She put up a slim hand. "Why am I here, Zaalmage?"
"We think the Peermage was developing a weapon. A Weapon, like theirs."
She held her face still. "We had a Weapon to use against the humans?" she asked.
It was not surprising she hadn't known. Her father, in his wisdom, had told her nothing of his plans, explained nothing of statecraft, taught nothing she might ever need to fall back on—should the unthinkable happen.
Thank you, Daddy, for sending me to all those lovely parties, she thought.
"We... yes. That is what it appears to be. We have the translations of substance and translations of word. We have the records of small tests. It is transformative in nature rather than destructive, but it would be a very powerful weapon indeed."
She sat and considered this for a moment. "It would be? Does it exist or not?"
The mages shared another glance. One nodded and the Zaalmage continued. "It is not complete. There are certain ingredients we no longer have... access to."
"Such as?" she asked.
"Blood, Madam."
She snorted a laugh. "Certainly we have plenty of that, right here among us."
Another glance. More shifting about. "Human blood, Madam. We can almost smell it."
She nodded. Don't move, baby, don't make a noise. With her heel, she pushed the basket further under her chair, suddenly sure what the price of her magic was going to be. "I can see where that might present a problem," she said. "If one were to come across such a luxury item, what then?"
The Zaalmage brightened. "Well, it's very interesting, the way it’s written. We think they were still experimenting. A little blood, now, that might work if the Door was already open. We already know that even a small amount of human blood, a drop or two, along with the right words, might create a crack wide enough for a person to slip through. Well, we have neither the blood nor the words, but the Peermage did write of such a thing. But, it appears that if one could somehow procure a whole human person's worth of blood, well, that'll blow the Door apart and leave the path swept clear to transform everything on the other side into whatever we wish. We would be free to remake that world. Or unmake it. If we could only find a source for even a small amount, we could continue their experiments and eventually this weapon would be ours to use. That is to say, yours to use."
Hellne rose to her feet. "Zaalmage, the city thanks you for your work. No one knows better than I how it feels to have the weight of expectations on your shoulders. And I personally thank you for telling me about this fascinating discovery."
She let the Zaalmage bask in the glow for a moment.
"But," she said, "we have greater needs than a theoretical weapon we have no way to deploy or even complete. Set it aside." The Zaalmage looked genuinely shocked. His colleagues rustled. She could hear the agitation in their whistling breaths. "We rely on you for so much, please do not exhaust yourselves in the pursuit of something that can no longer help us. I bid you instead, concentrate on the creation of daily needs and wants, to make life in Eriis more like it was. Think how grateful we were to learn how to cool ourselves. Perhaps you can cool the air as well."
"But, Your Grace..."
"As to this other... project... my mind is set. Please do call on me again soon, Zaalmage, I find your work so very interesting."
She picked up the basket, and made her way towards the open doorway.
The Zaalmage followed after her, sniffing, a strange expression on his face. He shook his head as if to clear it and said, "Madam, please give our matter further thought. For the sake of our departed Peermage and the King, if nothing else."
She turned, holding the edge of the blanket down with her free hand.
"Yes, my father and the Peermages are gone, as you remind us. You might recall that I was there when my father left us. The second worst day of my life and a tragedy for the realm, so close on the heels of the greatest tragedy of our lives. So I thank you for bringing it up."
The Zaalmage looked properly mortified, but wasn't ready to drop his case. She cut him off before he could apologize again.
"Now let me remind you that there is a city full of people who are eating and drinking sand. I have heard some of them are catching jumpmice in the fields and cooking them with the very heat of their hands. Sand and rats, gentlemen. Think about that and tell me what you think you ought to be doing down here. I wish to hear nothing further about your imaginary weapon. If I change my mind I will certainly consult you. Good day."
The Zaalmage and his colleagues slunk back to console each other, and she was out the door and heading back to the light of the city above.
After a climb that seemingly went on for a day, she turned a corner and rested for a moment in the stairwell. She drew a breath, weak with relief. Her debt, it seemed, had not come due. Perhaps it had died with its maker.
The baby's tiny fist stuck out from beneath the blanket, and she let it grab her finger.
They must never, ever know the truth about you.
***
Back in her own quarters, Hellne set the basket in the corner and lit the glowing stone lamps. She opened the heavy silk drapery—the night air tended to be clearer of the ever present dust—and tossed the daytime quilt, along with its drift of grit, onto the floor. With the clean, evening sheets exposed, she set the baby in the center of her bed. (It had already rolled off the edge once, and she prided herself in her rapidly improving maternal skills.) She walked back and forth around her room, pulling the pins from her hair, thinking, thinking.
What had Malloy said? This is the key. I've made it for you. This is the key.
Of course, he might have been lying, that was one of the human's favorite pastimes after all. He might have been laughing at her all along. But if there was even a chance he was telling the truth, well, what had that filthy Mage said? A bit of blood and the right words? She hadn't known that either, and he’d said it as if it were common knowledge. There was so much she didn't know.
But one thing she did understand was the value of putting a little something aside for the future.
