by A. R. Cook
Clova smiled gently, with the patience of one who has been recognized for the millionth time as a person of importance. “The Forest Hijn. Please to make your acquaintance, Mr. Mac.”
“No no no no, no mister needed. Plain ol’ Mac will do. Pardon me, I’m all a-flustered. May a salamander spit on me and call me lucky! A real honest-to-dragons pleasure, madam.”
Some people in the crowd nearby turned their heads toward them, having heard the word Hijn. A fresh ripple of murmurs spread through the throng. Clova was quite used to this sort of attention, so she continued unfazed. “Are you and Dezzy good friends?”
“I sure hope we could be. Miss Rain…”
They both turned to Desert Rain, or at least where she had been, for she had silently slipped away into the crowd. No one had even noticed her, as the crowd was now beginning to gather in tightly clumps around Clova, in awe of her markings and bright violet eyes.
“Oh dear, I’ve drawn some attention. Not my intention, I promise. Look at that, Dezzy forgot her bag and screen. Walk with me, maybe we can still find her. I forget how fast she can disappear sometimes.” Clova took Mac by the arm, and they strolled down the path, as a procession of onlookers followed after them as moths drawn to flame. Some people gained the courage to offer Clova gifts as she walked by, pieces of jewelry, desert flowers, food or scarves. She graciously accepts each gift, although her arms quickly became flooded with the abundance of presents.
Mac, meanwhile, had never beamed so brightly in his life. “Me, on the arm of a beautiful Hijn, who’d’ve ever thought it-tkk? But, Miss Flor, I’m afraid I may have unintentionally made Miss Rain upset-tkk.”
Clova cocked her head at him. “How so?”
“Well, she seems-ss to think ‘pretty’ means ‘looks like an alligator’s backside’.”
“Oh, that.” Clova deposited some of her gifts into Mac’s
arms to lighten her burden. “I’ve tried over the years to tell her there’s nothing strange about her looks, given what she is, but she took her…changes hard, I think.”
“Changes?”
“We all changed to some degree, whether physical or otherwise, once we were chosen. Her changes were a bit more extreme, I grant you.”
Mac raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘we’?”
The crowd around them became oppressive, to the point Clova and Mac could no longer keep walking. Two women in the throng bowed and gestured for Clova to come with them.
Clova sighed with a smile. “Oh my, it looks like we’ll have to continue this talk later. Duty calls!” She allowed the women to lead her away toward the main square, while the crowd continued after her like a winding dragon’s tail.
Mac simply stood there, his arms full of Clova’s gifts. He quickly chose a few favorites, stuffing them into his pockets – “after all, she must get a hundred of these, she won’t miss ‘em”
– before trailing after the crowd.
Meanwhile, Desert Rain was almost out of the city, having slipped by unnoticed by everyone, as word spread like a sandstorm that a Hijn was in Ulomin. But as she approached the gates leading out of Ulomin, beyond which was the vast expanse of the desert dunes, she paused. A deep pang plucked at her chest, a pang she rarely ever felt but when she did, it was strong enough to make her crumple. It was the very thing that haunted her every day, the thing that had brought her out to the festival tonight: she was lonely. And something about seeing Clova again, about talking to that strange Mr. Mac, had alleviated that hurt inside her for a moment. Why was she so eager to get away then? Why was she running off, just to be alone again? And how could she be so rude to Clova, after all these years of not seeing her?
Desert Rain turned around and headed back into town.
Almost all of Ulomin gathered in the arena-shaped plaza of the main square, where in the middle, scarf-twirling dancers performed with grace and enthusiastic fire. Clova Flor sat in a prominent seat of the arena, surrounded by flowers and gifts. Children attentively watched her as she reached into a small leather pouch that hung around her neck, pulling out a small seed. She held the seed in her hand, and the emerald dots around her eyes ignited in green light. As she focused her magical energies into her hand, the seed blossomed into a tall plant of brilliant red flowers. The children cooed and applauded, as Clova handed the flowers to one of them. It was
clear how much Clova loved the admiration, loved to be in front of an audience, although she retained her composure.
