Shifting Sands

by Fuad Baloch

  “Aye, mortal.”

  “You’re… you’re not dead?” Ruma said, feeling stupid, relieved, scared.

  “Hurry… mortal.”

  “Or what? The Shard is going to collapse?” Ruma forced a chuckle. “You come back after all these months, and that’s the first thing you say? One might accuse you of being on a constant loop!”

  The winds blew around her, the sands shifting and turning.

  “Answer me, god damn you!”

  Nothing.

  Ruma clicked her tongue. She didn't know why the damned being had kept quiet all this time. But hearing his voice filled her with a strange sense of relief. He was still there. The Shard was still there. She… she still had a way of going home.

  The relief surprised her. Once, the very idea of the First residing in her mind had both repulsed and terrified her. Hard to believe how close she had been to cracking open her skull to kill the Pithrean for what he had done to her. Now, the two of them were the last representatives of their worlds in one that needed neither of them.

  Her mood grew dark. He was no benefactor of hers. Whatever he wanted of her, she had to deny him. If he said day, she had to call it night. If he shouted duck, she had to leap.

  Curling her upper lip, she continued straight, willing her limbs to move quicker. Wind susurrated over the sands, the horizon directly ahead a sea of velvety black, broken here and there by cresting dunes. Thoughts swirled in her mind. Even if the First was alive, her stock hadn’t changed. Her challenges were just as many, her lot just as horrid.

  If she were to return to her campsite and continue on west from there, she’d be in Astrinor, deserted now that its citizens had fled. Was she wrong in resisting her generals in taking shelter within its empty houses? After all, even if she maintained her principled stand of not looting the poor, who would believe her anyway?

  That decision, too, didn't matter.

  If Brother Hadyan was wrong, and the promised horses didn't arrive, she would likely perish here in the Ghal even before the Traditionalists came looking for her. Why had she resisted Popoan anyway? Why hadn't she resisted the righteous anger of the priests and struck an unholy alliance with the Vanico when she had the chance? After all, ends justified means. Did they not?

  “What’s happened to me?” she murmured, slapping her thigh with an open palm. “Yaman, you’d struggle to recognise me.”

  It was as if someone had replaced her inner shell with one she didn't understand. All experiences of her past life as a smuggler clashed against this new person, leaving her raw for their altercation.

  A sob rocked her chest.

  “No!” she chided herself, smacking herself on the cheek, focusing her eyes on the darkness ahead.

  Through the gentle murmurs of the breeze, she heard the soft tap of feet behind her. Feet? Ruma wheeled around, slipping into a martial arts stance, one hand guarding her chest, the other’s fingers ready to ward off an attack. “Who’s out there? Show yourself!”

  “It’s me!” called out Yenita. Through the darkness, a figure shuffled forward, both hands raised as if to prove she carried no weapons.

  Ruma relaxed, letting her guard drop. “You’re spying on me now?”

  Yenita didn't reply immediately, coming to a stop a couple of paces from her. “I thought you could do with some company.” She hesitated, fidgeting with a lock of her hair that had come loose from underneath the veil she’d taken to wearing. “Tough day at the council today, I hear. Sorry, I would have been there had it not been for another of Sivan’s outbursts.”

  “Gareeb told you, then?”

  “Aye.”

  Ruma slapped her thigh. “That boy! I swear, his weakness for women will be his downfall.”

  “We’ve all got our blind spots.”

  Ruma blinked, taken aback by the unexpectedly profound answer from her. “Indeed, we all do.”

  Yenita shrugged, then waved a hand forward. “I could do with a walk, too. All this sitting around and doing nothing is extremely tiring.”

  Ruma broke into a meandering walk, Yenita keeping pace with her. “Maybe it’s not a terrible idea to slow down, considering—” She bit her tongue, then deciding not to share her fears of a traitor, continued, “We’ve got lots to think about.”

