Guardians of the Desert (Children of the Desert)

by Leona Wisoker

  Alyea ate in silence, savoring each bite; she’d never had anything like it. She started to ask about the ingredients, and especially the intoxicatingly scented oil used to dress the beans, then caught herself just in time. Under southern rules of courtesy, Evkit held the higher status and so had to be the first to speak.

  Evkit tucked into his own meal with a healthy appetite, ignoring her completely. It didn’t feel hostile; more as though he wanted her to focus on her meal without distractions. The teyanain were turning out to be far different from what Deiq’s grimly suspicious view of them—and the attack—had led her to expect. The artistry, delicate courtesy, craftsmanship, and obvious appreciation for beauty were at sharp odds with her previous image of people everyone else seemed to view with intense distrust.

  She wiped the last traces of oil from her plate with the last piece of flatbread. Immediately, a servant whisked the plate away and offered her a small bowl of water and a napkin.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, cleaning her hands. The bowl and cloth disappeared with the same rapid grace as the plate.

  Evkit leaned back in his chair and regarded her with a faint smile.

  “So: belly full, mind calm, now we talk,” he said.

  Alyea raised her eyebrows and waited, folding her hands on the table in front of her, careful to keep her shoulders and back straight and her expression neutral.

  Evkit laughed. “You do not trust me,” he said. “I understand. I would be—would have—same distrust. Is healthy caution. So. You have question. Ask. No cost.”

  She nodded slowly, considering, then said, “How is it that you can leave the Horn?”

  His face stilled as though he hadn’t expected that question. A long moment of silence hung in the room, and the lines around his eyes tightened. His face shifted briefly into a hard expression, then smoothed back to blandness.

  “Teyanain different,” he said at last. “New question.”

  She tried another topic. “What was that white powder you threw at us?”

  This reply came out prompt and unworried. “Is called stibik. Old, old creation, from ketarches. Only affects those with ha’reye blood. Puts them to sleep, make them weak.”

  “What is a ketarch?”

  “Healers. Herb-lore. Medicine, all sorts. Aerthraim is best, developed stibik, developed many drugs and medicines. Much complicated politics involve ketarches; you might learn. Might not.” He smiled at her, an unsettlingly cheerful expression that never reached his watchful black eyes.

  She sat quietly, thinking that over. So the ketarches had developed a weapon against the ha’reye? And the teyanain had it to hand, and were ready to throw it as soon as Deiq and Idisio came through the portal. Which meant that they’d known at least one ha’ra’ha would be coming through after Lord Evkit . . . Either that, or the guards of the portal always held it to hand, and Evkit had told them, on his arrival, to use it.

  Why would Evkit hold such distrust of the two ha’ra’hain? Why had the ketarches felt compelled to create such a weapon? And why did the teyanain have a supply laid by? If the Horn boasted a ha’rethe, surely it couldn’t be happy about that. It didn’t make any sense.

  She looked up to find Evkit watching her closely, with the first hint of a smirk she’d seen since their arrival.

  “Many questions,” he said. “Many strange questions, yes? And the answers are no good.”

  He stood, motioning her to follow him. Not daring to hesitate, she rose from her seat, forcing her expression to remain bland although her heart hammered in her ears. He’s doing far too much smiling, Deiq had said, and Alyea found herself thinking: He’s also being far too nice.

  As though sensing her thoughts, Evkit raised his hands, palms out, and grinned at her. “You guest, no harm,” he said. “I show you something. I give you good answers, true answers. You trust. Come.”

  Her two guards trailed behind as she walked with Lord Evkit through a maze of passageways and up a winding flight of steps. Another passageway, another turn, a few low steps, and they faced a door decorated with an astonishingly delicate design picked out in gold leaf that seemed to flow over the dark background of the wood.

  Evkit paused and looked at Alyea soberly. “You not like this. But you interfere, she die. You stay clear. This important you see, but you not touch, you not interfere. You trust. I tell truth. Promise me you not touch, not interfere.”

  She drew a breath, bit her lower lip, then nodded.

