Temples of Dust (Kingdoms of Sand Book 4)

by Daniel Arenson

  That night, Claudia again lay in Epher's bed, and again no sleep found her. She kept seeing it—the boy dying on the hill, and herself plunging the dagger into his neck, taking his life. The gladiators dying in the arena. Hanan's head at her feet. So much death, so much brutality here in the provinces, and Claudia trembled, weeping for who she had been, who she was.

  "I never wanted this," she whispered into Epher's pillow. "You made me. You made me do this."

  When still sleep would not find her, she went to the guard stationed outside her door, and she took him into Epher's bed. She lay there, as she had many times in her youth, and she let the guard fuck her, and she moaned into his palm, and as her legs wrapped around him, she imagined that it was Epher, her sweet Epher, the love of her life, that she was with him here again, a noblewoman of Aelar and the desert boy she loved. When she climaxed, she shouted his name.

  She sent the guard back to her doorway, and Claudia finally slept, hugging Epher's pillow, pretending he was here with her, knowing she would soon see him again.

  MAYA

  She lay on the floor, moaning, the poison like blades cutting her insides. Her eyes leaked tears. She vomited. She spasmed. She was dying. Dying again.

  No.

  Maya gritted her teeth, shivering.

  You've done this a hundred times. Fight it. Heal it.

  She took in shuddering breaths and reached for the lume. Trembling, convulsing, she wove it into luminescence. She sent the light through her body, as the book taught, flowing with her breath to every part of her, into her organs, along her veins, through her bones. Soothing. Illuminating. Casting out the poison. Breath by breath, she calmed, the luminescence cleansing her.

  Finally Maya rose to her feet, drenched in sweat but healed. Another poisoned meal she had survived.

  For a long moment she stood in the cell. She had come to think of this chamber as a prison cell. A clay box, confining, only her, the table, the chair, the scroll. She had lost count of the days and nights. It seemed that she had been locked in here for years, for eras, the rise and fall of nations, born and reborn here. Hurting. Healing.

  She never knew which meal would be poisoned. Sometimes days went by without a single bad fig, and then—pain, retching, devastating fire in her bowels until she could summon the light. And sometimes it was not the poison. Sometimes it was Namtar's staff, flying again and again, bruising, cutting, breaking Maya down, shattering her like a clay doll until she could summon the light, could mend herself, could rise again.

  She learned Luminosity in this cell. But she also learned pain, and she learned madness, and she learned how close a woman could come to an animal state, reduced to nothing but fear and misery and hunger and the love of a mistress.

  She returned to the table. She sat down. The scroll was halfway full—the work of countless hours and generations of wisdom. Hundreds of thousands of small, delicate words filled the parchment that wrapped around the right roller. The parchment around the left roller was still empty, still awaiting Maya's gentle strokes of the quill. Every day, from dawn and well into the night, she labored here. Using the Sight to gaze into the scroll in the library outside her cell. Using Muse to write the gentle calligraphy, knowing that a simple mistake—a stroke too long, too short, just a drop of ink spilled—would ruin the entire scroll. Using Healing whenever Mistress Namtar beat or poisoned her, using Healing to soothe the madness of isolation, the insanity of a trapped animal in a box.

  And every day, as she wrote, she learned.

  She learned the stories of the first lumers, women in ancient desert tribes, first to have seen the light, who had led their people to a land in the west, a land between desert and sea, a land overflowing with lume. She learned the words of the first great teachers, wise women who had taught their daughters to harness the lume, to weave it into form. She learned the deepest secrets of the pillars: how to see into men's hearts and minds, how to explore the branches of possibilities, how to build, create, heal, harness the light into terrible power.

  And every evening, Namtar quizzed her. Every night, question after question. For every failed answer—a smack of the staff. For every right answer—nothing but a nod, a grunt, another question.

  And every night, when her work was done, Maya lay on the hard floor, and she remembered.

