Small grains of sand spilled out of the darkness and there was a bright, blinding light. Then there was a grinding sound, and the one who had no name yet saw tentacles raking the sand over his face. He wiggled his arms – they barely budged. His legs didn't move.
While Raud was digging him out, the animated one came to his senses and, when his limbs were finally free, he managed to scramble to the surface himself, ending up on top of the dune. Both suns had already crossed the zenith, but the sunset was still quite a long time away. Behind him in the distance were the cliffs where the quarry had begun, and the City loomed as a dark mass. He had never seen it from a distance before, and it was a grand impression. A gigantic peak in the middle of the desert that surrounded it from all sides to the horizon. Only in the distance, to the south, could he see the mountain ranges.
The one who had no name yet lowered his gaze to the octopus, and something twitched unusually in his chest. The octopus was almost all dried out and looked extremely emaciated, the sand glistening on his body, which had taken on a sickly purple hue. He struggled to hover and, flicking his tentacles, crawled slowly under the awning he had constructed on the less sunny side of the dune from a piece of rag and a rudder. The doll came down after him and crouched beside him as he finally crawled into the shade and collapsed.
"It's your turn, Pinocchio," he gurgled and pointed a tentacle at a hand sticking out of the sand.
"You hit the right shoulder if to the right, the left shoulder if to the left," the doll replied affirmatively and headed for the hand.
When the one who had no name yet finally dug out the big guy, the sun heated his metal parts so that if he touched them with the wooden part of his hand, it would darken. He accidentally burned Snorri's ear, and the man, twisted and screamed with a muffled, coughing shriek, threw the doll several yards away.
"Why didn't you put the building down?" there was a rattling sound from a nearby dune.
"Moons down your throat! Argh!" the big guy growled. "You burned my hand! Shmaramatru khapanat!"
Continuing to swear, he tried to get up, but fell to one knee and spat out another burst of swearing. Coughing up sand and catching his breath, he looked around the desert hopelessly, threw his head skyward, and spat bitterly.
"Damn and blast it," he wheezed sadly, and turned his head toward the awning where the doll had already come and sat down.
The big guy stood up, limping heavily, walked over and sat down next to it, peeking under the awning.
"Are you all right?" he asked the octopus hoarsely.
Raud, unable to answer, waved his tentacle in the air. Snorri spat again and sighed heavily.
"Where's the bike?" he asked.
The octopus raised his tentacle and pointed south. There was another dune towering there. Growling and cursing all the moons, the big guy got up and wandered in that direction. Halfway to the dune, he stopped and turned around and shouted to the doll:
"Why are you sitting there? Hurry up!"
The doll got up unsteadily and wandered after the big guy.
The aircycle was indeed on the other side of the dune. It was sticking out of the sand with its only remaining engine, so burning hot that a haze was arising from it. Snorri drove down the dune toward it, knelt down and began shoveling the sand off with his hands without ceasing to swear. The doll came over and sat down next to him.
"What are you sitting down for?" Snorri asked menacingly. "Help me!"
The doll looked at him attentively.
"Familiar with the monkey," it said.
"Yes, yes, you got that right."
"Why monkey bike," the doll struggled to find the words.
"What do you mean, why? Trepanak saran. Dig it up, I say!" the big guy boomed.
But the doll shook its head, got up, and went on down to another dune.
"Hey, where do you think you're going? Stop, you bloody log," Snorri was indignant, but then he noticed the sash of the leather bag in the sand.
The doll went to the sash, took the bag out of the sand, slung it over its shoulder, and came back to the man. The big guy got down on one knee, immediately removed the bag from the doll and hung it on himself, adding another burn to his finger in the process.
"Sarashkaramat natarakanta. The red moon to accompany your entire family to the tenth tribe!" he hissed and crawled upward.
By the time the doll reached the top of the dune, Snorri had already placed the rag-wrapped octopus on his shoulder and was heading south.
"Stop, you bloody log," the doll rattled.
Snorri looked at it with the most withering glance in his arsenal, ready to compete with the devouring light of both suns, but then just turned his head and continued on his way. The doll didn't take long to get off the dune and followed the man.