  Evkit motioned to the guards. They took up positions on either side of the door as the teyanin lord opened it and waved Alyea through. She stepped cautiously through the entry, her heart hammering.

  The room seemed perfectly ordinary, much like her own but wider. A large metal tub sat in the middle of the floor, filled with water. Two small, teyanin-dark women, their expressions drawn and worried, glanced up from their positions on stools beside the tub, and hastily stood when Lord Evkit entered. He asked them something in a fluid, rapid language Alyea had never heard before, and they shook their heads.

  “No change,” Evkit said, and sighed. He nodded towards the tub. “You go look, Lord Alyea. Remember, no touch, no interfere.”

  She wanted to bolt from the room. She forced herself to move, a step at a time, to the side of the deep metal bathing tub. Made her head tilt and her eyes stay open as she stared at the film of blood spread across the water’s surface; it lent a thickly rotten, iron tang to the nearby air. Set her teeth in her tongue, hard, and kept her hands at her sides as she saw the body slowly writhing in the water: a small frame, an old woman with white hair and an expression of intense agony on her wrinkled face.

  Alyea recognized the healer who had saved her life after the Qisani blood trial.

  “Her name Teilo. She does not know time,” Evkit said quietly from behind her. “She sees time as moments passing. She does not know days go by.”

  He touched Alyea’s elbow with a light, fingertip pressure.

  “Come, we go talk now.”

  Alyea backed away, unable to take her eyes away from the horrifying sight, until distance put the wall of the tub in the way; then she shut her eyes and turned away sharply, fighting nausea. Staggering to one side, she put out a hand to catch herself against the wall and leaned against the cool, reassuring support for some time, breathing hard.

  “What the hells are you doing to her?”

  “We do nothing,” Evkit said. “Come, we go walk.”

  He took her elbow gently, his bony fingers cool and dry against her skin, and guided her from the room.

  “She saved my life,” Alyea muttered, letting him urge her back down stairs and through passageways and up stairs without really noticing her surroundings.

  “I know,” Evkit said. After some more walking, he pushed open another heavy door. “Come, sit down in air.”

  Alyea stepped out onto a small patio bordered with low stone walls and stood still, shocked back into awareness of the moment. Ahead was blue sky, impossibly bright and clean, not even a wisp of cloud visible. To the left and right rose jagged, ochre and sand-colored outcrops resembling a jumbled handful of broken children’s blocks tossed in a loose pile. Moving forward to the edge of the patio, she found a steep drop below and a similar range of tumbled rock spread in a rough skirt to the glittering shore of the sea. Birds wheeled far below, their white and grey patterning barely visible at this distance. Ships, little more than dark specks, moved over the shimmering silver-blue water.

  Evkit, at her side, said, “Western Deep Sea, that.” He pointed north and west. “Look hard, you see Stone Islands.”

  Alyea’s brain finally relayed how damn high she stood and how low the wall between her and a deadly steep drop. She blinked and stepped back.

  “Good gods,” she said shakily.

  “Beautiful, yes,” Evkit said, and steered her, unprotesting, to one of two simple white chairs.

  Alyea sank into the seat and tried to control her breathing. Memory of that dizzying chasm just a
few feet away trembled through her hands. She shut her eyes and bent to put her head between her knees, vomit coiling in the back of her throat.

  “Only teyanain handle height so well,” Evkit said, bizarrely cheerful, and pressed her to drink from a small flask.

  The liquid went down smooth as water, then flared into a raw heat that made cactus peppers seem mild. She choked and coughed, her eyes watering.

  Evkit laughed. “And only teyanain handle proper desert lightning so well,” he noted, patting her on the back. “You not out-drink me, Lord Alyea. You never out-drink me, not in hundred lifetimes.”

  She sat back in her chair, wiping at her eyes, and glared at him. “You sure went down hard.”

  “Faked,” he said, still smiling. “Not safe for me to get real drunk at ha’rethe home place.”

  “So you don’t have a ha’rethe here. You’re not bound to one like the others are.”

  His expression shifted a little, something less genial creeping into his smile.

  “Not like others are, no,” he agreed. “We different. We always different, from beginning.”

