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thrust his hands into the ground, digging through the sand and grabbing the form he felt beneath. With a heave of his weakened arms, he pulled a thick vine from the sand. It was wider than a man’s arm, a dull brown in color. He could only lift it about a foot out of the sand—both of its ends continued on beneath the surface. What he had pulled free was part of a much, much larger network. “Knife,” he requested, noting the exhaustion in his voice. He could hardly believe how difficult such simple actions seemed. Baon produced a knife from a sheath at his calf—a well-crafted blade obviously intended for use as a weapon. Kenton sawed at the vine, slicing through its skin at an angle. “Good,” he said, handing back the knife. “Now, go get something to store this in.” With that, he pulled the two parts of the vine apart, and water began to seep from the hundreds of tiny tubes that ran inside its center. “Shella!” the girl breathed as Kenton refilled Baon’s water container. The warrior ducked into a tent and returned with several of the water barrels from inside. It took Kenton a few moments to fill all three. Then he pushed the two halves of the vine together, pressing firmly to help them reseal. A second later it was done, and as he let the vine drop to the sand, its cilia quickly wiggled it beneath the surface. “I don’t understand,” the girl objected, standing with her hands on her hips as she regarded the patch of sand—turned to black from the spill of water—where the vine had vanished. “Why would they carry water like that?” “Does it mater?” Baon asked, lifting a ladle to his lips and tasting the water. “Yes,” the girl said mater-of-factly. “It does.” “It’s for protection,” Kenton explained. “Most…” What was a word for sandling in Dynastic? “Most sand-creatures have hard shells that dissolve when they touch water. The dorim vines keep the water as a defensive mechanism—if sand-creatures try to eat it, their mouths melt.” “But, where does the water come from?” she continued. “I don’t know,” Kenton confessed. “It must be the water table, My Lady,” the older darksider guessed. “Somewhere beneath all this sand, there must be a place where water collects.” Kenton frowned. He’d called her ‘My Lady.’ He remembered something from what he mother had said about Darkside. “My Lady?” he asked. “Are you a…” he searched for the word, and found he only knew it in Lossandin. “A Kelzi?” “A what?” the girl asked with a frown. “A Kelzi,” Kenton repeated, trying to mimic the way his mother had always pronounced the word. “Oh, a Kelzi,” the girl said. “A… Land-holder. I suppose you could call me that, though it isn’t quite right.” “A Kli then?” Kenton asked, changing to a Kershtian word for nobleman. “One whose title passes from parents to child?” “Yes,” the girl said with a nod. “That’s it.” “Ah,” Kenton said with a nod, motioning for Baon to help him
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regain his feet. “You must be very religious, then.” “Religious?” the girl asked with confusion. “Well, I suppose, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything.” Kenton frowned. A Kli that wasn’t religious? But, it was the Kershtian Theocracy that granted the title. This woman was odd—he spoke the words in her own language, but she still didn’t seem to understand. Baon helped him back into the tent, and he eased back onto the cot. In his hand, unnoticed buy the Darksiders—he hoped—he clutched a small handful of sand. He’d had another reason for wanting to go outside. He rested back, feeling sleep reach for him again, but forced himself to remain awake for a few moments longer. There was something he had to test—putting it off would only worry him further. Reaching out, he called for the sand to come to life. Nothing happened. Kenton let the sand dribble from his fingers, his earlier despair returning. It was as he feared—the overmastery had burned away his abilities. He was no longer a sand master. “Well, he did deceive us,” Khriss said defensively, looking down at the daysider as he fell unconscious, a small handful of white sand slipping hourglass-like from between his limp fingers. Baon raised an eyebrow. “If you say so, duchess,” he said, carrying one of the knee-high barrels of water into the room. “We didn’t even bother to ask his name,” Cynder mumbled with a chuckle. Baon set the barrel beside the bed. Then, rising, he looked over at Khriss. “Good job,” he said simply. Khriss frowned, trying to follow the warrior’s logic. “At what?” “You made the right decision,” Baon explained, carrying the second barrel into the room. “You decided not to leave him, even when Flennid challenged your authority. You stood behind your decision when we could have fled. Now, it appears as if we will live because of your resolve.” Khriss blushed. The mercenary spoke with a very matter-of-fact tone of voice, without a hint of flattery, but the compliment held more power than any courtly praise. “It wasn’t an inspired decision, Baon,” she replied. “It was more random than anything else—I could have led us to our deaths just as easily.” “I didn’t say it was inspired,” Baon corrected, placing the final barrel and rising to look her in the eyes. “It was consistent. You made a difficult decision, the best one you could, then had enough confidence in yourself to remain strong. You’re not a leader, duchess. Someday, however, you may become one.” He walked by her, pushing aside the tent flap and striding out into the light. “Well, you were right about something too, Baon.” “What?” he asked, moving to unlatch the tonk’s saddlebags and rifle through them. “The guide,” Khriss explained. “He wasn’t mad—he could have found us water at any time. He probably got quite a chuckle from the way we insisted on bringing all our water with us from the port city.” Baon smiled, locating something in the bags. He stood, holding something in his hands
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that looked like a large animal’s bladder or wineskin. “There’s a second thing they don’t teach in your university, duchess,” he said, throwing the large sack-like thing over his shoulder. “The unlearned aren’t as stupid as you think.” “I’ll remember that,” she said with a half-smile. “What are you doing?” Baon slipped his knife from its sheath, then nodded toward the bags over his shoulder. “They’re waterbags—the guide probably intended to fill them once we reached ‘the desert,’ wherever that is. If our new daysider friend happens to die within the next few days, I want to be certain I can replicate what he just did.” When Kenton next awoke, some of his strength seemed to have returned. He was, at least, able to sit up without getting light-headed. He was alone in the tent—the darksiders were nowhere to be seen. He sat for a moment, listening to the powerful Kerla wind blow at the tent’s sides. Time had passed since the attack—he couldn’t be certain how much, but days at least. A week maybe? How long could a person live without food? Thoughts of eating suddenly reminded him how hungry he was. He stood, walking slowly over to the tent’s door. He paused, however, before leaving. There, sitting on a short table beside the fluttering door, was a bright golden sash. His sash. How many years had he one day dreamed of earning it? How many years had it been since he had given up on such dreams, continuing to struggle because… because why? Because he wanted to spite his father? That was part of it. A great deal of who he was, the sinews that gave strength to his personality, was his rebellious spirit. But now there was nothing to rebel against. He was a mastrell—but a mastrell of what? Had anyone else survived the massacre? Kenton grabbed the sash, but didn’t tie it on. He had been made a mastrell, true, but he had just as immediately lost the status. A man couldn’t be a mastrell if he couldn’t master sand. I’m not a sand master any more. His mind still refused to accept the idea. It was like he was numb; unwilling to face such a possibility. He had been in the Diem for eight years, he had worked and agonized to strengthen his one little ribbon. It couldn’t be gone. It couldn’t. Kenton shook his head in disbelief, pushing away thoughts of his powers. He realized he was refusing to deal with the issue, but at the same time he didn’t care. He couldn’t face it. Not yet. With a sigh, he shuffled out of the tent and into the warm sunlight. A short distance away, past the tents, he could see the plain where the advancement ceremonies had taken place. From such a distance the white specs that covered it could have been mistaken for stones, and not corpses. Kenton stood for a long moment, staring out at the enormous graveyard. Farewell, my friends… my father, he bid. Let us hope the Kershtians aren’t right. Otherwise,
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the afterlife will be very difficult for you. The Sand God was not known for his love toward sand masters. What happened here? He thought, shaking his head in confusion. Something had been done to the sand masters—something that dehydrated them at an accelerated rate. They had started to overmaster when they assumed they had plenty of water, and by the time they realized the damage they were doing, it had been too late. And the Kershtians are behind it somehow. They would never have attacked if they hadn’t known the sand masters were weakened. A single mastrell was worth hundreds of warriors—Praxton’s final effort proved that. Still, to attack the collected Diem… We grew too lax, Kenton decided. It was bound to happen eventually. He was just as to blame as the rest of the Diem—he had heard of the new Kershtian high priest and his extreme hatred for sand mastery. He was said to be irrational, even for a Kershtian. Kenton had ignored him, as had the rest of the Diem. The Kershtians had been denouncing sand mastery for centuries—what had suddenly made them decide to act on their hatred? And suddenly, Kenton knew what it must have been. They found an accomplice—someone with the Diem to help them. Someone to poison the mastrells, to leave us defenseless. It didn’t take Kenton long to realize who the traitor was. Drile. When Kenton next awoke, he found himself strapped to the back of the darksiders’ tonk. He groaned, rising from the uncomfortable position to seat himself properly. He only vaguely remembered stumbling half-asleep to the beast’s back, Baon explaining that the duchess—whatever a duchess was—wanted to get moving as soon as possible. Kenton blinked against the light, reorienting himself. They were nearing the pillar-like rocks that rimmed the sand masters’s meeting place. Kenton frowned. The plain was large, but it didn’t take very long to cross. How long had they been moving? Only then did he notice the group that trudged across the sand beside his tonk. The darksiders walked on the sand awkwardly, kicking up sand with each step and sometimes slipping. That, coupled with the fact that the party was made up of an old man, a girl, and an overweight man Kenton hadn’t seen before, was enough to tell him that the trip would probably take a very, very long time. “Look! The savage is awake!” the fat man said, his mood brightening slightly as he looked up and saw Kenton regarding them. The others looked up. Their faces were wearied and taxed, though they probably hadn’t been traveling for more than a few hours. Already, sand dust streaked their dark skin, sticking to the dried sweat they had long since stopped wiping away. They will never last like this, he thought to himself with a shake of his head. No matter how much water one has, the Kerla is not something to travel on foot. “We’ll take a break when we reach the rim,” the girl decided. She was obviously in charge, despite the fact that she
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was a woman, not to mention younger than the others. However, Kenton knew that things were different on darkside—he remembered with fondness how often his mother would clash with dayside authorities. Lossand was much more relaxed than Kershtian society, but she had claimed to find even that restrictive. They crossed the remaining distance to the rock wall in silence, though Kenton did catch the girl shooting him the occasional suspicious look. He could only smile to himself, shaking his head. For some reason she had decided to distrust him; she was obviously convinced he was hiding something—which was perfectly all right, considering the fact that he was. Such thoughts brought back the pain—not only of his fallen comrades, but of his own inability. Every sand master, no matter how weak, was schooled from his first day in the Diem not to overmaster. Overmastery killed, overmastery weakened, and overmastery burned out power. It appeared that Kenton was first-hand proof of that last possibility. “Here,” the warrior Baon said, finally leading tonk and party into the relative coolness of the rock’s shade. The fat man sighed in relief, collapsing to the sand, and the others didn’t fare much better. Only Baon remained on his feet—the walk didn’t seem to have bothered him at all. Kenton shared a look with the darkside warrior, who nodded in understanding. He realized it too. “How on the sands did you get trapped with only one tonk?” Kenton asked. “We were—” the girl paused. “Wait, I should be asking you questions.” Kenton sighed, looking over at Baon. “Well?” he asked. “Betrayal,” the warrior said simply, taking a sip from his water bottle. The girl huffed indignantly at the slight. “Is she always this bad?” Kenton asked, nodding toward the girl. “Only in the mornings,” the warrior informed. “Or,” he added, “after she’s been forced to hike for two hours in dayside heat.” Kenton nodded, immediately feeling guilty for his insolence. The simple fact was that he was just too good at defying authority. He’d been rebelling against the Diem’s leadership for so long, he immediately reacted impertinently to anyone in a position of command. Too late now, Kenton decided, looking at the Darkside girl’s face with a sigh. Khriss started, taken aback by the Daysider’s rudeness. Never, in her entire life, had she been treated in such a way. Baon was blunt, true, but not rude. Even Flennid, who had obviously resented her, had made his opinion known with an air of court-bred subtlety. Khriss didn’t know how to react. All her life, people had treated her with the respect that her title demanded. True, she had never been a large part of court politics, and therefore was often the subject of jokes or rumors, but such were to be expected, and at least they were never expressed before her face. This Daysider’s speech, his entire air, was intentionally disrespectful. She almost backed down and left him alone. However, Baon’s words from before stood defiantly in the back of her mind—the warrior had inferred that that she was too
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quick to let others ignore her station. So it was that she found herself staring defiantly back at the Daysider. “Children,” Cynder interrupted, “I hate to break such a beautifully tense moment, but aren’t either of you bothered by the fact that our mercenary just drew his weapon?” Khriss looked over with surprise, noticing for the first time that Baon was holding one of his silver, double-barreled pistols at the ready, his head cocked to the side as if listening for something. He held up a hand to forestall questions, and crept across the shaded sand, sticking close to the rock wall. He rounded the lip of the rock opening that led out of the enclosed crater, stepping softly on the sand, his pistol cocked. Then, suddenly, he spun the rest of the way around the corner, his weapon held at the ready. He stood for a moment, a look that could only be surprise on his face, then lowered his weapon. “By the Divine,” he mumbled. “What?” Khriss demanded, hoisting herself to her feet and peeking around the corner. There, tied to a rock outcropping, were four familiar tonks, one bearing Stump’s distinctive broken horn. “I’d wondered how even Flennid could be so cruel to take all the mounts,” Cynder mumbled, joining the two. Khriss nodded. “Apparently he isn’t as evil as we assumed.” Baon snorted, tucking his pistol back into his belt. “Taking these mounts is probably the only smart thing that boy did this entire expedition,” he informed, walking over to inspect the animals. “He probably guessed what I would do to him if I’d been able to chase him down.” “By the Divine!” Acron said with relief. “Oh, blessed be Shella and Ridos! Flennid has a heart after all.” “Don’t give him too much credit,” Baon warned, checking through the saddlebags. “They didn’t leave us any water. Of course, I suppose that makes sense.” “Sense? Killing us makes sense?” Khriss asked. Baon shrugged. “We had enough water to last seven of us for three days. The nearest town is seven days away—that means three could make it if they took all the water. Those three might have been fools, but physically they were probably the most likely to survive.” “That’s heartless reasoning, Baon,” Khriss said, feeling chilled despite the Dayside heat. “I didn’t say I agree with its morals, duchess,” Baon said, strapping the final saddlebag closed. “I just said it makes logical sense. Come on, it’s looking like we might actually survive this trip.” Kenton looked up at the sun, his old friend, the first and strongest companion of every Daysider. Ker’reen philosophy—religion of the Kershtians—called the sun a manifestation of the Sand Lord, but even daysiders that didn’t worship the sun felt some spiritual bond with it. Despite the Diem’s historical atheism, Kenton had met few sand masters who didn’t at least feel reverence for the great orb. In the very least it was the force that made sand mastery possible, for once sand was mastered it was left black and stale, and only four hours
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of charging in the sun would restore it. But, this day the sun felt different. Not the sun itself, put its position in the sky. It was in the wrong place. “We go that way,” Kenton said, pointing to the southwest. “How can you tell?” the duchess, Khrissalla, demanded. Kenton smiled. He didn’t think the girl realized how impatient her voice sounded. She was simply the type who was accustomed to getting quick answers to her questions. Of course, understanding her arrogance didn’t make him any more accepting—he did, after all, have his pride. “Magic,” Kenton informed, hammering his tonk into motion. The darksiders joined in, moving their own beasts forward as well. Khrissalla snorted at his answer, maladroitly moving her tonk up next to his own—she still hadn’t quite mastered the art of controlling the beasts. “You’re guessing,” she accused. “You saw my map, and now you’re just making it seem like you know what you’re doing.” “Yes, I did see your map, Khrissalla,” Kenton said, being certain to use her name, if only because he knew it bothered her. She should have just introduced herself as ‘the duchess’ rather than ‘the duchess Khrissalla.’ “Or, at least,” he continued, “I saw enough of it to know it was out of date and rather inaccurate. I know four year-old children who could produce a better depiction of dayside.” “All right then, how do you know which way to go?” Kenton sighed—he had to concede the duchess one point: she was nothing if not persistent. They had been traveling for about two days now, and he was coming to understand that no amount of subject dodging, ignoring, or even straight rejecting would dissuade Khrisalla’s curiosity. It was becoming more and more obvious that if he wanted her to stop pestering him, he was going to have to give her some answers. “When the sun hangs in the exact same spot for your entire life, you become very sensitive to its changes,” he explained. “The sun feels… out of place to me. It should be lower in the sky, and a little bit to the east.” Khrissalla blinked in surprise—she obviously hadn’t expected an answer from him. He had, after all, spent the last two days doing his best to be as annoyingly close-mouthed as possible. “You can really feel it?” she asked, turning her black-glassed eyes back towards the sun. Kenton nodded. “On dayside, you never need a map to guide you home. You only need the sun.” The girl frowned. “But, how can you tell east and west? Other than the mountain, there aren’t any landmarks.” Kenton shrugged. “You just can. You know when the sun is in the right place.” Khrissalla frowned—she didn’t like it when his explanations had to with ‘feeling’ or ‘sensing.’ Kenton found her confusion odd; the comments always made sense to him. The duchess, however, kept asking ‘why’ and ‘how.’ She wanted parameters for everything, measurements she could scribble in the ledger she always seemed to have in her lap. However, she probably decided that ambiguous answers
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were better than no answers at all, for she decided to continue. “You said magic, at first. Do you believe in magic?” Kenton raised an eyebrow—this was a new one. Did he believe in magic? Well, his father had actually granted him mastrellship. That was about as magical an event as Kenton could imagine. “Sure,” he said. “Sure?” Khrissalla repeated. “That doesn’t sound very certain.” She turned toward him, obviously intending to give him a prompting stare, but the expression was ruined by the black contraptions on her eyes—the things she called spectacles. On her head was a wide floppy hat that no self-respecting Kerla traveler would wear, and, as normal, her long hair blew free in the wind. She wore her Kershtian robe pulled tight around her body, accentuating her form in a scandalous way. “There could be magic,” Kenton explained. “I’ve never seen any, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. The Kershtians talk about many things happening during worship services.” “What about the Sand Mages?” she asked. “The who?” Kenton asked, frowning. Mage? He was unfamiliar with the word. “The Sand Mages,” Khrissalla repeated. “They rule Lossand.” Kenton snorted. “I’ve never heard of them. If they rule Lossand, then they are very good at making certain no one realizes it.” She was quiet for a moment. “You’re certain?” she asked. Kenton frowned. “Of course I am. I’ve lived in Lossand all my life. It’s ruled by the Profession heads, not these mages, whatever they are.” Khriss turned away from him, an odd expression in her face. Sorrow? “Oh, Gevin,” she all but whispered. “I’m sorry.” “What?” “Nothing,” she said, looking melancholy. First she gets mad at me for refusing to answer, he thought with a shake of his head. Then, when I do answer, she gets sad for no reason. “Woman, you are completely incomprehensible,” he declared, hammering his tonk forward. For once, the Daysider’s rudeness didn’t affect her. She barely noticed as he rode away. Gevin had been wrong, and she had been right. Why, then, did she feel so horrible? It wasn’t my dream, Gevin, it was yours. But that was enough for me to want to believe in it. If the stories had somehow been true, they would have disproven Khriss’s logic—the same logic that told her there was no way she was going to find the prince alive after such a long absence. “Duchess.” Baon’s voice drew her away from unpleasant speculations. “Yes, Baon?” she asked, turning as his tonk pulled alongside hers. Baon paused, seeing her face. Despite the spectacles, Baon had an almost supernatural ability to sense someone’s mood. “Kenton being close-mouthed again?” he assumed. “No,” she replied. “He actually decided to answer today.” “But you didn’t like what you heard.” “It doesn’t matter,” Khriss said dismissively. “He still refuses to speak about the important things. He claims to be nothing more than a servant, but he won’t explain what the group was doing out in the desert—or, rather, the Kerla.” It was going to take a long time for her to stop
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thinking as the endless dunes of sand as a desert. “Personally, I think he’s lying,” Khriss added, seeking out the Daysider in his white robe. “He’s certainly hiding something,” Baon agreed. “How do you know?” “I asked him,” Baon said simply. “Asked him what?” Khriss said with a frown. “I asked him if he was hiding something,” Baon explained. “He said he was.” “And you didn’t go any further?” Baon shrugged. “If he wanted to tell me what it was, then he wouldn’t be hiding it, would he?” Khriss sighed. “Of course, it probably has something to do with the sword.” Khriss perked up. “What sword?” she asked. “The one he’s not wearing,” Baon informed. “He checks for it occasionally, like a warrior. When he walks, his hand often falls to his side, as if to steady a sheath. The exercises he does after he wakes, the ones he claims to recover his strength—those are the actions of a warrior.” “A warrior…” Khriss mumbled. “But, that doesn’t mean anything, Baon. This is a primitive society—for all we know, everyone’s trained as a warrior.” “I’ve done a lot of travelling, duchess,” Baon said. “You would be surprised—even in the most violent of countries, servants are still the same. They don’t have time to fight; and if they did, their masters wouldn’t let them. Trained warriors make dangerous peasants.” Khriss let his ‘lot of travelling’ comment pass—Baon had already established that he would not speak about his past. While this Kenton was difficult to get information from, Baon was impossible. “However, duchess,” Baon continued, “speaking about the daysider’s profession was not the reason I approached you.” “Oh?” “We’re out of food.” Khriss’s stomach groaned in agreement. “I noticed,” she informed. “I thought we decided there was nothing we could do about it.” “There isn’t anything we can do about it,” Baon agreed. “There might, however, be something he can do.” “But, he says we’ll be reaching Lossand within a day or two. We can probably survive that long.” “Not if we listen to your anthropologist,” Baon said, nodding his head backward. Khriss turned, catching a glimpse of Acron’s bulk settled despondently on his tonk’s back. The anthropologist had been complaining quite profusely about the lack of supplies. “He’ll live,” Khriss decided. “True,” Baon agreed with a rare smile. “But it might be worth asking anyway. I don’t like travelling without provisions. Any number of things could happen in two days. If he can pull water out of the sand, then perhaps he can perform a similar miracle for food.” “All right,” Khriss said. “I suppose you want me to do it.” “You are in charge, duchess.” “But he likes you better,” she protested. Baon just looked at her, and eventually Khriss sighed. She grabbed her hammer and gave Stump a tap, and he responded in his usual disorganized way, shambling vaguely in Kenton’s direction. The Daysider looked over as she approached, a wry smirk on his face. “Another question?” he asked. “You waited almost five minutes this time—you must have held yourself back.” “We
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need food, daysider,” she said, gritting her teeth against his insulting tone. Kenton frowned in confusion. “What do you mean? There’s plenty of sand.” Khriss sat, stunned by the words, her eyes focusing on the vast dunes around them. “You don’t actually eat…” She trailed off as she looked back at Kenton, noticing the mirth on his face. “I hope your entire race isn’t as gullible as you are, Khrissalla,” he said. “Otherwise, your people are going to be in some serious trouble if Kershtian merchants ever make it over there.” Shella, Khriss thought, forcing herself to remain calm. No man had ever treated her in such a disrespectful way. “I’ll get you some food, Khrissalla,” Kenton said, nodding toward the horizon. “We’ll be reaching the desert soon; there are a lot of Kershtian towns built along the border—trading stations between the Kershtian nation and Lossand.” “Nation?” Khriss asked. “So far all we’ve seen are tiny tent cities. Is there more than that?” Kenton raised his eyebrows at the question, but he chose to answer. “Yes—there are massive tent cities as well.” “But only tents?” Khriss said with a frown. “Are they all nomads?” “No, none of them are,” Kenton explained. “Tents are the only practical buildings to use in the Kerla. The winds blow so much that the sand level fluctuates enormously. Even the Kershtian capital of Ker Kedasha is composed entirely of tents—and its population is over fifty thousand.” “So, at these border towns,” Khriss continued, “we’ll be able to get food?” “That depends,” Kenton said with a shrug. “What are you willing to trade?” Kenton placed the bag full of metal onto the merchant’s trading table. The low table, constructed of cloth stretched across a flat construction of sandling carapace, sat in the center of a gaudy tent with embroidered walls and numerous cushions. The Kershtian, a man with a broad face but thin limbs, opened the bag, picking at its contents with spindly fingers. “Not much, friend,” he said. Two gold strings wrapped around his head just above the ears, holding a golden coin pressed against his forehead—the symbol of his DaiKeen allegiance. “I know,” Kenton said with a nod. They sat on cushions, as per the Kershtian way. Khrissalla had insisted on accompanying him, and sat on a cushion next to his own. Kenton turned back to the merchant, who was still appraising the scraps—whatever bits of metal Khrissalla and her group had been willing to part with. The Kershtian nodded. “I’ll give you much deal,” he informed. “Best deal on sand! You want Kershtian coin’n, you want Lossandin coin’n?” He spoke with a heavy Kershtian accent, habitually adding soft ‘ha’ sounds to the end of all his ‘s’s. “Either coinage is fine,” Kenton said with a shrug. “I’m just going to spend it on supplies.” “Spend them here, yes friend?” the Kershtian said, perking up. “Well, I give you sands good deal! My cousin, he sells supplies’n? You want food’n? Qidoin?” “Food.” “Ah. Yes, friend.” “What’s he saying?” Khrissalla interrupted from beside Kenton. She was watching
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the interchange with intense eyes—apparently she spoke a little Kershtian, or at least enough to pick out the occasional word. “Not now, Khrissalla,” Kenton hissed back. The girl shot him an angry look. “I deserve to know what’s going on. Those instruments are mine, after all.” “I’ll write you a transcript later.” Khriss’s eyes—she removed the spectacles inside—grew thin. “I don’t trust you, Daysider. For all I know you’re arranging to sell me into slavery.” “I’d be lucky to get a three-legged tonk out of that deal,” he mumbled. “What!” “Hush,” Kenton insisted, shooting a look back at the Kershtian. The trader had watched the exchange with wide eyes, an offended look on his face. The expression couldn’t compare to the one he’d given earlier, however. When they had entered, the man had arranged cushions for them both to sit upon—and, according to custom, he had placed Khrissalla’s a few inches behind Kenton’s. The duchess had immediately scooted her cushion up, placing it equal with Kenton’s and the Kershtian’s. “She is… quite beautiful, friend,” the Kershtian said, regaining his composure. Merchants who worked this close to Lossand were usually capable of dealing with more than their associates further into the Kerla. “I suppose,” Kenton said with a wry smile. The Kershtian shared his smile. “I have found, friend, Lonsha women are rarely worth the trouble’n of their arrogance.” “Wise words, friend. Now, for the trade?” The Kershtian smiled, eyeing the scraps eagerly. Metal and stone were valuable commodities in the Kerla, where the ground lay buried by a hundred feet of sand. Both materials were much less rare now than they had been before, mostly because of trading between Kershtians and Lossandins, but a small sack of steel such as the one he was offering could still turn a healthy profit. The Kershtian quickly masked his interest, however, as he scooped the pieces back into the bag. “How much?” Kenton asked. The Kershtian shrugged. “Oh, friend, maybe forty lak? Much not useful, in scraps like this. Must be melted down, yes?” Kenton snorted. “Put the bag back on the table, friend. I’m not a merchant, but I know that metal’s worth more than forty.” The Kershtian placed the bag back on the trading table. “I don’t know, friend,” he said with a slight shrug. “Perhaps it is worth more, but… you lucky I trade with you. Others in town… maybe not so open-minded.” Kenton frowned, focusing on the Kershtian’s innocent-looking face. The man was doing his best not to meet Kenton’s eyes—the Kershtian way of indicating he was making a threat. Aiesha! Kenton thought with a frown. The man knew what he was. But how? The gold sash was hidden in one of his pouches, and he had replaced his sand master’s robes with nondescript ones before entering the town. “Not many Lossandin travelling in the Kerla right now, especially not ones coming in that direction, friend,” the Kershtian explained, nodding toward the open sands. “Most come from there,” he explained, nodding toward Lossand. Kenton frowned. It wasn’t a guess—somehow this merchant
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had seen through him. “You’ve never refused to trade with my kind before,” Kenton said, deciding there was no use in hiding. “What does who I am have to do with making a deal?” “Nothing friend, that is why I make deal, eh?” The Kershtian still refused to meet his eyes. “But, times… times change. It is not a good now to be friends with Ry’kensha.” “I’ll take forty,” Kenton decided, and the Kershtian smiled. “But,” Kenton added. “I want something else as well. Information.” “What information, friend?” “I want to know what has changed. I want to know why Kershtian warriors suddenly decided they could attack a group of sand masters.” “Aiesha!” the Kershtian hissed. “Not those words’n. Be careful, eedsha.” Then he eyed the bag of metal. Forty lak was an incredibly good deal for so much steel. Finally, the man looked up, meeting Kenton’s eyes. The deal was done. “Come,” the merchant said, nodding toward the door. He rose, picking up his cushion. Kenton followed, as did a confused Khriss. “What’s going on?” she demanded. “Later,” Kenton insisted as the merchant placed his cushion near the door of the tent. The street outside was small, but busy—these border towns were prime places for trading. Kenton sat back down, watching as the Kershtian nodded out the door. “You see that, friend.” Kenton followed the look. Standing across the small sand street were a couple of men, obviously warriors. They had zinkallin on their arms, and judging by the scowls on their faces, the weapons were probably pumped and ready to fire. Swords were strapped to their sides, and they wore shiny, well-made carapace armor. “Soldiers,” Kenton noted. “From the warrior DaiKeen.” “Soldiers, yes,” the merchant agreed. “Warrior DaiKeen… well…” Kenton squinted, focusing on the men’s foreheads. Every Kershtian man wore a symbol to mark his DaiKeen—his profession, though a DaiKeen was more than just a job. DaiKeenin were more like clans, family groups that one could choose. The merchant symbol was a circle, and most of the merchant DaiKeen tied their marks to their foreheads. The warrior symbol was an ‘X’ tattooed on the forehead. As one of the men turned, Kenton saw what the merchant was referring to. There was an ‘X’ on the warrior’s head, but it wasn’t tattooed on—it was a scar. “But, scarring is the way of the…” “Priest DaiKeen,” the merchant finished, leaning back into his tent. “Yes, friend. I know. Warrior symbol, priest marking-form. Very odd, yes?” “A new DaiKeen?” “Yes, friend,” the merchant said with a nod. “The new A’Kar, he created it’n.” The new high priest, Kenton thought. This isn’t good. He’d seen that ‘X’ scar before—on the foreheads of the men who had slaughtered the sand masters. “We of the merchants, we are worried,” the Kershtian confessed, his voice growing hushed. “The A’Kar, he has much popularity’n. He says he destroyed the Ry’Kenshan, that the Sand Lord is very pleased with him. And the time of choosing comes very soon…” “The merchant DaiKeen hasn’t lost a choosing in centuries,” Kenton objected.
