Temples of Dust (Kingdoms of Sand Book 4)

by Daniel Arenson

  She lay in his arms that night, her tears wetting his chest. As he slept, the candles burned around them, and Atalia gazed at her hand. Flecks of blood still stained her fingernails. She did not know whose blood it was. She did not know who she was.

  PORCIA

  She sat on her throne, legs slung across one armrest, goblet of wine in hand.

  "Bring them in!" she cried. "Bring in the traitors! Let them entertain us."

  Her harem spread around her. Her special jewels. Women in flimsy silks lounged across the throne room, their breasts exposed, their navels jeweled, puffing on hookahs. Beautiful bare-chested men wrestled and trained with swords, glistening with sweat. Several concubines lay unconscious, hookahs and jugs of wine toppled at their sides. Among these living trophies spread the treasures of Porcia's glory: statues, chalices, chests spilling gemstones and coins, exotic animal pelts, and birds of many colors that squawked in cages. The wealth of the Empire, here at her feet.

  But it wasn't enough.

  It couldn't silence the voices inside her.

  Seneca is coming to kill you.

  Porcia dug her fingernails into her palms.

  Valentina plans to overthrow you.

  She gasped for air.

  The Gaelian horde will shatter your walls.

  Her head spun.

  The Zoharites will butcher you.

  The visions all floated around Porcia. Pulsing hearts, dripping between her teeth, growing into babies and new men inside her. Flayed warriors advancing toward her, reaching out raven talons. Creatures in togas, twisted senators with the heads of pigs, squealing, squealing, so loud, so loud.

  We're waiting for you. Demons, twisted, bearing razors. We're here, Porcia. We're here in the afterlife. Waiting. Join us. Join us.

  "Bring them in!" she shouted again, tears in her eyes, and gulped more wine. "Bring the traitors."

  She emptied her goblet and tossed it aside. The wine soothed her, flowed over the visions, silenced them for another hour. Nobody understood the burden of power. Nobody understood how she had suffered, how she had fought, killed, seen so many broken and burnt. How the scars of war would always fill her. How those demons always taunted her. How all the sex, wine, spice, death, gold, endless pleasures—how she had earned them, craved them, needed them. How the creatures with the pig heads demanded them. How they squealed until they got their fill.

  The doors to her palace opened. Guards marched in, dragging chained prisoners.

  Porcia allowed a thin smile to lift her lips. She swallowed hard.

  "The entertainment has arrived!" she announced. Those in her harem who still clung to consciousness cheered.

  There were three of them. Traitors from the city. A Zoharite girl, limbs stick thin and brown. A Gaelian woman, her blond hair in tangles, tears in her eyes. A Nurian man, face puffed with bruises, wrists manacled behind his back.

  Porcia rose from her throne and tossed her chalice at them, spraying wine. "Traitors!" she cried. "Spies! Rebels here in our city!"

  Her harem hissed and tossed their mugs at the three prisoners. "Traitors, traitors!"

  The guards manhandled the three foreigners into the center of the throne room. Filthy, dripping blood, they stood among splendor. Marble columns, golden statues, and jeweled concubines surrounded the three wretches.

  "Please, domina," said the Zoharite girl, bowing before Porcia. "We are Aelarian citizens. I was born in Aelar, my empress. I have my citizenship scroll at home, and—"

  A guard struck her, knocking her down. "Silence, traitor."

  The Nurian man spoke next. "My empress, please. I am but a humble mason, a free citizen as well. I moved to Aelar long before the rebellion began in my homeland. I—"

  "Silence, rebel maggot!" A blow from a guard bloodied the Nurian's lip.

  The Gaelian woman did not speak, just trembled, tears flowing down her bruised cheeks.

  Porcia stared at them, shaking.

  She stared at the Gaelian, and she saw the barbarian horde, howling, charging south through the forest, slaying her legions, stealing her eagles, vowing to send her walls crumbling down.

  She stared at the Nurian, and she saw her brother in the south, marrying the Whore Queen Imani, raising fleets, gathering swarms of Nurian brutes to rape her and steal her throne.

  She stared at the Zoharite, and she saw the death around Beth Eloh, the ten thousand swarthy heathens storming toward her.