The suns burned mercilessly, and soon the big guy took off his jacket and was left in just a shirt and pants, and his head turned red; he even had to tear off the lining of his jacket and tie it over his head. He was silent most of the way, only occasionally spewing another swear word. The one who had no name yet followed him in utter confusion. In the past few days, he had undergone a dramatic change. He felt as if he'd awakened from the long sleep he'd been in all his life. The heavy slumber was gone, and his heat-cracked painted eyes saw for the first time the world around him, full of events for which there were still not enough words in his head.
But what he saw was not as grandiose as what he felt inside. He felt his body for the first time: the way the wood on his wrists dried, the way the hinges in his knees went wild, and the way something in his chest breathed, filling his whole being with life. It was as if he had floated above the water, seeing the world outside the aquarium for the first time, where he had been for ages. The elation changed to vague anxiety, the anxiety changed back to elation, turning to confusion. And unable to express it even to himself, he just kept feeling it all.
Memories of his old life now loomed somewhere on the edge of his new consciousness, of which he distinctly remembered only the old man's face and the clockwork, somehow inextricably linked to each other. But other images also came, unidentifiable. They were imprinted with great grief, sympathy, empathy – though these words were still absent from his mind, something was beginning to come together. Some shape was forming, and then it couldn't withstand the pressure and broke apart, shattering again and again against the indescribable newness of what was happening.
As they descended another dune, they found themselves in absolute silence. The fact that the desert had been full of sounds of life before became clear only at the moment when everything around them fell into a vacuum of silence. The one who had no name turned around and bumped into the foot of the man who had stopped and was gazing into the sky.
"Doesn't look good," sniffed the octopus, who was also looking up at the sky from the man's shoulder.
The animated one lifted his head and saw that the sky was obscured by a murky haze. The big guy began to look around, and he also stopped his gaze on the cloud that covered the western horizon. As the one who had no name yet could tell, the cloud was closing in fast. The big guy jerked back, but then grabbed the octopus, placed it under his jacket, ran to the top of the dune, and sat down with his arms around his head. The doll followed him, looking perplexed at the surface of his leather jacket, with which he covered his head, and touched his shoulder. But the man only twitched awkwardly and ducked deeper into the sand. The doll turned toward the cloud just as a strong wind blew and a flurry of sand swept in. The one who had no name yet could no longer see the man or anything around him. It went on like that for quite a long time, and the animated one lost his sense of space and time. When he tried to take a step, he almost fell and never tried again.
The storm subsided only when the elder star finally began to decline toward sunset, and it became cooler. The exhausted big guy stood up, but immediately collapsed on the shady side of the dune, instantly snoring. The doll dug itself out of the sand and sat on top of the dune. As it looked to the horizon, it measured the distance with a glance. The City was a little smaller, and the mountain range to the south was a little closer, and if it had been their goal, they would have walked at this rate for a long time. This understanding came without words, and without words it disappeared. A lizard with a high crest on its head ran up to the dune. It looked into the doll's eyes, scrutinized it, tilted its head and stuck out its tongue.
"Are you all right?" asked the one who had no name yet.
The lizard flinched, but then nodded softly and ran down on its way. The doll watched it disappear and lay on the back. Directly above it was the seventh moon, which looked like a blue puff pastry, riddled with mosquito bites. And a little farther, there was the fifth, a soft pink one. The one who had no name yet smiled inwardly and felt a pleasant tingling sensation run through his body to his fingertips. It was as if a small vacuum cleaner had turned on in his chest – an emptiness came, into which he wanted to place all this beauty.
The seventh and fifth had already been replaced by the third and ninth, which looked like coins with incomprehensible profiles, and the doll was still lying on the dune, gradually cooling down. There were curses from below. The doll turned its head and saw that the big guy was finally awake, wiping his eyes with the back of his hands. Then he stood up staggering, picked up the octopus, and continued on his way with a rapid pace. The jacket tied around his waist fell off, but he paid no attention to it. The one who had no name yet came down from the dune, picked it up, and carried it on his shoulder. The doll was very interested in the man. He was unusual. He reeked of something heavy, yet reverent at the same time. Again, it wasn't words; understanding rose from somewhere deep within and drew him after this man who had become his unintentional companion.
When the second sun went down, it began to get cold very quickly. Snorri slapped himself on the thigh in search of the jacket and stopped. When he turned around, he saw the doll. It was holding the jacket in its hand. He hesitated, then carefully removed the octopus, put the jacket on, and placed the octopus back on. Without saying anything, he continued on his way. The sky was clear: the moons fully illuminated it, and numerous dots of stars covered the firmament. The cold wind, which periodically overtook the travelers, made the man wrap himself in the thin leathers where he hid the octopus. The mountains ahead, shining in the cold moonlight, did not seem to want to get any closer. Soon the big guy's legs began to stumble, and he fell several times, but then he got up and continued on his way.
