The Desert (Song of Dawn Trilogy Book 1)

by Liv Daniels

  “I was headed to Estlebey, but I met Dangerman along the way. He made me his slave.”

  Sasha nodded. “Typical story. How long were you there?”

  Leina struggled to remember. “I think it must have been three or four months.”

  “Mmm.” Sasha looked up from her pad of paper. “I suppose you have a home that you want to go back to?”

  Leina squirmed awkwardly under Sasha’s keen gaze. “Not really. I lived in the woods with my grandmother all my life until she died. I was going to Estlebey to find a friend of hers. I suppose that’s where I’ll go now.”

  Sasha pursed her lips. “I wouldn’t suggest that you go to Estlebey. The situation there is not good as of late.”

  “Oh.” Leina really didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to think about her future now. All she wanted was to know what the Agency did, but she didn’t feel comfortable asking questions. She had the impression that Sasha was studying her carefully, and already had perceived more about her than she liked. Somehow she felt that asking questions would be too revealing, and she didn’t want to reveal more than she had to until she knew more about the Agency.

  “And actually,” Sasha continued, “since you’ve seen this place, it would be best if you stayed. Sam thought you were trustworthy, and I trust his judgment, but it would be dangerous if word about our operation here were to leak out.”

  Leina wanted to say, “I don't know anything about your operation, and that’s precisely what I’d like to find out,” but she thought it best to keep her mouth shut.

  Sasha was staring at the wall, her eyes constantly changing as if she was thinking deeply. Leina was silent, feeling very awkward, waiting for Sasha to speak.

  Finally, Sasha returned from her reverie. “Oh, I’m sorry. I was distracted. Thinking,” she said. “I can probably find you a job in town. I’ll see about that tomorrow. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions about your experience in the Desert. Information of that kind is very useful to us. But at the moment I have some other business to attend to.” Her hand strayed to Sam’s letter, still sitting unopened on the desk. With her other hand, she pressed a button on the wall, and then said, “Can someone find an empty room for a visitor?” Sasha’s face looked strangely pained, but Leina couldn’t fathom why.

  Chapter 17

  Leina couldn’t sleep that night. Earlier Ruby had bounded in to the small room that Leina had been provided with, speaking in excited tones about how thrilled she was that Leina was going to stay, and all of the things that she was going to show her tomorrow. But Leina hadn’t heard a word of it. She was thinking about the letter.

  For her entire journey in the Desert, the letter had been within her reach. Why had she not read it then? Sam could have done nothing about it. Sasha could have done nothing about it. Nobody could have. And who would it have hurt? No one. How would Sasha even have known that it was her who opened it? She could have made up some passable story, ripped up the envelope and said it got carried away by the wind, and that she had found the pages scattered miles away.

  Leina had not read the letter because it hadn’t seemed right. Because she had trusted Sam, and he had told her not to. But why had he? Wondering that only made Leina more discontent. Now she was here, at the Agency, but she still didn’t know what the Agency was, whose side they were really on, and whether she should be trusting them at all. And even worse, Sasha was going to find her a job in town, and she might never see the inside of the Agency again. She had spent so much of her life wondering, surmising, and it seemed like somewhere in the Agency were the answers to all of her questions. What if they locked her out and she never found those answers? She would rather go back to Dangerman’s fortress than have to wonder forever, and never know.

  Almost without thinking about it, Leina slipped out of bed. She put on a clean cotton dress that they had given her. She couldn’t remember the last time she had had a dress like that. After spending so much time among the grime of the kitchen and the gritty sands of the Desert, it felt immeasurably good to be clean again. Leina felt a pang of guilt. But she went on. She couldn’t let the secrets of this Agency slip from her grasp.

  Barefoot, Leina tiptoed to her room’s door and pushed on it. It was a heavy door, with panels of frosted glass that she couldn’t see through. As soon as the door opened, a red light flashed at the top. Leina’s heart gave a lurch. She didn’t move, watching for another change. But none came.