  Even the small sip of liquor she’d taken buzzed along her veins like nervous sparks. She blinked hard, feeling as though her thoughts flew faster than the birds circling far below. It seemed safest to return to the original topic: twice now he’d reacted badly to that prod. She doubted his thinning patience would stand for a third try.

  “Deiq didn’t believe you lost,” she said. “He told me you’d never lost a drinking contest.”

  “Never,” Evkit confirmed, amused again. “Teyanain grow up drinking heavier than what lowlanders ever see. You never put even young teyanain under table. No lowlander ever will. We different.”

  “But you didn’t mind having everyone think I won.”

  He shook his head. “Nobody who knows teyanain believed that,” he said simply.

  She looked out into the blue expanse of sky, unsure what to say next. At last she asked, choosing her phrasing carefully, “What happened to the healer?”

  “Name Teilo,” he said. “She leave Jungle some time ago. She told not to. She disobey. She save your life. She told not to. She disobey again. Not smart, anger Jungle ha’reye.”

  Alyea frowned. “Why did she—wait. Why did the Jungle—hells.” She shook her head. Too many questions jammed through her head, making coherence impossible.

  Evkit watched her with a sympathetic expression.

  “Questions go much further back than you think,” he said. “Back before Split. Back before humanity start walking. And nobody but teyanain asking questions that far back. Desert lords especially not ask. They careful not ask. They already know they would not like answers. And they not like giving out answers, either. They would never tell you this much, Lord Alyea. Never answer so much questions, especially not far-back questions.”

  “Let’s just look at the right-now questions,” Alyea said sharply. “We can work backwards from there, but I want to know what’s going on right now. What’s happening to that woman?”

  “I tell you, I tell you all,” Evkit said expansively. “You will see, I tell you truth others would not. Healer not human. Name Teilo, but not human. Not now, not for many years. She old, Lord Alyea, many years old. Older than Deiq. And right now Teilo maybe dying for helping you. Not once, she help, but twice, maybe three time. First time not just for you, but for everyone in Bright Bay; she help bring down mad Ninnic and destroy mad elder ha’ra’ha that control mad Ninnic. But you benefit, yes? So she help you.”

  “Good gods,” she breathed, shocked. “I had no idea. There was a—why didn’t anyone say—good gods.” She gave up trying to express her dismay.

  Evkit snorted. “If someone had said to you, before you leave to become desert lord: monster under city causing king to act crazy, you would have said what?”

  She shook her head and looked down at her hands.

  “Yes. You see. Crazy-talk, demon-talk. Northerns not understand these things. Not ever.”

  “Yes,” she said, barely vocalizing the word. “I see. So what—what happened next?”

  “Teilo not supposed to be in Bright Bay at all. Humans spend so much time with ha’reye in Jungles as she spend, they change. They become other. Not-human. Ha’reye-kin, what we call true-ha’rai’nin. And Jungle ha’reye never tell their humans, their ha’rai’nain, what will happen to them one day. They not ever want changes happen away from home place. They know Teilo close to changing; they forbid her leave Jungles. She go anyway, to help humans battle mad ha’ra’ha. Jungle ha’reye send word all round: Teilo banished, outcast. Let be, let die in dry-change, land-change, no help given.”

  She stared at him, appalled.

  “Jungles invest many years to bring ha’rai’nain ready for change,” Lord Evkit said. “Teilo first to reach turning point, and they afraid of creating renegade ha’rai’nin. Change makes big power, big strength. Bigger than blood trials. Ha’reye want desert lords and changed ones stay close, stay under control. Too dangerous, let them walk around before right time. Desert lords always stay close after trials, until ha’reye see they safe, stable, not mad, crazy, dangerous; ha’rai’nain need even more so.”

  “But I didn’t—” She stopped, remembering how close she’d come to dying.

  Evkit regarded her without speaking for a moment, an eyebrow quirked. Then he said, “No. You leave Qisani early. Very unusual, and part of right-now story. Listen; I tell truth you not know yet.

