Written in the Sand

By Lazette Gifford

The Gods are returning and bringing chaos with them.

The only hope of survival the desert tribes have lies with the ancient Standard of the Gods and the mysterious powers it holds. However, getting the Standard to the sacred city of Tiamarta isn't going to be an easy journey, especially for Gareth, a man born in the northern lands of mountains and snow, and now one of the two men who has taken an oath to see the Standard to safety.

With enemies on all sides and chaos closing in, anything can happen. The future is written in the sand, and a change of wind can change -- or erase -- everything.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A Conspiracy of Authors
• Release date: Jan 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781936507764

Lazette Gifford

Lazette is an avid writer as well as the owner of Forward Motion for Writers and the owner/editor of Vision: A Resource for Writers.It's possible she spends too much time with writers.And cats.

Book preview

Written in the Sand

By

Lazette Gifford

Copyright 2018 Lazette Gifford

An ACOA Publication

www.aconspiracyofauthors.com

ISBN: 978-1-936507-76-4

Smashwords Edition

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 recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All material copyright 2018 Lazette Gifford

An ACOA Publication

www.aconspiracyofauthors.com

ISBN: 978-1-936507-76-4

Cover Art by Lazette Gifford Using DAZ Studio and Adobe Photoshop

For those of us who love the desert....

But find ourselves exiled in the northern lands.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

About the Author

Preview: In the Service of the Queen

Chapter One

Three fates....

An arid, scorching wind rose from the desert and swept across the broad mesa feeling like the breath of fire itself. Shashee felt the heat rush across her uncovered face and pull at strands of her gray hair as she closed her eyes and waited for the burning sun to drop below the far horizon. In a few more heartbeats darkness would sweep across the land. She wished very much wish it so. Shashee even silently prayed to the Gods for a reprieve from the signs and visions of disaster she'd already seen.

The High Priestess of Tiamarta knew that her wishes meant nothing in the face of the perilous powers she feared would soon sweep over the land. Even now, the world trembled, and she heard a fall of rocks tumbling from the cliff to the desert below. A small voice within whispered to back away from the edge, but another, stronger one willed her to wait and be patient so that she could learn the truth. She couldn't say which voice might be wiser.

The ground beneath her gave a low, ominous groan before the trembling stopped. Shashee heard the startled cry of horses in the trackless desert far below, reminding her of the duty to her people. Holding her breath, she opened her eyes and watched the sun drop below the horizon as the Cauldron, the desert below her, fell fast into shadow. As hot as it had been during the day, now it would turn icy cold.

The last light of day faded to a dark umber across most of the horizon.

A different light still glowed far off to the west, blood-red and lambent with the promise of disaster. Shashee watched for a long, heart-pounding moment, hoping that the peculiar radiance would fade and prove to be no more than an odd afterglow of the day, caught on an errant cloud.

The crimson glow grew brighter instead. The summit of the high mountain, far across the desert, illuminated the ash and smoke exploding into the air and she could even see the flash of lightning playing along the ridge.

Shashee drew her dark blue robes around her, chilled even with the breath of the desert day still caressing her. She had never thought to be the one to stand here and watch these signs that had been told of only in myths. Shashee had never expected to be the High Priestess chosen to stand witness to the end of days. Too old, she thought and felt her knees ache. Too old -- this is a time that needs a young priestess.

Ah, but a young priestess would not have marshalled the power -- both political and arcane -- that Shashee had spent a lifetime gathering. No child would be prepared for this trouble.

Her place after all, and Shashee accepted this task with a brisk nod of her head. Then she knelt, ignoring the aches of knees and the fears of old age. She let her fingers brush against the cooling rocks as she dusted away the ubiquitous sand that had gathered in the dips and crevices. The colors of the desert rock had disappeared with the light and without even a moon she could not see the ground before her. Her right hand sought out the leather pouch tied to her belt. She still had work to do.

The ground trembled. Fire brightened its peak. They might even see the radiance farther across the desert tonight. Soon everyone would know.

