Lady of the Sands Page 3

  It felt silly talking to herself like that. Yet fears spoken out loud tended to lessen their dread. Or so she wanted to believe in the moment anyway.

  Is this what Gulatu felt like when he found himself in my world?

  The unbidden thought gave Ruma pause. If she was indeed in the past and bewildered despite having had a fair idea of what had already transpired, Gulatu would have woken to a world where humans flew in space and aliens roamed the human cities.

  Memory of the first time she had seen him bubbled up. A hooded figure lying unmoving on the intersection before her house. She would have walked past him, considering him just another drunk having succumbed to the vices of night, but something about the helpless body had attracted her attention. So she had hauled him all the way to her house, cursing him all the while.

  And how had that one little chance meeting that night changed her entire life?

  Ruma felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She had fallen within the sphere of a man, prophet or no, who had changed the course of history not once, but twice. So strong was his vice grip that, even worlds apart, she still found herself living in his shadow, in a world shaped by his actions.

  She looked up. Alf, if you are indeed up there, is this some kind of a cosmic joke you’re playing at me? I don’t like it.

  Alf didn’t reply. She couldn’t very well talk to Gulatu. Would this Lady of the faith be the person to seek out?

  More pilgrims crowded the plaza in front of her. She blinked, realising she had walked over to a hill offering an elevated view of the surroundings. Ruma stopped, took a look around. Salodia was an ancient city, long a minor trading hub before it had become known just for the prophet. From her height, she could spy the walls snaking around the city that seemed to strain against it. Even from this distance, she could tell the walls had seen invading forces before, evidence of their hard life etched in the blackened sections.

  Brown pennants flew over the gates and guard posts along the wall. Brown Scythe flags. Ones she had seen the men carry out, the men who the vendor had called the governor’s forces.

  The city felt alive as it bustled around her. A restless dragon. Ancient, scarred, but dignified.

  The birthplace of the man who had founded a faith for the worlds.

  Centre of the world.

  And a city that had been destroyed.

  An unexpected sense of loss mounted in her chest, followed shortly by rage at Tasina, who had seen to its eradication. Ruma looked around at the masses teeming the streets down below. Did they have any clue about their distant heirs, that those who would lay claim to their names and lands would be eradicated alongside this grand old city?

  “You can return to your world!” spoke the voice in her ear.

  If the intent had been to startle her, it only served to further stoke her anger. “Who the frack are you?”

  “The First!”

  She chuckled, catching the eye of a young shepherd no more than fourteen, who was herding a dozen sheep. She winked at him. The boy dropped his gaze, broke into a trot. Licking her lips, she headed for a relatively quiet spot underneath a wide oak tree offering some protection from eavesdropping.

  Ruma fought the urge to blurt out questions and appear weak. “Are you… a Pithrean?”

  Silence.

  “Answer me!” she growled. Leaning forwards, she kicked a pebble, set it sailing into the tree trunk. She swallowed, waited for the answer she feared, one she could not walk away from.

  “Mould this world into your image,” said the voice. “And I will grant you what you want: passage back to your world.”

  “Alf’s balls!” she swore. “What in seven hells are you saying?”

  The voice fell silent.

  Ruma waited long minutes, a mixture of anxiety and worry settling in her stomach, but the voice didn’t respond. Was it something she had said? Then again, whatever did the blasted voice mean by moulding the world?

  Ruma shook her head. No, the most important question was, who was this voice speaking to her? And how in hell did it get into her head?

  “However you did it, get out of my mind!” she growled.

  Silence.

  “You hear me? Leave me be!” she shouted. More heads looked up. She didn’t care. Balling her fingers into fists so tight she felt blood pool up, she stared them all down.

  Muttering, they left her alone. One of them, another young man with dark eyes, stared at her for a long moment before sighing and walking away.

  That was fine by her. Her mind, the refuge she had always taken for granted, no longer seemed entirely her own. Some entity had made a home within it. And she seemed to be out of ideas on how to eject the intruder.

