The Sand Prince

by Kim Alexander

  She was frowning as she struggled to place it. Who had just been talking about him? "It sounds really familiar... I think it must be from a long time ago, though. What was the book called?"

  "The Claiming of the Duke," he said. "It is a great book."

  Do not laugh, do not laugh, do not laugh, she warned herself. "I, ah, I actually know that book. My mother had it, I think."

  He looked as if he might faint. "Can you tell me what happens at the end? My copy had pages missing. The end, the whole last part is missing. It's very important. Please."

  "Well," she said, "let me see if I remember. Um, the evil one—Phillip something?"

  "Sir Edward? I think you mean Edward." He was wide-eyed.

  "He dies, for real. He faked it the first time, so he could steal the jewels that Cybelle wanted to give that silly sap Gwyneth."

  "Wait. What? You must have the wrong book after all." Now he looked offended. "Gwyneth was—"

  "No," she continued, "That's the book. My girlfriends and I stole it from my mother and passed it around. It ends with a wedding, of course, all those books do. I remember loving Cybelle, she was a better choice for that Duke character, not that he was any prize. Gwyneth, she was like a wet rag. Couldn't stand her." Moth looked as if she'd insulted his sister. Or his girlfriend. "You liked her, of course." She shook her head. "Typical. Not a thought in her head and a big pair of heaving bosoms."

  He turned a bit pink, and avoided looking at Lelet. He said, "Gwyneth, if I stop and think about it, she's the reason I'm here. She was a lovely girl and not—a sap? Not a sap. Tell me about the end. Please."

  "Well, the Duke finally shows up—I'm sorry, I can't remember why he was late to the wedding, and of course your girl Gwyn is all sobbing into her lace, no self-esteem on that one, she couldn't imagine he was just running late after all the other nonsense they put each other through. Finally he rides up and leaps off the horse—I remember that part! It was very romantic. He lifts her to her feet and in front of all their friends—well, his friends, really—in front of the whole town and with the crashing sea as the backdrop, they become man and wife. And that's the end."

  "That's all?" He looked disappointed. "They don’t... that’s really the end?"

  "What did you think was going to happen? This book is way older than we are. It’s bound to be old fashioned." A light went on in her head. "That's the reason. That's why you say such strange things. You called me a wench!" Now she did laugh. "Just like that idiotic Duke! Oh no, did you think we were like those people? In that old book?" He was getting another look she recognized, the one before he marched off. She swallowed her laughter and said, "And you came here by yourself. There was no way to know what we would be like, other than what you read. I hope it hasn't been too disappointing."

  "This world has been a series of surprises," he said quietly. "Not one thing is what I expected." He looked at her again. "But not all disappointing, no." He took a breath and said, "Well, what about the author? I... I would very much like to speak with him. It's extremely important."

  "I suppose he might still be alive. I'm sorry, it’s a really old book." She watched his face, he looked like a man who’d just burnt his last match. She wondered what was really going on. Again she found herself filled with the desire to touch him. Not a very Gwyneth thing to do, she decided.

  The rain continued. He'd stopped flinching every time there was thunder, but he still looked so sad. Finally she came up with something she thought might cheer him up.

  "You know, you could go outside if you wanted to. There's no reason not to. You'd get soaked but you'd have a story to tell your friend back home—the smart one—how you did something he'll never get to do."

  The look on his face made her feel like she'd won a prize. He clearly thought this was the best idea anyone had ever had. He stepped through the door, dead authors and old books forgotten. He was soaked in an instant. She watched as he turned his hands and face to the storm.

  And that, thought Lelet, is something my friends won't ever get to see. I know I should be scared, I don't know what's going to happen next, but Rane, I’ll have to thank you for sending this extremely strange, interesting and wet person—demon—whatever—my way.

  ***

  After a while he'd had enough and as he walked back through the doorway, a cloud of steam engulfed him. When it had cleared, he was almost completely dry. He sat down next to her with a thud.

  "That was amazing. I am never going back to Eriis," he said.

