A Hake dressed in tattered Sucaza hides stood on the bank of the Danjro addressing a small crowd. Nyck stared in shock. “It is Quinn, I am positive!”

  “I don't believe you. That man is no leader,” said Hans. “I can't believe we trudged twenty miles through the wilderness for this.”

  “He is, I swear! All this time, here he was. If only I had come sooner.”

  Hans studied the Hake. That guy? Our hero? “Well, you’re lucky you found him… whoever he is. After two days of walking and searching three camps with no sign of him, I don’t think you could have talked me into searching yet another camp. And poor V’han… he looks exhausted.”

  “Ask him yourself. He will recognize me! I was there at his last battle. And to think, I was ready to give up on the Hake Authority, to throw aside all he taught me! I thought he had forsaken us.”

  The three pressed their way through the crowd to the front. Hans inspected the Hake closely. “Are you Quinn, the mighty one who will lead the Hakes to victory?” he asked, interrupting the speaker.

  The Hake paused, looking over the three newcomers. He smiled when he saw Nyck. “I need not be Quinn, or any great Sheepel you admire. Rather, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Make straight the path of the Leader! The Leader is he who, coming after me, is greater than I–who will save us and restore this land to its former glory.”

  “Quinn, what do you mean by this?” asked a bystander. “We are here to follow you.”

  “It will not be so. As it is written in the Seven Scrolls: 'Behold, a messenger is sent before your face, who will prepare the way before you: the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Leader!' That is I, for he shall be here soon. We must resist the ways of the Sheeks and keep hope for the future. Rejoice, for freedom is at hand.”

  A cheer arose from the crowd as Quinn stepped down from his post and greeted Nyck. “At last we meet again. It is unfortunate our meeting will be so short.”

  “Short?” asked Nyck, flustered.

  Quinn pointed in the distance. Above the golden horizon was a small band of approaching war-flyrs. “The Sheeks have found us. We are no longer safe here.”

  The crowd turned from the river, suddenly separating into a thousand individuals, shouting and rushing in all directions. Some fled towards a nearby road where their flyrs and crafts were parked; others hurried upstream to the camp where their belongings were. The remainder dashed into the desert, certain that anything was better than waiting for the Sheeks to arrive.

  “Time to panic,” said Hans.

  “Er, could someone give us a lift?” said Nyck to no one in particular.

  Quinn turned to him. “You do not have a craft? How did you get here?”

  “We came by flyr, but had an accident in the desert. The last few days were spent on foot.”

  “Then you can come with me. I have a ride waiting. I'm sure there's room for a few extra.” He motioned for them to follow him as he turned and hurried toward the road, joining a trail of fleeing Hakes.

  Hans kept his arm in front of his face as he ran after Quinn, shielding his eyes from the sandy wind blowing along the river. Once again I am running from the Sheeks. Why am I not surprised? He held V'han's hand; its leathery palms that ended in tiny, claw-tipped fingers gripped his own in return. The V'hogel gave him hope: it seemed neither concerned nor worried, but ran trustingly at his side.

  Quinn's ride was nothing more than an old, rusted vehic with a frail looking couple in the front: a slumping, white-haired man at the wheel and his wife beside him, tightly gripping a cheesecake box like it was her only child. Quinn directed the others into the back of the vehic. “Mordei and Marthah drove all the way from Gabez. This truck doesn't look like much, but it'll get us out of here. The Sheeks will search the camps for me; we will have a few hours before they come after us.”

  Nyck climbed in as far as he could, and Hans took the seat next to him, staring out the window into the sky with worry. The truck had no more seats, so Quinn sat in the rear, his black suitcase covering his knees. The case was similar to one Nyck owned (before being confiscated by the Sheeks when he'd surrendered) but was certainly far more valuable. To the right of Quinn sat V'han, eerily silent. The creature rarely spoke, but was even more reticent to do so before the strangers. The truck's engine roared to life, lurching out of the ditch and onto the dirt road running along the Danjro. They were in a stream of vehics speeding southeast. Behind them, the war-flyrs grew louder. Hans looked out the window with a blank expression.

  Quinn addressed him. “To answer your question, friend, yes I was once called Quinn. I knew Nyck for many years. But now I am the One who Prepares.”

  Hans made no reply.

  “What is on your mind?” asked Quinn.

  “Huh? Oh, nothing important. I was just thinking about the green chair they took from me. I'll miss it, more than anything else.”

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  “A green chair? As in, a silver-legged chair with a narrow seat and back the color of the Green Sea, about three feet high, two feet square, and unlike any chair ever seen on this world?”

  “Yup.”

  “You had the green chair?” Quinn's voice was rising in both excitement and dismay.

  Hans, perplexed and saddened, but primarily perplexed, could only say: “Yup.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “The Sheeks took it from me. I don't know what they're going to do with it.”

  Quinn gave Hans such a long, disconsolate stare that he seemed to have become one of the sucaza’s whose hide he donned.

  “I didn’t want them to have it.”

  Quinn sighed and turned to look back at the shrinking war-flyrs as the truck sped away on the bumpy dirt road. The Sheeks had landed at the Hake camp and were, for the time being, ignoring the vehics fleeing south. He decided he’d done all he could. Maybe it will escape. If it gives them as much trouble as it gave me, everything will be fine. Yeah. Right.

  “I don’t believe we’ve properly introduced ourselves,” announced the driver, breaking the uneasy silence. “My name’s Mordei Keim and this is my wife Marthah. We met Quinn while camping, on the way to visit our relatives. He told us about the coming leader and how those who read the Scrolls were expecting him at the Danjro River. So we brought him here, and sure enough… that light above the Sheeks’ Land drove over a hundred Sheeple a day to the Burning Wilderness.”

