Sandworld: Four Dominions, #1

Sandworld

Book One of

Four Dominions

Graham P. Smith

THIS BOOK IS A WORK of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. All characters appearing in this work are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the written permission of the publisher.

For permission requests, write to the publisher

Attention: Permissions Coordinator

Zimbell House Publishing

PO Box 1172

Union Lake, Michigan 48387

mail to: info@zimbellhousepublishing.com

© 2019 Graham P. Smith

Published in the United States by Zimbell House Publishing

All Rights Reserved

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-947210-72-1

Trade Paper: 978-1-947210-90-5

.mobi ISBN: 978-1-947210-88-2

Digital ISBN: 978-1-947210-89-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018909889

First Edition: January 2019

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Zimbell House Publishing

Union Lake

Dedication

TO MY WONDERFUL AND supportive wife, Hillary. Thank you for cheering me on through every pitfall. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Chapter One

MIRA HAD NEVER HAD to run for her life before. Through no fault of her own, she was suddenly proving that there was a first time for everything.

Her sandals slapped on the stone streets with each step. She pumped her arms as she ran, driving herself ahead of the thundering shoes of the four people behind her. She rounded a corner, diving around a group of women who were examining some spongefruit on a market stand. Her feet nearly skidded on the dusty street, but she bolted away from the stand and deeper into the crowded marketplace. Only a few seconds later, she heard a commotion behind her. The boys who were pursuing her had collided with the shoppers at the spongefruit stand.

The marketplace used to be more crowded at this time of day on the weekend. Life had been easy for pickpockets back then, with shoppers forced to stand elbow to elbow. But Mira actually found herself wishing for the normally sweaty, cutpurse-laden streets; the crowd in the market was thin that day, not ideal for hiding at all. It had been months since the first new cases of the fever had popped up in her small town in the Sand Kingdom. Now, people ventured outside of their homes only when necessary. As such, her diversion would not last long. She had to lose them.

The bag of washers and bolts that she had purchased for her father was scattered on the street, three blocks behind her. She had dropped it and ran when she had heard that sing-song voice call her name, stressing every syllable.

"Kin-var-a."

She would have recognized it anywhere, because it belonged to a person who had tormented her for years. Mira had come to hate her evening lessons because of Sonam Nzari. Recently, his taunting and harassment had extended beyond the schoolyard.

Her father had taught her that hating another was a terrible sin. But Mira hated Sonam Nzari.

Mira turned a corner too quickly and slammed her hip into the side of a cart selling brick-a-brack. A cry escaped her lips, and she stumbled. Knickknacks rained onto the street. A second later she regained her footing and continued to run. But her lungs stung, and her hip sent a spike of pain through her left leg with every step she took. She was a mechanic, not an athlete. She needed a place to hide.

Footsteps continued to charge behind her.

Mira knew Beryl like the back of her hand. She scampered around another corner, squeezed in a narrow gap between two stone buildings, and emerged in the alley behind a restaurant that she and her father frequently visited. The smell of cooking meat and pungent spices filled the air, but Mira ignored the growl in her stomach and climbed onto the restaurant’s garbage bins. Her injured hip screamed in protest.

From there she hoisted herself to the edge of the porch on the restaurant’s second floor, where the cook and his family lived. Mira silently prayed that they would not choose now to open their curtains as she scrambled onto the second floor’s railing, took the edge of the roof in her hands, and tried to pull herself up.

Mira was not a typical Sand Kingdom sixteen-year-old girl. Rather than taking after her petite mother, Mira more resembled her father, who in turn more resembled a bear than a man. She was taller and stronger than most boys in her class.

While her arms quivered in protest and her feet dangled eight meters above the ground, Mira briefly considered how much easier it would be to elude her pursuers if she were petite and lithe, like her mother had been.

Mira pulled her arms with all of her might and swung her legs until she was able to place one foot on the edge of the roof. Unfortunately, it was the leg that she had bulldozed into the cart. For a moment, pain stole the breath from her lungs.

The footsteps thundered closer. She ignored the pain and pushed.