She took a needle from her sewing kit (one couldn't simply transform old clothes into new ones, it claimed too much energy, and besides, new clothing—really any newly transformed thing—was now considered quite vulgar. Bright colors, new things, all were part of the past) and set it aside. Next, she went to her desk and pulled the bottom drawer all the way out. It fell to the floor and she pushed it aside. She reached inside and felt around the bottom of the next drawer up. That was where she'd hidden Malloy's book.
She unwrapped it and put it on the bed next to the baby. Then she took her needle in one hand and one of the child's tiny fingers in the other.
"I won't take much and you won't miss it," she told him. "I promise I'll take a lot less than those hooded freaks downstairs. Ugh, I can't believe I brought you there. Hellne, get yourself a maid."
For his part, the baby laughed and tried to grab her hair.
She stabbed his finger. His face was a picture of surprise, and then it screwed itself up into a howl.
She looked at him curiously. "You felt that?"
She hadn't expected that, but perhaps she should have. His father, she recalled, was as delicate as a new flower. She looked at his tiny hand, at the bead of blood welling, and frowned—it was just a little needle, after all. She stabbed her own finger and felt nothing more than a slight warmth. Well, maybe the child was just startled.
Do babies startle?
She held the little finger over the back page of the book, where Malloy had made some sort of human looking scrawl. Blood made the ink run for just a second, and then it righted itself, unsmearing before her eyes. More human magic, they were just so fond of their words.
She held the book at arm’s length. Would a crack in The Door open here in her room?
She waited. Nothing.
"Well, not today, then. Still, I imagine this might be useful later. Maybe one day you'll figure this out and g
o visit your father. Won't that be exciting?"
She set the book aside and blotted the baby's finger.
"See? You're fine."
The baby had stopped crying and was back to gazing at her with its big, red, and round eyes. It was unnerving, the way it watched her. Normal babies had tilted eyes and a subtle gaze, never resting on anything for very long, a habit that carried them into adulthood. This child was so direct, the only one who had ever stared at her like that, she suddenly recalled, was a hunting hawk she'd had as a girl. A gift from her father from the human world. The bird's eyes were amber, not red, but perfectly round, and it held her gaze just this way. Watching her, taking the measure of her, silent and constant.
"Rhuun," she said, remembering. "My hawk's name was Rhuun. He was my weapon. He would fly so far I couldn't even see him at all, but he always came back to me."
The baby looked up at her as if he were listening.
"Will you be my weapon, Rhuun?"
The child gurgled and tried to catch her finger again, his tears forgotten.
"You have quite a good grip for someone so small," she told him. "Perhaps we'll have a little Naming party for you after all. Let all those gossips get a good look at you. 'Eriis is his father', I'll tell them. 'He belongs to the city and to me.’"
She picked him up, a bit awkwardly. He grabbed a handful of her long, black hair and stuffed it in his mouth. She laughed.
For the first time, she could look at him and see something other than Malloy's face looking back at her.
"I made you," she said, "and you'll always come back to me."
She sat back on her bed and watched the low clouds whip past her window and held him until long after he'd fallen asleep.
Chapter 6
Gwenyth ran her fingers over the silken gowns.
"Your hands had best be clean," the Duke said sharply. Why must he ruin everything? she wondered.
"And you won't be wearing any of that lot unless I'm showing you off at dinner." He slammed the cabinet shut. "Cotton and wool, that's good enough for you. That fancy stuff is only for ladies."
-The Claiming of the Duke, pg 70
Malloy Dos Capeheart, Little Gorda Press (out of print)
Mistra
9 months after the War of the Door, Mistran calendar
Almost 2 months later, Eriisai calendar
The Guardhouse
If Brother Blue had been an indifferent assistant he was a model novice. New name, he told himself, clean new life. He’d even overheard his old master, the ambassador, admit to his new master, the head cleric, a few months in the dark and a few sessions with the lash had turned him around. He never spoke of his so-called writing career anymore, and was only interested in studying the history of the Order and perfecting the charms that kept The Door shut. He’d always been good with words, he, as the demons might have said, manifested towards the word. It was even hoped that one day he might go on to teach the next generation of Fifths the vital mission they were entrusted with.
"After all," concluded the ambassador, "he is clever, even if he's easily swayed. Keep a close eye, he should be fine. We all make mistakes."
They had given Blue a choice, the cleric and the ambassador: serve the head cleric and take the vows of a novice, or go back to his father and the farm and get behind a plow. He'd taken his vows immediately and ceded the money he'd earned from his book to the upkeep of the Guardhouse. He didn't need money. He only needed to keep The Door shut, because if it opened, something terrible would happen. He saw it in his dreams, The Door opened, and blood and death came for him wearing her face. Those were bad nights.
Blue had been handed from the ambassador to the head cleric, and the transition, once Blue applied himself to his new task, was a smooth one. He was serving the cleric his tea and biscuits as he did every morning, just as the light came in through the twin round windows. He'd been serving the cleric for three months, and was grateful for the quiet in his mind. The dreams still came, but not as often. Sometimes only once a night, now.
The cleric was entertaining a merchant from the city that day, who was neither quiet nor grateful. A silk merchant, who'd done tremendous trade with Eriis, and had not been informed about recent events.