  Yenita pulled the shawl tight around her. “Surely we can’t just sit still. Once Popoan’s horses and camels arrive, we must continue our hard march to Irtiza. Any Traditionalists that we capture…” She exhaled loudly. “I know where you’re coming from, but all those who follow Yasmeen are no better than feral animals, and beasts like them belong in cages.”

  Ruma shook her head. “I’m better than her.”

  “You won’t reconsider, then?”

  Ruma squeezed her eyes shut, feeling weak in the knees, hating what she was going to say. “I’ve changed, Yenita. Whether I like it or not, I must do things right, for there are repercussions that go beyond today.”

  The younger girl grunted, but didn't belabour the point, something that sat just fine with Ruma. Both of them, two women out in the dark, miles from their campsite, fell in a companionable silence. The wind continued to murmur as they walked, neither warm nor too cold. One sand dune gave way to another, which in turn did the same—the never-ending cycle of sameness.

  “This business between Restam and Nodin continues to grow from bad to worse,” said Yenita after a while.

  “I know.”

  Yenita wrung her hands. “I was speaking with Gareeb and he reckons that neither man set patrols the night we were ambushed.”

  Ruma tilted her head. “Two swords can’t live in the same sheath,” she winced. “This can’t go on.”

  Again, they walked on in silence, seconds stretching to minutes.

  “I almost forgot, I’ve brought you something,” Yenita said after a while.

  “What?”

  The young girl stopped. Grinning mischievously, she reached into her robes. Ruma tensed, her instincts screaming at her to prepare for danger, but she forced her clenched fists to relax. “Wine!” Yenita announced, drawing out a bottle with a flourish. “The best remedy for two women out in the desert.” She giggled, and despite herself, Ruma laughed too.

  “Don’t you remember what happened the last time I was drunk?” asked Ruma, still smiling.

  Yenita shrugged. “Doubt lightning would strike a second time.” She spread her arms, grinning widely. “Besides, for that, you need rain, and look around. We’re in a desert!” She winked. “And even if it did rain, would we care, huh?” Curling her right hand fingers into a fist, she jabbed at the moon. “Bring it on, you heavenly monsters! I dare you!”

  Ruma laughed, feeling more tension leak away from her. “I must admit, I could do with some wine.” Her smile faded. “I haven't had a good few months.”

  “Nor I.” Yenita opened the bottle and raised it to her lips. After she’d taken a long sip, she withdrew the bottle, and offered it to her.

  Ruma hesitated for a second, then extended her hand. “What the frack!”

  The wine was warm, spiced in the way the Vanico empire preferred, laced with a fruity tang she couldn't quite put a finger on. She took a long gulp, then passed it back to Yenita.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said,” Yenita said in between swigs. “It is funny how it’s us women running the affairs of this damned world, even if it’s really these damned priests controlling it all from the shadows.”

  “Aye,” said Ruma, grabbing the bottle once more, this time conscious of how alone the two of them were. She hadn’t seen or heard anyone else for a while; maybe the guards had grown tired and left her alone like she’d asked. Shaking her head, she raised the bottle, swallowing more of the refreshing liquid, the warmth spreading through her body, her tensions dulling if not disappearing entirely.

  Passing the bottle to each other in turn, they continued to lumber ahead.

  “You know I fret sometimes?” said Ruma. “All men lose faith. I wonder when these me
n will.”

  “They won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Yenita stopped abruptly. Ruma did, too, pivoting to face her. “Because you… you have something the rest of us don’t. This…” Yenita spread her arms, shaking her head as if struggling to find the right words. “This confidence about you as if Alf has told you it’s going to be alright in the end.”

  “Well, I’ve always been good in keeping up appearances,” Ruma admitted. “But sooner or later, the mask fades away.”

  Yenita shrugged. “I trust you to do the right thing.”

  Simple words, but the sincerity with which the young girl had uttered them rattled something loose in Ruma’s chest. Her inhibitions already lowered, she felt a prickle of tears gathering in the corner of her eye. “You know nothing about me.”

  “Enough to know you’re the best hope we all have.”

