The Sand Prince (19 page)

"I think Hollen's taking it this time," she said.

Daala smiled. "Taking what, 'Elle? I saw how he looked at you." Daala saw lechery everywhere.

"Bet he can raise a hot flame, too." Aelle set the glass down. How much had she drunk? "Not that it’s the most important thing...."

Daala leaned closer. "You know what they say, the taller the flame..." Aelle knew they were no longer talking about Hollen. Of all the friends he didn’t like, Rhuun didn’t like Daala the most. She never failed to ask about him, though.

"No flame. Nope. But like I said, it doesn't even matter."
I think I'd better stop talking, now.

They watched another demon take the circle, turning her garment into a rich amber red.
Ah, nicer than mine, even though it’s only one color. I'll try again next time
she thought.
A beautiful shade. Not quite red, not quite gold. Like his eyes. Wherever he is right now.

"He doesn't need to raise a flame for me," she said angrily.

Daala raised her brow and said nothing.

"He does other things. I don't want to talk about him anymore."

Daala handed her another
birr
. "I think maybe this ought to be your last, 'Elle. I'll get Hollen to see you home."

The winner, by applause, was the startling black and white patterned tunic, although it was hardly unanimous. Wasn't color the whole point? Rhoosa jumped back onto her stool.

"No sad faces, and get those sour words out of your mouths! You'll have another chance next time. One more for each of you and then off into the night you go."

She left ahead of the crowd, politely declining an escort. She had to remember on nights where she took a turn, not so much
birr
! But a cup of cold water set her right, and she even enjoyed the walk back home.

***

T
o her surprise, Rhuun was waiting for her. Well, he was asleep, but he was there. She stood at the side of the bed and looked down at the length of him, the dip and curve at the small of his back. Was that the most beautiful part of him? The only beautiful part? She could see the tracery of his scars even though she knew she couldn't feel them. In the faint light of the nightstones it looked as if he had a ragged silver net thrown over him. The coverlet teasingly hid the rest of him, and she wanted to pull the blanket off and wake him with fire.

She looked up at the mirror and smiled at her reflection: long red hair, green eyes, and white, white skin. She was saving it as a special gift for him. She looked down at him again. If he woke up now his heart would burst in his chest, that wouldn't be much of a gift! She changed back to herself, and just in time. He stretched and rolled onto his back, pushing the hair out of his face. He looked up at her for a moment with those strange red-amber eyes, and then reached out and ran his hand along the inside of her leg. He stopped at her
ama
and gently rubbed the jet and gold piercing with his thumb.

She threw the coverlet on the floor and, putting her questions aside, sank into his arms, her hands already glowing with a dim blue flame.

––––––––

E
riis City

20 years after the War of the Door, Eriisai calendar

100 years later, Mistran calendar

Yuenne’s family residence

Ilaan felt a change coming, and it wasn't just that the dust was rolling back by mid-morning instead of lunchtime.

He'd been going over the last few words of the inscription (which he privately referred to as 'that
scorping
book', or 'the damned thing' or 'I wish Hellne had given Beast a new pair of sandals like a normal mother').

He was so close he could smell it, and it smelled like blood most of the time. The writing appeared to be a poem, and a fairly simple one at that; just a call to another person on another shore, tearing down the barriers between them, walking under the same sun, that sort of romantic nonsense.

He'd long since decided the writer of the spell (and the donator of the bloodstains) was the same person who wrote the text. The poem was sentimental, and that fit with the absolute rubbish between the covers. Was any race of people ever this willfully obtuse, unpleasant, and rude? A race of lumbering, murdering, ignorant giants!

"You can't judge them by our more sophisticated cultural standards," Rhuun had argued in his typically stiff necked way. He would defend that ridiculous thing to the very end. "They're not like us, and it would be a lie on the author’s part not to reflect the prevailing norms of their behavior. Anyway, I like it."

There was no accounting for taste.

Ilaan preferred military history. There was always a clear winner, and he paid close attention to who won and why.