  Not with Luminosity. Not with the Sight. Memories warmer, deeper. Memories of a girl alone, far from home. Lying on the floor, she imagined that she lay home in her bed, in the villa on Pine Hill. That outside her door was not a stern lumer and silent pupils but a family. In her dreams at night, Maya laughed with Epher and Koren, rolling with them on the beach. She ran with Atalia across the hills, struggling to keep up, as her older sister swung branches and pretended to fight monsters. She sat with Ofeer by the cooking fire, listening to the girl speak of distant cities and their wonders. She lay between her parents, feeling safe.

  In other dreams, they were all together, a family united, sitting at the dining table on Restday. The candles burned, and fresh braided bread steamed on the table, and they were happy. They were together, singing old songs. And though they were joyous, Maya woke from those dreams weeping, for she knew—not with Foresight, not with any magic—that those days were over. That she would nevermore sit under a painting of elephants, nevermore see her family together again, that if she returned to the villa she would find only dust, only ghosts.

  One morning, indistinguishable from so many mornings in her cell, Maya sat by her scroll, used the Sight to see the scroll beyond the wall, and found no words.

  Maya frowned.

  At first she thought that the Sight had failed her. She refocused, sent the light out again, seeing through the wall, down the corridor, into the library in the chamber overlooking the sea. Again she peered into the scroll, the Luminous Writ, the complete book for her to copy, and she found it not complete at all.

  The library's copy of the Luminous Writ, the one she'd been painstakingly copying into her own scroll . . . ended halfway through. The remaining parchment, enough for many more words, was blank.

  Maya rose from her seat, letting her magic fade away.

  If she were Ofeer, she'd have uttered a loud, lewd curse.

  She groaned and grabbed her hair.

  "Only half a book!" She paced the room. "It's only half written."

  She took a deep breath. Fine. Fine! So what? She would find another copy. There were many copies of the Luminous Writ in the world. There was the one in Beth Eloh, buried deep under the Temple. There was the copy in Gefen, at least had been one in Master Malaci's library. And surely there had to be a copy in Aelar, home to the world's largest library. There—many copies! An entire . . . three that she knew of.

  Maya sighed.

  With a deep breath, she summoned her light.

  She sent out her Sight.

  She spread her tendrils through the house, seeking, rummaging, finding no more copies here. She wove more luminescence. She flowed through tunnels of light, sending her eye across the town, into the desert, flowing over dunes, over dragon bones, over ancient cities rising, falling, kingdoms of glory and kingdoms of sand, seeking her home by the sea.

  "Zohar," she whispered.

  She could just see it. A kingdom of light, a great sunrise of lume, a pillar of light, rising in the west, blinding her. She reached into the light, then pulled back, blinded, burnt. She sucked in air, tried to see farther, to part the curtains. She could just make out a mountain, a city upon it, seven gates where armies, pilgrims, countless travelers flowed, and an eighth gate. A Gate of Tears. A figure, all in white, all—

  Maya sucked in air. No. Focus.

  She tried to reach farther. To find the Temple. To find the book the priests kept there. But she saw her mother—falling, dying. She saw her brother, bleeding on a throne. She saw the man in the—

  She yelled out and her magic snapped.

  She fell to her knees, back in the east, kneeling on the clay floor.

  No.
Do not gaze upon him. Not yet. He will wait.

  For hours—for eternities—Maya tried to see, to gaze across the distance, to find another copy of the Luminous Writ. One time she could almost just see the Temple, surrounded with many coiling halos, before the magic overflowed, searing her, crackling her hair. When she fell, her skin was burnt as from days in the sun.

  "It's too far," she whispered that night to Mistress Namtar. "I tried to find another copy, but it's too far, and too much light suffuses Beth Eloh. I can't see."

  But the staff still beat her. And the poison made her retch. And she wept all night, curled up, hurting, having used too much lume, left too weak to heal herself. She woke up that morning in her own sweat, piss, and vomit.

  It was not going to work. Maya curled her fists.

  "I can't do this!" she told Namtar that morning. "The farther I look, the blurrier the Sight is, and I break, branch off, see the future, no longer knowing Sight from Foresight."

  The old lumer stared at her, a hint of mirth in her eyes, and nodded. She left the chamber without a word.

  Maya remained in her cell, head tilted, breakfast untouched.

  "Foresight," she whispered.

