Full-Blooded Fantasy

by Steve Erickson

  “He came to us, enchanting us with his youth and beauty, the sweetness of his nature, and the passion with which he wanted to learn. We thought that in him we had found our next Keeper of the Conch, and this was important because our current Keeper was old, and ill with a wasting disease that made him suffer much. And so we gave the young man duties and responsibilities beyond what he was ready for. Perhaps our mistake began there. We allowed him to spend as much time with the conch as he wanted so that he could study its special qualities and learn how to invoke them. At what stage the dark changes in him began, I don’t know. Already he had learned enough spells to hide them from us. Or perhaps we didn’t see them because we wanted so desperately to believe in him. But slowly he began speaking to one or two of the Brotherhood—those who were dazzled by his charisma or who had a streak of darkness sleeping inside them. He told them that our powers were far greater than we realized, and that we were wasting them in this sleepy little valley. He said we had been foolish to vow to use our powers only to serve others. Why, together we could take over the entire earth and rule it with our wisdom! Would that not be a good thing? For was the earth not in a sorry state, overcrowded with foolish or evil men and women who needed to be subdued and guided? Then the Golden Age might return again.”

  The old man sighed. “Ah, yes, he was clever enough to promise them goodness, and a return of Satya Yug, the first age, age of truth. He spoke so persuasively that most of them did not remember that goodness does not covet power or break the vows it has made.

  “But one or two of the Healers he had misjudged. And they spoke to some others, and they to more, until he was called before the council, who questioned him. After much debate, it was decided that he must leave the Brotherhood the next day, and he, seeming to understand his error, agreed to do so. But he disappeared that very night, breaking through our shields—and with him he took the conch! In the morning when we came together to meditate, we found the crystal shrine cracked and empty. And worse—the old Keeper, who must have tried to stop him, was sprawled across the threshold of the hall, dead.”

  The old man gazed at the floor, silent, until it seemed to Anand that he had forgotten where he was.

  Anand was reluctant to disturb him in his sorrow. But he, too, now had the feeling that time was running out.

  “And then?” he urged.

  “The council knew that without the conch, the Brotherhood would soon crumble. Already we were forgetting the chants and gestures of power, and when we tried to send our vision over the earth, we saw only patches of gray. More importantly, they knew that in the thief’s hands the conch would be gravely dangerous. If he learned how to use it to its utmost capacity, he would unleash disaster across all the worlds, the seen and the unseen. So the Chief Healer summoned the senior-most of the masters—there were eight of us—and sent us, in pairs, to search the four directions.

  “My partner and I were sent south. I would need many hours to tell you how long we traveled and how hard we searched, and how, finally, we found the thief, disguised as he was. Or with what difficulty we entered his domain, eluded his followers, and stole away the conch—for with the conch in his possession, we dared not challenge him to a battle. Enough to say that now I have the conch with me, and my task—an urgent one—is to return it to its proper place.”

  “But where’s your partner?” Anand couldn’t help asking.

  “Dead.” The old man’s voice was heavy. “He sacrificed himself, staying back to battle the thief so that I could escape with the conch. He was like my brother—we had come to the Silver Valley in the same year, and had trained together—” His eyes blazed for a moment. To Anand they looked white, like metal that is very hot. Then the old man lowered his head. “I can’t squander my powers—reduced as they are now—on thoughts of sorrow or revenge. I must stay focused on my task. But to succeed, I need your help.”

  “My help!” Anand’s voice was squeaky with disbelief. “How can I help you?”

  “I need an assistant, someone to journey with me. To protect my back, as it were. There are things I’m not able to do that you might be able to do for me. Places you might be able to enter. And if there comes a time when the thief does catch up with me, you might be able to get away with the conch. Because no one would expect a mere boy to be the Conch Bearer.”

  Conch Bearer! The words resonated inside Anand like peals from a distant bell. More than anything else, he wanted to accept the old man’s offer. But was he—the boy whom Haru yelled at every day for being slow and stupid, whom passing schoolchildren laughed at because of his torn, mismatched clothes—good enough to be a Master Healer’s assistant?