Mira rolled onto her back on the flat, stone roof. The sound of footsteps filled the alley. She lay perfectly still, even though the roof felt like a hot iron against her skin. Mira pressed herself flat against the stone until her joints ached, fearing that she might roll into empty air and plummet to her death at any second.

That was if Sonam and his goons had not already seen her.

Footsteps slowed to a halt in the alley. For a few moments, there was no sound until Mira heard the muted echoes of a few quiet steps on the dusty street. There was a dull bang, the sound of a foot colliding with a garbage bin.

Oh, no. Had she turned over the garbage bin when she had climbed on it? It would be an obvious clue, but she had been in such a hurry that she could not remember.

The sound of the boys quietly milling around the alley continued for what felt like years. Then the footsteps jogged away from the alley in further pursuit of their quarry. Mira hadn’t breathed for nearly three minutes. She released the breath that she had been holding, terrified that even that small noise had been too loud. Mira gulped air, forcing herself to be quiet, then rolled onto her stomach and away from the precipice.

Her lungs stung, her hip ached, and her arms and legs felt like jelly. But she had a safe place, at least for now, even if that place had left her baking in the Sand Kingdom sun.

She decided to wait a few minutes for them to leave, then return home to her father empty-handed, without her money and the parts that she had been sent to purchase.

Chapter Two

THERE’S MY GIRL, HER father greeted Mira as she stepped through the door of their small, stone-worked house. I was getting worried.

Mira could not raise her eyes to her father’s. Her muscles were sore from climbing the roof of the restaurant. Her hip still hurt so badly from colliding with the cart, that she was walking with a limp. And her pockets were empty.

Despite how she tried to hide her emotions from him, Mira knew that Maleer could read her like a book. He quickly crossed the room and placed his hands on her shoulders. Mira, he said comfortingly, what happened?

I’m fine, Mira lied, brushing her long, dark braid behind her ear.

But in the corner of her eye, Mira could see the doubt that colored her father’s face. Mira, my cinnamon girl, he said. Speak to me.

What could she tell him? That Sonam Nzari, the only son of one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in Beryl, had chased her through the market? And that she had run like scared sand-hare? It was ridiculous. And it made her sound like a coward.

And one thing Mira never wanted her father to see in her was cowardice. She had been through too much, endured for too long, to be seen as a coward, especially by the one person whom she knew held her in higher regard than anyone else.

I’m fine, Papa, she replied, strengthening her voice. But ... I don’t have the parts you sent me to buy. Or the money. She lowered her eyes again. I have no excuse.

Maleer did not ask for one. He simply took his daughter in his arms and held her close. For a moment, Mira’s chest shuddered, but she mastered herself and simply enjoyed her father’s embrace. It was only a few cogs. Nothing that can’t be replaced. As a matter of fact, I picked up two broken power couplings today for next to nothing. If you can get them working again, we can resell them for a nice profit. He placed one finger beneath Mira’s chin and lifted her face until her dark eyes were locked onto his. They’re in the workshop. Do you think that you could repair them?

Papa’s beard had left a scratchy feeling on Mira’s face. It was one of the things that she loved about his hugs. Yes, she replied softly. Thank you, Papa.

Though Mira was taller than most boys in her class, her father was even taller. He easily placed a kiss on the top of her head. Mira then left her father and entered their workshop.

Without question, this was Mira’s favorite room in their house. The workshop had a large, sliding metal door that allowed father and daughter to bring large contraptions inside to work on them, and several such machines crowded the space. It was chiefly occupied by broken pressure cookers, which Maleer had purchased over the years in the hopes of getting them working again, or at least, ‘using them for parts,’ as he often proclaimed. Man-sized pressure cookers, and the hot water pots that ran them, were what kept Kinvara Repairs in business. Mira had been squirming her way beneath them since she was little, and she knew their workings inside and out. Fixing contraptions was what kept Mira from losing her mind when her mother had passed away from the fever nine years earlier. It was still her go-to therapy activity.

