Secrets of the Sands

by Leona Wisoker

  “I haven't done anything wrong!” Gria said. “I believed people who said they loved me.” She shot her aunt another sharp look, but this time Sela shrugged it aside without becoming rattled. “I've done nothing worth dying for.”

  Alyea looked at Chac, already knowing his answer.

  He grinned at her, reached into his shirt, and drew another knife. He held it out to her, hilt first.

  “Kill me,” he said simply.

  As she took the knife, she saw the faintest of dark stains on the lower edge of the blade. Poison, more than likely; fast or slow, she had no idea.

  “The choice is made,” she said, and drew a deep breath. “Gria and Sela are free to go.”

  The two women reached out and clasped hands, their stares wide and disbelieving. Gria's earlier resentment no longer evident, they fell into each other's arms, trembling.

  “Take them away,” Alyea said, her mouth dry. The teyanain, moving not as prison guards but as honor escort now, led the two shaken women towards the other side of the shaded area. She watched them go safely out of hearing range; looked at Micru, at Deiq, and finally back to Chac.

  The hysterical sobs of the two reprieved women echoed through the taut silence.

  “I won't do this for the amusement of an audience,” Alyea said. “Let's go for a walk, old man.”

  * * *

  Chapter TwentyThree

  They stood at the lip of the great cavern bowl, looking at tunnels that led like spokes on a wheel in all directions. Scratha's frown worried Idisio.

  “Which way do we go, my lord?” Idisio ventured, hoping for a clear answer.

  “I don't know,” Scratha admitted. “I thought the ha'rethe would tell me, but it isn't saying anything.”

  “Why don't you just read the signs?” Riss said in a practical tone of voice.

  “The. . . .” Idisio looked where she pointed, and saw, crudely etched into the nearby wall, a single word:

  WALL

  The last 'L' sat at an odd, drunken slant to the rest of the letters. Scratha's frown deepened.

  “Wall,” he repeated softly to himself. “Wall.” He finally looked away as if forcing himself to move. “Let's walk around and see what the other passages say.”

  Many had no label, or an obscure pictograph, or a word in some language Idisio didn't know. The desert lord paused in front of one, however, and traced the outline of two words, roughly etched as the first had been, with his fingertips. Idisio, peering around the man's elbow, didn't need this one translated.

  BRIGHT BAY

  The last letters of each word slanted at the same odd angle as the one for the Wall had displayed.

  Scratha repeated that one, too, very quietly, and they moved on. A dangerous edge emerged in the desert lord's manner, a brittle searching quality in his movements. Idisio hung back another pace and urgently waved Riss to give the man more room as well. She obeyed, her gaze anxious and puzzled.

  Almost back to the spot they had started from, Scratha stopped at another tunnel entrance. He stood very still, his fists clenching and unclenching rhythmically. Idisio edged forward, motioning Riss to stay well back, and squinted at the word beside the tunnel opening.

  SCRATHA

  Here again, the last 'A' was slanted.

  Idisio had never seen anything like it. Shivers ran up and down his arms. The silence became oppressive. He caught himself just before saying something idiotic, like Well, good, we'll just trot on up this one and be at your home in no time, right?

  The look in Cafad Scratha's eyes could have melted sand.

  “I never realized,” the desert lord whispered, as if completely unaware he had a frightened audience watching him. “All these years, and the answer was that simple.”

  He shook himself, rather like an asp-jacau after an unexpected rainstorm, and strode forward into the tunnel. Idisio scrambled to follow, afraid of being left behind. Scratha seemed to have forgotten about his dependants. His old madness had full hold on him, and Idisio wasn't sure how long it would take the man to snap out of it.

  Ten steps into the tunnel, Idisio glanced back to check on Riss; she hurried close on his heels, her eyes huge and her face pale. He turned forward again, not wanting to miss a step and stumble.

  Scratha was gone.

  The tunnel continued straight, well-lit, and utterly empty ahead of them for a goodly distance. Idisio, unable to stop himself, broke into a run for a few hopeless strides, opening his mouth to yell—

  —and found himself falling through blackness, with a feeling similar to emerging from the ha'rethe's den; from faint chill through intense cold into a blazing dry heat. As before, he fell forward onto his hands and knees, astonished as he felt sand giving way under him.

  A hard hand hooked under his armpit and yanked him to his feet.

  “I'm sorry,” Scratha said, sounding more impatient than contrite. “I forgot about you for a moment. Is Riss—”

  A thud and yelp cut him off.

  “Apparently she is,” the desert lord said dryly, and moved to help her up as well.

  “What just happened?” Riss said in a high, strained voice as she stumbled to her feet.

  Idisio took a moment to be sure Riss hadn't been hurt by the unexpected fall, then turned his attention to their new surroundings.

  “Welcome,” Cafad Scratha said with a proprietary, proud, and distinctly tired edge, “to Scratha Family Fortress.”