  “Teilo do smart thing, not knowing it smart: she go into water when she think she is dying from battle. But she not dying, it is change coming; and she go into Bright Bay water. There many young ha’ra’hain in Great Sea waters near Bright Bay. She find one. It find her. It knows who she is, knows she is supposed to be let die. But it is young, and stupid.”

  Evkit paused, as if searching for the right words, then went on:

  “It thinks it can control her after change, make her its ha’rai’nin, gain much status, much power.” His expression became severe. More quietly, he added, “Now it is dead. She kill it during change, and is now pregnant with its child. Part of change is mating. And killing.”

  Alyea blinked at the teyanin lord, unable to reconcile the fragile, gentle presence that had healed her with the creature Evkit described.

  “How do you know all this?” she demanded.

  Lord Evkit’s stare remained direct and dark. “You not trust Teilo,” he said, apparently ignoring the question. “Not ever. She not human now, Lord Alyea; she ha’rai’nin. Very much different and very much dangerous.”

  He paused, watching her take that in, then went on.

  “Then you go to Qisani, go through blood trial, and Qisani leader scream for help because you dying. And Jungle say to Qisani: ‘Let die. Let be. Qisani ha’reye have child. Woman useless now.’”

  Alyea sucked in air through a suddenly tight throat, swallowed hard, and stared at the impassive dark face, unable to believe what he had just said.

  “They just wanted my child?” she demanded. An ache spiraled through her entire body for a moment, a dull sense of having been dreadfully, wrongfully tricked out of something precious.

  He nodded, head bobbing emphatically. “Women not go through blood trials often,” he said. “And Ishrai always last. And Qisani rare, rare, rare place for any Ishrai trials. Dangerous place. Damn dangerous. Women try be desert lords, all die when they go to Qisani. Every last one. Many men, too. You first woman to survive in many hundred years.”

  Her pulse thundered in her temples. Her hands shook again. She shut her eyes, hearing Acana’s words in memory: I wish I could say I believe you will survive this. She’d taken it as bluff, an attempt to scare her off; apparently that part, at least, had been absolute truth.

  They took my first child . . . maybe my only child.

  “Did . . . did Deiq know that?” she whispered, unable to voice it any louder.

  “I do not know,” Lord Evkit said soberly. “But Teilo hear ca
ll for help, and hear Jungle refuse, and decide to go help you. So she come, she save your life. That second time she disobey Jungle, and now they know she alive, and changed, not dead. They really mad now.”

  Alyea leaned back in her chair and stared up at the sky, dazed.

  “Ha’reye talk together, miles away,” Lord Evkit said. “They not need be together in body to talk, Lord Alyea. They pass the word through the air, through the miles, relay, spread the word they want. Qisani almost next door for them to talk.

  “So now Qisani ha’reye know Jungle mad at Teilo. Qisani ha’reye cannot go into Qisani after Teilo, but they shout and scream and threaten, because Jungle says: Get Teilo, kill both healer and woman she save, this Alyea human who Qisani was told to let die. But Qisani refuse to give you, give Teilo, to Qisani ha’reye. So now Qisani ha’reye mad at head of Qisani, Jungle ha’reye mad at head of Qisani. Very much not smart, this head of Qisani, to have helped you so much. Lots of people saying ‘no’ to ha’reye suddenly. This very much not smart. Qisani probably not exist much longer.”

  “Oh, gods,” Alyea said, numb. Visions of the ruined city they’d just left filled her mind, and Acana’s voice overlay everything again: It would have been safer for all of us if you had failed the first part of the trial. Another perceived bluff that had been deadly truth.

  She’d had no idea what she was leaving behind when she walked south with Deiq. If she’d known . . . What could she have done? Probably nothing. Still, the thought that the silent, smiling ishraidain might be harmed—might already be dead, just for helping her become a desert lord—sickened her.

  “Now Qisani in trouble,” Evkit went on relentlessly. “So head of Qisani get you out as fast as can, and get Teilo out fast as can. Teilo come here, ask us for help, ask how to turn aside anger of Jungle, protect Qisani. But I am one she must talk to, and I am at Scratha Fortress for Conclave. And before I return, her child. . . .”