  She laughed and patted his cheek. "Welcome to Mistra, sweetie." She pointed at his face. "And you're getting a little scratchy."

  He rubbed his chin. "Why does this keep happening?" he muttered.

  "Um, because you’re alive? You should keep it, it suits you."

  "Hmm, yes. I suppose it covers up some of the ugly." He turned away from her.

  "Ha! Right. Ugly. Sure. You're prettier than me," she said with a laugh.

  He rose and walked to the door and it took her a moment to realize he wasn't amused and he hadn't been kidding.

  Oh, for the love of—

  She joined him at the place where the door had once been. "Moth, you are worse than my sister on her monthlies. You absolutely cannot keep walking off when something offends you." He shook her hand off his arm. He was positively vibrating with—what? "What did I say," she asked, "this time?"

  "I know what I look like," he answered. She could barely hear him over the rain. "I've been reminded every day of my life. I am deformed. I am an aberration. A mistake."

  She tried to pull out all her hair for a second, then said, "I am not making fun of you. I don't know why anyone would tell you those horrible things. I don't know what other demons look like, but I do know what other human persons look like, and you look perfectly fine to me."

  "All the same," he said. "That's how we look. All slight and quick and narrow. All small. All the same, except for me."

  "All your people look the same? That sounds—no offense—kind of boring."

  He gave up his spot at the doorway and sat back down. He looked tired. "We value uniformity. And it’s not boring, it reassuring. At first I couldn't tell you humans apart, I didn't know what part of you to look at." He paused. "You think I look normal?"

  And then there was the time I had to convince a demon he was pretty. She took a breath. Someone, somewhere had taken this poor creature apart. Why? She realized she was worried about sending him back to wherever he came from. She said, "Let me ask you a question. You don't think I'm ugly, do you?"

  "No, that is not what immediately springs to mind."

  "Yes, well, thank you. But I don't look like everyone back home on... ahh...."

  "Eriis," he reminded her.

  "I don't look like all your friends back on Eriis, do I?"

  He admitted that she did not.

  "So isn't it possible for you also?"

  "No."

  She gritted her teeth. He'd made it clear that if she told him he had the kind of beauty that stopped her breath in her throat and made her foggy in her wits, he'd think she was lying. And anyway, he hadn't done or said anything that made her think he was even interested in her. The only thing he'd called her was a 'cave lizard.'

  She thought again of his friend, his good friend who was so clever and handsome and capable. Maybe the kind of friend who liked to remind you that you didn't quite measure up? That you were lucky they were around? She'd had her share of friends like that. She looked at the way he sat, his long legs folded under him and turned mostly away from her. He sat like that all the time, she realized. Not so he wouldn't have to look at her, as she had originally suspected. He sat like that so she wouldn't have to look at him. To spare me. What good manners. If he's so ugly, what in the world do the rest of them look like? She frowned. Something back on Eriis wasn't adding up, beginning with the reason he'd given for coming here in the first place. You go to see an author read at a bookshop in your neighborhood, you don't leave your hom
e and risk your life.

  The book thing, that's a lie, or at least partly a lie. He says he has no magic, and he obviously does. He thinks he's some sort of hideous beast, and well, I have eyes. She knew she'd get the story out of him eventually. It was just another part of the adventure.

  For the moment, it was all she could do not to cross the space between them and see again if his hair was really so soft, and if his mouth was soft, and if his body was hard. She gave her head a shake to clear it. No, if she were to follow her instincts and do the kind of convincing that never failed to work on any other man—any human man—he'd take it for a joke or worse, pity. Perhaps start with 'normal' and work up? She figured it was worth a try. She took a deep breath.

  "Okay. You may be a very unattractive demon, since you are not—what did you say? Small? Slight? But as a human person you look completely normal. Trust me, on a crowded street no one would even look at you. It'd be like you were invisible." That is the biggest lie I've told today, she thought.

  He frowned. She could see she'd made an impression.

