Sands of Memory

by Melissa McShane

  Sienne cast force twice more, driving the creature back and into Dianthe’s sword. Kalanath and Ghrita, both armed with staffs, took up positions on its other side, but neither weapon seemed effective against the thing’s hide except as an annoyance. That was more than enough, as it snapped and clawed at them, twisting as it tried to reach all its assailants at once. “Dianthe!” Alaric shouted, and took a different position, driving his sword toward the thing’s throat.

  It twisted to avoid the blow, swinging its head around—and Dianthe’s sword took it in the eye, all the way to the hilt. It thrashed, ripping the sword out of Dianthe’s hand. Dianthe vaulted backward, away from its death throes. Sienne lowered her book. Her heart was pounding, and her hands shook. “Is that—”

  “Look out!” Perrin shouted, ramming his horse into hers. A giant clawed limb slashed down where she’d been standing. Sienne screamed and fumbled for the reins. She heard Perrin shout something that cut off mid-word, turned, and saw another many-legged lizard rearing up for another blow. Sienne kicked her horse into motion, wheeling and running away. Shield, where was Perrin’s shield?

  “Sienne!” Alaric shouted. She began reading force as Alaric ran past her, his sword gory with black blood. The thing raked its claws across his chest, making him cry out in pain, but he kept going, swinging the massive sword around in an arc that could take a lesser creature’s head off. Force blasted the thing, which recoiled, and Alaric drove his sword into the softer flesh of its throat. Black blood gushed out, and it wailed. Alaric thrust harder, leaning on the sword with all his weight. The thing shuddered, and collapsed.

  Breathing heavily, Sienne lowered her spellbook. “Perrin, why didn’t you invoke the shield?” she said.

  Perrin was silent. Sienne turned to look at him and bit back a scream. He was frozen in the act of pointing, his riffle of blessings in one hand and a loose blessing in the other. His skin glittered like mica in the bright desert sun, and his eyes, not blinking, were filmy white. “What happened?” she exclaimed.

  “Basilisks,” Ghrita said. “Big ones. We don’t have much time.”

  “What do we—” Alaric began, then clutched his chest and went to his knees. “I can’t breathe,” he said, and went into convulsions. Sienne cried out and ran to kneel next to him, putting her arms around him.

  Vaishant dismounted and knelt by his side. “I will care for him,” he said. “You must help Perrin. Ghrita will tell you what to do.”

  “Strip him,” Ghrita said. “Cut the clothes off if you must.” She grabbed the hem of Perrin’s outer robe and yanked it off over his head. Sienne gave one last agonized look at Alaric, thrashing on the ground, then ran to help.

  Perrin’s body was as rigid as stone, and as heavy. Sienne helped Kalanath and Ghrita remove Perrin’s clothes while Dianthe, her face white and set with fear, collected the horses. Soon, Perrin was naked, but Sienne was too terrified to feel embarrassed for him.

  “Drag him to the basilisk,” Ghrita said. Sienne and Kalanath did so, though Sienne wasn’t strong enough to do more than steer his inert body. Ghrita drew her belt knife, swore, and thrust it back into its sheath. She picked up Alaric’s greatsword in both hands. “He needs to be underneath.”

  Confused, Sienne did as Ghrita instructed. She and Kalanath positioned Perrin near the fatal wound Alaric had dealt. Ghrita inserted the sword into the wound and widened the gash. Black blood spurted, coating Perrin’s head and chest. “Spread it over his body, and quickly,” Ghrita said. “It must cover all of him.”

  Sienne caught handfuls of the blood and smeared it on her friend. It reeked, not of the coppery scent of human blood, but something foul and bitter like old smoke and charcoal. Ghrita, with some effort, made another wound that gushed blood. Some of it fell steaming on the sand, and Sienne cursed the loss. She ran her hands down Perrin’s legs, coating herself in blood to the wrists. Beside her, Kalanath worked in feverish silence. How quickly was quickly enough? Ghrita wouldn’t make them do this gory service if it didn’t work, right?

