Servants of the Sands
Praise for
Children of the Desert
“The final product put me in awe of where the world-building skills of Wisoker are at this early stage of her career . . . reminiscent of something out of an Ursula K. LeGuin novel in detail and complexity. Wisoker, like the best authors of this genre, has created a completely original society upon which to tell her story.”
—SF Site
“intriguing . . . engaging.”
—Publishers Weekly
“An absorbing story, a unique world, and fascinating characters. Leona Wisoker is definitely a writer to watch!”
—Tamora Pierce
“ . . . a lushly visual and highly detailed world of desert tribes, a language of beads, and a unique way of viewing the world.”
—Library Journal
“Leona Wisoker is a gifted storyteller and in Secrets of the Sands she has succeeded in crafting a refreshingly unpredictable tale set in a stunningly rich and detailed world.”
—Michael J. Sullivan, author of the Riyria Revelations series
“For its complexity, intriguing story, and (as in the first volume) for its characters I find totally fascinating, I heartily recommend Guardians of the Desert.”
—SF Revu
“A storyteller with a good deal of promise. Give this one a try.”
—CJ Cherryh
“You realize it’s been too long since you’ve read a Leona Wisoker novel the moment you pick up a new one and begin reading. Momentarily overwhelmed by the staggering amount of pages and the density of the copy, you are immediately drawn in by the writing and, within a few pages, you are already regretting that a book which seemed so large now suddenly appears depressingly short. Thank the gods there is a fourth on the way already. A world without new fiction from this talented scribe is simply a world too sad to contemplate.”
—C.J. Henderson
“With a flair for evoking exotic locales and an eye for detail, Leona Wisoker has crafted a first novel peopled by characters who are more than they first seem. From the orphaned streetthief who possesses an uncanny ability to read situations and people, to the impetuous noblewoman thrust into a world of political intrigue, Wisoker weaves a colourful tapestry of desert tribes, honour, revenge, and an ancient, supernatural race.”
—Janine Cross, author of the Dragon Temple Saga
“Wisoker makes a praiseworthy work when it comes to world building, creating with care and without haste a strong world, one piece at a time . . . another unique element of the story which . . . certainly will be developed more in the series’ next novels.”
—Dark Wolf’s Fantasy Reviews
SERVANTS OF THE SANDS
by
LEONA WISOKER
Produced by ReAnimus Press
Other books by Leona Wisoker:
Secrets of the Sands
Guardians of the Desert
Bells of the Kingdom
Fires of the Desert
© 2018 by Leona Wisoker. All rights reserved.
http://ReAnimus.com/store?author=leonawisoker
Cover Art by Aaron Miller
Map by Ari Warner, © 2009
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is for my family: those related by blood and those to whom I am heart-bound. I could not have made it through this journey to date without your support and love.
You know who you are.
Thank you.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Royal Library Map no. 123:The Southlands and Southern Kingdom
Prologue
ONE: WALKING INTO THE DARK
TWO: LIFE IN THE DARK
Appendix - Excerpted Notes from Loremaster Council Records
Glossary and Pronunciation Guide
About the Author
Acknowledgements
What is there left to say that I haven't already said in the acknowledgements for the first four books? I'm surrounded by an absolutely amazing community of friends and family. I've learned so much from writing this series: about myself, about the real world, about the craft of writing, about the business of writing and self-promotion. I'm deeply indebted to everyone who's taken a moment to help along the way. There really are far too many people to list here!
That being said, there are three new people I need to thank this time around: L. M. Kate JohnsTon, who reviewed a lengthy excerpt as a sensitivity reader and caught a handful of egregiously foolish mistakes. Malcolm Gin, who has also read some of my work with an eye to pointing out unseen bias. Kat Tanaka Okopnik, whose discussions proved excellent at making me rethink many underlying assumptions. They were not the only people to help, but made the greatest contribution overall. I'm not arrogant enough to think I got everything “right,” but any remaining missteps are entirely my own fault and not the result of poor teachers.
I will, as always, point out my wonderful husband, Earl Harris, without whom I absolutely would not have made it this far in so many respects. In addition, over the last two years of my frequent travels dealing with my mother's decline, Russell Schroeder and Patrick Winch have been equally sturdy supports (and excellent drinking buddies!).
This is the first book in the series that was not edited by Barbara Friend Ish; as much as we both would have loved that, circumstances intervened on multiple levels. Instead, the editor for Servants of the Sands was Edward Morris, a ferociously intelligent gent who beat me about the head and shoulders about adding details and yanking out passive wording alongside my overly beloved em-dashes and semicolons. The book is much, much better for his input.
Last but not least, I owe a deep bow of gratitude to my publisher, Andrew Burt of ReAnimus Press, who gave this series a new home when the original publisher folded. Andrew has been incredibly patient and understanding in spite of the manuscript delivery taking *cough years cough* a bit longer than expected.
Thank you, everyone. Thank you so very, very, very much, for so many, many moments. I hope the book proves worth the wait!
