If any human beings had ever passed this way, they certainly hadn't left any trace of their passage. But at least this stretch of desert was not as lifeless as the one Blade had left behind. Here and there he saw small clumps of squat, gnarled bushes, with spiky black-green needles. Small mounds with dark holes in the tops suggested animal burrows, and once Blade saw the trail of a snake in a patch of fine sand. The sun had baked all the life out of this land.

It could still bake the life out of him if he was careless, though. It was definitely time for him to look for a halting place.

The land here was more rugged than it had been, and the horizon was closer. For all Blade could see there might be an oasis with cool water, date palms, and dancing girls just beyond that horizon. But if he couldn't see it, he wasn't going to risk walking by day on the chance of reaching it.

Instead he headed for a patch of bushes that spread out across the foot of a low ridge. When he reached the bushes he took off his robe and spread it out over several of the bushes. The spread-out robe made a patch of shade among the bushes. Blade lay down in the shade and began covering himself with sand again. Then he spat out the pebble that had kept his mouth from getting painfully dry.

Something about the way it glistened as it lay on the sand caught his eye. He reached out and picked it up, turning it over and over between thumb and forefinger. His eyes widened in surprise. Stripped of dust and grime, the pebble was unmistakably black jade! That was a stone Blade knew well-his father's collection had been one of the finest in England. Unless he'd forgotten most of what he knew, the pebble was not only black jade but black jade of the highest quality!

Blade sat bolt upright as he remembered all the patches of black gravel. Were they all pebbles of black jade too? Did this whole grim desert lie on a glistening black foundation?