The Sand Prince (40 page)

"Thank you," he said, although he didn't sound particularly grateful. They sat on their respective blankets (he had thrown his down in a spot where there was no roof, proving that demons were capable of spite) and looked at the darkening sky. There was a low growl of thunder.

"Did you hear that? What was that?" He looked quite alarmed.

"It's just thunder. I believe I mentioned rain. You'll want to move over here if you can stand the proximity. I couldn't provide anything larger than birds and stolen lunch for the Grand Tour today, but it looks like we'll have our weather for you to observe in a minute."

With a great show of scowling and huffing, he moved next to her under the shelter of the roof. As usual, he sat half-turned away, so, she gathered, he didn't have to look at her.

The rain came in a torrent almost at once, and she was glad to be out of it. It was nearly the end of the long dry summer months and this storm looked to want to make up for it. She went and stood at the ragged remains of a window, watching the rain sheeting down, and turned back with a smile.

"The flowers will thank—"

He was crouching on the floor with his hands clapped over his ears saying something she couldn't make out, the rain and thunder were making too much noise.

Now what?

Unsure of what to do, she leaned down next to him.

"Loud! It's so loud!" he said.

"It's just rain. It's loud but it's just... rain." She awkwardly patted his shoulder. "Is it hurting you? Are you hurt?" He flinched at the thunder, or perhaps at her touch.

As a tiny child, Lelet had decided she was afraid of the dog next door. Her family wasn't even allowed to talk about dogs while Lelet was in the room without her having a screaming, crying fit. The whole thing lasted less than a year, and then one day the dog was just a dog again. May had always made her feel like there was a guardian at her door keeping the awful beast away. Even though May knew the dog was just a dog and didn't really have knives and forks in its mouth, she understood the fear was real enough.

Lelet gently stroked the demon's hair. "Moth, listen to me. It's fine. I promise." His hair was as soft as a kittens—not like any human hair she'd ever felt. "It won't hurt you. It's just a lot of noise."

He slowly lowered his hands and sat up. There was another roar of thunder and he ducked as if it was coming at his head.

"I know what it is. I'm fine."
Are you, now
? She wondered. He looked past her, out the door at one more new thing.

"I'm sorry if I startled you," he continued. He stood up a bit too quickly, looking embarrassed. "I've never... we don't have rain. I didn't know what it was. I mean, I know what it is, I've read about it.  But so much noise..." He went to look out what had once been a door. "Will it last a long time?"

"I think it might. I'm glad you brought us here."

He turned to face her. "I didn't believe you," he said. "I thought you just wanted to make me go in circles. I'm sorry."

She nodded. He sat next to her and they watched as the rain beat down the leaves. The thunder got further away.

"When we were talking last night," she said, "you told me you were looking for someone. And something about a book? Will you tell me about that?"

He got the tense look on his face she was starting to recognize, and as she had seen before, opened his mouth to speak. As before, he couldn’t bring himself to say whatever was on his mind. He finally sighed and said, "I had a book, growing up. It was about a human man and his friends. It made me want to come here. It was written by a man named Malloy Dos Capeheart. Do you know that name?"

She was frowning as she struggled to place it. Who had just been talking about him? "It sounds really familiar... I think it must be from a long time ago, though. What was the book called?"

"
The Claiming of the Duke
," he said. "It is a great book."

Do not laugh, do not laugh, do not laugh,
she warned herself
. "
I, ah, I actually know that book. My mother had it, I think."

He looked as if he might faint. "Can you tell me what happens at the end? My copy had pages missing. The end, the whole last part is missing. It's very important. Please."

"Well," she said, "let me see if I remember. Um, the evil one—Phillip something?"

"Sir Edward? I think you mean Edward." He was wide-eyed.

"He dies, for real. He faked it the first time, so he could steal the jewels that Cybelle wanted to give that silly sap Gwyneth."

