“Kenton, that was the most idiotic thing I have ever seen anyone do,” she informed.
He coughed again, rubbing his chest where she had been pounding. “I believe you,” he mumbled, trying to sit up—a difficult endeavor with Khriss in his lap. He shook his head, pouring some of the water into his hand and splashing it into his face. “Well, it looks like this time I won’t have to spend a week unconscious. That’s something at least.”
Yes, but you nearly didn’t wake up at all, Khriss thought, staring at his weakened face. Shella, Divine, thank you.
Kenton reached into one of his pouches, pulling out some sand. He stared at it for a moment, then finally shook his head. “Nothing,” he announced. “But, I suppose that was the point. Let’s just hope I get it back before the fight with Drile.”
Khriss looked up, hearing a pair of voices coming their direction. A moment later, Eric and Baon approached. “Yes,” Eric was saying, “but I still think conventional formation tactics are outdated with the advent of muskets. It’s like your armies haven’t realized what they have—they tend to employ their rifleman like archers. The thing is, they aren’t the same at all. A rifle isn’t just a more damaging bow that doesn’t shoot as fast, it’s an entirely new concept. Now, everyone in the entire army can be a ranged warrior. Do you understand—” Eric trailed off, seeing Khriss and Kenton. He raised an eyebrow.
“You know, there’s a cabin below decks if you two want to be alone,” he noted.
Khriss blushed, realizing that she was still sitting in Kenton’s lap. She hurried to her feet, straightening her robe. Kenton coughed again, climbing into his chair with more difficulty.
Baon looked at Kenton with keen eyes. “An attack?” he guessed uncertainly.
Kenton shook his head. “It’s complicated,” he said, resting back with a sigh.
#
He felt naked. Without his sand to protect him, he was like a child away from his parent … a child wandering across deep sand. As long as he had sand mastery, he felt he could defeat anyone. Now, however, he realized just how powerless a person could feel.
How does the rest of the world do it? He wondered. How do they survive without sand? It was like having both of his arms severed. He kept reaching for his sand to do things—to grab something for him, or to lift him to the foredeck.
With a sigh, he relaxed in the chair, forcing himself to deal with the situation. He had caused it, after all. The riverside cities of Lossand scrolled past on either side. There was barely a break in the line of towns—here, without the water vines to give water, only the Ali could provide sustenance.
They had been sailing for several hours now. Khriss was down below, arranging her things—though Kenton didn’t know why it mattered; they would be arriving within a day, then turning around and coming right back. However, he hadn’t said anything.
Something had happened while he had been unconscious. He didn’t know what it was, but he had an illusive memory of something—something he couldn’t describe. A power, or a force. Something that had overcome his entire body. Then he had woken up, the image of Khriss’s face, haloed by the sun, hovering in front of his face. He’d never seen anything so extraordinary.
Of course, then she’d ruined it by hitting him on the chest. He still didn’t understand that part—she said she’d been frightened, that his heart had stopped. The words, however, sounded foolish to Kenton. If his heart stopped, then he was dead. That was, at least in Kenton’s mind, an irreversible event.
“You look too thoughtful, Lord Mastrell,” Delious noted. He was the only one still sitting on the deck with Kenton. “Have a drink.”
Kenton smiled. “No thank you, My Lord.”
Delious shrugged. “It must be difficult,” the foppish man noted.
“What is that, Lord Delious? Living without wine?”
Delious shook his head. “No, I was referring to your responsibilities. You are in charge of an entire profession. Is that not difficult?”
Kenton nodded silently. “Indeed it is, Lord Admiral.”
Delious raised his crystalline cup, staring at its blood-red confines. The sun shone through the wine, spraying red droplets of light across the deck. “Responsibility,” Delious mumbled. “Fortunately, that is not something I have to deal with.”
Kenton nodded. “I … realize that, Lord Admiral. I have done a little studying about your profession.”
“And found it ridiculous?” Delious assumed.