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“The High Merchant is King in Ker KeDasha.” “Yes, friend,” the merchant said, a worried look on his face. “Perhaps, no problem. Perhaps…” “I understand.” The Kershtian shrugged. “The A’Kar, he was wrong in one thing. The Ry’Kensha, you are still live. A few, at least.” “Others?” Kenton asked with concern. “You saw others returning through here?” “A few.” “When?” Kenton demanded. “A week ago, perhaps,” the Kershtian said. “A dozen men.” A dozen. It wasn’t a large number, but at least Kenton wasn’t the only one to have survived. “One thing I say, friend,” the Kershtian said. “Not all of us want the A’Kar to be king, yes? So, I trade. You buy food’n, and you go back to Lossand. The Sand Lord may take my soul’n, but I would not see the A’Kar’s words be true.” “Politics?” Khrissalla demanded. “That’s what you were talking about?” Kenton sighed, running his hand through his hair. “Yes, politics. Kershtian politics.” “What does that have to do with us getting food?” “Absolutely nothing.” “Then why bother with it?” Baon fell into step behind them, leaving the shade in front of the merchant’s doorway, where he had been guarding. He wore a slight smile that seemed to say ‘she saved you, Daysider, now you have to put up with her.’ “Two hundred years ago, the Kershtians and Lossandin stopped fighting,” Kenton explained. “Why fight in the first place?” Khriss asked. “Did they want your land?” “Hardly,” Kenton said with a snort, leading them through the small city toward the place where the merchant had said his cousin ran a supply store. “The Kershtians call Lossand the Ry’Kel, the ‘cursed land.’ It’s the desert, remember? No water vines.” “So, why fight?” “We’re infidels,” Kenton explained. “Non-believers. The historical Kershtian viewpoint was that we had to be slain for our own good so we didn’t reproduce and raise up more infidels.” “Sounds logical,” Baon noted with a snort. “Two hundred years ago, the A’Kar—that’s Kershtian for High Priest—lost the Kingship for the first time in recorded history, and the High Merchant was crowned instead.” Khrissalla frowned, completely oblivious to the looks her unbound hair and tight robe were drawing. “How does one lose a Kingship?” “The Klin—the nobility, as you would call it—voted against him.” “But, I thought you said being a nobleman was a religious position amongst the Kershtians,” she put in. Kenton raised an eyebrow in surprise. He hadn’t thought she would remember that. “That’s right, it is, which is why the A’Kar hadn’t ever lost the choosing before. The title of Kli is granted by the A’Kar; it is the highest honor a Kershtian can hold. Once a Kli is chosen, however, the title is passed from father to son, as long as one maintains certain holy requirements. Eventually, the lines grew to the point that the families had been noble for so long, they barely remembered that the A’Kar had originally given them the title. Most of the Klin were merchants by profession. So, when the choosing came, there were enough that cast
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their vote for the High Merchant instead.” “They let a simple majority choose their King?” Khrissalla asked with downturned lips. “How primitive.” “If you say so, Khrissalla,” Kenton said with a shrug. “For dayside, the change was the best thing that could have happened. The wars stopped, and trading began. There are still battles, of course—but those are mostly between Kershtian families. On the whole, the last two centuries have been very good for Lossand.” “But that could change soon?” the duchess asked as they arrived at the supply tent. Kenton smiled to the proprietor—a man who looked almost identical to the one they had left behind, though the DaiKeen symbol tied to his forehead was wood instead of gold. The man smiled and began to negotiate the trade. “Yes,” Kenton said back to Khriss as the merchant went to get the requested supplies. “The fifty-years between choosings is up this year, and it is starting to look like the A’Kar might win this time. That would be… bad.” He made the deal with the merchant, trading for a week’s provisions for five people. They wouldn’t need so much, but it was always good to be prepared. Besides, Kenton hadn’t eaten much since his recovery a few days back. He was beginning to feel like he could devour the entire bundle of food himself—even if the Kershtians had covered it with their strong spices. “So, what did your battle—the one that left you wounded—have to do with this A’Kar?” Khriss asked innocently as they turned back out into the crowded market street. Kenton paused. She’s guessing, he decided. Just grasping for connections. It was a good guess, though. “Look, Khriss,” he said, “I’m not going to tell you anything more about that. I—” he paused. She was giving him an odd look. “What?” he asked. “What did you call me?” “Khriss,” he said with a shrug. “Khrissalla is too long—especially if I’m going to keep using it to annoy you.” “That’s what Gevin used to call me,” she said quietly, her eyes somewhat dazed. “Who’s—” Kenton paused as he felt an almost unnoticeable tug at his money pouch. A pickpocket. Fortunately, he didn’t have any money. Unfortunately, he had chosen to store something infinitely more precious in his money pouch. He spun, reaching for the thief’s hand. The pickpocket was a small Kershtian boy of perhaps twelve. Kenton was too slow—the boy had already started to pull back when Kenton reached for him. And, as the boy moved away, his hand tugged something bright from Kenton’s pouch. The end of his golden mastrell’s sash. The boy yelped in alarm, dropping the sash as if it were a deadly sandling. The marketplace froze around them, hundreds of eyes turning to focus on the sash, which Kenton furiously tried to stuff back into its pouch. As he worked, his eyes fell on a pair of faces that stood out from the crowd—faces with cold eyes and scarred ‘X’s on their foreheads. “I think we’d better go,” Kenton said, motioning for Khriss and Baon to
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follow. “How far is it to Lossand?” Kenton sighed at the question, but Khriss ignored the sound. She would have her answers no matter how rude he decided to be. She still couldn’t understand why her questions bothered him so much—they were only logical. She was new to Dayside; it made sense that she would have a lot of things to ask. The only way she was going to learn was if someone told her. “I’ll answer, but only if you promise to answer one for me.” Khriss frowned. They had entered what Kenton called ‘the desert’ just after leaving the town a few hours before, but the landscape seemed the same to Khriss. There was nothing around them to be seen but the same white dunes, some barely a few feet in height, others taller than a man astride a horse. “Well?” Kenton prompted. “All right,” Khriss decided. What could he ask that she wasn’t willing to share, anyway? “We’re already in Lossand,” Kenton explained. “Technically, it starts where the desert does—though the sand won’t start to recede until tomorrow. Now, my question. Who is Gevin?” Khriss froze, feeling her chest grow tight. Oh, Shella, not this… “I heard you mention his name earlier,” Kenton explained. Khriss paused, trying to think of a way around the question. Kenton’s stare was demanding, however, and she couldn’t bring herself to tell an outright lie, no matter how little she wanted to discuss the subject. “He… he is my betrothed,” Khriss said quietly. “Betrothed?” Kenton asked with a smirk. “Someone actually asked you to marry him?” Khriss inhaled sharply at the barb, bowing her head as she felt her cheeks blush. “I’m sorry,” Kenton said a moment later, his voice reserved. “I went too far that time.” Khriss nodded feebly. “He didn’t ask me, really,” she explained softly. “It was more of an… understood betrothal.” “Arranged marriage?” “No, but it would have been, had we not taken the initiative ourselves. Gevin—or, his full name is Gevalden—is a prince of Elis. He’s the second son, but an important match nonetheless. There are only so many unmarried women of the proper rank and age.” “I see. And you left this prince of yours to come to Dayside?” Kenton asked. Khriss shook her head, keeping her pain inside, hidden behind a courtly mask. She raised her eyes, looking back at him with composure. “I didn’t leave him, I came to find him.” “He’s on Dayside?” Kenton asked incredulously. Khriss nodded. “And, so your expedition isn’t just one of scientific exploration, like you told me,” he pointed out. “Now who’s lying?” “I didn’t lie,” Khriss defended. “This is a scientific expedition, just as Gevin’s was.” Kenton shook his head with a smile. “I’m sorry, Khriss, but I have difficulty understanding why you all came over here. From what I understand, these ‘nobles’ of yours are fairly important people. What does Dayside have that’s so intriguing?” “A dream,” Khriss whispered. “A foolish man’s dream.” Kenton gave her a questioning look. “Sand mages,” Khriss explained with a sigh. “They’re legends
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on Darkside. There are dozens of stories told of them—supposed powerful beings that live on dayside, controlling the elements with their magics. The stories are told to children, mostly. No one believes them… or, not seriously at least. No one but Gevin.” “They’re supposed to be able to… control the elements?” Kenton asked slowly, a strange tone in his voice. “Yes,” Khriss confessed, suddenly feeling embarrassed at having brought up the topic. What must he think of her? “The stories are foolish things,” she said quickly, “completely unrealistic. Men always make up tales of the unknown—and in Elis, dayside is the ultimate unknown.” As they spoke, Khriss noticed Baon hammering his tonk to a slower speed, so he dropped back closer to her own. The warrior waited at a respectful distance, not breaking into the conversation. “What exactly were these sand mages supposed to be able to do?” Kenton asked. Khriss frowned. She didn’t know what to make of the odd solemnity to the Daysider’s voice. Was he mocking her again? “Silly things, mostly. Fly trough the air, call up enormous storms of sand. They often grant wishes to travelers lost in the wilderness. Most of the stories agree that they’re impervious to normal weapons, and that they can make objects float with their minds.” “I see,” Kenton said. “The stories must be fascinating.” Khriss shrugged. “If you’re a child, I suppose.” Then she turned toward Baon. “What is it, Baon?” “A question for the daysider,” he explained, bringing his tonk in closer. “Yes?” Kenton asked curiously. “You’ve stopped looking over your shoulder,” Baon pointed out. “What?” Kenton asked with surprise. “Ever since we left that town, you’ve been nervous. Like you thought someone might follow us.” “It doesn’t matter now,” Kenton said. “I was wrong. They aren’t—” He was interrupted as a massive man-shaped form exploded from the side of the dune next to Baon, spraying sand into the air as it tackled the warrior and tore him off his tonk. Baon thumped to the sand. His assailant, a bare-chested Kershtian, fell with him. Tonks shuffled nervously, kicking up sand as the two men rolled on the ground. The Kershtian clutched Baon’s robes with one hand and raised a carapace hatchet in the other. A second later, the sand exploded all around them, spewing forth a half-dozen warriors. Kenton cursed, immediately jumping off his tonk. The move was well-placed, for a moment later he heard the distinctive air-rushings of zinkallin being fired. Three small arrows hissed through the air above him and a fourth snapped off his tonk’s carapace. There was little doubt who the Kershtians were after. Kenton pressed against the side of his mount, keeping it between himself and the majority of the Kershtians. Only one was on his side—unfortunately, one was more than enough. The warrior, clothed in black carapace armor, was already lowering his zinkall to fire again. Years of training with the Tower’s warriors finally became kinetic as Kenton dropped instinctively, rolling to the ground, dodging a virtually point-blank shot. His tonk bellowed—the arrow must have
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hit one of the chinks in its carapace—but Kenton ignored the beast as he rolled to his feet only a short distance from his opponent. In his hand he clutched a handful of sand. The warrior flinched instinctively, spitting out a curse against the Ry’Kensha as Kenton raised his sand. The A’Kar might have found a way to convince them to fight sand masters, but he couldn’t remove millennia-old cultural phobias. Kenton thrust the sand forward, his command for it to obey him as instinctual as the Kershtian’s fear. Nothing happened. Kenton cursed, throwing the ineffectual sand at his opponent. The Kershtian, still expecting the sand to kill him, threw up his arms—his face horrified. When the unmastered grains sprayed across his armor, the man barely had a chance to lower his arms in confusion before Kenton’s punch took him in the face. The Kershtian grunted in pain, stumbling backwards. Kenton followed him, reaching down to slide the man’s carapace-sword free from the sheath at his side. A moment later, pain sliced through Kenton’s arm, and he felt an arrow tear at his robes. It only nicked his skin, but it was enough to remind him that this was not a one-on-one battle. He cried out, thrusting the carapace sword at his opponent’s face. The warrior, who had recovered from the punch, easily blocked the blow with his armored forearm. The attack had not been intended to hit, however. Kenton spun around the warrior, putting the man’s body between himself and the rest of the battle. The archer who had wounded him still had one arrow left, and as Kenton turned, he was able to pick the man out. He had rounded Kenton’s tonk, and knelt on the sand, his face calm as he aimed his gauntleted forearm for another shot—a shot that was now blocked, however, by his comrade. Kenton reached out for his human shield—intending to grapple with the man and hold him close in an attempt to keep the others from firing their zinkallin. Unfortunately, the Kershtian realized what was happening, and instead of spinning to face Kenton he simply started running in the opposite direction—leaving Kenton standing stupidly on the sand with no cover. Two other warriors moved around the tonk and prepared to take shots at him. Kenton looked around wildly, realizing he was trapped. His back was to a dune, and he had opponents on all sides. He barely had time to reach down for a handful of sand and hold it out threateningly as his intended shield moved out of the way. Kenton froze. He intended to scream out warnings in broken Kershtian, but his voice caught in his throat. Fear choked his words. All he had was the sand clutched in his sweating fist. Come to life! his mind ordered the sand. In all his life, he had never needed sand mastery so urgently. Please! A deafening explosion sounded, causing Kenton to cry out in shock and pain. One of the warriors’s heads exploded. Gore splattered across the white sands, and the already spooked
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tonks dropped to the sand in fright, burrowing down until only the tips of their shells were visible. What…? Kenton thought in confusion, his ears ringing. At first, he thought it had been his sand—but the handful still sat in his fist, unmastered. Then he saw Baon. The black-skinned warrior stood tall, some sort of steel tube held in his hand. Smoke rose in the air before him. The Kershtian that had attacked Baon lay face down in the sand, his neck twisted at a gruesome angle. Calmly, the darksider turned his weapon on another one of the archers, and a second later there was an explosive crack. Carapace armor shattered like glass, and the warrior was thrown backwards several feet. When the man fell to the ground, Kenton could see a hole in his back a handspan wide. The hard-faced darksider turned his weapon on a third man. The Kershtian stared at his opponent for a moment, his eyes wide with horror, before breaking into a terrified run. The other three joined him, screaming in frightened Kershtian as they disappeared around a dune. The sound of galloping sandlings sounded a few moments later. Khriss sat stunned on her tonk’s back. Her legs were buried up to the knees in sand—as was most of her mount. Only the tonk’s back and the stump of his broken horn were visible. She would have joined him beneath the sand, had she been able to get her paralyzed muscles to move. “Oh Shella, oh Shella, oh Shella…” she heard herself mumbling as she stared dumbly at the remains of the men who had attacked them. Fortunately, the warriors had ignored her during the attack, instead focusing their attention on Baon and Kenton. The battle had happened almost as if she and the professors weren’t there, churning around them as if they were barriers rather than targets. And then the pistol fire… Khriss had never seen a man shot before. A few months earlier, while running the Dynastic barricade, they had lost Captain Deral—but that had happened while the warriors were out scouting. She had never seen the bodies—Baon had rushed them away from the site quickly, warning that they had been discovered. Now she had seen a man die. The scientist in her noted that it was much messier than she had expected. She had assumed the musket balls entered the body like an arrow, piercing the skin and leaving a small hole. That was not the case. The balls smashed more than they pierced, tearing wide holes or, in the case of the man who had been hit in the head, completely destroying. The logical side of her mind soon gave way before the disturbed side, however, and the scientist was forced to retreat before a far more awesome force—trauma. She closed her eyes to the death, breathing deeply and shaking before the horrible scene. Kenton was shaken, but once again his training came to his aid. He discarded the unused carapace sword, instead pulling a complete sheath, weapon, and belt from one of
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the fallen men—trying his best not to look at the man’s stump of a neck. Then he turned to Baon. “We should go,” he informed, his voice more calm than he felt. “Kershtians never abandon the bodies of their fallen—they believe a man must be buried in deep sand lest his soul be lost to wander the kerla.” Baon nodded, replacing his strange weapon in a sheath at his side. Kenton regarded it for a moment, remembering its incredible power. He had seen the weapons at Baon’s sides, but had assumed them to be instruments of some sort. Who could have imagined a weapon so small, yet so destructive? Kenton shook his head, moving over to begin raising the tonks. Ask later. Right now, we need to move. “My first battle!” a voice suddenly exclaimed. Kenton turned to find Acron, his eyes strangely excited, sitting astride his mostly-buried mount. “I say, Kenton—does this sort of thing happen often?” He looked… eager. As if he had been treated to a performance of some kind. “Acron, for once, please shut up,” a pained voice came from a short distance away. The elderly Cynder still sat atop his own mount as well, but he was obviously less-enthused about the experience than Acron. Kenton noted with concern that the older man was clutching his left arm, the end of a zinkall arrow sticking from between his bloodied fingers. Kenton cursed, rushing over to Cynder. “It’s nothing,” the linguist said with a slight gasp of pain as Kenton examined the wound. With a simple tug, Kenton pulled the arrow out of Cynder’s arm. It slid out easily—it no longer had a head. “What…?” Cynder asked with confusion, regarding the tip of the arrow. “The arrowhead wasn’t treated,” Kenton explained, pulling out his qido. “The carapace dissolved. Grit your teeth, this is going to hurt.” Cynder barely had time to inhale in preparation as Kenton cleaned the wound. The linguist finally broke down and cried out in agony as Kenton forced as much as the dissolved arrowhead out of the wound as possible, then bound it with a strip of cloth. “What are you doing to him?” Baon demanded. “Carapace can cause a wound to fester,” Kenton explained, stepping back and reaching down to rap Cynder’s tonk on the horn with the tip of his sword sheath. The creature immediately began to unbury itself, shaking and wiggling as it climbed out of the sand. Baon watched the process with calculating eyes, then began to move opposite Kenton, rapping horns and bringing tonks out of the sand. Kenton paused beside Khriss’s tonk. The girl had obviously been disquieted by the battle—her eyes were closed, and she was mumbling softly to herself as she rocked back and forth. Kenton waited hesitantly for a moment, then reached out to shake her on the shoulder. “Khrissalla?” he asked softly. The girl exhaled deeply, then opened her eyes. “I’m all right,” she said weakly. Kenton nodded slowly, then reached over to tap his sword against the tonk’s stump. The creature began to move,
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raising itself from the sand. Khriss frowned, watching the process. “Why…?” she began, focusing on the tonks and, as far as Kenton could tell, intentionally keeping her eyes off the three bodies. “Why would they develop such odd behavior? Surely hiding beneath the sand doesn’t protect them from predators.” Kenton smiled. If she could ask questions, then she was probably all right. “It isn’t to protect them from predators,” he explained. “This is what they do in a sandstorm. Tonks have very weak minds—whenever they get confused, they assume they’re in a sandstorm and bury themselves beneath the ground.” Kenton tapped the tonk, sending it to wander over and join the rest of the beasts, then he turned to find Baon. The dark warrior was squatting on the sand beside the first warrior that had attacked—the strange unarmored one. Kenton joined him, watching as Baon rolled the body over, revealing a face crusted with sand. “Will the linguist be all right?” Baon asked quietly. “He should be,” Kenton replied. “Melted carapace rots easily unless it is dried properly. I think I got the wound clean enough, however.” Baon nodded quietly, then gestured toward the dead man on the ground before him. “Recognize him?” Baon asked. Kenton shook his head. “Not only don’t I know him, Baon, but I’ve never seen anything like him before,” he confessed. “Kershtians never fight unarmored, yet this man attacks wearing little more than a loin cloth. He also shaved his head—and I’ve never seen a Kershtian do that.” Baon grunted, reaching out to wipe the sand from the man’s forehead. A pale scar stood out against his pale skin. An ‘X’ surrounded by a square. “What do you make of that?” Baon asked. “The square is a symbol for priests,” Kenton explained. “But the ‘X’ inside it is the marking of a warrior. I’ve never seen both together before.” “Whoever he is, he saved our lives,” Baon said. Kenton gave him a questioning look. “He leapt out before the rest of them,” Baon explained. “He ruined the ambush. If this man hadn’t been so eager to attack, then we wouldn’t be standing here right now.” Baon rose, dusting the sand from his knee. “Or, at least, you wouldn’t be. Why did they want to kill you, daysider?” he asked bluntly. “For something I used to be,” Kenton answered, rising as well. Baon searched Kenton’s eyes, obviously unsatisfied with the answer. He asked no further questions, however. He stooped briefly, removing the zinkall from the priest’s arm by cutting its straps, then walked back to his tonk. “It’s called a pistol,” Khriss said. Kenton looked up slowly. There was a haunted expression on his face—one of sorrow. He had grown quiet after the attack, almost unresponsive. During the past few hours, he had ignored Khriss’s every attempt to draw him into conversation—an attitude that she found increasingly frustrating. She wanted to know why they had been attacked, who those men had been, and if they would attack again. Unfortunately, Kenton wasn’t talking. So, Khriss had decided to try
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a new approach. Instead of asking questions, she tried to fuel Kenton sense of curiosity. It would have worked for her, after all. “The weapon,” Khriss continued, her tonk riding along beside her own. “It’s called a pistol. You were probably wondering about it.” Kenton shrugged, the same sense of melancholy in his eyes. Khriss pulled out the spare pistol, the one Flennid had dropped, and inspected it as she talked. “They’re relatively new to darkside,” Khriss explained. “Less than a century old. Only a few of the nations have them—the Dynasty is very proficient at keeping new technology from spreading through its provinces. Scythe—the current monarch of the Dynasty, something like a king or an emperor, though he is much more powerful than either word implies—knows how dangerous knowledge can be.” Kenton eyed the weapon for a moment, and Khriss caught a glimmer of interest therein. “So, it doesn’t use air pressure at all?” Kenton finally asked. “No, it uses gunpowder,” Khriss replied, smiling slightly to herself. “Gunpowder?” he asked with confusion. “A type of explosive powder,” Khriss explained, handing the unloaded weapon toward him. Kenton frowned, accepting the pistol and turning it over in his hands. “Gunpowder,” he mumbled, looking down the gun’s barrel then playing with its hammer experimentally. “It must be powerful, whatever it is. The sandling carapace Kershtians use for armor is nearly as hard as steel, but Baon’s attack shot through it with ease.” Khriss nodded. “How many times can this thing fire?” the daysider asked, cocking the hammer and pulling the trigger a few times. “Just once,” Khriss explained. “But—” “Baon’s pistols have two barrels,” Khriss said. “They’re officer’s weapons, very well-crafted.” Kenton smiled slightly, handing the pistol back to Khriss. “So he was bluffing,” he said. “He couldn’t have killed that third Kershtian.” Khriss shrugged. “Not unless he pulled out his other pistol.” Kenton looked up, looking a little less saddened than before. After the attack, they had continued to ride south, at first nervously—fearing that the strange warriors would return with reinforcements. In fact, Khriss thought the group strangely calm, considering how close they had come to death just hours before. Up ahead, the overweight Acron chatted jollily with Cynder—or, more accurately, Acron chatted while Cynder rode in relative silence. The linguist was recovering well from his wound—there appeared to be no signs of an infection. “So,” Khriss said experimentally, “do you think those warriors will attack again?” A small smile crept onto Kenton’s lips. “I wondered when you would get to that,” he mumbled. “Well, we deserve an explanation of some sort,” Khriss huffed. “I suppose you do,” Kenton agreed, still staring off into the distance. “No, I don’ think they’ll attack again. We’re too close to Lossandin civilization now.” “But, why did they try to kill us in the first place.” “Not us,” Kenton corrected. “Me. They have nothing against darksiders. They are opposed to Lossand on religious principles, however.” “I thought you said that the wars were over,” Khriss challenged. “I thought they were,” Kenton said with a shake of
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his head. “Besides, just because most Kershtians are willing to forgive our heathen nature doesn’t mean they all have. Those men we saw, they belonged to some new Kershtian religious group. That’s why they tried to kill me. I’m a non-believer.” Khriss frowned. There was more he wasn’t telling her, but she could sense the reservation within him. After travelling with him for just a few days, she knew that if she tried to press the issue, he would only grow more withdrawn. In front of them, Baon suddenly hammered his mount to a halt. His head frozen in a posture of listening. Khriss grew cold, her hands suddenly gripping the unloaded pistol with tense anxiety. What had the warrior heard? Had the Kershtians finally returned? Baon frowned, then turned his mount, hammering it forward and to the west. Khriss followed anxiously, but he didn’t go far. The mercenary led his tonk up the side of a shallow dune, cresting the top and pulling to a halt. Khriss stopped beside him, and only then did she hear what he had noticed. Water. Before her, the sand fell away, revealing a dun flat plain of smooth rocks marked with occasional piles of white sand. A cavern opened from the rock floor a short distance away, and bubbling from its depths was a massive river. “The Ry’Do Ali,” Kenton explained behind them. “The Vein of Cursed Waters, as the Kershtians have dubbed it. Lifeblood of Lossand.” “It’s amazing…” Khriss said in awe. Just moments before they had been in a stark desert, not a patch of water to be seen. But here, suddenly, they were confronted by a roaring river at least fifty feet wide. “We must have finally dropped beneath the water table,” Cynder mused, rubbing his chin with his good arm. “But where does it come from?” Khriss demanded. “The mountain, perhaps?” Cynder guessed. “It melts at the mountain’s top, but gets trapped in caverns and clefts, traveling down through the rock until it stops far beneath those sands.” Khriss nodded—the logic made sense, in a twisted dayside sort of way. Regardless of its geological roots, Khriss found the river intoxicating. For weeks now she had seen nothing but the repetitive dunes of white sand; she was happy to see anything different, even if it was relatively wan by darkside standards. The land surrounding the river was by no means lush, but compared to the desert, it was fertile. Sickly green bushes burrowed their roots into the rocky brown soil around the river, and there were even a few squat trees—though nothing grew on the pale white patches of sand. “Lossand refers to the Ali for nearly all of its water,” Kenton explained. “Our society can’t stray far from its banks—there aren’t any vines, and wells are unreliable at best. Welcome to the desert.” It was true. Kenton was no longer a sand master. He had finally realized that fact during the fight, when he had held up his sand and ordered it to obey him. It had failed him in his
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moment of desperation. It was really gone. The realization had rested heavily upon him during the last few hours of riding. He had avoided it before, forced himself not to confront it, believing that for some reason he might regain his powers. Now, however, he had finally admitted the truth. He was no longer a sand master. Kenton sighed, trying his best to deal with the incredible sense of loss he now felt. The realization seemed to bring with it a renewal of his feelings of loneliness. Once again, he was forced to face the reality of his father’s death. He felt empty. Powerless. Sand mastery had been who he was—what was he now that it was gone? A shell, like the carapace of a dead sandling? Kenton shook his head. He didn’t know what he was now. All this time, he had used sand mastery almost more like a means to spite his father than an end itself. Perhaps if he hadn’t been so callus with its use… Regardless, he certainly wasn’t of much use now. He hadn’t even taken out a single Kershtian in the most recent attack. Baon had done all the work. The large dark-skinned warrior stood a short distance away, playing with the zinkall he had taken off one of the dead men. They had decided to take a break beside the river; Khriss and the two professors sat beneath the shade of a river-side tree while Baon practiced with his new weapon. Kenton sighed, finishing his inspection of the tonks. One had to be certain tonk saddles lay properly—if one’s skin was ever allowed to touch the beast’s carapace, then sweat could begin dissolving their carapace. Eventually he finished, then turned to walk toward the darksiders. As he approached, Baon finished pumping and raised his arm to fire the zinkall. The sound was not unlike that of a person exhaling quickly. The arrow, propelled by a burst of compressed air, flew straight, snapping into a nearby stump’s crusty bark. Its shiny carapace head sunk about a half inch into the wood, sticking soundly. Baon nodded appreciatively. The zinkall, designed for the much smaller dayside build, fit awkwardly on his bulging forearm. Its repaired straps were stretched to their limits, and the tip of the gauntlet, which was supposed to extend over the knuckles, only reached to his wrist. Baon raised his arm again, careful to keep his wrist downturned, lest he shoot himself in the hand. He flipped one of the triggers on the bottom of the palm, and another arrow shot out, digging into the wood beside its brother. “Not bad,” Kenton approved as he approached. “Thank you,” Baon said, launching the final arrow. He was an excellent shot, considering he’d never used the weapon before. Kenton stopped beside Baon, watching the man reload, eager for any distraction that took his mind off of his loss. As the warrior pumped, Kenton turned slightly, his eyes looking to where Khriss and the professors were lounging beneath the tree’s shade a short distance away. For some irrational
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feeling, he wanted someone to explain his pains to. He knew the desire was foolish—talking about the loss would make it no less real. Besides, he had only known her for a short time—and had treated her so poorly during that time. Khriss caught his eye, and he immediately turned away, watching Baon fire a new series of arrows into the tree. Khriss frowned as Kenton turned away. He still had the depressed look in his eyes, though it was more muted now. Perhaps I’m mistaking it, she thought suddenly. Maybe he’s not sad—maybe he’s just annoyed. He was probably getting tired of her presence—he probably had better things to do than lead around a bunch of darksiders. Well, I don’t feel sorry for him, Khriss decided. I did save his life, after all. He owes me his life—he should be grateful to have the opportunity to help us to Lossand. With a nod of defiance, Khriss intentionally put Kenton out of her mind. She sighed in contentment, leaning happily against the tree, whose shade she shared with Acron and Cynder. While she wasn’t exactly comfortable—it was still far too hot for that—the combination of the shade and river breeze was perhaps the most luxurious thing she had felt since arriving on the arid continent. Still, despite the river, she was still relatively disappointed with Lossand. It wasn’t nearly as lush as she had assumed it would be. The trees along the river were stumpy and twisted, and the land was more rock than it was earth. And, of course, there was still a great deal of sand. “It isn’t much different from firing a pistol,” she heard Baon explain to Kenton. Khriss opened her eyes, watching as he turned his arm to the side, inspecting the weapon. Khriss knew from her own studies earlier in the day what he would see. Though the top of the weapon was protected by an oblong, convex piece of carapace that ran from wrist to elbow. The shell ran around a group of wooden tubes and strange black chambers. The three chambers—shaped something like a pear—each fed into a thin carapace pipe, perhaps an inch in diameter. The arrows fit snugly in the tubes, the plug just behind the arrowhead forming a seal and holding the missile in place. Baon released the pumping mechanism—a long rod that folded out of the underside of the weapon—and began to repressurize the chambers. The pump worked easily, working at an angle, like a bellows, rather than up and down. After just five or six pumps, Baon was able to reload one of the small arrows and fire again. “Very efficient,” Baon approved. “Not much power though. This wouldn’t go through armor.” “Not carapace armor,” Kenton agreed. “But zinkallin aren’t meant to be used like bows. They’re for short range combat, to wound your opponent before you engage him with your sword. The best Kershtian warriors, however, are good enough shots to incapacitate or kill with a single arrow.” Beside her, Acron watched the conversation with confused eyes. The