  "I am going to go out and be in the rain for a while. I am not marching off and I do not have my monthlies."

  When she was done laughing she thought, I am either going to have to kill him or introduce him to the family. One or the other. I guess I'll just wait and see.

  Chapter 56

  Gwenyth could hear her heart hammering in her breast.

  She could feel the heat of the Duke's body, now pressed against

 

  -The Claiming of the Duke, pg 210 (fragment)

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

  Mistra

  100 years after the War of the Door, Mistran calendar

  20 years later, Eriisai calendar

  Road through the Great Forest

  "Does it seem colder to you?" She pulled the coarse blanket closer. "It feels colder to me." After the sun came back out they'd moved on for another hour or so, but it was getting dark earlier. They had decided to stop for the evening and she stood looking around the little glade.

  "No, not really," he answered. "I think my people are set a little warmer than yours."

  Then why bother with a fire at all? she was about to snap. Then she realized. For me.

  "Well, I’m tired of glowing rocks. I think I’ll show you how to make a fire. I don’t know how to cook rabbit a la rock." She picked up a handful of twigs. "Bring me a bunch of these, and then a bunch of bigger ones. Brown ones, not green. And some leaves. Try to get dry ones."

  "How do you know how to do this? Isn’t it a farm thing? Or a servant thing?"

  She looked at him curiously. "A servant thing? Making a fire? Did you get that idea from your book?" She supposed he had—the Duke always had a battalion of valets, chefs, butlers and maids, most nameless, lighting fires and gas lamps and cigars for him. "No, when we were children we would make a camp out on the back lawn. May and Rane, and even Scilla when she was old enough. Pol was already too much of a grownup and he was always off balancing the books or something. But the rest of us would be out there all night. We’d bring out food and hot drinks and pretend we were lost in the Great Old Forest. And we took turns and had contests to see who could build the best fire; we took great pride in them. Rane usually won, he had the best eye for balance back then. It was such fun! We called it Running Away from the Dem..." She turned pink and tossed her branch on the ground. "I can’t ever be kind to you, it seems."

  "That game sounds nice," he said slowly. "Your family sounds nice."

  "Well, what sort of things did you play, growing up?" she asked. "Do you have many brothers and sisters?"

  "No," he answered.

  "No, you don’t have a lot of siblings, or no, you didn’t play games like that?" It was like unknotting a necklace, with this one.

  "No to both, actually. We are small and then we are expected to be what we are. Not so many games like that."

  She chewed her fingernail for a moment and came to a decision. "I’m going to do something, and I don’t want you to get angry or upset. Just stand still."

  As she approached him, she could see the effort it took for him not to draw back. She reached up and put her arms around his neck, and after a moment she felt the tension drain from his shoulders. He closed his eyes and rested his cheek against her smooth, cool hair. She heard him sigh softly as he leaned against her.

  "Now," she said, stepping back, "let’s build a fire."

  ***

  Hours later, the moons were up, and—as Lelet had predicted—it had gotten quite cold. Her fire had come together nicely, even if the rabbit had been burned in places and almost raw in others. He was fascinated by her pack of matches, and remarked, "My whole life could have been different if I'd had these." But as usual he wouldn't explain what he meant.

  She was making a mental checklist called Things They Don't Have On Eriis:

  Matches

  Rain/water

  Music

  HORSES

  Humor

  They ate the raw/burned rabbit with stolen bread and another pastry and called it "perfect, lovely, just fine." She figured that while she would have preferred their meal prepared braised with a nice mustard sauce, it was probably still a lot better than sand. She reached into the leather bag. "Look what else I got today," she said gleefully. She held out a pair of worn slippers. They were a faded blue and brown fabric, padded on top and looked only slightly too big. "They were on the porch. I stole them."

  "Now you can run away," he observed.

  She shrugged. "Maybe in the morning. Too cold for a proper escape right now. And look at this." She held out something lumpy and green. "While you were being invisible at the house, I got this off the tree."

  "Too bad," he said. "You couldn't find any good ones?"

