The Sand Prince

by Kim Alexander

  "What do you eat?" asked Lelet, thinking of burning orchards.

  "Well, we can transform things, and as I said, we have plenty of sand."

  She was aghast. "You eat sand?"

  "No, by the time we eat it, its bread or meat or water." He paused and looked at the forest around them, cool and quiet. "It was normal to me. It was just what we did." He threw a twig at the stones. "Well, that's not really true. I always wanted something else. It never seemed like enough."

  "So our world attacked yours somehow and you've been locked away over there eating sand and broiling for a hundred years." She frowned. "Why don't you hate me? Aren't I your enemy?"

  Again, he was slow to answer.

  "From what I am told, the human persons, most of them, had never seen one of us and didn’t know much about The Door, or that there was a war at all. And that certainly seems to be true. You think we are mythological. You still don't think I'm real, not completely." She shrugged uncomfortably, having been thinking exactly that. "Our enemies were those who built the Weapon." Then he looked to her as if he wanted to say something, but couldn’t get the words out. With a dark look, he gave up. Instead of whatever he’d been trying to say, he continued with, "If I was to hate something it would be The Door itself, keeping me—us—locked away, as you said. It’s the locked away part, most of all. I knew there was something else. I always knew." He ran his hands through his hair. "I just didn't think it would be so difficult."

  She spoke suddenly, half singing.

  "The Quarter Moons for us to see

  Keep us safe and keep us free

  So lock your Door and hide the key

  Lest evil come to you and me

  "That's the song; that's the song we sing at the Quarter Moons party. It’s about you, isn't it? I never knew what it meant, I never even thought about it. That was the party I was going to, when you, um, when we met. It’s our biggest party of the year. We celebrate our safety. And I think when the song says 'evil', I think I remember when I was little, it originally said, 'lest demons come.'" She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. "This is a true story, isn't it?" she asked. "You really are from somewhere else and you really are seeing this all for the first time." Despite his strangeness and his odd eyes, she had just in that moment really considered the fact that he might be telling the truth, and this wasn't some elaborate joke. Maybe the trick with the rocks wasn’t a trick at all.

  "Yes," he nodded, "it’s really true. I wanted to come here. I've wanted it for a very long time. But nothing is like I thought it would be. It's so loud, here. And everything is a different color. It’s not that I'm sorry I came, I just...."

  "Have you been by yourself the whole time?" She could scarcely think of a worse fate.

  Again his mouth worked but nothing came out. He sighed and finally said, "Yes."

  "Well," said Lelet, "maybe you just need a tour guide."

  He smiled—or at least it might have been a smile. "Are you volunteering? Aren't you worried I'll, um, cut off your feet?"

  Lelet had decided the demon wasn't going to hurt her, and after accepting Moth was probably—hopefully—what he claimed to be, she was forced to upgrade the whole thing from elaborate joke to bizarre prank, still most likely engineered by Rane. How he'd procured someone as exotic as a demon was a mystery, but he'd be too proud of himself not to tell her. This was going to be an adventure after all. She should thank her mad brother—an adventure was just what she'd wanted. This was going to be better than pirates.

  "No," she said, "I've changed my mind. I think if you were going to do something awful it would have happened already. Now, that... is... a... tree." She spoke the last part very slowly and pointed up.

  "Lelet," he said with a genuine smile, "I do know what a tree is."

  "Well fine, we'll start tomorrow when it’s light with bushes and shrubs—possibly a squirrel." She threw a pebble into the stones, wanting to see if it would catch. It didn’t. "Until then, tell me what your home is like. Is it nice? Do you miss it?"

  "It’s the same." She looked puzzled. "Not the same as here. I mean, it’s the same as itself. It’s not confusing or sharp or bright. There are so many things to look at here, it’s hard to see. I've never seen so many colors. It’s so hard to know what to do when everything is always changing."

  "Why are you here? If The Door is sealed, how did you even get here?" She watched him struggle to answer.

  "It's a long story. There was a book..." he shook his head. "I made a mistake. I thought I was answering someone's call, but someone else was calling me. I got caught on this side. And then I made a promise."

  "I am the promise," Lelet said.

  He looked at the ground. "I just want to go home. This is not what I thought it was going to be. I don't belong here. I won’t hurt you, you know that now? I will keep you safe but I have to deliver you." There was a pause. "I can try and show you how to light the rocks, if you’d like."

  "Oh, fun. It can be my last act before I’m sliced open like a trout. My executioners will laugh and clap."

  He stood and walked into the dark forest. She watched him leave.

  You didn't have to say that. She was annoyed with herself and could clearly hear May's voice in her head. You don't always have to be clever. Be nice to him when he comes back.

  That he might not come back never occurred to her.

  Just when she was starting to wonder if she ought to call after him, she heard the tinkle of glass, as if someone had thrown a bottle against a tree, and he stepped out of the shadowed woods and rejoined her at the glowing rocks.

  "I would like to learn about the rocks," she said politely, "If you think you can teach me. I suppose there’s a chance I won’t be strung up or filleted."

  "Well, fine. How much Basic Principle do you know?" She looked blank. "The Order of Sameness? Transformation? It’s the basis for all magic."