  The blood was clotting fast, and each new wound produced less of it. There was a second basilisk—but what if it had to be the blood of the one who’d petrified him? Sienne let her mind go blank, focusing on the task at hand. She would never be able to explain this to Cressida. With that thought she rubbed blood onto Perrin’s foot, and he was completely covered in it. He looked like a streaky marble statue, with flecks of mica showing through the black blood.

  In the next instant, all the blood soaked into his skin at once like water absorbed by a dry cloth. The bright glittering sparks vanished, leaving behind smooth, tan skin. Perrin exhaled like someone who’d been holding his breath for a long time. “—grant me this…” he said, blinked, and sat up. “Where is it, and…dear Averran, why am I naked?”

  Now Sienne felt embarrassed. She averted her eyes.

  “The basilisk’s gaze caught your eye,” Ghrita said. “A man petrified by it can be cured by being bathed in its fresh blood. It must happen immediately, before the petrification kills him. Your friends have quick hands.”

  “Thank you,” Perrin said. “I am sorry to have put you to the trouble. I was in the act of shielding Sienne from the second monster when it caught me.”

  The second monster. Sienne gasped and ran to where Alaric was just sitting up, shaking his head like someone coming out of deep water. “He is well,” Vaishant said. “The poison has run its course.”

  Sienne went to put her arms around him, caught sight of her bloody hands, and changed her mind. “That was bracing,” she said, feeling her voice shake despite her brave words. She took a few steps away and thrust her hands into the sand to scrub away most of the basilisk’s blood. Behind her, Perrin retrieved his clothes and dressed.

  “It is wrong,” Vaishant said. “The giant basilisk does not hunt in the south. These should not be here.”

  Kalanath squatted beside Sienne and rubbed his hands with sand. “Why are they, then?” he asked. His voice lacked the veiled animosity Sienne was used to when he addressed Vaishant.

  Vaishant looked northward. “The pakhshani hunt them. They use the blood and eat the flesh in their adulthood rituals. They do not let them roam far from the hunting grounds.”

  “So…what does that mean?” Dianthe said. She held Alaric’s and her horses’ reins and stood looking in the same direction Vaishant was. “There’s something wrong with the pakhshani?”

  “I cannot tell. If they fight a different battle…but there is nothing and no one for them to fight, save…” He shook his head. “I do not want to guess.”

  “Guess,” Alaric said flatly. “It sounds like you have a suspicion.”

  “Not anything solid. It is just a thought. If they fight, it must be something no one knows is a threat. Abhisok is north, but they would not venture into the pakhshani’s territory to fight a war they cannot win. But I think imagining monsters is foolish.”

  “Something watching,” Kalanath said. “Something we cannot see.”

  Vaishant regarded him narrowly. “What have you dreamed?”

  Kalanath’s lips tightened. “Nothing of value to us now. But…if there is something in the north we do not know, it will not surprise me.”

  Alaric stood and fingered the bloody rents in his robe. “Sienne,” he said, “can you do something about this?”

  Sienne ran a hand over his chest and focused a little magic there. The tears in his robe came together and vanished. She poured water over the stains, making him gasp. “Sorry, that was colder than I intended,” she said. “I’m afraid I can’t get this entirely clean.”

  “Just so there’s no dried blood,” he said. He took hold of her hand. “You’re shaking. You didn’t cast too many spells, did you?”

  She shook her head and put her arms around him. “It’s just the aftermath. We nearly lost you and Perrin.” She half-turned so she could see Ghrita and Vaishant. “Thank you both. Your knowledge saved their lives.”

  “His sword saved o
urs,” Ghrita said. For once, it didn’t sound suggestive. “It’s what we do for each other.”

  Kalanath extended his hands. “Will you wash them?” he said to Sienne. “The blood is gone, but I feel it still.”

  Sienne felt a little grimy herself. She summoned water to rinse them both off. “Shouldn’t we be going?” Dianthe said. “I can’t imagine there aren’t scavengers waiting to pick these two clean.”

  “True,” Ghrita said. “How much farther to the next haven?”

  “Too far for tonight,” Vaishant said. “We will ride another three hours and camp in the open. It is not good, but better than we travel until midnight.”

  Alaric mounted his horse. “I still feel weak. Is that normal?”