  "They want to steal this from me," Porcia whispered, digging her fingernails into her palms, and her blood dripped onto her thighs. "They want to destroy us. To topple this civilization that we built. Bring out the dogs!" Her voice rose to a howl. "Bring them out! Let them feed!"

  The harem cheered and erupted in wild barking, mimicking the hounds. One man took a concubine and humped her from behind as she moaned, a bitch in heat. At the back of the hall, guards opened a doorway, revealing a tunnel. Deeper barks rose from the darkness. Great beasts emerged, snarling, snapping their teeth, black dogs larger and heavier than Porcia. Their trainers dragged behind them, desperately clinging to the dogs' leashes. These beasts had not fed for days, growing mad with hunger.

  Finally the dogs pulled free from their trainers and lunged.

  The prisoners tried to flee, but the guards blocked their way with spears and shields. The dogs leaped. The prisoners fell. The dogs fed.

  Porcia returned to her throne, slung her legs across an armrest, and watched the show. Her harem crowded behind her, peering with delight that soon changed to horror, with cheers that soon changed to screams and tears. The dogs tore limbs off torsos, ripped out necks, tugged out entrails. One animal managed to tear out several ribs. The Gaelian woman lived longest, ripped apart yet still screaming, then mewling, then only weeping as the dogs devoured her. Finally she too was silent.

  "Enjoy the show, my friends and lovers!" Porcia said. "Wine. More wine!"

  One of her concubines cowered in the corner, weeping as her friend tried to console her. The dogs were led away, bellies full, blood on their maws, leaving bones behind. Porcia would let those bones stink for a while longer. Let them be a reminder. Let them stifle the memories. Let all know that treachery would be punished.

  Let the voices stop.

  She drank, and finally she slept on her throne, and she dreamed of dancing men with pig heads, of barbarian hosts, and of endless mountains of bones.

  MAYA

  Maya stood in the cell, struggling to breathe, as the Dagonites swarmed around the house of Luminosity like mad dogs at a chicken coop. Shouts rose from beyond the walls. Smoke wafted into her chamber.

  "Slay the heathens!" rose a deep voice.

  "They're breaking in!" cried a girl.

  "Lumers!" An old woman's voice—Namtar! "Lumers, to me! Gather here. Summon your light!"

  A man cried out, "Cut them down!"

  The smell of burning flesh flared. More screams rose.

  Maya panted, head reeling, heart pounding. She raced toward the door and grabbed the knob. Locked. She ran toward her window, leaped up, and grabbed the bars. They wouldn't budge. She stood in the center of the room, breathing heavily, eyes stinging.

  A heavy hand rattled the doorknob. The door shook as somebody slammed against it. Maya took a step back. With a shower of wooden shards, the door crashed open, and a Dagonite burst into the chamber. He was a tall man, lanky, his face long, his beard oily. He wore a dark robe and held a sickle.

  "Found one!" he cried over his shoulder, laughing, and advanced toward Maya, sickle raised.

  Maya grabbed her inkpot and hurled it. She had spent many years with her brothers, tossing pinecones at targets, and this throw too hit its mark. The vessel slammed into the man's face, shattered, and spilled ink over his eyes. The man roared and swung his sickle blindly. Maya leaped back and hissed. The blade sliced a lock of her hair. The Dagonite wiped at his eyes, cursing, and Maya whipped around him and barged out into the corridor.

  She knew the layout of this house wel
l; she had traversed these corridors many times with her Sight. She ran down the corridor, only to skid to a halt. Several Dagonites stood ahead of her, kicking open doors. They turned toward her, bloodlust in their eyes, and ran her way. Maya turned and fled, swerved down another corridor, and raced into the library. Several other pupils stood here. Maya had spent half a year in this house, but she had never met these girls, only glimpsed them when using her Sight. Dagonites were banging at the door, struggling to break into the library. Through a barred window Maya saw many others outside—a hundred or more—banging at the house as if they could break the walls.

  "Grab weapons!" Maya said, racing toward the shelves. "Anything you can find!"