  "There is no magic here," she said. Then she looked at the warm stones and his eyes, and wondered.

  "Everything is the same. That’s all you really need to know. These rocks are the same as the trees, and both of them are the same as light and warmth. The magic part is reminding the rocks that they’re made of light. I think... I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m a very good teacher. I’m not very good at these things to begin with."

  "You did this," she said, holding her hands over the warm stones. "You must be good at it."

  "Well, anyone can do this. Every child can do this. Making heat is the simplest thing of all, maybe because we already have so much of it. We all have some abilities we just start out with. And some are better than others. I’m really not good at it at all. Actually, a bit the opposite." For a moment he seemed not to remember she was there, he was seeing someone else. He shook his head and the moment passed. He brightened and said, "Like, with your people. Some of you are good at that thing where you move your hands and it makes a nice noise." He made a vague strumming motion. "What is that thing called? That they use?"

  "A dog," she said, pressing her lips together.

  He frowned. "No, I don’t think that’s it. It sits on your lap and noise comes out. It’s brown."

  "I am certain it’s a dog," she said.

  He looked up at her, his eyes brighter than the glowing stones. "You are making fun of me."

  "Your eyes are so beautiful." She gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth.

  He walked back into the woods without a word.

  May's voice asked, Was that your idea of being nice? Mocking him? Look where that foolishness got you with Rane. And then giving him a compliment, as if that should make it all better.

  And in her head, she answered. Oh, come on. That just slipped out, about his eyes. And the other thing—that was just a joke. And the way he acted like he didn't know what music was!

  May said, What if he is telling the truth? He can't be this exotic creature and also be another version of Billah you just met at a party. Pick one, Lelet. And you might as
well give up on flirting. That was tragic.

  She had to admit, this hadn't gone the way conversations with men usually went. In her experience, they flattered and laughed and flirted back, they didn't barely glance at you and then take offense at everything you said. She'd been nice to him, albeit accidentally—why had he looked so hurt?

  Eventually she wiped her eyes with the hem of the blanket and lit her last cigarette with a shaking hand. She whispered, "It’s a harp, Moth. It’s called a harp."

  This time he didn’t come back until morning.

  Chapter 53

  Billy Beesley wrung his now shapeless hat between his hands. "I don't know nuffink about no jewels, Guv'nor." He pointed at his sister, who was mirroring his actions with her spotless apron. "I was wif' Betty an' the family all night. You can't pin this one on me."

  -The Claiming of the Duke, pg 75

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

  Mistra

  100 years after the War of the Door, Mistran calendar

  20 years later, Eriisai calendar

  Road through the Great Forest

  They settled into an uncomfortable silence after a short breakfast.

  Lelet handed Moth the last of the bread and took the apple for herself. They split the rind of the cheese.

  "There's no more," she said. "What should we do?"

  He shrugged. "Get where we are going faster, would be a suggestion." He was determined to not engage in any more witless chatter with her. Dogs, eyes: maybe the horrible child was right about her sister. In fact, maybe all the humans were petty and mean. Even May had said something insulting. He had yet to meet one that wasn't deficient in some way.

  Quietly (for once) she did things with the leather horse straps and the cart, and handed him the leads. Instead of climbing into the back, she sat up front, next to him. She looked away into the forest pretending to watch the birds. Other than the horse itself, they saw nothing bigger than a squirrel. And why couldn't he stop looking at her? The back of her neck was long and very pretty, so what? The back of the horse was also pretty. In a different way. He trained his eyes on the animal's rump.

  Finally she said, "Harps." What was she going on about now? Well, it didn't matter. He wasn't going to be drawn into some new and ultimately insulting conversation. She could just sit there.

  "And what are harps?" he asked. I must have lost my wits along with my real name.

  "What we were talking about. Last night. The people who make the nice noise... Well, that noise is called music. And the things you were describing are harps. They do make a very nice noise, you're right. Um, so you liked the music?" She had turned to face him. Her eyes were grey, not properly red, but other than that She looks like me. In a way. Is that what I look like? It made him feel very strange, like he was shifting inside, like he was gazing into a warped mirror, and he looked away.

  He said, "We don't have anything like that back home. The closest thing I can think of is the noise a sandstorm makes when it moves through the city. It almost sounds as if it’s alive. It can be beautiful—but it's wild. It belongs to itself. This... music?" She nodded. "Music. It belongs to the people making it."

  She watched him intently. "Not the people listening? Or the person who wrote it?"

  "No. The ones who create the sounds are the ones who control it." He had been thinking a lot recently about having—and losing—control.

  "I never thought of music like that before," she said. "I guess I thought it was sort of there for the taking."

  "Well," he said, "it’s nice that you have that luxury. Things 'just sort of there' for you to take." When she didn't answer, he was at first satisfied that he'd made a point. For a moment it was wonderfully quiet. Then he heard a tiny sniffle.

  "Oh, rushta, please don't do that. I'm sorry. I shouldn't comment, I don't know what your life is like. Really, please stop that."