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large anthropologist had spent the better part of the morning inspecting the zinkall, and now he sat with Kenton’s carapace blade lying across his lap. The blade was long and smooth—almost like it was constructed of some sort of black metal. “What’s bothering you, professor?” Khriss asked, taking a sip of water from her canteen. The river-water tasted different from vine-water—it had a more pure flavor. Acron wiped his brow, shaking his head. “I’m having some trouble with this sword, My lady,” he confessed. “Trouble?” “Well, we saw men in that first town carrying bows, and they apparently know how to work steel, so they appear to be in the sword-age. But, those arm weapons are almost more like crossbows, which would put them in the knight-age. Then I study this sword, which is made of carapace—which is the dayside equivalent of bone. Bone weapons are definitely from the spear-age! So, what level of technology are these daysiders? It’s all terribly confusing.” Khriss frowned. “Why can’t they be from all three ages?” she asked. “My dear duchess,” the fat man replied with a chuckle, “that just doesn’t happen. Populations follow standard means of societal evolution. This is obviously a primitive society—it must be somewhere in the sword-age, or perhaps early knight-age. If we can determine their level of technology, then we will be able to understand their temperaments, their taboos, and their mores. Not to be effrontery, but perhaps you should have spent more time in the social sciences.” “There’s one thing I never understood about that theory, dear Acron,” Cynder’s slow voice said from the other side of the tree. The lanky professor was laying back on the riverside grass, resting leisurely. He still wore one of his suits, though even with the number of out-fit changes he had, the clothing was beginning to look a bit dusty and dirty from their travels, not to mention the bloody tear in one of his finest jackets. “Oh, what’s that?” Acron asked. “Well, if a society’s technology evolves with its culture, then its language should do so as well. True?” “Of course,” Acron agreed. “Have you ever tried to learn Daysider—this Holy Kershtian, as Kenton calls it?” Cynder continued. “I took a few courses,” Acron replied, a little more cautious. “Well, dear man, how did you do?” “I didn’t have much time to spend on the effort,” Acron replied with a shrug of his ample shoulders. “Ah, then you probably didn’t have time to notice how delightfully insane the language is,” Cynder continued. “Its inflections are quite random, its order is completely backward, and many of its infixes are so complex that it takes years to even be able to read. Now, Dynastic, on the other hand, is very simple and straightforward. There are no irregularities, its order is uniform, and compared to daysider it is almost… well… primitive.” Acron frowned, and Khriss could barely contain a snicker. One of Cynder’s favorite activities was pointing out inconsistency—though his intent was never malicious, the trait had earned him enemies amongst Elisian faculty and students
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alike. Few could understand that his arguments were made for the pure delight of irony, rather than intent to ridicule. Acron, fortunately, was not one so easily offended. He simply laughed at Cynder’s remark, shrugging to himself. Acron was not a stupid man, but Cynder’s level of satire was usually lost on him—which was probably the main reason the two were able to remain friends. The anthropologist just took Cynder’s comments as being odd and incomprehensible, and laughed them away as personality quirks rather than trying to understand them. Acron was still laughing when a massive form bent over him, picking up the carapace sword. “I can answer one question for you,” Baon informed, holding up the sword. “I don’t care what it’s made from—this is not a primitive weapon.” “I say, dear man,” Acron chuckled, “and by what learning do you make that judgement?” Baon swiped the sword a few times. “I may not have much university learning, but I know weapons. Do you see how the sword is wider where blade meets hilt, tapering as it length increases? That is an advanced sword design; it balances the weapon for thrusting and backhands, creating a far superior weapon. I’ve traveled amongst primitive peoples of darkside—their blades, when they have them, are always perpendicular to the hilts. They use swords like axes, ignoring most of the blade’s potential in favor of simple hacking ability. This sword is a weapon of finesse and versatility, capable of swings in all directions.” “I’m more interested in how it was made,” Khriss said, regarding the weapon. It had a keen edge, almost like it were molten-forged, like bronze. There were no signs of chipping, and the blade appeared to be one solid piece. Kenton ducked into the tree’s shade, grabbing himself a drink. “It’s easy,” he explained with a shrug. “The Kershtian weaponsmiths use a damp cloth, carefully forming the blade from a large chunk of carapace. They can make an extremely keen edge that way.” “But, what if your opponent throws water on you?” Baon asked with a frown. “It wouldn’t work,” Kenton said with a laugh. “The swords and armor are treated after they’re made, dipped in DoKall, which forms a sort of film on them that makes them water-resistant.” “A good thing too,” Cynder noted. “It would be convenient if one’s weapon melted every time it drew blood from an opponent. Kenton chuckled. “A very good point. Though, honestly, you’ll find more Kershtians with spears than swords—its a traditional Kershtian weapon. Swords are weapons for the shoed ones.” “Shoed ones?” Khriss asked. “That’s what they call Lossanders,” Kenton explained. “Kershtians don’t wear shoes—at least, not the ones who live on the kerla. They don’t need them—the sand is soft, and their calluses protect them from the heat. Shoes are actually a hindrance when moving across sand—you can run much faster without them.” Kenton reached over, accepting the sword and sliding it back into place on his belt. Khriss watched him with a frown. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he was sad for
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some reason. In pain. But, he hadn’t been hurt in the attack—what could be hurting him so much that even she could see it in his eyes? She was growing increasingly distrustful of this daysider. He seemed nice enough, but she didn’t trust his answer as to why the Kershtians had tried to kill him. Trade between Lossand and the Kershtians wouldn’t go on for very long if zealots ambushed ever Lossander that tried to visit the trading towns Baon thought the attack had something to do with the golden sash Kenton kept concealed in his belt pouch. Baon assumed that the sash marked him as an elite soldier or a nobleman. His words made sense—it was after the sash had been seen that Kenton had grown worried. However, she didn’t believe that Kenton was a nobleman. Khriss was not a master politician—she had spent too much time in her studies and away from the court. However, growing up as sole heir of one of Elis’ largest estates had necessitated training in diplomacy. Kenton was no diplomat. True, he knew how to talk his way around topics and manipulate conversations. He acted like one who was used to debate. But, as deft as he was, Kenton would never have survived in court. He was too flagrant—too intentionally rude. He was witty and capable, but far too openly arrogant. The strangest thing about him was, however, how contrived that arrogance seemed—as if he challenged authority out of habit rather than intention. However, Khriss was certain about one thing—habit or intention, it was annoying. “Come on,” Kenton said. “We should get moving.” “But, we haven’t even had lunch yet!” Acron protested. “I thought that’s why we stopped.” “Not your lunch, their lunch,” Kenton said, nodding toward the tonks. The beasts had been hobbled together beside a broad patch of sand. “Sand isn’t by any means rare in Lossand, but a spot has to be a couple of inches deep for the tonks to graze. It’s always a good idea to give them a chance to eat when the opportunity arises.” The weighty anthropologist groaned, casting longing eyes on the saddlebags beside him. “You can eat on the way, Acron,” Kenton said. “We’re almost to Kezare—if we hurry, we could be there within a couple of days.” “Well, at least the food’s good,” Acron mumbled, tearing at a large piece of jerky—an item that made up the majority of their stores. “You like it?” Khriss asked incredulously. The meat was heavily spiced with a strong black powder—something Kenton called ashawen. Apparently, it was the favored Kershtian spice, but Khriss found it nearly inedible. “Why yes, of course,” the anthropologist replied, munching happily. “Personally,” Cynder added, “I’m a little bothered by the fact that I don’t know what kind of animal it comes from.” The three rode together, as usual, following Kenton, who rode in the front, with Baon alternately riding in the back, the side, or, when occasion suited him, scouting ahead. The warrior appeared relaxed, even lax, upon his mount, but his constant position
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shuffling proved otherwise. He was worried about the possibility of another attack, and was determined not to be surprised again. He hadn’t said anything, at least not while Khriss was present, but she knew he was displeased about Kenton’s closed-mouthedness. The river beside them had broadened slightly as they moved, and it now stretched at least a hundred feet across. They had been riding along it for two days now, and it was growing steadily larger. It didn’t appear to be very deep, but the current was swift in places. Earlier in the day they had seen the first signs of human habitation here in Lossand. The villages were small and compact, settled between the river and occasional patches of sandy soil. The crops they grew looked more like what would be found on darkside, as opposed to the strange under-sand vegetables that came from the kerla. However, she was quickly coming to understand why Lossand was considered the desert. The crops were stumpy and short, and there was little livestock. The Kershtian villages they had passed had been both larger and better protected, and the people had looked richer. It had been hard for Khriss to see at the time—she was used to darkside colors and flamboyancy—but now that she had something to compare, she realized that the Kershtians were very well off, despite their lack of extravagance. The Kershtian tents had been well-maintained and their insides plush. The people had been clean and well-fed, and many of them had appeared to have at least some leisure time. It wasn’t that the Lossandin people were poor—they just weren’t as wealthy. The buildings—often stone or mud—didn’t appear as comfortable as Kershtian tents, and the people were always busy working beneath the hot sun, caring for their sickly plants. The more she watched, the more she became certain that her darkside learning wouldn’t apply on dayside. Acron had been wrong when he’d assumed Khriss didn’t know the social sciences. Khriss had taken quite a number of anthropology classes—she liked all kinds of science, though the physical disciplines had always been her strongest area of study. Darkside logic said that a culture who lived in tents and used bone weapons couldn’t possibly be advanced as one that lived in homes and had access to iron. Yet, the exact opposite appeared to be true here on dayside. “Well, I don’t care what it is,” Acron was mumbling as he reached for another piece of jerky. “It’s good. That’s all that matters.” Khriss frowned, watching him chew. The jerky was different from what she had eaten on darkside. It was much softer, for one thing. It was stringy and dull brown, kind of like darkside jerky, but it didn’t come in cut strips but flat round discs, almost like loafs. Cynder chuckled beside her. “Shall I warn our poor dayside friend that he’s about to suffer another interrogation?” Khriss blushed. “What do you mean?” she asked, trying to play innocent. “Oh, come now, duchess,” Cynder chided. “I had you in far too many classes to mistake
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that look. What are you curious about this time?” “The jerky… or whatever it is,” Khriss said. “You’re right—we don’t know where it comes from. It must be from a sandling of some sort, but what part? Certainly not the shell. But that means there must be soft flesh underneath, and soft flesh requires water—which I thought was poisonous to sandlings. In fact, I still can’t accept that they’re all hydrophobic. What kind of creature could exist without water? Do they not have blood?” Cynder smiled, his aged eyes twinkling with mirth. “Well, those are good questions, I suppose. And, the Divine be thanked, for once I’m not on the receiving end. Go and ask—but, on second thought, don’t tell me what you find out. I have a feeling I’d rather not know where that jerky comes from—at least, not until we get to a place where there are other options to choose from.” Khriss ignored his jibes—mostly because they were so well-placed. She tried to hold herself back, but now that the curiosity had gotten hold of her, she found it impossible to ignore. Eventually, beneath the elderly linguist’s knowing eyes, she hammered her tonk forward to confront Kenton. The daysider rode alone, his expression thoughtful, even regretful. The dark sense of despair that had seemed to hover behind his eyes since the attack a few days ago was still there. In his hand was a bit of sand that he absently rubbed against his palm—a nervous habit of his. She had seen him do it before when he was deep in thought. Kenton looked up as she approached, then groaned audibly. “Oh, stop it,” she huffed. “You’ll be rid of us soon enough.” “The sands willing…” Kenton mumbled. “What is it this time?” “The jerky,” Khriss said. “I want to know where it comes from.” “Jerky?” Kenton asked. Khriss pulled a piece out of her saddlebags. The floppy piece of meat was flexible and soft to the touch—and, unfortunately, she could smell the pungent ashawen that coated it. “Oh, the ZaiDon,” Kenton said. “It comes from sandlings, of course.” “Yes,” Khriss said, “but what part? Do they have flesh underneath?” “No, it comes from the entire thing. The entire sandling.” Khriss frowned. “How?” “Like this,” Kenton said, pulling out his canteen. He waited for a few moments, watching the ground. Eventually, he saw one of the ever-present tiny bug-like sandlings scuttle from one patch of sand toward another. Kenton poured, dumping a shower of water on the creature. It immediately began to shake, jerking and squirming in the deadly rain. Khriss turned, watching the little creature as they passed. It bubbled and boiled, and a few seconds later it was nothing more than a greenish-brown puddle on the ground. Kenton replaced his canteen, taking another pinch of sand from the pouch at his side and absently rubbing it between his fingers. “See?” Khriss sat on her tonk, looking behind her at the receding puddle of goo. Suddenly she felt very sick. “You mean…?” “You take sandling pus, churn it in
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a tub for a few hours, then let it dry in the sun. ZaiDon is a staple food, Khriss. We eat it with every meal. Of course, some forms of ZaiDon are so tasteless that we usually spice it as it’s drying. What’s wrong?” Khriss barely kept her stomach under control. “I… On darkside we aren’t accustomed to eating squished bugs.” “Bugs?” he said, obviously translating the word in his mind. “But, when they actually make ZaiDon, they use large sandlings—creatures like tonks. Of course, tonks don’t taste very good—other sandlings make better ZaiDon. Either way they aren’t ‘bugs.’ They’re far too big.” Khriss shook her head. “The word doesn’t necessarily just refer to size,” she informed. “Regardless, I…” she trailed off, frowning. Something was wrong. It took her a moment to pick it out, and when she did she wondered why she it had seemed so odd to her. The sand in Kenton’s palm had turned black. He must have gotten some water on his hands when he opened the canteen. “What?” Kenton asked. “Nothing,” Khriss said. Kenton frowned, still rubbing the sand as if he had forgotten it was there. “No, really. What?” “The sand in your fingers,” Khriss said with a blush. “It was white just a few moments ago. You must have—” Kenton yelped in surprise, nearly dropping the sand as if it had suddenly bitten him. “What!” Baon demanded, hammering his tonk forward, a pistol in one hand, sword in the other. “Oh, uh, nothing,” Kenton sand nervously, still staring down at his hands. “I… thought I saw something.” Baon didn’t look convinced. He did, however, let the matter drop as he put away his pistol and pulled out the spyglass instead. “Here,” the warrior said, handing the glass to Kenton. “I saw this right before you screamed. Look downriver.” Kenton raised the glass hesitantly to his eye—he had used the glass before, but obviously didn’t know what to make of its ability to see great distances. “I assume that’s where we’re going?” Baon asked. Kenton nodded, lowering the glass, intentionally handing it past Khriss’ waiting hand to Cynder, who had ridden up beside her. The linguist smiled, but refrained from taking a look, handing it to Khriss instead. With a growl at Kenton, she raised the glass to her eyes. There, barely visible on the horizon, was what looked like a large island rising out of the middle of the river. Kenton hammered his tonk forward, moving ahead of the others. The darksiders probably assumed the move came from his excitement to get home. In actuality, sighting Kezare meant little to him. Home it was, but he had actually begun to loath returning—coming back to Kezare would mean revealing his loss of power to the remaining sand masters. But, maybe not… Kenton clutched the bit of black sand in his fist, hesitantly allowing himself to hope once again. After the last battle he had surrendered hope, for hope had become to painful. It appeared, however, that the emotion was too resilient to destroy, even intentionally. It
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was probably the water, he told himself as he moved away from Khriss and the others. You’re just going to disappoint yourself again. But, hope moved him forward anyway. Hope led him to reach down and pull a fistful of sand from his sand pouch—worn now out of habit, rather than necessity. It was hope that shone believingly in his eyes as he hesitantly commanded the sand to obey. And it did. He nearly leapt from his saddle—half in joy, half in shock—when the sand suddenly burst into radiance. It sat in his hand, warm and familiar, glowing with its shifting mother-of-pearl light. His ability was not gone, it had only lain dormant for a time—a supposed impossibility. Kenton sat stunned for a long moment, staring at the sand. He had always cursed his small talent, but these last few days without had been excruciating. One ribbon may not be very much compared to other sand masters, but it was infinitely better than no ribbons at all. In a daze of contentment, Kenton began to move the sand out of his hand, spinning it in a very small pattern before him. Then he frowned—something was wrong. No, not wrong… just different. During his years as a sand master, he had grown accustomed to the draining effects of sand mastery—it could be as taxing on a man’s body as physical labor. Perhaps it was just because he had gone so long without mastering, but it seemed like the sand was… “Kenton?” a feminine voice asked. He jumped, hurriedly letting the ribbon fall stale. Khriss’s tonk caught up to his own a few moments later. The darksider’s face was suspicious. “What are you looking at?” she demanded. “Nothing,” Kenton said, letting the black sand slide from his fingers. She watched the action with thin eyes, then turned up to stare at his face, searching for answers. “All right, daysider. What’s going on?” “What do you mean?” Kenton asked innocently. “Those Kershtians attacked us just to get to you. For some reason, they thought you were so dangerous they only sent one of their men against Baon, but they sent six against you. Now, you seem mystified by bits of sand. What are you hiding?” Kenton almost told her. There was really no reason to keep it hidden—she would find out about the sand masters soon enough. As he looked up to speak, however, his eyes fell on her face. Her authoritative, demanding face. So much like Praxton and the mastrells. As his mouth opened, he found himself hesitating. “What am I hiding?” he finally said, his reflexes taking over. “Well, certainly not the fact that you annoy me, dear Khrissalla of darkside. In fact, how do you know it was me they were trying to kill? I seem to remember warning someone, back in that village, that she should pay more attention to Kershtian customs, lest she offend the ‘savages.’ Retribution comes swiftly among us primitive people—I wouldn’t be surprised if those men were hired to come after us by the merchant whose home
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you offended by breaking tradition.” “I—” Khriss said, shocked, her face growing red. She obviously didn’t believe him, but there was enough possibility to his words that she couldn’t be certain. She stuttered for a moment, then hammered her tonk to the side, fleeing back to her darkside companions. By the sands, how could I be so cruel?, Kenton thought in amazement. What have I become? His fight against the Diem had made him strong, but the constant effort had produced side-effects. Since he had become a sand master every moment of his life had been a struggle. Nearly every other Diem member had been an enemy—or, at least, someone to whom he needed to justify his continued defiance of the mastrells. Kenton had worked hard to gain what support he had. Instead of just responding to his accusers, Kenton had needed to make them seem like fools, for the entire Diem had been watching. But, somewhere during the struggle, the cynicism had become a part of him. He was a rebel—not necessarily because he needed to be, but because he had been one for so long. “He seems to get endless joy from infuriating me,” Khriss fumed. Only years of dealing with courtly back-stabbing kept the tears from showing on her face. “He attacked me for no reason. What did I do to deserve this? Save him from dehydration? Perhaps the Divine intended for him to die, and now they’re punishing me for interfering. And why am I talking to you anyway? You don’t care.” Baon raised an eyebrow. “No, I don’t care,” he agreed. “That’s probably why you’re talking to me.” Khriss looked back toward Kenton, who was riding a good distance in front of the rest of them. They should have left him days ago—the darksiders could have followed the river on their own. They didn’t need a guide any more. “I must have said something truthful—something that made him uncomfortable,” she decided. “Or, maybe you just asked something he couldn’t answer,” Baon said with a shrug. “What?” “People get annoyed when you ask questions they don’t know the answers to. It makes them feel insufficient. And, duchess, with the number of questions you ask, the odds are definitely against the daysider.” Khriss snorted at the comment, falling silent. The truth was, however, that she couldn’t remain annoyed for long—not when they were so close to their destination. Kezare was a city of legends on darkside, a mystical place where the sand mages ruled. She was encouraged to see that it really was on an island, like the stories said. The river split directly in the middle, birthing a massive rock of an island that was bulging with tents and buildings. The land on the banks to either side of Kezare was obviously more fertile than what they had passed so far—it was covered with farms, though the crops were still poor compared to darkside standards. In addition, the river got even bigger here. As they approached, Khriss could see a second, smaller river merging with the Ry’Do Ali.
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If her map were to be believed, its origin could be found in the mountains to the east, the only of their kind on the continent other than the single peak at the center of the kerla. Here, in the pseudo-lake surrounding Kezare, she saw ships on the water for the first time. Most of the riverboats were small, but a couple were more massive, probably cargo vessels. Kenton allowed them to catch up as they approached the city. Smaller towns lined the banks of the river, most of them little more than a dock and a few clay structures. It was to one of these that Kenton led them. He rode straight up to the river bank, then told them to wait beside their animals as he negotiated with one of the sailors—a man with lighter Lossandin skin, as opposed to Kershtian olive. A moment later he returned, handing Khriss a small pouch of coins. “I’ve traded him your tonks for this,” he explained. “What?” Khriss demanded. “I didn’t tell you to do that!” “And?” Kenton said with a chuckle. “Were you intending to take them with you?” “Why not?” Khriss asked. “Across water?” Kenton asked with a raised eyebrow. “That wouldn’t be a very good idea. Tonks go wild whenever they’re put onto a ship—I don’t know how they can tell they’re near water, but they can. Even if they couldn’t, all it would take would be one leak or splash to drive the whole lot of them into a stampede. And, if you did get them across, there wouldn’t be anything for them to eat. There’s not much sand in Kezare.” “But, how do we travel around the city?” Khriss asked. “You walk,” Kenton said. “Or, I suppose, you can hire a carriage if you must. Either way, the tonks stay here. A ferry ride across the river was also part of the deal. From there, the man’s son will lead you to Lonzare.” “Lonzare?” Khriss asked. “The darksider section of Kezare. You’ll probably want to find rooms there.” “But, what about you?” Kenton smiled. “I thought you wanted to get rid of me.” “I do,” Khriss informed. “I just… oh, never mind.” “Then this is farewell, Khrissalla,” Kenton said with a nod. “I have… things I need to attend to.” With that, he nodded his farewells to Baon, Acron, and Cynder, then left them standing on the docks, the Lossandin sailor gesturing for them to board his boat. Kenton rushed along the riverbank, the darksiders forgotten for the time being. Now that he was so close, his eagerness was taking control of him—he needed to know who among his comrades had survived. The Diem itself wasn’t in Kezare, but on the lake shore a short distance away from where he had dropped off the darksiders. He made the trip quickly, barely letting himself wonder who would be dead and who would be alive. Soon, he topped a small hill, and his eyes fell on the Diem itself. He paused for a moment, despite his anxiety, to stare at
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the building that he had called home for the last eight years. Large and fortress-like, the building that was the Diem seemed to be part of sand surrounding it. And, in reality, such wasn’t far from the truth. The building was an enigma—it was older than the sand masters, or, at least, their formal organization. It had been formed from a single, enormous block of white sandstone. Yet, unlike normal sandstone, the Diem’s walls and floors could not be chipped or worn away. It was permanent, eternal. Kenton stood, the ever-present wind ruffled his robes, bringing with it the familiar scents of Kershtian cooking and lakewater. The sun sat about twenty degrees down from the apex, resting in its familiar place, the place that felt right. The sand masters’s power, like the building before him, had seemed eternal. They had been broken, betrayed and destroyed through the warping of their own powers. It was possible that not a single one of them had… Kenton stopped, forcing himself not to think of such a possibility. Others had survived. The thought firmly in his mind, he descended toward the block-like Diem. He walked straight up the road toward its front, striding up its sandstone steps and through the doorless gate. As soon as he entered, his resolve wavered slightly. The Diem was silent. He stood in the entry hall, a massive, open room that stretched up for two stories. The room was bright—besides the inner hallways, there wasn’t a place in the Diem that didn’t have windows. But, for some reason, it felt dark. Rich tapestries swung on the walls, giving way before the wind. The room’s only sound was that of the long pieces of cloth slapping against the stone walls. Paintings watched him. The murals on the back wall, depictions of Lossand’s eight Professions, seemed faded and subdued. The ground, like all of the Diem’s floors, was covered with a few inches of white sand. Kenton shivered. The entry chamber was the Diem’s main entryway; it had always been busy. Whether it had been acolents running toward their rooms, or undermastrells yelling for them to act properly, the entry chamber was a place for meeting and socializing. With thousands of Diem members, there was always at least someone there. And now it was empty. Kenton took a step forward, walking tentatively, as if he were on deep sand. Then he moved more quickly, more urgently, if only to make more noise himself. Beyond the entry chamber he entered the dark inner hallway. Unlit lamps lined the walls, but several open chamber doors provided some light. The inner hallway extended tunnel-like in either direction, the occasional open door lending it a ghostly, quiet light. The hallway circled the rectangular perimeter of the Diem. From it, one could reach every room on the ground floor—the Diem’s center was a large open courtyard. The hallway should have been lit. It was the main area of traffic in the building. Now alarmed, Kenton chose a direction and began to stride down the hallway, throwing open doors
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as he moved. He passed the large conference room that sat behind the entry chamber and moved on to the smaller rooms that lined the hallway on both sides. He exposed living chambers and classrooms alike, each one empty. Kenton searched frantically, calling out as he worked. Eventually, he found himself back where he had begun—he had traveled the entire perimeter of the Diem. Stupefied, he wandered back into the entry hall. It was true—the Diem was empty. He couldn’t know for certain, of course, for he couldn’t check the two upper stories. The Diem had no stairs—those who didn’t have sand mastering ability couldn’t visit the chambers of the mastrells and other high-ranking sand masters. Still, Kenton knew that even if he could get up to those floors, he would find the rooms empty. His yell-accompanied searching had been loud; they would have heard him. He had even stuck his head into the inner courtyard and called out for an answer. There had been none. He was the last sand master. The possibility that he had forced himself not to consider had occurred. What would he do? Could the Diem continue with one member? Kenton slumped against a sandstone wall, letting himself slide down to the floor. He stared forward sightlessly, disbelievingly. How many times had he wished that he didn’t have to deal with the mastrells? How many times had he speculated about how much could be done for the Diem if the old leadership were gone? He had fought them for eight years, but now there was no one left to fight. No one to tell him he wasn’t good enough. No one to snicker behind his back as he passed. No one to impress with how much he could do with a single ribbon. No one to meet for lunch, to talk about how far they had come. No one to be his friend, despite their difference in ranks. No brothers left, spiteful or encouraging. Kenton’s head fell to his hands. What would he do now? “Kenton?” a hesitant voice asked. Kenton looked up with shock, bumping his head against the wall behind him. Standing in the large gateway was a familiar form. “Dirin?” Kenton asked with amazement. The flame-haired boy rushed into the room. He wore his sand master’s robes and the white sash of an acolent. “Kenton, you’re alive!” the boy exclaimed. “We thought for certain that—” “We?” Kenton interrupted. “There are others?” Dirin paused. “Well, yes. Of course. Oh, but you wouldn’t know, would you?” Kenton leapt to his feet. “Where, Dirin? Where is everyone?” “At the Hall,” Dirin explained, examining Kenton’s face with a frown. “Are you all right?” “The Hall of Judgement?” Kenton asked. “Why?” “The Taishin have met, Kenton,” Dirin explained. “They need to ratify a new Lord Mastrell.” “A new Lord Mastrell…” Kenton said, his eyes opening wide. “Who?” But somehow he already knew the answer. “Drile,” Dirin replied. Kenton cursed. “Come on,” he said, moving to rush out of the Diem. “Wait,” Dirin requested. The boy rushed away, then returned
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a few moments later, a golden sash from the supply room in his hands. “Terr sent me to get this,” he explained sheepishly. “We’re going to give it to Drile when he leaves the Hall. It wouldn’t be right for the Lord Mastrell not to have one.” Kenton frowned. “You won’t need it,” he informed. “None of the mastrells survived,” Dirin explained, speaking with the excitement of a youth with news to tell. “Except maybe Drile, who isn’t quite a mastrell anymore.” Kenton nodded, hurrying through the small riverside town. They needed to get a boat to Kezare as quickly as possible. “How did you survive?” he asked. Dirin shrugged. “I don’t know, really. After the Lord Mastrell’s final attack, the Kershtians only fired a few more arrows, then retreated. Most of them ignored the acolents—over half of us survived. The higher, ranks, though…” “They must have known which sash colors to aim for,” Kenton assumed as they walked onto the docks. “Wait here.” A boatman, a Lossandin man with dark enough hair that he might have had some Kershtian blood in him, approached as Kenton strode forward. “We need passage,” Kenton explained. “As quickly as possible.” “Two lak,” the man said, “and I’ll have you there in less than five degrees.” Kenton froze. He had given all of the money to Khriss and the others, assuming he wouldn’t need it once he returned to the Diem. “I…” Kenton trailed off. “No money?” the man assumed with a snort, turning. Kenton watched him go. Always before, he had been able to request money from the Diem for whatever expenses he had. What did he do if there was no one to distribute money? Then, reaching down to his belt, Kenton realized something. “Wait!” he exclaimed. The man turned, and Kenton pulled out the golden mastrell’s sash. The man’s eyes opened wide, then immediately turned down toward the ground, and he fell to one knee. “KeemTo!” he said, the Kershtian word for ‘master.’ “I did not know… I mean, I thought you were all…” Murmurs came from all around him as other dock patrons and workers saw the golden sash. Everywhere Kenton looked, people averted their eyes, some bowing, others scurrying away, and more than a few making Kershtian wardings against evil with their hands. Kenton watched it all with a measure of shock—people had been suspicious of him when he was an acolent, but he had never received a reaction such as this. Mastrells rarely left the Diem, and when they did they traveled by carriage—Kenton hadn’t realized what an effect the golden sash would have on those around him. The dockman remained kneeling before him, sweat on his brow, his arms shaking slightly. “I still need passage,” Kenton said slowly. “Yes, KeemTo. Immediately.” The man hopped up, running over to a small boat. Kenton followed more slowly, allowing Dirin to catch up. There was surprise on the boy’s face. “Kenton, you… I mean, why?” “Why what?” Kenton asked, climbing on the boat. Dirin regarded the dockman with careful eyes, then continued
