Guardians of the Desert (Children of the Desert)

by Leona Wisoker

  Wian blinked up at him, her expression sober and serious. “Lord Eredion,” she said, just above a whisper. “I brought you a better chair. You looked uncomfortable in that one.”

  Beside her stood a wide-seated chair in tones of drab and purple; the frame was studded with yellow and white stones. It had to be the ugliest piece of furniture he’d ever seen.

  “It’s more comfortable than it looks,” Wian said, seeing his expression. She folded her hands together and put her shoulders back a bit. “It’s also an apology, Lord Eredion. For trying to get into the palace on your tail.” She held her chin up and met his gaze directly. “It’s hard to change years of habit.”

  He let out a long breath. “Yes,” he said. “It is. Thank you for the chair.”

  She nodded; then an impish smile flitted across her generous mouth. “Don’t let Lady Peysimun know I brought it to you.”

  “I’d rather not let her know anything at all,” he said before tact could cut in to stop him; exhaustion always loosened his tongue.

  Wian bobbed her head once in a sharply understanding nod. “I’ll keep her away.”

  Eredion nodded in return and picked up the chair. As he retreated into the room with it, Wian reached out a thin hand on which mottled bruises still predominated and gently pulled the door closed for him, leaving herself in the hallway; he heard the soft patter of her bare feet as she trotted away.

  Alyea began to stir just as he settled the new chair into place; he sat down hastily and laid his hand on her shoulder. She quieted, her breath smoothing out and deepening. He relaxed back into the chair, realizing that it stood lower than the old one, and the weirdly curved back fitted into his lower back perfectly. Wian was right: the chair was ugly as all the hells, but comfortable.

  He tucked a small cushion behind his head and slipped into the first serious doze he’d managed all day.

  Alyea slept for three days after Tanavin’s departure, not even waking to use the bathroom or eat. Being alone in the room roused her to a half-awake, panicky stupor; Deiq’s voice or touch started her tossing and moaning in her sleep, as did her mother’s presence.

  Eredion hadn’t gone without proper sleep for so long in years; at last, he discovered that if he actually lay down on the bed, as Tanavin had done, she stayed quiet and he was able to fall into a restful level of light sleep.

  Wian held to her promise: she proved able to invent apparently endless tasks, questions, and minor crises to keep the stiff-necked Lady Peysimun distracted.

  To placate Lady Peysimun’s sense of modesty—and to keep from being thrown out of Peysimun Mansion altogether— he tried not to be caught sleeping beside Alyea when the aggrieved woman came to visit. Wrapping Alyea in a warm nightgown as extra security proved useless; she managed to slither out of any garments within the hour, so Eredion settled for having a light blanket to hand and tossing it over her as soon as he heard the outer door opening.

  By the third day, he was growing accustomed to the routine of waking to use the bathroom, returning to reassure Alyea, then reaching out mentally to check on Deiq before stretching out to sleep once more. There seemed little else to do; her wounds were healing, if a bit slowly by desert lord standards. He couldn’t very well receive visitors or handle business while sitting at a sickbed; Wian brought him meals twice a day, slipping in to quietly set a tray on the table in the outer room and withdrawing without a single word.

  She did seem to be trying; not that he trusted her, but he did admit to a certain empathy with her efforts to become a better person.

  Eredion was holding Alyea in a loose embrace, half-drowsing and thinking about all the ways he’d been fighting to overcome his own past mistakes, when she finally stirred and said, groggily, “Whahhh?”

  He propped himself up on an elbow as she rolled to face him.

  “Good morning,” he said, smiling. “Or perhaps good evening. I’ve lost track.”

  She rubbed her eyes and stared at him as though deeply puzzled.

  “Gods, I have to piss,” she said abruptly, swung to her feet, and bolted from the room, moving with surprising speed and grace for someone who’d been in bed for three days.

  Eredion sat up, grinning, reflecting on the incentive power of a full bladder.

  “Wonder if the ketarches could harness that somehow,” he murmured to himself.