  Her breath quickened. So far, this exercise had taught her the three other pillars: Sight to gaze to the library down the corridor, Muse to transcribe the words, Healing to cast out the weariness and poison. But so far, she had only read about Foresight, not used it.

  Maya covered her mouth.

  No. It was impossible. It could never work! And yet . . .

  She closed her eyes and summoned her magic.

  She had never used Foresight willingly. It had tried to grab her—outside the gates of Beth Eloh, in her dreams, in her projection across the desert. She had always feared this magic, and yet now she grabbed it. She wrestled it. She gazed down the paths.

  She streamed. She moved at lightning speed, whipping from possibility to possibility. She died in this chamber. She died in a fire. She lived to old, wrinkled age, becoming a mistress of this very house, a teacher of Luminosity. She wept over the grave of a child. She laughed with many children. She fought a dark man. She served as a slave in Aelar. She failed her studies. Countless futures, weaving, intersecting, branching out, changing with every breath, every choice. It was a tree. No—not branches. It seemed like branches only when traveling the paths. From above . . . waves. Great waves of possibilities, drawing lines in the sand.

  And there, in this chamber with her . . . a girl. A girl with olive skin, long curly hair, large brown eyes. A girl far from home.

  A lumer.

  A lumer writing down the final words in a completed Luminous Writ.

  Down this path, I succeeded, Maya thought, staring at her future self. I finished the scroll. I became a lumer.

  Down the path of Foresight, the future Maya raised her head from the scroll and looked at her. The future girl smiled softly and nodded. Present and future, linked across the timeless kingdom of Luminosity, a serpent biting its tail, an eternal flame.

  Maya—the present Maya, her scroll still incomplete—gazed into her own future scroll, and she copied from herself.

  She wrote down new words.

  She toiled on.

  Floating in the luminescence, she lost track of time. She wrote day and night, peering into the future to copy her own work. Finally, after what seemed like years, Maya wrote down the last words in the Luminous Writ:

  The grace of Luminosity flows eternal. The lumer's candle shall always burn.

  Eyes damp, her work complete, Maya laid down her quill. She raised her eyes from the completed scroll, and she peered across the room, and there—a pale light peering from shadows—a younger Maya gazed at her. In the present, she smiled softly at that scared girl and nodded.

  Maya winced.

  Fire.

  Fire burned in the luminescence.

  Every hair on her body rose, and her teeth ached as if trying to flee her gums. Ahead of her, one of the paths of possibility blazed with white fire, and Maya smelled smoke, heard shouts, saw the dead falling.

  The paths of light all thrummed around her, burning, disintegrating. Smoke flowed across Maya. Shouts and screams filled the chamber. Maya's magic tore away like a bandage ripped off a sticky wound, and she found herself back in her cell, trapped as fire blazed outside.

  She ran toward the window, rose onto her toes, and peered outside. Her heart sank.

  There were dozens of them. Warriors in black robes, faces veiled, carrying sickles. On a wheeled platform rose their idol, a bronze man with a dog's head. A few of the men moved through the garden with torches, setting the olive trees aflame. At the head of the mob stood the tall, gaunt man Maya had encountered when first entering the town—Saentek, warlord of the Dagonites.

  "Slay the lumers!" he howled, face twisted with hatred, eyes bugging out. "Warriors of Dagon, fear no evil and slay them all!"

  With battle cries, the warriors ran toward the house, swinging swords and torches, and Maya screamed.

  ATALIA

  She swung her sword, eviscerating a man, and laughed as the blood showered her.

  "Fuck Aelar!" Atalia screamed, voice hoarse, blood on her face, entrails dripping down her arm. "Fuck Porcia!"

  "Fuck Aelar!" repeated a hundred thousand barbarians, bearded, brutish, waving their shields and axes. "Gael rises!"

  The killing field spread around them. Thousands of legionaries lay slain across the grasslands, armor shattered, limbs strewn. Bowels lay in mud. Rivulets of blood watered the earth. The crows were feasting, dipping down, ripping off flesh, cawing, bustling. Thousands of Gaelians lay dead here too, slain by gladius and spear and arrow, blood staining their golden beards and braids.

