One becomes imprisoned in the book, its sorrowing tone is hard to bear. In Rock Village, where the story opens, everyone is dying of thirst. Mara and Dann have a bad time of it, with starvation and drought and heat enclosing them. Desperate are their many journeys. Some journeys entail decrepit and ingenious forms of transport, relics of a better organised world.
Dust almost chokes a reader's throat.
People die slowly, including Daima, protector of Mara and Dann. The Mahondi tribe, to which the young couple belong, are failing to reproduce. Late in the book, they discover they are of royal blood. Their true names bring no revelation. They have become their assumed names, Mara and Dann.