No time to waste. Shashee drew the ancient, carved quartz box from the pouch and carefully lifted the lid. The three runes within glowed softly, a lovely and subtle array of flower-like colors. She let her finger brush over them, feeling the sigils carved into each ancient square. The runes whispered and called for her to take them up and cast.

Shashee drew an ancient embroidered cloth from the pouch, placing it carefully over the uneven ground. Then, just to be safe, she traced a border along the edge of the white fringe, and the magical line glowed with blue power. She did not want to lose the runes in the dark, though she doubted anything so trivial would come of this reading.

A thousand years or more had passed since the last High Priestess had knelt on this sacred mesa and cast the runes by the light of the Doorway of the Gods. No good had come of that ancient reading; the world had changed, and the vast empire and days of glory had disappeared on the desert wind, leaving behind only the scattered tribes of the Cath. She knew the tales, but she had never expected to see that part of the myth end and witness the promised cycle of time come around for a new legend.

The stones quivered in the box making a sound like crystal bells. Willing her hands not to tremble, Shashee reached into the quartz and carefully drew out the runes, holding them briefly in her hand, measuring the power in each. She could not tell what the cast would be.

Fate rested in the palm of her hand. With these three runes, she would cast and see the change the world and must do what she could to make certain the tribes of the Cath were not caught unprepared and suffer for it. She did not want to be the one --

But if she did not cast, then her people would have no warning and could not prepare. Chaos would have the upper hand, and they needed foresight on their side. Shashee lifted the runes in the cup of her hands, holding them out before her where they glittered like tiny stars brought down to the world.

Gods grant me the power to read the runes. Gods grant us hope.

She cast, the runes falling from her hands toward the cloth below: bells in the wind, fireflies in the night, and the fate of everything she knew suspended for a heartbeat in the air. As they tumbled to the ground -- too slow to be natural -- the reddish glow of the distant volcano grew brighter.

The vision came, and Shashee watched the world change. Somewhere far out across the desert a city that had survived for eons crumbled to the ground, the knowledge of all time lost from the vast library that had been carved back into the stone caves. Tiamarta, the City of Myth --

No!

Her tears flowed -- she who had not cried since the deaths of her first born and then the loss of her beloved husband. This transcended personal loss. She watched the end of the world for her people and she could see the dead everywhere in those ruins, the blue robes of the temple priests and priestesses mingling with the bodies of the townspeople. Shashee didn't look closely lest she recognized the faces, the sightless eyes staring upward at her. She didn't want to see more but even as she watched the desert sand began to blow in over the ancient city in a storm that grew beyond all the natural limits. The winds came so swiftly that in heartbeats she saw the great city swallowed. The sand spread across the land suffocating her even in this vision.

And there, at the edge of the ruined buildings, stood a man in a northerner uniform, holding the Standard of the Gods. She thought he wept, but even so, the soldier turned away and took the Standard with him. Lost to her people, and the Gods turned their back on all the Cath tribes and left none to survive.

No, please, don't let this be the fate I cast, she whispered. Don't let Tiamarta fall because of me!

The vision paused, held, and dissolved. Shashee saw the runes on the cloth again and felt the cold upon her arms. Time had passed, and the night had come with glittering stars bright painted across the sky where the blood red hue of the Doorway of the Gods didn't obscure them.

Shashee sucked in the air, cold needles rushing into her lungs as though she hadn't breathed for a long time. The vision held to her, but she denied its power and prayed to the Gods that it might not be the true future. Tiamarta could not fall! She could not bear the thought of losing such a wealth of knowledge and the generations of devotion that had gone into making this place just, so they would be ready for the change. She would not allow it to be for nothing.

That was probably her worst fear, that she would fail everyone. With that thought, Shashee consoled herself and believed that she had brought this vision on with fears of her own. She had created that moment. Written in the sand; it was not true.

The world trembled, and the runes blurred beneath her eyes, drawing her down to the world again. Something different, she hoped. Not the death of her people. She could cast three fates tonight, and hope the best would be the real path.