  “Why did you choose me?” he stammered. “I don’t have any special powers. How can I help you stop the conch thief, or protect you from him?”

  “I don’t expect you to do that. Even I, trained as I am, couldn’t do it for my brother Healer, could I? But I was called to you because of your belief in magic—and your desire to enter its secret domain.”

  “You heard my wish?” Anand asked incredulously. “But how—”

  “At another time, I will explain all, my curious young man! For now, let me just say, yes, I heard. But more importantly, the conch seemed to hear, too. I could sense it turning its attention to you. Who knows? Maybe it sensed in you a special gift that neither you nor I know of yet. And when you touched my hand earlier today, giving me the tea, I felt your kindness. That itself is a valuable gift.”

  “Do you really think so?” Anand asked hesitantly. He still didn’t feel valuable in any way.

  The old man nodded. Then he added, “Will you come with me?”

  THE FARSALA TRILOGY

  BOOK 1

  FALL OF A KINGDOM

  by HILARI BELL

  Who was Sorahb?

  Stories tell of a hero who will come to Farsala’s aid when the need is greatest. Now that time has come. Read an excerpt from the first book in the celebrated trilogy that Tamora Pierce called “[A]n amazing tale of adventure, fear, magic, conquest, and rebellion!”

  HILARI BELL has written several science fiction and fantasy books for young readers, including Songs of Power and A Matter of Profit. She lives in Denver, Colorado.

  For more information about The Farsala Trilogy, visit www.SimonSaysTEEN.com.

  Simon Pulse

  New York • London • Toronto • Sydney

  OUTSIDE OF HIS ORIGINS in the time of ancient legends, little is known of Sorahb. We know that he was a brilliant military commander, a shrewd ruler, and a mighty sorcerer—but how can a man so young have been all of these things? Was he a noble deghan? A peasant? Even, as some speculate, a Suud sorcerer in disguise? All this has been claimed, and more, but the one thing all agree upon is that he was a great hero, greater even than his father, Rostam. At least, if the legends are to be believed….

  CHAPTER ONE

  JIAAN

  JIAAN DUCKED, and a bronze cup shaped like a ram’s horn crashed into the wall behind him. It didn’t clatter on the floor, since the thick carpets that had already absorbed its contents muffled the sound. He hoped the carpets wouldn’t be too hard to clean. Jiaan knew that some people found it harder than others to fight off the djinn of rage. But he didn’t think the lady Soraya was even trying.

  “Lady, if you’ll just lis—”

  “I have listened,” the girl snarled. Her grip tightened on the second cup. Her loose hair—the straight, black hair of the noblest of noble lines—was disheveled. The tight vest she wore beneath her loose, silk overrobe rose and fell with the force of her breathing. At fifteen, she was probably the most beautifully feminine creature Jiaan had ever seen—so what djinn-cursed fool had taught her to throw like a shepherd boy?

  “I have listened,” she repeated. “But all I’ve heard is that my father—my own father!—seeks to cast me out like some peas—like broken rubbish!”

  Like some peasant-spawned bastard. It was an insult so familiar that Jiaan’s heart hardly flinch
ed. At least she hadn’t said it aloud. That surprised him; most deghasses wouldn’t have given a moment’s thought to the possibility that he might be offended. But Jiaan’s father hadn’t cast him out. Far from it. And High Commander Merahb didn’t intend…

  “He doesn’t intend to cast you out.” Jiaan made his tone reasonable, despite the way her lovely, dark eyes narrowed. “He only means to hide you away for a time, in order to—”

  “Away in some peasant sty…”

  The second cup flew, and Jiaan sidestepped nimbly.

  “…in some dung-sucking outland while…”

  Her groping hand found a niche, carved into the outer wall between the arched windows, and came to rest on a goblet whose glass bowl glowed as blue as the heart of a flame. Its base was chased in gold. Its worth was probably ten times that of Jiaan’s sword, and his sword was more costly than all his other possessions put together.

