Grains of Sand

by Varian Morn

  “Oh those days come and go all the time!” Jamthi laughed.

  As we went deeper into the Line, more and more things became fascinating. Somehow every hallway and room was lit up evenly, yet there didn't seem to be any torches or fire catalysts illuminating them.

  Although everything was made of a hard and thick metal, there was also a certain homely design to it. Every hallway had little etchings, painted scenes that were... well, exotic.

  Slowing my pace a little to stare at the strange doors and hallways that we were passing, I startled when I noticed that the men had drawn far enough away that I couldn't hear them speaking anymore.

  Hurrying after them wasn't that difficult, even with the confining dress, but it was annoying. I could tell that if this kept up I was going to tear the dress, and that might cause problems for me later on.

  As I rushed to catch up, the young man had turned around and noticed that I was a distance behind them. He paused, and with a gentle smile waited for me to catch up.

  “You alright?” Jamthi asked.

  “Sorry,” I apologized, and gave him a small bow as I tried to focus. I couldn't allow myself to get distracted like that.

  At least not right now.

  “You need not apologize. It's Noth's fault. Quite a jerk, not paying attention to his pace and leaving his wife behind!” Jamthi said, his voice growing louder with each word. He was obviously trying to catch Noth's attention, but the man simply kept walking as if he had suddenly lost his hearing.

  “Hmph. Typical. Come, who needs him?” Jamthi said, returning to walking... but at a much slower pace. One that I could keep up with, even in this dress.

  “Do you not need to assist him?” I asked.

  “He can wait. And he is more than capable, though he doesn't look it.”

  Choosing to follow the rest of the way in silence, I was glad that the young man kept his back to me. I didn't want him to see me smiling at his words.

  Capable? I knew he was. After all, he had to be to own such a powerful Line.

  And that was why I was so excited.

  Thanks to the young man keeping to a slow pace, I didn't get left behind, and I was able to better observe the things we passed.

  Hallways became more hallways. Rooms seemed to be randomly placed everywhere, and every so often a stairwell would appear... leading both upward and down.

  When we had entered the Line not too long ago, I had wondered what it was going to be like inside... but I honestly didn't expect such confined spaces.

  The Line was massive. Bigger than any building in the city... so I had expected it to be large and open inside, like the bathhouses or cathedrals.

  Granted, maybe there were rooms like it and I just haven't seen them yet.

  “Jamthi,” a young woman smiled and greeted the young man as we passed her. She also smiled and waved to me, and I noticed that she did so pleasantly and not out of duty.

  “Your wife?” I asked.

  “Huh?” Jamthi paused, coming to an abrupt stop.

  “That woman,” I said, gesturing behind us.

  “No... She wasn't. Why would you think that?” he asked.

  For a small moment I was embarrassed. I had misread the woman's tone and greeting... “She had warmly greeted you, and me,” I explained.

  The young man stared at me with an odd look, and then smiled. “Well, I am a lovable person. So it's to be expected,” he said, pleased with himself.

  His humble voice didn't match his words at all, and it made me wonder if he was teasing me.

  I decided to remain silent the rest of the way, even when other people passed us and similarly greeted us in strange ways.

  Maybe it was just their culture... Or maybe it was because he held a certain level of respect and status. He seemed to work directly under the Lord, and was supposedly related to him as well...

  He didn't really look it though. He looked younger than me, only a few years after reaching manhood. If he had been a son of Derri, he would still be unmarried at his age. To already be so prominent a figure was quite interesting.

  Chances were there was more to him than it seemed.

  I didn't get to study the young man for very long. He came to a stop as he entered one of the random rooms.

  “Close the door behind you,” Lord Noth ordered from within the room.

  Unsure if I was allowed to enter or not, I realized I was going to be able to when Jamthi stood at the door and waited for me.

  He closed the door behind me after I entered, and the heavy metal made a strange sound as it shut.

  “Sit wherever you like,” Jamthi said to me as he went deeper into the room, heading for his own seat.

  The room wasn't a large one... but it made up for its lack of size with the abundance of odd things within it.

  Each wall, even the one with the door, had large shelves that were full. They were lined with glass, and went all the way to the ceiling. Why they were so large was beyond me... they'd need that giant man, Yevin's help, to reach the top shelves.

  There weren’t just rows of books on them. There was glassware, and magical catalysts. There was even a skull of some strange animal in one of the shelves to my right, and a small tree looking plant in another.

  The ceiling was the only part of the room that wasn't covered in something... Its plain appearance was almost the strangest part of the room, when one noticed it.

  At least the floor had pretty rugs covering it.

  A prominent desk sat across from the door, and behind it sat Noth. He was already writing something, and had probably reached the room some time ago. He looked focused, and didn't even glance up at me as I approached the desk.

  There were plenty of chairs to choose from, and even large ones that I could lay down on... but I chose to instead study the desk he sat at. It was rather large, coming to a stop at my waist, and it was covered with papers and small tools.

  This was the office of one of the most powerful men in the world, and oddly... it looked it.

