The Heart of the Sands, Book 3 of The Gods Within
Read The Heart of the Sands, Book 3 of The Gods Within Online
Authors: J. L. Doty
Tags: #Swords and Sorcery, #Epic Fantasy, #Young Adult, #Coming of Age
The Heart of the Sands
Book 3 of
The Gods
Within
Only when the steel no longer rules can the shadows within
be mastered.
by
J. L. Doty
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places
and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or
to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Heart of the Sands, Book 3 of
The Gods Within
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Copyright © 2013 J. L. Doty
. All rights reserved,
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No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled,
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ISBN: 978-1-939927-51-4 (eBook)
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Version 2013.10.19
Contents
Chapter
2: The Spirit of the Sands
Chapter 5: Brothers of the Sands
Chapter 7: Without a True Name
Chapter 10: Ancient Lessons Remembered
Chapter 11: Fire From the Blood of Our
Kin
Chapter 12: The Freedom to Die
Chapter 14: The Obsidian Blade
Chapter 15: A Journey Remembered
Chapter 16: The Curse of the Benesh’ere
Chapter 18: A Deadly Diversion
Chapter 19: Spinning, Spinning, Spinning
Chapter
21: The Crypt of the Sunset King
The Heart of the Sands
Book 3 of
The Gods
Within
Only when the steel no longer rules can the shadows within
be mastered.
Command not the steel, for
the steel always commands. Listen well, for only then can the Master know the
steel.
The Master must know the heart of the steel, the soul of the
steel, and the child of the steel. For should his knowledge falter, the steel
will rule his heart, and he will know only the pain of the steel.
Morgin forced himself
to walk, to drag one foot forward through the sand and put it in front of the
other, to shift his weight onto it and then repeat the process just one more
time. Each step required an effort of will, for he sank to his ankles in the
sand, and it sucked at his boots as if reluctant to release its hold. The heat
was unbearable, and sand had worked its way into every fold of his clothing. It
stuck to his sweat-soaked skin, and abraded the most sensitive parts of his
body. His lips had swollen and cracked, his eyes encrusted with dried tears and
sand, and he knew he wouldn’t last much longer. But he also knew
that all he had to do was keep heading northwest and he’d
eventually run into the Ulbb, so he kept the afternoon sun in front of him and
to his left. He’d walked out this far to escape the jaws of the
skree; he could walk back.
Then it struck him and
he stopped dead in his tracks. He thought for a moment, and he couldn’t
be certain if he walked beneath the morning sun rising toward noon, or the
afternoon sun falling toward dusk. If the latter, then his path led him
northwest toward water. If the former, then his path carried him deeper into
the Munjarro: more sand, more sun, more heat.
The heat was so
intense merely breathing proved difficult, and his tongue had begun to swell
and block his throat. He had no choice but to stagger on, and so he walked, and
tried not to think of anything but the next step . . . and the next
. . . and the next . . . and the next . . .
~~~
Valso’s Kullish guards opened the door to
his private sitting room and admitted the pretty, young Vodah girl. She crossed
the room hurriedly and dropped into a curtsey, lowering her eyes appropriately,
exposing her cleavage and allowing him a good look at it.
“You summoned me, Your Majesty,”
she said breathlessly.
Chrisainne et Vodah, now esk et Penda; he’d
searched carefully to find someone who fit his requirements perfectly. She was
tall, lithe, beautiful, traits easily found. But in addition to her physical
charms, she was ambitious, though her father had managed the family’s
finances rather poorly and could provide her with only a meager dowry at best. Had
Valso not intervened, she would have had little chance of marrying anyone
better than some backwoods nobleman.
“Rise,” he said.
She rose slowly, keeping her eyes downcast and making sure
he had plenty of time to examine the rather generous swell of her breasts so
carefully exposed by the dress. Good! She’d dressed with an eye
toward impressing her king, perhaps even seducing him. That was the other trait
he needed in her: ruthlessness.
He said, “Raise your eyes, child. Let me look
at you.”
She did so. He ignored the shamelessly blatant look of
invitation she gave him and said, “You are newlywed, just last
month, eh?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Not only had Valso enriched her dowry enough so she could
marry reasonably well, but he’d pointed her father at just the
right Penda nobleman, and made sure the wedding vows were taken here in Durin.
“And you leave on the morrow for your husband’s
estates in Penda?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Valso frowned. “Is that all you can say, just
‘Yes, Your Majesty’?”
She blushed, which made her even more attractive. “I
would add that I am most grateful to Your Majesty for improving my station so I
could marry well.”
Valso turned away from her and dismissed her comment with
a casual wave of his hand. “Yes. Your father has expressed his
gratitude repeatedly, though I’m not sure how much his gratitude
is worth.”