He stood and stretched. He was so close to having it completely worked out. Right now it looked like there was enough blood—and the blood was the catalyst that got things moving, that much he knew—there was enough blood for one trip to Mistra, another back to Eriis, and that was it. Hopefully, if Rhuun was able to track down dos Capeheart and bring him back, their human guest would be willing to part with a little more—he'd have to if he wanted to be sent back home. They'd have to keep him away from the Mages, though. He understood better now why Hellne was doing this without their knowledge. At first, it was a secret he held with the Queen, and that was all he needed to know. But she herself had written into law, shortly after the devastation of the Weapon, that the Mages get the first and the finest, whatever they needed to complete their work. If a real human didn’t count as first and finest, he didn’t know what did. A whiff of fresh human blood might be enough to make the Zaalmage leave his Raasth and see the daylight. The Zaalmage talked about human blood the way an old man talked about the beautiful women he'd joined with in his youth—frequently and in glowing terms. No, Hellne had been quite right to keep this quiet, as, he thought, she was right about so many things.

He glanced out the window—shadows had started to fall on the far side of the War Tower. His
Naa Kansima
, his ceremony of the object, would begin shortly, and he hardly wanted to be late. He didn't know what to expect, exactly, except some phrases he was to repeat, but he was quite sure it was nothing he couldn't handle. He turned back to the inscription. Was he close enough to test it? He decided to try it out quietly first, and then, if it went well, he and Rhuun would talk about the timing of opening The Door. Before the end of the year, maybe it would be time to try it for real.

Things in their order. First, the Conclave. Then, The Door. He began the walk down to the ruined sculpture garden, and then on into the Raasth.

***

H
is father had been at his side on the day of his first interview. He was at once proud of his youngest child's accomplishments and at the same time (surely only his son would notice) barely contemptuous of a life devoted to study. Even down in the dark corridors below the city, Yuenne had the air of man who was on his way to somewhere windy, somewhere involving a tough hike, somewhere that might be dangerous.

"Remember what we discussed, boy," Yuenne said quietly. They stood outside the tall stone doors of the Raasth. "They need you. They know you have the Queen's ear and the Prince's, and they certainly know about your talents of the hand. They may act otherwise, but you are in a stronger position."

Ilaan nodded impatiently. They'd been through this. "Be polite," he repeated to his father. "But be firm. My value is great and so my conditions should be accepted without question."

The Zaalmage received father and son with the expected sips of water, made icy cold for the occasion. Ilaan didn't care for cold water but he sipped it anyway.

They sat on either side of the long wooden table, the biggest piece of real wood he'd ever seen. He ran his fingers back and forth across the silky grain until he caught a sharp look from Yuenne. He returned his hands to his side.

The Zaalmage pushed back his hood. To Ilaan's disappointment, he looked perfectly ordinary—no exotic scars or disfigurements of any kind. He was just a rather pale man in his middle years.

"We are pleased you've come to see us today," the Zaalmage began. "We are few in numbers—of course, not as few as those years after the Weapon—Counselor, you remember."

There was a short pause. When it became apparent that Yuenne was not about to reminisce about his old friends the Mages, the Zaalmage cleared his throat and continued. Ilaan smiled to himself, recognizing one of his father's favorite negotiating tactics. The Mage didn't even know they'd begun.

"It may seem a sacrifice for one so young to join us here in our Raasth," the Mage continued, "but the service he gives to our city and the knowledge he will gain are far greater in value than a walk through the market. He may sometimes miss his voice, but what he loses there he gains in the massed chorus of learning. He may think of his old friends and his old life, but he will rest knowing he is keeping them safe and well provided."

Ilaan stole a glance at his father, who nodded, a faint smile on his face.

"As to that which is lost and that which is gained," said Ilaan. "We—that is, I have some thoughts on those very things."