  Why had she not noticed that light before?

  The door swung open soundlessly. Leina wasn’t used to that. The Agency was a well-oiled, hyper-efficient kind of place; nothing could be more different from the grinding progression of work that went on at Dangerman’s fortress.

  The hall outside Leina’s room was silent and dark. As she stepped outside and closed the door behind her, she tried to remember the way to Sasha’s office. The man that had led her to her room had moved quickly, and she had been so distracted with her own thoughts that she hadn’t paid much attention to where they were going. She didn’t remember walking far. But which way had she come from? She peered tentatively down the stretch of hall to her right, and then to her left.

  There! She remembered passing the strange contraption that hung from the ceiling away to the left. She went that way.

  After a long stretch, the hall opened into the wide gallery that Leina recognized from earlier. There, across the room, was the door to Sasha’s office. Leina scurried over to it, her heart beating wildly even though all was quiet. She clasped a trembling hand to the handle and pulled. But the door didn’t budge. Figures.

  Leina ran her hand over the door, searching for a way to open it. Her hand met a numbered dial. So that was what was keeping the door locked. She drummed her finger against it. It seemed familiar somehow.

  Then she remembered. Something very similar to this had been described in a book that she used to read. She had read it many times, and the passage about the lock came back to her mind easily. The hero in the story had known how to deduce the lock’s combination by listening to barely-audible clicks that the dial made when rotated. Leina remembered reading the description of how he did it over and over again, trying to picture in her mind how it would work. She had never understood it. But she remembered the words, and now that the lock was in front of her, they made much more sense.

  Leina knelt down by the lock and pressed her ear to it, fiddling with it patiently. Finally she entered a combination and the door opened with a soft click.

  There. She was in. Easy. Maybe too easy. Leina stole another glance behind her shoulder, but no one was in sight. She shifted her gaze to Sasha’s desk. She didn’t even know what she was looking for. She just wanted to know something. I’m silly, she thought. Why am I even here?

  Then she saw the letter on Sasha’s desk, and her heart and mind were stilled. She couldn’t believe it. She hadn’t dared to think that Sasha would have left the letter here. But here it was. The paper of the envelope was worn in just the right way, bent in just the right places, the thickness of the stack inside was exactly the same. It was unmistakably the same letter.

  Finally Leina shook off her paralysis and extended a hand to take the letter. Now that it was within her reach, she was afraid. She knew that if she waited a moment longer, she wouldn’t be able to prevent herself from fleeing back to her room and never knowing what was inside. In one rapid motion, she snatched the envelope and ripped out its contents.

  The first few pages were a collection of rough drawings, scrawled notes, charts and maps. Though Leina might have been able to make sense of them, she was in too much haste to decipher what they meant. She set these aside, and behind them found a hastily written letter. It read:

  Not safe to send messages anymore unless absolutely necessary. Regular courier was killed by monsters. Suspect they knew what he was doing.

  Dangerman more secretive than ever; doesn’t trust his officers with anything beyond the maintenance of his fort
ress. Gone more often. Fired his monster trainer and took over the job himself. Keeps very few written records now, and burned a large quantity of older ones. Was able to salvage a few before they were burned and included them here. Have never seen them before; were in a stack of papers dated year 3065.

  Sam

  P.S. Messenger has potential.

  Leina read that last phrase over and over again. In that moment, she knew what it was that she was searching for.

  “Hello, Leina.”

  Leina gasped and dropped the letter, as if it was possible to make it seem as if she had never been holding it. Sasha was standing in the doorway.

  “I’m sorry,” Leina said quickly. “I shouldn’t be here.”

  “No, you should not,” Sasha said, but there was a sparkle in her eyes that immediately put Leina at ease, and made her feel even more guilty than she already did.

  Leina bent down and collected the scattered pages of the letter, folding them back into the envelope and replacing the package meekly on Sasha’s desk.

