The Narrow Way

In the morning, Polly hopped into the canyon and entered another climate entirely. The air inside was cool and blue with shadow, while beyond the entrance the desert was already shimmering with heat.

This canyon has a name: the Siq. In places it narrows to barely three metres, close enough that when Polly stretched her wings, her feather tips nearly brushed both walls at once.

She tipped her head back. Far overhead, the sky had been reduced to a thin blue ribbon, pinched between walls of dark red stone that leaned towards each other as they rose.

And then something odd caught her eye. Carved into the rock wall, running the length of the canyon like a ribbon chiselled from the stone itself, was a small channel. Long ago it had carried water, though it lay dry now. Polly resolved to follow it wherever it led.