Guardians of the Desert (Children of the Desert) (14 page)

Lord Evkit insisted on Alyea being settled in a room before explaining himself.

“You honored guest,” he said with pleasant and unshakeable determination. “You rest, refresh, come eat. Then we talk.”

Two teyanain dressed in sober shades of grey and brown accompanied her as guides and, she assumed, guards. While they displayed no visible weapons, the cut of their clothes allowed for fast, violent movement in any direction, and their precise, graceful movements spoke of extensive aqeyva training.

She was shown to a small, plain room with walls of alternating coarse grey and smooth tan blocks. The guides bowed out of the room without a word and shut the thin wooden door behind them as they withdrew. She hadn’t noticed a lock; but sure as sand in the desert, she thought sourly, one or both would be standing out in the passage, waiting.

Escape was not only improbable, but useless. She had no idea where she was in the teyanain fortress, and where that lay in the Horn. With Deiq, maybe even with Idisio, she could have found her way through the rocky expanse outside these walls; alone, she knew she had no chance of survival.

She dropped the light pack on the bed and sat beside it; giving in to a moment of despair, she cradled her head in her hands. But there was no use agonizing over the mistakes that had brought them here; she only gave herself a few breaths for self-pity. With a sigh, she straightened and looked around. Small and plain, with a simple, northern-high bed and table, the room had a single, wide, east-facing window high overhead, which let in a surprising amount of morning sunlight. On the floor near the bed sat a large jug of wash water with a cloth neatly folded over the wide handle, and the chamber pot had been tucked discreetly under the bed. A stone cup, so small it could easily fit in one of Alyea’s hands, sat on the table beside a silver jug that sweated chill drops down the sides.

She crossed to the table—a matter of two steps in the tiny room—and picked up the cup, marveling at its smooth translucence. Carved from some pale amber-orange stone, with swirls of milky white, it would have graced a king’s table. Without a handle, it nestled in her palm rather like half of a delicately painted egg. She shook her head, set the cup down, and filled it with water.

Sitting back down on the bed, she finally allowed herself to think about Evkit’s odd statement:
Now you are safe.
Assuming that the statement had been sane—which she wasn’t at all sure of, given his attack on the two ha’ra’hain—and that he hadn’t been simply trying to throw her off guard, what had made him think she was in danger?

She sipped the chill water, which tasted vaguely of oranges, frowning as she considered. He hadn’t killed the two ha’ra’hain, hadn’t harmed her or shown any malice at all. He hadn’t shown any special animosity to Deiq or Idisio at Scratha Fortress, nor made any attempt to warn her of danger there. So had Scratha Fortress figured in his perception of her peril? Lord Scratha had tried to warn her about Deiq as well, so he couldn’t have been in-
volved . . . Perhaps someone else at Scratha Fortress?

Or—She straightened, lowering the cup to her lap as she was about to take another sip—some
thing
? Could it be that the teyanin lord was worried about the Scratha ha’rethe?

It seemed an incredible notion. Evkit was a desert lord himself, after all, so he must have gone through the blood trials. And as
the
lord of the teyanain, he should have been bound to the Horn, if Alyea understood the process correctly.

For the first time, she wondered how Evkit could travel so far from his presumably bound lands, when Scratha had said heads of desert Families couldn’t leave their sworn ha’reye. A shiver rippled down her back. Maybe Evkit wasn’t bound, after all, which implied the absence of a ha’rethe or ha’ra’ha strong enough to protect the area.

She rubbed at her face, trying to work through the logical implications of that. After a few moments, she shook her head and rose to set the cup back on the table. Her mind felt too filled with the rush of fear and worry to sort out anything right now. She’d just have to listen to whatever Evkit said with a skeptical ear and think about it hard before she agreed to anything.

Running her hands through her hair, she pushed it into reasonable order, then straightened out a rumpled sleeve. She glanced at her pack, thinking of the comb and fresh clothes inside; then remembered Chac’s advice:
Don’t toss and flutter like you’re the prettiest in the room.
Tidying up too much might come across as vanity to these dour people; instinct warned her that she couldn’t afford to lose any fragment of their respect.

She turned to the door, which yielded to a light pressure, swinging silently outward. A cold part of her mind noted that she’d never know if someone came in while she slept.

The two teyanain who had guided her to the room stood against the passageway wall, facing her door. They looked at her with the silent, dark-eyed impassivity she was coming to expect from the teyanain.

She drew a deep breath. “I believe,” she said firmly, “Lord Evkit mentioned a meal?”

“Why would Evkit want to kill us?” Idisio demanded.

Deiq let out a snort. “I’m not well-liked among the humans, Idisio,” he said. “Tends to happen over time. Things one century thinks are perfectly fine get you painted as a monster in the next round. You’ll run into it too, eventually.”

