“Maybe through the summer, at least?” his wife asked, looking at him fully for the first time all day.
I hate when I’m right, Agais thought bitterly.
“And to what end?” he asked, forcing himself to keep a steady tone. “After the summer is over, what would we do with him? Abandon him in the first fringe city we pass through and hope he survives? He’s a child, despite whatever intelligence he shows. He’d die or, worse, get sold right back into the chains he nearly killed himself to be free of.”
Grea was silent, watching the passing desert again.
“The best thing we can do is get him to his own kind,” Agais pressed, eyes on the distant, twisted line of the hilly horizon. “It’s a risk, I admit, but a small one, at least compared to the other choices we have on hand. Males are rare amongst the atherian. A winged one could provide some backbone to their survival.”
“And if they kill him?” his wife asked without looking at him, resting her head against the side of the cart. “What would you do then?”
Sun burn you, Grandmother.
“There’s nothing I can do. We’ve treated him to the best of our abilities. Now we can only hope the lizard-kind around the Garin will be willing to take him in.”
Grea had the look of someone biting back an argument, twisting away to make herself more comfortable. Agais glanced down in time to see a bump appear momentarily in the side of her swollen belly, and he smiled.
“Besides, if you adopted him, we’d have to worry about two new mouths to feed, and I’m not quite sure I’m ready to handle the one we’re expecting already.”
The woman smiled unwillingly, but still refused to look around. After a few minutes of silence Agais decided to try again, though this time he was unsure of whether he wanted to hear the answer to his question.
“So… you named the boy?” he asked. Grea nodded but didn’t respond. After a while, though, she seemed to tire of the silence herself, straightening in her seat.
“Raz i’Syul,” she explained. “The Grandmother said in the old desert tongue it means ‘Child of the Sun.’ It’s what a lot of people think the atherian believe themselves to be: Children of the Sun and Moon. Children of the Twins.”
Agais stiffened. Grea didn’t notice.
“I didn’t know she knew old desert,” he said casually, straightening the horses from a distracted course once more.
Grea shrugged. “She knows enough.” She shifted in the seat again. The child must really have been bothering her. “We weren’t about to give him a name in the Common Tongue. They do that to slaves. And obviously no one knows the atherian language, so that didn’t leave us with much. So: Raz i’Syul.”
“Not what you expect,” Agais quoted under his breath, feeling his temper touch surface.
“Sorry?” his wife asked, looking at him curiously.
“Nothing.”
Sun burn you, Grandmother. Sun burn you.
CHAPTER 6
“I don’t understand the game you’re playing.”
The Grandmother looked up at Agais from where she sat cross-legged on the floor of her hut, the lines of her face a picture of innocence. Night was falling once more and, though they usually rode until the dark claimed every foot of the desert, the clanmaster had called an early halt.
When Grea had asked him why, his silence was so sullen she hadn't braved voicing the question again.
“And what game is that?”
Agais glared at the Grandmother, caught between respect for his elder and exercising his role as head of the Arros.
And as a father-to-be.
“You can’t manipulate the signs, Grandmother,” he forced through gritted teeth. His eyes passed to the once again unconscious form of Raz, still held to the bed. “I don’t know if you had visions of this creature and made up the fortune, or if you’re trying to bend fortune around him, but you can’t manipulate prophecy.”
“The telling is real,” Grandmother said quietly.
“Then stop trying to entwine it around this boy!” Agais snapped, pointing at the child. “Raz i‘Syul? Did you think I wouldn’t notice, or that Grea wouldn’t tell me? ‘Child of the Sun’? ‘Son of the Sun’? You’re trying to match the words to an atherian, Grandmother!”
“There are scholars who believe lizard-kind consider themselves to be Children of the—“
“I DON’T GIVE A MOON’S FUCK WHAT THEY CONSIDER THEMSELVES TO BE!”
The old woman jumped at Agais’ roar, eyes wide. Beside her, Raz stirred but did not wake. The man, for one, took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment, seating himself on the floor and leaning an elbow against the short table in its center. “But you frustrate me. You’ve given Grea reason to fear for that boy’s life,”—he motioned toward Raz—“and as an expecting mother she’s taken to the idea of keeping him with the clan.”
“Agais…”
“If she realizes you think this atherian is the one the signs are pointing to, she’ll be twice as upset. You told us it was our son who would bear the burden, not some castaway we crossed paths with in the desert.”
“Agais.”
“Even if you aren’t wrong and this boy is the one of whom the Sun speaks to you, it wouldn’t be up to us to raise him. It can’t work. We can’t even be sure the boy is capable of developing normally around men. Could he learn our language? Our culture? Could he—”
“AGAIS!”
It was the Grandmother’s turn to yell, and this time Raz woke abruptly, jerking in the bed. Every one of his limbs except for his wing had been freed, and the child clambered to straighten, looking around and hissing. The old woman went to him immediately, and he calmed at the sight of her. She soothed him, placing a hand on his scaled arm and stroking his face with the other. When he was quiet, she turned back to the clanmaster.
