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Kenton had never seen his father’s rooms. Eighteen years of life, eight of them in the Diem, and he had never once visited his father’s quarters. Kenton had often wondered what they would look like. And, in the end, he was disappointed.
The rooms were very bland, if one could call their gross richness bland. They held little that could be called personal—no hints that the man who had lived in them was the father of four children. There were no carpets, of course, just the thick layer of sand. The furnishings were expensive—colorful, with lots of wood. Deep, plush chairs stuffed loosely with sand. Carapace cabinets and tables trimmed with wood. The most personal object in the three-room group was a bookshelf.
Kenton left the main room, the one that held a conference table and a group of chairs, and walked into a smaller side room. Inside was Praxton’s desk, neat and orderly, a few sheets of black paper stacked on its wooden top. On the far side was the bookshelf.
Kenton read off the titles. Most were in Kershtian, of course. Even Lossandin scholars often wrote in Kershtian as a means of boosting their authority. There were some common volumes: The book of Krae—a famous work of Kershtian poetry—several volumes on the history of Lossand, a few books of Kershtian legends. Several of the volumes were unlabeled.
And that was it. The rest of the room seemed stark despite its tapestries, brocades, and blackwood-rimmed windows. Kenton sighed, strolling out of the room, kicking up sand as he went. He had hoped to find some clue as to who his father had really been. Praxton had only been dead for two weeks now, yet Kenton was having trouble remembering the man. Every time he thought about his father, him mind immediately focused on the force that was the Lord Mastrell, and not the man that was Praxton.
Kenton strolled over the balcony, overlooking the courtyard. The large hut-like conference chamber sat in the courtyard’s direct center, and from his vantage Kenton could see through the large hole in the building’s ceiling. The rows of benches inside were empty.
Kenton felt a loss, but he wasn’t certain what to make of it. It was the same loss he had felt all his life, the void that had driven him to become a sand master. The void that had led a young boy to reject his first advancement for a still-uncertain reason. Had he really expected that simple defiance would make his father accept him? Make Praxton, who had such little use for a family that he only visited it monthly, welcome into his heart a son who had brought him nothing but disappointment?
As he pondered, however, his thoughts were interrupted by a soft ringing sound beside him. He frowned in confusion, turning toward the sound. A small, almost forgotten bell hung from the side of the banister—the method by which lesser sand masters could request a mastrell’s attention. The bell was vibrating slightly, rung by a sickly-looking ribbon of sand that extended from below. The sand glowed sporadically, its colors muted, and the ribbon was so thin that it was nearly invisible.
Kenton leaned out over the side of the balcony, looking down at the courtyard. He saw the red-haired top of a head, its hand extended, the arm shaking slightly.
“Dirin?” Kenton called.
The sand immediately fell stale, turning black as it was freed to blow away in the wind. Dirin smiled, looking up with relief. His face was exhausted.
Kenton reached over to his barrel of sand, then sent several ribbons of his own down to pick up the young acolent and raise him into the air. Kenton’s ribbons were bright and thick, but to him they had always seemed insufficient when compared to the dozens a mastrell could create. He’d rarely thought about those who were even less fortunate than himself.
Kenton deposited the acolent on the balcony beside him. Dirin took one look down at the sands three stories below and grew very pale in the face. He didn’t look down again. “Sometimes I think I’m lucky not to have enough power to lift myself in the air,” he mumbled, moving to stand safely inside the balcony doorway.
Kenton chuckled, turning around to lean with his back against the banister. “So, what do you want?” he asked.
“I just thought I should tell you that breakfast will be a little late this morning,” Dirin explained somewhat sheepishly. “I probably didn’t need to bother you, but I didn’t want you to wonder . …”
“There’s going to be breakfast?” Kenton asked with surprise. “Who’s fixing it?”
“The cooks,” Dirin said with a shrug.
“I thought they left when they heard the Diem was going to be dissolved,” Kenton said with a frown.
