus in on one voice at a time... the way you tune in a radio... but it's always
there. Sometimes, fending it off is exhausting... or walking into a tense, crowded room
can be like walking into a brick wall. It takes the breath away. Then, I have to escape."
Puzzled, Kym asked, "But if you feel this way, how do you manage to cope with
all of the public functions? I've seen how you deal with people... when you want, you
immediately put them at ease. You have a gift for it... you can be so... so... charming."
Looking across moonscape, Derek chuckled and smiled a crooked half-smile.
"I sense the person to whom I'm speaking. It's not that hard... people need to be
noticed... they want to be the focus of attention, if just for a moment. As for the
charming part... I don't know about that...," he said in a self-depreciating tone. "I
suppose I have that Derek tucked away in his own little box along with the Savile Row
tuxedo... to be put on when the need arises.
"Kym, Liefje, there are a lot of those little boxes... some are caskets that are
buried very deeply. Can you understand what I'm talking about?" he asked, turning
toward her with a hint of urgency in his lilt.
Never before had her husband revealed himself to her in this way. Kym didn't
want him to stop, but at the same time she was unsure of what to think or say. She
understood something of what he was explaining, but her "gift" didn't function in quite
the same way. In fact, she was beginning to discover that there might be quantum
differences between them.
"Yes, honey," she said. "I can... to a certain extent... but I don't believe it's as
simple as you pretend... with your compartmentalization. That suave Derek Rayne in
his Savile Row tuxedo is just as much a part of you as the academic one in his
cardigan, the adventurer in his leather jacket, the one who is my lover, or the mystic
I'm listening to here, who lacks only his magic wand and pointy hat."
Derek laughed again and seemed relieved. "I'm glad... people who can't feel
this... can't understa...." Suddenly he stopped. His back stiffened and his gaze again
grew distant.
"Derek?" Kym said. She knew the signs of vision. "What is it?"
The black and white world around him had vanished, absorbed by a world of
grays. Before him he saw his father's ring. The lapis lazuli set was cracked and the
gold band itself had been cut into two pieces. It lay upon blood stained fabric, gauze,
perhaps. Beside it, on a plate, or tray, made of silver metal, were scattered what
seemed to be surgical instruments... forceps... scissors... a bloody scalpel.
"Sweetie," Kym said, gently taking his hand. She reached for his vision, but the
link was closed.
"Hmmm?" he murmured, becoming aware of her presence once again. The
transition between vision and reality was always a little disconcerting. He swayed
slightly as the shift in his perception took hold.
"Are you all right?" she asked, tailoring her voice to have an extra softness.
"I'm fine," he said, now fully aware. He patted her hand. "I just need to be
alone for a bit."
"Derek," said Kym, "do you want to tell me about it." She knew in her soul that
whatever her husband had seen he had found confusing and disturbing.
"No... I'll be along in a moment or two," he said thoughtfully.
"Will you tell me then?" she persisted.
Derek took her hand. "There's nothing to tell," he said. "Not all visions mean
something." He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the blue crescent moon of her
ring.
Sometimes... Derek Rayne... sometimes. "I love you," she said. "You know
that."
Derek smiled wistfully. "I know, Liefje," he replied. "Always remember that I
love you, too. You know, I had the gold for that ring shaved from the hilt of the
sword," he added. "As long as you wear that... I'll be with you... no matter what."
Kym looked at her husband in silence, unsettled by his sudden openness, but
deeply touched. This was a man she didn't know, and had never suspected existed...
one that she found as eerie as this windswept panorama he seemed to love and nearly
as frightening as the intrepid Derek Rayne she had described to Cassie only a few days
before.
"Go on," he insisted. "It's been a long day... and it's going to get harder
tomorrow. I'll be there in a few minutes," he promised.
* * *
Derek waited until he heard his wife scramble up the embankment, then he
focused on the vista before him. He emptied himself, willing the vision to come again,
but there was nothing. Suddenly, at the edge of his senses flickered something. He
stretched out toward it, but could only touch a deep, boundless hunger,
like that of a ravenous tiger... somewhere... out there beyond his grasp.
| CHAPTER 21 |
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