The desert was filled with thin, withered trees, giant boulders of unknown origin, and the occasional wreckage of ships that had apparently crashed in time immemorial. They emerged like ghosts, looming over the travelers from the darkness as if it were not them walking but the ships still floating, even after their demise, unwilling to give up their past.
Sometimes the man stopped near such wreckage and tried to look for water, but immediately stopped when he found traces of long ago plunder. Only once were they lucky enough to find a half-empty flask buried under an eye-shaped rock, and the man gave it to the barely breathing octopus.
As the sky to the south touched the first notes of dawn, the man became delirious. He walked, stumbling and cursing.
"You! Shamaha on you! This is all your fault! Sarashk! You punk! Coward! You made..." Snorri shouted in a hoarse voice, staggering from side to side.
"I! I do everything! Everything! You hear me! You coward! Brashurtamartampa! I hate you," he shouted, and fell down from the dune, waving his arms.
The octopus fell out and rolled after him until they both collided at the bottom, frozen like dancers who had finished their performance. The doll came down after them, picked up the octopus, and tied a rag around its neck so that its tentacles encircled its shoulders, and walked toward the man. Grabbing the edge of his jacket, he pulled, then again and again, and only with all his effort was he finally able to move the body from its place. With great difficulty, he dragged the man to the next dune, and took a breath. The hinges hummed and threatened to be ripped out of the wood, but they still held. The doll shoved the big guy down the dune, and he rolled with ease, quickly ending up in the gorge. Then there was another agonizing climb, and another quick descent, and another climb, and another descent.
The mountains were very close when the first sun reached its zenith, the second time since the doll had started dragging the man and the octopus. The wood on the doll's arms was cracking, and the knee joints were creaking without lubrication. The big guy kept moaning and asking for water. Raud, on the other hand, had not shown any sign of life since last night. The dunes ended, and the doll was already dragging the man with his back to the front. The City was visible in the distance, but it was already like a mirage, lost in a lingering haze.
The doll looked around and saw behind it ledges of rock and blocks sticking out of it in places. The mountains were still a decent distance away, but the desert was beginning to recede. Dragging along the rocks became easier, but soon the man became completely silent, stopped even asking for water, and the doll felt an anxious shimmering of strings in its chest. It dragged Snorri to one of the stone ledges, laid him down in the shade, and, fixing the octopus on its back, ran further to the stones, grabbing all the rags from the big guy.
The doll didn't know what it was looking for, only the vibration in its chest guided it between the rocky ledges. And even if it did, it could not explain it to itself. But soon the doll smelled freshness in its face and ran out to a large puddle formed by a stream flowing down from the mountains. It took the octopus off its back, carefully put him in the water, soaked the rags, and ran back to Snorri.
The one who had no name yet was watching all these actions from the sidelines, having no idea what made him do exactly that. But something inside his being was absolutely certain that this was the right thing to do. And he did not argue. Could he argue at all?
The doll ran up to the man lying in the shadow of the stone ledge, put his head horizontally, opened his mouth, and brought a rag to him, slowly squeezing it out so that drops of water flowed into his mouth. One rag, then another, and then the big guy swallowed hard. The third rag, and he opened his eyes. Still half-awake, he tried to get up, but couldn't. The doll got up, helped him up and leaned his back against a rock.
"Where?" he whispered.
The doll pointed its hand toward the mountains. The big guy twitched to get up, and the doll had to help him again. Leaning on it, he made his way to the puddle where the octopus was swimming, and crouched in the stream. The octopus had already come to his senses and swam up to Snorri's face, who was greedily gulping water. He lifted his tentacle and swung it across the man's face.
"You mustn't," Raud said with difficulty.
Snorri continued to drink greedily, but then he found the strength to pull away from the water and fall back onto the rocks, panting heavily.
The shadow of the nearest stone moved slowly, gradually covering the travelers. The octopus was still floating in the puddle, and the man was lying there with his arms outstretched. Both were sound asleep. The doll sat beneath the stone and watched as the shadows closed and opened the sleeping ones with their petals, and they unconsciously crawled back into the coolness from the scorching corridors of light.