  Maya spotted her pack on a shelf, the one she had brought here all the way from Zohar. She grabbed it, rummaged, and pulled out two knives—a small one for daily tasks and a larger dagger with a horn hilt, the one Atalia had given her. She handed the knife to a girl, then drew the dagger. Two other pupils tossed scrolls aside, tore wooden shelves off the wall, and raised them like clubs. The door shattered, and Dagonites crashed into the room, holding torches and sickles.

  "Leave this house!" Maya cried, summoned her magic, and let the light blast out.

  Luminescence was a force for healing, for art, for knowledge, and it could not harm another soul. But it was bright enough to blind them, to scare them. As the Dagonites covered their eyes, Maya ran forward and lashed her dagger. The blade scraped across a man's thigh. A torch swung her way, and Maya leaped back. The other girls blasted their own light and swung their own weapons.

  "Lumers, to me!" rose a cry. "Lumers!"

  "Namtar," Maya whispered. She turned toward the others. "Run! With me!"

  They charged toward the doorway. Maya thrust her blade, cutting another man. She screamed as a torch blazed across her. Her tunic kindled. She patted at the flames, burning her hand. She ran onward, slamming into a man, spreading her fire over him. He screamed. Maya ran onward, and the pupils ran with her. A sickle swung, and a pupil screamed, her belly sliced open, her blood gushing. A Dagonite cut down another girl. The survivors kept running, bursting into a corridor. Maya fell, screaming, rolling, patting off the fire. She rose, ugly welts across her side. The luminescence still flowed around her fingers, and she touched her wounds, and the pain eased.

  More Dagonites ran toward her, and Maya shouted and raised her hands. Light flared out, forming a shield—like the shield she had raised in the desert. Some sickles clanged against the light, but others tore through, and one blade cut Maya's arm down to the bone. The pain was furious, flaming, a raging demon, but Maya plowed onward, driving the light forward, holding them back. Another pupil fell, and three more girls walked with Maya. They fought their way into the front hall.

  The door had smashed—the same door Maya had knocked on half a year ago, begging to join the school. Namtar stood in the foyer, two pupils at her side. The girls held knives while Namtar raised her staff. Two pupils lay dead at Namtar's feet.

  Dagonites crowded the chamber, and many more stood outside. Smoke flowed through the house, and Maya coughed violently, and her head spun, and her blood still dripped. She came to stand by her mistress. The lumers of Suna—one old teacher and six girls—stood back-to-back, hands wreathed with light.

  "I command you—stand back!" Namtar said, and though the old woman was small and frail, she suddenly seemed like a giant. Her eyes blazed with light, and luminous strands flowed around her arms. "I will curse you all, and I will curse your children and your grandchildren."

  Saentek, chief of the Dagonites, approached—the same man who had accosted Maya on her first day in this town. "You are harmless, crone. If you could truly hurt us, why do your girls lie dead at your feet?" He laughed—a sound like cracking bones. "We are done being intimidated by old women and girls. Dagonites! Slay them!"

  The men roared and charged.

  "Fight them!" Maya cried. "Use your Muse—fight!"

  She summoned her magic. She used the Muse—that pillar that enabled creation, the sculpting of perfect forms, the painting of frescoes, the calligraphy in her book, the art of love. She tried to apply it to her knife, to find the dance and beauty of battle. But her stroke missed. A sickle cut her shoulder. Another blade sliced her thigh. Swords drove into a girl at her side. A blade sank into another pupil's neck, and her head wilted, nearly severed. A third girl screamed, engulfed in flame. Smirking, Saentek swung his sickle, cutting into Namtar's side, and the mistress of Luminosity fell. The lumers' weapons clattered across the floor. Maya had come to this house to learn, and she learned a valuable lesson today: that Luminosity was a tool of healing, that Muse was a magic of creation, and she could not use the light to harm others.

  She reformed her shield around her, the one that had cast back the dragons. Sickles slammed into the light, but a torch made its way through, burning her. Maya fell to her knees. In the desert, she had used the lume she had soaked up in Zohar—stronger, thicker magic. Here in the east, she had only the flitting, fine lume of this town, a weaker reservoir, and her shield collapsed. Namtar lay beside her, clutching her wound, gasping for breath. The pupils lay dead, and the Dagonites moved in, leering at Maya, sickles raised. Beyond them, outside the door, she could see their idol. The statue of Dagon, taller than a man, rolled forth on bronze wheels. The idol was shaped as a muscular man with the head of a dog, holding a sickle and a sheaf of wheat.