  They stood in the center of an enormous, roofless space, much of it paved with wide, sun-bleached brick tiles. White stone walls towered high above them to four sides, each broken at ground level by a single, centered archway. A series of small, connected stone fountain-troughs sat silent, worn, and cracked. Dry sticks, decaying trunks, and a heap of desiccated leaves were all that remained of what might have once been magnificent desert palms or sand-reeds.

  Idisio's skin crawled with the uneasy feeling of being watched, but except for the sounds of their own small motions and breathing, the silence and stillness lay thick and absolute.

  “How did we get here?” Riss shrilled. Her voice echoed around the empty, dead space. “What is this place?”

  Scratha, who had been staring at a dry, cracked fountain, started and looked around.

  “Hm?” he said. “Oh, this is the central gathering-yard—at least, it was. I haven't been in this part of the fortress for a long time. I used to play here; there were great desert palms. . . .” He pointed at the piles of dry-rotted sticks and broken trunks, his expression distant, and sighed. “Long gone. There's been no water; the well dried up. . . .”

  “How did we get here?” Riss demanded, the fear in her voice no less sharp for being tinged with anger now.

  Scratha turned and studied her thoughtfully, as if deciding how to answer. “I don't know,” he said at last. The answer clearly didn't satisfy Riss, and the desert lord added, “I learned a long time ago not to ask how when the ha'reye are involved. I've seen much stranger things, Riss, than instant transport from one spot to another.”

  “But you're a desert lord,” Riss said.

  “That doesn't mean I know everything about the ha'reye,” Scratha said. “I suspect what I know about them wouldn't fill the average thimble.” He pointed to one of the archways. “Let's get out of the heat.”

  They moved from scorching, stifling midafternoon heat into a distinctly cooler, shaded passageway lined with dull grey tiles on each curving wall. The rough brick from the courtyard continued underfoot. Their footsteps scraped on patches of windblown sand for the first few steps, then became almost silent, as if the brick absorbed sound.

  Scratha led them past several archways, some of which opened to more courtyards, smaller than the first but similar in style. Others had the remains of wooden doors blocking the views of what lay beyond, and two actually had fine metal latticework doors. At the second of the metal doors, the desert lord paused, put out a hand, and pushed gently against the edge of the door. It swung, noiseless, and stayed wide
open, as if waiting patiently for them to enter.

  Scratha sighed. “These were my rooms,” he said, staring through the doorway.

  Peering around him, Idisio saw a short passage, opening into what looked like a larger room littered with dust-covered furniture. “Why is everything so quiet?” Riss said. “Where is everyone?” Scratha turned and looked at her in what seemed genuine surprise. Idisio searched his memory hastily, came up blank, and said, “You never told her anything about your family, my lord, and she's not from Bright Bay; she probably never heard the name Scratha before she met us.”

  “I didn't, other than Karic and Baylor talking about you being on their trail,” Riss said. “What happened?”

  Scratha reached out and tugged the metal lattice shut again. It closed with the faintest clank.

  “My family was murdered,” he said, “slaughtered in the middle of the night with no warning. Nobody knows who was responsible, or if they do, they're not telling.” He ran his fingers lightly over the door. “I was walking the sands outside when it happened, as a preliminary test to see if I was fit to become a desert lord.”

  “How old were you?” Riss said, looking horrified.

  “Ten,” Scratha said. He started down the passageway again. “Isn't that a little young?” Riss said.

  “A little,” Scratha admitted. “But things were going on that . . . well. It would take too long to explain.”

  Idisio blinked as he worked through the numbers. “You're only . . . twenty-five?”

  “Twenty-eight,” Scratha corrected.

  “You look twice that,” Riss said tactlessly.

  Idisio glared at her; Scratha ignored them both.

  They walked along empty, silent corridors, turning apparently at random into different passages. Idisio began to suspect Scratha simply wandered without direction, and tried to think of a tactful way to ask just where they were going.

  “Here,” Scratha said at last, and pushed open another wrought-metal door. They filed into a huge room, lined from floor to high ceiling with wide shelves of books: large and small tomes, racks of slender or thick rolls of parchment and vellum. Sunlight slanted from high windows to spread distorted squares of brightness against the dusty shelves. A heavy layer of dust coated a table in the center of the room.

  Idisio sneezed. The room felt heavy, solemn, and old; above all, it felt neglected, as if lonely for human company. He seemed to hear a faint murmur in his head, as if the books spoke to welcome them. He shook his head sharply to dispel the frightening notion.

  Cafad Scratha stood for a moment looking around the room, his expression slowly becoming grim. Riss's gaze lingered over each shelf as if she longed to reach out and sweep all the books into her arms at once.

  “Sit down,” Scratha said finally. “This might take a little while.” He moved forward and squatted before one of the shelves. He began to examine the bound volumes, lightly pushing each aside to see another before shaking his head and shifting to his right.

  They watched him without moving, stuck in mutual bewilderment.