  While he waited for her to return, he stuck his head out into the front room and sent Wian, who’d stayed near—whenever Deiq wasn’t around—for a tray of food. A big tray of food. Then he dragged the small dining table and two chairs into her bedroom, to spare her the extra few steps and grant her a bit more feeling of security while she ate; the decorations might not reflect her personality, but any sleeping room assumed a sense of sanctuary after a few days of constant occupation. The less strain she felt at the moment, the better.

  Alyea came back, moving much more slowly than before; detoured around the table without seeming to notice it, and flopped onto the bed with a deep, pained sigh.

  “I don’t think a piss has ever felt so damn good,” she said, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Tray of food on the way,” Eredion said, sitting on the edge of the bed and smiling down at her. “How do you feel?”

  “Hungry. Ravenous. And sore—what happ—” She stopped, shut her eyes, memory visibly returning at last. “Oh,” she said very quietly.

  Eredion put a gentle hand on her knee and rocked it lightly.

  “Easy,” he said. “It’s over. You’re safe. You’re back home.”

  She looked up at him with a bleak, dark stare. “They said he wasn’t coming. He didn’t care enough to ransom me. I thought he would come for me.”

  Eredion rubbed a hand over his face and grimaced, seeing yet another aspect of the hell she’d endured.

  “Not that simple,” he said. “He made a bad mistake in judgment. He thought the people who’d taken you were just . . . people. Just humans looking for money from a rich man. It wouldn’t be the first time someone’s tried that on him. And you’re a desert lord. You could handle yourself. He didn’t see a need to rescue you. He thought you’d be walking back in the door any moment after tearing your captors apart.”

  “I started to,” she said, and shut her eyes again. “It took me too long.”

  Eredion didn’t say anything, just kept his hand on her knee and waited, breathing steadily against the pain he could feel raging through her. Not bad enough to give her one of the chich sticks that Tanavin had left behind; too intense for her to hear anything he said just then.

  At last, when her agony eased, he said, “I’m sorry, Alyea. It’s my fault you went through all that; if I’d taken care of Pieas long ago, or connected important information sooner, you’d never have even seen Kippin’s face.”

  “Was that his name?” she said, voice oddly blurred. “He never introduced himself. He just told . . . Tevin . . . what to do.” She paused, breathing hard. “Is he dead?”

  “No,” Eredion said. Sparing her from the truth wouldn’t do any good. “He bolted before we got to your room. So did your cousin Kameniar. I don’t know what Tevin looked like, so I don’t know if we got him or not.”

  She gave him a brief but too graphic description; he bit his lower lip for a moment, steadying his voice before speaking again.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t recall seeing anyone like that.” Among the dead, he added to himself. “He must have jumped through the window with Kippin.”

  “The window. . . .” she said, and sat up, frowning. “Something familiar about the curtains. Where did they take me?”

  “Kippin’s father had an aunt that lived on the edge of town. Lady Arnil. She died a few days ago, and Kippin inherited the estate.”

  Alyea threw back her head and barked bitter laughter.

  “Ironic,” she said. “I sent Wian to Lady Arnil years ago to keep her safe from Ninnic. And now it turns out Wian betrayed me, and the place I sent her for safety was probably the most dangerous
spot in Bright Bay I could have chosen. Gods, I’m an idiot.”

  Eredion didn’t say anything, disinclined to lie. She had been stupid, dangerously so, and still didn’t know the full extent of what she’d carelessly flung herself into. But this wasn’t the time to go into all that, and she wasn’t ready to understand most of it yet, anyway.

  Wian came in from the sitting room, a laden tray in her arms. She set it down on the table without a word and began to withdraw, her gaze fixed on the floor.

  “Wian,” Alyea said, “wait.”

  The servant girl paused and snuck a fearful glance at Alyea. Eredion, watching, restrained a sigh. Wian was so used to deception that he doubted she knew how to give an honest reaction. He didn’t interfere. Either Alyea could see through the act or she couldn’t; either way, this particular matter wasn’t any of his concern.