Desert Rain walked up the street, approaching the plaza. She spotted Clova, and took a deep breath.
“This is…not a big deal, Dez,” she assured herself. “You haven’t seen Clova in a long time, and she’s always been kind to you. The least you can do is be polite.” She made her way through the people, winding around them as the breeze slips through cracks in a wall.
Clova looked up and saw Desert Rain approaching. She radiated a smile of pure joy, and she stood up and waved to her. “Dezzy! You came back! This is so wonderful, now we can all enjoy the festival together. Come, sit with me!”
Desert Rain instantly regretted this decision. Now she remembered why she had left – Clova was a bit much. Without breaking her step, she pivoted around to walk away.
She heard Clova yelling over the voices of the crowd. “Where are you going? Dezzy, come back! I’m not even the local Hijn. You should be the guest of honor here!”
Desert Rain froze as if she had just felt the edge of a blade press into her back. The jubilation of the crowd plummeted into silence. Every head turned to stare at her, the unassuming cloaked figure.
Clova was so baffled by the sudden silence, she glanced around as if someone else held the answer. “Did I…say something wrong?”
Desert Rain slowly, as if every movement pained her, turned to face everyone. Maybe…maybe she could laugh it off, say Clova was mistaken. But Clova was Hijn…Hijn don’t lie, and they certainly don’t make mistakes. She couldn’t walk away either, as people around her were pressing in to get a closer look. With shaking hands, she pulled back her hood, and lowered the veil so it hung around her neck. She hadn’t felt this exposed in a long time, showing her mismatched eyes, her long dark hair and most embarrassingly, her ears, for they hung down to her shoulders like those of a lop-eared rabbit. But all of this was barely worth gawking at in comparison to the blue moonstone, the size of a thumb print, that glistened on her forehead. The crowd gasped, and one by one, as if by instinct or possession, they bowed and kneeled before her.
Every vein in Desert Rain’s body burned with anxiety. She shook her head in panic. “No, no, please…please don’t do that…I’m not…STOP!”
Everyone snapped their bowed heads up at her.
Tears of anger filled Desert Rain’s eyes, and she pointed to her moonstone. “What does this change? I’m suddenly a different person, because of this? Suddenly I deserve to be treated special, because of a damn stone in my head? It means nothing! If I had wanted this, I wouldn’t have hid behind a stupid veil all these years! Doesn’t anyone know who I am?” She turned and glared at Clova, her green eye ablaze with the hurt of betrayal. “Don’t you know who I am?”
She turned and ran, away from the crowd, away from the broken secret, out through the city gates and into the desert.
CHAPTER TWO
Unexpected Guests and a Certain Memory
The desert lands were no place where stories began. It was not a place where anyone of importance in the world dwelled. That was how Desert Rain liked it, and exactly why she had come to live there. However, the morning after the festival, as she went out among the dune cactuses to collect some cactus milk, she heard the faint, distant sound of voices on the hot wind. She pulled a small brass telescope from her pocket, and scanned the area, spotting a speck of something amidst the golden wash of sand.
“A strongback?” Desert Rain had seen such animals, yellow skinned, red-freckled beasts of burden that reached rhinoceros size and camel endurance, among the stables o
f Syphurius. But out here, in the desert? Why would—
Then she spotted the strongback’s riders. A man with a familiar mop of red hair and a green-skinned woman in white beside him.
“Guerda-Shalyr, Clova!” Desert Rain hissed, snapping shut the telescope. “What are you doing?”
She trekked across the dunes over to them, not hiding the fact she was peeved. Clova was looking through a pair of petite opera glasses attached to the end of a long wooden handle, so she spotted Desert Rain approaching first. She sat up taller, waving to her.
“Dezzy! Thank the Divine Beasts we found you! It’s been so long since I’ve been out here. I thought I remembered how to find your home but I got completely turned around.” She tried to dismount from the strongback, but slid off in an unlady-like fashion, landing on the sand with a thud.
Desert Rain helped her up. “Clova, you didn’t seriously come all the way out here looking for me? And you roped Mac into bringing you out here?”
