by C. K. Rieke
I am going to find the girl, bring her back to the gods, and when I am done with my mission, they will kill me and take me as a trophy eternal. If that is the will of the gods, then let their will be done. If I am to be a sacrifice to the great ones, then my death will bring honor to my master Veranor, all Lu-Polini, and to the gods themselves. This is what my master wants most, and I will give him what he desires.
Back in her private quarters the following evening, Lilaci bathed in a sweet-smelling lathered lotion, brushed her hair in front of her face-sized mirror with an elaborate display of exotic flowers of all colors cradling the mirror. The flowers had appeared in her room the day after she’d arrived back from the palace. They must be a gracious gesture from Dânoz and the others, or a departing gift— like the floral display at a funeral parade. The one sad thing about my parting from this world, is that I feel as if none will mourn my loss. But what of it? Why am I worth mourning? All I am is a servant of the gods now. I kill in the name of the holy. I do what must be done. Have I killed good men? That isn’t for me to decide. Am I even worthy of sacrifice to the gods? Why am I worthy of being honored with this power I’m unable to wield. I must learn to use this force before I set out into the sands to find this girl, as to please the gods.
Lilaci sat at the edge of her firm mattress, stuffed with duck feathers. She looked down at her hands, callused but clean. Her fingernails were smooth and unchipped, rare for a fighter, but she had a sense of pride about her nails, as if they were proof of her capabilities. She killed, and remained unscathed.
Looking around her room, she saw the stone walls dimly lit by candlelight. She focused in on a corner of the room, slunk in the shadows by the side of the reddish-tinted dresser. Taking two sturdy steps she moved the dresser slightly away from the corner and knelt to reach her fingers down towards the shadow. Clasping her hand in the darkness, she withdrew it and went back to sit at the foot of the bed.
Holding her closed fist upright before her, she slowly uncurled her fingers to reveal in the candlelight a light dusting of fine sand. She tilted her hand left and right, watching the sand roll down each side like the winds pushing their will onto the great dunes of the Arr. Then her hand went still and flat.
She grabbed the candle from the wall to her left and held it close to the sparkling and shimmering sand. “I have the Sanzoral,” she whispered into her hand. “You will obey me.”
Staring into the sand, she tried to feel something, anything different. She tried to focus in on the fine grains of sand, she watched their reflections in the firelight. As soon as she felt something, it faded. Focusing again, she tried to extend her mind into it, commanding it to move, to follow her instructions. Then— she tried again, feeling for it, reaching her mind out, opening up to the Sanzoral, waiting for it to give her a sign.
Her hand moved from side to side, letting the sand shift and wane. She grew frustrated with her lack of feeling about anything new or different. “Where is this Sanzoral? How am I to come to use it? They gave me no instruction, and how am I to learn to wield its power when none others in the land harness it? That must be the curse of the Sanzoral, not one to teach its power, and once one wields it, the gods reclaim it, and them.”
Her fingers separated from each other, and she watched the golden sand drift to the floor, like watching the slow time of an hourglass crawl by. She thought about time then. How long have I been alive? The years escaped me long ago, it feels as if my only life has been lived here, under the tutelage and guidance of my master. Ever since I was brought here to learn, to train— I have a purpose, my life has meaning. Thanks to Veranor. Thanks to the Great Gods. Yet— I feel that there was something before this place. I was a child once, but all I can remember is pain, and sadness. At least here, there is none of that. Here, I am Lilaci, Bearer of the Sanzoral, Assassin of the Sands, and Weapon of the Gods. This is my home.
“Are you ready?” Veranor’s gruff voice came from the other side of the closed door to her room. In the darkness, the frame of the door was illuminated by flickering candlelight.
“Yes, master. One moment.” Lilaci lit the candle on the table above her head, on the table next to where she lay in the dark.
It’d been three days since she’d met the gods, and was bestowed with their gift. Veranor had told her the day prior that the king and queen wished to have a progress report of sorts. Lilaci was still unable to wield any magical power that she could see or use, but she had faith in the gods, that they would show her the way, and give her the power to use this ancient gift. After all, they said she was special.
