The Sand Wytch of Desert Low

By Lloyd Harrison Whitling

The second in This World series, The Sand Wytch deals with problems of sparse desert living, laughing, and escaping from the law and the Tyrant's demons, while his newfound love joins a band of wandering minstrels to banish heartache induced by his disappearance. Will the Wizzards and Wytches of This World win a war begun again by the Tyrant of Lakeland?

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 16, 2002
• ISBN: 9781469751726

Lloyd Harrison Whitling

Born in Oil City, PA, a coal-miner's oldest son, Lloyd's excursion away from fundamentalism took him on a lifelong journey which culminates with his DAEMONOLOGY and this companion book, and others you will find on iUniverse and his own website.

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The Sand Wytch of

Desert Low

The second book in the This World Series

by Lloyd Harrison Whitling

Writers Club Press

San Jose New York Lincoln Shanghai

The Sand Wytch of Desert Low

All Rights Reserved © 2002 by Lloyd Harrison Whitling

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any

means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,

taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission

in writing from the publisher.

Writers Club Press

an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.

For information address:

iUniverse, Inc.

5220 S. 16th St., Suite 200

Lincoln, NE 68512

www.iuniverse.com

Any resemblance to actual people and events is purely coincidental.

This is a work of fiction.

ISBN: 0-595-22391-5

ISBN: 978-1-4697-5172-6 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Introduction

C H A P T E R 1

C H A P T E R 2

C H A P T E R 3

C H A P T E R 4

C H A P T E R 5

C H A P T E R 6

C H A P T E R 7

C H A P T E R 8

C H A P T E R 9

C H A P T E R 10

C H A P T E R 11

C H A P T E R 12

C H A P T E R 13

Other Books by This Author

Introduction 

This World, a chunk left over from a much larger planet that blew itself apart millenniums ago, circles its star in the same path that planet once occupied. Its dimensions measure about eight thousand by four thousand kilometers, and maybe five hundred kilometers in thickness, more than half of the inhabited side being covered by salty water.

Sure, there’s not much air to breathe, the gravity has only a portion of the effect of the original planet, and not much can grow in the deserts which cover the lands. Its inhabitants have no knowledge of that. They have evolved through the thousands of years since The Great Catastrophe into what they have now become. Things remain the way they are and have been through the oldest generations still alive. Anything that used to be is now a matter of myth and legend, all of which seem too preposterous for most of our characters to award them much credence.

It appears obvious that, since the distance to the center of This World is much greater from any of its edges than it is from anywhere on the known landed portion, the pull of gravity is correspondingly stronger at the outer reaches of The Sea. Being in a direction toward the center, the pull of gravity also causes sea water to be pulled inward instead of just falling off the edge. Boats striving to reach the edge must overcome gravity pulling them back toward shore, just like rocketships must overcome it to leave the ground on our round world. Boats away out on the ocean begin to float at an angle which increases as they get closer to the edge, according to rumors circulating about on This World.

Such information may be more important to the next story than this one, but knowing such things is always nice, and helps in understanding some of the things that will happen.

This story is not about boats. I have reminded you of such things only so you’ll become aware of some of the obscure problems of living in a place like This World. This pulling toward the center probably explains why large space objects, such as planets, are so ordinarily round(ish) that we would be surprised to find any other shape. It is, in fact, that effect which binds This World into its current shape instead of just allowing chunks of it to float away into space.

As any Idiot knows, any government will manipulate the precepts devised by the society and cultures it represents, to meet ends it will define for its own operations. Sometime in ancient history, the governing body of This World decided there will be two classes of humans under its rule. Who will occupy which class will be determined by the score they are capable of achieving in an I.Q. test, which is very different from the one we currently use. To be considered Normal, and worthy of all the privileges of that status, a score of 200 must have been achieved. Anyone incapable of that is an Idiot.

Sand Wytch doesn’t think any of that seems important. What rules his life is a constant search for food. He finds food aplenty in the end, but not in a place he would ever think of looking.

