Voices of the Sands

This is an in-setting written work. It is written from a particular perspective and may or may not be factually accurate.

Sing

By Aiemak of Trackless Paths

Teachings of the Akwarai ascetic and mystic Aiemak of Trackless Paths

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The shattered remains of a thousand mountains sing their dreams. The sun shouts its ambitions through the sky. Even the air itself whispers.

I stepped out of the womb and into the desert, my first steps sinking into the dunes. A mountain rose in the south, snow-capped peak far above. Voices of the sands spoke to me. “Sing,” they said. I sang.

Childhood, then adolescence. I learned life on the dunes. Hundreds of miles, then thousands. The mountain watched as I matured. Voices came from deep in the shifting sands. “Sing,” they said. I sang.

Adulthood. The mountain fell to pieces, observed by none but I. Its fragments collapsed into the desert. Fragments into boulders, boulders into rocks, rocks into sand. Mountains into dunes. I left the camps and the packs, the oases and their shade, and set out into the expanse. The dunes spoke as the mountain, and the mountain spoke as the dunes. Desert voices forming desert words. “Sing,” they said. I sang.

Grains, specks, motes into monuments. Motes into myths. Motes into melodies.

Sing your dreams into the vastness of the desert. The sands are an attentive audience.