“You have no talent for sand mastery, boy!” Praxton spat, waving for the group to continue moving. They made only a perfunctory show of obeying the order. Few people ever challenged the Lord Mastrell, especially not young boys. Such a sight was worth standing in a sandstorm to watch.
“The Law says I have enough!” Kenton rebutted, his small voice nearly a scream.
Praxton frowned. “You’ve studied the Law, have you, boy?”
“I have.”
“Then you know that I am the only one who can grant advancement in the Diem,” Praxton said, growing more and more furious at the challenge to his authority. It looked bad to be confronted by a child, especially his own son. “The Lord Mastrell must give his approval before any sand master can increase in rank.”
“Every rank but the first!” Kenton shouted back.
Praxton paused, feeling his rage build. Everything beat against him—the insufferable wind, the boy’s insolence, the other sand masters’ eyes.… The worst of it was his own knowledge. Knowledge that the boy was right. Anyone who could make the sand glow was technically allowed to join the Diem. Boys with less power than Kenton had become sand masters. Of course, none of them had been children of the Lord Mastrell. If Kenton joined the Diem, his inability would weaken Praxton’s authority by association.
The boy continued to stand, his posture determined. The windblown sand was piling around his legs, burying him up to the knees in a shifting barrow.
“You will not find it easy in the Diem, boy,” Praxton hissed. “By the sands, see reason!”
Kenton did not move.
Praxton sighed. “Fine!” he declared. “You may join.”
Kenton smiled in victory, pulling his legs free from the dune and scrambling over to join the line of students. Praxton watched motionlessly as the boy moved.
The buffeting wind tore at his robes, sand scraping its way into his eyes and between his lips. Such discomfort would be little compared to the pain Kenton would soon know—the Diem was a place of unforgiving politics, and sheer power was often the means by which a sand master was judged. No, life would not be easy for one so weak, especially since his father was so powerful. No matter what Praxton did, the other students would resent Kenton for supposed coddlings or favoritism.
Oblivious to the trials ahead of him, the young boy made his way to the caves a short distance away. It appeared as if Praxton’s final child would also prove to be his largest embarrassment.
CHAPTER ONE
IT almost seemed to Kenton as if the sands were breathing. Heat from the immobile sun reflected off the grains, distorting the air—making the dunes seem like they were composed of tiny coals, white-hot with energy. In the distance, Kenton could hear wind moaning through crevices in the rock. There was only one place in the enormous dune-covered expanse of the Kerla that such rock protrusions could be found: here, beside Mount KraeDa, in the place sacred to the sand masters. Everywhere else the sands were far too deep.
Kenton, now a man, once again stood before a group of mastrells. In many ways he was very similar to the boy who had stood in this exact place eight years before. He had the same close-cropped blondish hair, the same roundish face and determined expression, and—most importantly—the same look of rebellious conviction in his eyes. He now wore the white robes of a sand master, but, unlike most others of his kind, he wore no colored sash. His sash was plain white—the sign of a student who hadn’t yet been assigned a rank in the Diem. Tied at his waist was another oddity—a sword. He was the only person in the group of sand masters who was armed.
“Don’t tell me you intend to go through with this foolishness?” the man in front of Kenton demanded. Praxton, looking older than the sand itself, stood at the head of the Diem’s twenty gold-sashed mastrells. Though he had seen barely sixty years, Praxton’s skin was dry, wrinkled like a fruit that had been left out in the sun. Like most sand masters, he wore no beard.
Kenton looked back defiantly, something he had grown very good at doing over the last eight years. Praxton regarded his son with a mixture of disgust and embarrassment. Then, with a sigh, the old man did something unexpected. He moved away from the rest of the mastrells, who stood silently on the rock plateau. Kenton watched with confusion as Praxton waved him over, standing far enough away from the others that the two could have a private conversation. For once, Kenton did as commanded, moving over to hear what the Lord Mastrell had to say.