  The goblet hurtled toward the wall. Jiaan leaped, cursing the carpets that hindered his feet. He caught the goblet with the tips of his fingers, fumbled with it for an endless moment, and settled it into a secure grasp.

  The plate it had rested on, thrown like a discus, struck him full in the chest, bruising him even through the padded silk layers of his armor.

  “Ow!” Had she distracted him deliberately? “He’s only trying to save your life, you…Lady Soraya. The gahn rules all of Farsala. Even the high commander has to obey him.”

  “Dung!” she shrieked. The incense burner her hand fell on next—small but solid stone and bronze—made a dent in the heavy panels of the door at Jiaan’s back. “The armies of Farsala haven’t propitiated the war djinn since Rostam cast down the last djinn emperor. Centuries ago! And he thinks he’s going to exile me for however long it takes to win his stupid war? Well, I won’t—”

  The door behind Jiaan opened. “You won’t have any choice,” said a woman’s voice coldly. “And if you’re overheard by the wrong people, your choices will become fewer—and even less pleasant than exile.”

  Jiaan stepped aside and bowed, the goblet still in his hands. Commander Merahb’s wife, the lady Sudaba, moved gracefully into the small solarium.

  Soraya froze, her hand clenched around the carved wooden horse she’d been about to throw. “Madam my mother, have you heard of this…this outrage? What about my marr—”

  “I imagine everyone has heard.” Sudaba took the goblet from Jiaan and crossed the room to return it to its shelf. “But I see no reason to give them any more information about our family’s private affairs.” Her ironic gaze rested on Jiaan.

  He bowed himself out of the room, but not before Sudaba seized her daughter’s ear and twisted it.

  His own peasant-born mother had twisted his ears, and paddled his buttocks as well. But along with occasional—and usually deserved—punishment, there had been warmth, laughter, and love. Not only from her, but even from the farmholder to whom Jiaan’s father had given her, when he was required to wed a deghass and produce a noble heir. His mother had died of a fever two years after the commander had outraged everyone by taking a peasant-born bastard into his household as a page, instead of as a servant. Jiaan still missed her.

  Jiaan looked around the second-story gallery on which he stood. Intricately carved rails, sanded, waxed, and polished, encircled the courtyard below. Summer was ending; the leaves on the ornamental bushes looked dusty, almost ready to turn and fall, but a handful of late roses still bloomed, and the splash of the fountain calmed his ruffled nerves.

  The home in which he’d lived till he turned ten had rough, log walls, and the plain, plank floors had never seen a carpet—yet he thought he’d been luckier than the lady Soraya.

  On the other hand, all she had to do was go quietly and be patient for a while. Was that too much to ask?

  The door behind him opened, and Sudaba emerged. “Soraya will depart with you tomorrow morning,” she said calmly.

  “Yes, madam.” Jiaan bowed. She was eight inches shorter than he, but the assurance in her eyes made him feel as if he were the smaller.

  “You should have pointed out that her father is plotting to save her,” Sudaba murmured. “At some risk.”

  The crash of priceless glass against the door made Jiaan wince.

  Sudaba didn’t even twitch. “And however inconvenient it may seem, it’s much better than the alternative.”

  In fact, Jiaan had pointed out all those things. Soraya hadn’t cared. “Yes, madam.”

  “This is just a ploy.” Sudaba leaned on the gallery rail, gazing down at the garden with unseeing eyes. “Another move in the game. But a good one.”

  Jiaan settled back to wait with the ease of long practice, till she noticed his existence long enough to dismiss him. The late-afternoon sun lit the expensive, brocaded silk of her overrobe and the almost equally expensive, fine-woven linen underrobe beneath it. Gold on brown, to honor the approaching harvest. Her hair, as straight and black as her daughter’s, was caught up in a complex coil, twined with silk ribbons knotted with glowing glass beads and the hawk feathers only a deghass, a lady of the noble class, could wear.

  Jiaan’s hair was brown and curly, like his mother’s…and his father’s. Many of the deghans had peasant hair. But not Sudaba. In her youth, the poets had said, she’d been as lovely and imperial as the moon. And as distant, Jiaan thought now, watching her calculate the political implications of her daughter’s fate. As indifferent.