Kenton nodded. “Somewhat, yes. Honestly, I have trouble understanding the Helm’s Charter. What is the point behind taking away a Taisha’s possessions?”
Delious shrugged, still staring at his wine. “It is a political tool, Lord Mastrell, and nothing else. In the eyes of the Law, everything the Helm owns belongs to me, which is why I can commandeer any ship I want. However, in reality, the Taisha is the means by which the Shipowner’s Circle keeps power over its members. Everyone knows that if they go against the will of the Circle, they could very well end up losing everything. A clever idea, really. Theft by bestowal of a grand honor.”
“And what did you do, if I may ask,” Kenton ventured. “What did you do to deserve such a … grand honor?”
“I was too successful,” Delious said, draining the wine in his cup with a single gulp. “However, in the eyes of one’s peers, success is one of the worst of sins. I wasn’t always a member of the Helm, you know,” he said.
“You weren’t?” Kenton asked.
Delious shook his head. “Many years ago, almost two decades ago, I was a member of the Guild. That was before you were born, I believe?”
Kenton blushed, suddenly reminded of his age. “Probably,” he admitted.
“I was very successful, you know,” Delious said, holding out his cup to be filled again. His eyes were slightly unfocused, as if he were seeing something Kenton could not. Memories from a past long dead. “I was rich enough to challenge the Lord Merchant himself. All I needed was one last deal—twenty-thousand more lak—and I would have taken the position. I probably could have earned it, had I waited. But, with the impatience of relative youth, I set out to become the youngest man to ever hold that Taisha. I found my opportunity. A friend suggested we finance a new mine found in some hills to the southeast. There were claims that there was lakstone there. I put up nearly my entire fortune on the endeavor …”
“And you lost it?” Kenton asked quietly.
Delious shook his head. “It was taken from me. I spent my fortune outfitting the mines, digging for the stone to make coins. Five years passed, slowly draining my funds. In the end, I fell broke, and was forced to sell the mines. One week later, my friend—the one who had told me about the mine—suddenly found lakstone. Coincidentally, he had been the one who purchased my half of the mines from me. So, he became Lord Merchant instead of myself.”
“Vey?” Kenton asked with surprise.
Delious nodded slowly. “I quit the Guild in disgust. From there I went to the Helm and tried to rebuild my career. I proved a competent shipping captain, and within a decade built up a fleet of mercantile ships to rival any on dayside. Unfortunately, in doing so I had paid little attention to the Circle. I wanted no part of them—it had been my partnership in the mines that betrayed me. I wanted nothing to do with others—I wanted to do it on my own. And I did.”
“Then they took it all away,” Kenton said.
Delious nodded again, downing another entire cup of wine. “This world has given me little to believe in, Lord Mastrell. Those I thought were my friends betrayed me. The Profession I assumed would protect me instead ripped away my life and gave me this foolish mockery in exchange. Justice, honor, the Law … all are equally worthless ideals. Life has stripped down and shown me the bones of her soul, and they are not pretty.”
“I’m … sorry,” was all Kenton could say. “No wonder you …”
“Became a sot?” Delious asked. He shrugged drunkenly. “There is little left for me. I wonder—do you know how much a bottle of wine
costs?”
Kenton shook his head. “I’ve never even thought about it before,” he admitted.
“Grapes are said to have come from darkside originally,” Delious explained. “They don’t grow well in dayside’s heat—they have to be watered a ridiculous amount and kept in the shade. When they do grow, the grapes themselves are small and rather withered. Add upon that the difficulty of bottling and fermenting … much of what I drink costs upwards of a thousand lak per bottle.”
Kenton gaped in surprise. A thousand lak a bottle? And, with the amount Delious drank …
Delious smiled. “The Charter only gives me three things: a ship when I need it, a house to live in, and whatever I want to eat and drink. They took everything from me, Kenton. Well, I’m going to make them regret that decision. I had hundreds of thousands of lak worth of ships—I intend to make them pay for every last coin.”
The drunkenness, Kenton thought with surprise. It isn’t to wipe away sorrows. It’s for revenge.