  But countless living barbarians, a massive horde, still spread across the land. They roared for victory. Tall, powerful men, wearing only patches of armor, raised hammers and axes and blades, their beards braided for every kill. Fierce women, beasts of Ashael, shrieked for their victory, the blood of their enemies on their arms and faces. A sea of round wooden shields rose high, displaying the sigils of many tribes—bears, wyverns, harts, thorns, dragons.

  And one lioness, Atalia thought, standing in the carnage, the slayer of many men. One last soldier of Zohar, far from the desert, close to eternal glory.

  She pulled off her helmet, the one Berengar had gifted her. It was shaped as a lion's head, complete with fangs. A blow from an enemy sword had scratched off its silver coating, revealing the dark iron beneath. Enemy blood had splashed its metal fangs, as if the lion had just fed. Atalia pushed back her sweaty hair and spat out her own blood. A blow from an enemy's shield had cracked her lips, but the taste of blood only made her smile. She looked around her and nodded.

  "We butchered those wall-pissing sons of dogs." She turned toward her husband and wife, eyes flashing. "We fucked them right up their asses with Gaelian iron."

  "And with Zoharite pride," said Berengar, chieftain of many tribes. Enemy blades had chipped his breastplate, and cuts covered his arms. One antler on his helmet had broken, and a blow had knocked out one of his teeth, and yet he gave Atalia a small smile. "You fought well."

  All her life, Atalia had felt gangly, too tall, too strong, especially around petite beauties like Ofeer. But she felt positively dwarfed by this chieftain, by this man who had captured her in war, fought her, then married her. In the battle, he had loomed above the legionaries, like a man battling children, and his great axe had swung with a fury, felling many men. Those men now lay at his feet—the mighty legionaries, legendary warriors, butchered.

  Atalia climbed onto a corpse, wrapped her arms around her husband's shoulders, and kissed him—deeply, passionately, a coppery red kiss.

  "Soon we will fight at the walls of Aelar, my love," she said, stroking his beard.

  "A hundred more leagues to cross." Berengar nodded. "A hundred more leagues of blood and glory, and the Empire falls."

  Atalia looked around her. The grasslands spread
into the distance. Far behind her, in the north, she could just make out the forests of Gael. In every other direction, the plains of Aelar spread, the heartland of the Empire. It was here that, seven hundred years ago, farmers and hunters had begun to build cities, to speak the same language, to forge the civilization they called Aelar, named after Aelia, an ancient goddess of music and art. Here the Empire had begun, and here it would end.

  Farmlands spread into the distance, and Atalia could just make out a fortress by a stream. The legions had tried to stop them here. The legions had died here. Far south, beyond the horizon, it awaited her. The city of Aelar. The city she had never seen, yet one that filled her dreams every night. The greatest city in the world. A city with as many people within its walls as all the people of Zohar. A city that ruled all but several pockets of resistance in the world.

  "A city that will fall," she whispered. "A city we will send tumbling to the ground."

  "Gael is victorious!" rose a cry, and Atalia turned to see Feina walk between the corpses toward them. The shieldmaiden had donned armor, its silver dragon filigrees chipped and peeling. A soaked bandage wrapped around her thigh, and ash coated her cheeks and golden hair. She held her winged helmet under her arm, and her shield displayed a golden harp on a green field. She held her curved sword with one hand, and with the other she gripped a fistful of a legionary's hair. The severed head dangled, mouth open in a silent scream, leaving a dripping trail. The fairy queen Atalia had met in the forest had become a beast of blood, drenched in death, brutal and beautiful.

  "Linus Lepidius, commander of the northern garrison." Feina tossed down the head. "I cut off his head myself."

  "Greedy pig." Atalia spat at Feina's feet. "I was going to kill the bastard."

  Feina gave her a crooked smile. "You fought well, lioness, but the prize was mine." The shieldmaiden kicked the severed head aside, placed her hand in Atalia's hair, and kissed her hard on the lips. "Better luck next time, our wife."

  Atalia stared south, sneering. "I'm saving my luck for Porcia. That bitch's head is mine."