Dante Gabriel Rossetti Venus Verticordia

The sun rose and, because this wasn't the Old Kingdom out here, it was a mere ball of flaming gas. The purple night of the high desert evaporated under its blowlamp glare. Lizards scuffled into cracks in the rocks. You Bastard struck like a hammer, but he strode out over the rocks as though three hundred square miles could perhaps have been hiding under a pebble or behind a bush.
The fact was that the track dipped between the cliffs, but almost immediately rose again and continued across the dunes into what was quite clearly Tsort. He'd recognised a wind-eroded sphinx that had been set up as a boundary marker; legend said it prowled the borders in times of dire national need, although legend wasn't sure why.settled himself down in the sparse shadow of what was left of the syphacia bushes, peered haughtily at the landscape, and began to chew cud and calculate square roots in base seven. Teppic and Ptraci eventually found the shade of a limestone overhang, and sat glumly staring out at the waves of heat wobbling off the rocks. 'I don't understand,' said Ptraci. 'Have you looked everywhere?' 'It's a country! It can't just bloody well fall through a hole in the ground!' 'Where is it, then?' said Ptraci evenly. Teppic growled. The heat