She dressed in the warm light of the candle. They’d have to travel out onto the roads of Voru to get to the palace again, so she’d be expected to wear something to cover her head, yet something worthy of meeting with the royalty of the kingdom. She brushed her hair back, tied the top part into a bun that she stuck the wooden pick through. There was a thin, dark-linen top, sleeveless, with a hood of many folds she put on. She pulled on a pair of tan pants, and her black leather boots. Lastly, she wrapped a crimson-colored sash around her waist, a telltale sign she was an assassin of the royal crown.
Her fingers wrapped around the latch of the door, and it opened inward. Veranor’s eyes scanned her outfit, and gave a slight nod of approval. He moved to the side to allow her to step past, and she left her room, and they both walked down the long hallway together until they reached the iron-clad door to the streets of Voru.
He pulled a ring of keys up from his belt, fingered through them, scanning them in the candlelight, slipped one into the latch, and with a pop, it opened. A blinding, bright light filled the corridor. Directly in front of them on the horizon was the golden rising sun. As it rose, and rippled from the heat, the round orb of sunlight perfectly framed the palace ahead. It’s high towers and glass glimmered in a golden hue from the sun’s light. The magnificent statues of the gods were silhouetted by its beauty.
“Fantastic, isn’t it?” Veranor said.
“Yes, master. It is.”
“Have I ever told you when the palace was built?” he asked, as they began their walk towards it.
“I don’t believe so, I think I would recall that knowledge.”
“The mages tell me it over two thousand years old,” Veranor said. “It has stood without a single siege since its construction. Can you fathom how long that many years is? We will live a fraction of that time, and the palace will still stand. Do you remember what I taught you of the Arr?”
“Yes, the Arr is as old as time. It is the origin of man, this was the first continent. Before man, the lands flowed with streams of fresh water, and food was bountiful.”
“Yes, go on—”
“Before man, dragons cursed the lands. They roamed the sky, and hoarded precious stones and jewels. They constantly fought with one another, and scorched the land, and blocked out the light of the sun, there were so many of them.”
“Yes, Lilaci, and we have the gods to thank, that the threat of the dragons is gone.”
“The man Riverend took the last of them with him, looking for a rare stone many years ago. They say he was half-dragon. Born on the day the great dragon Kôrran was slain. Do you think he found the stone they were after? In the lands to the west?”
“Psst. Riverend was no more a dragon than I am a young girl. That’s the thing about history. When time has its way with it, it's so twisted and worn, its but a shred of what the truth truly was. Most stories have a hue of truth, but most are fill-in-the-gaps fluff, and propaganda.”
“What is propaganda, master?”
“It is was we’re told, to make us think a certain way,” he said. “Or to make us act on something for a purpose.”
Lilaci wasn’t sure she understood.
“Look, what if I told you the sky would turn dark tomorrow? And would forever be that way? And who is to blame for it? The sandworms— they are going to turn the sky dark for eternity out of their own hatred for the light? What would you think?”
“I think we should kill all of the sandworms,” she said.
“Exactly, that’s an example of propaganda. Making you think you should kill all of them might go back to someone else’s hatred of the sandworms. You have never seen one, correct?”
“I’ve never seen a sandworm, no. I’ve heard they’re quite nasty creatures though.”
“They’re nasty indeed,” he said. “That’s a good word for them.”
They arrived at the palace shortly after, and entered into the Fourier, decorated with the exaggerated paintings of the royal family. Instead of traveling straight through the palace to the royal throne room, they made a right, heading up a block of stairs and back around left again to a great hall.
It appeared to be a courtroom of sorts as they entered. Straight ahead she saw the king and queen seated, high above in a podium. The room was lit by a large skylight at the very top of the round room. As they walked into the center of the room, decorated with long tapestries with the royal emblem, three sand dunes with the red sun at its center.
