The Sand Prince (14 page)

Rhuun refilled his glass and waited for them to return. He wondered where Rhoosa had taken them—he’d heard she favored a ruined viewing terrace a short walk from the city wall. He didn’t mind that they’d forgotten him, but he wished Rhoosa would shimmer with him, just so he could see what it was like. Of course, Aelle would have his head if he asked her to do something so intimate.

The group reappeared, laughing and breathless.

"You really have to show me how you do that," Ilaan said to Rhoosa.

She shrugged. "I’ve tried. You’re just not special enough." While anyone (except Rhuun, of course) could shimmer from place to place, and you might even transport an unfledged child this way (although there were many who considered this lazy and undignified), Rhoosa was unique in her ability to shimmer multiple people at once. The palace had its eye on her, but she made no promises. "Remind me to tell you my new idea, though." She handed the deck to Aelle to deal the next round and leaned forward, lowering her voice. "It’s to do with
color
."

Rhuun looked up. "Ought I to leave the room?"

Rhoosa flushed—she’d forgotten he was there. "Of course not. I mean, you wouldn’t... you won’t...."

Aelle smiled. "I think it’s me and Ilaan that ought to step out. He won’t say anything, will you,
shani
?" Rhuun shook his head. Reporting back to his mother on one of the few people who treated him decently was not likely to happen. "But," continued Aelle, "my father would have a fit. He says decisions should start at the top."

"By ‘the top’ he means himself," said Ilaan.

Niico and Rhoosa shared a look, and she said, "Oh, did you hear? I’m an aunt. Kaaya had a girl." They all lifted their glasses. "No bigger than a button. Kaaya’s going to call her Thayree. The naming party is soon, you all should come." She smiled at Aelle. "Perhaps you can convince our friend over there to come as well."

Before Aelle answered, Rhuun held up his own glass. "Of course I’ll come to her party. I’m sure my mother will send a gift along with me."

It always amazed Rhuun how Aelle could smile and frown at the same time.

The game continued, and Niico flared nearly Daala’s entire hand. She pushed back from the table. "You’re all just better liars than me," she told them, and sat on the couch next to Rhuun. "Look at this mess," she said. Niico’s last flare had left her with nothing but half a suite of fractured rock, not even a clan card. There was no way she could win.

"Me again!" Niico declared. "Rho, I insist you shimmer us somewhere interesting. Not that old pile of rocks again. Surprise me." She gladly agreed, and with hands together, they all vanished.

Rhuun and Daala looked at each other for a moment. She looked as if she was waiting for him to say something. Or do something. He cleared his throat and stood, reaching for the nearly empty bottle. "Going to get some water and clear my head," he said. "Be right back."

At first it seemed like he’d escaped successfully. He sat on the stone tiled floor of Aelle’s courtyard, and leaned back against the wall. There was enough
sarave
left in the bottle for another swallow, and he closed his eyes. Even the wind had dropped, it was perfectly quiet.

Suddenly: hands on his chest, and a swath of fabric across his legs. Lips on his mouth. And it wasn’t Aelle. But he didn’t open his eyes and he didn’t push her away. He imagined for a second that it was Rhoosa, kissing him. Then it was Gwenyth. Then he hesitated. He could hardly believe one woman wanted to kiss him, and now here was a second one. It might never happen again. But finally he pulled away and murmured, "Daala. What are you doing?"

"You know," she answered.

"They’ll be back any second." She reached for him again, and he gently pushed her off his lap. "Go back inside."

"She doesn’t have to know," Daala said.

Many months later, he would have time to consider which was the worse mistake: hesitating for that long moment, or laughing at her.

"Why are you laughing?" she hissed. "What’s so funny?"

"Well, of course she’d know, I’d tell her. But I won’t if you go back inside. We’ll forget about this."

She got up and smoothed her tan tunic. Her face was crimson. "She’s only with you because of your mother. You think she loves you? She feels sorry for you." She turned and raced back into the house.

He rapped the back of his head against the wall, wishing he was far more drunk. Or somewhere else, somewhere far away. Or both. "That’s not true," he said, although she had already gone.
Is it?

