Nat stared out in terrified wonderment over the mile upon mile of dunes rolling before them. ‘I think I’ve changed my mind.’

  Michael glassed the way ahead with the witch’s stone held up to his right eye. ‘Don’t look behind you then,’ he said.

  Nat half-turned. ‘I’ve definitely changed my mind. Is that an oil tanker?’

  ‘Russian nuclear sub,’ Michael said, lowering the stone, not needing to take in the endless expanse of sand behind them. He’d seen it before and remembered the lessons of his father and the Tunstall’s from his sixteenth summer, which covered legend lore as well as the hardiness afforded by physical labour. It was the strangest thing. Cogs had clicked into place. For perhaps the first time ever he had a clear purpose in life and a place in the chaos of the world, instead of responding to the whims of a rich kid with no responsibilities. He’d had all the luck in the world, and it translated into little else but money and nothing of real value. It was also a bitter irony that this newly realised purpose would end in his death. Was it another part of the magic that made that responsibility not so hard to take and see it as the lesser of two evils? Or was it merely what it meant to be a father? Either way, it didn’t matter. They had to find the kids.

  ‘Right, of course,’ Nat said. ‘Makes total sense. I hope that’s not what you need me for? Because you never said I should bring my nuclear reactor manual and pocket Russian dictionary.’

  Michael cocked his head thoughtfully. ‘We’ve never thought of using the reactor. It wasn’t there in my grandfather’s time. Do you think we could nuke a god?’

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  ‘Yeah, we’d nuke ourselves too. Good idea though. We’ll keep it as a last resort.’ Michael slapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘He’s joking, right?’ Nat said to Toby.

  Toby tugged down the neckerchief from his mouth. The storm wasn’t the same in the dunes. No clouds of choking sand, just the biggest, angriest thunderheads any of them, except Michael, had ever seen. A floating black and brown mountain range, smouldering with electricity. ‘What’s the plan, Mikey?’

  ‘Sugnar is due North and heading away. But she’ll know I’m here. We’ve got to find the kids. The sea is that way, due East. I assume Tink knows enough about the legend to realise that’s their only way out.’

  Toby nodded curtly. ‘Aye, and she’s as sharp as flint.’

  ‘They don’t have many choices for cover. There’s the galleon—’

  ‘Galleon?’ Nat said.

  ‘—the stone tree, or the buried city.’ Michael pointed to each, though the city was nothing more than the top of few tumble-down minarets, poking above the sand a long way off. The tree was North-East, the galleon South-East, and the city roughly East by Southeast. ‘I’d rule out the city because Tink’s not likely to know about that, and it’s hard to spot if you don’t know it’s there.’ He checked with Toby for confirmation, and the farmer shook his head. ‘Then they’d have to pick between what they could see and whatever was closest.’

  Nat inspected the ground for footprints. ‘How do we know which was closest for them? Doesn’t look like they appeared in the dunes at the same spot.’

  Toby looked down too, but Michael didn’t because he’d already noted their absence and drawn conclusions.

  ‘I think they’re in the tree.’

  ‘Why?’ Toby asked.

  ‘Because if they picked the galleon, Sugnar would smash it like a bird’s nest.’

  ‘It’s a big boat,’ Nat said.

  ‘She’s a big snake.’

  ‘What are we waiting for?’ Toby said, wringing the shotgun in his fists. He carried a canvas bag on his back containing car batteries, spare parts, and tools; a water bladder hung around his neck.

  Michael wore a holdall slung across his back, a bladder over his shoulder, and carried the axe in his hands. After another peek through the witch’s stone, he said, ‘Nothing. We head straight and fast. Sugnar is turning but she’s a long way off. We’ve time.’ He said this for their benefit, because there was another option, one that didn’t need to be given voice. The kids were already dead. They didn’t make it to cover before Sugnar found them. Michael kept the thought to himself. At least, the ground wasn’t shaking here. Yet.

  They moved at a steady clip up and down steep inclines, the soft ground sapping energy with every sliding step. Their loads slapped on their backs, and the toolkit rattled in Nat’s hand. Michael led the way, moving desert-style, knees low, feet skimming across the top of the sand to conserve his strength. Downhill was about using a controlled fall, letting gravity do the work to save energy for the impeding climb up the next dune. As he gave over to the rhythm and pain, a comforting memory bubbled up of watching David Lynch’s Dune with his father; his dad had waxed on about how much Lynch had to cut. He lamented the lost footage, but part of him relished the Hollywood legend it had become. And they were a family that had to appreciate legends because some of them were true, even though they wished they weren’t. His father also said the author of the novel, Frank Herbert, was something of a survival expert and used that knowledge to build the culture of the Fremen. This, Michael knew now, was all preparation for their own trial in the desert.

  Ten minutes later, at the bottom of a dune, Michael stopped. Toby and Nat were panting and dripping with sweat.