  For the moment.

  “First!” she tried once more. “How did you get into my mind? You need to get out!”

  The First remained silent.

  Mould the world in my image?

  She hissed. “Did you get me here?” she demanded, no longer caring for her previous reservations. “How? Why?”

  No answer came.

  Gritting her teeth, Ruma adjusted the veil over her hair, then joined the throngs walking downhill. Dark thoughts swirled within her. Answers! That was what she needed. Such a blasted simple thing that was proving so hard to obtain. For a moment, she toyed with the idea of asking every second person whether they knew the way to the nearest spaceport, some way to snap out of this… nightmare, but every time, some invisible cord bound her tongue from saying too much.

  “Argh!” she muttered, letting her mind float free.

  “Bubraza’s men are already at the outskirts of Irtiza—” came a voice from behind her.

  “—the governor can’t protect the province—”

  “—she wouldn’t attack Irtiza again, though—”

  “Oh, you have no idea.”

  Words washed over Ruma. There was more talk of trade, of the meteoric rise in prices with a greater number of caravans finding it difficult to trek through the warring parties. Ruma didn’t care for any of it.

  “—the Vanico bastards are already on the peninsula.”

  Ruma shook her head. Vanico had been a small nation that bordered the Andussian peninsula to the east. That was the extent of her knowledge, and hearsay on their moments held little of interest to her.

  She had to find a way to get out of this world. If… this was a dream—the thought sent another shiver down her spine—like the ones Gulatu had reported going through, surely there had to be some mechanism she could invoke to shatter its hold over her.

  Yet… the world was too perfect in its imperfections. The plastered buildings, the marbled colonnades, the beaming faces of the priests, and the casual disdain of the youth loitering in plazas all felt too real, too authentic to all have been a figment of imagination. Even one powered by the Pithrean.

  “Where the heck am I?” she whispered.

  “One more week before the prophecy gets unveiled—” came a gruff voice behind her.

  “I wonder what it would say,” replied another.

  “Could be the Charlatan’s work, for all we know!”

  “May Alf guide us all.”

  Ruma sighed, the fight suddenly draining from her body to stand upright and resist the crippling wave of dejection that washed over her.

  No! She swore. She would not give up hope, never stop fighting. One way or the other, eventually she’d come out on top!

  Sensing the pilgrims directly ahead had come to a stop, she too halted. Then, following their awed expressions, she looked up.

  Past a bridge stood an ancient house in the shade of the massive tower.

  Centre of the world.

  Four

  Lurking Monsters

  Thoughts deserted Ruma’s mind. She’d seen buildings with facades three times the height of the white tower, temples more lavish and ornate than the temple it was connected to.

  But she’d never really seen the prophet’s birth house before.

  The
tower wasn’t the faithful’s target. A marvel of this age, yes, something that stood in defiance to what others might have considered impossible before it was constructed. A metaphor the early Church had cast in brick to define the ministry of Gulatu Koza and the truth of his teachings.

  But really, a marker for the real object of worship nestled in its shade.

  Ruma swallowed, aware of that little part of her heart that had begun stirring at the promise of proximity to the divine.

  Get a grip over yourself! She reminded herself, refusing to be awed by the raw outpouring of the religious throngs in the tower’s shade. Instead, she focussed her eyes on the temple. A modest temple when compared to the rest, sanctified more by its immediacy to the prophet’s birthplace.

  “Oh, Alf!” mourned a woman, her grey hair spilling out of the head veil. She beat at her chest, raised arms in remonstration at the heavens, shook her head violently.

  “—prophets Gulatu Koza and Pasalman look after us—”

  Ruma bit down on the panic that threatened to break through all other emotions. Like it or not, she was at a place of majesty, one that called out to her even as she tried her best to ignore its pull over her heart and the memories it invoked of the man she’d come to know intimately.