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in a low voice. “Why imitate a mastrell? You know the punishment for that? I mean, I know you want to get to Kezare…” the boy trailed of with a blush, as if he had gone too far in his accusation. “Imitating…?” Kenton asked as the dockman moved them out onto the lake and began to row for Kezare. “Dirin, the Lord Mastrell himself gave me this sash right before the attack. Weren’t you paying attention?” Dirin lowered his eyes sheepishly. “Of course I was, Kenton, but… well, you wouldn’t know, because you always walk right up to the front. The rest of us can’t do that. It’s very hard to hear in the back—the lower ranks never know what’s happening up front. Most of us are short enough that we can’t even see. I heard that you’d… picked up Drile’s sash and taken it for yourself, but no one actually thought, I mean, the Lord Mastrell said he would never…” Kenton sat dumbfounded on the boat’s wooden plank, thinking back to the events right before the Kershtian attack. The last days had been so chaotic that it was hard to remember—he knew that Praxton had told him to pick up the sash, but had he ever announced Kenton’s advancement to the rest of the Diem? “Dirin, who besides students survived the attack?” “Some underfens, a couple dozen fens, and fourteen Diemfens.” Too low, Kenton realized. All of them would be so far back that they wouldn’t have been able to see or hear. I was advanced, but there’s no one alive who can prove it. “Oh,” Dirin added. “I almost forgot—Elorin survived too, but…” “Elorin?” Kenton asked with excitement. “He was there, up at the front!” “Yes,” Dirin agreed. “But, well… he isn’t here.” “Why not?” Kenton demanded. “He should be leading the Diem! He’s the highest ranking sand master left.” “He’s not a sand master anymore,” Dirin said softly. “He overmastered like everyone who died, but his powers were burned away. He can’t even master a single ribbon.” Kenton grew cold. “Elorin, burned out?” Dirin nodded. “He was the one who organized the refugees and led us back to Kezare, but once he got here, he left. He said the sight of the Diem was too much for him, now that he…” Kenton closed his eyes, shaking his head. Only a few hours before he had assumed such would be his own fate—he knew well the despair that came from losing one’s ability to master sand. He probably would have done what Elorin did, had things remained unchanged. Except, for some reason his powers had returned. Why? The boat pulled into dock, and the dockman hopped out, quickly tying the moorings. He then bowed subserviently as Kenton and Dirin climbed out. He demanded no payment, but instead boarded his vessel in silence. Kenton noticed a look of relief on his face as he rowed away from the city. Relief, and something else, something carefully hidden. Resentment. “Come on,” Kenton said, watching the dockman with distracted eyes. “We need to get
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to the Hall of Judgement.” The Hall of Judgement was a massive pyramidal structure. Cut from dark black marble, it was the organizational center for Lossand’s trackts and judges, much in the same way that the Diem headquartered the sand masters. There was a massive crowd around its front steps, many of them wearing the white robes of sand mastery. The people spoke with hushed voices, and even from a distance Kenton could feel their anxiety. The selection of a new Taisha—leader of one of Lossand’s eight Professions—was a very important event, especially when that Taisha was the Lord Mastrell. Kenton hung back from the crowd, waiting in the half-shadows beside an earthen building. He leaned against the hardened clay, feeling oddly hesitant after his rush to arrive. The crowd was packed so thickly that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to push his way through. Of course, there was one easy way to force them apart—few people would stand in the way of a mastrell. He had put the golden sash away after leaving the docks. The people’s reactions had made him uncomfortable—in all his years of seeking the golden sash, he had never associated it with the power that most sand masters probably coveted. He had wanted to be a mastrell primarily to prove his father wrong. Now that he had it, he was seriously considering throwing it away. He could do it. No one alive had heard Praxton advance him. Others might call him a fool for doing so, but Kenton had seen the faces of the sand masters who had been at the front of the crowd. He had felt their envy, and their indignation. He didn’t deserve the sash, and they all knew it. “Kenton?” Dirin asked, his voice confused. The young acolent stood beside him in the alley. “Are we going to go forward?” “I…” Kenton paused. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But, you have to stop him!” “Who?” Kenton asked. “Drile!” Dirin explained. “They’re going to make him Lord Mastrell. He’s in there now—he’s the only one the Taishin let in.” “Maybe Drile should be Lord Mastrell,” Kenton mumbled. “He is the most powerful, after all.” “But—” Kenton held up a hand to cut the boy off. “I didn’t mean it,” he said with a shake of his head. “Trust me, I know Drile far better than you. We were acolents together. He’ll make a despot of a Lord Mastrell—I couldn’t think of a worse choice, no matter how powerful he is. The problem is, I don’t see what we can do about it.” “But, Kenton,” Dirin began, “you’re a mastrell. You should be Lord Mastrell.” Kenton frowned. “I thought you didn’t believe me,” he said. Dirin looked up, his eyes wide and honest, like always. “I didn’t hear Lord Praxton advance you, but I believe you. If you said he gave you the sash, then he did. Besides, anyone would be better than Drile.” Kenton looked down at the acolent’s encouraging eyes. Sometimes the boy was so optimistic it was sickening. Kenton shook
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his head, looking back at the mass of people before the Hall. Most of them weren’t as ingenuous as Dirin—would they believe him? Probably not. Kenton had too much of a history of being a rebel to have any credibility. Besides, did he really want them all to treat him like the Lord Mastrell? They would fear him, and hate him, him even more than if he were just a simple mastrell. “No,” he said quietly. “Dirin, I don’t deserve this sash. Praxton gave it to me out of spite, not because he thought I should be a mastrell.” “You deserve it,” Dirin countered. “Kenton, you always said you worked harder, did more with what you had, than any other sand master. You said that should measure who became a mastrell and who didn’t.” Kenton shook his head. “I lied, Dirin,” he said frankly. “I didn’t fight to be a mastrell because I thought I deserved it, I did so to spite my father. I knew it would embarrass him. That’s why I kept turning down his advancement offers, not because of any moral belief.” Dirin fell silent. Kenton turned away from the Hall, stepping quietly down the alleyway, walking away. He had fought and won, but only now did he realize that he had been fighting the wrong battle. “I almost left the Diem, you know,” Dirin said. He spoke quietly, as if speaking to himself. “I was so weak, and everyone else so strong. I could barely make sand glow—let alone move it around. I always thought, what good will I be? I’m useless.” Kenton paused in the shadows, brick walls on either side of him. He didn’t turn around, but he didn’t keep going either. “I’m still an acolent,” Dirin continued, his voice almost a whisper. “I’m sixteen. Do you know that, Kenton? Do you know how old I am? I know I don’t look like it—Talloners are short. I guess that makes it easier for everyone to ignore the fact that I should have been offered a sash two years ago.” Kenton closed his eyes. He had wondered, on occasion, why Dirin was still an acolent, but he hadn’t ever asked. The boy had never been called up for advancement. “I don’t think Praxton was ever planning on giving me a sash,” Dirin explained. “He tried to forget about me. I can barely make sand glow. Even after all these years, I can barely do anything. I’m the weakest sand master who ever lived. At times, I got so depressed that a nearly gave up. I nearly left the Diem on a dozen separate occasions.” Dirin paused. In a moment, he finally continued. “But, every time I thought that, I would see you. Here was a sand master barely more powerful than I, but somehow he has managed to become the focus of everyone’s attention. He does things even mastrells can’t do, and he speaks back to the upper ranks with pride, despite his apparent lack of strength. Everyone in the Diem respects you, even those who hate
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you. I would see you, struggling on despite everything and everyone, and I would feel that, perhaps, I could keep going too.” Kenton lowered his head, raising one hand to feel the sand and clay brick beside him. “I’m not what you think I am, Dirin,” he said, memories of his harshness to Khriss fresh in his memory. “Can you really let him be Lord Mastrell?” Dirin asked. His voice was pleading now. “Ever since Elorin left, Drile has been lording over us like a King from the rimlands. He’s been talking about hiring us out as mercenaries to fight for private armies or to defend kelzin. We’ve been afraid, but there was nothing we could do. Even with his demotion, Drile is still the highest-raking sand master alive. Except you.” Except me. He’d spend all his life struggling against the mastrells and their leader. Could he really become one of them? He wavered, part of his mind warning him that Drile couldn’t be allowed to take control of the Diem, an equally strong part whispering that as bad as Drile was, Kenton might prove worse. Absently, he reached into his sand pouch and pulled out a handful, rubbing the sand between his fingers and his palm. The thin grains were almost soft to the touch. With barely a thought, he called them to life. The light of mastered sand instantly banished the alley’s shadows. His fist glowed red as he clutched the sand, letting it seep between the cracks in his fingers to form a ribbon that wove a simple pattern in the air. The feeling he had noticed earlier, before Khriss had interrupted him, was still there. The sand felt… weak. Still, despite the odd feeling, the experience of mastering sand was the same as it had always been. Eight years now he had worked with the sand, coaxing every ounce of power from its grains, driving it faster, controlling it with more delicacy. All because he had wanted to prove those above him wrong, and never because of the sand itself. It was beautiful, shimmering with radiance, twisting and spinning in the air. Perhaps it was time he actually became a sand master. Kenton raised his head. His sand surged around him as he turned, moving in rhythm with his determination. He whipped the golden sash out of its pouch and tied it around his waist. “All right, Dirin,” he said. “I’ll do it, but only to stop Drile. As soon as someone more competent can be found, I will give the Lord Mastrellship to him.” Instead of beaming in joy, however, Dirin regarded Kenton with amazement. “What?” Kenton asked, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “You’re that surprised that I didn’t abandon you?” “Kenton… look at your sand,” the boy said, raising a finger. Kenton looked up. The ribbon looked normal to him. “The other side.” Kenton turned his head. That ribbon looked normal too—He froze. Looking back and forth between the ribbons. There were two of them, hanging separately in the air. His eyes grew wide with shock—that must have
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been the feeling he had experienced, the feeling of weakness from the sand. “But, it shouldn’t be possible!” he whispered. All his life, he had only been able to master one ribbon. Sand masters didn’t spontaneously gain the ability to master more—or, at least, not after they passed into maturity. All acolents started out with one ribbon, but most quickly added more—at a rate of about one every few months—until they hit their limit. Then, they stopped, never gaining more. For most sand masters, this happened long before their advancement, though mastrells continued to grow on after being granted their sash. All hit an upper limit, however, even mastrells. Through practice a sand master could increase the amount of sand his ribbons could hold, but never how many ribbons he could control. Yet, Kenton had done just that. Experimentally, he moved the ribbons around. They obeyed, moving separately when he commanded. The movements were awkward—like tying to control two arms doing separate tasks—but they did obey. Between the time of the battle and the time he regained his powers, his abilities had changed somehow. It wasn’t supposed to be possible—but, of course, the books also said that once a sand master burned away his power, it never came back. “How…?” Dirin asked. “I don’t know,” Kenton confessed. He reached out a tentative hand, commanding one of the ribbons to split. And it did. “Three?” Dirin whispered in disbelief. Kenton commanded again, but the ribbon resisted. He struggled to make it split, but he ran up against a familiar wall—he had tried unsuccessfully for eight years to control two ribbons at once. He strained, trying to bend the sand to his will, and finally succeeded in splitting the ribbon in two—but as he did one of the other ribbons immediately fell stale, dropping to the ground. “It looks like three is the limit,” Kenton said with bafflement. Controlling all three at once was difficult, but no more so than one had been for him just a short time before. “It is a sign,” Dirin said quietly. “A sign from whom?” Kenton said with a snort. “Have you suddenly converted to Ker’Reen?” Dirin blushed sheepishly, but his eyes continued to glimmer as he looked at Kenton’s ribbons. Kenton turned, looking out of the alley at the collection of sand masters and townspeople waiting for the inevitable announcement of Drile’s ascension to the Taisha. The Council isn’t going to like this, Kenton thought as he prepared to step out of the alleyway. Of course, they were used to dealing with him. He had petitioned them on four separate occasions, attempting to use the Law against his father. He had lost all four petitions to nearly unanimous votes. Hopefully, this time would break the trend. He would hate to have motivated himself so heroically only to fail. “Well, Dirin,” he mumbled. “If you’ve suddenly decided to become religious, you might want to say a prayer for me. This is going to take some serious divine intervention.” And with that he stepped forward, his three ribbons of
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sand whirling around his body. Khriss watched Kenton walk away, disappearing around a corner without giving the darksiders a second look. She stared distractedly for a moment, allowing the boatman to herd her onto his tiny vessel, before snorting and seating herself. “I knew he would abandon us,” she informed to no one in particular. “You sound disappointed,” Cynder replied, seating himself beside her with a chuckle. “Weren’t you complaining just a short while ago about his continued presence in our company?” “I’m happy to see him go,” Khriss defended. “I just thought it rather abrupt of him to leave us here, after all we’ve done for him.” Cynder just silently raised his eyes to the heavens as the daysider boatman began to row them across the lake. Khriss turned from the insufferable linguist, intent on forgetting about Kenton and turning her attention back to her task. She had crossed the desert—which apparently wasn’t a desert at all—and found her way to Kezare, capital of Lossand. The city was to have been Gevin’s final destination. She had to find out what had happened to him after he got to the city—assuming, of course, that he had even made it this far. He could have very easily died crossing the sands; Khriss and her group nearly had. Khriss shook her head. She had to assume that Gevin had arrived at Kezare. There was something about the prince—something about his obstanance—that told her he would have made it to his destination. Even if inquiries had told him the Sand Mages weren’t real, he would have pressed on to Kezare. He would have had to prove his failure to himself. But how was she going to discover anything? Her only means of communication had just run off, leaving her party once again to the mercies of its own linguistic ability. Cynder had spent a number of hours during their trip interrogating Kenton about dayside languages, but the elderly linguist still had only a passing grasp on daysider. In addition, the tongue Cynder and Khriss had learned was what Kenton called Formal Kersha, language of Kershtian religious services. Khriss’s group had absolutely no experience with the tongue Kenton called ‘Lossandin.’ Khriss made little progress with her doubts as they crossed the lake—though Acron nearly succeeded in capsizing them on two separate occasions when he tried to stand and get a better view of the approaching city. The small dayside boat was not designed to deal with someone of the anthropologist’s girth. They arrived without misfortune, however. Khriss took Acron’s hand as he offered it to help her from the boat, and Baon quietly gathered up their baggage—making no complaints at having become the de facto packman. Kezare was not as she had pictured it. True, it was on an island, like the books said, but it was far from what she would have called grand. The buildings were mostly clay or stone, and tended to be blockish. Many of them were multi-storied, and their size combined with the narrow streets to give the island an overloaded
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feeling, like a bag that was packed so full it was about to burst. The buildings almost seemed to be pushing one another into the lake, some running right up to the water’s edge. Over all it looked less grand than it did crowded, dirty, and loud. Acron, apparently, disagreed with her. “It’s amazing,” the hefty anthropologist breathed, rubbing his short beard. “It is like we’ve traveled back in history! Not a single building made from wood. And look, none of the roofs are peaked—though, I suppose that makes sense, what with the lack of snow. I wonder how they deal with sanitation? And transportation—the roads are so packed with bodies. Do you suppose everybody really walks?” Acron continued to babble as the boatman tied their boat, then began calling in Lossandin toward a stone cottage just beyond the wooden docks. When there was no reply, he grumbled to himself, bowed to the darksiders, then went jogging toward the building. “Should we follow?” Khriss asked. “Not unless you want to help me carry all of this,” Baon replied, setting the last of their saddlebags in a pile on the docks. “I suspect he will return—Kenton did say he had arranged to have us transported somewhere.” “Lonzare,” Khriss said with a nod. “Though he didn’t bother to explain what it was. That man is insufferable.” “We will find out soon enough, I suspect,” Baon replied, shrugging. “Aren’t you even curious?” Khriss asked. “He could be sending us anywhere.” “Wondering won’t get us there any more quickly.” “Yes, but…” Khriss trailed off, realizing she wasn’t going to get anywhere with Baon. The mercenary simply refused to be properly curious. So, to alleviate her own frustration, she turned to another topic. “What do you think of the city?” she asked, nodding toward Kezare. Baon replied by pulling a small piece of carapace from one of his pockets—one of the fragments he had retrieved from the fallen Kershtians’ armor. He dropped it off the side of the dock, letting it fall to the water with a solitary plunk. Khriss watch as it began to bubble, melting away before it could sink more than a few inches. “The city is very well placed,” Baon said. “Hard to attack, easy to defend.” “But very congested,” Khriss noted. “True,” Baon agreed. “That could be good or bad, depending on how it were used. The sheer number of streets and houses would slow an enemy army—both because of confusion and because of temptation to plunder. But, the population also makes protecting the people a virtual impossibility. This would make a difficult battlefield for both sides.” “Other than the martial applications, what do you think?” Khriss asked, looking back over the busy streets. Baon shrugged again. “It’s a city.” “That’s it?” Khriss asked. “That’s all you have to say?” “For now,” Baon said. True to Baon’s prediction the boatman returned a few moments later. Following him were a couple of burly Lossandin men and a young, dark-haired girl. Khriss frowned, trying to determine the girl’s race—she could have been either Lossandin
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or Kershtian. The dark hair seemed to imply Kershtian, but her skin didn’t have the olive cast to it. Of course, it was smudged with enough dirt that it was hard to tell. The boatman smiled, pointing at the two men, then held up two fingers. “Za lak,” he said. “Two coins,” Cynder translated. “How surprising—I actually understood him.” “Not two coins,” the little girl corrected, speaking Dynastic with a horrible, almost indecipherable accent. “Two Lak. Can give them other coins if want, but will be paying them more than they have ever been worth.” Cynder blinked in surprise, looking down at the little girl. Then he turned back to Khriss with a chuckle. “By the Divine—I’m wondering why I even bothered to learn this language. Everybody seems to speak Dynastic.” “Not everyone,” the girl said. “Just me. Come.” The girl barely waited for the two packmen to pick up their baggage before darting off into the crowd. “I guess she’s to be our guide,” Cynder observed. “I thought Kenton said the boatman’s son would be guiding us,” Khriss said with a frown. Cynder shrugged. “All I know is that if we don’t hurry, our possessions are likely to arrive at our destination without us.” He nodded toward the packmen, who had already started to follow the girl. “Let’s go,” Khriss said, nodding a grateful farewell to the boatman. Her estimation of Kezare proved correct in one area, at least. It was crowded. Khriss and the others practically had to fight to move through the mass of people. The first few minutes were horrible; Khriss was accustomed to people giving her a great deal of room. She was, after all, of noble blood. The daysiders didn’t seem to care about her personal space—they jostled, shoved, and bumped into her. The smell of their dirty, unwashed bodies was nearly enough to knock her unconscious. Fortunately, she had Baon. Whether he noticed the look on her face or whether he simply guessed she would need room, Baon suddenly began to make space where there had previously been none. People shoved, he shoved harder. People pushed, but he was much taller—and more massive—than anything Lossand could produce. People began to notice for the first time that the body they were shoving was much larger than what they were accustomed to, and their eyes opened wide with amazement as they turned up to stare at the massive black-skinned giant that stood in their midst. Within a few moments the crowd had pulled back, flowing around Baon like raging waters before an enormous stone. Khriss and Cynder crouched in Baon’s wake—Khriss breathing deeply, Cynder humming quietly to himself. “Thank you,” she mumbled to Baon. “Come on,” the warrior simply replied, pushing his way through the crowd—which alacritously parted before him. “We’ll lose our guide.” “Where’s Acron?” Khriss asked, suddenly realizing she had lost track of the anthropologist. “There,” Cynder said, nodding to the edge of the crowd. Acron’s large head could be seen bobbing happily underneath a colorful canopy. Khriss considered calling out to him, but the
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noise of the crowd would obviously render her voice ineffectual. Fortunately, Acron began to push his bulk their direction a moment later. When he met up with them, he wore one of the Kershtian forehead medallions around his head. “You should never have given him any money, My Lady,” Cynder said with a soft groan. “Move. Now,” Baon ordered, walking forward. The crowd thinned as they left the docks, and eventually Khriss was able to relax. She still felt nervous—there were far more people on the streets than she found comfortable—but at least they weren’t jostling into her. Her diminutive guide waited impatiently just beyond a line of tall shops with colored canopies. She didn’t give Khriss a chance to ask any questions, instead turning to scamper away, leading them further into the city. Even without the press of bodies from the market place, the city still felt cramped to Khriss. The tall buildings looked like prisoners waiting to be executed—crammed into long lines with their walls pressed close together, their postures stooped and top-heavy with balconies and canopies. Of course, the thin streets and tall buildings meant plenty of shade as relief from the sun, but Khriss wondered how anyone could survive in a city so crowded. The streets weren’t cobbled—they didn’t need to be, the ground appeared to be solid rock, though there were patches and drifts of sand hiding in corners and alleys. The canopies and drapings were more colorful than what she had seen in the Kershtian towns of the kerla. Of course, the colors were still far from as vibrant as those of darkside, but only so much could be done with the bright sun dulling everything. Their urchin of a guide led them gradually toward the center of the island. The land sloped upward as they walked, but before they could reach a point where Khriss could overlook the city, their guide stopped and turned down a particularly narrow alleyway. Baon regarded the alley with a dubious look. It was small enough that his shoulders would almost touch either side. “Good place for an ambush,” he noted. Khriss snorted. “Who would want to ambush us?” she asked. “I’m just making an observation,” the warrior said before walking into the alleyway, his hand resting on his sword hilt. Khriss followed, as did the others. A few feet down the alleyway, their guide turned and walked through what must have been an open doorway in one of the walls. When Khriss arrived, however, she discovered that the doorway looked something more like a tunnel—a vaguely squareish opening cut in the stone wall. It was large, wide and tall enough to accommodate even Baon and Acron without trouble. Their guide stood beside the opening. “Have arrived,” she informed. “Lonzare, like promised. Two Lak for packmen.” “Wait,” Khriss said. “Where are we?” “Lonzare” the girl repeated. “Yes, but what is Lonzare?” “Place you were going,” the girl said testily. “Pay packmen.” Khriss frowned, peering through the dark opening. There appeared to be shadowed forms moving deep within the tunnel—perhaps Baon
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was right, maybe it was an ambush. Then she realized something—or, rather, she heard something. A few words, echoing through the stone tunnel. Words in Dynastic. “You don’t suppose…?” she asked, listening closely. She could have sworn to the Divine that the voices were all speaking in Dynastic. “Come on,” she said, removing her dark glasses and waving for the group to step into the darkness. The packmen, however, stayed where they were. The four sets of saddlebags remained on the ground. “Won’t enter,” the girl explained. “Too dark. We aren’t blind, like you.” “Blind?” Khriss asked. “Lonsha,” Cynder explained. “Many of the dayside texts use that word for darksiders—it means ‘blind ones.’” “That’s silly,” Khriss objected. “So are people,” Cynder said with a chuckle. “Therefore, it makes sense that they would use the term.” “Won’t enter,” the girl repeated. “I go, but packmen stay.” Khriss sighed. “All right,” she said, poking through the coins Kenton had given her and choosing two of the red colored ones she had determined were worth the least. Apparently, these were laks. She must have guessed correctly, for the packmen accepted the coins and, without bowing a proper farewell, turned and left down the alleyway. “Is this what I think it is?” Cynder asked. “We’ll find out in a moment,” Khriss replied, watching as Baon struggled to pick up all four sets of bags. “Acron, help him,” she ordered. “What?” the anthropologist asked, turning to notice Baon’s efforts for the first time. “Oh, of course.” The hefty professor moved to accept one set of bags, slinging them over his shoulders like a scarf. They entered the tunnel hesitantly at first, following the ghostly sounds. After a few moments they rounded a corner and entered a short-ceilinged room—or cavern, Khriss still couldn’t tell which it was. It was filled with shops and people, much similar to the market near the docks except for several major differences. All of the signs were written in Dynastic, and all the people had dark skin. Khriss stared at the scene with amazement. Darksiders mingled and mixed, travelling from shop to shop, bargaining for familiar foodstuffs and other items she hadn’t seen in months. The walls were hung with colorful lanterns, illuminating the large room with soft hues that were just the right level of brightness, and the air was cool and wet—at least, compared to that outside. She almost felt like she had stepped through a door and magically traveled back to Elis. “Amazing,” Cynder mumbled. “A linguistic enclave.” “You mean a cultural enclave,” Acron corrected. Cynder raised his eyes. “We’re not going to have this discussion again, are we?” “They’re maintaining culture first—language is only a by-product,” Acron argued. “Yes, well, I’m a linguist,” Cynder countered. “That means I get to name it.” “Hush!” Khriss ordered, walking forward into the cavern. The familiar sounds of Dynastic surrounded her. This market wasn’t as congested as the one outside, and its people were less-hurried, after the darksider fashion. As she walked she identified at least a half-dozen different accents—each region of darkside
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had its own distinct way of speaking Dynastic. She didn’t see any Elisians, however. There were quite a few black-skinned Iiarians—the largest and most powerful nation under Dynastic control—and an inordinate number of the light-skinned people of the Tiaoc states, a group of Dynastic protectorates that lay huddled along darkside’s eastern shore. Of course, if anyone wanted to escape darkside, it would be the Tiaoc. Their fertile flatlands held some of the most overworked, most secluded people in the Dynasty. “No guns,” Baon whispered from beside her. Acron and Cynder had not stopped their argument at Khriss’s command, but they had quieted, continuing to talk as they followed her. They seemed almost oblivious to the very wonder they were discussing. Baon, however, watched their surroundings with keen interest. Khriss scanned the crowd. He was right; there weren’t any guns, at least not in sight. “Most of them are Tiaoc,” she whispered back. “From what I’ve heard, the Dynasty barely lets them have horse-drawn plows, let alone firearms.” Baon nodded slowly. “This place should not exist,” he mumbled. “The Dynasty wants us to think it doesn’t exist,” Khriss corrected. “They don’t want us to know that there is traffic between the continents.” “Shipments come every month,” their guide explained in heavily-accented Dynastic. Khriss looked up—she had almost forgotten the girl was there. “What is this place?” she asked. “Darksider village,” the girl explained. “Darksiders live here.” “I can see that,” Khriss noted. “We need to talk to someone in charge—someone who might keep track of darksiders who pass through the town.” The girl paused, thinking for a moment. “Can help,” she decided. “Cost ten Lak.” Khriss’s eyes opened in surprise. “You little cheat! We already paid your father.” “Not daughter,” girl corrected. “Couldn’t find son; I substitute. Need eat, so you pay.” Baon smiled slightly. “She’d make a good mercenary,” he noted as Khriss counted out ten more coins. The girl immediately began to move, dashing through the crowd. At first Khriss thought she was running away with the money, but then the girl paused, turning restlessly and waiting for them to follow. “Not prone to extended bouts of patience, is she?” Cynder noted. Khriss turned, shaking her head. “No, she isn’t. Did you resolve your discussion?” “No,” Cynder replied. “But I did manage to confuse him enough that he thinks I won. Shall we go?” Khriss smiled to herself, leading the group through the darkened room toward their guide—whose name she still didn’t know. As soon as they got close the girl scurried away again, but Khriss refused to let herself be hurried. As she moved through the market, the place reminded her more and more of darkside. The room resolved into corridors that almost seemed like streets. The floor was cobbled, even though it probably didn’t need to be, and in some of the larger areas there were even lamp-poles bearing oil lanterns. She still couldn’t tell if they were underground or not. Some of the walls were unworked stone, but occasionally the she would see small patches of light above—as
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if the ceiling were constructed of wood. The place seemed to be a combination of caverns both natural and man-made. Most of the walls were obscured, however. Buildings had been built up against them—the line of houses and shops didn’t even have alleys between them. They kind of reminded Khriss of tenements back in the poorer sections of Elis, though many of these buildings look rich and well-constructed. After just a few minutes of travel, Khriss began to wish she had worn one of her gowns, rather than the tan dayside robe. She was a duchess—she should look like one. True, she had spent the last month traveling through a dust-filled desert, but everyone would still expect her to look like a duchess. The underground system was even larger than Khriss had assumed. Their guide led them through at least a dozen different chambers and tunnels. Overall, it was probably as big as a couple of city blocks back in Elis, though it was much more spread out because of the tunnels. Eventually they passed through what was probably a residential section, darkside fungal flowers growing in rows outside the front doors. The tunnel eventually narrowed to one last door, sitting solitarily in a rock face. Like some of the buildings, this one actually seemed to be cut into the stone wall. “Here,” the girl explained. “Wait.” With that she walked up to the door and, without any kind of knock or sign, opened it and entered. Khriss and the others stood waiting as the door closed. “Fascinating,” Cynder was mumbling, looking back at the dark street. Acron shrugged. “I didn’t cross the ocean to visit darkside, my dear man,” the anthropologist explained. “The outside is much more interesting.” “Yes, but it isn’t darkside,” Cynder corrected. “This is a new culture, one in the process of blending. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised to find a contact language developing—a pidgin between Dynastic and Lossandin.” Acron scratched his head absently, jingling the medallion still hanging on his forehead. The things looked odd enough on Kershtians—Khriss thought this one looked completely ridiculous on Acron. The door swung open a moment later, revealing a darkside man who waved them inside. Tall and thin, he wore a sword at his side and moved with relaxed motions. As they entered, Khriss noticed Baon immediately placed himself between her and the man. The hallway inside was constructed of wood, not stone, and its walls were simple and stark save for a few lanterns. Khriss frowned. She was wrong—the walls weren’t wood. They seemed to be made of carapace. Was everything on this side of the world constructed from the stuff? Their guide led them down the hallway to another door at the end—this one much thicker. A darkside swordsman stood on either side of the door. “Only you,” the lead man said, pointing at Khriss. “The others wait outside.” Baon raised an eyebrow, looking at Khriss. “It’s all right,” she said. He sighed, but stepped aside as she walked through the second door, shooting her a look that said.
