As we race ever closer to the publication date of Shifting Sands – which you can see announced in the book trailer on Twitter or Facebook! – I figure it’s time to give everyone a sneak peek into the world I’ve been playing in. I plan to also give an extra look into the story through my newsletter (sign up if you want to meet Nayoub and Kishon soon), but first, here is the prologue!
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The Goddess was close. She watched Her children struggling in the desert alongside her consort, Her presence intensifying the heat of His glare. The old woman stared back, a still point in a sandstorm of chaos.
“Riri, Riri!”
The old woman turned from the Goddess, smiling in answer to the name her people had given her so long ago.
Dust clouded around Keran as he raced to her, weaving around the adults working to raise their tent village in the full heat of the sun-god.
“Watch it, Keran,” Misa yelled as he flew past.
Keran ignored her.
“Riri! You’ve got to help Mama. She’s asking for you,” he said.
The old woman sighed and nodded to the Goddess. Mamas didn’t like to wait for their children.
Kani moaned as another pain rippled through her and her grip on the old woman’s sleeve tightened.
“You’ve got to make it stop,” she begged. “Riri, please, it’s too soon.”
“There’ll be no stopping it now, my girl, but you’ve still got some time to go. Quiet yourself.”
“Save your energy, love. You can do this,” said Lemat, planting a kiss on his wife’s brow.
“I can’t!”
“You said that last time and look at Keran,” said Riri, cupping the boy’s anxious little cheek. “Why would this time be any different?”
“Because I’m not ready! We said we’d reach Shirzhainn first. If we go now-”
“Then you’ll end up giving birth in the sand instead of in a camp.”
Kani wailed. The city, Shirzhainn, was only a few days away, but Kani’s child would come too soon to make the journey. The old woman clucked her tongue as she rummaged through some bags by the tent’s opening. Unpacking could be done later, but the soon-to-be mother would need a place to catch whatever rest she could.
She clicked her fingers, summoning Keran to help her build a bed of blankets on the floor for his mother. The material was more worn than she liked for a new-born. A nomadic life struggling against an unforgiving desert could be unkind to anything too soft, but her planned replacements still waited for them in Shirzhainn; they would be no help here. Keran pulled an old blanket from a bag so worn that its red colour could barely be distinguished from its many patches. The old woman nodded to herself as she picked out a softer strip of material – a towel she had wrapped Keran in on the day of his birth, in fact – and paired it with the red cloth. It made perfect sense, after all.
“Isn’t there anything you can do?” Lemat hissed.
The old woman looked to her patient. Kani continued to pace the tent in distressed circles. Wrinkled fingers tightened around the red cloth. The old woman watched Kani, her murmured prayers mingling with curses and blasphemy, and then looked to Keran. He was just a little boy, unsettled and unsure. She returned to one of the bags by the door and pulled out a flask.
“Here,” she said, pulling out the stopper and stretching it out to Kani.
“No!” yelled Lemat.
He rushed forward to swipe it away, but he was too late. Kani grabbed the flask and drank, water spilling from the sides of her mouth in her eagerness. She handed the flask back to the old woman and closed her eyes.
“You can do this,” said the old woman.
Kani’s eyes sprang open. She smiled.
“We said we wouldn’t have any of that magic water nonsense,” Lemat growled, glaring at the old woman.
Kani stepped between them and lay a hand on his shoulder.
“Hush, husband. I can do this now.”
“Glad to hear it,” said the old woman. She put an arm around the couple’s son. “Come, Keran. It will be some time before we’re truly needed.”
The camp had grown from a single tent into a sea of fabric in their absence. The old woman walked with the boy until they reached the shade of a fog net standing at the edge of the canvas village, waiting listlessly for the mist that would roll through the desert as evening came. She looked out at the children playing in the sand. Their games made no sense to her, but she enjoyed watching.
“What’s magic water?” Keran asked.
“What does it sound like?”
The boy frowned.
“Why doesn’t Papa want Mama to have it?”
“Because his papa didn’t like the magic water, nor did his papa before him, or his papa before him. Some men don’t like what they can’t own.”
“Where does it come from?”
The old woman shrugged. His father wouldn’t like this talk, but then Lemat wasn’t here.
“When I was young,” she began. “Some called the magic water a gift. A gift from the Gods, to help those They chose to fulfil Their wishes.”
