The Darkness Before the Dawn (Dark Sun: Chronicles of Athas 2)

Jedra reached down and stuck his hand in the water. It was cold, almost as cold as the frozen meat in Kitarak's cold-box. "Wow!" he said, jerking his hand back. It was just the shock that had startled him, though; the water actually felt kind of nice against his skin. He cupped his hand and dipped it in again, then brought it up to his lips to drink.

It was the coldest, freshest, cleanest water he had ever tasted. Jedra scooped up a double handful and drank it all.

Kayan bent down to try it, but she stopped when she saw her reflection in the water. "What the-?" She reached out to touch the image, then withdrew her hand when it broke into ripples.

"What's the matter?" Jedra asked.

"That's not what I look like," Kayan said. "Well, it is, but my nose is bigger than that, and my hair isn't that long, and-"

"You look great."

"I know I look great. I mean, if that's really what I look like." Kayan nodded to the water, which had returned to its mirror smoothness. "But I never looked like that before."

"Sure you did," Jedra said. "You've always been pretty." But now that she mentioned it, her nose was smaller, and her hair was longer than before. And her eyes were an even brighter green than before, too. He hadn't noticed it until now because he had always thought of her as beautiful.

Her tunic had changed, too. The cloth was finer, and it fit her body better. The neckline plunged lower than before, showing much more of her sensuous curves than she usually exposed by daylight, and it was shorter as well, allowing her slender legs more freedom to distract Jedra's gaze.

Curious, he looked down at his own clothing. He had put on a tunic similar to Kayan's this morning, but now his was tighter, too, tied at the waist with a silky cord. It was made of soft brown leather and had no sleeves, exposing his tanned and muscular arms all the way to the shoulders, which were broader than he remembered.

He looked into the water. The face that stared back at him looked a little like his, but Jedra felt the same disorientation Kayan must have, for it seemed much more handsome than he'd ever thought it before. His cheekbones were higher, more elfin than he'd remembered them, his mouth was wider with fuller lips, and his jaw was more rounded than before. And his sandy blond hair, normally unkempt, now looked merely tousled in a dashing sort of way.

"Wow," he said. "I'm different, too."

She looked at him for a moment. "Now that I think about it you are a little more handsome than usual today. But you're always handsome," she hastily added.

"Even when you're mad at me?"

"Oh, especially then," she said, blushing. She looked at her own reflection again. "This is wild. How could we suddenly become more beautiful?"

"The same way we found bread growing on trees and water running free right across the ground." Jedra held out his arms to encompass the whole forest, and he laughed. "This is evidently some ancient paradise. People must have come here to play in a perfect world."

Kayan bent down to take a drink from the pool. "Perfect is right," she said. "This place is incredible."

"And now we have it all to ourselves." Jedra held out his hand. "Come on, let's see what else the ancients did for fun."

* * *

The stream led down out of the forested mountains, new tributaries adding to its volume until it became a rushing torrent. Jedra and Kayan followed along its grassy banks, scaring up butterflies and birds as they swished through the tall stalks. The noise of rushing water made talk difficult, and the crystal clarity of mind-speaking was too jarring a contrast against the rich depth of sound around them, so they merely walked hand in hand and enjoyed the play of light and shadow amid more greenery than they had ever seen before in their lives.

Then, as they rounded a sharp bend in the river, they heard an even louder roar ahead of them. The water seemed to disappear into the ground just a little way in front of them, but when they drew closer they realized that it fell over a cliff. Cautiously, they stepped up to the edge and looked over. The river fell free for over a hundred feet, spray blowing away from it as it fell, then it thundered into a wide circular pool surrounded by rocks and trees.

Jedra looked out over the treetops and nearly fell off the cliff, for about halfway to the horizon stood a city, its buildings shining bright white in the sunlight, and beyond the city was more water than he had ever believed existed. It stretched from the sandy slopes beyond the city all the way to the horizon, and from left to right as far as they could see before cliffs and forest blocked their view.

I think it's the ocean. Kayan teetered forward, and Jedra pulled her back a few steps from the cliff edge. The view out there was too hypnotic.

What's the ocean?

It's where all the water goes when there's more than people can use it. The Sea of Silt used to be an ocean before the cataclysm, or so I've been told.

The Sea of Silt was a deep basin full of dust many miles to the east of most of the inhabited land of Athas. Jedra tried to imagine it full of water instead, and decided that it might indeed have looked something like this.

They watched waves slide toward the beach, grow taller as they approached, then curl over and splash into white foam and coast to a stop on the flat sand.

The roar of the waterfall at their feet kept them from hearing the waves. Jedra heard something, though. Puzzled, he turned his head, just in time to see a huge furry black beast advancing on them. It stood on four legs and had thick, shaggy hair that seemed to ripple as it moved. Its head was long and wide on a short neck, and multiforked horns stuck up from either side. It shook its head and bellowed again.

"Look out!" Jedra shouted.

"What?" Kayan couldn't hear him.