Summoning of Laen

Personal letter from Flathac Anotor to an undisclosed recipient,  1301 Age of Knowledge.
Old Friend,
I feel I have to write to you about this, because I must tell someone.  Idikai knows I can't tell the Scribe Initiates, as that could be the end of me.  Likely I should not tell anyone of it, to be on the safe side, but I simply cannot keep it in.  Perhaps I should start at the beginning, lest you think me mad.
Nearly a month ago now, I stumbled upon something amazing.  I had been riding through the vast Burning Desert of Itenia.  A sandstorm had come up and I'd lost may way. I don't know how long it blew, or how my horse Damalius and I managed to survive.  Likely because the sand buried us, entombing and saving us at once.  I dug the two of us out of the sand, and we drank the small amount of water left in my canteen.  It was early evening, and as desert survival teaches, I travelled during the cool of the night, or tried to.  My compass was broken and filled with sand, so aside from the path of the sun, I had no way of knowing which direction I was travelling, let alone how to get to one of the few established oases.  Three days, my friend.  Damalius and I wandered for three days, without food or water, trying to find something, anything.  I remember thinking to myself that I would happily throw myself on the mercy of even a Laenite Temple if only I could find one.  The gods indeed have a sense of humor.  
By the third day, I was delirious.  Damalius plodded behind me, for I no longer dared tax him by riding.  I had fallen to my knees, and remember the feeling of each individual grain of sand burning across the backs of my hands.  Each breath hurt, burning through my dried body like fire.  When Damalius pushed into my back with his head, telling me to get up, it took me a few tries to make it to my feet.  He bumped me again, pushing me forward a few staggering steps, and I realized I could hear voices!  I tried to shout for help, to run to them, but my body did not have enough life left in it.  The world around me went black.
When I awoke, I was in a tent.  The walls were a dull orange, and seemed to glow with what I soon realized was the setting sun.  I could hear voices nearby, outside the tent, but could not make out what they were saying.  Near the cushions where I was laying there was a covered plate with some fruit and a jug of water.  After refreshing myself, I went out in search of Damalius, finding him in a corral with three other horses nearby.  He looked well cared for, if a bit underweight, and my joy knew no limits.  
Following the sounds of the voices, I found my way to a group of people near a fire, all masked and cloaked.  A woman, also wearing a mask, ran up to me from beyond the group before I could get close, and pulled me back to my tent, seeming distraught.  Her accent was thick, but I could make out some of the words she was saying, including danger, and hide.  I thanked her for rescuing me, and she told me that I must leave right away.  She made me understand that I had been rescued in order to be sacrificed to their god, as they did with lost travelers, during the Night of Dark celebrations.  My blood went cold despite the desert heat when I heard that, realizing that I had indeed been given to the mercy of a Laenite Temple.  The woman, whose name I never did learn, had been preparing for me to wake up.  She gave me a pack with several canteens of water and some food, a map to the other oases, and some of the special grains they give their own horses to make their water last longer.  She then sent me out of the tent by way of a back entrance, and brought Damalius to me, urging me to ride away as silent and fast as I could.  
Of course I started away, but then I simply could not go far.  My curiosity got the better of me--for who has been fortunate enough to see a Summoning Ceremony on the Night of Dark?  How could I pass up the opportunity of a lifetime?  Telling Damalius to stay there, I crept back up the ridge overlooking the camp, dropping to my stomach so I might observe without being seen. 
The group of men had begun dancing, the flames of the fire reflecting grotesquely from their masks.  The masks themselves were terrifying artworks, between two and four feet high, each a grinning, leering aspect of Laen himself.  Their bodies moved in jerks and contortions that do not seem possible for a human, and the wailing songs the women sang added to the surreal aura.  Suddenly, the leader of the dancers stopped, his arms thrown up and chest heaving from the exertion.  As I watched, he began to grow.  I know this sounds improbably, but I swear to you I saw it with my own eyes, and had been drinking nothing but water.  He grew nearly three times the size of the other dancers, and the mask began to look less and less masklike, more akin to the terrifiying features of Laen himself.  He spoke in a booming voice that rang clearly across the desert, though I could not understand his words.  His head raised then, and somehow his eyes met mine where I was hidden at the top of the dune.  Lifting his arm, he pointed at me and said something else, his voice making tiny grains of sand shiver down from the top of the dune toward the other dancers.  They in turn whirled to look up at me, and gave chase.  
No longer hesitating, I ran back down the dune to where I'd left Damalius.  Knowing as he often does that danger was coming for us, he began running before I was even fully in the saddle, and we went from there as fast as he could go, myself leaned low over his neck and urging him with everything I had.  Even after the sounds of pursuit faded, we continued to run, making it to the next oasis just as dawn was breaking.  I can only thank Idikai herself that their pursuit did not continue during the daylight hours, or I would likely not be here to write you this letter now.  
It took us more than two weeks to travel out of the desert, but I have finally made it to the small town of Azresh, on what is considered to be the Edge of the Desert.  I will never know why the woman decided to save me, or what became of her for that help, and I fear that will haunt me for years.  However, I be grateful for the remainder of my life that she did, so that I can write to you from this room, with the window overlooking just the edge of that vast, mysterious desert.  
I remain your friend, Flathac