Sisters of the Sands: Book 1 of the Acolytes series

by James Villinger

  As I pulled away from the work area, I glanced back at Toroi and the other men. They were silent and stone-faced. I rounded the track’s first corner and they were out of sight. I was alone.

  The cliff path was narrow. Luckily, the cart hovered over any loose stones and particularly narrow ledges. So as long as I didn’t slip off the cart’s footrest, I would be fine, but if I fell, the drop would surely kill me.

  The expansive view of the cavern below was impressive, and scarily high. There were thousands of workers, each carving up the ground without speaking.

  The guards patrolled along the many catwalks overhead, occasionally eyeing me with contempt. Most didn’t pay much attention to me, perhaps because I was a kid.

  One was staring at me as I rolled on passed. My arms were shaking. I focused on the cart’s controls, like a good little male.

  The path wound around the side of the cliff. It would eventually lead to a dumping area for all the carts. I could hear footsteps above on yet another catwalk.

  “Come on, Iya. Just put me down. If any of them see, we can kill them,” I heard a low, booming voice say from above.

  “Iya?” I whispered to myself.

  I pressed a red button on the control panel and stopped the cart; I didn’t think they knew I was underneath them. Iya, I’ve heard that name before. She was that Acolyte girl who helped capture my sister and I.

  “Relax, we’re almost at your cell,” a younger voice said. It must have been her.

  “How long am I expected to stay in it? It seems like a waste of my time. I’d rather torture that portal girl a little longer,” the man said.

  The voices passed over me, and were getting farther away. I had to hear what this was about, but the only way I could follow was if I was on the catwalk with them. If I jumped from the very top of the cart, the underside of the catwalk might just be within reach.

  My arms were still shaking. What if I was caught? Would they torture me? Whip me? Maybe I could sneak up there and then sneak back? So long as no one saw me.

  I clambered up the steel frame and looked up. I took a deep breath, then sprinted along the top of the cart, before leaping and grabbing onto the catwalk’s support bars.

  “You could be in there for a while. We haven’t contacted Overwatch, yet,” a different, feminine voice said. “We could stage a prison break for you?”

  As nimbly as I could, I swung from bar to bar, getting closer to the edge of the catwalk, before grabbing onto the ledge and pulling myself up and over the rail.

  Then I saw them, they were walking away from me. Iya had one hand in front of her eye in a pinching shape, like she had done to Sacet. The enormous man, fists as big as boulders, was hanging in the air in front of her. There were two more women I didn’t recognise escorting him.

  If I was quiet enough I could hear the rest of their conversation and be back before anyone knew. I tiptoed with stealth along the metal catwalk and followed them around the path.

  “The Commander wouldn’t risk something like a successful prison break,” the big man said, his voice growing more distant. “It would probably inspire hope in some of these losers.”

  “Speaking of losers,” Iya began, “those other Acolytes of yours nearly screwed up everything. They weren’t supposed to be in those positions. If they had of killed Sacet early …”

  The man laughed. “What do you expect? They’re pawns; sometimes they go off script.”

  The path turned a slight corner around the cliff face before leading to a section of the mines the prisoners wouldn’t have ever seen before, for it was only accessible from the catwalks. Should I turn back? I steadied my shaking arms. No, I had to find out what happened to my sister.

  There were large stones jutting out from the sides of the path along the catwalk, so I raced over to the nearest one and peered over it. Their group had stopped in front of a large metal door.

  One of the girls escorting them had long golden hair and was really pretty.

  Iya lowered her hand and let go of her fingers, releasing the man to the ground, who came down with a thunderous crash that shook the catwalk.

  “Sorry,” Iya said insincerely.

  The pretty one gestured at the door. “You’ve got everything you could want in there. Plenty of entertainment. Even a live feed on tournament day.”

  The hulking brute brought himself to his feet.

  Iya stepped forward to the metal door and smashed the keypad with her fist, causing the door to shoot open. “Get in.”

  “Fine, but … uh … say, would any of you lovely ladies mind keeping me company for a little while before you leave?”

  The two older girls burst out in laughter and a small smile came over Iya, too.

  “Haha, oh, you’re serious? No,” the pretty one said. “Just get in there.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Iya said to him. “Ever.”

  It looked as if they were almost finished with him. I needed to get off this catwalk before they came back and caught me. As I turned around to head back to the cart, I bumped into someone’s armoured chest.

  I staggered back, looked up and saw the grotesque face of an angry soldier. It was the black-haired woman from earlier, the one who took Pilgrim away. Her hand shot out and grabbed onto my wrist, and her expression turned to that of amusement.

  “Come with me,” she said as she pulled me out from the jutting rocks and along the catwalk towards the others.

  “There you are, Korin,” the pretty one said. “Who’s this you have with you?”

  “An eavesdropper,” the ugly woman said, throwing me to the ground between them all and blocking the catwalk.

  “That’s Sacet’s brother, Eno,” Iya said as I stood back up.

  The big man changed his expression to that of fear. “Er … oh no! These women are just awful, aren’t they, boy?”

  “Shut up, Kalek,” Korin said. “He was there long enough to know.”