––––––––

The girl traced a finger down the leather binding of an ancient looking tome.

"Are all of these yours, my Lord? Have you read them all?"

He scowled at her. "Come away from there. It doesn’t become a woman to be overly interested in books."

-The Claiming of the Duke, pg 62

Malloy Dos Capeheart, Little Gorda Press (out of print)

––––––––

M
istra

100 years after the War of the Door, Mistran calendar

20 years later, Eriisai calendar

The Guardhouse

Even before the war, the Order of the Veil and the Door had no love for demons. And now that the narrative was up to the Order, the books were written accordingly.

Brother Blue helped to write them.

It took many years for the dreams to stop and his mind to truly be quiet, but it only took months to make himself invaluable to his new master, the head cleric. The more depraved he made his demonic history, the better his meals, the softer his bed. And the cleric had a tincture to put in his wine that sometimes let him sleep without dreams. He was proud of himself; a writer after all. And when the head cleric became too feeble to lead the novices and brothers, Blue found himself appointed to the task. Write and teach, and keep The Door shut. His life was perfect. His long life—for he had already celebrated his century year, and certainly not too many people could claim that! He privately suspected ‘she’ (even in his mind, he couldn't speak her name) had cast a long-life charm on him, wanting to keep him her slave for as long as possible. And for the most part, he kept control of his wits and bowels, so he counted himself lucky. This was a life that as a poor farmer's son he could never have. If he hadn’t been lucky enough to be a Fifth, he supposed his life would have turned out very differently.

He didn't like to think about the Princess. It gave him a pain in his chest that left him weak and short of breath.

Today, though, he felt as well as an old man could. No dreams and a strong stream in the morning. Sometimes that added up to a very good day.

Today he was lecturing his class on a topic he had practically invented: demonic mythology. "The Sealing of the Door? We don’t really know what happened. In a way, yes, they attacked us," he told his wide eyed novices, "in that we are surrounded and attacked by evil every day. And they
are
evil—if they even still exist. Still, we must not take any chances, we must keep The Door shut. And if—The Light Preserve Us—if one of them breaks through our defenses and arrives here, We Cast Them Back. Now. What do we say is beyond the Veil?"

Scilla’s hand was up, as usual. Brother Blue had already taken note of this clever new girl. A va'Everly, well, they hadn't seen one of those in many a year. Hopefully this one would remain undamaged. But she seemed eager enough, she could turn out well. He nodded at her.

"Beyond the Veil is cold and dark. Beyond the Door is heat and noise."

"That’s correct, that’s what we say. But what does it mean? How can the unseen world be both cold and hot?" he asked.

Scilla chewed her pencil. "Is it a metaphor? For discomfort? Noisy is also unpleasant. Dark isn’t so bad, though."

"If there was never anything but dark you might feel otherwise. Of course, here there is no correct answer. And none incorrect, either. While we know what it used to be like, it’s been many years since anyone passed through the Veil and Door and returned."
Many years and gone
, thought Brother Blue.
If they only knew, these children. Well, done is done for another year, and we remain protected.

"From this side, you mean, Brother?" Scilla said, obviously feeling as if she’d scored a point.

Blue was used to children like Scilla. A clever little girl with impertinent questions. A child who wouldn’t be missed, only fondly recalled. She was just the most recent in a long line of clever children who’d spend their lives throwing their minds, and will, at The Door. That's all it was, now—children and old men.

"Of course that’s what I meant." He looked around the classroom. "That’s the point, isn’t it? Keeping The Door shut and the Veil down? Many generations of the Families have sacrificed much for it to remain closed."

A girl near the window stuck up her hand. "Isn’t it true they sometimes come over? I heard it from my granny. She said they sneak through and steal babies."

Out of the corner of his eye, Blue noticed Scilla rolling her eyes, and hid a laugh.