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I can’t protect you if you leave me behind. The room inside was nothing like the unfurnished hallway. The walls were hung with paintings—several of which Khriss recognized as being from famous darkside artists—and the floor was covered with a massive rug. At the back of the room there was actually a fireplace with a fire in it, though the room didn’t feel any hotter than those outside. In front of the fireplace were several large, plush darkside chairs. In one of these sat a bulbous man, fat enough to make even Acron look thin by comparison. He wore a darkside suit, cut after Iiarian versions with no tails on the coat and a girdle instead of a vest. His skin was the darkest of black, and he was smiling as she entered. “Ah, this must be our missing Elisian duchess,” he said with a distinct, aristocratic Iiarian accent. “I am pleased to see you survived the trip unharmed.” Khriss froze. “You know me?” “Of you, my dear, of you,” the man said. “Though we expected you weeks ago.” His voice was deep, and as Khriss walked forward she could see a circular birthmark on his cheek. She remembered something about a birthmark… “You!” she said suddenly. “You’re Loaten!” “So I’m often accused,” the man said. “And, of course, I can’t deny it. Please, Duchess Khrissalla, sit down.” He indicated one of the room’s large chairs with a sweep of an overweight hand. Khriss moved forward slowly. The fireplace appeared to have a glass front, keeping at least some of the heat out of the room. Still, it felt remarkably cool. As she approached, she also noticed that her young guide, the daysider girl, squatted in a third chair, sipping on a mug of some steaming drink. “You’re quite famous on darkside, you know,” Khriss said seating herself. “Traitor to the Dynasty, executed—or so we’re told—for trying to murder Scythe himself.” “Is that what they’re saying?” Loaten replied with a smile. Khriss waited for him to continue, which he did not. “How do you know who I am?” she finally asked. “Ah, dear Duchess,” Loaten said. “We are not completely isolated from our homeland. Information has a way of finding us.” “But my expedition is supposed to be secret,” she said. “Little is secret from the Dynasty, dear Duchess, especially the doings of its enemies. But, must we talk politics? I came here to escape such things—that, and to keep my head. Tell me, what do you think of our little darkside village?” “It’s incredible,” Khriss said as an unnoticed servant approached, bringing her a steaming cup. She accepted it, the warm scent of cinnamon tea reminding her of Elis. “These are caves beneath the island?” “Some of the city is built in caves,” Loaten said, accepting a cup for himself. “Though much of it is above ground as well. We have built coverings between buildings to block out the light. Those of us who have means pay to have ice shipped in from the mountains to the east, which keeps the
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air at a tolerable temperature. “And you rule here?” she asked, then immediately cursed her lack of tact. She had never excelled at court politics, though she was good enough to recognize her comparative weakness. Loaten laughed at the comment. “No, dear Duchess, far from it. This place was long established by the time I arrived—my little mistake only happened five years ago, you know. I just tend to keep track of what happens in darksider town—a hobby, a leftover from my old job back home. Little N’Teese tells me you come looking for information?” “I do,” Khriss said eagerly. “You want news of Gevin, I assume,” Loaten said, taking a sip of his tea. “Yes,” Khriss continued. “You know something of the prince?” Loaten continued to drink quietly, not answering her question. Finally, he spoke. “You don’t drink your tea, dear Duchess. I thought cinnamon was a favorite in Elis.” Khriss frowned at the topic diversion. “It is,” she said slowly. “But, I’ve never liked my tea too hot, even back on darkside.” “Wise,” Loaten noted. “You wouldn’t want to burn yourself.” Khriss paused. He was telling her something—implying danger. What was his meaning? Suddenly, she wished she had spent more time in the court. “I need to know of the prince, whatever the cost,” Khriss informed slowly. “I will pay, if you like, for the information.” Loaten raised his eyebrows as he sipped. “Odd you should offer,” he noted. “Money and information are really quite similar you know. Both are extremely valuable, but neither would be worth anything if everyone had all they desired. Both can also get you killed if you let it be known that you have too much.” “Meaning?” Khriss asked. “Meaning, dear Duchess,” Loaten said with a sigh, “that there are certain things I am not at liberty to reveal.” “You know where the prince is,” Khriss challenged. “After a fashion,” Loaten admitted. “But why can’t you…?” Khriss suddenly grew cold. “Oh, Shella! The Dynasty doesn’t have him, does it?” Loaten chuckled. “No, though their goals in regard to the young prince have been fulfilled.” “He’s dead?” Khriss asked with horror. Loaten shrugged. “I told you that there are certain secrets I am required to keep.” “Required by whom?” Khriss asked. “Myself,” Loaten explained. “Look, dear Duchess, I don’t mean to frustrate you, but I have learned through experience that rash words can prove… inconvenient.” Khriss sighed, finally taking a sip of her tea. It was still a bit too hot for her tastes. “What can you tell me then?” “Not much. I will let you know, however, that your prince gave up on his goal.” “Then he made it to Kezare,” Khriss decided. “I didn’t say that,” Loaten said, raising a finger. “Yes, but I know the prince,” Khriss informed. “He wouldn’t have given up hope until he saw for himself that the sand mages weren’t real. Besides, you must have met him. You called him Gevin.” Loaten frowned. “And?” “His name is Prince Gevalden. Gevin is what he tells people to call him, but
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only in an informal setting, like in a comfortable room, sitting before a fireplace.” Loaten smiled. “And I thought you were supposed to be bad at this, dear Duchess.” “Who told you that?” Khriss asked with indignation. “My dear,” Loaten reminded, “I was Scythe’s chief minister of diplomacy—you’d be surprised the things I had to know. Including prince’s nicknames. But, in this case you happen to be right. Gevin did make it to Kezare, and I have spoken with him, after a fashion. But that was a long time ago.” “And where is he now?” “I told you, dear Duchess, I’m not quite certain.” Khriss sighed, leaning back in her chair. “Do not be so despondent, my dear,” Loaten chided. “I am not a heartless man—seeing that you are relatively inexperienced with dayside, I will assign one of my best people to aid you.” Khriss perked up. “Who?” Loaten drank the last of his tea, then gestured to the young girl crouching on the chair watching the fires with curious eyes. As soon as Loaten pointed at her, however, the girl’s head snapped back to the conversation. “Me?” she asked. “No. Not have time. Is too—” “Oh, N’Teese,” Loaten said with an intolerant sigh, “must you use that accent? It’s incredibly harsh on an old man’s ears.” N’Teese clenched her teeth, shooting Loaten a harsh look. “I’m not going to lead these fools all around the city, Loaten. I’m too busy.” Khriss’s eyes opened wide with shock. When she had spoken the second time, the little girl’s horrible dayside accent had disappeared completely, to be replaced by a perfect Iiarian accent to match Loaten’s. “You’re a Darksider?” Khriss asked incredulously. Loaten chuckled. “We’re not sure what N’Teese is. She claims to be half-darksider, half-Kershtian, and half-Lossandin, though she obviously never claims to be good at mathematics. I personally don’t think she has any darkside blood in her at all.” N’Teese stuck out her tongue at the fat darksider, then intentionally turned away from him to stare back into the fire, still crouching rather than sitting. “Whatever N’Teese’s lineage, duchess,” Loaten continued, “she is an absolute marvel with languages—though she usually uses her gift to con her way into places, or money pouches, she has no right to be in. The amount you paid her today is enough to hire a professional guide’s services for a week. I’ve told her that she may cheat the daysiders all she wishes, but darksiders—especially newcomers—are under my protection.” N’Teese sighed. “You’re bad for business, Loaten.” “Perhaps,” Khriss added, “but so is deciding to abandon a person who has already shown she is willing to pay for your services. Who knows, maybe you’ll be rewarded.” N’Teese’s eyes thinned, but she did smile slightly in contemplation. Loaten chuckled. “Yes, duchess, my sources were certainly… inaccurate concerning you. Of course, I knew that much the moment you announced you were organizing an expedition to dayside. I understand you caused quite a commotion back in the Elisian court with that little declaration.” Khriss smiled. “It was… unexpected,” she admitted. Loaten
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rubbed one of his chins in thought. “What could cause a politically inactive, socially reclusive scholar of a noblewoman to cross the border oceans with minimal protection and almost no knowledge of dayside? It’s hard enough for those of us who know about the smuggling ships.” Khriss felt herself begin to blush. “Surely your sources can explain my motivations, My Lord,” she said. “Actually, it appears they were wrong again,” Loaten said cryptically. However, before Khriss could question further, the sound of a door opening came from behind. When she turned she saw a man with a revolting mass of flesh where his face should have been. One eye was completely lost in scar tissue, and the other was bulging and red. He walked with a limp, and wore one of the medallions on his head that Kenton said identified him as a member of the Kershtian merchant class. It was difficult to tell his skin color because of the scar tissue, but it looked Kershtian. “Who is the woman?” the man croaked with a harsh voice that was almost a whisper. “A visitor from darkside, Nilto,” Loaten said. “A rather important person. A ruler, on her side of the world.” Nilto snorted. “Get rid of her,” he ordered. “You’ll forgive Nilto’s lack of tact, dear Duchess,” Loaten apologized. “He is a rather impatient man, though many people suffer him. Probably because he is a Taisha.” “Taisha?” Khriss asked. She had heard Kenton use the word. “The Taishin are the rulers of Lossand, my dear,” Loaten explained. “There is one at the head of each Profession, and it is their council that governs the country.” “Him?” Khriss asked incredulously. “Beauty isn’t required for the job,” Nilto croaked, flopping down in a chair. He eyed her for a long moment with a look Khriss couldn’t read—and didn’t want to, considering how revolting his twisted face was. “Well?” Nilto demanded. “Get rid of her.” “I’m afraid the Lord Beggar is a difficult man to refuse, dear Duchess,” Loaten apologized. “But, I believe our conversation was at an end anyway, wasn’t it?” “It was, and I thank you,” Khriss said, rising and curtseying to Loaten—intentionally ignoring this Lord Beggar. “N’Teese, are you coming?” The little girl sighed, but climbed off her chair to scamper out of the room. Khriss followed more gracefully. As the door opened, she saw Baon and the others waiting outside. Baon, however, didn’t see her—he was focused on Loaten’s bloated form. “Is that who I think it is?” he asked with a harsh sound in his voice. Khriss frowned as she approached. “Loaten?” she asked. “He—” She stopped as Baon cursed, his hand reaching for the pistol at his belt. “Baon!” Khriss cried. The mercenary froze, as did the two men in the room. The soldiers guarding the door, however, immediately reached for their swords. Baon slowly let his hand slip from the pistol holster. Khriss sighed in relief, looking back into the room. Loaten had seen Baon as well, and the old Dynastic official’s eyes were wide—but not with fear.
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They looked more… confused than anything else. “That man is a traitor,” Baon hissed. “I know,” Khriss said. She had never seen Baon so emotional before. “Let’s go,” the mercenary finally decided. “Before I decide to kill him.” “That sounds like a good idea,” Cynder agreed. Khriss passed through the doorway, and Loaten’s guards relaxed, falling back into their regular stances. But, something was wrong with the way they had been standing. Almost as if they hadn’t been reaching for their swords at all—but something else. Before, Khriss would have let the discrepancy drop. Baon’s training, however, urged her to look closer. As she did she could see a distinctive, though well hidden, knob of pistol hilts hidden in holsters underneath the men’s coats. So they do have guns, Khriss realized. Or, at least, Loaten’s men do. They keep them hidden, though—they don’t want the rest of the darksiders to know about them. Baon caught her eye and nodded, and they began to move away from Loaten’s room. As they did, however, Khriss heard Loaten asking Nilto a question while the door closed. “So?” the darksider asked. “Has the Diem been dissolved?” “Actually, no,” Nilto replied. “Something very interesting happened…” Kenton’s appearance had an immediate effect on the crowd outside the Hall. He hadn’t changed into traditional sand master robes—he was still wearing a simple Kershtian tan—his ribbons, however, were enough to declare what he was. Even still, there were enough sand masters in the crowd that simple mastered sand wouldn’t have been too surprising. The golden sash, however, was a different matter. The stunned bodies were lethargic to move, and Kenton had to slow his step to keep from arriving at the crowd too quickly. Eventually, however, the people realized who he was and where he was going. They parted before him, watching in silence. Then one voice, exclaiming in surprise, started as a catalyst to the rest, and sound returned in a massive wave. “What are you doing?” “Kenton? You’re alive?” “I thought the mastrells were dead!” Years as the Diem’s favored topic of rumors had prepared Kenton to be the center of attention, and he ignored the people as he climbed the steps to the black-stone Hall of Judgement, Dirin trailing somewhat less confidently in his wake. Two trackts, dressed in formal black Hall uniforms, crossed their spears before him, blocking his path to the doors. “The Council is in session,” said one of them—a broad-faced Lossandin man. “The Hall is closed.” Kenton paused, letting his three ribbons of sand continue to twist and spin in the air around him. He was amazed at how little thought it took to keep them moving in their simple pattern. “Not to a mastrell,” Kenton informed. “There aren’t any mastrells left,” the guard replied. “You’re certain of that?” Kenton asked, allowing one of his glowing ribbons to flip at his sash. The guard paused, shooting a look at his companion. Then he sighed, pulling his spear back. Kenton stood, half-stunned by the exchange. He had been expecting to argue his way into
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the Hall—all his life, he had needed belligerence and stubbornness to gain even the slightest concession. Yet, two simple statements had won this conversation. Perhaps there was something to be said for authority after all. Still a little unsure at his victory, Kenton reached forward and pushed open the sub-door in the massive gate, stepping inside. He held it for Dirin, the allowed it to slam closed. His eyes immediately began to adjust to the darker interior, and he let his sands fall stale to the ground—it would be inappropriate to keep them going within the Hall. Like all dayside buildings, the Hall had been constructed with numerous openings in its pyramidal walls to provide light. Kenton stood in the antechamber. Directly before him was another set of doors, these ones open, with another pair of trackts guarding them. Beyond those doors was the Judgement room, which took up the bulk of the Hall’s space. Inside that room he would find the Taishin, leaders of the eight Professions—well, seven since there was no Lord Mastrell. “Come on,” he said to Dirin. “I’ve done this before.” Each year, when Praxton had refused to grant Kenton mastrellship, Kenton had appealed the decision to the Council. He was very familiar with the Taishin and their ways. Dirin nodded quietly, staring up in wonder at the insides of the Hall. The buildings, sources of law and justice in Lossand, were regarded with nearly as much reverence as Kershtian temples. “This place is huge,” Dirin whispered back. Kenton shrugged. “About as big as it looks on the outside.” Kenton strode forward, trying to gather his optimism. Just because he was familiar with the process didn’t mean that he would be successful—in fact, he was probably going to have a difficult time convincing the Taishin to listen to him. All four times he had appealed to the Council they had denied him with seven-one decisions. He suspected that after four years of useless appeals—made only to spite Praxton—the Taishin were growing tired of him. The two trackts at the door didn’t attempt to stop him—if he had come through the gates, then he was valid. They stood quietly as Kenton walked through the open doors and entered the judgement chamber. Shaped like an inverted pyramid, the chamber had a central platform for testimonies, surrounded by three sloping walls filled with seats. Nearly every chair had a body in it—Hall seats, especially in Kezare, were expensive commodities. It was more than the privilege of watching judgements—a seat in the Hall was a sign of prestige and importance, even if they were purely spectatorial in nature. Kelzin, influential Profession members, and public officials vied for the places ferociously. Of course, the only people in the room who really mattered were the Taishin. Eight raised chairs stood on the far wall directly in front of the testimony platform. Seven were filled, one was empty. Kenton’s eyes sought a place on the second wall, about midway up, where the mastrells usually sat. The chairs sat empty, like an open sore in the
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otherwise packed wall of people. Taking a deep breath, Kenton approached the proceedings judge on the side of the corridor. Kenton stood in the open-topped tunnel that sloped up to the testimony platform. He could make out a familiar form standing on the platform—the man’s ugliness could be recognized even from a great distance. Nilto, so called Lord Beggar, leader of the unofficial ninth Profession. What reason would he have to make testimony during proceedings held to ratify a new Lord Mastrell? Nilto had obviously finished his arguments, for he was stepping off the platform to return to his seat. “Who gives the next testimony?” Kenton asked the proceedings judge, a squat old man who sat at a desk at the side of the corridor. The man looked down at his open book of proceedings, where he had been making notes of what each speaker said. “No one,” the judge said. “Nilto was the final speaker. The judgement should be coming soon, now.” “It cannot—I have testimony to add to these proceedings.” The judge looked up with surprise, looking Kenton over for the first time. “A… Mastrell?” the man said skeptically. “That is right,” Kenton informed. “Mastrell Kenton. I was advanced during the ceremonies a few weeks before. By Law, I am entitled to speak on this matter.” The judge raised his eyebrows, but shrugged slightly, scribbling Kenton’s name at the bottom of the list. Then he spoke a few words to the courier dressed in Hall black beside him. “The man will announce you, My Lord,” the judge informed. “Be warned, however, the Council may find this… irregular.” Kenton smiled. “I suspect they will.” Then he nodded to Dirin, who smiled encouragingly, even though he was looking more and more overwhelmed the further they got into the Hall. “May the Sands guide, Kenton,” Dirin offered. Up above, the courier announced Mastrell Kenton. Kenton heard his name reverberate through the chamber, the unfamiliar title of ‘mastrell’ sounding quite odd to him. As the courier finished, Kenton strode up the slope and onto the platform, wishing he had taken the time to change into formal robes. Kenton would try for the rest of his life to find an experience that matched that first look around the judgement chambers. Three walls of shocked faces stared at him, their confusion almost a palatable thing. It was as if the Sand Lord himself had decided to appear to them. “Ah, our dear Kenton of the Diem,” a sudden voice said, as if completely oblivious to the surprised tension in the rest of the room, “back to bother the Council again. I always knew that something as paltry as death would never be enough to keep you from annoying us.” Kenton smiled. At the far end of the line of Taishin, in the least-respected and often-ignored Council seat, lounged a man in ridiculous violet robes with a frilly white shirt underneath. The cuffs of the shirt were undone, and were stained with droplets of wine. He was an older man, perhaps in his late forties. His face
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could have been a respected face, it had strong features and almost a venerable quality. The face, however, betrayed the rosy cheeks and red nose of drunkenness. Delious, the Lord Admiral, the embarrassment of Lossand. “I apologize for my tardiness, Lords and Lady Taishin,” Kenton announced, smiling slightly at Delious’ comment. He rested his hands on the front of the platform’s podium, looking across at the six men and one woman who would decide the Diem’s face. Hopefully, he wasn’t too late. “Kenton, this is most irregular,” the woman in the direct center of the group announced. Kenton smiled a her choice of words. Heelis, Lady Judge and Taisha of the Halls of Judgement, Profession for trackts, judges, and scribes, represented her Profession with exactness. Cool, calm, and decisive, the elderly Lady Judge—oldest of the Taishin by at least two decades—was the very embodiment of justice. “I apologize again, Lady Judge,” Kenton said. “I only ask that you hear me. As the Council has undoubtedly noticed, I come wearing a recent acquisition that may have bearing on your decision.” “I can see that, Kenton. I assume you wear it to make a claim, and not just a fashion statement?” “Indeed, Lady Judge.” Kenton smiled as Heelis inspected him. Despite her unquestioned impartiality, Kenton had always felt a kind of kinship to the Lady Judge. She knew what it was to fight authority—she was the first female Taisha in the history of Lossand. In fact, she was the first female member of the Hall in the history of Lossand. Very few of the Professions admitted women, and Lossand society was heavily influenced by Kershtian ideals. Heelis, however, had used the Law as her shield—for a neuter pronoun in Formal Kersha had been used in the Law’s writing. After years of struggle, she had come to hold what was debatably the most powerful position in all of Lossand. “This is ridiculous!” a new voice announced. Kenton looked down, cringing slightly. He hadn’t seen Drile earlier—the slope of the entrance corridor had prevented it. The sand master sat in a low seat a short distance from the Council. He wore white robes, but no sash. “Sand master Drile,” Heelis warned, “you are not in a position to address this Council. We have already heard your arguments this day.” “My apologies, Lady Judge,” Drile said, forcing himself to be civil. “However, this is outrageous! This man makes mockery of the Law by taking for himself what must be given!” “No more!” Heelis ordered, her voice firm despite her sixty-plus years. “If you wish to speak, add your name to the list. Until then, this Council requires your silence!” Drile’s jaw snapped shut, and Kenton couldn’t keep himself from smiling. He winked at Drile’s hateful stare, then nodded to the side, where the proceedings judge was scribbling. “Drile has a point, if not the right of address, Lady Judge,” a new voice—this one deep and hard—added. “This boy goes too far in his presumptions.” The Lord General, Reegent, was a tall man with a rectangular face that
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was accented by a short, square beard. More than a warrior, Reegent was a politician and a statesman, the unofficial leader of Lossand’s wealthy landowners, the kelzin. He was not a man who dealt well with what he considered ‘nonsense.’ “Lord Reegent, Lady Judge, other members of the Council,” Kenton said before Reegent could continue. “Let be begin by assuring you that I do not take this sash unto myself. It was given to be by the Lord Mastrell, my father, in a legal advancement ceremony.” “Lies!” Drile called from beside the proceedings booth, where he was ordering the judge to add his name in after Kenton’s. Heelis shot Drile a harsh look, but then looked back at Kenton. “We had not heard of this, Kenton,” she said. “As far as we were told, the Lord Mastrell died in the middle of the ceremony. Are you implying he was going to advance you, and only didn’t because he was killed?” “No, Lady Judge,” Kenton continued. “I imply nothing—it is as I said. The Lord Mastrell gave me this sash, and declared me a mastrell. It was the very last thing he did before the Kershtian arrow took him.” “The other sand masters said nothing of this!” Reegent snapped, folding his arms and frowning at Kenton. There was no hatred in his eyes, only intolerance. Reegent liked things quick and simple—the last-minute addition of a testimony did not fit with his neat view of how a judgement should proceed. “The other sand masters didn’t know about it, Lord Reegent,” Kenton said. “They didn’t hear the Lord Mastrell advance me—those who survived the attack were standing too far back to hear much of anything. If you bring them in for testimony, they won’t be able to say either way on this matter.” “I can’t believe we’re even listening to this,” Vey, the Lord Merchant, snapped. Short and very Kershtian, Vey would hate Kenton for religious reasons no matter what proof he brought or arguments he made. “Who’s listening?” Delious mumbled from his end of the table, taking a long drink from his cup. “I agree with the Lord Merchant,” Gennel, the Lord Farmer, said. “There’s a surprise,” Delious noted, pouring himself another drink. The Lord Farmer tended to agree with whatever Vey said. Gennel was not only the council’s other Kershtian, but he also belonged to the same DaiKeen as Vey. The younger man would do whatever his elder commanded. “My Lords and Lady,” Kenton said, breaking back into the conversation. His first appeal, four years ago, had been poorly prepared and pathetically executed. Since that time, he had spent a great deal of time teaching himself to do better. He’d needed some way to spend his time—all of his lessons in the Diem had been repetitious the first year around, let alone the eighth. “I understand this is difficult to believe,” he continued, “but I do have a witness who can prove my point.” “Who?” the Lord General demanded. “Undermastrell Elorin,” Kenton explained. “He was near the front of the proceedings, and would
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have been able to hear Lord Praxton give me the mastrellship. Unfortunately, Elorin was left powerless from overmastery, and has since disappeared.” “Not much of a witness,” Vey said with a snort. “Agreed,” Heelis said. “A man who can give no testimony is not a witness, young Kenton.” “Yes, but is not the possibility of my true-spoken words enough for you to hear my plea? All I ask is justice be done.” “Justice?” Reegent asked. “What right do you have to demand justice? You, who have used this Council as your personal tool of defiance. Your history of insubordination is well known, Kenton. You spite all that governs and creates order, and now you want us to give you the authority to rule over others?” “I have said nothing of requesting authority, Lord General,” Kenton said. “Are you saying your purpose here is not to name yourself as Lord Mastrell?” Heelis asked pointedly. “No, Lady Judge,” Kenton said truthfully. “I will admit that such could very well be a side-effect of what I have to say. However, I will be honest with you when I say I do not seek to be Lord Mastrell. In all frankness, I’d make a horrible Lord Mastrell. What Lord Reegent said about me is true—I have little patience for authority.” “Then what do you want, young Kenton?” “I come only to plead on the Diem’s behalf. Do not make Drile the Lord Mastrell. It doesn’t matter who else you choose—acolent or fen. Just don’t choose Drile. The man is a tyrant and a criminal. The Diem would suffer beneath his rule.” Heelis smiled slightly. “Young Kenton, we weren’t going to make him Lord Mastrell.” Kenton froze, blinking in surprise. “Excuse me, Lady Judge?” he asked. “Perhaps you should check to see what trial you’re attending before you stick your face into it, Ry’Kensha,” Vey said with a snicker. “These proceedings are not to ratify a new Lord Mastrell,” Heelis continued. “Though that may be what everyone assumes. The Council’s purpose is not to choose who will lead the Diem in the future, but to determined if there is even going to be a Diem in the future.” “What?” Kenton asked with shock. “You would… disband the Diem?” “Yes,” Heelis said simply. “But, you can’t destroy one of the Professions,” Kenton said with confusion. “What good would that do?” “Whining will get you nowhere, Ry’Kensha,” Vey snapped. “This Council may do as we please. There are provisions for it in the Law.” “Did someone say wine?” Delious interrupted, looking up from the place where he had been resting his head on the table. Everyone ignored him. “The Lord Merchant is correct, young Kenton,” Heelis said. “The Law says that if a Profession is left without leadership, irrevocably decayed or destroyed, that it can be removed—assuming that the function it provides is not vital.” “But, the sand masters are vital,” Kenton said. He knew the statement was weak, but he was trying to keep them talking while he reoriented himself. Dissolve the Diem? He had come intending to
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denounce Drile, not try and save an entire Profession. “Vital?” Reegent asked. “Boy, you sand masters are the most redundant, overpaid group on the sands. What do you do? You sit in your castle and look down at the rest of Lossand, sucking away its resources and giving nothing in return.” “We offer protection from the Kershtians,” Kenton rebutted. “We haven’t been at war with the Kershtians for centuries,” the Lord General said. “Not since the merchants took the power from the priests. Besides, can you really claim you could protect us? How well did you do in protecting yourselves?” He has a point, Kenton admitted to himself. “The fact is, young Kenton,” Heelis said softly, “that the other Professions are tired of supporting the Diem. You cost nearly as much in the people’s taxes as the Tower’s soldiers, yet you give nothing in return. The Mastrells are allowed to take anything they want from a merchant without offering recompense; they presume to rule over Lossand, always careful to maintain an air of mysticism and control. Sand masters are almost more famous for their arrogance than their powers.” “And now you do something?” Kenton demanded. “You strike when the Diem is weak and cannot defend itself? Why not speak out earlier, try to change the Diem before its arrogance led to its destruction?” Surprisingly, Kenton actually managed to create a tiny flash of guilt in Heelis’s even-tempered eyes. “Perhaps we should have,” she admitted. “But that time is gone now, and this is our chance to act.” “And what will the sand masters do?” Kenton shot back. “Dissolving the Diem will not get rid of us.” “We were going to decide that during the next Council,” Heelis explained. “Personally, I think exile is the best choice,” Vey announced, a thin smile on his lips. Kenton snorted. “What would you do, Lord Vey? Create a state where sand masters are hunted like sandlings? Turn this nation into a place of fear and prejudice?” “Sand mastery must be taught, young Kenton,” Heelis reminded. “I have studied your ways—I know how new sand masters are made. It is not spontaneous; it takes you weeks to even decide if a person has ability or not. Sand masters never just appear in the population.” “So you would exterminate the power entirely?” Kenton asked, suddenly feeling chilled. Heelis knew a lot—probably more than she should. It would be possible, if they made an effort, to get rid of sand mastery completely. “If a skill gives this people no benefit, then is it worth the trouble of its upkeep?” Heelis asked quietly. “To say nothing of its danger,” Reegent added. That’s what it is, Kenton realized, nodding silently to himself in understanding. They claim its the money, they say its our arrogance, but in the end its our power. Power they can’t control. The sand masters could have taken over Lossand at any time, and they all know it. “My Lords and Lady, you make many accusations.” Kenton said, searching for anything that would help him. He had memorized
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large chunks of the Law in his attempts to foil his father, but most of what he had studied dealt directly with the Diem. He hadn’t the background for an argument with more general application. “I won’t say that your claims are not true,” Kenton continued. “I fact, I will back many of them. As Lord Reegent pointed out, I have spent much of my life fighting against the Diem’s leadership. I know well their arrogance and selfishness. But, the Law was not created for the purpose of destruction. It exists to help Lossand. Should we throw away a tool simply because it has been misused in the past? The Law says ‘Let the Professions serve in their proscribed duties, for the benefit of the people and the nation as a whole.’ “Well, that is what I ask of you. Let the sand masters serve. Now, when we are weakened, is the time to change us for the better, not the time to bury us in the sands. For who knows the day when you might need to dig us back out, only to find that we’ve were lost to the kerla’s winds long ago?” “You argue well, young Kenton,” Heelis acknowledged, her aged eyes searching Kenton’s face. “But, I fear your words come too late. We have waited for centuries as the sand masters grew in power and dominance. This tool is not just one that hasn’t been used, but one that has been broken and warped to the point that its original potential has been lost. Perhaps it is better that we cast it to the sands so we can become accustomed to working without it. But, I speak only for myself, not this entire Council. I believe, unless one of the other Taisha has something to add, that it is time for vote.” Heelis checked the faces of the other Taishin, who, except for Delious, who appeared to be asleep, nodded. She looked to the proceedings judge, who shook his head—Drile must have removed his name when he realized that Kenton’s arguments weren’t going to do any good. “Then we vote. Lord General?” “I vote to dissolve,” Reegent announced firmly. “Lord Merchant?” “I as well, Lady Judge,” Vey said, trying to look distinguished despite the fact that he sat at least a foot shorter than everyone else at the table. “Lord Farmer?” “Dissolve,” Gennel announced. “Lord Mason?” The red-headed emissary of Selcomb, Lord Mason—head of Lossand’s diggers and miners—nodded. “In behalf of my Lord Selcomb, I also vote against, Lady Heelis.” “Lord Artisan?” Rite, spokesman for Lossand’s craftsmen, nodded his solemn head. “It is for the best, I believe. Dissolve.” “And Lord Admiral.” Rite nudged Delious, who looked up disorientedly. “What’s that? Time to vote? What did Vey say?” “The Lord Merchant voted to dissolve the Diem,” Heelis said, her voice barely tolerant. “Well, I vote the opposite then,” Delious said with a yawn, smiling at the Kershtian Lord Merchant, who scowled back. In all four of Kenton’s appeals, only Delious had voted for him—and each time he only
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did so because Vey had voted against Kenton. “And I vote to dissolve as well,” Heelis said. “I am afraid, Kenton, that even if we made you Lord Mastrell, your reign would be brief. This Council has decided that henceforth there will be only seven Professions in Lossand. The Diem is to be dissolved. We will decide what to do with you in our next Council meeting tomorrow.” “Forbid them to practice their unholy art,” Vey encouraged, looking at Kenton with loathing eyes. “That will be decided on the morrow,” Heelis informed. Kenton felt his hand slide from the podium, stunned. Yet, at the same time, part of him was not surprised. He had come in to this argument half-expecting to fail. The last four times he had stood on the testimony platform, he had received similar responses. All his struggles had conditioned him to accept the fact that victories were rare. Very rare. He turned, stepping down from the podium as conversations erupted around the room. No more Diem. He had failed. And, for some reason, this failure felt different than the ones before. Kenton frowned, not quite able to understand the pained despair in his chest, the sickness, the feeling of utter frustration. He was used to failure—it had been a long time since he had let losing an argument bother him. Why was he so hurt this time? And slowly, as he thought about it, he came to understand. Every time before, his losses had only affected him. He had been fighting for himself, and he hadn’t really feared losing. He had been fighting just to fight—the outcome was immaterial. No one had been counting on him. He looked up, seeking out Dirin, who sat slumped beside a wall a short distance away. The young boy’s head was bowed, and Kenton could see him shaking from the sobs. How would the rest of the Diem feel, those whose entire lives had been spent learning sand mastery and serving in their places? They too were victims of the mastrells, but they were to be cast aside like a shattered weapon. That sickness you feel, the pain, he said to himself, for some reason forming the words with his father’s voice. That is responsibility. That is what you fought to receive all this time—it was the unnoticed reward of your struggle. The members of the Diem had been counting on Kenton, even if they didn’t know it. He had been representing them; it had been his duty to save them. This time, his arguments hadn’t just been for himself. This time, the decision actually mattered. And he had failed. “No!” Kenton yelled. He turned, stepping back up onto the podium and slammed his fist against its carapace. The front of the room began to quiet around him, people who had been standing to leave instead turning to look at the source of the sudden noise. “Kenton, step down,” Heelis counseled. Half of the Taishin were already out of their seats. “No!” Kenton repeated. “I demand this proceedings be declared void.” “On