“They did,” Dirin agreed. “But, well, after yesterday I thought I should find them and tell them that, uh, the Diem isn’t gone yet, so they could come back. So they did. But the acolents messed up the kitchen fixing their own food yesterday, so the cooks are going to be late with breakfast this morning.”
Kenton rubbed his chin in thought. “I hadn’t even considered asking the servants back,” he mused. “Good job, Dirin.”
“Oh, uh, I just thought that someone should … and you were going to be busy, being Lord Mastrell, so … .” The boy trailed off, looking down in embarrassment. As he did, however, he noticed the layer of dust on the cabinets beside the doorway. He frowned in disgust. Then, almost furtively, as if he were doing something wrong, he began to rub at the top of the cabinet, cleaning it with the sleeve of his robe.
“Did your friend find you yesterday, Lord Mastrell?” he asked as he began to dust.
Kenton looked up distractedly. “What? Oh, Eric. Yes, though he yelled long enough that people across the lake could probably hear him. I offered to let him sleep in one of the empty mastrell’s quarters.”
Dirin paled, stopping his cleaning for a moment. “Up here?” he asked. “But he’s not … I mean …”
“I know,” Kenton said with a wave of his hand. “He’s not even a sand master, let alone a mastrell. But the days of mastrell elitism are over. If we don’t start being more flexible, we’re going to find ourselves without a profession. In fact,” Kenton said thoughtfully, turning to look down as the courtyard. “Dirin, I want you to find some ladders.”
“Ladders?” Dirin asked with surprise.
“Yes,” Kenton continued. “Some means for regular people to reach these upper floors. I’m going to get very tired of lifting everyone up here whenever they want to come.”
“All right … .” Dirin said speculatively. He turned back to his cleaning. “You know, sir, I don’t mean to be rude, but the rest of the students are talking about your friend. They think he’s a little bit … odd.”
Kenton snorted. “They’re right,” he admitted. “And no one is more surprised than myself. Eric and I were friends a long time ago; back then, he was about as normal a person as one could find. Of course, when you’re Reegent’s son, you don’t have much choice … .” Kenton trailed off as he saw the look on Dirin’s face.
“Reegent’s son?” Dirin asked with amazement. “You mean … .”
Kenton nodded. “The same.”
“But, then he’s the Lord General heir!” Dirin said.
“Kind of,” Kenton agreed. Unlike the Lord Mastrellship, the Lord Generalship was hereditary.
“I’ve heard stories about …” Dirin began.
“They’re exaggerations,” a new voice declared, pushing open the door to Kenton’s room with a lazy hand.
Dirin jumped with a quiet yelp as Eric entered. Eric, however, only smirked, nodding toward Dirin as he addressed Kenton. “Who’s the kid?”
“Someone a whole lot more useful than yourself,” Kenton shot back with a smile. “Did you sleep well? I seem to remember a time when you got up at third hour every morning.”
Eric groaned, flopping down in a chair. “Don’t remind me. My dear father always had some incredibly tedious task for me to do at such sands-unholy hours. Inspect troops, exercise, practice killing things … . I still wake up some mornings convinced I’ve done something wrong. Did I hear you mention breakfast?”
“Maybe,” Kenton said, trying to follow the random to
pic change. “That depends on how long you spent eavesdropping.”
“Pretty much the entire conversation,” Eric admitted frankly. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”
Kenton snorted, but his retort fell silent as he heard a sound from behind him. He turned just in time to see Drile dropping from the third-floor room directly across the courtyard from Kenton’s. The former mastrell’s sand glowed and swirled around him, and he was followed by three sand masters with less-impressive collections of ribbons. None of the four men wore sashes—their robes were tied with black cords instead.
It was a statement, obviously. They wore no sashes because they didn’t accept Kenton’s authority. Kenton sighed—at least his threats had kept Drile from wearing the mastrell’s sash.
“You look like you just swallowed a sandling,” Eric observed.
“Do you remember Drile?” Kenton asked, turning away from the courtyard.
“Tall, arrogant, and annoying?” Eric asked.