The runes gifted the High Priestess the second vision and a new fate. The sand storm spilled out from the desert, growing from a single whirlwind into a wall of sand that blocked out the sky. While Shashee watched -- a moment, hours, years? -- the storm moved, Gods it moved, forward and relentless. She saw an encampment swallowed up, all lost with no time even to see what standard flew on the chieftain's tent. Children and goats, slaves and horses -- all gone as they cried out in terror and disappeared under the relentless wave of sand.

Shashee wanted to close her eyes and draw away, but the wall of wind and sand drove onward, and she had no say in where it blew her. As the storm sped onward, she saw the storm engulf the cities on the border, filling the river with sand, choking out the life everywhere. Fields carefully tended died in a moment beneath the heat and the sand. People fell and died along the roads, swallowed up by the sand. And there, there at the front of the storm, she saw the Standard of the Gods, moving northward, the storm following behind.

Someone in the robes of a Cath es Dagna held the standard high, either leading death or out running it. The rest of the tribe followed close on his heels, but even they had started to fail, one after another, disappearing into the wall of sand until all the tribe fell and the standard dropped into the maelstrom.

The storm rushed on, destroying the cities of the northerners, and never slowing until darkness covered all the world. Even if she had not seen Tiamarta fall, it would not survive with the tribes lost. Nothing would survive.

No!

Written in the sand -- that was an old saying among her people, and meant to convey something that might be true only for a moment and then lost in the first wind. A third time she asked for a vision, even though Shashee feared her pounding heart and trembling body would not take the strain. Her ears pounded with a sound that was not real. She tasted sand in her mouth, and saw the faces of the dead and dying in the darkness of the night, but they were the ghosts of those who had not yet died.

No. Three fates. One last try, if the Gods were kind and granted her something better than the last two. Or worse? There had to be another choice. The Gods and fate could not have entirely forsaken them.

She reached out and brushed her hands over the runes, moved them, changed them; did not allow this to be more than a tale told in the night to frighten children into good behavior. No truth here -- another written in the sand. The Cath es Dagna, who had never been known for their honor, would not hold the Standard of the Gods and bring that storm of destruction from the desert and into the rest of the world.

She found it harder to force the vision this time. What other choice did she have? Was there a third way in which this might go?

Shashee lifted the runes, prayed, and released them once more....

Drawn in again.

The storm was not of sand this time. No, this time she saw warriors everywhere, all the Cath es tribes forced together in a battle where she could not see the enemy and did not think those fighters saw them either. Even a handful of Kolti soldiers battled against -- shadows? Things unreal? Darkness, light, sand: chaos ruled everywhere on the battlefield, and she heard the cries of anger, pain, loss, and fear. She could feel the deaths as she moved through the area. Was this Tiamarta again? She couldn't be certain.

Why did they fight? What brought this battle? Why could there not be a better choice?

Because there stood the northerner again -- the same one, she was certain. She could see the swath of his blond hair peeking from beneath his black hood, the face veil dropped to the left to show his grim face. He held the Standard of the Gods in his right hand, and a long, thin sword in the left, fighting off those who tried to take it. He brought the chaos and the death, the madness and the battle.

She studied his face so that she would know him when the time came. If she killed this man, then neither the first fate nor this last one would happen. If no one let the Standard of the Gods fall into the hands of the Cath es Dagna, then the storm would not destroy them and pass into the lands of the outsiders, either.

Answers, finally. Fates done. She accepted the last vision, although none had been good. The magic faded and released her from that hold, though the runes still glowed. She shivered with both the cold and exhaustion.

The wind whispered across the mesa bringing the faint wail of nightfairs, those lost souls that forever wandered the desert where they had died, alone and without the blessings of their tribe. They wandered, and few saw them. She could see the hint of many tonight as they came to the lure of magic, a beacon drawing their essence when they had no other sense of direction. Some had been lost while traveling into the deadly Cauldron as they tried to reach the Doorway to the Gods and take hold of some of the magic it promised. A fool's quest, but there had always been fools enough in the world. She had been one, more than thirty years ago when she traveled to the Doorway and back again when so few others survived.

