The Sand Prince (20 page)

Rhuun had gotten very good at not being seen. Of course, it didn't work that well on Ilaan, who almost never got caught by reactive powers. He said, without a hint of hubris, that he just reacted first and faster. Hand and word. There were not many who could catch his friend unawares. "You may show up over there as bare as a sand hill." He laughed. "Can you imagine?"

Rhuun glared at him. "No."

"Forget about scaring people, they'll be lining up to see that!" Ilaan laughed. "Lining up.... the idea..." his laugh died away. "No, that’s horrible."

Rhuun looked at him blankly. "I'm afraid I don't follow."

"You are not going to get me to explain my jokes, so quit trying," said Ilaan.

"Oh, that was a joke! Very funny. You should perform before the Court. There's a hat with mirrors on it I think would fit you very nicely."

Rhuun resumed his pacing around Ilaan's study. He'd worn a scuff into the polished floor from the grit he'd tracked back and forth. He paused and, ducking slightly, looked out the window. Ilaan had taken over the turret shaped study at the top of his father's villa and had a lovely view of the Market District, the Quarter, the War and the Moons Towers, and the grey and endless plains beyond. He'd gotten use of the place by telling Yuenne he liked being able to watch for his father when he returned from one of his adventures to the Vastness. "I'm glad the Mages are going to let you stay up here. I didn’t much care for the idea of going down there whenever I wanted to see you."

"Have you ever been down there?" asked Ilaan.

"No," he answered. "When I was small, Mother told me the Mages ate little boys."

"She's a basket of laughs, your mother." Ilaan laughed uneasily.

Rhuun thought perhaps his friend had an eye for only one woman, and bizarrely, it was his mother the queen. He was always so strange about her. He nodded and said, "Just one of the many, many entries in The Queen's Big Book of Scaring the
Rushta
out of her Child. It's a long book. A really long book."

"Did she tell you girls were stuffed with sand and teeth?"

"Light and Wind, Ilaan! No! But I guess someone told you that!"

"No, I sort of came up with that one on my own." His eyes widened. "Wait. Is it not true?"

"You'd better sit down, friend, this may cause you to revisit some important life choices," Rhuun said with a laugh. "Really though, it would be awful if you lived down there. I'm glad you'll be allowed to go back and forth. Now, what's the first thing I should say? A simple greeting? What if they run away?"

"No, it's only demon girls who run away." That earned him a pencil chucked at his head. He plucked it out of the air.

"No one is going to run away from you, Beast. You'll be fine. Just, you know, don't try and tell a joke."

Rhuun threw up his hands and said, "Are you going to help me at all in any way? Or should I ask the jumpmice in the corner for advice?"

"You already know more than anyone about the humans. You study that book like it’s etched on a mountainside. You'll be ready." Ilaan nodded firmly, willing it to be true. "You'll be there tomorrow night?"

Rhuun sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes. He'd been hearing about Ilaan's Conclave party nonstop for weeks. "Did you invite me? Did I say yes? Will there be
sarave
and plenty of it?"

"Well, yes, to all of those things, but you should know...."

Rhuun looked alarmed. "You did not."

"I did. I invited your mother. Oh, don't have that face. She's always been very kind to me."

"Yes," snipped Rhuun. "The daughter she never had."

"Oh look! The Beast rises up onto its hind legs and makes little jokes! Where's that mirrored cap?"

"Just seat me between my mother and your boyfriend, my night will be complete."

Ilaan looked crestfallen. "I thought you and Niico had... ah... come to terms. He's doing so well in his matches. He's been in very good spirits."

"Excellent. He won't try to tear my arms off."

"He just acts that way around you because you're the only one who ever got the better of him at the practice yard. Now he wins every match. I still think he's not sure how you pulled it off, not that I take any more credit than I am due, which is to say most of it."

"Twice," said Rhuun. Ilaan looked puzzled. "I tagged him twice. Ask him about the second time I put him in the dust. I hit him. With my hand. Remember that thing you taught me, a punch? It works. But I think he was more surprised than really knocked down. That was the last time he started anything with me."

Ilaan chewed his lip for a moment. He finally said, "He did tell me about that. He didn't expect to see anyone out that early and reacted badly."