“I offered, Miss Rain,” Mac replied from atop the strongback. “Miss Flor was asking around for a steed to borrow, and I just so happened to have old Kurl with me. Besides, the sun doesn’t bother me much. Nice place you have out here. It’s my favorite color, too…gold.” He chuckled.
“You just…last night, you were so upset, and I couldn’t just leave you that way--” Clova stammered.
Desert Rain removed a waterskin tied around her waist and uncorked it, pouring the water onto Clova’s exposed arm, watering her swirls of moss. “It’s too arid out here for you. You’re going to kill all of your Ahshibana.”
“Don’t worry about that. Ahshi moss is resilient. And as long as it’s attached to me, it’ll keep just fine.”
“Not if you get lost in the desert and die of heat exhaustion.” Desert Rain sighed. “Come on, my place is just over a few dunes.”
Desert Rain didn’t really live in the desert as much as she lived under it. Over a long period of labor for many, many years, she had created a comfy den of simply furnished rooms, wide tunnels with sandstone archways, and accurately-placed sun holes beneath the scorching sands. The ventilation in the tunnels was superb, keeping her home cool during the day and warm at night. Desert Rain’s home was under the remains of a great shrine, a clutter of broken pillars and crumbled walls, and there was also a well that reached deep into the earth to find water. This well and a few underground pools were enough to keep her and her twenty-some critter companions hydrated during the long, hot days. It was not unusual for scorpions or poisonous beetles to find their way in, but Desert Rain knew how to catch them without getting stung so she could cook them for meals. The four-foot-long opal scarabs were another story, but fortunately they didn’t invade often and most of the time they paid Desert Rain no mind – the carapaces they shed came in handy as bowls and armor, for those occasions she got caught outside in a sand storm and
had to shield herself from the elements. She molded the clay of her most subterranean cave floors into beads, plates and water jugs, and she enjoyed forming little clay animals that she could give away as good-luck charms. This is how others had come to confuse her for a Charmer, and she did not have the heart to tell people that the charms’ magic was all in their heads.
Desert Rain led Clova and Mac to her front door, which was little more than an animal-skin tarp covering the entrance to the underground. The strongback would have to stay outside, but it made itself comfortable in the shade of a broken pillar, while Desert Rain gave it a bowl of cactus milk to stay hydrated. The tarp-covered doorway led down a stairway into her burrow, and Desert Rain guided her guests to her kitchen, which had a bonfire pit in one corner with a small fire, over which a pot of breakfast stew was simmering.
A small yellow-brown sand fox was lying in the corner of the kitchen, gnawing on the bone, but he got up and scampered over when Desert Rain entered. He yipped excitedly, and then sniffed warily at the two guests.
“Don’t mind Jubis. He’s all long tail and no bite,” Desert Rain said. “Would either of you like something to drink? I just gathered some cactus milk.”
Mac wiped the sweat on his forehead. “Much obliged, Miss Rain.”
“You don’t have to be formal, Mac. Dez is fine.” She handed each of them a clay mug, and poured cactus water from her water skin.
Clova drank from the mug, emptying it in one go. She cleared her throat. “Dezzy, I want to understand what happened last night. Why you…ran off.”
Desert Rain grimaced. “Why? I haven’t even seen you in years. Why should my feelings matter to you now?”
Clova paused, looking as if she’d just been insulted. “Mr. Mac, would you please…?”
Mac nodded, setting his mug on the table. “Say no more. Private talk. I’ll just…give myself a tour. That all right?”
Desert Rain nodded, and Mac walked out into the hallway. Clova sat down in a chair, looking at Desert Rain with a mix of confusion and concern. “Did no one in Ulomin know
you’re Hijn? All this time, and no one…?”
“They had finally begun to forget. Or at least believe it was just a myth that there was a local Hijn. Or maybe they thought I died. Who knows.” Desert Rain sighed, leaning against the wall.