"Wait. What? You must have the wrong book after all." Now he looked offended. "Gwyneth was—"

"No," she continued, "That's the book. My girlfriends and I stole it from my mother and passed it around. It ends with a wedding, of course, all those books do. I remember loving Cybelle, she was a better choice for that Duke character, not that he was any prize. Gwyneth, she was like a wet rag. Couldn't stand her." Moth looked as if she'd insulted his sister. Or his girlfriend. "You liked her, of course." She shook her head. "Typical. Not a thought in her head and a big pair of heaving bosoms."

He turned a bit pink, and avoided looking at Lelet. He said, "Gwyneth, if I stop and think about it, she's the reason I'm here. She was a lovely girl and not—a sap? Not a sap. Tell me about the end. Please."

"Well, the Duke finally shows up—I'm sorry, I can't remember why he was late to the wedding, and of course your girl Gwyn is all sobbing into her lace, no self-esteem on that one, she couldn't imagine he was just running late after all the other nonsense they put each other through. Finally he rides up and leaps off the horse—I remember that part! It was very romantic. He lifts her to her feet and in front of all their friends—well, his friends, really—in front of the whole town and with the crashing sea as the backdrop, they become man and wife. And that's the end."

"That's all?" He looked disappointed. "They don’t... that’s really the end?"

"What did you think was going to happen? This book is way older than we are. It’s bound to be old fashioned." A light went on in her head. "That's the reason. That's why you say such strange things. You called me a wench!" Now she did laugh. "Just like that idiotic Duke! Oh no, did you think we were like those people? In that old book?" He was getting another look she recognized, the one before he marched off. She swallowed her laughter and said, "And you came here by yourself. There was no way to know what we would be like, other than what you read. I hope it hasn't been too disappointing."

"This world has been a series of surprises," he said quietly. "Not one thing is what I expected." He looked at her again. "But not all disappointing, no." He took a breath and said, "Well, what about the author? I... I would very much like to speak with him. It's extremely important."

"I suppose he
might
still be alive. I'm sorry, it’s a really old book." She watched his face, he looked like a man who’d just burnt his last match. She wondered what was really going on. Again she found herself filled with the desire to touch him.
Not a very Gwyneth thing to do
, she decided.

The rain continued. He'd stopped flinching every time there was thunder, but he still looked so sad. Finally she came up with something she thought might cheer him up.

"You know, you could go outside if you wanted to. There's no reason not to. You'd get soaked but you'd have a story to tell your friend back home—the smart one—how you did something he'll never get to do."

The look on his face made her feel like she'd won a prize. He clearly thought this was the best idea anyone had ever had. He stepped through the door, dead authors and old books forgotten. He was soaked in an instant. She watched as he turned his hands and face to the storm.

And that,
thought Lelet,
is something my friends won't ever get to see. I know I should be scared, I don't know what's going to happen next, but Rane, I’ll have to thank you for sending this extremely strange, interesting and wet person—demon—whatever—my way.

***

A
fter a while he'd had enough and as he walked back through the doorway, a cloud of steam engulfed him. When it had cleared, he was almost completely dry. He sat down next to her with a thud.

"That was amazing. I am never going back to Eriis," he said.

She laughed and patted his cheek. "Welcome to Mistra, sweetie." She pointed at his face. "And you're getting a little scratchy."

He rubbed his chin. "Why does this keep happening?" he muttered.

"Um, because you’re alive? You should keep it, it suits you."

"Hmm, yes. I suppose it covers up some of the ugly." He turned away from her.

"Ha! Right. Ugly. Sure. You're prettier than me," she said with a laugh.

He rose and walked to the door and it took her a moment to realize he wasn't amused and he hadn't been kidding.

Oh, for the love of—

She joined him at the place where the door had once been. "Moth, you are worse than my sister on her monthlies. You absolutely cannot keep walking off when something offends you." He shook her hand off his arm. He was positively vibrating with—what? "What did I say," she asked, "this time?"