  Ruma pursed her lips. A part of her flailed at the direction this conversation was going. Again, she was very aware of how both of them were beginning to slur their words. “You don’t know half the truth about me, or how it’s been eating away at me.”

  “Oh?” Yenita challenged. Placing her hands on her hips, she took a step backwards, her head cocked to the side. “And what’s this truth, then?”

  Ruma inhaled, forcing herself to turn away, to move this conversation away from the precipice. Secrets were only that when they weren’t shared. Yet, light as they were in the beginning, over time they gathered weight, immense and terrible, paradoxically becoming easier to let slip. “I…”

  Yenita watched her in silence, her features shrouded in darkness, her chest moving slowly. “Go on.”

  A sudden lightness came over Ruma. She’d had enough. The defeated, the dying were allowed to admit the truth. She exhaled, then looked the girl in the eyes. “I am not from your world,” she said, feeling an immense burden lifting off her shoulders. When Yenita opened her mouth, she waved her quiet. “I lied about being from the Northern Reaches. In truth, I—” She clamped her jaw shut, shame flooding her now that she had bared herself so.

  “What… do you mean?”

  Ruma took a half-step forward, her voice dropping to ensure it wouldn’t carry over the wind. “Promise me, whatever I say, it doesn't leave your lips.”

  Yenita nodded slowly.

  “I mean it. You can’t repeat this to anyone. Not even Sivan! Not ever!”

  “Not even to Sivan,” Yenita repeated, her voice growing cold.

  Ruma took a shuddering breath, feeling her final restraint stretch and break away. “I am from the future, Yenita.” She paused. “Eight hundred and thirteen years to be exact. I was born in this land you call Andussia, but in my time, it’s different enough to be… alien.”

  “You are from the…” Yenita said, her words slow, deliberate. “Future? What does it even mean?”

  Ruma exhaled, her thoughts growing cloudy. “I am from a time where humans have taken to space.” She pointed at the moons. “I have travelled beyond them, orbited the most far-flung star you can see with your naked eye, met… non-human beings who think and feel and talk.” She smiled sadly. “Even met beings who don't even have a soul.”

  Yenita stared at her, her jaw hanging loose.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “I…” Yenita blinked. “I don’t… even as I… do.” She licked her lips. “I don’t understand it, but my heart… believes you.”

  “Like I said, none of this gets out.”

  “Why?”

  “For it… will change the course of this world.” An answer that felt pretty hollow to her, but Yenita nodded slowly.

  “I see.”

  “I need to defeat Yasmeen for I’ve no doubt she’d triumph over the Vanico forces,” said Ruma.

  “What then?”

  “Then…” Ruma fell silent. She didn't have anything to look forward to before. But now she had an opportunity. “Then I get to return to my world.”

  “You wish to go back?”

  Something in the hurtful way Yenita asked the question arrested Ruma. “This is not my world. But, if it helps, it changes nothing about how I feel about those around me.”

  Yenita smiled. “You mean you hate the haughty Nodin and slimy Restam just as much you would have in your world?”

  Ruma laughed. “Just as much.”

  Yenita crossed her arms over her chest, still making no attempt to reduce the distance between them. “That’s how you’ve always known how to do things, isn’t it?” Ruma nodded, even as she could tell the girl’s mind was working in hyperdrive. “If you’re true and have travelled beyond these moons, surely you must know of ways we can defeat the Traditionalist scum?”

  “Yenita, this is not—”

  “I hate Yasmeen,” said Yenita, the iciness in her voice freezing Ruma’s blood. “Her men killed Father. He refused to pay the unjust tax her barbaric soldiers demanded, and they… and they just butchered him in front of our eyes.” Yenita stepped forwards. “Any edge we can get, we must seize.”

  “I cannot have men suspect where I am from.”

  Yenita turned her chin up, close enough that Ruma could see the determined look that marked the young Kapuri girl from her brother. “Even if the cost is my world?”