C H A P T E R 1  

I awakened once in the darkest dark night I can ever remember. Since it seemed so late, with no shining orb grinning down at me, I went back to sleep so I could dream about the few simple things my life offered to me. The night had been long already, I thought while I drifted off. It seemed like it should be over by now. I felt more tired than usual, so I didn’t worry too much about it. I slept in my new home. Nothing seemed important beyond that.

I was still so young when the Wizzards took me in, I can’t remember my life ever being any other way. I suppose my mother must have handed me over to their care while I was still a baby, but I don’t remember her. Maybe she died giving me birth, or had no way to provide for me. I’ve never asked. I’ve never been told.

All I know is I’ve never had my own home until now. Before that, I lived with the Wizzard of Desert Low, or I wore my own roof as a cloak on my back, which I would hide beneath when alone on the deserts of This World.

My Wizzard is a mason, and so I am a mason, too. I am his apprentice, as I have been in all the years he has raised me and taught me the craft of making rocks and stones stick to each other. He is a Wizzard of the Sands, and I am The Sand Wytch of Desert Low. Although my Wizzard has retired several seasons ago, after he’d decided I had grown enough to fend for myself, he still looks after me sometimes, and I know he worries about me.

They call me ‘scrawny’. They say that, if a strong wind blows, the weeds which tumble will only slow me down as I whisk across the sands. My red beard falls to below my naked belly button, my hair keeps my butt from being burned by The Globe Which Shines in the Sky, and I suppose that has something to do with the image they paint of me.

I feel young, very strong and quick, and I don’t care how they talk about me. I know the truth is whatever proves true, whatever they say. I have tested the wind, and I can stand fast wherever it blows. It blows enough so I can test it quite often.

I am a smart Wytch, much brighter than most will accredit me. I know the truth about the demons and daemons the Wizzards talk about, and that they are much more real than what you’d suppose. I know what they are, yes, and I can see them when they bloom and grow and multiply, for they let me predict what will come about. I know the differences of the one from the other. I’ll tell you a demon is your mortal enemy, and a daemon can be an Idiot’s best friend.

This World has circled the Globe Which Warms My Days only thirty times since the day of my birth. I know that from watching the bright holes in the sky which twinkle at night. From them, I know when This World has returned to the warmest times in the Season of Maturity, and how many times The Face Which Smiles at Night will wax and wane before The Wheel again turns toward The Season of the Embryo and our days turn cold again.

I can see the square-shaped shadow of This World when it sometimes slides across that nighttime orb to where it will hide it in darkness. I have drawn that shape in the sand, and once on paper, where many Wizzards also drew all the places they have been in This World to show me how I could find my own way to them all. The Wizzards say This World once was round, and of a much larger size before mankind made too many demons and blew it apart. Many strange things rise up from the sands after the winds have blown sometimes, and remind us of those horrid eras of before history began.

I have, myself, come across a rusty hulk which must have come from then, out from which a cactus grew. Its upper walls were glass, some of which I could crank up and down once I got them freed. I threw away its seats of rotted cloth which turned to dust at my lightest touch, and ate the cactus while I made my home there. A fine home it is, if I can keep the sands from hiding it again.

A skeleton inhabited it when I first found it. This, I gave to The Wizzard of Desert Low, who said it had once been a man. I learned much from helping him reassemble it, and now know the bones inside my own body.

My home is safe and comfortable, especially when the desert sands pile high around it and cast a shadow at the hot time of the day. I can let two of the glass covers down and a breeze will find its way inside to cool my body.

At night, sometimes, I forget to crank them back up when I fall asleep. One of the slithering creatures with the rattling tail found his way inside one of those times. He frightened me, I will admit, and looked about to bite me with his mouth full of fangs when I grabbed him by the neck and broke it across the opening he had come in through. He was a little tough, and I had to cook him a long time with very little to make a fire with, but I did manage to eat him before that day ended. I laid his rattly tail on the ledge from which the round wheel protrudes, but it started stinking in a few days, so I gave it to The Wizzard.

A day or so later, one of those little creatures with the pinchers and the stinging tail that sticks straight up when he’s mad at you found his way inside. He didn’t look good, so I threw him back out. The next day, I discovered he’d returned. Seeing that, I decided he must be insisting for me to eat him, too, and so I found a way to do that. I wonder what other kinds of food I can catch with my new home.

