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His waterskins are nearly empty. Once refilled, he drinks them dry, then fills them again. The sudden intake of brackish water causes him to vomit. Slowly, a few mouthfuls at a time, he drinks again. By morning he is fast asleep under his cloak’s shadow.
He stays there four days.
He feels the water fattening his tired flesh. At the same time he knows he cannot stay forever. His supplies are half gone.
The next leg of the journey is even harder for the brief respite he has enjoyed. Heat bouncing up off the sand pummels him even at night, and he wonders if he has stumbled into Purgatory, or perhaps some outlying district of Hell. For ten days he sees nothing living, aside from scarabs and silvery-leafed twigs no taller than his ankle. Even the scorpions and raptors have vanished.
On the eleventh day his food runs out.
His water is reduced to a few gummy mouthfuls in one waterskin. Cain takes to chewing on the other skin to battle the ache in his stomach and throat. He wonders if he has the energy to catch a few scarabs, and if he does, whether he could bring himself to swallow them. He decides: probably not.
There is no shrub to drape his cloak over in this wasteland, nor any skeleton save his own. So each morning he burrows into the sand with the cloak spread over him to ward off the sun. An irreverent part of his mind notes that most people wait until they are dead to get buried. He assures himself that it is a common habit among the denizens of the desert, the beetles and snakes and mice.
He lies there all day and into the night. The night is when he should rouse himself, get moving, but it is so hard to stir.
So hard. Night glides by on black wings, and then it is morning again.
—Here, take a little of this.
Cain protests weakly, rolls over, seeks oblivion.
—What’s that on your face? Some kind of. Oh.
A pause then. Heavenly silence. Cain groggily hopes it will last for—
—Oh. I see.
Heavy hands on him then.
—Doesn’t leave me much choice, does it? I’d rather be abed, but you’d be dead by evening.
When Cain next flutters awake, the earth pitches beneath him. The sun is at his back, low and orange against the sky: it is sunset again, and he rides on a camel. He falls forward nearly prone on the animal’s back, but his feet have been tied to stirrups so he cannot slide off. The smell of the thing is heavy in his nostrils, a surprisingly sweet blend of fur and grass and shit. A fly crawls on Cain’s face, and after some time he notices it and rouses himself enough to shake his head and then straighten up. Another camel is in front of his, someone riding it, leading his own mount with a tether.
Cain tries to speak and hears a coarse grating. He coughs, clears his throat, and tries again:—Who are you?
The other rider turns to face him. He wags back and forth as his camel plods on.—So you’re awake.
—Seem to be. I owe you my life if I’m not mistaken.
The man grunts as if this is no great debt. Black eyeballs glitter from beneath dense brows, above a mustache that grows long and droops like a cat’s whiskers.
—What is your name? Cain asks again.
—Yarin, the man answers.
—I am in your debt. My name is—
—I know who you are, Yarin says quickly, as if afraid to hear Cain say more.—Rest now. You’re weak and wrung out, and I don’t have enough water for the both of us.
They ride in silence. The camels wear thick metal bracelets that clink, clink as they step across the hardpan, a homely sound against the vastness of the sky. To Cain there is a strange kind of poetry in this, and he feels peculiarly nostalgic for this sound he has never before heard.
—Why do your camels wear jewelry? he asks as the first stars glimmer in the turquoise.
The man regards him as if seeking hidden messages in this question.—So I can find them when they wander off.
And a part of Cain is a little disappointed at this utilitarian purpose.
At dusk they reach another spring. The man is so casual about it that Cain wonders if such things are marked in some way that he has overlooked. Beside the muddy puddle the camels hunker down, burping and farting, while Yarin lights a fire and grills a pair of fresh rabbits he produces from somewhere. In silence he skins and roasts them on a spit he swiftly constructs from a few fallen twigs.
—Thank you, says Cain when he is handed one of the still-smoking carcasses.
Yarin grunts.
Cain remarks his companion’s stiff silence, his nervous glances flickering into the darkness around them. He asks a few questions about the man’s travels and business and receives one-word answers. Cain’s impatience swells. Finally he growls, You needn’t look over your shoulder quite so much. It’s not as if I’ve got the demons of Hell at my command.
Yarin squints at him.—That’s a promise?
He does not seem to be jesting.
—If you’re so afraid of me, Cain says, you could have left me where I lay.
Yarin meets his gaze with a black-irised one of his own. Behind that drooping mustache he looks distinctly unhappy.—Let me tell you something. If I could have, I would.
—Why didn’t you then?
Now the man looks frightened, as if he has spoken too much. He attacks the rabbit flesh, masticating it as if the poor creature has given some offense.—You know why. I’m a man of God, and you carry the mark.
Involuntarily, Cain reaches for his face. Stops himself.—The mark is merely a warning, he says. He wills his voice to remain steady, as if talking about the alignment of the stars, or the differences between a cactus flower and a lily.—To prevent any man from murdering me. No more.
Yarin nods and chews his food. Chews some more. Swallows hard.—And if I’d found you lying there in the sun, and left you? What would you call that if not murder?
—It’s not the same, Cain mutters.
—Is to me. A man who witnesses a death without trying to prevent it is as responsible as the man who causes it.
Cain ponders this. Under those circumstances, who would qualify as his murderer—the sun in the sky or the God who put it there?
There seems no point in asking this question, so he gives up on small talk and Yarin does the same. The man is reacting out of obligation and fear, and Cain is familiar enough with those two impulses to be uninterested in spending any more time in their company than absolutely necessary.
As the night thickens around them, the two men hang their cloaks on opposite sides of the spring and prepare to sleep. Yarin says, Listen. We’ll stay here tonight and tomorrow so you can rest.
—Thank you.
—Tomorrow night we’ll move on and by morning we’ll reach the first villages. Keep your face out of sight and you’ll save me a lot of trouble.
—All right.
—Past the river Tus you’re on your own. When I wake up after that I’ll be happy to see you gone.
Not bothering to look at the other man, knowing he watches closely, Cain nods. What is surprising is not Yarin’s sentiment but how much it stings. This rejection, this cold unthinking hate. How much it pains him, like a slap against a burnt