  I had expected it to be larger, and more extravagant. There was a clear distinction of wealth, since the carpet and furniture looked and felt special, but there was a severe lack of...

  Of what? What had I expected?

  The office looked like many in the House of Derri, especially of the elders. The only difference was most of the stuff in here was of queer origin, it was stuff I had no idea about, nor ever seen.

  For some reason I had expected treasures to showcase his wealth, or great arms displaying his power.

  Maybe such things were elsewhere.

  Noth finished writing, and slid the paper across the desk towards me.

  For me? I reached out and picked it up, but I could not read the strange symbols upon the paper. They looked somewhat similar to letters that I was familiar with, but there was a strange and haphazard method to them... making them unreadable.

  “Give it to Jamthi,” Noth then said… his annoyance plainly noticeable.

  Oh. I was meant to hand it off.

  Chapter Twenty Two – A Dress and a Pen

  The woman happily stepped away from the desk and gave Jamthi the note.

  “Thank you,” he said to her, and she smiled in response.

  He quickly read it, and nodded. “Easily done,” he said.

  “He gives orders with paper? Even though you're right here?” the woman asked as she walked back to my desk.

  She didn't even look at me as she studied the stuff littering my desk, and wasn't abashed at all as she reached out and grabbed a set of pens.

  “Occasionally. This isn't so much an order, but a list of things he wants, however,” Jamthi said.

  “If he wants something, is it not then an order to get it?” she asked further, choosing one of the pens she found the most interesting.

  Studying it closely, I watched as she then grabbed a random piece of paper and went to scribbling upon it.

  I was half tempted to yell at her, but the paper she was doodling
on wasn't that important. Plus it was better for her to be so easily distracted, so I could do my job.

  “You could say that. But this is him we're talking about. Sometimes the things he wants are ridiculous, so it's best to just ignore his wants,” Jamthi said.

  “So that's why you're still here,” I grumbled.

  The woman looked up from her drawing, and I realized she had thought I had been speaking of her.

  “Pleased to annoy you,” Jamthi said, and she quickly understood my true meaning.

  Returning to drawing, she smiled as if amused by my cousin's personality.

  She must be sick in the head then.

  “I'll go get this done before they show up then. Be right back,” Jamthi said, standing from his seat.

  I waved him off, but he didn't leave right away. Instead he stepped up to the young woman, who was still focused on drawing, and he looked over her shoulder to see what she was doing.

  He studied it for a few moments, then smiled warmly and nodded. With a glance to me, he left the room.

  I was surrounded by idiots.

  “Is this a catalyst?” the woman asked, still focused on her drawing.

  “The pen? No,” I said.

  “How does it keep drawing then?” she asked.

  “There's ink inside it,” I explained.

  She paused, lifting the pen up to get a closer look at it. “I see. That's why it's so thick. What a brilliant idea,” she said.

  With a smile, she stopped drawing and turned her attention elsewhere. However she didn't put the pen back with the others, and instead had slid it into her right arm's glove.

  I would have been shocked by her blatant thievery, if not for the fact that she had done it without any hesitation and without even trying to hide it. She had done it in such a way as if it had been hers all along.

  Expecting her to pick one of the other small tools up on the desk, I was somewhat surprised when she instead rounded the desk a little to see the maps that laid to my right.

  She pushed the stacks of papers and books off the maps as to reveal them more, causing a book to fall onto the floor.

  Staring at the fallen book, I looked back to the woman and my eye twitched when she ignored it and ran her hands slowly along the map's surface.

  “Is this the world?” she softly asked, awe and wonder in her voice.

  With a sigh I reached down and grabbed the fallen book. Would she have been so careless with it if she had known how valuable it was?

  “Parts of it. That one is of the west, near my home,” I said, putting the book down on the other side of the desk to keep it from falling again.

  The young woman's eyes were ensorcelled by the map, and she drew closer to it. It was a sight I was used to, having shown such maps to many people over the years. Only a small handful of people in the world ever left the place of their birth, and even fewer ever saw such detailed and completed maps before.

  “How far away is this...?” she asked.

  Now that was a good question. I didn't need to look at the map to know where she was looking at, but I did have to ponder for a moment to calculate the distance. After all, we didn't come straight here from there... we had gone to several other places along the way, and even made a few detours.

  “About half a year, at the Front-Line's pace,” I said.

  She frowned, her eyes finally leaving the map as to glare at me.

  Her expression made it clear that she was not happy with my answer, so I shrugged. “Many thousands upon thousands of leagues. You could walk that direction for several lifetimes without stopping, yet never even get half way there,” I explained.

  Looking back to the map, she nodded in pleased understanding. If she truly comprehended such a distance however, was unknown to me.

  Few people could understand such things, after all. There were even people on this very Line that still couldn't comprehend just how far we traveled sometimes.

  “You've been to many places,” she stated.

  “Kind of the point of a Line,” I said.

  My supposed wife went silent, and brooded something for a long time before she finally looked away from the map and back at me. “Why deal with us then?” she asked.

  I blinked at her question, and was unsure on how to answer.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Why... why us? If you can go everywhere... anywhere... why here? Why trade with us, when the whole world is there?” she said, gesturing to the maps.

