Kid
stares. Thunder booms around him.
“Look
around you,” Francis points. Kid does so. He looks before this
forsaken desert, cold and unrewarding. Crags sweep through, signs of
water long ago, humongous towers of limestone, fingers that reach up
to the gray, cloud-blanked sky. Kid takes this in for a second before
he sees Francis walk off, toward a group of thunderheads, dark violet
and full of flashes of lightning. Thunderous balls of air clash
together, making a falsetto boom. Before Kid's eyes he sees Francis
shift forms, from a dark-eyed bureaucrat in a black suit and tie,
greased hair, and Czech accent to a pair of naked legs, a loin cloth
and golden bronze torso. His arms are covered in feathers, placed
carefully, layers upon layers, with coats of wax. His head, Guy sees,
is the head of a Falcon, with the same dark eyes.
“Francis!
Kid yells. “Francis!”
In
the same Czech accent, “I must leave now.”
“Wait.
Where are you going?”
“When
you first met me, I was just an insurance agent. Now, now I see. I
have seen too much, Kid.” And with that, Kid sees Francis fly away,
his arms flapping to take a current of wind into the storm, leaving Kid sinking into the sand.
“Where
am I going?”
“You are a cage without a bird.” Francis remarks. “I am now a bird
without a cage."
Kid watches in his direction, and notices the campsite, the wind blowing
fabulously tough, as Kid feels an oncoming wave of sand wash over
him. Kid becomes lost in the sea as it makes its way past all life.
This sandstorm takes Kid into the desert darkness, where he loses
consciousness for a time.
Kid wakes to the footstep of a camel upon his head. He digs himself out
of the sand and sees this camel as without rider, but with saddle, so Kid takes hold upon the sack of the camel, and is dragged along the
dunes.
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