Praxton looked back at the mastrells, then turned back to Kenton. His eyes only briefly shot down at the sword tied at Kenton’s waist before coming up to stare him in the eyes.
“Look, boy,” Praxton said, his voice cracking slightly as he spoke. “I have suffered your insolence and games for eight years. The Sand Lord only knows how much trouble you’ve caused. Why must you constantly defy me?”
Kenton shrugged. “Because I’m good at it?”
Praxton scowled.
“Lord Mastrell,” Kenton continued, more serious but no less defiant. “Once a sand master has accepted a rank, he’s forever frozen in that place.”
“So?” Praxton demanded.
Kenton didn’t answer. He had refused advancement four times now, a move that had made him into a fool and a novelty before the rest of the Diem. Inept students were sometimes forced to spend five years as an acolent, but never in the history of sand mastery had anyone remained a student for eight.
Praxton sighed again, reaching down to take a sip of water from his qido. “All right, boy,” Praxton finally said. “Despite the pain—despite the shame—I will admit that you’ve worked hard. The Sand Lord knows you haven’t any talent to speak of, but at least you did something with the small amount you have. Give up this stupid decision to run the Path, and tomorrow I’ll offer you the rank of fen.”
Fen. It was the next to lowest of the nine sand master ranks; only underfen—the rank Kenton had been offered the four previous years—was beneath it.
“No,” Kenton said. “I think I want to be a mastrell.”
“Aisha!” Praxton cursed.
“Don’t swear now, Father,” Kenton suggested. “Wait until I run the Path successfully. Then what will you do?”
Kenton’s defiant words were more optimistic than his heart, however. Even as his father raged, Kenton felt the questions resurfacing.
What on the sands am I doing? Eight years ago no one thought I could even be a sand master, and now I’ve been offered a respectable rank in the Diem. It isn’t what I wanted, but …
“Boy, you’re inept enough to make the Hundred Idiots look brilliant. Running the Mastrell’s Path won’t prove anything. It’s meant for mastrells—not for simple acolents.”
“The Law doesn’t say a student cannot run it,” Kenton said, thoughts of his inadequacy still strong in his mind.
“I won’t make you a mastrell,” Praxton warned. “Even if you find all five spheres, I won’t do it. The Path is not a test or a proof. Mastrells run it if they want to, but only after they’ve been advanced. Your success will mean nothing. You’ll never be a mastrell—you aren’t even worthy to be a sand master!”
Praxton’s words burned away Kenton’s doubts like water in the sun. If there was one person who could fuel Kenton’s sense of defiance, it was Praxton.
“Then I’ll be an acolent until the day I die, Lord Mastrell,” Kenton replied, folding his arms.
“You can’t be a mastrell,” Praxton reiterated. “You don’t have the power.”
“I don’t believe in power, Father. I believe in ability. I can do anything a mastrell can; I just have different methods.” It was an old argument, one he had been making for the last eight years.
“Can you slatrify?”
Kenton paused. No, that was one thing he couldn’t do. Slatrification, the ability to change sand into water, was the ultimate art of sand mastery. It was wildly different from sand mastery’s other abilities, and none of Kenton’s creativity or ingenuity could replicate it.
“There
have been mastrells who couldn’t slatrify,” Kenton replied weakly.
“Only two,” Praxton replied. “And both were able to control over two dozen ribbons of sand at once. How many can you control, boy?”
Kenton ground his teeth. It was a direct question, however, and he couldn’t refuse to respond. “One,” he finally admitted.
“One,” Praxton repeated. “One ribbon. I’ve never known a mastrell who couldn’t control at least fifteen. You’re telling me you can do as much with one as they can with fifteen? Why can’t you see how preposterous that is?”
Kenton smiled slightly. Thank you for the encouragement, Father. “Well, I’ll just have to prove it to you then, Lord Mastrell,” he said with a mocking bow, turning away from his father.