“That’s him,” Kenton said with a nod.
“I seem to remember everyone thought he was the perfect sand master,” Eric said thoughtfully.
“He was,” Kenton agreed, walking into the room to take a seat across from Eric. “Now he’s just a traitor.”
“Traitor?” Dirin asked with surprise. The boy, almost forgotten, had dusted the top of every piece of furniture in the room, and had begun to open drawers and clean the inside of them as well. Somewhere he had found an old rag to use in his efforts.
“Yes, Dirin. Traitor. There is a reason Drile was the only powerful sand master who survived the attack.”
“He was lucky,” Dirin admitted, “and he isn’t the nicest person in the Diem, but a traitor … ?”
“I’ve heard a dozen rumors about this,” Eric cut in. “What really happened out there? Half the people I asked claimed the Sand Lord himself destroyed you—though why he would have waited this many years is beyond me. The other half claimed the mastrells weren’t really dead at all, but just hiding because of some mysterious, mastrellic scheme.”
“I wish to the sands I knew what had happened,” Kenton admitted. “It must have been the water.”
“Water?”
“Before the advancement ceremony begins, we pass around a ceremonial bowl of water,” Kenton explained. “Everyone takes a sip. Then the Lord Mastrell hands out sashes to the oldest year of acolents. Right after he did so, a group of Kershtians attacked. The mastrells should have been able to protect us, but something went wrong.”
“It was horrible,” Dirin whispered, his quiet voice carrying through the room. His eyes were unfocused slightly as he spoke—unfocused, and pained. “When the arrows started to fall, everyone scattered. I just stood there—I didn’t know what to do. I looked toward the mastrells; a lot of us did. They were the most powerful, and so they were supposed to save us. I watched old Tendel call up sand around him, a dozen ribbons at once. But, the sand just flashed and fell dead. It happened to all of them—huge explosions of sand, followed by nothing. Then the mastrells began to die, the water sucked from their faces. It happened suddenly, incredibly fast. They didn’t have time to cry out, no time to slatrify water for themselves. They just died.”
Dirin fell silent.
“It must have been the water,” Kenton repeated after a moment. “The water we drank—it tasted odd. There must have been something in it, something that poisoned the mastrells, and made it so that their mastery used more water than it should have. Most mastrells can master at full power for ten minutes before being in danger of overmastery—yet they died that day after just a few seconds.”
“And you think this Drile poisoned the water?” Eric asked.
“He took the bowl first,” Kenton said. “And he didn’t drink any of the water himself. He knew he was going to be on trial that day—my father actually took away his mastrell’s sash. He must have had some deal with the Kershtians. Drile poisoned us, then they could attack and cause the mastrells to kill themselves.”
“Wait a minute,” Eric asked with a frown. “How big was this bowl of water? Weren’t there thousands of sand masters?”
Kenton nodded. “We refilled it as it moved along.”
“Then the poison would have been gone after the first round,” Eric objected.
Kenton shrugged. “Maybe he only needed to poison the mastrells. There was enough confusion caused by the deaths of the most powerful that the rest of us weren’t able to defend ourselves.” Yet, even as Kenton spoke, he knew his arguments had holes. Sand masters beyond the mastrells had been affected too—Kenton himself had felt the poison’s dehydration. The bowl had been refilled several times before it reached him.
“Anyway, Drile was definitely involved,” Kenton continued. “Not only didn’t he drink, but he survived.”
“Ah yes,” Eric said with a nod. “How could he have been so stupid as to live? Horrible mistake.”
Kenton frowned—not at Eric’s comment, but at something else he could hear. Voices, coming from down below. “Oh no,” he groaned to himself. “What now?”
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“We should gather up what food we can,” Drile warned. “Tonks and carts too. We don’t have much time now. The people will be mad now. Angry that our presumed leader has made them wait. There is no telling when they’ll come for us. We have to be ready.”