“Agais,” she said in almost a whisper, forcing herself to look him in the eye. “I-I was not intending to tell you…”
She faltered, and in that breadth of silence Agais felt some invisible steel hand grab at his throat. Cold crushed over him, watching the emotions that flit across the old woman’s eyes. Fear, pain, frustration, grief… For a face usually so calm and understanding, it was frightening.
“Agais… your child won’t… your daughter… she won’t…”
And then the cold was gone. Numbness replaced it absolutely, draining his skin of feeling before rushing inward. The only sensation the man could make out was the deep, drowning pound of his own heart. For a moment he sat, oblivious to all except the wordless facts that were painted out in the Grandmother’s gray eyes. She opened her mouth to try and explain further, but he raised a hand to stop her.
For a full minute Agais sat in silence, letting the realizations weigh on him, letting them catch hold in the frenzied jumble of his thoughts. When at last he could speak again, it was only barely.
“Grea… Grea cannot… Grea will not hear of this,” he stammered, feeling the heavy stone of grief drop from his throat into the pit of his stomach. “Is that understood? You will never tell her what you… what you mean to tell me.”
The Grandmother swallowed, eyes wet, but nodded, and Agais got to his feet. His sight was oddly blunt, as though he were looking at the world through dirty glass. Horrible thoughts snaked into his reality, like some tangible nightmare. For a time he stood, one hand on the wall of the cart for support, alone and trapped in his own cruel mind. The Grandmother stood by, silent, hands clasped in front of her chest to keep them from shaking.
Finally Agais blinked and looked around. Then, slowly, he made his way to the hut’s entrance.
“Grandmother…” He stopped before pulling the flap open. His voice was hoarse and dead, barely his own, and his eyes looked out into the pale night unseeing. “As a father, I can hope. As a father, I have to hope…”
Only a soft sob responded from behind him, and with that Agais felt the stone sink a little deeper. Stepping out into the cold, he let
the hides fall behind him and turned right to head for his favorite spot outside the wagon ring. He felt unwilling, just then, to return to his wife and unborn daughter.
His fated daughter…
Back in the hut, the Grandmother grasped for the edge of the bed and eased herself to her knees as she continued to cry wordlessly. With one wrinkled hand covering her face she let her body shake, hating the truths that had finally fought their way free. After a few minutes something heavy pressed against her hair, lifted, then pressed again. Looking up, the woman realized that Raz had shifted in his bed enough to reach her with a clawed hand, and was attempting to stroke her head in the same way he enjoyed so much. Despite herself, the Grandmother smiled a sad smile, daring even to gently grab hold of the infant’s slim fingers, finding comfort in the alien grasp.
Over the last days of the journey, Agais did as the Grandmother had suggested, and a slow trickle of visitors flowed through the old woman’s hut as the rest of the clan were introduced to Raz. Jarden, with some prodding from his lovable—if slightly rebellious—younger wife Surah, went first. The man, brave as he was, was not so anxious to come face-to-face with the atherian again now that the babe was awake. He approached the Grandmother’s wagon with the same caution one typically took when trying to get close enough to a dog to see if it was rabid. Surah, losing patience, had threatened the withholding of certain nighttime comforts if the man didn’t enter, which proved enough to spark Jarden’s usual courage back to life.
The encounter had initially gone about as well as could be expected, despite the Grandmother’s and Grea’s attempts to warn Raz of Jarden’s arrival. They admitted later that Agais’ suggestion of temporarily replacing the restraints on the boy’s arms and legs had been a good one, but too late. It took almost ten minutes to calm the atherian sufficiently to let Jarden approach and offer his hand to be sniffed. Surprisingly, potential for a promising bond took seed when Raz finished his sensory inspection of the offered limb and proceeded to nip it playfully. Jarden yelped and leapt back, examining the appendage only to find that it was barely scratched. The child, meanwhile, erupted into his series of harsh sounds that everyone had rapidly realized to be laughter. Jarden, hearing this and satisfied that all five fingers of his hand were still attached and moving, began to chuckle as well, until both of them were laughing uproariously.
After that the introductions went smoothly. Or at least relatively so. All the adults went first, Tolman—a dark-skinned, dark-eyed Percian friend—leading the way. After him came Ishmal, Kosen and his wife Delfry, Ovan and Hannas—another married couple and friends of the true Arros—Trina, the widowed wife of Surah’s brother, and finally Achtel and the ever-skeptical Iriso. The woman appeared as unconvinced as ever, even after Raz had accepted her with his childishly alien smile, and she stormed out of the hut as soon as possible.
The next day came the younger members of the family, one at a time. Kosen and Delfry’s older daughters, Eara and Zadi, went first, both a shade nervous, but left the Grandmother’s wagon with no qualms. Prida, a young runaway the clan had accepted two years ago at the tender age of sixteen, entered closely followed by a guarding and watchful Tolman. Some of the older members of the clan disapproved of the man’s interest in the girl. He was eight years her senior, true, but Agais had looked into the situation and found nothing but patient affection, and so had let the matter drop.