#
It was another few hours before Kenton had the strength to move from the deck chair, and then he only stumbled down to his cabin. However, even that little bit of improvement was encouraging. Before, when Khriss had rescued him, he had spend a week delirious after his overmastery. Of course, that time he had been left in the middle of the kerla without even enough water to summon a vine.
Still, he felt stronger this time—perhaps he would get his power back in time to fight Drile. He didn’t want to think of what would happen if he didn’t get it back—somehow he doubted Drile would let him back out, even if he had lost his powers. As long as he lived, he was a threat to Drile’s leadership of the sand masters.
He stumbled into the cabin, finding Ais reading from a dark-paged book—a Ker’reen text, if Kenton read the symbols on the front correctly. The two of them would be sharing a cabin, as per Ais’s request. Perhaps the trackt thought Kenton would sneak away in the middle of the night.
Ais closed the book. “You’ve lost your powers,” he said simply.
“For a while, at least,” Kenton replied, laying down on his bunk with a sigh.
“That was a foolish move,” Ais said simply, turning back to his book.
Kenton smiled. “I would have thought that you would find it encouraging. For a little while, at least, I’m no longer your Ry’Kensha. I’m just a normal man.”
Ais paused. “It doesn’t matter. Your loss of power isn’t a revocation—it was done in the name of gaining even more strength.”
“Very true,” Kenton admitted. “Say, Ais, I’ve been thinking about something.”
“What?” Ais said, not looking up from his book.
“Well, you said that leader of the assassins—the one the A’Kar had appointed to kill me—had misinterpreted the Kershtian Writ, right?”
“He must have,” Ais said. “It wouldn’t be a difficult mistake to make—the words say ‘assassins may attack on every odd day’ but a cursory read might lead one to think they meant ‘assassins have to wait at least one day.’ The misread would be possible.”
“But, not likely for someone who has been studying the Writ all his life,” Kenton assumed.
“Correct,” Ais replied.
“So, what if the leader of the assassins hasn’t been studying the Writ all of his life?”
“He wouldn’t be a very good Kershtian then,” Ais said, continuing to read.
“What if they’re not Kershtian?”
Ais paused, looking up slowly. “That isn’t possible,” he finally said.
“Why not?” Kenton asked. “Didn’t I hear that the A’Kar is letting Lossandin people into the Priest’s DaiKeen?”
“Yes, he has made that decision.”
“So, couldn’t he potentially have chosen a Lossander to head the assassination? That would explain how he misinterpreted the Writ—the language barrier could lead to all kinds of mistakes.”
“What are you implying?” Ais asked slowly.
“What if the leader of the assassins is Drile?” Kenton asked. “We know he worked with the A’Kar to kill the mastrells. Maybe he’s been given the duty of finishing what he began.”
Ais snorted. “A sand master? I doubt that, Ry’Kensha. Even if the A’Kar did choose a Lossandin person, they would have to be a Ker’reen believer. The call to destroy an enemy of the Sand Lord is a holy calling.”
“Times are different now,” Kenton challenged. “The A’Kar is doing odd things, never before seen in Kershtian tradition. He’s made a new DaiKeen, populating it with men loyal to him that are neither priest nor warrior, but both together. Maybe, to destroy the Diem, he decided to make a deal with what he saw as a lesser evil.”
“Maybe,” Ais said, not convinced.
“It makes sense,” Kenton continued, more to himself than to Ais. “I wondered why Drile stopped bothering me so quickly after I challenged him. Before, he would have had to be worried that his assassins would fail—I would expect that the A’Kar wasn’t too pleased that a sand master survived. This way, however, Drile can kill me himself. He doesn’t have to worry about the A’Kar’s retribution.”
“If you say so, Ry’Kensha,” Ais said, reading again.
“It makes sense,” Kenton repeated, closing his weakened eyes. Drile, this is just one more reason we need to face one another. I’ll get back my strength; your fight won’t be quite as easy as you think it will be.