To the left of the royal pair were over two dozen well-dressed lords and ladies, Lilaci guessed from their well-groomed hair and makeup. To the right of the king and queen were a collection of stoic mages, all with their black and red tattoos down their arms and necks, and each wore the ivory necklace. Lilaci winced at the sight of them. She turned back behind her to see the gallery hall was filled with many others, maybe even a hundred she guessed, they were all well-dressed and well-mannered. They were here to the show that was Lilaci, the Weapon of the Gods.
Chapter Twenty-One
“All rise,” a knight of the king heralded to all in the room. The silence in the room broke with the rustling of heavy oak chairs moving along the marble floors. Lilaci looked up to see the king was the last to rise. With a motion of his hands moving downward, everyone in attendance sat, save for Lilaci and Veranor, who stood center stage in the arena, in the round room. The skylight overhead poured bright beams of sunlight down directly on her head.
“Thank you, Veranor,” King Gofgenden Serinaas said, down to Lilaci’s master. Veranor bowed low, pulling his long cloak’s tails behind his back, as for them to not touch the ground.
“Your Highness,” he said, and crept out of the sunlight, leaving Lilaci front and center to the crowd, alone.
“My servant, Lilaci, servant of the gods, the hand of the gods. You have been gifted with a power unseen in the ancient lands of the Arr in two lifetimes of man,” the king said.
There was a general bustling in the crowd behind Lilaci.
It sounds like the people in the stands back there didn’t know. The king must be putting on a show for them. From their reaction, it sounds like they know what I possess, before the king even had to say what it was. Lilaci looked over to her right. I don’t trust them being here, I’ll never trust a mage for anything, ever. I know that blank stare they carry, empty shells they are. All they care about is power and pain.
“Yes,” the king proclaimed. “This young woman has been given the gift of the Sanzoral. The first to wield the violet light of the Sanzoral was Gorg, greatest champion of the gods and conqueror of the Knights of the Whiteblade. He was the commander that smote the Great Dragon Kôrran, ending his legendary wrath, and eventually saving these lands of all the flying beasts.”
“Halen Sisen,” the crowd repeated with a thunderous bellow, and their voices echoed within the walls of the round room.
“We have invited you here today to witness history,” the king said, his voice strong and powerful. “The gods themselves have gifted the legendary Sanzoral upon one of the Lu-Polini, the greatest champion of the revered Commander Veranor, and a truly deadly beauty: Lilaci the Lazarine.”
The Lazarine? They’ve named me after the purple flower with its specks of gold? The Lazarine is where the poisonist derive their most potent toxin, the Lazūr. I don’t know if that’s a compliment or an insult to my name, not that I have a say in the matter. This is all so surreal, I don’t even know why the gods chose me in the first place. As a trained assassin, this not a fame I enjoy. The shadows are my territory, not the light.
The king stood in silence, and the rest of the room followed his lead. Lilaci heard a light shuffling heading towards her. It was the sound of feet in cloth shoes rustling towards her from the area underneath the royal couple. From out of the shadows came a solitary mage. He had his dark cloak over his head, but she saw the black and red tattoos of symbols in a foreign language on his hand and arms. Carrying a bowl with him, he walked up to Lilaci, her body tensed as she looked into his pale, empty brown eyes.
He laid the bowl on the pedestal before her, then turned, and walked back into the shadow from where he came. Lilaci peered down into the clay bowl, it was painted with vibrant turquoise and orange pigments. In its center was a mound of fine, glistening sand in the light of the sun, around a half dozen handfuls worth. She stood there, looking at the sand, with thoughts of what was about to come running through her mind.
The king is trying to put on a spectacle of my new ‘power’. But, I don’t have the faintest idea of how to control it. There are a lot of people here, and the king is not known for his forgiveness and understanding. I’m going to have to do something here. I don’t have a choice, this has to be done. I must use the Sanzoral.
She looked up at the king, who stood, watching eagerly. To his left the queen shifted forward in her seat. Lilaci looked over at the two rows of mages, and their empty eyes. Then, she looked over to Veranor, who simply gave her a slow nod. There Lilaci stood, the entirety of the room waiting for a show.