  Maya raised her chin.

  No, I cannot use Muse to hurt them, she thought. A lumer does not fight with violence but with wisdom.

  She clung to her Muse, and she spoke.

  Her voice boomed out—deep, echoing. In the legends of her people, ancient lumers had spoken from mountaintops, their voices heard for parsa'ot, leading the people out of slavery in Nur, leading them home from captivity in Sekadia, giving them Eloh's commandments from the Temple of Beth Eloh. Bnot Kol, the legends had called those lumers—daughters of the voice, speaking with God's authority. Now Maya spoke with a voice from those tales, a voice of holiness, of ancient wrath and divinity. She tossed that voice—sending it out from her, letting it flow from the statue of Dagon, roll across his adherents, fill this chamber, and echo.

  "Lay down your sickles, worshippers of Dagon!" the voice boomed. "Kneel and kill no more, for in this house, you have grieved me."

  The Dagonites spun around toward their god. The idol rose there in the garden. Maya focused, streaming forth her light, and the idol's eyes shone.

  "My lord!" cried Saentek, kneeling, arms raised. "You speak to us!"

  "Slay no more!" boomed Dagon. "I am a god of growing things. A god of soil, water, wheat, and life. Nevermore will you kill another in my name. Leave this house! Leave and never return, for lumers shall henceforth be holy to you, and you will cherish and bless them."

  As the Dagonites retreated, taking their idol, Maya knelt by her mistress. Namtar lay on the floor, cut deep, her lifeblood flowing across the floor.

  "I will heal you," Maya whispered, pulling open Namtar's cloak, then gasped. She felt the blood drain from her face. Under her cloak, her belly was cut open, and her entrails had spilled out, pink, wet, falling to the floor. Maya looked up and met Namtar's gaze.

  "I am beyond healing," the old woman whispered.

  Maya shook her head, tears in her eyes. "No. No! This is magic. This can heal you. I can . . ." She reached toward the wound, hesitating, not knowing what to do. She summoned her magic, let the light flow to the wound . . . but as the wound began to close, Namtar cried out. The closing wound was only tightening around the spilling organs, and fresh blood flowed, and Maya's tears fell. She moved her glowing hands upward, placed them against Namtar's brow, and let the light ease her pain. The old woman's face calmed.

  "I'm sorry," Maya said, trembling. "I don't know what to do."

  Namtar reached up a shaky hand and clutched Maya's arm. "You know. You must return. You must go home, and you must face him there."

  Maya lowered her head
. "I'm not ready. I didn't study enough. I . . . I need to learn so much more from you."

  The old woman smiled weakly. "You've completed the Luminous Writ. You're ready, child. You are now a lumer. I'm proud of you."

  But Maya only wept. What use was being a lumer if she had failed to save the house of Luminosity? If she could not even heal her teacher?

  "I'm scared," she whispered, and she thought of that shadow, that dark figure she had seen on the hill and in her dreams. It was him she must face. She knew that's what Namtar had meant. Yet she had never learned his name.

  "Scared?" said Namtar. "So are all who do great deeds. It is fear that is common to all great women. It is fear that all those who change the world must face. But fear is a thing of shadows. Remember that, child. Focus on the light, for the light is love—eternal, unconditional, and it will always keep you safe. I will be there for you, my soul risen into grace. Go to them now, Maya. Go to them who wait, who need you. They will teach you more than I ever could." Light filled the old lumer's eyes. "The grace of Luminosity flows eternal. The lumer's candle shall always burn."

  Maya buried them in the olive grove—her teacher, her sisters, lumers. People from Suna emerged to help her dig the graves—old women, children, mothers, elder men, all those the lumers had helped in this town, those Namtar and her pupils had healed, comforted, whose darkness they had lit. Dozens gathered to lay their bodies down, and Maya wept, for she realized that even here, so far from home, the light was loved and her people were blessed. Maya had no flowers to place upon their graves, and so she planted olive pits, one in each grave, and she blessed each with a drop of light.