At first, the Zaalmage rejected his proposals outright. Ilaan shrugged. "I suppose I can continue to perfect the study of the hand on my own. And these," he indicated the shelves, "are not the only books in Eriis. I spend a great deal of time in the Queen's library, for instance. She insists I have whatever resources I might need. We speak of it often, the Queen and myself. And my voice may be a poor thing but I believe our Queen would feel its absence. So my voice, I think, stays where it is, and so do I. Naturally, should I elect to accept the Conclave's offer, my days shall be spent for the most part here in the Raasth. But if the Mages feel as if their traditions are more important than increasing their numbers....."

Baring his teeth in an unhappy grin, the Zaalmage bade the boy to sit back down. He gulped the rest of his water, an obvious gesture of anger.

"Counselor, I would have thought you raised your son to respect traditions. The Mages do not comport themselves as we do for our own pleasure. This is a disappointment."

"Please do not address my son through me," said Yuenne. He sounded bored. "If he is fit to join you, certainly he is fit to speak for himself."

Ilaan rose to his feet, and nodded at his father to join him. "There are classes I am interested in attending at the lecture halls. They start soon and I wish to make a place for myself. Please let me know if instead of a little study here and there, I can enter the Conclave, join the brotherhood, and work at your side. I look forward to speaking with you again, Zaalmage."

As they climbed the stairs back up into the light, his father looked at him in a way he couldn't quite understand.

"Did I do wrong?" he asked Yuenne. "I think he might say no after all."

Yuenne laughed. "That hooded old freak never saw it coming. You were very fine indeed. Well played." Ilaan felt strange, almost lightheaded. It wasn't unpleasant.

"They will accept our terms," assured Yuenne. "Anyone with an eye can see your value."

That lightheadedness again.

Ultimately, the Mages had agreed to all his conditions.

***

A
nd now the day had arrived, and he went down those stairs by himself.

When he arrived—finally—at the Raasth, the scene was much the same as his last visit. Dim light was coming from everywhere at once, and many generations of well-loved objects, each in their own nook, stretching towards a ceiling he couldn't make out. He nodded at the bodiless head of a doll, which stared back at him with empty eyes.

At the center of the great room stood a round stone platform, dark with ancient stains. It was almost exactly as far across as he was tall. Perhaps a bit wider.

Unlike his last visit, today he noticed that other hooded figures darted in and out of the shadowed doorways of many other rooms. He'd only ever been in this, the main library. Set around the platform, there were five long wooden worktables. Each were gouged and scarred, marked by pens and fingers, and burned by years of experiments. They seemed as old as time —real wood was an incredibly precious and scarce commodity. The walls were lined from about shoulder height down with bookcases (made of cheap and plentiful ashboard). Unlike Rhuun's library, these were filled with proper, neatly maintained volumes. Many—like the human/Eriisai book he'd noticed—were quite old, but some were contemporary and had been written by the Mages themselves. Just because they had sacrificed their voices in the service of the Conclave, did not mean that they had nothing to say. Also unlike Rhuun's library, even the oldest books had been charmed to remain intact. Above the books, lay the objects. His would join them today.

The smell of dust and age, paper and—faintly—blood, were all around him.

The Zaalmage had his nose nearly touching the page of a book he was translating from High to Mid Eriisai. He’d told Ilaan at their last meeting, that he hoped it would one day allow them to lower the daytime air temperature by two degrees.

"That's a worthy ambition," Ilaan had said politely. He was quite sincere—well, almost completely sincere. But that day, the Mage gave him a withering look and turned back to his work.

Now, the Mage shut his book and looked up. "We are ready. Are you?"

––––––––

E
riis City

20 years after the War of the Door, Eriisai calendar

100 years later, Mistran calendar

Yuenne’s family residence

"You really think you're that close?" asked Rhuun, not for the first time. He knew Ilaan’s ceremony of the thing was the next day, and he was afraid it would conflict with their project. "What happens, do you think, when I get there? What should I be wearing? I don't intend to scare people and I want to see as much as I can. Maybe I should just stick to the shadows and stay out of sight?"