“Well . . . Here we go,” she said to herself.
She stared into the shimmering grains of sand. They lay there unmoving, there was no wind or breeze in the room to even shift the mound the slightest. She tried to feel the sand, she tried to feel any different feeling in her body or mind. Searching throughout her being, she thought she felt something. Reaching out towards it with her mind, it quickly faded to nothing again.
Lilaci, watching the unmoving sand, grew frustrated. She placed both of her hands on the pedestal. She looked up to see the queen now standing next to the king, playing her with fingernails. Veranor had taken a step forward, trying to peer into the bowl. Lilaci’s fingers gripped the bowl tightly, and she felt herself begin to sweat.
“Come on—” she whispered. “You can do this—”
Staring at the sand, now covered in her shadow, she searched herself for the Sanzoral. Scouring her mind, she was ready to move even a grain of sand, just one would do. A drop of sweat fell from her forehead, and landed in the dry sand with a soft thud. Her knuckles grew white from her holding the bowl so tightly, and her jaw grew tired from her clenching her teeth so tightly. She did not want to disappoint the king and queen, her master, or the large audience behind her. She would lose a great deal of respect, so she continued trying. She lost track of time, she didn’t know how long she’d been standing there over the pile of sand.
“Come on, you have to do this,” she whispered. “You don’t have a choice.”
Lilaci peered up to see the queen was once again seated and looking up to the crowd behind her, and the king wasn’t peering down at her, but looking over at Veranor, seemingly looking for an explanation from him why it was taking so long. She looked over at her master, who gave a disapproving frown. He was disappointed, and surely heavily embarrassed. Lilaci slowly released her grip from the bowl, and took a slow step back, hanging her head. She dishonored her master, and herself. She hadn’t felt shame like that for many years, and to disappoint her master, that was a disastrous blow to her pride.
She didn’t look up, but could hear the king rustling above.
“All rise for the king and queen,” the soldier’s voice called out.
Again, the shuffling of everyone in the room standing, and the king and queen walked off, out of the room without a word, and without acknowledging Lilaci. She’d disappointed the royal family, that would not
bode well for her, especially coming from the high praises of the gods only days before.
Veranor walked over to her, with her head down, still staring at the pile of sand.
“I tried— I just couldn’t do it. I don’t know how,” she said.
“Come, let's return home,” he said. His voice was gruff and tried to hide his anger, but Lilaci could tell it was there. He grabbed her by the arm forcefully, and led her out of the room. She looked back to see the group of mages standing in their rows. One of them at the front gave her a wide smile, showing his yellow teeth, further deepening her hatred for them. Mages— conniving, demented, tricky mages. I’d love nothing more than to wipe that grin off his face with a knife. They still haunt me in my dreams, a nightmare where I’m under their constant spell.
“I’d love to cut that smile right off his face,” Lilaci whispered. “One day I’m going to make one of those bastards bleed. One day.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
With her slender finger, Lilaci felt the fine, powder-like sand outside of the complex Veranor trained her in. The sun was showing its last light as she dipped her palm down to the soft sands. She scooped up a handful of it, and watched as it drifted back down, flowing in the quick, biting winds.
I’ve shamed my master. All because of this stupid sand. How am I supposed to use this power I was given when no one alive has it? The gods didn’t give me any information, and Veranor only wants me to figure it out, so he’ll look favorable. I don’t know what to do. What should I do? I’ve disappointed the king and queen. Maybe I should leave— She looked up to the fading light of the bright-red sun. Surely, they’d hunt me down, and probably execute me. But, my only other option is to find how to control this power, and use the sand itself. Who am I kidding? I couldn’t ever leave him, he’s the one who has made me what I am. I’m nothing without him.
A small lizard poked it’s head up from over a mound of sand to her right. She poured the remaining sand from her palm, and she let her fingers dance in the sand in front of the lizard. It had blue spikes along its black body.
