The Sand Prince (2 page)

He wondered what his friends would say if he showed up with the demon princess on his arm back at the Guardhouse in Mistra. They were already asking a lot of questions—"Can they really shoot fire from their hands? Are they all red-eyed? Have you ever seen her wings? You’ve got to be twice her size! No wonder she likes you!"

He wished he could answer his friends with the truth of what it took to be the Princess' lover. She was so tiny, so delicate and perfect looking, he assumed he'd have to take great pains not to hurt her.

He was mistaken.

He found out for himself months earlier and shortly after his arrival. It was after one of the countless ceremonies, rituals, events, and parties that filled the days and nights of the royal family, and which he was expected to attend. In this case it was The Ceremony of Fire and Wings—the Viewing of the Moons (it had some longer, more complicated name in the old Eriisai tongue, but later he found he couldn't recall what it was). She'd allowed him to reach under the long brocaded sleeve of her black and scarlet gown and touch her fingertips with his own. That was when he knew she was his for the taking—on Eriis; one did not touch the hand of a casual acquaintance. Malloy figured it was because the hand was their primary place of power—their fire came from their hands (he spent a sleepless night trying to figure out how to use that in his writing, finally making his hero, the Duke, into an ex-bare knuckle brawler. It wasn't the same, but still). She looked over at him with that blank mask they all affected, and then gave him the barest suggestion of a smile. If she'd been offended, one of her father's guards would have escorted him back through The Door in disgrace if he was lucky, or to someplace called the Crosswinds, if he were not. From what he heard, there was no coming back from the Crosswinds, except in a dustpan.

The twin moons reached their zenith, one just below the other, and lit the rocky valley below the castle walls in stark, dramatic black and white. The demons and their few human guests murmured their approval. Everyone drank a glass of
sarave
, a sort of sweet wine, and then the King rose first and everyone followed him back into the castle to the receiving courtyard for the after-viewing party.

The courtyard was an open atrium at the heart of the palace, surrounded by many stories of private rooms, audience chambers, kitchens, and lecture halls. Directly behind the courtyard was The High Seat, the place of power, the seat of the king. Malloy got the impression you had to pass under the eyes of Light, Wind, and Rain (their local elemental deities) before you got to see the king. The whole structure formed a huge T. To reach the courtyard it was a straight shot down the main boulevard of the city itself, then through the Royal Arch, on into the palace and down the Great Hall. The Arch was carved into the wall separating the palace grounds from the city proper. Part of the inside face of the wall was left unworked. The demons loved that section of bald rock, decorating the space around it with statuary and ceremonial viewing stations. There was even a statue of the king himself, decked out like a warrior. The demons had gotten that idea from the humans, finding the thought of armor, plate, and helmets amusing. The king’s statue was already old when Malloy arrived on Eriis, and there was much talk recently of Araan and a new king, and more negotiations. It was said that the king kept his wits only with the help of the Mages. These Mages, the native magicians, lived somewhere close by, under the ground, but he had never seen one.

Malloy knew there was some unspoken understanding of who got to live where on Eriis. It seemed to him that it was largely the whim of the royal family that moved their friends and followers from the Old City through the Royal Arch and into coveted palace quarters, and, if you didn't please your benefactor, that same whim could toss you back to the common folk just as quickly. He'd made the mistake of asking after a familiar, now absent face at dinner, and was answered with polite, blank smiles. There was no reply because to the demons, he had never spoken.
Here on Eriis,
he thought,
there really are no stupid questions.

Hellne had bid her father a pleasant evening after only a few minutes at the party, and to Malloy’s surprise, she'd vanished. He gave a mental shrug, he'd been wrong before, or maybe she was playing a little game. A tug on his sleeve and a slip of paper in his pocket proved him wrong. He didn't see who had delivered her note, but the invitation was in her hand, although of course unsigned.

