And suddenly, Kenton knew what it must have been. They found an accomplice—someone with the Diem to help them. Someone to poison the mastrells, to leave us defenseless. It didn’t take Kenton long to realize who the traitor was.
Drile.
#
When Kenton next awoke, he found himself strapped to the back of the darksiders’ tonk. He groaned, rising from the uncomfortable position to seat himself properly. He only vaguely remembered stumbling half-asleep to the beast’s back, Baon explaining that the duchess—whatever a duchess was—wanted to get moving as soon as possible.
Kenton blinked against the light, reorienting himself. They were nearing the pillar-like rocks that rimmed the sand masters’s meeting place. Kenton frowned. The plain was large, but it didn’t take very long to cross. How long had they been moving?
Only then did he notice the group that trudged across the sand beside his tonk. The darksiders walked on the sand awkwardly, kicking up sand with each step and sometimes slipping. That, coupled with the fact that the party was made up of an old man, a girl, and an overweight man Kenton hadn’t seen before, was enough to tell him that the trip would probably take a very, very long time.
“Look! The savage is awake!” the fat man said, his mood brightening slightly as he looked up and saw Kenton regarding them.
The others looked up. Their faces were wearied and taxed, though they probably hadn’t been traveling for more than a few hours. Already, sand dust streaked their dark skin, sticking to the dried sweat they had long since stopped wiping away.
They will never last like this, he thought to himself with a shake of his head. No matter how much water one has, the Kerla is not something to travel on foot.
“We’ll take a break when we reach the rim,” the girl decided. She was obviously in charge, despite the fact that she was a woman, not to mention younger than the others. However, Kenton knew that things were different on darkside—he remembered with fondness how often his mother would clash with dayside authorities. Lossand was much more relaxed than Kershtian society, but she had claimed to find even that restrictive.
They crossed the remaining distance to the rock wall in silence, though Kenton did catch the girl shooting him the occasional suspicious look. He could only smile to himself, shaking his head. For some reason she had decided to distrust him; she was obviously convinced he was hiding something—which was perfectly all right, considering the fact that he was.
Such thoughts brought back the pain—not only of his fallen comrades, but of his own inability. Every sand master, no matter how weak, was schooled from his first day in the Diem not to overmaster. Overmastery killed, overmastery weakened, and overmastery burned out power. It appeared that Kenton was first-hand proof of that last possibility.
“Here,” the warrior Baon said, finally leading tonk and party into the relative coolness of the rock’s shade. The fat man sighed in relief, collapsing to the sand, and the others didn’t fare much better. Only Baon remained on his feet—the walk didn’t seem to have bothered him at all.
Kenton shared a look with the darkside warrior, who nodded in understanding. He realized it too.
“How on the sands did you get trapped with only one tonk?” Kenton asked.
“We were—” the girl paused. “Wait, I should be asking you questions.”
Kenton sighed, looking over at Baon. “Well?” he asked.
“Betrayal,” the warrior said simply, taking a sip from his water bottle.
The girl huffed indignantly at the slight.
“Is she always this bad?” Kenton asked, nodding toward the girl.
“Only in the mornings,” the warrior informed. “Or,” he added, “after she’s been forced to hike for two hours in dayside heat.”
Kenton nodded, immediately feeling guilty for his insolence. The simple fact was that he was just too good at defying authority. He’d been rebelling against the Diem’s leadership for so long, he immediately reacted impertinently to anyone in a position of command.
Too late now, Kenton decided, looking at the Darkside girl’s face with a sigh.
#
Khriss started, taken aback by the Daysider’s rudeness. Never, in her entire life, had she been treated in such a way. Baon was blunt, true, but not rude. Even Flennid, who had obviously resented her, had made his opinion known with an air of court-bred subtlety.
Khriss didn’t know how to react. All her life, people had treated her with the respect that her title demanded. True, she had never been a large part of court politics, and therefore was often the subject of jokes or rumors, but such were to be expected, and at least they were never expressed before her face. This Daysider’s speech, his entire air, was intentionally disrespectful.
She almost backed down and left him alone. However, Baon’s words from before stood defiantly in the back of her mind—the warrior had inferred that that she was too quick to let others ignore her station. So it was that she found herself staring defiantly back at the Daysider.
“Children,” Cynder interrupted, “I hate to break such a beautifully tense moment, but aren’t either of you bothered by the fact that our mercenary just drew his weapon?”
Khriss looked over with surprise, noticing for the first time that Baon was holding one of his silver, double-barreled pistols at the ready, his head cocked to the side as if listening for something. He held up a hand to forestall questions, and crept across the shaded sand, sticking close to the rock wall. He rounded the lip of the rock opening that led out of the enclosed crater, stepping softly on the sand, his pistol cocked. Then, suddenly, he spun the rest of the way around the corner, his weapon held at the ready.
He stood for a moment, a look that could only be surprise on his face, then lowered his weapon. “By the Divine,” he mumbled.
“What?” Khriss demanded, hoisting herself to her feet and peeking around the corner.
There, tied to a rock outcropping, were four familiar tonks, one bearing Stump’s distinctive broken horn.