#
Khriss watched him stumble down toward his cabin. Kenton had the right idea—she was beginning to feel a little bit tired herself. They still had about ten darkside hours left, if her measures were complete. She might as well spend it sleeping.
She was, however, enjoying the transformation she saw in the landscape around her. The further south they went, the less sand and rocks there were, and the more fields she saw. The lands they were passing to the west were the most lively Khriss had seen on dayside. She could see a complex system of canals splitting off the river, providing irrigation to the fields. They looked nearly as productive as darkside plants—though, for some reason, they were all green. It was an odd color for plants.
The further south they went, the lower the sun sank in the sky. The air was becoming cooler—Kenton said he couldn’t feel it, but Khriss could. Her body whispered that she was going in the right direction—that she should keep going until they reached darkside. Three more days, she told herself. This will all be over by then, whatever the result.
And, she feared that the result would not be favorable. Kenton’s weakness frightened her—she had nearly lost him. She didn’t have a good record keeping men she cared about lately. The fear she had felt, holding Kenton’s body as his heart stopped, only hinted at what was to come. Kenton was so afraid of Drile’s power that he had nearly killed himself just for the possibility of a slight increase in power. Both he and Eric tried to keep an optimistic front, but Khriss could sense what they weren’t saying. They didn’t think Kenton could defeat this other sand master.
No! Khriss thought with despair, leaning against the side of the ship, watching the cool water pass below. I can’t lose him, not another one. But, what can I do? She was helpless, once again.
“He should never have gotten himself into this,” Eric said approaching from the side.
Khriss looked up. The Lossander was staring at the stairs down to the cabins, his eyes concerned.
“The overmastery?” Khriss asked.
“The Taisha, the leadership,” Eric said in a quiet, haunted voice. “Responsibility kills. It sucks the soul out of a man and leaves him a poor imitation of what he could have been.”
Khriss frowned, staring at Eric. She had never heard such intensity from him before. He was always so laid-back, so unconcerned with everything. This, however, seemed to be a point even he felt strongly about.
“Responsibility?” Khriss asked. “Someone has to take it.”
“I just thank the sands that it isn’t me,” Eric returned, walking over to lean against th
e wale next to her. He stared out over the river. “Kenton should have been so smart. He could have just left it all behind. Then he wouldn’t be in this position.”
Khriss shook her head. No, Eric. I disagree. She didn’t say so out loud, however. She didn’t feel like arguing. However, if there was one thing she had learned on this trip, it was that leadership was more than titles and giving orders. It was an act of becoming something greater than what one had been before; it was doing things for others, things that they could not do themselves. It was a burden, true, but it refined as much as it hurt.
She could look back on what she had been before. She had been more innocent, true—she hadn’t been betrayed by friends, lovers, and expectations alike—but that innocence had been traded for strength and understanding. She would not go back, even if she were given the opportunity.
Eric turned eyes toward Kenton’s cabin again. “I suppose he’ll learn on his own,” Eric whispered. “Nothing is worth that—nothing is worth the expectations, the responsibility for other men’s deaths, the responsibility to kill so that others do not have to. It destroys a man, unless he escapes. I escaped. Maybe he will.”
Then he turned, his eyes passing over Khriss as if she weren’t there, and he just wandered toward his own cabin.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Kenton awoke the next day feeling rejuvenated. He sat up, his body completely devoid of the weakness it had felt before. Eagerly, he reached for the sand pouch beside his cot and commanded the sand to life.
Nothing.
He sighed, dropping the sand back in its pouch. There was a wash basin and a rag beside the cot, and he proceeded to wipe his body down with the scented water, washing away the day’s grime. Ais was gone. Kenton frowned—how long had he been asleep?
Yawning, he pulled some clothing out of his trunk. It was wrinkled from the packing, but ShalRim tended to resist wrinkling, as opposed to the more expensive darkside materials, and once he had them on they didn’t look so bad.
He pulled open the door, walking up toward the deck. As he stumbled into the light, he was surprised to find the ship resting beside a wooden dock, a large city extending around him. Lraezare.
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