"It is true that generations ago there were those few human people who could travel back and forth. But the Sealing of the Door was the end of that. As far as stealing babies, I think your Gran might have been trying to get you to behave, possibly, Maire? Now, on the subject of demons. What do we know? Very little for sure. From the records we have from before The Door was sealed, we know they were capable of unending wickedness. They were an undersized, stunted race, unable to tell each other apart. They spat flame and tore each other to pieces for sport. One can understand the temptation to escape their polluted world, whether for revenge or perversity, who is to say? We thankfully do not know their minds."
I thought I knew her mind
, mused Blue,
but I could not have been more wrong
. He could still clearly recall her face, and wondered how he could have been taken in by her lies. He had not spoken her name aloud for nearly a hundred years.

Brother Blue sighed and looked out the window, seemingly lost in thought. The children faded away as once again he was young, strong, and walking down a tree-lined boulevard with the most beautiful woman in any world by his side. The low murmur of the smiling, elegant demon folk around him increased in volume and he blinked and realized the children were staring and whispering nervously. He knew he had a tendency to wander off. At his great age it was expected, and no one knew the history of the Order better, so it was forgiven. He swung back around and continued at a somewhat higher volume.

"But what if one of them was tempted to come here? One of the Red Eyes? Perhaps they are curious. Certainly they are dangerous. From what we know about their side now, what with the dark and the heat and the noise, I’d want to leave it myself. It is my great hope and our mission that none of you will ever meet one in person." He rummaged briefly through the books on his desk, until he found the right one and held the painting on the page up for the class to see. The students leaned forward, studying the horrific vision, the flames, and the burning eyes. "Those who travel from the other side, we do not have conversations with them."

A wide eyed boy behind Scilla whispered, "Demons."

"And what do we do if we are unfortunate enough to encounter a visitor?"

The class answered in unison.

"We cast them back."

Scilla answered along with the rest of the class, but her little notebook was now a heretical document. She wrote: "
Ask about dark
."

On the other side of The Door, a pen was lifted in response. An answer was prepared. Finally, someone on the human side was ready to talk.

––––––––

E
riis City

20 years after the War of the Door, Eriisai calendar

100 years later, Mistran calendar

Royal Quarters

Aelle sat at the edge of the bed and gingerly flexed her wrists.

"I think you actually broke this one!" She excitedly showed him the odd angle, the swelling. "That’s excellent,
shani
. You’ll be leaving me behind soon."

Rhuun laughed. "Like you’d allow that." He stretched, hearing the little bones in his back creak, and glanced down at the livid bruises and burns on his stomach and legs. They were healing—not as quickly as her wrist, but he could see them already fading. They would join all the others as pale silvery marks, one more thing he had that made him different. He eyed Aelle's flawless dark golden skin and the swirl of tattoos marking a second, inked-on pair of wings that stretched from shoulder to shoulder and nearly to the cleft of her pretty, dimpled bottom. When she turned to face him, his eye was drawn to her
ama
and her elegant gold and jet piercings. She was perfect. Already, not a mark on her. And her hand looked nearly normal.

"Aelle..." She plucked her pale grey dress off the back of a chair and rearranged it on her slim form, turning it this way and that. Aelle had matured into a small boned woman with delicately drawn features. Her dark, arched brows over pale, rose-red eyes drew stares wherever she went. He towered over her. He towered over everyone. She was well bred enough not to mention it.

"Hmm?"

"Do you feel like this is enough? For you?" She glanced around his rather spare room, the same one he’d had his whole life. The only decorations were three framed relics, antiques from the other side taken during the war. One was a fragment of what once might have been a plate. It was blue and white and held an image of a girl and an animal of some kind. The second was a palm sized scrap of silk. The third was a ribbon of silver mesh which had been part of some long dead human's armor. The silk was by far the brightest thing in the room, and probably the whole palace.

She sat again and poked a bruise on his thigh. He winced and tried not to wince.

"I assume you're not asking me to redecorate. You know very well what I want. The line remains unbroken, what's more important than that? And if I get to help you—well... One day you may have your mother’s seat at Court. For now you are at her right hand, no? And I am at your right hand. Everyone in their place." She nodded, it was settled.