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what grounds?” Heelis snapped. “On the grounds that I wasn’t informed that it would occur,” Kenton informed firmly. Passages of Law seemed to flood into his mind, forming connections and conclusions almost without effort. For the first time in his life, he had a purpose to go with his arguments. “What is that supposed to mean?” Vey said with a snort. Kenton looked Vey directly in the eyes. “By the Law, as expressly stated in the Diem’s Charter, section the fourth, as soon as a Lord Mastrell dies from either natural or external causes, the mastrell who has served in his position for the greatest number of years becomes the acting head of the Diem. If he is unable to serve in this capacity, the title passes to the next senior mastrell and so forth. It is the acting head of the Diem’s duty to mediate the council of mastrells, who will choose the next Lord Mastrell, a choice that is then formally ratified by the Council of Taishin.” “Yes,” Heelis said. “And so?” “And,” Kenton said, punctuating the word with a snap of his voice. He spoke with determination, his voice authoritative, “in the general Law Charter, section the fifteenth, subsection the first, the laws for governing the removal of a Taisha, either formal or acting, from his place are set forth. He must be given two weeks notice to prepare for the Council meeting that will remove his title for any reason. “At the deaths of the other mastrells, I immediately became acting head of the Diem. This Council this day, in attempting to dissolve the Diem, has by tangential effect removed me from my place. That cannot have happened unless you gave me warning of this meeting two weeks before this day.” “But the Diem hadn’t even been attacked two weeks ago!” Reegent protested. “The Law is explicit,” Kenton said. Reegent snorted. “I thought you didn’t want to be Lord Mastrell.” “That is not what this is about, Lord General,” Kenton shot back. “Heelis,” Reegent said, “tell this boy he is a fool, and let us be going.” The Lady Judge, however, had slowly settled herself back into her chair, her face deep in thought, a slight frown on her lips. “Heelis?” Reegent asked again. “He is right,” she finally whispered. “What!” Reegent demanded. “This judgement is void, Lord General,” Heelis informed. “The boy is right—the Law is very specific. No Taisha can be removed unless there is at least two-weeks warning given. Actually, the announcement is supposed to be made to the entire Profession, not just its leader. We acted too hastily.” The other Taishin had stopped, and the room had now fallen nearly silent. “As Lady Judge,” Heelis said in a firm, if resentful, voice, “I must declare the proceedings of this Council void. The Diem is not to be dissolved.” Vey hissed in surprised, but Reegent only shook his head in anger. Kenton, however, felt as if a massive weight had slipped free from his back. “But,” Heelis continued sharply, “I am hereby formally giving you
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notice, Kenton. In two weeks this Council will meet again, and there we will decide whether or not to dissolve the Diem. I suspect the votes will not magically change during the wait.” “You give me notice,” Kenton said in response. “Does that mean this council accepts and ratifies me as Lord Mastrell?” Heelis paused. “There is only one mastrell left, my Lords and Lady,” Kenton said. “If you don’t ratify me, then you will have to ratify someone. You have to make the formal announcement of the trial directly to the Lord Mastrell.” Heelis caught the eyes of the other Council members, who shrugged. “No,” Heelis finally decided. “You are not Lord Mastrell—but you are acting Lord Mastrell. I can deliver the announcement to you anyway.” “What difference does it make?” Kenton asked. “You are the one who is so strict about the Law, young Kenton,” Heelis informed. “Well, the Law says that the Council cannot ratify a new Taisha until it is satisfied that the person has actually been chosen. Since your mastrellship is still in doubt, we cannot ratify you. That also means that you do not get a vote on this Council.” “All right,” Kenton said slowly. “In addition,” Heelis continued, “under the Law I am going to consider the votes of this Council today the decision of a preliminary hearing.” Kenton frowned. She was getting into the parts of the Law he hadn’t studied. He was no lawyer, even though he had done some research. “In case you don’t know what that means,” Heelis continued, sensing his confusion, “a preliminary hearing is one held before a preset date—such as the two week rule you spoke of. Its decisions are binding unless its members decide unanimously to throw it out.” “Unanimously?” Kenton asked. “That is right, acting Lord Mastrell,” Heelis said, standing and taking Reegent’s offered arm. “In two weeks this Council will meet again. And, unless you can convince every member of its body to vote in favor of the Diem, your Profession will be dissolved. Good day.” Ais stood beneath the sun’s divine power, feeling its heat surround him. His formal trackt’s uniform amplified the warmth, its black colors sucking in heat and holding it close. Many new trackts complained about the dark color, though they soon became accustomed to it. Ais had never complained. Black was the color of justice—it was straightforward, unmistakable, and impossible to adulterate by adding other colors. In addition, the color was avoided by most other people, and so trackts always stood out in a crowd. When there was danger or a problem, people knew that they would find aid where they saw the distinctive blackness of a trackt uniform. Ais moved through such a crowd now. He was walking through Portside, the largest and most hectic of Kezare’s marketplaces. However, despite the press of people, Ais had no trouble moving. People gave trackts a wide berth. As was often the case, the source of justice in Lossand’s society was also somewhat feared by its people. Everyone had their tiny secrets
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they irrationally feared the trackts would expose. They should have known better. Ais had much larger prey to deal with. Secrets, Ais thought to himself. We all have secrets. Even trackts. He pushed such thoughts from his mind, continuing forward, moving with the distinctive formal posture and emotionless face that had made him one of Kezare’s most recognizable trackts. Of course, his heritage had a lot to do with that as well. Even as he passed through he crowd, Ais caught glimpses of his Kershtian brothers eyeing him with looks of distaste, and even hate. Lossand had a large Kershtian population—some of whom had been living away from the kerla for a half-dozen generations. Kershtians were Kershtians, however, and they owed their first allegiance to their DaiKeen. It was an unwritten law that no Kershtian would serve Lossand’s heathen government by joining the Hall’s trackts, the Tower’s soldiers, or, of course, the Diem’s sand masters. Ais didn’t return the harsh looks—he simply continued to march through the crowd, ignoring the dark Kershtian faces. He had grown accustomed to the resentment long ago. Yet, almost unconsciously, he felt the warm metal of his DaiKeen symbol slapping against his forehead—like many Lossandin Kershtians, Ais chose to wear one of the medallions instead of tattooing or scaring his skin. He claimed the affiliation of DaiKeenKar, what Lossandin people would call the priest’s DaiKeen. Such allegiance made his choice of Professions seem all that much more odd—at least, to others. To Ais it made perfect sense. Justice belonged to the Sand Lord. Right and wrong were decided by His divine judgement. Ais served that justice—it was his passion. He brought order to the chaos around him. Since he lived in Lossand, the only way to maintain order was to join the trackts, so that was what Ais had done. He saw no hypocrisy in serving Lossand Law, as long as that Law was fair to both Lossandin and Kershtian. Besides, there were other reasons for joining the Hall. Other reasons for seeking the justice, the order, and the stability it brought… Ais caught sight of two trackts approaching from a short distance away, their black uniforms doing their job. The approaching men were Lossandin, of course, and they wore clothing identical to Ais’s own. The trackt uniform was constructed of a single piece of black cloth. Its long sleeves reached all the way to the wrists, and ended in stiff cuffs. The top half of the uniform pulled tight across the chest and waist, fastened by silver buckles. From the waist down, the uniform became a loose robe-like skirt, however, providing freedom of movement in battle. On the head was a simple, straight-topped cap and, like Ais, the approaching men were armed with a sword at his waist and a polished zinkall on his left forearm. The only thing that these men lacked was black cape like the one Ais wore—the sign that Ais was a senior trackt, leader of his own band. The men, Ais’s Second and Third in command, saluted as they approached. Jedan
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had served in Ais’s personal band of trackts for over three years now, and had proven himself a competent and effective subordinate. The other man, Tain, was a little newer to the band—two years. He was a pleasant man, and one Ais had been grooming for leadership for some time. He would make a fine Senior Trackt. “What is happening in the Hall?” Ais asked. “They’re hearing testimony about the Diem, sir,” Jedan explained, falling into step beside Ais “Perfect,” Ais said, careful to keep any hint of emotion out of his voice. Nilto would be there, listening to the testimonies, like always. Now was the time to act. “Tain, you’re with me. Jedan, take command of the second squad.” “Yes, sir.” Jedan split off, moving down a side-street as Ais continued forward. Of course, it would have been better to catch Nilto—the so called Lord Beggar—in the raid that was about to take place. The Lord Beggar, or Lord Thief as Ais liked to think of him, was too clever for to be caught so easily, however. Ais had tried for years to implicate the man as leader of Kezare’s criminal underground, but so far had found little success. Nilto covered his tracks well. In all of his illegal dealings, he was known as Sharezan. Yet, in all his years of investigation, Ais had never found a person who could describe what Sharezan was supposed to look like. No one had seen him—he was a non-existent cover. Up ahead Ais could see the object of the day’s raid approaching—a tall, run-down market building that appeared little different from those surrounding it. Months of investigation, however, had told him that the building’s top floor hid a meeting-place far different from the building’s ordinary appearance. Ais had long ago given up trying to get directly at Sharezan. Instead, he worked indirectly, toppling what thieves and bandits he could, trying to inch closer and closer to their leader. The process had worked—he was getting closer to Sharezan himself. Soon Ais would catch someone high enough in the organization to implicate Nilto. Today was a perfect opportunity. Ais had been following the movements of a Kershtian named Lokmlen, one of Shaerezan’s chief assassins. Over the last six months, Lokmlen had murdered three trackts. Fortunately, he had been spotted completing the last of the killings, and had been forced to go into hiding. If Ais’s sources were right, then the nondescript building just above was also Lokmlen’s safehouse. Ais felt anticipation welling inside him as he and Tain left the main street, then ducked into a shop out of the safehouse’s line of sight. Inside the shop waited ten trackts, all members of Ais’s personal band. A short distance away, Jedan’s team—dressed in plain clothes—would be working their way up the building beside the safe house. They would take out the watchmen on the safehouse roof while Ais’s team attacked from below. Hopefully, the look-out’s gone, Ais would be able to get to the third floor before Lokmlen even knew he was in the building. It
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had taken months to find Lokmlen, then weeks to plan a proper raid. But, the couldn’t have a more perfect opportunity than this day. Nilto was giving testimony at the Hall—which meant his organization was temporarily left without leadership. If Ais struck quickly, then Lokmlen would be in his custody before Nilto even finished his speech. “I’m telling you, it’s empty,” Merris urged. “All of the Diem’s riches are completely unguarded, left to be plundered. And, the best part is, we know no one’s going to come looking for them. They’re all dead!” “I don’t know,” Reen said playing absently with the stone coin in his hand. “They aren’t all dead.” “Enough of them are,” Merris shot back. He eyed the other two men at the table, neither of which had much to say. Namot’s Kershtian face had grown pale at the mere mention of sand masters, and he was now mumbling something in his people’s incomprehensible language. Tarn was trying his best to ignore the conversation—he was just mad that the card game had stopped. Of course, Tarn had always been more soft than courageous; he would rather gamble for months, barely cheating enough people to get by, than take one chance that would set him for life. Reen flipped his coin into the air and caught it again—it was an heirloom of sorts, the first coin he had ever stolen some fifteen years before. Merris found the flipping annoying—he always had. Unfortunately, he knew he couldn’t do this job alone. The Diem didn’t have stairs, and all the valuables were on the second or third floors. Merris would need man-power to make a decent run of it in one attempt. Theirs wasn’t the only such conversation happening in the room. The room was a favored meeting-place, and was filled with tables, plush chairs, and cushions on the floor. The room was well-lighted by the windows—even thieves on dayside shunned darkness—but was on the building’s third floor, which offered a measure of protection against being seen. At least a half-dozen conversations just like Merris’s were happening around the room—each of them potentially discussing the same plan. That was why he needed to move quickly. “Look,” Merris cajoled. “I know it sounds dangerous, but are we going to let a few sandies—dead sandies—keep us from the haul of a lifetime? I’m telling you, we don’t have long. As soon as people realize that the mastrells really aren’t coming back, the Diem is going to be crawling with job-men.” “What about the ones that are still alive?” Reen said, flipping the coin again. “Most of them aren’t even powerful enough to get to the upper floors—they’ll never know we’re there. Besides, I have it on good authority that after today, we won’t have much to worry about.” “What do you mean?” Reen asked carefully. Merris smiled. Reen was interested. “Let’s just say that the Diem as a Profession is about to go the way of its mastrells.” Reen thought for a moment, rotating the coin across his knuckles. “All right, I’m in,” he
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decided, sending the coin into the air with a particularly strong flip. As soon as the coin left his fingers, the room plunged into blackness. Cries of startlement sounded through the room—startlement that quickly turned to panic. Merris felt it himself—terror from the lightless void surrounding him. His yell of fright joined the others as he stumbled away from the table, tripping on his chair, disoriented and confused. Then, the darkness parted slightly. A door opened on the far side of the room, light from the hallway outside spilling into the room. However, Merris’s horror didn’t go away. Silhouetted in the doorway stood a form distinctified by its flowing bottom and wide cape. Merris reached for his sword as zinkallin began to fire. The coin fell forgotten, cracking against the table. Ais strode through the room, sword in one hand, zinkall raised to fire. Few of the thieves offered resistance, however. They were too confused by the sudden darkness and subsequent attack to do much but stumble around in confusion. The thick cloth window-coverings—rolled down by Jedan’s men on the roof—were removed just after Ais’s squad entered the room, and Jedan’s squad began coming down ropes just outside. However, it appeared if such cautions were unnecessary. “He isn’t here,” Tain noted, approaching Ais as the rest of the trackts gathered up the thieves. Ais nodded. “No,” he agreed, double-checking faces. Most of the thieves were nameless ruffians or unimportant thieves. Lokmlen was nowhere to be seen. Jedan sighed, approaching from the other side. “Good experience for the men, I guess,” he mumbled. Most of Jedan’s squad was made up of younger trackts, recent additions to Ais’s band. Ais didn’t acknowledge the comment. He stood, arms folded, as he watched the criminals being led from the room. The trackts probably wouldn’t be able to hold most of them—they had no evidence. Ais ground his teeth in frustration—months of planning had been wasted. He was no closer to catching Nilto than he had been before. He had failed. He could almost hear the Lord Beggar laughing when he heard about Ais’s mistake, his raid on a den of pickpockets and petty burglars. Laughing… A sharp pain brought Ais back to the room. His hands were clenched to tightly that his fingernails were biting into the skin of his palm, drawing blood. Ais quickly refocused, pushing back the anger and rage before it took him over. His breathing slowed, and his muscles relaxed. Deftly, he moved his fingers, pressing them against his palm to staunch the blood flow, then he looked around with concern. Had his lapse been noticed? Jedan was supervising the removal of the last few thieves, and Tain was standing outside, speaking with a few other trackts. They hadn’t seen him. They must never see him, must never know the rage that threatened their leader. Trackts had to be focused, bastions of order and control. Justice required such—there could be no chaos in the ranks of Lossand’s civil protectors. If it were known that Ais, most famous of trackts, could not control
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his own emotions… “Looks like we’re done here, sir,” Jedan said, saluting. “Good,” Ais said curtly, clasping his hands behind his back. Jedan nodded, turning to the few remaining members of his squad in preparation to go. Ais frowned, watching his Second cross the room. Something was wrong. Ais followed Jedan, stepping off the distance from one wall to the other. The room was too small—it didn’t match the careful plans Ais had drawn for the building. That meant… He looked up just as several small sections of the far wall opened, revealing the ends of zinkallin. “Trap!” Ais yelled. The call came too late as the sound of zinkallin air reports sounded through the room. A wave of arrows began to cut down both trackts and criminals. One missile took a surprised Jedan in the neck, dropping him soundlessly to the floor. Other trackts screamed in pain, falling with arrows sticking from their chests or limbs. Ais dashed forward, heedless of the archers. He ignored the death, the threat on his own life, as he ran toward the wall. A dozen arrows snapped past him, the archers finding it difficult to aim for single targets in such an enclosed space. One arrow passed within inches of Ais’s leg, tearing a hole in his cape as it hissed by. The trackts offered a pathetic resistance, many of them wounded or dead, the others unable to fire effectively against such a massive assault. Ais reached the wall with a yell, reaching through an arrow hole to snatch the end of one man’s zinkall. The surprised archer fired his weapon into the floor as Ais grabbed hold of his arm with both hands and yanked it forward. The man’s unseen body slammed against the inside of the wall, shaking the structure. Ais yanked again, smashing the body repeatedly against the wall. He heard the cracking of bone, felt the man’s arm spasming in agony. With one final pull, a large section of the flimsy false wall broke free, and Ais pulled an unconscious body through the rubble. Ais jumped through the hole, surprising the archers on the other side. The small room was much plusher than the one outside, decorated with tapestries and cushions. There was an open window on the far side, and he briefly caught a glimpse of Lokmlen’s Kershtian face slipping out of the room and down a rope ladder. Ais didn’t have time for an extended look, however, as the archers around him reacted, pulling their arms out of the arrow holes to point at him. His own weapon was already raised, however, and he fired an arrow point-blank into the nearest archer’s eye. He ducked as the man screamed, hearing zinkallin releases sound from either side as the archers foolishly shot at one another. Ais rolled to the side, whipping his sword from its sheath. The shiny black carapace blade found its place in a second archer’s chest as the man realized his zinkall’s three shots had already been expended. Ais fought two battles as he attacked—one against the
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archers, and one against himself. The rage barely surfaced, however. He had learned to control it well, especially in battle. A moment later, the fight was over. His insane assault had forced to archers to stop firing at his trackts, and seconds afterwards Ais’s well-trained men had regrouped and followed him through the hole. The archers, horribly out-numbered, quickly began to surrender. Even as they did so, Ais was leaping through the window and swinging recklessly down the ladder in pursuit of his real quarry. “You know, you’re a fool for coming back.” Iador the boatman looked up a his passenger’s comment, confused. The passenger, however, wasn’t looking at Iador. The man stood at the front of the small rowboat, heedless of its rockings, as he stared at the approaching city of Kezare. Eventually, Iador decided he wasn’t being addressed, and tried to ignore his strange passenger. “It’s so hot on this side,” the passenger continued, speaking conversationally. “You hate heat. And all that sand getting into your shoes and your lungs… it’s horrible.” Iador continued to row. His passenger was definitely an odd one. His skin marked him as Lossandin, but he spoke as if he’d been out of the country for some time. He had curly brown hair that sat like a disheveled mop on his head, and was a bit overweight. His clothing was very irregular—it resembled the things that Iador had seen darksiders wearing in the marketplace. The clothing was constructed of may layers of cloth, and the bottom piece was divided like leggings, but not as tight. There were strange clasps and buckles everywhere. Darksider clothing had always confused Iador—why wear something with so many pieces when a robe worked just as well? “Of course,” the man continued, “you did have a noble purpose in coming. You haven’t seen Kenton in three years, and he was once your best friend.” The man paused for a moment. “Too bad he’s dead,” he added. “Of course, you always said becoming a sand master was a bad decision.” Iador raised his head. Sand master? Quietly, Iador made a Ker’Reen warding against evil. He wasn’t Kershtian, but he was a God-fearing man. More than half the Lossandin people he knew worshiped the Sand Lord now. The Kershtian religion made so much more sense than the old Lossandin gods, who had practically been forgotten over the last century. Slowly, Iador shook his head. He knew he should have refused to ferry this stranger, this man who looked like a daysider but dressed like a darksider. Now it looked like the man was a sand master—or, at least, was familiar with them. Not good at all. The Sand Lord frowned on those who fraternized with the demon Ry’Kensha. “Well,” the man said with a sigh, “I suppose you can still pay your respects at his funeral. Maybe there’ll be food.” Iador pulled the boat into the docks, moving as quickly as he could, for he was eager to release his passenger. The man didn’t comply with Iador’s sense of urgency, stretching leisurely, then
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reaching behind to pull out a strange darkside cloth bag he hung by a strap from his shoulder. Then he stepped up onto the dock, pulling out a couple of lak and handing them to Iador. “Thanks for the conversation,” the man said absently, wandering away from the docks. Ais dashed through the crowd, pushing his way through the confused people. Those ahead him tried their best to get out of his way, but the crowd made it difficult. The press grew worse the closer they neared the docks, slowing his progress even further. Fortunately, Lokmlen wasn’t moving any more quickly, despite his cursings and shovings. Eventually, the man ducked to the side, running into an alley. Ais reached the same spot a few seconds later, leaving behind the crowd and its cries of anger and surprise as he entered the alley. Immediately, a zinkall arrow whizzed past his head. Ais cursed, firing a shot of his own blindly into the alley as he ducked to the side, pressing up against the building’s wall, using a pile of chipped clay bricks as cover. A second later he heard footsteps retreating down the alley, and he hissed quietly, leaping over the pile of rubble to follow. After just a second of running, however, he heard a noise to the side of him, and caught movement in his peripheral. He ducked just in time to avoid the sword strike that followed. Lokmlen leapt at him from behind another pile of rubble, attacking deftly with a thin-bladed Lossandin sword. Ais parried, blocking with his own Kershtian weapon, whose carapace material lent itself better to thicker, wider blades. The two traded blows, fighting in the unique manner of dayside fencing. The swords were almost secondary to the battle—the zinkallin were what mattered. Both Kershtians fought carefully, their left arms kept outstretched to the side, using their zinkallin like bucklers when necessary, but mostly holding them in reserve, searching for an opportunity to fire. zinkallin made decent medium-ranged weapons, but their true deadliness was at short, man-to-man ranges. A point-blank shot from a zinkall could easily be deadly—and, even if it wasn’t, a man fought very poorly with an arrow sticking from his chest. Lokmlen fought well, better than Ais had expected. Of course, the man had managed to murder three trackts, which said something for his skills. After just a few seconds of fighting, it was obvious who was the better fighter. Ais was an exemplary trackt, but his true talents were in investigation and leadership. He was only moderate when it came to sword-play. If he was going to win the battle, he would need to get in a good shot with his final arrow. And, fortunately, one came quickly. Lokmlen ducked to the side, leaving himself open to fire as he turned back to the battle. Ais moved instinctually as he swung his left arm around, drawing aim on his opponent’s chest. Too late he realized Lokmlen’s feint. The thief had lowered his arm in what Ais assumed was a balancing move, but was
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really putting himself in to position to fire. Not at Ais’s chest, which would have been too obvious, but at his leg. Lokmlen fired first, and Ais felt a searing pain in his leg. His own shot, thrown off Lokmlen’s attack, went wild, and his final arrow snapped uselessly against the alley wall. Ais stumbled back against the side of the alley, gritting his teeth against the pain, holding his sword defensively. Lokmlen raised his arm. He had fired twice already—he might still have an arrow left. “Surrender, zensha,” Lokmlen ordered. Zensha. Traitor. Ais smiled, then launched himself at Lokmlen. If the man had another arrow, he would have fired it. Sure enough, Lokmlen lowered his arm, blocking Ais’s attack with a curse. Now the swordfight truly became intense, both men using their zinkallin as shields, blocking with the thick carapace shells. Ais, however, was wounded, and his mobility was severely hampered. In addition, Lokmlen was a much better swordsman. There was only one way this battle could end. “The Sand Lord has left you weak, traitor” Lokmlen whispered in Kershtian. “I’ve met children with more skill. This is what you betrayed your people to become?” Ais continued to fight, throwing himself into the battle with zeal. Lokmlen blocked deftly, waiting for Ais’s strength to run out. Ais stepped forward, then slipped on his own blood, which poured from his wound. Lokmlen’s blade immediately struck, biting into Ais’s arm. And, deep within, Ais began to feel his control slip. His swings became more wild, his vision began to blur. As it had happened so many times before, Ais’s secret revealed itself. He began to beat at Lokmlen, using his sword almost like a club. He heard the growls coming from his throat. He felt the spittle running down his chin. His body began to grow numb. Lokmlen deftly, almost leisurely, dodged Ais’s blows. Ais continued to attack, but the quiet side of his mind, the side that remained conscious even during moments of rage, knew the battle was over. Rage didn’t impart power, it didn’t give strength like the stories said. All it did was make him lose control. An unseen strike from Lokmlen took him on the arm, and Ais spun. He could barely feel the pain. He used his spin to build momentum, screaming in anger, striking at his opponent. His hand, empty, passed in front of Lokmlen’s face, carrying no weapon. Stupefied, Ais looked at his bloodied hand, then noticed his sword on the ground. It had slipped from his numb fingers following Lokmlen’s last strike. Ais felt himself slide to the ground in despair. You always knew this day would come. The day when your secret finally killed you. All those years of struggling, all your time in the Hall, forcing yourself to become a model of control. Wasted. Lokmlen raised his blade, using it to snap Ais’s DaiKeen symbol off his forehead. “You are a disgrace, trackt,” Lokmlen hissed. “I give you now to the Sand Lord’s judgement.” Then moved to strike. “Um, excuse me?” Lokmlen looked
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up at the sound, confused. Ais did as well, his vision clearing slightly as the rage backed away. A figure stood in the alley, a shorter man of husky build with dark curly hair and an oblong bag slung over his shoulder. “Now, I realize it’s probably none of my business,” the newcomer said, leaning against the side of the alley. “But, don’t you think the poor man has had enough for one day? I mean, I’m a strong proponent of humiliating trackts, but killing them is a bit extreme.” Lokmlen bent down, picking up Ais’s sword and tossing it to the newcomer. The man caught it with a deft movement of the hand. Ais watched the exchange with a measure of returning sentience. “If you wish to fight me, stranger, then I accept your challenge,” Lokmlen said, raising his blade. The newcomer eyed the sword with a distasteful look, tossing it aside as if it were some kind of venomous sandling. “Thank you, but no,” the man said. “Swords and I don’t get along very well together.” Lokmlen snorted. “I don’t think you have much choice,” he said, and attacked with a quick, precise thrust. Which the stranger dodged. Ais watched, struggling to regain control of his rebellious body. The stranger didn’t look like a warrior—he didn’t act like one or move like one, not to mention his obviously out-of-shape body. But, when Lokmlen struck, that all changed for a brief second. The stranger altered his stance, dropping his bag and suddenly moving with a fighter’s fluidity. He easily dodged out of the weapon’s way, then immediately fell back into his relaxed, pedestrian stance. Lokmlen frowned, pulling his weapon up to regard the stranger, who now stood leaning leisurely against the alley’s other wall. The assassin struck again, obviously with a more determined thrust, but again the stranger somehow wiggled past his blade. Ais didn’t know who the stranger was, but as his sentience returned, he thanked the Sand Lord for the man’s arrival. Slowly, Ais slipped a small zinkall arrow from the quiver tied to the back of his belt and loaded it into the front of his weapon. Lokmlen was attacking continuously now, fencing with the stranger like one would an armed opponent. Yet, the stranger continued to keep just barely out of the sword’s path. The weapon wove and sliced, sometimes coming close enough to the stranger that Ais could hear its tip tear at the soft darkside cloth. He never drew blood, however. Finally, the stranger pulled an odd feint, jumping forward instead of backward and catching Lokmlen’s weapon in one hand. The move put the two men face-to-face, one confused, the other smiling happily. Then, the stranger released the weapon and proceeded to slam the heel of his boot into his opponent’s foot. Lokmlen cried out, dropping his sword in pain. The stranger nodded cheerfully to Ais, who had just finished pumping his zinkall. Ais raised the weapon, pointing it threateningly at the disarmed assassin. “Eric’s first rule of combat,” the stranger said, picking up his
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pack and waving farewell to Ais as he strolled back toward the street. “Always go for the toes.” Ais handed Lokmlen off to a couple of trackts guarding the front of the thieves hideout. He ignored their suggestions that he let a healer see to his wounds—none of them were very bad, and had stopped bleeding now that he had them bound. He quietly strode up the steps to the top floor. In the back room he found members of his band cleaning up and searching through potential evidence. “Sir, you’ll want to see this,” one of them said, nodding toward the side of the room. Ais followed the gesture, noticing a man sitting against the wall, a healer at his side. The man wasn’t a trackt or a thief—he wore the colorful robes of a rich man, though those robes were stained with filth and blood. The man held his face in his hands, shaking with quiet sobs. Though his features were obscured, the man’s scraggly beard and emaciated body bespoke a lengthy imprisonment. “Who?” Ais asked quietly. “Torkel,” the trackt replied. Ais frowned, trying not to let his surprise show on his face. Torkel was a wealthy landowner, advisor to the Lord Merchant himself. The man and his family had disappeared during a trip down the river over half a year ago. It had looked like a boating accident. “We found him in a chamber hidden in the closet,” the trackt said in a hushed voice. “Along with… the corpses.” “Corpses?” Ais asked. “His wife and children,” the trackt explained solemnly. “Apparently, Torkel used to be one of Sharezan’s informants. When he tried to back out, Sharezan wasn’t pleased. They locked him in the closet, killed one of his family members every month, and tossed the bodies in with him.” It was nearly enough to make the rage return. This time, however, Ais fought it down, keeping his face under control. I will find you, Sharezan. Nilto. By the Sand Lord, I will catch you. This was why he chased the man. This was what drove him to work at this case as he had no other. Sharezan wasn’t just a criminal, wasn’t just a murderer, he was a maniac. Torkel wasn’t the first one he had tortured to the point of insanity. Not by far. “See that this man’s involvement in Sharezan’s operations is kept quiet,” Ais ordered. “He has suffered enough.” The trackt nodded. Ais turned and looked back into the main room, where zinkall arrows lay scattered around the floor, tables and chairs toppled by the battle. Ais held his mask of emotionless in front of him like a barrier as he surveyed the scene. He counted black-dressed bodies with cold eyes. Six dead, one of them Jedan. Stiffly, he stepped through the hole between the rooms, ignoring the bloodied body laying in the amongst the rubble. “Tain, you’re now Second,” he said flatly as he passed his Third, who knelt beside Jedan’s corpse. Several trackts stood, watching Ais as he walked toward the exit. The new
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members of Jedan’s band. “Great Sand Lord!” one of them whispered, barely audible as Ais left the room, “doesn’t he have any feelings at all?” Ais bowed his head as soon as he was out of view, sighing to himself an shuddering slightly. Then he looked up, forcing his face to be flat, to be strong. Control. It is all about control… “Young Kenton, would you mind helping an old woman to her quarters?” Kenton turned with surprise. Heelis, the Lady Judge herself, was standing behind him. People were flowing from the judgement chamber, most of them eagerly discussing the day’s events. Many had paused to congratulate him on his arguments, though Kenton didn’t see what they found so impressive. A two-week forestallment of the Diem’s destruction was hardly a stunning victory. Still, he had accepted their praise graciously, though his first reaction was to spurn them. He was quickly coming to understand that he couldn’t afford to make enemies amongst Lossand’s elite. He already regretted his treatment of the Council in years past. Which was why he hadn’t expected to see any of the Taisha approach him. The elderly Heelis, however, appeared to have lost all of her earlier hostility. She now stood before him with an unreadable expression, her wrinkled eyes studying him. “I’ll help her, if you want,” Dirin offered. “No, Dirin,” Kenton said slowly. “Wait for me outside the Hall. I will escort the Lady Judge.” “Quite kind of you, Lord Mastrell,” Heelis said, extending her arm for him to take. She wore a long gown of Hall black, loose at the waist, and the only jewelry she wore was a silver necklace. Kenton let the Lady Judge lead as they strolled away from the judgement chamber and its chattering crowds, walking around the periphery of the hall. Most of the pyramidal building’s space was taken up by the central chamber, and, as Kenton recalled, the rest was filled with offices. Heelis moved leisurely, not speaking at first, leaving Kenton to ponder on what it was she wanted to tell him. “You are much like your father, young Kenton,” she finally said. “I don’t know, My Lady. I am stubborn like he was, perhaps,” Kenton said with a slight frown. “Stubborn,” Heelis agreed, “and contradictory.” Kenton blushed slightly. Heelis laughed to herself. “Don’t be too ashamed of your nature, child. There is a vague line between being contradictory and being discerning. Just learn when to object, and when to allow authority to do as it is intended.” Kenton walked in silence for a moment, his Lossandin boots—tightly wrapped to keep the sand out—falling softly on the Hall’s stone floor. “I must confess I’m confused, My Lady,” he finally admitted. “Aren’t you angry with me?” “Yes,” Heelis admitted. “You arrived at a very inopportune time, young Kenton. No one likes to be surprised at the last moment.” “But you were going to destroy the Diem!” Kenton objected. “After a manner, yes,” Heelis admitted. “I couldn’t let that happen.” Heelis sighed quietly. “Do you understand the responsibility you have taken