  “Normal enough. You will need these hours to recover fully.” Vaishant smiled. “It is the best thing that we are not attacked by basilisks, but if it must be so, perhaps it is better that you were the one struck by their poison and not small Sienne.”

  Alaric’s eyes met Sienne’s. “I agree,” he said, his gaze bleak with some imagined horror. Sienne found she was shaking again, and closed her fingers tightly on her spellbook.

  Three hours brought them to sunset, and they made camp in silence, pitching the tents and then handing out cold food with no unnecessary talk. Sienne felt drained of energy, as if she’d walked all those miles instead of riding. She leaned against Alaric, who seemed fully recovered from his bout with the basilisk’s poisoned claws. “Should we post watches tonight?” she said.

  “What do you think, Vaishant?” Alaric asked.

  The divine nodded. “We do not have the shelter of a haven, and night is when the desert animals come out to hunt. Best if we do not make ourselves a target.”

  “All right,” Alaric said. “Standard watch rotation, but Ghrita and Vaishant will take first and last watch—if that’s all right with you,” he said to Vaishant. The divine nodded. Ghrita shrugged her approval.

  Sienne went to her bedroll in the women’s tent and lay in the chilly darkness, reflecting again on how the desert was such a land of extremes. That probably said something about the people who lived there, but she was too tired for philosophy. Beside her, Dianthe let out a gentle snore. For once, Sienne felt she might sleep as quickly as her friend. But as she was drifting off, she heard someone say in Meiric, “If you’ve been dreaming, you should tell us what you see.” It was Vaishant.

  “It’s not your business,” Kalanath replied.

  “Normally, I’d agree with you. But the devesh’s gifts are not his alone.”

  “That’s how the old divines got into trouble, isn’t it? Assuming my gifts were theirs to use as they felt like it.”

  “I don’t want this for myself. This is for all of us. I’m worried about the pakhshani. If they’ve run into something that keeps them from the hunt—”

  “Do you really think that’s the problem?”

  “I don’t know what to think. My instincts tell me we could be walking into trouble. So, again, I ask you to share what you see. If not with me, then with Alaric.”

  Kalanath made an impatient noise. “You think I’d be so…so petty?”

  “Is it pettiness not to share secrets with someone you don’t trust?”

  A pause. “It’s not about trust,” Kalanath said, but even Sienne could tell he was lying.

  “I’m not going to demand that you treat me like a father,” Vaishant said. “But I mean you no harm. Your mother and I—”

  “Let’s leave her out of it, shall we? I know you don’t mean me harm. And…I’m sorry I don’t trust you.”

  “It’s understandable. I wish you’d tell me what I can do to earn your trust.”

  A longer pause. “It’s my problem, not yours,” Kalanath finally said. “In my dreams, I’m in an empty city—no, not a real city, but a giant model. As if a child had built it with bricks. There are no people, but something watches me. Something powerful. I’m searching for something, and the longer the dream goes on, the longer I search, the closer I come to understanding the thing that watches me. And then I wake.”

  “What are you searching for?”

  “The answer to Alaric’s quest, I think. I’m not sure.”

  “I don’t know what that is. Chakhran wasn’t very forthcoming.”

  “Ask Alaric. It’s his story to tell, not mine.”

  “I will.”

  They both went silent. Sienne strained to hear more. Eavesdropping was wrong, but she hated not knowing things.

  Finally, Vaishant said, “Do you wish your mother had never found me?”

  “She’s happy,” Kalanath said curtly. “I can’t wish her unhappy.”

  “I’m happy too, not that I expect that to matter to you. My point is that I never expected my life to take this turn. To find I have a son, and such a son as you…Kalanath, I don’t expect anything from you, but I would like us to be friends.”

  Kalanath said nothing. As the silence stretched, Sienne wondered if he’d managed to walk away without disturbing the sand. Eventually, he said, “I’ll keep it in mind. And…I don’t hate you.”