“The Path was meant for mastrells, boy,” Praxton’s cracking voice repeated behind him. “Most of them don’t even use it—it’s too dangerous.”
Kenton ignored the old man, instead approaching another sand master who was standing a short distance away. His short frame cast no shadow, for the sun was directly overhead here, in the jagged rocklands south of Mount KraeDa. The sand master was bald and had a slightly fat, oval face. Around his waist was tied the yellow sash of an undermastrell, the rank directly below mastrell. The man smiled as Kenton approached.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Kenton?”
Kenton nodded. “Yes, Elorin, I do.”
“Your father’s objections are well founded,” Elorin cautioned. “The Mastrell’s Path was created by a group of men with inflated egos who wanted very desperately to prove themselves better than their peers. It was designed for those with massive power. Mastrells have died running it before.”
“I understand,” Kenton said, but inwardly he was curious. No one who had run the Path was allowed to reveal its secrets, and for all his studying, Kenton hadn’t been able to determine what could be so dangerous about a simple race through the Kerla. Was it the lack of water? Steep cliffs? Neither should have provided much of a challenge to well-trained sand masters.
Elorin continued. “All right then. The Lord Mastrell has asked me to mediate your run. A group of us will watch as you move through the Path, evaluating your progress and making certain you don’t cheat. We cannot help you unless you ask, and if we do the intervention will end your run where it stands.”
The shorter man reached into his white sand master’s robes, pulling out a small red sphere. “There are five of these hidden on the Path,” he explained. “Your goal is to find all five. You may start when I say so. You have until the moon passes behind the mountain and reappears on the other side. The test is over the moment you either run out of time or find the fifth sphere.”
Kenton looked up. The moon circled the sky once per day, hovering just above the horizon the entire time. Soon it would pass behind Mount KraeDa. He would probably have about an hour, a hundred minutes, to run the Path.
“So I don’t have to make it back to the starting point?” Kenton clarified.
Elorin shook his head. “The moment the moon reappears, your run is over. We will count the spheres you have found, and that is your score.”
Kenton nodded.
“You may not take your qido with you,” Elorin informed him, reaching out a hand to take Kenton’s water bottle from his side.
“The sword too,” Praxton called from behind, his lips curled downward in their characteristic look of disapproval.
“That is not in the rules, old man,” Kenton objected, his hand falling to the hilt.
“A true sand master has no need of such a clumsy weapon,” Praxton argued.
“It’s not in the rules,” Kenton repeated.
“He is right, Lord Mastrell,” Elorin agreed. He was frowning too—as kind as the undermastrell was, even he didn’t agree with Kenton’s insistence on carrying a sword. In the eyes of most sand masters, weapons were crass things, meant for lowly Professions such as soldiers.
Praxton rolled his eyes in a look of frustration, but made no further objections. A few minutes later the last bit of the moon’s sphere disappeared behind the mountain.
“May the Sand Lord protect you, young Kenton,” Elorin offered.
* * *
The Path started simply enough, and Kenton quickly found the first two spheres. The red sandstone globes had been so easy to locate, in fact, that he began to worry that he had missed something. Unfortunately, Kenton knew that he didn’t have time to go back and recheck his steps. Either he found them all on the first try, or he failed.
That determination drove Kenton forward as he ran across the top of a rock ledge. Around him the strange formations of stone jutted from the sand floor, some rising hundreds of feet into the air, others barely breaking the surface. The scenery was familiar to him—the sand masters came to this place every year to choose new members and award merits to old ones. It was almost a sacred place, though sand masters tended to be irreligious. None of the Kerla’s Kerztian inhabitants came to this place—its sand was far too shallow to sustain a town. In fact, few even knew of its existence. It was a place of the sand masters.
And, for four years, it had been a place of embarrassment—to Kenton at least. Four years of standing before the entire population of the Diem, presenting himself for an advancement that would not be granted. He knew that most of the others considered him a fool—an arrogant fool. At times, he wondered if they might be right. Why did he keep pushing for a rank he did not deserve? Why not be satisfied with what Praxton was willing to give him?