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upon yourself, young Kenton?” Kenton smiled. “Now you sound like my father.” “He did enjoy laying responsibility, didn’t he?” Heelis said, a fond look on her face. “I will miss Praxton.” “I thought you didn’t like the sand masters,” Kenton said. “Nonsense, child,” Heelis returned. “I had great respect for the Diem, and especially for your father. Both grew too powerful, however, and too arrogant—those are things that breed enemies. The Diem built itself up so high that when it fell, even I couldn’t rescue it.” “You would have tried?” Kenton asked with a frown. Was this the same woman who had pronounced such harsh judgement just a few minutes before? Heelis sighed. “I did try, young Kenton. That was what I was doing today. You said yourself that the purpose of the Law was to protect, not to destroy.” “I must admit confusion, Lady Judge. Perhaps we were attending different trials.” “Yes,” Heelis mumbled. “Very much like your father.” Then, in a stronger tone, she continued. “The Lord Merchant and Lord General are very powerful men, Kenton—as powerful as your father was. The three of them have been vying for leadership in this nation for decades now. Once the Diem stumbled, there was no chance that the other two would let it survive. There was no way I could have saved the Diem—I could, however, allow its enemies a complete victory at first, then convince them to go easy on the remnants of your kind. The sand masters could have continued practicing, probably as a sub-Profession in the Draft.” “We wouldn’t have had a voice in the Council, then,” Kenton objected. “True. But you would have been able to keep your identity as a group.” Kenton frowned. “But,” he continued, “if you are so intent on helping the Diem, why did you push such harsh limitations on its continuance? There is virtually no chance that I will be able to convince all seven Taisha to vote for me. I could have perhaps gained a majority, but a unanimous decision…” “Ah, young Kenton,” Heelis said, staring down the corridor with slightly unfocused eyes. “You must not mistake Heelis the person and Heelis the Lady Judge. The Lady Judge must remain impartial, no matter what her personal biases. The Diem is wounded, perhaps mortally. A simple majority decision wouldn’t be enough to heal it. Now that the doubt of a practically unanimous decision has been cast against the Diem, only a complete reverse of that decision will be enough to restore the nation’s faith in sand mastery. Any less would be a disservice to the Diem—such a decision would leave it irreparably weakened. My decision was not made out of vengeance, but out of pity.” The Lady Judge drew to a halt beside a large door marked with the Hall’s seal. “You have a chance, young Kenton. But, I will admit that it isn’t a very good one. I do not envy you.” “Can I at least count on your vote?” Kenton asked. Heelis shook her head. “I am afraid not.” “But you
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said you don’t want to see the Diem destroyed!” “I don’t,” Heelis agreed. “But, if destruction is in the best interest of Lossand, then that is what I must support.” “The Diem’s arrogance is broken,” Kenton said. “There is nothing to fear from us now.” “Arrogance will return. Wherever there is power, there is pride. Besides, it is more than the Diem’s power that I am worried about.” “What do you mean?” Kenton asked with a frown. “The Diem’s financial situation, for one thing,” Heelis explained. “Financial situation?” “The Diem has no money, Kenton,” Heelis said. Kenton blinked in surprise. “No money?” he asked. “Actually, it has great debts.” “But the tributes…” “Most Professions stopped paying tribute to the Diem a long time ago, child,” Heelis explained. “They got tired of paying the sand masters, then having the Mastrells take whatever they wanted in addition to the tribute.” “But, the Law…” Heelis shook her head. “The tribute wasn’t part of the Law, child. It was given out of respect and thankfulness—things that the Professions stopped feeling long ago. I might have been able to do something if the mastrells had objected, but none of them did. They actually seemed to enjoy spiting the other Professions—you see, the cessation of the tributes only gave the mastrells more reason to misuse their powers. You know that the golden sash you wear gives you the power to demand any good or service from a merchant free of charge? Technically you are supposed to pay the money back, but there is no time limit set on when you must do so.” Kenton nodded. Such was part of the Diem’s Charter. “Well, the less tribute the other Professions paid, the more the mastrells demanded from the Profession members, walking into their shops and procuring crafts or expensive pieces of art. There is a reason why the other Professions hate the sand masters so.” “I didn’t know,” Kenton admitted. “Yes,” Heelis continued. “The only Profession that has continued to pay the tribute all this time is the Guild.” “The Guild?” Kenton asked with surprise. “The merchants? That doesn’t make any sense—Lord Vey is one of the most outspoken enemies of the Diem!” “I know,” Heelis said. “It is very odd of him. Regardless, I cannot, with good conscience, vote in favor of the Diem as long as it retains such large debts. You can probably request ledgers from the separate Professions to find out exactly how much they claim you owe them, but expect to see some very large figures. This has been going on for some time.” Kenton took a breath. “All right,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.” “That isn’t all, young Kenton,” Heelis warned. “There is also the leadership factor. If what I saw today is any indication, you are going to have a difficult time convincing the rest of your sand masters to follow you. A Profession that cannot agree on its own leader is not stable enough to maintain its status and Taisha.” “I’ll find a way to bring the other
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sand masters to my side,” Kenton informed. “Not just sand masters, child,” Heelis warned. “I must lay one more task upon you. The Professions represent the people of Lossand. We govern by their sufferance. If the people are morally opposed to sand mastery, then I would not be able to continue to support you. First you must convince the Diem to accept you, but then you must convince Lossand to accept the Diem.” Kenton sighed. He had assumed his task impossible, but now… he not only had to persuade all seven Taisha to rescind their votes to destroy his profession, but he needed to pay off the Diem’s debts and convince the nation to accept him. How would he manage such a task in two weeks? “I warned you, Lord Mastrell,” Heelis said, opening the door to her rooms and stepping in. “May the Sand Lord watch over you.” “I’m certain He will,” Kenton mumbled as she shut the door. “He’s probably eagerly awaiting my failure.” Kenton found Dirin waiting patiently beside the Hall’s outer steps, contentedly buffing a carapace statue’s head. “Dirin,” Kenton mumbled as he approached, “you’re too sands-cursed good for your own good.” “What?” Dirin asked as Kenton strode down the steps. “Never mind,” Kenton replied, looking across the small courtyard before the Hall. The crowd had mostly dispersed, leaving a few scattered groups. None of them, however, wore sand master white. “Where is everyone?” Dirin grimaced slightly. “They… went with Drile.” “Aiesha,” Kenton cursed. “Come on, back to the Diem.” They found the sand masters gathered in the Diem’s inner courtyard. The courtyard, filled with sand, of course, was large—much wider than any of the Diem’s four sides. Lines of small, separate balconies ran along the second and third floors—entrances to the private chambers of mastrells and other high-ranking sand masters. In the direct center of the courtyard was a free-standing mushroom-shaped structure, the building where the sand masters had met. In front of this meeting-house stood Drile, speaking authoritatively to the collected remnants of the Diem. His firm-featured square face was calm as he looked at different sand masters in turn, demanding something Kenton couldn’t hear. Around his waist he wore a golden sash. “Drile!” Kenton demanded as he approached. “What are you doing?” Drile ignored Kenton, speaking to a Diemfen in a brown sash. “You swear?” he asked the man. “I do,” the Diemfen—Terr was his name—affirmed. “All right, then you may count yourself in,” Drile promised. Kenton pushed his way through the group of sand masters. “Drile, what on the sands are you doing!” he repeated. Drile raised an eyebrow, finally turning toward Kenton. “Why, I’m distributing rooms on the top floor, Lord Mastrell. The mastrells no longer need them.” Kenton snorted. “And tell me, Drile, what criteria are you using to judge who gets to live on the top floor and who doesn’t?” Drile shrugged slightly. “I choose those who seem most likely to be loyal to… the mastrells.” “Or most likely to you, I suspect,” Kenton shot back. Drile turned away from Kenton
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then, nodding to the next Diemfen in line. “So tell me, why do you think I should let you have a place in the mastrells quarters?” “Drile,” Kenton ordered, “stop this foolishness.” Drile didn’t turn. “Why should I?” he asked nonchalantly. “Because it’s ridiculous,” Kenton said. “If we’re going to give away rooms, we’ll do it in an orderly fashion, by rank.” Drile turned with a raised eyebrow. “But Kenton,” he said with mock consternation on his face, “weren’t you always the one who said that rank shouldn’t matter? That power was a poor means of judging a sand master?” “I…” Kenton said, stunned. Drile snorted, turning back to his task. Kenton closed his mouth, still stupefied by Drile’s rebuttal. By the sands, he’s arrogant! Kenton thought with amazement. He’s acting like… like I used to. Oh sands… “Look, Drile,” Kenton said, gathering his thoughts. “We can discuss this later, find a fair means of distributing the rooms. Let me think about it for a little while first.” Drile sighed, shaking his head, but he did turn to face Kenton once again. “And why should I listen to you? You have no authority over me.” Kenton felt himself growing angry. “I was appointed Lord Ma—” “Let us move this meeting somewhere else!” Drile announced in a loud voice, interrupting Kenton as he spun to face the collected sand masters. “Say… in the very rooms we are discussing? Yes, let us move to the third floor. All of those who are able, that is.” Drile turned with a smile, shooting Kenton a victorious look as the sand around his feet exploded with light. The sand rose around Drile like a vortex of light, lifting him into the air, ribbons of sand whipping lightning-like around him. He landed on the third-floor balcony of what had once been the Lord Mastrell’s chambers, and casually walked inside. Around Kenton sand masters regarded him with embarrassment or amusement. Then the fourteen Diemfens and several of the more powerful fens gathered their sand around themselves and began to rise into the air. None of them were as showy as Drile, of course, and several were barely strong enough to lift themselves so high. Kenton was left standing red-faced, surrounded by a small crowd of fens, underfens, and acolents. Very clever, Drile, Kenton thought. A short time ago, that little move would have ended the argument. Slowly, Kenton reached into his sand pouch and pulled out a handful of sand. Hesitantly, irrationally fearing that his experience before entering the Hall had been a fluke, he called the sand to life. It pulsed and shifted warmly in his hand, shining with the familiar glow of sand mastery. He sent it in a ribbon to the courtyard floor, where he gathered sand into it. Then he split the one ribbon into three. The sand flashed, rising like three trails of smoke to surround him. Immediately a wave of surprised whispers ran through the crowd around him. Kenton raised his head, looking up at the third floor with trepidation. Historically, three ribbons
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was the minimum amount required to lift a sand master more than a few feet in the air. Many sand masters who could control three, or even four, ribbons still couldn’t lift themselves to such a height. What if he still wasn’t powerful enough? Taking a deep breath, he gathered his ribbons beneath him, one underneath his feet and one underneath each of his arms. Then, he pushed. Air rushed around him, battering his face and his clothing as he shot into the air like a zinkall arrow. He cried out, surprised at the force of his jump, as he passed the balcony and continued into the air. Kenton floundered in the maladroit leap, finally reaching his apex a full twenty feet above the Diem’s roof. He ordered his sand ribbons to him, realizing with horror the drop that awaited him. Fortunately, he was good at falling—even the weakest sand master could slow a fall enough to keep himself from being seriously hurt. He sent the ribbons forward as began to plummet, using them to guide him towards the balcony and slow him to a reasonable speed. His feet slapped against the carapace balcony, leaving him disoriented, his heart racing. The jump became worth it, however, the moment he saw Drile’s face. The former mastrell stood at the back of the room’s inner chamber. He stood with his mouth open, his voice swept away by complete amazement. His arm, which had been raised, dropped lethargically to his side as he leaned forward. Kenton could almost hear Drile’s mind counting Kenton’s ribbons over and over again. Kenton stepped forward, letting his ribbons swirl predominately around him. “I thought I told you to stop this foolishness, Drile,” he said in a quiet, but firm, voice. “I…” Drile trailed off, counting again. “Three?” he asked with confusion. Kenton stopped right in front of Drile, then raised his hand and pointed at the door. “Get out of my father’s room!” he ordered. “And why should I obey an obvious traitor like yourself?” Drile demanded. Kenton paused. “Traitor?” he asked incredulously. “Tell us why you came back so late, Kenton,” Drile whispered. “Tell us where you have been? Did the Kershtians treat you nicely while you received your payment from them? Or, did they turn you away like the filth you are?” “What are you taking about?” Kenton demanded. Surely Drile wasn’t insinuating… “We all know someone betrayed the Diem, Kenton,” Drile informed. “We’ve all figured it out. Isn’t it convenient that you disappeared in the middle of the battle, then arrive here safely, travelling alone across the kerla?” “There’s only one traitor here, Drile,” Kenton hissed. “And it isn’t me. There is only one man bitter enough at the Diem for taking away his rank, one man with a streak of vengefulness strong enough to commit such an atrocity.” Drile’s eyes grew wide with anger. “You accuse me?” he demanded. “You, traitor, dare to accuse your better?” Kenton felt his face grow hot with rage. This was the man who had cost him his father and
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friends. This was the man who had nearly destroyed the Diem. And now he was trying to blame Kenton. He was a coward. Unfortunately, Kenton had no real proof that the man was a traitor—he couldn’t get him thrown out of the Diem with simple accusations. “Get out of my father’s rooms,” Kenton said quietly, surprised at the tense anger in his eyes. Drile looked back defiantly. Kenton stared Drile right in the eyes, just as he had seen Praxton do on that infamous day of advancement that seemed so long ago. He forced his will, his anger, and his rage against Drile. As he did so, Drile’s eyes flickered uncertainly toward Kenton’s ribbons—three instead of one. A second later Drile turned away, nodding for his followers to join him as he stalked out of the room into the hallway beyond. “And take off the sash,” Kenton ordered. “Otherwise I’ll report you to the Taisha for violating the Diem’s charter.” Drile shot one look back at him—an angry, defiant look. Then he disappeared. The other sand masters watched Drile leave, their faces muted. Once he was gone they slowly slipped from the room, some following the former mastrell, others leaving off the balcony. When he was alone, Kenton sighed, slumping to the floor and resting his back against the room’s stone wall, trying to calm his tense nerves. Kenton sat that way for a long while, the massive aftermath of the last few days’ events finally catching up to him. He had watched thousands of sand masters slaughtered, his father and friends killed. He had spent an excruciating week believing he had lost the ability to master sand. Then, when he had finally gotten it back, he had immediately been forced to take upon himself responsibilities he had never sought, and only barely understood. His time traveling with Khriss had finally made him see what he really was, a man who fought authority because of what it was, not because of what it stood for. Now, irony had its way, and he had to deal with the very rebellious arrogance he had once projected. Except that Drile was both more powerful and more vicious than Kenton had ever been. I’m worse than the Hundred Fools, Kenton thought with a shake of his head. I should never have let Dirin talk me into this. What do I know of leadership? I’ve tried all my life to throw down authority. Someone was yelling down below—Kenton couldn’t make out what they were saying, and he was too engrossed in his thoughts to bother walking to the window. It wasn’t an angry voice—not Drile’s voice—but he still had a suspicion that he didn’t want to know what the person was saying. His mind drifted back to the argument. Drile had already begun turning the other sand masters against him. If Kenton hadn’t, for some still-unknown reason, spontaneously developed the ability to master multiple ribbons, then his rule of the Diem would have ended moments after it began. He had defeated Drile this time, but he doubted
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that the former-mastrell would remain cowed for long. Even as an acolent, Drile had been trouble. He had lorded over Kenton’s group of students like a Kershtian monarch, often demanding that others do the research for his classes for him, other times sneaking into town to perform secret deeds with his abilities in exchange for money. He never did anything overt—he would lift heavy objects, or drill holes in stone for merchants, any small act that a sand master could do easier than other men. The frightening thing about Drile had been the way he swore the other acolents to secrecy, using his power to frighten them to the point of capitulation. Kenton sighed, memories of the past rising fresh to his mind. The fool down below was still yelling, but Kenton retreated into his thoughts. During the time of Drile’s rampaging, the mastrells had ignored—and even encouraged—him. Kenton doubted Praxton had ever found out about Drile’s prostitution of his sand mastery; that was too large a sin to be ignored. The domination of the other acolents, however, and the use of power and threats to keep them in line—all this had been suffered. It was the way of the Diem—the sooner students learned to obey those with more power than they, the sooner they would understand what it was to be a sand master. Only two students had stood up to Drile. Traiben and, of course, Kenton himself. Traiben had been powerful enough to ignore Drile’s threats, and Kenton had simply been stubborn enough not to care. Their friendship, odd because of their differences in power, had come mostly because of a common enemy. Except, Traiben was dead now, and Kenton was left to resist the enemy on his own. Kenton could defy Drile, could mock him, but experience had shown that such would never actually accomplish anything. Why couldn’t someone else have survived? Traiben, Elorin, anyone. I can’t do this by myself. I can’t… why is that idiot still screaming? Sighing, Kenton rose to his feet, shuffling across the room toward the balcony. “Will you kindly be—” he began to yell. Then he stopped. Down below, a strangely familiar form stood in the courtyard’s sands, hands on his hips. Kenton frowned. The man weighed a little more than Kenton remembered, but there was no mistaking that curly hair. “Eric?” Kenton asked incredulously. “What on the sands are you doing here?” “Yelling myself raw, it appears,” the other man called back. “They told me you were up there—they didn’t tell me you’d gone deaf.” Kenton smiled slightly, then frowned again in confusion. “Eric?” he repeated. “By the Divine, all that’s sand’s affected your brain. Yes, it’s me, Eric! Now that we’ve established that, is there any way I can get up there? I’m growing a little tired of yelling.” Still amazed, Kenton reached over and placed his hand in the barrel of sand every mastrell kept on his balcony. Immediately, three ribbons of sand flashed to life, spiraling over the railing and down toward the courtyard below. Eric yelped in surprise
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as the ribbons grabbed him, lifting him into the air and placing him on the balcony. Eric dusted himself off—he was dressed in darksider clothing, a vest over a bright red shirt and a pair of loose tan leggings. “I’d forgotten how useful that was,” he mumbled, strolling into the room. Kenton turned, shaking his head in amazement. “Eric, you’ve… changed,” he admitted. “Yes, well, everyone has their problems. You, for instance, are supposed to be dead.” Kenton looked at Eric, surprised at the joke. Could this really be the straight-faced, formal boy he had known as a child? “Here I decide to visit dayside again after a three-year absence,” Eric said, leisurely walking around the large, well-furnished mastrell’s chamber, examining the tapestries, “intending to visit my old childhood comrade. Then, a few weeks out of town, I find out he’s dead! I’m forced to wail and moan at the short life of my very best friend, continuing my travels to visit his funeral. Only I get into town and find out my recently-deceased friend is running around quite life-like, consorting with Taisha and taking over Professions.” Eric paused, turning to look Kenton directly in the eye. “I really wish you’d make up your mind.” “I apologize,” Kenton replied, still a little confused at Eric’s shift in personalities. He smiled anyway. “Next time I decide to come back from the dead, I’ll consult you first.” “Yes, please do,” Eric said, poking through several cabinets on the far side of the room. “But I’m warning you, next time you die, I’m not going to mourn you. You can just count these last two weeks as your requisite grief.” Kenton continued to regard Eric with wonder. The last time he had seen his friend, they had both been fifteen, and Eric had been boarding a boat heading south down the Ali. Several months later Kenton had gotten word that Eric had somehow made it to darkside, but other than that he had received no news of his friend for three years. And, it appeared three years could produce quite a change in a man. Eric had always been so polite, so stiff. There were remnants of the boy in this man, of course—he smiled the same, a contented, ineffable smile. Eric had always been able to take abuse without growing angry. However, such hints were distorted—the man before him seemed more new than he was familiar. He was informal, spoke easily, and, of course, he wasn’t wearing a sword. “Eric,” Kenton asked with bafflement, “why are you here?” “I told you,” Eric replied, continuing to search through cupboards, “I came to visit my childhood friend. How’re you doing?” “You did not cross the Boarder Ocean just to see me,” Kenton said flatly. “What about your father?” “Reegent?” Eric asked, poking his head all the way inside a cupboard so that his voice echoed. “I thought he disowned me.” “He did,” Kenton admitted. “Well, I guess he’s not my father then, is he?” “I suppose not,” Kenton said. “Eric, what are you looking for?” “Something
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to eat,” Eric explained. “I’m starving—I saved some trackt’s life today, and that’s hungry work. Aren’t you mastrells supposed to have hoards of food and money and things heaped around your chambers?” “I don’t know,” Kenton replied, “I’m kind of new to this.” “Aha!” Eric suddenly said, pulling a thin strip of dried ZaiDon from the back of one of the cabinets. It looked brittle and old, facts confirmed by the dust that flew off it as Eric shook it in the air. “You are not going to eat that, are you?” Kenton asked with a disbelieving tone. Eric smiled, then bit of the end of the ZaiDon, chewing happily. He sauntered over to one of the room’s plush chairs and flopped down, continuing to chew on his jerky. “So?” Eric asked. Kenton frowned. “So what?” “So, now that you’re rich and powerful, are you going to take me in? We loafers need wealthy patrons to support our continued laziness.” Kenton took a seat of his own. “I suppose you can stay, if you want, Eric,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll be able to provide you with a home for long, though.” “I heard,” Eric said with a nod. “Two weeks, eh?” “You know?” “It’s all over Kezare,” Eric explained. “How do you think I found out you weren’t dead?” Kenton nodded. “Two weeks,” he repeated. “Two weeks to convince all seven Taisha to vote for me, show that the Diem can be financially stable, and solidify the sand masters behind one leader.” Eric took another bite of ZaiDon. “That’s it?” he asked. “Sounds easy.” Kenton snorted, rubbing the sides of his head. “You know, you’ve changed too,” Eric noted, pointing at Kenton with the chewed end of his jerky. “Oh?” Kenton asked. “Yes. You’ve grown… somber.” “Let me assure you, it’s mostly a recent acquisition.” Eric nodded knowingly. “I understand. You shouldn’t have let yourself get into this position. Eric’s first rule of life—avoid responsibility like deep sand.” “It’s a little bit late,” Kenton said. “That it is,” Eric agreed. “I guess there’s nothing we can do but make the best of it.” He lounged back in the well-cushioned chair. “Even if you fail, at least we’ll spend the next two weeks in comfort.” Despite the change in Eric, despite everything that had happened, Kenton couldn’t help smiling. In a weird sort of way, the comment seemed to put everything back in proportion for him. He leaned back. “I suppose we will, won’t we?” “What now, duchess?” Baon asked. Khriss looked up at the comment. They stood just outside Loaten’s house, on the darkened underground street. “Gevin’s here, somewhere,” she said, almost to herself. “Loaten said that?” Cynder asked with interest. “Well, no,” Khriss admitted. “But he did admit that the prince made it to Lossand. Prince Gevalden had to have left some sort of trace. I know the Prince—he likes to be the center of attention. Someone’s got to remember him. Someone willing to talk to me.” She stood for a moment, her arms folded as she tapped her
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foot in thought. The others stood around, watching her expectantly. What now? she thought, a little uncomfortable underneath their scrutiny. She caught Baon’s eye, trying to delve some clue as to what he thought she should do, but his glassy black eyes were unresponsive. “I guess we go to the top,” Khriss decided. “If the Prince really did come to Lossand, then he wouldn’t have been able to resist introducing himself to the local nobility—or, at least, the dayside equivalent.” “Which is?” Cynder asked. “Something called a Tyshoo…” “Taisha,” N’Teese corrected. The small, dark-haired girl stood reclining against the street wall, obviously still resentful of her forced role as Khriss’s guide. “There are eight of them, leaders of the dayside Professions.” “Eight?” Acron asked curiously. “But, who’s in charge?” N’Teese shrugged. “They all are.” “Oh, come now,” Acron continued. “Surely one of the eight has to rule over the others, otherwise there would be chaos.” “Some of them are said to be more powerful than others,” N’Teese said. “The Lord General is respected by the others, and so is the Lady Judge.” “General,” Acron said knowingly. “It appears to be some sort of feudal system, My Lady,” he explained to Khriss, as if she hadn’t been listening to the entire conversation. Khriss ignored the anthropologist, instead speaking to N’Teese. “So, the Lord General is the most powerful?” she asked. “Well,” N’Teese said thoughtfully. “The Lord Mastrell used to be the most powerful, but I don’t think that’s the case any more…” “What’s a mastrell?” Khriss asked, forming the unfamiliar word with confusion. “I…” N’Teese said, pursing her lips as she thought. “It’s hard to explain in Dynastic. I don’t think you have them on darkside. They’re really powerful, though, and everyone’s afraid of them.” “Are they warriors?” Baon asked. “Not really,” N’Teese replied. “More like holy men, except not holy.” “Ah. I see,” Cynder said with a slight chuckle. N’Teese blushed. “Anyway,” she continued. “The rumors say all the mastrells are dead now. So I guess either the Lord General or the Lord Merchant would be the most powerful. Of course, everyone respects the Lady Judge the most.” “Lady?” Acron asked. The fat man rubbed his chin thoughtfully, not sweating for the first time since they had arrived on dayside. “A female ruler?” “And what is wrong with that?” Khriss asked. “Nothing, My Lady,” Acron apologized. “I just wasn’t expecting it. Like most primitive societies, this one is obviously male-dominated. I find it odd that they would have a woman ruler.” “Primitive?” N’Teese asked with a frown. Acron ignored her, instead jotting down a few notes on his pocket-ledger. “Well, then, N’Teese,” Khriss decided, “please take us to see this Lady Judge.” Khriss looked over toward Baon as she made the decision. The warrior shrugged indifferently. He did, however, nod toward Acron and Cynder, who had started into an argument about primitive cultures and matriarchal societies. Khriss frowned in confusion at Baon’s gesture, but the warrior followed it by nodding toward a row of houses. “Cynder, Acron,” Khriss said, finally understanding. “Why
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don’t you two secure us lodgings here in darksider town? I assume you would rather stay here than out in the sun?” “Well…” Acron said, his sense of comfort apparently debating with his desire to be among the dayside people. Comfort won. “Yes, that does sound like a good idea.” “Cynder, may I borrow one of your watches?” Khriss asked. “Of course, my lady,” Cynder said, fiddling in his packs for a moment to retrieve his spare pocketwatch. “Then we’ll meet back here in four hours,” Khriss said. Khriss waited impatiently, frowning as she shifted uncomfortably on the dayside bench. It was made of stone, of course—everything inside the black-walled pyramid was stark, as if intentionally crafted to be uncomfortable and foreboding. N’Teese had called it the Hall of Judgement, but Khriss thought the Hall of Bureaucracy seemed a more appropriate name. Khriss had requested an audience with the Lady Judge, and had immediately been asked to sit down for a short wait. So far that ‘short wait’ had lasted nearly two darkside hours, and it didn’t appear as if it was going to end any time soon. A room full of scribes and bureaucrats shuffled around in front of her, making notes, stacking papers, and looking through ledgers. The man Khriss had talked to, a balding elderly man who was supposed to be the administrator in charge of appointments, sat speaking quietly with a group of three Lossandin men. He didn’t appear to be in any hurry to follow Khriss’s request. “N’Teese,” Khriss said impatiently. “Go ask him how much longer it will be.” The small girl, who sat on the floor beside Khriss’s bench, rolled her eyes. “I just did that.” “The more you bother these sort of people, the faster they work,” Khriss said testily. “Now go.” N’Teese sighed, but did as commanded, climbing to her feet and walking over to the man. A few seconds later she returned. “He says it will be a short wait,” N’Teese explained. “This is insufferable!” Khriss groaned, leaning back on her bench. “Did you tell him I’m a duchess?” “Yes, several times. I don’t think he knows what it means.” “By the Divine!” Khriss said. “I’m the betrothed-daughter of the King himself!” “I don’t think he knows what a King is either,” N’Teese said unhelpfully. “When this Lady Judge agrees to see me, she had better explain herself,” Khriss mumbled. “These dayside officials certainly do have an inflated opinion of their own importance.” She heard a quiet snort, and turned accusing eyes to the side, where Baon leaned against the wall. The warrior had waited the entire time without sitting, maintaining a loose posture, looking completely relaxed. There was a slight twinkle in his eye, as if he found their situation amusing. “You’d better not be laughing at me,” Khriss threatened. “I wouldn’t think of it, duchess,” Baon replied with a straight face. “How can you stand it?” she asked, leaning back to stare at the ceiling. “This waiting is driving me mad.” “When you’re a soldier, you learn how to wait,”
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Baon explained. “I doubt that is a lesson the court ever taught.” Khriss shook her head—Baon was right. She had always been a very important person. Ever since her mother had died when Khriss was very young, Khriss had been the sole heir to the family line. Her father, a lesser nobleman, had been Duke only by marriage, and the true title had passed immediately to his daughter. There was only one Elisian house that was more important than Khriss’s own, and she had been engaged at an early age to one of its principle members. Her marriage to Prince Gevalden was to have finally brought together two of Elis’s most notoriously rivalrous houses. Waiting just wasn’t something one did when one was that important. She hadn’t ever consciously thought about it before, but when she asked for something, it was immediately sent for. When she wanted to see someone, they ignored all other appointments to meet with her. And now it appeared as if she were being ignored. Every time she looked at Baon, she couldn’t help getting the feeling that he thought the wait good for her for some reason. She didn’t see what good it could do—all it was doing was making her grumpy. Taking a deep breath, Khriss attempted to calm herself. She was capable of spending long hours pouring through books, why should waiting be any different? All she had to do was occupy her mind. She looked around the room, searching for something of interest. The paper had fascinated her the first few moments of her wait—it was black, instead of white, and the bureaucrats scribbled on it with white-tipped pens. But the irregularity was only of passing interest. She assumed the paper was constructed from melted sandling carapace of some sort—they certainly didn’t have enough wood in Lossand to waste on endless filings. “N’Teese, tell me about these Professions,” she finally requested. The girl looked up with surprise. She had spent the two hours distractedly, occasionally disappearing for long stretches of time, leaving Khriss paranoid that the Lady Judge would finally invite them in when their translator was gone. “What about them?” N’Teese asked. “Well, what are they? Can anyone join any one of them? Or are they family oriented, descendants following the path of their fathers?” N’Teese shrugged, playing absently with a pile of round pebbles on the floor. “They’re all different,” she explained. “A lot of the craftsmen do what their fathers did, as do the farmers, but they don’t have to. The children of Mastrells almost always stay in the Diem, but if they don’t have any ability, they go somewhere else. A lot of men who join the Hall’s trackts or the Tower’s soldiers are the first ones in their family to do so. Unless, of course, they’re Kelzin.” Khriss frowned. Diem? Kelzin? So many words were unfamiliar. N’Teese spoke without bothering to explain, as if she assumed Khriss would immediately know what she was talking about. “Wait,” Khriss said interrupting. “What is a Kelzin?” “Kelzin are kind of like noblemen,”
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N’Teese explained. “They own lots of land, and keep it in the family. Most of them are in the Guild or the Tower.” “Guild? Tower?” N’Teese sighed. “The Guild is merchants, the Tower soldiers. Kelzin in the Tower pass their rank from father to son, so most of them don’t leave. Normal men can’t pass ranks—not unless they can pay the Lord General the inheritance tithe. Since it takes longer than a lifetime to get to the highest ranks, most regular people have to stay in the lower ones.” All right, Guild is merchants, Tower is soldiers, Khriss thought to herself. “So, what is a track?” “Trackt,” N’Teese corrected. “They’re those people with swords,” she said, nodding to a tall man speaking with a scribe. The taller man wore a single piece uniform that was very sharp and militaristic at the top, but at the waist turned into a very loose skirt that went all the way down to his ankles. “Soldiers?” Khriss asked. “No,” N’Teese said with a suffering look, “they’re trackts. Soldiers are in the Tower, remember?” Khriss blushed despite herself. “Of course I remember; I’m not a fool. But, they do wear swords.” “Trackts wear swords too,” N’Teese said, explaining as if she were talking to a child. “They are the ones who make certain everyone follows the Law.” “Ah,” Khriss said nodding. “Police.” N’Teese shrugged. “I guess. “Okay, then what is this ‘Diem’ you mentioned?” “You sure ask a lot of questions,” N’Teese said with a frown. “Now you sound like him,” Khriss huffed. “Don’t people ask questions on this side of the world?” “Not stupid ones,” N’Teese mumbled to herself. A caustic retort rose to Khriss’s lips, but she didn’t have an opportunity to scold the girl. Just as she was about to speak, she noticed that the balding administrator was approaching. He stopped in front of Khriss, speaking in Lossandin to N’Teese. “The Lady Judge will see you—” N’Teese translated. “Finally!” Khriss exclaimed, rising to her feet indignantly. “In three weeks,” N’Teese finished. Khriss froze. “What?” she asked sharply. “He says he finally spoke with the Lady Judge’s secretary, who was out for lunch,” N’Teese said, continuing to translate. “The first open space to meet with the Lady Judge is in three weeks.” “I… I…” Khriss stammered, completely stunned. Never in her life had she been treated in such a way. Two hours of waiting, just to find out she couldn’t have an appointment for weeks. “Tell him I don’t want the appointment,” she snapped, feeling her face grow red with anger. She turned to stalk from the room, trying to look as dignified as possible. “If the Lady Judge wants to meet me, then she can just come looking for me herself!” Khriss marched from the room and down the hallway toward the building’s exit, Baon and N’Teese following behind. “That last comment didn’t make any sense, you know,” Baon noted as they left through the pyramid’s broad front gates, Khriss pausing only briefly to pull out her dark glasses. “I’m a duchess!” Khriss fumed,