At another time, the nightfairs would have sent chills through her soul, but tonight they seemed companionable waifs gathering around her as she stared down at the ancient runes and finally read the actual sigils for the first time.

Of the three stones she had cast on the cloth, only two showed their faces to her: the first Life and Death, the second Control and Chaos. The first had turned askance so that it could mean either or both. The other clearly showed chaos pointed toward her. The third, face down and having no affect, represented time and place. Shashee suspected that meant neither could be changed. She brushed her hands over them again. The power still whispered at her fingers, but she could not hear the stones speak. The fates were sealed whether as one vision or as all three in some strange combination. She alone could affect the future. She must find the northerner.

The nightfairs wept, a soft moan of sound she could barely hear. Shashee didn't know if they cried for themselves or for the visions she'd seen. None of those futures had looked good, and even if she thwarted all three -- what did that leave instead?

Shashee carefully picked up the warm, glowing runes and put them back into the quartz case. She put the lid in place, and the quartz box sealed closed and would not open again until some future time when fate and chance rose, and the world stood on the precipice once more. Gods grant that the person then had a better grasp of what to do than she had right now.

If the world survived at all this time.

The frightening visions she had seen were neither carved in stone nor quite written in the sand either. She had viewed possible paths into the future, and they might all turn a different way if she could take hold of the threads and weave them into a different pattern. She had no time to waste, though. Shashee packed away her scrying cloth, the magic border dying away as she lifted it from the stone. Mechanical movements while everything waited for her to make a decision and save the world.

Shashee looked up and focused once more on the distant glow of the volcano. The red blaze would grow. The portal to the Gods had cracked open, and nothing in the runes had shown how to close that path.

The Gods would return to the land, and the one who held the Standard of the Gods would have the not only the attention of the Gods but also a link to reality amid chaos. Such power should only be in the hands of the wise. The Cath es Tear, the elder tribe, was rich in lore and had powerful priestesses. She had sent word that she'd foreseen the Door opening, though Shashee, not so long ago, thought Camee must be wrong. The Cath es Tear had already moved to take the Standard from its temple resting place and into their hands. Others would move as well.

Shashee carefully put the quartz rock, still whispering of power, back into the soft leather pouch. Then she drew a cloth, gray and unadorned, from within. The silken weave tingled with magic in her hands, and she held it tight for a moment, savoring the unnatural warmth.

Then she stood, drew her face veil from the left side of her hood over to the right and hooked it -- habit for anyone who had grown up in the Nessa desert, and protection from both the blistering heat of the day and the icy cold of the night. A mundane action, but one that seemed to draw her closer to the real world once more.

She ran the long gray cloth through her fingers, once, twice -- and it glowed brighter each time, the tint changing to the bright red of fire and blood, the color of the Door and a signal for the return of the Gods. Shashee stepped carefully to the edge of the mesa and raised the glowing flag in her hand and waved it in an arc above her, once twice, three times.

Almost directly below she could hear the echoing eee-eee-eee response of those who had traveled across the Nessa with her. They had been waiting for the sign, and she saw the distant campfire drowned in sand and heard the distant protest of horses as people rushed to prepare for long rides. They would spread the word to every tribe of the Cath es Ils that the Door had begun to open.

Shashee drew the cloth back, letting the color fade while she shivered at what she had done and everything she'd set in motion. Though she'd always been marked as someone with exceptional power, Shashee had never imagined she would have a place in a legend, but that was what she had tonight.

She turned back to pick up her belongings, startled when the nightfairs swarmed in around her. They took a more solid form than usual and all of them gestured toward the edge of the mesa. She thought they meant to push her -- but no. They had shape but no substance. They did not want her to fall, only to look again --

The nightfairs swept down over the side of the mesa and out to the right, away from where her companions had camped. They lit the night with a slight blue tint and in their passing, she could see another group of horsemen riding fast out toward the Nessa. No one else should have been there, camped where they could also see her signal. That they rode, and even faster than her own people could prepare, couldn't be good.