He followed her directions, feeling very large and clumsy passing the elegant, slight men and women who actually lived there and knew where they were going. None of them quite looked at him—although that was just one more thing about them, they never stared. Still, it wouldn't do to look like he was lost.

Following her directions, he turned from the main hallway to a narrower one he recognized as mainly being used by her servants, and stepped out of the dim tunnel onto a nearly hidden, side entrance to her balcony. Her room was on a high floor and faced the Arch and wall and the city. If she wanted to, she could step off the edge and fly to the market on her little wings, but he knew she never would; that was considered vulgar. He'd been there before, usually with Araan or her father or maids and friends in attendance, but never at night, and certainly never alone. She'd lit the bowls of glowing stones they used instead of lanterns or candles, and he thought she'd never looked so pretty. In the soft light, her golden skin and red, tilted eyes glowed, and with her silky, black hair down, she looked almost human.

She greeted him with a smile—a real one—and they shared their first kiss.

She bit him.

"Explain to me again what you mean by 'hurt'," she demanded as he held a cloth to his wounded lip. And then, "No, I don't feel that at all. What are you even doing?" when he was recovered enough to demonstrate a human style kiss. To his relief, he found a human-like body with perfect breasts (a bit small for his taste, but he'd expected that) and slender legs (although not a single strand of hair) under her heavy silk gown. She allowed him to remove the garment and gently stroke her thighs to the part between her legs, and said that was called her
ama
and was to be treated with absolute respect. But when she reached for him with her hands full of a lovely blue flame, he screamed. That made her laugh.

"Do you want to scorch my cock off my body?" he asked, backing away.

"Cock." She tried out the word, then wrinkled her dainty nose. "That's unattractive. No proper person would say something like that. I believe you mean
yala
?" She extinguished her flame and he let her look at it—his
yala
now, he guessed—more closely. "It's fluffy," she observed. She looked up at him and down again, her brilliant red cat eyes reflecting the glowing rocks. He had a sudden fear she might bite him again, only in a more tender place.

Finally she shrugged. "I suppose the size will have to make up for your lack of flame. Are you absolutely certain you have no fire?"

Being her lover was like getting in bed with a gorgeous, potentially lethal animal. He craved her but he was also a little afraid of her. He had no idea how she felt about him, except that the invitation remained open. When she forgot herself and left him with a bruise or burn, he told himself it was her way of expressing passion.

That had been six months ago, and through innumerable viewing parties, performances that he could neither understand nor properly describe, dinners, bottles and bottles of
sarave,
and too many injuries to count, he understood her no better. But he didn't care. He looked at her delicate, lethal perfection and he thought he might be in love. And tonight he was going to prove it.

He'd finally finished his book:
The Claiming of the Duke
. It was everything he dreamed and the very best he could do: exciting, action packed, lots of drama, with complex, interesting characters that spoke with true and original voices—in other words, the book that would make his name and bring him the life he wanted. All that was left was to wait for the glowing reviews to come rolling in. In no time, he'd be out of the Guardhouse and living in a big house in the center of Mistra, giving lectures and writing his next book. He thought perhaps a thinly fictionalized version of his own experiences with the demons might make a strong follow up (in his mind, the main character was not a lowly assistant, but the ambassador himself, and the Princess was less violent and more ardent).

Until that day, though, Malloy toiled as assistant to the ambassador. It wasn't a glamorous position, but it gave him access to things. Interesting and important things. Some of the things were secrets. It didn't hurt to jot down a few notes, just in case. He'd give her the fruit of his best work today: his novel and his secrets. He hoped it would ease the sting of bad news: he was recalled back to Mistra, he would be leaving that very evening. He knew she’d be annoyed, he hoped she’d be overcome with grief.

Following the now-familiar secret passage to Hellne’s balcony, he found her as he usually did, hair down and with the stone bowls softly glowing.

After joining (as they called it on Eriis) and taking a moment to make sure nothing was bruised or burned that couldn’t be hidden, he said, "I have good news and bad news."

She folded her hands and waited, her face, as ever, unreadable.