“But I meant that I am personally most
grateful to you, Your Majesty.”
And she was smart. Good! He turned back to her. “Personally?”
She blushed again, and he began to think she might
actually control that. “Yes,” she said breathlessly,
sensually. “I would do anything to make it up to you.”
She thought she’d make it up to him by
bedding him. He just needed to broaden her horizons a bit, show her how she
could advance much farther by bedding someone else. He retrieved a very special
coin from his desk. “I have need of a set of eyes and ears in
Penda court. Can you be discreet?”
He could see in her eyes the way she quickly shifted her
thinking, catching the meaning of his words without missing a heartbeat. “Yes,
my king, I can.”
“I need someone close to BlakeDown himself. Very
close.”
He saw her finish the transformation in her thinking, saw
her make the leap in that instant. She said, “My husband
occasionally attends BlakeDown’s court. And I think I could ensure
that BlakeDown desires our presence much more frequently.”
He extended his hand and held the coin out to her. “Then
do so,” he said as she took it, a questioning look in her eyes. “Kiss
that coin when you want to speak to me, and I’ll know, and I’ll
come into your thoughts when I am available.”
He waved a hand impatiently and said, “Now
leave me. I have other business awaiting my attention.”
She curtsied quickly and hurried toward the door, but he
stopped her by calling out, “Lady Chrisainne.”
She halted and spun to face him. “If you get
close enough to BlakeDown, and you serve me well, your rewards will be far more
than some paltry dowry.”
She smiled, and he was happy to see the avarice in the
look she gave him. Then she bobbed a quick courtesy and left.
~~~
He must be dreaming,
for he rested comfortably on a blanket on the sand. The heat had dwindled to
something bearable, and when he opened his eyes he lay in a cool and
comfortable shadow cast by the folds of a small cloth lean-to. Almost within
arm’s reach the shadow ended in a thin, sharp line, and beyond
that the oven of yellow sand extended forever. Out there nothing moved but
transparent waves of heat that danced about slowly on a still, windless calm.
A man sat just within
the edge of the shadow with his legs crossed, his back to the sand and the
heat. Behind him the sun beat down with such blinding intensity his features
were lost in the blackness of a dark silhouette. He leaned forward slowly, held
something out toward Morgin’s face, and a trickle of water passed
between his lips to wet his tongue. Morgin swallowed and gulped at it greedily,
and as the water washed down his throat the man sat back, rested his hands on
his knees and returned to his still, silent vigil. But in the distance behind
him Morgin’s eye caught a flicker of movement out on the sands.
Something out there
approached the lean-to, and it flowed with the grace and fluidity of a shadow. But
it was yellow like the sands, not black and dark, and when it remained still it
blended into the glare of the Waste so completely it might as well have been
invisible. It moved like a predatory animal stalking prey, holding as still as
the heat for a few heartbeats and blending into the ripples on the edge of a
dune. Then it would cautiously move forward, cross to another dune and stop,
blending once again into the stillness of the heat.
Whatever it might be,
Morgin realized it stalked him and the man in the small lean-to, something big
and sleek. Its muscles rippled like the heat waves that danced across the
dunes, and he was too weak to move, too weak to speak, too weak to give warning
of any kind. The man sat with his back to the sands waiting for something, and
as the monster behind him approached, Morgin struggled to cry out, but a nameless
weight upon his soul paralyzed him. So he lay there watching the beast
approach, and as it came closer he saw that it was a giant cat with sand-yellow
fur and blood-red eyes. Two giant, saber-like teeth protruded from its upper
jaw, it ran on large paws that kept it from sinking into the sand, and in it
Morgin sensed a deadly malice toward all things mortal. But when it reached the
lean-to, instead of pouncing upon them as Morgin expected, it settled down on
its haunches just beyond the edge of the shadow, as if it preferred the hellish
fire of the sand rather than the cool shade of their shelter. It just sat
there, watching him with those blood-red eyes, until finally it lifted one
forepaw, and with the faintest flick of its wrist, it extended its claws, five
of which were razor sharp and the length of a man’s fingers. But
the sixth claw was tiny, no more than the size of a small thorn, and as Morgin
looked at it a minute drop of venom dripped from its tip, and he understood
that the smallest claw was the most deadly of all.
The beast smiled at
him, and he knew her name to be Shebasha. He knew it was all just a dream, or a
hallucination, and that in reality he was probably lying face down in the sand
somewhere with the sun baking his brains.
~~~
Valso, standing before a large hearth and warming his
hands, fully expected to hear the door behind him slam loudly, fully expected
to hear DaNoel demand, “He is dead, is he not?”