She easily found the power couplings sitting on the long table in the middle of the room. She picked one up and examined the glass tube with brass caps on its ends. The spring inside, which was normally compressed and allowed the slow release of pressure from the cooker, was decompressed so badly that it had almost forced one of the caps off of the end. Mira picked up her tool belt and got to work, allowing the repetition of her hands to calm her mind.

Why did I run from Sonam? Why was I so terrified? Surely, he could not have done anything to me in the middle of the marketplace in broad daylight.

Of course, it was easy, now, removed from the situation, to think of what she should have done. But then, all that she had felt was a bolt of fear and the instinct to flee when confronted and outnumbered.

She gritted her teeth as she remembered the incident. Next time, she told herself. Next time, I don’t run. Next time, I stand my ground. The cap finally came off of the power coupling, and Mira inserted the spring into her vice to recompress it. Next time, I give Sonam Nzari a piece of my mind. And maybe a piece of my fist.

EDUCATION WAS IMPORTANT in Beryl, but equally important was learning a trade and learning how the adult world worked. In her small town, school was held in the evenings, so that young people could have the mornings to learn from their parents at their jobs. Mira felt much more in her element when she was surrounded by contraptions than she was when sitting at a desk with paper and pen in hand. Listening to a lecturer and writing notes did not suit her.

Mira found herself breathing more easily than normal that evening in Sand Kingdom History 2. It had nothing to do with the class, but with an empty desk two rows behind her. It was the desk where Sonam normally sat.

He was absent.

Sonam’s father, Qasim Nzari, had known her own father for years. This simply meant that Maleer, in addition to Mira herself, was often the target of Sonam’s verbal jabs in the classroom. It came in the form of cruel reminders that Mira and her father had to spend their afternoons working, while Sonam was simply allowed to bask in the luxury of his parents’ lavish estate without worry for money.

An evening free from him was a rare treat; she had no guess as to why Sonam might be missing class, but neither did she care to think about it. Mira found herself smiling as she recorded notes about the second dynasty of the Sand Kingdom.

Three hours later, after her history, desert navigation, and mathematics classes had dismissed, Mira made her way from the building. While she had been studying, night had fallen over Beryl. The streets were dimly illuminated by oil lamps on metal stands. The sweet-sour smell of kerosene drifted lightly through the air as a cool breeze, characteristic of the desert at night, fluttered Mira’s traveling cloak around her knees. She wrapped it a little tighter around herself and hurried along the streets.

Beryl was not a dangerous town, but it was still unwise for a young woman to travel alone at night. The city had done its part to reduce crime after dark with the installation of the oil lamps, and their presence reassured Mira as she made the trek from the classroom building back to her home. But she could not fight the crawling sensation that someone was watching her.

She again thought of the pursuit that morning and hated herself for now quickening her pace.

Mira had grown up hearing rumors of what happened to girls in larger cities who were out alone after dark in the wrong parts of town. The tamer stories always ended with someone being kidnapped and sold into slavery or sold as a bride to some wealthy leech. The scarier stories cut past the innuendo and went right to rape, torture, and murder.

Of course, Mira was sure that most of these were just tales that teenagers told to each other, simply to see who could create the most horrific scenario to scare their friends. No one, as far as she had heard, had ever been snatched from the streets of Beryl after dark.

Even so, that did not mean that one should not exercise caution.

Walk slower, she told herself. If you walk too fast, it makes you look like prey. Prey attracts predators.

Mira turned a street corner and saw her home, a little more than a hundred meters away. She and her father lived in one of the less affluent neighborhoods at the edge of the city, in the house in which Maleer had grown up. He had inherited it from his parents when they had passed. Mira and her father had not yet been able to afford a new one on the meager coin that they made as mechanics. Still, it was home, and the sight of it in the distance lightened the ball of dread that Mira had been carrying in her chest.

As she started down the street, she heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps behind her. The footsteps did not belong to one who had been following her, but one who had been waiting for her.

Fighting the urge to bolt, Mira walked confidently toward her house, arms shaking. The footsteps behind her continued, and to her horror, were joined by more sets of traveling feet.