  “So,” Sasha said with a conversational air that Leina cowered under, “how did you get past my lock?”

  “I read about someone who got past a lock like that in a book once,” Leina said, her voice very quiet. “It used to be one of my favorites, so I remembered it.”

  “Another book?” Now Sasha looked puzzled. “Where did you get it? Books like that are a rare commodity these days.”

  “They are? I always had lots of books. I don’t know where they came from; a man came and brought them.” Leina shifted her eyes back to the letter. “Did you see the postscript?” She immediately winced, feeling that she had spoken much too boldly.

  Sasha smiled grimly. “Yes. Sam is a little… out of touch with how things are around here. Your experiences appear to be unique, and Sam might even be right. I know very few people who can get past the lock on my door, much less ones your age. In another time we may indeed have been able to use you. But we simply do not have the luxury of time anymore. There is no room for us to take risks. It doesn’t matter how good Sam thinks you are; you would most certainly be a risk. It’s crucial that we put all of our resources toward our more experienced trainees. More than likely, the situation in Estlebey is about to go critical, and our outlook is already grim. Plus, we don’t take trainees younger than twenty-one. You’re—what—sixteen?”

  “Eighteen.”

  Sasha’s eyes flickered. “Sorry. Really, I wish we could use you. Maybe when you’re older, if you stick around, and the situation gets better. But anyway, you don’t want to leap blindly in to our operation here. Don’t be fooled by all of this.“—she waved her hands vaguely at the surrounding office, immaculately clean—“Our work is hard. Brutal.”

  Leina was silent for a long time, and Sasha waited patiently. Finally Leina said, haltingly, “I know very little about your agency, except that you aren’t on Dangerman’s side, and I think you are spies. But I want to help. I’ve always felt that, and I didn’t know what it meant, but now I do. I know what brutal is. I’ve been starved, manipulated. Sam said that was the kind of game he was in, and I knew he was right. But I want to help. Let me help somehow. You don’t have to expend any resources over me. Just let me help.”

  “If you get a job in town you’ll be helping. Everything that goes on in town is to support us. Tell me about the Desert tomorrow and you’ll be helping. It’s small, but it’s enough.”

  Leina sighed. She didn’t know what had put this idea into her head, why she cared. What could she even do? But when one has been thinking about something for so long—and now she realized just what it was all of her thoughts had been headed toward—it’s hard to let it go. But still, she was surprised at herself. She had never been quite so determined to contradict someone, except for Dangerman, but that was different. And why should she argue with Sasha—someone who seemed so wise, so capable? But somehow she had to. “I want to help more than that,” she said. “Like Sam. I—I can’t explain it.”

  “This isn’t about avenging what Dangerman did to you, is it? There is no room for revenge here.”

  “No. My grandmother told me there was a darkness that came over the world, and ever since I’ve felt that my life was… tied to it. That if I didn’t stop it no one would. I know that’s ridiculous.”

  Sasha was speechless for a moment, as if far away in thought. “It isn’t,” she said, a distant look on her face. “If more people thought like that, we wouldn't have the kinds of problems that we do. All of our lives are tied to it. Your name is Leina Skyvola, eh?”

  Leina nodded.

  Sasha sighed. “I admit that I left the letter here just to see what you would do. You surprise me, Leina Skyvola. You are not like any of us here. I am willing to give you a chance. If we can get Max to go for it, that is.”

  Chapter 18

  “Max, I have someone new for you today.”

  Sasha stood at the door of a small classroom, Leina peering in behind her.

  Max, who stood at the head of the room, looked at Sasha like she was crazy. He was not a large man, but everything about him was formidable, and intensity radiated from his every movement. “Sasha, I told you—“

  “I know what you told me, Max. But I want you to give her a try. Trust me on this.”

  Max started pacing rapidly back and forth, waving a stack of papers that he was holding. “Sasha—“

  Leina waited in the doorway quietly, regretting having caused such tension.