  ‘Tracks,’ Michael said, pointing at the two sets of footprints. ‘The kids.’

  The tracks cut across their own, confirming Sam and Tink had made it this far and they were indeed heading for the tree.

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  Toby and Nat came to a stop and doubled over. ‘Great,’ Nat panted. ‘How much farther?’

  ‘To the tree, about another half-mile. But we’re not going there first.’

  Toby was beet-red and gasping. ‘Why not?’ There was indignation behind the wheezed question.

  ‘If they are there, they’re safe, and they are also trapped. There is nothing there except a place to get water and shelter. Not bad things but neither are a way out.’

  The mention of water reminded Nat they had their own; he tapped the bladder Michael was carrying. Michael unscrewed the water bladder and handed it over for Nat to drink greedily.

  ‘So?’ Toby fumbled for his own water.

  ‘So, we can’t all get trapped. There’s also more than two of us and no one has trained for this.’

  ‘You’re not wrong there.’ Nat tipped water over his face.

  Michael went on. ‘We need a ride, and that’s where you come in.’ He directed this at Nat.

  Toby was clearly reluctant to head away from the kids’ tracks, but he did. Perhaps this was the legend at work, bringing them all into line. It could just as easily be the pragmatics of the situation. They had a common objective, and Michael was the only member of their little team with direct experience of their hostile environment.

  It wasn’t as far to their destination as it was to the stone tree. At the crest of he second dune they’d see it. Michael waited for them at the top. He’d already spied it via the witch’s stone and was relieved it hadn’t been covered by drifts. Toby and Nat slogged to the brow of the dune, stopping as suddenly as they saw it.

  ‘Is that what I think it is?’ Nat asked.

  Michael moved off downhill. ‘What do you think it is?’

  Nat followed, toolbox rattling. ‘It looks like a World War II camp. In fact, it looks familiar.’

  ‘It should,’ Toby said, bringing up the rear out of breath.

  ‘It’s from your dad’s movie, isn’t it?’ Nat said.

  Michael had reached the bottom of the dune and the edge of the camp. The sky gave a long and throaty rumble. ‘It was the inspiration for it.’ With a turn of his neck, he threw the comment over his shoulder. The action made something register in the corner of his eye. More tracks. A cold fear pooled in his belly and a barb seem to tug at the heart in his chest. He squatted to inspect them.

  ‘What is it?’ Nat said.

  ‘Sam, he was here.’ Michael saw his son’s footprints all over the camp. Clever boy. How had he found the place? Accident maybe. It was nestled out of sight in a gulley between high mounds. It looked as though Sam had scavenged the remains. Michael marked the tracks.

  Catching up, Toby panted, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Tracks,’ Nat said.

  ‘Tink’s?’

  Michael kept his head down, tracing his son’s route. ‘I don’t think so. By the size of the feet, I’d say there were Sam’s, and it looks like there was only one of them.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Toby’s concern was apparent.

  ‘I could be wrong. I’m not a tracker. But I think whomever it was came in from that direction.’ Michael pointed up a dune. ‘That’s the direction of the stone tree.’ He turned to face his friend. ‘I’d say that’s good. They didn’t risk them both coming. Sam probably came and it looks like he headed back out that same way.’

  Toby had the appearance of a man who wanted to believe but wasn’t all in. ‘Why’d he come?’

  ‘Same reason we’re here: for weapons and a ride. He couldn’t have got any of the vehicles going. I’ll need to check, but I’m pretty sure he scavenged a few guns. We need to do the same. Nat, time to work your magic.’ Michael pointed at a British Army jeep with a machine gun mounted in its flatbed.

  While Nat got to work, with Toby as his helper, Michael followed Sam’s trail. Coming out of the gulley, the stone tree lay like the carcass of a slain giant left out on a burial mound for the vultures to strip its bones. The towering citadels of storm clouds convulsed with electricity and their foundations rumbled, as if they teetered on the brink of tumbling down. A salt tang on the air.

  Michael walked in his son’s footsteps. There were too many steps for it to be one track, and Michael wondered if Tink had come too and waited at the top of the dune. He thought not. There would have been a patchwork of steps. She wouldn’t have remained motionless. Instead, what tallied with the tracks in the camp was that Sam came in and left by the same route. That would explain why there was a set of tracks coming and second set going, overlayed on top of one another.