He turned to face the young Elhiyne lord who stood just
within the threshold of his suites. Clearly, he’d begun to have
doubts about betraying the whoreson, as well as doubts about conspiring with a
Decouix. Valso said, “If not now, then soon.”
“What do you mean by that? What about those
little dogs of yours, the skree?”
The fire warmed Valso’s backside, and he
thought that, when he ruled all seven tribes, he might spend winters in
Elhiyne. Here in Durin, in the far north, the chill of winter often lingered
even into late spring. By now those Elhiynes were probably enjoying warm spring
days, and Valso envied them that.
Valso gave DaNoel an indifferent shrug. “The
scree devoured something. We found a large, bloody smear in a field on your
brother’s trail—”
“He’s not my brother.”
Valso ignored the interruption. “But it wasn’t
him. I would know that.”
DaNoel crossed the room angrily. “Then who,
what?”
Valso smiled merely to irritate DaNoel further. “Upon
returning to Durin, I learned his wife took a horse from the stables while we
were organizing the skree. Apparently, she rode out after her husband with some
foolishly romantic idea of aiding him. A horse is fast until it tires, but the
skree are relentless. It’s likely the skree devoured his wife and
her horse in that field.”
DaNoel had grown so agitated that as he spoke, little
drops of spittle flicked out between his lips. “I care nothing for
Rhianne one way or the other. It’s the whoreson I want to know
about.”
Valso feigned indifference. “We chased him
out onto the sands of the Munjarro.”
“Then he’s still alive?”
“I doubt it. With no supplies, he won’t
last two days in that oven of sand. He’s probably already chased a
mirage or two, and by now the Waste has consumed him.”
DaNoel’s eyes grew dark, fearful and haunted.
Valso suspected DaNoel’s fear stemmed from the fact he now
understood he’d ensnared himself in a trap of his own devising. They
both knew he’d have to continue to cooperate with Valso, or Valso
would expose him to his family, and that old witch Olivia would eat the fool
alive.
“That’s not good enough,”
DaNoel said. He spun on his heels and marched across the room, pulled the door
open, but hesitated before leaving. He turned back to Valso. “You
promised.”
Valso turned his back on DaNoel, and rubbed his hands
together in front of the warm fire. “I will ensure that he does
not return from the dead, and in the meantime I don’t want rumors
of his possible survival floating about. Remember this, Elhiyne: as far as
everyone else is concerned, your brother and his wife both died in the jaws of
the skree.”
“You fear him, don’t you?”
Valso laughed. “No, it’s you who
fear him.”
DaNoel hesitated for a moment, and then he stepped through
the door and slammed it angrily.
When he was gone, Valso glanced to one side at a set of
drapes that hid a balcony. He said, “You heard, Lord Carsaris?”
One of Valso’s most powerful sorcerers
stepped out from behind the drapes. Carsaris stood taller than most on a
skeletal frame of long limbs. His thin nose and sunken cheeks only added to his
spectral appearance. “We’ll have to watch him
closely, Your Majesty. He clearly regrets having cooperated with you.”
“Yes,” Valso said. “But
his hatred of his brother blinds him to how truly, deeply he is ensnared.”
“Then, Your Majesty, it might be wise to
enlighten him. If he knows he cannot go back, he will be less likely to betray
us.”
“As always, Lord Carsaris, your counsel is
invaluable.”
Valso stepped away from the fire to face Carsaris
squarely. “How goes our little project?”
“Progress is slow, Your Majesty. The
swordsman, he is stronger than anticipated, though that isn’t a
bad thing. The stronger the swordsman proves to be now, the stronger Salula
will prove to be later.”
~~~
Morgin drifted in and
out of his dreams of Shebasha for some unknown time. Sometimes she sat just
outside the shade of the lean-to, and sometimes not. The man remained
unchanged; always sitting just within the shadow, though Morgin wondered if he
truly was a man, for a dark silhouette always hid his features. He also dreamt
of the skeleton king sitting upon his throne in the tomb in Attunhigh: vivid
images that seemed very real, as if the sands wanted him to remember the crypt
with clarity far greater than that of a dream. He had seen the skeleton king’s
crypt for the first time when he lay dying in the enchanted alcove in Castle
Elhiyne. But now something in the image had changed. He couldn’t
say what, and that bothered him.
Then the sense of a
dream ended and he came fully awake. The large cat was nowhere to be seen and
he realized she was just a figment of his delirium. The small lean-to was real,
though the shade it cast was far from cool, but certainly far cooler than the
oven out on the open sands. The man no longer sat in the shade with Morgin, but
Morgin spotted him out on the sands in the distance.