"See anyone? Where was he coming from?"

"He was with me, of course." Ilaan continued, "He told me about it and I told him he'd have to leave you alone or it was over between us. You're right, he was pretty shocked that you hit him. No, it didn't hurt him." Another, longer pause. "I imagine it hurt you, though. Your hand. And where he scorched you."

Rhuun felt something moving in his chest, pushing and stretching. For a moment he was horrified to think he might weep. He stood and went to the window.
Breathe. Again. Again. We can talk about this. I can trust Ilaan with this. Everyone doesn't know. Everyone is not looking at me.

It had been optimistic at best to hope that no one would ever notice, particularly since as a child he hadn't known he was the only one who had the experience of pain. It had been his mother who'd figured it out.
Why do you cry?
she’d asked angrily.
Don't tell me you can feel that.
And later
, Don't tell anyone you can feel that.

He never had. And since Mother Jaa, he’d never had to.

"How long have you known?"

Ilaan said, "For a while. I suspected, but you never say anything. Is it bad?"

"Not always," Rhuun answered. "Sometimes I barely feel it. But it used to be worse. I guess I got used to it." For some reason, he didn't want to tell Ilaan about those long-ago days in the Quarter, sweeping out the dust and walling up the pain. He hadn't thought of Jaa in years, even though he used the skills she taught him nearly every day. And he could sew a seam straight as a pin.

Ilaan was making tiny piles of sand on his desk, moving them from one little cluster to the other. "During our practice, did I... I must have. I'm—"

Rhuun shook his head, saying, "If this turns into an apology, I'm heading straight for the Crosswinds. Please. Do not."

Ilaan looked up, sweeping the grit off his desk in one move. "Does—oh,
rushta
, does Aelle know?"

"No," Rhuun spun back from the window. "No, and you can't tell her. Swear you won't tell her."

"Rhuun, how can she not know? And why don't you tell her to not—"

"Not what? Be normal? Please allow me to keep what little I have." Rhuun thought he could bear anything but the look on Aelle's face. Not having a flame was bad enough, but not wanting to receive one? Even she would have to admit there was something wrong with him. He tensed, wanting to be gone.

Ilaan could see it. "I won't say a word. If you like, I'll even tell Niico he can start trying to set you on fire again."

It worked. The moment passed and Rhuun relaxed back into his chair. They sat silently for a moment.

"Niico was with you the whole time, huh? Talk about keeping things quiet. You know, I thought he was following me. I spent the next year looking over my shoulder." First Aelle, now Ilaan. He wished there was a battle he could win on his own. "Thank you, though. He could have left you. He really, really enjoyed trying to kill me." Ilaan smiled at that one. "I'm glad you and he are happy. And if I must I'll sit next to him."

Ilaan shook his head. "Just show up, you don't have to stay until the morning dust rises."

"Aelle says she'll go, she asked me to tell you. You know she can't resist a party, even if she wants to set both of us on fire half the time."

"Me in the Conclave, you and Aelle and the Queen and Niico. It’ll be perfect—I can’t wait," said Ilaan.

"Me neither," said Rhuun.

One of them meant it.

––––––––

E
riis City

20 years after the War of the Door, Eriisai calendar

100 years later, Mistran calendar

The Raasth

"We are ready," the Zaalmage said. "Are you?"

Ilaan found his throat dry, so he simply nodded. He held out the heavy embroidered bag.

The ceremony of
Naa Kansima
took place around the broad stone table. Ilaan was placed at what he thought of as the foot, pointing away from the door, and the Mages took positions all around. The Zaalmage stood to his right and the bag lay on the table between them. The glowing library lights were nearly extinguished. He could barely see across the table.

"You are clever with the hand. We are all clever with the hand. You are drawn to the word. We are all thus. You wish to learn, but we fear you believe you already know more than we can offer.
Naa Kansima
... We call out the object to see what you are."

The Mages all raised their hands and tossed ash onto the table. A grey flame rose from the ash, smelling like burnt blood and casting no shadow. As he had been instructed, Ilaan took his old brown and cream tunic out of the bag and handed it to the Zaalmage.

"A piece of your life, given over to us."

"No less," said Ilaan, trying to keep his voice level. "No less than a piece of my life."