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shoving the glasses over her eyes. “I don’t have to make sense!” “All right…” Baon said, shaking his head. He followed behind as Khriss began walking away from the Hall down a moderately busy street. “Are we wandering somewhere specific, or did you simply pick a random direction?” Khriss continued to march, ignoring the comment—especially since she had, in fact, picked a random direction. Finally she slowed, forcing herself to grow calm. Obviously this Lady Judge wasn’t going to be of any help. “N’Teese,” she ordered. “Who else did you say was important in this town? The Lord General? Well, if he’s one of these Kelzin, like you say, then maybe he’ll have more respect for someone with a proper title.” “Maybe…” N’Teese said without much conviction. “Take me to him,” Khriss demanded. Unfortunately, N’Teese’s pessimism proved well-founded. The Tower turned out to be a tall stone structure that lived up to its name. It sat like a low-walled castle, with its own gate and squareish perimeter. Soldiers sparred and trained across its inner courtyard. The keep at the back was constructed almost like a darkside castle, though it wasn’t as high and it had a lot more windows, not to mention a domed roof. Inside, Khriss was forced to endure a somewhat shorter—but equally infuriating—wait before being told that the Lord General wouldn’t be able to see her. Apparently, he was planning some sort of hunting trip, and would be leaving in just a few hours. The soonest he would be able to see her was when he returned, just under two weeks hence. He did send a very flowery apology, however. Khriss’s anger lasted as they traipsed away from the Tower to walk halfway across the city to the Guild headquarters, a large mansion-like building with a rich interior. Here she found that didn’t have to wait at all—she was promptly informed that she could see the Lord Merchant immediately. If, that was, she were willing to pay a 2,000 lak processing fee. She returned to darksider town frustrated, angry, and several hours late. Eventually, a very tired Khriss arrived back at the meeting place in front of Loaten’s house. However, neither Acron nor Cynder were there to meet her. Instead, a distinguished-looking darksider in a simple white suit approached them and bowed. He was perhaps forty years old, and had close-cropped hair and long sideburns. “Duchess Khrissalla?” the man asked with a Vetoian accent. “Yes?” Khriss responded. “I have been sent to fetch you. Please come with me.” They followed the man for a short distance to a brick-fronted house along one of the town’s darkened streets. He opened the door with a white-gloved hand, standing aside to let Khriss, Baon, and a somewhat confused N’Teese in. The room inside was comfortably darksiderish, and even appeared to have been constructed after Elisian architecture. There was a long staircase twirling up the right side of the entry hall and several doors leading off to the left. Khriss nodded approvingly, stepping forward and down a short decline to enter what should
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be, assuming the house followed standard format, the study. Inside she found Cynder sitting contentedly in a houserobe, chewing on the end of a pipe and sitting in front of a glass-fronted fireplace. “Ah, duchess,” he said, rising as she entered. Khriss waved him to sit back down as she took a seat for herself. The room was tastefully decorated with plenty of wood to give it a darksider feel—there were even several books in one of the cases. The only light in the room came from the fireplace, but it was more than enough illumination by darkside standards. “I hope dinner is already cooking,” Khriss said, leaning back in a chair so plush it had probably been imported from darkside. “Of course,” Cynder said. “The cook says it will be finished within an hour. I was beginning to fear you wouldn’t return in time, my lady.” “I was beginning to fear I wouldn’t ever return,” Khriss mumbled, taking off her shoes and rubbing her sore feet. She had never walked so much in her entire life. “Idan, fetch the duchess some slippers, if you would,” Cynder requested. The man who had led Khriss to the house bowed and moved out of the room to perform the errand. As he did so, he passed an amazed N’Teese who still stood in the den’s doorway. “You hired servants?” she asked incredulously. “Of course they did,” Khriss said with a frown. “I told them to find us a place to stay, didn’t I?” “Well, yes…” N’Teese said. “Well, houses come with servants, don’t they?” Khriss asked. “Actually, not on this side of the world, apparently,” Cynder informed. “We had to hire them separately. Of course, they were very happy to find work. Apparently there is a dearth of nobility here on dayside—most of the people who flee the Dynasty tend to be of the lower classes for some reason.” Cynder chuckled at his own comment as Idan returned with a pair of slippers for Khriss. “You people are amazing,” N’Teese mumbled. Khriss frowned, still not certain what was bothering the girl. “I don’t understand, N’Teese. Why wouldn’t we hire servants? How would we eat if we didn’t?” “I don’t know. Fix it yourself?” Cynder snorted quietly. “You’ve obviously never tasted a noblewoman’s cooking,” he mumbled. Khriss ignored the gibe. “Where is Acron?” “Shopping,” Cynder explained. “It appears that our gemstones are worth even more than you thought—much more than our gold or silver. We got several thousand lak for each one we sold; we could probably live here for the rest of our lives on what we earned.” “Then that merchant back in the first town did cheat us!” Khriss growled. Cynder smiled, his aged eyes twinkling. “My Lady appears to be in a rare humor this hour.” Khriss sighed as Idan brought her a cup of warm tea. “You have no idea,” she said, sipping at the liquid—it was the perfect temperature, considering the relative heat on dayside. “The rulers didn’t know of the Prince’s whereabouts?” Cynder guessed. “Worse. None of them even
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agreed to see me!” “Really?” Cynder asked, genuinely surprised. “I guess we are far from where our titles mean anything, aren’t we?” Khriss just shook her head, sipping her tea. “Perhaps one of the others will let me in. I only tried three of the eight.” Suddenly, they heard the sound of the front door opening. A moment later Acron’s bulk appeared in the doorway, followed by three darksider packmen bearing bundled packages. “That was the most enjoyable day I have ever spent!” Acron announced to the room. He was wearing a bright red dayside robe and three different medallions on his forehead. He also, Khriss noticed with a sigh, was wearing a black zinkall on each arm. “The cultural experience of shopping in a market where no one speaks your language!” Acron explained, seating himself and taking a cup of tea from Idan. “Even when I traveled the Dynasty, everyone spoke the same language. Never have I been immersed so completely in a different culture. It was exhilarating—oh, you can set those over here.” The packmen obliged, placing the packages on the floor beside Acron’s chair, then went to Idan for payment. The butler dutifully counted out a lak for them each, and they left. “You wouldn’t believe the things I found!” Acron said, still excited. He began to unwrap packages, pulling out bowls, rugs, utensils, and other random articles. “Works of art carved by primitive fingers, exotic clothing… even an intricate hourglass like none I’ve ever seen. Oh, and I purchased some clothing for you, duchess. I assumed you were growing tired wearing the same things every day.” Khriss perked up slightly as he pulled out a package and handed it to her. Inside she found several dayside robes of different styles, all of them colored slightly—none as bright as darksider clothing, but much better than the standard dayside grays and tans. “Thank you, Acron,” she acknowledged. “This is the first pleasant thing that has happened to me all day.” “Oh?” Acron asked, happily turning a massive hourglass—actually, five hourglasses in a row, each one smaller than the one before—and watching it with intrigued eyes. “The duchess had a less-than-successful day of information gathering,” Cynder explained, still puffing on his pipe. “Be cheered, My Lady,” Acron said dismissively. “It’s only the first day. We’ll find the prince.” He didn’t, however, seem half as interested in Gevin as he was in the dribbling sand. Eventually, he put the glass aside and sighed. “It was quite the taxing day, however,” he admitted. “If you don’t mind, My Lady, I think I’ll have the man there draw me a bath before we eat.” “Oh, do we have running water?” Khriss asked with surprise. “Unfortunately, no,” Cynder replied. “But we do have a well right outside, and I ordered a couple of houseboys to being warming water for our evening baths.” “Baths?” N’Teese asked, almost forgotten near the doorway. Khriss smiled. “Yes, baths,” she said, imagining the luxury. “In water?” N’Teese asked. “Now who’s asking stupid questions?” Khriss returned. “Daysiders have an aversion to
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water, My Lady,” Idan explained in his deep voice. “They are afraid of swimming, and find the idea of immersing oneself in water extremely discomforting.” “The probably assume they’ll melt,” Cynder mumbled. “How odd,” Khriss said. “I guess it makes sense. They don’t take baths at all, then?” “It is customary to wipe oneself down with a damp cloth before one dresses after waking,” Idan explained. “How sad,” Khriss said. “They’ll never know the luxury of floating, surrounded by warm water.” N’Teese was growing increasingly pale as the conversation continued. “You people are too strange,” she finally decided, standing. “I’m leaving—you don’t need me any more today.” “If you wish,” Khriss agreed. “Of course, you’ll miss dinner.” N’Teese paused. Then, resentfully, she sat back down. “I’ll leave after dinner,” she mumbled. Ais checked the moon with a distracted look, noting the time. It was approaching twelfth hour but, of course, the city was still active. Though most of the important officials followed Taisha standard time, working from fourth hour to ninth hour, Kezare itself never slept. The streets were slightly less busy during off hours, but the change was barely noticeable. For Ais, it was time to sleep. He kept Taisha standard, and twelfth hour put him well past his normal bedtime. His tired eyes and fatigued body agreed with the supposition. Unfortunately, he couldn’t sate them. He had too much work to do. With a quiet sigh, he walked up the Hall’s steps. He ignored the larger entry doors, which had been shut hours ago, and instead opened a smaller door at the side. It was unlocked, of course—trackts patrolled Kezare’s streets all hours of the day. Ais closed the door, closing out the sun’s light and the city it watched. He nodded to the trackts just inside the front door, and they saluted back, standing rigidly as he passed. Temmin and Len were their names. Temmin had already applied for one of the empty positions in Ais’s investigation band. Ais had his file, and two dozen like it, stacked on his desk awaiting his decision. I make a mistake, killing a fourth of my band, and still they line up to get in, he thought with amazement, turning right and following the hallway toward his chambers. This time there were far too many open positions. It had taken Ais the better part of the day to visit all of the widows his mistake had caused, to inform his men’s parents, wives, and children of their loss. A few of them had blamed him, as they had a right to do, but most hadn’t said anything, taking the news with sickened looks that warned that they had expected such an event to happen some day. Oh, Ker’Naisha, Ais thought as he unlocked and opened the door to his chambers, your eternal workings brought much grief this day. His personal chambers were neat and unadorned—many accused Ais of lacking imagination. They were right. Ais had little use for imaginative decorating, frills or pictures to distract the mind. The Hall was a place
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of work and efficiency. On his desk sat two piles of black paper. One contained the files on all who had applied for his band, the other the paperwork for each of the men he had captured in the safehouse. The judges wanted to know which of them Ais intended to charge, and with what crimes. Ais shook his head, rounding the desk, constructed of two stone pillars and a carapace top, to sit down and begin to sift through the papers. It was looking as if he would be going home late once again—of course, the day had been a disaster so far, why not let the unpleasantness continue? Not only had Ais lost a good number of men, but Lokmlen refused to implicate Nilto as the motivation behind his killings. Ais’s men had lost their lives for nothing—he was no closer to proving that Nilto and Sharezan were the same person than he had been weeks ago. And then, on top of it all, Ais had found out that the Diem continued to exist. As a senior trackt, Ais was privy to information that others did not have. He had known about the Lady Judge’s plan to shut down the Diem, and had approved of it. The sand masters were blasphemy poorly masked as people, their mere existence an affront to the Sand Lord. Ais may have chosen to disobey tradition and join the Hall, but he was still Kershtian. He followed the Priest’s DaiKeen. He often found it ironic that he, as a representative of the Law, was forced to protect the very beings that he accepted as his God’s eternal adversaries. In addition, Ais had other reasons for hating the sand masters. The mastrells, with their golden sashes, often made mockery of the Law. When the Law had been written, and Lossand formed from a group of smaller warring countries, the only way to persuade the sand masters to join with the new federation had been to give their mastrells near-immunity from the Law. Mastrells could take from merchants without fear of retribution. Mastrells were not required to follow the commands of a trackt, even in the case of an emergency. Mastrells could not be brought to trial, or even arrested, without the permission of the Lord Mastrell. The sand masters were Lossand’s deepest and ugliest stain. It was because of them that the A’Kar named Lossand a nation of heathens, even though a large percentage of its people now believed in the Sand Lord. If it weren’t for the sand masters, then it would have been all right for Ais to join the Hall. It was because of the sand masters that Ais was rejected by his own people, called traitor even by murderers like Lokmlen… Ais took a sharp breath, calming himself. Slowly, he forced his fingers to relax, letting them slide free from the tabletop, where his fingernails had been threatening to crack against the hard carapace. Ais shook his head. One thing, at least, he couldn’t blame on the sand masters. There was only
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one person behind his lack of self-mastery. He had done it again. He had lost control, turning from careful trackt into witless fool. Fortunately, none of his men had been there to see his shame, the secret their leader—assumed greatest of trackts—hid. Quietly, Ais closed his eyes and breathed a prayer of thanks to the Sand Lord for the stranger who had saved him. If the odd man in darkside clothing hadn’t arrived, Ais would have joined the day’s casualties. With a quiet sigh, Ais picked up his long wooden pen and fitted a new tip of white ashink into its end. If he didn’t get to work, then he would probably still be doing paperwork when it came time to begin his shift the next day. He started with the second stack of papers, looking over names of criminals and deciding whom he could hold and whom he could not. Regrettably, most of the names were unfamiliar—petty thieves with small histories of crime. Ais couldn’t send them to trial, for he had nothing more than assumptions. He scribbled ‘No Charge, Please Release,’ at the bottom of a paper, then reached over to grab the metal stamp heating over a small brazier beside his desk. He absently pressed the stamp against the sheet, letting its heat bind the ashink to the paper so it wouldn’t rub away, then returned the stamp to its place and moved on to the next document. A sudden knock at his door drew his attention away from the paper. Ais frowned. Who would be bothering him at this time of the day? He began to order them in, but the door opened before he spoke. Ais reacted immediately, standing at attention. There was only one person who opened his door without waiting for a reply. “My Lady Judge,” Ais said formally, saluting as the elderly woman walked into the room. “Please, be seated, senior,” Lady Heelis encouraged. Ais responded—though he did wait for the Lady Judge to seat herself in the room’s other chair before doing so. Then he sat patiently, waiting for the Lady Judge to address him. It wasn’t odd for her to be in the Hall so late—the Lady Judge was said to need very little sleep. Lady Heelis studied him for a moment, her aged eyes shining with the wisdom that had gained her the most prestigious of Lossand’s titles. Many years before, a young and foolish Ais had resented Heelis because of her sex. That young man had grown into a man who respected Lady Heelis more than any living person, save perhaps for the holy A’Kar himself. “Oh, Ais, must you always be so formal?” Lady Heelis finally asked, smiling slightly. “How many years have we worked together now?” “Eighteen, my lady,” Ais said, a little surprised as he realized how many years it had been. He did not, however, soften his posture. It wouldn’t have been appropriate. Lady Heelis sighed slightly. “Always the perfect trackt, Ais,” she mumbled. If only you knew, My Lady. “I understand that your operation today
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was a success,” Lady Heelis offered. “I lost six men,” Ais responded. “And five more have injures that will keep them from duty for months.” “Yes,” Heelis admitted. “But you captured a known murderer—you realize that Lokmlen has admitted to over a dozen assassinations besides the three trackts he killed.” Ais nodded. “Beyond that, the archers you captured were more than simple thugs. Several of them were wanted killers as well.” Ais betrayed no hint of surprise, but he hadn’t known about the archers. He had left to visit families before their interrogations. “A sound operation, Ais,” Heelis praised. “You couldn’t have known about the trap, and the casualties would have been much greater had you not broken the archers’s attack.” Ais nodded slowly. “Thank you, My Lady.” Lady Heelis leaned back in her chair, a thoughtful look on her face. “And this is just one of many such operations, Ais. You have quite a reputation in Kezare.” Ais eyed the stack of applicants to his band. “I only do my duty, My Lady,” he replied formally. “Oh Ais,” Lady Heelis said with a sigh. “When are you going to let me reward you as you deserve?” I deserve to be cast out, to be humiliated, Ais thought mournfully. If only you knew… “If you mean a promotion, Lady Taisha, I must decline,” he stated simply. Lady Heelis regarded him with calculating eyes. It was a piercing look, a look that saw everything, that climbed in his eyes and ran rampant through his brain. It threw open every hidden door and searched every secluded secret, leaving his thoughts in a confused jumble. Did she know? “Why?” the Lady Judge pried. No. No, she doesn’t know. She could not. “My reasons have been stated, Lady Judge.” Lady Heelis sighed. “I know you enjoy your work as a trackt, but I need you to do more. I want you at the head of a Hall, somewhere where you can teach others to do what you do.” A slight, uncharacteristic smile crept to Ais’s lips as he replied. “Trust me, Lady Heelis, the last thing you need is a Hall full of Aises running around.” “Trust me,” Heelis countered. “We could do much worse.” Ais considered the proposal for a minute in respect for her position. Then he shook his head. “I have some things I need to work through before I take any more steps, Lady Judge.” “And if you cannot work through them?” “I will die first.” Seeing his resolve, Heelis nodded in quiet agreement. “And that you just might.” She regarded him with those piercing eyes again, eyes that had led her to become Lady Judge. “I could command you,” she pointed out. “And I would follow your commands, Lady Judge,” Ais assured. “I know,” Heelis said with a sigh. “But I do not work that way.” “I know.” Heelis shook her head. “All right, Ais. But, if you refuse to rise to the rank of judge, then I have another job for you. I am taking you off of the Sharezan
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case.” Ais froze. Off of the case…? He had worked for the last three years trying to implicate Nilto. “I see that you object,” Heelis noted. “I would never—” “Yes, I know,” Heelis interrupted. “You would never go against orders. I realize how much this case means to you Ais, but I have something more important for you to do. Besides, Ais. I worry about you. Perhaps it’s time for you to take a short break from Sharezan. My assignment will only take two weeks of your time, then you may return to chasing him.” Ais sat stiffly, waiting for her to continue. “You know of the judgement today?” she asked. “I do,” Ais replied. She could only mean one judgement. “This new Lord Mastrell is an enormous random factor. I still can’t decide if he will benefit Lossand or destroy it.” I have no such difficulty deciding, My Lady, Ais thought to himself. “I want you to go to him,” Lady Heelis explained. “Tell him that I fear for his safety, and want a trackt protecting him.” “He won’t believe that, Lady Judge,” Ais said. “Sand masters have little need of a trackt’s protection.” “He doesn’t need to believe it,” Lady Heelis explained. “He just needs to let you follow him—which, I suspect, he will do. Kenton is in little position to deny my requests—even one to put a spy in his midst.” “Yes, My Lady,” Ais agreed. “Watch him, Ais,” Lady Heelis continued. “Follow him and see what kind of person he is. All I know of young Kenton is his impetuousness and his hostility toward authority, and neither are things I would find attractive in a Taisha. Report back to me on what you observe and tell me your opinion.” “You realize what my opinion of him will be, My Lady,” Ais noted. “I know, Ais. Your hatred of sand masters is well known—but so is your impartiality when it comes to the Law. Your job is to observe him as a trackt, not as a Kershtian. Do you understand?” “I understand.” Heelis nodded, rising. “I trust you, Ais. Perhaps more than anyone else in the Hall. Keep an eye on this boy of a Lord Mastrell for me.” Heelis paused on her way to the door. “Oh, and Ais,” she said. “Go home and go to sleep.” “But my paperwork—” Ais objected. “Can be done another time, Ais. It is possible, despite what you think, to work too hard. If you still feel guilty, then consider my request an order.” “Yes, My Lady,” Ais replied, standing formally as she left. Ais strode through the streets of Kezare, his senior trackt’s cape fluttering behind him. Occasionally he would see a trackt in the crowds and they would nod to each other respectfully. The crowds were smaller this time of day, and many shops sat closed, their frontings and signs taken down, their doors shut while their owners slept. Still, the city was busy. Unlike a smaller village, where people tended to sleep at the same time, Kezare’s huge population
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pushed its occupants toward sleeping in shifts. Ais’s thoughts were fretful as he walked. He had just lost his second, and now his band would have to continue their hunt for Sharezan without their leader—for a few weeks at least. It wasn’t a large setback, but Ais resented it nonetheless. Once again, justice was hampered because of the sand masters. Lady Heelis’s assignment officially made this day one of the worst in Ais’s life. Not that he disagreed with her logic, or even her assignment of Ais to the duty. The Lady Judge was wise—she had her reasons for what she did. Still, however, Ais couldn’t help looking at the next two weeks with a feeling of sickness. He avoided sand masters whenever possible, but now he would have to spend nearly all of his time with one. And, of course, this assignment would do little to help his reputation amongst Kezare’s Kershtian population. Maybe Lokmlen was right, he thought to himself. Maybe I am a traitor. Maybe I’ve been fooling myself all this time, justifying my violation of the Sand Lord’s laws. It was a debate he’d wondered about many times. He had yet to come to a valid conclusion. With such dark thoughts on his mind, Ais approached his house. The building he called home lay far away from Kezare’s business district, in a place where land prices were more reasonable. Here the buildings were pressed just as closely together, but few of them were taller than a single story. In such an area, even a trackt could afford a house of his own—assuming he had been saving for two decades, as Ais had. He walked quietly up the steps. It was dark inside. Empty. He pushed open the door. “Papa!” a tiny voice exclaimed. Ais looked down with surprise as a small form shot out of a side room and ran toward him. “Melly,” he said sternly. “You should be in bed.” “She waited up for you,” his wife’s voice explained. He looked up as Mellis followed her daughter into the room. Tall and thin, Mellis had the lighter hair of a Lossandin. Her face was rectangular, and her features what other men might have called plain. To Ais, however, there was no face as beautiful. “She finally fell asleep,” Mellis explained, kissing him lightly on the cheek. “But she is such a light sleeper… even the sound of the door closing woke her up.” “Did you stay up late?” Ais asked his daughter with an iron face. “But daddy,” the little girl protested softly, standing before him sheepishly, “I was scared you wouldn’t come home.” Ais looked down at his young daughter, trying to retain his scolding expression. He failed. The iron in his face melted every time he gazed upon little Melloni. Ais’s scowl slowly melted into a big smile, and he scooped the little girl up into his arms and walked toward her bedroom. There were only two people on the continent who had ever seen that smile, and both of them were with him now.
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He leaned to kiss his wife as he passed, and placed Melly onto her soft, sand-filled mattress. “Little KanLisht,” he whispered, using Melly’s Kershtian name. “I am home now, so stop worrying. Go to sleep. You must be exhausted.” “I’m okay, daddy,” the girl protested, but a stern look from her father convinced her to pull the sheet over herself and lie down. Ais kissed her on the forehead and walked out, closing the door. “She insisted I let her stay up,” Mellis said with a sigh. “Every time I put her in bed she would sneak out and watch at the window.” “She doesn’t seem to be the only one who refuses to go to bed at a decent time,” Ais said, wrapping an arm around his wife’s waist, noticing her tired eyes. She looked fatigued, tired beyond the late hour. Something was bothering her. “How did it go?” Mellis asked, speaking before he could. Ais simply shook his head, opening the door to their room and walking in. “We got him,” he finally replied. Mellis smiled. “Unfortunately,” he continued, sitting on their own sand mattress, feeling the fine grains give beneath his weight, “there were complications.” Mellis looked at him questioningly, and Ais turned tired eyes to her concerned face. “Jedan,” he finally said. “Oh, Ais!” Melloni caught her breath. “What happened?” “A trap,” he said as she joined him on the mattress. “They had archers sealed off behind a false wall. They caught us by surprise—wounded nearly half of my men.” “Are you all right?” she asked with anxiety, fingering the hole in his cape. “A cut in my palm, a wound on the side of my leg,” he replied, knowing full well she wasn’t asking about bodily wounds alone. “Nothing important.” “And Jedan…” “It is a hard job, Mellis. People die.” She frowned, obviously disbelieving his cold-hearted facade. For some reason, Mellis was the one person from whom he could never hide his feelings. Ais unbuckled his uniform and slid it off. “I’ll be fine,” he said, undoing his twin Kershtian braids then pulling on a loose robe and sitting back down with a sigh “You’re tense,” Melloni noticed, rubbing his back. “I’m always tense,” Ais said, lying down on his stomach to enjoy his wife’s ministrations. “That’s the truth. You need rest, Ais.” He didn’t respond. His eyes had fallen on the floor beside the mattress. A dark piece of paper, folded in thirds. Mellis must have felt him grow tense, because she looked over with a sharp intake of breath. “You read it,” he accused, reaching for the piece of paper as he realized the reason he had sensed fatigue in his wife’s face earlier. She must have been crying. “I…” Mellis said quietly. “Oh, Ais. I couldn’t help it.” Ais glanced down at the note. It was just like the rest. I enjoy our game, Ais, it read. You gamble your family—I fear I have little to bet in return. It was signed with Shaerezan’s symbol. Ais gritted his teeth, crumpling the paper, feeling the
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anger rise within him. There was another reason he needed to catch Sharezan—a reason more powerful even than the Law. “Melly isn’t the only one who is scared, Ais,” his wife whispered in a quiet voice. Ais sat up, wrapping his arms around her. “He is only trying to scare me,” Ais explained. “The underground maintains a measure of civility—it kills trackts, not their families.” “Are you sure?” Mellis asked, shooting a look toward Melly’s room. No, Ais admitted to himself. “What if she’s right, Ais? What if you don’t come home one day? Jedan didn’t.” Melloni spoke the words softly—not accusingly, just fearfully. She had never asked him to leave the Hall—both of them had been older when they married, and both were set in their ways. She knew he wouldn’t leave the Hall, just as he knew she would never act as unassuming as a Kershtian wife. Ais didn’t answer. He just continued to hold his wife, feeling her silent tears drop on his arm. Thump, thump, thump, thump, bang. Thump, thump, thump, thump, bang. Thump, thump, thump, thump, bang. Thump, thump, thump, thump, bang. Khriss groaned, trying to shut out the noise. Baon was exercising again. Unfortunately, it was more of a reverberation than a sound, and it continued to annoy her no matter what she stuffed in her ears. With a groan, she rolled off her bed and stumbled to her feet, groping for the door in the darkness. She stumbled out into an equally dark hallway and walked over to the door beside her own, which she proceeded to bang upon with a vindictive fist. The thumping stopped. A moment later a sweat-covered Baon opened the door. “Duchess?” he asked. “You’re up early.” “I know,” she said angrily, blinking drowsily at his room’s light. “What are you doing in there? Blasting off gunpowder charges?” Baon snorted, smiling slightly. “I was exercising,” he responded, wiping his brow with a cloth. “Well stop it,” Khriss snapped, slamming the door in his perky face. She stumbled back toward her room and flopped back down on her bed—a move that proved to be rather unintelligent. Though the bed looked like one from darkside, raised high off the ground and with posts surrounding it, there was one major difference. The mattress wasn’t filled with soft down—it was filled with sand. At first, she’d assumed she was wrong. Who would fill mattresses with sand? It was ridiculous. Unfortunately, she had made no mistake. The mattress was only filled about half way, so the sand had room to move and fit to one’s body. Still, it was incredibly uncomfortable—even if Acron did think the entire concept was ‘delightful.’ At least the second layer of cloth that wrapped around the mattress was soft. I never did find out what the daysiders use to make cloth, her sleepy mind thought. I’ll have to ask Kenton. Oh wait, he abandoned me. I’ll have to ask N’Teese. Unfortunately, no matter how hard she tried to fall back asleep, her body refused to comply. She heard Baon’s door open,
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followed by retreating footsteps. Eventually the thumping began again, further away this time. Khriss sighed, rolling onto her back and trying to avoid getting up. In her opinion, mornings were best treated by sleeping through them. Unfortunately, she couldn’t get herself to fall back asleep, and so grouchily forced herself out of bed a second time. Yawning, she wandered over to the wall and pulled the cover off the water-globe hanging on it. The room was immediately bathed in a very soft light. The luminescent grundlefish inside rose to the top, assuming she was going to feed them. Khriss found a small can of fish pellets on the side of the wall and sprinkled a few inside, watching the two fish—about four inches across each—nip at the food. Their translucent skin glowed bright yellow, and she could see their diminutive skeletons inside. At the bottom of the globe there were a few plants with long, thin leaves which waved in the current created by the swimming fish. Khriss shook her head, moving to the room’s other three water-globes, removing their coverings as well. She didn’t know how someone had managed to get living grundlefish across the Border Ocean. Their water had to be changed every day to keep them from dying, and they couldn’t live in salty seawater. Still, they were here, and she was thankful. On this side of the world, the heat of torches or even lamps would have been unwelcome. The grundlefish light was soft even by darkside standards, but she was used to it. The nobility favored the fish, probably because of their expense. She sat down beside her vanity and regarded the monster that was her hair, then began to brush. Her room felt odd. It was almost Elisian—pieces of it felt very familiar. The bed, for instance, with its long posts and drapings was nearly the same as her own back on darkside. Yet, like most things in the house, it was slightly amalgamated with pieces of dayside. It could be seen in the mattress, the room’s lack of windows, and even the brush in her hand, which had a carapace handle. No, she couldn’t forget where she was, no matter how much this room resembled darkside. Her home was an entire world away—all she had to help her were two professors, a spiteful guide, and a bodyguard who seemed annoyingly prone to thumping lately. It wasn’t very encouraging. Of course, she did have reason for optimism. Gevin was probably still alive—at least, he had arrived in Kezare alive. But, that had happened years ago. Why hadn’t he returned to Elis? What could possibly be holding him to dayside? Her hand froze. What if he’d found a girl? Some Kershtian beauty that had captured his heart? He could easily have forgotten about the shy, bookish girl that had been his betrothed… Khriss cast such speculations aside, brushing her hair with renewed vigor. Gevin was a flirt, true, but he wouldn’t so easily abandon his commitments. He had come to dayside with a purpose, and he knew
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that the Dynasty squatted drooling on Elis’s borders. His brother Barden might be Elis’s heir, but Gevin was its heart. The people loved him, and relied on his leadership. It would have taken a monumentous event to keep him from returning to them in a time of such need. Kenton had never seen his father’s rooms. Eighteen years of life, eight of them in the Diem, and he had never once visited his father’s quarters. Kenton had often wondered what they would look like. And, in the end, he was disappointed. The rooms were very bland, if one could call their gross richness bland. They held little that could be called personal—no hints that the man who had lived in them was the father of four children. There were no carpets, of course, just the thick layer of sand. The furnishings were expensive—colorful, with lots of wood. Deep, plush chairs stuffed loosely with sand. Carapace cabinets and tables trimmed with wood. The most personal object in the three-room group was a bookshelf. Kenton left the main room, the one that held a conference table and a group of chairs, and walked into a smaller side room. Inside was Praxton’s desk, neat and orderly, a few sheets of black paper stacked on its wooden top. On the far side was the bookshelf. Kenton read off the titles. Most were in Kershtian, of course. Even Lossandin scholars often wrote in Kershtian as a means of boosting their authority. There were some common volumes: The book of Krae—a famous work of Kershtian poetry—several volumes on the history of Lossand, a few books of Kershtian legends. Several of the volumes were unlabeled. And that was it. The rest of the room seemed stark despite its tapestries, brocades, and blackwood-rimmed windows. Kenton sighed, strolling out of the room, kicking up sand as he went. He had hoped to find some clue as to who his father had really been. Praxton had only been dead for two weeks now, yet Kenton was having trouble remembering the man. Every time he thought about his father, him mind immediately focused on the force that was the Lord Mastrell, and not the man that was Praxton. Kenton strolled over the balcony, overlooking the courtyard. The large hut-like conference chamber sat in the courtyard’s direct center, and from his vantage Kenton could see through the large hole in the building’s ceiling. The rows of benches inside were empty. Kenton felt a loss, but he wasn’t certain what to make of it. It was the same loss he had felt all his life, the void that had driven him to become a sand master. The void that had led a young boy to reject his first advancement for a still-uncertain reason. Had he really expected that simple defiance would make his father accept him? Make Praxton, who had such little use for a family that he only visited it monthly, welcome into his heart a son who had brought him nothing but disappointment? As he pondered, however, his thoughts were interrupted by a
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