The Sand Prince (37 page)

"Can you cook?"

-The Claiming of the Duke, pg 60

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

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M
istra

100 years after the War of the Door, Mistran calendar

20 years later, Eriisai calendar

Road through the Great Forest

Moth—now hatless—squinted through the trees. "It’s getting dark. We’ll stop here." He climbed down from the front of the cart, warily approaching the horse.

She folded her arms and glared at the back of his head. She was hungry, and while having an adventure seemed like an exciting idea, being carted through an empty forest in a dirty cart—there was a distinct smell of garbage—was both boring and a little scary. The only way to get her captor, whatever he was, to talk to her was to provoke him. He was certainly good looking enough to be interesting, but he sat there like a stone, he didn't pay her any attention at all. And this whole being a demon thing, the thing with his eyes, well, there had to be some trick to it she wasn't seeing. Rane was going to have to come up with the explanation of a lifetime. She'd deal with Rane in due course, but right now she was in a mood—a Low Snit. And this person—Moth of all things, honestly, what sort of a name was that?—wanted to stop.

"What’s the difference?" she said. "You’re just going to slit my throat and eat my flesh."

"You might as well be rested when I do."

"Was that a joke? Are we joking about murdering me now?" Low Snit was quickly escalating.

"I am not going to murder you," he replied. "I am also not going to eat your flesh, skin you, cut off your hair, cut off your feet... what else was it you said before? Oh, I’m not going to make a necklace of your eyeballs. You are very imaginative, though. You should write a book."

Did he actually think this was funny? He was doing something with the horse, which turned into a slow motion ballet of him trying to tie the leads to a tree and the horse pulling just ever so slightly far enough away to prevent it. She stalked up behind him and grabbed the leads away and secured the animal, which calmed down when he moved away from it.

"I am so glad you can see the humor in dragging me off in the night and throwing me in a filthy wagon. Or did you not do that, either?" she snapped.

He looked up from fiddling with a collection of rocks. He was making a pile, like a small pyramid, with bigger stones at the bottom. "I am to deliver you. That’s all."

She knew he wouldn’t say where or to whom, having asked more than twice. "What are you doing? With those rocks?" she asked, more out of frustration with his behavior than actual curiosity. After all, how many different things could you do with rocks?

"It will be cold tonight. I’m going to light them," he told her. Unsatisfied with their formation, he carefully rearranged several near the top. As he did, the form collapsed. He again said something that sounded like rush toe or rich tea, and started over.

She barked a laugh. "Light them? Do you think they're made of wood?"

"There isn’t much wood where I come from." This time the pile seemed to be the right size and shape, and he sat back on his heels and brushed the dirt off his hands.

"On the other side of The Door," she said, hoping to catch him in a lie. But he was sticking with the demon thing and said, "Well, obviously we don’t call it that."

She put her fists on her hips. "What do you call it?"

He looked back at the rocks, did something with his hands, and they began to glow. "It’s called Eriis. We call it home."

***

T
hey sat across from each other with their scant dinner of water, cheese and bread. The pile of rocks was warm and nearly bright as a small campfire. She could almost forget her situation—cut off feet and eyeball necklaces and so on—she was so entranced by the sight.

"Is it magic? How does it work? Can I do it?" She leaned forward, seeing how close she could get her fingers to the stones without singeing them.

"It’s called magic here, but I can’t make a fire with wood so I guess it works both ways." He went back to building tiny sandwiches out of bits of bread and cheese. She watched his profile, he sat half in and half out of the wavering light, which occasionally tricked her eye into thinking he had entirely vanished.

She toyed with a stick, tossing it onto the pile of stones. It instantly turned to ash. "Why is there no wood?" she asked. "Where you're from. You said there wasn't any."

He turned to face her and looked puzzled. "Certainly you know what happened during the War?" She returned his confused stare. "It was only about 20 years ago. I know most of you human persons don't know much about us, but you knew about The Door, you recognized me—don't you know about—"

"I'm sure if there was a war I would have heard of it. Was it a real war? With soldiers and fighting?" What was he talking about? Why make up something so obviously untrue? Probably he was just a red-eyed lunatic hired by her brother after all, despite the magic trick with the rocks. That was a frankly disappointing thought. Kidnapped by a genuine demon was a much better story than kidnapped by an (admittedly) good looking crazy person. She sighed. Not a pirate.

He took a long time to answer. "I don't know why you don't know this. The War was very—"

Suddenly she remembered a story, a legend from the past. She could picture herself part of a semi-circle of children sitting on the floor in a classroom. But it hadn't been a history class. "You don't mean the locking of the Demon Door thing, do you?" she asked. "But that was supposed to have been at least a hundred years ago. And it’s just a story, no one even knows if it’s really true."

He stared at the stones. She could see the light reflected in his strange eyes. They were nearly the same color. Finally he said, "It happened, all right. A hundred years on this side? And now a story for children?"

"Then tell me the story." She folded her legs under her and settled down to listen.
Convince me
.

He considered it, then nodded. "I'll tell you the way it was told to me. I think parts of it are even true. It began many lifetimes ago, long before the War—"

"The locking of The Door? Before that?"

He nodded. "Yes, because there was no Door," he said. "A long time ago, there was just a place of passage, and anyone could go through. Your world was described to me in sight and color and smell as I see it now. Of course, one reads about these things, but seeing them... The people here, the human persons, they are unexpected, but this place looks as I think it must have always looked."

"Not on your side, I gather," she said. It had never occurred to her that a place could change.

"My home—Eriis—was not always what it is today. But I'm jumping ahead. In those long past times, our people traded knowledge and your people traded goods, back and forth. But it was never a friendly border.

"The humans never trusted their demon neighbors, those elegant and slightly contemptuous distant cousins, not even when you could walk out of Eriis and back home to Mistra in the space of a drawn breath. The demons coveted the ease and bounty of the human's home, and the humans were disinclined to share with the lithe, slender men and women who all looked stamped from the same mold. They could snap their fingers and create a flame! They could stretch their arms and wings would sprout. And worst of all, they could show what they called their True Faces, and become a living weapon. An Order was formed, originally to keep order at the boundary. Would it not be wise, they asked each other, would it not be prudent to put up some sort of barrier? These creatures are decadent savages. They are unlike us. We do not know their minds. Perhaps we ought to build a door.

"And they did. And for many years, it was possible—though only by permission of the Order—to lift the Veil of darkness and confusion that surrounded The Door, open it, and travel to the other side. At this time, Eriis was a great stone city surrounded by fields and ringed by mountains. Three times a year storms would sweep in and water the gardens. The King, though old, was well advised, his son was clever and quick, his daughter was fair, and the people were at peace, enjoying the slow trickle of luxuries from the other side. The few humans that visited were treated as guests. Requests to visit Mistra from Eriis were generally politely declined. Emissaries, ambassadors, and spies traveled back and forth in those days.

"Then," continued Moth, "there was a war. I don't know why the Order attacked us, but when it was over, the gardens and the fields were all gone. So were most of the people and half the buildings. And The Door was sealed. That's when I was born, right after that, and I was... not a joy to my family." She wondered how that could be, and why, and what he had done, but it could wait. "But there were so few of us, all were cared for. It’s better now, there are many more of us, and we've learned to do things like keep ourselves cool, because it's gotten very hot there. It doesn’t rain anymore, it’s really nothing but sand."

"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."