"I know what I look like," he answered. She could barely hear him over the rain. "I've been reminded every day of my life. I am deformed. I am an aberration. A mistake."

She tried to pull out all her hair for a second, then said, "I am not making fun of you. I don't know why anyone would tell you those horrible things. I don't know what other demons look like, but I do know what other human persons look like, and you look perfectly fine to me."

"All the same," he said. "That's how we look. All slight and quick and narrow. All small. All the same, except for me."

"All your people look the same? That sounds—no offense—kind of boring."

He gave up his spot at the doorway and sat back down. He looked tired. "We value uniformity. And it’s not boring, it reassuring. At first I couldn't tell you humans apart, I didn't know what part of you to look at." He paused. "You think I look normal?"

And then there was the time I had to convince a demon he was pretty.
She took a breath. Someone, somewhere had taken this poor creature apart.
Why?
She realized she was worried about sending him back to wherever he came from. She said, "Let me ask you a question. You don't think I'm ugly, do you?"

"No, that is not what immediately springs to mind."

"Yes, well, thank you. But I don't look like everyone back home on... ahh...."

"Eriis," he reminded her.

"I don't look like all your friends back on Eriis, do I?"

He admitted that she did not.

"So isn't it possible for you also?"

"No."

She gritted her teeth. He'd made it clear that if she told him he had the kind of beauty that stopped her breath in her throat and made her foggy in her wits, he'd think she was lying. And anyway, he hadn't done or said anything that made her think he was even interested in her. The only thing he'd called her was a 'cave lizard.'

She thought again of his friend, his good friend who was so clever and handsome and capable. Maybe the kind of friend who liked to remind you that you didn't quite measure up? That you were lucky they were around? She'd had her share of friends like that. She looked at the way he sat, his long legs folded under him and turned mostly away from her. He sat like that all the time, she realized. Not so he wouldn't have to look at her, as she had originally suspected. He sat like that so she wouldn't have to look at him.
To spare me. What good manners
.
If he's so ugly, what in the world do the rest of them look like
? She frowned. Something back on Eriis wasn't adding up, beginning with the reason he'd given for coming here in the first place. You go to see an author read at a bookshop in your neighborhood, you don't leave your home and risk your life.

The book thing, that's a lie, or at least partly a lie. He says he has no magic, and he obviously does. He thinks he's some sort of hideous beast, and well, I have eyes.
She knew she'd get the story out of him eventually. It was just another part of the adventure.

For the moment, it was all she could do not to cross the space between them and see again if his hair was really so soft, and if his mouth was soft, and if his body was hard. She gave her head a shake to clear it. No, if she were to follow her instincts and do the kind of convincing that never failed to work on any other man—any human man—he'd take it for a joke or worse, pity. Perhaps start with 'normal' and work up? She figured it was worth a try. She took a deep breath.

"Okay. You may be a very unattractive demon, since you are not—what did you say? Small? Slight? But as a human person you look completely normal. Trust me, on a crowded street no one would even look at you. It'd be like you were invisible."
That is the biggest lie I've told today
, she thought.

He frowned. She could see she'd made an impression.

"I am going to go out and be in the rain for a while. I am not marching off and I do not have my monthlies."

When she was done laughing she thought,
I am either going to have to kill him or introduce him to the family. One or the other. I guess I'll just wait and see.

––––––––

Gwenyth could hear her heart hammering in her breast.

She could feel the heat of the Duke's body, now pressed against

-The Claiming of the Duke, pg 210 (fragment)

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

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M
istra

100 years after the War of the Door, Mistran calendar

20 years later, Eriisai calendar

Road through the Great Forest

"Does it seem colder to you?" She pulled the coarse blanket closer. "It feels colder to me." After the sun came back out they'd moved on for another hour or so, but it was getting dark earlier. They had decided to stop for the evening and she stood looking around the little glade.