As he set the tea service aside and began to clean, Blue tried not to listen. Angry voices made him tense, but whatever it was, it surely had nothing to do with him. Concentrate on your broom, and the floor under your broom.
va'Everly raged, "Do you have any idea what this is going to cost me? And not just this season? How could you fools do something so... so... foolish?" His fair skin was blotched and he'd pushed his dark blond hair all over his head. He got up and paced around. "What am I supposed to do with the warehouse full of orders already filled? I've paid the workers and dyers and weavers—I've even paid the damn couriers! Now the red eyes can’t pay me for the goods!"
The cleric templed his fingers. "First of all, I am sorry for our little miscommunication. But just because the Guardhouse made a convenient port does not make it your property. We were not beholden to share our plans with you." va'Everly looked like he was about to strangle the cleric with his hands, when the older man said, "Insurance."
"I beg your pardon?" va'Everly stopped his pacing.
"I assume you have insurance when you send a ship full of your lovely silks to the Southern Provinces?"
"Well, certainly. Only a fool trusts the weather. Or a ship captain. What's your point?"
The cleric smiled. "We are prepared to pay out the insured cost of this year's loss to your family's company. As if the ship, as it were, had gone down."
va'Everly considered this. "We insure heavily," he said. "Our products are not crates of pigs or tables and chairs. Luxury items, you know. Delicate. Expensive."
The cleric shrugged. "Details. We have insurance of our own, of course. And all we ask in return is that you keep the details of this transaction private." This wasn’t the first time the cleric had to console a merchant. Blue had been present for similar recent conversations regarding boxes of pigs, tables and chairs, along with wood, linen, silver, household wares, and every kind of food and drink under the moons. This silk seller was just one more. The cleric was an excellent book keeper and made sure his premiums were up to date. He knew a day like this would come, he’d told Blue. It was expensive, but what was that against saving Mistra? He'd just raise the endowments for the next generation of Fifths.
Blue didn’t mind hearing about money, but he hated when his master talked about the other place.
va'Everly laughed. "I keep all my transactions private. So that takes the sting out of this season. But those nasty little creatures over there were good customers. What else have you got in mind?"
"We thought you might be interested in an experiment," the cleric said. "I know the va'Everlys have not been blessed with a Fifth in quite a long time. However, I understand you have a Third at home."
A Fifth, thought Blue, was the very best thing you could be. A child born fifth was always promised to the Order, while he, a Fourth, only arrived here after a long trip through the dark.
"A Third, yes, a spare" agreed va'Everly, who had calmed considerably. He sat back down across from the cleric, smoothing his gorgeous peacock-blue silk tie. The shade was famous, it was called Ever Blue. "My First is already sitting in on meetings, a shame she missed this one."
"Why not send your Third here to serve as a Fifth?" The merchant frowned, not wanting to appear too eager. "There's more." The cleric reached under his desk.
"I'm listening."
So was Blue, who forced himself to continue to sweep the hearth. Hearing about the other place made his heart race, but he couldn't turn away.
"Before we sealed The Door against those villains, we procured some very special toys. Well, they were toys to the demons, they aren't to us." The cleric pulled up a leather strapped metal box and opened it, revealing what appeared to be baby socks tied with ribbons. "These are called chlystrons,
" the cleric said, "and they are used by demon children to bring along their evil gifts. We are hoping they'll do something similar here, bringing good gifts to good human children." He paused, frowning. "We haven't had much luck with adults. It does something to the mind. The brave volunteers will receive excellent care." He brightened. "We've had interesting results with children though. The things they have in their minds. We haven't had one break through to transformative magic, but we feel it is only a matter of time. How would you like your Third to be the one that has magic? A va'Everly, gifted with the power of the hand. Think about that. Oh, and we'll waive the fees, of course." Blue wondered why the cleric neglected to mention that the things the children had in their minds usually were alive, and had teeth. There had been several unfortunate incidents.
va'Everly poked one. "What are they, full of sand or something? What do you do with them?"
"Hold them in your hand and thus manifest." The cleric and the merchant looked over at Blue, who stared at the chlystrons with wide, blank eyes. "My Princess had her own, given to her by the King himself, in a special box on her mantle."
The cleric rose to his feet, ringing for assistance.
***
Blue spent another few weeks in his cell before his mind was quiet again. The chlystrons produced nothing but monsters and madness, and within a few months all the children had either been buried or sent home, and the experiment was deemed a failure. It was decided the minds of the demons were so depraved a proper human brain couldn't conceive or control their dark gifts. All efforts to learn or acquire the power of the hand were halted. Instead, the Guardhouse turned its attention to a different kind of magic—the kind that erases an entire race of people from the history books. Demons moved onto the pages of the same volumes that held dragons and unicorns—mythology and fairy tales. It was surprisingly easy. Only a few humans had ever seen a demon in person, and after a few seasons, Eriis and the demons became a metaphor for the worst of human behavior, and The Door, the gateway to Hell. And with the passage of time, the Guardhouse remained, the Order remained, but as to what was behind The Door they held shut? No one remembered.
The Sand Prince Page 4