Life in the Diem had not been easy for Kenton. Sand master society was ancient and stratified—new students were immediately given positions of leadership and favor based on their power. Those with lesser ability were made the virtual servants and attendants of those more talented—and such was a situation that continued up through the entire sand master hierarchy.
To them, power was everything. Kenton had watched the other acolents in his group, and seen how easily sand mastery came to them. They didn’t have to stretch themselves, didn’t have to learn how to control their sand. Their answer to any problem was to throw a dozen ribbons at it and hope it went away. Today, Kenton intended to prove that there was a better way.
Kenton paused, stopping abruptly. He had run out of ground—directly in front of him the sand-covered earth ended in a steep chasm. It rose again perhaps fifty feet away. He could barely make out a flag flapping on the other side of the gorge—a marker to indicate the direction he was to take.
And so the real test begins, Kenton thought, reaching down to grab a handful of sand from the ground. Another sand master, one more powerful, could have leapt the chasm, propelling himself through the air on a stream of sand. Kenton didn’t have that option.
So, instead, he jumped off the cliff.
He plummeted toward the ground, his white robes flapping in the sudden wind. He didn’t look down, instead concentrating on the sand clutched in his fist.
The sand burst to life.
With an explosion of light, the sand changed from bone white to shimmering mother-of-pearl. Kenton opened his hand as he fell, commanding the sand to move. It shot forward, forming into a ribbon of light that extended from his palm toward the quickly approaching dunes below.
When the sand had reached the ground, he commanded it to gather mass from the dunes below and move back up. A second later there was a shimmering line of mastered sand extending from Kenton to the ground. He was still falling, but as he commanded the sand to push, his descent slowed. The sand worked like a shimmering coil, slowing him more and more as he approached the ground. He came to a stop just a foot above the surface of the dunes, then stepped off the ribbon and dropped to the ground. As he did so, he released the ribbon from his control, and the shimmering sand immediately darkened and fell dead. No longer white, it was now a dull black, its energy spent.
Kenton jogged along the bottom of the ravine, forcing himself not to slow despite the fatigue of sand mastery. He was beginning to re
gret his insistence on bringing his sword—the weapon seemed to grow more and more heavy as he ran, dragging at his side.
Going along the bottom of the chasm instead of jumping was costing him precious time. He had already wasted about sixty minutes of his hour. He licked his lips, which were growing dry. Sand mastery didn’t just take strength, it required water, sucking the precious liquid from the body of the sand master. A sand master had to be careful not to master to the point that his body took permanent damage from dehydration.
Kenton reached the second cliff and looked up, gathering his strength. In the distance he could see a group of white-robed forms. The mastrells, evaluating his progress. Even at a distance, Kenton could sense the finality in their postures. They assumed he was stuck—it was well known that Kenton could barely lift himself a few feet with his sand. Of course, that much in itself was amazing—no other sand master could do so much with only a single ribbon. Amazing or not, however, it wasn’t enough to get him to the top of the cliff, which was at least a hundred feet tall.
The mastrells were turning their heads, discussing among themselves in voices far too distant to hear. Ignoring them, Kenton reached down and grabbed another handful of sand. He called it to life, feeling it begging to squirm and shimmer in his hand. The sand shone brightly—more brightly, even, than that of a mastrell. Kenton could only control one ribbon, but it was by far the most powerful ribbon any sand master had ever created.
This had better work … Kenton thought to himself.
He let the sand slip forward, dropping to the ground like a stream of water. There, he gathered more sand, calling to life as much as he could handle—enough to make a thin string perhaps twenty feet long. This time, however, he didn’t form the sand into the ribbon. Instead he created a step.
He couldn’t lift himself very far, true. The higher a sand master lifted himself in the air, the more sand was required, and Kenton could only control a relatively small amount. He could, however, hold himself in place.
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