Mara and Dann

by Doris Lessing

Mara and Dann's journey begins when they are young children interrogated by "the bad man" and swiftly whisked away by rescuers from the only home they ever knew into the drought-ridden perils of Ifrik. Told to forget their real names forever or be killed, the brother and sister live for years among the primitive Rock People, taken in by one of their own kind but always outcasts. As the drought worsens, Dann takes off with some refugees going North where it is believed everything is better. For years Mara survives in the Rock Village visiting ruins telling of a people so much more technologically advanced and learning from her protector what little she can. When the village is down to just Mara and her dying protector, Dann returns older, more experienced, but darker and haunted. He saves Mara from starvation but the journey North is fraught with perils; giant man-eating lizards and spiders, travelers desperate enough to kill, and always thirst. Yet there are machines that can fly, or s