  “To know what?” the other girl said, who had been quiet up until now.

  Korin folded her arms. “It doesn’t matter how much he knows. We have to do something about him.”

  I was shaking in fear, I couldn’t move. There was no escape. The women all stared at each other, still unsure of what they were going to do with me.

  “What did you do to my sister?” I yelled with a trembling voice, looking at the man.

  The man stopped acting and instead bent down, narrowed his gaze and smiled.

  “I say we kill him,” he said, his revolting breath wafting up my nostrils.

  “No, I told you already. It’s Sacet’s brother,” Iya said.

  Korin shrugged. “So?”

  “He’s our only leverage over her,” Iya explained. “But if he must die, put him in the tournament.”

  “Oh, hey! That’s a good idea,” the pretty one said.

  “Mira might not like it,” Korin said. “Eliciting trauma in her is one thing, but we’d be eliminating the only thing keeping her under our control.”

  Iya shrugged. “Then ask her first, but he can’t stay here. He knows too much.”

  Korin bent down and grabbed my wrist again. “Alright. You’re coming with us, Eno. You’ve got a new job to do over in the Commercial Quad.”

  25. Mend

  Sacet

  The next day

  We both entered the mess hall and were greeted with a familiar sight: the benches were filled with girls of all ages sitting down for meals and discussions.

  “Hurry up,” Iya said, striding ahead, “I’ve got better things to do than to play babysitter.”

  “Then why don’t you just go?” I replied as we marched. “I can get there by myself.”

  Iya scoffed. “You think you’ve earned our trust, do you? We’re not stupid. We know what you’re capable of. And just because you captured a few men, doesn’t mean you’re one of us yet.”

  She confirmed my suspicions, that I was still being watched.

  I focused in front. “Maybe it’s you
that needs to earn some trust around here.”

  She stopped in her tracks and faced me. “What was that?” She came closer, looked up at me and prodded me in the chest. “You have something to say to me, Initiate?”

  “You heard me.”

  We stood in silence, our gazes locked. Iya and that colonel clearly betrayed Tau, but why? And how could I prove it?

  A smile grew on her face. “Careful what you say next, Sacet. It would only take one word from me to pop that acid capsule in your neck.”

  The crowd around us started to murmur and stare over at me. But no one was jeering, there were only smiles. A young woman close by cheered. Many others stood and joined her, giving me an approving pat on the back. On the far side of the room, soldiers hopped up on their tables to see what the commotion was about. They must have heard about the mission.

  Iya sighed, then gestured down the hall. “Move!”

  She led the way through the tables and applauding soldiers to the other side. I smiled back and waved. The ovation continued even as we left the hall.

  Sula was probably waiting for me in the training room, and I was already late. I caught back up with Iya and continued marching down the corridor.

  She looked back. “Don’t let all of that go to your head. You performed … sufficiently.”

  I smirked back. “Oh, so they cheer for you, too, do they?”

  She narrowed her gaze and looked away. “People used to cheer for me,” she said as though speaking to herself.

  The training room door opened as we approached. Sula was sitting with her legs crossed in the middle of the floor inside.

  Iya went in first. “Apologise for being late, now!” she commanded me.

  Sula gave a nervous smile, made even more awkward by her misshapen cheeks. “Uh, there’s no need for that. Take a seat, Sacet.”

  I walked over to Sula and sat down. Iya went to the bench on the side of the room, sat and folded her arms.

  Sula gestured to the door. “Corporal, you don’t need to stay. I have everything under control.”

  Iya leant back on the bench and got more comfortable. “Mira has ordered me to remain with her in Maya’s absence.”

  Sula sighed. “Very well.” Sula gave me an odd smile. “Shall we get started?”

  I don’t think I had ever seen her smile like this. She was acting so strangely. Her eyes darted over to Iya every so often. Did Sula know what Iya did?

  Sula grabbed her walking stick and rested it in her lap. “We’re only a few short days away from the tournament and we haven’t discussed your performance. You need to impress those judges.”

  Judges? If what Maya said about me having to kill prisoners was true then I wasn’t going to participate, let alone care what some judges thought.

  “You’re scored on your style, attitude, speed, and skill,” Sula continued. “So we’ll begin by addressing a major problem of yours. Your method of teleporting yourself is too slow. You have to open the portal and then step through it, making you vulnerable. But I have an idea. Stand up.”

  We both stood up off the mat and Sula pointed at a spot on the ground. “Now listen carefully. I want you to make one portal under your feet, facing up. The other end will be on the floor nearby, facing down. Oh, and do it without using your hands … another weakness of yours.”

  I didn’t argue. I left my hands by my side and tried focusing on her directions. It felt unnatural and slower, but the two portals opened.

  “Now, again without your hands, raise both of them off the ground at the same speed.”

  I looked down at the portals and did as she asked. As the portals rose past my ankles and knees, my feet appeared from under the other rising portal. I continued raising the portals higher and higher past my waist and chest until it was above my head. I was now repositioned where I had put the exit.