Royal Library Map no. 123:
The Southlands and Southern Kingdom
Prologue
Suanth 15, KY 1161
“I’m going to ask her to marry me, Azni.”
Early morning light striped through the wide glass windows, broken into shifting patterns by a light wind moving through the flowering shrubs outside. Cafad sat on a bright blue cushion, looking at the shadows, shifting his vision to focus on motes of dust in the air, picking out the spots in the room where the specks collected in whirling drifts.
The silence hung for a long time. Cafad looked at everything in the room by way of distraction: the sturdy wooden benches, the glazed earthenware vases filled with flowers both fresh and dried, the shelves of jams, jellies, and various pickled things floating in glass jars. Finally, giving up, he raised his gaze to the woman sitting on the other side of the low, thickly varnished harpwood table.
Azni was old, her long white hair braided neatly back and clubbed up into a stubby queue. Her skin nearly matched the surface of the table between them, both in its lines and in its dark, red-honey color. She wore a pale linen dress, no shoes, no jewelry, no makeup. She’d always been one of the least ostentatious people Cafad knew.
She was regarding him with a skeptical expression, one eyebrow quirked high. As soon as he met
her gaze, he felt color rising to his own face. “And you came out here at the gods own hour to tell me this—why?” she said. “Do you want my blessing, Cafad?”
He dropped his gaze to the table and traced wood grain lines with a finger. “No,” he said. “I just—I wanted to know if you think it’s a mad idea.”
“To be completely blunt, from what you’ve told me, yes. She’s considerably younger than you are. She can’t possibly be experienced enough to rebuild Scratha Family. Or strong enough, come to that. You scarcely even know her! How can you ask her to lead a desert Family?”
He shook his head slowly, not looking up. “She won’t have to,” he said. “I’m going to settle in Bright Bay with her.”
“You’re letting Scratha Fortress go.” The flatness of the words spoke volumes. “You’re going to abandon your claim.”
“I might as well.” Cafad drummed his fingers on the tabletop restlessly. “Azni, I make the trip south twice a year to keep my claim active, and the rest of the time I’m either here at your home or wandering around Bright Bay. I haven’t found anything about who slaughtered my family. Nobody believes me when I say Sessin was behind it.”
Glancing at the fine glass windows, he scowled deeply. “Everyone wants Sessin Family to be their friend—no, I’m not going on a rant again, don’t worry.” He splayed his hands across the table top, flattening them out, feeling distinctly peevish at her skeptical expression. “I’m sick of the sneers, the laughter behind my back, the condescension. Everyone thinks I’m mad, Azni.”
“You are, a bit.” He shot her a hard look. She shrugged. “It’s a bad idea, Cafad. Letting Scratha Fortress go will create a huge political hole. Everyone will want to claim it. You’ll set off an inter-Family war.”
“Let them squabble,” he said bitterly. “It would serve them right for all the snubs.”
Her stare could have melted stone. “That’s childish.”
His hands tightened into fists. He spread them out again with a conscious effort. “It doesn’t matter, Azni. I’m going to ask her. Today. I’ve already commissioned a ring. I’m negotiating the purchase of an estate on the northern edge of town. It belonged to one of the nobles who fell during the Purge. His family doesn’t want to stay in town any longer. Bad memories. They’re moving north of the Hackerwood.” He grinned sourly. “It seems fitting for me to move in there, given that I’m leaving my former home because of the memories.”
She shook her head. “You have to announce it formally. Call for a Conclave and present it there. Let the arguments happen safely in a teuthin. You can’t simply walk away and allow chaos to take over.”
“As soon as she says yes, I will,” he said. “I doubt my stepping away will cause as much chaos as you think, Azni. Nobody pays attention to me. Nobody seems to care if Scratha Fortress sits empty until the end of time. They could have assassinated me a triple dozen times over if they cared so much about taking over the Fortress. The fact that I’m even still alive speaks to how little I matter.”
“As long as it’s claimed, and at least marginally maintained, there’s nothing they can do,” she said sharply. “Assassination isn’t as lightly handled as you seem to think—who have you been talking to? Besides, you’re not the most congenial company, Cafad. Are you truly surprised that nobody seeks you out, after all the years of you snubbing and insulting them?”
He rose, unable to hold still any longer, and paced across the room and back with long, taut strides. “You’re baiting me, Azni,” he said, facing her again.
“Of course I am. Not that you’re listening, any more than you ever do. You’re Head of Scratha, Cafad. You have responsibilities, no matter that you’ve been avoiding them for years.” She slapped a hand on the table as he opened his mouth, her dark eyes hard and angry. “No, Cafad, you hold your peace and let me finish—I’ve been keeping this silent for a long time. How dare you throw your heritage away? No, Cafad, you hold your peace and let me finish—I’ve been keeping this silent for a long time. You don’t seem to realize that your Family was important, that people have been waiting for you to get your head out of the sand and tend to your duties! You don’t have to restart the Fortress for that. You can set up in Water’s End and present yourself properly. Everyone’s been waiting on you to do just that—I certainly have!”