  Four smaller minarets ringed the complex comprising both the temple and the nondescript mud-baked house. Verses in cursive writing ran along the walls, smoothed by the reverent hands of the worshippers. Too far to read them, she still recognised the familiar swirls of the verses from the Alfi scriptures.

  Ruma stepped forwards, shoving her way through the crowd. As she got closer, she realised the temple had no doors. The walls merely acted like thick pillars, holding aloft the domed roof over the heads of the pilgrims, otherwise leaving enough gaps in between for her to see through to the other side.

  A thick fog hung heavy within the temple. Unlike the Alfi temples she had seen, decked with pews and elaborate daises, here priests mingled freely with the pilgrims, no one person occupying a central position within the temple as the worshippers raised their hands towards the heavens and beseeched Alf directly.

  Another omission caught her eye. No portraits that she could see. Neither of the prophet nor the Lady.

  Ruma swallowed, blinked, looked around.

  Two groups of priests stood outside the walls. They didn’t speak to each other, each group calling out to the pilgrims. Intrigued, Ruma stepped forwards.

  “The so-called Blessed have destroyed the faith,” one of the priests to her right was shouting. “Stay away from their flawed interpretation of the scriptures. Mother Yasmeen is most holy, but she has been corrupted by those who seek to take us away from the straight and narrow path of Alf! Return to us. Follow the Traditionalist way.”

  “Alf and His ways are followed only by us, the Blessed,” the priest opposite him boomed. “Refute all the heresies introduced by Bubraza, Dadua Contee’s daughter-in-law. Obey the Blessed Mother and all she learned first-hand from the prophet and Blessed Turbaza!”

  Ruma shook her head. So there were two prominent factions in this age. One led by Yasmeen, Gulatu’s wife, and the other by Turbaza’s niece. One of them had probably won out in the end, though she doubted she’d be able to guess which version and assuming she cared to pay this matter much mind.

  At least the bickering between the priests had helped lift the pall that had fallen over her. Ruma drew in a long breath, allowing herself one final moment before turning her mind firmly away to more important matters.

  Sounds of the bustling city reasserted themselves. Merchants and hawkers shouting for customers. More soldiers tramping past. A couple of priests—those attracting heated looks from both the Blessed and Traditionalist priests not allowed entry—leading trains of pilgrims towards the temple. Men, women, children, and a whole lot of meowing cats.

  Why so many cats and no dogs? She distantly recalled Gulatu mention one of his companions not liking the barking animals. Had those views become prevalent?

  Chewing on her lower lip, Ruma looked around. Holy place or not, the place hadn’t quite managed to shirk off the baser instincts of men, like entrepreneurship. No more than fifteen yards from the walls, hawkers and vendors offered their wares to the pilgrims straggling through.

  Her eyes fell on two young merchants standing beside a vendor. A dark-skinned girl with an oval-shaped face, her brown hair spilling out from underneath the sheer veil she wore. And a tall, lanky man around her age standing beside her. Siblings more like, judging by the pronounced bridges of their noses. The man said something, and the girl giggled.

  Pushing back the stab of loneliness, Ruma turned away. Her eyes fell on the humble house once more. Gulatu had lived here. This was where the prophet had brought in his bride, Yasmeen, before the two of them had been forced out of the city.

  The place Gulatu had lived with his wife.

  Fighting the tremor in her fingers, the pang of jealousy, Ruma gritted her teeth. She had already left the cursed man behind. She would not give in to him again.

  “You know where you are!” came the voice.

  Ruma drew in a long breath. Then, pirouetting around, she stomped through a train of pilgrims, carving a path to a stream she had spied cutting through the city.

  “What do you want from me?” she demanded.

  Silence. But this time, it did not last long. “You can get back to your world.”

  Like a smuggler ship that knew it was being hunted yet unable to resist temptation, she blurted, “How?”

  “Change the course of this world.”

  Ruma began to shake her head, then caught herself. Whatever this connection was, it would pay to watch her words. “You want me to—no matter how fracking stupid that sounds—change the course of time here?”