Maybe it’s a coincidence, Mira tried to convince herself as her steps quickened without her permission. Maybe it’s simply some people out for a walk.

The footsteps quickened to match Mira’s pace.

They were not simply people out for a stroll. How many are there? Three? Four? She could no longer tell simply by listening. Regardless, she was outnumbered, and that fact made her heart skip and her mind flutter like a tiny bird trapped in a cage.

Mira ground her teeth and mastered her emotions, assessing the situation. Don’t lead them back to your house, she told herself. Don’t lead them back to Papa. No one knows these streets better than you do. You can lose them.

Mira suddenly darted to the left, into an alley that ran between a row of square storefronts. The footsteps charged after her, just as they had that morning. Mira increased her speed and cursed the noise that her shoes were making on the flagstones. She turned down three more side streets, forming a mental map of exactly how far she was from her home.

She darted into an alley and around the back of another large, cubic building, and crouched in the shadows behind the building’s waste bin. Her chest heaved from exertion, but she forced air out through her nose to remain as quiet as possible.

Four figures walked into the light of an oil lamp, where she had stood only seconds earlier. They surveyed the scene and one of them, who was obviously the ringleader, made some motions to the others. They split up and stalked into the surrounding alleys.

Mira was outnumbered and terrified. The former, she could do nothing about; it was a cold matter of numbers. But being terrified, however, she could not abide. Four people, she cursed. The same as this morning. What a coincidence!

It burned Mira to her core that Sonam and his clowns had taken it upon themselves to pursue her twice in one day. She could choose to hide in the shadows, where she would eventually be found by one or more of them. Or she could confront them, stare them down, and become master of the situation, regardless of how it turned out. No matter what happened, it was better than hiding. It’s better than being afraid.

Mira straightened her spine and stepped out of her hiding place, less than ten meters from the nearest robed figure.

Chapter Three

WHAT DO YOU WANT? Mira challenged. She braced her feet far apart and gripped her hands into fists, trying to look as intimidating as possible.

All four of the figures were wearing traveling robes, the loose folds of which were meant to block out desert sand and wind and still allow for some breathability in the hot sun and protection in the cold night. They were a tailoring marvel, but Mira wished that someone had predicted her situation when making them. Their loosely wrapped hoods hid the identity of the pursuers.

The one closest to her blanched backward in surprise. The other three, further away, quickly took notice of Mira. The one whom Mira had identified as the ringleader took a step forward and spoke. It was a voice that she did not recognize. We only want to talk.

People who only want to talk don’t chase someone through the streets at night, Mira countered.

The Sand Kingdom’s history had never been kind to women. Although it was a much more progressive Dominion than it used to be, mistreatment of women was still common in some reaches, Beryl included. Boys who grew up in a household with a beaten, subjugated mother were taught that the purpose of women was merely to serve men. It was becoming more and more uncommon, and law enforcement was taking a more active role, but it was still difficult to be a girl in Beryl, especially a girl like Mira, who was so independent, outspoken, and brash.

The offer still stands, the ringleader continued. We simply wanted to remind you of it.

Mira’s spine went rigid, and she realized what this was about.

Three years earlier, Sonam’s father, Qasim, had tried to buy Mira from her father as a bride for his then fourteen-year-old son. The bridewealth that he had offered had been extravagant. Of course, Maleer would never have considered the proposition, but even so, he had asked Mira what she had thought of it. That act alone had been a slap in Qasim’s face; the only people left in the Sand Kingdom that still followed the old ways of buying brides were the same scum that mistreated women, and asking Mira’s opinion was Maleer’s way of shutting down Qasim’s offer from the start.

Even though her father had practically told him that his daughter was not for sale, Mira could not resist the urge to tell Sonam that she would never, ever marry him, even if the Sand Kingdom were to fall around them without their marriage and see all the desert people scattered before the wind.

That had been the beginning of the escalation of Sonam’s harassment.

Is that why Sonam wasn’t in class today? She asked the four figures. Was he using the time to gather his best worms to badger me in his place? She looked at the four people in turn. Or are you there, Sonam? Hiding among your cronies like the waste of water you are?