  “Just one day. If you don’t think we can use her by the end of today, that’s okay. She’s only here on trial.”

  Max stopped pacing and looked as if he was about to agree, but then he seemed to see Leina for the first time. “You’re incorrigible, Sasha. How old is she?”

  “Eighteen,” Leina piped up, but her voice came out as little more than a squeak.

  “Oh,” Max moaned, putting a hand to his head.

  Sasha smiled weakly, motioning for Leina to sit down. “Don’t make me look like a fool if you can help it,” she whispered.

  Leina nodded, secretly wondering what she had gotten herself into. She paced to the front of the room and sat down at a desk.

  Max regarded her tersely. “Don’t let Sasha fool you. You’re just another one of her experiments. She’s handed me dozens before. Don’t get your hopes up, kid.”

  Moments later, four trainees filed in to the room all at once. They were all in their mid-twenties, but were as lifeless as stone. Keeping their heads down, they trudged to a row of desks in the back and sat down simultaneously. Leina did her best not to gape at them. They must live an idyllic life here, she thought. How much the slaves of Dangerman would have envied it if they knew! And yet their faces were so blank, as if they couldn't care less.

  Max cleared his throat. He ignored Leina, instead directing his glare to the stoic row of trainees in the back. He began speaking in impassioned tones. “Now I’ve heard a rumor running among the younger generation that we at the Agency are soft. That we’re never going to get the job done because we still believe in mercy. In the coming months every one of you will learn why that’s utterly wrong. Sometimes being merciful is the hardest, cruelest thing you can do, for both yourself and your enemy. Your enemy, because it defies everything he lives on, and yourself, because it’s hardly ever what you want to do, and you’re the one who has to live with the consequences. Is that easy? Is that soft? No. It takes more courage and grit than your enemy has, or will ever have, in him. And he won’t have a prayer of knowing how to deal with it. Don’t think for one minute that mercy is easy. It’s impulsive cruelty that’s the soft and easy choice.

  “But I do not say this to encourage appeasement. Appeasement is self-serving in nature; giving in to your enemy’s demands in order to save yourself, or even to profit from them. Appeasement is wishing that all his selfish desires be fulfilled for your sake. Never allow yourself to love your enemy’s works. But pity him, pity him, because you can never know how much they h
ave destroyed him, broken him.

  “You ever look Evil in the face, that’s when you forget about mercy. That’s when you’re unconditionally hard and ruthless. Evil is the one thing in the world that you must refuse to love, because Evil is the lack of Love. Yes, this work is hard, because it requires that you sacrifice everything to it, even yourself, completely. There’s nothing harder. If you’re not prepared to do that, I suggest you leave right now.”

  Though Max had not given her so much as a glance for the entire speech, Leina had listened, riveted. It had even forced life into the faces of the trainees in the back, but a very different kind. They were staring dumbly at Max, bug-eyed. After a tense silence, they stood up as one and filed out of the classroom. Max kicked the wall, leaving a mammoth-sized dent, and yelled in anguish.

  Sasha was there in an instant. “Max… Max! Those were the last trainees we had. You can’t scare them away!”

  Leina, forgotten for the moment by both of them, listened intently.

  “I can’t work with them, Sasha! I can’t! This generation just doesn’t get it, and they never will. Not if their lives depended on it.”

  “But you can make them understand. You can make them great. I’ve see you do it. You just need to be patient with them, gentle.”

  “I don’t have time to bottle-feed them. Given years, I could turn them into something passable, but never great. And anything less than great won’t help us.”

  “What about Sam? He wasn’t so bright in the beginning. Look at him now.”

  “Really, Sasha? He wasn’t anything like them. He had passion, drive. These kids don’t care about anyone else’s problems, period. And there’s simply no way to make them believe that these problems will someday be their own. We’ve got to take matters into our own hands again. In the time that we’ve spent trying to educate these apathetic children, maybe we could have solved Estlebey already on our own. Now we may not have the chance.”