The tunic passed from hand to hand, each in turn sniffing and listening to the old garment. The only sound was the hiss and pop of the grey flame. Finally, the tunic was passed back to the Zaalmage.

"You think you are a new thing," the Mage said. "You think you fly above our heads."

Ilaan swallowed, he could hear a ‘click.’ "You think you'll bring old and new together. You think the past is a waste and the future is your tool and your toy."

"No," Ilaan stammered, "no, I...."

The Zaalmage threw the tunic into the grey, leaping flame.

The Queen was there, in the flame. She looked no bigger than his hand but the image was vivid and sharp. She was talking to someone in the darkness behind him. She was saying, "Sweet boy, and he'll be of use one day..." she was gone, replaced by an equally sharp image of his father speaking to his mother, "All that cleverness, and what does he do all day? He's not Zaalmage yet, he'll do as I tell him..." the Queen again, "No, Diia, not the whole family. They make me tired. The girl's a little fool, poor thing, and the boy? Well, I know he thinks he's being clever..." His father again, talking to someone in the dark that he couldn't see, "Then we have a deal—one for one." He saw himself in the library with Rhuun, watched as the fireball he launched smacked him square in the chest, and the look of pain on his friend's face, there for anyone to see who bothered to look. And then Niico, and they were children, and Niico sneered and spat fire at him, and he didn't care. And then, dimly, his own hand putting something small and bright on a bookshelf.

The flame flickered out. The images faded as rank smoke rose. The garment lay unmarked on the stone table.

"What did we see, Brothers? Who is this boy? He thinks many things, but he has so many masters." The Zaalmage turned to Ilaan. "Are you ready to have a new master? Will you set the others aside?"

"Yes," said Ilaan in a dry whisper, seeing again his friend's anguish, the Queen's disregard. He felt as ill as if he had a belly full of ice. "I am ready."

"We believe you are. Welcome and join us, Mage."

The Zaalmage handed around cups of cool water, which Ilaan gratefully accepted.

"What else did you bring us?" Ilaan didn't follow. Had he forgotten to bring something else? "In the bag. There is something else. I can smell it."

"No, Zaalmage, I was told to pick one object, and I did. There's nothing else, see?" He tipped the bag over, giving it a shake. A slender curl of yellowed paper fell out and fluttered to the stone table. "What... How did that...?" For a moment Ilaan had no idea. Then,
Oh. That shouldn't be here.
He wasn't sure why, but he wanted to grab the scrap of paper back and shimmer away.

The Zaalmage had already snatched it up. Frowning, he examined it closely.

"Interesting. A word or two in the human tongue, I see. Given its age and the relative flimsiness of the paper, I would judge it to be torn from pre-Weapon popular entertainment from the other side." His frown deepened and he held the paper close to his face, and sniffed deeply. "There is something very strange about it, though. Where did it come from? How did it get here?"

"No idea, really, other than it’s from a book from the Queen's library," Ilaan lied. "I'm not sure how it got in the bag, it’s not even my book...."

The Zaalmage looked about to speak. Instead, he held the scrap to his face. He sniffed it again. Then his tongue darted out and touched the paper.

"Brothers," he said. "Brothers, attend."

The shifting, rustling robes moved as one around the table.

Ilaan reminded himself that the little novel was safely locked away upstairs. He could hear his heart in his ears. What was this about?

"Brothers, before I speak, smell. Before I speak, touch. Taste. Carefully and quickly."

The hooded figures passed the curl of paper reverently from hand to hand, each taking a deep sniff and a tiny taste, until finally it reached the Zaalmage, who turned to Ilaan.

"This belongs to a human."

"Oh, well, yes—it did." A wash of relief passed over him. They'd just gotten a stray whiff of old Dos Capeheart. He wondered if the ceremony was over. "It belonged to a human who gave it to someone here on Eriis. It's been in the library here for a very long time. That old human—probably dead by now—that's what you are...er...sensing."

"No," said the Zaalmage. "This was in a human's hand today."

"But that's impossible," said Ilaan. "This is Rhuun's. I mean, this book belongs to Prince Rhuun."

All at once the mages froze in their places, their sighing and shifting ceased. The Zaalmage took a deep, shuddering breath which seemed to release them.