The Turtle in the Sea of Sand

By Mary Catelli

"The sea of sand touched many shores -- the meanest beggar's brat knew that -- and many sands drifted up from them, but Persinette always maintained that black sand meant death, and mingled with red, a bloody death."

Kyre still had to work for his living.  Even it meant taking a job from a wizard. . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wizard's Wood Press
• Release date: Sep 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781942564416

Mary Catelli

Mary Catelli is an avid reader of fantasy, science fiction, history, fairy tales, philosophy, folklore and a lot of other things. (Including the backs of cereal boxes.) Which, in due course, overflowed into writing fantasy (and some science fiction).

Book preview

The Turtle in the Sea of Sand

The sea of sand touched many shores—the meanest beggar's brat knew that—and many sands drifted up from them, but Persinette always maintained that black sand meant death, and mingled with red, a bloody death.  Kyre jeered at that:  as if someone wasn't always dying in the city, and most of the time, dying violently.

Still, his heart jumped when he came out in the gray of morning, and the black and red lay tangled in the port, beneath the eggshell sky of morning.  Around them spread the dips and rises of tan, touched with yellow and brown, that usually filled the harbor, but the red and black lay like the wake of a boat.  He watched only a moment before he walked down the shore, staff in hand, looking for work.  Violent death always lurked, but so did starvation, and the latter took longer.  He scouted along the docks, where the merchants moored.  Many a man had started unloading before the sky had even turned charcoal gray, but the longshoremen were men, and solidly built.  A youth, and one small for his age, had no hope for work there.  Kyre walked through the crowds of plainly clad vendors, sailors, and artisans; he glanced at the brightly dressed, but every time, the man was about his business and would hire no one now.

His eyes narrowed when he reached the smaller boats, where the young and well-to-do sailed for pleasure.  Errands on the other hand, or messages,