"The bad news is I’m leaving."

He got a reaction, that was something—even a slight frown or a twitched brow was a victory.

"How dull," she frowned. "How long?"

"Not long. There’s something going on back home and they need me there. But I’m leaving right away."

She gave a tiny sigh, reflecting a world of displeasure. "Hmm. You mentioned good news?"

"Ah! Of course." He handed her a small, flat package wrapped in bright silk. "I made this for you. It’s the key to our being together. It’s yours, now."

She held the package up and beamed at him, or more likely elected to let him see her approval. "I'll treasure it forever."

He silently cursed. He'd been so excited about giving her something so special, he'd forgotten her people had no tradition of wrapping gifts. At first she thought the pretty paper or fabric
was
the gift. But, as she explained to him, when someone handed you something secret, what then? Open it in front of them and risk a disappointed face? That would be unforgivably rude not only on her part, but on the part of the giver who had forced her reaction. He had to admit it made sense.

And sure enough, she slipped the unopened gift into the slashed pocket of her heavy gown. She’d changed out of the elaborate outfit she’d worn for their trip to the market earlier that day, a narrowly cut blue dress and some sort of see-through silvery veil. He could see a handful of discarded fabric on the floor peeking out from under the bed, where it would sit until Hellne’s maid collected it. She’d left the jewels in her hair, even though the white and blue clashed with the brocaded sage and gold of her ceremonial gown. She fancied the stones and left them in place, barely holding together the coif of soft coils. The gown she wore, he knew, was her seventh best, reserved for the sort of state dinner they had just attended, notable only because it was delayed to wait for the return of the recently appointed Eriisai ambassador, a young fellow named Preeve, through The Door. Oddly, he hadn’t appeared. That she had a seventh best gown—and a fifth, and a tenth—chafed, because the forest green cleric’s robe and dark hose were all he owned. That they were in good repair and flattered his frame hardly helped. These people had a way of sizing you up without ever appearing to notice you, but he had no doubt that they noticed. The only balm was the way she’d undone the lacing—or rather, her maid had undone it—which left her exposed from the nape of her neck to the middle of her back, where her wings were tucked out of sight (he preferred them hidden, reminding him a little too much of the wings of a bat). The collar, layer upon layer of tissue thin fabric carefully arranged like flower petals—silk, he supposed—had come apart but still framed her face.

Even though they'd had this conversation before, about unwrapping gifts, she wasn't going to look at the book. She might be a beauty and certainly charming in her own strange way, but it was a good thing her father was in charge and her brother a capable heir. He tried to imagine her leading a negotiating session and laughed to himself.
Next time I'm here, I'll show her how it works. She’ll have read my book by then, and seen what I wrote for her on the back page. Another gift—a little insurance in case idiots take over and they actually shut The Door.

He pushed the thought of closing The Door for good from his mind. No one in the Order wanted to be responsible for letting the demons slip through their hands—not while there was still a chance to learn how they did their astonishing magic. In Mistra, at the Guardhouse, magic was something that took a lifetime to master, at the cost of literal sweat and blood. Of course, the demons smiled politely when the humans called it 'magic', to them it was like walking or breathing—just something you did. Fire, for instance, they all had that to one degree or another, and they used it both in sport and in bed (as he had come to learn, to his regret), and he'd begged Hellne to show him what was called her True Face, turning herself into a living, flaming weapon, but she acted embarrassed and changed the subject. Well, he'd be back soon enough and he'd show her what the book, his key, meant. Maybe as a reward she'd show him what she looked like, transformed. He thought that change, showing her True Face (and confessing her true love) might make a good climactic moment for his next book.
The Princess Revealed
, how was that for a title?

Would it be madness to think his affair with this lovely young lady would help to bridge the gap and bring real magic—magic that flowed from your hands, not dusty old books—into Mistra. Why shouldn't he be the one to bring that kind of power to the human world?

Aim high, he thought, or not at all.