  She turned her back and used the sleeve of her dress to dab her eyes. "I don't know why you're being so awful. I tried to apologize. After all, I'm the one who had to sleep in the woods last night. By myself! With the... bears." She turned to face him again. Tears glittered in her lashes. "I promise I won't make any more comments about your eyes or any other part of you being attractive."

  I used to be able to have a conversation without feeling like I was falling down a hill, he thought. "I won't leave you alone with the bears," he promised. "I'll take care of you until we get... where we are going." He decided to abandon his efforts to emulate the Duke, since she responded not with wide-eyed admiration or even respectful silence, but something closer to contempt. Maybe arrogance wasn’t as easy to slip into as a pair of boots. He was beginning to wonder what else his book had gotten wrong.

  She was looking over his shoulder, her tears and their argument forgotten. "Stop the cart," she said. "And look at that. Oh, let me." She took the leads and they pulled to a halt at the foot of a dirt road that ran a quarter mile or so up to a little house. Plowed fields rose into the low hills behind it. It was the first intact structure they'd seen. She wondered why anyone would put their house in such an isolated place.

  "I don't think anyone's home," she said. "There are no animals about, and there's no smoke from the chimney. Want to go look at it?"

  "Absolutely not." She jumped down, yipping as she tried to avoid stepping on sharp stones, and set off up the road.

  Rushta. Again. Where's my hat?

  "What if the horse wanders off?" he called in what he hoped was something like a whisper.

  She loud-whispered back over her shoulder. "Tie it to a tree, of course. And keep your voice down! We have the element of surprise! And get the bag out of the back!"

  "Wait!" He hurried after her.

  "Ow—what?" She stood on one foot, using his arm to balance, as she brushed pebbles out from between her toes.

  "Um, are you trying to escape?" He handed her the bag.

  She laughed. "No, I am not out to ruin your and Rane's grand plan. You'd get into a world of trouble if I ran off, I bet." He agreed that would be the case. "I don't want to escape. I want lunch." She eyed the property. "Come on, let's go around the side and sneak up. The grass is better to walk on, anyway."

  He decided he liked adventurous Lelet better than sarcastic, or—Light and Wind forbid—crying Lelet, so he followed her off the road to a cluster of gnarled old trees and shaggy bushes. They could see into one large main room. The windows were small and the glass was hazy but it appeared she was right, there was no one home.

  "I'm going first," he told her. "No, there is no argument. Stay here. If there's really no one there, you can burgle to your heart's content." She grudgingly agreed and he set off across the lawn, feeling very exposed. When he reached the rear of the house, he looked back.

  "Watch this," he said, and stepping onto the shadowed back porch, disappeared. He was gratified to hear her gasp and see the delight on her face. Hanging on a hook from the rafters was some sort of small animal, skinned and on a stick, probably waiting for the evening's stew. Not too different from taking shoes and hairbrushes. He grabbed it and stepped into the sunlight, watching her face as he reappeared. He made his way back to where she still knelt in the bushes.

  "Can we eat this, do you think?" he asked, trying to sound casual.

  "You vanished! That was brilliant! How does it work?"

  "I can use shadows to be invisible. I told you, my people have different abilities, and even then some are much more gifted than others. My best friend, he has the real talent. He's a Mage now, and they only take the smartest." At her confused look, he added, "Mages work the talents of the word. That did not clear anything up. Sorry. Let's just say he's really clever. And my other... someone else I know, you should see him fly. He's so good, people line up to see his matches. And then another friend, well, she can barely lift herself across the street. But she can change her face, it’s amazing to see. Me, well, you've seen just about everything I can do."

  He knew
she probably had no idea what he was talking about, but it felt good to talk about his friends. It felt good to talk to anyone at all. And she did catch one thing. "Wait, fly? Your friends have wings? How gorgeous!"

  "No, you can't see them most of the time. They just sort of jump straight up, and their wings open. And you fly away. But I don't have wings. But my friend—the talented one—he doesn't need wings anyway. He can just appear anywhere he likes. He'd have just popped himself into the house and out again while we were standing here talking. And he'd have made friends with the neighbors and gotten us all invited to dinner, which he would have cooked himself."

  "You miss him."

  "I miss a lot of things," he agreed. She nodded and played with the leather thong holding the bag shut.

  "I don't know how Rane's keeping you here or what sort of bargain you've made, but I won't keep you from going home, if that's what you want to do." Before he could respond, (and how could he respond? She had so many things right, and so many things wrong) she set off for the front of the little house. "I can't vanish, so I hope no one's here!"

  He watched her rooting around in a box on the porch and stuffing things in the bag. He hoped she found something good, maybe baby lamb chops? Then she did vanish—the front door was open. He began to feel uncomfortable and finally decided to get her out of there when something moved in the forest behind him. It wasn't a squirrel. A bear? He figured it was a good time to get back on the road and followed her to the front door. He leaned in and was about to hiss for her to follow him back to the cart, but almost crashed into her on her way out.

  He didn't want to scare her so he didn't run back to the cart, but didn't linger at the little house, either. She hurried to match his long strides, but once on the stone path, she told him to slow down because her feet were being massacred. He picked her up and carried her back to the cart. She closed her eyes and said she was pretending she was flying.