  Silence.

  Ruma slapped her thigh with a hand, irritation blooming through her. Why in the worlds would—

  The answer was so simple it startled her she hadn’t seen it before. If this was indeed the First, the Pithrean who Gulatu had thwarted, did he mean to take his revenge now through her? Travelling through time had been an idea relegated to ridicule in her time—before Gulatu had turned up, anyway—but if time travel was possible, was it also possible to change the direction of the arrow of time? Another idea began bubbling in her mind. Could she use that knowledge to somehow deceive the First?

  “You want me to change the course of history… so my present doesn’t turn out the way it did?”

  More silence.

  An answer in itself.

  Ruma forced out a chuckle. “Really… for a being so bloody powerful, almost omnipotent compared to the likes of us wee little mortals, you are guided by the same base instincts like revenge?”

  The weight behind her sockets increased tenfold, thrashed itself against her temples. Ruma gasped, doubled over, the world growing dark. Again and again, the force pounded her from the inside. Raising her hands, she clawed at her forehead, her temples, the base of her skull.

  “Get out!” she shrieked. “Get out of my mind right now!”

  The weight didn’t lessen but the pounding did stop.

  Breathless, sweat pouring down her face, Ruma struggled up to her feet. Luckily, no one seemed to be looking at her.

  “Change this world!”

  She narrowed her eyes, expletives forming on her lip. She could unleash them, get a moment of gratification before the blasted alien tortured her once more.

  Or she could try and play the same game the Pithrean was.

  “And just how am I supposed to achieve all that?”

  The First didn’t reply.

  “Got much to say except for the same one-liners?” When the First continued to keep quiet, she decided to change tack. “Why me? Of all the possible people you could have chosen to bond with, why did you have to pick me?”

  No answer.

  “Is it because I was jumping through the Shards?” Another possibility reared its head. An uncomfortable one but one t
hat still needed to be said out loud. “Because of the connection I shared with Gulatu?”

  Deep in her heart, she knew she’d struck gold. Whether she liked it or not, her path had crossed with Gulatu’s. The man had ended up changing the fates of entire worlds. It was presumptuous of her to think she could just walk away from his influence.

  Voices rose from her left. Grateful for the diversion, Ruma turned her head. A crowd had begun gathering around the young siblings she’d spied earlier. A tall man dressed in a grey tunic was pointing at the girl, a stocky man beside him running a finger along a sharp dagger clutched in his left hand. Though the taller man wore a heavy hat, thick locks of long hair spilled out across his shoulders.

  Violence, one thing she had the preternatural gift to sniff out from a mile away, was about to be visited upon them. Holy place or not, primitive as they might be, like all humans, they hadn’t lost the lust for inflicting harm upon others.

  “Change this world!”

  Ruma narrowed her eyes, her fingers balling into a fist. A small part of her wondered why she wasn’t crying out in terror for housing a damned Pithrean in her mind. The scene immediately ahead pushed that thought away.

  The tall man was still shouting at the siblings, the crowd around them growing. As if sensing the shifting mood, the dark-skinned woman and her brother were inching away from their stall. The stocky man grinned, walked over to cut off their exit.

  A blast of hot rage shot up Ruma’s body. The smug smile of the tall man as he harassed the siblings was one she had seen before when growing up on the streets. Had it been her at the other side, she’d have appreciated others standing up for her.

  She wouldn’t just stand there and let them get away.

  The voice inside her skull laughed, a strange, off-key chortling that set her teeth chattering.

  “If you only knew what can be achieved through moving agents across space and time!”

  Ruma shook her head, the rational part of her mind still puzzling out what the Pithrean wanted from her, even as she felt her eyes burn with rage at the two men. The First wanted her to change the way of this world. Why? Her feet slowed. If it was possible that time travelled in only one direction, and she was in the past, would her actions here really have repercussions for the world she had left behind? Was this why the First needed her? Influence the events to such a degree that his species came back stronger into her world?