  “That’s enough for me,” Vaishant said. One of them walked away, his feet crunching across the soft sand. Sienne wondered who still stood behind her tent. Finally, the other left, and Sienne was alone with Dianthe’s snoring. She rolled onto her back and stared up at the invisible tent roof. Had that been a promising start, or evidence that Kalanath was never going to come to terms with his father? She knew better than to try to decide what would make Kalanath happy, but Vaishant seemed like a good man who was doing his best in an awkward situation, and Sienne couldn’t help hoping Kalanath would come to see that, in time.

  11

  More days passed. For the first two, Sienne rode with her spellbook open, her eyes scanning the middle distance for threats. Nothing attacked. The desert was so empty she went from worrying about basilisks to fearing the complete lack of desert life meant something just as dire. When she brought it up, Vaishant said, “You are not wrong. But we cannot know what it is that is wrong. We can only go on as we have, and pray God will protect us.”

  A sandstorm came up the fourth day after the basilisk attack, and Vaishant made them stop to cover the horses’ large eyes. They stood huddled against the animals for more than an hour, faces covered, sand stinging foreheads and hands. Sienne pressed her face against her horse’s warm back and tried to think of anything that would take her attention from the feeling of being scoured with a stiff-bristled brush. Jaunting home had never been so appealing. Or jaunting to Beneddo to talk to Alcander. Perrin hadn’t said anything about his progress, so either Cressida didn’t talk about it, or Alcander hadn’t made any progress. She chose to believe the former.

  She was still wondering the next day when she noticed Perrin making faces again. She nearly asked him about it, but feared disrupting his communication. So she waited until his face stilled, and he stretched. “Did Cressida say anything about the legal situation?” she asked.

  “Was it that obvious, what I was doing?” Perrin smiled. “She has not said, and I have not asked, for fear her silence means something negative. I do not want to add to her burden by importuning her on a topic she has little control over. But I take heart in knowing, if my father had taken the children, she would certainly have told me, which means there is still hope.”

  “Alcander will figure something out. He’s smarter than I am.”

  “Then he must be a prodigy indeed.”

  “I’m not that—”

  “There it is,” Vaishant called out, pointing. A gray, fuzzy blotch on the horizon wavered in the heat haze bleeding off the sand. “Ma’tzehar.”

  “We should reach it well before sunset,” Alaric said. “Let’s ride.”

  But the blotch never seemed to get any closer. When they stopped for their midday rest, Sienne squinted at it. “Chakhran said it used to have another name. Why is that?” she asked.

  Ghrita replied, “Mahemnetzehar was its name
before it was lost. You speak Meiric—what does that name mean?”

  Her faintly mocking tone put Sienne’s back up. “Well, maa is ‘city,’ hemnet means ‘holy,’ tza is either ‘blessed’ or ‘consecrated’—”

  “Consecrated is more accurate.”

  “And ehar means ‘journey.’ So…Mahemnetzehar would be ‘holy city consecrated to the journey.’ A pilgrimage site.”

  “Very good!” It was the verbal equivalent of a pat on the head. Sienne bristled. “Omeirans used to come to Mahemnetzehar from all over, to pray in its temple and pay homage to its ruler. It was the closest thing we had to a capital. But the story has it that the residents of Mahemnetzehar grew prideful, and God caused the sands to rise up over it.”

  “Say, rather, that God stopped keeping the sands from rising,” Vaishant said. “She withdrew Her protection, and a city without God’s protection cannot stand long.”

  “They began calling it Ma’tzehar as a reminder that it was no longer a holy place,” Ghrita said. “The mark is so we will not forget that holiness was taken from it.”

  “So the pakhshani don’t live there?” Dianthe said.

  “No one lives there,” Vaishant said. “There is no water ready to hand, and beasts roam its empty streets. Travelers who happen upon it often do not return home. We do not say curse, because we believe God does not punish us for the sins of another, but it is not a lucky place.”

  “But it’s no more dangerous than anywhere else in the desert,” Alaric said, “at least, that’s what Chakhran gave me to understand. We won’t be cursed for going there.”

  “No,” Vaishant said, “but we should not stay long anyway. What do you mean to do there?”

  “Yes, you haven’t said what you expect to find,” Ghrita said. “I’m in favor of allowing people their privacy, but not if it could get me killed.”