  At the bottom of the dune, Michael pulled out his witch’s stone and glassed the tree, hoping to see signs of them. The stone didn’t add magnification, as such. Rather, it emphasised things. Things with stronger magical connections. Knots of moon-thread. Humans entangled with it and the very stars themselves. It wreathed the things brought or drawn to this hinterland, like the tree, the sunken city, the galleon and Russian sub, and of course the World War II camp. Michael saw it around his own his body, threads cast far and wide, including back to his oldest friends, and more that played out in all directions, disappearing as if photons left hairsbreadth contrails dissolving into infinity. From that barb in his heart led one more, pulling hard, stretching out taut. Too fine to see for sure, it shot out ahead of him. Sam, he thought. He tracked its progress, expecting it to point to the stone tree, but it didn’t. The thread headed in that direction but before it reached the tree it dove into the sand, and as he studied it, it was moving, tracking slowly in a northerly direction. Perhaps it wasn’t Sam at all... There were so many connections, too many to count. His vision of them was overwhelming and brought him to his knees as he had been in the woods.

  Drenched in sweat, he put down the axe and took another drink. Last time he was here with his father, they had used the same idea of starting one of the vehicles in the camp. They’d got a motor bike going and ridden off over the dunes. It was like the end of his father’s movie, where the British and German soldiers laid down their lives so the youngest among them, a British Private, could make his escape. It explained so much, like why on a date with Tara he’d wept like a child on her sofa at the end of Saving Private Ryan, one of the many movies she owned on DVD. All he could think of was how it reminded him of his father’s movie, a man he thought he hated for committing suicide. She’d not only known about Across the Dunes; it was her favourite movie. But she played it cool, realising Michael had a complicated relationship with the man who made it. They’d talked late into the night, until their fingers shyly found each other, then their lips, and finally their bodies. Was that when they fell in love? It was hard not to believe that Tara was brought into his life for one reason. After Sally, who until today he’d forgotten, Tara had been his first adult love and first heartbreak. Was any of that passion to do with Tara and him? Or were they nothing more than puppets on moonthread? Did it make any difference? You could go mad trying to decide. Instead, he turned his mind back to the tracks in the sand, tracing them until they came to a stop.

  Both sets ended abruptly. The sand smoothed out in a broad depression, sort of a shallow crater, the width of a football field or more. Quicksand? He ventured forward carefully, heart dropping at the possibility. It would probably be a better idea to circumnavigate the crater, but his feet didn’t sink as he trekked down it. At the other side, right at the rim of the circle, the tracks picked up again. It was a puzzle. He didn’t think the kids were in the tree, which was a problem, and their missing tracks couldn’t be an effect of the wind. He looked straight up into the black cauldron of a sky. It flashed and guttered with the sparks of dark magic. Then he crouched and placed a hand on the sand, thinking. The size of the crater, that was the thing. It was familiar. He knew this.

  Jonathan Lorimer, a little older than Michael, laughter lines around his eyes, a dimple in is chin, showed Michael a silver dollar. One by one, his fingers closed over the coin and his hand turned over. He blew on it and unfurled his fingers before Michael’s face, and in wonderment, Michael gawped at the empty hand. As if he had a nose so itchy it tickled his brain, his father feigned a sneeze. Achoo! The coin sneezed out of his nose and into his other hand. Michael clapped and laughed.

  Years later, he knew all his father did was palm the coin. There was no magic. His father was nothing more than a charlatan who chickened out of life. Except none of that was true. There was magic. They were in the dunes.

  Under Michael’s fingertips, the grains of sand began to dance. A vibration, like someone plucking on a string. One final thing Michael hadn’t remembered—buried under everything else in service to the legend—came back to him: the sea in sight, but a tsunami wave of sand ploughed through the desert towards them, getting closer and closer, as they raced through the sand on a motorbike. They weren’t going to make it, and Jonathan Lorimer, who was riding shotgun on the back of the bike, kissed his son on the cheek and shouted into his ear. ‘Whatever you do, you don’t stop, not for anything.’ The bike grew instantly lighter, there was a lurch of speed they desperately needed. Michael whooped with triumph. The sea shore was right there. He punched the air, and noticed his dad’s arms were no longer around his waist. He slowed the bike on the crest of the final dune, amid the mohawks of marram grass and tuffs of sand sedge.

  ‘Dad!’ he cried through tears.

  Jonathan Lorimer stood, arms outstretched, before the wave of sand, like a daub of red paint on the abstract oil painting he’d made as an art student. The wave broke in an explosion of dust and the horned head of Sugnar roared into the air. She reared up and up, a pallid and rotting tower blocking out the sky, until she came plunging down.

  As Michael remembered the past, grains of sand danced around Michael’s fingertips. A terrible realisation dawned. The depression. Sugnar. Oh no! Sam and Tink.

  There came the crunch of an old gear-box coaxed back to life and the smokers cough of an equally old engine. Nat and Toby raced over the crest of the dune out of the army camp. Black smoke choked out behind them. They caught some air and the jeep rocked on its creaking suspension. The back end fishtailed but Toby caught the slide and corrected, beelining for Michael.

  Quickly, Michael turned from them, wiping the tears from his eyes. How was he going to explain this to Toby? It wasn’t right. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. Nothing was going the way it was supposed to, and Sugnar… she was coming for them too.