The youngest children were more hesitant, skittishly eyeing the hut until Izan—Achtel’s oldest of four sons at fifteen—stuck out his chest and marched in. He came out wide-eyed, staring at the hand the lizard-kind had examined like it had grown a mouth and learned to speak.
After that the other children had had to be forced into a line to keep them from all rushing in at once.
Asahbet was next, followed by his younger brothers Ryler and Sasham. Trina led her daughter Kâtyn in a minute later, and Ovan tailed off the main group, escorting his little twins—brother and sister—into the hut. Foeli and Barna, both six, had eyes the size of their small fists when their father coaxed them into offering hands to Raz. After all, despite being at least three summers younger, the babe was a half head taller than either of them and covered in scales.
It was then that the day’s only difficulties arose. Iriso flat-out refused to let her children Mychal, an energetic boy of seven, and Anges, a shy little girl of five, near the atherian despite even her husband’s encouragement. The Grandmother herself had grave words for the woman, saying Iriso was counter-intuitively endangering the two youngsters by not familiarizing them with Raz. What might happen if the boy ever got loose, she’d asked darkly. What would happen if he didn’t recognize them?
Iriso had retorted that having the “beast” amongst them to begin with was a danger in and of itself, but with the entire clan introduced to Raz and finding little to fear, she finally gave in. Still, the woman somehow negotiated that Jarden, Tolman, Agais, and her husband all be in the hut while her children were being familiarized with the boy, and so the quarters were more than a little cramped. Mychal went bravely, smiling at Raz’s searching nose, and Anges giggled when the babe’s forked tongue flicked over the skin of her small arm. Scowling, Iriso hurried them out of the hut, muttering under her breath about “flesh-eaters” and “oversized reptiles.”
Both the Grandmother and Grea had had to cover snorts of derisive amusement. The happy sound added a drop of darkness to Agais’ quickly blackening mood.
For days now Agais had watched his wife. Silently he judged her movement and actions. She looked healthy enough, and there were no signs of trouble with the pregnancy. In fact, several times she’d gasped in momentary shock as the baby kicked or punched lively, smiling and catching her breath.
And yet, each time this happened, Agais felt dread grab at his throat like some wicked spirit of terror.
The Grandmother had never been wrong about a birthing. Or any other similar event for that matter. The Sun had blessed her with clear voices, visions that struck her at odd times, giving her a glimpse of what would come to pass. As it was with the telling, as it was with her vision of Agais’ child.
His daughter, he thought with a sick mix of thrill and grief.
Still, it was possible that the woman could be wrong. There had to be a first mistake somewhere in these glimpses the Grandmother had.
Agais, against his will, allowed himself to hope, if only a little. He needed to hope. He needed to have that glimmer of light to hold on to if he wanted a prayer of keeping what he’d seen in the Grandmother’s eyes from Grea. She was a few days into her ninth month now. The birth was near, proven by the baby’s increased agitation, and hopefully within the next few weeks the nightmare would end. Agais would hold his crying daughter—or son, even—up before the Grandmother.
He would prove her wrong.
At that moment, shortly after Iriso had ushered her children out of the cramped hut, Agais caught his wife’s eye. The woman smiled at him from beneath loose strands of long bleached hair, winking affectionately. He felt his stomach turn, but forced a smile back at her, pretending that he, too, was pleased with the day’s work. In truth, Agais had watched from the depth of his own thoughts for most of the time, too preoccupied to bother being in the room with body and mind.
The lovely Grea. His soul’s better half in every way.
He would prove the Grandmother wrong. He had to.
CHAPTER 7
The Garin was a sight no matter how many times one might have witnessed it before. Surrounded by a wall of high dunes, it bloomed from the sands as travelers crested the hills from any direction. The desert lake, it was called, and not lightly. The Garin was a little piece of paradise in the middle of the barren wastes that were the Cienbal. It had everything—clean water, shade provided by the numerous copses of palm and weeping trees that patched its shores, slim silver fish flickering just under the lake’s surface. The only reason a town hadn’t developed around the oasis was that it was a hundred leagues too far from
anywhere, making routine trade nearly impossible. It did, however, form the Garin into an ideal resting spot for the weary traveler, as well as the perfect place to spend the broiling months of the summer season. A twisted double crescent of sparkling water against an endless canvas of dusty tan, the lake had wide shores more than large enough to house a hundred families with room to spare.
Despite the delays they’d had, the Arros still arrived fairly early in the season. Only a dozen or so clans were already camped at the edge of the oasis. Their timing was fortunate, giving the family a good choice of where to settle for the next two months, and they needed the selection. Grea’s coming labor would require quick water from the lake, and almost as important was the need to keep Raz’s presence quiet. It might be weeks, but until the atherian tribes came from the Crags to the east, there was too much risk in letting the other families find out the Arros were keeping the babe.
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