Hibour

	Boundless desolation loomed beneath Nalina. The near-perfect flatness of the desert was an uncanny sight. It was though an endlessly flat parchment stretched out in all directions, cream of color and devoid of all but the most subtle texture. The wind whistled and her ears popped as she descended. Her arms ached as she pulled against the straps of her parachute harness. 
	There was a palpable eeriness to this place. Beyond the gentle wind, there wasn’t a sound. There was no sight to be seen. No distant mountains penetrated the otherwise featureless horizon. No smells greeted her in the breeze. There were few microbes out here, nothing to introduce organic processes that might create recognizable scents. There was no active geology out here to paint the air with sulfurs or mineralogy. It couldn't be called dead. As far as she or anyone else had ever known, this place had never lived.
	This was inert land. The empty desert. The wind-wastes of Calphis. How many songs of dead airmen, lost explorers and missing lovers had described this place? How many legends and myths warned of these ancient lands? Thousands upon thousands of kilometers of windblasted nothingness had claimed countless human lives over the centuries. It was, in perhaps the most literal sense, unearthly.
	Now the shadow of her parachute cascaded over that barren surface. As it drew nearer, imperfections became visible at last. Tiny shadows of fist sized rocks and uneven grit added the first touch of character to the desert. As ground rush filled her peripheral view, she could see windswept ripples in the dust, untouched by life. Again she hauled on her harness, tipping the parachute, slowing as best she could. Her feet appeared to hang over that landscape as it rose to meet her.
	Her boots crunched against that cold, dusty surface. She tumbled and caught the dirt with her side as her parachute collapsed. She grunted and struggled to right herself, doing her best to control the canopy as it pulled her along. Fighting admirably, she still scraped herself up before fully containing her lines and removing her harness. With some effort she managed to get the whole, dusty mess collected and folded in a pile. The landing could not have taken more than thirty seconds, yet here she was, a mess of dust and grit. Tossed with fine particulates, she coughed once, then rubbed her eyes. There was a fresh rip in her fatigues. There was dust in her boots, her hair, her mouth and ears. For a moment all she could do was kneel there and catch her breath as silence descended upon her.
	Finally, for the first time, she looked up. The sky was empty, devoid of all but a few distant clouds. She couldn’t recall ever seeing such an empty place. No airships, no airplanes, no birds, no pteros, nothing. The warm hues of tauset were fading into the blues and violets of night. The last vestige of light shone to the west. Tau Ceti was little more than a bright red spot on the horizon, diminishing rapidly. Kalpe, the mother moon, was rising in the East. She was completely full tonight, as if a bright omen sent to convey her final chapter.
	She was going to die out here. 
	The nearest human settlement was, at best, hundreds of kilometers away. She couldn’t actually recall her precise location. Until now, her mind had been a flurry of action and fear. But now the cold reality of her situation set upon her. The winds here could chew flesh raw. The storms in this part of the world could carry people away. The taulight could burn skin red. The brightness of the dust could cause blindness. But worst of all, by far, was the complete and total lack of food and the inconsistency of drinkable water. These barrens were the last vestige of the true Calphis… a lifeless, cold, dusty planet.
	Nalina watched the last sliver of taulight vanish beneath the horizon. A fresh breeze caught her charcoal hair. Ever in flux, the winds responded to tauset and the sudden lack of stellar radiation. Even as darkness descended, she could hear the sand hissing across the landscape, stirred by the nightly breeze..
 	A tiny glint shone in the sky, catching the rays of Tau Ceti. The flare of reflective light was known to her. She had sighted it a thousand times before. This was the Bellepaust, high in orbit. As constant and predictable as any moon, to her it was associated only with painful memories. But at this moment, at the end of the world… It was an almost welcomed sight, a casual reminder of what once was. It was quite literally the light in her darkness.

“Grace of the Gathway, Taulight be true, one more pull for the windward, boys, let us be through…” she whispered to herself.