“But why didn’t you want them to know? Being a Hijn is a blessing, a great honor—“
“For you, it is. For the rest of you, who can do such amazing things. You grow plants at will, Mage Skyhan heals any wound, Woasim calls the winds to blow wayward ships home. But now I’ll never be able to go back into the city without every man, woman and child begging me to perform miracles I can’t do. I’ll have people combing this desert to seek me out. And I’m going to have to turn them away, the sick, the dying, the hopeless. No one in Ulomin may have liked me, but at least they didn’t hate me, not like they’re going to.”
Clova looked genuinely sympathetic – or perhaps she, too, knew the pain of turning someone away she couldn’t help – but she furrowed her brow in thought. “I don’t understand. You inherited the soul of the Moon Dragoness. According to the old texts, she was one of the most beloved, powerful Sages there was—”
“I’m not her!” Desert Rain squeezed her eyes shut, and took a deep breath to calm herself. “Look, I know who I am, Clova. Not a Charmer, not a Trickster, nothing more than Desert Rain. There’s nothing special about me. I grew up in a normal human family, and we used to travel all over Luuva Gros in a performing caravan.”
“I remember you saying. That must have been exciting!”
“Exciting? Never having a home, or roots? You, of all people, should know the value of roots. My point is, it’s been… I can’t remember how long since I became Hijn.” She paused. “When was the last jade-moon eclipse?”
Clova tapped her finger on her chin. “Jade moon…let me think…nearly a century, I believe. Perhaps ninety years?”
“Ninety…?” Desert Rain touched her face, as if this realization of how much time had passed would instantly cause her to wither away. But, like with all Hijn, the acquisition of her magic came with a stopper on aging, and she looked no more than twenty years old. For all she knew, she always would. “In all that time, I haven’t been able to do anything great, nothing that one expects of Hijn. Why do you think I picked the most remote place in all of Luuva Gros to live? I can’t…I can’t do good.”
“That’s ridiculous. Of course you can.”
Desert Rain narrowed her eyes. “I destroy things. How is that good?”
Both women noticed Mac peeking around the corner of the kitchen doorway. He held up a small clay sculpture shaped like a dragon.
“I don’t mean to intrude,” he said, “but I was wondering if you’d like me to appraise some of these old relics you’ve got strewn about. Did I mention I’m an art appraiser?”
“Mac, I don’t want to sell any of my stuff!”
“All right, all right. Just lettin’ you know.” He ducked
back out of the room.
Clova shook her head. “De
z, we are not meant to know, for certain, what our powers are meant for, or why we each were chosen by the Hij-Urawran. But they knew that we will live for a day when the knowledge and magic they possessed, that they bestowed to us, will be needed for a vital purpose. I believe this with all my heart, and so should you. You are important, Dez, even if we don’t know the purpose yet.” She went over to Desert Rain, taking her hands in her own. “Why don’t you come stay with me in Juka Basin for a while? I could teach you how to grow herbs, make medicines…that would make you feel helpful, wouldn’t it?”
Desert Rain wanted to retort – what good would learning about herbs and medicine do, when people wanted more out of her? – but she knew Clova was trying so hard to help her, even coming out to the middle of the desert for her. She smiled weakly. “That…might be nice.”
Clova hugged her friend, but then her tone turned serious. “Dez, there’s another reason I came out here, to Ulomin. Or, actually, the real reason. Not for the festival. I miss you. And so does the Council.”
Instantly, Desert Rain recoiled, breaking away from Clova. “Great Guerda-Shalyr, Clova, even I’m not dumb enough to believe that.”
“You haven’t been to a Council gathering in…well, you’ve missed the last dozen or so.”
“What could you people possibly need to get together about anymore? And what, I’m supposed to trudge five days across wasteland to Syphyrius so all the Hijn can pat each other on the back, have some tea and tell each other, ‘Great job, the world still hasn’t ended. We must be doing something right.’ What’s the point?” Desert Rain went about stirring her stew, feigning busyness.
“It’s important we all know what’s going on in all regions of Luuva Gros, even out here,” Clova said. “With the Wretched discovering new ways to sneak into the Noble lands from the Inbetween—”