  Ruma exhaled. She had made a mistake. A secret, once released, birthed greater burdens. “Yenita, I—”

  “I… I need to go,” said Yenita, stepping back. “Things to do. Sivan has been harassing me since the morning. The fool is still planning the route for our next caravan. I’d better make sure he hasn’t gambled away our savings.” She spun around.

  “Don’t forget what I said,” Ruma called out.

  “You too.”

  Ten

  The Night of Power

  Even through the stupor of sleep, a part of her knew something wasn’t quite right. The world stitching into place before her wasn’t the same ephemeral one of dreams, but a different entity entirely.

  Slowly, grudgingly, the dark of a world she knew was made for her alone descended on her consciousness. A world constructed for her specifically so she could perceive a reality never meant for the likes of her.

  She chuckled, or whatever passed for that in this state. Who was she, a mere nobody from the slums of Egania, to have a whole world fashioned for her by one of the most powerful beings left in the entire fracking universe? Yet, here she was. As realisation spread of what was happening, instead of the usual fear and trepidation that would have visited her, all she felt was anxiety, accompanied by mounting impatience to see what she was being forced into.

  This was the world she had thought dead, but this was the proof the Pithrean was still alive.

  The Shard world spread around her, the infinity of stars twinkling as they did when one looked up at the night sky, but here they moved across her vision as if massive ships hurtling about the fabric of space-time. Ruma knew better, of course. This was an illusion in front of an illusion. These stars weren't real. Nor was the black that stretched all around her. All this was made up to equip her senses for getting an approximation of a Pithrean’s vision.

  The idea intrigued her, terrified her. What could the Pithrean see? How many hues and forms of radiations had he withheld from her? How many dimensions through which matter existed in multiple states that only he could perceive? She didn’t really care, though. Someone like Abgutar might have been curious. Had it been one of the scientists at Arkos instead of her, they might have devoted a lifetime trying to unlock the secrets of this existence, but all she cared for was the Shard—her way out.

  Where was it?

  No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than she was there. To her left, a direction that still made sense to her even if there was nothing out here to orient herself, was a grey blob rotating around its axes over and over.

  Ruma steeled herself. Instead of rushing to it, she surveyed the world around her, forcing her thoughts in order. This was the Pithrean’s world. A world where the fracking being was
a powerful god and she a spectator allowed to see mere projections of the real thing.

  “Why have you brought me here?” she demanded, her voice booming impossibly in the vacuum of space. “What other tricks have you still got left to play?”

  “I’m dying…”

  Ruma laughed, the bones of the universe shuddering in response. “All living things are dying every moment of their existence.”

  “Not an experience my kind shares with yours.”

  “Of course not. You are gods and we the ants,” she mocked, raising a finger, seeing nothing even as she felt the physical sensation of the act. “Yet, now you, too, are dying just like the rest of us. How does that make you feel, huh?”

  “Help me… help you.”

  Anger, unexpected and sharp, burst through her. “You fracking piece of shit and piss rolled into sheep intestine! You brought me to this miserable past. You tricked me, used me to have Bubraza killed. Heck, I blame you for getting me into this fracking Lady of the Sands business as well. After all that, you still demand favours from me?”

  “I am not—”

  “Yes, you are!” Ruma cut in, her voice booming through the cosmos. “Everything that happens, you know of it.” A seed of terror sprouted in her gut, fear of the immense difference between the two of them. “You’re like… like Alf almost, aware of the ant that moves in the dark of night in the remotest of deserts.”

  Long moments passed, Ruma’s words bouncing against the stars and galaxies, reverberating, echoing, going unanswered. “A god…” she whispered.

  She didn’t approach the Shard. The Pithrean kept quiet. He didn't need to say much, it seemed. Having brought her here, letting her see the damned thing she could approach and return to her world, was temptation enough. The sweet lolly had been hidden from the impatient child, and now was being dangled in front.

  “My job isn’t done yet,” she said, the words not sounding like something she should have said. “I’ve still got lots to do.”

  “Men and women of your race have always complained so,” said the First of Pithrean. “Whenever death approaches, all they want are a few more wretched moments of existence to waste on trifling affairs.”