Sands of Sorrow

Rescued from her home, she faces change, life and losing everything she thought she was, to rise from sorrow.

Salika has grown up on her own with her sand dog, Saluk, at her side. Foraging in the sands and stealing in the city, she finally gets caught and pays the penalty. Death.

Thrown into the sand pit, she faces a certain demise until her sand dog comes to her rescue.

She finds the only stranger on her world who can take her away and demonstrates her ability to move sand. As a talent, she is just what the recruiter is looking for.

Salika is as surprised as everyone around her when her talent turns out to be electrical in nature and entirely under her control.

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Sands of Sorrow

Copyright © 2016 Viola Grace

ISBN: 978-1-4874-0536-6

Cover art by Carmen Waters

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

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Sands of Sorrow

Tales of the Citadel Book 52

By

Viola Grace

Salika crept against the walls and held the small, squirming body against her chest. Possession of a sand dog was punishable by death. They were not only sacred; they were deadly.

The puppy in her arms whimpered, and she stroked it, and the soft scales on its back smoothed out under her fingers. She eased her way to her tiny home and breathed more easily when she was inside the walls of her shelter.

She set the puppy down and thought about what the sand dogs ate. He curled up in a corner of her bed, and she smiled. He needed meat, and he could eat carrion when an adult, but he was a baby now, so she was going to have to steal some softer foods.

She smiled at having someone to look after so much time alone.

“I will be back soon.”

The orphaned pup lifted his head and snuffled at her. She grinned and ducked under the door flap. With her mission in mind, she crept back into the walled city. She had another mouth to feed.

* * * *

She fought the hands that held her, commanding Saluk to remain in their quarters. “No! You can’t!”

“Street trash, you are a disgrace and you have broken the laws of our people. You have stolen food and clothing. The penalty is death.”

She bucked as the priests pulled her toward the pit. The crowd of townsfolk jeered at her, and she finally slumped, accepting that they were going to toss her in and that nothing would stop them, aside from a fatality.

She didn’t want to kill her people. She didn’t want to die. It was a problem that was about to be taken out of her hands.

Without further ceremony, they threw her into the pit dug into the sand.

Salika stood, and the lid was lowered. She was in the dark, and soon, the sand was shovelled onto the lid of the box.

Buried alive. It was the desert dweller’s worst nightmare. She listened to the thudding of shovels and the hissing cascade of sand.

It normally took an hour to bury the condemned completely. Salika crouched and made her way to a corner of the box she was in, and she sat while the heated air seemed to grow thick and it made her dizzy.

She focused on keeping calm and listening to the impact of sand above her. They would watch for any signs of her trying to burrow out for another hour. After that, they would return to the city, and she could try and escape.

Salika just had to remain alive long enough to make it out of the pit.

The digging woke her out of her slip toward death by suffocation. Saluk’s claws were far larger than they had been when she had first found him next to the mother that had just birthed him.

Salika concentrated and started to move the sand. Saluk let out his echoing bark, and she felt he had shifted aside.

She crawled to the centre of the pit and lifted her hands above her head, pushing upward to drive the sand away from the lid of the pit in waves.

Over and over, she thrust her hands upward until black spots clouded her vision. She swayed and fell.

Saluk barked again, and she heard him digging. His claws shredded the wood easily. Two minutes and she felt air caress her cheek. She woke with difficulty but stood up to reach for the lid.

Saluk carefully gripped her hand in his powerful jaws and he moved backward, pulling her into the night air.

Nothing could move on sand like a sand dog. They swam through it when they were attacking a foe, and it was moments like this that Salika appreciated the chance that had driven her out of the protective walls of the city and into the desert.

He pulled until she was lying next to him on the sand, panting for air.

She eventually rolled to her belly and waved her hand over her deathtrap, filling the whole thing with sand.

Salika struggled to her feet and started walking toward the landing site that was hosting the guest of the town. When he returned to his ship, he was going to find that she and Saluk wanted a ride elsewhere.

“It will be good to get away from here, won’t it, Saluk?”

He let out a huff and stayed next to her, supporting her when she swayed.

She talked to him as long as she could. She was tired, hungry and desperately thirsty when she saw the gleaming silver in the moonlight. The ship.

She was nearly crawling when she finally got to the vessel, but she made it. She collapsed in front of the steps and hoped that the recruiter returned before she expired.

* * * *

Demnan rubbed his face as he observed one sleight-of-hand trick after another. This nameless world was supposed to have a talent on it. His senses were shrieking that there was one in the vicinity, but he could not find it.

The pilgrims that had colonized this world had clumped together into a single city. If there was a talent, it had to be here. There was simply nowhere else on the entire world that someone could survive.

After the displays of piety and prayer, he thanked the organizers for their hospitality and took his leave. The moons were high, and if he left now, he could manage to get himself back to Citadel Balen in good time.