  I was quite proud of what I had just achieved. Sula and I smiled at one another. Iya was examining her fingernails, completely unimpressed.

  “See? Much smarter,” Sula said. “If you practise in your own time, you’ll get faster.” She began pacing around the room with her walking stick. “Moving on, I had another idea. Is it possible for you to make a set of portals where the exit is larger than the entrance?”

  I shook my head. “I … I don’t think I understand. What do you mean?”

  “Just imagine, you walk through a small portal and come out larger on the other side. A giant version of you!”

  Iya shot a look over at us, intrigued.

  I opened a small set of portals, both in mid-air. I clenched my fingers in the left hand but spread those in the right. Nothing happened at first, but then the right portal grew to twice the size of the first!

  “That’s it. Hold on!” Sula said as she materialised next to one of the weights along the side of the wall, bent down to pick it up, and rematerialised next to the portal. She dropped the weight into the smaller portal that was facing up. It fell through the exit and onto the ground.

  “What?” she said as the weight, still the same size, thudded onto the floor.

  Iya leant back in her seat, looking at her fingers again.

  “Well that didn’t work.” Sula bent down and examined the portal. “Hold on. It didn’t change the object’s size, but there’s definitely something going on with what I can see here. Make the exit upright and even bigger.”

  I stretched my fingers farther with my right hand, causing the upright portal to grow as large as Sula, while the other was the size of her head. I faced the small portal towards her and the large one back to me. It was like staring at a magnified picture – through the larger portal was an enormous image of Sula’s hideous face.

  “Interesting,” she called out while staring into the smaller portal, her voice boomed. “I can see a tiny version of you … and … is my voice louder?” She walked to the other side of the larger portal and saw the magnification for herself. “At least that idea wasn’t a total loss. Good work.”

  Sula was acting extremely strangely. She seemed like a different person every time I met with her. She was far too friendly.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked. “You didn’t seem to mind how late I was. Instead you seem … happy.”

  She gave an atypical chuckle. “Yes, well … this is a great moment of your life.” She glanced at Iya then back to me. Sula’s smile faded. “You’ve proven your worth over the other inferior weaklings out there.”

  I shrugged. “But I thought I got my powers through random chance … luck!”

  Sula looked down at the floor and closed her eyes. “I see. You’re not aware of how we gain our powers, are you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Consider this your final lesson for the day. When I was a child, my whole family was imprisoned … hmm, captured by … we’ll say some very bad people. I would prefer not to speak of the things they did to us, but the agony lasted for cycles without end. They fed us and kept us alive, but only barely.”

  Her lip trembled, but she composed herself before continuing. “They … broke me. We were just … objects to them. My family members disappeared one by one. I didn’t know if they were dead or just taken away. I still don’t know what happened to them.”

  She forced a grin and pointed at me. “But I picked myself up. I had but one wish, one goal: to escape. It drove my every action, became my obsession. And then … one day, I just … disappeared. I vanished from my restraints. I had teleported.”

  I still shook my head. “But how?”

  “Acolyte powers are born from trauma, and a great need. I had a very traumatic experience, but my will stayed strong. Do you understand?”

  “How does that relate to us being superior over others?”

  Sula wandered back to her mat and plonked herself down again. “Because over long periods of time, people adapt and evolve to cope with their surroundings. Our bodies listen to our most basic needs and respond, sometimes to a far greater level.”

  I cleared my throat.
“So you’re saying … that fear gave you your powers to escape?”

  “Not just fear. The powers that Acolytes have are actually manifestations of past traumas. To gain powers, the … soul, if you will, must suffer. The mind and body then adapt in some way because of the person’s sheer will for survival. I imagine that something similar may have happened to you?”

  I nodded back and sat back down with her. “Is that why some people don’t discover their powers until much later?”

  Sula pondered this for a moment. “There are no powers to discover before that point. It’s not like it’s lying dormant in their system, as far as we know anyway. It’s also much more likely that powers will manifest inside of a child than in an adult. The powers can even reflect their parent’s trauma.

  “Your friend Maya, her family was in the desert, dying of thirst. Shortly before they were picked up by the Dominion, she acquired the power to change anything into water.

  “Colonel Korin can manipulate any exposed blood she can see. When she was a child, she was found trying to scoop handfuls of blood back into her dead sister’s open wounds, hoping to bring her back to life. It was quite horrific.”

  I looked down at the floor. “I remember running away from some Nomads. I needed to escape, to get away.” I glanced back at Iya again. “How about you, Corporal?”

  She scowled at me. “That’s none of your business.” Iya fired the same scowl at Sula. “Our traumas shouldn’t be passed around as gossip. They should be private.”

  Sula nodded. “Well … okay, I apologise, but Sacet needed to understand.” Sula looked back at me. “Acolytes are superior because we have all suffered more to survive. If anyone deserves respect, it is us.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “But we’re in a war? Almost everyone is experiencing trauma of some kind, why don’t they have powers, too?”

  Sula frowned. “Perhaps you are right and there is an element of luck to it. But I believe that only those with the strongest will to survive ever gain powers.”

  I thought of my own powers, particularly the ability to see my surroundings.