Chapter 11

I was so pleased by the Oasis that I planned to sleep there.

It was a beautiful place, a welcome change from the dryness that filled everywhere else in that desert, and I spread my hood and sat there after finding the camel a comfortable place to graze, simply absorbing the pleasantness of the place. The camel was like a gift from the Sand Demons, and the oasis was a place I would hate to leave, but I had to, if I wanted a body and not some cursed half-metal being unable to die..

"Maia?" I called, looking over the oasis.

"Yes."

"How far are we from the Sword of Pella?

"You have covered 24.6 kilometres, which means you have 25.4 kilometres to cover."

I bit my lip in agony, seeing that I still had not reached up to half my journey. Getting up to my feet, I went and took the camel, speaking softly to it as my hands touched against the brown fur. When I felt I had spoken enough, I climbed it and looked at the night sky above me, killing all plans to sleep.

The night was serene and gentle as a gentle breeze touched the human part of me. I recalled Maia, and she brought up my map, showing me the distance I still had to cover. Determined, I urged my camel on. I had to reach the Sword of Pella, which I knew I could reach if I refused to sleep a wink. I also asked Maia to hand me my Night goggles, not wanting to use my skill yet, just in case I could get into something that would require me having to use the skill, and it was useful for my travel in the darkness.

My journey had gone an hour when my eyes caught the form of a rough stone wall before me, looking broken and old like the ancient ruins of a forgotten city.

"Maia?" I asked, carefully turning my question over before asking. "Which city is this?"

"You have come to the ruins of an old, forgotten city called Odesso, which is proof that you are only fifteen kilometres away from Pella."

My excitement knew no bounds, and I urged my camel forward, passing through the ruins, looking about me in wonder. The whole place was filled with sand, and the broken walls gave off an aesthetic that I would have loved to capture with a camera.

Odesso was a large city, and the endless stone walls in various stages of dilapidation proved this. Some parts of the walls were so low that they were almost covered with the sand, so that only the chipped, broken tops showed, while others were high and tall, suffering only minimal damage.

"Tell me about Odesso, Maia." I asked, preparing myself for a good story.

"Odesso is an interesting place. It is named after the old King Odesseus, as it was built in his honour after his death. For a time, it was the biggest city known to all, so big that any passerby who did not know about the city got lost inside of it, and had to ask the citizens for their way through."

"And why is the city so abandoned now?"

"A lot of things can bring a city to its ruin. For Odesso, it fell because her king dared another foreign king to war. When that king came and set siege to the city, he surrounded it and refused to leave, except on the condition that they surrendered their king to him and allowed his son in the old king's stead."

"And?"

"They refused to do it, waiting for their allies to come save them. The allies however, were terrified of the foreign king, who conquered Odesso after a painful siege that took him two years and killed every man in it for his effort, taking all the women and children and destroying the entire city, planting cactuses in their houses. Is there anything else you want to know?"

"No. How far are we from Pella?"

"Close enough. You've covered a long distance."

I beamed atop my camel, proud of myself before continuing. I had now travelled all night and all day, so that towards evening, Maia had told me I was close enough.

My eyes went to the broken stone wall lined up by the path again, and something struck me as odd when I looked. I was tempted to think that it was the cactus plants that Maia had told me about, since I did not exactly notice them until she mentioned them in the history of Odesso that she just told me, but the feeling lingered, even after I took a long and hard stare at the green, thick, bristling plants. In fact, I was now quite convinced that I had been overwhelmed by this odd feeling for quite a while now, but I could not understand what exactly it was.

It was when I looked that I saw it at last.