  But then a black-haired boy, his brown skin as naked as the day, burst shrieking into the courtyard and toddled toward the fountain. Two nursemaids, armed with trousers and tunic, hurried after him.

  Sudaba’s frown faded and her eyes lit, her face suddenly, warmly maternal. Merdas, the long-awaited heir, had finally confirmed her status, eliminating the danger that she could be set aside allowing High Commander Merahb to take another wife. But still…Jiaan had served in the high commander’s household for seven years—as page, as squire, and now as the commander’s aide—and he had never seen Sudaba’s face soften like that for Soraya.

  On the other hand, her father loved her best. “The commander of the army must sacrifice the being he holds most precious in all the world,” the priests had said. “Or the djinn of war will give their favor to the armies of the Hrum, who will roll over Farsala like the darkness of the pit itself.”

  Jiaan wondered uneasily which of the commander’s enemies had bribed the priests to say it. And why. No, he didn’t envy his half sister. Even if she was a silly, spoiled she-bitch.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SORAYA

  SORAYA WENT ALONE down the stairs to the courtyard. The sun still crouched below the horizon, though the sky to the east was bright with its approach. It was light enough for her to see small puffs of steam when she breathed out. The cold weather was coming; rain, mud, and chills, and she was to be imprisoned in some sty in the outlands? She was fifteen this year—it was time for her to wed! She shivered.

  She’d snarled at the maids who had awakened her to dress by candlelight, but she hadn’t dared to refuse them, for behind the mouse-timid maids loomed her mother’s shadow—and Sudaba was anything but timid. But it wasn’t fear of Sudaba that was making her go. Not really.

  Soraya crossed the garden and stalked down the stone-flagged walkway that passed under the servants’ wing and out to the stables. Her escort waited there, his horse already saddled, his face pale in the gray light. Two of her father’s arms-men, in the black-and-gold tunics of the House of the Leopard, accompanied him—not that all of them together could take her anywhere she didn’t choose to go. Especially when she was on horseback. Jiaan smiled tentatively. Soraya scowled and turned away. She wasn’t going because of him, and it probably wasn’t fair to blame him for being the bearer of bad news, but she didn’t feel like being fair. Particularly to the peasant-born bastard her foolish father had insisted on bringing into his household as a page, then as his aide, just as if he were a noble-born second son or an impoverished cousin.

>   One of the mousy maids brought up Soraya’s pack, to be added to the load the mules carried. She waited while the grooms fussed with the ropes, trying to exude regal dignity and not shiver. If she looked regal enough, the servants, at least, might be fooled into thinking the whole thing was her idea.

  Small bare feet made no sound on the stone floor, but Soraya caught a glimpse of the blue-striped nightdress, and she abandoned dignity to swoop down on Merdas just before he darted behind one of the horse’s heels. It wasn’t a charger, but even a placid horse might kick if startled.

  “Merdas, don’t run behind horses! You know better than that.”

  He squirmed in her arms to face her, warm and toddler-firm, pouting, because he really did know better. But Merdas never believed any horse would hurt him. Her brother. Her father’s son.

  “Djinn did it,” he pronounced. At his age she had claimed the same. “Raya, horse!”

  The nursery window overlooked the stable yard—he must have heard the hoofbeats. He had ears like a lynx where horses were concerned. And if there was a djinn who governed slipping past one’s nurses, Merdas had it firmly under his control.

  “I can’t take you riding today, imp,” said Soraya regretfully. “I’m going a long, long way. You’d get tired.”

  “Horse,” said Merdas, who didn’t believe he could get tired, either. Sometimes Soraya agreed with him.

  “Sorry, no horse today. But if you’re good, I’ll bring you a present when I come back. How about that?”

  The dark eyes turned thoughtful. Merdas liked presents, but…“Horse!” He squirmed again, kicking her in the stomach.

  Where were his nurses? She could hand him over to the grooms, but she hated the thought of riding off with him howling behind her. “Horse, horse, horse!”

  “I’ll take him.” It was Sudaba’s voice.