Specialist Demnan walked back to his ship alone. There was no one out of the city at night, and Demnan didn’t fear any of the local beasts.

“What is that?”

There was a small bundle near the hatch of his ship. As he approached, a sand dog uncurled from the bundle, and it crept toward him, growling with its scales up.

He sent it a calming wave and continued to walk toward his ship. To his shock, the sand dog continued to snarl.

A soft voice, harsh with fatigue, came from the bundle on the ground. “Saluk, calm down. This is his ship.”

The young woman on the floor slowly unravelled herself and weaved to her feet. “Sir, I have heard that you are looking for psychic talents.”

“I am, but there are none here.”

She smiled, her grubby face amused. “Well there weren’t any there, but there is one here.”

Demnan watched the arm in the tattered sleeve extend, and he turned to watch what was happening behind him.

At first, there was nothing, but then, a small tornado began to form, and after that, a wave of sand undulated and twisted up into a spire.

“My name is Specialist Demnan. Would you come with me to Citadel Balen?”

“Only if Saluk can come with as well.”

Demnan looked at the animal who was now leaning against the young woman’s side, supporting her.

“I see I have no choice. Come along. We will get you sorted out in no time. I think, first, some water.”

When her face showed relief, he smiled. He had guessed correctly.

“Do you have to get permission from a parent?”

She laughed weakly. “I am an adult, just a small one. They have just consigned me to death, so the administration believes I have passed on to the sand field. Going now is an excellent idea.”

Demnan thought about the folks that he had just left, and he nodded. “Stand aside so I can open the door.”

He tapped the ship, and the stairs descended. The door slid aside, and he waved at her to precede him.

She stepped up, and her beast walked with her.

A thought suddenly occurred to him. “Wait. He can’t come with us.”

“Why not?”

“He is a protected species. He belongs here.” Demnan imagined the forms he would have to fill out for kidnapping a rare animal.

“He belongs with me. Ask him.” The ragged woman stepped into the ship and disappeared around the corner.

The sand dog followed his person into the ship.

Demnan suggested that it might want to stay in its warm and sand-covered home. He had never felt contempt from an animal before, but he felt it then.

Demnan followed his two guests and sealed the ship. With a little effort, he got them situated and took off. At least he wasn’t returning to the Citadel empty-handed. He had a genuine talent with him. That had to be worth a bonus, or at least a minimal lecture for taking a sand dog off its home world. He hoped it made him even.

Salika stood in the shower and carefully touched the controls. She heard the hum, and her body vibrated with the touch of the sound waves.

The dirt and sand left her body to be whisked away by an air current near her feet. In a minute, she was cleaner than she had been in her entire life.

Saluk was watching her from the spot outside the small section of floor allocated for the sonic shower. The foolish grin on his face was highly amusing.

“Don’t smirk too much; you are going in here after me.”

He gave her a slow blink from his amber eyes, and when she moved to trade places with him, he went in without a whimper.

He stood on his hind legs and took up the entire height of the shower. She reached out and activated the pulses. He let out a happy growl and ruffled his scales. It seemed he had a lot more sand under his scales than she imagined.

She admired the gleaming rich green of his scales when he was clean. “You are definitely a handsome boy.”

Salika rapped twice on the door, and a hand carefully opened it, handing her a bodysuit.

She stepped into the suit and shimmied it upward, sealing it over her breasts after she had everything in the right place.

Salika left the small lavatory, and Saluk followed her. She got a bag of water from the kitchen area and gave Saluk a few drops before sipping herself.

Sand dogs didn’t need much food and didn’t need much water. If they had an opportunity to eat, they did so, but they could go months without a meal.

Salika settled in the spare seat at the front of the ship. “So, what do you think I am able to do?”

Demnan chuckled. “That is up to placement. I am merely recruitment. I can find talents; I just don’t know what they are. I didn’t even know there was a world there until I felt the pull of a talent.”

Salika smiled. “It is a strange place for a colony, but that was the purpose. Pilgrims who wished to find a purity of spirit in a hostile environment set out in a series of ships from Luthan three hundred years ago. The city, the people, is what was left of nine thousand colonists. The world did indeed purify them. It pared them down to nothing.”

“And you are the result.”

“I was an accident. The colony has a no-fault policy for unwanted babies. I was raised until I could fend for myself, and then, I was turned out and ignored by their society, to live or die as the gods pleased.”

“How did you survive?”

“I learned how to beg when I was small and steal as soon as I could. I made sure to not get caught.”

“Did they ever catch you?”

She looked out toward the stars. “Twice when I was too young to know better and before Saluk. Once I had him, I was much more careful.”

“Why?”

“No sand dogs inside the city limits. It is a rule begun in the early days. It attracts the pack to the interior and that is dangerous to our food supply, not to mention the population.”