A problem with living in the desert is, the land outside changes, sometimes overnight. I really have to be paying attention to know from day to day where things can be found.

It seemed extremely stuffy next time I awakened, and the night had lasted such a long time I felt like I had to go out and investigate. My door would not budge when I tried to push it open, and sand fell inside on me when I opened the glass portion to try the outside handle.

I knew my hut might stay buried for as long as it would take This World to circle the Golden Globe in the Heavens hundreds of times. It had been that way before I had found it, and it had returned itself to that condition. No one will discover me here, I told myself. I’ll have to find my own way out. I forced my hand out through the sand as far as I could reach. It had packed very tightly. Doing that took me a long time. A pile of sand had come back inside during the effort, and took up a lot of my room.

I stopped for a moment of thought, and to recall which way the wind had been blowing when I had last been outside. This caused me to crank down the glass on the opposite side, and to try forcing my arm out there.

The sand seemed looser and, even though a lot fell inside at first, I found I could pack it around the hole I had created and give it some stability. Slowly, I worked my way outward and upward. It took a long time to reach the surface. I grew very hungry and tired but, after a while, I could breathe again and discovered the day had reached the peak of its brightness. I found nothing to eat, and decided to contemplate my circumstances.

A dune had formed over my hut. Perhaps, I told myself, I can get some advice from The Wizzard of Desert Eend, about how to make an entranceway through the sand to one of the doors. I remembered it had felt cool beneath all that sand, but I would need a way to make breezes flow through so I could breathe some fresh air. I walked all the way around the pile of sand to see what the best way might be to approach it.

I discovered, when I had returned to the point at which I had started, my footprints had turned into three sets of tracks. One of them looked like a female’s, or a large child’s. I decided to follow them. Maybe they would have something to eat.

I discovered they seemed to be following the set of tracks I had laid around the dune. By the time I had returned the second time, six sets of tracks laid on the ground where I had laid the first. I went backward up the set of tracks I had made from the hole I had exited, made sure to restep in my original tracks, and crawled inside of it to wait.

I gave up after a while. My stomach had begun growling, and I had begun expecting to hear chattering Idiot voices, but nobody appeared. No company, no food, nobody to invite inside my metal hut. I felt almost like I’d been abandoned. They must have gone off somewhere else, I decided, and went to investigate.

Their tracks told me they had come from the direction of the mountains, and had headed toward The Wizzard’s hut after giving up on me. The Wizzard has a well, and I had run out of water, so I decided to follow their tracks, too.

I came upon a blue cactus, while I followed their footprints, and saw that they had taken a large piece from it. That, I thought, looked like a bad sign. Cacti are very important to folks wandering around on a desert. Some are filled with healing juices that can make a wound whole in just a short time. Others ooze enough sap to keep a man from dying of thirst, and still others can be eaten when you have an appetite like mine.

But, a blue cactus? That, I repeat, is a bad sign. I decided to hurry, in case my visitors intended to do some kind of harm to The Wizzard. I knew he could work potent spells, but even he would be poisoned by the effects of juice from the blue cactus. He would be drunk for days, if I’d fail to get there in time to stop them.

I remember from first-hand experience what the juice from a blue cactus will do to you. Well, I can’t honestly say that. The most I can do is assume that several stories I heard about a wild, scrawny Wytch running around Desert Eend and Desert Low, doing some very strange and crazy antics, must have been referring to me. All I can truly recall is the moment I awakened at the edge of The Sea, in a puddle left where salty-tasting waters had washed up onto the beaches of Desert Eend, somewhere quite a distance away from my new hut.

My mouth tasted like I had eaten sand from the beach, and I smelled like a dried dead fish baking in the desert heat. I discovered, when I finished feeling excited about finding so much water around, that I could drink none of it. I have never known of water to taste like brine from a curing house. I felt dizzy, thirsty, and like I could vomit from an empty stomach. It boggled my mind to think of so little water in the desert, and so much of it waving before my eyes for as far away as I could see, and all of it useless in either case. I could see strange kinds of creatures playing