There was no greater insult in the Sand Kingdom. In a place where every drop of water was precious—even water from bathtubs was used in water pots for steam-powered contraptions—calling someone a waste of water was tantamount to wishing death upon them.

The head figure seemed to shake with anger, but he still did not reveal his identity. Mira’s eyes flicked back and forth between the other three figures; she tried to recognize them, in case things got ugly and she had to identify them later, but she could distinguish no characteristics from their robes.

You have made a poor choice of words, said the voice from beneath the ringleader’s hood.

There aren’t enough cogs in the entire Kingdom to make me reconsider my words, Sonam, Mira replied. She still had not determined which assailant was him, or even if he was among them. She hoped that repeating his name would make the thugs reconsider whatever it was that they had in mind.

She took one slow step backward. They took a step forward.

She hoped that no fear was revealed in her words when she added, Now leave me alone. I have homework to get to.

Before she could worry if they would follow her, Mira turned and ran as fast as she could. There was one second during which she only heard her own footsteps, one brief second when she thought she was safe. Then four more sets of shoes on the flagstones thundered after her, and her heart climbed into her throat as she begged her legs to move faster.

A dark shape lunged for her from a narrow space between two buildings. Mira twisted away from its grasp, shoved her hand into the pocket of her robe, and was thankful that fear of the urban legends had not left her totally defenseless. She pulled out a handful of drake’s tears, a common powdered spice used in many Sand Kingdom dishes. As the figure reached for her again, she closed her eyes and flung the dry handful at the figure. The powder filled its hood, and the figure recoiled as if it had been punched in the face. Mira dodged around the gagging, coughing figure and kept running.

Another figure leapt at her as she rounded the next corner, one block closer to her house. She flung another handful of drake’s tears at the new figure, but it covered its face with the long, flowing sleeve of its robe. The powder bounced harmlessly off of the fabric, but Mira used the figure’s momentary distraction to plan another attack. She rushed forward and drove her knee into its groin. The figure groaned and crumpled to the ground, but then Mira’s eyes and nose began to water. She had been forced to act so quickly that she had run into the drake’s tears that still lingered in the air.

She did not have time to recover before a hand gripped her roughly by her braid and shoved her chest against a stone wall. A body suddenly pressed against her, and a forearm braced hard against the back of her neck. Mira tried to kick and fight, but the burning in her eyes and nose was making it hard to concentrate, and another body had joined the first, and had her completely immobilized against the wall.

Mira tried to scream, but her throat burned. The best that she could manage was a hoarse croak.

What do you want to do? Said an unfamiliar voice.

Silence hung in the air for what felt like hours. Then came Sonam Nzara’s voice, the smooth baritone she had known since childhood.

A part of her had hoped that she had been wrong about Sonam. She did not want to believe that someone with whom she had spent years in school was capable of this kind of assault. She had hoped that it was not possible for someone who spent his days much the same way she did to hide such violent tendencies. But the boy she had always known as a bully, always known as a harasser and a brute and a chauvinist, had crossed a line that she had genuinely thought him incapable of crossing.

It might have been Mira’s imagination, but she would have sworn that Sonam’s voice was husky, choked, as if he was fighting to maintain composure. She’s dishonored my family and me too many times, he said. So, I have to show her the consequences of her decision. We have to cut off her braid.

In the Sand Kingdom, words and actions always meant more than they seemed. It was a society of symbols, which was why calling someone a waste of water was akin to wishing death upon them. To the desert people, a woman’s hair was a powerful symbol. It was a sign of her faithfulness, her confidence, and her ability to provide. To the desert people, a woman WAS her hair. To cut it was to disgrace her, to shame her in the worst possible way. Before she was married, the only person who had legal recourse to cut a desert woman’s hair was her father, and after she was married, her husband, and even then, only for the most extreme crimes, like adultery. Most forward-thinking desert people had abandoned the tradition, declaring that no one but a woman has the right to cut her hair.

This was Sonam’s