  “Ah. Good question. Many don't ever ask me, though usually it's out of shame or worry I'll suddenly decide not to or something,” I said, sitting back in my chair.

  “Must not have been that good of a question, since you didn't answer it,” she said back.

  Studying her, I wondered if it was just her personality... or if she felt she could speak such a way to me because of how Yevin and Jamthi had acted before her.

  “The goods given by your people may not be that valuable to you, but to others they are. Just like the goods I traded to your people are valuable to you, they are worthless to others in the world,” I explained.

  It was the most basic of business.

  “Still though... surely there are many others like us who you could trade with. Why us then?” she asked.

  “You don't know? I knew one of your ancestors. I made a deal with him, and part of that deal was to trade with you. I'm simply fulfilling my end of the contract,” I said.

  “Oh. I had heard you knew someone from our House, but I didn't know you had a debt with them,” she said, and she suddenly seemed calmer... as if to her it now all made sense.

  “Wouldn't say a debt, per say. Just an agreement.”

  Staring at her, I awaited the next question... and was kind of disappointed when it didn't come.

  She became lost in thought, staring at the maps before her. Her silence was what I preferred, yet for some reason it bothered me.

  Deciding to let her be, I went ahead and read some of the reports I had neglected thanks to the vote and this marriage sham. Most of it was routine, but I was pleased to find that the repairs were about done.

  It seemed the knowledge of the fortune we now possessed, and were currently acquiring more of, had put them all into good spirits.

  The door opened, without being knocked upon first, and Jamthi entered.

  “Oh? She's still alive. Good. Young lady will you please come here, we have something for you,” Jamthi said.

  She looked from my cousin to me, probably trying to decipher if he had been serious or not, then promptly gave up on figuring it out and went to him.

  “Go with them,” he guided, and I noticed Sarley and Kana in the hallway behind him.

  Without any hint of worry the young woman left my office, accompanying the women elsewhere.

  “Thank you,” I said to Jamthi as he entered the office and closed the door behind him.

  “Please. Of course I'd accommodate my cousin's wife. Though I'm a little surprised you asked for her to change clothes,” he said as he sat across from me.

  “That dress didn't fit her. She could barely walk,” I said, continuing over the reports.

  “So you did notice. Why didn't you slow down then? That had been rather rude,” he said.

  “Because I knew you'd handle it,” I said.

  “Such trust.”

  I sighed, putting the stack of reports down and glared at my cousin. His retorts had been without any of his usual humor, and brisk. Completely unnatural.

  “What?” I asked.

  He nodded, glad to be given permission to speak. “What are you planning? Why'd you let her in? This isn't like you.”

  “To finish the job. Unless you'd like to be the one to tell everyone we're not going to get any more treasure, because of your decision,” I said with a point.

  “I'd be dead within the hour if I told them that,” he groaned and shook his head.

  “Then what's the problem? Let her wander about, treat her like a
guest. We have guests all the time. A small price to pay for the riches we'll receive afterward,” I said.

  “That's it then? Is that the only reason?” he asked further.

  “What are you looking for, Jamthi? What do you want to hear from me?” I asked.

  “I want to hear why my cousin, a man of such principle and honor that he brought us out into this wild desert over a half-forgotten promise to a madman, is playing along with this farce,” he said plainly.

  “I just told you...”

  “And I heard you. Doesn't mean I believed you,” he said.

  His stern tone made me sigh, and I wondered why he became so uptight during moments like these.

  Leaning back in my chair, I relaxed and shrugged. “For you. For the Line. For my people. The same reasons I always have for anything I do,” I said.

  “That, I do believe. But I don't believe your methods. Why didn't you just force them? Why even bother playing along? Normally you wouldn't even have allowed such circumstances to come about. And that vote earlier? As much as I enjoyed that, and will forever remember it, don't you dare say that was acceptable. The Noth I know would never have allowed that to happen. At least not like that,” Jamthi said.

  My cousin spoke earnestly, and sincerely. He was concerned, not angry.

  Giving him a small smile, I nodded. “And that is why you're my quartermaster,” I said.

  He shifted in his seat, as if uncomfortable. “Is this why? Are you sure it's not because I'm just so good at the job? Flawless, even,” he said, returning to his typical humor.

  Glancing to the small, decrepit box near the edge of the desk... which had almost fallen off earlier thanks to the young woman's actions, I pointed at it.

  “I killed him,” I said.

  “Huh? Who?” Jamthi asked, suddenly serious again.

  “The madman. I was the one who killed him,” I explained, and it felt somewhat relieving to finally admit it... not just to another, but myself.

  Jamthi studied the broken box for awhile, and then looked back at me. “So... you feel obligated?” he asked, trying to understand.

  I shrugged, mostly since I wasn't really sure. “Maybe. I killed that man... a man who most likely would have returned here, back to his home. And who knows, maybe... just maybe, he would have done so with everything he and his people needed. Maybe the reason this city was about to collapse unto itself, forever lost to the sands that are burying it, is me. Not their own foolishness, not the Lines no longer coming... but me.”