“Then you’re the only one,” he replied sourly. “You still aren’t understanding, Azni—you can’t understand, you’re not a desert lord. I can tell what people are thinking, and all I’m seeing is contempt when people talk to me. Nissa is the only person I can trust—the only person who’s honest with me.”
He paced across the room again, breathing hard. Although Azni wore a distinctly peculiar expression—almost amusement—she didn’t interrupt.
“Nobody takes me seriously,” he said. “I’m a joke. I’m the sole survivor of a murdered Family, and there’s no interest in finding out who was responsible for the murders. That tells me that one of the Families were involved. That there’s a conspiracy to stay silent, there has to be, there’s been no damn effort to investigate—”
“Cafad, stop. It’s too early in the morning for me to listen to that rant again.”
“—fine.” Cafad turned away from her and went to one of the windows, staring out at the white-flowered fernleaf bushes, watching their feathery leaves swaying in the breeze. He tried not to look at the glass, tried to ignore it, but it colored everything he saw: Sessin. Sessin. Sessin made the window. Always Sessin. He couldn’t get away from their presence.
I won’t have a single godsdamned Sessin window in my new home, he told himself. I’ll break every one to bits, then find someone local to create replacements. Even if the windows are garbage. I’d rather look through distortions than be faced with Sessin manufacture every day.
“I’m going,” he said abruptly, facing her. “I have to. I have to, Azni, I can’t live this—this half-life any longer. I have to settle in one place. And I’m choosing Bright Bay.”
He tried for a smile, but felt it fail as her frown intensified. “Azni, please—don’t be angry with me. I have to do this. It’s the right thing to do.” Grabbing up his cloak, he moved for the door.
“You’re being a fool,” Azni said.
“Won’t be the first time. I’ll send you an invitation to the wedding, but I won’t mind if you don’t attend.”
He left before she could answer, slamming the door behind him.
Normally, the six-mile walk between Bright Bay and Azni’s home took Cafad nearly two hours. He never hurried in either direction. Visiting Azni was always a reprieve, a treat, a restful interlude.
This time, his pace quickened by anger, the trip back to Bright Bay took him under an hour. How dare she scold him like a child? How dare she disapprove of him? She didn’t understand. She wasn’t a desert lord, merely a foolish noblewoman who’d run away from her Family to follow her lover. And she was old, as well—easily twice Cafad’s age. She couldn’t possibly remember how it felt to be in love. She’d been alone for so long, and living in the north. She had no idea of what was happening in southern politics right now. She didn’t understand.
She’d never seen Scratha Fortress sitting empty and abandoned in the midst of a sizzling heat wave. Never walked the corridors, listening to the echoes, in the middle of the night, or stood atop the towers under a full moon and looked out across a depopulated land. Never looked at the storerooms and treasury of a dead Fortress with a growing realization that everything the contents represented was gone.
Why not sell it all and have done with the memories? Replace desert drought with the ever-present humidity of a port city, replace silence with the laugh of a beautiful woman, replace solitude with the warmth of her body pressed against his?
Duty be damned. Duty hadn’t done his parents any good, in the end. It hadn’t protected anyone in Scratha Fortress. They’d died, slaughtered by an invisible hand, and the other Families hadn’t done a godsdamned thing to find out who was re
sponsible.
Who cared that he hadn’t met Nissa all that long ago? What did it matter? She was the first woman to care about him as a person, instead of as a political symbol.
He blinked, pausing mid-stride. The streets of Bright Bay formed around him. This wasn’t the first time he’d been so deep in brooding as to lose track of his surroundings, but it always startled him.
To his right, five broad steps led up to a stubby brick building surrounded by a ridiculously wide wraparound porch littered with tables and chairs and sun-tents. Over a dozen of the chairs were occupied by people drinking from thick ceramic mugs. From the scents swirling through the air, they were drinking mostly coffee, and some herbal teas.
Thank you, Oruen, Cafad thought with bleak humor. Lifting the heavy restrictions on southern trade had been one of the new king’s earliest acts. Bright Bay’s economy was climbing sharply out of disaster as exotic items streamed into the city. This was the only dedicated coffee and tea shop in the city, as far as Cafad knew. The raw materials were still madly expensive.
To his left stretched a row of slightly taller buildings, butted up against one another. An oversized thread spool hung above one door, a pair of wooden scissors over another; the next a shoe, and the last in the row a mask. Each of the shops had one large window facing the street and two long, narrow windows near the roofline. The shutters were all propped open, and the doors stood wide. The cobbler, a stout man with wildly curling red hair and a shaggy beard, sat outside his door, resoling a lady’s boot. He looked up at Cafad, waving genially.
“Good morning, my lord,” he said. “How are those boots suiting you?” He scratched at his beard idly. Cafad resisted the impulse, not for the first time, to observe aloud that the man would be more comfortable in the southern heat if he went clean-shaven.