“I’d wondered how even Flennid could be so cruel to take all the mounts,” Cynder mumbled, joining the two.
Khriss nodded. “Apparently he isn’t as evil as we assumed.”
Baon snorted, tucking his pistol back into his belt. “Taking these mounts is probably the only smart thing that boy did this entire expedition,” he informed, walking over to inspect the animals. “He probably guessed what I would do to him if I’d been able to chase him down.”
“By the Divine!” Acron said with relief. “Oh, blessed be Shella and Ridos! Flennid has a heart after all.”
“Don’t give him too much credit,” Baon warned, checking through the saddlebags. “They didn’t leave us any water. Of course, I suppose that makes sense.”
“Sense? Killing us makes sense?” Khriss asked.
Baon shrugged. “We had enough water to last seven of us for three days. The nearest town is seven days away—that means three could make it if they took all the water. Those three might have been fools, but physically they were probably the most likely to survive.”
“That’s heartless reasoning, Baon,” Khriss said, feeling chilled despite the Dayside heat.
“I didn’t say I agree with its morals, duchess,” Baon said, strapping the final saddlebag closed. “I just said it makes logical sense. Come on, it’s looking like we might actually survive this trip.”
Chapter Six
Kenton looked up at the sun, his old friend, the first and strongest companion of every Daysider. Ker’reen philosophy—religion of the Kershtians—called the sun a manifestation of the Sand Lord, but even daysiders that didn’t worship the sun felt some spiritual bond with it. Despite the Diem’s historical atheism, Kenton had met few sand masters who didn’t at least feel reverence for the great orb. In the very least it was the force that made sand mastery possible, for once sand was mastered it was left black and stale, and only four hours of charging in the sun would restore it.
But, this day the sun felt
different. Not the sun itself, put its position in the sky. It was in the wrong place.
“We go that way,” Kenton said, pointing to the southwest.
“How can you tell?” the duchess, Khrissalla, demanded.
Kenton smiled. He didn’t think the girl realized how impatient her voice sounded. She was simply the type who was accustomed to getting quick answers to her questions. Of course, understanding her arrogance didn’t make him any more accepting—he did, after all, have his pride.
“Magic,” Kenton informed, hammering his tonk into motion. The darksiders joined in, moving their own beasts forward as well.
Khrissalla snorted at his answer, maladroitly moving her tonk up next to his own—she still hadn’t quite mastered the art of controlling the beasts. “You’re guessing,” she accused. “You saw my map, and now you’re just making it seem like you know what you’re doing.”
“Yes, I did see your map, Khrissalla,” Kenton said, being certain to use her name, if only because he knew it bothered her. She should have just introduced herself as ‘the duchess’ rather than ‘the duchess Khrissalla.’ “Or, at least,” he continued, “I saw enough of it to know it was out of date and rather inaccurate. I know four year-old children who could produce a better depiction of dayside.”
“All right then, how do you know which way to go?”
Kenton sighed—he had to concede the duchess one point: she was nothing if not persistent. They had been traveling for about two days now, and he was coming to understand that no amount of subject dodging, ignoring, or even straight rejecting would dissuade Khrisalla’s curiosity. It was becoming more and more obvious that if he wanted her to stop pestering him, he was going to have to give her some answers.
“When the sun hangs in the exact same spot for your entire life, you become very sensitive to its changes,” he explained. “The sun feels … out of place to me. It should be lower in the sky, and a little bit to the east.”
Khrissalla blinked in surprise—she obviously hadn’t expected an answer from him. He had, after all, spent the last two days doing his best to be as annoyingly close-mouthed as possible.
“You can really feel it?” she asked, turning her black-glassed eyes back towards the sun.
Kenton nodded. “On dayside, you never need a map to guide you home. You only need the sun.”
The girl frowned. “But, how can you tell east and west? Other than the mountain, there aren’t any landmarks.”
Kenton shrugged. “You just can. You know when the sun is in the right place.”
Khrissalla frowned—she didn’t like it when his explanations had to with ‘feeling’ or ‘sensing.’ Kenton found her confusion odd; the comments always made sense to him. The duchess, however, kept asking ‘why’ and ‘how.’ She wanted parameters for everything, measurements she could scribble in the ledger she always seemed to have in her lap.
However, she probably decided that ambiguous answers were better than no answers at all, for she decided to continue. “You said magic, at first. Do you believe in magic?”
Kenton raised an eyebrow—this was a new one. Did he believe in magic? Well, his father had actually granted him mastrellship. That was about as magical an event as Kenton could imagine. “Sure,” he said.
“Sure?” Khrissalla repeated. “That doesn’t sound very certain.” She turned toward him, obviously intending to give him a prompting stare, but the expression was ruined by the black contraptions on her eyes—the things she called spectacles. On her head was a wide floppy hat that no self-respecting Kerla traveler would wear, and, as normal, her long hair blew free in the wind. She wore her Kershtian robe pulled tight around her body, accentuating her form in a scandalous way.
“There could be magic,” Kenton explained. “I’ve never seen any, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. The Kershtians talk about many things happening during worship services.”
“What about the Sand Mages?” she asked.