  “So where are we going now?” asked Hans. “Are you returning to Gabez?”

  “Oh no!” said Marthah quickly. “Not there!”

  “It's under Sheek control also?”

  “It might be now, but there was… something worse.” Her voice faltered and she looked over at Mordei for help finishing her thought.

  Mordei spoke with a slight shudder. “You may not believe it, but it is the truth… a rabadon is roaming near where we lived.”

  Marthah started to speak again, but was hushed by a wave of Mordei’s hand and a stern look.

  “A rabadon! Where?” exclaimed Nyck.

  “Between Selfar and The Zone, along the Shallow Sea.”

  “You are certain of this?”

  “Absolutely–we saw it ourselves, a mile from our house. Scariest beast you could ever imagine. We didn’t bother to pack. Grabbed a cheesecake and drove away.”

  The story was all too familiar to a much-frightened Hans. “They're not extinct, Nyck. I saw one as well. And V'han speaks of them in the present tense.”

  “That thing speaks of everything in the present tense.”

  Hans turned to look at the V'hogel, which remained conspicuously silent. “I can see it in its eyes when it speaks of them… to him, they are a very real and present danger.”

  “Marthah,” said Quinn, deep in thought. “You said you lived in The Zone. Why would a rabadon be there, so far from the forests where they were originally hunted?”

  “Well,” she began, but Mordei interrupted her.

  “Enough has been spoken of rabadons. They are an unpleasant subject.” He motioned out the window, even as he kept his eyes straight on the road ahead. “What are these massive boulders lining the road between us and the Danjro River?” Tall, tan pillars of stone stood dispassionately every twenty feet, their smooth faces staring in all directions and no directions at once.

  “Maybe if a sandstorm covers up the road, these markers help the Sheeple of Rahn find the way to clear the route,” said Nyck.

  “No,” responded Quinn. “The road was built later, not the other way around. And there is no chance of losing the route, for both simply follow the Danjro. This stretch is called the Hall of Pillars; they stretch on for seven miles before ending as abruptly as they began. For what purpose our ancestors placed this row of sentinels in the middle of the Wilderness, we may never know.”

  A few hours later, the travelers were out of the Wilderness proper, and the road turned east, running along the edge of the Shallow Sea. Night fell, bringing with it a storm of such proportions that the Sheeks' flyrs could not chase after the fleeing Hakes. A thick blanket of rain fell, bursting with shards of falling silver, glistening in the faint light of the vehic’s headlights. Orange lightning zigzagged above, accompanied by echoing peals of thunder. A strong wind blew angry clouds across the black sky, vanishing out of sight as quickly as others rushed to take their place. Thin bao-bao trees were bent over, their leafy heads whipping back and forth. Some had become uprooted from the thin, sandy soil and were strewn about like limp strands of kelp after the tide.

  The vehic sped wildly along the winding highway sandwiched between great sand dunes on the left and the north shore of the Shallow on the right. There were a few buildings along the road overlooking the sea, but they were apparently without power, seeming more like tall, dark mountains hovering over the plain of raging waters below. Every once in a while the vehic hit a large puddle and shook violently. Bao-bao fruit was everywhere, making parts of the highway look like fruit salad.

  “So strange,” muttered Mordei. “Never seen so much water in a desert.”

  Marthah gripped her seat with clenched claws. “Must you drive so fast?”

  Mordei stared ahead, trying to make out the road in the darkness. “Look–it’s just a little rainstorm. Stop worrying all the time. Or, find something useful to worry about, like where we’re going to go once we get out of here. Egg Harbor is close, but Coerroth…”

  “Stop worrying, you say! That’s exactly what you said about the farm! I tried to warn you, but it was always–”

  “Will you stop arguing? We have company, remember? I can hardly concentrate on driving with all your complaints. You do want me to stay on the road, don't–oh my.”

  “What?” Marthah looked forward in surprise. “The road! It’s gone!”

  Mordei spun the steering wheel in panic, but the road didn't follow his cue. The vehic went into a skid, shuddering as it hit an embankment of sand and flew sideways into a ravine. The sound of shattering glass sealed the fate of Quinn.

  Securely fastened in his seat, Nyck was lucky to be shaken up but otherwise unhurt. He climbed out of the truck as soon as it stopped sliding, hurrying to the side of the road where Quinn’s body lay. He knelt in horror. “Quinn! Quinn!”

  “Is dead?” V'han had also been thrown from the vehic, but its wiry body had fared better than Quinn's.

  “Quinn, don't leave us! We need you!”

  Quinn gave no answer, his body motionless and covered in blood. His right hand still gripped his suitcase in a clawed fist, which Nyck dared not unclench.

  “Is dead.” It was not a question this time. Then the V’hogel added: “Is Hans?”

  Nyck did not hear it, anger burning within him. How could this happen? Why did Mordei have to drive so fast?

  “Is Hans dead?”

  Nyck looked up at V'han, and then hurried back to the vehic. Mordei and Marthah appeared unscathed, and were arguing over who could have the last slice of cheesecake. Hans lay in the back of the vehic motionless.

  “Oh my!” exclaimed Nyck. “Hans, are you alright? Answer me Hans!”

  “My head hurts,” he muttered. “Need sleep. Just let me be.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Hans did not answer, but seemed to be content. Maybe he really did need sleep, a symptom of stress and discomfort, sleep being otherwise rare for a Sheepel. Nyck uneasily drifted back to Quinn’s body. The V'hogel was gone.

  “V'han? Where did you go?”

  The suitcase was gone too.

  “V'han?” Nyck looked around, but the desert was utterly empty. “V'han!”