  “Er. . . .” Riss said after Scratha had searched through perhaps ten feet of the shelf. “What are you doing, my lord?”

  “There's a book,” Scratha said without looking back at her, “with a brief passage which never made sense to me before. But now I think it might lead me to the answer of how my family was slaughtered with no witnesses.”

  Riss and Idisio exchanged a long look; their shared, silent question What are we supposed to do now? hung in the air between them.

  “Er . . . can we help you look?” Riss said, moving a tentative half-step forward.

  “I can't describe it,” Scratha muttered, studying a book spine intently, then shaking his head and moving on. “It's been so long since I've read it, I don't even remember what it looks like. I'm hoping I'll know it when I see it.”

  “Er,” Idisio said, swallowing hard. The murmuring of the books seemed to be growing both louder and clearer. He could almost make out the words: not that he wanted to. “Er, my lord?”

  “What is it, Idisio?”

  “Um.” Idisio looked at his feet, wishing he'd kept silent.

  Scratha didn't look up from his study of the shelves, but he snapped his fingers impatiently. “Say it already!”

  “Well,” Idisio said, “if . . . what if you could . . . sort of . . . ask where the book is?”

  Scratha stopped his search and turned to stare at him. Idisio could tell he hadn't said that clearly enough.

  “I mean, the . . . the fortress would know,” he went on, and heard an astonished snort from Riss.

  “You've lost your mind,” Riss said. “The heat's wiping your brain out. Ask who?” She swept her hands out to indicate the room. “The air?”

  “Um, yes,” Idisio said. “More or less the air, yes. It's . . . it feels like that tunnel. Like something's trying to talk to us.”

  Riss opened her mouth as if to argue, then shut it again without speaking. Her eyebrows drew down in a thoughtful squint, and she looked around the room with far more suspicion than she had a few minutes previously.

  Scratha cocked his head as if listening for something, then shook his head. “I can't hear anything,” he said, “but I think you may be more sensitive than I am, Idisio. Why don't you try asking?”

  Idisio took a deep breath and shut his eyes. Lord Cafad Scratha wants a book, he thought, trying to form the words as clearly in his mind as he could, but not sure where to aim them.

  Who was he trying to talk to? The room? The fortress? He wasn't sure, and somehow it seemed important. He couldn't just talk to empty space. There had to be something to talk to. He hesitated, wavering, wondering if this whole idea was absurd.

  The silence continued unbroken, with no feeling of a response. Idisio decided to give it one more try. He found himself imagining the fortress as a large, friendly beast—he carefully kept lizard from his mental picture—curled into a huge circle around them. He addressed his thoughtspeech to the head of the giant creature, which seemed to rest somewhere in the center of the fortress.

  Lord Cafad Scratha is looking for a book, he thought again. Please help him find it.

  The image in his mind abruptly clarified and shifted into something much more alien and less friendly. Huge golden eyes opened and seemed to stare at him from inches away. Idisio stood frozen, unable to move under that overwhelming scrutiny. He heard a faint whimpering and realized, distantly, that the noise came from his own throat.

  Se'thiss t'akarnain, a voice said in his head. Welcome.

  He heard a gasp and a thud. The image in Idisio's head vanished abruptly. He felt his knees giving way; a moment later his body connected gracelessly with the floor.

  His eyes opened at the jarring impact. Riss knelt beside him, her face a ghastly white and her eyes huge.

  “Are you all right?” she shrilled.

  He blinked, shook his head tentatively, and sat up. The room seemed to spin around him for a moment; Riss's hands, gripping his shoulders, brought everything back into focus.

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “I think so, anyway.”

  Scratha, several feet away, had a thick tome in his hands and a strange expression on his face as he stared at Idisio.

  “It just fell,” he said. “I've never seen anything like it. It fell flat, and open to the page I wanted.”

  “Maybe I'm not all right after all,” Idisio muttered, and shut his eyes again. His stomach seemed ready to turn itself inside out, and a headache started to pound behind his eyes.

  “I felt. . . .” Scratha hesitated, as if unsure of himself. “I felt, for a moment, as if there was a ha'rethe in the area. But that's not possible!”

  “Why not?” Riss said sharply.

  “Because if there were a ha'rethe in this fortress, my family would never have been slaughtered. They won't allow the people they protect to be harmed. And I've never seen or heard a single hint of one being here.”

  “The one by the W
all said it had just woken up,” Idisio said, rubbing at his temples. “What if this one was asleep?”

  “A protector would have woken,” Scratha said, but a note of doubt threaded through his voice. “It wouldn't have slept through the attack. . . .”

  Idisio had a sense of those great golden eyes opening again. They seemed amused. We protect those you call desert lords, the voice said softly. If there is no desert lord present, there is no obligation.

  Idisio leaned forward and put his head between his knees.

  “It said something,” Scratha said, his voice hard and excited. “There is one here! Gods! I couldn't hear it clearly. What did it say? How long has it been here?”