“So, They gave it to you, and you gave it to Mama? Does this mean she’ll have to do what They say now?”
“Don’t be stupid, Kerat. I’m pretty sure your Mama already does what the Gods want,” said Sanai, skipping through the sand to join them.
“Does she?”
“Well,” said Sanai, mustering up all the superiority an eleven-year-old can. “I’ve never seen her kill anyone, have you?”
The old woman’s laugh turned into a hacking cough.
“Is that all it takes to listen to the Gods now?” she asked, grinning. “I wish I’d known that when I was young.”
“That’s what my Papa says,” said Sanai.
“Well, my Grandpapa says we shouldn’t listen to the Gods at all,” declared Joshar.
Keran looked around, alarmed.
“Does your Grandpapa kill people?” he whispered.
“What? No!”
“But if he doesn’t listen to the Gods at all, then he must do the opposite of what they say,” Sanai sang.
The other children started laughing, teasing Joshar.
“Enough,” said the old woman, slapping her hand against her knee. The silence was immediate. “These are not things we joke about.”
“Because They’ll punish us?” Keran asked, lip trembling.
“No, because it is unkind to call someone a murderer when they are not. What makes you ask such a question?”
“Because that’s what Mama says sometimes, when she thinks I’m not listening. That the Gods are punishing us.”
“My Grampapa says that too. They destroyed our home and sent us out into the desert,” said Joshar.
“Mine said that!”
“And my Papa.”
“And mine!”
“But why did They have to destroy it?” Sanai asked, sitting down next to the old woman.
The old woman laughed.
“I’ll ask Them, shall I?” she joked.
The children didn’t laugh. It was as if they had become statues, silent and still, with eyes wide enough to capture worlds.
“Can you really hear Them?” asked Joshar, voice wavering.
The old woman sighed. Which parent had talked of her old reputation, she wondered? It had been the same with Kani and her friends when she was younger, and Tulla before that, and her mother before that. Whispered legends treated as truth.
“They say the Gods used to speak to prophets during the wandering days, as we searched for a new home after the Unnamed One’s betrayal,” she said heavily. “But, when our wanders ended in the great city of your ancestors, Their voices grew quiet. Now our wandering has resumed.”
“And you hear Them?” Keran asked.
“No. Not a whisper,” she admitted.
“Have They abandoned us?”
“How are we supposed to follow Them if They don’t talk anymore?” said Joshar, folding his arms in a huff.
“They said that we had to listen harder,” said the old woman. The world in front of her grew hazy as her mind turned to the past. She licked her lips. “Back when I was young. Follow the Words given to the prophets of old.”
“What did the Words say?” asked Keran.
“Don’t kill people,” said Joshar.
“That’s not what I meant!”
“Can you tell us, Riri?” asked Sanai, settling herself down on the ground next to the old woman, leaning her head against her shoulder.
“Oh, many things,” the old woman said. Her eyes brightened. “You know, there was once a prophet who spoke of a day much like this one.”
“Like a prossify?”
“It’s prophecy, idiot!” said Sanai.
“Some saw it as a prophecy, yes. I’m sure others just thought the heat had tilted their head,” the old woman joked. She looked up and pointed at the sun glaring down at them. “You see that the sun-god fills the sky. His Lady follows close behind, eager to see the arrival of a child she can claim as Her own.”
“Like me?” said Sanai.
The old woman shook her head. “A child who will water the earth in Her name and wave in a new era. A child born as the year burns out.”
“My brother,” whispered Keran, awestruck.
“That can’t be true!” Joshar scoffed.
“But it’s the end of the year!”
“And the Goddess has never been so close,” said Keran. “Not in my whole life!”
The children bickered among themselves and the old woman hid a smile behind her hand.
“Ah, that’s the tricky thing about prophecies,” she said, her words cutting across a mean remark from Sanai to Joshar. “People see truth where they want to see it.”
Keran crawled forward and settled into her lap. She stroked his forehead, smoothing away the frown that rested there.
“Do you think it’s true?” he asked finally.
The old woman smiled a small, secret smile, holding in the details she had left out. She glanced back at the tent where a child still waited to enter the world. There was time.
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And so you have now seen the only stable part of Shifting Sands. The rest of the chapters, as the book title suggests, will shift around to give you glimpses of the other stories at play. Intrigued? Look forward to December 17th 2020!
