Free Aenir by Garth Nix, Steve Rawlings

information.
    If only he knew what it meant.
    He kept thinking about it all as he trudged on, but his thoughts were beginning to wander in the direction of food and shelter for the night. Neither looked likely to appear in this sandy desert.
    Yet over the next sand dune, as the last light faded from the sky, Tal did see something that might offer shelter of some kind. A few ruined walls jutted out of the sand in the hollow below him. Just four corners, with nothing between them and no roof overhead. But it would be better than trying to sleep on top of a sand dune.
    He started down. Adras followed above and behind, muttering something to himself. Tal didn't even try to listen.
    Closer to the ruins, it became clear that the building had not been a normal house. There were too many stones lying around it, scattered through the sand. It must have been a fortification of some kind, Tal realized. Or else there were a lot of other foundations nearby buried under the sand.
    There was also something painted on one of the walls. A sign of some kind. Two rough circles, one inside the other. In the twilight it was hard to see what they were painted with, but Tal had a nasty suspicion it was blood.
    He had never seen the sign before and did not know what it meant.
    But Adras did. The Storm Shepherd stopped abruptly and rumbled, "Beware! This is Hazror's place."
    "What?" asked Tal. "This ruin?"
    "Yes," said a voice that was soft and strangely childlike. It issued out of the ground, seemingly from several places at once.
    The sand in front of Tal suddenly started to shift sideways, as if moved by a giant invisible hand. In a few seconds, it had cleared away to reveal stone steps going down. A long way down.
    "Come in," said the voice. It sounded strangely familiar to Tal, though not in a reassuring way. Like the voice of someone he knew, but disturbingly altered.
    He peered down at the newly revealed steps. The sand was being held back by walls of light, very similar to the ones that Ebbitt had used to hold back the water when he'd helped Tal escape from the Pit back in the Castle.
    Tal looked at the light walls very carefully, noting the flecks of color. It was mostly Yellow but occasionally Blue. Whoever was making these walls appear had a powerful Sunstone and was very good at using it.
    Better than Ebbitt, because there was no sand leaking through these walls.
    Hazror must be a Chosen.
    If the walls collapsed while Tal was down there, he would have no way out. Unless he could move the sand back himself.
    Tal considered that prospect. He thought he could build himself a tunnel of light through the sand. If he had to.
    He took a step forward, onto the steps.
    "Don't go!" Adras pleaded. He wrung his hands together and a couple of buckets of rain fell down, narrowly missing Tal. "Hazror will eat you. Then I will be eaten, too."
    "Don't be ridiculous," said Tal, though he said it with more confidence than he felt. He indicated the walls of light that lined the steps. "Hazror has to be a Chosen. We don't eat people. Besides, I don't have a choice. I
    have to find the Codex."
    He started down the steps. Then he looked back and said, "Stay there until I come back."
    He looked back again when he was halfway down, and saw the walls of light close in behind him. Sand poured back down.
    On the surface, there was no sign of the stairs or of Tal. There were only sand, ruins, and a cloud that spun around in a circle crying, "I told you not to go!"
     

 

     
     

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
     

    Odris was falling. Or she was until Milla swung up and fluttered her hand across Odris's armpit.
    "Ah!" screeched the Storm Shepherd. She suddenly climbed even higher than the stump tower ahead. "Stop! Eee! Ah! It tickles!"
    Milla didn't stop tickling. Odris shivered and shook from side to side but she also kept climbing. The Nanuch were left far below, jumping and clacking their beaks in disappointment.
    "Stop! Stop!" giggled Odris. "I can't stand it!"
    "I'll stop