“He is the spitting image of his mother, though she was sky-blue and he is more elegantly midnight.” A clarion voice sounded, and Layla glanced around to see the Djinn-woman had risen from her meditation seat. Not so much stepping around the car as flowing around it with her bare feet finding nothing but air, she beamed at Dusk with electric blue-green eyes as she faded to edges in the bright day and came to substance again. Lowering the white cowl of her wrapped desert garb, she bared long, sleek black hair that shimmered with a plethora of gold braided into it under the desert sun.
“Dusk Arlohaim, well-met.” She spoke, smiling at him. “I am Talia Dendir, Second of the West Nile Djinn. We have long held this boundary against all-comers, the access to your Crystal Highway – at the request of your mother before she was taken by your mad King and the great war erupted among your people. Sky Arlohaina was a dear friend to us. She was forging a massive peace-pact between the Djinnic clans of Egypt, the Sudan, and Tunisia before she was taken. A peace-pact that included the Crystal Dragons and Desert ones. Or did you not know?”
From Dusk’s astounded face, it was clear he hadn’t known, and Layla watched a flash of iridescence flow through his hair and scales as he took a deep breath. “I never heard that story.”
“Few have.” The woman smiled kindly, though sad. “It was a deep secret at the time, known only to the Firsts, Seconds, and Thirds of the clans your mother was negotiating with. But something went vastly wrong after she was taken away to Prague. The Tunisian Crystal Dragons became incensed for some reason, and arrived here in force. Djinn cannot fight such madness, and Desert Dragons do not want to – and so the treaty fell apart, just as it was about to succeed and bring a great trade to all our peoples. Some say King Markus had a hand in it; whatever it was that made the Tunisians so furious as to come here raging for war. But those are rumors on the wind that none can verify. None still living, at least.”
“If King Markus did something to spark that war, I’m going to tear him apart.” Dusk’s growl was barely audible, but the depth of it shook the dry river bed beneath them, and Layla saw the Djinn men swirl up quickly upon cushions of air as alarm lanced their faces. But the Second of the Djinn-clan was calm, holding Dusk’s furious gaze as she radiated an intense ease.
“Calm yourself, Crystal First,” she spoke levelly, watching him. “For there is more hardship you will face perhaps, than just your King. Beyond this wind-wall and up the canyon, the Crystal Highway begins, but even us Djinn can feel unrestful dead crowding behind the Highway’s barrier. The remains of your clan are angry, young First. Beware to the man or woman who is able to set foot upon that accursed plateau.”
“It’s not cursed, it’s my home.” Dusk growled again, though far gentler this time. “And I need you to cede the way. And all the territory your people have seized since my clan fell, right down to the river.”
“It shall be done.” Talia spoke peaceably, though Layla saw a hot shine of challenge in her blue-green eyes now. “This land was yours and shall be again, for no Djinn have made it their home. We fear the Crystal spirits, should they ever get loose from your plateau. None use the thoroughfare from here to the river except for transport, and we have plenty of other ways to the water. But I warn you: should your barrier around your lands fall and evil spirits decimate our people… we will be speaking again, young First. You can count on it.”
“I will deal with my dead.” Dusk spoke softly. “Whether they are angry or not. As Clan First, it is my responsibility to see them laid to rest. And I shall.”
With a deep nod, the Djinn Second seemed to take Dusk’s words at face value. But her gaze was sharp as she flicked her chin to her three companions, bellowing out in a slicing commander’s voice that echoed from the canyon walls, “Drop the barrier! Let them pass.”
The men did as they were told, standing before the barrier and swirling their hands in ornate gestures to bring it sighing down. It came away from the canyon walls with a shimmering fall of sand, swirling out to nothing as Layla watched. Beyond, the canyon cut through the sandstone hills, deepening into a true gorge as the barren hills rose markedly up towards the plateau far beyond.
“There lies your way.” Talia motioned one elegant hand towards the gorge. “It deepens a while before it rises and begins to switchback up the plateau. At the top, you will find your Highway, and your lands.”
“Thank you.” Dusk spoke quietly, no longer growling. “I will remember your people’s kindness in keeping this way secure all these years. And I will not forget to tend my dead.”
At his words, Talia gave a pleased smile, though something in it was still hard, as if she were wondering whether this new Crystal First would be a friend or future foe. But with a wave of her hand, she flowed away from the car, beckoning the Jeep on. Giving his friend a last shake, Yousry returned to the Jeep and fired it up, driving toward where the wind-barrier had been.
In a short turn of the deepening gorge, they could no longer see the Djinn. In a few more turns, the red sandstone walls of the bordering hills had climbed high above the car, towering over them and making Layla feel like she was pinned by stone. The way was so narrow, Yousry could hardly navigate the Jeep through it, more suited for a donkey or going on foot. As the sandstone walls towered around them, going up almost sheer for a hundred feet or more all around now, Layla started feeling deeply claustrophobic.
Dusk sensed it and reached out, smoothing his hand over hers and passing a gentle rumble through his fingers to soothe her. Layla took a deep breath, trying to convince herself that claustrophobia was an irrational fear just like flying, but it was one she felt all the same. In the front seat, Adrian’s winds prickled like biting ants as he felt her fear also. Beside her, Dusk darkened, scowling at the narrow, winding gorge as they proceed on, his brows knit over his chic sunglasses.