  Alyea regarded the apparently nervous girl for a moment without saying anything, then pursed her lips briefly and said, “I’m sorry. I judged you more harshly than I should have, Wian. I didn’t understand . . . the choices you’ve made.” She paused. “Lady Arnil’s dead, I’m told. Where are you going to go?”

  Wian blinked, looking honestly surprised. “I thought . . . your mother’s been very kind,” she stammered. “I hoped to stay on here after you recovered.”

  Eredion kept his mouth firmly shut on his opinion of that idea, but Alyea’s expression mirrored his thought. “I think I’d rather put a fox into a henhouse,” she said. “You can’t be foolish enough to think I’d let you come back here.”

  Wian’s face turned a deep crimson. “So much for your apology!”

  “I meant that whole-heartedly,” Alyea said without taking offense. “That’s an entirely separate issue. No. I won’t have you working inside these walls again. I’ll be happy to find you something more suitable, something that will be safer this time.”

  “I don’t need your pity. I’ll manage just fine on my own.” Wian tossed her head and stormed from the room.

  Alyea made no effort to call the angry servant back.

  “I’ll make sure she has enough money to go wherever she wants,” she said, almost to herself, as the door to the hall slammed shut. She stood and crossed to the table, looking over the food with visibly awakening hunger. “Are you going to have any of this?”

  At Eredion’s amused head-shake, she dropped into one of the chairs and began eating, as he’d expected, with enormous appetite. He stayed where he was and watched her, reflecting that Alyea had just shown surprising political maturity. He knew Wian would never understand the rudeness, or the reasons behind it; the servant girl clearly believed she’d done the right thing all the way along the line.

  Wian had acted from the perfectly valid need to stay alive. But that drive, unmitigated by moral restraint, had led her to some treacherous decisions. Once broken, never fully mended, as an old desert saying ran; Wian would always, under pressure, bend to the strongest hand. Kippin had that strength in full measure, and knew her weaknesses—and he was still on the loose, quite likely plotting revenge. Leaving Wian in the Peysimun household would be like hanging out an open invitation, as Alyea had said, for the fox to raid the henhouse.

  Eredion shut his eyes, remembering, with a stab of deep pain, that Alyea—the same girl he’d once used as a pawn to shame his own nephew—had kept fighting though the same brutality that had broken Wian. If they’d found Alyea even a half day later, he wouldn’t be thinking about her tactlessness, but preparing for her funeral.

  Tray cleared, Alyea sat back, let out a thoroughly unladylike belch, and said, “Why were you in bed with me?”

  “To keep you calm,” Eredion said, not in the least disconcerted by her abrupt return to questioning him. He stood and crossed to sit in the chair across from her.

  It was typical of new desert lords to switch topics rapidly, as they adjusted to the increasing speed of their thoughts. He found it a reassuring sign that some necessary internal changes were finally beginning to kick in.

  Eredion smiled at her intent expression, keeping his muscles relaxed and his own expression calm. “You seemed to rest better when someone was with you. You didn’t react well to your mother or Deiq, so I’ve been sitting at your side. Now and again I needed to get some sleep myself.”

  “Deiq,” she said, her stare never wavering. He had a feeling she hadn’t heard anything past that name. “I think we’re due a talk, he and I.”

  Eredion was deeply relieved to see Alyea’s fighting spirit rise, unbroken, to the surface once more. That meant more to him than the state of her body; if Kippin had succeeded in breaking her spirit, she’d have been worse than useless as a desert lord.

  He sharply cut off that chain of thought before it went to its inevitable conclusion. No need to go there, as she obviously hadn’t broken.

  “Yes,” he agreed, “you are. But the king wants to talk to you, and your mother wants to see you. And then I need to explain a few things to you, before you talk to Deiq.”

  “You first. Then Oruen. Then my mother.”

  He considered, studying her closely, trying to decide if she’d stabilized enough to have a long conversation with anyone. She still seemed a little pale around the edges, and her hands tended to tremble, but the determination in her eyes showed enough strength for at least a brief talk.