The ground trembled and groaned, and she leapt back from the edge in haste. The rock fell from where she had stood. Nothing from this night would be good.

Even so, Shashee dared a little gift. She, the High Priestess of all the Cath tribes, lifted her hands and whispered an ancient chant, blessing all the nightfairs who had helped her and let them go on to the other world. It was a little gift on such a dark night.

Chapter Two

The ground trembled.

Gareth stepped away from the wall as dust puffed out from between the stones. There had been a few too many quakes lately, and he wished for no disaster tonight.

The world stilled once more, though somewhere a cat yowled in anger. Gareth stopped at the crossroads of Sun and Sand Alleys, staring out into the inky night as he tried to shrug away the sudden chill. How a place could be like a furnace during the day and turn to ice at night still amazed him. At least the rock of the buildings held their warmth for a while, and he leaned back against the solid stone, counting to ten lest he stay too long and fall behind on his patrols. With Prince Eneas in Tianal, he knew better than to show any slack.

Not that he expected to see the Prince slumming here, across the river in the native quarters. No, Prince Eneas would be across in the river and dining in the fortress with his wife and the governor and all the other officials stationed here at the border, pretending that they ruled the land.

A guard like Gareth, left to patrol the Tianal Temple Quarter, knew better. He pushed away from the warm building and headed down Sun Alley toward the river side. The northerners controlled -- or at least patrolled -- only a strip of land in the village here at the river's edge. On the far side stood the northern city and on this side the native one. Beyond the native town rose an escarpment like a wall and with occasional paths that led upward to the high desert, the Nessa. Tribesmen came and went from the Nessa, but the northerners had never done more than climb to see the vast spread of sand before they scurried back down to the river's edge.

Prince Eneas wouldn't even have known about an insignificant little border town like Tianal if it hadn't been for the temples. During the last few years, the prince heir had developed a taste for foreign gods, and he sought their favor -- and maybe even found it, for all Gareth knew.

Prince Eneas came south to visit with the local Gods (he had no interest whatsoever in the people), which caused a poor guardsman like Gareth nothing but grief. Captain Kaven wanted promoted out of this place, and he did his best to make certain nothing went wrong during the Prince's visit. That meant spit and polish in the Temple Quarter since he hoped the prince would come along this way, see what a great job he had done, and take him off to the north again.

Gareth did his best to make sure such a miracle would happen, too. If he had believed in any Gods at all, he would have prayed to any and all of them for help. Kaven wanted out of Tianal, and if he didn't go back with the Prince, the rest of them would suffer for it.

Knowing that truth made patrolling the Temple Quarter in the cold of the night seem not so bad after all. Gareth had been in far more dangerous places. He'd stood the line at Travatin and watched as the barbarians lined up outside the walls, a mass of bald heads and weapons raised as far as he could see. The last of his friends from Newdel had died that night in the battle, and after that he'd stopped thinking about going home -- the only one still alive of a dozen who had joined the army together. Remembering Travatin made the time in Tianal far easier to bare. He liked it here, though he was likely the only northerner to admit it. The others grumbled and cursed and followed Kaven in his attitude -- but most of them had come straight from the north to here, and never saw anything worse.

Gareth had walked -- not exactly marched, but close enough -- for several yards. He paused, carefully checked the wall beside him for lizards and spiders, and finding none, leaned against the warm white of the building for a moment, thankful for the quiet.

He silently cursed at the damned sand that had worked its way into his leg guard again and chafed the skin at the back of his knee where it rubbed. Bronze armor wasn't made for use in desert lands, and the tight-fitting clothing beneath the breastplate and leg guards trapped the inevitable grains of sand and rubbed the skin raw. Even Captain Kaven, bastion of all things Northern and Good, often took to wearing local styles while on duty. He'd found it wise to let the men do so as well, since the sores on the legs often got infected and put a man down for a week or more.

With Prince Eneas and his wife Tyne across the river feasting,