Morning shadows swallowed the deepening gorge, and beneath the car, tough grasses and other verge were crushed as vegetation thickened in the perpetual gloom. Splashing through puddles of wet and mud, Layla was surprised as the air became humid rather than bone-dry, little ferns and clusters of white flowers and succulents clinging tenaciously to the scroll-worked gorge walls around them now. The quality of the rock had changed, from only red sandstone to a wind-swept maze of curling red, white, yellow, and even blue sandstone all around them now. Towering, the walls of the gorge closed in hundreds of feet above, forming a deeply ornate basket of wind-smoothed curls and eddies in the stone.
It was hauntingly beautiful, but even as Layla gazed up at the tiny glimmer of sun piercing through the narrow slit high above, she realized a flash-flood through here would be deadly. Like Antelope Canyon in Arizona, this place was only beautiful when it was dry, and Layla found herself praying there wasn’t any rain on the forecast today. But as they began to climb the dry river-bed, angling up steeply as the narrow canyon twisted in complex switchbacks, she realized they were headed up the canyon to its source. Even so, it was a tough climb for the Jeep up the stony way to the top. The canyon’s scrollwork confines switched back again and again so many times that Layla completely lost count. As the riverbed rose sharply up a final set of grueling rock falls the Jeep could barely climb, the canyon’s walls finally parted.
Leveling out to a beautiful plateau that overlooked the desert in every direction.
Thin clouds wisped above the wide plateau, easily ten miles in diameter. It was stunning, the view incredible from such an enormous height, and Layla estimated they were at least two thousand feet over the desert now. She hadn’t realized they’d climbed so hard and fast in the Jeep through the canyon until her ears popped at the elevation.
As they arrived at the top, Layla saw broken shards of crystal jutting out from a low embankment ahead. As if some terrible calamity had befallen this area long ago, she saw now that the entire plateau had been heaved up from the rest of the desert some time in the ancient past. Its sheer cliff-walls weren’t the elegant work of time and erosion, but the fast, brutal work of earthquakes shoving this land up far above the rest. As Yousry halted the Jeep atop the edge of the cliffs, cutting the engine and giving it time to cool down, everyone got out – taking a slow three-sixty and admiring the incredible view.
“Holy hells, Spider-man.” Layla shook her head as she glanced at Dusk. “This is where you’re from? This is like… a palace in the sky!”
“I remembered it being beautiful.” Dusk spoke softly as he gazed far out over the desert, the blue strip of the Nile with its bordering greenbelt shimmering to the east. To the north and south, all was arroyos and canyons, cascading down from the high plateau just like the one they’d come up. But those canyons were tremendously steep, and as Layla took it all in, thinking it looked like the Badlands in South Dakota, she realized the way they’d come was the only way up. Now that they were at the top, she could see how their canyon wound almost gently down from the extreme height – and glittering at the top of the canyon’s scroll-worked edges were the remains of enormous slabs of jagged white crystal.
The last bits of an ancient highway that had once gone all the way to the river.
As Layla shaded her eyes, admiring those crystal slabs winking in the sun, she saw some were blue like sapphire or aquamarine, while others were a bright yellow citrine or a light pink topaz. Some were so bright she thought the only thing they could have been was diamond, and amazed, Layla turned from the edge, looking back behind her.
Embedded in the short embankment sparkled a broken ledge of crystal that matched the fragments below. Nearly ten feet thick, the remains of the Crystal Highway were now a jagged, broken edge. But in it, Layla saw all the colors she’d seen below, shining under the noontime sun. Even more colors were mixed into the highway’s incredible flow like smelted gemstones – clear emerald and bright ruby, rainbow opal and dark labradorite, even black onyx. It was unlike anything that existed anywhere on earth, and as Layla climbed up the jagged embankment of sandstone to get up beside the highway and see it better, she suddenly became aware that each color had once been the bones of a different Crystal Dragon.
Feeling eerily superstitious all of a sudden, Layla didn’t step on the highway but walked along it, admiring the colors as it wound up to further levels of the plateau a mile or two away. Shading her eyes, Layla saw massive columns, pyramids, and crystal buildings winking in the desert sun up on those highest levels. Though partly obscured by jagged sandstone peaks that had thrust up when the plateau was formed, the sight caught Layla’s breath. Like the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz, her mind was blown as she stared at what was clearly a massive citadel up on that highest range of the plateau – made entirely out of crystal. Shimmering in the sunlight, clouds wreathed those peaks, casting the city in shadow, then back into sun. The effect was deeply beautiful, and Layla felt her drakaina stir in her heart as she took it in.
But though Adrian and Yousry had climbed up the embankment to stand beside her and admire the city, Dusk had already finished admiring the interior and was walking slowly along the highway. He didn’t walk upon it, but just beside it – as if he, too, were almost afraid to set foot on it. As he neared a certain spot, what Layla had thought was empty air began to shimmer in a broad wall over the highway, extending out hundreds of feet in either direction – and towering up before him hundreds of feet high. Seeing fractal patterns and deep fissures in the wall, Layla knew it was a solid crystal barrier that had been cleverly disguised to seem invisible.
But Dusk’s presence cleared whatever magic had hidden the enormous crystal wall. And as he approached, taking a breath and producing a low hum deep inside his chest, the whole thing started to vibrate, shuddering in massive waves all along its length. Lifting his hands, Dusk set them upon the crystal wall before him, increasing his hum like the roll of an earthquake in the ground. And though the entire wall vibrated now with music through the air like crystal singing bowls, it stood solid and immutable, gorgeously inert.
Frowning, Dusk ceased his humming and stared up at the wall’s lost heights.
