The sound of the wind amongst the dunes reminded Emuel of the song of the Stone Seers — the great canticle that had kept the city of Morat afloat — and he added his own voice to the song, the harmony lifting his spirits a little, making him feel somewhat less alone. It wasn’t the desert itself that Emuel found the most daunting, however, it was the seemingly infinite sky that hung above him. Without Kerberos, he felt exposed, open to whatever lay beyond that deep cyan expanse. When he found himself stumbling across the head of a dune and momentarily losing his footing, he was terrified that he would fall into the sky and just keep on falling.
Once the sun began to set, Emuel rested. He ate a strip of dried mool and watched the colour of the landscape change. The wind dropped and the song of the dunes died. Emuel had never experienced such silence. Without the soft glow of Kerberos to relieve the night, he could barely see his hand before his face. The temperature fell and he could hear things stirring in the sand. He dared not move, but when no strange creatures came for him, he pulled his cloak tighter about his shoulders and settled back, staring into the heavens.
He wondered whether any of the points of light above him was a god, like Kerberos. Maybe all of them were gods, and the Final Faith — indeed, every religion on the peninsula — was wrong about humanity and its place in the universe. Emuel supposed he should have felt despair at this thought but, strangely, he didn’t.