He stood in the entry hall, speaking loudly and dramatically. His voice was different than it had been the day before—he no longer tried to act as if he were in charge. Instead, he spoke with an edge of fright—one that Kenton found ridiculously contrived. Most of the other sand masters, however, didn’t appear to sense its insincerity. They stood in a large group before Drile, mumbling to themselves, their faces growing more anxious with every word Drile spoke—especially the younger ones. Some of the older, more experience sand masters regarded Drile with distrust. Unfortunately, there were men of age and wisdom left.
“You!” Drile said, pointing dramatically at Kenton.
Kenton frowned—Drile wasn’t about to let him take control of the scene like he had done the day before.
“Deny it!” Drile demanded. “Deny that they only gave us two weeks to live. A death sentence!”
“Two weeks is right,” Kenton responded. “But it is hardly a death sentence. The Council might dissolve the Diem, that’s all.”
“And what will happen after that?” Drile asked, spinning and turning back to the crowd of sand masters. His handsome face was laced with intensity. “You know they hate us,” Drile continued in a low voice. “You’ve all heard the people speak against us, their priests preaching hatred. Without a Profession or a vote to make our voice known, the Law will no longer protect us. How long do you think it will be before the people decide that those Kershtian murderers weren’t thorough enough in their slaughter? How long before the rest of the Diem joins its unfortunate mastrells?”
Even some of the older sand masters seemed to give this objection some thought.
Drile shot Kenton a look and a veiled smile. If I can’t control them, the look said, then I’ll make certain you won’t be able to either.
Kenton cursed as the crowd grew even more nervous. He began to push his way through, working his way toward Drile. “What are you doing here, Drile?” he demanded. “Why frighten these people with senseless threats and lies?”
“We have to be ready,” Drile continued. “Ready for what is to come!” Drile held out a fist. “We are stronger than they are; we always have been. They will learn what it is to defy the sand masters!”
“And when no one comes?” Kenton snapped. “Will you persuade us to make a ‘preemptive strike,’ to murder like the A’Kar’s assassins? This talk is foolishness, Drile.” Kenton finally shoved his way out of the front of the crowd, and he approached Drile with a purposeful step. Two of Drile’s sashless followers, Terr and Linai, the two most powerful living sand masters beside Drile himself, moved forward to block him, but Kenton pushed past them with a scowl.
<
br /> “Drile, this is lunacy,” he said in a low voice.
“You heard the Council,” Drile shot back, speaking soft enough that the crowd couldn’t hear. “They’ll dissolve us in two weeks, no matter what you do. I’m just preparing everyone.”
“By throwing them into a paranoid frenzy?” Kenton asked. “What purpose can that serve? They need order in their lives right now, something familiar.”
“You, speaking of order?” Drile said with a snort. “You, who incited the acolents against the mastrells at every opportunity? You, who refused a sash four years in a row, just to spite them?” Drile smiled, nodding down at the cord he wore instead of a sash. “I’m just following your example, Lord Mastrell,” he said.
Kenton groaned quietly, closing his eyes. If only he weren’t right.
“Look, Drile,” he said quietly. “You don’t like me. That’s all right. But we have to think of the Diem right now—let us put on an air of agreeability just long enough for the Council to rescind their decision. Then, I’ll step down as Lord Mastrell. I promise. We can deal with each other later—let’s save the Diem first.”
“What makes you think I want to save the Diem?” Drile asked innocently. Then, in a loud voice, he continued. “Think about what I have said. I have friends in other nations, nations that aren’t Lossand or Kershtian. The Rim Kingdoms will accept us with the respect we deserve, and use us as our talent demands. When the time comes, I will go, and all who wish to survive may come with me.”
With that, Drile smiled to Kenton and gave a flippant bow. He left, his three attendants in tow.
Kenton watched him go, then turned to face a crowd of confused, frightened faces. Too many of them were young, younger than Kenton himself. The Kershtians must have shot for more than just sash color—they had targeted age as well, killing off the wise along with the talented. The older ones, those still alive, looked to him with questions in their faces. They were older, but their ranks were low; they were accustomed to being told what to do.
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