He slid his hand along the stone of the floor, feeling the rough surface scrape against his palm. Contemplating whether he could dig through the floor—and whether that was even a smart idea—he almost missed Idisio’s reply:

“And so
I’m
going to die because
you
pissed Lord Evkit off?”

Deiq blinked, focused on the moment again, and decided to shift the conversation to a less dangerous question. Losing his temper in here would be a very bad idea.

“Idisio, do you remember the ugren cuffs?”

“Yes. . . .” Idisio’s face shifted into horrified understanding. “But they
wouldn’t
! I mean, that would be . . . that would breach that . . . what’s it called, the Agreement? Isn’t that—I mean, enslaving us, or killing us, would be—wouldn’t it?”

“Only if it were found out,” Deiq said, and patted the floor lightly. “This is called aenstone. It blocks mind-speech.” It did more than that; but he decided to keep it simple for the moment. “We can’t call for help, and nobody can see us here. The teyanain can put round any story they like about where we went; they’re exceptionally good liars.”

Idisio’s face went ashen again. “Oh, gods,” he breathed.

“Oh, yes,” Deiq said without humor, and shut his eyes, giving Idisio a chance to compose himself. “If you’re going to pray,” he added as an afterthought, remembering that Idisio probably did believe in some form of deity, “pray that Alyea stands up for us. Because she’s the only one who can demand we be released, and Evkit declared her guest, which means he won’t hurt
her
. And you can bet he’s doing his best to convince her that ha’ra’hain are monsters who can’t be trusted at your front or at your back.”

“But
why?
”

“Because that’s what humans
do
, Idisio. They hate anything stronger or different; they attack it and tear it down.” Deiq didn’t open his eyes as he spoke. “I’ve been watching it happen for hundreds of years.”

“That’s too easy an answer,” Idisio protested.

“Then find your own. Now shut up. I want to take a nap.” He didn’t, but it was the simplest way to stop the younger from his endless questioning.

Idisio fell silent, sulking. After a while, he said, “It didn’t count, you know. The marriage you told me about. You never really wanted it.”

Deiq opened his eyes and stared at the younger, bewildered and more than a little annoyed. “Where in the hells did that come from?”

“If we’re going to die,” Idisio said, jaw set in stubborn lines, “I want you to know that I don’t think you ever really tried with that girl. Woman. Whatever. You could have made it work.”

“You weren’t there,” Deiq said tartly. “You don’t know what I tried or didn’t try.”

“I know
you
,” Idisio said. “You didn’t really want to be married, so you didn’t really try. It was a experiment for you. It didn’t mean anything. And I’m betting that’s why none of your other attempts ever worked. You didn’t care enough.”

“Are you trying to get
me
to kill you?” Deiq snapped, but the words held little force, and no real anger rose in him. Idisio’s arrogance was too close to the self-righteous, smug attitude of his own younger days, although it was laid at a different slant.

“If I was wrong, you’d be laughing and calling me an idiot,” Idisio said, not moving.

“You’re
ignorant
, is what you are. She was human. They die by seventy, eighty, maybe ninety; I would have had at best twenty or thirty years with her before she began to fade. That’s
nothing
.”

“No,” Idisio said. “That’s twenty years of something honest.”

Deiq shook his head, amused by the younger’s stubborn hold on innocence. “You’re going to drive yourself insane trying that approach, Idisio.”

Idisio didn’t say anything in response to that, and Deiq let the silence remain unbroken.

He thought about what Idisio had said, his sour amusement fading. Onsia had been a good woman: slight, compact, quick-moving. Quick-tempered, too, rather like Alyea; Deiq grinned, remembering the wooden bowl shattering beside his head. Onsia would have aimed at him, not the wall. . . .

In almost every other way, the two women couldn’t have been more different. Alyea was still young, and stubbornly clung to her northern convictions of propriety. Onsia, after losing two husbands, hadn’t cared what her neighbors thought; although had she taken up with a less wealthy, influential man, the gossip might well have turned uglier.

Well, done was done, and Onsia’s grandchildren were long in their graves. No point thinking the matter over at this late remove. Idisio would learn how to see these things, if they managed to come out of this situation alive.

Deiq sighed, letting go of worry as a waste of energy, and surprised himself by falling into a light doze after all.

The meal proved as simple and yet elegant as Alyea’s room: delicately spiced flatbread and clear cool water, along with a bowl of pale beans and dark grains tossed in a light, floral oil. The wooden plates had been so carefully shaped and carved that they felt like gifts from the tree instead of mere surfaces to transport food. The cups resembled the one in her room, but of a darker, more speckled stone, carved translucently thin.

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.”