  Her eyes narrowed and she tossed the ugly fruit back and forth between her hands. "Moth, what do you think this is?"

  "It’s an apple," he answered, frowning uncertainly. "But it’s gone bad. It’s the wrong color and the wrong shape." She grinned and he shrugged. "Not an apple, then."

  She held her hand out. "Try it."

  "This isn't going to turn out to be another dog incident, is it?" he asked suspiciously.

  She laughed and bit into the fruit herself. Then she held it out again. He took her by the wrist and took a bite of the fruit as she held it.

  He looked up at her, astonished. "You have to tell me what this is." Without thinking, he took another bite, licking the juice off her fingers. Instantly he went scarlet and stammered, "Please forgive me, I don't know why I... That was... um, what is that?"

  She cleared her throat and said, "This is called a pear. Please, take the rest of it." She carefully set it in front of him.

  He forced himself to finish it slowly. "Rain," he said. "Music—harps?" She nodded. "Pears. I like it here."

  He's making his own list. I wonder if he knows about chocolate, she thought. He'll never leave.

  ***

  He watched her trying to get comfortable in her oversized blanket. Finally he said, "I’m going to do something and I don’t want you to get angry."

  She laughed. "I promise I will not get angry." He carried his own blanket to her side and stretched himself out a decent foot or so away from her. Her eyes widened. "Did you just do that? Make it warmer?" He nodded. "Thank you." She reached out and pulled on his shoulder until he was facing her. "You know, I’ll probably feel differently tomorrow, but right now? I’m not sorry."

  "What could you possibly have to be sorry for?" he wondered.

  "I’m not sorry that I’m here. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before." She leaned on her elbow and nodded. "Magic. Stealing. Going invisible. It’s all very exciting."

  The smile fled his eyes. "I am an adventure to you."

  "Oh no! No, this—" she indicated the fire, the horse and the cart, the moons, "this is an adventure. You? You are... I’m not sure what you are. Maybe I’
ll find out tomorrow." She leaned forward and kissed him lightly. "Good night." Then she turned back to the fire and pulled the blanket up so only a few pale curls were showing.

  Chapter 57

  The Duke stood on the cliffs as the sea below him boomed and called. The huge dark bulk of Gardenhour rose at his back, at once a blessing of family and security, and a prison and curse of loneliness and lies. Somewhere in the great manor the girl lay sleeping. "Another beating heart," the Duke pondered. "Think on that." He turned away from the sea. A single candle burned in an upper window.

  -The Claiming of the Duke, pg 168

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

  Mistra

  100 years after the War of the Door, Mistran calendar

  20 years later, Eriisai calendar

  Road through the Great Forest

  Licking her fingers? Have you gone simple in your wits? Moth tried to tear his eyes from the silhouette of Lelet as she relaxed into sleep. She should have slapped you, or gotten up and left. But she didn’t do those things. She didn’t even seem upset.

  As he did every evening, he performed what he thought of as his exercise in futility. He tried to say ‘sister’ or ‘Scilla’ or ‘Guardhouse’ or ‘it’s all the fault of your sister Scilla at the Guardhouse’. But even when he could convince his jaw to move, nothing came out of his mouth, not even a whisper.

  She wanted to know about his family. The horrible child has asked him as well. There wasn’t any reason not to tell Lelet, at least, about his life on Eriis, other than that he didn’t want to. How could he explain the Court, the play-yard—his Mother, by Light and Wind? What would she think of him then? Not even a proper demon, and never anything but a target.

  He leaned back and watched the moons and the stars wheel through the trees and thought about the taste of pear on his lips.

  Moth slept, and as he so often did he visited his nursery crèche in his dreams. He felt the same old mixture of humiliation and anger with a deep desire to protect the small demon he'd once been. The dream took him to his clan cousin's daily games, where every day was the same. In his dreams, he never got any older, never learned about reaching up, never grabbed a wing. Sometimes he was banished to the Crosswinds. Sometimes he was caught in a firewhirl.