  At least she seemed not to remember the incident with Tanavin. That was a relief. He hadn’t looked forward to that explanation at all. Eredion also found himself deeply relieved that Deiq had taken to disappearing from the mansion for hours at a time. His hovering right now would make the issues even more volatile.

  “You ought to reverse that,” he said mildly. “Your mother, the king, then me.”

  “No. You first. Talk.”

  “All right. But if I say you need to rest, you’re going to listen to me. We can pick up the talk later. Agreed?”

  She made an impatient gesture. “I’m fine.”

  “Promise or I don’t talk.”

  She snorted. “Fine. I promise.”

  He nodded, then looked down at his hands, trying to think how to begin. He considered numerous approaches, abandoned them all one by one; as he’d been doing since he’d volunteered, days ago, to take Deiq’s place for this particular talk. Faced with a blank slate holding no ideas at all, he sighed and said, “I wouldn’t call it love. Don’t ever make that mistake.”

  Glancing up, he saw he had her full attention. Not surprising, with that opening. He smiled wryly and went on:

  “There’s always been something of a . . . translation difficulty between humans and ha’reye. They don’t have any words to match our concept of love, which has led humans to believe that ha’reye don’t possess any tender emotions. That’s not quite true. Ha’reye are probably some of the most passionately emotional creatures you’ll ever meet—but they channel their emotions into specific goals. By their view, humans waste their emotional energies all over the place, like water leaking through a sieve. Ha’ra’hain have just as much passion, but they constantly battle their human urge to waste against their ha’rethe urge to conserve. It’s not surprising how many of the First Born went mad, before we learned how to help them through that conflict.”

  Alyea nodded, her eyes bright, as though finally understanding a number of things all at once.

  “Add in,” Eredion said, “that a ha’ra’ha usually lives for hundreds of years, and you’ve got a real translation problem when it comes to setting the human concept of love against a ha’ra’ha or ha’rethe’s needs and desires. You just can’t love something that can’t understand you, can’t match your strength in any way, and is doomed to die in a relatively few years. It’s like loving a fish in a tabletop bowl. All it does is break your heart a dozen times a year.”

  “But desert lords. . . .” Alyea said, tone questioning.

  He nodded. “Desert lords are the closest match ha’ra’hain can hope to find outside their own kind,” he agreed. “We live much longer, w
e’re strong enough to at least hold our own most of the time, and we’re enough a part of their world to have a hazy understanding of their lives. But most of the surviving ha’ra’hain, over the years, have opted to stay closer to their ha’reye roots, and tend to live either underground or in the water, or, if possible, both. Deiq’s one of maybe five true ha’ra’hain walking the human world right now, and I include Idisio and his mother in that number. And Deiq is the only First Born doing it.”

  He paused, thinking back over what he’d just said.

  “Has anyone ever explained the differences between the ha’ra’hain to you, Alyea?”

  She shook her head mutely.

  “First Born,” Eredion said, “were the original offspring of the Agreement.”

  Her face lost color rapidly, and he almost stopped there, afraid she needed to rest before hearing more. But then she said, in a thin voice, “So Deiq is . . . really old.”

  “Ah. Yes.” Eredion cleared his throat. “I thought . . . didn’t you already understand that?”

  “I asked him once how old he was. He wouldn’t answer. I thought perhaps a hundred years or so.” Alyea swallowed hard, color slowly returning to her face. “And Lord Evkit said . . . something about the Split. But he doesn’t look any older than thirty! It’s so hard to think of him as . . . as older.”

  “Deiq was already well into adulthood during the Split,” Eredion said dryly. “I can see how that would be a shock. I’m sorry, I thought you understood.”

  She sat staring at nothing for a time, then shook her head and motioned sharply for him to continue.

  “Well, there are the First Born, and then there are the first-generation; those are still direct crosses between ha’reye and human, but came out much more stable. I don’t know why. In fact, what I’m telling you isn’t something one desert lord in twenty even knows, so if you want deeper answers than this you’ll do better to ask Deiq.” He paused again, watching the small shifts in her face and eyes, then went on. “There are also second-generation ha’ra’hain; those are the ha’ra’hain to human crossbreeds.”