“The who?” Kenton asked, frowning. Mage? He was unfamiliar with the word.
“The Sand Mages,” Khrissalla repeated. “They rule Lossand.”
Kenton snorted. “I’ve never heard of them. If they rule Lossand, then they are very good at making certain no one realizes it.”
She was quiet for a moment.
“You’re certain?” she asked.
Kenton frowned. “Of course I am. I’ve lived in Lossand all my life. It’s ruled by the Profession heads, not these mages, whatever they are.”
Khriss turned away from him, an odd expression in her face. Sorrow? “Oh, Gevin,” she all but whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said, looking melancholy.
First she gets mad at me for refusing to answer, he thought with a shake of his head. Then, when I do answer, she gets sad for no reason. “Woman, you are completely incomprehensible,” he declared, hammering his tonk forward.
#
For once, the Daysider’s rudeness didn’t affect her. She barely noticed as he rode away. Gevin had been wrong, and she had been right. Why, then, did she feel so horrible?
It wasn’t my dream, Gevin, it was yours. But that was enough for me to want to believe in it. If the stories had somehow been true, they would have disproven Khriss’s logic—the same logic that told her there was no way she was going to find the prince alive after such a long absence.
“Duchess.” Baon’s voice drew her away from unpleasant speculations.
“Yes, Baon?” she asked, turning as his tonk pulled alongside hers.
Baon paused, seeing her face. Despite the spectacles, Baon had an almost supernatural ability to sense someone’s mood. “Kenton being close-mouthed again?” he assumed.
“No,” she replied. “He actually decided to answer today.”
“But you didn’t like what you heard.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Khriss said dismissively. “He still refuses to speak about the important things. He claims to be nothing more than a servant, but he won’t explain what the group was doing out in the desert—or, rather, the Kerla.” It was going to take a long time for her to stop thinking as the endless dunes of sand as a desert. “Personally, I think he’s lying,” Khriss added, seeking out the Daysider in his white robe.
“He’s certainly hiding something,” Baon agreed.
“How do you know?”
“I asked him,” Baon said simply.
“Asked him what?” Khriss said with a frown.
“I asked him if he was hiding something,” Baon explained. “He said he was.”
“And you didn’t go any further?”
Baon shrugged. “If he wanted to tell me what it was, then he wouldn’t be hiding it, would he?”
Khriss sighed.
“Of course, it probably has something to do with the sword.”
Khriss perked up. “What sword?” she asked.
“The one he’s not wearing,” Baon informed. “He checks for it occasionally, like a warrior. When he walks, his hand often falls to his side, as if to steady a sheath. The exercises he does after he wakes, the ones he claims to recover his strength—those are the actions of a warrior.”
“A warrior …” Khriss mumbled. “But, that doesn’t mean anything, Baon. This is a primitive society—for all we know, everyone’s trained as a warrior.”
“I’ve done a lot of travelling, duchess,” Baon said. “You would be surprised—even in the most violent of countries, servants are still the same. They don’t have time to fight; and if they did, their masters wouldn’t let them. Trained warriors make dangerous peasants.”
Khriss let his ‘lot of travelling’ comment pass—Baon had already established that he would not speak about his past. While this Kenton was difficult to get information from, Baon was impossible.
“However, duchess,” Baon continued, “speaking about the daysider’s profession was not the reason I approached you.”
“Oh?”
“We’re out of f
ood.”
Khriss’s stomach groaned in agreement. “I noticed,” she informed. “I thought we decided there was nothing we could do about it.”
“There isn’t anything we can do about it,” Baon agreed. “There might, however, be something he can do.”
“But, he says we’ll be reaching Lossand within a day or two. We can probably survive that long.”
“Not if we listen to your anthropologist,” Baon said, nodding his head backward.
Khriss turned, catching a glimpse of Acron’s bulk settled despondently on his tonk’s back. The anthropologist had been complaining quite profusely about the lack of supplies.
“He’ll live,” Khriss decided.
“True,” Baon agreed with a rare smile. “But it might be worth asking anyway. I don’t like travelling without provisions. Any number of things could happen in two days. If he can pull water out of the sand, then perhaps he can perform a similar miracle for food.”
“All right,” Khriss said. “I suppose you want me to do it.”
“You are in charge, duchess.”
“But he likes you better,” she protested.
Baon just looked at her, and eventually Khriss sighed. She grabbed her hammer and gave Stump a tap, and he responded in his usual disorganized way, shambling vaguely in Kenton’s direction. The Daysider looked over as she approached, a wry smirk on his face.
“Another question?” he asked. “You waited almost five minutes this time—you must have held yourself back.”
“We need food, daysider,” she said, gritting her teeth against his insulting tone.
Kenton frowned in confusion. “What do you mean? There’s plenty of sand.”
Khriss sat, stunned by the words, her eyes focusing on the vast dunes around them. “You don’t actually eat … .” She trailed off as she looked back at Kenton, noticing the mirth on his face.
“I hope your entire race isn’t as gullible as you are, Khrissalla,” he said. “Otherwise, your people are going to be in some serious trouble if Kershtian merchants ever make it over there.”